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Magnetic waves - where in the works?

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Glanvill is quoted as saying, "The time will come, when making use of magnetic waves that permeate the ether,...we shall communicate with [persons on the opposite side of the globe]." The reference for it is given as "Bradbeer, Robin. A glimpse into the future of television, The Guardian, 7 March 1985". There should be a reference to the original work for this. A second hand reference that is not in itself easily checked is not good enough. It is suspicious. Wodorabe (talk) 20:17, 17 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I came here because I too thought the quote was suspicious. I first tried to look up the Bradbeer article but could not find it online. The year 1661 can only mean that the prediction is from The Vanity of Dogmatizing. This too I could not find online, but it is easy to find the second edition, Scepsis Scientifica, online on the Ex-Classics website (see the first entry under External links). The differences are reportedly minor. The only thing I could find that has some resemblance to the quote – not in wording but in content – is this passage:

That men should confer at very distant removes by an extemporary intercourse, is another reputed impssibility; but yet there are some hints in natural operations, that give us probability that it is feasible, and may be compast without unwarrantable correspondence with the people of the air. That a couple of needles equally touched by the same magnet, being set in two dials exactly proportioned to each other, and circumscribed by the letters of the alphabet, may effect this magnale, hath considerable authorities to avouch it. The manner of it is thus represented. Let the friends that would communicate, take each a dial: and having appointed a time for their sympathetic conference, let one move his impregnate needle to any letter in the alphabet, and its affected fellow will precisely respect the same. So that would I know what my friend would acquaint me with; 'tis but observing the letters that are pointed at by my needle, and in their order transcribing them from their sympathizing index, as its motion direct's: and I may be assured that my friend described the same with his: and that the words on my paper, are of his indicting.

I've copied this exactly as I found it, misprints and all. In snippets from the first edition found online, the unneeded "unwarrantable correspondence with the people of the air" appears to be called there "unwarrantable assistance from demoniac correspondence".
It would thus appear that the quote in the lead is an eisegetic interpretation by Bradbeer, and that its presentation is misleading.  --Lambiam 13:23, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, chapter XXI of this version of The Vanity of Dogmatizing https://www.exclassics.com/glanvil/glanvil.pdf says

And to confer at the distance of the Indies by sympathetic conveyances, may be as usual to future times, as to us in a literary correspondence.

So I think the quote on the page should be corrected. DWorley (talk)

I have made this edit. DWorley (talk) 02:48, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]