THE SPIRITS IN SYRIA

Publishing Committee · ROCHESTER, N. Y. · Sep 20, 1853

THE SPIRITS IN SYRIA

The Sheik Bechir is a personage of acquirements; he has a store of history and literature; his conversation is superior to that of his country-men, and he has, to complete the superiority, the fame of a wonder-worker, and the advantage of interview with the spirits of another world! Who can resist such proofs of power as these? He will place a jug between the hands of two persons sitting opposite to each other, which, on the recital of certain passages taken indiscriminately from the Koran and the Psalms of David, will move spontaneously around, to the astonishment of all beholders." "A stick, at his bidding will move unaided from one end of a room to the other: A New Testament suspended from a key by a string, will turn violently around of itself! An egg boiling in the saucepan will be made to spring suddenly out of the water, and be carried to a considerable distance! A double-locked door will unlock itself! But the following trick seems to us the strangest of all. On two earthern jars being placed in opposite corners of a room, one empty and the other filled with water, the empty jar, on the recital of certain passages, will move across the room—the full jar will of itself pour its contents into the empty one, which will return to the place whence it came!"—Churchill's Mount Lebanon.