+ − =Science=, n.s. 25: 854. My. 31, ’07 1550w.
=Abbott, David Phelps.= Behind the scenes with the mediums. *$1.50. Open ct.
From the point of view of the worker of magic, Mr. Abbott, who is not a medium, reveals all the tricks of the séance. “The ardent believers whose faith no number of exposures can disturb, the skeptics whom no sort of séance has been able to convince, and the scientific investigators toward whom the author is a bit contemptuous, will all find in its pages matter in plenty either interesting or irritating.” (N. Y. Times.)
“All those who have a kind of shamefaced desire to know just what spiritualists do and how they do it will be entertained by his exposures. Even those who go full of faith to consult palmists, clairvoyants, fortune-tellers, and other modern sorcerers, will find him interesting.”
“There will be racy reading for a good many different kinds of people in Mr. Abbott’s leisurely turning inside out of mediumistic tricks.”
+ =N. Y. Times.= 12: 551. S. 14, ’07. 1110w.
=Abbott, Rev. Edwin A.= Apologia: an explanation and defense. *$1. Macmillan.
“In reply to friendly dissentients from his views, especially as expressed in his previous book, ‘Silanus the Christian,’ the author publishes this ‘explanation and defense’ of them as an introduction to two volumes of a technical and critical character to appear presently. His view of the Biblical miracles is ‘that some are literally true, but in accordance with what are called laws of nature; others are not literally true, but are metaphorical or poetical traditions erroneously taken as literal; others are visions that have been erroneously taken as non-visionary facts.’”—Outlook.
“It may be pointed out that Dr. Abbott’s reason for calling Christ supernatural has nothing to do with the evidence furnished in the New Testament and it is therefore not easy to see why there should be such a waste of interpretation as there is in his books.”
=Abbott, Rev. Edwin A.= Silanus the Christian. *$2.60. Macmillan.
Dr. Abbott addresses himself to readers who are not ready to accept the miraculous element in the New Testament and who at the same time do not reject the doctrine of Christ’s divinity. He shows that the belief is not rendered impossible by the disbelief. The book is in the form of an autobiography of an educated Roman. “The gist of its teaching—and it is solely intended to teach—is summed up in the words of Clemens. It has been said, he tells Silanus, that the religion of the Christians is a person—and nothing more. ‘I should prefer to say the same thing differently. Our religion in a person—and nothing less.’” (Spec.)