11 h 15 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 11 h 15 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the promise of hidden power leads not to freedom, but into darkness?
In The Spirit-Rapper: An Autobiography, Orestes Augustus Brownson casts fiction as a confession. A man becomes drawn into reform causes, mesmerism and table-rapping. Around him, hopes of remaking society meet claims of hidden forces. The question is not simply what these forces can do, but what trusting them might mean.
Brownson mixes his story with a Catholic critique of spiritualism. He argues that some effects are real, but interprets the power behind them as dark. Mesmerism—the supposed power of one mind over another—opens the path. Reforming hopes and occult claims become linked, giving the confession an argument to carry as well as a story to tell.
What you’ll discover
- A confession with stakes Follow a narrator drawn toward occult power through the promise of reform and hidden forces.
- The lure of mesmerism Explore claims of healing, trance and mental influence at the entrance to Brownson's unsettling world.
- Reform meets the occult Consider how hopes for remaking society become entangled with the search for unseen powers.
- An age of spirit circles Encounter a world where table-rapping and spirit circles spread alongside religious questions and social hopes.
- A Catholic critical lens See why Brownson presents the Catholic Church as safe ground against the powers his narrator encounters.
Who will love it
Readers drawn to confessions, lively debate and odd corners of history will enjoy this novel. It suits those fascinated by nineteenth century America, ghost stories and arguments about faith and reason.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A sleeping woman stuns a room of doubters
- A game with mesmerism ends in a haunting
- Priscilla teaches that liberty is the only good
- A parlor of world-savers meets a calm critic
- Dancing tables and raps from nowhere
- Revolution is planned in drawing rooms across Europe
- A new religion is made and then feels empty
- Endless progress and boundless liberty are put on trial
- Madness or devilry, the talkers fight it out
- A confession that mixes frame, fact and debate
Who’s who
- The DoctorThe narrator, a scientist from western New York who dreams of mastering nature and records his life as a warning near its end.
- PriscillaA brilliant Philadelphia reformer who believes in loving humanity above all, and who becomes the doctor's partner and agent.
- JamesPriscilla's quiet husband, who is underrated by everyone and grows into a firm, loving man.
- Jack WheatleyA witty young lawyer who mesmerizes for fun and pays a terrible price for his game.
- Mr MertonA young, educated New Englander who calls on the doctor and argues patiently that these wonders come from fallen spirits.
- Mr WinslowA liberal minister who wants to explain every miracle by a natural force he calls the demonic element in human nature.
- Mr CottonA stern old Puritan minister who warns the doctor of the devil and is made to suffer for it.
- Dr CorningThe doctor's physician and a specialist in insanity, who explains every case of possession as a mental disease.
Formats and delivery
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- On your phone, tablet or computer, once the book texts are online.
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- Hardcover
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Il battitore di spiriti: un'autobiografia
by Orestes Augustus Brownson · 1854
A doctor watches a sleeping woman ignore pins and a pistol shot, and craves the power behind it.
Challenging5–10 hours to readItaliano
Excellent
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In short
What would you do if you watched a woman sleep through a pistol shot beside her ear, then wake at the exact minute a spoken order told her to? That scene opens The Spirit-Rapper, and it sends a young doctor down a road he will bitterly regret.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A sleeping woman stuns a room of doubters
In the winter of 1836 the young doctor who tells the story spends an afternoon in Boston with Dr P, a French lecturer who says mesmerism is real. The doctor expects a hoax. A simple young woman sits in an armchair and seems to fall asleep within minutes.
Then the tests begin. One man fires a pistol near her ear, and another pushes pins into her flesh. She does not flinch. Dr P wills her to sleep for exactly fifteen minutes and then wake. Two men draw him into an angry argument so that he forgets his order, yet she wakes at the very minute.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1854
- Language
- Italiano
- Reading time
- 7 h 15 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Brownson, Orestes Augustus. The Spirit-Rapper: An Autobiography. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-spirit-rapper-an-autobiography.
Brownson, O. A. (2026). The spirit-rapper: An autobiography. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-spirit-rapper-an-autobiography (Original work published 1854)
Brownson, Orestes Augustus. The Spirit-Rapper: An Autobiography. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-spirit-rapper-an-autobiography.
@book{brownson2026spiritrapper,
author = {Brownson, Orestes Augustus},
title = {The Spirit-Rapper: An Autobiography},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-spirit-rapper-an-autobiography},
note = {First published 1854}
}
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What is The Spirit-Rapper about?
It is the made-up confession of a doctor who becomes a mesmerist, helps start the spirit-rapping craze and plots revolution in Europe with a reformer named Priscilla. Near death, he warns readers about the dark source he came to believe lay behind it all.
Is The Spirit-Rapper a true story?
The doctor and his friends are invented. Brownson says only the framework is fiction and that the facts come from his own observation and from a French work on spirits from 1853. It was published in 1854.
Who is Mr Merton in The Spirit-Rapper?
Merton is a young, well-read New Englander who meets the doctor at Priscilla's party and later visits his sickbed daily. He is the book's voice of calm reason, and he answers the doctor's friends with cases from history and with theology.
The author
Orestes Augustus Brownson
1803–1876 · American religious and political writer
Orestes Augustus Brownson (1803–1876) was an American writer and religious thinker. He was born in Stockbridge, Vermont, and died in Detroit, Michigan. He became a Catholic in 1844 and began publishing Brownson’s Quarterly Review that year. His books include The Spirit-Rapper: An Autobiography, published in 1854.
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