Francis Worcester Doughty

“ There you have an enlightened race upon whom the sanctity of the marriage relation rests with feathery lightness. Don’t trust the woman unless you want to have your heart turned inside out, and your faith in human nature destroyed. ”

“ In the man the reasoning principle is uppermost and strongest; in the woman the principle of affection. Wisdom, knowledge, combined with the power of utilizing that knowledge and combined again with love, which embraces all the finer sentiments of human nature, is the power which controls the world. ”

“ If there is no such thing as a disembodied spirit, how can you reason out the existence of ghosts?”
“In this way. Mesmerism, hypnotism, or whatever you are pleased to call it, is, of course, an admitted fact. There is a power existing in certain mental organizations enabling them to control weaker ones, and to deprive them for the time being of their individuality; to make them believe that black is white; that they are not themselves, but other people—living people, or dead people, it matters not which. ”

“ I replied. “A happy conjugal union is——”
“Slavery,” interrupted Philpot, “mere slavery. A wife tied down by pinafores and household cares is in much the same situation as an enterprising oyster, who can’t get off its bed no matter how hard it tries. As for the husband, ask any poor devil who has been there if slavery is not preferable. Besides that, marriage breeds deceit in any man who is a man. A bachelor may and does do as he pleases and don’t give a rap who knows it; but a married man must perpetually dissemble if he would keep the peace. ”

“ Americans don’t drink spirits like the English. Why man, I never knew the capacity of the human system to dispose of alcohol until I visited your Chicago, and that is not to be compared with some of the Canadian cities. But speaking of spirits, brings us by natural and easy stages to Spiritualism. Ardent spirits wandering down a fellow’s gullet naturally suggests wandering spirits from another sphere ardently seeking to return to the scene of their earthly pains and pleasures. There, I throw down the gauntlet, boys. Spiritualism—Mirrikh. ”

“ Bodily levitation is a manifest impossibility, but thought transference to the extent of deceiving each one of man’s senses into the belief that he can actually see, hear, and feel the person who appears before him, is almost, if not quite, a proven fact. ”

“ I have reached the firm conclusion that there exist laws in nature, call them physical, or call them spiritual, understood only by certain persons, or exercised without being fully comprehended by ignorant persons, that do produce phenomena, the true nature of which we are as yet wholly unable to comprehend. ”

“ Given such a mind, or such a mental state—for I believe that under certain favoring conditions a weak mind may possess this power quite as much as a strong one—and we have a force which can summon to our presence not only apparitions of living people but of dead ones. ”

“ Indeed, if you were to investigate this subject as closely as I have done, you would find that the ghosts of living persons have as frequently put in an appearance as the so-called disembodied spirits of the dead. ”

“ In God we have such a combination of qualifications. Man, made in the image of God, must, therefore, originally have possessed these qualities so combined. The necessities of man’s future existence on this earth demanded a separation, and it was given. ”

“ I’ve had enough of married life, but because I’ve been bitten it don’t follow that marriage has brought the same unhappiness to every other man who has been bold enough to take the risk.”
“Oh, of course not. Nobody claims that. But a woman must be the husband’s slave to bring conjugal happiness. De Veber, ain’t that so?”
“Don’t ask me. I’ve never been married, and doubt if I ever shall be,” laughed Maurice.
“Take my advice,” said Philpot, “and you never will be ”

“ Either we must admit the existence of a spiritual world which is all around us, or fall back on some such theory as this. I tell you, gentlemen, it is no uncommon thing for some of these adepts to summon into their presence not only living persons from great distances, but material forms of those who have been long dead. ”

“ For instance, A possessed of this power desires to see B who is dead. The force leaves him just as the electric current leaves a battery. It cannot reach B because there is no B, but it does strike upon the mental receiver of C’s organization, because C is of a receptive nature. ”