About this Item
A Treatise on Turning Tables, The Supernatural in General, and Spirits. Translated from the French of Count Agenor de Gasparin, By E.W. Robert, with an Introduction by Rev. Robert Baird, D.D. Complete in Two Volumes, Kiggins & Kellogg, Publisher, New York, 1857, original brown stamped cloth, 8 x 5.5 , 8vo. In fair condition. Moderate wear to extremities with scuffing along edges and corners. Covers worn with modest soiling and minor fading from age and sun exposure. Blind stamp of Davies & Hands continuously along borders of boards. Ends quite worn with loss at volume two of head and tail. Fraying and tails with loss at head of volume II. Spines soiled. Manuscript volume plate on volume I is chipped, toned and faded. No label on volume II. Hinges quite cracked with fraying of cloth at joints. Binding cords exposed in volume II front gutter. Internally good with light toning at edges, free of known markings. Bookplate of Frances Wason No. 832 in volume II. Ink has transferred from plate to fly of volume II. Bindings are fragile, but intact. Please see photos. Very scarce. This work is based on the experiments conducted by Agenor de Gasparin (1810-1871) a French statesman and author. He is one of the earliest physician researcher known for conducting experiments into table-tipping. Table-turning (also known as table-tapping, table-tipping, or table-tilting) is a type of seance in which participants sit around a table, place their hands on it, and wait for rotations. The process is similar to an Ouija boards. This was the most popular method of communicating with spirits when the movement of Modern Spiritualism first reached Europe from American in the winter of 1852-53. Gasparin claimed, along with Professor Thury of Geneva, to have demonstrated that the movements of the table were due to a physical force emanating from the bodies of their sitters, for which they proposed the name ectenic force. Table-turning became a fashionable diversion and practiced all over England int he year 1853. Gasparin writes on page 406, It is only after deducting the fraud, properly so called, and the gross errors, that we encounter the true difficulty. There are still very numerous facts when we are sincerely affirmed, and which cannot have a reality, either objective or subjective; and in respect to them, in general, is shown the insufficiency of the solutions which it is customary for those to indicate, who reject the supernatural. . Seller Inventory # RAREA1857DMOX
Contact seller
Report this item
