Explore "The Humbugs of the World" by P.T. Barnum on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Banner of Light -- Messages from the dead -- Spiritual civilities -- Spirit "hollering" -- Hans von Vleet, the female Dutchman -- Mrs. Conant's "circles" -- Paine's table-tipping humbug exposed.
The Banner of Light, a weekly journal of romance, literature, and general intelligence, published in Boston, is the principal organ of spiritualism in this country. Its "general intelligence" is rather questionable, though there is no doubt about its being a "journal of romance," strongly tinctured with humbug and imposture. It has a "Message Department," the proprietors of the paper claiming that "each message in this department of the ‘Banner' was spoken by the spirit whose name it bears, through the instrumentality of Mrs. J. H. Conant, while in an abnormal condition called the trance."