THE RAPPERS: OR THE MYSTERIES, FALLACIES, AND ABSURDITIES OF SPIRIT-RAPPING, TABLE-TIPPING, AND ENTRANCEMENT
Book Details + Condition: H. Long and Brother (New York). First Edition, 1854. Hardcover measuring 7.75" x 5.25". Dark red gilt-decorated embossed boards. 282 pages. Illustrated with two frontispieces: one titled "Casting out the evil spirits," the other demonstrating "Table tipping" - which is also reproduced in gilt on the front cover. Written by "A Searcher After Truth". Published only 6 years after the founding of the Spiritualist movement in America, which is often set at March 31, 1848. On that date, Kate and Margaret Fox of Hydesville, New York, reported that they had made contact with a spirit that was later claimed to be the spirit of a murdered peddler whose body was found in the house. The spirit was said to have communicated through rapping noises, audible to onlookers. THE RAPPERS is one of the first comprehensive works on 19th-century occult practices including mediumship, spirit channelling and spirit manifestations through "spirit-rapping" and "table-tipping". The work also offers a thorough description of the spirit world. Chapters include:
- The Traveling Spirit
- The Young Girl Medium
- Oliver Blodge, the Murderer
- Pocahontas, and other Indians
- Spiritual Conference, Spiritual Believers, and Pickles
- The Spheres of the Spirit World: The Lower, or Infernal Sphere
- The Dram Spirit
- Family Raps
- The Rappers in the Congress of the United States
- A Little Philosophy and some Illustration of Spirit Language, Literature and Tactics
- Demonology, Witchcraft and Spirit Rapping, Tipping and Entrancement
- And more.
A firm and clean copy of an increasingly rare book, with solid binding; heavily rubbed corners and edges (and spine ends, heavier to upper end); wear to boards, with darkening present; blank rear endpaper has been torn out; old water damage to inside boards, as well as to first few pages and last quarter of book (text remains very clear, and stains are quite faded); heavy intermittent toning and age-spotting; interior is otherwise clean and free of markings.
