“May 1. On Mars they have learned how to produce from the soil itself any vegetable that naturally growstherefrom. In the soil itself reside all the constituent elements of all vegetation in their infinite variety. You may thoughtlessly answer, that in order to produce any species of vegetation used for table consumption, the seed or germ must first be sown in the soil beneath the surface, but you forget that this process is but the result of civilization and art, and that originally, that is before you learned how to obtain and use seed, the products sprang of themselves and apparently spontaneously from the earth. Whence did they come? and whence were their germinating and generating powers obtained? Think a little deeply on the subject, and you will be led irresistibly to the correct conclusion that in the soil exists all the requisite elements in the production of vegetation by growth. The people of Mars have acquired the knowledge which enables them to produce out of the soil, abstractly considered, all the essential qualities of the vegetable without waiting for the tedious process of growth. This process is purely chemical, and everybody there understands it. Hence you see they do not have to buy vegetables, for all can have their essential qualities for food without cost to the consumer. Long since the ownership of the soil by individuals was abandoned for the general common good, and on this subject the primitive condition of affairs in your planet prevails universally on Mars—that is to say everybody owns realty, one just as much as another. This is pure unadulterated agrarianism in its highest and most perfect form.
“It is often asked in your intercourse with the world of spirits: What are the employments of spirits? what are they about? what do they do? etc. It ispertinent to inquire, What are the employments of the people of Mars still embodied? What do they do since we have discovered that they do not now toil for the acquisition of riches, because they have no possible use for them; no taxes to pay, no governmental machinery to support, no lawyers to annoy, no preachers to vex, torture, and maintain, no doctors to nauseate with their drugs, no politicians to hoodwink the people and feed at the public crib, no grocery bills to look after and liquidate, etc. Before we answer these and many other important queries, we shall see what the people do for raiment with which to clothe themselves, and what they do for shelter, if, indeed, shelter is necessary. If we shall discover that these are free gifts from the father, then the employments of the embodied Marsians becomes a question of very interesting and pressing importance.
“May 4. I suspect that you already anticipate the tenor of what we have to tell you in regard to the clothing of the people of Mars, what texture, how derived, etc. Your keen perceptions and astute comprehension enables you to see at a glance that if this law of progression, as applied to the material, whereby the lowest forms are reached and operated upon, lifting with its strong arms into higher and still higher conditions, be true, it must be true and in regard to all material things—the soil, rock, wood, water, etc., animal and vegetable life, and as we shall have occasion to show further on, to the mundane atmosphere surrounding the planet. All things progress and advance in like and equal ratio, leaving nothing behind or unaffected by the law. This advancing march of matter from the crude and gross into themore refined and sublimated is seemingly slow, but nevertheless sure and unerringly, indiscriminate, and precise. Therefore the raiment worn by the denizens of Mars has reached the same altitude of refinement as all other material things.
“The seasons, once resembling yours, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, have nearly merged, that is to say, have nearly blended into one perpetual season of summer loveliness. The austerity of winter, with its stormy blasts and cold, piercing wind waves has long since ceased to be; no frosts to nip and blight the fruits and flowers; no chilling autumns, with withering leaf, to inspire with melancholy and sadness. What will surprise you in this connection is, that, while the cold temperature has wrought its work in the development of the past, and is only known to have once existed by historic relation, the intense heat of summer has also disappeared. When you have severely cold winters, almost unendurable even in your temperate zones, your wise philosophers theorize that your ultimate destiny is to freeze out; that the icebergs and ice glaziers of the north are ultimately either to roll over the now fair portions of the earth, destroying all things animate, or that their freezing breath will sweep over the globe involving in death all the fair and lovely forms of nature’s productions, including godlike man, the apexandcrowning glory of creation. But lo! when the earth straightens up on her axis and the cold waves retreat and sink away in their northern hiding place, and the genial and vernal season with its pleasant temperature returns, these same philosophers take a breathing spell, rest awhile, and conclude that it has not beenso very cold after all; and when the summer comes, if it happens to be unusual in the intensity of its heat, and the solar rays seem to almost melt into molten ruin all things, and to scorch the forest leaves and wilt the waving harvests, these same philosophical wiseacres change tactics, reverse their position, and with one heroic bound jump to a directly opposite conclusion, namely: that we are all destined ultimately to burn up and become annihilated in a general conflagration by solar heat igniting the combustible material of the planet and its surrounding atmosphere. Oh, how impotent in philosophy! A simple and humble inquiry settles the question. Why destroy this fair earth, daily and hourly becoming still fairer? Does God do any thing without an allwise and beneficent purpose? Is it possible for Him to do a silly, foolish thing? He would certainly not destroy the earth unless there was thereby some noble and beneficent purpose to subserve. What grand purpose, good and wise, can be accomplished by ending the existence of a planet that has as yet scarcely begun to live? To assume that He will do such a thing, is to assume that He has become disappointed and disgusted with his own creation, which annuls His wisdom and foresight, or that He delights in folly, making a world and then destroying it because He can, or for any other silly and insufficient reason. To thus assume is to dishonor Him as a God, and to invest Him with the attributes of a devil.
“Wonderful changes do occur marking epochs, or cycles, in the history of all planets. Where you live to-day, thousands upon thousands of years ago another race of human beings lived, attaining a certaindegree of development in science and art, but upon the fulfillment of their mission they passed away from the face of the earth. Where you now live was once swept over by old ocean, and where the deep waters and angry billows of the Atlantic now roll and revel once lived a race of people called the Atlantians, but their land with its embellishments of art and progressive development became submerged by the changes of the mighty waters, and now lies buried beneath its rolling deep and lashing waves. But observe in all this that the globe goes on, and succeeding developments of man and material things come forth far in advance of theformerorder of things. What, if in the womb of time it is reserved for Atlantis to arise from her watery entombment and to flourish again with renewed and increased grandeur, involving the submersion of other portions of the earth’s surface, including your own? This would not be death to any portion of the planet in any high and exalted sense, but a progressive change, a revivifying of life, a quickening and impulsion of being in the grand advancing march of development and sublimation. As we write, the theme expands and enlarges, and as the power begins to wane we find we have not discoursed minutely on the subject of raiment, and beg your indulgence for a resume of the subject in our next.
“May 5. There being, at this stage of development on Mars, no winter with its concomitants of winds and storm, snow and ice, you have no difficulty in apprehending that very light material only is needed to protect and render comfortable the persons of the people. Material of the texture of your lightest flannelunderwear would be oppressively and uncomfortably warm, and indeed insufferable. Thin and quite gauzy robes composed of finely attenuated and exquisitely refined material constitute their apparel. I have told you hitherto that of the animal kingdom only the fittest have survived the marvelous successive changes in the infinite series of progressive advancements. Among those now living with the ability of propagation is an animal species somewhat resembling your sheep, but so exceedingly refined as to be remarkably striking in contrast. Of course, and in the very nature of things, the fleecy wool, or, rather velvety down, that grows upon this noble animal, so distinguished for innocence, æsthetic tastes in food and refinement in habits of life, is eminently suited for purposes of habilament, and accordingly is thus utilized. They are propagated in unlimited numbers, live to an advanced age, are the common property of all the people, and have within themselves the qualities of eternal being.
“The forest and other trees, shrubs and flowers, have advanced under the same law of progress. Very many species of the olden time disappearing—the fittest only having survived. Among those now extant on the planet, is a peculiar and quite extensively cultivated species, from which is produced a fabric resembling somewhat your cotton production, with the same difference in refinement of texture as exists between your wool and that developed on Mars as herein stated. This is utilized for raiment also. Besides the people there have mastered the law that spirits employ in the materialization of garments at your materializing seances, only much finer, andout of the ambientatmosphere, filled as it is with sublimated atoms and emanations, they are enabled to collect and magnetize into solidified form appropriate garments for their use and comfort. When thus magnetized into objective and tangible being it partakes of and assumes a varied hue and color, according to the progressed and advanced state of the person using the garments. In other words the magnetic aura and spiritual emanations proceeding from the individual infiltrates and becomes interwoven in the delicate fibers of the new garment extracted and brought into being from the viewless air, imparting hue and coloration presenting different appearances, whereby the grade or degree of advancement of the individual wearer is made known and determined. Here you inquire of the spirits to know what sphere you are fitted to enter in the spirit world,therethey know by this means in advance of leaving the body. Your spirits in imparting light and knowledge to you concerning their state, tell you that a spirit and its proper sphere are known by the peculiar aura, or surroundings and clothing of the individual spirit, and this is true to the letter. But on Mars this law of spirit designation that belongs to the spiritual spheres of your planet, reaches out and reveals itself in the persons of the people of Mars before they have actually entered upon the spiritual journey of life in the spiritual spheres.
“Now the additional fact is disclosed to you that by reason of this mode of obtaining raiment the avocation of the merchant is of slender dimensions, and the manufacturer’s art and pursuit, except as knownand practiced by all alike, are now unknown on the planet Mars.
“In our next we will discourse on buildings, habitations, etc. We had hoped to reach this part of the subject in this communication, but as we advance the themes and subjects broaden and expand, and we sincerely regret that the power by this process—independent slate writing—although the purest of all, will not last us at one sitting sufficiently to fully elaborate our thoughts and descriptive delineations on a given subject. It has this advantage, however, it comes directly from the materialized fingers of the spirit without the direct use of the brain of another in transmission. Adieu until our next.
“May 8. The same reasons assigned in our last, why very light garments only were needed for the bodily comfort and happiness of the people of Mars apply with equal propriety, force, and truth, to the subject of their habitations.
“Your rains are produced by vapors, mists, and emanations from your oceans, rivers, lakes, etc., which by virtue of solar attraction or a reversal of the law of gravitation the vapors, mists, etc., are drawn upward in space until a certain density is reached, differing in altitudes of height, when they become congealed by the force of the cold attenuated atmosphere there into small particles called rain drops, and these are carried along by the undercurrents of uncongealed clouds until a certain electro-magnetic condition is reached, when the clouds begin to empty and rid themselves of their burdened contents.
“Now we have informed you of the progress the water of Mars has made in being dispossessed of itsgross andweightyelements; hence there are none of these to ascend and to commingle in the formation of rain drops; hence none but the purer and refined elements of the water are exhaled and drawn upward, and consequently none but the pure and refined descend. These are in themselves comparatively light and of greatly diminished gravity, and therefore mild and pleasant in their effect. Especially does this become true as a resulting necessity, from the fact that there are no fierce winds or storms or cold temperature in the surrounding atmospheric belts or zones. The rains on Mars are more like your gentle dews of early autumn than your rains and showers. You at once take in the situation from this and preceding statements of facts that crude material structures are not necessary, even if the material for their construction could be found, and we have seen that such is not the case, for all things, including the material in detail out of which edifices are constructed, have progressed beyond and above their crude grossness.
“In some portions of Mars no structures are used at all, owing to the mildness of the climate and the total absence of inclemency in the slightest degree. In other portions the beautifully developed trees, and especially those that spread out their branches near the surface of the soil, are ample for the purposes of shelter. Still in others they have a sort of building which is a grand pavilion, embracing a vast area of territory, thousands of miles in extent, under the same roof or cover, which during certain periods of the year and day become luminous and transparent. The temples and gorgeous structures, cities, and magnificent edifices have been transferred in spiritualessence to the spiritual spheres, and have ceased to be as material entities, so when the planet passes into the spiritual condition outright and in toto, all that Mars could ever boast of in architectural grandeur and excellence is preserved and perpetuated with additional luster and beauty from the finishing spiritual touches by the Infinite Master Builder. And now you perceive that other questions come up right here and require recognition and treatment. Among them these: Do the people on Mars sleep? If so, how often and how much?
“May 11. Why is it that you require repose in sleep? In the infinitely wise arrangement of all things there are amply satisfactory reasons for every demand, every requirement, every manifestation, and therefore there are reasons why sleep is induced and is an imperative necessity in your present and past states of existence.
“When rest in sleep is long deferred from nervous derangements or other causes, your physicians administer narcotics to induce it, for they well know, as you all do, that sleep is necessary after intervals of wakefulness in order to protract your being in the form, and why?
“You have voluntary and involuntary functions or organs; the voluntary only, the involuntary never, can be suspended for certain periods of time. Your respiration and blood circulation are involuntary, and as long as you remain embodied in flesh will continue to perform their appropriate functions, whether you wake or sleep, for they are not subject to or influenced by the will. And it is by the unconscious operation of these that your voluntary functions whensuspended in sleep are replenished and reinvigorated. You are, as at present constituted, made up corporally of gross material, which becomes wearied and exhausted by the active exercise or operation of the voluntary functions, and the nerve force will expend itself unless periodically reimbursed and replenished, and restored to its normal condition by the intervention and recuperative power of sleep. When in the ages to come your people lose this grossness in their material composition, your inclination to sleep and the necessity for it will abate and become lessened correspondingly to your successive stages of advancement in progressive development.
“Thus is revealed to you the fact that on Mars, at this time, the inhabitants have but very little need of sleep. They sleep, but in a modified sense as to periods, duration and manner. They rest when fatigued, and for brief periods pass into a state of languor or stupidity, to some extent analogous to your sleeping state, which is neverrequiredoftener than once a week, and then only for a few hours.
“Your spirit friends will tell you that they never sleep, but rest, and ever keep in mind that the people of Mars are closely approximating the spiritual. Then, again, on Mars they do not have night as you do, and consequently not the same nocturnal influences to suggest and invite sleep. This suggests another subject germane to our line of thought. In nature you find always two extremes, that seem to stand in antipodal relations to each other. Let us give a few instances in illustration: You have day and night, cold and heat, male and female, fire and water, good and evil, etc. Some of these seem to be at fierce war with eachother, and yet what a delusion! This seeming antagonism is but the working of a law that shall eventuate in the production of the completest harmony. Undeveloped people, ignorant of the jewel-crowned truths, as yet concealed from them in the grand arcana of nature and the progressive sciences, laugh and sneer at the idea of marriages in spirit life, when the unvarnished truth is that man, considered in his independent and separate sexual relation, is but a half man, and can not become rounded out into fully developed manhood until consociated in conjunctive union with the opposite sex—not indeed and truly until the man and woman become twain, one flesh, or, in better phraseology, spiritually unitized.
“The day and night will continue until finally and by gradual processes the night is banished, and vanishes in the splendor of a continuously refulgent and sunlit atmosphere. On Mars this condition is almost reached, and the night there resembles the shadings thrown over the earth when a cloud passes over the face of your moon at hightide, and ultimately even this shall be no more, for in the spiritual spheres of Mars, as in your exalted ones, there are no shadows to obscure or mar the radiant light of the spiritual sun, and Mars itself is fast approaching this sublime condition. We must withhold what we have to say in regard to the seeming strife between good and evil for our next.
“May 12. The people of christendom have had it rung in their ears for nearly two thousand years that man is essentially bad, unutterably wicked, unspeakably depraved, and, worst of all, this horrid state comes to him, not of his own creating, but byinevitable and unavoidable inheritance. In our ignorance and credulity how we have wept over the weakness and folly of our first parents in yielding to the flattery and persuasive eloquence of the cruel serpent in the pure and primitive bowers of Eden. Our tears have flown and flown, with no gentle, soothing hand to touch our eyes and bid them cease; no voice panoplied with authority to speak to; no words of hope and cheer. We have been told in answer to our anxious entreaties for blissful hope and loving counsel that there is a superabundance of evil in us, and a trifling, insignificant quantity of good, and that nothing short of a miracle of regeneration can save us from unutterable and unendingmiseryin the life to come; that without this miraculous interposition of divine grace, the little good that is in us will be swallowed up and devoured by the appalling evil of our sinfully inherited natures. Oh, man, how you degrade your true nobility, your godlike and divine nobility, by bowing the knee to this hideous monster of falsehood, and by kneeling at this unholy shrine. In direct opposition to this abominable and degrading doctrine stands the truth in its pristine and noble beauty.
“According to this Christian doctrine we behold in man a combination of good and evil, and in the struggle for the mastery the evil is to be mightier than the good. The good emanating from and partaking of the majestic excellence of the eternal, infinite God must, alas, succumb to and be overthrown by evil, its unholy rival. Can man conceive of a scheme more degrading and heartless, and more completely dishonoring to God and his infinite perfections of wisdom,goodness and power—a doctrine more utterly subversive of moral goodness, deific excellence, and that more completely wrecks the moral government of God and dumps into one common funeral heap the hopes and happiness of the human race. No, no, this is not true; it is false, false, basely false.
“What is the true theory of good and evil? Man, oh, man, hearken to the voice of truth, and be wooed and won by its gentle entreaties. Let the scales of ignorance and superstition fall from your eyes. Look upward for truth, and be baptized in its beauteous light, and cleansed in its pure and holy waters. Evil is the assemblage of elements in the concrete, if I may be permitted so to speak, and is simply undeveloped good, or good in a lesser degree. Evil is evanescent and transitory, good is permanent and eternally enduring. The fittest of all things in the grand scheme of progression only survive, while all else is doomed to perish. The good and the true are as enduring and everlasting as the eternal God himself, while the evil and the false are fleeting, unenduring, and carry within themselves the insatiate and unappeasable elements of ultimate annihilation. Be assured of this, for no truth in God’s illimitable universe has been more firmly established on a more indestructible foundation. Good day.
“May 15. Astronomers will tell you that in their observations through the telescope the planet Mars presents a red brilliancy not observably characteristic of the other planets in your solar system, which they are unable to account for. Considering the vastness of the subject, the immense distance in spacewherethe scintillating orbs are chanting their silent songs ofpraise to God, the difficulties in the way of observation, etc., the discoveries in the domain of astronomy have been fully as remarkable, important, and satisfactory, as in any other field of scientific investigation. But still only a very little compared with the immensity of the subject has been disclosed and some of that mixed and interlarded with error. Astronomy will become the greatest of all sciences when by new apparatus and new appliances the spiritual spheres belonging to the various planets shall have been discovered. This success will be achieved in the coming time. On Mars the people have mastered this problem, and I was surprised to learn that they knew all about our spiritual spheres from their far distant standpoint of observation, and that they knew minutely all the characteristic and inherent qualities of your planetary atmosphere. They have long since invented instruments by which they are enabled to photograph in minute detail and perfect fidelity of representation every material object on the earth. And you will be surprised when I tell you that I inspected Stockholm, London, Paris, New York, your own queen city, Cincinnati, etc., in a more perfect form of presentation than your artists can reproduce on canvas with pencil and brush, and at the same time I was standing in spirit in the immeasurable immensity of space on the planet Mars. I can not give you even in outline, much less in detail, the modus operandi of thisachievement, and will only say that the rays of light in reflective power will yet dawn upon your scientists and philosophers as the agent of discoveries and accomplishments not now even dreamed of by the people of earth. I want to addright here a prophetic statement, which you may carefully note, that the time is not so very far distant when your inspired inventors will devise and construct an instrument that will disclose to the human material eye, to the astonishment of the world, your own spirit land; for let it be well understood that your spirit world has a real, tangible, objective existence, that will yet yield its rich treasures in scientific revealments for theenlightenmentand progress of your race. In very truth the spirit world is the only real and permanent one, constructed by the infinite master builder for all eternal time, while your physical and material, except their spiritual essences, are but the shadows and temporary projections from the spiritual. Logically and metaphysically speaking, the spirit world is the pre-eminent cause of your world, the mere transitory effect. This being true, your keen sense hastens you at once to the conclusion, founded in reason and truth, that an effect can not be greater or more enduring than the cause that produced it, but must of necessity and in the very nature of things be infinitely less.
“May 18. A people so pre-eminently advanced in all that appertains to the sublimation of their being, and all that surrounds them, and in which they come in contact, must necessarily be exceedingly refined and æsthetic in their mannerisms, habits of life, intercourse with each other, and in their vocations and employments. In the very nature of things it could not be otherwise. From what has been heretofore said relating to the highly favored and inestimably progressed denizens of Mars, it is not difficult to see that their pursuits must necessarily and almost entirelyrelate to the realm of the intellectual and spiritual, as they have passed beyond the requirements and demands of that which pertains to the material phase of existence. Physical wants require physical exertion to supply them. Material requirements necessitate attention to and labor in the domain of the material, and this, for obvious reasons, that need not be stated or discussed. It may be prudent, however, to premise that when the physical constitution requires substantially gross materials to keep up and maintain the corporealities of our nature, we must look to the productions of the farm and the fruitage of the forest, and also to animal food, which are always in quality and degree in exact correspondence to our status or state of progression. But when we lose theconstituentelements of corporeal being that belong to the lower strata of the constitution of things, we require something more refined and sublimated, and lo, always it is at hand to meet the exigency, for let it ever be borne in mind that the law that is incessantly and without intermission working away in solving the great problem of life and being, moving upward from the lower to the higher, is not confined in its operations to only form or species of being, but applies to and operates upon all, whether rational or irrational, animate or inanimate, and pushes all forward and upward with perfect and precise equability and in exact and equally proportional degree, none advancing more rapidly than the rest and none lagging behind. Thus, you perceive the infinite order and the beautiful symmetry of the great law of evolution and progression. Herein is necessitated varied changes in the value and character of vocation andemployments, suited to the continued mutations of things in the endless series of progressive changes.
“At one period in the history of Mars the art of photography was discovered. Of course it attracted great attention and challenged admiration. It was regarded not only as wonderful but marvelous. The discoverer was almost deified, for he was thought to be endowed with something of the divine nature not discoverable in others, until the art advanced step by step, improvement on improvement, when the divinity with which the discoverer had been invested by the admiring multitudes dwindled into insignificance, and the very sensible conclusion reached that he was merely highly gifted and spiritually inspired, but altogether human still. Compare the primitive system of photography, limited as it was, to objects of immediate presence to that now existing, whereby worlds and systems of worlds are made tributary to its discoveries and achievements. Now, instead of the wonders of the art inspiring hero worship of the men engaged in its studies and who produce the wondrous results, a feeling of awe and veneration for the continually increasing wonders of the creation is inspired. The admiration is justly transferred from man to the creator and the stupendous majesty of his laws and works. On Mars photography is now and has been for a long time a favorite and delightful employment pursued by the many, for all have the advantages of it. Therefore the study, not only of their own world, but numerous others, constitutes a pleasant, instructive, and intellectually remunerative employment. Nor is this confined and limited to materialworlds, but reaches out and embraces the spiritual spheres of each.
“Again, take the science of chemistry. It once only dealt with material solids, but now on Mars it has reached a higher plane or sphere, and the sublimated substances, still possessed of modified degrees of matter, likewise atmospheric and spiritual substances, come within the purview and yield obedience to its powerful processes of analysis. This is still and ever will be an instructive and profitable field for those aspiring minds of the Marsians bent on the acquisition of knowledge and the understanding of the infinitely varied and universal laws by which all nature and the universe are governed and controlled.
“May 22. On Mars the people are divided up into a very great many societies. The membership of these societies is not a matter of choice and volition. Here you have degrees of social society, and you say there are three grades—the lower, middle and upper. This is so in the deceptive seeming, but in fact you have many more, but you do not understand the subtle laws governing in their formation and diversity. You also have secret societies, into which you require the consent of a certain number to gain admission, while at the same time a certain other number may object. Certain arbitrary votes in number control the question of application, and by them your admission or rejection is determined. In your social society quite a different rule or policy prevails. In a certain grade or stratum true merit and worth are not considered of any moment, but wealth and pecuniary par excellence constitute the law of attraction. In other words, and what ought to burn your cheeks with shame, itmatters not how morally depraved or utterly abandoned to all real intrinsic worth of manhood or womanhood, a large supply of the world’s fleeting possessions constitutes the real standard of respectability, and the sure passport into the higher walks of social life. On Mars they have long since passed beyond and above this purely human, unspiritual and unholy rule. There they are known and estimated as they really are, for they can not disguise their moral and spiritual status; it is read in the look, the walk, the thought-words, and most potently in the aura emitted, permeating and coloring the very garments worn, thereby disclosing by shades of color the moral, mental and spiritual degree of advancement. You have an old adage, which contains a very great truth, namely: ‘Birds of a feather will flock together,’ ‘like draws like.’ Under the operation of an immutable law of attraction and repulsion the societies of Mars are formed, and this law, so utterly disregarded by embodied man on the earth, applies to and is operative in the spiritual spheres of all the innumerable worlds of the vast, illimitable universe of God. And this law of attraction and repulsion is indiscriminate and recognizes no distinction on account of wealth, social standing or prominence among men. It deals with spiritual laws and spiritual truths and spiritual things. There being different societies on Mars, formed and governed by this great and inexorable law of selection or attraction and repulsion, you see readily that their employments must of necessity and in some regards be quite different.
“May 29. We have endeavored to keep before you, at the risk of being censured for occasional reiterationand repetition, the great primary and fundamental fact that all things under the divine arrangement advance in the ascending scale of infinite and unending progression by regular and gradual series, and in equal ratio; but you must note an important fact in this connection, namely, that all do not at the same time reach the same degree of unfoldment—some a little in advance of others, and so on. The question necessarily arises, why is this so? We only desire to say in answer at this time that all do not start out on their career of animate being at precisely the same time or under the same conditions, nor with the same or equal antenatal advantages. This carries us back behind our mere entrance into physical life, through and by the laws of human physical procreation, into a domain as yet unexplored, except feebly, by mortal man. It seems to me if men could only perceive and understand the grand sublimity and variety of their antecedent being, they would no longer be blinded to the future greatness and glory in store for them. This subject, if you ever enter upon it, you will find prolific of vast knowledge, immense and perfectly astounding revelations. But the time has not yet arrived for them. The people on Mars, like your own, not starting out on life’s eventful and momentous journey with the same or equal advantages, have necessarily attained unto different degrees of progressive unfoldment, and by reason of this are their different and somewhat differing societies formed. In the same circle, order or stratum of society on earth, the good, the bad and the indifferent associate and seem to harmoniously blend and assimilate. But this is not true in fact. The degree of perfection attainedin moral and spiritual excellence does not govern in their formation, and they are therefore incongruous, unsatisfactory and transitory. On Mars two unequals in progression can not harmonize, for the law rebels, interposes insurmountable barriers, and will not allow it. Those only are associated who harmonize and resemble each other, not in the accumulations of wealth, not in stature, not in facial expressions or outward physical conformation, but those who are drawn together by a sort of soul kinship, of absolute union of soul feeling, sympathetic inclinations and aspirations, having for their basis, as of prime and first importance, an equal degree of spiritual unfoldment. Thus divided and separated, there are very many different societies or orders, each differing in development, inclinations and aspirations, they inevitably have dissimilar pursuits and employments, suited to tastes, wants and abilities, but all conspiring for the general good of all.
“June 1. The people of Mars are not so large in stature as on your earth, nor are they as large as at former periods of their history. The process of progression in casting off the gross, and also by affecting the laws of propagation, has materially reduced the present inhabitants in their physical proportions. Their feet, except in the lower order, are either not shod at all, or are covered by a very light and refined material substance. The nearer the spiritual the people become the less they are affected by grosser atmospheric elements, and this is directly the opposite of your experience. Here the coarser the material make-up the better can the severer conditions of your temperature be borne, and the reason is plain.
“Here some are progressed, physically speaking, in advance of the progress of the elements, and therefore they are detrimentally affected and influenced by them, whereas on Mars a regular advance in development has been reached, and all things now smoothly and evenly pass under the operations of the law. After awhile the same law will commence to thus orderly and regularly operate with you when this difficulty will be happily overcome. The grandest achievement made by progression on Mars has produced the greatest result in the formation of the heads of the people. Phrenology here on earth is but feebly and imperfectly understood, although there is in it a grand and most salutary scientific truth. Here, however, as yet, you have the angular and uneven formation of the cranium, with its attendant angularity of temperament and disposition. On Mars the heads are so exquisitely formed and so harmonious in the external, and so perfectly symmetrical, that you observe and note it at first glance, and following this high and beautiful development is discovered a degree of wisdom and learning perfectly astonishing to a visitor from a foreign, though neighboring planet. The hair on these magnificent heads is of a fiber and texture resembling your finest silk, and from under abeautifullyarched brow you behold a mild yet brilliant eye, beaming with intelligence and affection, and they can convey thoughts and ideas without the use of words or the intervention of audible sound.
“June 5. Hundreds, yea, thousands of years ago, the development of mind on the planet Mars was extraordinary, and you can conceive what it must benow. Many causes, of course, conspired and aided in bringing about this result. The natural process of development would have ultimately accomplished it unassisted by other agencies, but a wise and humane governmental system was adopted,originatingin the spirit world, which constituted a complete innovation upon and revolution in previous systems, and which gave a marked impetus to the growth and advancement of mind, and which produced also a wonderful improvement in the physical constitutions of succeeding generations. That system consisted of a legislative policy of the controlling government, rigidly and unexceptionally enforced, which provided that all children born into physical life should be given up and relinquished to the control and direction of the government, and by the government reared, educated, and prepared for the duties and requirements of life. Elaborate buildings, elaborately and artistically embellished and beautified were constructed at proper and convenient locations, where at a certain period of gestation, very early indeed, the expectant mother was taken and kept until a certain and proper time after parturition, when the mother was discharged and restored to freedom, and the new-born babe was taken charge of, raised and maintained by the fostering care of the government. Between the period of conception and parturition, the mother was continually kept under the most elevating influences, both of body and mind. Her soul was kept enraptured by the ennobling influences of music, and such music, of which you as yet have no conception. This produced in the mother the desired condition of harmony, which had a corresponding effect upon the littleone concealed from mortal view. Twice or thrice a week lecturers, under the pay and patronage of the government, visited these asylums and discoursed to the inmates on scientific, literary, and moral subjects.
“June 8. These discourses were not only designed but efficacious in directing the minds and hearts of the auditors into the most elevating and progressively intellectual channels, and left their inevitable and unfailing impress upon the forthcoming offspring. In addition works of art, rare paintings, and exhibitions of sculpture were at certain times presented for inspection, study, and reflection, inspiring noble thoughts of the sublime and beautiful. Artists of superior attainments and national renown occasionally visited these places and gave exhibitions of their skill in transferring to canvas, in an impromptu manner, their loftiest conceptions of the beautiful in landscapes, scenes, etc., which were of the rarest beauty of design. Books treating of the noblest subjects were placed within ready reach and convenient access, and the inmates read them with avidity and delight. They understood that they were thus preparing the new generations, as yet unushered into life, to take their places, and that their success largely depended on the assiduity with which they availed themselves of their opportunities. The government, as before stated, took charge of the young and trained and educated them in art, music, and the sciences, and the result was soon manifest in producing a race of intellectual giants, and distinguished for their ability in the arts and sciences, and the benevolence or their religious natures. And to-day you can not find a man or woman of adult age who is notperfectly versed in all the higher branches of learning, and eminently proficient in music. If a thousand of them could be bodily transferred to America, and with her exceptional advantages, and live, they would soon, by the sheer force of intellect, rule this world, and lift it morally and intellectually upon a plane that would dazzle you to behold. And yet, my dear friend, it is laid up in the womb of time that you of earth shall reach this sublime height.
“The denizens of earth may wonder at and disbelieve these relations, but nevertheless they are as true as that the eternal God is truth. They point to the destiny in store for the future inhabitants of earth, and intimate to poor disheartened mortals the certainty and greatness of the future, in which they are to figure in no mean way nor act no inconsequential part.
“July 10. On Mars the doctrine of discrimination on the score of sex was never taught, but the equality of the sexes has always been recognized. This indiscrimination has always been operative in employments and in the choosing of persons to fill official station at a period of their history when officers were paid out of the public exchequer for their services. Of course, at this time when office is administered without compensation the rule remains undisturbed. Your troubles, that is, many of them, in the present and past have arisen either from a misunderstanding of the truth or a misapplication of it and its requirements. Can it be rationally maintained that truth and justice require a discrimination to be made adverse to the female? If so, there must be ample reasons for it, and what are they? We are told that,comparatively speaking, woman is the weaker. Is this true? and if so, pray tell wherein? You answer physically, and thus you would establish her status in all other regards, by the rule of mere brute force, powers of endurance, and physical capabilities. Do you not know that the ox and the horse, for precisely the same reason, can largely discount you? Do you not realize that by this argument you are appealing to the lowest element of your nature, that which only distinguishes you as connected with matter, and which as we have already seen, is transitory and fleeting? Pray lift the subject upon a higher and nobler plane and then let us have your arguments and reasoning. Is man superior to woman morally? Now, if you are honest, you must blush. In morals, man superior to woman! We all know this is not true. And do morals count for naught in the scale of being? In what pertains to the finer sensibilities and spiritual pureties is woman inferior? If not, are these of no moment compared with mere physical brute force? Do women survive death as men do; if so, which will be of greatest value in the beautiful hereafter—brute force and physical prowess, which only have existence in the lower realms of the spiritual world, or those finer spiritual qualities possessed by woman in a much higher degree than by man as they manifest in embodied life, and which belong to the higher spiritual sphere of being in the other life?
“Beware, oh man, how you treat angelic woman, for the future will teach you many lessons, brought about by your arbitrary and utterly indefensible assumptions and arrogations, among which will be classed your illiberal and unjust treatment of woman.She is your equal, and your great weakness is in withholding it from her.
“July 13. In giving briefly and very imperfectly a sketch of what I saw and learned on the planet Mars I have been compelled necessarily to omit many things, among other reasons, because they would not only be not believed, but in many instances incite unfavorable comments, if not absolute ridicule. I am not unconscious of the fact that many things contained in the foregoing narrative, although literally true, will meet with unfavorable criticism, but I have not been writing to please or to avoid censure, but to deliver the truth, much of which I am aware is far in advance of the age in which you now live on the planet earth. But it has been thought that a little work of this kind would be kindly received and amiably treated by at least progressed minds—those who had inspirationally and intuitively drank at the fountain of spiritual wisdom and spiritual things; and, as to others, it was hoped it might cause them to think it possible, if not probable, that man is something more than a mere fleeting bauble, a mere creature of a moment.
“To awaken in man the consciousness of the augustness of his being, and the mighty destiny before and awaiting its development, can not fail in this transition period, when you are passing from old theological theories and religious systems into something better, higher, holier, to subserve great and lasting good. In this transition process the great effort is to be made to direct the great body of advancing minds into the right channels, for in many cases the tendency is found to be toward the cold barrenness of materialism.
“The question that is to confront you in the future is not in regard to creeds and dogmas, for they are passing away, but whether these few fleeting years of physically embodied life is the all of your being, whether death is the setting forever of the bright star of our being in the night and gloom of ended existence, or whether there is for man a glorious life of endless progress beyond the life and transitory scenes of physical embodiment.
“July 14. With this my labors for the present end. The effort has been more irksome than you may conceive. The difficulties attending the act of communicating are more numerous and troublesome than the world would allow if they were fully explained. But we have done the best we could.
“To you, Mr. Helleberg, I return my thanks and the thanks of those co-operating with me, for the patience, earnestness and honesty which have characterized your association with us in this work. Our blessings rest upon you, and be assured that your greatest reward will be in the happy land which your aged footsteps are nearing. We shall shield and bless you here, and crown you in the land of immortal beatitudes.
“We would be ungrateful beyond measure not to speak in acknowledgment of the virtues and noble qualities of the medium, through whose superbly developed medial powers we have been enabled to speak to the world. In consequence of our frequent contact with her noble and pure soul our first admiration for her has grown into the deepest, truest and holiest affection. Heaven bless her in all her ways and walks. Her noble band of spirits, tireless, indefatigable andupright, have rendered us vast assistance, without which we could not have succeeded in the slightest degree. They are capable, true and honest, and able to guard and protect their instrument, before whom is a great future career of usefulness, and she may confidently trust them in all things.
“To those who may read my feeble lines I bespeak that charity you would like extended to you. Judge not harshly, but with generous impulse. You are in the realm of crude materiality, in the tenement of flesh, influenced more or less by many disadvantageous surroundings, which are not spiritually inspiring or elevating, but by and by you will survive and pass beyond them. Let me entreat you to study and learn of the great law ofPROGRESSION, which we have constantly endeavored to keep before you. In that law and its manifold manifestations reside all wisdom, love and truth. It is that law that assuresyourfuture greatness and happiness, and will work out for you a destiny, the grandeur and glory of which you can but faintly comprehend and know. You can not die. You must live forever. You can not retrace your steps, nor recede in the development of your being; neither can you stand still. Therefore you must move forward, onward and upward, forever and forever.
“Fredrika Ehrenborg.”
COMMUNICATIONS FROM EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
The following communications, purporting to come from the spirit of Emanuel Swedenborg, at Mrs. Green’s, are arranged in the order of their reception:
September 26, 1881:
“I greet you; good morning. You hail from dear old Sweden, my native land. The same native blood that coursed through my veins flows through yours. For a long time I have realized that your thoughts have been on me and the doctrines I taught on earth, some of which I would gladly recant. In my day nothing else could have been projected through my brain, and nothing less violent, though more truthful, would have engaged attention or commanded respect. My writings, as I now see them, were a strange commingling of truth and error, though I believe with truth largely predominant. I want the world, especially my followers, the disciples of the Church of New Jerusalem, to eliminate, in the interest of truth, the errors and crudities that unwittingly, though reverentially, crept into my theological writings. The hells as I portrayed them I now know were magnified into undue and absurd proportions, colored and distorted by my own preconceived notions, and, moreover, largely attributable to the religious temper and theologic thought of the time in which I wrote. Tell your good companion and others of like convictions to discard at once and fearlessly my unwarranted denunciationagainst holding intercourse with the inhabitants of the spiritual world. I misapprehended, and, alas, misinterpreted the holy visions given me. I was allowed to see prophetically that the two worlds would be brought into close communicating relations, and I ought to have seen farther—that it would occur through and by the permission and co-operative agency of God and his laws, and ought not therefore to be interdicted. This has given me vast annoyance, and I am very solicitous indeed that this shall be righted. Hold fast to this spiritualism, for therein only can be found light and love and wisdom. My power to maintain control is weakening, and I must close for the present. I will meet you here again. Good bye.
“Emanuel Swedenborg.”
October 3, 1881
“In my communication a week ago I referred, not incidentally, but purposely, to my followers of the Church of the New Jerusalem. It is gratifying to me to know that they are in the main honest, faithful and intelligent people; but I regret that they have deemed it proper to resolve themselves into an exclusive sect; for, disguise it as you may, all sects are more or less exclusive. Among the many curses that afflict your mortal humanity, none are to be more deplored than sectarianism and dogmatic theology. Do you know that in the most ambitious moments of my earthly career, much less in the lofty moods of my medial inspiration, I never dreamed that I was to become the founder of a religious sect, especially one based on dogmatic formulas. The affirmations of material science now no longerquestionedthat in allorganized structures reside the underlying, all-pervading and continually operating elements. Disintegration, decay and ultimate destruction of the organized form apply with equal and unerring certainty to ecclesiastical bodies. Modern spiritualism in this, that it is specifically and rigidly scientific, clustering beauteously around the family hearthstone, adorning and hallowing the family altar, may be distinguished by its infinite superiority to all other systems, it having no creed to establish, and steadfastly repelling all attempts at organization, is destined to survive the wreck and demolition of all theological teaching standing in antagonistic relations to it; and this God-given, heaven-inspiring humanity, embracing soul-uplifting spiritualism, is to become the universal religion of mankind. I will continue to administer to your wants and remove the scales from the eyes of the people, especially my followers. More anon.
“Emanuel Swedenborg.”
On October 17, 1881, the following communication appeared on the slate:
“The blessings of the most high God and the benediction of His holy angels and spirits on you and yours. What I most desire to say to you to-day is that since our last interview here I have participated with others in a discussion relative to a recent scientific discovery in the spirit world which, when imparted to the world of embodied man, will strike the learned savants of your life with mingled feelings of awe and consternation. Our recent experiments were exceedingly satisfactory, and the questions that remain open are, when, to who and through whom shallit be given to the children of earth. The general expression of our society favored some time towards the close of the coming year as best adapted. In this view I concurred, for many reasons. My revered friend, let me say to you to-day, with great and positive emphasis, that the year 1882, earth time, will be the most marvelous year of the world’s history, and will be characterized by the most stupendous events in all the circling centuries of past time. In that year and the succeeding one astounding spiritual revelations will be made to the denizens of this earth, utterly upsetting old, effete theological doctrines, and mercilessly demolishing now considered well established scientific conclusions, and your scientists’ tests, self-complacent and arrogant in their pretensions, and possessed most fully of the spirit of vaulted ambition, the creation of their self-conceit, will awake to the consciousness that they have been merepigmiesin scientific research, and that on many subjects may have been so superficial as not to penetrate beyond the mere shadows and surface of things. I promise you that when the proper time arrives for this disclosure you shall not be overlooked or neglected. Bound to you in fraternal relation of a common brotherhood, embracing in grand reciprocation the inhabitants of both the mundane and supermundane worlds, I am yours, devoted for the truth,
“Emanuel Swedenborg.”
June 12, 1882
“If we concede for the sake of argument that there really exists a literal hell, as depicted by theological teaching, and which constitutes an article of faith inmost of the Christian sects, we are forced to inquire (and it is a legitimate subject of inquiry from the assumed premises), Was hell made for man, or man for hell? and this involves the question of duration of existence in point of time antecedent. Whichever way we determine, and our determination of the question from a terrestrial standpoint can only arise from speculation and conjecture, and not from proofs, one conclusion we can not escape, namely, the malevolence of the author. If hell was established prior to the time when thefiatwent forth bringing man into being, and was designed for his abode and accommodation, we can not reconcile the goodness of the Lord with such utterly unjust and malevolent purpose, because to concede this much admits the possession of sufficiency of power to have ordered otherwise, which precludes impotency and concludes the will and purpose to so order and arrange.
“If the creation of hell and man as arbitrary acts of the Deity was coeval, then the same conclusion inevitably follows, before and behind the act of these creations resided in the Lord the power to have differently ordered; hence we must assume that the simultaneous creation of hell and man was predetermined, and in accordance with the will-pleasure and purpose of the Creator.
“If, furthermore, man was first created without any reference to hell or any preconceived purpose or expectancy to establish it, and that its creation was necessitated from man’s unexpected disobedience, and as the only proper means of gratifying the vengeance of an insulted God, then we unwittingly and in a very silly way declare the absence of foreknowledge in theLord, and degrade him to the level of a puny, passionate man.
“To assume any of these puerile positions to be true is to assume that the Lord, however august in power, and the physical, mental and spiritual ability to order and to direct, is nevertheless a moral weakling, and wholly devoid of moral excellence in degree superior to the meanest of his creatures.”
June 15, 1882:
“If hell exists, it is plain to be seen there was a necessity for it. If created before man, there was no necessity for its existence, for the Lord is governed by the idea of uses, and there was present no use for it. Will it be maintained that the Lord would create any thing without a use and wise purpose? It is the uses of things that so signally distinguish his creative and moral governments.
“If it is said in reply that when hell was fashioned and established the Lord had in contemplation the creation of man, and that it was to be subsequently rendered useful as a place of punishment for disobedience, which implies that the Lord knew in advance of man’s creation that he would be disobedient, then, oh, man, you are surely in the hands and under the power of a merciless demon, falsely called God. If this indeed is the true character of our Lord, then truly may his weak and helpless children bow their heads in sorrow and despair.
“These teachers of false theology, these false interpreters of simple truth, these false prophets of a false conception, affirm that this appalling hell, offspring of a monster creative agency, is a fixed locationsomewhere, which they have the candor to say, they know not.
“The theologians perceiving throughout the vast domain of universal nature two confronting opposites or extremes, and that there scheme must fall if hell were left alone to be the final destiny of the entire human family, erect another falsity and construct another place or harbor for the sojourners and pilgrims of earth, and consequently they say that the Lord has established somewhere in space a heaven, the location of which, although a locality, can not be ascertained.
“The same questions, with equal propriety, might be propounded in reference to heaven and the same conclusions follow. Was it made for man or man for it? Was it made before or after man was made? Where is it situate; who go there and why do they go there, and for what purpose? If the theologians answer these pertinent questions in harmony with their creeds, they would make my friend John Calvin, who accompanied me here this morning and is now standing by my side, blush with shame. He now, as a noble spirit, pities the ignorance and credulity that characterized him in his religious frenzy when in the form, and the credulity and weakness of his followers.”
June 19, 1882:
“The original conception of a literal local heaven and hell was a feeble monstrosity and far exceeding the intuitions and anticipations of its originators, it has assumed huge and alarming proportions. Originally it was treated either as a human created joke, or as a wild vagary of the imagination, and in both cases without even the shadow of a foundationin fact. But as time moved along it began to grow seriously in the minds of the morbidly curious and credulously constituted, and it found many earnest advocates and believers, and they were not altogether limited to the ignorant. Had this been the case it would have been harmless and short-lived. The poet in depicting the career of vice aptly illustrates the history of this conception:
“‘Vice is a monster of such frightful mien,As to be dreadedneeds butto be seen.Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,We first pity, then endure, and then embrace.’”
“I unhappily lived in a day when it had been largely embraced. Had I lived in the day when it was conceived and promulgated, or approximately near it and been possessed of the physical, mental and spiritual organization with which I was favored in earth life, I would have undoubtedly earnestly combated it. But in my time it had grown into prominence and general acceptance among Christian sects, including the Lutheran, to which I adhered before my spiritual illumination; and hence while my spiritual mediumistic unfoldment, mental adaptabilities and capabilities would not allow me to accept the literal teaching of purblind theology on the subject, I was disqualified from perceiving and promulgating the real truth. I endeavored, however, to do what the theologians have never attempted, namely, to assign reasons for the existence of heavens and hells in justification and defense of the Lord. The groundlessness of my philosophy and the impotency of my reasoning I was unable to understand until the lapse of years aftermy entrance into the spiritual world, and then only by slow and discreet degrees. Step by step only did I receive the influx of spiritual light and truth, opening my eyes to the truth and impressing my soul with the consciousness of the errors and falsities of my teachings when on the earth embodied.
“In the spiritual world we are not allowed to perceive truth except by degrees and interior growth, and only as we are enabled to outgrow and disown error. Our errors, whether of acts and deeds committed, duties omitted, or false theories, either taught or believed by us when in the form, follow us to the spiritual world and cling to us with a perfectly amazing and persistent tenacity, and this constitutes hell and it exists nowhere else.”
June 22, 1882:
“In my philosophy of correspondences there was much truth, with here and there a shade of error. It was argumentative, speculative, and characterized by analogous reasoning, but not sufficiently intuitive to reach the full height of spiritual induction. But whatever errors may have crept into this department of my writings, they have been comparatively harmless.
“What has given me the greatest annoyance since my departure from the flesh, or rather since I have better understood the subject; and what has given me the greatest anxiety to have eradicated from the minds of those who read me believingly, are my teachings on the subject of the hells in the spiritual world. I desire here to lay down a proposition I know to be true, whoever may state to the contrary, namely: No embodied spirit was ever enabled, no matter howhighly developed the organism of the subject, to leave the body, go into the spiritual spheres, undergo experiences there, behold scenes, hold converse with their inhabitants, witness events and occurrences transpiring there, then return to the body, bring it back into normal action, and then correctly and in detail and in purity of narrative give to the world through the physical organism of the body, what it had seen, heard, and witnessed, during its temporary absence. If it were otherwise, and the spiritual world a real, fixed and objective reality, all who visited it in spirit during physical embodiment, would on returning and reanimating the body with the returning spiritual influx impart the same information and recite the same story. The directly opposite of this is true, and settles the question irrevocably in the negative as to the absolute reliability of knowledge imparted by spirits while inhabiting the natural body, although permitted by the operation of a certain law which is neither wholly spiritual nor physical, but a combination of both, to leave for a short period its tenement of flesh. Even then the spirit entire does not vacate the body, even for an instant of time, for if it did life in the body would become immediately extinct. However far theconsciousnessof the spirit may wander away from its home in the material house it must maintain an inseparable connection with it, at least by a portion of the magnetism of itself. Therefore during its visits away it is nevertheless all the while connected with the body, and hampered and fettered by it, and more or less governed by its laws and conditions. It can not, therefore, on returning, and it has never been wholly absent, give fully,purely, and correctly its spiritual observations and experiences.
“When I visited the spiritual world during my embodied life I was governed by this same law and subjected to the same limitations, and hence what I related was not entitled to full credence and belief. So it has been in all cases of trance in the past, and will continue to be in the future for ages yet to come. In my next I shall speak of some instances illustrative of this truth.”
June 26, 1882:
“As illustrative of the proposition submitted in my last I will only mention a few among numerous instances.
“The book of Revelations states that John visited the Isle of Patmos on the Lord’s day, and was then and there in the spirit. (I should have used the expression ‘entranced’ or ‘trance state,’ or that ‘the Lord permitted me to see.’) While thus in the spirit or trance state he was taken to the heavens. After resuming his normal condition in the body he essays to write out what he thinks he saw, or so much of it as he is enabled to retain in memory, and call up after again fully controlling the physical body. He says that he saw beasts worshiping around the throne of God, and that he saw a beast rise out of the sea with seven heads and ten horns; that a book written in heaven was handed him with the command that he eat it, which he assures us he did, etc. Does any one believe that these were veritable occurrences, ‘that there were beasts in heaven full of heavenly love, evinced in worshiping before the throne, and that books were written in heaven for men to eat? TheKoran of Mahomet is an improvement on this, for it was not eaten, but preserved for use.
“Now, I want to say to the world, especially the New Church people, that my visions of the hells had no more foundation in fact than John’s beasts, dragons and golden candlesticks. The difference between John and myself, that is, the important difference, consisted in the fact that John’s symbolic visions were explained to be unrealities, while I was left to believe mine to be absolute verities. In fact one was as unreal as the other, and only forcibly illustrates the unreliability of this mode of deriving true and genuine spiritual knowledge.
“Your own Andrew Jackson Davis is another instance corroborative of my proposition. He avers that he has been, not ‘in the spirit,’ like John, nor ‘in the trance state,’ like myself, but, in more æsthetic phraseology, ‘in the superior state.’ They all practically mean the same thing. Davis says he located while in the ‘superior state’ the spirit world proper, and found it to be in or beyond the ‘milky way,’ thus inflicting a cruel blow upon the science of astronomy. Astronomy teaches, and correctly, too, as every well informed spirit knows, that the ‘milky way’ is a vast assemblage or constellation of suns, worlds and systems of solar worlds, and yet Mr. Davis was honest.
“Judge John Worth Edmonds, in his earlier mediumship and spiritualistic experiences, visited the other world in spirit, and his description of the hells recorded in his work entitled ‘Spiritualism,’ was somewhat analogous to mine, and very much in harmony with it. His temperament, mental methods and spiritual development were not very dissimilarto mine, and he had been previously as thoroughly grounded in Calvinism as I had been in Lutheranism. So it was but natural that we should see and interpret much alike. Yet in final conclusions we were in absolute antagonism, differing fully as widely as the polesareseparated in distance by terrestrial measurement.
“Truth can not dissemble nor assume deceptive garbs, and all seeing the same things differently, proves that neither could be relied upon, for if they had been true and genuine verities, all would have seen and reported them alike.”
June 29, 1882:
“Since I have been inducted into higher light and blessed with the true knowledge I have been utterly amazed in reviewing my writings, resulting in the discovery of two facts, namely, their prolixity in matter and stupendousness in folly. It seems to me now as almost utterly incredible that in my efforts at the spiritual interpretation of the scriptures I should have written so many absolutely silly and unmeaning things. It becomes my duty, and I can not be happy without it, to make this declaration, however humiliating it may be to me, viewed from your standpoint, but the truth and the peace, happiness and progress of my spirit require it. No work was ever written but what an ingenious metaphysician might not twist out of its every paragraph an assumed interior and mysterious meaning.
“But, after all, I was fortuitous in advancing many ennobling and wholesome truths. In all that I wrote I take greater pride and unto myself much rejoicing in my assaults upon the Lutheran doctrine of justificationby faith alone, and in my enjoining love to the neighbor. However, to believe in and teach the doctrine of love one to another, or ‘love thy neighbor as thyself,’ does not require an inspiration from heaven. It is the doctrine taught by universal nature and in-worked in the web and woof of human nature. To realize and understand it we have only to become even partially civilized and to commune with nature and ourselves.
“A great portion of my life has been devoted to secular pursuits and the study of natural science. I also possessed some inventive genius, and during my purely secular career I was always contemplating, by silent meditation, employing thelatterpart of my life in the study of the properties of the human soul and its relation to the Lord and human life. Therefore when I came to engage the subject, it was not a spontaneous impulsion to it, as some have supposed, although it was immediately attended and characterized by a degree of spiritual illumination and inspiration. I did not approach the examination of the subject wholly free and untrammeled by prejudice and uninfluenced by bias. I had previously conceived thoroughly deep convictions relating to this subject, and I now know no amount of spiritual aid could have possibly eradicated them sufficiently to have allowed the presentation of the plain, unadulterated truth.