Worcester Daily Spy

Spiritual Knockings.—A writer in the Puritan Recorder goes into the history of this delusion, and shows that it was well understood in the days of Lord Bacon, who describes the practice in terms very similar to those in use in our days. Cotton Mather had the same thing before his eyes, and gives full accounts of it. The writer says:

"We complacently laugh at the credulity of honest, wonder-loving Mather and his mates; but what is their credulity compared with that which now prevails in this near neighborhood of the twentieth century, as to 'spiritual knockings,' and such like Satanic fooling? The difference between us and our superstitious fathers is, that they tied the enactors of such tricks to the tail of a cart and whipped them handsomely through the town; while we pay these fellows innumerable ninepences, for the privilege of gaping at their pranks. It is to be hoped that another generation will arise, so much wiser than the present or the past as to treat the whole business more according to its deserts, by leaving it to perish of a most cruel indifference and killing neglect."