Andrew Jackson Davis, an American clairvoyant, born at Blooming Grove, Orange co., K Y., Aug. 11, 1826. Early in 1843, while he was a shoemaker's apprentice in Poughkeepsie, William Levingston by mesmerism developed in him remarkable clairvoyant powers. Although quite uninstructed, it was said that he was able to discourse fluently on medical, psychological, and general scientific subjects. Soon after, associated with Mr. Levingston, he commenced the treatment of the diseased, giving diagnoses and prescriptions while in the magnetic trance. On March 7, 1844, he fell into a trance, during which for 16 hours he conversed, as he asserts, with invisible beings, and received intimations and instructions concerning the position he was subsequently to occupy as a teacher from the interior state. In 1845, while clairvoyant, he dictated to the Rev. William Fishbough his first and most considerable work, "The Principles of Nature, her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind." It embraces a wide range of subjects, and repudiates any special authority in the teachings of the Bible. After the completion of this book Mr. Davis ceased to submit himself to magnetic manipulations, but has written several other works, while more or less illuminated, as he claims, by the influence of invisible spirits.

These works are severally entitled "The Great Harmonia" (4 vols.), "The Approaching Crisis," "The Penetralia," "The Present Age and Inner Life," "The Magic Staff"" (his autobiography), "History and Philosophy of Evil," "Death and the After Life," "The Harbinger of Health," "Morning Lectures," "Arabula, or the Divine Guest," "Fountain with new Jets of Meaning," "Memoranda of Persons, Places, and Events," " Stellar Key to the Summer Land," and "Tale of a Physician." The philosophical and theological portions of these works are regarded by his friends as little more than repetition of his first work, interspersed with startling asseverations concerning things in heaven and earth that admit of no direct verification. As a writer he has been more successful than as a lecturer, though in this latter capacity he has had some influence; and to his general instrumentality "spiritualism" partly owes its inauguration. He resides in Orange, N. J.