At this juncture occurred the phenomena known as the “Rochester Knockings.” (My home, let me say, is in a small town not far from New York.) I shared in the general interest aroused by the marvellous stories, which, being followed by the no less extraordinary display of some unknown agency at Norwalk, Connecticut, excited me to such a degree that I was half-converted to the new faith before I had witnessed any spiritual manifestation.  Soon after the arrival of the Misses Fox in New York I visited them in their rooms at the Howard House.  Impressed by their quiet, natural demeanor, the absence of anything savoring of jugglery, and the peculiar character of the raps and movements of the table, I asked my questions and applied my tests, in a passive, if not a believing frame of mind.  In fact, I had not long been seated, before the noises became loud and frequent.

“The spirits like to communicate with you,” said Mrs. Fish:  “you seem to be nearer to them than most people.”

I summoned, in succession, the spirits of my mother, a younger brother, and a cousin to whom I had been much attached in boyhood, and obtained correct answers to all my questions.  I did not then remark, what has since occurred to me, that these questions concerned things which I knew, and that the answers to them were distinctly impressed on my mind at the time.  The result of one of my tests made a very deep impression upon me.  Having mentally selected a friend whom I had met in the train that morning, I asked,—­“Will the spirit whose name is now in my mind communicate with me?” To this came the answer, slowly rapped out, on calling over the alphabet,—­“He is living!”

I returned home, very much puzzled.  Precisely those features of the exhibition (let me call it such) which repulse others attracted me.  The searching daylight, the plain, matter-of-fact character of the manifestations, the absence of all solemnity and mystery, impressed me favorably towards the spiritual theory.  If disembodied souls, I said, really exist and can communicate with those in the flesh, why should they choose moonlight or darkness, graveyards or lonely bedchambers, for their visitations?  What is to hinder them from speaking at times and in places where the senses of men are fully awake and alert, rather than when they are liable to be the dupes of the imagination?  In such reflections as these I was the unconscious dupe of my own imagination, while supposing myself thoroughly impartial and critical.

Soon after this, circles began to be formed in my native town, for the purpose of table-moving.  A number of persons met, secretly at first,—­for as yet there were no avowed converts,—­and quite as much for sport as for serious investigation.  The first evening there was no satisfactory manifestation.  The table moved a little, it is true, but each one laughingly accused his neighbors of employing some muscular force:  all isolated attempts were vain.  I was conscious, nevertheless, of a curious sensation of numbness in the arms, which recalled to mind my forgotten experiments in church.  No rappings were heard, and some of the participants did not scruple to pronounce the whole thing a delusion.