Frank Podmore 
Modern Spiritualism 
A History and a Criticism

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Chief organ of the movement up to 1856, and the purely naturalistic views therein advocated found general favour. Rumours Of the trance utterances of A. J. Davis and of Cahagnet’s somnambules had, however, reached this country, and at least one English somnambule, Emma, the subject of Dr. Haddock, had seen visions of a future life and of spiritual things not unlike those recorded of Adele Maginot.2 Neither Haddock himself, nor Gregory, who discusses the visions and compares them with those recorded by Cahagnet, 3 is prepared to accept the clairvoyant utterances as authentic revelations; but neither, on the other hand, is willing to dismiss them as unquestionably subjective. That Haddock’s own mind was not made up on the subject he frankly confesses; and the mere fact that he thinks it worth while to devote several pages of his book to the account of these ecstatic visions clearly indicates that he set some value on such records. But, at any rate, if some of the English Mesmerists in the early fifties held it an Open question whether such clairvoyant utterances had any reference to objective realities, there was as yet no school or sect, as in America and Germany, to adopt without hesitation the spiritualistic interpretation of these and kindred phenomena. It was not, indeed, until 1853 that the new doctrine Obtained.