It... I...
They should have sent a poet.
See, this right here... it's moments like this that make it all worthwhile: that moment when I find out that Horace Greeley had a conversation in the columns of his New-York Daily Tribune with a goddamn would-be Ghostbuster.
Well. Not so much a would-be Ghostbuster as a would-be Ghost-Smack-Talker. Ghost-Rap-Battler? Something like that.
So. Here's how it happened. I'm reading the 1850 Buchanan's Journal of Man—like ya do—and I come across this letter "To the Editors of the Tribune" from a fabulously nutty spiritualist. I was drinking it in, grinning from ear to ear in delight, and then I got to the part where the writer addressed "Mr. Greeley", and I realized he wrote this to Horace Greeley at the Tribune!
Please, for the love of pie, read the whole thing below, because you do not want to miss out on one scintilla of that glorious nineteenth-century peevishness. But let me summarize it here for you.
Some fools see a ghost and they be all like "Ooooh, a ghost! I'm sooooo impressed! I'll just take every word you say like it was gospel!" Man, them ghosts don't know shit. They just fuckin' wit'chu. Any ghost step to me, I'd be all like "You invent a printing press? You cure consumption? No? Then step back, motherfucker, 'cuz the natural sphere got it locked up!"I swear, the writer of this letter had no idea just how close he was to a tight five comedy set.
Anyway, I went and found the letter, and Greeley's wonderfully matter-of-fact response, in Chronicling America. You're welcome.
(transcription below)
NEW-YORK DAILY TRIBUNE.
NEW-YORK, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1850.
'Intercourse with Spirits' Criticised.
To the Editor of the Tribune:
It strikes me that you do not get the precise gist of the criticism which the ghosts invite, when you say their communications are objected to "because they are not of the slightest importance." They are doubtless generally important as correcting several vulgar errors entertained in relation to the life after death, and as showing that man in every sphere finds his circumstances answerable to the quality of his life. At least I do not object to their communications on this ground.
I object to them on the ground of the authoritativeness they bear to the imagination. When a man gets a communication from the supernatural sphere, especially if he has been educated religiously, he is disposed to give it a more unquestioning credence than he would give to the same communication coming from a person in the flesh. The novelty of the circumstance, the grim mystery which overlies all that interior sphere, the presumed superiority of the information which spirits possess, are so many provocatives to an abject and superstitious reverence on our part for whatever may befall us from that quarter ; and hence there is great danger of losing our wits. I have never yet heard of any one's wits being improved by intercourse with departed spirits. I have heard of numberless instances in which they have been irreparably shattered.
It may be said that all our current ghosts are amiable, and exhibit no malignant purposes toward the intellect. So be it. But every one who has read Swedenborg with attention, a cool, dispassionate, scientific observer, knows very well that ghosts are up to any kind and degree of "artful dodge" which suits the final purpose. They read the memory of a person like a book, Swedenborg says, and he instances cases where they get hold of a criminal remembrance on the part of the the subject, and keep urging it home upon him until they drive him almost frantic with remorse. The records of the old saintship are full of the fruits of this spiritual deviltry. All those phenomena of a morbid conscience which we see in "revivals," and which are called "conviction of sin," "concern for the soul's salvation," etc. grow out of this infernal tampering of ghosts with one's memory. Now I by no means wish to say that every ghost who seeks to communicate with men in the flesh is roguish. But I do say, that supposing such an one to be roguish, he is quite capable, from his clairvoyant power, or his power of reading our memories, to assume for any length of time precisely such a guise as may best win our confidence and confirm his final despotic grip.
" No, I say to all this back-door influence—" Hands off, gentlemen ! You may be very proper persons, but I insist upon seeing my company. You have uttered a great many elevated sentiments, no doubt; but sentiment is cheap on this side of Jordan, where we chiefly value deeds. Now if you will only do something for us, something which science will adopt into her repertory, we shall welcome you with all our hearts. If you are nearer, as some of you have said, to the sources of power, and know its secrets, and if, moreover, you wish to be as good as you all affirm, the way is open to you at once. Give us an invention like the electric telegraph, or the spinning jenny. Give us a solution to some of the great questions of the day—the questions of finance, of an increased agricultural production, of the abolition of poverty and crime. Give us an improved medication, say a cure for small pox, scarlet fever, gout, or even tooth-ache. Do any of these beneficent deeds for us, and then you shall talk sentiment to us, and give us your opinions about cosmogony and 'the classification of spheres,' ad libitum. Until you consent to this proof of your benevolence, a proof so completely appreciable to us, and therefore so incumbent on you if you would fairly win our regard, be off—tramp—keep moving !"
For my own part, Mr. Greeley, and with deference to your editorial judgment, I suspect that our defunct brethren are by no means so well posted up in useful knowledge as we ourselves are. I suspect The Tribune is, on the whole, a superior newspaper to any that our late friend, " Mr. C." finds on his breakfast table of a morning. I say news paper deliberately, because, as Swedenborg proves very conclusively, the natural sphere is properly the only sphere of new things, being the true sphere of the Divine power. The interior spheres of creation, the spheres of affection and intellect, are doubtless very interesting and impressive ; but the external sphere, the sphere of Nature, alone unfolds the wonders of Creative power. We must therefore not allow these departed gents to overcrow us. I have no no doubt they experience the most refined emotions, and perceive truths in their own beautiful light. In a word, I have no doubt that their passive existence much transcends ours ; but as to the active, I have no little doubt that we are equally in advance of them. In loving and thinking, they excel, simply because they live in a sphere plastic to those powers ; but in doing—in the capacity of original action—in the whole sphere, in short, of Art—we can give them any amount of odds, and beat them clean out of sight.
Yours, H. J.
Our Correspondent may be very right in the above speculating—for our own part, we frankly confess to gross ignorance on the whole subject. We have not yet settled in our mind the Previous Question—vis: Whether the spirits of departed friends really speak to us at all. We have heard and seen things which seemed as though they did; but who can say, with regard to things transcending our own sphere, what is clairvoyance and what is hallucination? Ditto of the 'Rappings,' so called. We cannot account for them on any materialistic theory of their origin; but the world is young yet, and will grow wiser. We, though young no longer, mean to profit by the example. [Ed. Trib.
