Published in 1867 | 576 pages | PDF reader required
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE
A MosT singular biography of a most singular person is here. presented to the world. We regard it as the first rational and readable history of a Clairvoyant's experience that has appeared in the language; and, irrespective of its doctrines or philosophies, we look upon it as a valuable accession to biographical literature.
This book differs intrinsically, in style, method, and sub-stance, from any of Mr. Davis' previous works, which are extensively read and justly held in high estimation on both sides of the Atlantic. Indeed, no other American psychologist has obtained a more wide-spread fame, or given occasion for such extreme differences of opinion. There are, perhaps, thousands who regard Mr. Davis as a person of almost supernatural abilities, while a greater number treat him and his writings with unmitigated pre-judice. Hence such a work as we now offer to the public is particularly needed to institute a mean between these two mental extremes. The brief and fragmentary biographical sketches of the man, which have from time to time appeared, have neither supplied the demands and wishes of believers, nor met the objections and allegations of the unfriendly. Nothing, therefore, but a systematic autobiography—beginning with his first memories and ascending step by step through every subsequent year to the present period—could supply a desideratum so generally felt and expressed.
This demand the present volume is intended to meet, giving, as it does, the public and private career of Mr. Davis, and we respectfully ofer it as an unprecedented record, entirely authentic and beyond refutation. Many wonderful events, connected with his psychological development, are published for the first time in this work; and the secret of his extraordinary gift is explained and established in new and most satisfactory manner. We offer it, also, with the belief that its pages are fraught with pure sentiments, which may be advantageously read by parents and children, teachers and pupils, reformers and philosophers. Indeed, with all due deference to the views of able critics and scholars, (whose judgments upon this work are yet to be pronounced,) we are free to express our opinion that every class of readers will rise from its perusal, not merely delighted with the simple pathos and dramatic romance which pervade every page, but with clearer views and nobler purposes.
New York, May, 1857.
