Pioneers of the Spiritual Reformation. By Mrs. Howitt Watts. (The
Psychological Press Association.)—The "Spiritual Reforma- tion," it should be understood, is " Spiritualism," and the" Pioneers" are Justifies Kerner, Mesmer, and William Howitt. Of Mesmer, we hear through Kerner. It is a very curious world, indeed, of experiences, if experiences they were, to which this book introduces us. What could be stranger than the story of Margaret Grombach, of Orlach, in Wiirtemberg ? Margaret, a handsome, healthy, well-con ducted girl, whose life of labour left no time or opportunity, one would think, for hysterical delusion, became the subject of the strangest phenomena. She herself described it by saying that she was the battle-field between two "earth-spirits," two human beings
long since dead, a monk and a nun, who had been associated in some horrible deeds. The better of the two spirits, the woman, sought to confess her guilt, and would make Margaret her mouthpiece; the worse hindered the confession, by a kind of demoniac possession which he exercised over the girl. If it was all an imagination, it is hardly less strange than if it was a reality. Similar personages figure in one of William Howitt's experiences. These are natarally more pleasing and more interesting, recorded as they are by one who writes at first hand, than those of the German seers. One of the most curious stories is that of the " wraith " of Francis Tantum, uncle of William Hewitt. He was killed in the village street, by an innkeeper's son, whom he had playfully struck with his whip. At the very moment of his death, he appeared to his sister, Howitt's mother, who was *then recovering from a confinement. Mrs. Watts has often, she says, heard her grandmother in her old age tell the story. This, of course, adds but another to the thousand instances of a similar kind ; but it seems to rest on good evidence, it should be mentioned that once before the sister bad seen the eidolon of the brother when he was far away. These apparitions of the living are not very uncommon. The present writer has seen one himself. Besides "spiritual" records, there are some interesting details about the life and work of Hewitt.
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