Excerpt from Magic Staff: An Autobiography of Andrew Jackson Davis This demand the present volume is intended to meet, giv ing, as it does, the public and private career of Mr. Davis, and we respectfully offer it as an unprecedented record, entirely authentic and beyond refutation. Many wonder ful events, connected with his psychological development, are published for the first time in this work; and the secret of his extraordinary gift is explained and established in a new and most satisfactory manner. We offer it, also, with the belief that its pages are fraught with pure sentiments, which may be advantageously read by parents and children, teachers and pupils, reformers and philosophers. Indeed, with all due deference to the views of able critics and scholars, (whose judgments upon this work are yet to be pronounced, ) we are free to express our opinion that every class of readers will rise from its perusal, not merely de lighted with the simple pathos and dramatic romance which pervade every page, but with clearer views and nobler purposes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.