NOTICE.

In the first edition of this work we had announced a supplementary part. It was to consist of all the questions that found no place in that edition, or that subsequent circumstances and new studies might have occasioned. Since, however, they are all related to one or another of the parts already treated, of which they are the development, their separate publication would not have presented any continuity. We preferred to await the reprinting of the book in order to merge everything together, taking the opportunity, in the arrangement of the matters, to give them a much more methodical order and, at the same time, suppressing everything that was repeated.

This reprinting may, therefore, be regarded as a new work, although the principles have undergone no alteration, save for a very small number of exceptions, which are complements and clarifications rather than true modifications. This conformity in the principles set forth, despite the diversity of the sources from which we gathered them, is an important fact for the establishment of the spiritist science. Our correspondence shows us clearly that communications identical in all points, if not in form, at least in substance, were obtained in different localities, and this even before the publication of our book, which came to confirm them and give them a regular body. History, in turn, attests that the majority of these principles were professed by the most eminent men of ancient and modern times, thereby bringing to them their sanction.

The teaching relating to the manifestations properly so called, and to mediums, forms, in a certain way, a distinct part of the philosophy, and may be the object of a special study. Since such a part has received quite considerable developments in consequence of the experience acquired, we have deemed it best to make of it a separate volume, which contains the answers given to all the questions relating to the manifestations and to mediums, as well as numerous comments on practical Spiritism. This work will be the continuation or the complement of THE SPIRITS' BOOK. 1 [1] In press [Ref. to The Mediums' Book released in January 1861 in substitution for the Practical Instructions on Spiritist Manifestations that had been published in 1858].