It is intended to represent him as a member of an assembly (Kahal) - not the Jewish congregation, but a body of students or inquirers, such as is referred to in xii.
The first two causes have attracted many inquirers; but it is the last that has chiefly given to modern spiritualism its religious aspect.
The interest in spiritualism, apart from scientific curiosity and mere love of the marvellous, is partly due to the belief that trustworthy information and advice about mundane matters can be obtained through mediums - to the same impulse in fact which has in all ages attracted inquirers to fortune-tellers.
The descriptions, though three or four entire failures occurred, were of remarkable accuracy as a rule, and contained facts and incidents unknown to the inquirers, but confirmed as accurate.
Whoever can believe that the successes were numerous and that descriptions were given correctly - not only of facts present to the minds of inquirers, and of other persons present who were not consciously taking a share in the experiments, but also of facts necessarily unknown to all concerned - must of course be most impressed by the latter kind of success.
