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14 
 
 J. M. PEEBLES, A.M., M.D., Ph.D. 
 
SEERS OF THE AGES: 
 
 EMBRACING 
 
 SPIEITUALISM 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. » 
 
 DOCTRINES STATED AND MORAL TENDENCIES DEFINED. 
 
 By J. M. PEEBLES, M. D. 
 
 I have stolen the golden keys of the Egyptians ; I will indulge my sacred 
 fury. — Kepler. 
 
 Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. The highest state- 
 ment of new philosophy complacently caps itself with some prophetic maxim 
 from the oldest learning. There is something mortifying in this perpetual 
 circle — Eueison. 
 
 Master mind and you master the universe. — Perasee Lendinta. 
 It doth not yet appear what we shall be. — Apostle John. 
 
 OFT • 
 
 CHICAGO : 
 
 PROGRESSIVE THINKER PUBLISHING HOUSE. 
 
*^/ 
 
 EDUC. 
 
 PSYGH. 
 
 LIBRAM 
 
p 
 
 REETING 
 
 TO THE 
 
 Risen Spirit of Aaron Knight. 
 
 Love is immortal. Golden is the chain that unites the past with 
 the present. More beautiful is the spirit-blossom for the sweet love- 
 budding of earth. Precious in spirit-history is Yorkshire, England — 
 not so much for his noble descent and clerical culture, as for his 
 happy home there, whose first memories of incarnate life, maternally 
 pure, cling to his soul as lingering melodies from inspired minstrels. 
 Passing early through the pale-curtained doorway of death, to his 
 " Pear Grove Cottage," in the upper kingdoms of immortality, rapid 
 and rhythmic has been thy march of progress. 
 
 Though gathering pearls of knowledge from the risen seers of India, 
 Syria and Greece, storing thy receptive nature with those heavenly 
 truths and divine experiences that abound so full and free for all in the 
 ever-green gardens of the Infinite — thou hast not forgotten thy mortal 
 brothers and sisters, who feel their way in comparative darkness, and, 
 like children, continually cry for light and wise spirit guidance. 
 
 Oft as hearts have ached, tears fallen, or martyred feet, on missions 
 of mercy, have crimsoned the soil, thou hast turned thy calm presence 
 earthward, laden with balms, baptisms and benedictions. 
 
 To me hast thou come in lone evening hours, bringing the dewy 
 freshness of a foreshadowed morning, pearling the veiled momenti of 
 
 iho- 
 
IV aREETINQ. 
 
 despair, diffusing inner sunshine and gladness; in wintry seasons ot 
 discontent, scattering delicious blooms, laden with love's ii.cense, and 
 speaking words of tenderness starry with promise — words so aglow 
 with heavenly instruction as to make music in the blissful homos of 
 the glorified. How oft hast thou come with '' Celestia," " Morning 
 Star " and " Queen of Morn*' — Sisters of Purity — who prelude thy 
 philosophy with the harmonizing melodies of the harp, the lute and 
 the lyre ! How indebted am I to thee for thy symbolic illustrations, 
 logical acumen, originality of thought, and messages warm with 
 sympathy from an overflowing heart ! 
 
 Spirit Brother ! as a feeble token of appreciation and soul-felt 
 gratitude, for thy watch-care and many favors, permit me to dedicate 
 this volume to thee, as one of my immortal Teachers. 
 
 J. M. PEEBLES, M. D. 
 
A NOTED MAN OF THE CENTURY. 
 
 PUBLISHER'S PREFACE TO A REMARKABLE WORK. 
 
 The writer of this volume (translated into several different 
 languages), Dr. J. M. Peebles, whose motto is, "The world is 
 my parish, and truth my authority," is quite as well known 
 in England, in Europe, in Australia and other islands of the 
 ocean, as in his native New England. 
 
 He is now in his eighty-second year, hale and vigorous. 
 His active life as a reformer, especially in the spiritual inter- 
 ests of humanity, seems to have been a "charmed" one, for 
 though four times circumnavigating the globe, as well as 
 traveling by land in nearly all civilized countries, lecturing 
 and writing as he traveled, upon social and religious sub- 
 jects, he has never met with an accident by railway or 
 steamer. He often quotes the passage, "He shall give his 
 angels charge over thee, to keep thee." 
 
 Though his childhood education was strictly orthodox, he 
 early broke away from all Calvinistic shackles into the 
 broader fields of Universalism. This liberal sect took him 
 to the border-land of faith, and there left him; but faith and 
 denominational donations did not satisfy him. His unfold- 
 ing nature sought for knowledge — knowledge of a future ex- 
 istence, its recognitions, conditions and employments. 
 These blessed, soul-satisfying truths he found in Spiritual- 
 ism. Promptly he took his stand upon this rampart of truth 
 over fifty years ago, and his trumpet ever since has given 
 no uncertain sound. While he is an ardent lover of human- 
 ity, he is an enthusiastic hater of shams, crushing creeds, 
 hypocrisy, political diplomacy and moral cowardice. 
 
 While the Doctor is a Spiritualist, he is not, and never has 
 been a one-sided, one-rut man; but has stood in the front 
 ranks of such reforms as anti-slavery, women's suffrage and 
 temperance. He was one of the three that founded the Inde- 
 pendent Order of Good Templars. Upon reaching South 
 Africa on his third trip around the world, he found five 
 lodges of the Templars in Cape Town. 
 
THE PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 
 
 In medicine our Pilgrim (he is often called the "Spiritual- 
 ist Pilgrim") graduated some thirty years ago from the Phil- 
 adelphia (Pa.) University, and is legally the peer of any in 
 his profession; and yet, increasing knowledge and research 
 have lessened his drugs and increased his faith in the psy- 
 chic treatment. The soul and soul-forces, he contends, are 
 the great healers. He is an omnivorous reader and an adept 
 in religious history. When in the British Museum Library 
 (London), he writes: "I am in paradise. Eating and drink- 
 ing have no attractions, and time is not." 
 
 He is a rigid hygienist, eating no animal flesh or fowl, 
 and he neither uses tea nor coffee, tobacco, liquor or wines. 
 These he pronounces expensive, useless injuries, instead of 
 useful luxuries. 
 
 While writing largely for the press and such magazines as 
 the Arena, Mind, Suggestion, Free Thought Magazine and 
 the Psychic Era, he is the author of a large number of books 
 and pamphlets, including "Seers of the Ages;" "Travels 
 Around the World;" "Death Defeated, or the Psychic Secret 
 of How to Keep Young;" "The Christ Question Settled," a 
 Symposium by Hudson Tuttle, Rabbi Wise, W. E. Coleman, 
 Col. Ingersoll, J. S. Loveland, B. B. Hill, J. R. Buchanan, and 
 edited by Dr. Peebles; "Immortality, and Our Employments 
 Hereafter;" "Vaccination a Curse and a Menace to Personal 
 Liberty;" "Spiritualism Versus Materialism;" "What is 
 Spiritualism, Who Are These Spiritualists, and What Has 
 Spiritualism Done for the World?" "Obsession, or the Reign 
 of Evil Spirits." These are handsomely bound volumes. 
 Among his pamphlets are "Three Jubilee Lectures;" "The 
 Soul, Did It Pre-exist?" "The Fiftieth Anniversary of Spirit- 
 ualism;" "Pro and Con of Spiritualism;" "India and Her 
 Magic;" "Spiritualism in all Lands and Times;" " A Critical 
 and Crushing Review of the Rev. Dr. Kipp;" "The Orthodox 
 Hell and Infant Damnation;" "The Pentecost, or a New 
 Heaven and a New Earth;" "Spiritualism Commanded of 
 God;" "The General Teachings of Spiritualism;" "A Plea for 
 Justice to Mediums;" "Dr. Peebles' Eightieth Birthday Anni- 
 versary," and other pamphlets now out of print. The late 
 J. O. Barrett and Prof. E. Whipple have written exhaustive 
 biographies of Dr. Peebles. 
 
 Having been pressingly invited, he is now contemplating a 
 missionary tour through India and Ceylon. He cannot rest 
 from travel. 
 
 This author of "Seers of the Ages" has been connected for 
 
THE PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 
 
 many years with the Free Masons and Odd Fellows, and is a 
 fellow of the Anthropological Society, London; the Psycho- 
 logical Association, London; the Academy of Arts and Sci- 
 ences, Naples; member of the International Climatic Asso- 
 ciation; American Institute of Christian Philosophy; the 
 Victoria Institute and Philosophical Society of Great Britain, 
 etc. This latter institute, the pronounced peer of the Royal 
 Society, sent the Doctor last October a delegate to the instal- 
 lation of Prof. James as President of the Northwestern Uni- 
 versity at Evanston, 111. He was connected with the North- 
 west Peace Commission, was sent by General Grant in 1869 
 as United States Consul to Asiatic Turkey, and was ap- 
 pointed in 1869 to represent the United States Arbitration 
 League in Paris. He is a member of the Universal Peace 
 Union of Philadelphia, contending that arbitration should 
 take the place of war. 
 
 Dr. Peebles delivered the first series of Sunday evening 
 lectures upon Spiritualism ever delivered in London, Aus- 
 tralia, New Zealand and Tasmania. He has truly been a pio- 
 neer pilgrim, and still lectures nearly every Sunday in cities 
 not far distant from Battle Creek. He is an early riser, and 
 diligent worker with the pen, which at times is severe, if not 
 sarcastic, and yet he is one of the most forgiving and genial 
 of men, cherishing not a particle of malice towards his pen- 
 and-ink opponents. 
 
 Though past four score years, and nearing life's setting 
 sun, there is not a fragment of doubt in his mind but that the 
 incompleteness of this rudimentary life will, on some ap- 
 proaching evening time open up into the sunlight of a higher 
 life of unfoldment and ultimate completeness — one God, one 
 law, one brotherhood and one grand destiny for all humanity. 
 
 The real genius of the Doctor's energetic and eventful life 
 cannot be better described than the way he expressed it 
 himself in closing his address at his eightieth birthday recep- 
 tion, in Masonic Hall, Melbourne, Australia: 
 
 "There's nothing like the turning, whirling grindstone of 
 toil to put an edge on the steel of human nature. Laziness 
 I abhor and consider industry the best stuff for the making 
 of saints. Books feed me, while crowds and parlor babble 
 starve me. Often do I go away from the multitude hungry — 
 go into the silence; here is a bread which the masses know 
 not of 
 
 "I have made a success of life because I sought opportuni- 
 ties and molded circumstances. Games do not interest me 
 
THE PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 
 
 as do grasses, gardens and the flowers that I talk with in 
 summer mornings before the rising sun greets me. Come 
 light or darkness, I do not worry. The wild winds that howl 
 purify the air, and the rains that rust the wheat revive the 
 grass. Often misunderstood, sometimes misrepresented, 
 frequently walking on thorn-piercing pavements, I stopped 
 not by the wayside to bemoan the rough pathway, but trav- 
 eled on, inspired by faith within and warmed by the shining 
 sun above me. I never witnessed a starless night. If clouds 
 shut away the glimmerings of the stars from my vision, I 
 knew that they were still above shining, and that the radi- 
 ance of morning light would come. 
 
 "I have no conception of 'tottering' down the decline of 
 life. The phrase is beyond my comprehension. I expect to 
 work on to the very morning of my departure, and sleep into 
 the better land of immortality at the sunset of the same 
 evening. I feel as though I had but just begun to live — to 
 see, to comprehend. I am planning work for twenty-five 
 coming years. Heights rise above me, and I am conscious of 
 the mighty immensities lying beyond. Sometimes, for the 
 moment, a sad thought comes to me when I think that I 
 have outlived so many of my esteemed contemporaries. 
 They are not dead, but my co-workers still. 
 
 "Personally, I am too busy to think about death, and there 
 is anyway, too much fuss made about dying. It is nature's 
 process of laying down a fleshly burden, and of the rising of 
 the spiritual up into the brightness and blessed beatitudes of 
 immortality." 
 
 In conclusion we will say that Dr. Peebles is distinguished 
 as an author, orator, physician and traveler. His name is 
 recognized in every clime that encircles the globe. His 
 kindness and benevolence are too well known to need men- 
 tion. Here is one instance: He gives to us outright the 
 plates of this remarkable book, "THE SEERS. OF THE 
 AGES," and it will be sent forth to our thousands of sub- 
 scribers for a mere pittance. It will be a MONUMENT per- 
 petuating his name long after he shall have passed to the 
 spirit realms, for it will be practically a gift to our subscrib- 
 ers, and an immense number will be distributed in this coun- 
 try and Europe. As to its merits, no other book in the whole 
 realm of Spiritualism excels it in intrinsic value or merit, or 
 will do a greater amount of good in the ranks of Spiritualism. 
 
 J. R. FRANCIS. 
 
T 
 
 HE fioROSCOPE, 
 
 soul, hungering, thirsting soul ! for thee the fountains of the 
 great deep are breaking up, and sweet life-waves, long obscured in the 
 debris of ages, are flowing love at thy feet, " Whosoever will, let hin 
 take of the waters of life freely." 
 
 Truth is immortal, and long after the lips that spoke it have mingled 
 their dust with the Lethean stream, traceable afterwards by the freed 
 spirit, it echoes through the arches of heaven, the choral base of angel 
 song that celebrates the eras of progress. What, then, cares " Brother 
 James," for praise or blame, approbation or censure ? "I testify of 
 myself! " is the language that speaks from his heart, beating along the 
 sun-mantled shores of time " to seek and to save that which was lost/' 
 
 This brother has subpoenaed me, under solemn oath, to write this 
 preface — actually ordered it as a " Thus saith Perasee Lendanta ! " 
 " Well," I said, " tell Perasee, the Italian prince of gods, so majesti- 
 cally calm and commanding, that neither he nor you shall change "one 
 jot or tittle " of my testimony ; nor shall either of you know what is 
 written about you and your work, until the same is stereotyped. This 
 proviso being very meekly accepted, I would like your eyes, dear 
 reader, for a deep insight into the ocean mind of " St. James." 
 Earnest, determined, full of innocent sarcasm which no man can tame ; 
 toned to sympathy, sparkling with wit and lofty thought; beloved 
 throughout America ; himself impressed upon the present age ; a con- 
 5ding companion of his loving brother, John, the disciple of Jesus, it 
 
VI THE HOROSCOPE. 
 
 ia not too much to prophesy, that his book, here offered the world, will 
 be as a sun in myriad homes on the Western and Eastern continents. 
 Let me snatch from oblivion one of his manuscripts, indexing the 
 man himself, bringing us nearer his soul, so buoyant and free, so 
 childlike and parental : 
 
 " Pythagoras lives in sacred memory, as well as in Jamblichus' classic 
 prose. Jesus lives, though the mould is deep over the gardens and 
 olive groves that once felt the pressure of his bleeding feet. Demos- 
 thenes lives in that oration upon the crown. Mozart lives in those 
 undying melodies that inspired with diviner ideals the courtly and the 
 sceptered of Europe. The dewdrop writes its history on the plant ; 
 the stream its on the mountain side ; the fossil its in the rock ; 
 the flower its on the passing breeze; you, yours, dear reader, on 
 the sensorial faculties and future organisms of a world-wide 
 brotherhood, and you will live, too, on earth forever in the 
 forces you put in motion, the work you accomplish, the good you do. 
 I shall live when this parchment will have been smothered under the 
 rubbish of such viewless waste-winds as swept over those fearful 
 midnights that gloomed in darkness the mediaeval ages. Inspiration 
 over-swept and over-arched all the past generations. There were 
 paradises lost and gained, scores of centuries since; and, during their 
 growth, or decline, Spiritualism, in some form, was a star of promise in 
 their midst. It is to-day a light, a voice, a power from heaven — a 
 divine power acknowledged by millions, rolling the " stone " of doubt 
 away from the door of a long entombed humanity. It is not only 
 the " second coming," but virtually a continuous coming in the clouds 
 of heaven with attending angels, the hope and the pledge of universal 
 redemption.'* 
 
 The Pastophora is the production of years of close and severe 
 searching, amid other pressing claims upon his attention. With 
 indefatigable labor, James has gathered rich lore where others saw only 
 alloy. A band of spirits, some of them very ancient, and all lovers of 
 antiquity, desirous of blossoming into life " things new and old,'' has 
 directed his mind and his steps adown the sombre walks of the past, 
 
THE HOROSCOPE. YU 
 
 amid the brooding silence of buried civilizations. The pyramids had 
 voices for him ; the obelisks glared forth a hidden mystery in their 
 inscriptions; rocks and tombs, scepters and swords, dust and 
 ashes, all bore traces of oracles that once built kingdoms and 
 empires, all were prints of events readable under the spirit- 
 vision of his guides, aflash with the truth that ministering angels 
 have ever been the arbiters of human destinies. The Pasto- 
 PHORA is the faithful record of this pilgrimage of study offered 
 now to the world as a beautiful repository of " Ancient and 
 Modern Spiritualism." It is doubtless the first and only work ever 
 published that has placed the past wave-eras, with their representative 
 spiritual chieftains, in chronological and systematic order. As such, in 
 construction at least, it is " something new under the sun." A book 
 of biographical and spiritual reference, it is of inestimable value. 
 Its literary and philosophical qualities are obviously of a high tone, 
 both in style and sentiment, all throbbing through with a pure love of 
 truth, and a deep reverence for whatever ennobles humanity and lifts 
 it up to divine life. 
 
 The greatest difficulty he has had to encounter, amid such a 
 profusion of spiritual evidences, was to do justice to the great multitude 
 of witnesses rising on every side, demanding a hearing. In his descent 
 into the ocean of the past, he found so vast a plain of precious pearls, 
 there is not room to enshrine them all in this beautiful cabinet ; but 
 enough are gleaned to show that our heavenly philosophy, like silver 
 veins, branches in all possible directions — a vast and inexhaustible mine 
 of immortal wealth, exhuming for incorporation into the spiritual 
 temple we build. A complete analysis of the spiritual phenomena, 
 variegated with eclectic beauties, sweet with the love of truth, it may 
 be properly styled — " Paradise Regained." 
 
 Another attractive feature is its spiritual symbolism — 'which is the 
 language exalted angels use — conveying to the senses, as well as 
 understanding, truth set as diamonds in gold — a speculum of the 
 spiritual philosophy reflecting the " soul of things." Even the title 
 of the book is peculiarly significant. 
 
Vni THE HOROSCOPE. 
 
 Pastophora is lexicographically related with pastor — shepherd — 
 iudicative of ministerial office for the protection of the religious flock. 
 It is originally rooted in the Sanscrit — the oldest language in the 
 world; and, used in the plural, Pastophorae, literally means dwellers 
 in the temples. It is, therefore, a most beautiful title, euphonious in 
 pronunciation, symbolizing the inner life, burning as a Shekinah 
 watch -light to the worshiping soul in its own "holy of holies.' 
 
 The interested reader will also inquire into the meaning of the 
 symbols on the back of the book — the cross^ triangle^ and circle. As 
 he carefully peruses these pages, he will discover that the data of the 
 world's progress in civilizations center in India, whose religious symbol, 
 providential as it seems, is the circle, representing God, the Universal 
 Soul. 
 
 All things are trinal — body, soul and spirit; man is this perfect 
 trinity — the cross, the triangle, the circle. Geologically our world 
 started from the circle. It extended then to the broadness of its 
 orbit in a gaseous condition incipient to crystalization. Contracting, 
 the elements were angularized — divided, sharp-pointed, battling, vol- 
 canic, developing latent force, crystalizing into extreme individuality — 
 the cross of crucifixion — when the law of reaction obtained, tending to 
 centrality again — the leveling down of mountains — the leveling up of 
 valleys, encircling all in harmony. 
 
 Religion is but the laws of nature spiritualized — love married to sci- 
 ence — the angel of heaven acting in practical life. Religion dates in 
 the golden circle — in the tropics — the India of love. Have you noticed 
 that civilization began there, and veered northward to be crystalized 
 into sparkling intellectuality by a colder climate ; spreading itself over 
 Europe, thence westward in parallels to America, across the Pacific to 
 Asia, and gradually settling back, laden with mental riches, to the 
 tropics again ? All things move in circles. India is the birth-place 
 of religion — the Eden — the conjugal circle of soul. How appropriate, 
 then, is the circle to represent her parental relations with all races, 
 governments, and improvements ! The embryonic religion of mankind, 
 
THE HOROSCOPE. IX 
 
 India is seen in the spirit world by the sign of the circle- -full-orbed 
 and golden. 
 
 Egypt is the child of India, less aflfectional in faith, but more astro- 
 nomical, philosophical, and practical — the daughter, whose name is 
 Science, The Ganges and the Himalayas are so vast, clouded, mystic, 
 they inspire awe, and, in so sunny a clime, unfold an exuberant con- 
 templation of soul — a poetic religious idealism that enchants every 
 sense and imparadises every thought. Egypt is tamer, not so melan- 
 choly, not so vast and spiring, not so cloudy and luxurious, not so mel- 
 low and musical. The Nile, mysterious as the Ganges, alluvial and 
 inundating, is not so sweetly imbosomed in the shadows of great 
 mountains and protective banyan forests. Egypt has more burning 
 sands, more raging sea from the north vexed with storms, more poison 
 in her desert winds. Hence, her inhabitants have more angularity of 
 character. She is spiritually tropical ; but nature's battles make her 
 contentious, intellectual, fiercely just, the manufacturer of an implaca- 
 ble hell, and of a delightful Elysium across the stormy lake of death. 
 She is, therefore, the circle geometrically changed into a right-angle- 
 triangle. She is three-sided, pyramidal, with stars for heart-beats. 
 Egypt courting science from very love, her horoscopic sign in the spirit 
 world is the right-angle-triangle. 
 
 But there must be body to this trinity ; the perfect individuality of 
 principle. Palestine, whose people were born and disciplined in the 
 slaveries of Egypt, is a little colder, variegated, and on a smaller scale. 
 The Mediterranean, dashing with awful roar against her shores, is the 
 warning voice of the great Jehovah, angry at the sins of his chosen 
 children. The Jordan is swift and acrid. The valleys and brooks are 
 contracted. Horeb and Sinai and Lebanon are wrapt in jealous soli- 
 tudes. The Egyptio-codes of Moses, intensified to rigorous penalty, 
 enforce order and racial nationality. What, then, is the Jewish char- 
 acter ? Selfish, arrogant, narrow, jealous, and arbitrary. Judaism, spir- 
 itualized, is Pauline Christianity — the aggressive sword — the Protestant- 
 ism of India — the hody in the triune development — the religious body 
 for tho 3ouI of Egypt and the spirit of India. What, then, is the sign 
 
X THE HOROSCOPE. 
 
 of CliristiaDity in the immortal horoscope ? The cross, indicative of 
 doctrine, of individuality, of progress towardi the circle of the 
 Harmonial Philosophy. 
 
 So religion, like every other law of life, repeats itself; moves in cir- 
 cles j inversely from circles in incarnations to angles and crosses, and 
 from these back to the circle, spirally climbing round and round in 
 infinite progression. Nothing, then, is lost. All that India gives, or 
 Egypt, or Judea, or America, are translated into newness of life, as the 
 inheritance of the ages to come. 
 
 The Pastophora, thus set in prism, is this beautiful trinity expressed 
 — all religions essentially comprised in its circle of philosophy, dividing 
 and sparkling with angular points of electric thought, and blending 
 again in rainbowed drops for oceanic love. 
 
 Read then, world searching for light, carefulJy read these breathing 
 pages, redolent with words that burn ; and then rank the book where 
 it belongs, with the standards of Spiritualism, and, with gratitude, 
 thank Grod and take courage under the glory that flashes from all 
 inspired pens, and throbs in all honest bosoms, bared so freely to the 
 arrows of persecution as a bulwark of defence to more spiritual and 
 angelic generations coming. 
 
 If this volume severs a mental chain, frees a creed-crushed soul, piucks 
 a thorn from a human pathway, planting a rose there, sheds a kindling 
 ray of light upon a pilgrim's path, or causes even a tremulous smile to 
 brighten the brow of sorrow and suflfering, then is the author satisfied — 
 aye, richly blessed, for he finds his highest happiness and sweetest 
 blessing in blessing others, 
 
 J. 0. BARRETT. 
 
 New Year's Day, 1869. 
 
y 
 
 ECTURE I, 
 
 3pirit of the Present Age. 
 

 p 
 
 HAPTEf^ I. 
 
 SPIRIT OF THE AOE 
 
 «* All grim and soiled, and brown with Um, 
 I saw a Strong One, in his wrath. 
 Smiting the godless shrines of man 
 Along his path." 
 
 •* My soul is not a palace of the past, 
 Where priest-worn creeds, like Rome's gray Senate, quakei 
 Hearing afar the vandal's trumpet hoarse. 
 The time is ripe and rotten ripe for change; 
 Then let it come !" 
 
 Progress is God's right hand angel ! It is the Christ in 
 our midst, working by methods mystic as the pictured sym- 
 bols in the Patmos Visions. Its laws diverse, inverse, and 
 often unfathomable, ever act to the same divine purpose of 
 physical refinement and spiritual unfoldment. 
 
 Causation is infinite. Change is a necessity of nature. 
 Essential Spirit — that all-interfusing force-presence, fi.lling 
 immensity, and being causative, does and eternally wiU act 
 upon matter. 
 
 Something from nothing, a self-evident absurdity, there are 
 no absolute creations in the universe, only new and higher 
 formations. Spirit and matter both eternal ; spiritual sub- 
 stance in connection with physical substance in its various 
 gradations, constitute one co-eternal duality. 
 
 Spirit is independent of matter relative to mere existence; 
 yet dependent upon it for its manifestations. 
 
 13 
 
14 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 The God-principle or Divine Energy immanent in, and c 3n- 
 nected with, the dual forms of matter and spirit, must ev6r 
 produce motion, disintegration, evolution and pulsations 
 towards perfection. The old dies that the new may sing of 
 birth, maturity, victory. 
 
 The past with its lengthened shadows and suns, its defeats 
 and triumphs, was well; so were frightful explosions, during 
 the old Plutonian period. Fossils in silurian rocks were 
 deeply significant as treasured histories of primeval life, 
 bespeaking higher organized existence; and so even the 
 possible of man, as prince of immortal nature, during com- 
 ing geologic epochs. 
 
 " All bloom is fruit of death ; 
 Creation's soul thrives from decay, 
 And nature feeds on ruin; the big earth 
 Summers in rot, and harvests through the frost, 
 To fructify the world ; the mortal now 
 Is pregnant with spring-flowers to come ; 
 And death is seed-time of eternity I " 
 
 It is folly, maddened by bigotry, to ask the thinkers of the 
 nineteenth century to hold the flag-staiFs of the ancients. 
 Parchments are fixtures. While neither constitutions nor 
 creeds "-row, souls do. As well strive to fill our arteries with 
 the crimson blood that coursed the veins of Jewish patriarchs 
 and priests, as to appropriate their thoughts, commandments, 
 or religious experiences, forgetful of the living present, 
 hoping thereby to have our spiritual life vitalized. Shall we 
 
 " Load our young thought with the iron shirt, 
 By bigots raked from some Judean grave-yard's dirt ? " 
 
 The yesterdays are gone; let them go ! The good of the 
 past preserved and reconstructed, Americans have to do with 
 the to-days, and a brightening future stretching in mellowed 
 radiance, deepening in significance, gorgeous with hope, and 
 prophetic of a coming Eden, whose crowning glories shall 
 be harmonial men and women, being laws unto themselves. 
 True, the present strikes its ruots back into the past. It is 
 
SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 15 
 
 our legacy ; and, so far as it speaks truth to the soul, let us do 
 homage at its shrii e. 
 
 All those brave souls, Pythagoras, Plato, Anaxagoras, 
 Confucius, Jesus, John, and others, martyred for principle, 
 greatly advantaged and beautifully enriched the succeeding 
 ages by wise utterances that have streamed in golden splen- 
 dors down to the present. They were helps, having helped 
 hummiity ■ and yet, they are not our masters — not infallible 
 guides. Wisdom did not die with them, and therefore they 
 must not talk to us authoritatively. 
 
 Each should be his own authority. God speaks to us just 
 as frequently and fatherly as he did to Jewish seers. Seeing 
 in every valley a Jordan, in .every sectarian church a "dead 
 sea," in every aspirational heart an altar of worship, in every 
 w^oodland eminence a mount of ascension, and in every 
 child an embryo angel, what special need of Hebrew bounty, 
 styled " Revelation? " 
 
 Those must indeed be "babes and sucklings," who will 
 persist in partaking of manna — the history of bread nearly 
 two thousand years booked — and dried fruit generally, when 
 spiritual vineyards are clustering with grapes, and orchards 
 are bending under a ripened luxuriance, and inspirations, like 
 benedictions, are coming each day from heavenly realms. 
 
 It is difficult to Jerusalemize x\nglo Saxons. If the soul- 
 lamp would burn brightly, illumining the living now, it must 
 be lit from such inspirational fire-fountains as the wants of 
 this age have kindled. Robes may have been well for Aaron, 
 fox-chasiiig for Sampson, grazing for Nebuchadnazzar, tent- 
 making for Paul, locusts for the Judean Baptists, and manna 
 for Israelitish wanderers ; but '* give us this day our daily 
 bread ;" that is, daily truths and principles, all alive with love 
 from the many-mansioned homes of the angels. The waster 
 diould be the builder; and the hand that carries the " torch 
 for the burning," should also carry the hammer for building 
 better. Sectarian churches, doubtless, are partial necessities, 
 and for the time being, well; as were baptismal waters for 
 John's disciples; but give us the baptism of the Holy Spirit; 
 
16 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 or the descending divine afflatus from celestial hosts, submerg- 
 ing and suffusing our natures in a measureless ocean of purity 
 and wisdom. 
 
 The revengeful, repenting, personal God of Judaism satis- 
 fied the demands of the Hebrews. They could grasp no 
 higher conception of the infinite incarnate life-principle of 
 the universe. It still satisfies millions of conscientious 
 churchmen, with more zeal than knowledge, who strive to 
 fill themselves upon the mouldy crumbs that fall from the 
 oily lips of ordained Rip Van Winkles, who " say " theii 
 prayers instead of doing them, and ^^ profess" instead of 
 possess the Jivine principles of the absolute religion. 
 
 What pining I what leanness and lankness even in liberal 
 churches ! what moanings from the pulpits over " bleeding 
 Zion ! " what quiet slumberings in the pews ! what efforts to 
 make special engagements with God during winter-seasons 
 for *' revivals ! " Oh what a thin, dry, fleshless, marvelously 
 lifeless, soulless '' Skeleton," is Orthodoxy ! E'umbers bitterly 
 feel it to be thus, yet cling from fear, or motives of policy, 
 to its bleached bones and encrusted symbols. Others, good 
 at heart, yet timid, fearing the loss of position, continue to 
 preserve their ecclesiastical connections, faithfully hugging 
 their theologically "dead mother's breast! " 
 
 The wisdom of importing all our religion from Asia-Minor 
 is more than questionable, since God is as present with us as 
 with the Asiatics, inspiration being a universal in-breathing 
 from the Infinite. 
 
 <' He sends his teachers unto every age, 
 To every clime, and every race of men." 
 
 The remembrance of corn that yellowed in Kearon's 
 valle} 3, the milk and honey that flowed in the lands of 
 Canaar., and the figs and pomgranates that reddened around 
 Olive's mountain, gladdening the disciples of the I^azarene, 
 can not satisfy spiritual hunger; nor can the Jewish crude 
 notions of retrogressive demons and sacrifices offered a per- 
 sonal, local, jealous God, satisfy the growing desires of our 
 
SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 17 
 
 inmost nature. Church doctrines are but husks to spiritual 
 consciousness. John Wesley, in an inspired moment, said : 
 " I am sick of opinions ; give us good works and the faith 
 of practical benevolence." Scaffoldings are necessary only 
 during the processes of building ; and chaff, after the ripening 
 of the grain, is but sport for the winds ! Why, old theology 
 appears about as pitiable as would the ancient Hebrew 
 method of treading out corn beneath the hoofs of lazy oxen, 
 to a spirited western farmer in charge of a modern threshing 
 machine. 
 
 When human bodies die, sectarists have good sense enough 
 to bury them from sight; but when their creeds perish, 
 becoming as offal to investigators, they strive to embalm 
 and preserve them beneath gothic piles and costly cathe- 
 drals, to the merriment of metaphysicians and the almost 
 infinite sorrow of angels. As well strive to bind the waters 
 of the ocean with a rope of sand, or hush the winds fresh 
 from ^olus hand, as to bid the currents of free thought 
 cease circulating among inquiring masses that dare to assert 
 their independence. Popes and priests have measurably 
 been shorn of their power. Century-mossed systems have 
 lost their vitalizing force, and creedal ceremonies have become 
 dull and irksome. 
 
 The great throbbing heart of humanity calls for living 
 inspirations, and greater, grander truths fresh from the 
 Father and the angels that do the divine will. Emerson, in 
 an address to the Senior Theological class at Cambridge, 
 said : 
 
 " It is my duty to say to you, that the need was never greater of a 
 new revelation than now. From the views I have already expressed, 
 you will infer the sad conviction which I have, I believe with numbers, 
 of the universal decay and now almost death of faith in society. The 
 Soul is not preached. The Church seems to totter to its fall — almost 
 all life is extinct. I think no man can go with his thoughts about him 
 into one of our churches, without feehng, that what hold the public 
 worship once had on man — is gone, or going. It has lost its grasp on 
 the affections of the good, and the fears of the bad. The prayers and 
 even the dogmas of our church are wholly isolated from anything now 
 extant in the life and business of the people." 
 
 9 
 
18 ■ DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 A perfectly vigorous and original life, founded upon the 
 science of the soul, is what seems fit and admirahlj adapted 
 to the genius of this country, now freed from the blight of 
 oppressive institutions; and this life-status is to be supreme, 
 sure as physical landscapes are reflected in individual char- 
 acter, as climate affects religion. 
 
 "Light! more light!'' relative to immortality, the soul's 
 capacities and to the glories of an infinite future, is the 
 demand of our growing humanity. In answer thereto the 
 church offers us " faith " and clerical leading strings, sanc- 
 tified by custom, telling us to be good, submissive, quiet 
 "babes in Christ; " and then, just over Jordan, we shall find 
 the jasper city paved with gold, and musical with saints 
 serenading " the Holy One of Israel ! " But this faith 
 imparts no free, spontaneous energy. It soon degenerates 
 into a languishing formality, a dry cant, a narrowing non- 
 descript, an inexpressible churchianic hybrid between life 
 and death, as " revival " confessions demonstrate. Faith is 
 elemental in the human mind, but this ecclesiastic faith, devoid 
 of reason, and " without works," is dead ! The eccentric 
 Carlyle says, that, "just in the ratio that knowledge increases, 
 faith diminishes; consequently, those that know the most 
 always believe the least." 
 
 The age demands, not aping shadows, gloved gentry, nor 
 cowled clergymen fashioned to order in '* Theological Semi- 
 naries," bewailing the sins of Greeks and Jews, and aiming 
 arrows of rebuke at the poor Hittites and Moabites — not 
 sluggish conservatives infected with stagnant, deathly torpor, 
 staying on earth as do oysters in their bed, praying for the 
 Millennium, because they then hope to " sit " — sit under 
 *' ambrosial" vines — fearing to brush down cobwebs in their 
 temples lest the roof fall in, and piously opposing the " new 
 moon," out of a profound respect for the old, forgetting the 
 Carlylean maxim, that the " old skin never falls from the 
 serpent till a new one is formed ; " but it demands men and 
 women enthusiastic and full-orbed, who see in every soul a 
 possible Christ, in every life a symbol-thought of God, in every 
 
SPIRIT OF TUE AGE. 19 
 
 well-timed bath a baptism, in every day a Sabbath, in every 
 house a living temple, and in every heart an altar of worship 
 whereon the fires of love and devotion are kept as incense 
 continually burning, making all life's hours precious like the 
 Eastern tig-tree that bears in its bosom at once the beauty of the 
 early bloom and the matured glory of most delicious fruitage — 
 who are full of warm blood, deep sympathies, and great 
 moral independence, whose arguments against home-sins 
 hit, whose shots tell, eyes flash, words convince, lips per- 
 suade, and inspirations touch the heart's best affections, 
 calling down sweet love-baptisms from on high — who will 
 speak the whole truth, as they see it, and actualize it in lives 
 consecrated to divine uses, though the fire, the faggot, and 
 cross are in full view — who, holy and rapt and mystic at 
 times, as John of Patmos filled with ode, rhapsody and lyric, 
 uttering from the depths of the inner consciousness divine 
 principles, as with tongues of fire, causing them to sing 
 through the corridors of the soul's memory-chambers, awak- 
 ening to resurrectional beatitude all those finer impulses of 
 kindness, forgiveness, and devotion to the right, the just, the 
 true, and the beautiful, that slumber in the sacred heart of 
 our common brotherhood. Then will the kins^dom of God, 
 SO long the burden of prophecy and prayer, become as prac- 
 tical an institution as it is progressive on earth — the ideal then 
 being realized now — all to the glory of our divine humanity. 
 
 " The new is old, the old is new, 
 The cycle of a change sublime, 
 Still sweeping through I " 
 
Chaptei^ II. 
 
 SPIRITUAL RATIOS. 
 
 "All matter is God's tongue, 
 And from its motion God's thoughts are sung. 
 The realms of space are the octave bars, 
 And the music notes are the sun and stars." 
 
 The Infinite Spirit is the infinite substance of the universe, 
 the only absolute reality, and Nature, as a garment, is the 
 manifestation of this reality to the senses. The conscious 
 human spirit, as the innermost of man, is an essential portion 
 of the Infinite, pure and eternal — a divine center — a celestial 
 compass with an infinitude of points, bearing fixed relations, 
 when in conjunction with grosser matter, to time past, present, 
 and future. Time is not a thing yer se, but only the record 
 of a series of impressions made upon the spiritual sensorium. 
 
 "All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
 Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." 
 
 Each thus connected with all, and human nature the same 
 in all ages, the present generation has much to do in turning 
 to good account the gathered experiences of the past, in 
 finding the " lost arts," and measuring the folly and wisdom 
 of those ancient eras, though grayed with countless decades. 
 
 Waves of progress, moving in cycles, continually overlap — 
 the highest reaching the shores, and there writing their 
 thoughts on crystal reams and defiant rocks. The past, then, 
 with its long shadows — symbols, hieroglyphics, poetry, 
 
 20 
 
SPIRIT OF THE AGE SPIRITUAL RATIOS. 21 
 
 paintings, proverbs and rabbinical lore — converges in the 
 present. Aye, the grand old past! — it reaches down its 
 multitudinous hands to us from the Atlantis, from India and 
 Egypt, from Syria, Greece and Rome ; from bannered cities 
 long sanded from sight; from ancient temples whose golden 
 gates dazzled like suns; from old Gothic cathedrals and 
 Norman castles magnificent even in ruins. 
 
 Unto us, from all surrounding zones, worlds and realms, 
 have poured the streams of eternal life. Rock and ocean, 
 storm and stars, light and darkness, saint and savage, god 
 and demon, with the boundless and fathomless deeps of 
 undying love, have all contributed to make up our physical, 
 mental and spiritual organizations. To every point of the 
 compass in the infinite domain of space, may souls send out 
 their feelers and meet a glad response. 
 
 Our particled bodies may exchange with the minerals, the 
 soils, the fruits; our spiritual structures, with the fine ethere- 
 alized essences and ultimates that infill the surroundino- 
 regions; while the deific within, through aspiration and 
 effort, may continually come into diviner rapport with the 
 great, beating, throbbing, loving heart — the Infinite Soul of 
 the universe — God. 
 
 This true, the past, with its deep rich veins of experience, 
 its half-buried yet glittering treasures, and its inexhaustible 
 tomes of classic riches, is to us in value above what human 
 speech can express, painter transfer to canvas, or author 
 describe. The legitimate work of the historian is to unveil 
 and present to the people of to-day a speaking panorama of 
 the extinguished ages. This measureless period termed the 
 imst, when organized and comprehended in its broadest sense, 
 rounds up as the great drama of humanity — as the living epic 
 of human progress — the forecourt of a more transcendent 
 futurity. 
 
 The historian, however, is not the bare fact-gatherer. 
 Mere facts may be as devoid of scientific value as fictions. To 
 reach truth there must be a selection of well-attested facts, 
 with their just moral value affixed. These, put into the 
 
22 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 crucible of reason, systematized, grouped in order, and 
 organized in accordance with the best methods of philo- 
 sophic research, must also be critically weighed with reference 
 to their producing causes. This done, they naturally 
 crystalize into, harmonize with, and help constitute truth. 
 
 While many spirit ripples have danced upon the sea of 
 progress, three mighty waves have loomed up on the ocean 
 of the ages — ancient, mediaeval and modern Spiritualism. 
 The first, shedding its kindling glories in India, Egypt, China 
 and adjoining nations, threw such an effulgence of baptisma. 
 beauty over the more cultured of those earlier civilizations, 
 that all the subsequent declining eras were illuminated even 
 down to the birth of the lN"azarene. Mediaeval Spiritualism, 
 dating from the advent of Jesus, that eminent Judean Spirit- 
 ualist, enriched the Platonic thinkers of Alexandria, enno- 
 bled the statesmen of Greece, quickened the orators of Rome, 
 encircled in light the footsteps of seers and martyrs, pierced 
 with scattered sunbeams the gloom of the dark ages, inspired 
 those old reformers, and tinged with a divine brightness the 
 progressive movements that marked nearly twenty centuries 
 preced ug the " Kochester Rappingsl" This last spiritual 
 wave id familiar to us all. 
 
ECTURE II 
 
 / 
 
 u. 
 
 NCIENT filSTORIC SPIRITUALISM 
 
Jl^HAPTEI^ III. 
 
 15DIAN. 
 
 ** Searching ancient records lately 
 In a dusky nook we found 
 An old volume grand and stately, 
 \i on clasped and parch t^ient bound. 
 
 "The five hundred uiiliiou Brahminic and Buddhist believers hold 
 all the gods, men, demons, and various grades of animated life 
 occupying this innumerable array of worlds compose one cosmic family." 
 
 India ! author of races — birth-place of art, science, sculp- 
 ture, fragrant with the lotus — dreamy with emotions and 
 aspirations kindled by the warmth of tropic suns ! Mother 
 of religions, India abounded with the poetic, the visionary, 
 the spiritual. 
 
 Multiform are the evidences of a conscious communion 
 between mortals and the inhabitants of the spirit world, 
 blossoming along the borders of Time's earlier mornings. 
 All things, from atoms to astral worlds, move in spirals — 
 cycles being the subjects of law. 
 
 *'A spiral winds from the worlds to the suns. 
 And every star that shines 
 In the path of degrees forever runs, 
 And the spiral octave climbs." 
 
 Nations, as men, are born, grow, mature, and die ; or they 
 ascend and descend, as sea waves rise and fall. There were 
 golden ages with heroes, poets and scholars, thousands upon 
 
 25 
 
26 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 thousands of years before the reputed Adam ate the "fur- 
 bidden fruit" that mellowed along the banks af the Euphra- 
 tes. Plato, in the Timmaeus, speaks of a vast island, larger 
 than Lybia and Asia combined, that, nine thousand years 
 before his time, had its kings, priests, soldiers, arts, guardian 
 gods and goddesses. This thickly-peopled isle, or, more pro- 
 perly, continent, owing to a fearful earthquake or some other 
 violent concussion of nature, sank in a single night into the 
 ocean and disappeared forever. 
 
 Le Can, an eminent Mongolian scholar, personally assured 
 us that the Chinese measure time by dynasties; that their 
 sacred historical works, extending back in a line forty-four 
 thousand years, contain many accounts of commerce ceasing, 
 because of the sinking of large islands and the rising of 
 immense continents from the ocean's depths. Among the 
 most prominent of the great nations of old whose footprints 
 were encircled in the light of spiritual phenomena and inspi- 
 rational truths, uttered by seers, seeresses and oracles, we 
 mention Egypt, China, India, Syria and Persia. These 
 either carved their gospels in symbols and hieroglyphics, or 
 penned them on scrolls — Yedas and Avestas. 
 
 That profound linguist, Miiller, of All Souls' College, 
 Oxford, says, "Every learned man knows that the Hebrew was 
 not, as Jerome and other Church Fathers taught, the oldest 
 or primitive language of mankind." The Sanscrit of the 
 old Hindoos was a much more ancient and a far more perfect 
 language. This was in its full flush of glory more than five 
 thousand years ago. 
 
 Even Sir William Jones awards to some books, now extant 
 in Sanscrit, an antiquity of four and five thousand years. 
 Rev. Mr. Maurice, as quoted by Higgins, thinks the Bhagavat 
 Gita, so marvellously rich in thought relating to the immor- 
 tality of the soul and pre-existence, was written over four 
 thousand years since. That fine Scotch scholar. Lord Mon- 
 boddo, wrote in 1792, that the "language of the ancient 
 Brahmins of India was a richer and in every respect a finer 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — INDIAN. 27 
 
 laiiffuaore than even the Greek of Homer." Another Euro- 
 pean scholar of great renown says the Sanscrit was a written 
 and spoken language hundreds of years before Abraham 
 appeared on the plains of Shinar, and long before the Hebrew 
 language had an existence. 
 
 M. Ernest Renan, in his history of the "Shemitic lan- 
 guages," says: ^' The birth-place oi philosophy is India, amidst 
 an inquisitive race, deeply pre-occupied by the search after 
 the secret of all things; but the psalm and the prophecy, the 
 wisdom concealed in riddles and symbols, the pure hymn, the 
 revealed book, are the inheritance of the theocratic race of 
 the Shemites — Assyrians, Chaldees, Arabians, Hebrews and 
 cognate tribes." He further adds: ''The Shemite race has 
 neither the elevation of Spiritualism, known only to India, nor 
 the feeling for measure and perfect beauty bequeathed by 
 Grreece to the l!Teo-Latin nations." 
 
 It is generally conceded by all learned Orientals that a 
 large portion of the writings of the Brahmins is anterior to 
 any part of our Bible. In style and spirit they are eminently 
 superior, abounding in the grandest conceptions of Deity, 
 and in communications from the gods, demi-gods, manes and 
 spirits. The Yedas, Puranas, Upanishads, Rig- Veda Sanhita, 
 Bhagavat-Gita, Ramayanna, etc., are full of myths inlaid 
 with spiritual thoughts and sublime spiritual ideas, such as 
 "Spirit moving upon chaos and fashioning forms" — the 
 "girdles and spheres" encircling the earth — the "power of 
 the gods to clothe themselves in a luminous ether" and 
 appear to mortals — -"the celestial state of eighty-eight thou- 
 sand saints," the holiest of the Brahmins, and their descent 
 to guard cities and guide the young. The Puranas also 
 describe the oblations offered and the methods devised to 
 dispossess "malignant spirits and enemies of the deities." 
 (Yishnu Purana, p. 329). 
 
 Long before the patriarchs pitched their tents under Syrian 
 skies, long before Moses saw the tables of stone on the Mount, 
 long before the oldest Hebrew prophets were inspired to 
 sound the alarm in Judean mountains, there were millions 
 
28 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 of Spiritualists, prophets, 3'Ogees, sages, seers and mediums, 
 in India. What is more, Abraham himself was, without the 
 least doubt, a Brahmin. The scholarlj^ Higgins proves this 
 beyond a cavil in his very labored work, the " Anacalypsis." 
 
 Terah, the father of Abraham, came from an Eastern 
 country called Ur. Higgins clearly proves that this Ur of 
 the Chaldees was in India, that portion of the country lying 
 on the river Jumna and now called Uri, or Ur. Abbe Du- 
 bois states that the Hindoos in their earliest times had no 
 images. They worshipped the one God as Divinity in duality, 
 positive and negative — father and mother. Abraham refused 
 to worship the female principle in the Godhead. He became 
 a Protestant Hindoo, a wandering pilgrim, and accordingly 
 emigrated from Ur in India to Haran in Assyria ; from 
 thence to Phoenicia, and finally into Egypt, nearly 2,000 B. 
 C, in consequence of a terrible famine; and in all his jour- 
 neyings he took with him the belief in and practice of the 
 mysteries and spirit communion he had been taught in India. 
 Therefore we read in the Old Testament that *'the Lord (& 
 spiritual being) appeared to him on the plains of Mamre.'" 
 Also when he sat in the door of his tent, he lifted up his eyes 
 and looked, and lo, three men stood before him; and when he 
 saw them — that is, these three spirits — "he bowed himself 
 towards the ground." 
 
 The history of the Phoenicians and the Assyrians (Assur- 
 ians or Assoors from India) has reached us only in fragments, 
 and these through that voluminous author Sanchoniathan, that 
 lived long prior to Moses ; and Berosus, the Babylonian histo- 
 rian. Porphyry says, Sanchoniathan received nmch of his 
 information from Hierombalus, a priest of lao, that is, Jeho- 
 vah; accordingly, with deep insight, the sect of learned Gnos- 
 tics taught, that this lao, or Jehovah of the Jew^s, was the ^^name 
 of an angel.^' This shows that Sanchoniathan was a mystic 
 and medium, as well as historian. It is clear from both 
 Sanchoniathan and Berosus, that the Phoenicians, full five 
 thousand years since, engaged in an extensive commerce. 
 Modern exhumations and discoveries in Peru, Mexico and 
 
ANCIENT niS:ORIC SPIRITUALISM — INDIAN. 29 
 
 other portions of the American continent, obviously demon- 
 strate, as shown by symbols of sun-worship carved upon 
 rocks, that they pushed their shipping all along our western 
 sea-coasts. Wherever they anchored they left their ideas 
 of magic and spirit intercourse. 
 
 ♦* Light 
 "Sprung from the deep, and from her native East, 
 To journey thro' the airy gloom began." 
 
 In Pococke's "India in Greece," the author, from a 
 translation of documents existing in the Sanscrit, proves 
 conclusively that, 
 
 "In the great conflict between Brahminical and Buddhistic sects in 
 India, the latter being defeated, emigrated in large bands, and colonized 
 other countries. It is demonstrated in this work that the principal 
 locality from which this emigration took place was Affghanistan and 
 North-western India; that the Indian tribes proceeding thence colo- 
 nized Gi-reece, Egypt, Palestine and Italy ; that they also produced the 
 great Scandinavian families, the early Britons inclusive; and that they 
 carried with them to their new settlements the evidences of their 
 civilization, their arts, institutions and religion." 
 
 Herodotus informs us that, in the lofty tower of Belus in 
 Babylon, there was a consecrated room upon the summit in 
 which was an oracular gold table; and here a woman of 
 priestly office stayed each night to obtain information from 
 the presiding deity. A similar apartment adorned the 
 Temple of Jove at Thebes, in Egypt, and other Nilotic 
 cities. These media, virtuous in habit, accustomed to 
 fasting and bathing, and other purifications, before divining 
 or conversing with tlie gods, to give intbrmation, were 
 required, in accordance with the laws of the country, to 
 occupy those temples the night previous to the entrancement. 
 This more thoroughly magnetized them. The teachings 
 then brought from the world of spirits were considered 
 sacred. 
 
 "I have seen," said ApoUonius, " the Brahmins of India, dwelling on 
 the earth and not on the earth, living fortified without fortifications, 
 possessing nothing and yet everything." This he spoke somewhat enig- 
 matically; 1j it Damis (the companion of his journey in India) sajs 
 
30 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 they sleep upon the ground, but that the earth furnishes them with a 
 grassy couch of whatever plants they desire. That he himself had seen 
 them, elevated two cubits above the surface of the earth, walk in the 
 air ! not for the purpose of display, which was quite foreign to the 
 character of the men; but because whatever they did, elevated, in 
 common with the sun, above the earth, would be more acceptable to 
 that deity. * * * Having bathed, they formed a choral circle, 
 having Tarchas for their coryphaeus, and striking the earth with their 
 divining rods, it rose up, no otherwise than does the sea under the 
 power of the wind, and caused them to ascend into the air. Meanwhile 
 they continued to chant a hymn not unlike the paean of Sophocles, which 
 is sung at Athens in honor of ^sculapius." (Philostrat. Vita 
 Apollon. Tyanens. Lib. iii. c. 15, 17.) 
 
 Without the light of Spiritualism, the above statements 
 can be regarded in no other sense than chimeras of heated 
 imagination in an age of superstition; but now they appear 
 as embodied facts traceable to causes which our philosophy 
 analyzes. As a common magnet will lift up a piece of steel, 
 so by spirit attraction did Jesus walk upon the sea; and as a 
 table, or other object by invisible hands, under the same 
 law, is carried above the heads of the spiritual circle, so were 
 the Brahmins of India floated in the air, which many a 
 medium to-day can testify is true. How beautiful is history 
 under the light of Spiritualism! We seem now to feel the 
 very breath and heart-beats of those olden seers ! 
 
JZhaptrb^ IV. 
 
 EGYPTIAN. 
 
 "The Egyptian soul sailed o'er the skyey sea 
 In ark of crystal, manned by beamy gods, 
 To drag the deeps of space and net the stars, 
 Where, in their nebulous shoals, they share the void, 
 And through old Night's Typhonian blindness shine." 
 
 ♦*01d sphinxes lift their countenances bland, 
 Athwart the river-sea and sea of sand." 
 
 •'Those mystic, stony volumes on the walls long writ, 
 Whose sense is late revealed to searching modern wit.** 
 
 If there is a charmed country beneath the bending skies, 
 it is Egypt — land of the iTile and the Pyramids, of the Pha- 
 raohs and the Ptolemies — land where art and science gloried 
 in splendid achievements before our historic records, and 
 whose powerful d^masties held sway for long generations 
 over fertile valleys and mighty cities. Thebes, the hundred 
 gated, Heliopolis with its magnificent temples, Memphis with 
 its shining palaces and evergreen gardens, left memorials so 
 wondrous that the men of to-day are attracted thither — to 
 Luxor and Carnak, to the avenues of sphinxes and the 
 summits of the pyramids. 
 
 Egypt, whose mystic hierophants vied with the gymnoso« 
 phists of India — whose "lost arts" have never yet beer 
 discovered — whose learning 
 
 "Uttered its oracles sublime 
 Before the Olympiads, in the dew 
 And dusk of early time," 
 
 31 
 
32 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 had u jivilizatioii more than five thousaud years ago, which, 
 in some respects, was in advance of ours to-day. In this 
 remote time none were admitted to judicial offices save men 
 of integrity and great erudition. The bench consisted of 
 thirty judges, ten chosen from each of the three greater cities, 
 Thebes, Memphis and Heliopolis. Being duly elected, they 
 were paid by the State. Counsel was employed and justice 
 dispensed gratuitously to all. Thus rights were as accessible 
 to the poor as to the rich. In judicial administration, what a 
 lesson this to Americans so given to boasting and blundering 
 in their selection of officers ! *' The very spirit of their laws," 
 says Wilkinson, "was to give protection and assistance to 
 the oppressed; and everything that tended to promote an 
 unbiassed judgment was peculiarly commended by the Egyp- 
 tian sages." Is it strange, then, that Abraham, the Patriarch, 
 journeyed down into Egypt; that P^^thagoras spent tw^enty- 
 two years among her priests and seers; that Moses was 
 learned in the "wisdom of the Egyptians," and Solon, the 
 great lawgiver of Greece, was taught that the Greeks of his 
 time were in philosophy but children ? 
 
 Through all the palmy days of Egypt's grandeur, Spirit- 
 ualism, in some form, was the universal belief The more 
 wise and profound had it under their special supervision. 
 One of her most ancient seers stated, that "this earth was 
 surrounded by aerial circles of ether, and that in these ethef 
 regions the souls of the dead lived and guarded mortals." 
 Hermes taught "that this visible is but a picture of the 
 invisible world, wherein, as in a portrait, things are not truly 
 seen." 
 
 Herodotus mentions a celebrated Egyptian king who 
 descended to the mansions of the dead, and, after some stay 
 m those spirit realms, returned to light. The anniversary 
 of this return was held as a sacred festal day by the ancient 
 Egyptians, as Christians hold feasts and fasts. 
 
 Strabo states that in the temi^le of Serapis at Canopus, 
 "great worship was performed; many miraculous works 
 were wrought, which the most eminent men believed and 
 
ANCIENT HISTOEIC SPIRITUALISM — EGYPTIAN. ^53 
 
 practiced, while others devoted themselves to the sacred sleep'' 
 — that is, tlie unconscious trance. The consecrated temple at 
 /Uexandria was still more famous for its oracles, "sacred sleep," 
 and the healing of invalids. 
 
 In memory of ^Memnon, sometimes called by the Egyptians 
 Amenophis, a great ruler, wiiose mother w^as Cissiene, and 
 wlio laid the foundation of Susa, there was erected a famous 
 statue at Thebes that gave melodious sounds when first struck 
 by the sun's morning rays. Both spirit voices and spirit 
 music were heard issuing from this Theban statue for hundi'eds 
 of years. Greek travellers affirm positively that they heard 
 this music even as late as their own day. It was evidently 
 produced upon the same principle of voices heard in haunted 
 houses. Strabo, ^lius Gallus, Demetrius, and other distin- 
 guished characters, testify to having listened to those melodious 
 sounds in the early hours of morning. Those electric sun- 
 flashes produced just the requisite conditions in the statue for 
 musical manifestations. Upon a colossal column of Memnon, 
 rashly broken by Cambyses, carved in Greek and Latin, testi- 
 fying that the writers- heard the heavenly voice at the first 
 dawn of day, are two inscriptions, one of which reads as follows: 
 "/, PuUius Balbisues, heard the divine voice of Memnon or 
 Phamenoph. I caws in company with the Empress Sahina, at 
 the first hour of the sun's course, the 15th year of the reign of 
 Hadrian, the 24ith day of Athyr, the 2Dth of the month of 
 November." 
 
 Hermes, who said, "creation is not a generation of life, but 
 a production of things to sense, and making them manifest," 
 thorouglily understood the philosophy of magnetic sleep and 
 trance. While the winged staff had a symbolic signification, 
 the magic staff was most in use in his time. In the fifth book 
 of the Odyssey, we have these lines: 
 
 ** Forth sped Hermes, and under his feet he bound his amhrosial sandals, 
 Then taking his staff, with which he the eyelids of mortals 
 Closes at will, and the sleeper's ^vill re-awakens." 
 
 Montfaucon and M. Denin, describing the temples of the 
 Upper Egypt, clearly demonstrates that psychology, mesmeric 
 
84 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 control, and clairvoyance were well understood by E2;ypt'8 
 scholars and priests, and that through these methods, with 
 spirit intercourse, they received their knowledge of the unseen 
 world and the art of healing, which they deemed prudent to 
 withhold from the masses. On those time-defying paintings 
 discovered among the ruins that fringe the Nile, are the 
 figures of priests in the very act of operating by making 
 magnetic passes; and others are seen in the process of being 
 thrown into mesmeric sleep. Anubis is represented in those 
 sacred pictures as tenderly bending over the bed and putting 
 his hands upon the sick, as do the healers of this age. 
 
 Emmanuel Rebold, M. D., President of the Academy of 
 Industrial Sciences, France, speaking of that occult science, 
 animal magnetism, says: '*It is a science that for more than 
 three thousand years was the peculiar possession of the 
 Egyptian priesthood, into the knowledge of which Moses was 
 initiated at Ileliopolis, where he was educated." This 
 accounts for much of Moses' wisdom, and also for his medi- 
 umship, equaling in some respects that of Egyptian seers 
 and hierophants. The light of this age clearly proves tha-t 
 the Jehovah with whom he so familiarly cr)nversed was his 
 spirit-guide, and was not ver}^ exalted in the sweet graces of 
 charity and love; and that the " word of the Lord" that 
 came to him, " saying" was merely the voice of this attend- 
 ing spirit heard clairaudiently, as Socrates heard the 
 admonishing voice of his good demon. We have authority 
 for saying that this Jehovah of the Mosaic age, when on 
 earth, was an Egyptian priest, by the name of Gee-ho-ka but 
 neither of the noblest nor purest of the priesthood. 
 
 The famed philologist, Kircher, in his " Odipus Egyptia- 
 cus," gives the following accounts of gods, demi-gcds, and 
 genii of Egypt: "The Egyptians alwa3^s held in great vene- 
 ration certain temples and statues — these latter they called 
 scrapes; and over provinces, cities, temples, scrapes, private 
 houses, and especially men, gods^ demons, and genii presided 
 and watched as familiars, to guard from danger and give 
 advice." Some of those were eventually worshiped by the 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — EGYPTIAN. 35 
 
 less wise as private deities, having been ancestors departed 
 from the earth to become gods. 
 
 " The signs of those that are inspired are multiform. For the 
 inspiration is indicated by the motions of the (whole) body, and of 
 certain parts of it, by the perfect rest of the body, by harmonious 
 orders and dances, and by elegant sounds, or the contraries of these. 
 Either the body, likewise, is seen to be elevated or increased in bulk, 
 or to be borne along sub'.imely in the air. An equability also of vcicc 
 according to magnitude ; or a great variety of voice after intervals of 
 silence, may be observed. And again, sometimes the sounds have a 
 musical intention and remission." (Jamblichus de Mysteriis.) 
 
 This is nothing at all remarkable, for bodies these days are 
 not only borne aloft, but there are spirit-sounds, dances, and 
 other phases of iniiuence, exactly like the above descriptions 
 of ancient Media. 
 
 " The image of the god (Jupiter Ammon) is composed of emeralds 
 and other precious stones, and gives oracles in a way quite peculiar. It 
 is borne about in a golden ship by eighty priests ; who, bearing it upon 
 their shoulders, go whithersoever the god (image) by nodding his head, 
 directs them." (Diodor. SicuL Lib. 17.) This is not muc'h, even 
 though Jupiter did it. About equivalent to tipping a light-stand, or 
 moving some other small furniture.'^ 
 
 Within thirty-five years ancient Egypt has become better 
 known to us than it was to the learned men of the Roman 
 Empire; for we not only read its theology and philosophy in 
 its hieroglyphics, but interpret more accurately by their aid, 
 and that of the cuniform inscriptions, the ancient narratives 
 of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus. Her temples, towers, 
 relics, hieroglyphs and paintings, all unite their testimony 
 with that of the Grecian historians in confirmation of the 
 universal prevalence, in some form, of what is now denom- 
 inated Spiritualism. It was God's living witness in remotest 
 ages. It is his witness to-day by the mediation of angels, 
 voicing the eternal truth of a conscious immortality. 
 
c 
 
 HAPTER Y. 
 
 CHINESE. 
 
 ** The awful shadow of some unseen Power 
 
 Floats, though unseen, among us , visiting 
 This various world with a constant wing, 
 
 As summer winds that creep from flower to flower," 
 
 " Meanwhile prophetic harps 
 In every grove were ringing." 
 
 Old as the rocks, gigantic in mental structure, sternly 
 moral, China — circling coronal round the brow of nations — 
 looms up before us an interminable panorama, unrolling 
 religious scenery that enraptures every sense. The Chinese, 
 through cycles of weary ages, have held conscious communion 
 with the inhabitants of the heavens. 
 
 After a voyage among the South Sea isles and along the 
 Pacific coast, we were, in 1861, at Placerville, introduced to 
 Le Can, a learned Mandarin, who graduated from a Chinese 
 University, and was then employed as interpreter in the 
 courts of California. Highly intelligent, he was proud of 
 his national literature. The following conversation with 
 him will never fade from our memory : 
 
 "Have your people a Bible, or sacred books?'' 
 
 "Certainly, sir; the sacred books of the kings, and the 
 divine teachings of Lao-tse, and Confucius." 
 
 "Do they give any account of a flood occuring several 
 thousand years since ?" 
 
 " Most assuredly, sir ; and not only one, but many floods, 
 also of the sij king of islands, and the rising of continents 
 
 36 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRLTUALISM — CHINESE. 37 
 
 h )m the ocean. Phj^sical convulsions were very frequent 
 fifteen, twenty and thirty thousand years ago ! " 
 
 " How far back does the history of your sacred books 
 extend?" 
 
 " Full forty-four thousand years ! " 
 
 "Wh}^, our historians give no account of your nation 
 reaching into the distance so many thousand years ! " 
 
 " Your historians ! When America was inhabited by Indians 
 and Europe by barbarians, we were an old and matured 
 nation. Civilizations, like individuals, have their morninsrs. 
 noontides and declinations." 
 
 " What do your sacred books teach ? " 
 
 ''Ours, with all other oriental scriptures, teach the existence 
 of God, the necessity of morality, and the immortality of 
 the human soul." 
 
 *' Do your people believe in any intercourse between the 
 living and the dead ? " 
 
 "They have always believed it ; and what now surprises 
 you under the phenomena of Spirit Rappings is as ancient 
 as our national records." 
 
 Dr. McGowan, long a missionary in China and Japan, in 
 a lecture delivered a few years since before the Young Men's 
 Christian Association of Chicago, 111., speaking of the arts, 
 sciences, and wonderful ingenuity of the more ancient 
 Asiatics, said : 
 
 " The Chinese were well acquainted with the modes of table tipping 
 now occurring in America, and have been for a great lapse of time. 
 Their great teachers also many thousand years ago offered sacrifices and 
 professed to hold actual converse with the departed of the future 
 world." 
 
 Gutzlaff affirms that they sacrificed on high mountains, 
 considered themselves surrounded by hosts of spirits, demons, 
 gods, angels and invisible powers, and that spirits met them 
 at their altars and presided over their temples. 
 
 At a grand banquet given to Mr. Burlingame and his 
 associates of the Chinese E-mbassy, in IN'ew York, the dailies 
 reporting the speeches gave this Christian country some lew 
 
38 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 ideas relative to China. Who are the heathen, Amerioai. 
 Christians, or the Confucian Chinese ? Mr. Burlingame said • 
 
 " The East which men have sought since the days of Alexander, 
 now itself seeks the West. China, emerging from the mists of time, 
 but yesterday suddenly entered your western gates, and confronts you 
 by its representatives here to-night. What have you to say to her ? 
 She comes with no menace on her lips; she comes with the great 
 doctrine of Confucius, uttered two thousand and three years f^o. 'do 
 not unto others what you would not have others do unto you.' * * 
 I say that the Chinese are a great and noble people. They have all 
 the elements of a splendid nationality. They are the r.iost numerous 
 people on the face of the globe ; the most homogeneous people in the 
 world ; their language spoken by more human beings than any other in 
 the world, and it is written in the rock ; it is a country where there is 
 a greater unification of thought than any other in the world ] it is a 
 country where the maxims of the great sages, coming down memorized, 
 have permeated the whole people, until their knowledge is rather an 
 instinct than an acquirement. They are a people loyal while living, 
 and whose last prayer when dying is to sleep in the sacred soil of their 
 fathers. It is a laud of scholars and of schools ; a land of books, from 
 the smallest pamphlet up to encyclopedias of five thousand volumes. 
 It is a land where the priviliges are common ; it is a land without 
 caste, for they destroyed their feudal system two thousand and one 
 hundred years ago, and they built up their great structure of civilization 
 on the great idea that the people are the source of power. That idea 
 was uttered by IMenchius two thousand and three hundred years ago, 
 and it was old when he uttered it.'' 
 
 An Oxford Professor, England, lecturing upon Orientalism, 
 said: "Buddhist missionaries reached China from India, as 
 early as the third century before Christ." The *' language 
 v/hich the Chinese pilgrims went to India to study, as the 
 key tc the sacred literature of Buddhism, was Sanscrit." 
 
 The Britannica Encyclopedia avers that '* Sir William Jones 
 and others attribute to some of the works extant in Sanscrit, 
 an antiquity of four and five thousand years." Speaking ol 
 the immense wealth and beauty of this language. Sir William 
 further says : " The Sanscrit is of a wonderful structure, 
 more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin , 
 and more exquisitely refined than either." One of the 
 profoundest thinkers of Chinese antiquity appeared in the 
 person of Lao-tse, betwee i six and seven hundred years. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — CHINESE. 3^ 
 
 B. C. He was a great spiritual reformer, and, living a life of 
 self-denial and contemplation, professed frequently to ascend 
 into the immortal realms, and there live during brief seasons 
 with the genii and seen-spiriis and angels. Then he would 
 return freighted with new ideas, teaching his countrymen a 
 purer faith and diviner doctrines. His life was calm and 
 beautiful. He taught alchemy and magic; also maxims and 
 morals so exalted that they called him a " doctor of reason; ' 
 and yet he strenuously insisted that all great religious and 
 spiritual truths had been brought down to men from such of 
 their honored ancestors as had become gods in celestial 
 climes. 
 
 The eminent Chinese sage, Confucius, was born the 19th of 
 June, 551, B. C, at Shanping in the kingdom of Lu. The real 
 name of Confucius was Kong, but his disciples called him 
 Kong-futse, that is, Kong the Master, or Teacher, which the 
 Jesuit missionaries Latinized into Confucius. Remarkable 
 dreams and omens are said to have preceded his birth, and 
 his origin, traced back by his disciples, was derived from 
 Hoang-ti, a powerful monarch, of China, who flourished more 
 than 2000, B. C. In the introduction to the "Chinese 
 Classics," part 1st, Rev. Dr. LQggo. says : " Confucius, in 
 his frequent references to heaven, followed the phraseology 
 of the older sages, giving occasion to many of his followers 
 to identify God with a principle of reason and the course of 
 nature. ^ ^ ^ Along with the worship of God 
 there existed in China, from the earliest historical times, the 
 worship of other spiritual beings specially, and to every 
 individual the worship of departed ancestors." In the 
 Confucian Analects, (p. 57), Ke Loo asked about serving the 
 spirits of the dead. The master said, "While you are not able 
 to serv^e men, how can you serve their spirits?" Ke Loo 
 added, " I ventured to ask about death." * * The 
 master said, " How abundantly do sjnritual beings display the 
 power that belongs to them ! They cause all the people in the 
 empire to fast and purify themselves; then, like over-flowing 
 
10 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 water, they seem to be over the heads, and on the right and 
 left of their worshipers" — that is, admirers. * ♦ ♦ 
 *' He who attains the sovereignty of the empire, having these 
 three important things, shall effect few errors under his 
 government. His presenting himself with his institutions 
 before spiritual beings, without any doubts about them arising, 
 shows that he knows heaven,^* 
 
Chaptei^^ vi. 
 
 PERSIAN. 
 
 " I am of that impious race, 
 Those slaves of fire, who, morn and eyen, 
 Hail their Creator's dwelling place 
 Among the living lights of heaven ! " 
 
 " Such are the parables of Zartusht address'd 
 To Iran's faith, in the ancient Zend-Avest." 
 
 Persia is the region of bloom, of flowers, of fire-altars, ot 
 sun-worshipers — where the tamirand, the date, the cassia, 
 and the silken plantains of the valley mingle their loveliness 
 in rich contrast with the fan-like foliage of palms, graceful 
 as those that fleck "Araby's green sunny highlands/' 
 
 The Persians neighbored commercially with the Egyptians, 
 and the '^ Jews came up out of Egypt." This accounts for the 
 similarity traceable everywhere between the teachings of the 
 Zend-Avesta and the Kabbala of the Jews. The Rabbins 
 contend that the more philosophical portions of this latter 
 work originated in heaven — that the angel Raziel instructed 
 Adam in it; the angel Japhiel, Shem; and the angel Zedekiel, 
 Abraham. Abounding in angelic ministrations, miraculous 
 works, and profound mystical truths, the more erudite Jews 
 considered the Kabbala as em'bodying the principles of all 
 genuine science, and the true interpreter of the Hebrew 
 Scriptures. 
 
 The Persians were naturally a worshipful people. Their 
 rnagi were their wise men. The Asiatic rendering of the 
 
 41 
 
42 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 word signifies consecrated men, men devoted to the worship 
 of God. Accordingly, the word magic originally signified 
 the practice of worship, and the Magi of the East were those 
 who devoted themselves to science and worship. 
 
 Says Alger : Zoroaster prays, " When I shall die, let Aban 
 and Bahman carry me to the bosom of joy." It was a com- 
 mon belief among the Persians, that souls were at seasons 
 permitted to leave the under world, and the upper regions 
 and visit their relatives on earth. 
 
 The confusion relative to the time and teachings of Zoro- 
 aster, has arisen from overlooking the well established fact, 
 that there were certainly two, probably three, distinguished 
 personages bearing the name. Zoroaster occurs as a royal 
 name in the Chaldean lists of Berosus. Pliny, following the 
 positive afi&rmation of Aristotle, declares that Zoroaster the 
 first, flourished six thousand years before Plato. Hermippus, 
 a man of great erudition, places him five thousand years 
 before the Trojan war. Meoyle, Rhode, Yolney, Gibbon, 
 and other reliable scholars, concur in throwing him back 
 into this vast antiquity. 
 
 The great religious chieftain of Persia, called by the 
 Greeks Zoroaster, and by the Orientals, Zendust, was born 
 according to Herodotus, about the year 1250, and, according to 
 other historic writers, full 1,400 B. C., in Aderbijan, ancient 
 Media. Suidas terms him a Perso-Mede. His birth was 
 announced to his mother in a wonderful dream. She also 
 saw in vision a brilliant angel hurling a book at evil demons, 
 and a youth rising up and becoming a mighty person in the 
 lands of the Orient. Zoroaster was often warned in dreams; 
 saw celestial spirits ; entered by trance into the heavenly 
 world, and, being ushered into the presence of Ormuzd. 
 conversed with him and his hosts of angels. The historian 
 informs us that he obtained the commandments of the Aves- 
 tan rolls from Ormuzd on a mountain, amid awful flames of 
 light, as did Moses on Mt. Sinai. 
 
ANCILNT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — PERSIAN. 43 
 
 After a quiet retreat of "twenty years duration," accord- 
 ing to Pliny, as a work of preparation by fasting and com- 
 muning with heaven, he commenced the public propagation 
 of his doctrines, at the age of thirty, in the caj' ,tal of the 
 kingdom of the Bactrians. His system was eminently spir- 
 itual, abounding in revelations, prophecies and miracles — in 
 visions, attending angels, good and evil spirits. Scarcely is 
 a man dead, say the Zend books, '' before demons good, or 
 demons evil, come to possess him, and bear him to their own 
 state of life." 
 
 Richardson informs us *'that, among other religious cere- 
 monies, the Magi used to place upon the tops of high towers 
 various kinds of rich viands, upon which it was supposed the 
 Peris and the spirits of their departed heroes regaled them- 
 selves." This corresponds with the scriptural account of 
 Jesus' partaking of " broiled fish and an honey comb," after 
 his resurrection. During the rise, the reign and fall of the 
 Persian kingdom, the Magi, or media, were held in great 
 repute, sitting often as counselors in the courts of kings. 
 
 Magic vras but another name for wisdom. The magic of 
 the Persians and Chaldeans, says the scholarly Brucker, ''is 
 not to be confounded with witchcraft, or a supposed inter- 
 course with evil spirits only ; it consisted in the performance 
 of certain religious ceremonies or incantations, which were 
 supposed, through the interposition of good demons, to have 
 &upernatural effects," Magic and miracle, dream and vision, 
 prophecy and angel intercourse, blending with the Persian 
 philosophy and theology as rainbow hues, w&re among the 
 prevailing religious ideas of this powerful empire. From 
 these the later Hebrew prophets, of Old Testament memory, 
 borrowed largely. 
 
Chaptei^^ yii, 
 
 HEBRAIC. 
 
 " Who is he that cometh from Edom ? with dyed garments from 
 Bozrah ? traveling in the greatness of his strength/^ * * * 
 "I have trodden the wine-press alone. "Who hath believed our 
 report ?" 
 
 Israel! how beautiful upon the mountains thy patri- 
 archs, prophets, apostles ! What a lyrical sweetness, rich- 
 ness of expression, moral grandeur of thought, flame through 
 their language, bridging and brightening the historic passage 
 of full four thousand years ! Abraham, girded with faith — 
 David, poetic — Isaiah, inspirational — Ezekiel, psychologic — 
 Daniel, prophetic — Jeremiah, sympathetic — Jesus, spiritual- 
 istic — James, practical — John, pictorial and affectionate; — all 
 these starred the highway of their ''Lord" with heavenly 
 truths, voiced the word of angels from the Dead Sea to 
 Gennesaret, shed upon their " promise land " a light that 
 lingers now in ,vesper beauty there, but re-lit to blaze with 
 ^.oftier inspirations — a sun rising in the West, 
 
 No scholars versed in Shemitic tongues, or well read in 
 
 antiquity, will deny that the Hebrew scriptures are made up 
 
 principally from religious records, superstitious relics, and 
 
 the sacred books that long preceded them. Hence, Godfrey 
 
 Higgins (in his learned Ana., p. 272) says, in referring to 
 
 Wnson's discoveries, " It is now certain that all the first three 
 
 paxts of Genesis must have come from India." 
 
 U - 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — IIEP.KAIC. 45 
 
 The dogmas, laws, rites, and ceremonies that characterized 
 the Mosaic dispensation, were taken almost bodily from the 
 mythic codes cf Egypt's priests and subordinate castes. The 
 deciphered hieroglyphs demonstrate this. The writings of 
 the lesser Jewish prophets, booked in the Bible, are largely 
 drawn from the symbols, wonders, night visions, and general 
 religious literature of the older Persian Magi. To this end 
 the author of the English Penny Cyclopedia informs us that 
 '* some of those prophecies recorded in the Bible were extant 
 in books written long before the events took place to which 
 they refer." 
 
 Few liistoric facts are better established than that India 
 colonized Egypt. After giving many sound reasons for this, 
 Higgins states with emphasis, that '* India was the parent of 
 Eg3'pt.'* Manetho, a man of great wisdom, Egyptian by 
 birth, residing at Heliopolis in the time of the Ptolemies,, 
 yet writing his history in Greek, considered the Hebrews as 
 low in caste, a loose, war-like, wandering people, given to 
 heinous vices. He further contends that this nomadic 
 " nation, called shepherds, were likewise called captives in 
 their sacred books." After "being driven out of Egypt," 
 as the great Jewish historian Josephus admits, they jour- 
 neyed through the " wilderness of Syria, and finally built a 
 city in Judea, which they called Jerusalem." Professor 
 Morton, an eminent scientist, giving us the representation 
 of a mummied cranium, taken from one of the oldest 
 Egyptian sepulchres, remarks: " This head possesses a great 
 interest on account of its decided Hebrew features, of which 
 many examples are extant on the monuments," The Egyp- 
 tians being originally from India, and the Hebrews residing 
 in, and then ultimately driven out from Egypt, it is perfectly 
 natural that the customs, and particularly the theological 
 ideas of the Jews, relating to this and the future life, should 
 in a great measure coincide with those of the riper and 
 superior nations. 
 
 The Pentateuch of Moses was nearly all made up from 
 the Brahminical Yedas and Phoenician manuscripts. "In 
 
46 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Sanchoniathon,'* says Higgins, " we have, in substance, the 
 same cosmogony for the Phoenicians as is found in Genesis. 
 On this account the genuineness of his books has been 
 doubted, but I think without sufficient reason." ( Aiiac. B. 8, 
 0. 2, p. 391). Father Georgius, who was master of the 
 Tibetian language, quotes the story of Anobret from San- 
 choniathon, and shows that the Jeud of this forerunner of 
 Moses, is the Jid of the Tibetians. Both Alexander 
 Polyhistor and Abydene, the one a learned compiler in 
 Scylla's time, the other referred to for his wisdom by Euse- 
 bius, agree to Sanchoniathon's ante- dating Moses, and to the 
 account of the deluge, and other portions of Genesis, being 
 purely Chaldean, taken from " manuscripts of an almost 
 infinitely remote period of time." 
 
 The philosopher. Porphyry, student of Origen and Lon- 
 ginus, writes (Lib. iv, Adv. Christianos), that Sanchoniathon 
 and Moses gave the like accounts of persons and places, and 
 that Sanchoniathon extracts his account partly out of the 
 annals of the cities, and partly out the book reserved in the 
 temple, which he received from Jerombalus, Priest of the 
 God Jeud, who is Jao or Jehovah." 
 
 Though the Jews were ever less spiritual than the inhab- 
 itants of the sunny clime of India, less learned than the 
 Egyptians, less poetic than the Persians, they ever had 
 among them rare spiritual gifts ; and all through that col- 
 lection of books called the Old Testament, Spiritualism 
 stands out prominent Among the many, note the following 
 passages : 
 
 "And there came two angels to Sodom at even, and Lot, seeing them, 
 rose up to meet them," — Gen. xix : L 
 
 " And the Lord appeared to him (Abraham) in the plains. * * * 
 And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo ! three men stood beside 
 hini ; and when he saw them he ran to meet them from the tent door, 
 and bowed himself toward the ground." — Gen. xviii : 1-2. 
 
 When Jacob was traveling to meet Esau, he beheld the angel of 
 God, and said " This is God's host." — Gen. xxxii. 
 
 " The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of 
 Jhe midst of the bush : the bush burned, but was not consumed. He 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — HEBRAIC. 47 
 
 said, ' I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob ;' and Moses hid his face." — Ex. iii. 
 
 '^ And the angel of the Lord found her (Hagar) by a fountain of 
 water in the wilderness, * * ♦ a^^j gjj^jj^ <. Whence camest 
 ihouV— Gen. xvi : 7. 
 
 " This Moses, whom they refused, * * * jj^ q.^^ ^e^^ to 
 be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to 
 him in the bush." — Acts vii : 35. 
 
 " And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him."— 
 Gen. xxxii : 1. 
 
 " And as he (Elijah) lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then, 
 an angel touched him and said unto him' * Arise and eat.' " — 1 Kings 
 xix : 5. 
 
 " Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel 
 of the Lord standing in the way," — Num. xxii : 31. 
 
 Saul consulted a medium at Endor. 
 
 "And she said, ' An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a 
 mantle.' And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped 
 with his face to the ground, and bowed himself." — 1 Sam. xxviii : 14. 
 
 " Fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to 
 shake. Then a spirit passed before my face. * * * j^ stood 
 still; but I could not discern the form thereof. * * * j 
 heard a voice saying, 'Shall mortal man be more just than God?' " — 
 Joh, iv : 14-17 
 
 " While I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I 
 had seen in the vision at the beginning, * * * touched me 
 about the time of the evening oblation." — Dan, ix : 21. 
 
 '• Then Nebuchednezzar spake and said, ' Blessed be the God of 
 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who hath sent his angel and 
 delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the King's 
 word.' " Dan. x : 9-10. " Yet heard I the voice of his words, and 
 behold a hand touched me." * * * u Q^hen there came again 
 and touched me one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened 
 me."— Z)aw. X : 18. 
 
 " And it «ame to pass, when I, even I, Daniel, had seen the vision, 
 and sought for the meaning, then, behold, there stood before me as the 
 appearance of a man. And I heard a man's voice between the banks 
 of Ulai, which called and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand 
 the tision." — Dan. viii : 15-16. 
 
 " Yea, while I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom 
 [ had seen at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me 
 ibout the time of the evening oblation." — Dan. ix : 21, 
 
 A most interesting case of the return of spirits to mor- 
 tals, is related of Ezekiel. On one occasion the '* Lord," 
 
48 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALrSTS. 
 
 that is the ruling spirit of the Jewish nation, appeared to 
 the prophet, and bj the hair of his head floated him away 
 to Jerusalem. 
 
 ^' And he put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of 
 mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the 
 heavens and brought me in the vision of Grod to Jerusalem to the dooi 
 of the inner gate that looketh toward the north. '^ — Eztkiel viii : 3. 
 
 Arriving at the temple after this serial voyage, he entered, 
 and there stood before him seventy spirits, who appeared 
 as men ; men who had lived many centuries before his 
 time : 
 
 " And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the 
 house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah, the son of 
 Shaphan, with every man his censer in hand." — Ezehiel viii: 11 
 
 At another time, being in vision, having been carried 
 thither as before, he saw five and twenty men, or spirits, some 
 of whose names were given, who were known as conspicuous 
 actors in the ancient days of Israel : 
 
 " Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east 
 gate of the Lord's house, which looked eastward : and behold at the 
 door of the gate five and twenty men ; among whom I saw Jaazaniah 
 the son of Azur, and Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah, princes of the 
 people." — E?:ekiel xi : 1. 
 
 About 3260, B. C, a powerful Mede, visiting Sardanapa- 
 .us, reproved him for the luxuriousness of his court, and 
 conspired with Belesis, of Babylonia, to overthrow him. 
 Diodorus Siculus informs us, that when Sardanapalus heard 
 of it, he laughed the whole thing to contempt, saying, an 
 ancient prophecy, since confirmed by the voices of the 'gods,' 
 had promised that Nineveh should never be taken by force. 
 This exhibits the faith those old Assyrians had in omens and 
 oracles from the immortals. 
 
 Berosus states that the winds, aided by the gods, angels, 
 or spirits, destroying the towers of Babel, introduced the 
 confusion of tongues ; and that their \vise men, in dreams 
 and visions, frequently foretold the ruin of nations. 
 
ANCIENT niSTOKIC SPIRITUALISM — HEBRAIC. 49 
 
 The terms gods, lords, angels, demons, spirits, were used 
 interchangeably by Egyptian, Phoenician, Persian, and the 
 more ancient Grecian writers. This understood, much of 
 the mysticism connected with God and Jehovah, Lord and 
 Angel, as used by theologians, is cleared away. In the Old 
 Testament we read: *'In the beginning Gods, (Elohim, 
 plural) created the heaven and the earth." Hesiod has a 
 poem entitled Theogonia, giving the "generation of the 
 gods." "In the book of Moses," says that learned church 
 authority, Calmet, "the name of God is often given to the 
 angels. * * * Princes, magistrates, and great men 
 are called gods. If a slave is desirous to continue with 
 his master, he shall be brought to the gods. The Lord (an 
 exalted angel) is seated amidst the gods, and judges with 
 them." 
 
 The testimony of the truly eminent Philo Judseus, relative 
 to the identity of god, lord, angel, spirit, etc., is exceedingly 
 important. We quote from Yonge's translation : " Those 
 (referring to gods) of the most divine nature are utterly 
 regardless of any situation on earth, but are raised to a 
 greater height, and placed in the ether itself, being of the 
 purest possible character, which those among the Greeks 
 that Itave studied philosophy, call heroes and demons, and 
 which Moses, giving them a most felicitous appellation, calls 
 angels, acting, as they do, the part of ambassadors and mes- 
 sengers. Therefore, if you look upon souls and demons and 
 angels as things differing indeed in name, but as meaning in 
 reality one and the same thing, you will thus get rid of the 
 heaviest of all evils — superstition. For as people speak of 
 good demons and bad demons, so do they speak of good 
 and bad souls ; and also of some angels as being by their 
 title worthy ambassadors * * * from God to men, 
 being sacred and inviolable guardians ; others as being 
 unholy and unworthy. Hence, the Psalmist David speaks of 
 the 'operation of evil angels.'" 
 
 In harmony with the above, from a different source, yet 
 in confirmation of the same general idea, we quote from the 
 
 /f OF TK? 
 
 f UNiVE: 
 
50 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 third volume of Plato, by Burges, Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge : " They are demons, because prudent and learned. 
 * * * * Hence, poets say well, who say that 
 when a good man shall have reached his end, he receives a 
 mighty destiny and honor, and becomes a demon according 
 to the appellation of prudence." 
 
 Concurring with the general belief of those ages, the 
 Grecian poet Hesiod, in his " "Works and Ddya" says : 
 
 "But when concealed had destiny this race, 
 Demons there were, called holy upon earth, 
 Good, ill-averters, and of men the guard." 
 
 Also, this significant line occurs : 
 
 *' Holy demons by great Jove designed." 
 
 Earnest Renan, one of the most eminent Shemitic schol- 
 ars living, speaking, in his '*Life of Jesus," of the group 
 that assembled upon the banks of Lake Tiberias to listen to 
 Jesus says : " They believed in spectres and in spirits." 
 
 These citations from Hesiod, Plato, and especially Philo 
 Judaeus, a few years the senior of the Galilean, clearly demon- 
 strate the fact of the identity of gods, spirits, demons and 
 angels, that there were good, learned, and holy demons, 
 and those denominated unholy ; and that these demons, or 
 spirits and angels, held intercourse with, and were the 
 guardians of mortals. 
 
 As a general thing, the magi, magicians, or media of 
 Egypt, excelled Moses in the production of wonders manifest 
 in the different phases of phenomenal Spiritualism. Tak- 
 ing their account, they were doubtless always the victors. 
 They certainly had several trials for the mastery. Accepting 
 the scriptural rendering, it is evident that the wonderful 
 works wrought by Moses were also accomplished, with 
 hardly an exception, through the " enchantments" of Pha- 
 raoh's "wise men and magicians." This enchantment was 
 the mesmeric will-force — a part of the very '^wisdom'' that 
 Moses had learned in Egypt. Psychologists are always aided 
 naore or less by their spirit guides. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — HEBRAIC. 51 
 
 Referring to the so-called miracles recorded in the 7th 
 chapter of Exodus, we find that the magicians turned their 
 rods into serpents (psychologically, of course); water into 
 blood ; and produced the frogs also, with seemingly the 
 same ease and celerity that Moses and Aaron did, and 
 by the same psychologic law. But when the Lord, through 
 Moses, commanded Aaron to "stretch out his rod" and go 
 to manufacturing '* te," the magicians begged to be excused; 
 it was too small business — utterly beneath the magi, or 
 media of old, proud and classic Egypt ! They would not 
 thus degrade their psychologic knowledge — a portion of 
 their sacred mysteries. To be sure Moses says they ^^ could 
 not." This is Moses' version of the matter, however, (if 
 indeed, he ever wrote the Pentateuch); and Moses, holding 
 himself in high estimation, wrote in his own interest; and, 
 what is more, a man, courting fame, that could write an 
 account of his own death and burial, is entitled,wrlte what he 
 may, to little credit. 
 
 ISTever charmed with Moses' characteristics, we do not 
 deny his mediumship, nor the truth of his frequent conver- 
 sations with the "Lord God, face to face;" that is, his famil- 
 iar spirit, but we rate it second to the mediumistic powers 
 of the seers of Egypt and Persia, and immeasurably inferior 
 to that of the Judean prophets. See the power of the gods 
 when the Syrians came to seize Elisha : " "When the servant 
 had risen early and gone forth, behold an host encompassed 
 the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant 
 said unto him, ^Alas! my master! what shall we do?' 
 
 * * * " And Elisha prayed, and said, *Lord, I pray 
 thee open his eyes (clairvoyant eyes) that he may see.'" 
 And the Lord, angel or spiritual being, opened the eyes, that 
 is, the interior or spiritual eyes, of the young man, and he 
 saw — saw because the inner vision was unsealed — and 
 " behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of 
 fire round about Elisha. — 2 Kings iv. 
 
 Titus, in his address to his soldiers before Jerusalem, 
 said , "For what man of virtue is there that does not know 
 
62 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 that those souls which are severed from their fleshy bodies 
 ill battles by the sword, are received by the ether, that purest 
 of elements, and joined to that company which are placed 
 among the stars ; that they become good demons, and pro- 
 pitious heroes, and show themselves as such to their posterity 
 afterward?''' — Josephus, B. vi : chap. 1., § 5. 
 
 The Hebrew scriptures, Talmud, and Kabbala, all abound 
 in dreams, omens, prophecies, angelic interpositions and 
 spirit communications, often beautiful, and sometimes abso- 
 lutely grand ; all of which bear a close resemblance in form 
 and purpose to those more marked manifestations of spirit 
 power, that threw such a transcendent glory over the older 
 nations of Central and Southern Asia. "The most usual 
 form," said the learned and Orthodox Calmet, "in which 
 good angels appear, both in the Old Testament and l^ew, is 
 the human form." It was in that shape they showed them- 
 selves to Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Manoah the 
 father of Samson, to David, Tobit, and the Prophets. The 
 one that appeared to Joshua on the plain of Jericho, appeared 
 apparently in the guise of a warrior, since Joshua asked 
 ]iini — "Art thou for us or for our adversaries ?" 
 
 But enough has been adduced to prove that the Hebrew 
 government, in all its religious and secular interests, was 
 regulated by spirit oracles, and that these constitute the 
 chief beauty of its administration. 
 
 ♦' There was a time when all mankind 
 Did listen to a faith sincere, 
 To tuneful tongues in mystery verse.'* 
 
 But alas, how infidel now is the church that practically 
 scorns the voice of faith ! Let Tertullian speak to such ; 
 "Thou canst not call that madness of which thou art proved 
 to know nothing.'* 
 
Phap^tef^ viu. 
 
 GRECIAN. 
 
 *Go on, spotless mortal, in the path of virtue; 
 It is the way to the stars; 
 Offspring of the gods thyself — 
 So shalt thou become the father of gods." 
 
 ♦'Then side by side along the dreary coast, 
 Advanced Achilles and Patroclus' ghost, 
 A friendly pair." 
 
 Euchanted is olden Greece! Pre-eminently the land of 
 poetry, painting and music, of art and witching song, her 
 republics voiced the heaven-winged words of freedom long 
 before the "Son of Man" said, "whom the truth maketh 
 free is free indeed." Her classic mind drank deep of inspi- 
 rations that gushed, fountain-like, from mountain, hill and 
 vale, haunted by nymphs and sylphs — from sun-kissed seas 
 sprinkled with ever-green isles embossed with rainbows 
 u?ider gorgeous skies, deific in guardianship. All things 
 conspired to engender mental vivacity, genial heart, iwd 
 aptitude for spiritual impression and culture. Incidental to 
 these influences, the literature, attributed to the poets, histor- 
 ians, tragedians, philosophers, statesmen and moral heroes 
 of Greece, abounds in brilliant thoughts and the most 
 sublime ideas, touching the invisible realities of the spirit- 
 world. 
 
 As Americans look to English universities for samples of 
 highest culture — as N^orthern Europe once looked to Rome — 
 
 53 
 
54 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Rome, in her palmiest periods, to Greece, and Egypt to 
 India, so the literati and philosophers among the Greeks 
 looked up and bowed in profound reverence before the 
 authors, poets and long-treasured wisdom of Egyptian 
 savans. Thither flocked the wisest of the Grecians to perfect 
 their education both scientific and religious. The learned 
 Jacob Bryant says: <^The whole theology of Greece was 
 derived from the East.*' Josephus wrote in his day: "All 
 that concerns the Greeks, we may say is of yesterday only." 
 He further assures us that the Greeks "acknowledged that 
 it was not they, but the Phoenicians, Egyptians and other 
 nations of antiquity, who preserved the most memorials and 
 arts of mankind, and that from Egj^pt they themselves 
 imported them; and that to those who introduced philos- 
 ophy and the knowledge of things celestial and divine among 
 them, such as Pherec3^des the Scyrian, Pythagoras and 
 Thales, the}^ were greatly indebted. All with one consent 
 agreed that they learned what they knew of the Egyptians 
 and Chaldeans, and wrote but little." Though tinged and 
 tinctured more or less with the older philosophers of Egypt 
 and India, Spiritualism was, for a long period, the universal 
 religion of Greece. Hesiod flourished about 1000 B. C, 
 and in his Theogony gave a faithful account of the gods 
 (spirits) of antiquity. He himself consulted oracles, as to 
 the future, and at a certain time the Pythia — priestess of 
 Apollo — (that is, the female medium controlled b}^ Apollo — 
 an ascended mortal termed god) directed him to shun the 
 grove of demean Jupiter, which he did, saving his life. He 
 declares, himself prophetically inspired by the gods and 
 goddesses, saying of the daughters of Jove: 
 
 "They gave into my hand 
 A rod of marvelous growth; a laurel bough 
 Of blooming verdure; and within me breathed 
 A heavenly voice, that I might utter forth 
 All past and future things, and bade me praise 
 The blessed of ever-living God." 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — QBECIAN. 55 
 
 Hesiod frequently breathes his firm belief in the tender 
 watch-care of guardian spirits, as well as those that take 
 cognizance of vice : 
 
 •♦Invisible, the gods are ever nigh, 
 Pass through our midst, and bend the all-seeing eye; 
 The men who grind the poor, who wrest the right, 
 Aweless of heaven's revenge, stand naked to their sight; 
 For thrice ten thousand holy demons rove 
 This breathing world, the delegates of Jove. 
 Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys 
 The upright judgments and the unrighteous ways." 
 
 Writing of the seers and sages of a past golden age, the 
 spirits of which became the guardians of men, he says in 
 his Works, Elton's translation : 
 
 ♦*When earth's dark womb had closed this race around, 
 High Jove as demons raised them from the ground 
 Earth- wandering spirits that their charge began, 
 The ministers of good, the guards of man. 
 Mantled with mist of darkling air they glide 
 And compass earth, and pass on every side; 
 Kingly their state, and delegate of Heaven; 
 By their vicarious hands prosperity is given." 
 
 The Arundelian marbles place Homer 907 B. C. Born at 
 Bethsia, a village of Egypt, nearer the Red Sea than the 
 Nile, he became a medium and seer at eight years of age, 
 spirits appearing visible to him with harps and songs, indi- 
 cating his future greatness. His earthly Egyptian teacher 
 was Helecate, and his Grecian tutor, My rah. Hesiod was 
 his direct controlling or guardian spirit. In these breathing 
 numbers, immortal utterances and matchless poetical combi- 
 nations, Hesiod prompted him in the Greek, and Lucitan in 
 the Egyptian, while intellectually and spiritually above them 
 both, was one of those grand old Indian seers that had long 
 summered in the heavens. This accounts for the striking: 
 resemblances between the Iliad of Homer and that great 
 Brahminical poem of Yalmike, entitled the Ramayana. 
 All, versed in the Iliad and Odyssey, know they are all 
 aglow with oracles, prophecies, dreams — the descriptions 
 
56 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 of gods, goddesses and demons, and the interest they ever 
 take in human affairs. The very warp and woof of the 
 Grecian poetry and philosophy were spiritual, and hence 
 their beauty and freshness to-day. 
 
 Herodotus writes (Enterpe, 53) — "I consider Hesiod and 
 Homer older than myself, b}^ four hundred years. * * * 
 They were the poets who framed the Hellenic theogony ; 
 gave distinctive names to the gods; distributed amongst 
 them honors and professions, and pointed out their receptive 
 forms." Diodorus Siculus, in the seventh chapter of hie 
 first book, "asserts the same; that is, these historians mean 
 to state that these poets did not invent, but arranged and 
 detailed the knowledge of the gods," brought from India into 
 Egypt; then from Egypt and Syria into their country by 
 Orpheus, Danaus and Cadmus. Pherecydes, the early 
 teacher of Pythagoras, flourishing some 600 B. C, taught 
 the immortality of the soul, the guardian care of holy gods 
 and demons, and is considered the first who wrote concerning 
 the nature of the gods in i^^ose. 
 
 Plato in the Timoeus says: "That between God and man 
 are the daimones or spirits, who are always near us, though 
 commonly invisible to us, and know all our thoughts. They 
 are intermediate between gods and men, and their function 
 is to interpret and convey to the gods what comes from men, 
 and to men what comes from the gods." 
 
 In Plato's Apology and Republic (p. 31, 40, b. x. ), that 
 great master Grecian says: " The demons often direct man in 
 the quality of guardian spirits, in all his actions, as witness 
 the demon of Socrates." * * * * "There are two 
 kinds of men. One of these, through aptitude, will receive 
 the illuminations of divinity, and the other, through inap- 
 titude, will subject himself to the power of avenging 
 demons." * * * * They (the poets) do not compose 
 by art, but through a divine power; since, if they knew 
 how to speak by art upon the subject correctly, they would 
 be able to do so upon all others. On this account, a deity 
 has deprived them of their senses, and employs them as his 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIKITUALIPM — GRECIAN. 57 
 
 ministers and oracle singers, and divine prophets, in order 
 that, when we hear them, we may know it is not they, to 
 whom sense is not present, who speak what is valuable, but 
 the god himself who speaks, and through them addresses us. 
 We are not to doubt about those beautiful poems being not 
 human, but divine, and the work not of men, but of gods; 
 and that the poets are nothing else but interpreters of the 
 gods, (that is, spirits,) possessed by whatever deity they may 
 happen to be. 
 
 The dialogue of Plato relative to the conversations of 
 Socrates with his friends, contain the richest veins of spirit- 
 ual truth. In the Phsedon, Cebes says: "Persuade us then 
 not to fear death." 
 
 "As for that," says Socrates, "you must employ spells 
 and exorcisms every day till you be cured." 
 
 "But pray, Socrates, where shall we meet an excellent 
 conjurer, since you are going to leave us?" 
 
 "Greece is large enough," replies Socrates, "and well 
 stored with learned men. You must likewise look for a 
 conjurer among yourselves; for 'tis possible there may be 
 none found more able to perform those enchantments." 
 
 "Do the souls of the dead have a being in the other world 
 or no?" 
 
 "It is a very ancient opinion that souls quitting this world 
 repair to the infernal regions, and return after that to live in 
 this world * * * * ^Yhen a man dies, his mortal and 
 corruptible part suffers dissolution, but the immortal part 
 escapes unhurt and triumphs over death. * * * * ipi^g 
 earth we inhabit is properly nothing else but the sediment 
 of the other ; that is, that pure earth above, called Ether. 
 In this more perfect earth, everything has a perfection 
 answering to its qualities. The trees, flowers, fruits and 
 mountains are charmingly beautiful; they produce all sorts 
 of precious stones of incomparable perfection of clearness 
 and splendor; those we so* much esteem, as jasper, 
 emeralds and sapphire, are not comparable to them. * * 
 They have sacred groves, and temples actually inhabited by 
 
58 DOCTRINES OP SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 the gods, who give (us) evidence of their presence bj 
 oracles, divinations, inspirations, and all other sensible 
 signs." 
 
 Referring to his eccentricities, Socrates says: "The cause 
 of this is that which you have often and in many places 
 heard me mention; because I am moved by a certain divine 
 and spiritual influence, which also Melitus, through mockery, 
 has set out in the indictment. This began with me from 
 childhood, being a kind of voice which, when present, always 
 diverts me from what I am about to do, but never urges n^e 
 on. But this duty, as I said, has been enjoined on me by 
 the Deity, by oracles, by dreams, and by every mode by 
 which any other divine decree has ever enjoined anything for 
 man to do." — Gary's Translation. 
 
 Reasoning, he asked Miletus, "Do we not take these 
 deities, or demons, for the gods, or the children of gods?" 
 
 "Yes, doubtless!" 
 
 " Therefore, you acknowledge," said Socrates, " that I 
 believe there are demons, and that these demons are gods. 
 * * * ^ I have likewise told you that I received my 
 orders from God himself, by oracles, dreams, and all other 
 methods Deity makes use of to make known his pleasure to 
 men." 
 
 M. Dacier, in a note, (Apol. of Soc, p. 393) says: 
 " Socrates learned of Pythagoras that demons, or angels and 
 heroes — that is, devout men and saints, are the sons of God, 
 because they derive from him their being, as light owes its 
 origin to a luminous body." 
 
 Socrates being inquired of why he busied himself so much 
 ill private, and did not appear in the conventions of the 
 people, gives the following reason: 
 
 "The thing that hindered me from doing so, Athenians, 
 was this familiar spirit, this divine voice, that you have often 
 heard of, and which Melitus has endeavored so much to 
 ridicule. This spirit has stood by me from my infancy. It 
 is a voice that does not speak but when it means to take me 
 off from some resolution. It never presses me tc undertake 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — GRECIAN. 59 
 
 ain'thing, but it alwa^'S thwarted me when I meant to meddlr 
 in affairs of state." (Apol. Soc. p. 398.) 
 
 Turnins^ at a certain time to his friend Simmias, he dis 
 coursed thus of virtue and the future immortal life: ^' What 
 I have said ought to sufficiently show that we should labor 
 all our lives to acquire virtue and wisdom, since we have so 
 great a reward proposed to us. and so bright a prospect 
 before us. As for you, my dear Simmias and Cebes, and all 
 you of this company, you will follow me shortly. My hour 
 is come; and as a tragic poet would say, the surly pilot calls 
 me aboard. It is time I should go to the bath; for I think 
 it better, before I drink the poison, to be washed in order to 
 save the woman the trouble after I am dead." 
 
 Crito, inquiring what orders he had to leave with reference 
 to his children and other affairs, further asked : "How will 
 you be buried?" "Just as you please," said Socrates, "if I 
 do not slip from you.'* At the same time, looking upon 
 them with a gentle smile, said: "I cannot attain my end in 
 persuading Crito that this is Socrates who discourses with 
 you; * >5= * a.nd still he fancies that Socrates is the 
 thing that shall shortly see death. He confounds me with 
 my corpse; and in that view asks how I will be buried. And 
 all this after the long discourse I made to you lately in order 
 to show, that, as soon as I shall have taken the poison, I shall 
 stay no longer with you; but I shall part from hence and 
 enjoy the felicity of the blessed." (See Ap. Phedon, p. 247.) 
 
 That erudite Platonist, Proclus, writing upon the demon 
 of Socrates, commenced his forty-third chapter on the " The- 
 ology of Plato" thus: "Let us speak concerning the demons 
 who allotted the superintendance of mankind * * * The 
 most perfect souls choose a life conformable to their presid- 
 ing god, and live according to a divine demon. Hence the 
 Egyptian priest admired Plotinus as being controlled (on 
 account of the purity of his life) by a divine demon. And 
 with great propriety also does Socrates call his demon a 
 god, for he belonged to the first and highest demons. 
 
60 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Acc :)rclinglj, Socrates was most perfect, being governed by 
 sucb a presiding power, and conducting himself by the will 
 of such a leader and guardian of his life." 
 
 Remembering, then, that Pythagoras resided for a period 
 of years in Egypt, that Socrates was personally acquainted 
 with some of the disciples of Pythagoras, the anointed 
 Samian, and that Plato was a pupil of Socrates, we perceive 
 the naturalness of the descent from age to age of these 
 spiritualistic teachings relative to the gods and demons — 
 to their gentle guardianship and continuous converse with 
 mortals, and the unspeakable blessedness pertaining to 
 those Elysian fields that gladden with molten glory the 
 homes of the angels. 
 
 Jesus, borne in infancy "down into Egypt," early 
 connected with the Essenians, afterwards initiated into the 
 psychologic and mediumistic wisdom of the older Eastern 
 mysteries, as well as conversant with those glittering 
 thoughts that dropped like pearls from the pens of the 
 Persian poets, natural!}^ imbibed, in consonance with his 
 susceptible organism, and taught some of the Platonian 
 doctrines, among which was the "ministry of spirits," pre- 
 existence, and the ascent of souls into that Paradisiacal 
 house of " many mansions." 
 
 Every scholarly theologian knows that the parables of 
 Jesus, as well as John's Gospel, abound in Platonisms. 
 Accordingly, the orthodox commentator. Dr. Campbell, 
 frankly, yet doubtless unwillingly, confessed that, " Our 
 Lord's descriptions of the abodes of departed spirits were not 
 drawn from the writings of the Old Testament; but have a 
 remarkable affinity to the descriptions which the Grecian 
 poets have given of them." 
 
 Nonnus informs us that " there was a statue at Delphi 
 which emitted an inarticulate voice." The spirits were thus 
 experimenting with the solid stone to produce a Memuon 
 in Greece, as they do these days train the muscles which 
 they wish to use in writing or speaking ; but doubtless found 
 the material too perverse for their purpose. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC STIRirUALISM CRKCTAN. 61 
 
 Epimenides, a prominent poet, living in Solon's time, 
 possessed the remarkable power with which certain media 
 of our day are gifted, of leaving his body, and, conducted by 
 immortal guides, visiting friends gone before, vast galleries 
 of art, and the magnificent temples of the ascended sages of 
 antiquity. Those trances continued so long, and he revealed 
 80 strange truths upon returning into the mortal tenement, 
 that he ^vas held in high repute — almost revered among the 
 Athenians during his life, and at death they gave him a place 
 [*mong their gods. The rarely endowed Hermodorus pos- 
 sessed this same power. Aided by the controlling magnetic 
 influences of spirit-guardians, he frequently quitted the phys- 
 ical name, and explored the matchless beauties that obtain 
 in the land of souls. So Aristides the Just gives a full 
 account, in the "Orationes Sacrge," of his visits to the heal 
 ing temples of ^sculapius. Many of his dreams proved to 
 be prophecies, and in his trances he mentioned things as then 
 taking place in distant countries. These were afterwards 
 verified, as in like cases with Swedenborg. 
 
 In the night vision, Apollo and ^sculapius came to Epi- 
 menides and requested him to compose and sing verses; 
 something which he had never thought of attempting in his 
 normal state. He so did, however, with eminent success. 
 His feelings, while in this inspirational condition, he said, 
 were most delightful. After his sight was more thoroughly 
 opened, he declared that Plato, Demosthenes and Sophocles 
 often stood near the foot of his couch and conversed with 
 him. All through his marked career immortal demons seem 
 to have accompanied him, to whom he owed not only his 
 health, but much of his wisdom. (See Aris., by Canter.) 
 
 Thus runs Spiritualism through all Grecian history in 
 converse with gods, angels, demons, spirits, and the appear- 
 ance of apparitions, symbols and psychological forms, in 
 connection with visions, trances and healings. The mythol- 
 ogy of the Greeks, even with all its shadowy vagaries, was 
 infinitely superior to modern theology. The clergy, with 
 few exceptions, have persisted in wickedly misrepresenting 
 
62 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 the ethical teachings and theological doctrines that prevailed 
 in Greece for many centuries before the Christian era. 
 
 Occasionally a clergyman has dared to be just. Such was 
 the Rev. J. B. Gross. In his "Introduction to Heathen 
 Religion," he says: "Perhaps on no subject within the 
 ample range of human knowledge have so many fallacious 
 ideas been propagated as upon that of the gods and the 
 worship of heathen antiquity. ^N'othing but a shameful 
 ignorance, a pitiable prejudice or the contemptible pride, 
 which denounces all investigations as a useless or a criminal 
 labor, when it must be feared that they will result in the 
 overthrow of pre-established systems of faith or the modifi- 
 cation of long-cherished principles of science, can have thus 
 misrepresented the theology of heathenism, and distorted — 
 nay, caricatured — its forms of religious worship. It is time 
 that posterity should raise its voice in vindication of violated 
 truth, and that the present age should learn to recognize in 
 the hoary past, at least, a little of that common sense of 
 which it boasts with as much self-complacency as if the 
 prerogative of reason was the birth-right only of modern 
 times." 
 
 The aim of priests, in throwing contempt upon the 
 mythologies of India, Egypt and Greece, was doubtless to 
 enable them longer to continue their hold upon the mind 
 through their superstitions, and the mouldy traditions of 
 church fathers. But the great N'ewton said, that "ancient 
 mythology was nothing but historical truth in a poetical 
 dress." Bacon said, it "consisted solely of moral and meta- 
 physical allegories." The learned Bryant, as quoted by Sir 
 William Jones, said, that "all the heathen divinities were 
 only different representatives of deceased progenitors." 
 Jamblichus, author of Life of Pythagoras, admits that 
 the " gods and demons of the mythologic ages, were the 
 good and heroic of earth's immortalized, yet giving oracles 
 to the living." 
 
 From the facts adduced in Grecian history, we learn what 
 the modern church of Christians dare not recognize, that the 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — GRECIAN. 63 
 
 images of those ancient gods, some beautiful and others 
 hideous, according to the plane of spiritual perception, were 
 used as oracles, the same as tables, musical instruments and 
 planchetts for spiritual communication, are these days. 
 Theirs were doubtless better media, being forms of the 
 spirits themselves, made by their order for mediumistic 
 purposes. Originally, those "idols," as churchal worshipers 
 scornfully call them, were the channels of sweet and holy 
 communication with presiding angels once inhabiting the 
 earth-sphere. 
 
 Beda, treating of the "Seven Wonders of the World," 
 tells us, that, in the capitol at Rome, there were statues 
 (mediumized by spirit magnetism) set up for all the prov- 
 inces conquered by the Romans. 'J'hese were images of 
 their gods, on the breasts of which were written the names 
 of the nations. On their necks little bells were hung, and 
 priests were appointed to watch them day and night. When 
 one of these rung by spirit influence, they knew at once 
 what nation was about to rebel against the Romans, of which 
 due notice was immediately given to the civil authorities, 
 who made provision accordingly. 
 
 By means of bells the spirits gave many of their commu- 
 nications to the Jewish priests, whose garments were 
 festooned with them, making music, under right conditions, 
 delicious as that we these days hear at the musical 
 entertainments of spiritual circles. 
 
 M. de L'Ancre, in his book entitled " The Inconstancy of 
 Demons and Evil Spirits," tells us, "That in the town of 
 Bourdeaux, there was an honest canon of a church who had 
 his house for sometime troubled (haunted) with spirits; and 
 that, among other things, there was heard almost every night 
 a kind of music, like that of the espirut, set with little bells, 
 so pleasant, that this partly took from him the fear and 
 apprehension of the spirits." 
 
 With the ancient spiritualists communicat'ons by sounds 
 were carried to a high state of perfection, showing the 
 delicacy of their spiritual batteries, and tha beautiful degree 
 
64 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 of their musical science blending with their leligion. 
 Undoubtedly they discovered a certain mental ratiocinatior, 
 between sound and moral character, and made it practical 
 in the methods above described. Developed by the Spiritual 
 Philosophy, it is already known, that every person, as is every 
 object in the outer world, is ensphered in an atmospheric 
 magnetism exactly of the quality of the inner aifection and 
 the co-relative molecular texture of the body. The intona- 
 tions of every person's voice i,s a sure index of such 
 qualities — indeed of the very spirit itself. Man is organized 
 on the eternal principles of music, and is keyed to certain 
 grades of love and thought as a musical instrument to 
 sounds which it is intended to produce. This spiritual 
 keying of the character determines taste in music. Hence, 
 certain sounds are agreeable to some; to others disagreeable. 
 Deep, solemn psalmody, will stir the soul of the churchal 
 worshiper; such sounds enter into rapport with him 
 interiorly; hence the response. The lute or the guitar will 
 better charm the passional lover or melancholy dreamer. 
 
 Gottschalk, the great pianist, speaking of musical philos- 
 phy, states that '^ the flame of the candles oscillates to the 
 quake of the organ. A powerful orchestra near a sheet of 
 water ruffles its surface. * * * Ti^g sound of the bassoon 
 is cold; the notes of the French horn, at a distance, and of 
 the harp, are voluptuous. The flute, playing softly in the 
 middle of the register, calms the nerves." Swedenborg 
 discovered the practicability of this musical ratiocination in 
 the spiritual world, when he said, all the speech of the angels, 
 " at the close of every sentence, has its termination in unity 
 of accent, which is merely in consequence of the divine 
 influx into their souls respecting the unity of God." 
 
 We see, therefore, a must beautiful truth in Jamblichus' 
 explanation of musical divination by the use of priestly bells. 
 He says in substance : " Various kinds of motions in the 
 world answer to various orders of the gods. Melodies agree 
 according to the principles of their motions (undulatory 
 vibrations), and flow to cei'tain gods to which they are most 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — GRECIAN. 6l' 
 
 agreeable, or with which they are most in correspondentiai 
 'harmony. The gods being every where, bestow their gifts 
 where the sounds and melodies chiefly agree to them. 
 Being aflfected thereby, they insinuate themselves inspira- 
 tionally into our spirits, and wholly work in us by their 
 musical essence and power." 
 
 Pj'thagoras maintained that a divinity lay hidden in these 
 sacred ringings of bells on the statues, and in the ears they 
 sounded as "the voice of the gods." 
 
 Plutarch says, " their sound is only heard by those who 
 keep their minds in a calm and composed state, undisturbed 
 by passions." Then he avers we can hear the holy melodies 
 of " sacred and demoniacal men." 
 
 Luther being on an animal plane, coarse and vulgar, yet 
 herculean in will, heard spirit sound answering exactly in 
 quality of melody with this plane of his life; and it was to 
 him ''as if a w^ind went out of his head, the devil driving 
 it ! "' 
 
 Mahomet heard these melodies, whilst in a trance, giving 
 him most heavenly answers to his questions. 
 
 The beautiful legend of the ancients is not, therefore, 
 without foundation in psychological law. The bells of their 
 temples were consecrated to divine worship ; when, therefore, 
 they were rung ''offensive genii" took flight, afi:righ ted at 
 the sounds. When the bell of the soul — the sensorium — is 
 struck with angelic thought, there is a response with the 
 angels, and all evil influences are repelled as darkness before 
 the light of the rising sun. How natural then for those 
 devotees to reverence these oracular images ! As they 
 departed from the spiritual senses to the more external, the 
 virtue of that worship dimmed into shadow and gloom, 
 leaving only the bare image, void of soul, like the church to- 
 day, worshiping symbols whose spiritual substance has 
 departed; or, like spirit-rappings, and the other physical 
 phenomena, when wretchedly abused by monopolizing and 
 sensuous Spiritualists. Let us beware how we use the divine 
 oracles, lest our worship be also meaningless idolatry! The 
 
66 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 readers attention is called to the following facts, culled from 
 the many, exactly parallel : 
 
 " There are many oracles among the Greeks, many also among the 
 Egyptians, many in Africa, and many here in Asia. But these give 
 responses neither without priests, nor without interpreters. Here, 
 however, Apollo is self-moved, and performs the prophetic office wholly 
 by himself ; and this he does as follows : When he wishes to "com- 
 municate," he moves in his place, whereupon the priests forthwith take 
 him up. Or if they neglect to take him up, he sweats, and comes forth 
 into the middle of the room ; when, however, others bear him upon their 
 shoulders, he guides them, moving from place to place. At length the 
 chief priest supplicating him, asks him all sorts of questions. If he 
 does not assent, he moves backwards ; if he approves, he impels forward 
 those who bear him, like a charioteer. Thus they arrive at responses. 
 They do nothing except by this method. Thus he gives predictions 
 concerning the seasons, foretells storms, &c. I will relate another thing 
 also which he did in my presence. The priests were bearing him upon 
 their shoulders — he left them below upon the ground, while he himself 
 was borne aloft and alone into the air.'' (Lucian. de Syria Dea.) 
 
 " A little before the misfortune of the Lacedsemonians at Leuctra, 
 there was heard the clashing of arms in the temple of Hercules, and 
 the statue of Hercules sweat profusely. At Thebes, at the same time, 
 in the temple of Hercules, the folding doors, which were fastened with 
 bolts, suddenly opened of themselves, and the arms which were hung 
 upon the walls were found thrown upon the ground. There were other 
 signs preceding this calamity. The statue of Lysander at Delphi, 
 which the Lacedaemonians had placed there after his great naval victory 
 over the Athenians, appeared crowned with weeds and bitter herbs, 
 and the two golden stars which had been suspended there as offerings 
 in honor of Castor and Pollux, who had assisted them visible/ in that 
 battle, fell, and disappeared." ( Cicero, de Divinatione i. 94.) 
 
 The cultured Greeks, eminently poetic and spiritual, 
 cherished views concerning death quite similar to the spirit- 
 ualists of this century. Plato was, to them, a central inspi- 
 ration. Touched and thrilled hy his sublime doctrines, they 
 considered this world the only Hades ; heaven, their native 
 home, and all death an ascent to the higher life. 
 
 Avoiding descent for incarnation, and remaining on high, 
 with the gods, was real life, because life in the spirit ; while 
 descent into this world was death. Macrobius writes in hia 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — GRECIAN. 67 
 
 " dream of Scipio," " Here, on earth, is the cavern of despair, 
 the infernal region. The river of oblivion is the wandering 
 of the mind, forgetting the majesty of its former life; and 
 a thinking residence in the body the only life." (Lib. i. 
 cap. 9). To the clear vision of those inspired Grecians, dying 
 was ascending to the soul's primal home— the society of the 
 celestial gods in the "^arry -eg-o'js c^" a easm-eless space. 
 
Chapter ia. 
 
 ROMAN. 
 
 **For thrice ten thousand holy demons rove 
 This breathing world, the delegates of Jove, 
 Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys 
 The upright judgments and the unrighteous ways." 
 
 " Thus we see how man's prophetic creeds 
 Made gods of men, when Godlike were their deeds." 
 
 Rome ! proud, imperial, seven-hilled — Rome ! tliat with 
 nod could crown kings and hury empires — Rome! boastful 
 of her Cicero and her Csesars — Rome ! that humbled Carth- 
 age — Rome ! with her deep blue skies, southern winds, and 
 ruins rich in ancient legends ! she accepted, even in her most 
 famous ages, Greece for her schoolmaster. Her philosophy, 
 religion, science, art, and poetry — her dramas, and even the 
 very laws so long honored in Athens, were brought from 
 Greece and introduced among the Romans more than three 
 hundred years before Christ. Greek art was copied by 
 Roman artists. Greek professors taught the Grecian philoso 
 phy to the more promising of the youth of Rome, and all 
 were taught to respect the oracles and reverence the gods 
 and genii that appeared to, guarded, and conversed with 
 mortals. 
 
 Sallust, a Platonic philosopher, author of a treatise " On 
 the Gods and the world," says : "But we, when we are good, 
 are conjoined with the gods through similitude ; but when 
 evil, we are separated from them through dissimilitude. 
 
 68 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — ROMAN. 69 
 
 And while we live according to virtue, we partake of the 
 gods, but when we become evil, we cause them to become 
 our enemies; not that they are angry, but because guilt pre- 
 vents us from receiving the illuminations of the gods, and 
 subjects us to the power of avenging demons. * * 
 
 " Since the providence of the gods is everywhere extended, 
 a certain latitude, or fitness, is all that is requisite in order to 
 receive their beneficent communications. But since so much 
 providence is displayed in the last things, it is impossible that 
 it should not subsist in such as are first: besides, divinations 
 and the healing of bodies, take place from the beneficent 
 providence of the gods." 
 
 Cicero says : — "Now, as far as I know, there is no nation 
 whatever, however polished and learned, or however barba- 
 rous and uncivilized, which does not believe it possible that 
 future events may be indicated, understood and predicted by 
 certain persons." — De Divinatione, lib. 1. 
 
 He further says, "To natural divination, belongs that 
 which does not take place from supposition, observations, or 
 well-known signs ; but arises from an inner state and activ- 
 ity of the mind in which men are enabled by an unfettered 
 advance of the soul to foretell future things. * * * jf 
 we turn to ridicule the Babylonians and Caucasians, who 
 believe in celestial signs, and who observe the number and 
 course of the stars ; if, as I said, we condemn all these for 
 their superstitions and folly, which, as they maintain, are 
 founded upon the experience of fifty centuries and a half; 
 let us, in that case, call the belief of ages imposture — let 
 us burn our records, and say that everything was but imag- 
 ination. But is the history of Greece a lie, when Apollo 
 foretold the future through the oracles of the Lacedaemo- 
 nians and Corinthians ? I will leave all else as it is, but this 
 I must defend, that the gods influence and care for human 
 affairs. The Delphian oracle would never have become so 
 celebrated, nor so overwhelmed by presents from every king 
 and every nation, if every age had not experienced the truth 
 of its predictions." 
 
70 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Among the most noted of the ancient oracles were Delp'r 3, 
 Dodona and Trophonius. Delphi was situated at the foot of 
 Mount Parnassus, historic as one of the haunts of the 
 muses. Upon this mountain there was a cave, from which 
 arose electric exhalations intoxicating the brain. It was dis- 
 covered by a shepherd youth, who, upon experiencing its 
 mfluences, was caused to pronounce strange words, and 
 foretell future events. Around this cave were erected 
 several temples, one of which was magnificent. To it, all 
 nations flocked for responses. Apollo, a Grecian god, was 
 the spiritual intelligence that gave the oracle. Poets, ora- 
 tors, and generals frequently consulted the Delphian medium, 
 receiving responses and prophecies. This medium, through 
 whom the oracle was delivered, was a priestess called Pythia. 
 Apollo did not always give the communications orally, but 
 impressed the leading ideas upon her mind, and she uttered 
 them in her own language, thus affecting or stamping them 
 with her own peculiarities. 
 
 The Pythia prepared herself for the spiritual control of 
 Apollo by purifications and fastings ; then, being so charged 
 by him with the electric fluid, that her hair stood upright, 
 eyes wild, and even the foundation of the temple shaking, 
 she uttered strange, mystic words, which were collected by 
 prophets and poets, and woven into verse. Here is a sample, 
 designed to inspire the halting nature of Agesilaus : 
 
 *' Sparta, beware, though thou art fierce and proud, 
 Lest a lame king thy ancient glories shroud ; 
 For then 'twill be thy fate to undergo 
 Tedious turmoil of war and sudden woe." 
 
 Plutarch, as translated from the Greek by Philips, gives 
 the reason why the Pythian priestess ceased her oracles in 
 verse. The classical Anthon says, that besides the " Sacred 
 Oaks" at Dodena, "dreams, visions, and preternatural 
 voices also announced the will of the divinities." These 
 oracles continued to speak from the immortal realms, as may 
 be proven from Plutarch and Suetonius, long after the 
 
ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — ROMAN. 71 
 
 advent of Christianity. Nero and Julian both consulted 
 them and received satisfactory answers. It also appears 
 from the edicts of the Emperors Theodosius, Gratian and 
 Valentinian, that oracles existed and were consulted as late 
 as A. D. 358. These, in fact, have existed in all ages and 
 under ar civilizations, as ancient records demonstrate. They 
 were simply phases of mediumship. The utterances of these 
 lords, gods, angels, demons, and spirits, have been termed, in 
 different periods, oracles, scriptures and inspirations. 
 
 The Romans, ambitious for fame, not only consulted the 
 prophetic spirits of their own empire, but each year sent 
 authorized individuals, as embassadors extraordinary, to 
 consult with the most noted oracles of Greece. Livy's his- 
 tory of Rome covers a period of time six hundred years from 
 the laying of its foundation to the date of its highest mili- 
 tary power as a commonwealth, and that popular English 
 writer, Wm. Howitt, tells us that " in Livy alone he had 
 marked above ffty instances of his record of the literal ful- 
 fillment of dreams, oracles, prognostics, by soothsayers and 
 astrologers." 
 
 The Rev. E. L. Magoou, in his '* Grand Drama of Human 
 Progress," writing of Romulus, says : 
 
 " We are told by Livy, that soon after his disappearance 
 from among men, the spirit of Romulus visited the distin- 
 guished senator, Proculus Julius, and addressed him as 
 follows : — * Go, tell my countrymen it is the decree of 
 heaven, that the city I have founded shall become the mis- 
 tress of the world. Let her cultivate assiduously the mili- 
 tary art. Then let her be assured, and transmit the 
 assurance from age to age, that no mortal power can resist 
 the arms of Rome.' Strict and persevering obedience to 
 this counsel eventually caused that colossal power to extend 
 itself from Siberia to the Great Desert, and from the Ganges 
 to the Atlantic." 
 
 When the Roman Emperor Tiberius left the city for 
 Caprese, the soothsayers — a certain order of mediums gifted 
 with the power of foretelling the future — said, with deep 
 
72 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 solemnity, he would never again enter the eternal citj. 
 This, Tacitus admits, was literally fulfilled. These are his 
 words : *' That Tiberius would return no more was, as 
 prophesied, verified by tbe event." Further illustrating the 
 peculiarities of Tiberius' life, in the sixth book of the 
 Annals, and weighing the testimony as to oracular prophe- 
 cies, and also to what extent gods and demons exercised 
 guardianship over and came into conscious relations with 
 mortals, he adds : 
 
 *' That though what is foretold and the events that follow 
 may often vary, the fallacy is not to be imputed to the ar 
 itself (that is, the iruth of mediumship), but to the vanity 
 of pretenders to a science respected b\' antiquity, and in 
 modern times established by undoubted proof." 
 
 The principal events pertaining to the reign of Nero were 
 foretold by the son of Thrassalus, a noted prophetic seer of 
 that time. 
 
 Pliny the younger relates marvelous things that occurred 
 within his range of knowledge, as foretold by oracles or 
 predicted in visions and dreams. 
 
 The assassination of Caracalla was foreshadowed to him in 
 a dream. 
 
 Sylla was apprised of his death by a strange vision the 
 very night before his departure from earth. 
 
 Also, on the night that Attila passed to the sunlit shores 
 of immortality, Marius dreamed that Attila's bow was 
 broken ; and according to Plutarch, Brutus himself, in a 
 grim twilight hour, was met by Caesar's spirit, that said, 
 "I shall meet thee at Philippi !" and at Philippi Brutus 
 fell 
 
 Presentiments, spirit voices, portents, bodings, visions, 
 dreams and shadowy warnings have frequently preceded 
 individual and almost uniformly national disasters. 
 
 Vespasian, probably the most unassuming, and certainly 
 one of the most eminent, of the Roman emperors, was the 
 possessor of several mediumistic gifts, the most prominent 
 of wh'^h were seeing and healing. Several instances are 
 
AXCIEXT HTSTOUIC SPfTlITrA IJ^M ROMAN. 73 
 
 recorded of his restoring the sick and causing the blind to 
 see by spirit power. While in Ak^xandria he restored a 
 paralytic hand by a simple touch. Both Suetonius and 
 Strabo confirm these accounts. The critical Tacitus, writing 
 of Vespasian and his spiritual endowments, relates the flict 
 of his distinctly seeing Basilides clairvoyantly, when many 
 miles distant in body. He also mentions his bringing sight 
 to the ray less eyes of an Alexandrian moving in the humbler 
 walks of life, who came to him by the advice of Serapis, a 
 departed spirit, highly esteemed among the Egyptians. 
 These, and multitudes more of so-called miraculous works, 
 are much better attested by history than those ascribed to 
 the Man of IlTazareth. All are entitled to more or less 
 credit. Tacitus further says, that Vespasian concluded that 
 the gods had favored him with supernatural vision, and 
 divine gifts, which gave him confidence that his future 
 reign would be cared for by the gods, and such guardian 
 demons as inhabit the higher elysian lands of heaven. 
 
 Based upon research, then, and in the exercise of our best 
 judgment, we accept as true most of the wonders, prodigies, 
 visions, trances, spiritual gifts and superhuman works of 
 those elder ages, that (preceded by trials and crosses) ulti- 
 mately crowned the mediumistic and martyred of India, 
 Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome and Judea — accept them, 
 whether carved on pyramids, penned on parchment-scrolls, 
 or written in Biblical or Sybilline books — accept them, first, 
 because conformable with the clearest methods of spiritual 
 analysis and humanity's divinest intuitions; and secondly, 
 because reasonable — because corroborated by hosts of eye- 
 witnesses in all ages and countries, and confirmed by thou- 
 sands of media in the present. The general law is ever 
 the same; the mingling of races in connection with country, 
 civilization and other conditions, have merely modified the 
 manifestations. Jesus declared that '* greater works" than 
 his should be done in the future. 
 
 But why adduce further testimony? The historic past is 
 comparable to a measureless wilderness, all dotted and 
 
74 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 gemmed with vallej^s and mountains, flowers, fruits, a- a 
 crystal streams, symbolizing immortal truths — truths with 
 millions-phased fore-gleams and finger-marks demonstrating 
 an actual converse with those exalted and immortalized souls 
 that traverse the upper kingdom of God ! Hence, Sophocles 
 affirmed that — 
 
 " This is not a matter of to-day, 
 Or yesterday, but hath been from all time." 
 
 A.nd Hesiod, in strains as mellifluous as undying, told of— 
 
 *' JSrial spirits designed 
 To be on earth the guardians of mankind." 
 
 — while the grandly inspired Goethe sang in sweet refrain — 
 
 ** The spirit world is not closed — 
 Thy tense is closed — thy heart is dead." 
 
ECTURE III 
 
 HRISTIAN pPIRITUALISM. 
 
Lhaptei\^ X. 
 
 THE FORESHADOVVINQ. 
 
 **God has taught but one religion, 
 One in every age and land. 
 
 « * * ■9fr «■ 
 
 God has written but one Bible — 
 Love — compressed in one quick word." 
 
 Religion is natural. The religious sentiment is an essen- 
 tial principle of the human soul. Like the true and the 
 beautiful, like moral consciousness, it is in humanity perma- 
 nent, eternal. 
 
 Life's emotional stream from the manger in Nazareth to 
 the " rappings " in Rochester, has been bridged with 
 startling, spiritual phenomena. So devious its windings, the 
 patient student of antiquity often wearies in tracing it 
 among the lights and shadows that alternately dance in 
 brightness, or darken into sullen midnight along its shelving 
 shores. 
 
 The genuine historian living in two worlds — the past and 
 the present — is necessarily philosophic and imaginative, paint- 
 ing visible forms, as well as transcribing passing events. 
 Though gathering these, and weighing facts correctly — 
 the hard granitic facts characterizing given epochs — he 
 experiences deeper delights in arranging them in orderly 
 series, and deducing therefrom such great logical conclusions 
 as tally with the mighty march of the ages. 
 
 During those fearful mediaeval years, when a cultured 
 paganism and Pauline Christianity, brooded by a chrysalis 
 
 77 
 
78 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 papacy, were struggling for social and political mastery, there 
 were treasured in costly tomes the records of strange psycho- 
 logic wonders, inner visions, imperial prophecies, and grand 
 demonstrations of immortality. These, exhumed and ana- 
 lyzed under the meridian sjin of this century, stand aa 
 phenomenal witnesses of spirit intercourse — echoes from the 
 gods flowing in melodious lights, and flaming with promise 
 along the stately steps of humanity. 
 
 The nights of those dust-buried centuries had their stars-, 
 the angels, their blessed missions; all the old legendary 
 periods, their representative personages. Balanced upon the 
 topmost waves of circling eras, each, in turn, exclaimed : 
 "It is I, be not afraid ! " Startling the world, founding new 
 institutions, they disappeared for still greater, to breathe 
 diviner utterances, prophesy of rosier Junes, riper harvests; 
 and bring to a thirsting people fresher draughts from the 
 ever-flowing fountains of inspiration. 
 
 Among the eminent leaders that arose under Asian skies, 
 was Joshua — He was so called by his friends and Hebrew coun- 
 trymen, signifying savior. The Syrian world expected some 
 remarkable leader. " Coming events cast their shadows 
 before.*' This thought impregnated the national atmos- 
 phere. It was truly a propitious period. There was weeping 
 by Babylon's streams; a suspense of spiritual life; a literal 
 reign of ritualism in Judea. The Pharisees corresponded to 
 New England Puritans, being the most prominent of the 
 Jewish sects. In Hillel, disciple of Shammai, and other 
 grave Rabbins, they had interpreters of the law; but the 
 masses and more advanced thinkers of the times, demanded 
 an exposition of the soul; its forces, sympathies, capacities 
 and infinite possibilities. Demand brings supply. When 
 India, China, Greece, called, there were born to them, 
 saviors — Chrishna, Confucius, Pythagoras. 
 
 The coming of these religious chieftains, as with Jesus, 
 was foretold in dreams and prophecies; foretold, because the 
 thought concerning them, and their mediatorial mission on 
 earth, were born and shaped in ihe Angel Congresses ot 
 
CHRISTIAN SPIKTTUALTSM — FonF.SIIADOWTNO. 79 
 
 supernal worlds. The world of spirits is the world of causes; 
 this, of shadows and effects. All broad humanitarian plans, 
 for redemptive purposes, are first conceived in the higher 
 realms of spiritual existence; then inflowed by the natural 
 law of influx to the sensitive of earth, to take form, be enun- 
 ciated, and ultimately outworked into practical life. Ascended 
 Hebrew prophets, Persian magi, and other sages of the Orient, 
 long in the heavens, planned the birth of a more spiritual 
 organism — a better type of Shemitic manhood, to lift the 
 Jewish nation out of its chronic clannishness and dwarfing 
 formalisms, into the diviner regions of absolute religion — 
 that perpetual gospel destined finally to bless all nations. 
 
 Law is infinite. All conceptions, births, deaths, are 
 governed by fixed and established laws; therefore^ natural. 
 Alary was susceptible to spirit influence. Immortals knowing 
 it, and seeing her to be a future mother, overshadowed her 
 with their piercing, moulding magnetism. To this end the 
 angel Gal)riel, through the mediumistic Evangelist, Luke, 
 said to her : "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the 
 power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." Jesus there- 
 fore was precocious and loving ; impressional and clair- 
 voyant ; a mortal brother of the immortal gods and goddesses 
 who helped fashion him mentally, that he, inspired by them, 
 and a "legion of angels," might aid in fashioning future 
 ages. 
 
 Speaking the Syriac dialect, mixed with, if not mostly 
 Hebrew, his better words, dropping like gems from crowns, 
 were gilt-edged, and alive with the logic of love and 
 intuition. His life so rich and suggestive to a spiritual phi- 
 losopher, so vague and mystical to an external matter-of-fact 
 Jew, was a blended Odyssey and tragedy, with legions of 
 inspiring powers behind the scenes. On Calvary he died a 
 martyr ! His principles live forever ; while he, a perpetual 
 inspiration to this planet, mediatorially preaches univeraaJ 
 love as a redemptive power in all worlds. 
 
Chaptei^ XI, 
 
 lilYTHIC. 
 
 "Men groped to find the wrecks of primal matter, 
 And wasted long years in putting bone to bone ; 
 
 Babel revives where the world's gossips clatter, 
 And fossil words adjust to fossil stone. 
 
 O'er fossil homilies the churches nod 
 
 Stone heart, stone service, and a stony God ! " 
 
 Thinkers of the living present will necessarily study the 
 man of Nazareth from three planes of thought : 
 
 I. The historic Jesus, copied from the Krishna of India: 
 
 II. The theologic Jesus, a church monster of the '^ Christian 
 Fathers :" 
 
 III. The natural Jesus, an enthusiastic Spiritualist of 
 
 Judea. 
 
 Naturally worshipful, all nations have had their Jehovahs, 
 Krishnas, Christs, Bibles, and priests to expound them. The 
 oldest of these are traceable to India. Under tropical skies 
 there summered the most ancient civilizations. They had 
 their arts, sciences, ethics, poets, authors, the literature of 
 which, has streamed in such unbroken channels down the 
 intermediate ages, as to overwhelm with astonishment the 
 first scholars of Europe. 
 
 Sir William Jones said their "Literature seemed absolutely 
 Inexhaustible, reminding him of infinity itself." Johnson 
 ^rote : " The Iliad of Homer numbers twenty-four thousand 
 verses; but the Mahabharata of the Hindoos four hundred 
 thousand; and the Puranas comprehending only a small 
 
 80 
 
CHRISTIAN SriRITUALISM — MYTHIC. 8] 
 
 portion of their religious books, extend to two millions ol 
 verses. Among the more valued of their religious works, h 
 the Bhagavat-Gita, Krishna's revelation. This is termed b^ 
 a classical German scholar : " A magnificent Thespesian 
 poem, abounding in metaphysics, ethics, and sublime religious 
 doctrines." The same author classes Jesus among the "first 
 of the Judean poets." Considered as prose or poetry, it has 
 richer veins of thought than the book of Job, and bears 
 certain oriental relations to the gospel of John. 
 
 The Bhagavat-Purana, the 18th of the Puranas, is devoted 
 to the history of Krishna.* Some of the Upanishads dwell 
 largely upon the beauty and purity of his life. He was the 
 eighth Avater of Vishnu, the first person in the adorable 
 *' Trinity " of that portion of the Hindoos occupying the 
 more central parts of India. This divine descent, according 
 to the best authority, took place in the beginning of the Kali- 
 Yuga, or " counted age" — an " age of vice and iron," about 
 four thousand years since ; and was for the purpose of 
 redeeming humanity. Vishnu, thus descending, took upon 
 nimself human form, becoming Krishna incarnate — " God 
 manifest in the flesh." It is the same as the " verhum 
 caro factum est" — the word made flesh — of St John, who, 
 towards the close of an eventful life, became acquainted, in 
 consequence of his scholarship and high spiritual culture, 
 with the doctrines of the Eastern Magi, a class of philoso- 
 phers called Gnostics. These Gnostics had derived most of 
 their teachings from the " mysteries" of the Gymnosophists 
 of India. 
 
 The close and almost i^erfect parallelism between the 
 Krishna of the Bhagavat-Gita, and the Christ of the 
 
 *Sir Wm. Jones invariably spells the name of this celebrated person, 
 Chrishna ; Dr. Weisse, a distinguished German writer, Krishna. Orthodox 
 clergy, anxious to make Jesus a purely original character, without (he least 
 authority, spell the name differently. An eminent English Divine says: <'The 
 cliurches meanly and pitifully alter the spelling of the name from the original 
 orthography, (Chrishna) which rests on the high authority of Sir Wm. Jones, 
 invariably print it as Krishna, or Kreeshna, to screen the resemblance of the 
 name to Christ from the eye's observance."' Either spcUinj; is correct 
 
82 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Gospels, is of itself sufficient evidence to show that one was 
 borrowed from the other: or that they were both copies 
 from some older myth. 
 
 Krishna is often represented as a savior, the same as 
 Jesus Christ. Considered originally, the Supreme God, he 
 condescended to descend and take upon himself the sinful 
 §tate of humanit3', as Christ is said to have done, by 
 orthodox theologians. Of royal origin, he was born in a 
 lowly condition. Immediately after the birth of Krishna, 
 he was saluted by divine songs from the Devatas — angels — 
 as was the Nazarene. Surrounded by shepherds, thoroughly 
 impressed with his greatness, he was visited by the Magi, 
 wise 7nen, among whom was an Indian prophet^ called JS'ared, 
 who, hearing of his fame, examined the stars, and declared 
 him of celestial descent. His parents "Nanda," the father, 
 and " Deva Maia,^^ tiie divine mother, were compelled to 
 flee by night into a remote country, for fear of a tyrant 
 who had ordered all the male children of those reo-ions 
 to be slain. This story, says the eminent Godfrey Hig- 
 gins, (Anac. b. iv. s. ii.) " Is the subject of an immense 
 sculpture in the cave at Elephanta, where the suspicious 
 tyrant is represented destroying the children." The date 
 of this sculpture, Higgins further says ; *' is lost in the most 
 remote antiquity." 
 
 Krishna was sent to a tutor to be instructed; and 
 instantly astonished him by his profound wisdom, as did 
 Christ, the Jewish doctors, in the temple. Krishna is called 
 Ileri, and Ileri, in Sanscrit, means shepherd, as well as savior. 
 Christ was termed the "shepherd of the sheep. Krishna 
 had a forerunner in his elder brother, Horn, as had Jesus in 
 his cousin, John the Baptist. Rom assisted Krishna, the 
 " Good Shepherd," in purifying the world from the pollution 
 of evil demons. To show deep humility, Krishna washed 
 the feet of the Brahmins; so did Jesus the disciples. Upon 
 one occasion a woman poured on Kiishna's head a box of 
 ointment, for which he cured her of an ailment. Matthew's 
 gospel assures us that a woinau anointed the bead of Jesus 
 
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — MYTHIC. SS 
 
 ill a similar manner. One of Krishna's first miracles, wag 
 the cure of a leper. It was also among the first of Christ's. 
 During the succeeding career of Krishna, he taught inspi- 
 rational truths, raised the dead, was crucified, descended into 
 Hades — the under world of spirits — whence he returned, and 
 ascended to Yaicontha, Heaven, or the proper Paradise of 
 Vishnu, who is the Father, or first person of the Hindoo 
 Trinity. 
 
 There are further similarities in the lives of Krishna and 
 Christ. Krishna had a favorite disciple — Arjuna — the third 
 son of Pandu, corresponding to the "disciple that Jesus 
 loved." The first section of the Bhagavat-Gita, is devoted 
 to the grief of the loved Arjuna. The church historians, 
 Eusebius and Athanasius, state, that, when Joseph and Mary 
 arrived in Egypt, they took up their abode in Thebais — in 
 which was a superb temple of Serapis. Entering the 
 temple, miracles were wrought. The full account is recorded 
 in the Evangelium Infantile. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Maurice acknowledges that " The Arabic 
 edition of the gospel of the infancy of Jesus, mentions 
 Matarea as the place where the infant savior resided during 
 his absence from Judea, until the death of Herod. Krishna 
 was born at Mathura. The Evangelium Infantise mentions 
 the place where Jesus was born, as filled with light surpass- 
 ing that of the noonday sun. The moment Krishna was 
 born the whole room became splendidly illuminated, and 
 the heads of the father and mother were surrounded with 
 rays of glory. These similarities are so striking, that none 
 can fail of perceiving why the " Gospel of the Infancy of 
 Jesus " was voted non-canonical by a council of Christian 
 Bishops. The book was considered inspired, however, by 
 many of the church fathers, and was highly esteemed by 
 St. Irenseus, Bishop of Lyons, who sufiTered martyrdom, 
 A. D. 202. 
 
 Krishna of India, and Christ of Judea, both born in Asia, 
 were so literally identical in general character, as well as in 
 the minor events and cii'cumstances of their lives, that none 
 
84 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 can deny their close historic connexion. Which, then, the 
 origwal f which the copy ? 
 
 The Bhagavat-Gita, one of the most sacred of the Puranas, 
 contai.is an account of Krishna's life — the Gospels of 
 Christ's life. Both were announced as saviors. Which was, 
 therefore, first, the Bhagavat-Gita, or the ]N'ew Testament ? 
 With profound oriental scholars there can be little, perhaps 
 no difference of opinion. 
 
 The sacred Hindoo book— the Bhagavat-Gita — lays claim 
 to nearly the highest antiquity of any of the Brahminical 
 compositions. That very competent judge, Rev. Mr. Mau- 
 rice admits there is ample proof to show its existence full four 
 thousand years since. Sir Wm. Jones, whose orthodoxy was 
 never questioned, affirms that the name of Krishna, and the 
 general outline of his history, were long anterior to the birth 
 of our Saviour, and probably to the time of Homer, we 
 know very certainly.'^ This is authority from an unwilling 
 witness. 
 
 The celebrated English scholar, Godfrey Higgins, says, 
 (Anac. b. iv. c. i. p. 129,): "• The sculptures on the walls of 
 the most ancient temples — temples by no one ever doubted 
 to be long anterior to the Christian Era — as well as written 
 works equally old, prove, beyond a possibility of doubt, the 
 superior antiquity of the history of Krishna to that of Jesus." 
 Higgins is very poor authorit3\ 
 
 Dr. Prichard admits, (Anal. Egypt. Mythol. p. 261,) " That 
 the history of Krishna is to be found in all the caves of 
 Ellora, Elephanta and others known to be the oldest." 
 
 The learned Baldseus observes, (Prof. Uni. Hist. p. 13,) 
 that every "part of the life of Krishna has a near resem- 
 blance to the history of Christ; and that the time Avlien 
 Krishna's miracles were performed was during the Duap- 
 parajug, wliich ended tliirty-one hundred years before the 
 C'liristian Era." 
 
 In consonance with tlie above, the Cantab declares: "If 
 there's meaning in ivonh^ this Christian Missionary admits, 
 (according to Higgins,) that the history of Christ is founded 
 
CHRISTIAN SriKITUALISM — MYTHIC. 85 
 
 on that of Krishna/' This author furtlier declares, (Anac. 
 b. X. c. ii. p. 593,) "That even the most blind and credulous 
 of devotees must allow that we have the existence of the 
 Krishna of the Brahmins in Thrace many hundred years 
 before the birth of Jesus Christ." Not admitted. 
 
 Justin assures us, " that the Erythraen Sybil, which 
 foretold the things that should happen to Jesus Christ, also 
 told that, in a neighboring country, between the Indus and 
 Ganges, there was a person, Krishna, long before Christ's 
 time, to whom were ascribed nearly all the things that were 
 ascribed to Jesus Christ." It is further demonstrated upon 
 the authority of a " passage of Adrian^ that the worship of 
 Krishna was practiced in the time of Alexander the Great, 
 (330 B. C.) in the Temple of Mathura, one of the most 
 famous of India." These testimonies settle the matter of 
 time. 
 
 Maurice, in h ;s elaborate work, frankly confesses that the 
 Evangelists must have copied from the Bhagavat-Gita and 
 other Puranas ; or the Brahmins from the Evangelists. But 
 we have shown from the most incontestable sources, that the 
 sacred Bhagavat-Gita antedated the time of Christ by at 
 least a thousand, and far more probably, two thousand years ; 
 and that the celebrated Krishna lived and wrought his 
 marvelous miracles long oefore the appearance of the 
 Nazarene. 
 
 The educated protestant divines of France, and the more 
 erudite of the German theologians, admit the astonishing 
 similarity in the Asiatic saviors, Krishna and Christ. This, 
 in a good measure, accounts for the prevalence of German 
 Rationalism. The American clergy, with few exceptions, 
 narrow, conceited and sectarian, prefer reveling in blissful 
 ignorance relative to the antiquity of India, China, Egypt, 
 and the saviors and sacred books of Asia, from which ours 
 have been borrowed, or clandestinel}^ purloined. 
 
 From travel, and profound antiquarian research, Rev. Mr. 
 Maurice confesses that tlic principal incidents in the narrated 
 life of Jesus Christ — the birth at midnight, the chorus of 
 
80 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 angels, the cradling among shepherds, the child's conceal- 
 ment in a foreign country, from fear of a tyrant; the early 
 wisdom manifest, the curing of the leper, the raisings of the 
 dead, etc., were preluded in Krishna — all prophesied in the 
 prior life of Krishna, except the " immaculate conception." 
 
 This vacuum is readily supplied in the history of Pythag- 
 oras, born nearly six centuries before Jesus, on the Isle of 
 Sanios. Of him Jamblichus writes : *' ^o one can doubt that 
 tlie soul of Pythagoras was sent to mankind from the empire 
 of God, * * * being an attendant on the god, Apollo; 
 or co-arranged with him in some other way." 
 
 It was the custom of the earlj Church Fathers to travel for 
 information. This was especially the case with Papias, 
 llegesippus, Justin and others. These, visiting the most 
 enlightened portions of the East, mingled the teachings 
 there found, concerning Pythagoras, with those relating to 
 the Indian Krishna, and from the *' supernataral " connected 
 with the two, they constructed the mythologic portions of 
 the gospel histories. 
 
 When young, Pythagoras went to Tyre and Sidon, to be 
 schooled in their learning. Then he journeyed to Egpyt, to 
 be taught in the wisdom of her priests and seers, as did 
 Jesus, according to the testimony of Athanasias and the 
 scholarly M. Denon. After this Pythagoras was borne to Bab- 
 ylon by Cambyses, the restorer of the Jewish temple and 
 religion, and initiated into the divine mysteries of the 
 Persian Magi; and finally, he traveled into India, where he 
 became acquainted with the ethics and occult sciences of the 
 Brahmins. It is not only natural, but very evident that this 
 inspired Samian derived many of his metaphysical doctrines 
 from the Gymnosophic school of philosophy. From exten- 
 sive travel, this commingling could hardly be avoided. 
 
 The method of Pythagoras' conception is equally as mirac- 
 ulous as that ascribed to Jesus. They are, in fact, identicaL 
 In the writings of Jamblichus, who quotes, for authorities, 
 l^^pimenides, Xenocrates and Olimpiodoru'^, all living long 
 prior to tlie birth of Christ, may be found a full account of 
 
CHRISTIAN SnillTUALISM — MYTHIC. 87 
 
 the immaculate conception and birth of Pythagoras. That 
 truly learned and candid schohir, Godfrey Higgins, writes 
 (Anac. c. iv. p. 150,) : 
 
 '' The first striking circiiuistance in which the history of Pythaojoraa 
 agrees with the liistory of Jesus, is, that they were natives nearly of 
 the same country ; the former being born at Sidon, the latter at Beth- 
 lehem, both in Syria. The father of Pythagoras, as well as the father 
 of Jesus, was prophetically informed that his wife should bring forth a 
 son, who should be a benefactor to mankind. They were both born 
 when their mothers were from home on journeys ; Joseph and his wife 
 having gone up to Bethlehem to be taxed, and the father of Pythag- 
 oras having traveled from Samos. his residence, to Sidon, about his 
 mercantile concerns. Pythias, the mother of Pythagoras, had a 
 connexion with an Apolloniacal specter, or ghost, of the god Apollo, 
 which afterward appeared to her husband, and told him that he must 
 have no connexion with his wife during her pregnancy — a story 
 evidently the same as that relating to Joseph and Mary. From these 
 peculiar circumstances, P3"thagoras was known by the same identical 
 title as Jesus, namely, the Son of God, and was supposed by the 
 multitude to be under the influence of divine inspiration. 
 
 " When young, he was of a very grave deportment, and was cele- 
 brated for liis philosophical appearance and wisdom. He wore his hair 
 long, after the manner of the Nazarites, whence he was called the 
 long-haired Samiau." 
 
 Jamhlichus himself says : " The Pythian oracle foretold 
 to Mnesarchus, the father of Pythagoras, that his wife would 
 bring forth a son, surpassing in beauty and wisdom all that 
 ever lived, and who would be of the o-reatest advantao-e to 
 the human race, in everything pertaining to the life of man. 
 The infant, upon coming into existence, was called Pythag- 
 oras; signifying by this appellation that such an offspring 
 was predicted to him by the Pythian Apollo. 
 
 Pythagoras professed to visit the spiritual world, and hold 
 converse with departed spirits, and described the condition 
 of Homer, Hesiod and others there. His pure, holy and 
 divinely wonderful life, makes it impossible to doubt his 
 sincerity. It was said of him, that he '• knew every thing, 
 and was right in every thing." It was asserted by many 
 that he was " the Son of God." 
 
 Underlying all mytlioses are pearls of wisdom and sprink- 
 lings of truth. The crucified reformers uf to-day become 
 
88 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 the gods of to-morrow. This applies to the Kazarene 
 From the lives of Krishna and Pythagoras, were gathered 
 and woven the principal events connected with the historic 
 Jesus of the Evangelists. He is a copy of prior saviors. 
 This was the work of the Church Fathers of the first 
 centuries, and in perfect keeping with their general char- 
 acter ! Ambrose, Augustine, St. Jerome, and others, were 
 corrupted with the villainous idea, that " it was right to lie 
 for the sake of religion.'' Mosheim tells us (Yol. i. p. 130,) 
 the doctrine, *' that it was not only lawful, but commendable 
 to deceive and lie for the sake of truth and piet\^, early 
 spread among the Christians of the second century ! " This 
 church historian further admits (Vol. i. p. 155,) " that pious 
 frauds and impositions were auiong the causes of the extension 
 of Christianity ! " 
 
 '' And saviors," said Israel's prophet, " shall come up on 
 Mount Sion." Mark the jt?ZMr«7 / 
 
 There has been a stiiking sameness in character, to sev- 
 eral of the Oriental saviors. The truth is, every one is a 
 savior just so far as he instructs, helps, and saves others by 
 his precepts and practical life. 
 
 It is sad, almost pitiable, to note that a few of the unedu- 
 cated of this century have denied the very existence of the 
 Nazarene. How true that " A little learning is a danger- 
 ous thing." No scholar, philosopher, archaeologist, or erudite 
 historian has ever presumed to deny the existence of Jesus 
 of Nazareth, who, according to the records, "went about 
 doing good." y 
 
pHAPTEI^ XII, 
 
 THEOLOGIC. 
 
 **The ages sweep around him with their wings, 
 Like angered eagles cheated of their prey." 
 
 "One rosy drop from Jesus' heart 
 "Was worlds of seas to quench God's ire." 
 
 The accepted " Savior " of Christian nations to-day, is the 
 iheologic Christ; a strange Hebraic hybrid; half God, half 
 man — a church monster, shapen by the old ecclesiastic 
 Fathers and Eoman Bishops, from the most worthless 
 portion of the cast-off drippings of Pagan traditions. 
 
 There is no prophecy of this Christ of the church in the 
 Old Testament Scriptures. Saying nothing of the writings 
 of Colenso, that so completely undermine the Pentateuch, 
 nor of those deep thinking German divines that have shaken 
 the canonical- voted books of the Old Testament to their very 
 foundations, we merely refer to some eminent English divines. 
 Dr. Ekerman and Dr. Geo. S. Clark clearly show that the 
 Old Testament contains no prophecy relating to the person, 
 Jesus Christ. (Class. Jour, vol, xxxiii. p. 47.) Dr. Adara 
 Clark, the annotater of the Bible, contends that the prophecy 
 of Isaiah — '^ A Virgin shall conceive and bear a son j" and ^^ call 
 his name Immanuel,'' does not mean Christ; but Isaiah's own 
 son ! " Dr. Clark further observes : 
 
 " It is humbly apprehended that the young woman usually called the 
 virgin is the same with the prophetess, and Immanuel is to be named 
 
 89 
 
90 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 bj his mother, the same with the prophet's son, whom he was ordered 
 to name Maher-shalal-hash-baz." (Class. Jour. vol. i. p. 637.) 
 
 That there were general and dimly defined prophecies 
 enunciated by the more mediumistic of the Hebrew seers, 
 relating to coming saviors, and looking to the future spir- 
 itual illumination of their nation, is evidently true. 
 
 The Arian controversy concerniug the derivation and 
 deity of Christ, commencing early in the fourth century, 
 between Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, and Arius, one 
 of his presbyters, finally terminated by the Bishop's assert- 
 ing: "That the Son was not only of the same eminence 
 and dignity, but also of the same essence with the Father." 
 (Mosh. vol. i.) Accordingly, we have, in the Athanasian 
 creed, received by all evangelical Christians, ihis^ concerning 
 Jesus Christ: 
 
 " The Son is of the Father alone, not created, but begotten. 
 
 " The God-head of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 
 is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. * * '^ 
 
 " Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 '' The Father is Almighty, the Son is Almighty, and the Holy Ghost 
 Almighty. 
 
 " And yet there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. * * 
 
 " He, therefore, that would be saved, must thus think of the 
 Trinity." 
 
 After God had made the world in " six days," and Adam 
 from the " dust of the ground," he placed him in a garden, 
 and causing a "deep sleep" to fall upon him, "took one of 
 his ribs and made he a woman." The Bible says it. This 
 woman "frail," and conversing with, was tempted by the 
 "serpent," which serpent, the Methodist, Dr. Adam Clarke, 
 thinks was an ape, or an orang-outang ! (Com. vol. i. c. 
 iii. p. 47.) 
 
 Eve yielding to the temptation, and finding the fruit 
 pleasant, "gave to Adam." They fell! And being the 
 federal heads of the race, falling, they involved all their 
 unborn posterity, even universal humanity, subjecting it to 
 
CnRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — TIIEOLGIC. 91 
 
 the "miseries of this life, death itself, and the pains of Hell 
 forever." So affirms the creed. 
 
 It was a fearful crisis. God was exceedingly angry at 
 Adam and Eve for doing just what he knew they would do. 
 The sword of divine justice was raised. The Throne was 
 ill danger! 
 
 «''Twas a seat of dreadful wrath. 
 
 And shot devouring flame ; 
 
 Our God appeared consuming fire, 
 
 And vengeance was his name." 
 
 Deific justice had been wronged. Atonement must be 
 made. The threatened penalty must be inflicted upon the 
 race of man, or some substitute. A "plan" is devised. 
 God, the Son, equal with the Father, stepping in between 
 an offended God and offending man, says : " Spare the 
 guilty race of humanity ! open a way ! glut thy vengeance 
 upon me! I will take upon myself the penalty ! I will die a 
 substitute!" God the Father hears — relents. God the Son, 
 corresponding to incarnations of India, shapes himself in 
 human form; is born of the Virgin Mary; suffers under 
 Pontius Pilot — "dead and buried." Watts versifies the 
 Christian idea thus: 
 
 "Well might the sun in darkness hide, 
 And shut his glories in, ' 
 When Christ, the mighty Maker, died 
 For man, the creature's sin." 
 
 Mark the phrase — the "mighty Maker died" — a dead 
 God! dying for the purpose of permitting rebellious sinners 
 to go unpunished, to escape the penalty of the law, providing 
 they believe in this " divine mystery" — the atonement. After 
 this saciificial death of an innocent Son, opening the way for 
 the guilty to escape the demands of justice, God the Father 
 becom:s reconciled — pleased. Watts sings it: 
 
 "Rich were the drops of Jesus' blood 
 That calmed his frowning face, 
 That sprinkled o'er the burning throne, 
 And turned his wrath to gvaoe." 
 
92 DOGTRTNRS OF SPTRTTUALrSTS. 
 
 — — — " He quenched 
 
 His Father's flaming sword 
 In his own vital blood." 
 
 Another Christian poet says : 
 
 <'With one tremendous draught of blood, 
 He drank ddmnation dry ! " 
 
 This prevailing theologic dogma of the atonement, with a 
 mythologic Jesus as principal actor, is termed the " plan of 
 salvation ! " 
 
 Salvation, in its more philosophic sense, is soul-growth — 
 divine unfoldment from the innermost outward, and a 
 strictly personal matter. My savior is the Christ principle. 
 It was born with me — is in me — is me. It was before the 
 wandering Galilean; before Abraham ; before astral worlds 
 commenced their stately march through the siderial 
 heavens — pre-existent — eternal ! ITeither the merits of 
 Buddha, Chrishna, nor Christ Jesus, are transferable, like 
 bundles of merchandise. Self-salvation, self-sanctification, 
 were the doctrines taught by that eminent Judean Spirit- 
 ualist, Jesus. Said he — " 1 testify of myself." Again — " 1 
 sanctify myself.'^ Sound and sensible ! The " grace of God '* 
 is as powerless to save souls, as the grace of colleges to make 
 scholars, independent of earnest effort, " Work out your 
 own salvation," is among the best of the Pauline writings. 
 Personal character, not the sacrificial blood of goats and kids 
 under the law, not Christ's under the gospel, decide 
 individual destin3\ 
 
 Jesus' merits saved him, none else. Your merits must 
 save you. Each soul is a manger, cradling a savior — God in 
 man. The blood of one cannot atone for the sins of another. 
 That hemlock draught poisoned only Socrates. Jesus' 
 prayer in the garden brought angels to hiniy not us. God is 
 just. Compensation is an inflexible law. Justice is sweet 
 as mercy: both, centering in, flow out from an infinite 
 ocean of love. Happiness comes not by imputed, but by 
 'personal righteousness; that is, right doing. 0\^^y hy bring 
 
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — TnEOLOGIC. 03 
 
 good, call there be good results. Only in a heavenly state 
 of mmd can heaven come to any soul. "What wilt tlimi 
 have, quoth God — pay for it, and take it," writes Emerson. 
 Over the shining portals that open into the city Celestial, are 
 inscribed — '* No forgiveness ! — merit entitles to admission! — love 
 is life ! — harmony is heaven I '' 
 
pHAPTEf^ XIII. 
 
 THE NAZARENE. 
 
 "The 'Twelve' in awful circle stand 
 Where mortal dare not enter j 
 And, blazing like a solar world 
 Stands Jesus in the center." 
 
 I testify of myself. — Jesus. 
 
 Entombed among myths, and buried under the film tlat 
 flecks the synoptic gospels, there shines a life, gentle, beau- 
 tiful, divine. The mythologic and theologic savior, copied 
 from Chrishna, of India, aside, then, we come to Jesus the 
 Spiritualist — Jesus the natural man, the expected Son of 
 Syria, child of love and wisdom — our ancient brother. 
 
 An impassioned theatre-admiring mother gave to England 
 a Bj^'on, who shocked the State Church with his bold, 
 passional thought, and called down angels to hear his strong, 
 loving heart beat in poetrj^ that will live when his persecutors 
 are unknown, save as " pigmies on Alps." A mother, 
 ambitious and daring, rode a dashing steed upon smoking 
 battle-fields in southern Italy ; and ^N'apoleon's sword caused 
 Europe to tremble. Mary was calm, loving, aspirational, 
 spiritual. Overshadowed by heavenly influences, and other 
 beautiful and ante-natal conditions, the civilized world throbs 
 in responsive sympathy to the moral power of Jesus of 
 Nazareth. Whether Joseph, or a priest of the temple, 
 Ruatained the masculine relation to the welcome Nazarene, 
 
 94 
 
CnillSTlAN SPIRITUALISM — THE NAZAKENK. 95 
 
 matters not, so far as the present exegesis is concerned. 
 Suffice it, that he was the natural offspring of human 
 parents; the begotten of love and harmony, imder the sweet 
 ])aptismal magnetisms of angels; all conducing to an impres- 
 sional, inspirational, harmonial organism — a medium. — harp 
 admirably iitted for the play of divine powers. 
 
 f!! the gorgeous East, amid the meUow sunbeams, sifted 
 from Syrian skies, Jesus awoke to the outer consciousness 
 of earth-life. 
 
 "Galilee," writes Kenan, "is a country very green; dense with 
 masses of flowers; full of shade and pleasantness; the true country of 
 the canticle of canticles, and of the songs of the well-beloved. ^ * * 
 In no place in the world do the mountains spread out with more har- 
 mony, or inspire loftier ideas. Jesus seems to have loved them 
 especially. The most important acts of his divine career were per- 
 formed upon the mountains ; there he was best inspired ; there he had 
 secret conferences with the ancient prof)hets, and showed himself to his 
 disciples already transfigured. ^ ''^ * As often happens in very 
 lofty natures, tenderness of heart was in him transformed into infinite 
 sweetness, vague poetry, universal charm. * * =i= The group that 
 pressed around him upon the banks of the Lake of Tiberias, * * * 
 believed in spectres and in spirits. * ^^ * Great spiritual manifes- 
 tations were frequent. All believed themselves to be inspired in 
 different ways. Some were ' prophets,' others ' teachers.' ^' (Life of 
 Jesus, p. 210.) 
 
 Education has much to do in fashioning character. Where 
 was Jesus between the years of twelve and thirty ? In what 
 school of ideas was he educated ? To these inquiries the 
 New Testament gives not the least clue. Those scheming 
 superstitious Bishops, that collected the scattered manu- 
 scripts, often guilty of conduct that would have lastingly 
 disgraced the frailest of the Alexandrian Platonists, voted 
 gospels in and out of the canon, ad libitum. (Ecumenical 
 councils debated and decided by majorities upon the compar- 
 ative merits of some thirty or forty gospels, each claiming 
 by interested parties, divine origin. Among them were the 
 gospel of St. Peter, of St. Andrew, of St. Barnabus ; the 
 gospel of the infancy of Jesus, &c. They rejected all^ 
 
9G DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 save Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The general char- 
 acter of the Christian Bishops composing these councils, is 
 described thus by Dr. Jortin (Bucks. Theol. Die. p. 99). 
 ''They have been too much extolled by Papists, and by some 
 Protestants. They were a collection of men who were frail 
 and fallible. Some of those councils were not assemblies of 
 pious and learned divines, but cabals^ the majorit}^ of which 
 were quarrelsome, fanatical, domineering, dishonest prelates, 
 who wanted to compel men to approve all their opinions, of 
 which they themselves had no clear conceptions; and to 
 anathamatize and oppress those who would not implicitly 
 submit to their determinations." Upon the authority of this 
 scholar and Christian theologian, with the testimony of 
 many others, in confirmation, at our disposal, it is clear 
 tliat the ]N'ew Testament books have reached us through 
 "fanatical," "quarrelsome" and "dishonest prelates." So 
 "dishonest," that they voted every thing un-canonical that 
 related to Jesus' sojourn in Egypt, and initiation into the 
 Kssenian brotherhood. 
 
 Fortunately, however, a few of the more honest of the 
 Church Fathers, w^ith certain Pythagoric and Platonic 
 authors, whose integrity stands unquestioned, have left suffi- 
 cient historic data to establish the theory of Jesus' travels in 
 Egypt, and deep schooling in the "mysteries" pertaining to 
 India, China and Greece. 
 
 M. Den on, describing a very beautiful temple of the 
 ancient Egyptians at Philoe, says ; "I found within it some 
 remains of a domestic scene, which seemed that of Joseph 
 and Mary, and it suggested to me the subject of the flight 
 into Egypt, in a style of the utmost truth and interest. 
 (Eng. Trs. by A. Aiken, vol. ii. p. 169.) 
 
 Both Athanasius and Eusebius state that when Joseph 
 and Mary arrived in Egypt, they took up their residence in 
 a city in which was a splendid temple of Serapis. (Eusb. 
 Demon. Ev. Lib. vi. ch. 20.) 
 
 The candid Rev. Mr. Maurice assures us that, " The Arabic edition 
 of* the Evangel" um Infantiae records Maturea, near Ilermopulis, in 
 
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — THE NAZARENE. 97 
 
 Egypt, to have been the place where Jesus resided during his absence 
 from the hiud of Judea, until the death of Herod." (Maur. Hist, vol 
 ii. p. 318.) 
 
 " In the Maturea (or Matarea) of Egypt, Jesus Christ is said, as we 
 liave before shown, to have spent his youth, after he took refuge there, 
 from the tyrant Herod." (Anac. vol. i. p. 242.) 
 
 Pythagoras, according to Jamblichus, spent twenty- two 
 years in Egypt, among tliose savans and templed priests. 
 AV^hether Jesus remained there all the years till the aston- 
 ishing of the "doctors of the law;" or all the time from 
 twelve to thirty years of age, we have no means of knowing 
 positively. It is more probable that, like other illustrious 
 men of his age, he traveled in search of wisdom. Thales, 
 Solon, Democritus, Orpheus, Plato, Theodosius, Epicurus, 
 Herodotus, Lycurgus, these great philosophers of antiquity, 
 binding their stoutest sandals upon their feet, and taking the 
 Pilgrims' staff in their hands, left their country, and went 
 forth to visit the vast sanctuaries of Egypt, there to Ve initiated 
 into those mysteries that had been handed down from the 
 older, riper civilizations of India. "I am persuaded," writes 
 Sir Wm. Jones, "that a connection existed between the old 
 nations of India, Egypt, Greece and Italy, long before the 
 time of Moses." (Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 259.) 
 
 That Jesus was an Essenian is susceptible of the clearest 
 historic demonstration. 
 
 Who were tliey ? — what their origin, their teachings and 
 customs ? 
 
 The Essenians among the Jews, the Magi among the Per- 
 sians, the IIierop)hants of Egypt, and the Gymnosophists of 
 India, were all co-related by a common system of science, 
 treasured wisdom and profound myster}- ; all one, with such 
 variations as periods of time, change of language and 
 country, would necessarily produce. Clemens Alexandrinus 
 states, upon what he considered the highest authority, that 
 Buddha was the founder of the sect of Gymnosophists, the 
 Indian philosophers. (The Buddha, of which avatar, however, 
 U not specified.) Porphyry, at first a student of Origen and 
 7 
 
98 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Longiaus, afterwards a disciple of Plotinus, says : '* There 
 was one tribe of Indians divinely ivise, whom the Greeks were 
 accustomed to call Gymnosophists ; but of these there were 
 two sects, over one of which, Brahmins presided ; over the 
 other, the Samanaeons." (De Abst. b. iv. Sect. 17.) 
 
 Pythagoras, in India, was a student at the feet of those 
 Gymnosophists. As a senior among the mystics, he there 
 graduated. Higgins affirms, that the "school of this great 
 philosopher from the East — India, Oarmel, Egypt, Delphi, 
 Delos — was closely connected with the schools of the Essen- 
 ians, Samangeons, Carmelites, and Gnostic Christians. The 
 Pythagorians were Essenians; and the Rev. R. Taylor, 
 A. M., "^ '^ has clearly proved all the hierarchical institu- 
 tions of the Christians, to be a close copy of those of the 
 Essenians of Egypt." (Anac. b. x. c. vii. p. 787.) 
 
 These Essenians were sometimes denominated physicians of the soul, 
 or Theraputae; and, "residing both in Egypt and Judea, they prob- 
 ably spoke, or had their sacred books in Chaliee. They were Pyth- 
 agorians to all intents and purposes, as is proven by their forms, 
 ceremonies and doctrines. >;= ^ jf the Pythagorians, or Coenobitae, 
 as they are called by that famous Neo-Platonian philosopher, Jamb- 
 lichus, were Buddhists, then the Essenians were originally Buddhists. 
 A branch of these Essenians, termed, Koinobii, lived in Egypt, on the 
 shores of lake Parembole, in Monasteries." (x\nac. b. x. c. vii.) 
 
 These quotations show the intimate relations, if not direct 
 identity of the Gymnosophists, Yogees, Hierophants, Pyth- 
 agoreans, Essenians, Magi, Sufis and Rashees. Of these 
 latter, Ayeen Akberry, writes : "The most respectable people 
 in this country are the Rashees, who, although they do not 
 suffer themselves to be fettered by traditions, are, doubtless, 
 true worshipers of God. They revile not any other sect, 
 and ask nothing of any one; they plant the road with fruit 
 trees, to furnish the traveler with refreshments. They 
 abstain from flesh, and have no intercourse with the other 
 sex." There are nearly two thousand of this sect in 
 Cashmeer. Higgins adds: "These Reyshees, or Rashees, 
 same as Sofees, are the Essenians, Carmelites, or Kazaritea 
 
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISiM — THE NAZARENE. 99 
 
 of the teiiiph." Quoting a passage from tlie learned and 
 eminent Burnet, in confirmation, he furtlier says: '* I was 
 not a Httle gratified to find that the close rehition hetween 
 the Hindoos and the more respectable of all the Jewish sects, 
 theEssenians, of which I have not the slightest doubt that 
 Jesus Christ was a member , had been observed by this very 
 learned man, almost a hundred years ago, before the late 
 blaze of light from the East had shone upon us." (Anac. 
 vol. ii. b. ii. p. 50.) 
 
 Old India, the mother of civilizations, colonizing Egypt, 
 necessarily bore her sacred mysteries there. Egypt, cele- 
 brating them in her pyramidal chambers, transferred them, iu 
 a somewhat modified form, to Persia and Greece, and, 
 through Moses, to the more intellectual of the Jewish 
 people; these, joining by initiation, were called Therapiita3, 
 and Essenes. 
 
 Father Kebold says: ''This religious and philosophic sect, the 
 Esseuians, of which Jesus Christ was a member; was composed of 
 learned Jews, who lived iu the form of a society similar to that of 
 Pythagoras. If not the same, in substance, they were intimately con- 
 nected with another sect, called Theraputes, residing in Egpyt, forming 
 the fraternal link between the Egyptians and the Hebrews. * * * 
 That occult science, designated by the ancient priests, under the name 
 of regenerating fire; is that which, at the present day, is known as 
 animal magnetism — a science that, for more than three thousand years, 
 was the peculiar possession of the Indian and Egyptian priesthood, into 
 the knowledge of which Moses was initiated at Heliopolis, where he 
 was educated; and Jesus among the Essenian priests of Egypt or 
 Judea ; and by which these two great reformers, particularly the latter, 
 wrought many of the miracles mentioned in the Scriptures." 
 
 It being evident, then, that Jesus, spending his youth in 
 Egypt, perhaps traveling in other Asiatic countries than 
 Palestine, was connected with the Essenians, the question of 
 their teachings and practices becomes deeply interesting. 
 
 Philo, of Alexandria, in tw^o books, written expressly 
 upon the subject of the Essenes, giving a close and critical 
 account of their doctrines and manners, says: " Listening to 
 the instructions of their chiefs, they were taught, as were the 
 
100 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Pythagorians, the existence of one supreme God, the immor- 
 tality of the soul, rewards and punishments for good and ill- 
 doing, and the guardian caie of gods and angels. It was 
 enjoined upon them to show obedience to authority; fidelity 
 to all men ; to be lovers of truth ; exercising kindness to 
 inferiors; concealing nothing from their own sect; nor 
 discovering any of their doctrines to others than those who 
 had received them w^th the white stone and the new name; 
 and lastly, to preserve the books belonging to the sect, and 
 the names of the angels." 
 
 At the time of the Maccabees, 180 B. C, on the western 
 coast of the Dead Sea, the Essenians made the doctrine of 
 community of goods, and a life in common, a religious and 
 social dogma. Lodged under the same roof, taking meals at 
 the same table, clothed in the same dress, ignoring marriage, 
 they observed celibacy and lived in continence, abjured 
 oaths and all violence, contemned riches, rejected the use 
 of the precious metals, w^ere given wholly to the meditation 
 of moral and religious truths, and subsisted by the labor of 
 their hands, were content with one meal a day, and that of 
 bread and vegetables and fruits. 
 
 Philo further informs us, that, '' spreading themselves all 
 through Asia Minor, and in the environs of Alexandria, they 
 became, at a later period, more devoted; renouncing all 
 pleasure, ambition, glory, earthly possessions, and their 
 native country, even, to give themselves entirely to the 
 exercise of prayer, contemplation and deeds of charity." To 
 overcome the passions, the spiritual controlling the Adamic, 
 to subjugate the senses, to raise the soul above the influences 
 of the body, to despise the sham of fame and glitter of 
 wealth, to commune with the gods and orders of celestial 
 beings — these, in the estimation of the Essenians, constituted 
 the ideal of human perfection. Who does not see in it 
 the underlying animus that, from the earthly side, inspired 
 the consecration and catholicity of spirit which so eminently 
 distinguished the reformer of Nazareth ? 
 
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — THE NAZARENE. 101 
 
 Jesus being interiorly sweet and harmonial in organization, 
 fr^Uowsliiped by the Essenians, schooled in the Asian mys- 
 teries, and a medium, how natural the explanation of the 
 genuine teachings, doctrines and wonderful works ascribed 
 to him! Testifying of himself, living the inner life, and 
 speaking from the divine ideal, he rose so high above country 
 and national narrowness, he astoiiished both scribe and phar- 
 isee. The old prophets were essentially Israelitish; many 
 of the ancient philosophers were decidedly Grecian ; the 
 sage, Gotama Buddha, was Hindoo, par excellence ; but this 
 Judean Spiritualist, grounded in the absolute religion, bap- 
 tized daily from above, attended by a legion of angels, 
 directed the thirsting of his age to a fountain from which all 
 diversities of race might drink — to a tree of life with fruitage 
 fresh and free for all souls; grasping fundamental truths and 
 broad, beautiful ideas, he spoke the deepest intuitions of his 
 inmost being. ISTo poet or moralist ever enunciated fresher 
 or more charming thoughts, adapted to the masses, or voiced 
 a keener, richer dialect of audacious insight, than he, in 
 those seemingly effortless speeches of the "good shepherd," 
 the "true vine,'' "the lilies," "the birds," the sun rising 
 "on the evil and the good, and the rain falling upon the just 
 and the unjust." 
 
 All truth is immortal; our conceptio7is of it only are new. 
 Jesus tau2:ht the world no new truths. 
 
 The immortality of the soul had been taught by the 
 most ancient Aryans, Thales, Zeno, Plato, Anaximenes, Eni- 
 pedocles; Indian seers and Persian ]\Iagi taiigbr it long 
 before the birth of the Pauline " man Christ Jesus." 
 
 The universal Fatherhood of God is distinctly taught in the 
 Socrates of Zenophon, in the hymn of Cleanthes, and in the 
 hymn of Avatus ; quoted by Paul in his appeal to the Athe- 
 nians; in Maximus Tyrius and Simplicius; in Manilius, 
 Epictetus, Seneca and Cicero. Almost every Greek or 
 Roman poet, from Ilesiod and Homer down, designates 
 Jupiter as the fiUhe - of gods and men, and draws the infer- 
 ence therefrom of his infinite love and universal care. 
 
102 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Pj'thagoras is made to say, by the Rev. Dr. Coliyer, (I e<^ xii. 
 p. 499,) "God is neither the object of sense, nor subject to 
 passion ; but invisible, only intelligible, and supremely intel- 
 ligent. In his body, he is like the light, and, in his soul, he 
 resembles truth. He is the universal spirit that pervades 
 and diftuseth itself through all nature. All beings receive 
 their life from him. There is but one only God, who is not, 
 as some are apt to imagine, seated above the world, beyond 
 the orb of the universe ; but, being himself All in All, he sees 
 all the beings that till his immensity, the only principle, the 
 light of Heaven, the Father of all. He produces everything; 
 he orders and disposes everything; he is the reason, the life, 
 and the motion of all beings.'' These doctrines, embodying 
 the universal Fatherhood of God, were the teachings of 
 Pythagoras, concerning Deity. Jesus only reiterated them 
 with a pathos peculiarly his own. 
 
 Originality cannot be ascribed therefore to Jesus. The 
 doctrine of the Fatherhood of God, is ancient as the teachings 
 of the wise in India, Syria and Greece. 
 
 " May the Father of Heaveu, who is the Father of Men, be favorable 
 to us." — Rig Veda. 
 
 " Father of gods aud men." — Hesiod. 
 
 *' Zeus, most great and glorious Father." — Horner. 
 
 " Father and guardian of the human race." — Horace. 
 
 " He, the glorious Parent, tries the good men and prepares him for 
 himself." — Seneca. 
 
 " He, who regards the whole universe as his country, feels bound to 
 seek the favor of its Father and framer." — Philo. 
 
 " They are children of their Father who is Heaven. * * * * Every 
 nation has its special guardian angels." — Talmud. 
 
 The Alexandrian Philo Judseus, 41 B. C, belonging to an 
 illustrious Jewish family, emphatically declared all men 
 brothers, by virtue of the inspiration of the Eternal Word. 
 Intimately acquainted with the philosophy of India and 
 Egypt, the ancient Grecian schools, and the cabalistic doc- 
 trines preceding him, his system was a mixture of Chrishna, 
 Zoroaster, Plato, abounding in Jewish phrases, and weai'ng 
 
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — THE NAZARENE. 103 
 
 Hebrew forms as garments. From him the Nazarenc bor- 
 rowed largely, in the imagery connected with his parables. 
 Among rhilo's principal doctrines, were the divine Logos, 
 the universal brotherhood, pre-existence, the descent of souls, 
 and the guardian care of angels. 
 
 The humanitarian spirit of brotherhood pervades the older 
 Brahminical theology that once flooded Asia, finding expres- 
 sion in the " law of love for all." 
 
 The eloquent Quintilian constantly appealed to the senti- 
 ment of brotherly love, as the sweetest in man, and, " as 
 unitiniy all men by the will of the Common Father." 
 
 Cicero frequently affirmed, that men were " created for the 
 'purpose of mutual help, to love and be loved, and for the 
 simple reason, they were men.'' 
 
 Epictetus, Aurelius, Seneca, and others, taught the 
 " common citizenship and brotherhood of men." 
 
 " All meu, everywhere, belong to one family." — Diodorus. 
 
 " No man is a stranger to me, provided he be a good man ; for we 
 have all one and the same nature." — Menander. 
 
 " All men are our friends and fellow-citizens. **:!=*** 
 Greeks and barbarians drink from one and the same cup of brotherly 
 love." — Zeno. 
 
 " Will you not bear with your brother ? He has his birth from the 
 same Jove as thou, is His son, as thou art, born of the same divine 
 seed. * » 5H Will you enslave those who are your brothers by 
 nature, children of God?" — Epictetus. 
 
 *' I am a man, nothing human can I count foreign to me." — Terence. 
 
 Denis, in his learned work on the moral theories and 
 teachings of antiquity, shows clearly that the highest moral 
 sentiments of humanity, brotherhood and self-sacrifice, 
 thread the ethical and religious codes of every cultured age. 
 All the wise sayings ascribed by Protestant clergymen to 
 Jesus, were said before his time. This they ought to know, 
 and, knowing, teach. 
 
 Saisset well said, that stoicism *' anticipated Christ's teach- 
 ings, in the recognition, that men are brothers and brothers in 
 God." The more honest of the old Church Fathers, concede 
 a superiority of scholarship and wisdom to the heathen over the 
 
104 DOCTRINES OF SPIxilTUALISTS. 
 
 first Christians. Conscious of this, the orthodox Merivale, 
 BSLJ3, that " while the apostles preached the commandment of 
 Jesus, that he who loveth God love his brother also, the same 
 instinct and sympathy sprang spontaneously, and without a 
 sanction but that of nature, in many a (heathen) watcher of 
 the wants and miseries of men." 
 
 The "golden rule" belongs to Hillel, as well as to Jesus; 
 more to Confucius ; Philo, and the son of Sirach, more than 
 to the son of Joseph, because they enunciated the thought 
 before him. Sir Wm. Jones, writing of the antiquity of 
 this precept, says : " Religion has no need of such aids as 
 many are willing to give it, by asserting that the wisest men 
 of this world were ignorant of the two great doctrines, love 
 to God, and love to all humanity. These dogmas run like 
 silver threadings through the systems of the most ancient 
 nations." 
 
 The golden rule was a common teaching among Chinese, 
 Syrian and Grecian philosophers, long before the Christian 
 era. 
 
 " That which thou blamest in another, do not thyself to thy 
 neighbor." — Thales. 
 
 '* Thou wilt deserve to be honored, if thou doest not thyself what 
 thou blamest in others." — hocrates. 
 
 "Do to no man what thou thyself hatest." — Tohit. 
 
 " Do not to another what thou wouldst not he should do to thee : 
 this is the sum of the law." — Hillel. 
 
 " What you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others." — 
 Confucius. 
 
 But this golden rule of the Chinese philosopher is put in 
 the negative, says the clerical objector. Granted. So are 
 the ten commandments of the Old Testament; but are they 
 any less commandments? 
 
 Thus far we have traced, by good authorities, the consec- 
 utive relations of religions from one race and country to 
 another, showing their mutual helps, their co-relations, their 
 upward growth into higher altitudes of thought and use. It 
 remains now to analyze the degree of originality that justly 
 belongs to the Spiritualism of Jesus. 
 
ClIRISTTAN SPIRITUALISM — THE NAZARENE. 105 
 
 AViives of civilization are consecutive; the first is pushed 
 forward by its next succeeding, and so over tlic measureless 
 ocean of truth. Circling in all directions, they take shape 
 according to the forms of mind into which they flow. 
 
 Human nature is the same in all ages and climes, varying 
 only in expression. Nothing good is lost to the world. Like 
 geological strata, tlie religion of one age lies upon and over- 
 shelves that of the preceding; the former incorporating the 
 latter in new forms and uses. A magnificent tree of life, 
 each branch has the nature of all the rest. The Egyptian, 
 Chinese and Persian copy from the Indian ; and the Hebraic 
 and Christian, in turn, from all these. Commercially and 
 educationally, then, those of one generation shape those of 
 the next, in successive order, from the ancient into the 
 mediaeval, and thence into the sub-dividing Protestant, which 
 belong to the Catholic, as leaves to the same branch — to 
 culminate in the completion of a grand cycle, as they now do, 
 in the flower of all religions — a world-w^ide Spiritualism. 
 
 But another influence molds all these changing materials. 
 Developed in the tropics, the religion of India was passional 
 and gorgeous. Religion in Greece and Rome — farther 
 north — was colder, more select, more intellectual and 
 brilliant. On the isothermal line, Palestine lies in higher 
 latitude than India or Egypt, but not under the more electric, 
 and, therefore, intellectual atmosDhere of southern Europe. 
 
 Primitive Christianity, the positive religion of Palestine, 
 is, therefore, not so passional and imposingly gorgeous as that 
 of India, nor so philosophic and variegated as the Grecian; 
 but is intermediate, sufliciently emotional to attract and 
 warm the heart, and sufliciently intellectual to evolve a 
 jorrect philosophy of the soul. Beautiful, therefore, is its 
 fruit high on the tree of life, substantial and vital in spiritual 
 character. 
 
 In the Nazarene w^e have this happy blending — a balanced 
 summer-sunned man — a tropical heart, sweet, full of love- 
 flowers, and tempered to an intellectuality that weaves its 
 silvery philosophic filling through the magnetic vesture that 
 
106 DOCTRINES OF PPTRTTUALTPTS. 
 
 clothes our freezing humanity. In this sense is primitwc 
 Christianity^ original, the same as can be said of Buddhism, 
 Mahommedanism, or any other religion. 
 
 Here shines in again the all-unsealing light of the Spiritual 
 Philosophy. The Jews borrowed of India and Egypt, and 
 other then enlightened nations, in a closer sense than history 
 defines, than the intercourse of commerce can guarantee. 
 The work of mediumistic minds is by no means ended with 
 their departure from this rudimental sphere. Taking with 
 them their peculiar proclivities of thought, their natural 
 characteristics, their purposes to finish what they began here, 
 they impress upon the new races they affiliate with, their 
 politics, science, religion, thus completing the circle of com- 
 munication internationally and spiritually. Hence, even 
 with races locked in by seas or mountains, or walls, like old 
 China, there is a general resemblance in these particulars, 
 which only the philosophv of angel-mmistry can full% 
 explain. 
 
 In the light then of the Spiritual Philosophy, we are not 
 to look exclusively to anterior races for the origin of the 
 Hebrew, Christian, or of any other subsequent religion ; for 
 it was in the power of ancient spirits, and natural to their 
 communicative relationship, to re-construct their religious 
 wisdom, to be mainly original to their media. 
 
 Eclectic, then, let us here cull some of the beautiful spirit- 
 ualities of our dear brother, the self-denying Son of Man. 
 
 Reading the beatitudes, we feel a sweet throbbing within, 
 as if the heart's chords were swept by an angel's breath. 
 That one sentence is a life-key that opens to calm sunlight 
 the soul of Jesus — " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
 shall see God." There is a very enchantment in his precepts, 
 parables, aptitude of illustration, love of the beautiful, moral 
 heroism, tender sympathy for the sorrowing, non-resistance, 
 and martyrdom for a principle. The picture which Renan 
 draws of him is truthful and charming: 
 
 " As many of the grand aspectu of hia character are lost to us by the 
 fault of his disciples, it is probable that many of his faults have beeu 
 
CnRTSTTAN SPIRITUALISM — TUE NaZARENK. 107 
 
 dissemb ed. But never has any man made the interests of humanity 
 predominate in his life, over the littleness of self-love, so much as he. 
 Devoted, without reserve, to his idea, he subordinated everything to it, 
 to such a degree that, towards the end of his life, the universe no 
 longer existed for him. It was by this flood of heroic deeds he con- 
 quered heaven. ^ ^' * t- PIJs life-deeds of benevolence will grow 
 without ceasing; his legend will call forth tears without end; his j^uf- 
 i'erings will molt the noblest hearts; all ages will proclaim that, among 
 the sons of men, there is none born greater than Jesus." 
 
 Whence his greatness? It was the blossoming out of hia 
 inner divinity, under the ministry of angels! — a link in the 
 golden cliain that draws us nearer to the divine teachings of 
 the New Testament. It is the cable to the bridge of Hope 
 that arches the mystic river, on which humanity may pass 
 safe over to the morning lands. 
 
 Gabriel, the prophets' angel, hails Mary — "Blessed art 
 thou among women," announcing the advent of the Judean 
 Spiritualist. Repeating the song sung at the birth of 
 Crishna, a host of angels, appearing to the shepherds, sing 
 at his birth: "Glory to God in the highest; on earth 
 peace and good-will toward men." In the temple, when a 
 mere lad, under the heavenly ministry, he confounds the 
 Rabbis. At his baptism the spirit descends in form of a 
 dove, and voices his consecration, as it has to other mediums: 
 " This is my beloved son." At his temptation, when fam- 
 ishing with hunger, " angels came and ministered unto 
 him." Under spirit influence, he heals the diseases of 
 the people. Inspired by a Samson, he drives out the 
 "moneychangers" of the temple. Moved by his mighty 
 guards, indignant at religious corruption, he utters words 
 that call down upon him the anathamas of all the priest- 
 hood — a true sign of the faithful iconoclast. A pure lover 
 of nature, catching his best inspirations from the beautiful 
 and the true, he retires with Peter, James and John, to a 
 high mountain, "and is there transfigured before them." 
 Entranced, " his face shining as the sun, his raiment white 
 as the light, there appears unto them Moses and Elias, talking 
 with Jesus." Upheld by spirit-hands, he walks upon the 
 
108 BOCTRTXES OP SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Boa of Tiberias. Spiritually clairvoyant, lie reads '* what is 
 in man," and prophesies. Foreseeing his martyrdom, he is 
 troubled, and, during his prayer, a spirit voice is heard by 
 the listening people, who ''said that it thundered; others 
 said an angel spake to him." In Gethsemane, and before 
 Pilate, "an angel appeared, strengthening him" for the 
 ordeal. At his crueitixion, the electro-spirit batteries are 
 etrono; enouo:h to "rend the rocks," and "the veil of the 
 temple, from top to bottom.'* So potent the influence, so 
 mediuraistic the people, they see the spiritual bodies of 
 ascended saints, walking in their midst; these "went into 
 the holy city, and appeared unto many." An angel rolls 
 away the stone from his sepulchre. The spirit of Jesus 
 appears to Mary, to Peter and John — to the disciples on their 
 way to Emmaus, when he expounded to them his mission ; 
 and at last "their eyes were opened, and they knew him; 
 and he vanished out of sight." Jubilant over the stupendous 
 fact, that their divine Teacher is yet alive, they return to 
 Jerusalem, and, finding the eleven chosen disciples gathered 
 together, earnestly listening to their happy report of his 
 appearance to Simon, lo ! the risen "Jesus himself stood 
 in the midst of them, and said, ' Peace be unto you !' But 
 they were terrified and aflTrighted, and supposed they had 
 seen a spirit." Psychologically assuming the form of the 
 crucified, he thus showed them his " hands and feet, and 
 they handled him." 
 
 From this data of spiritual perception, deepening in clair- 
 voyance and clairaudience, they -saw the real presence. 
 Being substantially a spiritual organism, and measurably 
 dependent upon material substance for sustenance, at his 
 request, they " gave him a piece of broiled fish and an honey- 
 comb, and he took it, and did eat before them ; " that is, by 
 imbibation, he mediumistically partook of, and appropriated, 
 their aromal efiluence. 
 
 The martyrdom of the cross endured, he appeared as the 
 Christ-spirit to the assembled twelve, charging them to go 
 into " all the worl i and preach the gospel to every creature." 
 
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — THE NAZARENE. 109 
 
 Why thus preach ? To induce belief. What then ? " These 
 signs should follow believers:" 'They should cast out 
 demons, speak with new tongues, lay hands on the sick, and 
 heal them; make the lame walk, the blind see, and the 
 deaf hear.' Again, said Jesus: "He that believeth on me, 
 the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works 
 than these shall he do ; because I go unto my Father." The 
 apostles had these gifts when listening to the charge. The 
 promise, therefore, was to future believers. These signs and 
 gifts do not abound in Christian churches, because they have 
 departed from the " faith once delivered to the saints." But 
 they do follow mediums, and prevail every where among 
 Spiritualists. These works they do^ being genuine believers, 
 baptized with the Christ-baptism. Media are mediators 
 between the winter-lands of earth, and the summer-lands of 
 heaven, and their spiritual " signs " and powers increase lu 
 the ratio of approximation to the spiritualized planes of the 
 pure and holy. 
 
 He appeared to his apostles on the mount of Ascension, 
 when *'he ie parted from them;" and to the little assembly 
 of believers on the day of Pentacost, when they are all of 
 *^ one accord" in a spiritual circle, and the manifestation 
 comes as a *'rusning, mighty wind," and "fills all the house," 
 when "cloven tongues, like as fire," rest upon them, and 
 they " speak in other tongues as the spirit gives them utter- 
 ance." He confers upon them "the gifts of the Spirit," and 
 they heal by the "laying on of hands;" they have visions, 
 trances, inspirations. They are all mediumized, and, under 
 spirit control, endure deprivation, penury, want, suffering, 
 persecution and martyrdom, as others have done — as their 
 brothers and sisters now do. John, the beloved disciple '' in 
 the Spirit, (entranced) on the Lord's day," saw thrones. 
 altars, crystal seas, rainbows, falling stars, white vestured 
 angels with golden girdles; and was about to fall down and 
 worship the "shining one," who unrolled to his clairvoyant 
 vision these symbols of revelation and the millennial age, 
 
110 DOCTRlNfiS Of SPlRtTtlALISTS. 
 
 when he was admonished: '* See thou do it not; for 1 am 
 thy fellow-servant, and of thj brethren the prophets." 
 Glorified now in the heavens, honored as a star in the 
 congresses of spirits, he is inspired with love so tender, that 
 his heart still beats down all the ages since, at every pulsa- 
 tion, voicing the divinity within — "Littlts children, love 
 
 ONE ANOTHER ! '' 
 
ECTURE IV. 
 
 J 
 
 Medieval Spiritualism. 
 
p 
 
 HAPTEP^^ XIV. 
 
 TRANSITIONAL. 
 
 •*God sends his teachers unto every age, 
 To every clime, and every race of men, 
 With revelations fitted to their growth. 
 And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of IVuth 
 Into the selfish rule of one sole race." 
 
 Hyphened by erudition, and inspired by unitive purpose, 
 to arcli the years with wisdom, there were certain scholarly 
 standard-bearers, wdio, conserving the good of the past and 
 compounding it with the new, handed the philosophies of the 
 ages down to incoming dispensations. Some of these were 
 the cotemporaries of Jesus. Among them, were Simeon, the 
 mild and the just; Jesus, the promising son of Sirach ; the 
 learned Eabbi, Hillel ; Schemaia, the wise; the candid 
 Gaiiialiel, the elder; and the distinguished writer and 
 8chohi,r, the Judaic Egyptian, Philo, These philosophic 
 thinkers, laying great stress upon dreams and visions, 
 believed in the appearance of spirits. Bating the Sadducees, 
 it was a common dogma of the masses. Ernest Renan, the 
 most learned of living Shemitic scholars, writing in his "Life 
 of Jesus," of the group assembled on the banks of Lake Tibe- 
 rias, to hear the Nazarene, says : " They believed in spectres 
 and spirits." 
 
 Philo Jud^us, born in Alexandria, a city next to Athens, 
 the famous resort of the Greek literati, was, in religion, a 
 8 113 
 
114 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Ph.'xnisee; in pbilosopliy, tiuctured witli Platonism; and, in 
 common with the thinkers of his time, given to allegorical 
 interpretations. Mosaic in theology, he taught the existence 
 of one invisible God — immutable, ineffable and incompre- 
 hensible — the originator of all things in connection with the 
 Mother of the universe, whom the Greeks termed, Sophia, or 
 Wisdom, By virtue of this deific marriage, he accounted for 
 all germinal entities and spiritual types of future embodi- 
 ment; and, as a corollary, taught that man is a trinity com- 
 pounded of essential spirit, having, in personality, a more 
 materialized spirituiil body, and an external or earthly body. 
 A teacher of pre-existence, he maintained that matter, being 
 dark and gross, is the source of evil, and that man therein 
 veiled, assisted by Sophia and the good angels, is enabled to 
 rise out of this temporary degradation, into the holy sunshine 
 of God's light and love. Another feature of his Spiritualism 
 is thus expressed in Yonge's translation : 
 
 " The Creator of the gods is also the Father of everything 
 else— the world being an imitation visible to the outer senses of an 
 archetypal model. Some souls have descended into bodies, and others 
 have not thought worthy to approach any portion of the earth. * ^ ^ * 
 Those whom other philosophers call demons, Moses usually calls angels ; 
 but they are spirits flying through the air. * * * * These spirits are 
 wholly immortal and divine. Those who descend into bodies, are often 
 overwhelmed, as in a whirlpool; but, by sf.ruggling, emerge, and fly 
 back to their homes in the upper regions. * * * * gy considering that 
 angels, demons and souls, are different names for the same beings, you 
 will clear away much superstition from the subject. The etherial 
 regions are like populous cities, filled with immortal spirits, and 
 numerous as stars in the firmament." 
 
 Apollonus, an inspired sage of Tyana, born in Asia 
 Minor, about the time of Jesus of IS'azareth, was considered, 
 by some, as superior in raediumistic endowments, to the son 
 of Joseph and Mary. Proteus, famous for his prophetic 
 powers, appeared to the mother prior to his birth, illuminat- 
 ing her apartment with divine radiance. In early youth, he 
 wrought many so-called miracles. The celebrated temple 
 of ^sculapius was his fa:^orite resort for recuperation and 
 
MEDIEVAL — TRANSITIONAL. 115 
 
 Spiritual commuuiou. " Philostratus informs us, that he 
 could read the thoughts of men, foresee future events, and, 
 withal, was gifted with the wonderful power of working 
 miracles." These are equally as well substantiated as those 
 of Jesus. *'He taught," says L. Maria Child, "there is one 
 God, the Father of all, and that the numerous deities, who 
 are objects of popular worship, arc intermediate spirits, 
 emploj^ed as agents. He invoked these spirits, placed great 
 reliance upon dreams and omens, and believed that he was 
 often divinely guided by spiritual beings of heaven. * * 
 * * The early Christian Fathers, in alluding to him, do 
 not deny the miracles he wrought, but attribute them to the 
 aid of evil spirits, procured by magical arts." The purity of 
 his life, owing to his affiliation with God and angels, was 
 unquestioned, his benevolence almost unparalleled, and his 
 sympathies so tender and touching, that multitudes hung 
 upon his lips, as though charmed and chained by a power 
 divine. 
 
 Simon Mag» us, the Samarian magician, who greatly troub- 
 led the apostles by his so-called heresies, and miracles 
 wrought independent of Christ, (Acts 9,) was a scholarly 
 medium of general note. He taught that "the Source of all 
 good dwells in plenitude of light; " that "Interior Thought," 
 (Ennoia) is the primitive feminine emanation therefrom; and 
 that by the assistance of spirits — her children — she created 
 the world, and gave them its supervision. Regarding matter 
 co-eternal with God, and dark and chaotic, he deduced the 
 logical conclusion, that moral and physical disorders are 
 " mere perversities, occasioned by the soul's contact with it." 
 In his enthusiasm and spiritual rapture, like thousands of 
 other media, who, from flattery, magnify their own achieve- 
 ments, he considered himself to be the " Great Power 
 of God," the " Word of God," sent to redeem the world 
 from evil. Jehovah was simply a leader of spirits, and rebel- 
 lious at that, from whose imperfect laws he was to err anci- 
 pate mankind. Kot a bad proposition by any means. Like 
 
116 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 a sensible man, he "denied the resurrection of the body." 
 He advocated holy aspirations that the soul "might be re- 
 united to the Source whence all beings proceeded." Accord- 
 ing to the authentic accounts, he and the Christian Fathers 
 were competitors in miracles. His influence, doctrines and 
 wonders, so aniioyed them, they proverbially called all 
 heretics, "disciples and successors of Simon, the Samaritan 
 magician." They did not question the genuineness of his 
 miracles, but were evidently jealous of his success, and 
 attributed it to the agency of evil spirits. All the marvels 
 related of him are philosophically traceable to psychology or 
 real spirit power. "The fathers of the Church, Clemens 
 Romanus and Anastasius Sinaita," says a writer, "have pre- 
 sented us with a detail of the wonders he actually performed." 
 As cases showing his mediumship to be reliable and explain- 
 able on the laws of Spiritual Philosophy, occurring in the 
 present, we quote from the historian : "He flew along in the 
 air ; bolts and chains were impotent to detain him ; he made 
 all the furniture of the house and the table to change places, 
 as required, without a visible mover ; he walked through 
 streets attended with a multitude of strange forms, which he 
 affirmed to be the souls of the departed." 
 
 Cerenthus, a highly educated Jew and spiritual reformer, 
 connected with the Alexandrian school, professed to believe 
 in Jesus, but was deeply tinged, in thought, with the oriental 
 ideas in respect to spirit and matter. He rejected the dogma 
 of the incarnation of Jesus, being unwilling to suppose that 
 a Son of Geo. could be born of woman. Like some of our 
 modern thinkers, he considered Christ a spirit who dwelt 
 in the divine presence before the world was made, and that 
 the Jesus of Galilee was a mere man, son of Joseph and 
 Mary. Grounded upon the philoso})hical basis of personal 
 merit, as the data of redemption, he sensibly concluded 
 that his Christ-angel, descending in the form of a dove, bap- 
 tized him into the full glory of celestial truth ; and that 
 through the culture of the graces — tenderness, justice and 
 
MEDIEVAL — TRANSITIONAL. 117 
 
 wisdom, in union with deep soul sympathy with minister- 
 ing spirits, he became, in a special sense, a Son of God — a 
 leader of heavenly hosts, and thereby enabled to work 
 miracles. Versed in the allegorical doctrines of Philo, 
 accepting the mediumship of Jesus, "he regarded Jehovah as 
 merely the delegated Creator, ruler of this world — a subaltern 
 spirit, unacquainted with the character and purpose of the 
 Supreme God, and incapable of appreciating Him. He 
 admitted there are many good things in the Hebrew Sacred 
 Books ; but considered them revelations of an inferior order 
 of spirits ; and that an angel instructed Moses in legislation." 
 Morally modest, he attributed his own miraculous gifts to 
 spirits and angels. Traveling to Ephesus, in the capacity of 
 a teacher, he there met, as the early Fathers state, the 
 apostle John, with whom he conversed upon mind and 
 matter, and "eternal life." 
 
Chaptef^ XV, 
 
 APOSTOLIC. 
 
 "As pure, white light through colored glass, 
 Truth glimmers through the soul, 
 And gives a glimpse, in broken parts, 
 Of one grand, perfect whole." 
 
 PoLYCARP, Ignatius, Clement, ApoUinaris, and others, priv- 
 ileged with the personal presence of the first spiritualized 
 disciples of Christ, have received the appropriate appellation 
 of Apostolic Fathers. Blessed with direct inspiration from 
 the spirit of Jesus and Syrian seers, summering in the 
 heavens, we instinctively revere the divine utterances that 
 welled from the inner fountains of their souls, and whatever 
 spiritual phenomena they mediumistically evolved for the 
 enlightenment of humanity. 
 
 PoLYCARP, a Smyrnian bishop of eastern origin, was, in 
 childhood, a slave, and by Calisto, a charitable lady, redeemed 
 from bondage, in consequence of an angelic dream, and edu- 
 cated at her expense. The later Christian Fathers aver that 
 he listened to the preaching of the apostle John, led a blame- 
 less life, presided over the Smyrnian church with assiduous 
 fidelity, and was wonderfully empowered with spiritual gifts. 
 During the persecutions under Marcus Aurelius, the infuri- 
 ated populace demanded his death. Conscious of approach- 
 ing danger, and occupied in prayer, he saw, in a vision, his 
 *'pilbw all ou fire," and exclaimed — "I shall certainly be 
 
 XX8 
 
MEDIAEVAL — APOSTOLIC. 119 
 
 burnt alive!'* These words were regarded as prophetic. 
 On the way to the stake, amid the jeers and excitements oi 
 Jiws and Greeks, followed by a few sorrowing friends, the 
 venerable prisoner was calm and serene as sunlight; and 
 when approaching the fatal scene, a loud and distinct voice 
 was heard to exclaim, as from heaven — "Polycarp, he firm!'' 
 
 Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, and a loved and prominent 
 disciple of the apostle John, is said to have been one of the 
 little children whom Jesus took in his arms and blessed. 
 The church fathers record the fact, that, in youth, he was 
 "so innocent he could hear the angels sing." This heavenly 
 music so impressed his mind, that, when becoming a bishop, 
 he introduced into liturgical service the practice of singing 
 in responses, just as he had heard, in youthful years, the 
 laughing melodies of immortal choirs. Arrested by Trajan, 
 he was thrown into chains, and s'^nt to Rome, to be exposed 
 to lions in the amphitheater. On the way thither, conscious 
 of attending angels, inflamed with divine ecstacy, he ex- 
 claimed, in language worthy the heroic reformer — " Let 
 them rack my limbs, break my bones, bruise my whole 
 body, hang me on the cross, burn me with fire, throw me 
 into the jaws of furious beasts ; I care not for all the 
 torments the devil can invent, so that I may have the 
 consciousness of right, and the personal approval of 
 Christ." When he passed through the city of Smyrna, in 
 chains, the people embraced him and wept ; kissing his hands, 
 his garments, and his chains, rejoicing in his courage." How 
 beautiful his character! how inspiring his example! 
 
 Apollinaris, the Ravennian bishop of note, according to the 
 ecclesiastic historians, accompanied Peter, as an assistant, to 
 Rome. Here thai apostle laid his hands upon him, and com- 
 municated the gifts of the Holy Spirit; that is, a most excel- 
 lent spirit influence. Preaching on the eastern coast of Italy, 
 he is said to have silenced the oracles in Roman temples, and 
 ** caused deceiving spv.ts to depart therefrom." Attractive 
 
120 DOCTRINES OP SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 ill person, bold in enunciation, and miraculously gifted, he 
 psychologized vast multitudes. Historians relate that he 
 once saw a poor boy, born blind, washing his rags outside he 
 city; and, moved with compassion, he made the sign of :he 
 cross on his eyes, (spiritual impressibility) and immediately 
 he received his sight.*' This miracle, so potent for good, as 
 we naturally infer from our own observation, was the means 
 of converting the father, a Roman soldier, and all his house- 
 hold. Among the instances of his healing, may be men- 
 tioned that of a distinguished gentleman of Rome, for several 
 years dumb, who, hearing of Apollinaris, sent for him, and 
 was instantly cured. In this family, finding a case of obses- 
 sion, he cast out a demon. This remarkable achievement 
 concerted the family, with five hundred more, to the 
 •p'.ntuMistic principles of Jesus. 
 
Chaptef^ xyi. 
 
 POST -APOSTOLIC. 
 
 "Gather up the fragments thait nothing be lost." 
 
 ♦♦Still gathering as they pour along, 
 The voice more loud, the tide more strong." 
 
 Like mile-posts on the panoramic highway of life, burring 
 with many-colored lights, indicating the true line of spiritual 
 progress, loom up in bold relief the church fathers of the 
 succeeding centuries — Irenseus, Justin Martyr, Tatian the 
 Assyrian, Turtullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyp- 
 rian, and others — who officially represent the continuous 
 revelations of heaven. 
 
 Iren^us, whose name signifies peaceable, an admirer of the 
 apostle John, was endowed w^ith prophetic gifts. As quoted 
 by Eusebius, those times were not so potent in spirit influx, 
 as in the palmy days of the apostles ; but in cases of neces- 
 sity, when a whole congregation, by fasting and prayer, 
 adjusted themselves in harmony with the spirit-batteries, the 
 seeming dead have been restored to life. " Some most 
 certainly," says Ireneeus, "cast out demons; others have a 
 knowledge of things to come, as also visions and prophetic 
 communications ; and others still heal the sick by the impo- 
 sition of hands. ***** ^Ye hear of many of the 
 brethren in the church who have prophetic gifts, and who 
 speak in all tongues through the Spirit, (spirit-influences) and 
 who also bring to light the secret things of men for their 
 
 121 
 
122 DOCtHINES 0^ SPlRttUALISTS. 
 
 benefit, and expound the mysteries of God." Eusebius, in 
 referring to the reasons why these spiritual gifts had 
 measurably dec ined in the church, in his time, asserts that 
 " the churches had become unworthy of (hemJ' 
 
 Justin Martyr, of Grecian descent, familiar, in his youth, 
 with the doctrines of Zeno and Aristotle, mingled, in after 
 years, the acknowledged dogmas of the church with the 
 Platonic philosophy. This Grecian culture the better pre- 
 pared him to analyze the laws of mind and its relations with 
 this and the spirit- world. With Philo, he declared that " no 
 man had ever seen God the Father," but that " it was our 
 Christ, or an angel, who spoke to Moses from the bush, in 
 the form of fire, and said, ' Put off thy shoes.' " In a book 
 ascribed to Justin Martyr, it is stated that "demons, spirits 
 of the dead, still speak by those who are called ventrilo- 
 quists." In his famous Apology, he teaches that, "when 
 God created the world, he committed the superintendence 
 of it to angels." Maintaining the plausible doctrines of 
 obsessions, he affirmed that evil demons "inflamed women, 
 corrupted boj^s, and spread terrors among those who did not 
 examine things by reason." Kot realizing they were a lower 
 order of spirits, " they called them gods, and gave to each 
 the name he claimed for himself; but Socrates endeavored 
 to expose their practices, and by true reason draw men away 
 from their influences, and the demons, by the help of wicked 
 men, caused this Grecian philosopher to be put to death as 
 an atheist and impious person." According to certain phe- 
 nomena of the present, docs not this statement concerning 
 Socrates bear the semblance of truth ? 
 
 Tertullian, son of a Roman centurion, at Carthage, 160 A. 
 D., distinguished for his great eloquence, and for his familiarity 
 with Grecian and Roman literature, positive and vindictive 
 in nature, and given to controversy, was fearless in his affir- 
 mations of spiritual gifts and communications. In his cele- 
 brated work, "De Anima," he says: "We had a right to 
 
MEDIEVAL — I»OSt-At»OStOLtC. 128 
 
 expect, after what was said bj St. John, to anticipate prophe- 
 cies; and we not only acknowledge these spiritual gifts, but 
 we are permitted to enjoy the gifts of a prophetess. There 
 is a sister among us who possesses a faculty of revelation. 
 Commonly, during religious service, she falls into a trance, 
 holding then communion with the angels, beholding Jesus 
 himself, hearing divine mysteries explained, reading the 
 hearts of some persons, and administering to such as 
 require it. When the Scriptures are read, or Psalms sung, 
 spiritual beings minister visions to her. We were speaking 
 of the soul once, when our sister was in the spirit (entranced); 
 and, the^ people departing, she then communicated to us 
 what she had seen in her ecstacy, which was afterwards 
 closely inquired into and tested. She declared ^she had seen 
 a soul in bodily shape, that appeared to be a spirit, neither 
 empty nor formless, but so real and substantial, that it might 
 be touched. It was tender, shining of the color of the air, 
 but in everything resembling the human form.' " 
 
 As an exhibition of Tertullian's ferocity of nature, posi- 
 tiveness of willj and assurance of spiritual ability, as well as 
 faith in angel ministry, he says : " If a man calls himself a 
 Christian, and cannot expel a demon, let iiim be put to 
 DEATH ON THE SPOT ! " liofcrring to the controlling intelli- 
 gences of ^jsculapius, Thanatius, and other oracles, he asserts, 
 with fierce authority — " Unless these confess themselves to 
 be demons, not daring to lie unto a Christian, then shed the 
 
 BLOOD OF that MOST IMPOTENT CHRISTIAN ! " To SUit the 
 
 action to the w^ord, he commanded, "Let some one be 
 brought forward at the foot of your judgment seat, who it is 
 agreed is possessed with a demon. When] ordered by any 
 Christian to speak, that spirit shall as truly declare itself a 
 demon, as elsewhere falsely a god.'' Tertullian, highly 
 susceptible, was evidently contin^lled by a spirit on a very 
 low plane; but being powerful and electric, he could easily 
 dispossess any negative medium, even of a celestial angel. 
 His success in this psychological art, was, therefore, no 
 criterion of moral or religious superiority, but simply of 
 
124 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 physical and mental, which, like Milton's fabled Satan, 
 defied the Almightj- , and made war against him in heaven ! 
 
 Hermas, brother to Pius, a bip.liop of Rome, wrote his 
 " Pastor " about the middle of the second century. This book 
 is more appropriately known as " The Shepherd of Hermas.'* 
 Its contents, divided into "Visions, Commands, and Simili- 
 tudes," remind one of the visions and angelic interviews of 
 Ezekiel. Origen expresses the opinion that his books were 
 divinely inspired. They give an account of the "Visions of 
 Hermas," seen in his superior state, and generally inter- 
 preted in a symbolical sense. Evidently, his epistles were 
 too spiritual to be voted canonical. In the ninth of his 
 " Similitudes," an ancient white stone of immense magni- 
 tude is described, which had a new gate opened in it; and 
 in the " Visions," Hermas relates that he saw six young 
 men, "or rather angels clothed in shining vestures, building 
 a tower of square white stones, symbolic of the church 
 militant." A writer in Appleton's Biographical Cyclopedia, 
 edited by the Rev. Dr. F. L. Hawks, speaking of this book 
 of Hermas, remarks, that " it is further interesting because 
 affording evidence that the early Christians believed in the 
 ministration of angels around them." 
 
 MoNTANUS, a Phrygian bishop, flourishing in the second 
 century, preached a firm and fervid Spiritualism, attracting 
 immense crowds. He contended that every true believer in 
 Christ received a direct inspiration. This he based upon 
 the prophecy of Joel — " I will pour out my spirit upon all 
 flesh." Judaism was to him the morning-youth; Christi- 
 anity, the manhood; the post-apostolic, the culmination or 
 diffusiveness of spiritual gifts. Gifted with prophetic power, 
 he maintained that himself, and two leading prophetesses, 
 had received the fulness of the Divine Spirit, through whose 
 agency all holy works are wrought. 
 
MEDIEVAL — POST-APOLISTIC. 125 
 
 OrigeNj born in Alexandria, 185 A. D., consecrated himself 
 to spiritual development by extreme abstemiousness, through 
 spirits, who thus taught him the purer inspirations of nature. 
 lie attended the lectures where Platonism was inculcated, 
 under the tuition of the celebrated Ammonius Saccas, which 
 accounts for much of his peculiar religious structure. Con- 
 spicuous among his popular teachings, were summarily 
 thase — That God is immanent in all space; that stars have 
 souls, and sang together on the morn of creation ; that 
 angelic beings have the government of fruits and seasons ; 
 that angels have etherial bodies, and evil spirits have grosser 
 organisms; that all humaii souls are fellow-spirits who 
 sinned in some previous existence, but, entering human 
 bodies, would finally be restored to holiness and happiness; 
 and that '' all the holy men who have departed from this life, 
 retaining their charity toward those whom they left behind, 
 are anxious for their salvation, and assist them by their 
 prayers, and their mediation with God." Origen says : 
 " There are no longer any prophets or miracles among the 
 Jews, but many vestiges of miraculous works among the 
 Christians; namely, in the middle of the third century. 
 Gregory, Origen's pupil, and bishop of Csesaria in Pontus, 
 was so famous for his miracles, that he was styled Thauma- 
 turgus, the wonder-worker." This Christian Father further 
 believed, that by prayer and the repetition of sacred writings, 
 " demons could be cast out and numberless evils averted." 
 
 Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, educated in the most refined 
 school of Roman theology, rigorous towards heretics, was 
 gifted in spiritual powers, and, in common with his 
 coadjutors, was an earnest advocate of the then popular 
 Spiritualism of the church. In youth he had a vision, 
 which he himself thus relates : " Whilst quite awake, 
 I saw a young man of more than mortal stature, who 
 showed him himself, led before the pro-consul and con- 
 demned to be beheaded, as a martyr to Christianity. 
 Accordingly, when it came to pass, he knew exactly how 
 
126 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 and when it would take place." In agreement with his 
 cotemporary, he taught that evil spirits obsess mortals, that 
 they lurk around tutelary statues, inspire soothsayers, excite 
 terror in the minds of men, disturb their sleep, destroy their 
 health, etc., and "then either vanish immediately, or go out 
 gradually, according to the faith of the patient, or the grace 
 of him who effects the cjre.*' lie declares that " there is no 
 measure or rule in the dispensation of the gifts of heaven, as 
 in the gifts of earth. The spirit is poured forth liberally, 
 without limits or barriers, t- -i^ ^ * =!= Besides visions 
 of the night, even boys among us are filled with the Holy 
 Spirit, and in fits of ecstacy see, hear and speak things by 
 which the Lord (a leader or angelic being) thinks lit to 
 instruct us." 
 
 Either through candid ignorance of the law, or inexcusable 
 bigotry, the bishop of Antioch, Theophilus, avers that it was 
 evil spirits who inspired the prophets of Greece and Rome — 
 '' The truth of this is manifestly shown, because those who are 
 possessed by demons, even to this day, are sometimes exor- 
 cised by us in the name of God ; and the seducing spirits 
 confess themselves to be the same demons who before 
 inspired the gentile poets." 
 
 The honest reader will clearly discover the deep and nur- 
 tured jealousy existing between the Classics and Christians, 
 and the studied effort at the mastery over each other's 
 oracles; and draw his conclusions, not from apparent 
 victory — because of better battery forces — but according to 
 justice and integrity, crediting Egyptian, Jewish and Grecian 
 Spiritualists with the virtue justlj^ their due. 
 
 We have the most abundant proof of the continuance of 
 spiritual gifts and converse with the immortals, both from the 
 of classic and ecclesiastic writers, during the first six centuries 
 the Christian era. Among the church historians who treated 
 directly of this matter, were Eusebius, Socrates, Scholasticus, 
 Sozomeu, Theodoret and Evagrius. Hegisippus and Papias, 
 who preceded Eusebius, testify to the prevalence of spiritual 
 dreams, prophecies, trances and seership, in their age. 
 
MRt)IJ^lVAL — I'OST-ArOLTSTrC. 127 
 
 Gregory, a Thaumaturgist, and noted disciple of Origen, 
 ^as famous for the great number of miracles or spiritual 
 manifestations, wrought through his mediatorial organization. 
 
 Augustine, flourishing about the middle of the fifth 
 oenturj, bears multiform testimony to the continuance of the 
 miraculous gifts of Christians. " Besides the restoration of 
 a child to life, he relates twenty miracles performed under 
 his observation within the space of two years." 
 
 Ambrose, living towards the end of the fourth century, 
 is stated to have fallen asleep (entranced) at the altar on a 
 certain Sunday, remaining so for several hours, to the great 
 wonder of the people. Awakening, he declared that he had 
 attended the funeral of St. Martin, and performed the 
 service. The fact noted, it was ascertained that St. Martin 
 had died at the time specified by this seer. He also assures 
 us that " the martyr Agnes was seen one night at her grave, 
 surrounded by a choir of singing maidens." 
 
 Jerome, living in the fifth century, relates numerous 
 miracles occurring in his time, such as " the restoration of 
 sight to a woman ten years blind, the instant cure of paral- 
 ysis, and the casting out of demons. "These miracles 
 are paralleled by what are now denominated " spiritual 
 manifestations." 
 
 Mosheim, (vol. i. p. 104) in his ecclesiastical history, says : 
 
 " The light of the Gospel was introduced into Iberia, a province of 
 Asia (now called Georgia), in the following manner : a certain woma-n 
 was carried into that country as a captive, during the reign of Con- 
 stantine ; and by the grandeur of her miracles, and the remarkable 
 sanctity of her life and manners, she made such an impression upon the 
 king and queen, that they abandoned their false gods, embraced the 
 faith of the Gospel, and sent to Constantinople for proper persons to 
 give them and their people a more satisfactory and complete knowledge 
 of the Christian religion/' 
 
128 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 This was in the fourth century. After maturely consider- 
 ing the whole ground and all the authorities, on the next 
 page he says : 
 
 " I am willing to grant, that many events have been rashly deemed 
 miraculous which were the result of the ordinary laws of nature ; and, 
 also that pious frauds were sometimes used for the purpose of giving 
 new degrees of weight and dignity to the Christian cause. But I 
 cannot, on the other hand, assent to the opinions of those who maintain 
 that in this century, miracles had entirely ceased; and that, at this 
 period, the Christian Church was not favored with any extraordinary 
 or supernatural mark of a Divine power engaged in its cauye." 
 
 Constantine's reign infused a sort of pride into the Chris- 
 tianity of that and subsequent centuries. With national 
 ambition and individual worldliness spurred to intense 
 action by reigning rival powers, there commenced about this 
 time a rapid decline of spiritual gifts among nominal chris- 
 tians, forcibly reminding one of the Apostle Paul's prophecy 
 of the "falling away'' that should come. Christianity, a 
 shell devoid the spirit-substance, still flounders in this 
 "fallen" condition. 
 
Chaptei^ xyii, 
 
 NEO-PLATONIO 
 
 "We lack but open eye and ear 
 To find the Orient's marvels here. 
 ****** 
 
 For still the new transcends the old 
 In signs and tokens manifold." 
 
 As Paris to France socially, as Jerusalem to Syria reli- 
 giously, as Ephesus to the thinkers of Southern Asia irl.eally, 
 80 Alexandria to all nations of the first Christian centuries. 
 Founded by Alexander the Great, on the commercial tho- 
 roughfare between Europe and Asia, it was the center of 
 philosophy, the birth-place of symbols, the arena of all new 
 theories, attractive for her unparalleled libraries, numbering, 
 in her palmier period, seven hundred thousand books, and 
 celebrated for accommodating, at one time within her classic 
 precincts, fourteen thousand students ! The literary world in 
 miniature, her fountains of truth, flowing over all deserts 
 and ruins and mausoleums and Edens of beauty, have bathed 
 the whole earth in historic and inspirational wisdom. Her 
 eclectic professors, cooling the egotistic ardor of the Church 
 Fathers, plucked their boasted plumes by exhibiting superior 
 art and literature, magic and miracle. 
 
 This Alexandrian school of philosophy, based upon the 
 psychological systems of Pythagoras and Plato, drew its pri- 
 mal inspirations from India and Egypt, and, amalgamating 
 with, overshadowed the dogmas of Christianitji 
 9 129 
 
130 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Dion Chrysostom, writing in the time of Trajan, says: "1 
 Bee among you Alexandrians, not only Greeks and Italians, 
 Syrians, Sybians, Ethiopians and Arabians, but Bactrians, 
 Scythians, Persians, and travelers from India, who flow 
 together into this city, and are always with you/' 
 
 Gnosticism, {ginosko, to know) budding in the first, bios 
 Bomed more fully among educated classes in the second 
 century. The Gnostics were Inductionists. Gnosis was 
 considered a divine sciefice; and, wielded by those metaphys- 
 ical thinkers, successfully contended against Christianity, in 
 the estimation of the literati. It is averred, with great plau- 
 sibility, that the Asiatic Gnostics were personally acquainted 
 with the Gymnosophists of India and the Magi of Persia. 
 The Christian Fathers, owing to a lack of literary culture, 
 were disinclined to meet them in discussion. Mani, born in 
 Persia, Marcus Tatian, Cerinthus, the father of Gregory, of 
 Nazianzen, were prominent among the Gnostics. These, 
 with others of the same school, held to the oriental philo- 
 sophiv^al theory, that all spirits emanated from God, and were 
 a part of him ; that angels, by divine appointment, exercised 
 a superintendence over the affairs of this world as guardians; 
 that mortals had the high privilege of communion w^ith these 
 celestials ; that Christ, as a heavenly spirit, was not invested 
 with a mortal body after his resurrection, or, better, emanci- 
 pation ; that souls, as cenons, emanating from the infinit.e 
 fountain of Deity, by a law of progress, returned purified 
 to the bosom-source whence they came. Clement of Alex- 
 andria, says: *' Their worship consists in continual attention 
 to their souls; in meditations upon the Divinity, as being 
 inexhaustible love." 
 
 Ammonius Saccas, profound, scholarly and eclectic, com- 
 bining in his rare organism the extremes of conservatism 
 and radicalism, organized this famous school about the year 
 220 A. D. Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Jamblichus, and 
 others, rejecting the mouldy crumbs of Hebrew revelations, 
 and versed in the elements and principles characterizing the 
 
MEDIEVAL — NEO-PLATONIC. 131 
 
 oriental theosophies, were among the enninent- disciples of 
 Ammonius. His lofty purpose was to combine the good and 
 beautiful found in the theologies and philosophies of India, 
 Egypt, China, Persia, Judea, Greece and Rome, in fact, all 
 nations in all times, and out of these vast materials to form 
 a grand eclecticism, alive with all the thought, wisdom and 
 virtue of the ages, like a superb temple compounded of all 
 the kingdoms of life in the universe. 
 
 Plotinus, eleven years the student of Ammonius Saccas, 
 retaining his Egyptian icliosyncracies, educated at Alexan- 
 dria, and of immeasurable influence in society, was the 
 inspiring animus of Neo-Platonism^ and gave to it much of 
 its prestige and fame in the world. His metaphysical doc- 
 trines run thus: That there is one God, the perfect, uncre- 
 ated principle; that Wisdom is the Logos of the good; that 
 from Wisdom and Love proceeded the souls of all things; 
 that the human soul, an essential portion of the Diviiie Soul, 
 can, in its highest states, penetrate into all worlds' mysteries, 
 and hold communion with the essence of things; that this 
 life is a mere flash of light, which God, in his goodness, 
 grants to souls for a season ; that, whilst this earth-life lasts, 
 memory of the prior existence vanishes, but in the next life, 
 the mind beholds the past, present and future, at one glance; 
 that poets, lovers, musicians, philosophers, more etherial 
 winged, can the easier ascend into the superior regions; that 
 miracles are in harmony with fixed principles of the uni- 
 verse; that self-denial of all lusts and passions is inductive 
 to conscious communication with and glory of the gods, or 
 angels. His enthusiastic disciples ascribed to him mirac- 
 ulous gifts. In their writings it is frequently afiirmed that 
 he could discern the secret thoughts of men. When Por- 
 phyry contemplated suicide, he discovered it without the 
 least outward intimation. When a theft had been commit- 
 ted in the house, he collected the domestics and immediately 
 pointed out the culprit, without asking a (question. Thej 
 
132 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 requested him to evoke his guardian spirit, which the Gre 
 cians called his *' demon.'' He refused for a lon,^ time. 
 Fiiiall}', yielding to their entreaties, they saw a, god appear in 
 their midst. He healed the most dangerous diseases, 
 ohtained great reputation for foretelling future events, and 
 walked in daily converse with spirits and angels. Emilius, 
 urging him to attend the services of the church, he replied, 
 " The spirits must come to me, not I to the spirits." After 
 his departure to the spirit world, in the sixty-sixth year of 
 his age, his friends inquired of an oracle as to the residence 
 of his soul. The response was given in verse, to the effect, 
 that owing to his gentleness, goodness, elevated ideas, puritj' 
 of life, his soul had rejoined the just spirits of Minos, Rhada- 
 manthus and ^acus. By virtue of these graces he was per- 
 mitted to behold, face to face, the more exalted and glorified 
 of the celestial worlds. 
 
 Porphyry, of Phoenecian descent, was one of the most dis- 
 tinguished disciples of Plotinus, succeeding him in the third 
 century as president of the Alexandrian school. It is as 
 morally impossible for a Koman Church father to speak or 
 write impartially of Porphyry, as for a modern Protestant of 
 the orthodox school, to award Spiritualists their just position. 
 Deeply read in the lore of the past, an ardent admirer of 
 Plato, Porphyry is described by the church historian, Nean- 
 der, as "a man of noble spirit, united with profound intel- 
 lectual attainments ; a man of the East, in whom the oriental 
 basis of character had been completely fused with th 
 elements of Grecian culture." He devoted much time t 
 the study of magic, called Theurgy ; to the psychologic ad 
 mystic relations of mind to mind; to the necessity of self 
 abnegation, as preparatory to the highest angelic coin- 
 munion ; and, like his predecessors, Ammonius and Plotinus, 
 he sought to establish a universal eclecticism in religion. 
 Nearly all his works against Christianity were burned by 
 Christians — a proof this of their inestimable value. When a 
 sectarian man cannot meet his r.eio^hbor with sound reason, 
 
MEDIEVAL — NEO-PLATONIC. 133 
 
 he tries force, fire, perjury, theft ! They who know the truth, 
 love criticism ; and rather than burn philosophy, they cherish 
 it as gratefully as flowers do the sunshine. 
 
 Porphyry taught that all religions have a divine origin ; 
 that a high standard of morals and purity of life are indis- 
 pensable to happiness; that men are justified in separating 
 from their angular wives to attain greater holiness and more 
 time to devote to philosophy; that it is wrong to obey civil 
 laws when in opposition to higher law written by God in the 
 eternal constitution of the soul ; and, quoting Apollonius in 
 favor of silent prayer, that such devotion is alone worthy the 
 Supreme Being. He beautifully says, that "Similarities 
 unite. Shut up in the body, as in a prison, we ought to pray 
 to o:ods and- ano:els to deliver us from our fetters. Thev are 
 our true fathers; and we ought to pray to them like chil- 
 dren exiled from the paternal mansion." He believed in the 
 controllini^ intelligences of heaven, and was much "impressed 
 with the power of evil spirits," often referring to them as the 
 cause of disease, personal quarrels, and national wars. He 
 also maintained that the spirit of prophecy could be attained 
 by abstemious living; and that his soul was once so elevated 
 to a complete union with God, he caught golden glimpses of 
 the eternal world. 
 
 Jamblichus, Syrian by birth, student of Porphyry, ap- 
 proached, in prt?ccpt and practice, nearer the Nazarene 
 than any cotemporary Neo-Platonist. He lived in the reigo 
 of Constantine, when Indian philosophy and Grecian theo 
 sophy were the cherished principles of the erudite. Teaching 
 the oriental doctrine of emanations, he mingled theurg}', 
 magic and philosophy in his crucible of thought, daily 
 inspected by Alexandrian students. His disciples believed him 
 ])Os^essed with supernatural power. History aflirms, that 
 whilst engMged in prayer, spirits raised him fifteen feet in the 
 air. Accompanied by his pupils to the baths of Gadara, in 
 Syria, he ij:;][uired the names of. two springs of water. On 
 
134 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 beiog informed they were Eros and Anteros — deities acknowl 
 edged by the Greeks — he scarcely touched the water, utter- 
 ing a few words, when there rose up before them two beau- 
 tiful children, who clasped their arms around Jamblichus' 
 neck. From this moment none of his adherents doubted 
 his communion with the gods. His biographer, Eunapius, a 
 very learned and conscientious writer, narrates many other 
 miraculous things attributed to him. So wonderful were 
 they, that " neither Edesius, nor his friends, have dared to 
 put them in their works." In order to attain the highest 
 degrees of mediumship — then called Theurgy — he and his 
 wise companions, like the Egyptian Hierophants, prepared 
 themselves by fasting, watching, praying, and devout reli- 
 gious reflection. These spiritual conditions introduced into 
 realms of divine exaltation, are thus described by Jamblichus 
 in his " Mysteries ; " " The senses are in a sleeping state. 
 The Theurgist has no command of his faculties, no conscious- 
 ness of what he says or does. =k * * Carried by a divine 
 impulse, he goes through impassable places, through fire and 
 water without knowing where he is. A divine illumination 
 tiikes full possession of the man, absorbs all his faculties, 
 motions, and senses ; making him speak what he does not 
 understand, or rather seem to speak it; for he is, in fact, 
 merely the minister, or instrument, of the God who pos- 
 sesses him." What a joerfect description of modern trance, 
 by this ancient Neo-Platonist ! 
 
 Of prayer, this most devout philosopher says : " Frequent 
 prayer nourishes our superior part, renders the receptacle of 
 the soul more capacious for the gods, discloses divine things 
 to men, accustoms them with the splendors of the world of 
 intelligences, and gradually so perfects our union with pure 
 spirits, as to lead us back to the Supreme God." 
 
 Jamblichus was familiar with clairvoyance in all its phases, 
 with healing by spirit influence, with dreams as spirit impres- 
 eions, and with the beauties and glories of the trance, both 
 from observation and experience. He explains what is said 
 
MEDIEVAL — NEO-PLATONIC. 135 
 
 by Porphyry : ^' That some immediately fall into a trance oa 
 hearing music; and he shows an intimate acquaintance with 
 instances of persons hearing most divine music, especially on 
 approaching death." 
 
 Well, therefore, did Jamblichus, in his celebrated work on 
 the "Mysteries," assert that admissibility to, and communion 
 with, spiritual beings, " is eternal and cotemporary with the 
 
 BOUl." 
 
 Proclus, "the heir of Plato," the ascetic teacher of Athens, 
 the young prodigy of the Alexandrian philosophy, saw, in his 
 day, the culmination of I^eo-Platonism. He commenced his 
 forty-third chapter on the theology of Plato thus: "Let us 
 speak concerning the demons who are allotted the superin- 
 tendence of mankind. * ^ ^ The highest genus of 
 demons, being proximate to the gods, is uniform and divine. 
 The next in order to these demons, possessing a highly intel- 
 lectual nature, preside over individuals, as well as over the 
 ascent and descent of souls." The Egyptian priests admired 
 Plotinus as being governed (on account of the purity of his 
 life) b}^ a divine demon. And with great propriety, also, 
 does Socrates call his demon a god, for he belonged to the 
 first and highest demons. Proclus further says : " Socrates 
 perceived a certain voice proceeding from his demon. This 
 he asserts in the Theceietus and in the Phcedrus." "What the 
 Grecians termed " divine demons," we denominate minister- 
 ing angel guides, who delight to do the will of the Eternal 
 Father. 
 
ECTURE Y. 
 
 Churchal Spiritualism. 
 
ChAPTEI\^ XYIIL 
 
 CnURCIIIANIC. 
 
 "Oh, never rudely will I blame their faith 
 In the might of gods and angels ! " , 
 
 *' Sometimes there glimpses on my sight 
 Through Christian wrongs the eternal right; . 
 And step by step since time began 
 I see the steady gain of man." 
 
 Christianity, lieretofore spiritually spontaneous as taught 
 by the Nazarene, became sectarized and nationalized — a 
 court-religion under the reign of Constantine. 
 
 Not a vestige of similarity is traceable between the nature- 
 teachings and pure, sweet life of the gentle son of Joseph and 
 Mary, and the worldly Christianity of the 19th century. 
 From this fatal Constantinian era, its purity more rapidly 
 paled, until an eclipse of spiritual midnight brooded over its 
 blinded devotees. Fossils neither flash nor flame with vig- 
 orous life. Few blossoms of inspiration come from a 
 leafless, sapless, withered trunk. When doctrines, however 
 beautiful, crystalize into creeds, they die and rust away 
 into Lethean forgetfulness. 
 
 Roman Catholicism, imitated by her schismatic daughter. 
 Protestantism, adopted, in her externals, a paganized Judaism, 
 combining the ceremonials of the Mosaic and later classic, 
 with their sacerdotal, hierarchal paraphernalia, the better to 
 seize and appropriate the more cultured religious theses 
 taught in the mystic temples of the orientals, for priestly 
 
 139 
 
140 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 power and worldly aggrandizement. As every midnight lias 
 its stars, and every stormy ocean its pearls, so, under the cold 
 drapery of the royalized church, were genuine silver-glim- 
 mei'ings of the aspirational and spiritual. 
 
 GuizoT, in his recent work entitled, ''Meditations upon the 
 lieliglous Questions of the Day,'^ in which he evidently uses 
 the word supernatural for spiritual, says : '' Belief in the super- 
 natural is a fact natural, primitive, universal and constant in 
 the life and history of the human race. Unbelief in the 
 supernatural begets materialism, materialism sensuality, sen- 
 suality social convulsion, amid w^hose storms man learna 
 again to believe and pray." 
 
 CoNSTANTiNE, having espoused Christianity, and being men- 
 aced in consequence by its enemies, was compelled to take 
 up arms for self-defence. Eusebius states that he heard 
 Constantino declare, under oath, that ''when ho was going 
 to attack the tyrant Maxentius, and was full of doubt, as he 
 was resting in the middle of the day, and his soldiers about 
 him, he and all the soldiers saw a luminous cross in the 
 heaveus, attended by a troop of angels, who said, ' 0, Con- 
 stant ne ! by this ^o forth to victory ! ' * * * At night, 
 Christ appeared to him in a dream, having tl.e same cross, 
 w^hich he ordered to have wrought upon his banners, with 
 the words, 'P>Y this conquer!' " Under this inspiring sym- 
 bol he did conquer. 
 
 Lactantius corroborates the statement, that the sign of the 
 cross on the shields of the soldiers, was put there in conse- 
 quence of a vision or dream. Socrates, Philostorgius, Gela- 
 sius, Nicephorus, all testify to the appearance of the cross in 
 the sky. It was a most magniiicent psychological presenta- 
 tion, produced by ministering spirits. 
 
 SozoMEN, a church historian of the 5th century, informs 
 as "that when Julian was killed in Persia, his death was 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 141 
 
 seen in Asia by one of his officers, at a distance of twenty 
 days' travel; and by Didymus, a blind Christian, in Egypt." 
 He relates an incident of Eutycliian, a Bithynian monk, a 
 friend of Constantine, who desired the jailers to remove the- 
 fetters from a prisoner sorely tortured ; but, on being refused, 
 he went to the prison, attended by Auscanon, a venerable 
 presbyter of the church. At their approach the doors of the 
 prison opened, and the chains fell from the prisoner's limbs. 
 This finds corroboration in the case of Peter, who was 
 re'icased from prison by an angel, and of the Davenport Bro- 
 thers, who were helped to make their escape, by angel power, 
 from prison walls, in Oswego, N. Y., thrust therein at the 
 instigation of the church. 
 
 Augustine, a famous Latin Church Father, living in the 
 4th century, gives some very beautiful expressions of joy 
 respecting angel guardians : 
 
 " They watch over and guard us with great care and diligence in all 
 places, and at all hours assisting, providing for our necessities with 
 solicitude ; they intervene betwixt us and Thee, Lord, conveying te 
 Thee our sighs and groans, and bringing down to us the dearest bless- 
 ings of Thy grace. They walk with us in all our ways; they go in 
 and out with us. attentively observing how we converse with piety in 
 the midst of a perverse generation ; with what ardor we seek Thy 
 kingdom and its justice, and with what fear and awe we serve Thee. 
 They assist us in our labors ; they protect us in our rest ; they encour- 
 age us in battle; they crown us in victories; they rejoice in us when 
 we rejoice in Thee ; and they compassionately attend us when we suffer 
 or are afflicted for Thee. G-reat is their care of us, and great is the 
 effect of their charity for us.'' 
 
 Julian, Emperor of Rome, nephew of Constantine, famous 
 in history for his effort to re-establish the shrines of oriental 
 worship, and stigmatized "Apostate," because, being a 
 Christian, he patronized the !N"eo-Platonic Philosophy. When 
 a boy, he was strongly charmed by the sunlight, and consid- 
 ered it an unconscious longing after the God with whom he 
 was related. The sun was to him a beautiful symbol of the 
 God of the universe. Accordingly, " the private chapel in 
 
142 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 his palace was consecrated to the sun ; but his gardens were 
 filled with altars and statues of the gods and angels." He 
 maintained that there were messengers between God and 
 men, and some'.imes, for special purposes, resided in earthly 
 temples — haunted houses. No wonder the church called 
 him '^ Ajyosfate! " 
 
 '' When Julian and his brother Gallus were induced to undertake 
 the labor of erecting a chapel over the tomb of the martyr Mammas, 
 the work went on rapidly under the hands of Gallus, but the stones 
 which Julian laid were constantly overthrown as by some invisible 
 agency. Gregory of Naziangen says that he had this from eye 
 witnesses ; and he seenas to regard it as a prophetic miracle." 
 
 The Greek Church of Russia, receiving her apostolic hier- 
 archy and priesthood frcm Greece, has carefully maintained 
 the integrity of the primitive Church with less innovations, 
 doubtless, than the Catholic, and is, therefore, more authori- 
 tative in respect to what the Apostolic Fathers taught. The 
 doctrine of ministering spirits, working miracles through 
 their patron saints, is plainly set forth in their religious 
 histories. 
 
 M. MouRAViEFF, a church historian, tells us that " his or hei 
 * angel' is the customary phrase in Russia for the patron 
 saint after whom any one is named; but that they also 
 believe in guardian angels appointed to each baptized person. 
 The church counts, as its chief guardians and intercessors, a 
 considerable number of saints. The Russian Church believes 
 firmly in ^ the doctrines of the holy Icons (pictures of saints 
 and the Virgin), in relics, the sign of the venerable cross, of 
 tradition, of the mystery of the most pure blood and body 
 of Christ, of the invocation of saints and angels, of the state 
 of souls after death, and of praj^ers for the departed.' " 
 
 Howitt, in his *' History of the Supernatural," adverts to 
 the fact, that " in the time of Peter the Great, the Anglican 
 Church made application to be admitted to unity with the 
 (."Ecumenical Church, and desired the Russian patriarch to 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 14S 
 
 transmit their prayer to Constantinople ; but the Russian 
 prelates, having consulted, declined, because the Anglican 
 Churcn had heretically renounced the traditions of the 
 Fathers, the invocations of saints, and the reverencing of 
 Icons — sacred pictures." 
 
 CT. Bernard, a healing and most benevolent priest, thu3 
 all-: des to the divine care over us : 
 
 " We owe to our guardian angels great reverence, devo- 
 tion and confidence. Penetrated with awe, walk always with 
 ciicumspection, remembering the presence of angels, to whom 
 you are given in charge, in all your ways. In every apart- 
 ment, in every closet, in every corner, pay respect to your 
 angel. Dare you do before him what you dare not commit 
 if I saw you ?" ******** 
 
 " Consider with how great respect, awe, and modesty we 
 '.ught to behave in the sight of the angels, lest w^e ofiend 
 their eyes, and render ourselves unworthy of their company. 
 Woe to us if they who could chase away our enemy, be 
 '^i?ended by our negligence, and deprive us of their visits.'^ 
 
 Gregory VII., (Hildebrand) of the 11th century, was a 
 uoted thaumaturgist or seer. When Rodolph marched 
 against Henry lY., this pope was so certain of success that he 
 ventured to prophesy, both in speech and writing, that his 
 enemy would be conquered and slain in battle, and would 
 transpire before St. Peter's day, which prophecy was literally 
 fulfilled. 
 
 IvOGER Bacon, of the 12th century, a Franciscan Friar, the 
 accredited inventor of the telescope, and a profound scholar, 
 who much disturbed the church by his seership and science, 
 '.,.'■ der the controlling intelligences of the spirit-world, pene- 
 tiated into the mysteries of life, and, piercing the cloudy 
 8un-r. ists of intervening ages, seized upon the occult forces 
 that bowed as servants to his beck and adapted them by 
 inventi )n to practical uses. 
 
144 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 A profouud study of magic with the natural sciences, made 
 Qim liberal and progressive. The clerg}' prohibited his 
 lectures, and confined the circulation of his writings to the 
 walls of the convent. Finally a council of Sanfranciscans 
 condemned his books and sent him to prison. He was 
 specially gifted with the power to discern future events, being 
 highly mediumistic. Some of his remarkable prophecies, 
 uttered six hundred years ago, relating to modern invendoiis, 
 were strikingly practical, as the following testifies : 
 
 " Bridges, unsupported by arches, will be made to span tbe f;amiD,,___ 
 current. Man shall descend to the bottom of the ocean, safciy brea til- 
 ing, and treading with firm step on the golden sands, never brighten'^i 
 by the light of day. Call but the sacred powers of Sol and Luna into 
 action, and behold a single steersman sitting at the helm, guiding the 
 vessel which divides the waves with greater rapidity than if sr? tai 
 been propelled by a crew of marines toiling at the oars ; and the ioa led 
 chariot no longer encumbered by the panting steeds, shall dart en its 
 course with resistless force and rapidity. Let the siniple elements do 
 the labor; bind the eternal forces and 3'^oke them to the same plow." 
 
 The excellent writer, Prof. Brittan, says that *^ thesv 
 prophecies of Bacon embrace the Suspension Bridge, tli« 
 Diving Bell, Steam Navigation, the Railroad, and the Stean 
 Plow, in the same chain of events, all of which are anion _• 
 the accomplished realities of-day." 
 
 Infinite Spirit is infinite causation ; finite spirit in man is 
 finite causation. Just so far as this finite causation comes 
 into relation with causes outside and independent of himself, 
 is he able to read the future. Exalted spirits standing upon 
 the plane of causes, and, seeing with unsealed vision certain 
 operative forces, are enabled to determine the legitimate 
 effects thence derived. Prophecy, therefore, is just as nat- 
 ural as cause and effect. Angelo, spirits, men, possess tin 
 power of prevision just in the ratio of exaltation in wisdom 
 
 Peter d'Apono, 1250 A. D., an eminent philosopher, ma'/ ^ 
 ematician and astrologer, is said to have been possessed bj 
 seven spirits, from whom he received all information be 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 145 
 
 desired relating to tlie liberal arts and sciences. Tried in 
 ecclesiastic council for practicing magic, he died before his 
 inquisitors, who, to glut their insatiable churchal malignancy, 
 dug up his bones and publicly burned them ! 
 
 Bishop Grossetete, of the 13th century, a man of most 
 transcendent intellect and superior acquirements, was en- 
 dowed with spiritual gifts. The poet, Gower, informs us 
 that he constructed a head of brass in such a manner that 
 mediumistically it answered philosophical questions and 
 foretold future events. 
 
 " Nicolas, of Basle, and his friends predicted the death of Gregory 
 XL, which took place at the time foretold — namely, in the fourth week 
 in Lent, 1378. They foresaw also the grand schism in the Popedom, 
 which commenced in the following year. So deeply was Nicolas con- 
 cerned for the shameful corruptions of the church and of the papal 
 court, that in his seventieth year, in the year 1376, taking a trusty 
 ' Friend of Grod ' with him, he went to Rome ', and, in a personal 
 interview with Gregory, warned him of the troubles coming, and of his 
 own death, if he did not commence a real and sweeping reform. The 
 pope received this mission kindly but did not profit by it, and died as 
 they had foreshown. Many wonderful spiritual phenomena and reve- 
 lations are related as attending the meeting of these Friends of God," 
 — a sect of the 4th century, identified with the Catholic Church, that 
 sought to purify it of its gross iniquities through a more spiritual 
 and angelic life. 
 
 Martin Luther, though careful to reject the doctrine of 
 miracles and the continuation of the spiritual gifts — the fatal 
 error of Protestantism — was forced to admit in his day of 
 terrible conflict with the Mother Church, that ^' angels were 
 watching and protecting," and " * all up in arms, putting on 
 their armor, and girding their swords about them ' ; but he 
 had so bitterly ridiculed and so heartily abused the Catholics 
 for their manufactured miracles, that he was now afraid 
 to have the power of working true ones, lest they should 
 retort." 
 
 In this matter we discover in Luther, not only a want of 
 candor, but also of courage — for according to his own expe- 
 rience and confession in his Table Talk and otherwise, he was 
 10 
 
146 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 convicted of direct spiritual inspiration and the probable 
 visitation of spirits and angels. This apparent cowardice 
 and most saddening mistake in the Reformation, constitute 
 the tare in the church-field, which has increased till all the 
 wheat is smutty. This reaction from the abuse of spiritual 
 gifts in the Catholic Church, has been all along a killing frost, 
 destroying every beautiful flower of Paradise. Reader ! 
 have you thought of the painful fact, that all the Protestant 
 Churches date their spiritual decay back three hundred years 
 to this fatal error of the fathers of the Reformation, whilst 
 the Mother Church, assailed on every side, a thousand times 
 menaced with annihilation, lives on amid Protestant decay, 
 fresh and green in her soul — beautiful vines climbing walls 
 in ruin ? 
 
 The Catholic Church never lost its cynosure star — the 
 probable ministry of angels. As ever her devotees have 
 said, *' We believe in communion with the saints," those 
 angels have felt the prayer and kept the estate secure from 
 blast. The Catholics, clinging with loving tenacity to the 
 beautiful belief of " communion with the saints," have, from 
 time immemorial, preserved it in imposing anniversary. 
 The second of October is the Feast of Angel Guardians, in 
 commemoration, as Alban Butler says, of" a communication 
 of spiritual commerce between us on earth and his holy 
 angels, whose companions we hope one day to be in the 
 kingdom of his glory." 
 
 But Luther's vacuum was filled with his " roaring devil !" 
 that haunted him in all his travels and labors, as a " familiar 
 spirit." The devil supped with him, slept with him, watcher^ 
 with him, conversed with him, spoke to him in all calamities 
 and misfortunes. On one occasion, when this spirit inter- 
 fered with his translation, perhaps only for a playful taunt, 
 he threw his inkstand at him. This iconoclast had a great 
 deal of trouble with this spirit, who evidently delighted in 
 a frolic to keep up a healthful condition with his medium. 
 He little realized that his devil, attracted to his sphere of 
 life, was a power that intensified his will and strengthened 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 147 
 
 him in his reformatory work. Give thy devil his due, 
 Luther! But these days we have learned not to call these 
 health-giving, rough and playful spirits, devils, but fellow- 
 laborers. 
 
 Poor Luther, so protestant as to drive away the higher 
 angels, so iconoclastic as to attract destructive spirits to be 
 Ijis companions ! We do not wonder that all his church 
 children have been obsessed, and do to this day see only a 
 *' devil" in Spiritualism — the angel of God returned to 
 rescue Protestantism from death. " As a man thinketh so 
 is he." Devilish conditions clothe all spirits with demoniac 
 attributes. Look within, dying Church ! and behold 
 thyself entombed with the real Gadarene! — blank skepti- 
 cism — wintry atheism, *' legion " of doubts and bigotries ! 
 
 Philip Melancxhon, more spiritual in organization than 
 Luther, had a more equably balanced faith in the ministry of 
 spirits, and relates several instances of such interposition in 
 times of peril. He tells us, that he had seen spectres^ 
 (spirits) and that he knew many men, worthy of credit, who 
 not only had seen, but had likewise discoursed with them." 
 
 Leckendoye, on the authority of Solomon Glasse, states 
 that Melancthon was recalled from death by Luther's prayers, 
 positively indicating his healing power under the influence 
 of his attending spirits : 
 
 " Luther arrived, and found Philip about to give up the 
 ghost. His eyes were set, his understanding was almost 
 gone, his speech had failed, and also his hearing; his face 
 had fallen ; he knew no one, and had ceased to take either 
 solids or liquids. At this spectacle Luther is filled with the 
 utmost consternation — turning away towards the window, he 
 called most devoutly upon God. After this, taking the hand 
 of Philip, and well knowing what was the anxiety of his 
 heart and conscience, he said, ^ Be of good courage, Philip; 
 thou shalt not die.' While he utters these things, Philip 
 begins, as it were, to revive and to breathe, and gradually 
 
148 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 recovering his strength, is at last restored to health. Mel- 
 ancthon, writing to a friend, said, " I should have been a 
 dead man, had I not been recalled from death by the .oming 
 of Luther." 
 
 John Calvin, " the iron-clad," the actual murderer of 
 Servetus for heresy, the father of "election, reprobation and 
 Infant Damnation," and of a church still as rigid as his stern 
 self — a man whose sinewy temperament would not originate 
 or indulge in spiritual fancies, as we might naturally suppose, 
 if he believed at all in spirits, accepted the doctrine of the 
 so-called " supernatural" under the " agency of Satan ! " He 
 however claimed to have a genuine spirit of prophecy, and 
 to be clairaudient, as Beza shows in his biography of Calvin. 
 
 Columbus, toiling seventeen years under the lofty ideal of 
 faith, at length procured the ships that wooed the shores of 
 the western world. He was pronounced a " visionary and 
 fanatic." When wrestling with sorest difficulties, he heard 
 an unknown voice whispering in his ear, " God will cause 
 thy name to be wonderfully resounded through the earth, 
 and give thee the keys to the gates of the ocean which are 
 closed with strong chains." 
 
 Cicero gave this remarkable prediction : " Across the 
 ocean, and after many ages, an extensive and rich country 
 will be discovered, and in it will arise a hero, who, by his 
 counsel and arms, shall deliver his country from the slavery 
 b}^ which she was oppressed. This he shall do, under 
 favorable auspices ; and oh ! how much more admirable 
 will he be than our Brutus and Camillus ! " This prediction 
 was known to Accius, and was embellished in poetry. Thus 
 prophets have been honored and prophecies preserved in all 
 ages of the world. 
 
 The Waldenses of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
 resolved to be pure and clear of Catholic idolatry, were 
 pursued by their enemies with the most maligr.aut perse- 
 cutions to exterminate them from the earth. Among the 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCIIIANIC. 149 
 
 fastnesses of the riedmontese Alps, they defended themselves 
 under the miraculous intervention of the spirits, astonishing 
 as that of Israel under the leadership of Joshua, guided by 
 the reputed Jehovah and his retinue of warlike spirits. 
 Leger, their historian, informs us that on one occasion they 
 were '* carried off in great numbers from their harvest "fields, 
 and cast into different prisons ; but their enemies, to their 
 unbounded astonishment, soon found them all at liberty 
 again, equally to the amazement of the captives themselves, 
 who knew nothing of the arrest of their fellows in different 
 places at the same time, and were set free again ' miracu- 
 lously,' and in a wonderful manner." 
 
 Agrippa, fifteenth century, remarkable for his knowledge 
 of the languages, and vast range of scholarship, possessed 
 rare spiritual powers, which he delighted to exhibit in 
 European courts. When at the court of John George, 
 Elector of Saxony, with Erasmus and others, eminent in the 
 republic of letters, he was solicited to call up the spirit of 
 Tully. Arranging the audience, Tully appeared upon the 
 rostrum and reiterated his oration for Roscius " with such 
 astonishing animation, exaltation of spirit, and soul-stirring 
 gestures, that all present, like the Romans of old, were ready 
 to pronounce his client innocent of every charge brought 
 against him." 
 
 By means of the vital magnetic effluences from the medi- 
 umistic Agrippa, the spirits uniting their own spheral emana- 
 tions, Tully was enabled to materialize himself and appear 
 upon the rostrum en persona, just as the angels, materializing 
 themselves, rolled away the stone from the sepulchre of 
 Jesus, and as they now exhibit spirit hands in visible form. 
 
 BoDiN, a celebrated writer on jurisprudence, informs us 
 of a person who used to pray heartily to God, morning and 
 evening, that He would send him " a good angel to guide him 
 in all I is actions ; " and, in answer to his soul's entreaty, a 
 spirit at last responded; at first in dreams and visions to correct 
 certain )ad habits; afterwards, warning him of dangers, aid 
 
150 DOCTRINES OP SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Bhowing him how to overcome difficulties. When hig medi 
 umship was better developed, he heard the voice of his angel, 
 saying, " I will save thy soul. It is I that appeared to thee 
 before." This spirit would knock at his door — spirit 
 rappings — direct him in his devotions — guard him in his 
 sickness — prevent his reading anything morally injurious — 
 warn him of evil by touching his left ear, of good results by 
 touching his right ear — map out for him the true path of life 
 by signs, visions and impressions. 
 
 Trithemius, Abbot of Spanheim, flourishing in the fifteenth 
 century, author of many valuable works, and a man of great 
 learning and dignity, gifted with second sight, saw his 
 departed wife and recognized her. His biographer states 
 that after long pondering upon " secrets unknown to men," 
 until ashamed of his seeming folly to discover " impossi' 
 bilities," he was one night visited by a spirit who assured him 
 that his deep thoughts were inspired. The whole mystery was 
 explained, and the result was the secret instrument entitled 
 Stenographia, w^hich, doubtless, was nothing more nor less 
 than a scientific revelation of mental telegraphing, kindred 
 with spirit communications. 
 
 In his work on " Secret Things and Secret Spirits," he 
 inculcates the old Hindoo virtue of self-denial : "It is fit 
 that w^e who endeavor to rise to an elevation so sublime, 
 should study first to leave behind carnal afl:ections, the frailty 
 of the senses, and the passions that belong thereto." 
 
 Tasso, the first of Italian poets, was a genius beyond the 
 capacity of his age, and so brilliant that popes, cardinals, 
 princes, and the court of Ferrara, where he resided, esteemed 
 themselves honored with his presence. He ranks among the 
 most distinguished Spiritualists of the ages. Daily convers- 
 ing with inspiring spirits, his poems abound with beautiful 
 picturings of angels and loving demons, who not only peopled 
 the realm of his imagination, but constituted the real of his 
 life. 
 
 " He lived the songs he sung." 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 151 
 
 The plodding inductionists of his time pronounced him 
 "mad" — mad? — mad as Socrates — mad as Jesus — mad as 
 John on Patmos — mad as Spiritualists now are mad. Owing 
 to his spiritual exaltation and magical power of comiL ining 
 with spirits, despite his finely molded form and character, 
 and the felicity of his poetic thought, he was contemptuously 
 persecuted by the petty Duke of Ferrara, one of the minions 
 of the church, and thrust into a cold prison at Santa Anna. 
 Here he was visited by spirits, one of whom he calls Folletto. 
 
 Strange noises and commotions were produced by this 
 influence, when his mind was thus wrought up to deep 
 feeling and anguish on account of bigoted, envious sectarists; 
 " his books were flung down from the shelves, a loaf was 
 snatched out of his own hands, and a plate of fruit, which he 
 was offering to a Polish youth. ' God knows,' he says, ' that 
 I am neither a magician nor a Lutheran, that I never read 
 heretical books, nor those which treat of necromancy, nor 
 any prohibited art; yet I can neither defend myself from 
 thievish men when I am absent, nor demons when I am 
 present.'" To soothe his sufferings, he had a vision of the 
 Virgin Mary. Through spirit power he was healed, and an 
 appreciation of the heavenly intervention, he embodied it in 
 sweet song. 
 
 The eminent author, William Howitt, writing of him, 
 says: 
 
 *' Whether grave or gay, this spirit often came to him, and he often 
 held long discourses with it. Manso endeavored to persuade him that 
 it was a fancy ; but Tasso maintained that it was as real as themselves, 
 a Christian spirit, and which Manso admits gave him great comfort and 
 consolation. Tasso, to convince Manso of the reality of this spirit, 
 begged him to be present at an interview. Manso says that he saw 
 Tasso address himself to some invisible object, listen in return, and 
 then reply to what it appeared to have said. He says that the dis- 
 courses of Tasso ' were so lofty and marvelous, both by the sublimity 
 of their topics and a certain unwonted manner of talking, that, exalted 
 above myself into a certain kind of ecstacy, I did not dare to interrupt 
 them.^ Tasso was disappointed, however, that 3Ianso did not see or 
 hear the spirit — which he ought not to have been after what he himself 
 telk us, that to see spirits the human eye must be purified, or the spirits 
 must array themselves in matter. This is the present acknowledi;Gd 
 
152 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 law in such cases of apparitions. They who see them must be medi- 
 ums — that is, have their spiritual eyes open — or the spirits must 
 envelop themselves in matter obvious to the outer eye. Tasso did not 
 recollect that Manso might not be in the clairvoyant condition in which 
 he himself was ; and Manso, wholly ignorant of these psychological laws, 
 could only suppose Tasso dealing with a subjective idea. Yet Manso 
 evidently felt the presence of the spirit, for he was raised by it ' into a 
 Ivind of ecstacy/ and he confesses that Tasso's spiritual interviews 
 ' were more likely to affect his own mind than that he should dissipate 
 Tasso's true or imaginary opinion.' " 
 
 The English Church, founded by the voluptuous Henrj 
 Vin., contains in its homilies sundry statements of the gifts 
 of the Spirits, of which the following is a sample : 
 
 " The Holy Ghost doth always declare Himself, by His fruitful and 
 gracious gifts — namely, by the word of wisdom, by the word of 
 knowledge, which is the understanding of the Scriptures ; by faith in 
 doing of miracles, by healing them that are diseased, by prophecy, 
 which is the distribution of God's mysteries; by discerning of spirits, 
 div^ersities of tongues, and so forth. All which gifts, as they proceed 
 Prom one Spirit, and are severally given to man according to the 
 measurable distribution of the Holy Ghost ; even so do they bring 
 men, and not without good cause, into a wonderful admiration of God's 
 ])Ower." 
 
 But this only saving element, casually infused into the 
 creed from its scriptural pledges of allegiance to the "Word 
 of God," was stultified by the transmissible, cancerous poison 
 of Lutheran origin — *' the non-necessity of further miracles." 
 A writer, understanding its unspiritual condition, its super- 
 ficial religion, appropriately calls it the " Anglican drying- 
 house, whose looks and words are of the purest dry-as-dust 
 order, caintes-mortuum men — of the earth, earthy." 
 
 All religion turns to brass to rust in sepultures, when its 
 devotees deny the ministry of angels. It degenerates with 
 fashion, grows lecherous with lust, sinks into an ecclesiastic 
 night-mare, a kind of churchal delirium tremens, that sees 
 only devils in all spiritual phenomena, come to raise ""the 
 dead in Irespasses and sins." This is the trouble — the 
 dead-lock of every church from the Lutheran down to the 
 [Jniversalii ': ! 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 163 
 
 Archbishop Cranmer, who stood at the foundation of the 
 English Reform Church, did not care to have any warning 
 sunlight from spirits, the bare "Word" of a book was 
 enough ; so all the rest have thought until *' they are wells 
 without water." He says, when a spirit comes to you saying, 
 " I am the soul of such a one, give no heed, for it is the 
 devil ! " He maintains with the general body of starved 
 pseudo-Bible sticklers, that God has shut up the way, 
 *' neither doth he suffer any of the dead to come again hither, 
 to tell what is done there, lest by that means he should bring 
 in all his heresies and subtleties." 
 
 But even Cranmer found it hard to smother the burning 
 fires within. Despite the Lutheran laboratory that trans- 
 formed all angels into devils, he too had his private convic- 
 tions and spiritual evidences of an order of spirits raised 
 above the dominion of his hell. In 1532, being in a contem- 
 plative negative condition, a spirit showed him a great blaz- 
 ing star. Writing to King Henry from Austria, he says : 
 ** God only knows what these tokens foretell, for they do not 
 lightly appear, but against some great mutation." 
 
 Bishop Latimer, cotemporary of Cranmer, honest and 
 warm hearted, fell into the same " Slough of Despond," and 
 covered himself with exsiccating mud — the church method 
 of embalming clerical mummies. We quote from his 
 biographer : 
 
 " And peradventure some one will say, ' How happeneth it that 
 there are no miracles done in these days, by such as are preachers of 
 the word of God?' I answer, the word of God is already confirmed 
 by miracles : partly by Christ himself, and partly by the apostles and 
 saints. Therefore, they which now preach the same word need no 
 miracles for the confirmation thereof; for the same is sufficiently 
 confirmed already." 
 
 But Latimer believed in " substitution " — a devil for an 
 angel — and, sandwiching him in, gave his " satanic majesty " 
 the credit of working the miracles of his day ! Well, the 
 church has always been consistent with its own plane. But 
 even Latimer prophesied correctly on certain occasions. 
 
154 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 His biographer says, ^'if ever England had i. prophet, he 
 might seem to be one." He prophesied his own death by 
 martyrdom. So it is; men may as well try to bottle up the 
 sunlight as the heavenly effulgence of angel ministries. 
 When men attribute the spiritual phenomena to evil spirits, 
 or the devil, what do they on their angle of religious 
 incidence, but clinch the truth of spirit communication? 
 
 Judicious Hooker, also of the English Church, more judi- 
 cious than his famous compeers, more Platonic and Grecianly 
 colossal in thought, jumped over the Lutheran "Slough" 
 at one bound. A moral lion he whose mane the spirits 
 delighted to magnetize. He says : 
 
 " The angels resembled God in their unweariable and even insatiable 
 longing to do all manner of good to men by all means." " The pay- 
 nims," he says, " had arrived at the same knowledge of the nature of 
 angels ; Orpheus confessing that the fiery throne of God is surrounded 
 by those most industrious angels, careful how all things are performed 
 amongst men." 
 
 " Angels," says Hooker in another place, " are spirits immaterial and 
 intellectual. In number and order they are large, mighty and royal 
 armies, desiring good unto all the creatures of God, but especially unto 
 the children of men ; in the countenance of whose nature, looking 
 downward, they behold themselves beneath themselves; besides which, 
 the angels have with us that communion which the Apostle to the 
 Hebrews noteth, and in regard whereof they disdain not to profess 
 themselves our fellow-servants. And from hence there springeth up 
 another law, which bindeth them to works of ministerial employment." 
 
 Bishop Hall, of Norwich, the revered poet, had the moral 
 hardihood, like Hooker, to vindicate the use of spiritual gifts 
 in the Protestant Church. He is very explicit in his decla- 
 rations of spirit communication in tangible forms. His wife 
 was pointed out to him by an *' angel of God." His mother, 
 being prostrated wntli sickness, had a vision, in which a 
 physician ap)peared and actually healed her ; this he confirms. 
 At one time, when journeying to the Netherlands, an angel 
 delivered him from the hands of robbers — " the mauifeet 
 hand of God." 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. -55 
 
 He wrote a valuable work on " The Invisible World," in 
 which he maintained that " the spiritual gifts " are perpetual. 
 He often invoked the aid of guardian spirits. He felt their 
 continued presence, and so was impressed with high purposes 
 to " walk carefully but confidently." In his spiritual treatise 
 he says : 
 
 " So sure as we see men, so sure we are that holy men have seen 
 angels. Have we been raised up," he continues, " from deadly sickness, 
 when all natural helps have given us up ? God's angels have been our 
 secret physicians. Have we had intuitive intimations of the death of 
 absent friends, which no human intelligence had bidden us to suspect, 
 who but our angels have wrought it ? Have we been preserved from 
 mortal danger, which we could not tell how by our providence to have 
 evaded, our invisible guardians have done it." 
 
 Archbishop Tillotson, a great light in the English Church, 
 confirmed the dark as well as light side of Spiritualism — that 
 both evil (undeveloped) and good spirits influence mortals. 
 Speaking of the continual intercourse of angels with men for 
 their protection and advantage, he says " they are God's great 
 ministers here below." 
 
 Bishop Beveridge supports the reality of " ministering 
 angels and ministering devils," and that both kinds perform 
 miracles ! He advocated the doctrine of seership " by strong 
 faith spiritually;" and that spirits "assume a bodily shape." 
 
 Bishop Butler argued the credibility of " miracular 
 interpositions." 
 
 Bishop Sherlock, agreeing with Tillotson respecting the 
 ministry of both evil and good spirits, discarded the doctrine 
 of a stereotyped revelation. He did not believe in thus tying 
 up God's hands. He re-asserts, " that the graces of the 
 Spirit are the arms of the Christian, with which he is to 
 enter the lists against the powers of darkness, and are a 
 certain indication to us that God intends to call us to the 
 proof and exercise of our virtue ; why else does He give us 
 this additional strength?" 
 
156 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 These extracts from the writings of the Anglican Fathers, 
 are sufiicent to indicate that that very fashionable clmrch has 
 not entirely smothered the spiritual light under its silks and 
 cushions ; but it is also apparent that said church has been 
 shy of it, because it threatened to burn up their formulary 
 that '* miracles are needless." Occupying a middle ground 
 between Catholicity, with its hosts of ministering saints, and 
 extreme Protestantism that has sealed God's lips within the 
 hds of the Bible, and made Jesus the monopolizer of all 
 virtue, they were quite willing to have personal private 
 seances with the angels as do other good members of 
 "respectable churches" to-da}", but were generally careful 
 how they committed themselves before the world. Light 
 under a bushel basket is better than no light; but the basket 
 will catch fire one of these days, set by such spirits as Hooker, 
 who puts the torch of Freedom into the hands of Colenso and 
 Tyng and Bishop Clark. 
 
 Paracelsus, beholding the morning light near Zurich, 
 about the commencement of the fifteenth century, was dis- 
 tinguished as the founder of the modern science of medicine, 
 in connection with the remedial agents of magnetism. He 
 understood the reciprocal life-forces — being mediumistic. 
 Ennemoser, a great admirer, writes of him thus : 
 
 " Paracelsus was the first who compared this universal reciprocity of 
 universal life in all creations, in the great as in the small, with the 
 magnet ; so that the word magnetism, in the sense in which we understand 
 it, originated with Paracelsus." 
 
 He was considered an enthusiast and spiritual adventurer, 
 traveling through Germany, Moravia, Hungary, and other 
 European countries. Believing in dreams, forebodings, pre- 
 sentiments, prescience, he distinctly taught the presence and 
 controlling influence of spirits. In the " Strasburg Edition," 
 1603, Paracelsus writes in the following manner of the power 
 and operation of the Spirit : 
 
 *' It is possible that my spirit, without the help of the body, and 
 through a fii^ry will alone, can wound others. It is also possible that 1 
 
CHURCIIAL SPIRITUALISM — CHUR IIIANIC. 157 
 
 can bring the spirit of my adversary into an image, and then double 
 him up to his displeasure. Will is a great point in the ait of medicine. 
 Man can hang disease on man and beast throuuh curses. >}«*** 
 Every imagination of man proceeds from the center of his being. This 
 is the sun of the microcosm ; and out of the microcosm flows the imag- 
 ination into the great world. Thus the imagination of man is a seed, 
 which becomes materialized into the outer. * * * * ^jje imao-- 
 ination of another may be able to kill me. Imagination springing out 
 of pleasure and desire, usually acts in concert with the will-power; 
 therefore, envy and hatred follow; for desire is followed by the deed. 
 No armor protects against magical influences, for they injure the inward 
 spirit of life." 
 
 Giordano BrUxVO, that remarkable Italian inquirer, daring, 
 original and spiritualistic, and intimately connected with the 
 Paracelsus school of thinkers, was, by the Roman Inquisition , 
 arrested and retained in prison two years for spiritual heresy, 
 and thence delivered to the Secular Masristrate after the 
 usual disgusting formula — " that he be dealt with as merci- 
 fully as possible, and punished without effusion of blood." 
 Bruno exclaimed — " Your sentence strikes more terror into 
 your own hearts than mine ! " and he died as a brave man 
 ought. 
 
 Jerome Cardamus, sixteenth century, the companion of 
 Paracelsus, ranking among the first scholars of his age, a 
 favorite at royal courts, div^inely illumined, was very reliable 
 in mediumship. When a child, he spiritually saw groves, 
 landscapes, orbs, " without any previous volition or antici- 
 pation that such things were about to happen." He could 
 not recollect any event, good or ill, occurring in life, of 
 which he was not previously admonished either in dream or 
 vision. He spoke with great emphasis of having a genius or 
 demon perpetually attending him, advising as to what would 
 happen, and forewarning him of danger. Studying astrology, 
 he calculated the nativity of King Edward VI., of Jesus 
 Christ, predicted the time of his own death, which took 
 place in the 75th year of his age, fulfilling his prediction. 
 
 Joan d'Arc, the humble shepherd girl of Domremj, was 
 the political savior of France. Bethlehem's shepherds were 
 
158 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 not more honored by the Church Fathers than this sunny- 
 souled, spiritually illuminated girl by later mj^stics. No 
 history is better authenticated than that which relates to her 
 visions, prophecies and angelic communings. As if the very 
 leaves of her favorite tree, under which she so often sat, rapt 
 in heavenly reverie, had tongues, she heard angel voices 
 announcing her future mission. Again and again they 
 called witb imperative command; and, at length, inspired 
 with the enthusiasm of patriotic fulness, she meekly and 
 trustfully obeyed. Orleans was besieged ! England's reign- 
 ing monarch was expectantly waiting to snatch the crown of 
 France ! Spirit-guided, she mounted the war-steed, unfurled 
 her talismanic banner, thrilled the French soldiers with 
 unconquerable daring to gain a glorious victory. 
 
 Immortal in history, artists delighted to transfer her form 
 to the canvas ; Schiller and Southey honored her in poesy 
 and song; defeating the phlegmatic English, they burned 
 her for a witch ! 
 
 Jacob B(EHMEN, of the sixteenth century, surnamed Teu- 
 tonicus, and known in history as the " German Mystic," or 
 " Theosophic Enthusiast," was a native of Old Seidenburgh, 
 near Goritz. When a shoemaker in his master's shop, he waB 
 visited by a stranger of a venerable aspect, who, departing 
 from the place, exclaimed with a loud voice — " Jacob ! 
 Jacob ! come forth ! " The lad was astonished to be called 
 by his Christian name. The spirit-guided personage then 
 taking him by the hand, said, " Jacob, thou art little, but 
 shalt be great, and become another man, at whom the world 
 shall wonder. * * * * Thou must endure much misery 
 and poverty, and suffer persecution; but be encouraged, and 
 persevere, for God loves and is gracious to thee.'* 
 
 These words produced a burning impression upon his 
 mind. He felt the power of the commission to unfold the 
 mysteries of the Apocalypse and the inner sense of the 
 "Divine Word." He became a voluminous writer, suffered 
 persecution for his innovating thought, blessed all the world 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 16^ 
 
 ^ith brighter light, and finally was summoned to Dresden 
 to answer to the charge of heresy. After a tortuous trial, he 
 was honorably dismissed. 
 
 Speaking of himself, he says : " After the gates of spiritual 
 knowledge were opened to me, I was compelled to commence 
 working at this (book) like a child that goes to school. In the 
 interim, 1 certainly saw the truth as it were at a great depth. 
 * * * * From time to time it opened to me like a plant, 
 l)ut it was twelve 3'ears before I could bring it out." 
 
 Dr. Ilamberger says, introductorily to his manuscripts : 
 " The author wrote with divine inspiration from living con- 
 templation ; but it cost him hard battles, and it was not 
 always possible to reduce what he saw into words and ideas." 
 Like illiterate clairvoyants and visionists of the present, he 
 found it difficult to classify and develop his revelations to the 
 comprehension of practical thinkers. 
 
 Boehmen passed to the Summer Land, Nov. 18, 1624. 
 Early in the morning he called his loved son to his side, and 
 asked if he heard that excellent music ! Receiving a reply 
 in the negative, he directed him to open the door that he 
 might hear it better. Asking, afterward, "what the hour?'' 
 he was told " two" — upon which he remarked that his time 
 was " yet three hours hence." When it was near six o'clock, 
 blessing his wife and son, he took leave of them, saying, 
 '* l^ow I go hence into Paradise ! " He then bade his son 
 turn him, and with a deep peaceful sigh, his sweet spirit 
 departed. 
 
 Raphael, speaking of his paintings, conscious of inspira- 
 tions, says his " whole work is accomplished as it were in a 
 pleasant dream ! " 
 
 Dannecker, the German sculptor, said he " obtained his 
 idea of Christ in a dream — spiritually impressed — after failing 
 to realize it in his wakins: hours." 
 
 Lord Bacon, the master thinker, the religious philosopher, 
 Vnoae wisdom flashes in all our literature, was a clear headed. 
 
160 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 devout Spiritualist. We respectfully ask the soi-dista) i 
 scientists of the clerical orders to reject Lord Bacon from 
 the list of " authorities," or else respect his teachings, ol 
 which the following extracts from his works are samples. 
 In his preface to his " Ghreat Insiauration,'' he prays that — 
 
 " What is human may not clash with what is divine; and that when 
 the ways of the senses are opened, and a greater natural light set up in 
 the mind, nothing of incredulity and blindness towards divine mysteries 
 may arise; but rather that the understanding now cleared up, and 
 purged of all vanity and superstition, may remain entirely subject to 
 the divine oracles, and yield to faith the things that are faith's." (Bohn's 
 Edition, preface, p. 9.) 
 
 Again he says : 
 
 " As to the nature of spirits and angels, this is neither unsearchable 
 nor forbid, but in a great part level to the human mind, on account of 
 their affinity. We are, indeed, forbid in Scripture to worship angels, 
 or to entertain fantastical opinions of them so as to exalt them above 
 the degree of creatures, or think of them higher than we have reason; 
 but the sober inquiry about them, which either ascends to a knowledge 
 of their nature by the scale of corporeal beings, or views them in the 
 mind, as in a glass, is by no means foolish. The same is to be under- 
 stood of revolted or unclean spirits ; conversation with them, or using 
 their assistance, is unlawful ; and much more in any manner to worship 
 or adore them ; but the contemplation and knowledge of their nature, 
 power and illusions, appears from Scripture, reason and experience, to 
 be no small part of spiritual wisdom. Thus says the apostle, ' Strat- 
 egematum ejus non ignari sumus' (2 Cor. ii. 11). And thus it is as 
 lawful in natural theology to investigate the nature of evil spirits, as the 
 nature of poisons in physics, or the nature of vice in morality." 
 (" Advancement of Learning,^' 121-2). 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne, who lived about half a century after 
 Bacon, one of the ablest thinkers of his age, and an open 
 advocate of Spiritualism, says, in his " Religio Medici" : 
 
 '• Those that, to confute their incredulity, desire to see apparitions, 
 shall questionless never behold any. The devil hath them already in a 
 heresy as capital, as witchcraft, and to appear to them were but to 
 convert them." 
 
 An admirer of Paracelsus, he adds : " Our good angels 
 reveal many things to those who seek into the works of 
 nature." 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANTC. 161 
 
 Schiller, an inspirational poet, intimates that his ideaa 
 were not his own — " that they flowed in upon him so rapidly 
 and powerfully, his only diflSiculty was to seize them and 
 write them down fast enough." 
 
 George Fox, sainted and sable clad, charged with the 
 magnetic lightnings of heaven, caused the church steeples 
 of England to tremble as cedars of Lebanon before Syrian 
 winds. His inspirations have streamed down to the present, 
 giving him, in the estimation of the appreciative, an almost 
 apostolic sanctity. His spiritual experiences, bis power to 
 read souls, his prescience, his healing gifts, and his obedience 
 to 'Uhe still, small voice," all rank him one of the first in 
 the angelic phalanx of mediumship. In his " Works " we 
 find the following facts. Entering the city of Litchfield, 
 under spirit control, he had the experiences of a genuine 
 prophet : 
 
 " Then I was commanded of the Lord to pull off my shoes. I' stood 
 Btill, for it was winter; and the word of the Lord was like a fire unto 
 me. 
 
 " Then I walked about a mile, and as soon as I got within the city, 
 the word of the Lord came unto me — ' Cry, wo to the bloody city of 
 Litchfield ! ' 
 
 " So I went up and down the streets and into the market-place, and 
 cried, ' Wo to the bloody city of Litchfield ! ' 
 
 " As I went, there seemed to be a channel of blood through the 
 streets. 
 
 " When I had declared what was upon me, and felt myself at peace, 
 I went out of the town. Afterward I came to understand that in the 
 Emperor Dioclesian's time a thousand Christians were martyred there. 
 
 " So the sense of their blood was upon me, and I obeyed the word of 
 the Lord. 
 
 " At Ulverstone, at the home of Maro-aret 1^'ell, a woman of hirrli 
 repute, when asked to go to a church to speak, he walked in the field 
 and the word came, ' Go to the steeple-house.' " 
 
 Though such experiences are common with the media of 
 
 our day, the conservative followers of George Fox discard 
 
 them, indicating the unspiritual tendency of that sect. 
 11 
 
162 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 On another occasion, he said: 
 
 " I went to a meeting at Arnside, where Richard Myers was, who had 
 been along time lame of one arm. I was moved of the Lord to say to 
 him amongst all the people, ' Stand upon thy legs.' And he stood up 
 and stretched out his arm and said, ' Be it known unto you, all people, 
 that this day I am healed.' 
 
 " lie came soon after to Swartmore meeting and declared how the 
 Lord had healed him. 
 
 " The Lord hath given me a spirit of discerning, by which I many 
 times saw the states and conditions of people, and could try their 
 spirits." 
 
 Why cannot the declining sect of the Quakers recognize 
 the marvelous heauty of that spiritual power manifest in our 
 midst to-day, as well as that which has flowed in broken 
 currents of inspiration, tinged with the theological idiosyn 
 cracies of intervening centuries ? 
 
 Lucas Jacobson Debes, of Denmark, a personage in his 
 day of religious authority, published a book in 1667, in which 
 he relates an instance of angelic visitation to Jacob Ollusson, 
 being then at Giow. We quote the language of this reliable 
 author: "On the fourteenth day of his illness, as he lay 
 /isleep at night, there came one to him with shining clothes 
 on, whereat he awoke, and perceived him (the angel) by him 
 in that figure, the room appearing full of splendor; and it 
 asked the man where his pain was. Whereunto he answered 
 nothing. Afterward the angel stroked him with his hand 
 along his breast, and round about; whereby he was perfectly 
 healed.'' 
 
 This testimony bears the unmistakable marks of truthful- 
 ness, beautifully illustrative of the curative agencies of spirits 
 by the manipulations of the hand direct or indirect by 
 mediation. 
 
 Richard Baxter, in his " Historical Discourse on Appari- 
 tions and Witches," writes an account of an acquaintance of 
 his, "a gentleman of considerable rank," who, addicted to 
 intemperance, was always visited by a spirit immediately 
 
CHURCH AL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 168 
 
 after 'Mie had slept himself sober," warning him of his vice 
 by rapping on his head-board, and other visible signs of 
 heavenly guai'dianship and discipline. Mr, Baxter, having 
 seen the man, and besongbt him to reform, believing the 
 spirit presence to have been genuine, conscientiously and 
 feelingly asked, "Do good spirits dwell so near us? or, Are 
 they sent on such messages? or. Is it his guardian angel? " 
 
 Walton, the celebrated, in his biography of the learned 
 Dr. Donne, in King James' time, after giving remarkable 
 tests of spirit influences and revelations, illustrates the law 
 of spiritual sympathy, whereby a spirit can impress a medi- 
 umistic mind, by the use of musical instruments. Contend- 
 ing that visions and miracles have not ceased, he says : " It 
 is most certain that two lutes, being both strung and tuned 
 to an equal pitch, the one played upon, and the other not 
 touched, but laid upon a table, at a fit distance, will, like an 
 echo to a trumpet, warble a faint, audible harmony in answer 
 to the same tune. Yet many will not believe that there is 
 such a thing as sympathy with souls ! " 
 
 John Aubrey, a distinguished antiquarian, published, in 
 1695, a book of " Miscellanies," in which, bringing King 
 James as witness, he speaks of a haunted house whose super- 
 intending spirit was a faithful "rough man." He parallels 
 certain phases of modern psychological influences where the 
 spirit, planed to the earthly, caused the " seer " to " sw^ear, 
 tremble and screech." He recommended the ministry always 
 to intervene in cases of spirit control and " exorcise the 
 ghost." Exorcism, philosophically speaking, consists in 
 bringing a stronger magnetic power to bear upon the 
 subject, scattering and dissipating the previously adjusted 
 spirit-forces. The moral peril of such interferences among 
 ignorant, unspiritual clergy, is, that when " the house is swept 
 and garnished," the dispossessed spirit, forced away, returns, 
 at the first opportunity, with seven other spirits worse than 
 hir?iseLf, and " the last state of that man is worse than the 
 
164 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 first." Force repels force; hate begets hate; but the only 
 subduing, saving power in the universe, is wisely disciplined 
 love. 
 
 The Scotch repeatedly aver that infants are seers — a fact 
 demonstrated by our own observation. How beautifully the 
 legend of our ALorioines chimes in with the Highlander's 
 happy gift! The Indians — nature's children — tell us when 
 the innocent babe, cribbed in its willow basket, looks out 
 into seeming vacancy and smiles, its grandmother has come 
 from the " hunting grounds " to greet it. 
 
 The rustic people, especially the Highlanders, of Scotland, 
 have ever been celebrated for their gifts of " Second Sight" 
 — clairvoyance. As gardens and flowers tend to the culti- 
 vation of the beautiful, so mountainous regions to the 
 development of the spiritual. 
 
 The Scotch historians also testify to what is apparent in 
 the modern phenomena, that this so-called " strange gift " 
 does not depend upon moral character, but upon organization. 
 They assert that certain beasts are seers — horses especially. 
 An instance of this kind occurred in the Isle of Skye, where 
 a horse discerned a spirit at the same time with his rider, 
 and was frightened. This statement is not without its 
 historic support. Paracelsus informs us that horses, and 
 even dogs, have their " auguries." Our good churchmen 
 will not surely discredit testimony like this, since they do 
 believe that Balaam's beast " saw the Angel of the Lord 
 standing in the way, wita a drawn sword in his hand. * * * 
 And the Lord opened the mouth of the beast, and she said 
 nnto Balaam, <■ What have I done unto thee, that thou hast 
 smitten me these three times ? ' " That an angel spoke to 
 Balaam through a beast, is very acceptable in church circles ; 
 but that our spirit friends impress, inspire, and speak through 
 human lips, is blasphemous ! 
 
 John Xnox, the fierce reformer of Scotland, who knocked 
 down steeples and popish mummeries, and who, in his stern- 
 ness, after the pattern of Luther, stripped religion of the 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 165 
 
 beautiful and gay, theoretically denying the perpetuity of 
 revelations fresh from the divine fountain, had an expe- 
 rience Avith spirits convicting him of their direct ministry, 
 though he studiously avoided any very public avowal of 
 them. Very Protestant, sure. He avows his belief, however, 
 though with precaution, lest his course might be construed 
 by Catholics as inconsistent with his precept. He was a 
 powerful medium, and under the inner light that flamed in 
 his soul, he said : 
 
 "I dare not deny, lest I be injurious to the giver, that God hath 
 revealed unto me secrets unknown to the world; yea, certain great 
 revelations of mutations and changes where no such things were feared, 
 nor yet were appearing. Notwithstanding these revelations I did 
 abstain to commit anything to writing, contented only to have obeyed 
 the charge of Him who commanded me to cry." 
 
 The New England Witchcraft, that, to this day, casts a 
 lurid light over puritanical history, was a species of psycho- 
 logical epidemic, wherein the magnetisms of both worlds, 
 owing to the prevalence of false ideas touching spiritual laws, 
 were inharmoniously adjusted to the development of moral 
 truth. Spirits, not infallible, evidently endeavored at this 
 period to establish an open communication between the 
 inhabitants of this and the spirit-world ; but ignorance was 
 too deep, clerical influence too potent. Priests, basing their 
 authority on the Mosaic teaching — " Thou shalt not suffer a 
 witch to live " — were instrumental in murdering the media. 
 The experiment a partial failure, the immortals withdrew 
 their forces, waiting a more auspicious era. 
 
 Cotton Mather, regarded as good authority, furnished a 
 compendium of mediumistic control. In 1662, Anne Cole, 
 " a person of serious piety, living in the house of her godly 
 father, at Hartford, was taken with strange fits" — trances — 
 and caused to express "strange things unknown to herself, 
 her tongue being guided by a demon." Confessing to the 
 "ministers," that she had "familiarity with the deviP' — 
 spirit pre.sences — ' the woman was executed ! " 
 
166 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 The "physical phenomena'' of those perilous days boie a 
 striking resemblance to those of the present — such as haunted 
 houses, raising of bodies, noises, trances, clairvoyance, chiir- 
 audience and prophecies. The case of the unfortunate Anne 
 Cole was but one among hundreds and tens of thousands 
 who, in this country and Europe, were arraigned, tried and 
 executed for witchcraft ! 
 
 Had the clergy not sought to divorce reason from religion 
 — mental science from religion — common sense from reli- 
 gion — with an eye to the " glory of God," as revealed 
 through Hebrew goggles, this murderous mania, instigated 
 by priestcraft, would not have stained with blood the historic 
 page. 
 
 William Blake — artist, poet, idealist — oh, for adequate 
 words to sing thy praises ! Walking among men, men knew 
 thee not; hut angels knew thee, and the richest gold of thy 
 soul which shines now the brighter for the ordeals of 
 thy trials! So completely did he live in the ideal world, 
 which he wove around him as a garment of glory — so con- 
 stantly did he look thro' it into the inner life, that external 
 things became as passing dreams. A seer by birth, he 
 discerned the innermost, and reveled enraptured in what 
 cold plodders called " imagination." An English author, 
 criticising Blake's life by Alex. Gilchrist, says : 
 
 "The attempt to do more than accept the subjective reality of the 
 visions, rested solely upon the ground of their confidence in Blake's 
 veracity. Thus he would say, ' I saw Socrates to-day ; he said to me 
 thus and thus.' 
 
 " The visionary (spirit) heads which Blake drew in the company of 
 John Varley furnish an example to the point. The remarkable pro- 
 ductions were professedly copies of what Blake at the moment saw. He 
 would see King Edward I., and looking up now and then, with most 
 perfect composure, at his imaginary sitter, would draw his portrait. 
 Varley, who had faith in Blake's power of vision and also in Blake's 
 doctrine that it was a universal gift, sat beside him, and, since he made 
 Bonie profession to a spiritual sight, being an astrologer in his way, 
 looked wistfully in the direction to which Blake's eyes pointed, in 
 earnest hope of seeing the same sight. He was honest and looked as 
 hard as he could, but his honesty compelled him to confess that he saw 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 107 
 
 no king before his eyes. Blake held that he drew what lie saw, and 
 Inasmuch as he saw angels more distinctly than some artists seem to see 
 men, he drew them boldly, gave them something to exist in, instead ot 
 adopting a common trick, and trying to conceal a fearful absence of 
 body by an unmistakable presence of clothing. 
 
 " There is a subtle element in Blake's poetry, disengaging one from 
 objects of sense and leading the enchanted spirit on a far journey, A 
 similar power in different form appears in certain poems of Coleridge_ 
 which was heightened, if we are to believe his cotemporaries, by the 
 recital of the poet. The entranced listeners might float with Coleridge 
 to Xanadu, to get back as they could at the unfortunate end of the 
 poet's vocal journey, while he traveled on by himself, whither no one 
 but himself could tell, and whither, alas ! he has failed to tell us. It 
 is related by his biographer, that Blake used to sing his songs to music 
 which he had composed, but which never was written down. What 
 angelic melody it ought to have been ! " 
 
 This eminent Spiritualist was born in 1757, and lived 
 uninterruptedly in London, except three years in Chichester, 
 to fulfill an engagement with Haley, Cowper's biographer. 
 
 We pore over the productions of Blake's genius, wonder- 
 ing, delighted, awed, and inquire of ourselves, Who is this 
 man, that had so little in common with earth ? — who paints 
 his pictures? — who sings his songs? Of himself he wouk" 
 say: 
 
 " I live in a hole here, but Grod has a beautiful mansion for mc 
 elsewhere. * ^ --jc jk * « » 
 
 " I am not ashamed, afraid, or averse to tell you — what ought to hi 
 told — that I am under the direction of messengers from heaven, daily 
 and nightly. But the nature of such things is not, as some suppose, 
 without trouble or care. Temptations are on the right hand and on 
 the left. Behind, the sea of time and space roars and follows swiftly. 
 He who keeps not right onward is lost : and if our footsteps slide in 
 clay, what can we do otherwise than fear and tremble J * * * If 
 we fear to do the dictates of our angels, and tremble at the tasks set 
 before us ; if we refuse to do spiritual acts because of natural fears or 
 natural desires ; who can describe the dismal torments of such a state I 
 I too well remember the threats I heard : " If you. who are organized 
 by Divine Providence for spiritual communion, refuse, and bury your 
 talent in the earth, even though you should want natural bread — sor- 
 row and desperation pursue you through life, and after death shame 
 and confusion of face. Every one in eternity will leave you, aghast at 
 the man who was crowned with glory and honor by his brethren and 
 
168 DOCIRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 betrayed their cause to their enemies. You will be called the base 
 .Tudas who betrayed his frieni!' Such words would make any stout 
 man tremble, and how then could I be at ease ? But I am now no 
 longer in that state, and now go on again with my task, fearless, 
 though my path is difficult. I have no fear of stumbling while I 
 keep it." 
 
 Louis XVI., benevolent and reformatory, has been styled 
 '* noblest of all the reigning Bourbons." "Coming to his 
 own, his own received him not." Arraigned, tried by a 
 boisterous assembly, he was heartlessly condemned to the 
 block. Seeing the courier sent to inform him of his fate, he 
 exclaimed — " I know it all I I know it all I Last nio:ht I 
 saw a female form clothed in stainless white, walking these 
 solitary apartments. When the reigning powers of the throne 
 behold a vision of this character, they know that prince or 
 king is to be dethroned and slain. Tell my accusers to 
 prepare to meet me in the land of the just! " 
 
 Maria Antoinette — fated child of imperial destiny ! !N'ever 
 was mother more proud than Maria Theresa, on the eve of 
 her daughter's marriage. Before her glittered the first throne 
 of Europe, to be shared by a successor of St. Louis. Night 
 resting upon Vienna, the church festival over, the benedic- 
 tion pronounced, the empress retires to her chamber, but 
 not to sleep. Speaking to the waiting-woman, she inquires 
 who is there? 
 
 " A stranger ; he has been seeking your presence a full 
 hour." 
 
 The waiting-woman leaving, soon returned, and ushered 
 in an elderly man dressed in black. This is Dr. Gassner, 
 one of those men who, about the year 1770, were scattered 
 throughout Europe — a Cagliostro, or St. Germain — perform- 
 ing cures by the laying on of hands, seeing visions, indulg- 
 ing in prophecies and inspirations. "His relations to the 
 spiritual world had brought him in conflict with various 
 ecclesiastical princes, until he found refuge at the court of 
 Maria Theresa, for the empress had a love for the mysterious. 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 1G9 
 
 Sh . had frequent interviews with the wonderful man; to-day 
 she wished for a grave proof of his higher knowledge." 
 
 The Doctor, placing his hand upon the shoulder of the 
 empress, said slowly, in a hollow voice, ** Your majesty, the 
 noble shoulders of Maria Antoinette are destined to bear a 
 heavy cross." 
 
 Maria Antoinette, spiritually impressed, as the carriage 
 rolled away, exclaimed, " I shall never see Vienna again ! " 
 and cried aloud, '' Maria Theresa! Maria Theresa!" 
 
 During the Revolution, often thinking of the Doctor's 
 prophetic words, she believed herself destined to a tragical 
 fate. Upon the scaffold, with a true womanly bravery, she 
 uttered these words : " Farewell, my children, I go to your 
 father. * * * =h ^^ shall return to you as guardian 
 angels. Trust in God ! " 
 
 Madame Elizabeth, sweetest soul of France, sister of 
 Louis XVI., angel of his household during his trials and 
 translation to the Isles of the Blest, shed a silvery radiance 
 over the royal family and the entire kingdom. Full of 
 divine forgiveness and pious enthusiasm, she was intromitted 
 through the gateway of dreams and visions, into the society 
 of spirits. Though a princess and heir apparent to the 
 throne of the Bourbons, she was so guileless and affectional 
 in her nature, that she daily walked and talked with angels. 
 
 "Every sentence, oh, how tender! 
 Every line was full of love." 
 
 Like Cecilia, the Catholic martyr, doomed also to fall to 
 " low ambition and the pride of kings," so beautiful was she 
 in form, so harmonious and musical in spirit, she drew the 
 angels down to see her, and " eyes were turned to ears." 
 
 Josephine, the arbitress of IN'apoleon's destiny, wdic 
 prophesied his star would set when his ambition sundered 
 the love-chord that furnished him with inspirational power 
 from her own heart, not only accepted faith in guardian 
 ingels, but actualized it with the beguiling Houris in nighf 
 
170 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 visions and day-dreams of the spiritual. She gives the 
 following account of an interview with Euphemia, a magician 
 of her native isle : 
 
 " The old sibyl, on beholding me, uttered a loud exclamation, and 
 almost by force seized my hand She appeared to be under the greatest 
 agitation. Amused at these absurdities, as I thought them, I allowed 
 her to proceed, saying, ' So you discover something extraordinary in my 
 destiny?' 'Yes.' ' Is happiness or misfortune to be my lot ? ' Mis- 
 fortune : ah, stop ! — and happiness, too.' ' You take care not to commit 
 yourself, my good dame; your oracles are not the most intelligible.' ' ] 
 am not permitted to render them more clear,' said the woman, raising 
 her eyes with a mysterious expression toward heaven. ' But. to the 
 point,' replied I, for my curiosity began to be excited ; ' what read you 
 concerning me in futurity ? ' ' What do I see in the future ? You 
 will not believe me if I speak.' ' Yes, indeed, I assure you. Come, 
 my good mother, what am T to fear and hope ? ' ' On 3'our head be it 
 then ; listen : you will be married soon ; that union will not be happy ; 
 you will become a widow, and then — then you will be Queen of France ! 
 Some happy years will be yours ; but you will die in a hospital, amid 
 civil commotions.' " 
 
 Mozart, the great musical genius of his age, speaking of 
 his inspirational moments, when melodies fell unhidden upon 
 his soul, said : " All my feelings and composition go on 
 within me only as a lively and delightful dream." 
 
 He gave a further account of receiving his masterly pro- 
 ductions from the rythmic sphere of spiritual harmonies in 
 the following language : 
 
 " When all goes well with me — when I am in a carriage, or walking, 
 or when I cannot sleep at night, the thoughts come streaming in upon 
 me most fluently ; whence, or how is more than I can tell. Then 
 follow the counterpoint — and the clang of the different instruments ; 
 and, if I am not disturbed, my soul is fixed, and the thing grows 
 greater, and broader, and clearer ; and I have it all in my head, even 
 when the piece is a long one ; and I see it like a beautiful picture — not 
 hearing the different parts in succession, as they must be played, but 
 tlie ivhole at once. That is the delight ! The composing and making 
 is like a beautiful and vivid dream ; but this hearing of it is the best 
 of all." 
 
 These are fine examples of inspirational influx and 
 clairaudience. 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCiflANlC. 171 
 
 "Wlien, in his last days, quietly approaching the summer 
 ehore of heaven, being composed and calm, some friend of 
 his passing through the room, he exclaimed — "Listen! 
 listen ! I hear music ! " His friend said, " I hear nothing." 
 Mozart paused with rapture beaming on his sallow face, 
 averring that he heard music, and quoted the testimony of 
 John with a sweet trust that plumed his spirit-wings for a 
 better flight — 
 
 "And I heard music in heaven." 
 
 Having finished the " Requiem," his soul filled with inspi- 
 rations of richest melody, and already claiming kindred with 
 immortals, giving it its last touch, the " cygnean strain " 
 which was to consecrate it through all time, and then falling 
 into a gentle slumber, during which his ministering angel 
 enrapt his soul in the glory forecast from the land of song, 
 he awoke at the light footstep of his daughter Emelie, and 
 called her to him — " Come hither, my Emelie — my task is 
 done — the Eequiem — my Requiem is finished ! " At his 
 earnest request she sung it, commencing — 
 
 "Spirit! thy labor is o'er! 
 
 Thy term of probation is run, 
 Thy steps are now bound for the untrodden shore, 
 And the race of immortals begun." 
 
 " As she concluded, she dwelt for a moment on the low 
 melancholy notes of the piece, and then turned from the 
 instrument to meet the approving smile of her father. It 
 was the still, passionless smile which the rapt and departed 
 spirit left upon the features." 
 
 Beethoven whose soul was toned to musical ecstacy, con- 
 fessed to an overmastering power, the rythmic harmonies of 
 angels. In his own words, music was to him a higher reve- 
 lation than all the artificial philosophy of the world. Hear 
 his inspiring language: "I must live with myself a.one. 1 
 well know that God and angels are nearer to me in my art 
 than the others. 1 commune with them without dread. 
 
172 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Music is the only unembodied entrance into a higher sphere 
 of knowledge Avhich possesses man." After some of the 
 sweetest utterances, he would exclaim — "I've had a 
 raptuve!" Goethe, in speaking of him, terms him a 
 *' demon-possessed person," and adds, ^' it would be mis- 
 chievous to advise him, because his genius continually 
 inspires him." 
 
 Goethe, rare soul of poetry and song, whose ante-natal 
 tendencies were spiritual, and whose physical perfection 
 justly entitled him to a comparison with Apollo, was heralded 
 into earth-life by weird dreams of future greatness. If it is 
 true that all poets are prophets, it is equally true that genuine 
 poets are Spiritualists. To him a friend said, " Thou livest 
 among spirits ; they give thee divine wisdom ; " and he said 
 of himself, " I should hold myself assured of the gift of 
 prophecy belonging of old to my family." He considered 
 himself born under favorable stars, and is reported to have 
 said to his mother at seven years of age, " The stars will not 
 forget me, but will keep the promise made over my cradle." 
 At the death of a playmate he did not shed a tear, but said 
 " he had gone to dwell in the fairy world before him." 
 
 SwEDENBORG, the mystic and Christian philosopher, of 
 Sweden, flourishing in the seventeenth century, was of noble 
 birth, scholarly in attainments, material in his scientific 
 pursuits, theistic in his religious tendencies, and, up to the 
 fifty-fifth year of his age, was a traveler, extensive author and 
 man of the world, a guest at royal courts, and of high repute 
 in literary circles. About this period of his life, a startling 
 development of mental conditions blossomed out, opening to 
 his inner vision the spirit world. He had impressions, 
 dreams, visions; conversed with spirits — heard them — saw 
 them — walked with them — reasoned with them ; and was so 
 conscious of their presence, that the geography of their homes 
 became as familiar as his own native land. 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CIIURCIHANIC. 178 
 
 His mediumship has been seldom excelled. In its begin 
 ning, as is the general rule, it was exceedingly disorderly, 
 and, in some respects, quite as disgusting as certain phases of 
 " modern manifestations" are to the church. We select the 
 following, as a few among the many fticts, corroborative of 
 this statement, extracted from William White's two London 
 volumes of the "Life and Writings of Swedenborg." These 
 are based upon the testimonies of Rev. Aaron Mathesius — a 
 Swedish minister and Chaplain to the Embassy in 1773 — Dr. 
 Smith, Brockmer, John Wesley, Rev. Francis Okeley, a 
 Moravian preacher, and others. Though Mathesius and 
 Swedenborg were antipodal in friendship, the testimony of 
 the former is admitted as valid by Mr. Okeley, who, writing 
 of Mathesius' story as published by Wesley, remarks : 
 
 " 'There is no denying that in the year 1743 (174-i), when Sweden- 
 borg was first (as he said) introduced into the Spiritual World, he was 
 for a while insaue. He then lived with Mr. Brockmer, as Mr. J. 
 Wesley has published in his Arminian Magazine for January, 1781. * 
 * * * As I rather suspect J. W/s narratives, they being always 
 warped to his own inclination, I inquired of Mr. Brockmer concerning 
 it, and found all the main lines of it truth.' 
 
 This may be considered conclusive in favor of the truth- 
 fulness of Mathesius. 
 
 " ' Many years ago the Baron came over to England, and lodged at 
 
 one Mr. Brockmer's, who informed me (and the same information was 
 
 given me by Mr. Mathesius, a very serious Swedish clergyman, both 
 
 of whom were alive when I left London, and, I suppose, are so still), 
 
 that while he was in his house he had a violent fever ; in the height of 
 
 which, being totally delirious, he broke from Mr. Brockmer, ran into 
 
 the street stark naked, proclaimed himself the Messiah, and rolled 
 
 himself in the mire. 
 
 ******* 
 
 '' This was about nine in the evening. Leaving his door and going 
 up stairs, he rushed up after me, making a fearful appearance. His 
 hair stood upright, and he foamed round the mouth. He tried to speak, 
 but could not utter his thoughts, stammeiing long before he could get 
 out a word. 
 
 " At last he said, that he had something to confide to me privately, 
 oamely, that he was Messiah, that he was come to be crucified for the 
 
174 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Jews, and that I (since lie spoke with difficulty) should be spokesman, 
 
 and go with him to-morrow to the Synagogue, there to preach his 
 
 words. 
 
 ******* 
 
 " Whilst I was with Dr. Smith, Mr. Swedenborg went to the Swedish 
 Envoy, but was not admitted, it being post-day. Departing thence he 
 pulled off his clothes and rolled himself in very deep mud in the gutter. 
 Then he distributed money from his pockets among the crowd which had 
 gathered. 
 
 " In this state some of the footmen of the Swedish Envoy chanced to 
 see him, and brought him to me very foul with dirt." 
 
 These well substantiated facts indicate the naturalness of 
 those mental and psychological changes, incident to nearly all 
 media in their growth from the grosser material to the more 
 spiritual and harmonial planes of life. Carlyle, speaking of 
 similar experiences, says : " Such transitions are ever full of 
 pain : thus the eagle when he moults is sickly; and, to attain 
 his new beak, must harshly dash off the old one upon the 
 rocks." - ~n 
 
 In common with all the churches, the present followers of ^ 
 Swedenborg flippantly berate Spiritualists, especially the 
 mediums in their earlier stages of development, on the 
 ground of " demoniac possessions." It is as amusing as 
 pitiable to witness the holy sneer that plays upon the scorn- 
 curled lips of the crystalized Swedenborgian, who, with 
 unwarrantable assumption, shrugs his shoulders and breathes 
 in manner, if not in words — " Stand by, I am holier than 
 thou ! " 
 
 Looking at him in after years, when chaos had rounded 
 into symmetrical form, and disorderly mediumship had 
 flowed out into beautiful harmony and sweetness of heavenly 
 trust, he challenges our profoundest admiration. The symboL 
 key held in his hand, he opened the mysteries of the heavene 
 — the " Word " being to him a link of correspondential 
 thoughts and ideas imaging eternal things. Gazing as 
 through an angel microscope, and reading the soul of 
 things, all the universe spread itself before him rightly inter- 
 preted — the material being the type of the spiritual — ita 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 17(> 
 
 body — and all objects the representations of mental and 
 moral conditions. 
 
 Mauger the chronic church notions of his time, his doc- 
 trines and experiences agree with those of modern Spirit- 
 ualists. In his Spiritual Diary, 4602, he affirms — 
 
 " That there is an influx from the spiritual world into the natural 
 world, and that the natural world thence subsists, as from it it began to 
 exist, is at the present day utterly unknown; because it is not known 
 what the spiritual is, neither do men wish to know anything but what ia 
 natural, wherefore they deny anything else, especially the learned. Man 
 was created to be a type of either world ; his interiors to be a type of the 
 spiritual world, and his exteriors to be a type of the natural world, to the 
 end that in him both might be conjoined. Hence it is that his natural 
 world, or microcosm, does not live except by influx from the spiritual 
 world, and that there is, with many, a continual conatus to the union of 
 both worlds in him.'' 
 
 He taught that the spiritual is the real man, and dwelt 
 largely upon the substantiality of the spirit world as a realm 
 of groves and gardens, seas and mountains, forests and birds, 
 and nationalities of immortal men and women, having habits, 
 affections and aspirations similar to those they cherished in 
 the earth life. There the scholar pursues his studies, the 
 poet courts diviner muses, the geologist probes newly formed 
 orbs, the mathematician calculates immeasurable distances, 
 the orator discourses in lofty strains of eloquence to assem- 
 bled multitudes, the astronomer counts distant stars and 
 resolves nebulae into revolving systems of suns and planets, 
 and the reformer who once walked the earth with bleeding 
 feet, now crowned in the heavens, descends to revolutionize 
 and further consummate the world's emancipation. 
 
 In a vision he foresaw his transition, and, full of rest, 
 departed at the time, in confirmation of his own prophecy. 
 
 Thomas Say, member of the Friends' Church, was esteemed 
 for his great piety, blameless life, and sincerity of soul. A 
 compilation of his writings and manuscripts were published 
 in Philadelphia, 1796, by Budd and Bartram. Gifted as a 
 speaker, his mediumship assumed the forms of trance and 
 healing. 
 
176 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 His biographer, affirming that he " could cure wens, remove 
 tumors, and other afflictive diseases, bj stroking with the 
 hand," says, that " however some might ridicule this, it was 
 a fact, in proof of which many living testimonies could be 
 produced." Fastings and secret prayer ever proved effica- 
 cious ill opening his inner sight, enabling him to behold with 
 rapturous joy the marvelous glories of the heavenly world. 
 We transfer one of his spiritual experiences to these pages. 
 
 " On the ninth day, between the hours of four and five, I fell into a 
 trance, and so continued till about the hour of three or four the next 
 morning. After my departure from the body (for I left the hody)^ my 
 father and mother, Susannah Robinson and others who watched me, 
 Bhook my body, felt for my pulse, and tried if they could discern the 
 remains of any life or breath in me, but found none. Some may be 
 desirous to know whether I was laid out or not. 
 
 *' I found myself, when I opened my eyes, lying on my back, as is a 
 corpse on a board; and was told after getting better, that I was not laid 
 on a board, because mother could not find freedom to have it done. 
 They then sent for Dr. Kearsly, who attended me, for his opinion. He 
 found no pulse nor any remains of life; but as he wao going away, 
 returned again, and said that something came into his mind to try 
 further. He then asked for a small looking-glass, which Catharine 
 Souder, who lived with my father, procured. The doctor placing it 
 over my mouth, a short time there appeared on it a little moisture. The 
 doctor then said to them, if he is not dead I think he is so far gone he 
 will never open his eyes again ; let him lie while he continues warm, 
 and when he begins to grow cold, lay him out. 
 
 " This they told me when I returned into the body. Upon hearing 
 me speak, they were all very much surprised ; the second time I spoke 
 they all rose from their chairs, and the third time they all came to me 
 My father and mother inquired how it had been with me ? I answered, 
 and said unto them, I thought I had been dead and gone to heaven. 
 After I left my body I heard, as it were, the voices of men, women and 
 children singing songs of praises unto the Lord God, without inter- 
 mission, which ravished my soul and threw me into transports of joy. 
 My soul was also delighted with most beautiful glades and gardens, 
 which appeared to me on every side, and such as were never seen in 
 this world. Through these I passed, being all clothed in white, and in 
 my full shape without the least diminution of parts. As I passed along 
 toward a higher state of bliss, I cast my eyes (being perfectly conscious) 
 upon the earth, which I saw plainly, and beheld three men (whom I 
 knew) die. Two of them were white men, one of which entered into 
 immediate rest. There appeared a beautiful transparent gate opened ; 
 and as I with the one that entered into rest came up to it, he stepped 
 in ; but as I was about to enter, I stepped into the body. 
 
CHtfRUHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIO. 177 
 
 " When recovering from my trance, I mentioned the names of these 
 persons, telling how I saw them die, and which of them entered into 
 rest. I said to my mother, Oh, that I had made one step further, then 
 I should not have come back to earth. After telliog them what I had 
 to say, I desired them to say no more, for I still heard the voices and 
 melodious songs of praises, and longed for my final change. 
 
 " After I told them of the death of the three men, they sent to see 
 if it was so, and when the messenger returned, he told them they were 
 all dead, and died in their rooms, &c.; as 1 had told them. Upon 
 hearing it, I fell into tears, and said, Oh, Lord, wouldst thou hadst kept 
 me and sent him back that was in pain, (for he seemed one of the lost.) 
 The third was a colored man belonging to the widow Kearney, whom I 
 saw die in the brick kitchen, and while they were laying his corpse on 
 a board, his head fell out of their hands, which I plainly saw, with other 
 circumstances j for remember, the ivalh were no hindrance to my sight. 
 Though the negro's body was black, his soul was clothed in white, which 
 filled me with joy, as it appeared to me a token of his acceptance with 
 God. * * 55^ Yet I was not permitted to see him fully enter into 
 rest; but just as I thought myself entering, I came into the body 
 again. 
 
 " Sometime after my recovery, the widow Kearney, the mistress of 
 the colored man, sent for me, and inquired whether I thought departed 
 spirits knew one another ? I answered in the affirmative, telling her I 
 saw her negro man die whilst I was lying as a corpse. She then asked 
 me where did he die ? I told her in her brick kitchen, between the 
 jamb of the chimney and the wall ; and when they took him from the 
 bed to lay him on the board, his head slipped from their hands. She 
 then said. So it did ! She then asked if I could tell where they laid 
 him. I informed her, between the back door and street door. She 
 said she remembered that it ivas so, and was satisfied, having reason to 
 believe what she had often thought, that departed spirits knew each 
 other in heaven. 
 
 " These men, upon inquiring, were found to die at the very time I 
 saw them, and all the circumstances of their death were found to be 
 exactly as I related them. As some may desire to know how or in 
 what shape these that were dead appeared to me, I would say that they 
 appeared each in a complete hody, which I take to be the spiritual body, 
 separated from the earthly, sinful body. They were also clothed — the 
 two that entered into rest, in white, and the other, who was seemingly 
 cast ofi", had his garment somewhat white, hut spotted. I saw also the 
 bodies in which each of them lived when upon earth, and also how they 
 were laid out; but my own body I did not see. The reason why I 
 neither saw my own body, nor entered fully into rest, I take to be this : 
 that my soul was not quite separated from my hody, as the others were ; 
 though it was so far separated as to permit my seeing those things, and 
 Hearing their songs of praise and thanksgiving. Some may think the 
 d<3ad know not each other. These I would refer to the Scriptures—- 
 12 
 
178 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 asking, did not Dives know both Abraham and Lazarus^ though 
 afar off?" 
 
 Friend Say s journeyings in the spirit-world, while out of 
 the body, are exceedingly valuable, because occurring long 
 previous to the modern spiritual manifestations ; and, among 
 the Quakers, a people distinguished for integrity, simplicity, 
 and devotion to religious convictions. 
 
 We are privileged with the personal acquaintance of 
 several prominent media, who, becoming entranced, leave 
 (save by sympathetic and magnetic relations) their bodies, 
 and, traveling with their spirit-guides through the heavenly 
 spheres, observe the scenery and listen to celestial music. 
 Such experiences bless the partakers beyond all blessing. 
 
 Paul, referring to himself, according to Biblical exposi- 
 tions, says he knew a man who was " caught up to the third 
 heaven," where he *' heard unspeakable words," and " whether 
 he was in the body, or out of the body," at the time, he could 
 not determine. With those accustomed to cite apostolic 
 authority, this scriptural language ought, at least, to favor- 
 ably commend the idea of mortals leaving their bodies. The 
 phraseology of Paul certainly implies that the spiritual man 
 may be temporarily released from its corporeal relations in a 
 degree, that it may ascend to ''the third heaven ;" that is, 
 the third sphere of spirit-life. The " unspeakable words " 
 were, doubtless, the sublime utterances of an ancient Semitic 
 Beer, long summering in the upper kingdoms of glory, the 
 vernacular of which even the scholarly Gentile Apostle was 
 not acquainted. The past re-lives in the present, and tlie 
 Hving now proiFers the mystic key that unlocks and cor- 
 roborates much of the past. 
 
 John Wesley, high in the coronal region, gifted with full 
 Bpirituality, and trained under the paternal roof to hear 
 startling accounts of apparitions, clothed in vestures seamlesQ 
 and glittering, confessed to the spiritual as naturally us 
 flowers turn to the sunshine in May mornings. The R^v. 
 Samuel We^ey, father of the celebrated John Wesley, 
 J 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 179 
 
 founder of Methodism, while rector of Epworth, Engltfind, 
 in 1716, heard noises and rappings several months in his 
 residence, keeping a detailed account of them. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Hoole, of Haxey, visiting Mr. Wesley, wrote 
 thus concerning the mysterious sounds: " After supper and 
 prayers, we all went up stairs, and as we were standing 
 round the fire, in the east chamber, something began knock- 
 ing just on the other side of the wall, on the chimney-piece, 
 as with a key. Presently the knocking was under our feet. 
 We went down — he with hope, I with fear. As soon as we 
 were in the kitchen, the sound was above us in the room we 
 had left. Mr. Wesley spoke to it. * * * * Soon after 
 it knocked at the window, and changed its sounds into one 
 like planing boards." 
 
 As to the proceeding causes of these disturbances, the 
 learned commentator, Pr. Clarke, has the following : — " For 
 a considerable time all the family believed it to be a trick; 
 but at last they were all satisfied it was something super- 
 natural." * * * a gome thought it was a messenger of 
 Satan." * * * u ^^s. Wesley's opinion was dififerent 
 from all the rest, and was probably the most correct. She 
 supposed that these noises and disturbances portended the 
 death of her brother, then abroad in the East India Com- 
 pany's service. This gentleman * * * suddenly disappeared 
 and was never heard from more." 
 
 Having had unquestionable evidence of mysterious agencies 
 and spirit manifestations, in the tender years of childhood, 
 and personally blessed with some of the '* gifts " promised to 
 believers, John Wesley, all through his evangelizing career, 
 noted and recorded cases of spirit-power and premonition in 
 his Journals and the " Arminian Magazine." 
 
 " He healed the sick," writes a distinf^uished English author, " by 
 prayer and laying on of hands. He and some others joined in prayer 
 over a man who was not expected to live till morning; he was speech- 
 less, senseless, and his pulse was gone. Before they ceased, his senses 
 and speech returned. He recovered ; and Wesley says they v>\o choose 
 to account for the fact by natural causes have his free leave : he sayg 
 it was the power of Prod." (Vol. ii. p. 385.> 
 
180 DOCTRINBt OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 " Wesle^,' believed with Luther, that devils — demons — produced dis- 
 ease and bodily hurts ; that epilepsy and insanity often proceeded 
 from demon influence. He declared that, if he gave up faith in 
 witchcraft, he must give up the Bible. When asked whether he had 
 himself seen a ghost, he replied, ' No; nor have I ever seen a murder; 
 but unfortunately I am compelled to believe that murders take place 
 almost every day, in one place or another.' Warburton attacke*^ 
 Wesley's belief in miraculous cures and expulsion of evil spirits ; but 
 Wesley replied that what he had seen with his own eyes, he was bound 
 to believe ; the bishop could believe or not, as he pleased." 
 
 Eev. Mr. Fletcher, of Wesley's time, records many striking 
 instances of angelic interposition. One related to his own 
 bathing in the Rhine; when sinking, he remained under 
 water twenty minutes, and yet was restored. Some would 
 say, " Why, this is a miracle !'* " Undoubtedly,'' observes Mr. 
 Wesley. " It was not a natural event, but a work wrought 
 above the power of nature, probably by the ministry of 
 angels." 
 
 Southey mentions the psychological tendencies and expe- 
 riences of Rev. Thomas Walsh, a Wesleyan preacher. " He 
 was sometimes found in so deep a reverie, that he appeared 
 to have ceased to breathe; there was something resembling 
 splendor on his countenance, and other circumstances seemed 
 to attest his communion with the spiritual world." This 
 corresponds to the state of many of our trance speakers. 
 During the sermons, and especially in the prayer circles of 
 the Wesleys, the more susceptible became sufficiently spirit- 
 ually influenced to manifest symptoms of violent spasms and 
 convulsions. Similarly wrought upon in our day, Methodists 
 have " fallen with the power," and seen visions — all phases 
 of Spiritualism. 
 
 The first Methodist preachers, threatened, persecuted, were 
 afterwards cursed and stoned for their heresies and zeal in 
 kindling the fading fires of religion. The English Church 
 denouncing them as " disturbers of the peace, and seducers," 
 compelbd them, if preaching at all, to hold their services in 
 lanes, streets and groves. They were humble during this 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 181 
 
 period of their history, and spiritually minded. Prophet- 
 mantles rested upon them. Now, becominpj popular, proud, 
 sectarian and pe.^secuting, they are suffering an eclipse of 
 faith — a deserved decline. As ye " mete," said Jesus, " it 
 shall be measui 3d to you again." As a denomination, 
 angelic ministers and spiritual gifts have left them. The 
 shell is thickening. The soul-fires of their primitive forces 
 are dying under church formalisms and mocking sanctities. 
 
 Dr. Adam Clarke, the profound linguist and Biblical 
 Methodist annotator, accepted the central thought connected 
 with Spiritualism — a present communion with departed 
 spirits. Commenting upon the woman of Endor, Saul, 
 Samuel and that upper world peopled by " various orders 
 of spirits," he writes, in his Com. p. 299, vol. ii. : 
 
 " I believe there is a supernatural and spiritual world, in which 
 human spirits, both good and bad, live in a state of consciousness. 
 
 " I believe that any of these spirits may, according to the order of 
 God, in the laws of their place of residence, have intercourse with this 
 world, snd become visible to mortals. 
 
 " I believe Samuel did actually appear to Saul, and thai he was sent 
 by the especial mercy of God, to warn this infatuated king of his 
 approaching death." 
 
 These are unequivocal expressions of belief. If, as Dr. 
 Clarke affirms, the risen Samuel *' actually appeared to 
 Saul;" if the ascended Moses and Elias *' talked with Jesus" 
 in the presence of Peter, John and James ; if spiritual beings, 
 denominated '* Angels," "Men of God," *' Men," held con- 
 scious intercourse with earth's inhabitants during several 
 thousand years of Scriptural history — why not now ? Is God 
 mutable? Have deific laws changed? Has the "door" John 
 saw opened in heaven been shut and barred ? Did Jesus fal- 
 sify when ye said, "Lo! I am with you alway unto the end of 
 the world ? " This beautiful belief in spirit intercourse, cher- 
 ished by Dr. Clarke, so expanded his nature, that he clearly 
 enunciated the doctrine of progression, and the final resto 
 ration of all souls to holiness and happiness. The thought 
 thrilled him with ecstasy. Annotating upon a verse in 
 
182 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Romans, he exclaimed — "Death shall be conquered; hell 
 disappointed; the devil confounded, and sin totally de- 
 stroyed ! " Writing of the passage of the apostle John — 
 "God is love" — he says, "God is an infinite fountain of 
 benevolence and beneficence to every human being. He 
 hates nothing that he has made. He cannot hate because 
 he is love. * * * * jje has made no human being for 
 perdition ; nor ever rendered it impossible, by any neces- 
 sitating decree, for any fallen soul to find mercy. * * * 
 Love seems to be the essence of the Divine nature, and all 
 other attributes to be only modifications of this." 
 
 Ann Lee, honored by her admirers with the appellations, 
 " Sainted Mother," and " Sister," overshadowed by angels 
 of purity, and enlightened by the descent of celestial influ- 
 ences, received her heavenly commission in 1758, near 
 Manchester, England. Her visions were remarkable; her 
 prophecies, oracles. The physical manifestations, relating 
 to herself and adherents, consisted of dancing, trembling, 
 whirling, and speaking with tongues. These exercises and 
 spiritual gifts called down upon them the hostility of the 
 Church. Priests and magistrates, who have ever sought to 
 gag the truth, dungeon conscience, and impeach the induc- 
 tions of science, charged them with disorder and Sabbath- 
 breaking. The religious authorities slandered, fined and 
 imprisoned them. 
 
 In 1774, inspired by the " Christ of the new order," she 
 received a revelation to emigrate to America. A few pure- 
 purposed, loving souls clustered around her as a central 
 teacher directed by angel ministers. 
 
 This new church — the "Shakers" — much resembles the 
 Essenes of Philo's time. The Kazarene had but three 
 hundred followers when martyred upon Calvary. The 
 increase of the Shaker fraternity has not been rapid : but is 
 permanent. Holding that God is dual, eternal, Father and 
 Mother in deific manifestations, they practically teach the 
 strict equality of the sexes. "First pure, then peaceable," 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 183 
 
 thej profess to live in the " resurrection state/' and preach 
 to those " without " — the Gentiles — to raise few and better 
 children. They all believe in spirit manifestations and 
 revelations. 
 
 Elder F. W. Evans wrote Robert Owen, in 1856, that, 
 ** seven years previous to the advent of Spiritualism, the 
 Shakers had predicted its rise and progress, precisely as 
 they have occurrei , and that the Shaker order is the 
 great medium betwixt this world and the world of spirits. 
 * * * Physical manifestations, visions, revelations, 
 prophecies, and gifts of various kinds, of which voluminous 
 records are kept, and, indeed, * divers operations, but all of 
 the same spirit,' were as common among us as gold in 
 California." 
 
 Elder J. S. Prescott, connected with the community near 
 Cleveland, Ohio, made a similar statement to us during the 
 session of the 4th IsTational Convention of Spiritualists. Mr. 
 Dixon, an English writer of considerable note, visiting 
 Elder Evans, of Mount Lebanon, during his American tour, 
 wrote thus of the Shaker doctrines : 
 
 " To this dogma of the existence of a world of spirits — unseen by us, 
 visible to them — the disciples of Mother Ann most strictly hold. In 
 this respect, they agree with the Spiritualists ; indeed they pride them- 
 selves on having foretold the advent of this ' Spiritual distxirhance in the 
 American mind/ Frederick tells me — from his anj^els — that the reiern 
 of this Spiritualistic movement ' is only in its opening phase ! it will 
 sweep through Europe, through the World, as it is now sweeping 
 through America ; it is based on facts, representing an active, though 
 an unseen force/ 
 
 " These Shaker communities all claim to be of spiritual origin ! — to 
 have spiritual direction ! — to receive spiritual protection ! Hundreds 
 of spiritual mediums are developed throughout the eighteen societies. 
 In truth, all the members in greater or less degree are mediums. 
 
 " Spiritualism, '^ he continues, " in its onward progress, will go 
 through the same three degrees in the world at large. As yet it is only 
 in the beginning of the first degree, even in the United States. It will 
 continue until every man and woman upon the earth is convinced that 
 there is a G.">d — an immortality — a spiritual, no less than a natural 
 world; and the possibility of a social, intelligent communication 
 between their inh;)bitants respectively," &c., &c. 
 
184 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Basing our opinion upon reliable testimony, these Shaker 
 communities constitute a body of the neatest, healthiest, the 
 most pure-minded and kind-hearted souls of earth. Cer- 
 tainly they are the only people on this continent, who have 
 successfully maintained, for more than seventy years, a 
 system of rational living, one of the fundamental principles 
 of which is the apostolic community of property. 
 
 John Murray, the father of American Qniversalisms, born 
 in England, persecuted for his beautiful heresy in his native 
 country, was a Spiritualist. The birth of all great religious 
 thoughts have their origin always in some spiritual agency 
 It was so with Murrav. 
 
 As early evidence of his mediumship and control by spirits, 
 when but two years old, at his baptism, he articulated 
 " Amen " — the first word he ever spoke. Clairvoyant, he 
 saw a spirit — his Eliza — in Il^ewgate prison, " irradiating 
 the walls," before whom he, in his sorrow, prostrated him- 
 self, and, inspired by her sweet magnetism, found relief. 
 Speaking of this happy visitation in an hour of deep 
 anguish, he said: "My soul became calm, and although 
 every hope from this world was extinct in my bosom, yet I 
 believed I should be the better able to accommodate myself 
 to whatever sufferings the Almighty might think proper to 
 inflict.'' 
 
 When about to leave England for America, having served 
 his time in prison for heresy, and feeling disconsolate over 
 the departure from the scenes and associations of his home, 
 he heard the voice of a guardian spirit, saying, " Be of 
 good cheer. * * * Be not afraid when thou passest 
 through the waters; I will be with thee, fear no evil!" * * 
 
 But the most interesting feature of his spiritual experi- 
 ences, showing how well and wisely the messengers of 
 heaven direct even life's events, for the consummation of 
 divine purposes, is delineated in his interview with Mr 
 Potter, after his arrival in America. 
 
CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 18 J 
 
 By angel direction, Mr. Potter was impressed to build a 
 meeting-house in the woods of 'New Jersey, under the 
 assurance that in due time the true gospel would appear. 
 Believing in the holy voice that appointed him, Mr. Potter 
 faithfully built his house, and there it stood for years a mon- 
 ument of his so-called " folly," in the estimation of his 
 orthodox neighbors, who taunted him about his *' forth- 
 coming minister." Are the winds, too, under the command 
 of spirits, as with Jesus on the sea of Tiberias ? They tost 
 that vessel into the intended harbor, and Murray was thus 
 brought to the very shore where lived Mr. Potter, of whom 
 he requested a fish for the hungry sailors. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the moment that vessel touched the 
 shore, the familiar voice of the angel, who ordered the house 
 to be built, spoke in his ear with thrilling, melting cadence — 
 
 " There, Potter, in that vessel, cast away on that shore, is the preacher 
 you have been so long expecting ! '' 
 
 Convicted, believing, nothing wavering, he waited the 
 sequel, his heart serene with the love which the angel- 
 presence inspired. When Mr. Murray came up to the door, 
 asking for the fish, the mystic voice that, in other climes 
 and ages, entranced the faithful to lofty, sublime deeds, 
 was heard again — 
 
 " Potter, this is the man, this is the person, whom I have sent to 
 preach in your house ! '' 
 
 Mr. Murray, astonished, bewildered — for he had resolved 
 to abandon the ministry forever — persuaded, entreated, 
 prayed to be absolved from the task ; but no, angel 
 voices spoke to him in his nights of reflection; and the 
 strange circumstances thus developed, showing a heavenly 
 providential overruling of tides and seasons, all crowded 
 upon him with the afflatus of prophetic divinity. Yielding 
 at length to the order of powers above, whose forces are 
 law, and whose influences are sunbeams that bud and 
 
186 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 blossom the Jlowers of hope under tears of sorrow, he 
 buckled on the armor of the " soldier of the cross," waked 
 up the slumbering people to the action of freer thought and 
 character, led to glorious victory, and, departing, left a 
 trailing light of inspiration that has flooded deeper, higher, 
 broader, till all the land is under the auroral baptism now of 
 angels. 
 
 When the heavenly inspirations of the faithful Murray 
 and his self-sacrificing coadjutors, crystalizing into a creed, 
 were chilled by formularies, interpreted by fossiliferous 
 Conventions, stultified by straining after " ecclesiastic re- 
 spectability," the angels of progress left the denomination to 
 wither, shrivel, die ! ' Tis God's voice to every organic 
 body — grow or perish ! Universalism was a stepping-stone 
 from a broad Protestant faith to demonstrated immortality. 
 The good it had is blossoming and seeding into Spiritualism. 
 
 The tendency of all Christian sectarisms is downward, 
 demanding faith without evidence, and saying to the aspi 
 rational soul — " thus far and no farther." The followers of 
 all religious iconoclastic chieftains have, in after years, fallen 
 far below their original standard-bearers. The Lutherans 
 are per se sectarians. Methodists, degenerating from Wesley, 
 Whitefield, Fletcher, as a church, virtually now deny all spir- 
 itual gifts and communications. Calvinists, condemning 
 the barbarities of Rome, turned inquisitors and persecuted 
 dissenting souls unto death. The Puritans, leaving England, 
 settling at Plymouth, and founding the New England colo- 
 nies, fled professedly from persecution, seeking a place to 
 worship God according to the dictates of conscience, with 
 the ulterior purpose of christianizing (?) the Indians! 
 Settled, they commenced robbing those Aborigines, enslav- 
 ing their women and children, and visiting upon them inhu- 
 man and self-degrading cruelties. They plundered- the 
 towns of the natives ; paid bribes to assassinate Indian 
 chiefs; burned hundreds of red men alive — and all in the 
 name of Christ, the " Prince of Peace ! *' 
 
CQITRCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 187 
 
 A prominmt New England author bears the following 
 testimony : 
 
 " Their ablest and favorite divines declared that the burning ')f four 
 hundred Indians at once, mostly women and children, seemed a sweet 
 savor to God, while they admitted that it was awful to see their blood 
 running and quenching the violence of the burning wood. * * They 
 turned upon the Quakers. They imposed heavy fines for hearing them 
 speak. They passed blue-laws. * * * They flogged, inhumanly, 
 women and children. They put them in prison and whipped them 
 daily. They cut off' their ears. They bored their tongues with red- 
 hot irons. They hung men, women and children as witches, and con- 
 tinued it for fifty years. * * * They banished Roger Williams. 
 They drove women and helpless children, under severest penalties, to 
 seek protection among the savages, (where they were all murdered) 
 because they diff'ered with them on metaphysical divinity. * * As 
 late as 1740, they enacted the most barbarous laws against heretical 
 thinkers, and enforced the Saybrook Platform.'^ 
 
 Such was — such is, though modified by the genius and 
 intelligence of the age, creedal Christianity, devoid of spirit- 
 uality — formal Christianity, unbaptized of Spiritualism. 
 Chaff without wheat! shell without substance! a swoUa? 
 body without the spirit that giveth life ! 
 
 **Far from the golden shores of fate 
 I gaze across the past; 
 Forever on life's dial-plate 
 The shade is backward cast." 
 * ♦ * * * 
 
 *'£re long a fairer morn shall rise, 
 With purer air and brighter skies, 
 When force shall lay his scepter down 
 And strength shall abdicate its crown, 
 And truth incarnate sway the race, 
 With mildest power and tenderest grace. '^ 
 ******* 
 
 ** Ring out the darkness of the land, 
 Ring in the Christ that is to be." 
 
y 
 
 ECTURE YI 
 
 SEGyVLENTARY S 
 
 ENTARY bPIRITUALISM. 
 
LhAPTEI^ XIX. 
 
 THE PRELUDE. 
 
 '• Through the harsh noises of our day 
 A lev, sweet prelude finds its way ; 
 Through clouds of doubt and creeds of fear 
 A light is breaking calm and clear. 
 
 That angel song, now low and far 
 Ere long shall sound from star to star I 
 That light, the breaking day which tips 
 The golden-spired Apocalypse." 
 
 Circles are the higbsst symbols. There are probably no 
 straight-line motions in the universe. Those seeming such 
 are on a scale so vast the curve cannot be perceived. Frag- 
 ments are all parts of circular bodies, as a piece of granite 
 rock is a part of those primitive formations that encircle the 
 earth. Atoms gyrate upon their axes and follow the line of 
 their strongest attractions. Things move in spirals, and 
 generally with the sun, from left to right. Sea-shells are 
 built up spirally. Vines ascend forest trees spirally. Par- 
 ticles of steel flying toward a magnet move spirally. This 
 law, with few exceptions, applies to atoms, worlds, systems, 
 civilizations, and all those historic cycles of ever-recurring 
 spiritual epochs and eras that distinguish antiquity. 
 
 Progress underlies all things, and Spiritualism, though 
 ever majestic in its past windings, may be compared to the 
 ocean waves that rise and fall. It has had its mornings 
 
 and evenings of decline. Its careers fleck the nights and 
 
 191 
 
192 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. ' 
 
 days of earth's varied revolutions with splendors unspeakable , 
 and its heaven-illumined truths, voiced by angelic inspired 
 chieftains, have rolled in solemn grandeur all along the 
 sunlit periods of the half-buried ages; and its musical echoes 
 add to the glories of the nineteenth centiny. 
 
 Each spiritual wave, in accordance with the laws of accel- 
 erated motion, rose above the preceding, bearing the masses 
 higher up the altitudes of wisdom. The impetus was greater ; 
 the spray from the wave more glittering; the principles 
 involved, coupled with its holy teachings, were, during each 
 succeeding period, more widely diffused. 
 
 Under some name and in some form Spiritualism, as 
 herein demonstrated, has constituted the basic foundation, 
 and been the motive force of all religions in their incipient 
 stages. The Spiritualism of to-day differs from that of five 
 thousand years since only in the better understanding of its 
 philosophy, the general concession of its naturalness and 
 its wider dissemination through the different grades of 
 society. It has been and is God's visible seal of love to all 
 climes and ages. 
 
 The spirit-world is the world of causes; this of effects. 
 Objective entities are but the projections of ethereabzed 
 spirit-substances. Inventions relating to industrial activities, 
 or the spiritual exaltation of the races, have their first birtb 
 in the inner life. All great projects for the moral redemp- 
 tion of humanity, primarily conceived in the upper deeps 
 of infinity, are inflowed from immortal minds to receptive 
 mortals by the law of influx. These mediumized souls, 
 impressionally catching the shadowy dim-defined plans, 
 fashion them into forms ; or perhaps partially constructing, 
 push them out into the sensuous world. As spirit moulds 
 and takes on form, so wisdom ceaselessly descends from the 
 heavens. 
 
 Cognizant of a rising spiritual wave. Congresses of Angels 
 devised the noble project of laying the foundation-stone of 
 this new Temple, majestic, cosmopolitan, and strikingly 
 3ublime, in America — land of free thought, free speech,, free 
 
PRELUDE. 193 
 
 press — land where the people, conscious of their God-given 
 rights, and cringing before no cowled priests, feel themselves 
 sovereigns — " kings and priests unto God." 
 
 Premonitions and prophecies are announcing heralds, 
 breathing 
 
 A mystical lore, 
 
 And coming events cast their shadows before." 
 
 The record stands undisputed, that Swedenborg, just 
 before his departure to spirit-life, in 1772, prophesied that, 
 in about eighty years, wonderful phenomena of a spiritual 
 nature would occur on the earth. The four score years 
 expired in 1852. 
 
 A young man, residing in Western New York, 1836, and 
 other individuals in different localities, examining the merits 
 of Mesmerism, fell into trance conditions, disclosing the fact, 
 that within twelve or fourteen years a remarkable book 
 would be published, the contents of which would not be as 
 startling as the source from whence it originated. In about 
 eleven years, " Nature's Divine Revelations " was dictated 
 by spirits through A. J. Davis, in his clairvoyant state, and 
 issued from the press. 
 
 In 1835, and several years thereafter, Wm. Miller and 
 adherents, were impressed with great impending changes, 
 denominated " the end of the world and the second coming 
 of Christ to judgment." They interpreted the "word" of 
 the Scriptures literally, thus confounding the personal with 
 the spiritual coming. The blunder was fatal to the progress 
 of the sect. The end of the theologic world of creeds and 
 popish dogmas was approaching, and Christ was speedily 
 coming as a spirit spiritually in the "clouds of heaven, with 
 all his holy angels with him." These " holy angels " were 
 the ministering spirits with whom many of earth's inhabitants 
 now hold converse. 
 
 About this period immortalized spirits, originally from 
 India, China, Persia, European countries, and American In- 
 dians, visited the various Shaker communities of the country, 
 13 
 
194 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 and controlling the more mediumistic members, " spoke in 
 tongues," prophesied, and gave remarkable communications 
 relative to the opening of the *' seals," and the descent of 
 spiritual powers and gifts to the " world's people." Earth 
 and heaven abounded in signs of an approaching new era. 
 
 In 1846, some two or three years before the faintest trans- 
 latable echo from the summer-land had reached an American 
 ear, A. J. Davis stated, and it stands recorded in his "Divine 
 Revelations," (p. 175,) that the shining intelligences of the 
 second sphere of existence were soon to hold tangible com- 
 munion with the people of earth. These were his prophetic 
 words — " It is a truth that the spirits of the higher spheres 
 commune with persons in the body by influx, although 
 they are unconscious of the fact. This truth will ere long 
 present itself in the form of a living demonstration. * * 
 * * And the world will hail with delight the ushering 
 in of the era! " 
 
 *'Why come not spirits from the realms of glory 
 To visit earth, as in the days of old — 
 The times of ancient writ and sacred story ? 
 
 Is heaven more distant ? or has earth grown cold T 
 
 To Bethlehem's air was their last anthem given 
 When other stars before the One grew dim? 
 
 Was their last presence known in Peter's prison, 
 Or where exulting martyrs raised the hymn? " 
 
y 
 
 ECTURE YII 
 
 ODERN 3PIR^f~-UALISM. 
 
pHAPTEI^ XX. 
 
 SPIRIT PHENOMENA. 
 
 "He who, outside of pure mathematics, pronounces the word 
 impossible, lacks prudence/* — Arago. 
 
 " The Angel of the Lord descended from heaven and rolled back the 
 stone from the door and sat upon it/^ — Matthew. 
 
 " Peter, sleeping between two soldiers, bound with chains, the 
 keepers at the door of the prison ! the Angel of the Lord came and 
 smote him, and the chains fell from his hands. 
 
 " Passing the first and second wards and coming to an iron gate, it 
 opened of its own accord, and thej went out. 
 
 '' When Peter knocked at the door of the gate; a damsel came, who 
 knowing his voice opened the door with gladness, and returning told 
 them Peter stood at the gate. 
 
 " They said to her, thou art mad. * * * * It is his angel. 
 But Peter continued knocking. 
 
 " When they had opened the door and saw him, they were 
 astonished." — Acts. 
 
 " The thing that hath been, is that which .^Jiall be, and that which 
 is done, is that which shall be done." — Ecclesiastes. 
 
 •' Loved ones are rapping to-night I 
 Heaven seems not far away ! 
 Death's sweeping river is bright I 
 Soft is the sheen of its spray. 
 Oh, bid them welcome in garments of white 
 To hearts that are pure and illumined with light." — ^Emma Tuttle. 
 
 The rappings ! — listen, theologians! The "Rochester 
 knockings ! " — sweet seolian-toned echoes from spirit-lands 
 in demrnstration of immortality ! 
 
 197 
 
198 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 " Behold," said Jesus, *' I stand at the door and knock." 
 That apostolic " cloud of witnesses " — our sainted loved 
 ones, approaching the doors of our understanding through 
 sounds, dreams, visions, premonitions and inspirations, plead 
 for recognition and admission ! 
 
 " The love which survives the tomb," says Irving, " is one 
 of the noblest attributes of the soul." 
 
 Golden memories are undying. Pure love is immortal. 
 The bud of friendship that begins to bloom on earth, bears 
 precious fruitage in heaven. Holy remembrances call the 
 ascended hither. Death, the silent key that unlocks life's 
 portal to let earth-encoffined spirits up one step higher, 
 severs no sweet attraction. Sympathies between the two 
 worlds, are as natural as between the two continents. The 
 translated mother looks down lovingly upon her weeping 
 child. Delicate the electric table-touch — musical the " rap " 
 — blessed the intelligent response — sacred the message! and 
 happy each glory-bathed soul, who, catching, cherishes the 
 whisper-accents breathed from those angel dwellers upon the 
 shadowless shores of immortality. 
 
 Minute the initial steps of all great movements! How 
 pale the thinkers face, standing in that retired mechanic's 
 workshop! He paces the cinder-paved floor crazily, while 
 riveting processes are being adjusted through a succession of 
 little continuous '' raps." Rivet after rivet fastened — wheels 
 poised — machinery arranged, and lo! steam engines bidding 
 defiance to winds and waves — crossing continents and white- 
 nino- oceans — dash the gifts of commerce at our feet. Robert 
 Fulton, inspired by inventors of the better land, is on earth 
 immortal ! 
 
 Bouchard, digging in 1799, in the fort of St. Julian, discov- 
 ered the Rosetta stone written over in speaking characters, 
 epistolary, hieroglyphic and symbolic. This, with subse- 
 quent discoveries, equally important, led to a full verification 
 of the historic records of Herodotus. These figures and 
 hieroglyphs carved upon Lydian stones, on obelisks and 
 pyramids, permitted ancient Egypt to tell the world, in her 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — SPIRIT PUENOMENA. 199 
 
 own native language, of prior golden ages, putting to s' .ame 
 the boasted civilizations of Greece and Rome. 
 
 i^ewton, on a summer's afternoon, saw an apple drop to the 
 earth. It was an effect. Investigating, studying inductively, 
 the great law of gravitation flashed upon his mind. Ark- 
 wright, carefully watching the vibratory motions of a cog in 
 a wheel, was repaid by discovering the principles of a new 
 mechanical law, resulting in the saving of labor and life. 
 Franklin, with kite and string, called subtle electric fire- 
 fluids from the storm-clouds above him, and chaining them 
 to machinery, threw an eternal truth into the face of all the 
 sere-mantled ages. Now telegraphic wires girdle the globe, 
 and words from Americans to Asians, outfly the winds and 
 sunbeams. Joshua, Grecianized into Jesus, awoke to outer 
 conscious life in a Judean " manger." Humble and unpro- 
 pitious the advent! But there lay concealed causes destined 
 to shake kingdoms, and give practical force to a higher 
 civilization. Few attend the birth of genius. All newly- 
 conceived truths are cradled in mangers. No age appreciates 
 the martyr souls that take advanced positions. 
 
 The riveting — then the engine whose motive force lies 
 behind the gracefully folding sails that whiten oceans; the 
 kite and silken strings — then telegraphic communications 
 belting the planet with burning thoughts; the vacated 
 manger adjoining Bethlehem — then nations and swarming 
 empires bowing to the " cross of Christ;" the " rappings " 
 near Rochester, the heavens opened — then overjoyed multi- 
 tudes, shouting — See! — behold! a tangible demonstration of 
 a future existence ! 
 
 This has ever been the divine formula for inaugurating 
 new dispensations. God was not in the whirlwind bending 
 Lebanon's cedars; but in the "still small voice." To 
 inductive plodders, however, the more potent causes em- 
 ployed in the establishment of these tidal eras, pass unno- 
 ticed, because spiritual. Scientists deal only with phenomena 
 and forms of substance. They see mountains; but not the 
 hidden volcanic fires that rend them. They discern oaks in 
 
200 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 the distance; but not the electricity that shivers them in 
 atoms. They behold parlor tables move without visible 
 contact; yet are blind to those potential spirit-forces con- 
 nected with the motions. Science needs spiritualizing. The 
 gods playing upon the harp-strings of unseen causes, ever 
 conquer. In spirit-life, wisely to plan is to perfect. 
 
 The mediative heralds of higher, brighter cycles — the 
 standard-bearers of newly-conceived truths, bathing their 
 pale foreheads in the first pearling sprays from celestial 
 fountains, unappreciated, persecuted, pronounced " mad,'* 
 banished from aristocratic circles — ^generally suffer social 
 martyrdom, or are put to slow torturous deaths by the 
 prevailing "respectable" conservatism of the times. 
 
 Reformers of all ages, whose mystic words startled the 
 world, and whose inspired thoughts streamed like pearls 
 down the future, unrecognized by Church or State, were 
 branded " infidels ! " But the future did — will do justice to 
 such, erecting over their lifeless remains splendid monu- 
 ments, where millions each spring morning shall delight to 
 scatter flowers and evergreens, beautiful emblems of a 
 fadeless immortality. 
 
 When the philosophically inclined heard of these phe- 
 nomena, starting almost simultaneously in different portions 
 of the world, they earnestly sought the producing cause. 
 This, natural to cultured Germans, was especially praise- 
 worthy in Americans. Truly great men are not only critical 
 reasoners, but rigid investigators of newly-announced sub- 
 jects or sciences. Theologic darkness trembles at every 
 flash of advancing light. Bigots and moss-wreathed clergy- 
 men, fearing, heard in those gentle tappings from loved 
 ones, only ghostly mutterings of the devil. Sectarists 
 religiously canned, sealed and creed-encrusted, cried in 
 tones fearful and sepulchral — '^humbug!" an exclamation 
 distinguishable for ponderous lungs and liliputian mentality. 
 A parrot can assume grave platitudes and mouth the word 
 with p^ )us grace ! 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — SPIRIT PHENOMENA. 201 
 
 Progress daily invites to fresh feasts. "Let the church 
 take care," says Carlyle *'when God lets loose a great 
 thought." Inspiration, art, science, theories, discoveries, 
 " knockiiigs ! " each, all^ the results of hidden spirit forces, 
 exert their legitimate influences. Nebulae — then through 
 methods formative and systematic — worlds. Cells, combi- 
 nations — then orderly systems. Mappings — then acknow- 
 ledged angel ministries whispered in millions of home- 
 circles — 
 
 *' This is not a matter of to-day 
 
 Or yesterday, but hath been from all time 
 
 And none hath told us whence it comes, or how." 
 
 Egypt had its wierd augural staves from which were 
 elicited meaning sounds rhythmic with melodies of immor- 
 tality. The spirit-pendulum, mysterious to the masses, was 
 employed in the ancient services of Hydromantia. The 
 alphabet was successfully employed by the initiated few in 
 the times of the Emperor Yalens. Melancthon mentions 
 rappings occurring in Germany in his day. 
 
 Though mysterious sounds and voices of deep import had 
 been heard in the palmier periods of the Orient, and at 
 brightning intervals for hundreds of years, in different Euro- 
 pean countries, as historic testimonies and the older British 
 reviews abundantly prove ; yet it remained for impulsive, 
 inspirational Americans to translate (March, 1848) those dis- 
 turbing forces and noises, into intelligible communications. 
 
 The genius of our institutions, tending to the widest 
 individual freedom, had ripened the intellectual soil of the 
 continent for a rich spiritual seeding. Spirits were to be 
 the sowers. John's prophetic angel was already in the over- 
 arching heavens, waiting to preach the " everlasting gospel." 
 The seventh trumpet had sounded. The time had come for 
 " loosening of the seals of the book of life," that a future 
 existence might no longer be considered a matter of faith ; 
 but of absolute knowledge. 
 
202 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 As the Maries — "holy women of Syria, mediumistic and 
 intuitive — were first at the ITazarenean tomb to triumph- 
 antly announce — " he is not here, but risen ;" so women in the 
 initiatory hour of the spiritual dispensation, were the first to 
 construct the key, and devise the method, for understand- 
 ingly interpreting the fact, that a blissful converse in har- 
 mony with natural law, had been established between the 
 two worlds of conscious existence, 
 
 " Tongues broke out in unknown strains 
 And sung surprising grace " — 
 
 The gates of heavenly courts ajar, angels, white-robed, 
 and baptized in the silvery dews of paradise, re-appeared, 
 opening again the song that anciently thrived the watching 
 shepherd-souls of Syria — " Peace on earth and good will to 
 
 men.*' 
 
LhAPTEI\_ XXI, 
 
 MEDIUMSHIP.* 
 
 Sunlight through the ether of space — electricity through 
 the telegraphic wire — steamers through the waves of myriad 
 waters — rivers through valleys — blood through veins and 
 arteries — mind through brain ! All principles, indeed, all 
 forces, are mediative. Our organs, our senses, our faculties, 
 are media of life, of love, of thought. Mediumship inter- 
 permeates and interlines all phases, all attributes, all mo- 
 tions of being. It is universal. What nature is to spirit, 
 what body is to its soul, phenomenon is to Spiritualism the 
 sign and seal, the portal and initiation of this new religion. 
 As substance precedes forms, so spirit, in the divine order, 
 precedes these '^ modern manifestations." Phenomena, 
 therefore, are necessary to discoveries of spiritual truth, as 
 facts are to inductive science. All objective knowledge of a 
 future existence is obtained through the gradations of 
 spiritual mediumship. 
 
 Some writers on the Spiritual Philosophy enumerate 
 seven, others twenty-four phases of mediumship ; as well 
 
 * Aside from book references, we are indebted for many of the ideas in this 
 volume, to ancient spirits, or inspiring influences. These, frequently entranc- 
 ing Dr. E. C. Dunn, our traveling companion for several years, in the capacity 
 of a healer, gave us valuable suggestions and precious truths, coined from the 
 mint of supernal life. The spirit teacher to whom this book is dedicated, 
 though a member of our circle, is the spirit-guide of Bro. Dunn, phases of 
 whose mediumship we have never seen excelled. In the field of progress, he 
 is a successful healer and eloquent speaker, 
 
 203 
 
204 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS 
 
 specify seven hundred and twenty-four thousand. Truth ia 
 a unit; but its manifestations are as diverse as the organiza- 
 tions through which it is revealed. Mediumship, therefore, 
 must be as multiform as the diversities of conditions and 
 relations. 
 
 Mediumship, like inspiration, is both general and special. 
 As spirits en rapport with the surrounding spiritual atmos- 
 phere, breathe and envelop themselves with its aura, they 
 are influenced by the aggregated magnetic force of the age, 
 thus comprehending our needs in faithful ministrations by 
 pouring down upon us love-waves of heavenly inspiration, 
 leveling up humanity at large, the same as the sun attracts 
 and unfolds the floral beauties of all landscapes. But spirits 
 in sympathy of purpose may band together, as do earthly 
 corporations, to accomplish special objects through the best 
 adapted media. 
 
 Vibrate one chord of a musical instrument, and all the rest 
 of the same tension will vibrate in harmony with it. So the 
 human spirit, sensitive to the gentlest influence from the 
 spiritual spheres, sustains similar relations with spirits that 
 musical chords do to each other. Thus spirit undulates to 
 spirit. The greater the harmony, the more perfect the 
 responsive undulation. As if comprehending this beautiful 
 law, Jesus prayed that his " disciples might be one with him 
 as he was one with the Father." 
 
 The manifestations of mediumship are graded really accord- 
 ing to the constituent structure of the organism. The outer 
 electric sphere surrounding media, and others, also, >s com- 
 posed of emanations, not only from the body, but from each 
 of its organs. Indeed, each brain faculty has its distinctive 
 radiation. By this both spirits and clairvoyants measure 
 our mental states. Man's spiritual sphere, being interior, 
 emanates from the more ethereal and vitalized substances. 
 The predominance of man's electric sphere from the more 
 gross or material — under control of corresponding spirits — is 
 specially adapted to physical manifestations; while the pre- 
 dominance of his spiritual sphere, allies him more intimateh 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — MEDIUMSHIP. 20" 
 
 with the " inner life," in harmony with the spiritual of the 
 spirit world. 
 
 As a general division of mediumship, the following is 
 warrantable : 
 
 I. Physical. 
 
 II. Psychological. 
 
 III. Inspirational. 
 
 Under the physical is comprehended the rappings, tip- 
 pings, mechanical writing, spasmodic motions, movements 
 of extraneous bodies, etc. To inductionists, and the masses 
 generally, these are, like letters of the alphabet, important 
 in arresting attention and giving tests of spirit identity and 
 the transfer of intelligence, leading to the more interior and 
 substantial. 
 
 Under the second heading may be classed psychological 
 presentations, trance, vision, dream, dependent clairvoyance, 
 spirit painting, discovery of mineral and oil treasures, 
 and poetical musical improvisations, etc. 
 
 Under the third may be enumerated impressions, symbolic 
 pictures, inventions, prophecies, illumined perceptions, exal- 
 ted inspirations, independent seership, communion with 
 superior intelligences from the heavens, etc. 
 
 Spiritual circles should be formed upon scientific princi- 
 ples. The voltaic pile, constructed of copper and zinc plates, 
 in alternation, to evolve the galvanic fluid, is highly sugges- 
 tive of the best method. It is well to seat in these circles 
 male and female, alternately, as positive and negative, with 
 a discriminating eye to temperament and adaptation. Man 
 is not necessarily positive nor woman negative. In the 
 harmonial man or woman, the attractive and repellant are 
 equally balanced. Joining the hands induces a more 
 unitive intermingling of the magnetic forces. Honest skep- 
 ticism is no hindrance to success, but angularities and jeal- 
 ousies are. The circle once formed in order, there should 
 be no intrusion — no change of conditions. Minds should be 
 passive, the aspirations heavenly, the heart purely centered 
 upon the elucidation of truth with a patient, devotional 
 
206 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 spirit; and light will surely reveal what the candid soul is 
 eeeking-^the demonstration of angel presence. 
 
 When the inquirers have advanced into the real inner life 
 of spirituality, there is little or no need for the circle to 
 center the magnetic forces. Through true development 
 such have come into complete rapport with their spirit- 
 guides, rendering the circle no longer a necessity. They 
 virtually become one of the circle, constituting its earthly 
 polarity, receiving by sj^mpathetic inspiration the enlightened 
 unfoldment of angelic life. 
 
pHAPTEF^ XXIL 
 
 WITNESSES. 
 
 Judge Edmonds, a jurist of unimpeachable integrity and 
 keen discernment, estimates the number of Spiritualists in 
 this country at " eleven millions." If belief in the mere 
 fact of conscious spirit converse legitimately entitles to the 
 appellation. Spiritualist, the venerable Judge is evidently 
 quite correct. In the wider, and, we think, better definition, 
 Spiritualism inter-related to the inductive and deductive 
 methods of research, implies /ac^ ondi philosophy — science and 
 religion — ^culture, growth, and a true harmonial life. 
 
 In a lecture delivered by this eminent legal gentleman, 
 before the Spiritualists worshiping in Ebbitt Hall, he said : 
 
 " I have been addressed upon the subject of Spiritualism by letter, 
 or personally, by persons from Cadiz in Spain, from Corfu and Malta in 
 the Mediterranean, Bengal and Calcutta in Asia, from Venezuela in 
 South America, from Austria, Grermany, England, France, Italy, Greece 
 and Poland in Europe, from Algiers and Constantinople, from almost 
 every State in North America; and I have heard of my own publica- 
 tions being found on the Himalaya Mountains in Asia, and in the fore- 
 castle of a whale ship in the Northern Ocean ; and in many dilSerent 
 languages — Latin, Greek, Spanish, French, German, Polish and Indian. 
 Such and so wide-spread has become, within the short period of fifteen 
 years, the knowledge of and the interest in our faith. 
 
 " So among the churches have I witnessed its wide-spreading influ- 
 ence. High dignitaries, archbishops and bishops — both Catholic and 
 Protestant ; many untitled clergymen, of almost every denomination, 
 and Jewish Rab' is, have alike shown their belief and their interest iu 
 the subject." 
 
 207 
 
208 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 A foreign correspondent writing from London, for the 
 Boston Commonwealth, informed its readers that — 
 
 " It had been publicly stated and not denied, that John Stuart 
 Mill had become a convert to Spiritualism. Certainly the Spiritualists 
 have an imposing; catalogue of names to present before England : 
 Ruskin, Mill, Wilkinson. Dr. Whately, William and Mary Howitt, Mr. 
 and Mrs. S. C. Hall, and (it is said) Frederick Tennyson. Doubtless, 
 the majority of these have been helped to this conversion by the 
 extreme reaction against Positiveness and Atheism, with a violent 
 yearning to find something beyond the grave other than the ' desolate 
 perhaps.'" 
 
 The Roman Catholic Guardian, St. Louis, Missouri, pub- 
 lished, Sept. 1868, a pastoral letter from Bishop Yiviers, 
 relating to the jplanchette and spiritual manifestations. Here 
 follow extracts of confession and warning : 
 
 " Doubtless there are relations between the intelligence of men and 
 the supernatural world of spirits. These relations are necessary; 
 they are all sweet and consoling to the poor creature exiled in this 
 valley of tears. But God has not given us the power of communica- 
 tino- with the other world by any and every way, which human impru- 
 dence might avail itself of * * * 
 
 " To wish to penetrate it in any other manner, (than the church pre- 
 scribes) to seek to discover by natural means the hidden mysteries of 
 heaven, or the terrible secrets of hell, is the most foolish and culpahle 
 of undertakings ; this is to make an attempt to disturb the order of 
 providence and to make useless efforts to over-step the limits imposed 
 on our present condition. * * * 
 
 " What shall we say to them who fear not to address hell itself, in 
 order to call from it the spirit of Satan ? For it is that cunning spirit 
 which most ordinarily plays the principal part in these manifestations ! 
 Certainly, we ourselves do not doubt the fatal intervention of the fallen 
 angels in human affairs. * * * 
 
 " All idolatrous worship was but an incessant communication with 
 demons. Socrates conversed with his familiar spirit; Pythagoras 
 believed in the soul of the world, which animates, according to him, 
 the different spheres, as the soul animates the body. The poet Lucan 
 has described the mysteries which were used to enter into relation with 
 the manes of the dead ; and, in times yet more remote, souls from the 
 other world were invoked to demand the revelation of hidden things. 
 
 '• But," continues the vigilant pastor a long time before the mul- 
 titude of facts which have been developed from so many quarters, and 
 under so many observing eyes, were able to demonstrate to him the 
 extraordinary frequency of the action of these malicious and perfidious 
 invisible beings, " if there is but little belief in the presence of these 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — WITNESSES. 209 
 
 spirits which they invoke by means of the tables, they should be not 
 less certainly convinced that these experiments are one of the thousand 
 ruses o£ Satan to cause souls to perish/' 
 
 The following is from the New York Independent : 
 
 " Spiritualism is holding up its head in London. The Davenport 
 Brothers, by their physical manifestations, are exciting a greater sensa- 
 tion than Mr. Hume did. He conversed with spirits — or, at all events, 
 claimed to have the power of spiritual intercourse. * * * It cannot 
 be denied that Spiritualism has made many converts in this country, 
 and that some of the most estimable of our literary men and women, 
 like the Howitts, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, and Mr. Robert Bell, are 
 believers in what I suppose one must call this strange delusion. Mary 
 Howitt's last new story — ' The Cost of Caergwyn ' — which contains 
 some charming sketches of Welsh life and character, is made weird-like 
 and unnatural by all sorts of ghostly incidents. After all, this is better 
 than the other extreme — that sea of unbelief, to which many of our 
 finest intellects are drifting. Everything denotes a period of transition 
 and change, and I suppose all will come out right in the end." 
 
 The [N'ew York Leader, under the caption — '' Spiritualism 
 looking up," — quotes from Robert Bell's able contribution to 
 the Cornhill Magazine, and sagely maintaining that the matter 
 of Spiritualism is " deserving of earnest attention," con- 
 cludes a very, fair article with the following remarks : 
 
 *' The phenomena witnessed by Robert Bell, were witnessed at the 
 same time by Dr. Gully, the eminent physician of Malvern ; by the 
 eminent Dr. Collier, of London, and by other persons distinguished for 
 the social positions they have attained by learning, genius, ability, and 
 vigor of mind. WilMam Hewitt, the author, has seen and vouches 
 marvels equally startling. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, a Minister of 
 State; Newton Crossland, one of our most successful lecturers and 
 arutest annotators; Parker Snow, of the Arctic expedition; Mr. and 
 Mrs. S. G. Hall, celebrated in literature ; Sir David Brewster, Dr. Bird, 
 Lord Brougham, and many others of equal note, are all believers in the 
 spiritualistic theory. It is also known that Louis Napoleon is a firm 
 and ardent student of these phenomena, and that he received many 
 messages through Mr. Hume, purporting to emanate, and believed by 
 him to emanate, from the spirit of Napoleon the First." 
 
 The Kew York Herald, devoting nearly a column, awhile 
 since, to the influence and prospects of Spiritualism, admits 
 that — 
 
 " Ever since the Fox girls, of Rochester fame, commenced those 
 knockings that made so much noise in the world, this subject has 
 
210 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 occupied at intervals the attention and invited the investigation of 
 many scientific minds all over the world. Such men as Lord Lynd- 
 hurst, Lord Brougham, Sir David Brewster, and others, took much 
 interest in it. Some people claimed that these distinguished men were 
 believers ; others asserted that they were confirmed skeptics. No 
 matter for that : they thought the subject worth looking into, like 
 a great many other people. * * * It is said that even Queen 
 Victoria consulted the Davenports, and we know that Louis Napoleon 
 has for a long time been pursuing his star in the stances of the 
 American Spiritualist, Home, 
 
 " The movement is a growing one, strictly democratic, popular in its 
 character, and revolutionary in its nature, and defiant towards the 
 prevailing theology of the age. Its influence is felt in the jury-box, 
 the ballot-box, the bench, the press, the platform, the pulpit, and even 
 our national council halls. It asserts the great Protestant principle of 
 the right of each man to judge for himself, become his own Evangelist, 
 and get to heaven his own way. It presents the strange anomaly of 
 meetings without a ministry, worship without churches, conventions 
 without delegates, halls and fluent speakers that they pay for, and yet 
 without church edifices, funded property or real estate — without ordi- 
 nations, convents, colleges or creeds, written or implied. Spiritualists 
 as a body act together, and even now have become a great power in 
 this country ! " 
 
 On another occasion it published an account, saying — 
 
 ■"• The capital of Peru has been recently (August 7th) thrown into 
 some commotion by a pastoral letter of its Archbishop, addressed to his 
 flock, in reference to magnetism, Spiritualism, rappings and other phe- 
 nomena, which had lately received a good deal of attention among the 
 Peruvians." 
 
 This Church dignitary stoutly affirms, that it is " all the 
 work of the devil." 
 
 The Bound Table, aristocrat among the 'New York week- 
 lies, and one of the most astute and critical periodicals 
 published in the country, says — 
 
 " This question of Spiritualism has been suggested anew to us 
 through reading an account of a ' mysterious disappearance in Cincin- 
 nati, Ohio.* * * * 
 
 " We take for our point of departure an extract from a letter written 
 in the autumn of 1852, by Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, of Providence, 
 R. I., to Horace Greeley. Mr. Greeley heads the extract wit^i a note to 
 this eff'ect: 'The writer has received the following letter from Mrs. 
 Sarah H, Whitman, in reply to one of inquiry from him as to her own 
 experience in Spiritualism, and especially with regard to a remarkable 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — WITNESSES. 211 
 
 experience, cunoutly reported as having occurred to Hon. James F. 
 Simmons, late United State Senator from Rhode Island, and widely 
 known as one of the keenest and clearest observers, most unlikely to be 
 the dupe of mystery or the slave of hallucination. Mrs. Whitman's 
 social and intellectual eminence are not so widely known ; but there 
 are very many who know that her statement needs no confirmation 
 whatever.' 
 
 " By the way, Mr. Simmons was in the Senate for another term after 
 that writing, and he was looked up to as one of the ablest, most prac- 
 tical, and most upright of its members. It may be not improper for us 
 to state, in the same connection, that we have examined some corres- 
 pondence with Mrs. Whitman relative to the knowledge of her mani- 
 festations. She states therein that her attention was called to the 
 mystery in the latter part of the year 1849, about three months before, 
 (mark this,) before any intelligence had reached her of the singular 
 exhibitions in Rochester, She noticed the sounds (gentle tappings, 
 they were near the hour of midnight, while she was alone in her cham- 
 ber) for the first time after the death of a friend. This friend was a 
 boy by the name of Albert Helm, about ten years of age. He came to 
 his death by drowning near noon of the day preceding the night on 
 which the raps were heard. But to Mr. Greeley's letter : 
 
 ' Dear Sir — I have had no conversation with Mr. Simmons on the 
 subject of your note until to-day. I took an early opportunity of 
 acquainting him with its contents, and this morning he called on me to 
 say that he was perfectly willing to impart to you the particulars of his 
 experience in relation to the mysterious writing i:>erformed under the 
 very eyes^ in broad day liyht^ by an invisible agent. 
 
 ' In the fall of 1850, several messages were telegraphed to Mrs. 
 Simmons through the electric sounds, purporting to come from her 
 step-son, Jas. D. Simmons, who died some weeks before in California. 
 The messages were calculated to stimulate curiosity and lead to an 
 observation of the phenomena. Mrs. Simmons, having heard that 
 messages in the hand-writing of deceased persons were sometimes 
 written through the same medium, asked if her son would give her 
 this evidence. She was informed (through the sounds) that the 
 attempt should be made, and was directed to place a slip of paper in a 
 certain drawer at the house of the medium, and to lay beside it her own 
 pencil, which had been given her by the deceased. Weeks passed, and 
 although frequent inquiries were made, no writing was found on the 
 paper. 
 
 ' Mrs. Simmons happening to call at the house one day, accompanied 
 by her husband, made the usual inquiry and received the usual answer. 
 The drawer had been opened not two hours before, and nothing was 
 seen in it but the pencil lying on the blank paper. At the suggestion 
 of Mrs. Simmons, however, another investigation was made, and on the 
 paper were found a few pencil lines, resembling the hand-writing of the 
 deceased, but not so closely as to satisfy the mother's doubts ?Irs. 
 
212 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 SimmoB^s handed the paper to her husband; he thought there was a 
 slight i9sembhince, but would probably not have remarked it had the 
 writing been casuall}^ presented to him. Had the signature been given 
 him, he should at once have decided on the resemblance. He proposed, 
 if the spirit of his son were indeed present, as alphabetical communi- 
 cations received through the sounds affirmed him to be, that he should, 
 then and there, affix his signature to the suspicious document. 
 
 ' In order to facilitate the operation, Mrs. Simmons placed the closed 
 points of a pair of scissors in the hand of the medium and dropped her 
 pencil through one of the rings or bows, the paper being placed 
 beneath. The hand presently began to tremble, and it was with diffi- 
 culty it could retain its hold of the scissors. Mr. Simmons then took 
 the scissors into his own hand and dropped the pencil through the ring. 
 It could not readily be sustained in this position. After a few moments, 
 however, it stood as if firmly poised and perfectly still. It then began 
 slowly to move. Mr. Simmons saw the letters traced beneath his eyes — 
 the icords. James D. Simmons, were distinctly and deliberately written, 
 and the hand-writing ivas a fac-sim.ile of his son's signature. 
 
 'But what Mr. Simmons regards as the most astonishing part of this 
 seeming miracle is yet to be told. Bending down to scrutinize the 
 writing more closely, he observed, just as the last word was finished, 
 that the top of the pencil leaned to the right. He thought it was 
 about to slide through the ring; but, to his infinite surprise, he saw the 
 point slide slowly back along the word ' Simmons,' till it rested over the 
 letter i, when it imprinted a dot. This was a puctilio utterly unthought 
 of by him — he had not noticed the omission, and was therefore entirely 
 unprepared for the amendment. He suggested the experiment, and he 
 thinks it had kept pace only with his will or desire ; but how will those 
 who deny the agency of disembodied spirits in these marvels, ascribing 
 all to the unassisted powers of the human will, or to the blind action 
 of electricity — how will they dispose of this last significant and curious 
 fact ? 
 
 ' The only peculiarity observable in the writing was that the lines 
 seemed sometimes slightly broken, as if the pencil had been lifted, then 
 set down again. 
 
 ' One other circumstance I am permitted to note, which is not readily 
 to be accounted for on any other than spiritual agency. Mr. Simmons, 
 who received no particulars of his son's death until several months after 
 his decease, proposing to send for his remains, questioned the spirit as 
 to the manner in which the body had been disposed of, and received a 
 very minute and circumstantial account of the means which had been 
 resorted to for its preservation, it being at the time unburied. Im- 
 probable as some of these statements seemed, they were, after an inter- 
 val of four months, confirmed as literally true by a gentleman then 
 recently returned from California, who was with young Simmons at the 
 period of his death. Intending soon to return to California, he called 
 on Mr. Simmons to learn his wishes in relation to the final dispositioD 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — WITNESSES. 213 
 
 of his remains. The above particulars I took down in writing, by the 
 permission of Mr. Simmons, during his rehition of the facts.* 
 
 " This case we have given as a fair representative of a c.iss of cases 
 — as one among a thousand similar ones, which have been testified to by 
 tens of thousands of witnesses whose candor, truthfulness and common 
 sense touching a usual occurrence, would not be disputed for a moment. 
 Then, we may be allowed to offer it as a particular subject for consid- 
 eration, just as if it embraced the whole matter seeking discussion and 
 decision. We think it better so than otherwise; because anyone, more 
 especially any one who is not much in the habit of arguing, can do his 
 cause fuller justice while confining himself to particulars, than he can 
 when going off into generalities — he is apt, in the latter way, to lose 
 himself and his argument. 
 
 " Well, what exactly is the pith of the cause before us ? It is this : It 
 in effect is affirmed by many thousand witnesses, who ordinarily would be 
 reckoned trustworthy by any court in Christendom, that a certain piece 
 of information had been imparted to them in a certain way. There is not 
 the shadow of a reason for supposing that they — the witnesses — were 
 not in full possession of their every-day senses at the time of the phe- 
 nomena. They had broad day light and every other natural facility for 
 those senses to be normally impressed. The communication was written 
 by no visible hand — by the hand of no one of themselves present. The 
 chirography is that of no one present; but it does bear a i'uW fac-sinu'le 
 resemblance to that which they have been familiar with, of a person 
 whom they knew at the time to be away from among them. There was 
 no possibility for the substance of the communication through common 
 means to be known to them at the time it was given. That substance 
 was proved afterward, upon normal evidence, to be the actual substance, 
 both in general and in detail, of an actual event. Then, here is shown, 
 unmistakably, an act, committed by no discoverable natural instrument, 
 and presided over by an intelligence, by mind, which is outside of, apart 
 from, distant from anybody within the neighborhood of the committal. 
 
 " And now comes the point which we desire to hold out to view, and 
 upon which, as upon a pivot, all discussion touching the matter ought 
 to turn. It is this : Where and what is that intelligence ? Those tens 
 of thousands of witnesses have been led, not hastily, but gradually, 
 after careful sifting and weighing of evidence, to the conclusion that it 
 is no other than the spirit which has dwelt heretofore in the body now 
 departed. They find confirmation of their belief in their Bibles, which 
 tell them distinctly of departed spirits not only, but of the returning 
 of the same to earth. In that conclusion they are fixed firmly, rightly, 
 according to sound law, until such time as their opponents shall array 
 evidence equally strong to sustain their own contrary theory, whatever 
 that may be. If they maintain that intelligence to be, for example, 
 slectricity, they are bound to exhibit to the actual eyesight the produc- 
 ing battery and the conducting wires, and to reveal precisely how it 
 
214 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALIvSTS. 
 
 happsned that the battery came into possession of just those materials 
 out of which to brew electricity, such as should be identical with the 
 knowledge possessed by a particular body before it parted with its spirit. 
 If they hold the intelligence to be mesmerism, it devolves upon them 
 to point out the niesmerizer^ to explain how he manages to throw from 
 his own mind into that of another, information which never was in his 
 mind, and how he handles the pencil. Hence the burden of the proof 
 is upon the negative. Let her or him who will take the negative bring 
 forth the proof." 
 
 Tie Scientific American, a rightly named and widely circu- 
 lated paper, writes editorially of the Planchdte : 
 
 " You may hold a conversation with planchette, provided your own 
 part in it consists in interrogation. Its replies, so far as we have seen, 
 are sometimes true and sometimes false. So are the replies given by 
 human respondents. It sometimes refuses to write at all, and plays the 
 most fantastic tricks, in apparently wilful disregard of the feelings of 
 those who are anxious that it should do its best. * * * These 
 motions seem to those whose fingers rest upon the board to be entirely 
 independent of their own wills, their only care being to avoid any 
 resistance to its motions. The fact that it is impossible to suppose that 
 the wills of two persons could be, by their own desire, mutually co- 
 incident, without previous agreement^ forms one of the most puzzling 
 features of the subject, as the nature of the question asked and 
 answered precludes the possibility of collusion." 
 
 "The spirit with which scientific men have looked upon these phe- 
 nomena, (denominated Spiritualism) has been unfortunately such as has 
 retarded their solution. Skepticism as to their reality, although cor- 
 roborated by evidence that would be convincing upon any other subject, 
 refusal to investigate, except upon their own conditions, and ridicule 
 not only of the phenomena themselves, but of those who believe in 
 them, have marked their course ever since these manifestations have 
 laid claim to public credence. Such a spirit savors of biyotnj. The 
 phenomena of table-tipping, spirit-rapping (so called), and the various 
 manifestations which many have claimed to be the efiect of other wills 
 acting upon and through the medium of their persons, are exerting an 
 immense influence, good or bad, throughout the civilized world. They 
 should, therefore, be candidly examined, and if they are purely phys- 
 ical phenomena, as has been claimed, they should be referred to their 
 true cause. This is due to truth, and the common duty which all owe 
 to their fellow men. Nothing that afi'ects the welfare of mankind 
 should be considered beneath the notice of a true philosopher. What 
 incalculable benefit might have resulted if the same amount of study 
 had been given to the subject of witchcraft, at the time of its occur- 
 rence, that has since been bestowed upon it. When such things become 
 matters r ' history, there are always enough who do not think it derog- 
 atory to their dignity to devote their time to speculation upon theii 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — WITNESSES. 216 
 
 causes. How much wiser is it to throw aside prejudice, and to look at 
 the facts themselves in a spirit of candor and earnest desire for truth." 
 
 The Herald and Review^ a religious journal, writes edito- 
 rially of the progress of the spiritual movement in this 
 style : 
 
 *• We often hear the remark, ' Spiritualism is dying out.' Whenever 
 we hear one make such a statement, we are led to think at once. Did 
 you know what it is doing, you would take back that saying, and stand 
 aghast at its gigantic strides. He might as well have said, Popery was 
 dying out in the thirteenth century, because very little noise was made 
 about it. The reason was, there were scarcely any left to oppose, hence 
 all was comparatively quiet. Spiritualism has already planted its sen- 
 timents so firmly, and generally, in church and state, that the victory 
 is nearly complete. The opposition is now very feeble, like that of a 
 dying man in his last moments. 
 
 " We do not say that the great body of the church and state are yet 
 avowed Spiritualists; but that the sentiments of Spiritualists, more or 
 less, are being adopted by the masses." 
 
 This, though perhaps an unwilling, is a true manly 
 confession. 
 
 Thus are these literati, scientists and sectarists forced to 
 concede to Spiritualism a wonderful destiny of use in every 
 department of earth's government. When the ocean moves 
 in unchainable tides, all the bays and coves fill up to over- 
 flowing. Every soul is moved by the inflowing tides oi 
 inspiration. All are pushed forward. Even opposition 
 reacts into acceleration. " He maketh the wrath of man to 
 prai&o Him." 
 
ChAPTEI^^ XXIII. 
 
 CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 
 
 " Out of the strong, came forth sweetness." — Judg. 14 : 14, 
 
 •' In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established/ - 
 Matt. 18 : 16. 
 
 " I give you the end of a golden string : 
 Only wind it into a ball, 
 It will lead you in at Heaven's gate, 
 , That invitingly ope's for all," 
 
 The ideal is the prophetic. It precedes, in orderly series, 
 the objective actual. The finest human types, moulding the 
 present, are but dwarfs of those promised men, yet to crown 
 the ages with ineffable splendor. Out from the evolutions of 
 a life divine and circular, are continually being born leaders 
 and witnesses for the people. The good abounds everywhere. 
 Progress is universal. The rock that one civilization fails 
 to crush, crumbles into soil to nourish the roots of the 
 succeeding. The bee extracts sweets from thistles and 
 thorn-blossoms. At the tolling of church-bells on Sunday 
 mornings, there stream from old barreled sermons many glit- 
 tering truths. Piercing through the sophistries of specu- 
 lation, the lifeless skepticism of science, and the corpse- 
 incrustations of creeds, there are living, regeneratir g forces 
 at work in the most hidden avenues of society. Angels 
 seek and minister to all conditions of mortality. The clergy, 
 overshadowed by an inspiration that stirs the divinity within, 
 
 216 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 217 
 
 often preach better than they believe — wiser than their con- 
 fessions of faith warrant. As in apostolic times, a " rushing 
 wind," a descending afflatus from circling bands of spirits, 
 sometimes completely overmasters them. They then speak 
 as with tongues of fire, and their words touch the heart, the 
 conscience and the reason. 
 
 Souls thus kindled from the love-flames of heaven, pulsate 
 in harmony with the infinite Over-Soul, Spirit answers to 
 the spiritual. Partially intromitted, at times, into the realm 
 of that quickening inner life, as was John, of Patmos, '* on 
 the Lord's day," the better portion of American preachers 
 often preach Spiritualism; admitting the reality of its phe- 
 nomena, and the truth of much or all of its philosophy. 
 
 Rev. H. W. Beecher's testimony : 
 
 " Oh, tell me not that the fathers of this Republic are dead — that 
 generous host, that airy army of invincible heroes. They hover as a 
 cloud of witnesses above this nation. Are they dead that yet speak 
 louder than we can speak, and a more universal language ? Are they 
 dead that yet act ? Are they dead that yet move upon society, and 
 inspire the people with nobler motives and more heroic patriotism ? " 
 
 In one of his practical sermons, delivered on the 8th of 
 Jan., 1867, he says: 
 
 " Our field of conflict is different from that on which men oppose 
 each other. It comprises the whole unseen realm. All the secret 
 roads, and paths, and avenues, in which spirits dwell, are filled with a 
 great invisible host. These are our adversaries. And they are all the 
 more dangerous because they are invisible. Subtle are they. We are 
 unconscious of their presence. They come, they go; they assail, they 
 retreat; they plan, they attack, they withdraw; they carry on all the 
 processes by which they mean to suborn or destroy us, without the 
 possibility of our seeing them. 
 
 '^ I confess to you, there is something in my mind of sublimity in the 
 idea that the world is full of spirits, good and evil, who are pursuing 
 their various errands, and that the little that we can see witu. these 
 bats' eyes of ours, the little that we can decipher with these imperfect 
 senses, is not the whole of the reading of those vast pages of that 
 great volume which God has written. There is in the lore of God 
 more than our philosophy has ever dreamed of. 
 
 " An evil spirit may be consummately refined, may be inspired. Our 
 first thought in contemplating this subject is. that an evil spirit laiist 
 
•218 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 be a vulgar thing Doubtless there are vulgar spirits ; but it does not 
 follow at all that spirits who are most potential, and most to be feared, 
 are vulgar. On the contrary, where spirits are embodied, it is supposed 
 that those who are the most cultured are the most powerful for evil. 
 
 "The perversion of moral ideas — the suborning of all things to sel- 
 fishness — the want of truth and equity — the corruption of religion — 
 these things are inexplicable on any other supposition than that there 
 are mighty powers at work above the agencies of nature, and beyond the 
 will of men ; that there are spirits of wickedness that are abroad in 
 the world, and that render life UDSafe. 
 
 " On the other hand, I believe that there are angels of light, spirits 
 of the blessed, ministers of God. I believe, not only that they are our 
 natural guardians, and friends, and teachers, and influencers, but also 
 that they are natural antagonists of evil spirits. In other words, I 
 believe that the great realm of life goes on without the body very much 
 as it does with the body. And, as here the mother not only is the 
 guardian of her children whom she loves, but foresees that bad asso- 
 ciates and evil influences threaten them, and draws them back and 
 shields them from the impending danger; so ministering spirits not 
 only minister to us the diviuest tendencies, the purest tastes, the noblest 
 thoughts and feelings, but, perceiving our adversaries, caution us against 
 them, and assail them, and drive them away from us. 
 
 " The economy, in detail, of this matter, no man understands. All 
 we can say is, in general, that such antagonism exists ; that there are 
 spirits that seek our good, and other spirits that seek our harm ; that 
 that there are spirits that seek to take us to glory, and honor, and 
 immortality, and other spirits that seek to take us to degradation.*' 
 
 In another discourse reported in the ]S"ew York Independ- 
 ent^ he employed the following unmistakable language. The 
 quotations are introduced without any special view to their 
 logical connection. Mr. Beecher himself is a stranger to 
 the logic of the schools : 
 
 " There is an atmosphere of the soul as well as an atmosphere of 
 nature. In the atmosphere of the soul, God sometimes brings down 
 the divine landscape, heavenly truths, so clearly that the soul rests 
 upon them as upon a picture let down. 
 
 " Out of the dust and din and mist and observations of life, there 
 come moments when God permits us to see, in a second, further, wider, 
 and easier, than by ordinary methods of logic we can see in a whole life. 
 Do I undervalue logic when I say that it is inferior to intuition ? Intu- 
 ition^ when at white heat, teaches a man in a single moment more than 
 logic ever teaches him. Logic constructs the walls of thought, throws 
 up ramparts, and lays out highways; but it never discovers. Logic 
 merely builds, fortifies, demarks. The discovering power is intuition. 
 There are certain times when parts of the mind lift themselves up with 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 219 
 
 a kind of celestial preparation, and we see and think and feel more in 
 a single hour than ordinarily we do in a whole year. And however 
 useful and needful reasoning may be, as compared with these sudden 
 insights, it is scarcely to be mentioned with respect. 
 
 " Ordinarily we are under the influence of the things which are seen. 
 In our lower life we must be under the influence of sense. But now 
 and then, we know not how, we rise into an atmosphere in which spirit- 
 life, God, Christ, the ransomed throng in heaven, virtue, truth, faith 
 and love, become more significant to us, and seem to rest down upon us 
 with more force, than the very things which our physical senses recog- 
 nize. There have been times, in which I declare to you. heaven was 
 more real than earth; in which my children that were gone spoke more 
 plainly to me than my children that were with me ; in which the blessed 
 estate of the spirits of just men made perfect in heaven, seemed more 
 real and near to me than the estate of any just man upon earth. These 
 are experiences that link, one with another and a higher life. They 
 are generally not continuous, but occasional openings through which we 
 look into the other world. ***** These glimpses of the 
 future state are a great comfort and consolation to all those who are 
 looking and waiting for that development of perfect manhood." 
 
 This clergyman doing an immense work for freedom and 
 religious progress, should not be too severely criticised by 
 such uncompromising progressionists as were fortunate 
 enough to snap their ecclesiastical fetters at a single bound. 
 Though contradictory, though his clerical trumpet often 
 gives an "uncertain sound," he is a grand man with a warm 
 heart and an inspirational brain. Pardon him, then, for 
 occasionally "falling from grace," to flounce, at intervals, 
 in the miry clay of his childhood catechism. The history of 
 mediumship furnishes many similar cases. 
 
 Kev. E. H. Chapin's testimony : 
 
 In a masterly discourse, entitled '* the voices of the dead," 
 this eminent pulpit orator breathed these words of cheer. It 
 is Universalism just blooming into Spiritualism — faith smiling 
 at its first glimpse of knowledge : 
 
 " Well, then, is it for us at times, to listen to the voices of the dead. 
 By so doing we are better fitted for Hfe and for death. From that 
 audience we go purified and strengthened into the varied discipline of 
 our mortal state. We are willing to Uay^ knowing that the dead are so 
 near us, and that our communion with them may be so intimate. We 
 
220 DOCTRINES OP SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 are willing to go, seeing that we shall not be wholly separated from 
 those we leave behind. We will toil in our lot while Grod pleases, and 
 when he summons us we will calmly depart." 
 
 Referring to certain moods and " consecrated nours," he 
 adds: 
 
 " Then, though dead, they speak to us. It needs not the verbal 
 utterance, nor the living presence, but the mood that transforms the 
 scene, and the hour supplies these. That face that has slept so long in 
 the grave, now bending over us, pale and silent, but affectionate still — 
 the more vivid recollection of every feature, tone, and movement, that 
 brings before the departed just as we knew them, in the full flush of 
 life and health — that soft and consecrating spell which falls upon us, 
 drawing in all our thoughts from the present, arresting, as it were, the 
 current of our being, and tuniing it back, and holding it still, as the 
 flood of which rushes by us — while in that trance of soul, the beings 
 of the past are shadowed — old friends, old days, old scenes recur, 
 familiar looks beam close upon us, familiar words re-echo in our ears, 
 and we closed up and absorbed with the by-gone, until tears dissolve 
 the film from our eyes, and some shock of the actual wakes us from our 
 reverie ; — all these, I say, make the dead commune with us as really 
 as though in bodily form they should come out from their mysterious 
 silence and speak to us. And if life consists in experience, and not mere 
 physical contacts — and if love and communion belong to that expe- 
 rience, though they take place in meditation, or dreams, or by actual 
 contact — then, in that hour of remembrance, we have really lived with 
 the departed, and the departed have come back and lived with us." 
 
 Rev. Theodore Parker's testimony : 
 
 This individual, so self-poised and towering in intellect, 
 was the man-colossus among American clergy. Ascended 
 he is living and speaking still, through our media. Assum- 
 ing that revelation was no green-house exotic, but perpetual 
 as cycling ages, and that inspiration, native to the postures 
 of the soul, is cognate with the races, he propagated a 
 religious philosophy that will stream in increasing beauty 
 through all the future eras of free thought. His grave is a 
 Mecca under the mellow skies of Florence. Considered 
 mentally he was thoroughly self-conscious of his greatness. 
 
 " Tend this head well," says Mirabeau, on his death-bed; 
 " it is the greatest head in France." '^ God gave me great 
 powers," says the expiring Parker, " and I have but half 
 
MODERN .SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 221 
 
 used tliem." The coincidence was singular, while saying 
 in his last hours — " There are two Theodore Parkers, the 
 one here sick and struggling, the other at work at home." 
 There was a friend reading at the time one of his great 
 sermons in Music Hall. There were " two Theodore Par- 
 kers " — the shadow and the substance, for man is dual, aye, 
 trinal. The papers thought him "wandering a little." The 
 Jews evidently thought Paul w^as " wandering " when 
 " caught up to the third heaven," not knowing whether he 
 was in the body or out. 
 
 In thought and speech, relative to the Spiritual Philosophy, 
 he was manly and heroic. In notes made for a sermon we 
 tiud the following : 
 
 " In 1856 it seems more likely that Spiritualism would become the 
 religioa of America, than in 156 that Christianitj^ would become the 
 religion of the Roman empire, or in 756 that Mohammedanism would 
 be that of the Arabian populations : 
 
 "1. It has more evidence for its wonders than any historic form of 
 religion hitherto. 
 
 " 2. It is thoroughly democratic, with no hierarchy ; but inspiration 
 is open to all. 
 
 " 3. It is no fixed fact — has no punctum stans, but is a punctum 
 Aliens. 
 
 "4. It admits all the truths of religion and morality in all the world- 
 sects." 
 
 "• Shall we know our friends again ? For my own part I cannot doubt 
 it; least of all, when I drop a tear over their recent dust Death does 
 not separate them from us here. Can life in heaven do it? " 
 
 The succeeding paragraphs we transcribe from Wm. How- 
 
 itt's " History of the Supernatural." Who but Theodore 
 Parker could have written thus upon Spiritualism ? 
 
 "Let others judge the merits and defects of this scheme; it has 
 never organized a church — yet, in all ages, from the earliest, men have 
 more or less freely set forth its doctrines. We find these men amongst the 
 despised and forsaken ; the world was not ready to receive them. They 
 have been stoned and spit upon in all the streets of the world. The 
 ' pious ' have burned them as haters of God and man ; the wicked called 
 them bad names and let them go. They have served to flesh the swords 
 of the Catholic Church, and fed the fires of the Protestants; but flames 
 and steel will not consume them ; the seed they have sown is quick in 
 many a heart — their memory blessed by such as live divine. These are 
 
1^22 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 men at whom the world opens wide the mouth, and draws out the tongue, 
 and utters its impertinent laugh ; but thej received the fires of God on 
 their altars, and kept living its sacred flame. Thej go on, the forlorn 
 hope of the race ; but Truth puts a wall of fire about them, and holds 
 the shield over their heads in the day of trouble. The battle of truth 
 seems often lost, but is always won. Her enemies but erect the blood 
 scaffolding where the workmen of Grod go up and down, and, with 
 divine hands, build wiser than they know. When the scaffolding falls 
 the temple will appear." * * 
 
 " This party has an idea wider and deeper than that of the Gatholio 
 or Protestant; namely, that God still inf^pires men as much as ever; 
 that he is imminent in spirit as in space. For the present purpose, and 
 to avoid circumlocution, this doctrine may be called Spiritualism. This 
 relies on no church tradition, or scripture, as the last ground and infal- 
 lible rule. It counts these things teachers, if they teach — not masters; 
 helps^ if they help us — not authorities. It relies on the divine presence 
 ia the soul of men — the eternal word of God, which is Truth, as it 
 speaks through the faculties he has given. It believes God is near the 
 soul as matter to the sense ; thinks the canon of revelation not yet 
 closed, nor God exhausted. It sees him in Nature's perfect work ; 
 hears him in all true Scriptures, Jewish or Phoenician ; feels Him in 
 the inspiration of the heart; stoops at the same fountain with Moses 
 and Jesus, and is filled with living water. It calls God, Father, not 
 King; Christ, brother, not redeemer; Heaven, home; Religion, Nature! 
 It loves and trusts, but does not fear. It sees in Jesus a man, living, 
 man-like ; highly gifted and living with blameless and beautiful fidelity 
 to God — stepping thousands of years before the race of men — the pro- 
 foundest religious genius that God has raised up; whose words and 
 works help us to form and develop the native idea of a complete reli- 
 gious man. But he lived for himself, died for himself, worked out his 
 own salvation^ and we must do the same; for one man cannot live for 
 another, more than he can eat or sleep for him. It lays down no creed, 
 asks no symbol, reverences exclusively no time nor place, and therefore 
 can use all time and every place. It reckons forms useful to such as 
 thpy help. Its temple is all space, its shrine the good heart, its creed 
 all truth, its ritual works of love and utility, its profession of faith a 
 divine life, works without faith^ within love of God and man. It takes 
 all the helps it can get ; counts no good word profane, though a heathen 
 spoke it — no lie sacred, though the greatest prophet had said the word. 
 Its redeemer is within^ its salvation within^ its heaven and it oracle of 
 God. It falls back on perfect religion — asks no more, is satisfied with 
 no less.'* 
 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe's testimony : 
 While walking among the trees that surrounded the Aber- 
 deen Cathedral, immortals seemed to accompany this truly 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 223 
 
 inspired woman and author. In "Sunny Memories," she 
 wrote : 
 
 " I cannot get over the feeUng that the souls of the dead do some 
 how connect themselves with the places of their former habitation j 
 and that the hush and thrill of spirit, which we feel in them, may be 
 owing to the overshadowing presence of the invisible. 8t. Paul says, 
 ' we are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses ; ' but how can 
 they be witnesses if they cannot see and be cognizant ? " 
 
 From one of her articles relating to the E"ew Year, we 
 select a few of the more touching paragraphs. As signifi- 
 cant of the subject, she commenced with this poetic quotation ; 
 
 "It is a beautiful belief, 
 
 That ever round our head 
 Are hovering, on viewless wings, 
 The spirits of the dead." 
 
 " One of the deepest and most imperative cravings of the human 
 heart, as it follows its beloved ones beyond the veil, is for some assur- 
 ance that they still love and care for us. As a German writer beauti- 
 fully expresses it, 'Our friend is not wholly gone from us; we see 
 across the river of death, in the blue distance, the smoke of his cot- 
 tage;' hence the heart, always suggesting what it desires, has ever 
 made the guardianship and ministration of departed spirits a favorite 
 theme of poetic fiction. 
 
 " But is it, then, fiction ? Does revelation, which gives so many hopes 
 which nature had not, give none here ? Is there no sober certainty to 
 correspond to the inborn and passionate craving of the soul? Do 
 departed spirits in verity retain any knowledge of what transpires in 
 this world, and take any part in its scenes ? All that revelation says 
 of a spiritual state is more intimation than assertion ; it has no distinct 
 treatise, and teaches nothing apparently of set purpose, but gives vague, 
 o-lorious images, while now and then some accidental ray of intelligence 
 looks out — • 
 
 * Like eyes of cherubs shining 
 From out the veil that hid the ark.' 
 
 " But out of all the different hints and assertions of the Bible, we 
 think a better inferential argument might be constructed to prove the 
 ministration of departed spirits, than for many a doctrine which has 
 passsed in its day for the height of orthodoxy. ^ ^ 
 
 '' What then? May we look among the band of ministering spirits 
 for our own departed ones? Whom would God be more likely to send 
 us? Have we in heaven a friend who knew us to the heart s core .'' a 
 friend to whom we have confessed our weaknesses and deplored our 
 
224 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 griefs ? If we are to have a ministering spirit, who better adapted '{ 
 Have we not niemories which correspond to such a belief? When our 
 soul has been east down, has never an invisible voice whispered, ' There 
 is lifting up ? ' Have not gales and breezes of sweet healing thought 
 been wafted over us, as if an angel had shaken from his wings the 
 odors of paradise ? Many a one, we are confident, can remember such 
 things. And whence come they ? 
 
 ''But again — there are some spirits (and those of earth's choicest) 
 to whom, so far as enjoyment to themselves or others is concerned, this 
 life seems to have been a total failure. A hard hand from the first, 
 and all the way through life, seoms to have been laid upon them ; they 
 seem to live only to be chastened and crushed, and we lay them in the 
 grave at last in mournful silence. To such, what a vision is opened by 
 this belief! 
 
 "They have overcome, have risen, are crowned, glorified; but still 
 they remain to us, our assistants, our comforters, and in every hour of 
 darkness their voice speaks to us : ' So we grieved, so we struggled, so 
 we doubted; but we have overcome, we have obtained, we have seen, 
 we have found ; and in our victory behold the certainty of thy own." 
 
 In a poem clipped from the IN'ew York Independent^ she 
 writes her clairaudient experiences in Spiritualism, in lines 
 thus sweet and tender : 
 
 '♦Those halting tones that sound to you 
 Are not the tones I hear ; 
 But voices of the loved and lost 
 Now greet my longing ear. 
 
 I hear my angel mother's voice ; 
 
 Those were the words she sung ; 
 I hear my brother's ringing tones, 
 
 As once on earth they rung. 
 
 And friends that walk in white above 
 
 Come 'round me like a cloud. 
 And far above those earthly notes 
 
 Their singing sounds aloud." 
 
 Rev. Wm. E. Channing's testimony : 
 
 " I live, as did Simeon, in the hope of seeing a brighter day. I do 
 Bee gleams of dawn, and that ought to cheer me. I hope nothing from 
 increased zeal in urging an imperfect, decaying form of Christianity. 
 One higher, clearer view of religion rising on a single mind, encourages 
 me more than the organization of millions to repeat what has been 
 repeated for ages with little effect. The individual here is mightier 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 225 
 
 than the world ; :iud I have the satisfaction of seeing aspirations after 
 this purer truth, ^h * * * y^e need not doubt the fact, that 
 angels whose home is heaven, visit our earth, and bear a part in our 
 transactions; and we have good reason to believe that if we obtain 
 admission into heaven, we shall still have opportunity, not only to return 
 to earth, but to view the operation of God in distant spheres, and be 
 his ministers in other worlds." 
 
 Bayard Taylor's testimony : 
 
 Referring, in the New York Mercury, to '' mysterious 
 incidents," happening upon the Pacific coast, and in other 
 countries, as singular personal experiences of his own, Mr. 
 Taylor writes : 
 
 *' Let skeptical, hard, matter-of-fact men talk as they may, there is a 
 lingering belief in the possibility of occasional communication between 
 the natural and the supernatural — the visible and the invisible world — 
 inherent in human nature. There are a few persons whose lives do not 
 contain at least some few occurrences, which are incapable of being 
 satisfactorily explained by any known laws — remarkable presentiments, 
 coincidences, and sometimes apparitions, even, which seem to be beyond 
 the reach of accident or chance, and overcome us with a special wonder." 
 
 " It was, perhaps, an hour past midnight, along the foot-hills of the 
 Nevadas, when, as I lay with open eyes gazing into the eternal beauty 
 of Night, I became conscious of a deep, murmuring sound, like that 
 of a rising wind. I looked at the trees; every branch was unmoved — 
 yet the sound was increased, until the air of the lonely dell seemed to 
 vibrate with its burden. A strange feeling of awe and expectancy 
 took possession of me. Not a dead leaf stirred on the boughs; while 
 the mighty sound — a choral hymn, sung by ten thousand voices- 
 swept down over the hills, and rolled away like retreating thunder over 
 the plain. It was no longer the roar of the wind. As in the wander- 
 ing prelude of an organ melody, note trod upon note with slow, majes- 
 tic footsteps, until they gathered to a theme, and then came in the 
 words, simultaneously chanted by an immeasurable host: ' Vivani 
 terrestrise ! ' The air was filled with the tremendous sound, which 
 seemed to sweep near the surface of the earth, in powerful waves, 
 without echo or reverberation. 
 
 " Suddenly, far overhead, in the depths oi' the sky, rang a single, 
 clear, piercing voice of unnatural sweetness. Beyond the reach of 
 human organs, or any human instrument, its keen alto pierced the 
 firmament like a straight white line of electric fire. As it shot down- 
 ward, gathering in force, the vast terrestrial chorus gradually dispersed 
 irito silence, and only that one unearthly sound remained. It vibrater^ 
 slowly into the fragment of a melody, unlike any which had ever reached 
 my ears — a long undulating cry of victory and of joy; while the words 
 ' Vivat Caelum ! ' were repeated more and more faintly, as the voice 
 15 
 
226 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 slowly with 3rew, like a fading beam of sunset, into the abysses of the 
 stars. Then all was silent. I was undeniably awake at the time, and 
 could recall neither fact, reflection, nor fancy of a nature to suggest 
 the sounds. * * >i= Hqw does one faculty of the brain act, so far 
 beyond our conscious knowledge, as to astound us with the most 
 unexpected images ? Why should it speak in the Latin tongue ? How 
 did it compose music — which would be as impossible for me as to write 
 a Sanscrit poem ? " 
 
 Rev. G. H. Hepworth's testimony : 
 
 As a representative of liberal Unitariauism, this clergyman 
 has few superiors. His sainted mother, a medium, lived and 
 passed to the better-land a confirmed Spiritualist. In a 
 funeral sermon, after Mr. Hepworth had cited sundry cases 
 of mediumship in the Scriptures, the case of Joan of Arc, 
 Socrates, Luther, Swedenborg and Indian medicine men, he 
 remarked : 
 
 " I have been greatly interested in the new sect, or denomination, 
 that has come into existence in the last few years. Its members call 
 themselves Spiritualists. Fifteen years ago they were laughed at; now^ 
 who laughs at them? Then, few had ever heard of such a system of 
 doctrines; now, they number their converts by millions — they tell me 
 that there are six millions of believers, so-called, in the United States 
 alone — and these converts belong to all classes of society, from the 
 poorest to the richest and most learned. They have thirty journals 
 devoted to the propagation of their faith. They have a library of five 
 hundred volumes advocating their sectarianism. The moment your eye 
 glances over these figures, you ask, Why is this ? The answer is plain ; 
 first, because the doctrine of communion has put off" its oppressive robes 
 of selfishness and personal aggrandizement, and put on the white garments 
 of good news to the world ; and second, because nothing is more evident 
 to my mind than that the world longs to believe, and needs to believe, 
 something of this sort. It is essential to our religious well-being. The 
 very minute that terrible desolation enters a house and robs the family 
 of a loved member, leaving as a sacred memento of the past only the 
 ' vacant chair,' the holiest part of our human natures looks up to 
 heaven with a dim, vague expectation, with a belief that has never 
 taken a definite shape, perhaps, that though we cannot see them, they 
 do see and know us. * * * * I have the very firmest faith in 
 that kernel of inspiration which has given to the sect all its value, the 
 assertion that heaven is close to us, and that its inhabitants walk the 
 earth both when we wake and when we sleep. It seems to me that this 
 truth is at the centre of all true religion; and when I bid the sect God- 
 speed, it is with the grateful feeling that it is reviving the forgotten 
 truth which the prophets and the Christ himself have taught us. Yes, 
 I do believe in this possible communion with all my heart." 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 227 
 
 Rev. a. D. Mayo's testimony : 
 
 When pastor of the Unitarian Church, hi Albany, N. Y., 
 Mr. Mayo, in an excellent article on "Transcendentalism 
 and Spiritualism," expressed his convictions thus definitely: 
 
 " Transcendentalism has been confined to the circles of the cultivated, 
 though in many ways it is helping to form the national theology. This 
 hiibit of thinking on religion, which has been ridiculed in every Evan- 
 gelical pulpit and newspaper as the essence of absurdity and infidelity, 
 is simply the American cultivated rendering of the words of Jesus — 
 ' The kingdom of God is within you.' It is a protest against the ban- 
 ishment of God from nature and the soul ; an assertion that the Deity 
 lives in America as he did in Palestine, and underlies our conscious- 
 ness as surely as that of Moses and Isaiah. To it we are indebted for 
 the substitution of the simple doctrine of Jesus concerning Universal 
 Inspiration, in place of the worn-out machinery of the orthodox Holy 
 Spirit. * * * But it is not as a body of people interested in mes- 
 meric media, that this large religious denomination, now numbering 
 4,000,000 of disciples, chiefly concerns the observer of American theol- 
 ogy, but as an exhibition of the popular tendencies of thought on 
 religion. Spin'tuulism is a natural awakening of the American masses 
 to the doctririe of the Immortal Life taught hy Jesus. This movement 
 is mightily shaking the American church ; severing great ecclesiastical 
 bodies, rending churches, depopulating fashionably furnished temples, 
 and every year coming up with increased assurance to demand of the 
 popular theology an account of its stewardship. A portion of the 
 churches have welcomed it, and we will be saved by their wisdom; but 
 woe to the sect or church that sets its face against it. It is not to be 
 stayed by criticism from a theological or aesthetical point of view. 
 We shall learn out of it what it means in the 19th century to helicvc in 
 the immortality of the soid ; and it will be found that this doctrine will 
 come to us fraught with vaster relations, suggesting larger duties, and 
 elevating with nobler aspirations, than to the darkened masses of the 
 early ages of Heathenism or middle ages of Christianity. * * * 
 Invisible hands leave upon our tables gifts of faith and deathless love 
 and immortal hope, of which our fairest Christmas flowers and our 
 greenest wreaths are but withered and vanished types. The pavement 
 is thronged with a mighty host that crowds no hasty passenger, and 
 speaks in no audible voice, but all the time holds sweet converse with 
 the hearts of them that go to and fro. The school and the senate, and 
 the places where men congregate for the serious work of life, have their 
 empty chairs ; empty to our mortal vision, yet to the eye of the soul 
 filled with forms of unearthly wisdom and dignity and grace. I preach 
 not to-day to this congregation alone; but this church is thronged and 
 overflowed, yea, the whole air is populous with an audience you cannot 
 see; for every beloved spirit that has left its mark on mine, and every 
 weary and stricken soul that I have tried in feebleness to help, and 
 
228 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 every countenance that only for once has gleamed out in spiritual recog- 
 nition from the strangest crowd ; all who have heard my words on earth 
 will hear them no more ; all whose words I have heard for the last time 
 in this valley of mortality, all are here to-day." 
 
 When a few more of the " Rulers of the Pharisees have 
 believed " — when a few more esteemed great, gifted and 
 reputable, as guaged by the world's standard, openly avow 
 their knowledge of a future existence through modern spir- 
 itual phenomena, certain clergy will re-affirm their once 
 brave utterances breathed in moments of inspiration, and 
 stoutly aver that early in the resurrection morning of Amer- 
 ican Spiritualism, they were present and among the first to 
 proclaim it as a *' natural awakening of the masses to the 
 doctrine of immortality ! ** Spiritualists must keep their 
 chain of historic records bright against that prophetic day, 
 when the "priests of my people shall be brought into 
 judgment." 
 
 Eev. Gr. W. Skinner's testimony : 
 
 " No matter what explanation we may give thereof, the facts of what 
 is called modern Spiritualism have ever been in existence. To deny 
 them is idle; to ignore them is trifling; to ridicule them is to exhibit 
 our own weakness. 
 
 " What shall we do with the facts ? The records of all times 
 mention them ; the Bible is full of them ; they are said to be happen- 
 ing all about us to-day. The movement of modern Spiritualism, by 
 some, is supposed to rest solely on these phenomena. This question of 
 Spiritualism will yet be a greater disturbing element in the religious 
 world than it is at present. These wonderful facts will interest the 
 curious and engage the attention ->f the candid; and from them much 
 light may be shed on obscure natural laws. The intelligent masses of 
 America want more rational ideas of God, of the scul, and of our 
 future life." 
 
 Rev. G. S. Gowdy's testimony: 
 
 " I have no means of determining definitely what portion of our 
 Universalist preachers are Spiritualists. * * ^ * Pop one, I 
 believe that .y)irits communicafe with mortals. I have not changed my 
 mind upon this subject since my controversy with Bro. Hunt." 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 229 
 
 Rev. Dr. Eli Ballou's testimony : 
 
 " We believe it as probable that all angels in the spirit-world, or in 
 the spheres above us, were once men in the flesh ; and that when 
 necessary, and under favorable circumstances, angels from the world of 
 spirits have and <lo communicate with the spirits in the flesh." 
 
 Rev. Adin Ballou's testimony : 
 
 On page 38, of a volume published by this clergyman, 
 several years since, is found this clear statement — 
 
 "So, then, there is an exquisitely subtle element * * * * communi- 
 cable from one soul to another, under appropriate conditions, and thereby 
 the two souls come into rapport^ as the French call it, or soul-communi- 
 cation. The process whereby this is efiected is called mesmerising, 
 magnetizing or psychologizing. Its results are mesmeric and psycho- 
 logical phenomena of every grade and variety, from the lowest som- 
 nambulism, to the highest clairvoyance. Again, I ask, does the objector 
 believe in all this as demonstrable between human spirits in the flesh ? 
 Yes. Very well; so do I. * * * I have laid down, as a part of 
 my doctrine, that these mesmeric, clairvoyant, and psychological phe- 
 nomena sometimes proceed from spirits in the flesh, and sometimes from 
 departed spirits; always, however, in accordance with spiritual laws, 
 common, more or less to the whole universe of souls. I have also taken, 
 the position that phenomena caused by souls in the body sometimes mix 
 with those caused by departed souls, and that thus the loicer are liable 
 to be mistaken for the higher. Here I am but one step ahead of the 
 objector in my credulity. He believes in marvels, utterly incredible to 
 himself a few years ago, caused by mesmerism, clairvoyance, and psy- 
 chological influence, exerted by soul on soul in the flesh. Having been 
 strained up by irresistible evidence to this height of faith, he now 
 obstinately denies that departed spirits ever mesmerise, magnetize, or 
 spiritize susceptible persons in the body; that they ever exert psycho- 
 logic influences over them to render them media ; that they ever cause 
 ant/ of the phenomena purporting to be spirit manifestations. Wh}^ ? 
 Because mesmerism, clairvoyance, and psychological influence take place 
 between soul and soul in the body, and these may possibly account for 
 all higher phenomena of the same nature. Most lame and impotent 
 conclusions ! Some of the phenomena in question may be thus accounted 
 for, but not the more important and peculiarly distinctive manifestions. 
 ^ ^ ^ Departed spirits have a higher mesmeric, magnetic, or psy- 
 chologic power than have mortals of a corresponding grade. Facts have 
 proved this in many remarkable cases. It will yet be demonstrated to 
 the co:viction of all candid investigators." 
 
230 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Rev. J. P. Sanford's testimony : 
 
 Those reading the " Monthly Clarion^'' received this infor- 
 mation from the Rev. Moses Hull — 
 
 " The last time we saw Mr. Sanford, (a Universalist clergyman) of 
 Iowa, he told a large audience in our tent that he was a Spiritualist. 
 Said he : ' Persons may, by the aid of their index finger, succeed in 
 turning up their noses at Spiritualists, but it is too late in the day to 
 think of hooting four millions of people down.' " 
 
 Rev. H. a. Reid's testimony : 
 
 '• The real and living verity of the future life and the spirit-world is 
 a doctrine which can appeal confidently to the Bible, to history, and to 
 science, for its substantial proof and reasonable confirmation. 
 
 '' That the inhabitants of the spirit-realm, both good and bad, can 
 and do, under some circumstances, manifest themselves to persons still 
 in the flesh, is a doctrine of nature, taught most distinctly in the Bible, 
 and proven by the concurrent testimony of every race of mankind, in 
 all ages of the world. 
 
 " In the spirit world, those having similar tastes, loves and desires, 
 good or bad, associate together by spontaneous mutual attraction or 
 affinity. And each spirit is known by ali the rest precisely \s it is, 
 with all its goodness or all its badness unmistakeably discerned by 
 every one." 
 
 Rev. Dr. Fisk's testimony : 
 
 " God, he said, has use or employment for all the creatures he had 
 made : for every saint on earth, for every angel in heaven. He would 
 that none be idle. He has a mission for every one. Angels and arch- 
 angels, cherubims and seraphims, patriarchs and prophets, apostles and 
 reibrmers, and all the holy hosts of heaven, are his ministering spirits, 
 frequently dispatched to minister unto the strangers and sojourners of 
 earth. He sends forth these spirits to guide and guard his contrite 
 children through the wilderness world to their promised place at his 
 right hand. 
 
 " Oh, consoling doctrine ! Angels are around us. The spirits of the 
 departed good encamp about our pathway. Who knows how many 
 times the sainted spirit of Paul has been our guardian-angel, protecting 
 and defending us. Who can tell how often Marah's humble spirit has 
 surrounded our thorny pathway, strewing it with heavenly flowers and 
 the golden fruits of the tree of life, and perfuming the itmosphere we 
 breathe with celestial fragrance. 
 
 '* Who knows how frequently the sainted spirits of Benson and 
 Watson and Clarke have hovered over our minds, directing them to the 
 Bound doctrines of the Gospel of Truth ; and how often has the fervent 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND ITERARY. 231 
 
 spirit of Wesley inspired us with zeal, and the spiiit of Luther with 
 holy boldness to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the 
 saints. And how often has Bunyan's blessed spirit lingered around our 
 path, to lead us on to God. And who knows, brethren, but it is the 
 inspiring spirit of the flaming Whitefield, or Hall, or Chalmers, that 
 sometimes sets on fire our stammering tongues with heavenly eloquence." 
 
 Rev. H. Elkin's testimony : 
 
 " The Bible is full of these revelations, sights and manifestation?, 
 and if we believe the Bible, why is it not as easy to believe that spirits 
 can communicate with men now as anciently ? If spirits ever could 
 appear unto men, they can to-day. If man ever had intercourse with 
 spirits he may to-day ; but no doubt certain physiological and psychial 
 conditions are necessary, else all men could hold intercourse. Not all 
 men anciently could commune with spirits. Not all men at the present 
 time can commune with spirits. But the same faculty which aided 
 them to see and commune with spirits anciently, can, if rightly devel- 
 oped, aid them to-day ; and modern manifestations are as real as ancient 
 ones. 
 
 " Spiritualism comes to the aid of the church and they reject it. It 
 supplies to atheists and infidels the lacking evidence of immortality, and 
 they receive it. It thus resembles Christianity in its first movements, 
 which was rejected by professedly religious men. The doctrine of 
 immortality must ultimately rest upon proof, or be rejected. And if 
 all the phenomena attending the modern movement be accounted for on 
 physiological grounds, without the intervention of spirits, ancient phe- 
 nomena will have to pass the same ordeal and receive the same sentence. 
 Whatever physiological law will account for involuntary polyglot speak- 
 ing and writing modernly, will account for the speaking in unknown 
 tongues anciently. Whatever physiological law will account for the 
 modern prophecies, gifts of healing, revelations^ poems, hymns and 
 doctrines, will account for the ecstacies, prophecies, gifts of healing, 
 &c., in ancient times. Whatever physiological law will account for the 
 apparitions, or the seeing of spirits, lights, hearing of music, &c., 
 modernly, will account for the visions and voices heard anciently. 
 Whatever physiological law will account for the lifting and moving of 
 tables, pianos, &c. by invisible power, modernly, will account for the 
 unbarring of the doors of Paul's prison anciently. Whatever physio- 
 logical law will account for John Hocknel's seeing Ann Lee's spirit 
 when it left the body, wafted upward in a golden chariot drawn by 
 white horses, and scores of similar cases, when spirits have been seen to 
 leave their earthly bodies, wafted upward by a convoy of angels, mod- 
 ernly, will account for the translation of Enoch, and Elijah, and the 
 ascension of Christ, anciently. Whatever physiological law will account 
 for Henry Gordon's being carried through the air, by inviBible power 
 from a sofa, across the room, and put upon a bed, modernly, will account 
 for Jesus' walking upon the sea, anciently." 
 
232 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Rev. J. H. Tuttle's testimony : 
 
 This Uuiversalist clergyman, reviewing a camp-meeting 
 discourse of the Rev. Mr. Mattison, says, inquiringly: 
 
 " How do 3'ou KNOW that the soul, when it leaves the body, departs 
 far away ? and does not return ? Solomon says the ' Spirit shall return 
 unto God who gave it — is GoD so far away ? One would think so 
 from the screaming effort your brethren on the camp-ground made to 
 enable him to hear their prayers! In the Bible, we can point out 
 numerous instances where spiritual beings talked and communed with 
 mortals; where, too, they assumed a form and were visible. If spirits 
 cannot return, how did Moses and Elijah appear to Peter, James and 
 John on the Mount ? If you reply that this, and other instances of 
 the kind mentioned in the Bible, were special interpositions of Provi- 
 dence, exceptions to a general law, we ask again. How do you know 
 this ? An angel appeared to John the revelator. (See Rev. 22, 8th.) 
 If you reply that this was not a spirit which had once been in the fle.sh, 
 then we ask you to read the following and learn your mistake : ' And 1 
 John saw these things, and heard them; and when I had heard and 
 seen, I fell down, to worship before the feet of the angel, which showed 
 me these things. Then saith he unto me, see thou do it not: for I am 
 thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the Prophet)^, and of them which 
 keej-) the sayings of this hook:' Paul, in Heb. 1st, 14th, says: 'Arc 
 they not all, (i. e. angels,) ministering spirits, sent forth to minister 
 '.into them who shall be heirs of salvation?' From these, and other 
 passages, it is plain that spirits do come and minister unto us; and 
 therefore, we have little regard for the speculations of man to the 
 contrary." 
 
 Rev. W. Ker's testimony : 
 
 The gentleman criticising this clergyman's recently pub 
 lished work, pens the following meaning paragraph : 
 
 " The writer of these pages has, for a length of time, bestowed great 
 attention upon the subject, and is in a position to affirm with all confi- 
 dence, from his own experience and repeated trials, that the alleged 
 phenomena of Spiritualism are, by far the most part, the products 
 neither of imposture nor delusion. They are true, and that to the 
 fullest extent. Nay, the marvels which he himself has witnessed in the 
 private retirement of his own home, with only a few select friends, and 
 without having even so much as ever seen a public medium, are in many 
 respects fully equal to any of the startling narratives which have 
 appeared in print. He has found that there is an intelligence behind, 
 or under, those varied manifestations, which can read our inmost 
 thoughts; can in many cases truly predict coming events; can tell what 
 maybe at the moment passing in distant places; can answer mental 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 283 
 
 questions; and which, in his experience, has not only replied coirectly 
 to those queries, but even to the secret thoughts and unspoken desires 
 which gave rise to them." 
 
 Washington Irvinq's testimony; 
 
 "What could be more consoling than the idea, that the souls of those 
 wo once loved were permitted to return and watch over our welfare ? — 
 that affectionate and guardian spirits sat by our pillows when we slept, 
 keeping a vigil over our most helpless hours ? — tluit beauty and inno- 
 cence which had languished into the tomb, yet smiled unseen around 
 us, revealing themselves in those blessed dreams and visions wherein 
 we live over again the hours of past endearments ? A belief of this 
 kind would, I think, be a new incentive to virtue, rendering us circum- 
 spect, even in our most secret moments, from the idea that those we 
 once loved and honored were invisible witnesses of all our actions. 
 
 " I see nothing in it (Spiritualism) that is incompatible with the 
 tender and merciful nature of our religion, or revolting to the wishes 
 iiud affections of the heart. 
 
 " My mind has been crowded by fancies concerning these beings. 
 Are there indeed such beings ? Is this space between us and the Deity 
 filled up by innumerable orders of spiritual beings, forming the same 
 gradations between the human soul and divine perfection that we see 
 prevailing from humanity down to the merest insect ? It is a sublime 
 and beautiful doctrine of the early fathers, that there are guardian 
 angels appointed to watch over cities and nations, to take care of good 
 men, and to guard and guide the steps of helpless infancy. Even the 
 doctrine of departed spirits returning to visit the scenes and beings 
 which were dear to them during the body^s existence, though it has 
 been debased by the absurd superstitions of the vulgar, in itself is 
 awfully solemn and sublime." 
 
 Charlotte Bronte's testimony : 
 
 The biographer of this talented writer, Mrs. Gaskell, 
 epeaking of her mode of composition in "Jane Eyre," says : 
 
 " I remember, however, many little particulars, which Miss Bront<S 
 gave me, in answer to my inquiries respecting her mode of composition, 
 &c. She said that it was not every day that she could write. Some- 
 times weeks, or even months, elapsed, before she felt that she had any- 
 thing to add to that portion of her story, which was already written 
 Then, some morning she would waken up, and the progress of her tal« 
 lay clear and bright before her in distinct vision." 
 
234 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 These extracts, selected almost at randon., reveal hei 
 mediumsliip and Spiritualism : 
 
 " Presentiments are strange things ! and so are sympathies ; and so are 
 signs. I never laughed at presentiments in my life ; because 1 have had 
 strange ones of mi/ own. * * * 
 
 " Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible 
 world and a kingdom of spirits : that world is around us, for it is every- 
 where ; and those spirits watch us, fur they are commissioned to guard 
 us ; and if we were dying under pain and shame, if scorn smote us on 
 all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognize our 
 innocence, (if innocent we be,) and God waits only the separation of 
 spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we 
 ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and 
 death is so certain an entrance to happiness — to glory?" 
 
 Her biographer makes the farther record: 
 
 " Some one conversing with her once objected, in my presence, to 
 that part of Jane Eyre^ in which she hears Rochester's voice crying 
 out to her in a great crisis of her life, he being many, many miles 
 distant at the time. I do not know what incident was in Miss Bronte's 
 recollection, when she replied, in a low voice, drawing in her breath, 
 ' But it is a true thing; it really happened.' " 
 
 Horace Greeley's testimony : 
 
 !N"oting the *' Recollections of a busy Life," this politician 
 and conservative moralist, in reference to attending spiritual 
 seances with 'N. P. Willis, M'lle Jenny Lind, and others 
 honored in the literary and musical world, writes : 
 
 " I never saw a ' spirit hand,' though persons in whose veracity I 
 have full confidence assure me that they have done so, But I have sat 
 with three o-thers around a small table, with every one of our eight 
 hands lying plainly, palpably, on that table, and heard rapid writing 
 with a pencil on paper, which, perfectly white, we had just previously 
 placed under that table ; and have, the next minute, picked up that 
 paper with a sensible, straight-forward message of twenty to fifty words 
 fairly written tliereon. I do not say by whom, or by what said message 
 was written ; yet I am quite confident that none of the persons present, 
 who were visible to mortal eyes, wrote it. * * 
 
 "The 'mediums* are often children of tender years, who had no 
 such training, have no special dexterity, and some of whom are known 
 to be awkward and cluTusy in their movements. The jugglery hypoth 
 esis utterly fails to account for occurrences which I have personally 
 witnessed, to say nothing of others. 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. '235 
 
 " The failures of the ' mediums ' were more convincing to my m'.nd 
 than their successes. A juggler can do nearly as well at one time as 
 another; but I have known the most eminent ' mediums' npend a long 
 evening in trying to evoke the ' spiritual phenomena,' without a gleam 
 of success. I have known this to occur when they were particularly 
 anxious — and for obviously good reasons — to astound and convince 
 those who were present and expectant; yet not even the faintest ' rap' 
 could they scare up. Had they been jugglers they could not have 
 failed so utterly, ignominiously. * =i'- * All that we have learned 
 of them (the spirits) has added little or nothing to our knowledge, 
 unless it be enabling us to answer with more confidence, that old, 
 momentous question, If a man die, shall he live again ? The only 
 certain conclusion to which my mind has been led in the premises, is 
 forcibly set forth by Shakespeare in the words of the Danish prince : 
 
 ' There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
 Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' " 
 
 Margaret Fuller's testimony: 
 
 " As to the power of holding intercourse with spirits emancipated 
 from our present sphere, we see no reason why it should not exist, and 
 do some reason why it should rarely be developed, but none why it 
 should not sometimes. These spirits are, we all believe, existent some- 
 how ; and there seems to be no good reason why a person in spiritual 
 nearness to them, whom such intercourse cannot agitate or engross so 
 that he cannot walk steadily in his present path, should not enjoy it 
 when of use to him." 
 
 Gerritt Smith's testimony : 
 
 1^0 mortal — brave, free and generous as this life-long 
 reformer — could be a sectarist. Referring to his " Sermons 
 and Speeches" — p. 39-40 — we find this statement; 
 
 " We are charged with being Spiritualists. Some of us are, and 
 some of us are not Spiritualists. But what if we all were — still might 
 we not all be Christians ? To be a Spiritualist — that is, to believe that 
 spirits can communicate with us — is no proof that a man is, or is not, a 
 Christian. His cordial reception, as evidenced in his life, of the great 
 essential moral truths which come to him, whether in communications 
 from spirits or from any other source — this, and this alone, proves that 
 he is a Christian. If Spiritualism has been the occasion of harm to 
 some, nevertheless there are others in whom it has wrought good. We 
 have neighbors, whose religious life has been greatly improved by their 
 interest in Spiritualism. * * * A favorite, and certainly a \ery 
 winning doctrine of the Spiritualists, is that a wicked man attracts wicked 
 spirits, and a good man good ones. How protective, purifying^ and every 
 
236 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 way happy, must be its iujluence on him who truly believes it! IIoic 
 efficient the motive it furnishes to avoid a bad and pursue a good life ! 
 * * I must not fail to add, iu this coanection, that the Spiritualists 
 I met iu my tours through the State, last fall, were uearly all reformers. 
 They had broken off from both political and ecclesiastical parties, and 
 were earnestly and openly devoting themselves to the abolition of sec- 
 tarianism, slavery, intemperance, and other wrongs. I have no doubt 
 that, in proportion to their numbers, Spiritualists cast tenfold as many 
 MOtes for the abolition and temperance ticket as did others. Surely 
 such a fact is highly commendatory of the influence of Spiritualism. 
 
 Mrs. Stanton, of the Revolution, writing of a visit to Mrs. 
 Qerritt Smith and her sanctuary sacred to angel converse, 
 
 says : 
 
 " This is x\nn Fitzhugh, the wife of Grerritt Smith, and this is the 
 place where she communes with the invisible world, with the spirits of 
 just men and women made perfect through sufiering. Here she reads 
 Davis and Harris, and discusses the doctrines of modern Spiritualism 
 in which she is a firm believer." 
 
 William Lloyd Garrison's testimony: 
 
 ^' As the manifestations have spread from house to house, from city 
 to city, from one part of the country to the other, across the Atlantic 
 into Europe, till now the civilized world is compelled to acknowledge 
 their reality, however diverse in accounting for them — as these mani- 
 festations continue to increase in variety and power, so that all suspicion 
 of trick or imposture becomes simply absurd and preposterous — and as 
 every attempt to find a solution for them in some physical theory relat- 
 ing to electricity, the odic force, clairvoyance, and the like, has thus far 
 proved abortive — it becomes every intelligent mind to enter into an 
 investigation of them with candor and fairness, as opportunity may offer, 
 and to bear such testimony in regard to them as the facts may warrant, 
 no matter what ridicule it may excite on the part of the uninformed or 
 skeptical. As for ourselves, we have been in no haste to jump to a 
 conclusion in regard to phenomena so universally diffused and of so 
 extraordinary a character. For the last three years we have kept pace 
 with nearly all that has been published on the subject ; and we have 
 witnessed, at various times, many surprising ' manifestations ; ' and our 
 conviction is, that they cannot be accounted for on any other theory 
 than that of spiritual agency." 
 
 Rev. Dr. G. Townsend's testimony: 
 
 *' So completely has the skeptical philosophy of the day pervaded 
 society, that even 'Amon^ professed Christians^ he would now be esteemed 
 a visionary who si ould venture to declare his belief in this most favorite 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 237 
 
 tenet of the ancient Church. The early fathers regarded the ministry 
 of angels as a consolinj^ and beautiful doctrine, and so much at that 
 time was it held in veneration, that the founders of Christianity cau 
 tioned their early converts against permitting their reverence to degen- 
 erate iuto adoration. We now go to the opposite extreme, aud seldom 
 think of their existence; yet what is to be found in this belief, even if 
 the Scriptures had not revealed it, which is contrary to reason?" 
 
 Rev. Dr. A. Barne's testimony ; 
 
 " In this doctrine, the ministry of spirits, there is nothing absurd. 
 It is no more impossible that angels should be employed to aid men, 
 than that one man should aid another; certainly not as impossible as 
 that the Son of God should come down not to be ministered unto, but 
 to minister. Angelic ministration ' constitutes the beauty of the moral 
 arrangements on earth.' ' Is there any impropriety in supposing that 
 they do now ivhat the Bible says they ever have done?" 
 
 The London Times reported the Bishop as using the 
 following language, in a Sunday sermon, at Westminster 
 Abbey : 
 
 " There were many important lessons to be gathered from Jacob's 
 dream. The especial lesson taught was that God constantly controlled 
 our thoughts, and that we are constantly in connection with the world 
 of spirits, whilst we think we are far away amid earthly things. 
 He entreated those whose thoughts turned heavenward not to check 
 them, for they might be certain that they are enlightened by the same 
 glorious presences which cheered Jacob in the wilderness/' 
 
 Victor Hugo's testimony : 
 
 The exiled, yet loved ! Hugo's life has been a strange 
 one — so gentle, so rich and radiant. All nature seems to 
 have poured into him her tributary streams of imagery, 
 sympathy, beauty and poetry. Thus organized, it is impos- 
 sible for him to be other than a Spiritualist. In his " Toilers 
 of the Sea," he writes ; 
 
 " There is a time when the unknown reveals itself in a mysterious 
 way to the spirit of man. A sudden rent in the veil of darkness will 
 make manifest things hitherto unseen, and then close again upon the 
 mysteries within. Such visions have occasionally the power to effect a 
 transfiguration in those whom they visit. They convert a poor camel- 
 driver into a Mahomet; a peasant girl tending her goats into a Joan 
 of Arc. Solitude generates a certain amount of sublime exaltation. * 
 ♦ * A mysterious lucidity of mind results, which converts the student 
 
238 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 into a seer, and the poet into a prophet; herein we find a key -to the 
 mysteries of Horeb, and Elron, and Ombos ; to the intoxication of 
 Castalian laurels, the revelations of the month Biision. Hence, too, we 
 have Pelcia at Dodona; Phenionae at Delphos; Trophonius in Zebadea; 
 Ezekiel on the Chebar; and Jerome in the Thepais * * * Luther 
 holding converse with devils in his garret at Wittenburgh; Pascal 
 shuttinsr out the view of the infernal regions with the screen of his 
 cabinet ; the African Obi conversing with the white-faced God, Bossum, 
 are each and all the saine phenomena, diversely interpreted by the minds 
 in which they manifest themselves, according to their capacity and 
 power, Luther and Pascal were grand, and are grand still.'^ 
 
 In a funeral address delivered at the interment of Emily 
 De Putreu, this French author said most feelingly : 
 
 "Death is the greatest of liberties; it is also the furthest progress. 
 Death is a higher step for all who have lived upon its height. Dazzling 
 and holy every one receives his increase, everything is transfigured in the 
 light and by the light. He who has been no more than virtuous on earth 
 becomes beauteous ; he who has only been beauteous becomes sublime, 
 and he who has only been sublime becomes good. * >k h^ rj^-^Q gQ^l^ 
 the marvel of this great celestial departure which we call death, is here. 
 Those who that depart still remain near us — they are in a world of light, 
 but they as tender witnesses hover about our world of darkness. * * * 
 The dead are invisible, but they are not absent." 
 
 William Howitt's testimony : 
 
 This eminent man and distinguished author, so scholarly 
 in attainment and affluent in classical allusion, continually 
 testifies — a living apostle — to a present communion with the 
 spirit- world. He wrote thus vigorously last season to the 
 English Dunfermline Press: 
 
 * * "^ * " Sir — ^Who are the men who have in every country 
 embraced Spiritualism ? The rabble ? the ignorant ? the fanatic ? By 
 no means. But the most intelligent and able men of all classes. When 
 such is the case, surely it becomes the ' majority of reflecting men,' to 
 use the words of your editor, to reflect on these facts. Let numbers go 
 for nothing ; but, when the numbers add also first rate position, pre-emi- 
 nent abilities, largest experience of men and their doings, weight of moral, 
 religious, scientific, and political character, then the man who does not 
 look into what these declare to be truth, is not a reflecting, but a very 
 foolish and prejudiced man. Now, it is very remarkable that, when we 
 proceed to enumerate the leading men who have embraced modern Spir- 
 itualism, we begin also to enumerate the pre-eminent intellects and char- 
 acters of the age. In America you justly say that the shrewd and honest 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 239 
 
 A.braham Lincoln was a Spiritualist. He was a devoted one. So also 
 were, and are, the Hon. Eobert Dale Owen and Judge Edmonds ; so was 
 Professor Hare. You are right in all these particulars. In fact, almost 
 every eminent man in the American Grovernment is a Spiritualist. Gar- 
 rison, whom the anti-Spiritualists were so lately and enthusiastically fete- 
 ing in England, for his zealous services in the extinction of negro slavery, 
 is an avowed Spiritualist. Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York 
 Tribune^ a man whose masterly, political reasoning has done more than 
 any man to direct the course of American politics, is a Spiritualist. 
 Longfellow, the poet, now in England, and just treated with the highest 
 honors by the University of Cambridge, and about to be feted by the 
 whole literary world of England, is, and has long and openly been, a 
 Spiritualist. But I might run over the majority of the great names of 
 America. Turn to France. The shrewd Emperor, the illustrious Victoi 
 Hugo, the sage and able statesman Guizot, one of the most powerful 
 champions of Christianity, are Spiritualists. So is Garibaldi, in Italy. 
 In England, you might name a very long and distinguished list of men 
 and women, of all classes. Spiritualists. If you had the authority you 
 might mention names which would startle no little those who afiect to 
 sneer at Spiritualism. It is confidently said that a Spiritualist sits on 
 the throne of these realms, as we know that such do sit on those of the 
 greatest nations of Europe. We know that the members of some of the 
 chief ducal houses of Scotland, and of the noble houses of Ireland and 
 England, are Spiritualists. Are all these people likely to plunge their 
 heads and their reputations into an unpopular cause without first looking 
 well into it? But then, say the opponents, the scientific don't affect it. 
 They must greatly qualify this assertion, for many and eminent scientific 
 men have had the sense and the courage to look into it, and have found 
 it a great truth. The editor of the Dunfermline Press remarks on your 
 observations regarding Robert Chambers, that Chamhers' Journal of the 
 13th .of May last, has a certain article not flattering to Spiritualism. 
 True, but not the less is Bobert Chambers an avowed Spiritualist, and 
 boldly came forward on the Home and Lyon trial, to express his faith in 
 Mr. Home. The editor might quote articles in the Times, the Standard, 
 the Star, and the Daily Telegraph, against Spiritualism, yet it is a well- 
 known fact that on all these journals some of their ablest writers are 
 Spiritualists ; but is it not always prudent for a man to say what he is. 
 This is not an age in love with martyrdom. 
 
 ******** 
 
 " Numbers of scientific men have embraced Spiritualism. Dr. Hare, 
 mentioned by you, was a great electrician, rated by the Americans little, 
 if any, inferior to Faraday. He did exactly what people now want 
 scientific men to do. He thought Spiritualism a humbug, and went 
 regularly into an inquiry in order to expose it. But it did — as it has 
 'ione in every case that I have heard of, where scientific men have gone 
 candidly and fairly into the examination — after two years of testing and 
 proving, convince him of its truth. Dr. Elliotson, a very scientific 
 man, and for years violently opposed to Spiritualism, so soon as he was 
 
240 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 willing- to inquire, became convinced, and now blesses Grod for the know- 
 ledf'-e of it. Dr. Asliburner, his fellow editor of the Zoist, has also 
 lon^'- been an avowed Spiritualist. Mr. Alfred Wallace, a scientific 
 man and excellent naturalist, who was on the Amazon with Mr. Bates, 
 has published his conviction of its truth. Sir Charles Wheatstone, 
 some time ago, on seeing some remarkable phenomena in his own house, 
 declared them real. And just now, on the Home and Lyon trial, the 
 public have seen Mr. Yarley, a man of first rate science, the electrician 
 to the Electric and International and the Atlantic Telegraph Companies, 
 come forward and make affidavit of his having investigated the facts of 
 Spiritualism, and found them real. Now, after such cases, why this 
 continual cry out for examination by scientific men ? Scientific men of 
 the first stamp have examined and reported that it is a great fact. Sci- 
 entific men by the hundred and the thousand have done it, and yet the 
 crowd go on crying for a scientific man. Why ? Simply because it is 
 much easier to open their mouths and bleat as sheep do in a flock than 
 exert their minds and their senses. It is time that all this folly had an 
 end. There are now more Spiritualists than would populate Scotland 
 seven times over at its present scale of population ; and surely the testi 
 mony of such a multitude, including statesmen, philosophers, historians, 
 and scientific men, too, is as absolutely decisive as any mortal matter can 
 be. And pray, my good friend, don't trouble yourself that your neigh- 
 bors call you mad. You are mad in most excellent company. All the 
 great men of all ages who have introduced or accepted new ideas were 
 mad in the eyes of their cotemporaries. As I have said, Socrates and 
 Christ and St. Paul were mad ; Gralileo was mad ; De Cans was mad j 
 Thomas Gray, who first advocated railways, was declared by the Edin- 
 hurf/h Review mad as a march hare. They are the illustrious tribe of 
 madmen by whom the world is propelled, widened as by Columbus, and 
 enlightened as by Bacon, Newton, Des Cartes, and the rest of them, who 
 were all declared mad in their turn. And don't be anxious about Spir- 
 itualism. From the first moment of its appearance to this, it has moved 
 on totally unconcerned and unharmed amidst every species of opposition, 
 misrepresentation, lying, and obstruction, and yet has daily and hourly 
 grown, and spread, and strengthened, as if no such evil infiuences were 
 assailing it. Like the sun, it has traveled on its course unconscious of 
 the clouds beneath it. Like the ocean, it has rolled in billows over the 
 slimy creatures at its bottom, and dashed its majestic waves over every 
 proud man who dared to tread within its limits. And whence comes 
 this ? Obviously, from the hand which is behind it — the hand of the 
 Great Ruler of the Universe. For my part, having long perceived this 
 great fact, I have ceased to care what people say or do against Spirit- 
 ualism ; to care who believes or does not believe ; who comes into it or 
 stays out ; certain that it is as much a part of God's economy of the 
 universe as the light of the sun, and will, therefore, go on and do itg 
 work." 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 241 
 
 Robert Bell's testimony : 
 
 This distinguished dramatist, novelist and Spiritualist, of 
 England, wrote one of the most graphic notices ever penned 
 upon the subject of spiritual phenomena, describing the inci- 
 dents occurring in a seance of Mr. Home : 
 
 " This Mr. Thackeray, then editor of the Qornhill Magazine^ ventured 
 to publish in the eighth number of that journal (August, 1860), an 
 article entitled Stranger than Fiction. 
 
 " Mr. Thackeray, in a note, spoke of the writer ' as a friend of twenty- 
 five years standing, for whose good faith and honorable character he 
 would vouch.' Thackeray was himself a believer in Spiritualism, and 
 ,with good reason. He had, I am told, evidence of its reality in his own 
 family which made belief irresistible. Mr. Bell's narrative created great 
 commotion in the literary world. 
 
 " It is true that the writer was a man of good faith and honorable 
 character, who simply described what he and several others who were 
 present had seen in a lady's drawing-room. His assailants, however, 
 knew that it was a 'great imposture." Mr. Thackeray and Mr. Bell 
 thereafter kept their knowledge of spiritual subjects to themselves; but 
 Mr. Bell had become too firm a convert to be indifferent to the spread 
 of the great truth, and it was he who quietly got together the committee 
 which met in Mr. Boucicault's drawing-room to investigate the claims of 
 the Davenports; and that committee, composed of twenty-four leadino- 
 men in science and literature, it will be recollected, declared upon the 
 suggestion of Lord Bury, that ' there was no trickery in any form, no 
 confederates nor machinery, and certainly the phenomena which had taken 
 place in their presence were not the product of legerdemain ' " — London 
 Spiritual Magazine. 
 
 Rev. E. C. Towne's testimony : 
 
 Preaching the funeral sermon of the great and good John 
 Pierpont, poet reformer, and Spiritualist, Mr. Towne said : 
 
 '• Other men might speak of peace ; he loved it not less than they, but 
 so long as there was defiant wrong on every hand, he wished to be able 
 to say, ' I have fought the good fight — I have kept the faith.' He can 
 say this now, as few that lived with him can. The crown of the faithful 
 confessor is his. Higher than poet, scholar, or orator, stands the honest 
 man, with his valiant confession of holy truth. When his eloquence is 
 forgotten, when his verses are no more read, the undefiled integrity of 
 John Pierpont will shine like a star in the memory of men. 
 
 " Comparing our friend's position as a Spiritualist with that of a crowd 
 of most able men throughout Christendom who adhere to Romish or 
 Protestant orthodoxy, this confessor of faith, somewhat desoised stands 
 16 
 
42 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 high above them all. It is necessary here to put by the common and 
 Diore imperfect manifestations of Spiritualism, and also to concede to a 
 mail of able mind a large liberty of judgment. The common utterances 
 ui any faith would discredit it with one who had no sympathy with it. 
 If a man of mind and character adopts a faith which is supposed base- 
 less, it is necessary to assume that there may be some mistake in this 
 supposition. He would be singularly at fault who should think it neces- 
 sai-y to explain in the way of apology Mr. Picrpont's adherence to Spir- 
 itualism. The fact does not at all abate from his credit, but on the 
 contrary to his honor. 
 
 " It is too early to vindicate, without extended explanation, the provi- 
 dential significance of the movement known as Spiritualism. I am not 
 myself competent to adequately criticise this movement. But I have no 
 doubt whatever that it is to become the most living and most valuable 
 development of modern Christianity. It is working up from the people, 
 from those to whom no Chui'ch penetrated, and in the day of its full 
 power it will be a force in religious progress such as no Church has been. 
 It will bring to all the Churches new life, in faith, hope and love. The 
 day will come when the devotion of our friend to this movement will 
 mark him as one on whom a prophetic spirit rested. It was in the high 
 courage of a noble confessor that he took this step, as all the other great 
 steps of his life." 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, generally considered an infidel by 
 evangelical denominations, was a member of no church, and 
 made no profession of religion. His tendencies were all 
 towards Spiritualism and German Rationalism, as his real 
 heart-friends unhesitatingly testify. That he invited media 
 into his presence, attended seances^ and devoted not a little 
 time to the investigation of Spiritualism, none of even 
 ordinary information upon the subject deny. Judge Edmonds 
 delivering an oration in Hope Chapel upon the life of the 
 martyred President, spoke of his close sympathy with him 
 in that divine philosophy — the ministry of spirits. Mr. 
 Lincoln's frequent presentiments were to himself author- 
 itative prophecies : 
 
 " In Judge Pierpont's address to the jury at the Surratt trial, he said 
 he now came to a strange act in this dark drama — strange, though not 
 new — BO wonderful that it seems to come from beyond the veil that sepa- 
 rates us from death. It is not new, but it is strange. All governments 
 are of God, and for some wise purpose the Great Ruler of all, by pre- 
 sentiments, portents, bodings, and by dreams, sends some shadowy 
 .warning of a coming dawn when a great disaster is to befall a nation. 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 243 
 
 So was it in the days of Saul — when Caesar was killed — when IJrutus 
 died at Phillippi — so was it when Christ was crucified — so was it when 
 Harold fell at the battle of Hastings — so was it when the Czar was 
 assassinated — so was it before the bloody death of Abraham Lincoln, 
 President of the United States. In the life of Caesar, by De Quincy, in 
 the life of Pompey, by Plutarch, is given the portents that came to warn 
 Pompey. Here it is we find how Caesar was warned. We find it true 
 in all cases, and never in the whole history of the world has there been 
 a single instance when the assassins of the head of the movement have 
 not been brought to punishment. The assassin of a ruler never hah 
 escaped, though he has taken ' the wings of the morning and fled to th« 
 uttermost parts of the earth.' On the morning of April 14th, Mr. Lin- 
 coln called his cabinet together. He had reason to be joyful, but he was 
 anxious to hear from Sherman. Grant was here, and he said ' Sherman 
 was all right ; ' but Mr. Lincoln feared, and related a dream which he 
 had the night before — a dream which he had previous to Chancellors- 
 ville and Stone Kiver, and whenever a disaster had happened. The 
 members of the Cabinet who heard that relation will never forget it. 
 A few hours afterward Sherman was not heard from — but the dream was 
 fulfilled. A disaster had befallen the government, and Mr. Lincoln's 
 spirit returned to the God who gave it." 
 
 Incontrovertible evidences in confirmation of spiritual 
 presences in our midst to impress, inspire and communicate 
 — testimonies from clerical and literary gentlemen — from 
 poets, authors, priests, judges and honored senators — are 
 nearly as numberless as stars in the finnament. Put the 
 inquiry directly, however, to some of the clergymen — Do 
 you believe in Spiritualism ? — believe that departed spirits 
 communicate with friends on earth ? — and piously declaring 
 against " physical manifestations " by way of sprinkling a 
 few grains of incense upon the altar of a church-begging 
 respectability, they will answer — " We believe in the Bible 
 ministry of angels.'' Down on this slimy policy — this con- 
 summate cowardice ! Stirringly writes the English poet, 
 Q erald Massey ; 
 
 "Out of the light, ye Priests, nor fling 
 Your dark, cold shadows on us longer ! 
 Aside I thou world-wide curse, call'd king 1 
 The people's step is quicker, stronger. 
 There's a Divinity within 
 That makes men great, whene'er they will it t 
 
244 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 God works with all who dare to win, 
 And the time has come — to reveal it — 
 
 The People's Advent's coming I " 
 
 Spiritualism has incarnated itself into our literature, art, 
 music, philosophy and legislation ; and it gathers strength 
 and courtly symmetry as it sweeps through the land, destined 
 to become the universal religion of the enlightened world. 
 
 "They builded wiser than they knew ; 
 The conscious stone to beauty grew." 
 
^ 
 
 ECTURE VIII. 
 
 ExEGETICAL S 
 
 XEGETICAL pPIRITUALIS M. 
 
Phaptei\^ xxiy, 
 
 POETIC TESTIMONY. 
 
 "Sounding through the dreamy dimness 
 Where I faint and weary lay, 
 Spake a poet : ♦ I will lead thee 
 To the land of songs to-day.' 
 
 > >> 
 
 Sweet and heavenly sings the Poet Laureate of Enghard: 
 
 •How pure at heart and sound in head, 
 With what divine affections bold 
 Should be the man whose thought would hold 
 An hour's communion with the dead. 
 
 In vain shalt thou, or any, call 
 
 The spirits from their golden day. 
 
 Except, like them, thou too canst say 
 My spirit is at peace with all." 
 
 Exalted minds dwell in the element ot the spiritual. 
 The spiritual is the real. Poets are the soul's prophets, 
 UnUke metaphysicians, they give us the product of their 
 spiritual life and intuitive insight, and appeal to the con- 
 sciousness and deep sympathies of humanity for the verifi- 
 cation. Poets are divinity-appointed interpreters, employing 
 the shadows of the outer world to reveal the substance of the 
 world within. From the Yedic hymns of the Hindoos their 
 glory gleams all along the pages of thought and culture. 
 Brain, sunned from heaven, pen afire with truth, their lines 
 ever tender, glow with the fadeless radiance of immortal 
 
 247 
 
248 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 love. Divest God of the attribute of love — disrobe liter- 
 ature of its ideal — strip poetry of its Spiritualism, and the 
 residuum is shells — nothing but shells. The nature-poet of 
 Galilee, Jesus, walked under Syrian skies a Spiritualist, 
 guarded by a legion of angels. 
 
 Want of space warrants but a few quotations from the 
 rich poesy fields of Spiritualism. Grand this apostrophe of 
 Coleridge : 
 
 *'Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o'er 
 With untried gaze the immeasurable fount 
 Ebullient with creative Deity ! 
 And ye of plastic power, that interfused 
 Roil through the grosser and material mass 
 In organizing surge I Holies of God I " 
 
 Longfellow's testimony : 
 
 "Some men there are, I have known such, who think 
 That the two worlds — the seen and the unseen, 
 The world of matter and the world of spirit — 
 Are like the hemispheres upon our maps, 
 And touch each other only at a point. 
 But these two worlds are not divided thus. 
 Save for the purpose of common speech. 
 They form one globe, in which the parted seas 
 All flow together and are intermingled, 
 While the great continents remain distinct." 
 ******* 
 
 *'The spiritual world 
 Lies all about us, and its avenues 
 Are open to the unseen feet of phantoms 
 That come and go, and we perceive them not 
 Save by their influence, or when at times 
 A most mysterious Providence permits them 
 To manifest themselves to mortal eyes.''* 
 -*****♦ 
 
 ••A drowsiness is stealing over me 
 Which is not sleep ; for, though I close mine eyes, 
 / am awake, and in another world. 
 Dim faces of the dead and of the absent 
 Come floating up before me." 
 ***** 
 
 "When the hours of day are numbered. 
 And the voices of the night 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — POETIC TESTIMONY. 249 
 
 Wake the better soul that slumber'd, 
 
 To a holy, calm delight; 
 Ere the evening lamps are lighted, 
 
 And like phantoms grim and tall, 
 Shadows from the fitful fire-light, 
 
 Dance upon the parlor wall — 
 
 Then the forms of the departed 
 
 Enter at the open door ; 
 The beloved ones, the true hearted. 
 
 Come to visit me once more; 
 And with them the Being Beauteous, 
 
 Who unto my youth was given 
 More than all things else to love me. 
 
 And is now a saint in heaven. 
 
 With a slow and noiseless footstep 
 
 Comes that messenger divine, 
 Takes the vacant chair beside me. 
 
 Lays her gentle hand in mine, 
 And she sits and gazes at me. 
 
 With those deep and tender eyes. 
 Like the stars, so still and saint-like, 
 
 Looking downward from the skies." 
 ^ * * * * * 
 — "As the moon from some dark gate or cloud 
 
 Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light 
 Across whose trembling planks our mem'ries crowd 
 
 Into the realm of mystery and light — 
 
 So from the world of spirits there descends 
 A bridge of light, connecting it with this, 
 
 O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends. 
 Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss." 
 
 Ph(ebe Gary's testimony : 
 
 That influential weekly, the New York Independent, relat- 
 ing the spiritual experiences of Cowper, subjoins some lines 
 from Miss Gary's pen, at once poetic and appropriate : 
 
 " The most important events of Cowper's latter years were audibly 
 announced to him before they occurred. We find him writing of Mrs. 
 Urwin's ' approaching death,' when her health, although feeble, was not 
 such as to occasion alarm. His lucid intervals, and the return of his 
 disorder, were announced to him in the same remarkable manner. 
 
260 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 "The pillow by his tear-drops wet, 
 
 The stoniest couch that heard his cries, 
 Had near a golden ladder set 
 
 That touched the skies. 
 
 And at the morning on his bed, 
 
 And in sweet visions of the night, 
 Angels, descending, comforted 
 
 His soul with light. 
 
 ^^ * * -x- * -St 
 
 And, as the glory thus discerned 
 
 His heart desired, with strong desire ; 
 By seraphs touched, his lips have burned 
 With sacred fire. 
 
 As ravens to Elijah bare, 
 
 At morn and eve, the promised bread ; 
 So by the spirits of the air 
 
 His soul was fed." 
 
 Mrs. M. a. Livermore's testimony : 
 
 The glory of genuine poets trails all along the eras of art 
 and culture. Their inspirations are comparable to dewdrops 
 dripping from the leaves of the " Tree of Life.'' The gifted 
 Mrs. Livermore, wife of Rev. J). P. Livermore, and assistant 
 editor of the Neio Covenanty sings the principles of Spiritualism 
 in these lines : 
 
 "List thee, father: 'twas last evening as I lay upon my bed. 
 Thinking of my sainted mother, whom they hid among the dead, 
 Till my tears bedewed the pillow, as though wet with dropping rain, 
 And I prayed aloud in anguish that she might come back again — 
 
 'Twas just then, as I lay weeping, that the beautiful angel came. 
 And her voice was fraught with music as she called me by my name; 
 And her robe seemed woven sunbeams, 'twas so soft and clear and bright, 
 And her fair, high brow was circled by a diadem of light." 
 
 Describing the brightness of the shining angel mother, the 
 imprinted kiss and her own calm, happy sensations, she thus 
 continues : 
 
 "And she spoke — I cannot tell thee all the blessed angel said 
 As she bent above my pillow and kept watch beside my bed ; 
 But of heavenly things she told me — of a light and lovely land. 
 Where there dwelleth angel- children many a fair and spotless band 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — POETIC TESTIMONY. 251 
 
 And she said such flowers bloom there as we never see below, 
 Rosier than the hues of sunset, brighter than the rain's fair brow ; 
 And such gushing strains of music swell along the fragrant air, 
 As will soothe the ransomed spirit when released from earthly care." 
 
 Milton's testimony : 
 
 "Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth unseen, 
 Both when we wake and when we sleep." 
 
 Tennyson's testimony : 
 
 In that spiritual biography, " In Memoriam^'^ is mirrored 
 the various changes of a poet's love and tenderness upon the 
 earthly loss of a friend. Death he considers an upward 
 flight — the leaving of a mortal garment, a ruined chrysalis, 
 a shattered temple. 
 
 The poems of this gifted son of song present a type of 
 Spiritualism, as beautiful as philosophical: 
 
 '* God's finger touch'd him, and he slept ! 
 
 The great Intelligences fair 
 
 That range above our mortal state, 
 
 In circle round the blessed gate, 
 Received and gave him welcome there ; 
 
 And led him through the blissful climes, 
 
 And show'd him in the fountain fresh 
 
 All knowledge that the sons of flesh 
 Shall gather in the cycled times. 
 
 * ***** 
 And he the much-beloved again, 
 A lord of large experience, train 
 To riper growth the mind and will: 
 
 And what delights can equal those 
 That stir the spirit's inner deeps, 
 When one that loves but knows not, reaps 
 
 A truth from one that loves and knows ? 
 
 If such a dreamy touch should fall. 
 
 Oh, turn thee round, resolve the doubt, 
 My guardian angel will speak out 
 
 In that high place, and tell thee all. 
 
252 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 If any vision should reveal 
 
 Thy likeness, I might count it vain 
 As but the canker of the brain; 
 
 Yea, though it spake and made appeal 
 
 To chances where our lots were cast 
 Together in the days behind, 
 1 might but say, I hear a wind 
 
 Of memory murmuring the past. 
 
 Yea, though it spake and bared to view 
 A fact within the coming year; 
 And though the raonths, revolving near, 
 
 Should prove the phantom-warning true, 
 
 They might not seem thy prophecies, 
 But spiritual presentiments ! 
 * ****** 
 
 Descend, and touch, and enter ; hear 
 
 The wish too strong for words to name ; 
 That in this blindness of the frame 
 
 My ghost may feel that time is near. 
 
 Come — not in watches of the night, 
 
 But where the sunbeam broodeth warm 
 Come, beauteous in thine after form, 
 
 And like a finer light in light. 
 
 Be near us when we climb or fall : 
 
 Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours 
 With larger other eyes than ours, 
 
 To make allowance for us all. 
 
 ****** 
 And all at once it soem'd at last 
 His living soul was flashed on mine. 
 
 And mine in his was wound, and whirl'd 
 About empyreal heights of thought, 
 And came on that which is, and caught 
 
 The deep pulsations of the world." 
 
 WniTTiER's testimony : 
 
 •' With silence only as their benediction 
 God's angels come, 
 Where, in the shadow of a great aflliction, 
 The soul sits dumb " 
 ♦ * « ♦ * 
 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM — POETIC TESIIMONY. 
 
 "Where cool and long the shadows grow, 
 
 I walk to meet the night that soon 
 Shall shape and shadow overflow; 
 
 I cannot feel that thou art far, 
 
 Since near at need the angels are ; 
 
 And when the sunset gates unbar, 
 Shall I not see thee waiting stand, 
 
 And, white against the evening star, 
 The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? " 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 "There are, who, like the seers of old 
 Can see the helpers, God has sent, 
 And how life's rugged mountain side 
 Is white with many an angel tent." 
 
 liOWELL's testimony : 
 
 "One day, as Ambrose was seeking the truva 
 In his lonely walk, he saw a youth 
 Resting himself in the shade of a tree ; 
 It had never been given him to see 
 So shining a face, and the good man thought 
 'Twere a pity he should not believe as he o-^y . 
 ****** 
 
 Now there bubbled beside them where they stcoo;, 
 
 A fountain of waters sweet and good : 
 
 The youth to the streamlet's brink drew near, 
 
 Saying, ♦ Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, loo£ ^ere I ' 
 
 Six vases of crystal then he took 
 
 And set them along the edge of the brook." 
 
 Discoursing of the figure of the vases, and the water 
 assuming different forms, the poet continues — 
 
 **When Ambrose looked up, he stood all alone — 
 The youth, and the stream, and the vases were go:^ 
 But he knew by a sense of humbled grace. 
 He had talked with an Angel, /ace to face, 
 And felt his heart change inwardly, 
 As he fell on his knees beneath a tree." 
 
Chaptei^^ xxy, 
 
 EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 '♦ Tbf people were astonished at his doctrine." — Matthew. 
 
 "My doctrine shall drop as the rain ; 
 My speech shall distil as the dew ; 
 As the small rain upon the tender herb, 
 And as the showers upon the grass." — Jehokah. 
 
 "As other men have creeds, so I have mine ; 
 I keep the holy faith in God, in man, 
 ^^ul in the angels ministrant between." — THlton. 
 
 "T hold a faith more dear to me 
 Than earth's rich mines, or fame's proud treasure, — 
 ****** 
 
 A faith that plucks from death its sting ; 
 
 Communes with angels every day, 
 
 Sees God, the good in everything, 
 
 Where Truth Eternal holds her sway." — Powell. 
 
 Reason pertains to God ; reasonings, with their inductive 
 and deductive methods, to progressive man. Moral freedom 
 is liberfr "»^ action, achieved in accordance with the divine 
 forces of our being and the laws of the Infinite. The sphere 
 of freedom is the relative. It stands related to the absolute, 
 something as the varying eddy to the deep, clear, rolling 
 river, destined to sweep onward to the ocean. 
 
 Belief is an assent of the mind to certain propositions. It 
 19 based principally upon testimony. Sufficient evidences 
 com] cl it; a lack of demonstration precludes any rational 
 
 254 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM EXISTENCE OF GOD. 255 
 
 belief. The reasonableness of evidence is the soul of evi- 
 dence, and the highest authority that any individual can 
 possibly have, is the voiced command of God in liis own 
 soul. 
 
 Spiritualists have no authoritative book-oracles, nor pet- 
 rified Apostles' creeds to be interpreted by cowled priests or 
 mitered pontiflPs. They bow to no kingly master — Chrishna, 
 Jesus nor John. They trust in no external signs, ceremo- 
 nies or institutional law-logic, scriptural or secular, for 
 salvation. They rely upon no wafers, sacramental altars red 
 with the crimsoned currents of slain goats, kids or Christs, 
 to remove the legitimate consequences that result from 
 infringements of natural law. They acknowledge no eccle- 
 siastical authority, nor lean upon clergymen or popes, Romish 
 or American, for their knowledge of those spiritual matters 
 that relate to immortality and eternity. 
 
 In giving general doctrinal statements, then, we define not 
 for such Spiritualists as the King of Bavaria or Napoleon of 
 France, or Garibaldi of Italy ; not for the Howitts and Wil- 
 kinsons of England ; not for Senator Wade and other hono- 
 rable members of Congress; not for Robert Dale Owen, 
 Prof. Upham or Col. Higginson ; not for numbers of the 
 most celebrated judges, jurists, poets and writers of the age; 
 not for Theodore Tilton's '^many honored members in evan- 
 gelical churches who are Spiritualists;" neither for Judge 
 Edmond's estimated '^ eleven millions of believers " in this 
 country ; but for ourself only, with an eye to the usually 
 accepted opinions of the main body, and are therefore alone 
 responsible for these doctrines and definitions. 
 
 Ignorintr the fetich gods of Africa — the repenting, jealous 
 god of Judaism — the changing, angry-getting god of Cathol- 
 icism, the partial, malicious god of Calvinism — the mascu- 
 line, miracle-working god of Universalism — we find infinitely 
 higher conceptions of Deity in the definitions of Plato, 
 Proclus, Jesus, John, Mahomet, Parker and Davis : 
 
 " Of good there is one eternal, definite and universal Cause — the 
 Infinite Soul " 
 
256 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 " God is spirit, and spirit is causation underlying all things." 
 
 " God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in 
 spirit and in truth. '^ 
 
 " God is love." 
 
 " There is one God." 
 
 " To God — our Father, and our Mother, too — ^will we ascribe all 
 praise." 
 
 "The great positive mind of the universe — Father God and Mother 
 Nature." 
 
 Those accepting the Spiritual Philosophy believe in the 
 Divine Existence, the Infinite Ssse^ embodying and enzoning 
 all principles of mind and properties of matter; all wisdom 
 and love; life and motion; God manifest in everything from 
 sands to solar systems. This is the spontaneous concession 
 of the world's consciousness. Egypt's Osiris, India's Brahma, 
 Judea's Jehovah, the Grecian's Jupiter, the Mussulman's 
 Allah, the Platonist's All-Good, the Theist's Deity, the Chris- 
 tian's Our Father, the N'orthraan's Odin, the Indian's Great 
 Spirit, express more than glimmerings of universal beliefs 
 in that God whose altars are mountains and oceans, and 
 whose pulpits are fields, earths, orbs and circling systems, 
 perfect in order, musical in their marches, and flaming with 
 holiest praises. 
 
 Rejecting the human-shaped, prayer-idolized, personal God 
 of evangelical theologians, — because personality logically 
 implies locality, and whatever becomes localized in space is 
 necessarily limited and imperfect — to us, God is the Infinite 
 Spirit; Soul of all things; the incarnate Life-Principle of 
 the universe; impersonal, incomprehensible, undefinable, and 
 yet immanent in dewdrops that glitter and shells that shine 
 — in stars that sail through silver seas, and angels that 
 delight to do the immutable will. When we designate God 
 as the Infinite spirit-presence and substance of universal 
 ]^ature, from whose eternally-flowing life wondrous systems 
 of worlds have been evolved, we mean to imply, in the aflir- 
 mation, all divine principles, attributes, qualities and forces, 
 positive and negative — Spirit, as spirit-substance, and matter 
 as physical substance, or a solidified form of force, the former 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — EXISTENCE OF GOD. 257 
 
 depending upon the latter, for its manifestations. The 
 masculine aU^ne cannot create. There was never a higher 
 formation without the two forces^positive and negative. 
 
 The progress of matter is through motion, organization, 
 segregation, accretion, disintegration, and re-combinations 
 reaching continually towards higher structural formations. 
 The law is from angles to circles. Progress, so far as legit- 
 imately referable to Spirit, relates to the manifestational 
 rather than the absolute. God as the Infinite Soul or the 
 Life-Principle is not progressive. Progress, as applicable 
 to the consciousness and ratiocination of mortals, implies, not 
 only a low condition of imperfection to progress from, but 
 investigation, experiment, defeats and victories. 
 
 Matter, or physical substance, does not become essential 
 spirit — does not,- as certain French philosophers have taught, 
 " go up into consciousness." If an aggregation of unthink- 
 ing monads may become thought — if one particle of matter 
 may become spirit — two, ten thousand, all worlds, all matter, 
 may become pure spirit! a method comparable to feet " going 
 up " into limbs — limbs into body — body into brain — and 
 brain into divine mind ! This reasoning, carried logically 
 into the actual, would finally ultimate in the transfer of 
 "Mother I^ature " into '^Father God;" or the consum- 
 mation contemplated by the Brahminical doctrine of the 
 absorption of individualities, and all else, into the " Oceanic 
 vortex of absolute Spirit." The position is untenable, and 
 destructive to conscious individuality. Spirit must eternally 
 depend upon matter for manifestation and the molding of 
 sensuous forms. Spirit and matter, as substances, are not 
 utterly discreted, as Swedenborg taught; but blended and 
 correlated as the spiritual and physical body — duality in 
 unity. Reduced to the last metaphysical analysis, we have 
 this problem for solution : 
 
 Given physical substance, spirit substance, and the Divine 
 Energy, to account for the origin and destiny of cells, worlds, 
 systems and conscious spirits. 
 17 
 
258 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 The existence of God is not only the logic of intuit, oii; 
 but one of the primary recognitions of human consciousness, 
 which consciousness, therefore, is absolutely inseparable from 
 the Infinite Consciousness. 
 
 Kapoleon, while upon the ocean, pointed starward, and 
 said — " Talk, talk much as you please, gentlemen; but who 
 — what made and governs those unnumbered worlds that 
 pasture in the illimitable fields of heaven ? " 
 
 Only apprehending and comprehending that which is 
 inferior to ourselves, we cannot comprehend God, nor can 
 we full}/ fathom the measureless possibilities connected with 
 the Divine within ourselves ; much less can we reach the 
 perfections of the Infinite through any lengthened series of 
 finite progressions. Until parallel lines meet and circles are 
 squared, never can any continuous number of multiplied 
 finiteB amount to the sum of an infinite. All human pro- 
 gress is upon the finite plane. All true unfoldment is from 
 the center outward. The ratio of the moral being mathe- 
 matical, it is clear that man may progress endlessly without 
 reaching God. Progress is not attributable of God, and no 
 methodical thinker connects progression with the infinite 
 energizing Life-Principle of the universe. 
 
 In conic sections there is what is termed the mathematical 
 paradox, where the asymptote continually approaches the curve, 
 but never meets it ; otherwise expressed, we have the formula 
 of two mathematical lines, eternally approaching and never 
 meeting ; so finite man may forever progress ; eternally nearing 
 the infinite fountain of causation without reaching God. If 
 matter, as certain theorists have taught, becomes essential spirit, 
 then progress is ultimately defeated, for man necessarily loses 
 his individuality and consciousness by assimilation with and 
 absorption into, the infinite ocean of Pure Spirit! 
 
 Demosthenes is represented to have said through a modern 
 medium : 
 
 " Had you asked me concerning God, a thousand years ago, I could 
 have told you all about him ; but now, after I have walked the highway 
 of celestial worlds for more than two thousand years, I am so far lost and 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — EXISTENCE OF GOD. 259 
 
 overpowered amid the splendors of Infinitude, I can say nothing. Height 
 on height beyond the penetration of finite vision, I see the dim outlines 
 of a deifie universe; I feel the flood-tides of Divinity flowing- down 
 through all the avenues of my immortal being. I hear peal after peal 
 of archangel eloquence ringing through the endless archways of the 
 empyrean, evermore sounding into my ears the name of God, God, God ! 
 I am silent, dumb ! " 
 
 Philo, asserted in the most positive manner the masculinity 
 and femininity of God and the sexual order of creaton. He 
 repeatedly represented Wisdom as *' spouse of God and 
 mother of all things;" and he further says, "We may 
 rightly call God the Father and Wisdom the Mother of the 
 universe." Also according to Michelange Lanci, the Egyp- 
 tian Hieroglyphs, interpreted iu the light of Egyptian theos- 
 ophy, taught that both the male and female principles inherec^ 
 in Deity, spirit and matter, as father and mother. Indian 
 Gymnosophiste also admitted, in the most ancient periods, 
 the duality of the Divine Existence. Abraham, a dissatisfied* 
 ambitious Brahmin, inaugurated the worship of a unitive 
 masculine god. Moses built upon the same rock; hence hi? 
 masculine, blood-thirsty, retaliatory laws, founded upon 
 " Thus saith the Lord." And the popular Pauline Chris- 
 tianity of the past eighteen centuries, is Judaism, only 
 sparingly galvanized. 
 
 The paternity and maternity of the Divine Nature, the 
 fraternity of human souls, originating from the same primal 
 fountain, and the progressive evolutions of all the races, are 
 truths that will bloom into wider acceptance as the ages 
 ripen. 
 
 The manifestational order of the past demonstrates that 
 God — the Divine Energy — was. The fixedness of law and 
 the uniformity of Nature's processes, prove that God now is. 
 Yea, " of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, 
 to whom be the glory forever." Looking from the mount 
 of vision, we behold Deity enthroned everywhere in majesty 
 and splendor — a holy ^^resence, which is the innermost light 
 and life of all lives. Springing from the paternal and 
 
260 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 maternal Source, and divinely allied therewith, upon the 
 loving bosom of God we recline and rest, with a trust so 
 beautiful and a confidence so deep, that nothing can disturb 
 the calm. 
 
Chaptei^ xxyi, 
 
 THE DIVINE IMAGE. 
 
 ■'• In me God dwelleth; 
 
 I in Him and He in me ! 
 
 And my yearning soul he filleth, 
 
 Here, and through eternity." 
 
 Divine and unitive in purpose are manhood and woman- 
 hood ! In the *' divine ima^e made he ihem,'' The ex- 
 pression is oriental. Hillel and other scholarly Hebraists 
 may have seen the substance under the symbol. 
 
 Man, the crown-flower of Nature's formative forces, 
 stands erect a polished shaft upon the summit of earth's 
 granitic-paved pyramid. In him are focalized the refined 
 and sublimated ultimates pertaining to the whole. Stars 
 may waltz and whirl through space; but they cannot think. 
 Planets, to the music of immutable law, may polka across 
 tesselated floors in the temple of the eternal; but they can 
 neither reason nor love. Man and woman alone, essential 
 equals of a perfect circle, walk forth in the divine image ; 
 but this image does not consist in physical formation, for 
 God is not, as we have previously shown, a shaped per- 
 sonality outside the visible universe, rolling and guiding 
 astral worlds mechanically as school-boys roll their hoops; 
 but is Infinite Spirit, containing the elements of all forms, 
 the principles of all forces, and the attributes of all intelli- 
 gence, acting by unchanging methods for the highest good. 
 
 261 
 
262 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 The divine image in which man is made consists in those 
 original constituents and principles that constitute him an 
 eternal individuality. At the inner basis he is essential spirit, 
 clothed secondarily with a spiritual or soul bod}^, and rimmed 
 witli a grosser physical organism. Trinal in constitution, 
 with crowning brain-organs inviting angel guests, man is a 
 perfect structure. The spiritual nature — " Keystone" to the 
 moral arch— seals with eternity's seal both his divinity and 
 immortalit3\ 
 
 The basis of man's immortality is deific substance. As a 
 conscious spirit in the innermost, he is incompounded and 
 therefore indissoluble. Having in spirit neither a beginning 
 nor ending, he is eternally past and eternally future — ever 
 livino; in eternal life. ITeither burial in the placenta walls of 
 maternity, nor burial in the human organism, nor burial from 
 sio:ht, can effect the essential real. 
 
 The animal having only a portion of the primary elements 
 of life, having a less number of brain-faculties, and uncon- 
 scious of its relations to the original fountain of being, is 
 comparably an imperfect structure. Logic cannot legiti- 
 mately affirm of a part what it does of a whole; neither will 
 philosophical minds, conversant with the results of analysis 
 and critical exegesis, claim — for entities and individualities- 
 destinies to which they never aspired. These statements 
 admitted, animals, as such, are not immortal. There is, 
 however, no annihilation ; no absolute loss in the universe. 
 When the grazing animal dies, earth crumbles to its native 
 earth, and the spiritual substances, disintegrated, pass into the 
 great vortex of spirit, to be elementarily re-incarnated for 
 use in higher forms. 
 
 That human beings dwell in distant countries or islands^ 
 with no conceptions of God, or of worship germinal or 
 expressed, is notmerely doubted, but denied. If such people 
 exist, not only their location, but their deplorable position, 
 is susceptible oi' proof. When those Spanish conquerors 
 reached Mexico and Peru, the historian, Prescott, says they 
 found there an *' abiding faith in God and immortality.' 
 
hXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM— THE DIVINE IMAGE. 263 
 
 Roman Catholic Jesuits, fired with u missionary enthusiasm, 
 visiting China, Thibet, and the distant islands of the ocean, 
 found everywhere the religious idea firmly rooted. The 
 North American Indians, when first discovered by European 
 explorers, had their religious ideas of God, w^orship and 
 heavenly hunting-grounds. Dr. Livingstone, the English 
 traveler, penetrating into the interior of Africa, brought home 
 this report: *' There is no necessity for beginning to tell 
 even the most degraded of these people of the existence 
 of God, or of a future state, these facts being universally 
 admitted. * * * * 
 
 On questioning intelligent men among the Bakwains as 
 to their former knowledge of good and evil, of God, and of a 
 future state, they have scouted the idea of their ever havino* 
 been without a tolerably clear conception on all these sub- 
 jects. They fully believe in the soul's continued existence 
 apart from the body, and visit the graves of relatives with 
 offerings." 
 
 Unfolding humanity in every country and condition — 
 worshipful, aspirational and conscious of vast capabilities for 
 progress — has within itself the prophecy of a future as endless 
 as golden. 
 
 Admitting true the old legend of man's creation, or rather 
 hurried improvisation from the " dust of the, ground," and 
 woman's from " Adam's rib," when in deep sleep, the 
 position would afford no logical basis for the affirmation, that 
 man was made in the *' divine image." Philosophy, older 
 than traditions, goes beneath symbols. Listen to its divine 
 voice ! 
 
 All known substances are composed of some sixty-five 
 simples called primaries, because first found in the rocks. 
 These rocks, from pulverization and the attritions of ages, 
 result in soils. From these soils — spirit the motive force — 
 vegetables are evolved, which still lift and more thoroughly 
 refine the primates, aiding them to become sufficiently 
 attenuated and potentialized to sustain animal organizations. 
 Man's physical constitution is the grand reservoir of all the 
 
264 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 ultimates of rocks, soils, vegetables, forests, fruits and ani- 
 mals. He does not appropriate the primates as such. 
 There's no affinity. These basic elements, taken up bj the 
 lower order of plants, and progressing upward through all 
 the ascending grades, ultimate in man. As a physical 
 being, then, he is related to all orders of existence below him, 
 and, asa spiritual being, composed of on gmsil spirit substances 
 and principles f he is connected not only with all the higher 
 intelligences of the heavens, but with the Infinite himself, as 
 a ray from a central sun, or stream proceeding from and sus- 
 tained by an Infinite Fountain. A chemist, analyzing a drop 
 of water from a thermal sulphur or sodium spring, will show 
 by critical, "chemical analysis that each drop not only partakes 
 of, but contains, the identical elements and properties of the 
 whole fountain. Well, man is the drop, and God the Eter- 
 nal Fountain ! And the divine chemistry of logical analysis — 
 intuition, reason and science — demonstrates that every 
 essence attribute and principle of God exists finitely in man, 
 and thus is he truly made in the divine image — a perfect 
 structure — a god " manifest in the flesh," imaging the 
 eternal principles and properties of Father and Mother. 
 
pHAPTEI^^ XXVII, 
 
 MORAL STATUS OF JESUS. 
 
 ♦ ♦ * » * £]cce Homo t 
 " But whom say ye that I am ?** 
 
 The divine out-pushing impulse to ask, implies intelligence 
 somewhere to answer every natural inquiry. Denying the 
 existence of the Asian I^azarene, is, simply assertive nega- 
 tion and valueless to the thinker, besides exhibiting little 
 scholarly attainment, and less historic research. If poesy 
 needed a Homer — Sculpture a Phidias — -jurisprudence a 
 Lycurgus — morals a Confucius — philosophy a Plato — and 
 oratory a Demosthenes — the Israelitish nations, given to 
 religious contemplation, required just such an intuitive, 
 loving, self-sacrificing character, as Jesus of Kazareth — the 
 central personage of the gospels. His advent, heralded by 
 angels, his mission was one of mercy, and " Peace on earth, 
 good will to men." 
 
 It is difficult to disconnect countries from nations and 
 nations from their inspired leaders, who tower up, as lofty 
 columns, the glory of future eras. Goethe says : 
 
 " It is with nations as with families. When a family has 
 lived a long time, it finally produces an individual who gath- 
 ars up into himself the attributes of all his ancestors ; rallies 
 their scattered or half-developed qualities, and presents them 
 incarnate in their full perfection. So the felicity of Provi- 
 dence will occasionally sum up in an individual the virtue of 
 a nation." 
 
 265 
 
266 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 The ascended John Pierpoint, reflecting upon oriental 
 lands and their illumined seers, gives expression to his 
 admiration for Syrian scenery in these rhythmic lines — " The 
 airs of Palestine." 
 
 -*' Let a lonelier, lovelier path be mine, 
 
 Greece and lier charms I'd leave for Palestine. 
 
 These purer streams thro' happier valleys flow, 
 
 And sweeter flowers on holier mountains blow. 
 
 I should love to breathe where Gilead sheds her balm, 
 
 I should love to walk on Jordan's banks of palm, 
 
 I should love to rest my feet in Hermon's dews ; 
 
 I should love the promptings of Isaiah's muse ; 
 
 In Carmel's holy grots I'd court repose, 
 
 And deck my mossy couch with Sharon's blooming rose." 
 
 Abraham went west and founded Israel ; Cadmus went 
 *^est and founded the second Thebes ; ^neas went west and 
 founded Rome ; leaving Jerusalem, Jesus went west to seek 
 and save " his people from their sins." It was not Israel, 
 Judea, Carmel, nor Sharon, but representative men — the 
 men of ideas gracing those ancient countries, who live in his- 
 tory so fadeless, and continue precious along the memories 
 of many generations. Human nature in its best estate, rising 
 above family, social relations, country, nation, is ever regard- 
 ful of the great, and loyal to the good, whenever and where- 
 ever found. 
 
 Admitting the general tendency of the Asiatic mind to the 
 dreamy exercise of a vivid imagination, coupled at times 
 with exaggeration, still it is very clear to those read in the 
 philosophy of history, that the more ancient parables and 
 myths were not the empty fictions of an idle fancy; but 
 rather the utterances of an immortal and ubiquitous intui- 
 tion, whose substratum is truth. 
 
 To assume the absolute creation of such a personage from 
 nonentity as Jesus of ]N"azareth, entitles the one thus affirm- 
 ing to the charity of imbecility. He was the child of the 
 heavens, of prophecy, and of harmony. The wisdom of the 
 angels threw him into an age of conservatism and stupid 
 bigotry. The Mosaic law had degenerated into cold 
 
EXRQETICAL SPIRITUALISM — MORAL STATUS OF JESUS. 2b"7 
 
 formalisms ; brotherly kindness into caste and currency, and 
 principle into policy. Judaism, largely mingling with the cur- 
 rents of history, had become divided into two branches — 
 Palestine and that called the '■'• dispersion,'' Such secta- 
 rists were they in their own Asian country, bordering Africa 
 and Europe, that, pressing around one temple and one altar, 
 the Rabbins cursed all Israelites who proved so recreant to 
 the law of Moses, as to teach their children Greek. 
 
 The Sadducees were a sort of Epicureans ; materialistic in 
 tendency, denying the immortality of the soul and the 
 existence of angels. The Pharisees were Separatists^ cling- 
 ing to the letter of the law, and the traditional injunctions of 
 Jehovah. The Essenians w^ere the Shakers of that period. 
 Jesus was in full sympathy with them. 
 
 War, commerce, the Assyrian captivity and nomadic 
 tendencies, had scattered many of the Israelites throughout 
 the world. These spoke the Greek tongue. This language, 
 derived largely from the Sanscrit, had become, what Latin 
 was at a much later period, the court language and medium 
 of communication among all the more enlightened nations. 
 In those prominent eastern cities, especially Alexandria and 
 Antioch, flourishing capitals of Egypt and Syria, these scat- 
 tered Jews formed numerous societies, placing at the head 
 some rich, influential families. Their Palestinean brothers 
 called them Hellenists They were not considered soundly 
 Orthodox, even though they had succeeded in getting the 
 Jewish Bible translated into Greek, under the Ptolemies. 
 
 At this initial point in the religious cycle of that era, we 
 get a correct clue to those moral forces constituting the 
 peculiarities of John — the disciple that "Jesus loved." 
 Zebedee, his father, a wealthy Israelite, was a profound 
 thinker of the school of Ilillel, and exceedingly liberal in 
 doctrinal tendencies. John, a natural genius, rich in the 
 gift of a warm, sensitive love-nature, endowed with a flne 
 delicate organization, highly mediumstic, a thorough- 
 trained scholar for that age of the world, and wonderfully 
 Shifted with a capacity for acquiring a knowledge of the 
 
268 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 languages, was just adapted for the constant companionship 
 of Jesus. Literally, John was a Hellenistic Jew, thoroughly 
 initiated into the civilization, literature, and philosophy of 
 the Greeks. This accounts for the continually cropping out 
 of Pythagoric doctrines in his gospel. John, our patron 
 saint, is, in many respects, the ideal man of the !N"ew Testa- 
 ment. Holy and heavenly was the perpetual friendship exist- 
 ing between Jesus, John, and his brother James. Superior 
 scholarship, coupled with a sweet-tender heart-fellowship^ 
 entitled John to the privilege of ever accompanying Jesus 
 as lingual interpreter and counselor, which enabled him 
 more fully to comprehend the scope and moral grandeur of 
 Jesus mediatorial work; for, medium-like, '' he came not 
 to do his own will, but the will of him that sent him." 
 
 Dying a martyred death, Jesus committed to the care of 
 John, his sainted Mother. Love and tenderness grow from 
 the same stem. Budding on earth they unfold and bloom 
 forever in the heavens. Enwrapt and emblazoned in the 
 glory of fraternal aifection, Jesus and the disciple he 
 *' loved," now together, traverse the celestial heavens, doing 
 the will of the Eternal, by teaching in supernal spheres, and 
 inspiring Grod's dear humanity. 
 
 Though the Church-Fathers may have manipulated the 
 primitive manuscripts — gospels and epistles^one giving to 
 the JtTazarene a certain attitude; another some peculiar 
 expression of form or forehead ; and others still, crowning 
 him with plumes originally worn by Chrishna, Confucius, 
 Plato, and Hillel — our belief in Jesus remains unshaken. We 
 believe in him, not as the Infinite God, not as a supernatural 
 being, not as a miracle-begotten specialty to patch up an 
 inefficient *' plan of salvation" and ward off divine wrath ; 
 but as a man — a mortal brother of the immortal gods and god- 
 desses, who temperamentally helped fashion him, that, inspired 
 by them and a " legion of angels," he might aid in uplifting 
 and molding the future ages. He called himself the " Son 
 of man." The Apostle termed him " our elder brother." 
 He ate, drank, slept, hungered, thirsted, and, weary frou 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — MORAL STATUS OF JESUS. 26i) 
 
 journeyings, rested by Samaria's well. He was tempted: 
 endured pain; impetuously cursed a fig-tree; "learned 
 obedience by the things he suffered ;" was " made perfect " 
 by draining bitter life-cups of experience, and finally, with 
 soul aglow to the logic of love and intuition, and prayer- 
 words of forgiveness dropping from fevered lips like gems 
 from a crown, he died a martyr! 
 
 The German Zschokke says : " If Jesus were to come 
 to-day among Christians, they would nail him to the cross, 
 as did the Jews." 
 
 Appearing, as of old, in some of our commercial cities, he 
 would not " go on 'Change at 12 o'clock ; " would not 
 visit an 8 o'clock prayer-meeting to make an oration to the 
 Lord; would not swing a censer in a Catholic Cathedral, 
 muttering Latin ; would not swell in the Episcopal robes of 
 Ritualism; would not conjure up a creedal interpretation, to 
 a Universalist confession of faith ; but, with a toleration wide 
 as human wants, he would say as of old — " By this shall 
 all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one 
 for another." Then, going about blessing children, seeking 
 vagrants, eating with sinners to reform them, healing the 
 sick and teaching by the wayside, till weary, he would retire 
 for rest to some Shaker community, Essenian-like, where 
 love was pure, free and fraternal. Sincerely do we believe 
 in this Jesus of the gospels — the man that was — the Christ- 
 spiirit^ that is, 
 
 No star continually courses the same orbit. ISTo man 
 bathes in the same stream twice. The Bryant of Thanatopsis 
 is not the Bryant of to-day. Longfellow's *' Psalm of 
 Life" reveals less strength and culture than his "i^ew 
 England Tragedies." Individualities do not vary; but their 
 expressions do. The Jesus who scourged the " money- 
 changers," compared errorists to " swine" — to " thieves and 
 robbers" — and threatened his conservative fellow-country- 
 men with the " damnation of hell," is not the gentle Jesus 
 who breathed the beatitudes; who said to the woman, 
 neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more," and prayed 
 
270 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 upon Calvary, " Father, forgive them." When utteriLg 
 these tender sentiments, feeling a quickening of the divine 
 nature, — and literally " born again," — born into the celes- 
 tial degree of the Christ-life — coming into close magnetic 
 fellowship and oneness with his " My Father" or Spirit 
 guide, truthfully he said, " I and my Father are one" — that 
 is, I and my controlling spirit intelligence are one in desire, 
 purpose and the great worV of human elevation. Referring 
 to the Infinite Presence, he exclaimed: '' God [Theos, not 
 Pater) is a Spirit, and they that worship him, must worship 
 him in spirit and in truth." 
 
 Harmonial, prayerful, divinely overshadowed, he grasped 
 and appropriated the good, the pure, and the true, found 
 in the older systems, and lived them in his daily life. 
 Though walking with man, he talked with angels. He had 
 bread to eat, that the Jewish external world " knew not 
 of." He went forth, especially towards the close of his mis- 
 sion, a practical impersonation of the principles he taught— 
 Universal love — universal purity — universal charity. 
 These being the three pillars in his soul-teraple, his kingdom 
 was not of this world. His heavens and hells were con- 
 ditions higher or lower ; his salvation self-growth. Caring 
 little for outward purity, nothing for the cowardly *' what 
 will the people say," and desiring only to establish the 
 inner reign of truth, love and selt-denial, he left no writings, 
 no creed, no code, no rule of life, no church organizations, 
 no plan for State constitutions, no clerical investitures, no 
 baptismal ceremonies, nor fossil forms of worship. His 
 trust in God was absolutely sublime. His hopefulness of 
 man was unbounded. His love for women was angelic ; 
 and purity, tlie only guarantee for seeing God. 
 
 Jesus, then, stands in relation to the past the best embodi- 
 ment of Spiritualism, the richest Judean outgrowth of the 
 spiritual idea, and looking lovingly down from the Summer 
 Land, sweetly says, " Come up hither." By the exercise 
 of sympathy and aspiration, by effort and consecration to the 
 truth, by daily holy living, he came into the highest heavenly 
 
EXEQETICAL SPIRITUALISM — MORAL STATUS OF JESUS. 271 
 
 relations. Quickened, intensified from the celestial heavens, 
 his original pre-existent home, (for before the mortal Abra- 
 ham was, he had a " glory with the Father,") his inmost 
 yielded an elemental flow of pure spiritual life. The finest 
 textured type, the most harmonial brain organism perhaps 
 of this planet, in that era, he virtually lived in two worlds — 
 the Christ of tenderness and love, experiencing sweetest 
 union with God. A thorough intuitionist by nature, he was 
 2i practical Spiritualist in word and deed. He worshiped in 
 spirit and in truth. His kingdom was a spiritual kingdom, 
 with the center in humanity's great throbbing heart, and 
 Love the king. His church was a spiritual church, built up 
 in the souls of men and extensive as the races. His second 
 coming was spiritual — coming, as dispirit^ in spirit and 
 power. That " second coming" in the " clouds of heaven," 
 with holy angels and ministering spirits freighted with 
 exalted truths and the enunciation of eternal principles, is in 
 process now. Multitudes of the more mediumistic feel this 
 divine down-flowing influx as the breath of an eternal spring. 
 
 Beautiful is this faith, this belief, in Jesus, the ascended 
 Sonof Kazareth. AH those who thus believe — that is, come 
 into harmonial relations with the Christ-principle, living the 
 same time spiritual life that he lived — may do similar, and, 
 perhaps, " greater works than these." True, he did not give 
 all the " tests," all the signs, nor do all the works that 
 Jewish skeptics, plodding in cold externalisms, expected. 
 He did not transform " stones to bread," by command ; did 
 not *' save himself by coming down from the cross." He 
 could not thus save himself; for he could transcend no 
 established law of IS'ature. At certain times, owino- to 
 '' conditions," unbelief, lack of harmony or passivity, he 
 could do comparatively nothing. Hence in Matthew 
 (xiii : 58) we read, *' Jesus did not many mighty works 
 there, because of their unbelief." And the Evangelist Mark 
 says distinctly, " And he could there do no mighty work^ * * 
 
 * and he marveled because of their unbelief." Before 
 departing, however, for that many-mansioned house in the 
 
272 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Upper kingdoms of the Infinite, he assured his disciples 
 in all ages — " These signs shall follow them that believe : 
 In my name shall they cast out devils ; they shall lay hands on 
 the sick and they shall recover ; and if they eat any deadly 
 thing it shall not hurt them : Go ye therefore into all the 
 world and preach the gospel to every creature " 
 
 While sincerely believing in Jesus, infinitely deeper is out 
 trust in God, the incarnate life and light of eternity. In 
 holiest fellowship with Jesus, angels and loved spirits in the 
 bosom of the Infinite, then, is our rest forever. 
 
Chapter xxyiil 
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 "Lie open, Soul I lo, angels wait 
 To enter thine abode I 
 Messiahs linger at thy gate ) 
 Let in the truth of God." 
 
 The Spirit, the Paraklete, the Comforter, is frequently 
 referred to in the gospels. In John's record we read : " But 
 the Conforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father 
 will aend in my name, he shall teach you all things, and 
 bring to your remembrance whatever I have said unto you." 
 
 Ghost is a most barbarous translation of the Greek, 
 pneuma — the Latin, spiritus, Pneuma, naturally of the neuter 
 gender, should have been translated — spirit. " He shall 
 baptize you with the holy spirit {en pneumati agio) and with 
 fire;" that is, shall surround and infill you with a most 
 exalting and spiritualizing influence, the purifying efiTects of 
 which are comparable to fire. As scripturally used, the 
 phrase sometimes signifies influence or agency, and at other 
 times individualized, immortalized spirits. 
 
 " The disciples * * * were terrified and affrighted, and supposed they 
 had seen a spirit." 
 
 " Well spake the Holy Spirit by Esaiaa the prophet unto our 
 fathers." 
 
 " Whatsoever shall be given unto you in that hour that speak ye ; for 
 it is not YE that speak ; but the ffoli/ Spirit" 
 
 18 273 
 
274 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 " Then said Jesus to them again, peace be unto you. * * * And 
 when he had sai i this, he breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the 
 Holy Spirit." 
 
 " After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia j 
 but the ^-pirit parmitted them not." 
 
 " While Peter thought on the vision, the spirit said unto him. Behold, 
 three men seek thee." 
 
 " Then the spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this 
 chariot." 
 
 " And when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on 
 them and they spake with tongues and prophesied." 
 
 " Then Peter and John * * * laid their hands on them, and they 
 received the Holy Spirit." 
 
 These apostles, as well as Paul, being powerful developing 
 mediums, so intensified the spiritual atmosphere, that, by 
 laying their hands upon those susceptible persons, thus 
 increasing the magnetic battery, they were surcharged and 
 thrilled with the electric influx. So at the Pentecostal scene 
 described in Acts, " when they were all with one accord in 
 one place, suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a 
 rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they 
 were sitting. And there appeared cloven tongues like as of 
 f^j,Q^ * * * Aj^(J ^Ijgy were all filled with the Holy Spirit, 
 and began to speak with other tongues, as the spirit gave 
 them utterance." 
 
 The spiritual manifestations upon present pentecostal occa- 
 sions, when our media are in harmony, corroborate those of 
 the past; and the past, to historic inclined minds, confirm 
 the present. Thus the old and the new, as witnesses in a 
 common cause, clasp hands. 
 
 One of the demonstrations of spiritual clairvoyance, estab- 
 lishes the fact that each individual is enveloped in a spiritual 
 sphere or emanation. This is often seen by the exceedingly 
 sensitive, and sometimes absolutely felt even by those of 
 dull and deadened sensibilities. The discovery of the spec- 
 trum analysis, which now occupies so important a position 
 in the investigation of the physical sciences, is already help- 
 ing Spiritualism, by demonstrating similar auroral sphere? 
 
EXEQBTICAL SPIRITUALISM — THE HOLY SPIRIT. 275 
 
 ana temanations around physical substances. Spiritualists 
 have taught this for years. It was a clairvoyant discovery. 
 Science follows Spiritualism — a great way off. 
 
 Mr. Ruskin, writing a friend in the north of England, 
 says : 
 
 " You most probably have heard of the marvelous power which chem- 
 ical analysis has received in recent discoveries respecting the laws of 
 light. My friend showed me the rainbow of the rose, send the rainbow 
 of the violet, and the rainbow of the hyacinth, and the rainbow of the 
 forest leaves being born, and the rainbow of forest leaves dying. And, 
 last, he showed me the rainbow of blood. It was but the three-hundreth 
 part of a grain, dissolved in a drop of water; and it cast its measured 
 bars, for ever recognisable now to human sight, on the chord of the seven 
 colors. And no drop of that red rain can now be shed, so small as that 
 the stain of it cannot be known, and the voice of it heard out of the 
 ground." 
 
 If there is a spheral emanation around the crystal, the plant, 
 the rose, and a drop of blood, how natural that there should be 
 electro-odylic spheres around physical and more etherealized 
 spiritual bodies. The earthly is but the analogue of the 
 spiritual. 
 
 Sensitive persons, with organisms like iodized plates, sym- 
 pathetically sense these spheres. Clairvoyants see, and read 
 therefrom the true character. 
 
 This age has few secrets. Seers see the innermost of things, 
 and conscious souls know kindred souls. When rapt in this 
 holy soul-blending sympathy, law is useless, labor a pleasure, 
 and duty a word obsolete. Such souls converse across oceans 
 when no sounds pass. Oblivious to the outward, to time 
 and space, they live the inner life. Those positive impart to 
 the negative — impart what they have, the quality of the efflux 
 corresi)onding to the interior state. If good and pure-minded, 
 they impart the " Holy Spirit; " that is, a most uplifting and 
 spiritualizing influence. This rationally explains why Jesus 
 "took little children in his arms and blessed them.'' The 
 blessing did not consist in the uttered words, but in the 
 eelestializing influence of the divine magnetism he imparted. 
 
276 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUA jISTS. 
 
 It explains also why he " breathed upon his disciples," and 
 how it was that he " felt virtue go out of him " when the 
 negative woman touched the hem of his garment. 
 
 To feel the breath of the pure — to come into soul-fellowship 
 with the true and noble, is equivalent to a baptism of the 
 '* Holy Spirit; '* a crown of joy and a moral transfiguration. 
 
ChAPTEI^^ XXIX. 
 
 BAPTISM. 
 
 " Teach me Thy Truth to know, 
 That this new light which now I see 
 
 May both the work and workman show ; • 
 
 Then by baptismal love, I'll climb to Thee." 
 
 Ii tropical countries of the East, ablutions were common. 
 Since water was efficacious in removing effete substances 
 from the body, it became, in time, an accepted emblem of 
 moral purification. Immersion was doubtless the outward 
 method. The Christian church has contended that Jesus 
 dictated a fixed formula of baptism, when he charged the 
 apostles to " Teach all nations, baptising them in the name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;" but 
 the apostles themselves thought differently, and baptized 
 simply in the name of Jesus. Spiritually interpreted and 
 applied, the Father may signify the absolute religion ; the 
 Son, the religion of humanity; and the Holy Spirit the 
 religion of the conscience and affectional nature, kindled 
 into holy aspiration by the magnetisms of angels. 
 
 The Greek word baptisma, rendered baptism from the verb 
 bapiizo, implies rite or ceremony. Relative to this matter of 
 baptism we accept the following Pauline teaching : 
 
 " One Lord, one faith, one baptism. 
 
 " One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and 
 m you all." — Eph. iv : 5-6. 
 
 277 
 
278 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 This one genuine baptism, however, is not, never was, water 
 baptism. All outward baptisms are Mosaic. After every ad 
 of defilement, the Israelites were commanded to bathe and 
 wash themselves clean with water. 
 
 John the Baptist, seemingly disorderly and fanatical, a 
 partially developed medium, controlled by Elias to cry in 
 Judean forests, never embraced Christianity as taught by the 
 Nazarene; neither did he spiritually enter in fulness the 
 Messiah's "Kingdom of Heaven." Hence, said Jesus, "He 
 that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than Ae." 
 John came under the law dispensation. Immersion in some 
 flowing stream was his manner of initiating converts. Many 
 of his more aspirational disciples soon left him, however, and 
 followed the man of ITazareth. John, by the aid of his 
 mediumship, caught a glimpse of this superior teacher 
 and testifier : " I indeed baptized you with water unto 
 repentance ; but he that cometh after me, whose shoes I am 
 not worthy to bear, shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost 
 and with fire." "But Jesus himself baptized not''' with 
 water. 
 
 His disciples in a few instances baptized by immersion ; so, 
 not having attained unto the higher and more spiritual, they 
 also, in the earlier years of their mediumship, occasionally 
 circumcised and practiced other Jewish ceremonies. ITone 
 of them, save John the Evangelist, understood Jesus, or the 
 import of his spiritual kingdom. They received the ^aza- 
 renean baptism of fire, of love, of consecration and holy 
 spirit influx, only in part, and hence their doubts, fears and 
 tergiversations. Honoring John the Baptist for his zeal, 
 admiring his immersion rites because of their cleanly and 
 invigorating eflects in that dusty tropical country, and 
 believing also in the necessity of present physical ablutions, 
 we recommend daily baptisms in summer-time, and their 
 frequency in winter. 
 
 There is, however, an efiicacy of water baptism, under 
 spiritual control, not yet understood or appreciated by the 
 church — a baptism which the spirits were able to induce 
 
BXRGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — BAPTISM. 279 
 
 through John, in one of his exalted mediumistic states^ 
 whilst baptising Jesus in Jordan. It is well known that 
 water can be magnetically spiritualized by repeatedly touch- 
 ing and agitating it; and that water being a conductor of 
 electric action, can thus be made a powerful agency in curing 
 diseases and spiritualizing body and mind. It is said that an 
 angel, at certain times, stirred the pool of Bethesda, and 
 whosoever then stepped into it, was healed of aiy disease. 
 No doubt the angel magnetized it — charged it with spiritual 
 vitality. A baptism therein was efficacious to the well and 
 the sick. The water that closed over Jesus in baptism, was 
 spiritualized by spirits through the mediumship of John, and 
 therefore was more than a sign of purity. Spirits have been 
 known of late to sprinkle a whole circle of inquirers with 
 spiritualized water, the influence of which was most benefi- 
 cent to harmonize the mediumistic conditions. We do not 
 dissent from such uses of water, but recommend them. We, 
 however, would have no special formality. Let all elements 
 be spiritualized, even the food we eat, as an every-day 
 eucharist. When we are intromitted into the real spiritual 
 life, and all our being is thus harmonized to the music-ripples 
 of " the water of life " — the divine inflowings — not only are 
 we in person, but all things around us, are truly baptized and 
 consecrated to holiness. There is, then, but one true Christ- 
 baptism — the baptism of the " Holy Spirit," — the descending, 
 divine afflatus, lifting the soul into that sweetc , calmer 
 fellowship of the more heavenly intelligences. In this 
 divine baptism, whether from good men or w »ir.en, or 
 angels, we believe, and unto it continually seek. 
 
ChAPTEI^ XXX. 
 
 INSPIRATION. 
 
 • There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth it 
 understanding." 
 
 *♦♦»*«« Inspiration clothes creation in a robe of day." 
 
 Inspiration — God's outflowing breath — is man's inbreathed 
 life — a constant power. The universe is a many-toned harp 
 with strings swept by the forces of the Infinite. Aspirations 
 are the vibrations. All souls feel them. Uplifted, they 
 measure the divine light poured into receptive spirits. 
 
 Spiritual illuminations, — exalted ^and original thoughts — 
 evidently emanate from an over-arching world of subtile 
 principles and invisible powers. The heavens vivify the 
 earth. 
 
 "Every soul is aflame with God." 
 
 From the Latin, inspiro, comes the word inspiration; imply- 
 ing inbreathings, impregnating and opening the avenues 
 of perception, the infusion of feeling, influence, ideas from 
 the All-perfect and the angelic — from the immortalized, and 
 from mortals — from forests, fields, flowers, and the beautiful 
 in nature everywhere. As God is infinite, filling im- 
 mensity, inspiration is necessarily universal and perpetual as 
 the river of life. N'ot creating within us new faculties, it 
 arous('3 and kindles into keener activities all the hidden 
 forces of our conscious beings. Pertaining more to souls 
 
 280 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — INSPIRATION. 281 
 
 than books or traditionary legends, it overs weeps the epochs 
 of all the dust-buried ages, and is even more perfect now 
 than in those earlier mornings of time. 
 
 As water, crystal or clouded, assumes the shape of its 
 vases, so inspiration is graded in quantity and quality. Who 
 has not, in the higher moments of thought or aspiration, felt 
 a sweet, hallowed inbreathing from the great pulsing soul of 
 nature ? Who has stood upon some emerald-carpeted moun- 
 tains in the hush of evening, and not felt the soul expand as 
 it caught glimpses of immortal truths ? Who, walking 
 among the lilies of the field, has not been startled and 
 thrilled with the consciousness of those eternal principles 
 that stream in liquid pearls through universal being ? 
 
 Rising liking shafts of flame from the abysmal past, we 
 see in Hesiod a poet, Jeremiah a weeper, Pythagoras a 
 thinker, Socrates a philosopher, Pericles a constructor, 
 Appeles an artist, Jesus a Spiritualist, John a mystic, 
 Perasee a scientist, Mozart a musician. Bacon a logician, 
 Ballon a theologian. These, with others, yielding to what 
 Emerson facetiously terms " the broodings of the oversoul," 
 enriching their receptive minds by the study of the spiritual 
 laws that map the universe, and mentally appropriating the 
 living sermons preached daily in the great Temple of i^ature, 
 with birds for singers and oceans for organs — these, we 
 repeat, speaking words that burned, or breathing music that 
 charmed — touched the world's heart and left their psycho- 
 logical imprint thereon — touched it, because divinely inspired. 
 
 !N"ot the sacred books of India or China — not the manj^- 
 versioned Bibles in use by Jews or Christians, are inspired ; 
 but rather the truths they mirror. 
 
 All truth, in Bibles or out of them — all truth, scientific 
 philosophic or religious — is inspired. Truth is a unity. It is 
 only in the seeming that truths clash. Octave notes do not 
 jar. The unripe peaches of July do not contradict the 
 blushing and mellowed ones of October. They only manifest 
 the different stages consequent upon the law of growth. 
 Our media, like the seers of Egypt, Greece and Rome, — like 
 
282 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 the propbets of Hebrew history, — like the apostles and 
 martyrs of the better dispensations, are — in their hour^ of 
 abstraction or loftiest contemplation, beautifully inspired. 
 As one among these, "doomed to-day," we take a manly 
 pride in acknowledging our helps from the world of 
 spirits. 
 
 There is a general and a special inspiration — both natural. 
 Our spirit guides inspire us, eithei' by willing a magnetic 
 current to touch, as with regenerating fire, our brain facul- 
 ties ; or — the conditions previously prepared — by approach- 
 ing and breathing the inmost feelings of their own heaven- 
 illumined souls into ours. God, being infinite and impartial, 
 all humanities, constituting a fraternal unity in diversity of 
 individualities, are inspired from higher or lower planes of 
 conscious existence. The truer the aim, the diviner the 
 purpose, sweeter the nature and holier the aspiration, the 
 more exalting and ecstatic is the inspiration. Plato, mantled 
 in Grecian grandeur, gathered his highest inspirations 
 while summering upon the cloud-piercing Hymettus; 
 Mahomet, from Arabian summits ; Confucius, from Asian 
 mountains, and Jesus, tearful and prayerful, from Kedron's 
 valley, and Olive's mountain. 
 
 Inspiration comes obedient to the law of attraction ; it is 
 as natural to the mental affections as air to the lungs. It is 
 ever ratioed to the plane of our moral status of character. 
 Only the active, thinking, loving, aspiring mind is truly 
 inspired. We get here what we seek. There are spiritua' 
 strata of inspiration as there are natural strata in our ma- 
 terial atmospheres for each grade of sentient being. We 
 may, therefore, be inspired in the department of passion, of 
 reflection, of invention, of music, of poetry, of patriotism, of 
 philanthropy, of the loves of childhood, of moral justice, of 
 divine recognition, just as we adjust and habituate these 
 functional organs and faculties. The lower the plane the 
 grosser is the qualitative inspiration ; the higher the plane the 
 purer is the inspiration. Our status of love-life determines 
 the degree of our heaven or spiritual sphere of use. If we 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — INSPIRATION. 283 
 
 would be ushered into holy light, the holiest pu pose must 
 animate the will to corresponding activities. Thus, and thus 
 only, do we drink of the immortal fountains of undimmed 
 and celestial goodness. Under such an inspiration, we are 
 able to discover defects in our forces of character, creating a 
 keen, sharp pain in a tender conscience that rouses up to 
 focalize those dormant faculties to higher points of mind and 
 heart, that then loom up in visions as an attainable glory. 
 The holiest spirits have the deepest pain when any taint is 
 found upon their inner life. When admitted to inspirations 
 and consociations of such spirits, our unstrung or untouched 
 chords of love are attuned to heavenly order, when our 
 whole being is at length spiritually musicalized, heard and 
 felt in raptured gratitude to the " white-vestured" come to 
 lead us into their Edens of Innocence and Beauty. 
 
 Believing in inspiration, then, we would go up day by day 
 on to the Mount of Transfiguration ; would open the win- 
 dows of our souls to the constant reception of higher 
 truths ; would be charitable to all fresh thoughts, from 
 whatever source, to all newly conceived ideas, for they may 
 have traveled as blessings down from sunnier zones. 
 Behind even the faintest corruscation of some wierd, half- 
 expressed truth, there may gleam a star silver-shrouded, or 
 a celestial sun awaiting earthly recognition. 
 
 God is in the present. The books of inspiration are not 
 closed and sealed. Ideas, principles, the laws of pure intel- 
 ligence, require no crutches. Americans can stand erect 
 without spinal stiiFenings from Asian monuments. Prayer 
 need not float to heaven on the breath of ancient memories; 
 nor assume oriental attitudes to secure a hearing. 
 
 "Where'er there's a life to be kindled by love, 
 
 "Wherever a soul to inspire, 
 Strike this key-note of Qod that trembles aboTe, 
 Night's silver-tongued voices of fire." 
 
 Our granite-hills and highlands, are sacred as Israel's 
 mountains; our rivers holy as the Jordans of Asia, and our 
 
284 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 forests beautiful as the olives and cedars that shaded 
 Lebanon. God did not speak his first word to Moses in the 
 Old Testament ; nor pronounce his last to John on 
 Patmos. The aspirations of true men cannot be held in 
 slavish subjection to the letter of past revelations. Souls 
 must have living bread. They must bathe in living streams, 
 branching from the " River of Life." They must be free as 
 God's winds — free as the loves of the angels. 
 
 Inspirations can never know a finality, being manifest in 
 all forms of life ; in the progressive movements of the ages ; 
 in religion, art and science; in the moral heroism of 
 reformers ; in the tender afifections of woman ; in the 
 ministry of spirits ; in the sincere devotions of the prayerful, 
 and in the sweet trust of a pure and holy life. 
 
pHAPTEi^ XXXI. 
 
 BEAUTY OF FAITH. 
 
 *<The soul's vague longing — 
 The aching void which nothing earthly fills — 
 Oh, what desires upon my heart are thronging, 
 As I look upward to the heavenly hills ! " 
 
 The acceptance of the sciences is based more upon the 
 investigations of others than personal research. Christen- 
 dom, rejecting the inspirations and spiritual manifestations 
 of the present, rests its bony head upon the old grayed 
 monuments of antiquity, and strives to fill its leanness upon 
 histories and doubtful facts connected with ancient Jewish 
 feasts. It piously prefers dipping from the "Dead Sea," than 
 drinking from America's gushing fountains. This is an 
 abuse of faith. Spiritualists understand the import of these 
 teachings — " Give us this day our daily bread " — " a well of 
 water within you springing up into everlasting life" — "Lo! 
 I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world ! " 
 
 Faith is perpetual. When its " substance of things hoped 
 for " is swallowed up in fruition, like the bud blossoming 
 into the flower, it unfolds a yet higher life — ever higher — 
 preluding immortal progress. 
 
 Faith often used in a subjective sense for personal belief, 
 is elemental in the human soul, and may be defined an 
 assent of the mind to propositions based upon the testimony 
 of others, or an acceptance of such truths as seem legiti- 
 mately deducible from the investigations of physical and 
 
 285 
 
286 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 moral science. Faith, differing essentially from mere belief, 
 is graded upward from the more external to the divine, 
 corresponding relationally to the outer and inner conscious- 
 ness. The latter is closely allied to intuition. It is a glim- 
 mering from the star of destiny. Faith is essential to suc- 
 cessful communication with ministering spirits. The adjust- 
 ment of the spirit batteries, under this law, is most delicate 
 and beautiful. The spirit has to employ our magnetic sphere 
 — enters into rapport with us sympathetically — and if we are 
 any ways deceptive and tricky, gloomy and unbelieving, our 
 very mental and moral condition defeats the object; for then 
 a pure and truthful spirit, who would communicate, finds it 
 very difficult to reach our sphere, it being so magnetically 
 repellant. Honest doubt does not imply i^n-faith; in fact, it 
 is faith in embryo. The candid inquirer always gets light; 
 for such a sphere attracts the angel who comes to bless " the 
 poor in spirit." Faith, then, is rooted in innocency. " Thy 
 faith hath made thee whole.'* How beautiful it is under the 
 effulgence of this spiritual light! When our purpose is 
 sincere, Faith-angels come, administering "good tidings of 
 good " to those who " seek immortality — eternal life ! " 
 
 Louis !N^apoleon landed upon the French coast with a few 
 adherents, shouting — "Long liveN^apoleon." The thoughtless 
 called him a madman ; but to-day he guides the destinies of 
 an empire. Garibaldi put his foot down firmly in Sicily, 
 raised the cry of revolution, drove out a ruling tyrant, and 
 offered a kingdom to Victor Emanuel — a kingdom that shall 
 yet call Kome its capital, and send sunshine into every Italian 
 heart. Joan D'Arc, fired with enthusiasm and inspired by 
 avenging angels, led the French army against the English to 
 victory — a sample of faith and will-force. Columbus, dreamy 
 and visionary, conceived of continents and islands in the West. 
 We see him drafting his course; now aweary pilgrim at the 
 king's gate, and now at royal courts pleading for ships. At 
 length, the wish attained, the sails are hoisted and the prows 
 turne«l; he puts out into the great deep, under the loftiest 
 inspiration of faith. The needle trembling, turned from its 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — BEAUTY OP FAITH. 287 
 
 accustomed position; strange sea-birds whirled by; storms 
 danced their demon-dances in the rigging; but a divine 
 current, seemingly, swept them on, till a new world glad- 
 dened their vision. Such a faith is the fountain-head, the 
 mighty, propelling force we see manifest in the field, the 
 shop, the academy, the commercial mart, the studio of the 
 artist, the observatory of the astronomer, and the literary 
 altitudes attained in American and English universities. 
 
 Beautiful, truly, is a calm, abiding faith — faith in the 
 measureless possibilities of humanity — faith in the governing 
 guidance of the spiritual heavens — faith in the uuchange- 
 ability of the divine laws, and faith in the ceaseless, outflow- 
 ing love of the Infinite. This kind of faith has more to do 
 with the moral nature than the intellect. Science, if touch- 
 ing the intellect only, is cold and chilling, though clear as 
 crystal. And philosophy alone, without the warming reli- 
 gious influences of love and sympathy, faith and trust, is 
 comparable to a glistening iceberg, hugging the human soul 
 into a resurrectionless death. 
 
 How sweet and perfect the little child's faith in the parent; 
 and how firm should be ours in the innate goodness of every 
 human being! Under the ice the water runs; above the 
 clouds the sun shines ; upon the moldering piles of India and 
 the marbled ruins of Greece, mosses are green; and wild 
 vines, clinging, climb sunward. So, nestling under the 
 roughest exterior, and growing out from every conscious 
 soul, there is something fair and heavenly. Aye, an angel is 
 hidden there, awaiting the better, higher conditions to pro- 
 duce the Eden-blooms of good works. In every fainting, 
 struggling Magdalen are all the divine elements of a Virgin 
 Mary; and in every denying, weeping Peter are all the soul- 
 prophecies of angelic life — a structural pillar in the present 
 to be hewn, polished and fitted into the living church of 
 humanity. 
 
 Cherishing this deep faith in the divinity of humanity, in 
 the good, the beautiful and the true. Spiritualists should 
 
288 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 cultivate the tenderest charities, encourage the widest syra 
 pathies, and, despising none, despairing of none, should 
 strive everj^where to bring out and build up the pure and 
 the holy. 
 
 ** Where'er we go in weal or woe, whatever fate befall, 
 In sunny glade or forest shade, a Heaven is over alU^ 
 
 Thinkers, ignoring the forms of faith and theologic dogmas 
 of churchmen, consider the creeds fashioned in the last cen- 
 tury hardly fitted for spittoons in the present. Asserting a 
 true manhood, they stamp them under their feet, and clasp- 
 ing the hands of the immortalized, walk up daily on to some 
 mount of ascension, to commune with nature and talk with 
 the gods. But faith in man and woman, in law and God, 
 and faith in an endless progressive existence, involving its 
 demonstration ever approximating the divine perfections, 
 are necessities of the soul and beai^^lful as holy. 
 
 "Thither our weak and weary steps are tending; — 
 Loved angel friends I with each frail child abide! 
 Guide us towards Home, where, all our wanderings ending, 
 We shall see y«, and, * shall be satisfied I ' " 
 
ChAPTEF^ XXXII, 
 
 REPENTANCE. 
 
 ** Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 
 
 "Oh, for those humble, contrite tears, 
 Which from repentance flow." 
 
 *• How oft in still communion known, 
 Those spirits have been sent 
 To share the travail of the soul, 
 And show it what they meant." 
 
 Repentance implies genuine reformation. The Greek 
 word is 3fe(anoia, and literally denotes the soul's recollec- 
 tions of its own actions, in such a way, as to produce both 
 sorrow and the purpose of amendment. The word occurs 
 about sixty times in the ITew Testament. 
 
 John, the precursor of the INTazarenean Spiritualist, preach- 
 ing in the mountains and wildernesses of Syria, under the 
 psychologic control and inspiration of Esaias — Isaiah — cried, 
 " Repent ye ; " that is, reform, for the kingdom of heaven — 
 a more spiritual dispensation — is ripening for acceptance, 
 destined to kindle into a richer, rapturous glow our national 
 life. ■ 
 
 Repentance in no way indicates security from punishment ; 
 nor is it logically allied to any system that promises escape 
 from the legitimate consequences attending the violations of 
 natural law. T^ature, though rigid, is a righteous master. 
 Poised, she holds the golden scales of justice — obey and 
 enjoy — transgress and suffer. 
 
 19 289 
 
290 DOCTRINES OP SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Vicarious atonements, cradled in ignorance, belong origi- 
 nally to the lower social strata of Egyptian life, Jewish cere- 
 monies and Christian superstitions — all mere devices to evade 
 just penalties. Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus, and other intuitive 
 thinkers of the eldest ages, avoided introducing atoning sub- 
 stitutions into their religious instructions. ITot from Jesus, 
 but from the policy-inspired Pauline writings of the New 
 Testament, do churchmen gather their dogmas of atonement 
 and imputed righteousness. 
 
 The soul keenly alive to justice — a justice that would 
 punish the giiilly only — repudiates such popular church 
 doctrines as these, expressed in verse : 
 
 "Just as I ara, without one plea, 
 
 But that thy blood was shed for me. 
 ****♦« 
 
 Just as I am and waiting not 
 
 To rid my soul of one dark blot, 
 
 To thee, whose blood can cleanse eaoh spot, 
 
 Lamb of God, I come, I come ! " 
 
 No crimson sacrifices of slain goats and kids, no sacred 
 waters of Gunga, in India, no Grecian draughts of hemlock, 
 nor streaming blood from Calvaries, can avail anything, 
 even judicially, in saving from the consequences of those 
 just penalties, threading Nature's laws, as cause and effect. 
 
 The inebriate's repentance does not save him from the 
 past shame, debility, degradation and torment, resulting from 
 years of physical transgression. The poisoned libations 
 daily consumed, impregnating every bone, muscle, sinew, 
 nerve, deadening the finer emotions and benumbing the 
 mind, leave their stings and scars upon the vital organism ; 
 while memory — the *' undying worm " — lives to torture the 
 mental with humiliation and remorse. These cannot be 
 forgiven in the sense of blotting them into a forgetless 
 oblivion. The universe knows no loss. But repentance in 
 the sense of reformation, lifting the drunkard from the con- 
 dition and further practice of the habit, will, by destroying 
 the cause, save him from further disciplinary punishment. 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — REPENTENCE. 291 
 
 Effects, however, linger long after the operating causes have 
 ceased to act, as rills continue to flow after the storm-clouds 
 have settled away in the distance. 
 
 While accepting repentance upon a philosophical basis, 
 Spiritualism has no forgiveness in the sense of negating jus- 
 tice — none in the sense of warding off just and deserved 
 punishment. The original Greek word for forgiveness is 
 Aphiemi in the verbal, and Aphesis in the substantive form, 
 literally implying " putting or sending away, removal, or 
 deliverance from." It is sometimes translated by the Eng- 
 lish words (Luke iv : 18), '* deliverance " and " liberty '* 
 
 thus : " to preach deliverance to the captives, and to set at 
 liberty them that are bound." Punishment, repentance and 
 forgiveness, are all clearly illustrated in the wanderings, 
 sufferings and return to a father's embrace of the Prodigal 
 Son. 
 
 Repentance, implying sorrow and reformation, Jesus 
 taught that there was "joy in heaven over one sinner that 
 repenteth." This work continues in the future life. The 
 republic of the ano^els spans all worlds. According to the 
 " Apostles' creed," Jesus, " crucified, dead and buried, 
 descended into helV — the invisible state — the under-world of 
 departed spirits. Speaking of this descent into hell, the cele- 
 brated Dr. Campbell confesses that "Jesus' descriptions 
 of the abodes of departed souls, were not drawn from the 
 writings of the Old Testament, but have a remarkable 
 affinity to the descriptions which the Grecian poets have 
 given of them." Enriched by the scholarship and companion- 
 ship of the evangelist John, and conversant with the Indian, 
 ?]gyptian and Grecian philosophies, this would be perfectly 
 natural in Jesus' parabolic descriptions of the future 
 existence. 
 
 Admitting, as the " Apostles' creed " affirms — the descent 
 into hell — what the purpose? That prominent disciple, 
 Peter, answers : " Jesus put to death in the flesh, I ut quick- 
 ened by the spirit by which he also went and preached unto 
 the spirits in prison, which were sometimes disobedient * * * 
 
292 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 in the days of Noah. * * * Por this cause also was the 
 gospel preached to them that are dead^ that they might be 
 judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to 
 God in the spirit." — (1 Peter iii : 18, and iv: 6.) Beautiful 
 this mission of Jesus preaching to the " dead " — preaching 
 the gospel to darkened " spirits in prison." The fact of 
 euch preaching implies that those listening, could, and would, 
 be benefited and permanently reformed by practically actual- 
 izing the divine teachings. Jesus' sermon on the mount 
 was not his last. Reformers continue their redemptive 
 efforts in the world of spirits. This is natural. Teaching 
 and being taught is to be the work of eternity. That " cloud 
 of witnesses," summering in the magnetic strata that envel- 
 ope the earth in concentric circles, thus testify. 
 
 Marked individualities, nationalities and conditions pertain 
 to all lower realms of progressive life. "In my Father's 
 house," said Jesus, " are many mansions.'' There are palatial 
 homes for the angelic, and prison-houses for " prisoners of 
 hope." These prison-spheres are the temporary residences 
 of ignorant and angular spirits. Their psychological control 
 is not to be courted. It produces disorder. The Apostles 
 had power to cast out, or dispossess such. By their "fruits 
 ye shall know them." Their emanations, rising like vapory 
 flames, correspond to their moral states. To angel eyes these 
 aural clouds appear dull, hazy, dark. Light from the celestial 
 heavens streams in divine radiance all through these aromal 
 stratifications. The divine Presence — the heavenly arabula — 
 is everywhere manifest. Love encircles all. God and heaven 
 triumph. Preceded, therefore, by repentance and reconcil- 
 iation, holiness and happiness will be the certain destiny of a 
 universe of conscious and reasoning intelligences. All will 
 find this heaven — this paradise of bliss — wh.en they ar^ 
 spiritually imparadised in God. 
 
Chaptei^ XXXlli, 
 
 LAW OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 ' Justice is a theorem ; punishment is as exact as Euclid ; crime hag ita 
 angles of incidence, and its angles of reflection ; and we men tremble when to 
 perceive in the obscurity of human destiny the lines and figures of that 
 enormous geometry which the dunce calls chance, and the thinking man 
 Providence." 
 
 "Richer for the storms and trials, 
 Finer for the searching fire ; 
 Let each flame that scathes thy spirit 
 Draw thee to the angels higher." 
 
 Egyptian Judges, occupying official seats of honor, wore, 
 as insignia, breast-plates of judgment. Jewish high-priests, 
 copying after Egypt, put on the breast-plates, ephod, robe 
 and girdle, adding to the breast-plate of judgment the Urim 
 and Thummim. Christianity, modified by Buddhism and 
 Hellenism, is grafted upon Judaism ; hence the phrases 
 judgment-seat and judgment. 
 
 The literal import of the Greek term — Krisis — judgment, 
 implies rule, government. As a scriptural doctrine, rightly 
 interpreted, it has no reference to a "future general ]n([g- 
 ment" in the spirit world. These are among the biblical 
 expressions : 
 
 " Sampson judged Israel twenty years." — 1 Sam. viii. 
 " According to their ways and doings I judged them " — past time.-- 
 Ez. xxxvi. : 19. 
 
 " Verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth." — Jer. 9. 
 
 293 
 
294 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 "I am the L(.r(l wliirli oxercisctli loving kindness, Judgment, and 
 righteousness in the earth." — 7^. 96 : 10-13. 
 
 "The Father judgeth no man ; but hath committed all judgment tc 
 the Son :'— John \. : 22. 
 
 " For judgment I am come into this world." — Jolui ix. : 39. 
 
 " As I hear — (clairaudiantly) — I judge; and my judgment is just; 
 because I seek not mine own will — (medium-like) — but the will of the 
 Father."— JoAw v. : '^^ 
 
 Judgment and justice are requisites in all moral govern- 
 ments. Especially is this true during the growth of souls 
 through experiences into tiign spiritual states of being. 
 Divine penalties, as eifects, are neither postponed, nor evaded 
 by atonements. 
 
 When the immoral and oppressive Felix swayed a sceptre 
 of power over a Judean province, the inspired Paul "rea- 
 soned with him of righteousness, temperance and judgment 
 to come," till he trembled. It was not, however, suffering 
 to be endured in an eternitv to which he was hastenino; that 
 caused the trembling, but rather of a judgment to come — to 
 come to him^ to all, as the natural consequences of plunging 
 into false relations with divine laws. Man, a moral actor, is 
 a subject of law, a responsible being, reaping anguish from 
 vice, and enjoyment from virtue. 
 
 Originally the dogma of a future general judgment was an 
 Eg3'ptian myth. It has traveled down to us through a Juda- 
 ized Christianity. Where volcanic fires concentrate, there 
 they burst; where storms gather, there they spend their 
 fury ; where and what men sow, there and that they reap. 
 Jesus said expressly, '■^ Now is the judgment of this world." 
 Whoever did a base deed, whoever defrauded his brother, and 
 slept sweetly through the shades of night? Every man has 
 a judgment-scat in his own soul. The recording angel is 
 there also. Conscience is judge; reason is judge; truth is 
 judge. Before this august tribunal mortals stand each day, 
 each hour, approved or condemned. 
 
 Memory is the undying worm. Thoughts, affections, plans, 
 accompany souls into the future world. Each there gravitates 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — LAW OF JUDGMENT. '295 
 
 to his own plane. This life determines the commencement 
 of the next stage of existence. 
 
 The divine law by which individuals are judged is not 
 penned in Yedas or TJpanishads, in Old or 'New Testaments, 
 but, mapping the universe, is written in ineffaceble lines of 
 light by the breath of the Eternal upon man's mental and 
 moral constitution. The highest, the onli/ supreme authority, 
 13 the voice of God in the soul. All are not equally amenable 
 to even human laws. If anything has been demonstrated in 
 mental science, it is that hereditary taint may so penetrate 
 the substance of an individual's being, as to weaken his will- 
 force and put his tendencies into the pathway of perverted 
 relations toward that which tends to the highest good. The 
 incompatibility of social relationships, ante-natal conditions, 
 early education and physical comforts, exercise such an 
 influence over individuals as in many respects to absolutely 
 control their motives. Such are more the subjects of pity 
 and compassion than objects of blame. Instead of peniten- 
 tiaries, hospitals and houses of correction should be erected, 
 and reform-schools opened for these unfortunates, with wise 
 and loving teachers and pleasant surroundings. Said the 
 gentle Jesus, "I come not to condemn, but save the world." 
 
 All being divine in the innermost, the lowest have a dim 
 consciousness of the good, the just, the right. In the infinite 
 administration, the scales of justice balance. Vice and emen- 
 datory penalties shoot up from the same soil. The thief sees, 
 after a time, he has stolen from himself. The deceiver that 
 he has deceived himself — not nature, angels, God. The slan- 
 derer discovers that his poisoned javelins all return to 
 pierce his own heart. All learn that what thej^ throw out 
 returns with increase, and that it is impossible to hide away 
 from one's conscious selfhood, or escape the legitimate result 
 of voluntary acts. Feelings, thoughts, deeds are from the 
 inner life, and, changing the relation of things, are, in one 
 sense, eternal in their effect. Each sweet hope cherished is 
 an immortal flower. Every ill-purpose conceived is a poi- 
 sonous breath that Uvea '-.o blight. Our thoughts, aims, plans 
 
296 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 are carved upon our spiritual natures. As the woven web 
 here, so the garment over there. What responsibilities! 
 Heaven help us to weave life's web well! 
 
 Rocks, trees, flowers, men have radiating emanations — 
 atmospheres peculiarly their own. The nature of this elec- 
 tric sphere surrounding mortals corresponds to the soil's 
 unfoldment. Jesus, ever seeing this magnetic effluence 
 through his clairvoyance, " knew what was in man." This 
 electric envelope around the gross and depraved is hazy and 
 murky. Around the merely intellectual it appears clear, cold 
 and positive, with bluish shadings. Around the genial, spir- 
 itual and harmonial, it is bright and silvery, mellowing into 
 the golden. This idea is elaborated in the Scriptures with 
 reference to spirit-clothing. Matthew writes, " The angel 
 of the Lord descended from heaven, rolled back the stone 
 from the door, * * * and his raiment was white as snow." 
 Luke says, " They found the stone rolled away, * * * and 
 two men stood by them in shining garments,^'' It is said that 
 on the mount, " Jesus's face did shine as the sun, * * * and 
 his raiment was white as the light.'' When Cornelius was 
 praying, he says, '* A man stood before him in bright cloth- 
 ing." The light that shone round about Paul was *' above 
 the brightness of the sun ; " and John, entranced upon the 
 Isle of Patmos, perceived that those who had *' overcome were 
 clothed in white robes.'' Overcome what? Their perversions, 
 passions and earthly appetites. As the flower imbibes the 
 dew or sunlight, so, revealed before the heavens, are our 
 spheres both seen and felt by ministering angels by whom 
 we are thus weighed as in a balance and credited exactly for 
 what we are worth in the " Book of Life " — even our own 
 soul. Appropriately Paul afllrmed, " The saints shall judge 
 the world." The chancery angel — -judgment and justice — 
 is a daily attendant of each through the vicissitudes of our 
 eternal pilgrimage. What an incentive to live a pure, divine 
 life. 
 
PHAin^Ei^ XXXiV. 
 
 EVIL SPIRITS. 
 
 "What men call evil, only is 
 
 The germinating seed, 
 
 From whence, by sure development, 
 
 Shall spring good fruit indeed. 
 
 And man all evil shall outgrow, 
 
 In spite of doubts and fears ; 
 . In faith and hope shall plume his wing. 
 
 And soar to brighter spheres." 
 
 Illumined thinkers can never force themselves to believe 
 that evil, as an end, essential and absolute, can exist under 
 the moral government of an infinite God whose nature is 
 goodness, whose essence is love. But, from the stand-point 
 of observation, there are conditions and diverse actions, 
 resultant of human conduct, designated by moral philoso- 
 phers as evil. Comparison is elemental in human nature. 
 Contrasts there must be. Can better terms be found to 
 express certain qualities, certain properties and relations in 
 the physical world, than straight lines and curves, heat and 
 cold, light and darkness— better terms to express certain 
 moral conditions in the conscious reasoning world than wis- 
 dom and folly, truth and error, good and evil ? All these 
 are relative in significance, of course, and consequently the 
 more applicable to men and spirits, as finite existences. 
 
 All counsels, exhortations, commands— all rewards and 
 punishments — all praise and reproof in learned bodies— all 
 jurisprudence and orderly society, are baped upon the 
 
 297 
 
298 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 ground that men are moral actors and capable of good and 
 evil. The reason why moral precepts are addressed to men 
 and women rather than to the lower orders of creation, is 
 because they have a rational and spiritual nature ; because 
 tliey can understand moral obligation, and are conscious of a 
 divine consciousness within them. Moral ability measures 
 the extent of ir.c r il respo'i.^'tl!!":"". ^ icording to the 
 original gift, so is the expected measure of he talent. 
 
 That there are educated and ignorant, good and bad men on 
 earth, are not debatable propositions. Death, being more 
 chemical than psychical, a mere musical ripple upon the 
 ocean of life, and neither a spasmodic educator or savior, 
 there necessarily must be educated and uneducated, good and 
 evil spirits, of higher or lower conditions in the summer and 
 winter lands of the future, so constantly peopled from thi^ 
 earth. And yet, as on earth, they all constitute a banded 
 brotherhood and sisterhood of interests, and are the subjects 
 of eternal progression. 
 
 Prof. Wm. Denton, in a lecture delivered in Music Hall, 
 Boston, entitled, " Spiritualism Superior to Christianit}-," 
 said: '^ N^o wonder that those who believe in this Ortho- 
 dox religion, believe also, that we shall be miraculously 
 changed at death. But Spiritualism teaches us that spirits 
 when they pass from the body to the future life, take with 
 them everything which is necessary for their individuality. 
 Take out of any one the good or bad tendencies that dis- 
 tinguish him, and he will become somebody else immedi- 
 ately." 
 
 Admitting an intercommunion between this and the spirit- 
 world — a conscious presence of spiritual beings, and of 
 minds influencing minds, as among the facts connected wiUi 
 the Spiritual Philosophy, it is as natural as evident that all 
 classes of spirits may, under conditions adapted to their 
 magnetic and spiritual states, impress, inspire, entrance, and 
 at times partially, and then again completely, control mortals. 
 The higher operating influences are usually denominated 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — EVIL SPIRITS. 21)9 
 
 eiitrancements and inspirations ; the lower, possessions and 
 obsessions. 
 
 Threading' the historic testimony of India, Egypt, China 
 Persia, Syria, Greece, Rome, the medieval ages, down to 
 American Indians, we have the same chain of general state- 
 ments — by willing or unwilling witnesses — of the existence 
 and power of demoniacal spirits. 
 
 We have previously shown by valid authors that the term 
 demon is used indiscriminately without reference to the 
 moral status of the spirit. In further confirmation, as 
 evidence in point, we subjoin the following: 
 
 Demon, in the Greek, is daimoji, to know, a god, used like 
 Theos and Thea of individual gods It is defined and used 
 by scholars, lexicographers and classical writers thus: 
 Jones — Demon, " the spirit of a dead man." 
 Oudwortli — Demon, " a spirit, either angel or fiend." 
 Grote, the celebrated Grecian historian, declares that 
 " demons and gods were considered the same in Greece." 
 
 Lucianus, a Greek writer, born at Samosata, in Syria, 
 used demon in the sense of '' departed souls." 
 
 Archbishop Whateley says : " Tiie heathen authors allude 
 to possession by a demon (or by a god, for they employ the 
 two words with little or no distinction) as a thing of no 
 uncommon occurrence." 
 
 The Psalmist David speaks of the " operation of evil 
 angels.' " 
 
 Plato, speaking of a certain class of demons, says : 
 
 '• They are demons because prudent and learned. * »= * 
 [lence, poets say when a good man shall have reached his end, he 
 receives a mighty destiny and honor, and becomes a demon accordino- 
 to the appellation of prudence." 
 
 Worcester, in his synonyms, says : 
 
 "Demon is sometimes used in a good sense; as, 'The demon of 
 Socrates, or the demon of Tasso' — and then, to illustrate, quotes from 
 that fine author, Addison : ^ly good demon, who sat at my ri^-ht 
 hand during the couise of this whole vision,' " &c. 
 
300 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 That learned savant, Cardan, honored with the friei. dehip 
 of Gregory XIII, says: 
 
 " No man was ever great in any art or action, that did not have a 
 demon to aid him." 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson writes : 
 
 *' Close, close above our heada 
 The potent plain of demons spreads; 
 Stands to each human soul his own, 
 For watch, and ward, and furtherance," 
 
 Dr. Lardner writes: 
 
 " The notion of demons, or the souls of the dead, having power ovei 
 living men, was universally prevalent among the heathen of those 
 times, and believed by many Christians. 
 
 " The demons of Paganism, Judaism and Christianity were spirits of 
 dead men." 
 
 Euripides, Hipp, v, 141) makes the chorus address 
 Phedra : 
 
 " young girl, a god (demon) possesses thee ; it is either Pan, or 
 Hecate, or the venerable Cory ban tes, or Cybele, that agitates thee." 
 
 Dr. Campbell says; 
 
 " All Pagan antiquity affirms that from Titan and Saturn, the poetic 
 progeny of Coelus and Terra, down to ^sculapius, Proteus, and Minos, 
 all their divinities were ghosts of dead nien^ and were so regarded by 
 the most erudite of the Pagans themselves." 
 
 Bishop Whately ably argues for the " reality of demoniac 
 possession," as related in the E'ew Testament, against those 
 rationalizing critics who would explain away the narrativ^es 
 and the language of Christ himself as simply an " accommo- 
 dation" to a vulgar superstition. He shows that the belief 
 in spiritual possession was held, not only by the Jews and 
 primitive Christians, but generally by heathen antiquity, 
 that " the heathen authors allude to possession by a demon 
 (or by a god, for they used the two words with little or no 
 distinction), as a thing of no uncommon occurrence." He 
 tells us that they represent the priests and priestesses of 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — EVIL SPIRITS. 301 
 
 their celebrated oracles as possessed of a spirit of divination 
 similar to that of the damsel of Philippi mentioned in the 
 Acts of the Apostles. He considers that the agency attri- 
 buted to demons in the Xew Testament, '* was not a mere 
 fanciful description in figurative language of natural diseases, 
 but literally and undoubtedly a fact." 
 
 Certain-churchites consider all demons "• evil spirits" — that 
 is, irredeemable, fallen angels. On the other hand, a few 
 German Rationalists and many Universalists, theorizing out- 
 side of facts, and recently well established principles of 
 psychological science, regard " demons," all the spiritual 
 beings of the spirit-world, as perfect and holy. The truth 
 lies between these extremes. Demons are simply the 
 immortalized men of the other life — spirits occupying 
 various planes or mansions in that " house not made with 
 hands" — the temple of the Eternal. 
 
 The Yedas, Puranas and Upanishads, abound in references 
 to the Dei'atas and Soors — good angels and subordinate 
 celestial beings; and to XhQ Dews, Asoors SLudDanoos — evil 
 spirits, and the method of destroying their influences. 
 Upham says this " doctrine of demons, in full force to- 
 day in the island of Ceylon, is older than Buddhism. 
 Grotama found it when he there made his appearance, 540 B. 
 C. (Asl. Res. viii, 531.) 
 
 The Chaldean philosophy, with whom at Babylon the 
 Jews had so much to do, contains an elaborately constructed 
 system relative to the obsessional powers of demons. 
 Speaking of the devices they employ to carry out their arts 
 and selfish schemes, Psallus, quoting from Marcus, of 
 Mesopotamia, says : 
 
 " They eflfect these things not as having dominion over us, and 
 carrying us as their slaves withersoever they please, but by suggestion) 
 for applying themselves to the spirit which is within us, they them- 
 selves being spirits also, they instil discourses of affections and 
 pleasures, not by voice verberating the air, but by whisper insinuating 
 their discourse. * =^ ^^ ^ *> ^ 
 
 If the msinuating demon be one of the subterraneous kind, he 
 distorteth he possessed person, and speaking by him, maketh use of his 
 
30*2 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Ungual organs to convey his ideas. * * * Others stop the v.ice, 
 and make the possessed person in all respects like one that is dead.'' 
 
 No one can fail to see the resemblance between these 
 paragraphs and statements, and certain disorderly " spirit 
 manifestations" of the ISTew Testament. Take an instance 
 from the gospels : 
 
 " And one of the multitude said : Master, I have brought unto 
 thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit ; and wheresoever he taketh 
 him he teareth him, and he foameth and gnasheth with his teeth, and 
 piueth away. * * * And the spirit cried and rent him sore and 
 came out of him ; and he was as one dead ; insomuch that many 
 said, He is dead." 
 
 The learned Marcus, writing of another kind of demon — 
 undeveloped spirit — says : 
 
 *' And because it is irrational, void of all intellectual contemplation, 
 and is guided by irrational phantasy, it stands not in awe of menaces, 
 and for that reason most persons aptly call it dumb and deaf, nor can 
 they who are possessed with it by any other means be freed from it, 
 but by the divine favor obtained by fasting and prayer." 
 
 See a similar account in the ninth chapter of Mark, where 
 a Jew brought his son to Jesus, possessed with a dumb 
 spirit: 
 
 And Jesus asked his father, How long is it since this came unto 
 him? And he said. Of a child. =i« * * If thou canst do anything, 
 have compassion on us and help us. 
 
 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe ; all things are possible 
 to him that believeth. 
 
 And straightway the father of the child cried out and said with 
 tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief 
 
 When Jesus saw the people come running together, he rebuked the 
 foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou deaf and dumb spirit, I charge thee 
 come out of him and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried 
 and rent him sore and came out of him, and he was as one dead. 
 
 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. 
 
 Then Jesus said to the disciples, This kind can come forth by 
 nothing but by prayer and fasting." 
 
 Aware that these demoniacal possessions of the 'New Testa- 
 ment have been the subject of much discussion for centuries 
 by the learned, we present certain logical facts for candia 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — EVIL SPIRITS. 808 
 
 consideration. The Christian Fathers, several ITeo-Platonic 
 writers of eminence, and the most distinguished bihlical 
 commentators, with great unanimity agree that these 
 obsessions literally occurred. The position of " Rationalists" 
 and " Universalists" that tliese demons were nothing more 
 thaL lunacy, epilepsy and sundry diseases, must seem to 
 every sound thinker exceedingly weak and illogical. 
 
 I. The demoniacs of the gospel records and cotemporary 
 literature are represented as differing widely from more 
 insane and epileptic individuals. In Matt, iv : 24, the Greek 
 terms show this contrast in a marked manner. See also 
 Luke iv : 33-36. And verse 41, as compared with the 40th, 
 presents the contrast still more direct. Dr. Clarke, com- 
 menting upon the 24th verse of the 4th of Matt., says, 
 " Possessed with devils — demoniacs. Persons possessed by 
 evil spirits. This is certainly the plain, obvious meaning of 
 demoniac in the Gospels." (Com., Yol. Y, p. 62.) 
 
 II. If demons were simply natural, physical diseases, was 
 it not a matter of the highest importance that Jesus should 
 have undeceived his cotemporaries, Jews and Greeks, upo,^ 
 this vital point, thus correcting the erroneous and pernicious 
 philosophy of the age ? But he did not in a single instance.. 
 To say, as some have, he accommodated himself to the pre- 
 vailing notions of the times, is simply to say, in the language 
 of another, " He who came to bear witness to the truth, 
 accommodated himself to a lieJ^ Suppose we were to sub- 
 stitute diseases for demons, in the scriptural accounts. Take, 
 as an illustration, Mark xvi : 9, reading, " !N"ow when Jesus 
 was risen, * '^ * he appeared first to Mary Magdalen, 
 out of whom he had cast seven devils " — daimonia, demons. 
 Who, with any scholarly reputation at stake, would assume 
 the responsibility of giving us such a rendering and exegesis 
 as the following : "Out of whom he had cast seven devils " — 
 that is, seven diseases, lunacy lumbago, dyspepsia, rheuma- 
 tism, colic, pneumonia and the measles ! 
 
 in. These obsessing demons could not have been diseases 
 and lunatics alone, because they conversed intelligently with 
 
304 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Jesus, ittering propositions undeniably correct, and ouch aa 
 were happily adapted to the occasion. On the other hand, 
 Jesus addressed these demons — spirits — as thinking, conscious 
 individualities, and commanded them, as beings distinct 
 from the obsessed or psychologized parties, to leave. The 
 Rev. Dr. Woltf, who labored so long as a missionary in 
 Asia, informs us, in his " Life and Travels," that obsession 
 is common to this day in the East. 
 
 In the writings of the early Church Fathers, — Ignatius, 
 Clemens, Origen, Basil, Gregory of Kyssa, Chrysostom, 
 Ambrose, Augustine, &c., — are frequent references to 
 demoniacal obsessions. 
 
 Judge Edmonds in his " Spiritualism as Demonstrated 
 from Ancient and Modern History," says : Jesus of 
 Nazareth, the founder of the Christian religion, found this 
 belief in devils {demons) fast rooted in the Jewish faith at his 
 advent to earth! It had not its origin with him. He found 
 it there, and recognized it as a truth.'' 
 
 Porphyry, dwelling largely " upon the folly of invoking 
 the gods in making bargains, marriages and such like 
 trifles," strenuously condemned the lower phases of 
 soothsaying and divination, as tending to obsession. 
 Jamblichus, the Coelo-Syrian who passed to spirit-life in the 
 reign of Constantine the Great, wrote largely of the power of 
 demons to influence and obsess mortals. ''' 
 
 In Copeland's Medical Dictionary it is stated that 
 Phcenecians and Chaldees considered insanity a species of 
 " obsession produced by demons or evil spirits." 
 
 It will be remembered that the famous physicist, and 
 English physician, Dr. Grath Wilkinson, published an able 
 pamphlet a few years since upon this subject, asking such of 
 the medical fraternity especially as were connected with 
 
 ^A. E. Carpenter, the energetic agent of the Massachusetts State Mission- 
 ary Society, of Spiritualists, and gifted with a clear discrimination, pub- 
 lished an able paper based upon facts, (in the Banner of Light, July 25, 1868,) 
 relating to obsessions and remarkable spiritual manifestations. 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — EVIL SPIRITS. 305 
 
 Lunatic Asylums to recognize in Spiritualism — in magnetism 
 and spiritualistic treatment — the surest remedies for restor- 
 ing the insane and the obsessed, (so-called insane) to sanity 
 and a healthy, organic balance. 
 
 Strauss, the celebrated German writer, in one of his 
 friendly papers, when making the amende honorable to Kerner 
 for his severe criticism upon the " Seeress of Prevorst," 
 ^ives the following agreeable description of life beneath 
 Kerner's roof: 
 
 " A more beautiful or refined hospitality it would be difficult to 
 encounter in any dwelling. Amongst the numerous strangers who 
 each year visit Kerner's home, there is not one whose peculiarities are 
 not recognized and to whom especial attention is not paid. * * * 
 No wonder is it that here persons tormented by evil spirits seek for aid 
 and healing ! The good spirits must infallibly drive away the evil 
 demons. An Angel of Peace appears to brood over this household. A 
 sense of order, of quiet gayety and benevolence, is seen to beam from 
 all countenances, is felt in all that is beheld and heard." 
 
 Why are evil — undeveloped spirits — allowed to return ? 
 Why does God unbar the gate immortal to all conditions of 
 spirit life for every quality of control, knowing that mischief 
 will be wrought and misery produced ? As well ask, why 
 did God constitute man a moral actor ? Why is suffering 
 permitted in this world? Why does might prevail over 
 right? Why is confidence betrayed, virtue outraged, the 
 honest robbed, and peace-rnen murdered ? We must accept 
 facts as they are, and build thereon true philosophies. 
 What if through such hells humanity must necessarily pass 
 to heaven, shall we therefore complain of the divinity that 
 educes order from discord ? The rainbow from the cloud, 
 the lily from the mud, the crystal spring from the sand, the 
 sweet summer from the frozen winter, the immortal from 
 the mortal, life from seeming death— is not this development? 
 " It must needs be that offences come." Nothing so sancti- 
 fies the soul as moral victory over temptations ; must not 
 therefore temptations be, as all pictures have shadings 
 for expressive sympathy ? The right is not in the wrong ; 
 20 
 
306 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 but the triumph over wrong. Virtue is not vice, but the 
 destruction of vice by the supremacy of vh'tue. To drive 
 away darkness from a room, introduce light. Good is 
 primal, eternal — evil is incidental. All endings are like 
 beginnings. In spite of evil God governs. 
 
 Like attracts like. Every door must have a hinge to 
 swing upon. No evil spirit can approach us unless — morally 
 weak — we possess a magnet within, attracting correspond- 
 iuii- influences. This, so painful to endure, is the lesson of 
 our frailty, teaching the moral necessity of fostering better 
 conditions for more heavenly relations. 
 
 Sensitiveuess to psychological influx, susceptibihty to 
 mediumistic control, implies higher and lower use,and abuse. 
 Will not the tender flower be touched by the frost as w^ell as 
 by the sunbeam ? The greater the capacity to rise involves 
 a similar capacity to fall. The charm of a darkened demon 
 is as potent as an angel's, where a point of ingress is 
 possible. Then, according to the apostolic injunction uf 
 John, trust not— "believe not every spirit, but try the 
 
 spirits !" 
 
 If spirits uncultured and evil, impress, and, at times, com- 
 pletely obsess mortals, is not the practical of phenomenal 
 Spiritualism dangerous? Yes, dangerous as the sunshine, 
 that, falling alike on flowers and thorns, the just and the 
 unjust, produces an occasional sun-stroke; dangerous as the 
 spring rains that, sweeping away old rickety bridges, carries 
 rich alluvial to the valley below; dangerous as steamers, that 
 now and then send bodies down to And graves under green 
 sea-weeds, whilst on their beneflcent missions of inter- 
 national commerce; dangerous as mining, railroading, 
 tele<>-raphing, which develop the hidden wealth of a nation, 
 Shall we therefore dispense with them? Shall none pursue 
 o-eological pursuits because Hugh Miller committed suicide ? 
 Briars abound where berries grow. It is one of the oflices oi 
 guardian angels to protect their mediums from the inharmo- 
 nious magnetisms of unwise, perverse spirits, and the 
 psj chological attractions of depraved mortals. 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — EVIL SPIRITS. 807 
 
 Obsessions being adverse, inauspicious, psychological IlAu- 
 ences, cast upon the organism — being the thoughts and feel- 
 ings of individuals controlled by such spirits as are necessi- 
 tated in accordance with the immutable laws of compensation 
 to range for a season the lower plains of life — the preventive 
 Hes in good health, good nature and a good life, in the 
 cultivation of broad, loving, aspirational aims — a firmness of 
 moral principle — a determined purpose to do, dare, live the 
 right — a calm trust in the overshadowing presence of the 
 Infinite, and the holy watch-care of those beautiful angels 
 that delight to do the will of heaven. Ill-health, nervous 
 aflfections, dejection, despair, suspicion, jealousies, expose the 
 subject to obsessions, or they offer suitable conditions for 
 demons inclined to fun, mischief or base schemings, to carry 
 out their selfish plans. Truth attracts the true, wisdom the 
 wise, love the lovely, charity the charitable, and purity the 
 pure of all worlds. 
 
 Kindness and firmness, aspiration and self-reliance, — 
 pleasant , physical, social and mental surroundings, with 
 gentle, harmonizing, magnetic influences from circles of 
 spirit-electricians through noble, pure-minded media — these 
 are the remedies. Speak to the obsessing powers as men, 
 brothers, friends — reason with them as members of a com- 
 mon Father's family, and, at the same time, demagnetizing 
 the subject, bring a healthier, purer magnetism, and calmer, 
 higher and more elevating influences to the patient's relief. 
 Jesus' wonderful power consisted in this : He was the 
 child of love — sweet in his nature — harmonial in organiza- 
 tion — intuitive and inspirational — consecrated and attended 
 bv a "legion of ang-els"; all of which peculiarly fitted him 
 to -'cast out demons" — that is, to dissever by will-power, 
 voice and touch, aided by his angels, the magnetic relations 
 woven by low spirits around the unfortunate media of his 
 time. He " cast seven demons" out of Mary Magdalen — 
 that is, he cut the electric chains, or demagnetizing, dissi- 
 pated the aural emanations thrown about this w^oman, thus 
 destroying the sympathetic relations and psychological 
 
308 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 influences thrust upon and into the very tissues of her heing 
 by those seven demons — spirits. 
 
 Those who lack in organic balance and symmetry of 
 mental expression, being negative, and hence sensitive and 
 psychologically mediumistic, are the more often subjects of 
 disorderly control, during the changes incident to develop- 
 ment. Such excite our sympathy. We would brush away 
 every tear — relieve them of every thorn-thrust; but in no 
 possible way would we convey the thought of their non- 
 responsibility. All mortals, as conscious reasoning beings, 
 are the subjects of individual responsibility. Of those most 
 gifted, the more is required. It is enough to make good 
 men sad and angels weep to see the efforts in given direc- 
 tions, to fasten all the shortcomings of media upon the 
 spirits; thus virtually making the spirit-world a scape-goat 
 for all the ills of this ! Influence is not absolute control. 
 
 Socrates and Jesus put forth every possible power to per- 
 fect themselves in the highest knowledge and freshest 
 mental philosophy of their time. The millions of American 
 Spiritualists, when more critically studying the principles of 
 life, the necessity of temperamental adaptation, the potency 
 of psychologic force, the attractive and repellant relations of 
 mind to mind, (whether in or out of human bodies), and 
 the special conditions as well as the general laws coimected 
 with and governing mediumship, will see the indispensability 
 of investigating and comprehending science, the importance 
 of system, order, purity of purpose, religious association, 
 consecration to the best work of the age, and of living lives 
 so beautiful and heavenly, that angels will delight to daily put 
 our hands into the shining palms of theirs, and lead us up to 
 mountains of hour'v beatitude. 
 
.»< 
 
 l.vHi^PTEI^ XXXV. 
 
 HELL. 
 
 "And death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them.'' — Bible 
 
 "What Hell may be I know not; this I know — 
 I cannot lose the presence of the Lord ; 
 One arm, Humility, takes hold upon 
 His dear Humanity ; the other, Love, 
 Clasps his Divinity. So where I go 
 He goes, and better fire-walled Hell with him 
 Than golden-gated Paradise without." — Tauler. 
 
 Evangelical denominations originally preached the doctrine 
 of literal hell-torments. ' Rev. Mr. Benson, Methodist com- 
 mentator, says : 
 
 "Infinite justice arrests their guilty souls, and confines them in the 
 dark prison of hell, till they have satisfied all its demands by their per- 
 sonal sufferings^ which, alas ! they can never do. * * He will exert 
 all his divine attributes to make them as wretched as the capacity of 
 their nature will admit. * ^ Number the stars in the firmament, 
 the drops of rain, sand on the seashore; and when thou hast finished 
 the calculation, sit down and number up the ages of woe. Let every 
 star, every drop, every grain of sand, represent one million of tormenting 
 ages. And know that as many more millions still remain behind, and 
 yet as many more behind these, and so on without end." 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Ambrose, in a discourse entitled " Dooms- 
 day," pictures the torments of lost souls thus: 
 
 " When the damned have drunken down whole draughts of brimstone 
 one day, they must do the same another day. The eye shall be tor- 
 mented with the sight of devils, the ears with the hideous yellings and 
 
 309 
 
810 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 outcries of the damned in flames^ the nostrils shall be smothered, as il 
 were, with brimstone; the tongue, the hand, the foot, and every part, 
 sliall fry in flames'* 
 
 Rev. Mr. Emmons wrote in his series of sermons : 
 
 " The happiness of the elect in heaven will, I.> part, consist in wit- 
 nessing the torments of the damned in hell. An i among these it may 
 be their own children, parents, husbands, wives, und friends on earth. 
 One part of the business of the blessed is to celebrate the doctrine of 
 reprobation. While the decree of reprobation is eternally executing on 
 the vessels of wrath, the smoke of their torment will be eternally ascend- 
 ino- in view of the vessels of mercy, who, instead of taking the part of 
 those miserable objects, will say, 'Amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord !' " — 
 Emmons's Sermons, xvi. 
 
 " When they (the saints) shall see how great the misery is from which 
 God hath saved them, and how great a difference he hath made between 
 their state and the state of others who were by nature, and perhaps by 
 practice, no more sinful and ill-deserving than they, it will give them 
 more a sense of the wouderfulness of God's grace to them. Every time 
 they look upon the damned, it will excite in them a 'lively and admiring 
 sense of the grace of God in making them so to differ. The sight of 
 hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever." — /Z>., 
 Sermon xi, 
 
 Eev. Mr. Edwards penned these sentiments in his " Prac- 
 tical Sermons : " 
 
 " The saints in glory will be far more sensible how dreadful the wrath 
 of God is, and will better understand how terrible the sufferings of the 
 damned are, yet this will be no occasion of grief to them, but rejoicing. 
 They will not be sorry for the damned ; it will cause no uneasiness or 
 dissatisfaction to them, but on the contrary, when they see this sight, it 
 will occasion rejoicing, and excite them to joyful praises." 
 
 Rev. Thomas Boston, in his " Four-fold State,'' informs us 
 tliat— 
 
 "The godly wife shall applaud the justice of the judge in the con- 
 demnation of her ungodly husband. The godly husband shall say amen ! 
 to the damnation of her who lay in his bosom ! The godly parent shall 
 say hnlleluiah! at the passing of the sentence of their ungodly child. 
 And the godly child shall from the heart approve the damnation of his 
 wicked parents who begot him, and the mother who bore him." — p. 336. 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HELL. 81] 
 
 Rev. Thomas Vincent, a Calvinistic clergyman of the past, 
 indulges in the following strain : 
 
 " This will fill them (the saints) with astonishing admiration and 
 wondering joy, when they see some of their near relatives going to hell; 
 their fiithers, their mothers, their children, their husbands, their wives, 
 their intimate friends and companions, while they themselves are saved ! 
 * * * Those aflfections they now have for relatives out of Christ 
 will cease ; and they will not have the least trouble to see them sentenced 
 to hell, and thrust into the Jier^ furnace ! " 
 
 Rev. James Smith, of the American Tract Society, Cin- 
 cinnati, published the following: 
 
 " The fire of hell is such that multitudes of tears will not quench it, 
 and length of time will not burn it out. ' The wrath of God abideth ] 
 on the rejecter of Christ. — John iii : 36. 
 
 " Oh, eternity ! eternity ! Who can fathom it ? Mariners have their 
 plummet to measure the depths of the sea; but what line or plummet 
 shall we use to fathom the depth of eternity ? The breath of the I.ord 
 kindles the flames of the pit, (Isa. xxx : 33,) and where shall we find 
 waters to quench those flames ? Oh, Eternity ! If all the body of 
 the earth and the sea were turned to sand, and all the space up to the 
 starry heaven were nothing but sand, and if a little bird should come 
 once every thousand years and take away in her bill but a single grain 
 from all that heap of sand, what numberless years and ages must be 
 spent before the whole of that vast quantity would be carried away. 
 Yet if even at the end of all that time the sinner might come out of 
 hell, there would be some hope. But that word Forever breaks the 
 heart. ' The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.' " 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Walworth, son of the formerly distinguished 
 Chancellor Walworth, of ]S"ew York, in a discourse describ- 
 ing the locality and intensity of hell, said : 
 
 " The Scriptures had invariably spoken of hell as beneatfi us, not 
 above or far removed. As heaven was above, and the souls of the 
 righteous were said to ascend to heaven, so the damned descended — 
 went down into hell. 
 
 "The rich man, tormented in hell, 'lifted up his eyes' and saw 
 Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, and to his entreaties for succor and inter 
 cession, Abraham had replied, ' between us and you there is a great gulf 
 fixed.' So, too, Christ, in the parable of the marriage feast, said, 
 ' Take him and bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer 
 darkness.' 
 
 " He cited many other texts from Scripture to fix this locality, and 
 deduced, as a conclusion therefrom, that hell must necessarily be in the 
 
312 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 contrc of this earth, as in no other way could our conceptions of itfl 
 position beneath us, as defined in the Scriptures, be adequately realized j 
 our ideas of what is above us might be infinite as space itself, but there 
 could be but one ' beneath,' and that was subterranean. 
 
 " He then inquired into the degree of intensity of this heat, which 
 almost passed the bounds of human conception. As a means of approx- 
 imating to a result, however, he referred to experiments which had been 
 made with a thermometer in Artesian wells and deep mines. Here it 
 had been observed that with every fifty feet of depth one degree of 
 Fahrenheit had been gained ; consequently, at this ratio of increase, it 
 would only be necessary to penetrate the crust of the earth twenty-one 
 miles, in order to reach a state of heat, in which the granite would be 
 molten. Water boils at two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit, 
 but it requires two thousand and six hundred degrees to melt rocks 
 This, therefore, was the minimum of the heat of hell, whose frontiers 
 therefore, lie twenty-one miles below the surface of the earth. 
 
 " What would be the duration of the punishment and of these terri 
 ble fires ? Here there was no room left for doubt ! The Church, ic 
 concurrence with the awful testimony of the Scriptures, had pronounced 
 them eternal; Christ himself had said, 'It is better for thee to enter 
 life maimed than, having two hands, to go into hell, into the fire that 
 shall never be quenched.' It would be vain to attempt to conceive the 
 duration of that eternity; the boldest intellects shrank appalled on the 
 very threshold of their inquiry. To illustrate the futility of any such 
 attempt, he begged his hearers to picture to themselves one of those 
 infinitely small animals, of which millions dwell in a single drop of 
 water, and which only the most powerful microscope can reveal to our 
 gaze. 
 
 " Let them suppose one of these infinitesimal creatures to consume the 
 whole earth, to eat all the leaves of the trees, the fruits of the ground, 
 and sand of the seashore, the mountains and the plains, to drink up the 
 oceans, lakes and rivers, taking one mouthful in a thousand years, and 
 then to devour in turn the sun and the planets and all the visible creatures 
 of the universe, and, after the incalculable lapse of time, consider how 
 much nearer they would be to the solution of this great mystery ? Not 
 one step; eternity would be as far beyond their contemplation as ever. 
 
 " In these eternal fires every limb and member of our bodies, every 
 nerve and muscle and tendon, every part of us, in fire, over which the 
 sense of feeling predominated, would be forever racked and tortured 
 and yet never consumed. And to these exquisite torments of the body 
 would be added the pangs of remorse and stings of conscience." 
 
 This is locating and preaching hell to some purpose. It is 
 admirable ! Such square sermonizing is in no way allied to 
 this delectable, dodging indefiniteness that characterizes the 
 evangelical discourses of the present. Perhaps the mitiga- 
 tion, softening and bridging over of that liquid stream of fire^ 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HELL. ^18 
 
 form no exception to the general improvement of the age. 
 These Orthodox clergy — " fat, oily men, with a roguish 
 twinkle in their eyes" — if believing their creeds, certainly 
 take the matter of endless hell torments very easy. They 
 smile, enjoy good digestion, walk daily over this '* twenty- 
 one miles" crust of hell, crack jokes, drive good bargains, 
 loan money, and do other things quite human. 
 
 The old is passing away. It is effete, barren, dead ! Art, 
 science, commerce, poetry, painting, music, telegraphic com- 
 munications, in connection with the phenomena and philos- 
 ophy of Spiritualism, have all exerted their liberalizing 
 tendencies upon the theologies of the times. 
 
 Spiritualists, though utterly rejecting the commonly received 
 orthodox doctrines of hell, as a place of future endless pun- 
 ishment, firmly believe in hell — believe in good and evil, 
 heaven and hell, as subjective relations and conditions. 
 
 There are four words in the Old and Isew Testaments 
 translated hell : Sheol, Hades, Tartarus and Gehenna. The 
 first two — the former Hebrew, and the latter, Greek — are 
 synonymous. It is difficult to find English words that 
 precisely correspond with them. 
 
 The Orthodox commentator. Dr. Campbell, writes thus of 
 Hades : 
 
 " In my judgment, it ought never in the Scriptures to be rendered 
 hell, at least in the sense wherein that word is now universally under- 
 stood by Christians. In the Old Testament the corresponding word is 
 Sheol, which signifies the state of the dead in general, without regard 
 to the goodness or badness of the persons, their happiness or misery." 
 
 Dr. Chapman, in his *' Critical iSTotes," assures us that — 
 
 "Neither Sheol nor Hades, in themselves considered, have any con- 
 nection with future punishment, as will be evident to any man who will 
 examine the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint translation." 
 
 The late Professor Stuart left recorded these words : 
 
 " There can be no reasonable doubt that Sheol does most generally 
 mean the grave, sepulchre, the world of the dead, in the Old Testament 
 scriptures." 
 
314 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Hei'e are several passages from the Old Testament, where 
 Slieol — hell — is rendered grave. Gen. xxxvii. : 35 : 
 
 " T will go down into the grave (^Sheol or heW) unto my son mourn- 
 ing." " Oh, that thou wouldst hide me in the grave ^' {Sheol or lidl). 
 Hosea xiii : 14 : "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; 1 
 will redeem them from death; death, I will be thy plagues; 
 grave (^Sheol or heir) I will BE THY destruction." 
 
 These passages show that Jacob expected to go to Sheol — 
 hell — to meet his son, and that Job actually prayed to be hid 
 in hell. 
 
 Sheol is found in the Old Testament sixty-four times. It 
 is translated three times 'pit^ twenty-nine times grave, thirty- 
 two times hell. Hades occurs eleven times in the !N^ew Tes- 
 tament, translated once grave, ten times hell. The learned 
 Parkhurst says : 
 
 '• Our English, or rather Saxon word hell^ in its original signification, 
 exactly answers to the Greek word Hades, and denotes a concealed or 
 unseen place ; and this sense of the word is still retained in the eastern, 
 and especially in the western counties of England. To hele over a thing 
 is to cover it." 
 
 Mr. Sabine says : 
 
 " It appears to me that in the time of this translation, hell, pit and 
 grave, were synonymous." 
 
 Tartarus, frequently used by the Grecian poets, is described 
 in Ihe Iliad as a place far below Hades. It occurs in the Bible 
 but once, and is used in the participle form — Tarlarosas. It 
 literally implies a portion of Hades — hidden regions. 
 
 There is but one opinion among the erudite concerning 
 Gehenna, found twelve times in the Bible. Dr. Campbell 
 says : 
 
 " It is originally a compound of two Hebrew words, ge hinnom, the 
 valley of Hinnom, a place near Jerusalem, of which we hear first in the 
 book of .loshua, xv : 8 
 
 Rosenmuller says : • 
 
 " Grehenna is a Hebrew word, denoting a place near Jerusalem.*' 
 
EXEaETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HELL. 3i . 
 
 Clark sajs, respecting the passage of Matt, v : 23 : 
 
 "Our Lord here alludes to the valley of the son of Ilinnom. This 
 place was near Jerusalem," etc. 
 
 These Orthodox scholars were correct is saying Gehenna — 
 hell — was a place near Jerusalem, and not in the " centre of 
 the earth," nor the future immortal world. The Koman 
 Catholics, seemingly more honest, and certainly more pro- 
 found in research than Protestants, translate Shoel and Hades 
 candidly in giving to the English word hell its original and 
 proper meaning, viz : secret, covered — the state of the dead 
 without reference to their condition. In the Douay Bible, 
 first published in Douay in 1609, among others we find this 
 text and sensible note thereon : 
 
 " 1 Sam. ii : 6 : ' The Lord bringeth down to hell (sheol) and bringeth 
 back again/ Job xiv : 13 : ' That thou mayest protect me in hell (sheol) 
 and hide me till thy wrath pass." Note. — ' Protect me in hell, that is, 
 in the state of the dead, and in the place where the souls are kept 
 waiting for their Redeemer.' " 
 
 Rev. B. H. Wilson, in an essay relating to the "iN'ational 
 English Church," alluding to the Limbus Infantum of the 
 Catholic Church, says : 
 
 " There may be mansions hereafter for those who are infants in spir- 
 itual development — nurseries ; or seed grounds, where the undeveloped 
 may grow up under new conditions, the stunted become strong, and the 
 perverted restored." 
 
 Liberal sentiments of this character indicate the benev- 
 olence of the heart and the rapidity of religious progress. 
 That judicious author of the '' Serious Call,'' Wm. Law, in 
 one of his best inspirational moments, writes : 
 
 •' No hell in any remote place ; no devil that is separate from you ; no 
 darkness or pain that is not within you; no anti-Christ, either at Rome 
 3r England; no furioas beast; no fiery dragon, without or apart from 
 yourself, can do you any hurt. It is your own hell, your own devil 
 your own beast, your own anti-Christ, your own dragon that lives in 
 your own heart's blood, that alone can hurt you." 
 
316 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Heaven is harmony; hell is discord. Heaven is love and 
 purity; hell is hate. "The kingdom of heaven is within 
 yon," said the Galilean teacher. If heaven is within the 
 good and pore, hell is within the mipure and depraved. It 
 implies sorrow, darkness, trouble, regret and remorse. The 
 Psalmist, David, because of trawsgressions, was forced to 
 exclaim — " I found sorrow and trouble ; the pains of hell got 
 hold of me." This is the experience of all wrong-doers. 
 The universe is vocal with warnings. In the sense of an 
 escape from just punishment, there is no forgiveness. Com- 
 pensation is certain. The "uttermost farthing " must be 
 paid. As reaping to sowing, so is misery to vice, or happi- 
 ness to virtue. They are as indissolubly connected as the 
 pillars that support the universe. 
 
 The comparative darkness attending certain spirits for a 
 long period in the land of souls, is only the reflex action 
 of their own spiritual states. They generate the mist that 
 dims their vision. Life is one lengthened chain. Voluntary 
 acts are the links. As to-day is related to to-morrow, and 
 as the conduct of youth affects manhood ; so this life's 
 thoughts, purposes, deeds, determine the immediate condi- 
 tion and position of those entering the immortal world. ]No 
 death-miracle transforms sordid, scheming, wicked men in 
 the " twinkling of an eye " to angels. True growth is a 
 stranger to abrupt leaps. All progress is gradual. Tne 
 malicious and depraved of this, carrying their hells with 
 them, enter the hells or lower spheres of the spirit-life. 
 They are in prisons of moral darkness. They lived base, 
 and selfish lives. T'heir affections centered upon earth and 
 earthly things, and by an inexorable law of their being they 
 are mentally and psychologically imprisoned for a time near 
 the surface of this planet. As fish to water, bird to air, so 
 the earthly-minded to the grosser strata and aural circles 
 belting the earth, till through aspiration, unfoldment, and 
 refinement, they become prepared to traverse the starry 
 spaces of the higher heavens. 
 
EXEQETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HELL. 317 
 
 The N'ew Testament scriptures inform us that Jesus, after 
 being put to " death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit, 
 preached to the spirits in prison." Peter further speaks of 
 the '* gospel being preached to them that are dead.'' The 
 fact of such preaching implies a moral benefit derived 
 therefrom. The divine, uplifting law of progress spans all 
 souls, all worlds. Jesus and angels, prophets, martyrs and 
 the sainted of all ages, delight in descending to teach in the 
 darker spheres of ignorance, as reformers of earth find 
 supreme joy in rescuing and redeeming the erring. 
 
 *'I can but trust that good shall fall 
 At last — -far off — at last to all, 
 And eyery winter change to spring.** 
 
 " Not one life shall be destroyed. 
 
 Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
 
 When God hath made the pile eomplets,' 
 
ChAPTEF^^ XXX ^Z"!. 
 
 HEAVEN. 
 
 ** I saw a new heaven and a new earth. * * * He that oyercometh ehall 
 inherit all things." 
 
 ** Sweet land I I have dreamed of thee." 
 
 "There, all being is eternal; things that cease have ceased to be ; 
 All corruption there has perished, there they flourish, strong and free ; 
 This mortality is swallowed up of life eternally." 
 
 Brimming with hallowed associations is the delightful 
 thought of Heaven. All have friends there whose memories 
 are sacred. Trustingly they await our arrival for holy 
 re-union. 
 
 "Paradise," writes Dr. Hales, " is the region appropriated 
 to good souls." 
 
 Some of the Church Fathers considered paradise one 
 division of the under-world ; others thought it high in the 
 atmosphere, hut helow the dwelling-place of God. Christians 
 generally consider it a located place — a city celestial, in 
 distant, undefined regions. All fail to discern the obvious 
 difference between paradise and heaven. " To him that 
 overcometh," declared the ascended Jesus to the medium 
 St. John, " I will give to eat of the tree of life that g-roweth 
 in the midst of the paradise of God." 
 
 The terms paradise, heaven, spirit-world, spiritual world, spirit- 
 land, summer-land, ^c, used interchangeably, constitute, liter- 
 ally, a "confusion of tongues." Unlike in the original, and 
 
 318 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HEAVEN. 319 
 
 having different shades of meaning, they should be employed 
 with the nicest discrimination. Angry discussions would 
 often be avoided, if words and terms symbolizing ideas, 
 were rightly understood and applied. 
 
 Spirit-world, in the best acceptation of the phrase, signifies, 
 all space. Each individual is in the spirit world now, though 
 encoffined in a mortal body. Vast multitudes people the 
 world of unfleshed spirits, who are not in the spiritual world. 
 Those only are in the spiritual world, who, through discipline 
 and progress, have outgrown the depressing conditions of 
 organization with all earthly passions and tendencies. The 
 liarmonial and blissful graduate from the spiritual world into 
 the celestial heavens. Here dwell the pure and holy. Clothed 
 in white, and wearing golden girdles, they rush with the 
 melodies of star-orbits to other planets and systems, the 
 teachers of love and holiness. 
 
 The spirit, or summer- land, is real and substantial — more 
 substantial to spirits than this earth to mortals. It is beau- 
 tifully described by A. J. Davis, in his " Stellar Key." The 
 spiritual is the real. As John, entranced on Patmos, saw 
 throngs of "angels," "harpers," "thrones," "rainbows," 
 " crowns," " lamps of fire," " seas of glass," " chariots," 
 " vials of odors," "golden harps," "trumpets" — as Stephen 
 and Paul " looked up into heaven," beholding " spirits and 
 angels," and hearing " unspeakable words; " so the entranced 
 and clairvoyant of this age behold delightful fields, landscapes, 
 gardens, flowers, fruits, rivers, lakes, fountains, vast assem- 
 blages of spirits, musical bands, lyceum gatherings, sportive 
 children, schools of design, art galleries, magnificent man- 
 sions, and architectural abodes of beauty, where loving hearts 
 beat and throb as one. 
 
 All spirits were once mortals. All angels were once spirits. 
 The child, the man, the spirit, the angel, the arch-angel, is the 
 divine order, corresponding with the musical ecale of the 
 overarching spirit spheres. Those in the celestial heavens 
 are termed angels, because they have advanced beyond the 
 taints and selfish loves of their mortal existence. 
 
320 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 It is difficult to entirely disconnect heaven from surround- 
 ing, substantial scenery. It is self-evident that whatever 
 exists in the realms of the relative, must exist somewhere. 
 All substance has form. If there are organized spiritual 
 beings — spirits — there must be extent and limit, bearing 
 upon them relationally, and whatever is in extent, must be 
 in space, and have some kind of location. Nature knows no 
 vacuum. If there is anything not in space, it can have 
 neither form nor figure, for figure is defined by logicians to 
 be " the limit of extent; " and the human mind cannot con- 
 ceive of form without limit, of limit without extent, or extent 
 without space. 
 
 Spiritual beings, then, have location, and, in a subordinate 
 sense, heaven may be connected with locality ; that is, there 
 must be a harmony between the objective and subjective — a 
 correspondence, or divine adaptation between spheral strata, 
 scenery, surroundings, and those heavenly societies. 
 
 Exalted spirits often speak of their beautiful homes, where 
 life is love, — and love is law ; of music, and fountains casting 
 Iheir silvery spray ; of ever-green gardens, isles of entrancing 
 loveliness, flowing streams with jeweled banks, harmonial 
 congresses of angels and heavenly universities of wisdom. 
 
 When passive and prayerful, our spirit-guide descending 
 and describing to us, in voice lute-like and loving, the mag- 
 nificence of his celestia] residence, ever closes in these thril- 
 lingly searching words — *' All these shall be thine, child, when 
 thou art worthy.'' " To him that overcomeih is the promise of i^ie 
 i lessed inheritance." 
 
 «* Is this the way, sweet angel ? 'Tis, my child 1 
 Thou must pass through the tangled, dreary wild. 
 If thou wouldst reach the city undefiled, — 
 Thy peaceful home above. 
 
 Angel, I'm weary 1 Child, then lean thy head 
 Upon my breast ; it was my love that spread 
 • Thy rugged path ; hope on, till I have said, 
 
 * Rest, rest for aye, above I * " 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HEAVEN. 321 
 
 " 111 my Father's House," said Jesus, '* are many mansions. 
 r go to prepare a place for you." 
 
 Poets, in tlieir sacred lyrics, frequently sing of heaven as a 
 place. 
 
 "There is a land of pure delight, 
 Where saints immortal reign." 
 ****** 
 
 "Mortals! we travel through a darksome cave; 
 But still, as nearer to the light we draw, 
 Fresh gales will meet us from the upper air, 
 And wholesome dews of heaven our foreheads lave." 
 
 "Up above, the host no man can number, 
 In white robes, a palm in every hand, 
 Each some work sublime forever working 
 In the spacious tracts of that great lend." 
 
 Cultured and spiritually enlightened, the more advanced 
 consider heaven not so much a world in the starry firmament 
 as the interior state of the soul. If this is in conscious com- 
 munion with God, if at peace with itself, and moving onward 
 through the everlasting sweep of being in harmony with the 
 unalterable laws of the Infinite, it is in the constant enjoyment 
 of heaven. 
 
 The primal purpose of the spiritual dispensation, with its 
 ministering angels, is the building up of the Republic of God 
 on earth ; and while its continued prayer is " Thy republic 
 come," it seeks to establish the truth of universal laws, the 
 fruit of good works, the purity of undefiled consciences, the 
 sweet experience of sympathy, charity and forgiveness, the 
 innocency of little children, and humility of sincere souls, 
 consecrated to the good of humanity. 
 
 Heaven, remember, is a condition of self-balance, harmony 
 and happiness, and is attained in all worlds through aspi- 
 ration and obedience to divine laws. The spirit land consti- 
 tuted of the particles, emanations and etherealized essences 
 from this and other earths in the universe — all bathed in the 
 sunlight of an eternal morning — is no shadow-realm ; but real 
 and permanent — a " city that hath foundation^ whose builder 
 21 
 
322 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 and maker is God." Its inhabitants are earnest and untiring 
 in their activities. Apostles, martyrs, reformers, continue 
 their holy missions. Newton pursues his investigations. 
 Fulton's inventive genius finds broader scope for action. 
 Mozart sweeps golden harp-strings, toning to harmony the 
 discords of the spheres. Philosophers pursue their studies. 
 Gardeners continue their pleasing vocations. Geologists 
 probe newly-formed earths, and astronomers become enthu- 
 siastic in measuring the mighty orbs of space. Spirit life, 
 then, is an active life, a social life, a retributive life, a con- 
 structive life, a progressive life. Reason, affection, con- 
 science and memory, go with us into that world of conscious 
 souls. Individualities are eternalities. 
 
 A change of clothing, or a change of place, does not 
 change character. Entrance into the future world of spirits, 
 will no more affect the moral tendencies of the soul, or 
 miraculously give it new directions, desires and aims, than a 
 voyage across the Pacific to California, would transform a 
 thief into a saint. All grow to be angels by degrees. The 
 process of death, with the improved surroundings and condi- 
 tions incident thereto, will better each and all only in the 
 sense of helping them to more clearly see the true relation 
 of things. 
 
 In an inspirational discourse, IT. W, Beecher said — 
 
 " We shall enter upon another life divested of many of Ihe hindrances 
 and incumbrances of this. * * * * 
 
 " If you take a seed that has ripened in Nova Zembia, and bring it 
 into the tropics, and plant it, it will not be what it would have been in 
 Nova Zembia, with a short growing season, and the scantiest supply of 
 food. It will have, with a long summer, and an abundant supply, a 
 growth to which no one would suspect that it could attain, who had 
 only seen it grow in the frigid zones. Many things that are shrubs in 
 the frigid zones, are high, waving century oaks in the tropics. And so 
 men in this life are in conditions which, though fitted to develop the 
 earlier stages of human growth, are not fitted to develop the full estate 
 of that idea which God has expressed in the creation of man. And we 
 may hope that when we bid adieu to our mortal life, we shall leave 
 behind some things which are necessary to the exigencies of our condi- 
 tion here, but which will not be necessary to our state there. Our 
 imagination, our reason^ our afi'ections, and our moral sentiments, we 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HEAVEN. 323 
 
 shall doubtless carry with us; but the conditions of our life will be so 
 different that we shall be like men taken from poverty into abundance ; 
 from winter into summer; from a cold climate and a frozen soil, into 
 Si soil never locked by ice, and skies that never know frost. Our life 
 there shall be ampler, fuller, nobler than it is here." 
 
 A man cannot become scientific and holy as a garment is 
 cleansed by washing. Volition and effort are involved in 
 moral purity. Salvation is the result of soul-growth, not 
 physical chemistry. 
 
 When a drowning mortal heavily encumbered with thick 
 garments, succeeds in throwing them off, he is not saved, nor 
 do his tremulous feet press the shore; but he is in a far better 
 condition for reaching it. So the circumstance termed death, 
 *' one step up higher," puts all the conscious humanity of 
 God into better conditions to attain knowledge, wisdom, 
 purity, heaven. Salvation then is not mechanical, chemical 
 nor catacly^smic ; but a gradual interior unfoldment — a coming 
 into harmony with divine law — a blissful sequence achieved 
 through the exercise of the will, wisdom and love of a mora! 
 actor. 
 
 There is no such law in the universe as absolute retrogra- 
 dation. Spirit is never less than essential spirit. Downward 
 tendencies are more in seeming than the real. The prodigal 
 son departing for that *' far-off country," was spiritually 
 approaching the Father. He required the terrible experi- 
 ence. Arresting him in his course, the punishment was 
 disciplinary. It brought him to himself. It helped the 
 Christ triumph over the Adam. 
 
 The primary meaning of the Greek word, Kolasis — punish- 
 ment — is pruning or trimming, as of a tree ; severing diseased 
 limbs, and cutting away distorted branches to restore it to a 
 healthy condition and symmetry of form. 
 
 The growth of plants is intensified and hastened by rich 
 soil, clear light and an increased supply of electricity. All 
 this maybe done in harmony with natural law. Such stimu- 
 lants are adapted to the structure of the plants. So the 
 
824 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 influences, incentives, spiritual light and presence of angel 
 guides extending their shining hands, will exert a mighty 
 moral influence in turning spirits, disenthralled from their 
 fleshly bodies, towards the more pure and heavenly altitudes 
 of perfection. 
 
 •'God is a worker. He has thickly strewn 
 Infinity with grandeur. God is love. 
 He yet shall wipe away Creation's tears, 
 And all the worlds shall summer in his smile." 
 
 ♦' One God, one law, one element, 
 
 And one far-off, divine event, 
 To which the whole creation moves." 
 
 "^Thus heavenward all things tend. For all were once perfect, and 
 all must be at length restored.'' 
 
 " Each is born for a higher destiny than that of earth ; there is a 
 realm where rainbows never fade ; where the stars will be out before 
 us Hke islets that slumber on the ocean ; and where the loved beings 
 that pass before us like shadows, now will stay in our presence forever I " 
 
LhAPTEI^^ XXXVII, 
 
 HISTORIC IMMORTALITY 
 
 "Deep love, the god like in us, still belierei 
 Its objects are immortal as itself." 
 
 " The form is in the archetype before it appears in the work; in tha divine 
 mind before it exists in the creature." 
 
 The immortality of the soul is a doctrine ancient as the 
 remotest records. Jesus may have brought it to *' light," in 
 the estimation of Paul — originally Saul of Tarsus, then a 
 bigoted self-willed Jew, wedded to the dim twilight shadows 
 of the Old Testament dogmas. But Paul should not have 
 presumed upon weighing other men's, and other nations' 
 knowledge of " life and immortality" in his personal scales 
 of ignorance. India's Vedas, Egypt's Hieroglyphs, and 
 Assyria's scrolls, as well as the philosophies of Greece, were 
 all aflame with the golden light of " life and immortality," 
 thousands of years before the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. 
 
 Doubtless the oldest distinctive statements of man's 
 knowledge of a future existence are found in Egypt's sacred 
 *' Book of the Dead.'' These books treat upon the divine 
 attributes of the Deity and the destinies of human souls 
 after death, who, passing the gates of darkness, were 
 introduced into Amentlie, place of departed spirits, to be 
 judged. After this trial, they ascended, or descended to 
 higher or lower spheres, accordmg to the " deeds done in the 
 body." 
 
 325 
 
326 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Those sublime, old Iliudoo Hymns, the Vedas, ricnly 
 abound in the doctrines of *' life and immortality." 
 
 " The wise man, to whom pain and pleasure are the same, is formed 
 for immortahtj. * * * Xhe spirit is not a thing of which a man 
 may say, it hath been, it is about to be, or is to be hereafter ; for it is 
 without birth, ancient, constant and eternal, and is not to be destroyed 
 in this its mortal frame. As a man throweth away old garments and 
 putteth on new, even so the soul, having quitted its old mortal frames, 
 entereth into others which are new." — Bhagavat Geeta. 
 
 " May I arrive at that abode of Vishnu (God) where dwell in bliss the 
 men who have been devoted to Him. He who has honored Vishnu with 
 libations, becomes his friend in the world above." " Go, give to the 
 waters and to the plants thy body which belongs to them : but there is 
 an immortal portion; Djatavedas, transport it to the world of the 
 holy." — Eig Veda. 
 
 " Generation is not a creation of life, but a production of things to 
 sense and making them manifest. Neither is change death, but a 
 hiding of that which was." — Hermes Trismegistus. 
 
 " He who speaks wisely, moderately, kindly goes (after death) to 
 those worlds which are the inexhaustible sources of happiness. He who 
 is intelligent, modest, devout, who reverences wisdom, and respects his 
 superiors and the aged, goes to the highest heaven. Sinless among 
 the sinful, speaking friendly words to all men, his whole soul melting 
 with benevolence, final happiness is within his grasp." — Vishnu 
 Parana. 
 
 " There is another invisible, eternal existence superior to this visible 
 one, which does not perish when all things perish. Those who attain 
 this never return. This is my supreme abode." — Bhagavat Geeta. 
 
 " The soul is immortal ; again, it is incorruptible, it never dieth. * 
 * * But when a man who has lived justly dieth, his soul ascend- 
 
 eth to the pure heaven, and lives in the happy oevum with the blessed." 
 
 — Pythagoras. 
 
 One of this Grecian's golden verses is this : 
 
 •' When thou shall have laid aside thy body, 
 
 Thou shall rise freed from mortality, 
 
 And become a god (angel) of the kindly skies." 
 
 " Dying, * * * she shall be welcomed by her father, her 
 mother, and her brother in that other world." — Sophocles. 
 
 " An honorable and virtuous man, may rest assured as to his future 
 fate. The souls of the lawless departing this life suffer punishment. 
 But the good lead a life without a tear, among those honored by the 
 gods f ^r having always delighted in virtue." — F'mdar." 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HISTORIC IMMORTALITY. 327 
 
 " As they who run a race are not crowned till they have conquered, 
 80 good men believe that the reward of virtue is not given till after 
 death. * * * * Not by lamentations and mournful chanta 
 ought we to celebrate the funerals of the good, but by hymns ; 
 for in ceasing to be numbered with mortals, they enter upon the 
 heritage of a diviner life." — Plutarch. 
 
 " If my body be overpressed, it must descend to the destined place ; 
 nevertheless, my soul shall not descend, but, being a thing immortal, 
 shall fly up to high befiven" — Hei-acUtus. 
 
 "When, therefore, death approaclies a man, the mortal part of him 
 lies; but the immortal departs safe and uncorruptible, having with 
 drawn itself from death. The soul, therefore, is most certainly 
 immortal and imperishable, and our souls really exist in the world of 
 spirits. Those who shall have sufficiently purified themselves by 
 philosophy [religion], shall live without their bodies received into 
 more beautiful mansions. * * * * p^P ^\^q g^^j^.^ ^^ these 
 things, we should use every endeavor to acquire virtue and wisdom in 
 this life ; for the reward is noble and the hope is great. A man 
 ought then to have confidence about his soul, if during this life he has 
 made it beautiful with temperance, justice, furtitude, freedom, and 
 truth; he waits for his entrance into the world of spirits, is one who is 
 ready to depart when destiny calls. I shall not remain, I shall 
 depart. Do not say then that Socrates is buried ; say that you bury 
 my hodyJ" — Socrates. 
 
 " This was the end of the best, the wisest, and most just of men, — a 
 story which Cicero professed he never read without tears." — Plato. 
 
 " The origin of souls cannot be found upon earth, for there is 
 nothing earthly in them. They have faculties which claim to be called 
 divine, and which can never be shown to have come to man from any 
 source but God. That nature in us which thinks, which knows, which 
 lives, is celestial, and for that reason necessarily eternal. God himself 
 can be represented only as a free Spirit separate from matter, seeing all 
 things, and moving all things, himself ceaselessly working. Of this 
 kind, from this nature, is the human soul. * * It cannot be 
 destroyed." He represents the aged Cato as exclaiming, " happy 
 day when I shall remove from this crowd of mortals, to go and join the 
 divine assembly of great souls. Not only shall I meet again there the 
 men who have lived godlike on earth ; I shall find again my son, to 
 whom these aged hands have performed the duties which in the order 
 of nature he should have rendered to me. His spirit has never quitted 
 me. He departed, turning his eyes upon me and calling on me, for that 
 place where he knew I should soon come. If I have borne his loss 
 with courage, it is not that my heart was unfeeling, but I consoled 
 myself with the thought that our separation would not be long." — 
 Cicero 
 
328 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITt \LISTS. 
 
 These citations, taken as selected pebbles from an im- 
 measurable ocean of evidence, prove that the doctrine of 
 future, immortal existence is as natural to the soul as a heart- 
 beat in its casement ; that, like sunlight, it has flowed i ito 
 and bubbled from the spiritual affections of all seers in all 
 ages, and become there a prophecy, yea, a positive knowl- 
 edge. Even the ruder tribes of earth, less favored with 
 the supports of civilization, instinctively entertain this 
 truth. The poor Indian of America's wilds, child of fate 
 falling before the more savage monopoly of his pale brother, 
 is nature's diorama of immortal lights and shades from the 
 spirit hunting-grounds. When a brave chief dies, the sur- 
 vivors, bending down a sapling pine till the roots jut out, 
 place under it the tenantless form, letting the tree spring 
 back to its original position, where, spiring up a symbol of 
 towering spirituality, it is nourished with the rich " dust to 
 dust" and becomes greener and stronger, rising higher 
 towards the wierd lands of the hereafter. 
 
 Death strikes no class of persons with such terror as pro- 
 fessed Christians. Their sighs, groanings, moanings and 
 mourning apparel — black fitting their condition — a church- 
 menagerie of sable show and brooding despair — absolutely 
 shock the seers and sages of India, Greece, Rome, the mil- 
 lions of present Spiritualists, and even the ITorth American 
 Indians. 
 
 What consummate bigotry, then, or learned malignity — 
 culpable in that they know no better — for clergymen, 
 sneering at the manifestations of angel presence, to insist, as 
 they do, that the only reliable evidence of immortality is 
 revealed in the Bible, or " brought to light" in the his- 
 toric resurrection of Jesus ! Even the Hindoo Menu can 
 teach them ; '' Universal instinct is transcendent law.'' 
 The human soul will burst all fetters, and, child-like, find 
 nature a perpetual paradise of immortal fore-gleams, and 
 its own inner springs of love the future " river of life" 
 flowing into the estuary of eternity. 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HISTORIC IMMORTA JTY. 329 
 
 **Upon the frontier of this bright summor-land, 
 We, pilgrims of cankering sorrow, stand : — 
 What realm lies forward, with its happier store 
 
 Of forests green and deep, 
 
 Of valleys hushed in sleep, 
 And lakes most peaceful I 'Tis the land 
 
 Of evermore." 
 
Chaptei^^ XXX vm. 
 
 RESURRECTION. 
 
 **The grave itself is but a covered bridge, 
 Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness.** 
 
 ♦' The eye that shuts in a dying hour 
 Will open next in bliss ; 
 The welcome will sound in the heavenly world 
 Ere the farewell is hushed in this." 
 
 '♦ There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall 
 there be any more pain ; for the former things are passed away." 
 
 Death, the shade-side of conscious life, is comparable to a 
 star, that, fading from telescopic vision, sets to illumine 
 others in the siderial heavens ; to a rose that, on a morning 
 in June, climbs up the garden wall to bloom the other side. 
 
 The Greek, anastasis, generally translated by the English 
 word, resurrection, does not necessarily signify, that those to 
 whom it refers should be physically dead. In the scriptures 
 and the classics, it is often applied to the living. Its best 
 definition implies a rising, an exaltation, a being lifted up 
 higher in regard to condition or circumstance. The learned 
 Dr. Campbell says : " It denotes simply being raised from 
 inactivity to action, or from obscurity to eminence." 
 Anisterni, the verb form, has a signification equally wide, as 
 used by Grecian writers, both before and after the Christian 
 era. Therefore, in the original, rising from a seat, awaken- 
 ing out of sleep, or being promoted to a higher condition, 
 may be legitimately, termed an anastasis — a resurrection. 
 
 330 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — RESURRECTION. 331 
 
 Persians, Mahommedaiis, Jews, and Christians, with ver}' 
 few exceptions, believe in the Hteral resurrection of these 
 physical bodies — somata — while the great army of Spirit- 
 ualists, in constant converse with the spirit-world, utterly 
 repudiates the theory. 
 
 Mineral matter to matter in accordance with gravitation 
 and adaptation — dust with its primitive dust — and spirit 
 heavenward towards the perfections of Infinite spirit — is 
 the immutable law as seen from the spiritual side of this 
 question. 
 
 In that Christian writer's work — Dr. Young's — entitled 
 " The Last Bay," the dogma of the resurrection of the 
 mortal body is carried to the ultimate Augustine, hard 
 pressed upon the point, of cannibalism, said, '* The flesh 
 shall be restored to the man in whom it first became 
 human flesh, regardless of the changes it may have passed 
 through; for it is to be considered as borrowed, and, like 
 borrowed money, must be returned to the one from whom 
 it was taken." 
 
 Among the most important words of the Episcopal 
 creed, are these: "I believe in * * * the resurrec- 
 tion of the body and the life everlasting." 
 
 Brigham Young, the Mormon leader, preaching the 
 funeral discourse of elder Heber C. Kimball, said ; 
 
 " He has fallen asleep for a certain purpose, to be prepared for a 
 glorious resurrection ; and the same Heber C. Kimball, every compo- 
 nent particle of his body, from the crown of his head to the soles of his 
 feet, will be resurrected, and he, in the flesh, will see God and converse 
 with Him ; and see his brethren and associate with them, and they will 
 enjoy a happy eternity together." 
 
 The bodies that once walked the !N'ew Atlantis Isle — the 
 mummied forms of Egypt's cemeteries transferred to fuel, 
 or to medicines upon apothecaries shelves — the crumbling 
 scattered remains that once peopled those old catacombs, in 
 the Via Appia — the organized particles passing into in- 
 visible gases, freed by the process of combustion, incident 
 to crei ation, as practiced by some of the orientals — where 
 
332 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 are they ? — are they to be raised, and recoustructed to 
 constitute the future temples of souls? If so, "flesh and 
 hlood will inherit the kingdom of God;" though Paul, in 
 one of his more highly illuminated moments taught the 
 contrary; and further, we sow — buri/ the veritable body 
 which shall be; though this same apostle said: " We sow not 
 that body that shall be." "There is a natural body, and 
 there is a spiritual body." These natural, earthly bodies cor- 
 respond to the chaff of the wheat — the husks of the corn. 
 Harvest-time separates them forever; because the end for 
 which they were united has been subserved. So with the 
 earthly and spiritual bodies. The death-angel divides them 
 forever. 
 
 And just as well expect the blade of wheat to return and 
 re-enter the kernel ; the oak, the acorn, the butterfly, the 
 chrysalis — or, as reasonably expect songful birds to seek 
 their dilapidated nests, taking on, and re-living in their old 
 shells, as immortal spirits to return grave-ward in some 
 future period, to seek and re-inhabit their earthly bodies. 
 ^Rature knows no retrogression. Our mortal bodies are 
 raised only in grasses and grains, forests and fruits ; but our 
 conscious souls move on in the line of progress towards the 
 great infinite Soul of all things. 
 
 Roger Williams, too liberal for the Puritanic Christianity 
 of his time, was banished by Christians afar off among the 
 heathen Indians — the Narraghanseits, who, in the gentle 
 tolerance of Jesus, received him into their weird, wigwam 
 homes. The Rev. J. H. McCarty, writing recently relative 
 to the importance of erecting a suitable monument over the 
 place where his body was interred, says : 
 
 " On digging down into the ' charnel house ' it was found that 
 everything had passed into oblivion. The shapes of the coffins could 
 only be traced by a black line of carbonaceous matter the thickness of 
 the edges of the sides of the coffins, with their onds distinctly defined. 
 The rusted remains of the hinges and nails, with a few fragments of 
 wood and a single round knot, was all that could be gathered from his 
 grave. In the grave of his wife there was not a trace of anything save 
 a single lock of braided hair which had survived the lapse of more 
 
EXEQETICAL SPIRITUALISM — RESURRECTION. 333 
 
 than 180 years. Near the grave stood a venerable apple tree, when 
 and by whom planted is not known. This tree had sent two of its 
 main roots into the graves of Mr. and Mrs. Williams. The larger 
 root had pushed its way through the earth till it reached the j.recise 
 spot occupied by the skull of Roger Williams. There making a turn as 
 if going round the skull, it followed the direction of the back bone to 
 the hips. Here it divided into two branches, sending one along each 
 leg to the heel, where they both turned upward to the toes. One of 
 these roots formed a slight crook at the knee which makes the whole 
 bear a very close resemblance to a human form. This singular root is 
 preserved with great care, not only as an illustration of an important 
 principle in vegetation, but for its historic association. There were 
 the graves, emptied of every particle of human dust ! Not a trace of 
 anything was left ! '' 
 
 The grave emptied of every particle of human dust ! — 
 where gone ? Those apple-tree roots, thrusting out their 
 hungry feelers, absorbed it, to feed a yearly fruitage. Man 
 partaking of this fruit, and appropriating it by a law of 
 assimilation, it formed a part of their own bodies. The 
 inquiry is, who will legitimately claim these elements, pro- 
 viding human bodies are to be raised ? 
 
 Motion inheres in all things. Particles in human bodies 
 change from seven to twenty-seven years, depending upon 
 condition and occupation. Admitting the record, Methu- 
 saleh living over nine hundred years, must have had 
 some sixty or seventy different bodies — which is to be 
 anastasized! In certain islands of the ocean, savages, 
 termed cannibals, killing their enemies, devour their flesh 
 and drink their blood ; so that the same earthly materials 
 form the component parts of two or more individualized 
 beings. Who is to own them in the resurrection? Where 
 Bonaparte fought his most sanguine battles, waved the next 
 season golden grain. These harvests were unusually luxuri- 
 ant, because blood and muscle, had enriched the soil — a 
 soil yielding in turn grains and grazing herds for the sus- 
 tenance of man. To whom will these life-materials belong 
 when anastasized and re-constructed ? Children, passing as 
 withered buds to summer-land spheres of innocence, grow 
 
334 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 in those angel gardens to spiritual manhood a nd woman- 
 hood. Must their beautiful well-rounded forms return at 
 the sounding of a resurrection trumpet and, re-entering, be 
 compelled to dwell in their infantile bodies ? All these 
 physical and moral impossibilities are legitimately connected 
 with the resurrection of the body. 
 
 It is often asked, Was not Jesus's physical body raised ? 
 These passages give the answer : 
 
 "And their eyes were opened, and they knew himj and he van- 
 ished out of their sight.*' 
 
 " Then the same day at evening, when the doors were shut, where 
 the disciples were assembled, ♦ * * came Jesus and stood in the 
 midst, and saith, Peace be unto you." " After that, he appeared 
 in another form Mnto two of them, as they walked, and went into the 
 country.'* 
 
 These passages affirming that he *' stood in their midst, 
 the doors being shut;" that after his crucifixion he drew near 
 and went with them towards Emmaus, their '^ eyes being 
 holden," that "they knew him not," that he appeared in 
 *' another form," that he " vanished out of their sight," &c., 
 clearly show that it was the spiritual Jesus, clothed with 
 the spiritual bodj^ that pertains to the resurrection state 
 of immortality. The disciples saw him, because clairvoy- 
 ant. The conditions destroyed, *' he vanished from their 
 sight." They "vanished," not he. In the "twinkling of 
 an eye'' a clairvoyant of normal mediumship can pass 
 from the internal to the external. In this sense the 
 disciple withdrew from Jesus. 
 
 Again it is asked, If the physical body of Jesus was not 
 raised, what became of it?" We can easily conceive that 
 the friends might have removed it before the " watch " was 
 set, or tliat the same angel, who rolled the stone from the 
 door of the tomb, might have transported away " the body 
 of their Lord." The disposition of that body is of no more 
 interest to us than that of Zeno, Plato, or Confucius. The 
 important question is — Did the man of ^t^azareth live f did he 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — RESURRECTION. 385 
 
 walk again in their company clothed with his glorified body ? 
 This we believe, as his reputed biography demonstrates. 
 
 Death is the disengagement of the spiritual from the 
 fleshly — the severance of the sympathetic copartnership 
 between the spiritual and earthly bodies. The thinker will 
 note the distinction between the soul and spirit. The old 
 philosophers clearly perceived this distinction. Plato con- 
 sidered the soul to be " the image of the spirit." Paul 
 prayed God to "preserve body, soul and spirit." Professor 
 Bush, of the New York University, said : 
 
 " As it is through the gross material body that the soul manifests 
 itself in the present world, so are we warranted in believing that it is 
 through the soul that the spirit manifests itself in the other world ; in 
 other words, it performs for the spirit the office of a body, and is 
 consequently so termed/^ 
 
 Soul and spiritual body, often confounded with spirit, are 
 synonymous. We employ the terms, soul and spiritual body 
 reciprocally; and, as constituting the man, use this formula 
 — Physical body, Spiritual body. Spirit; or, body, soul and 
 spirit. 
 
 As the butterfly's folded wing, in its rudimentary state, 
 can be traced under the shell of the chrysalis, so the whole 
 future, resurrectional body is contained, or wrapped up, in the 
 material form, during mortal life. Its release, termed death, 
 is really birth. A modern seeress, writing upon the *' Phi- 
 losophy of Life," well says, " As the physical birth of the 
 foetus is death to its placenta envelope, so a spiritual birth is 
 death to its physical casket, the body; or, as the destruction 
 of the casket in which the child is developed, implies the 
 birth of the physical system, so the destruction or death of 
 the physical body implies the birth of its spiritual system." 
 Death, as a divine appointment in harmony wnth natural law, 
 and in its time beautiful, is equivalent to spiritual birth, 
 giving enlarged freedom to the soul, and increased facilities 
 to the spirit for manifestation and perfection. The buds 
 Bwell into floweis wooed by the sunlight; the birdlings burst 
 
336 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 from their shells for flight on joyous wing ; the child, mater- 
 nally developed, gains its individual freedom in outer life 
 through pain, effort and crying ; so the spasms, throes and 
 pantings, sometimes beheld with sympathizing sorrow, are 
 but the strugglings of the soul to release itself from the 
 coffined walls of its earthly tabernacle. What seems agony 
 to us may be pleasure to the emancipated. 
 
 The process of death does not involve the disorganization 
 of the spiritual body. If it is th\is absolutely disintegrated 
 into scattered particles, by what law is it reorganized ? May 
 not more positive individualities, sustained by such elements, 
 selfishly appropriate what belongs to another, thus virtually 
 involving the destruction of individual identity ? In no 
 department of nature does structural disorganization pre- 
 cede birth. Here, disorganization is retrogression to the 
 individuality thus subjected to the unnatural process of 
 unmaking ! The grain does not resolve itself into its original 
 elements when ready to be ripened; the bird does not return 
 to its indefinable diffuseness in its shell when plumed for an 
 exit ; the animal does not cease to be, for a moment, when 
 nature casts it forth for a higher being. 
 
 The spiritual bodi/, composed of the ultimates of all the 
 primates, constitutes a symmetrical wholeness of structure, 
 and is unitively unfolded from its earthly casket as the rose 
 from the rose-bud. The God-principle, pivotal and central 
 in man, continually acts, as a divine magnet , by the law of 
 necessity, holding the spiritual body to itself in a continuous 
 organized unity. The law of attraction, as in a magnet to 
 steel, is an infinite law, and as such is equally active during 
 physical life, during the process of death, and forever 
 thereafter. 
 
 That unformed, cloud-shapen, magnetic mass, seen by 
 clairvoyants, hovering over the corpse, is not the scattered 
 fragmentary substances of the spiritual body thrown around 
 loosely, but the electric emanations and radiations enveloping 
 it as fural atmospheres around the earth. Clairvoyants, 
 subject to the law of conditions, and, consequently, not 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — RESURRECTION. 337 
 
 always authoritative, may mistake this magnetic envelope 
 for the real substance whence it is evolved. 
 
 During the process of death, consciousness, in the seeming, 
 is sometimes suspended, as with those who are suddenly 
 ushered into the spirit world by capital punishment, suicide 
 or accident, and with those especially whose habits of life, 
 given to pernicious gratification, have materialized their 
 senses, as if locked in *' chains of darkness." Those who 
 have lived pure and exalted lives, aglow with truth and 
 charity, do not lose their consciousness for a moment, but 
 cognize the transition from a darker to a more illumined 
 room in the mansions of the Father. 
 
 There are no idiots to the spiritual vision. Imbecility is 
 caused by malformation of the physical organization. Enter- 
 ing the spirit world, released from ante-natal and social per- 
 versions, they immediately commence their upward march 
 of knowledge and wisdom. 
 
 Infants are immortal from the sacred moment of embry- 
 onic existence. Uniting the alkali and acid, instantly you 
 have the third and higher compound — the salt. So when 
 the positive and negative relational forces blend, then and 
 there is the divine incarnation. ]!Tature never takes a retro- 
 gressive step. If purposely blasted, during the gestative life, 
 the spiritual principle remaining undisturbed, and the indi- 
 viduality in iacty the tender riven bud is borne by matronlv 
 angels to the nursery gardens of innocence to be trained in 
 the virtues of the spheres. Designed abortion is murder ! 
 Multitudes will meet those offended little ones that ought 
 to have had a natural, physical birth and the experiences of 
 an earthly life, preparatory to a ripened entrance into the 
 world of spirits. Prematurely ushered there, the spiritual 
 objective being based upon the material, they are necessi- 
 tated by a law of their being, to return under heavenly 
 guidance to the mediumistic spheres of sympathizing friends 
 to gather glimpses of, and participate in, earthly struggles 
 and victories. 
 
 22 
 
338 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Identity is cognate with existence itself. It is the natural 
 attribute of spirit — its very impressibility. It depends not 
 on form for recognition, but the form on it. Every part of 
 the grain we sow is represented in the harvest. Essential 
 spirit being inseparable substance, and ever reporting itself 
 magnetically, we recognize it by sympathy, the same as a 
 child in the darkness knows its mother without the aid oi 
 sight or hearing. Our spheres are ourselves extended — our 
 very loves and thoughts in telegraphic communication. 
 When, therefore, spirits from the mortal lands meet the 
 gone before, instantly, by sympathy, they recognize each 
 other, and the past, with all its checkered pilgrimages, indel- 
 libly engraved on the tablet of memory, rolls in upon the 
 consciousness with light and shadow, all in order of relations 
 and events, in sweet, unspeakable joy and fall of glory. 
 
 The king will know his subjects there — they the more 
 kingly now ; the Indian chief will know his tribe there ; the 
 teacher, the pupil ; the parent, the cherub child ; congenial 
 souls will blend in sweetest fellowRhip ; harmonial spirits will 
 mingle in holiest tenderness; and weary, thorn-crowned pil- 
 grims of earth, finding rest, will meet their redeemers, face 
 to face. '' Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord; " that 
 is, die in the sphere of the Christ- life — " they rest from their 
 labors, and their works do follow them." The works of the 
 good both follow and precede them into the heavenly courts 
 of blessedness. Courage, sister! Every pure thought 
 breathed, every generous word uttered, every charitable 
 deed wrought, every heart-beat for virtue and peace, will 
 live forever ! 
 
 *♦ Beside the toilsome way, 
 Lonely and dark, by fruits and flowers unblest, 
 Which thy worn feet tread sadly, day by day, 
 
 Longing in vain for rest, 
 
 An angel softly walks, 
 With pale, sweet face, and eyes cast meekly down, 
 The while from withered leaves and flowerless stftlkl 
 
 She weaves thy fitting crown." 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — RESURRECTION. 339 
 
 Courage, brother! Martyrs have trodden the paths of 
 peril — saints have paced the cold cells — hearts have ached— 
 souls have hungered — fires have burned around the forms of 
 the faithful — storms and adversities have pelted the prophets 
 — ejes have wept tears of blood, and brows platted with 
 coronals of persecution, ere the world knew them, or they 
 reaped the harvests of their diligent sowing. Courage, 
 sister, brother, speaker, medium, worker — courage ! 
 
 A beautiful, guardian angel once said to her mate on earth : 
 "Mind echoes to mind; heart throbs with heart. Together 
 we will read beauties — together sing one melody of love — 
 together twine garlands to deck the brow of sorrow — together 
 tread eternal pathways, and bathe in life's fountain of light. 
 Yes, together we will sing the song of life — together and 
 forever. We shall be there together ; no partings ever there; 
 the hands once joined at greeting, shall never be unloosed; 
 two buds blossom in one flower. I am ever near thee. Ask 
 me not to come. Shall the rose say, I wait for fragrance ? 
 Does it invite sweetness ? Thus are we united ! " 
 
 *« I shall know her there I I shall know her there, 
 By the shining folds of her wavy hair, 
 By her faultless form with its airy grace 
 That an angel's pen might fail to trace — 
 By the holy smile her lips will wear, 
 When we meet above, I shall know her there I 
 
 I shall know her there, and her calm, dark eyes 
 Will look in mine with glad surprise, 
 When my bark, wild-tost o'er life's rough main, 
 The far-off port of heaven shall gain ; 
 Though an angel's robe and a crown she wear, 
 By the song she sings I shall know her there." 
 
 Existence is unitive — eternal. This life is a hotel in whicl 
 mortals tarry but a little season for rudirnental experiences 
 Earthly furniture is not transferable. Ripening through toil 
 and suffering, the soul emerges from this chrysalis state, 
 tlirough a sweet death-trance, to form new connections and 
 gD up one step higher in the graduated ascent of creation 
 
840 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Not the drooping willow, nor dark cypress ; but myrtle, 
 laurel, rose-buds and immortelles are fitting funeral emblems. 
 Mourning apparel belongs to the superstitions of the past. 
 Pleasant words — cheerful music, should be voiced in the 
 calm hour of burial, and cemeteries should be m.ide as 
 beautiful as the groves of tropical climes. 
 
 •* No gloomy vault, no charnel cell, 
 No emblem of decay, 
 No solemn sound of passing-bell. 
 
 To echo — ♦ gone away ; * 
 But angels whisper soft and olear — 
 * The loved, now risen, is standing neur.' " 
 
Chaptei^ XXXIX. 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 "If truth the inmost soul and being share. 
 The universe becomes a book of prayer." 
 
 " Prayer pushes prayer 
 
 Up into heaven's sublime air." 
 
 — "He gathers the prayers as he stands, 
 
 And they change into flowers in his hands. 
 
 Into garlands of purple and red ; 
 
 And beneath the great arch of the portal, 
 Through the streets of the city immortal, 
 
 Is wafted the fragrance they shed." 
 
 l^ot pre-arranged words or the utterance of measured 
 phrases, after the custom of the ancient Pharasee and 
 modern hypocrite, but aspiration is prajer, the up-welling 
 of the soul's holiest desires and struggles to attain the moral 
 altitudes of perfection, the language of the innermost pant- 
 ing for the actual, the rising flame, the incense of pure 
 thought, the prophecy of a better life, the chariot of love 
 bearing us into the realm of the divine. 
 
 Prayer, uttered or repressed, aflfects no deific law or prin- 
 ciple. Dews freshen the evening; sunlight bathes the morn- 
 ing; fruits fall in the autumn-time; meteors descend to the 
 earth ; stars move in ' nightly battalions over the radiant 
 plains of heaven, all in accordance with infinite causation, 
 reckless of prayere ir intercessions. 
 
 341 
 
342 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 The immutable and unalterable I Am is in no way affected 
 by the instabilities of men. Neither smiles nor tears — vices 
 nor virtues, nor prayers, change that divine Energy, who is 
 " the same yesterday and forever." Prayer expands the soul 
 that breathes it, and opens to clearer vision the portals of the 
 spirit-world, in which all have the right of citizenship. It 
 intromits the petitioner into closer fellowship with heavenly 
 hosts, and, imparting a holier baptism, raises him above the 
 worthless things of earth. The soul in self-communie^n feels 
 its immensity, its relation to the universe, and its illimitable 
 future. And through prayer and meditation, the external 
 universe partially reveals its inmost self, and another uni- 
 verse within — the subjective — opens in grandeur, seemingly 
 limitless before the spirit vision. 
 
 One of our most philosophical writers on Spiritualism, 
 purely appreciating the law of prayer, says : 
 
 " When man comes into that department of being where all that is evil 
 and false ceases, when every impure and unjust desire and impulse is 
 banished, and when the soul, in its yearnings after the divine, puts forth 
 all its life and power in humble, submissive prayer — then is such soul 
 elevated to the summit of its being, and there is infilled with the living 
 presence of Divinity, which makes the whole being radiant with spir- 
 itual light. Such a degree of elevation is coming into the ' Mount of 
 Transfiguration,^ and all who have really been there, have felt its 
 blessedness and desired to establish his tabernacle thereon." 
 
 Jesus, speaking from the inner life, said — 
 
 "When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are j for 
 they love to pray standing in the synagogue and at the corners of the 
 Btreots to be seen of men. * * * j^^^^ when thou prayest, enter 
 into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father 
 which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward 
 thee openly.'' 
 
 James the apostle, in an inspired moment, asked — 
 
 " Is any sick among you ? let him call for the elders of the ♦hurch ; 
 and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil, * * * md the 
 prayer of faith shall save the sick." 
 
EXEQETICAL SPIRITUALISM — PRAYER. 545 
 
 To plead with God for this or that, " for Christ's sake, ' is 
 churchal, but not philosophical. Prajer moves us, and all 
 in sympathy with us, as one chord in a musical instrun ent 
 tones another, bringing us more and more into harmony 
 with heavenly order. It is devoid of all virtue without 
 practice. The sectarist prays God to send rain in the dry 
 season, while the philosopher prays by irrigating his fields 
 and gardens. The bigot prays God to feed the poor, whilst 
 the philanthropist prays by carrying supplies to their very 
 doors. The churchman, partaking of a rich repast, prays 
 God to clothe and comfort the widow and the fatherless, and 
 expects b}^ these soulless ceremonies to win the special favor 
 of heaven. Up from your knees, Ritualist ! and bestow 
 the blessings which you ask God to confer. Golden the age 
 when men will do, rather than say their prayers. The Grecian 
 drayman received no help from Hercules, though calling in 
 prayer, until he put his shoulder to the wheel. 
 
 Invocations to spirits, angels, God — " Jehovah, Jove, or 
 Lord" — when bubbling up spontaneously from the inner 
 depths, are vitalizing and strengthening to the divine forces 
 of the soul. Whether most efficacious, voiced, or breathed 
 in calm silence, each must determine, l^o mortal is inde- 
 pendent. Sympathies and destinies blend like the tremulous 
 branches of forest trees. Man, dependent as stream upon 
 fountain, is fed from the ever-flowing rivers of inspiration. 
 Is it not expressive of gratitude, as well as wisdom, then, for 
 man to look to God, as drop, rill, stream, lake, all, to the 
 immeasurable oceanic fountain of waters ? Thus, aspiring to 
 the good and lofty, to angels and arch-angels, we approx- 
 imate their states of recipient love, and become illumined 
 with the Promethean fires of God's eternal sunshine, our 
 souls invited up and standing upon high mountains of holi- 
 ness, under the arching rainbows of Infinite Mercy. 
 
 Aspiration knows no bounds; ideally it measures all 
 spaces over which the soul treads ; it is the highest form ot 
 prayer. The immediate object of prayer, then, is to incite 
 calmneas of spirit. It puts us into an inspirational condition, 
 
344 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 enabling us to come into rapport with heavenly presences, 
 association with whom transforms us into their own moral 
 likeness. Companionship with poets makes us poetical ; 
 with musicians, musical; with objects of beaut}^ beautiful 
 in character; with the good, divinely spiritual. Folded 
 unde»* the wing of immortal hope, embosomed on the heart 
 of the Infinite, thrilled with the pulsations of angel faith, we 
 thus ascend higher, higher in thought and purpose — the 
 children of God gathered home in the heaven of Love. 
 
ChAPTEF^ XL. 
 
 FREEDOM AND FUNCTION OF LOVB. 
 
 ♦•Love is the fulfilling of the law." 
 
 **Come angel I for I need thy love 
 
 More than the flower the dew, or grass the rain. 
 Come angel ! like the mystic dove, 
 
 And let me in thy smiles rejoice and live again ! " 
 
 ** Love communes in gentle glances, 
 Feet responsive glide in dances, 
 
 Over there ; 
 Orange-buds and pure white flowers, 
 Lattice the hymenial bowers. 
 
 Over there." 
 
 Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus. 
 Love is not merely a white lily undulating upon embosomed 
 waters, not an seolean harp murmuring music in the window, 
 not the cooing of the turtle doves, but an active principle, a 
 divine soul-emotion, the central magnet of our conscious 
 existence. Just in the ratio of the souPs unfoldment, love 
 becomes subjective, philosophic, idealistic and universal. 
 Platonic love, blending with the fraternal, and enzoned by 
 the infinite, is exalting beyond all heights of mortal percep- 
 tion ; and yet as well talk metaphysics to mummied gorillas, 
 as such love, disenthralled of passion and earthliness, to 
 those who swelter in the lower brain department of their 
 cranial organisms. 
 
 345 
 
346 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 The inimitable Emerson, determined to preserve his whole- 
 ness, and recognizing no one being as absolutely necessary to 
 his happiness, sajs of those early selfish loves: 
 
 " I know how delicious is this cup of love — I existing for you. you 
 existing for me; but it is a child clinging to his toy, an attempt to 
 eternize the fireside and nuptial chamber; to keep the picture alphabet 
 through which our first lessons were prettily conveyed. * * * Once 
 abroad, we pity those who can forego the magnificence of Nature's Eden 
 for candle light and cards. * * * This early dream of love, 
 though beautiful, is only one scene in our life-play. In the procession 
 of the soul from within outward, it enlarges its circles, like light pro- 
 ceeding from an orb. It passes from loving one to loving all ; and so, 
 this one beautiful soul opens the divine door through which he enters to 
 the society of all true and pure souls. Thus in our first years are we 
 put in training for a love which knows neither sex, person, nov parti- 
 ality ; but which seeks virtue and wisdom everywhere, to the end of 
 increasing virtue and wisdom." 
 
 Say not that Emerson's nature is cold and icy, reflecting 
 only the cr3^stalline side of life. To those sufficiently exalted 
 rightly to translate him, he is warm, fresh, and golden. His 
 soul feeds ours. Abiding in such love, we drink at his living 
 fount of ideas, thrive upon his inspirational truths, bathe in 
 his dreamy mysticisms, and feel the influx of eternal youth. 
 
 Souls require no introduction. The recognition is intu- 
 itional. Meeting a noble soul that knows our soul, we 
 indulge the pleasing truth to us, that we knew the loved one 
 in a pre-existent state, and delicious were those delicate 
 experiences in the sweet realms of blessedness. Too etherial 
 were the workings of that inner consciousness, thm^ to be 
 now projected into the external memory of earth's sordid 
 masses, cloyed with the cares of this material life. 
 
 "'Tis somewhere told in Eastern story, 
 That those who loved once bloomed as flowers 
 On the same stem, amid the glory 
 Of Eden's green and fragrant bowers; 
 And that, though parted oft by fate, 
 
 Yet when the glow of life is ended, ' 
 
 Each soul again shall find its mate, 
 And in one bloom again be blended." 
 
EXEQETICAL SPIRITUALISM — LOVE. 347 
 
 While Thomas Carlyle worships force — a king being to 
 him the man that can and does — while John Stuart Mill 
 continues to scatter incense upon the altar of original ideas, 
 be it ours to do homage at the sacred shrine of love — a love 
 pure, Platonian and universal. Such germinating from the 
 soul's center, summering eternal in the brain's crystal dome, 
 and looking tenderly towards the Infinite, incarnated in all 
 humanity, is not passional, selfish, nor exacting. It does not 
 demand attention, talks not of duty, lusts not after virtue, 
 but trusts in principle — law — liberty — God ! 
 
 Beautiful in efifect is the medicine of love to the morally 
 diseased. It works by an infinitude of methods, but always 
 to redemptive ends. When fires, faggots, clanking chains, 
 and gloomy penitentiaries had all failed to reform, " the still 
 small voice " of love touched the heart-strings, opened a new 
 fountain and redeemed the erring. This principle wielded 
 by William Penn, tamed the Indian soul and toned it to throb 
 in kindness. Wielded by the benignant Howard, it made 
 dingy prisons, in Europe, schools of reform. Breathed by 
 the great-hearted Oberlin, it transformed many by-corners 
 of pollution, in the old world, into blooming gardens. Whis- 
 pered by the womanly Elizabeth Fry, it filled those dungeoned 
 in houses of refuge and asylums of outcasts with higher 
 thoughts and purer ideals — as sure to produce high, elevating 
 influences, as are shivering lightnings to do their missioned 
 work. Moral power is the only force ever employed by God, 
 or angels, in the divine order of subjugation. It is the 
 deepest and mightiest principle in the universe — the silvery 
 sea over which mortals sail to the heaven they seek. Oh, it 
 is sweet — it is life evermore to breathe the beauty of love ! 
 
 "For love is the theme that the seraph choirs 
 Are now hymning through the stars, 
 And we catch the strain from their golden lyres, 
 When our souls let down their bars." 
 
 Love bears no more relation to lust, than Christ to the 
 Adam, than heaven to the hells. Lust is perversity, and is 
 
348 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 no more love than light is darkness, or good is evil. How 
 important clearly to comprehend the occult forces of life, to 
 distinguish between use and abuse ! The legitimate purpose 
 of Combativeness is not pugilism, but a force-power acting 
 in conjunction with benevolence and justice. So the primal 
 purpose of Amativeness is not gratification, nor pleasurable 
 intoxication, but " tbe replenishing of the earth." All more 
 than this is w^asted expenditure, and nature hurls terrible 
 penalties at those who thus destroy their vital forces. The 
 legitimacy of the generative plane, under the guidance of 
 the wisdom principle, is admissible. 
 
 On the earthly planes of life, reproductions are earthly; in 
 the spirit realms, spiritual ; in the celestial, celestial. Angels 
 generate thoughts, ideas, redemptive reforms. It is beau- 
 tiful to become angelic on earth. There should be a mount 
 of ascension, a spiritual birth to each brain organ, a heavenly 
 polarity, before physical death. Said Jesus, " Ye must be 
 born again ! " Each faculty should be developed on the 
 ascending line of divine use. Desire should be gratified 
 only when pure, normal and subjected to the highest reason. 
 
 Through ante-natal perversions and individual excesses, 
 humanity stands arraigned to-day, degenerate and incomplete. 
 The remedy is not in multiplying the causes. God's laws 
 are not to be trifled with. Perverted passions that blotch 
 the face and cloud the moral nature, are not to be permitted 
 to run their course, but to be curbed, controlled, directed and 
 lifted to higher fields of action. I^othing could be more 
 dangerous than railroad-riding, with the steam-forces neither 
 managed nor guided by the engineer. 
 
 To let the ^'■passions flow as rivers from lands to seas," is 
 equivalent to saying — let the d'^inkard drink — drinking 
 deeper draughts of liquid poison, will cure inebriation and 
 usher in the millenium morn of temperance' Intensifying 
 the darkness of a dark apartment, would be considered by a 
 scientist a very singular method for producing light. True, 
 the passions are not to be utterly eradicated; but to be sub- 
 ordinated to holy uses. Tl ey are not, as a loose, slipshod 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — LOVE. 349 
 
 optimism affirms, to have full sway, producing pl/sical hag- 
 garduess and spiritual imbecility. Checked, trained, edu- 
 cated, as nature-forces, by resurrectional processes, they are 
 to rise through the strata of organic being to the arching 
 brain faculties, clarified and purified to blend and act iu 
 harmony with the moral and reasoning brain-regions of 
 man's spiritual nature. Mrs. Willard, in her " Sexology," 
 makes this pointed statement : 
 
 " It is excessive sexual abuse that produces so much nervous debility 
 in men and women. We have inherited it from our ancestors, and v/e 
 transmit it to our children. * * * Houses of infamy and their 
 pollutions are not the worst results of sexual abuses, because they are 
 confined to them; they are diffused into families and transmitted to 
 children. * * * Sexual commerce is just as bad as self-abuse, 
 when carried to the same excess. In a certain sense it is worse." 
 
 In " Memoranda of Persons and Events," A. J. Davis 
 testifies that — 
 
 "That misery-promoting abuse of the conjugal relation, called free- 
 passionism, is an 'incident^ to the development of mankind out of 
 blood into spirit — out of materialism into spirituality — out of prosti- 
 tution, into the divine order of society, when moral women will be but 
 little lower than the angels. * * * There is but one true marriage ; 
 namely, the marriage of the right man with the right woman^ forever." 
 
 The apocalyptic John saw, in vision, " an hundred and 
 forty and four thousand," having his Father's name written 
 in their foreheads. And he heard the voice of these harpere 
 harping with their harps. They sung, as it were, a new 
 song, and none could learn the song but the redeemed, * * 
 * And the voice said — " These are they which were not 
 defiled with women. * * * They enter through the gates 
 into the city " — city of the " ISTew Jerusalem " — the angelic 
 dispensation that " cometh down from God out of heaven." 
 
 '' Starving souls " cannot find supplies on the animal plane. 
 Physical commerce cannot satisfy 5ow^-wants. " That which 
 is born of the flesh is flesh." As the beautiful vine in the 
 filthy cellar, pale and sickly, needs solar light ; so the soul, 
 satiated on the poisons of sensuality, is emaciated and dying 
 
350 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 dying for love — for heart-love — for divine love — the soUr 
 
 love of angels. 
 
 Hidden deep under soils and sloughs are the nuclei, the 
 types and buds of unblown flowers, struggling to rise from 
 their sedimental graves into the free, fresh light of heaven. 
 So are there mortals who, from pre-natal conditions and 
 debasing associations, live and seemingly luxuriate down in 
 the lower, back-brain department of their being. Their con- 
 dition is deplorable ; their suffering must be intense — their 
 struggles long and tearful. Far be it from us to condemn 
 them. Jesus did not " condemn the woman caught in sin ; '* 
 but he did say, "Go and sin no more!" White-robed 
 angels, standing upon the mountains of the pure and beau- 
 tiful, are saying to those — to all — '* Come up higher ! " 
 
 All the germinal forces of the soul are divine; the wrong 
 comes from their misdirections through material forms ; the 
 transgression from the ignorant or the wilful abuse of the 
 good. Amativeness disrobed of earthliness, turned into 
 higher channels, resurrected and actualized, as in angelic 
 life, may not only originate, but may be considered the 
 synonym of emotional love — a love pure, free and divine, 
 working with and inspiring the moral excellence of the 
 immortalized in heaven. This love, so spontaneous and 
 holy, flowing out in gushing fountains of purity from regen- 
 erate souls to all humanity, should be cramped by no chains, 
 crushed by no " law-corpse," appropriated by no selfish 
 parasite, nor hedged about by the cage-wires and coriven- 
 tionalities of custom. 
 
 "One night I watched the shapeless clouds 
 That o'er my mind were rolling, 
 Till the clock's slow and measured tones 
 The hour of twelve were tolling." 
 
 Then o'er the loved disciples' page 
 
 Was I my vigil keeping: 
 I read and mused and read again, 
 
 While all the world was sleeping : 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — LOVB. 35) 
 
 And as I mused, I felt a fire 
 
 Within me gently glowing; 
 Passion sunk low, as drooping gales 
 
 At hush of eve stop blowing. 
 
 The clouds that o'er my spirit hung 
 
 Gave sweet and gentle warning ; 
 They changed to white and purpling flakes 
 
 As at the dawn of morning ; 
 And then looked through the countenance, 
 
 Clothed in its sun-bright splendor, 
 The * loved ' who with the saints of old 
 
 Kept holy watch, and tender. 
 
 His robe was white as flakes of snow 
 
 When through the air descending ; 
 I saw the clouds beneath him melt, 
 
 And rainbows o'er him bending ; — 
 And then a voice, — no, not a voice, — 
 
 A deep and calm revealing 
 Came to me like a vesper-strain 
 
 O'er tranquil waters stealing. 
 
 And ever since, that countenance 
 
 Is on my pathway shining ; 
 A sun from out a higher sky 
 
 Whose light knows no declining. 
 All day it falls upon my road, 
 
 And keeps my feet from straying ; 
 And when at night I lay me down 
 
 I fall asleep while praying." 
 
 The tendency of the spiritually minded is from grossnesa 
 to refinement — from promiscuity to chastity — from chastity 
 to holiness — from holiness to divinity. The higher the moral 
 ambition, the more complete and victorious the virtue! 
 This Adamic battle ground cleared, the kingdom of God has 
 come with its newness of life — "ITot according to the flesh, 
 but according to the spirit." The Apostle John declared 
 that he had passed from death unto life ; because he loved 
 the brethren. This love can never degenerate into license, 
 nor its liberty into anarchy ; for it is a principle, disrobed 
 of earthly passion — a holy resurrection. 
 
352 DOCTRINES OF SPiRITUALiSTS. 
 
 All men are ray brothers; all women, my sisters; all 
 children, my children ; and I am every mortals child. Deep 
 is our interest in every infant born into earth -life. Its des- 
 tiny is linked with ours, and our love flows to it free, to all 
 humanity free as God's sunlight. 
 
 Let, then, our country be the universe; our home the 
 world; our religion Vo do ^ood; our rett wherever a human 
 heart beats in harmony with ours; ai.d our desire be to 
 enkindle in the breasts of earth's millions the fires of aspi- 
 ration, aiding them in their progress up the acclivities of life, 
 even to the very gate of heaven. Let all the love that can 
 be attracted from our inmost being, be appropriated by the 
 poor, and the crushed, and the needy, and the fallen — by you, 
 the world, the angels. Then will be actualized the words of 
 Jesus — '^ All mine are thine, and thine are mine." 
 
 During that precious pentecostal hour, when the divine 
 afflatus streamed down in rivers of light from angelic abodes, 
 not only " many believed," but they were so baptized into 
 those unselfish loves of the spiritual world, that they resolved 
 to "have all things in common." When these universal 
 love-principles are made practical, the soil will be as free to 
 all to cultivate as the air they breathe ; gardens will blossom 
 and bear fruitage for the poor, and orphans find homes in all 
 houses, there drawn by the music of tenderest sympathy; the 
 brows of toiling millions be wreathed with white roses — 
 symbols of perpetual peace. 
 
ChAPTEP^ XLl. 
 
 GENIUS OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 " And God will make divinely real 
 The highest forms of their ideal." — Chapin. 
 
 " Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. 
 For to one is given by the Spirit, the word of wisdom ; to another the word of 
 knowledge by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same 
 Spirit ; to another the working of miracles ; to another prophecy ; to another 
 discerning of spirits." — Apostle Paul. 
 
 ** Upspringing from the buried Old 
 I see the New." — Whittier. 
 
 The rapid diffusion of the divine principles involved in 
 modern Spiritualism, startling to conservative Protestants, is 
 unprecedented in the historic annals of any religious move- 
 ment. An accredited church historian estimates that when 
 Jesus suffered crucifixion, he had, aside from his apostles 
 and a few angular, uneducated disciples, less than three hun- 
 dred believers. It is certain that when the Nicean Council 
 assembled early in the third century, there were hardly 
 thirty thousand Christians on the face of the earth. Kow, 
 at the expiration of twenty years, numbering millions. Spir- 
 itualism has entered the domain of science, art, religion and 
 the most acceptable literature of the country. Roman 
 Catholicism, seeing Protestantism crumbling into sectarian 
 fragments, fears only the rapid march of Spiritualism. 
 23 353 
 
354 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Waging a war of ideas, the new against the old — know- 
 ledge against creedal faith — science against sectarianism — free- 
 dom against dogmatic formulas, and the broadest liberality 
 against an effete theology — denying an arrogant priesthood 
 and a catering public press — reckless of popish bulls and 
 judicial decisions — heedless of the long-established author- 
 ities of Church and State — facing fashion with the religious 
 responsibility commonly ascribed to the popular worship — 
 Spiritualism, heaven-born and angel-guarded, has moved 
 forward to a prominent and enviable position, and now 
 shouts in trumpet tones — 
 
 "Sects must unmask to man's diviner needs, 
 Kings from their mocking thrones must topple down ; 
 God ! in thy name, Humanity yet bleeds, 
 But Truth hath risen, and marcheth to renown." 
 
 Spiritualism, a divine eclecticism, is based upon present 
 tangible facts, upon past historic testimonies and the soul's 
 highest intuitions. In addition to a national organization, 
 denominated, " The American Association of Spiritualists ^^^ 
 Spiritualism has already several energetic State Conven- 
 tions; thousands of local societies and circles, sustaining 
 lecturers and media; a large number of flourishing Chil- 
 dren's Progressive Lyceums ; State Missionary organizations, 
 sending out efficient workers thoroughly imbued with the 
 elements of reform and the heavenly inspirations of the age: 
 and not mentioning those known to fame, it has tens of 
 thousands of media in private families, who purposely hide 
 themselves from the wanton glare of public life. It pub- 
 lishes nine periodicals in the United States — weeklies and 
 monthlies — and its publishing and yearly book-trade is 
 rapidly increasing. 
 
 iTotwithstanding the gathered lore and historic records of 
 the ages, demonstrating the ministry of spirits, in connection 
 with the phenomena of the present, the groping, unthinking 
 multitudes reject Spiritualism — reject it precisely as did men, 
 in high reputed places, the telegraphic discovery of Prof 
 
EXEQETICAL SPIRITUALISM — GENIUS OF SPIRITUALISM. 355 
 
 Morse. At a banquet in liis honor, recently given in New 
 York, Prof. Morse said : 
 
 " A brief narrative of certain events in the early history of the inven- 
 tion, when it was a suppliant for aid in the halls of Congress, will give 
 the answer to many questions. I must not detain you with too much 
 detail, but the contrast of then and now cannot fail at least to amuse 
 you. As the narrative is very short, allow me to quote it : 
 
 ' House of Representatives, 
 
 * February 21, 1843. 
 
 * ELECTRO AND ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 < On motion of Mr. Kennedy, of Maryland, the committee took up the 
 bill to authorize a series of experiments to be made in order to test the 
 merits of Morse's electro magnetic telegraph. The bill appropriates 
 $30,000, to be expended under the direction of the Postmaster General. 
 
 ' Mr. Cave Johnson wished to have a word to say upon the bill. As 
 the present Congress had done much to encourage science, he did not 
 wish to see the science of mesmerism neglected and overlooked. He 
 therefore proposed that one-half of the appropriation be given to Mr. 
 Fisk (a gentleman at that time lecturing in Washington on mesmerism), 
 to enable him to carry on experiments as well as Professor Morse. 
 
 ' Mr. Houston thought that Millerism should also be included in the 
 benefits of the appropriation. 
 
 ' Mr. Stanley said he should have no objections to the appropriation 
 for mesmeric experiments, provided the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. 
 Johnson) was the subject. (A laugh.) 
 
 ' Mr. Cave Johnson said he should have no objections, provided the 
 gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Stanley) was the operator. (Great 
 laughter.) 
 
 ' Several gentlemen called for the reading of the amendment, and it 
 was read by the clerk, as follows : 
 
 ' Provided that one-half of the said sum shall be appropriated for 
 trying mesmeric experiments under the direction of the Secretary of the 
 Treasury.' 
 
 ' Mr. Mason (of Ohio) rose to a question of order. He maintained 
 that the amendment was not bona fide, and that such amendments were 
 calculated to injure the character of the House. He appealed to the 
 chair to rule the amendment out of order. 
 
 ' The Chairman said it was not for him to judge of the motives of 
 members in ofi"ering amendments, and he could not therefore undertake 
 to pronounce the amendment lona fide. Objections might be raised to 
 it on the ground that it was not sufficiently analogous in character to 
 the bill under consideration ; but, in the opinion of the chair, it would 
 require a scientific analysis to determine how far the magnetism of mes- 
 merism was analogous to that to be employed in telegraphs (laughter) ; 
 he therefore ruled the amendment in order. On taking the vote the 
 
356 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 amendment was rejected — ayes 22, noes not counted. The bill waa 
 then laid aside to be reported.' 
 
 "• The temper of the House, '^ says Prof. Morse, " is easily inferred from 
 this narrative. To those who thus ridiculed the telegraph it was a 
 chimera, a visionary dream like mesmerism, rather to be a matter of 
 merriment than seriously entertained. Men of character, men of erudi- 
 tion, men who, in ordinary affairs, had foresight, were wholly unable to 
 forecast the future of the telegraph.^' 
 
 Sectarists and political partisans, at their Belshazzar feasts, 
 make merry over modern Spiritualism in much the same 
 style that those clergy and senators in Congress spit their 
 venom, in the form of dead jokes and witticisms, upon mes- 
 merism and Prof. Morse's telegraphic discoveries. These 
 now stand upon the Congressional records, living and "swift 
 witnesses" against the short-sightedness of their perpetrators. 
 Starved, hunted, persecuted of one generation, to be ban- 
 queted and honored with hero-worship in the succeeding, is 
 the world's method of expressing gratitude. 
 
 ♦' To-day abhorred ; to-morrow adored, 
 So round and round we run." 
 
 "When this youth of twenty years — Spiritualism — puts ol 
 the full strength of sterling manhood — when it expands into 
 the proportions of a moral giant — when its theories and 
 prophecies have become established facts — when its visions 
 have taken the forms of tangible realities — when, as in the 
 Nazarene's time, the " Rulers of the Pharisees" openly 
 confess the gospel of spirit communication, then will the 
 weak, mimicking masses begin to *' banquet" tbose whom 
 to-day it denominates dreamers and enthusiasts. 
 
 As a general definition of Spiritualism, the following is 
 submitted : 
 
 Its fundamental idea is, God, the infinite spirit-presence, 
 immanent in all things. 
 
 Its fundamental thought is, joyous communion with spirits 
 and angels, and the practical demonstrations of the same 
 through the instrumentality of media. 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — GENIUS OF SPIRITUALISM. 357 
 
 Its fundamental purpose is, to rightly generate, educate 
 and spiritualize all the races and nations of the earth. 
 
 Its worship is aspiration; its symbols, circles; its prayers, 
 good deeds ; its incense, gentle words ; its sacrament, the wine 
 of holy affections ; its baptisms, the fervent pressure of warm 
 hands and the sweet breathings of guardian angels; its 
 mission, human redemption, and its temple, the universe. 
 
 Spirituahsm, considered from its philosophical side, is 
 rationalism, from its scientific side naturalism, and from its 
 religious side the embodiment of love to God and man, a 
 present inspiration and a heavenly ministry. In the year 
 nineteen hundred it will be the religion of the enlightened 
 world ! 
 
 It underlies all genuine reform movements, physiological, 
 temperamental, educational, parental, social, philanthropic 
 and religious ; and spanning all human interests with holy 
 aim, it seeks to re-construct society upon the principles of a 
 universal brotherhood — the strict equality of the sexes. 
 
 Desirous of greater knowledge touching the relations of 
 spirit with matter, and of men with God and the intelli- 
 gences of the surrounding world of spirits. Spiritualists 
 study and reverently interrogate the laws and principles that 
 govern the phenomena and occult forces of the universe ; 
 the histories of the past, and the experiences of the present, 
 anxious to rightly solve those psychologic and spiritual 
 problems of the ages — man's origin, capacity, duty and final 
 destiny. 
 
 Interrelated with spirit and matter in their varied evolu 
 tions, and with the highest interests consciously connecting 
 all worlds. Spiritualism is neither supernatural in philos- 
 ophy, nor sectarian in tendency; but broad, catholic and 
 progressive — the voiced truth of God through nature to 
 the rational soul — a science, philosophy and religion. 
 
 Seen from this mount of vision, it is the " second coming 
 of Christ; " not in person, but in principle — the divine prin- 
 ciple — the indwelling God — the Christ-principles, of wisdom, 
 love, truth. Since the physical coming in Bethlehem, the 
 
358 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 revolution of a religious cycle has been completed. The 
 '' Kew Jerusalem " is descending; the " hope of Israel," and 
 the promised " kingdom of heaven," that must be preached 
 to all nations. 
 
 The prophecy is now fulfilling. It is waking to higher 
 life the inhabitants of India and China; shedding its kind- 
 ling glories upon the hills of Hindostan ; beaming in splen- 
 dor along the vine-clad foot-hills of South America; cross- 
 ing blue oceans, it is unfurling standards of progress in the 
 peopled isles of the deep, and looking down in its might 
 from the thrones of England, France and Russia. 
 
 Positive science consists in the discovery, co-ordination 
 and practical application of natural laws. All phenomena 
 subject to the natural laws are for the same reason suscept- 
 ible of becoming the subjects of real science. When once 
 admitted that all phenomena, including those of human 
 existence, physical, mental, spiritual, are the subjects of 
 unchanging natural laws, the circle of scientific research and 
 religious aspiration is complete, whether geometrized by the 
 inductive or deductive method of reasoning. Spiritualism, 
 tolerant as divine, clasps and consecrates to human good the 
 true and the beautiful in both science and religion. Seeing 
 more to love in the Jove of the Greek than the grim Jeho- 
 vah of the Jew — more to admire in the smiling Olympus 
 than thundering Sinai — more truth in the teachings of the 
 old Platonists than the creeds of " liberal " Christians, and 
 more true worshipers, after the pattern of the meditative 
 Nazarene, in the living Temple of N"ature opening as the 
 Pantheon of truth for all races, than in the rented pews of 
 bigoted sectarists, it comes to the thinking millions of the 
 nineteeth century, joyous with immortality demonstrated^ jubi- 
 lant with proofs of the future identity and recognition of the 
 *' loved gone before," and brilliant with precious prophecies 
 of the ceaseless march of all conscious intelligences toward 
 the higher and purer, even the Infinite. 
 
 "If a man die, shall he live again? " was the question of 
 old. W 'th the masses it has been the problem of all the 
 
EXEQETICAL SPIRITUALISM — GENIUS OF SPIRITUALISM. '^0^ 
 
 centuries. The mourner, blinded by tears, propounds it to 
 the preacher still. In sepulchral tones he breathes only the 
 word " Hope," and that tremblingly. But Spiritualism, born 
 of heaven and pouring its celestial tides of divine life into 
 human souls till they become clear as the crystal waters of 
 Paradise, answers the inquiry in the affirmative, and sustains 
 it by tangible demonstrations and the testimony of living 
 witnesses. 
 
 On the grave of Orthodoxy it is the green couch, arched 
 with flowers, for the weary pilgrim. In the worshiping 
 temples of '• Liberal Christians," wherever an automatic 
 Rationalism is brilliantly cold and clammy in heart, or a fierce 
 iconoclasm destroys but builds not, it prophesies " change, 
 speedy change ! " and invites the bewildered devotees to 
 listen to what " The Spirit saith unto the churches " — what 
 the angel with the seven seals of destiny in hand, saith : " 1 
 would that thou wert cold or hot, but because thou art 
 lukewarm, I will spue thee out of my mouth." 
 
 Spiritualism, the blossom now of all religions, the soul of 
 the body which the past has developed, is adapted to the 
 genius of the age and the entire human constitution. It 
 addresses his reason and his aspirations. It enlarges the 
 understanding, and gives vigorous activity to the intellect. 
 Its benefits are not exclusively for the rich or poor, virtuous 
 or vicious, happy or unhappy, civilized or savage, but for the 
 race of humanity in all its variety of endowments, culture, 
 character, needs and circumstances. 
 
 Authoritative, so far as it expresses truth to individual 
 consciousness, it stimulates all instinctive aspirations, awa- 
 kens the divinest emotions, enkindles the most magnificent 
 aims, and, purifying the imagination, strives to perfect the 
 whole being. Showing the naturalness of the converse with 
 the spirit-world by sympathy, vision, trance, clairaudience, 
 impression and inspiration, its tendencies are to elevate and 
 spiritualize the afifeotions. Bearing the olive-branch of peace, 
 it comes with manifestations and inspirations from heavenly 
 worlds, and strives to maintain the republic of God in every 
 
360 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALIST'. 
 
 heart It is not destructive alone, but constructive. It 
 brings from the chrysalis of old forms, risen men and women 
 " clothed in their right minds." It invites the children of 
 earth to daily walk the mount of Beatitude, and commune 
 with the transfigured who softly glide along the summer land- 
 slopes of eternal progress. It extends the shining hands of 
 angels who talk of love and sing of the high birth. It wipes 
 the tears of sorrow from weeping eyes, breathes the sweet 
 breath of tenderness into starving souls, and, sweeping away 
 the lingering clouds of death, bids all God's dear humanity 
 tread the pearl-paved paths traversed by the triumphal armies 
 of heaven. Oh, how re freshing, burdened with cares and 
 crosses, to catch occasional breezes from Eden-lands, and 
 songs of encouragement from immortalized hosts of reform- 
 ers, martyrs, apostles, prophets ! Lifting the glass of 
 memory and reverting backward, it reveals the eternal pur- 
 pose of good from seeming evil — of sorrow blossoming into 
 joys, of thorns transformed into roses, and tears crystalizing 
 into pearls of matchless brilliancy. Musical with the love- 
 ministries of angels, it is a perpetual baptism from on high, 
 a continual regeneration, a succession of higher births and 
 endless privileges, a gentle dispensation of divine love guided 
 by wisdom, the strength of the weary, the balm of healing for 
 the sick, the consolation of the dying, the comfort of the 
 mourner, and the sweetest answer to prayer ! As a moral 
 power in the world, its influence is exalting, its purpose 
 uplifting, its work apostolic, its inspiration continuous, and, 
 with improved implements suitable for all redemptive pur- 
 poses, its great design is to lift humanity, through angel 
 ministry, into higher physical, mental and spiritual condi- 
 tions, preparatory to that future, progressive existence that 
 stretches in increasing love-lines along the measureless eras 
 of eternity. 
 
 Spiritualism, the desire of all nations, symbolized by 
 " light," beautifully expresses the out-flowing love of God — 
 
EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — GENIUS OF SPIRITUALISM. 361 
 
 the divine principle of holiness— the indwelling Christ-prin- 
 ciple of love and salvation — the Arahula — the comforter — 
 the divine guest — the Savior of the world. 
 
 Incidentally, Spiritualism incites unflinching action on the 
 plane of moral principle; renders one tenderly sympathetic ; 
 reasonable and rational, and, subjecting the passions to wis- 
 dom and virtue, it awakens holy, emotional affections, rooted 
 in God. It induces fidelity to promise, and abounds with 
 charity. 
 
 "There is a grandeur in the Soul that dares 
 Live out all the life God lit within ; 
 That battles with the passions hand to hand, 
 And wears no mail and hides behind no shield! 
 That plucks its joy in the shadow of Death's wing — 
 That drains with one deep draught the wine of Life, 
 And that with fearless foot and heaven turned eyes, 
 May stand upon a dizzy precipice, 
 High o'er the abyss of ruin, and not fall ! ' 
 
 Facing the frowning Alps, the impassioned Napoleon said: 
 *' Officers! soldiers! the eyes of all Europe are upon you — 
 conduct yourselves accordingly ! " 
 
 Spiritualist ! the eyes of the church, of the world, of the 
 angels, are upon thee; conduct thyself accordingly! Quit 
 thyself like a man. So guide thy bark, that though it 
 flounder in tempestuous seas, it may right itself again for a 
 safer voyage. Live to-day for to-morrow, for eternity. Be 
 above the commission of an unworthy act. Tread not on 
 the threshold of thy neighbor only with the purest and 
 loftiest intentions. Filch no entrusted secrets from others. 
 Indulge in no ignoble insinuations. Take no selfish advan- 
 tage of another's weakness. Be candid and sincere. Affirm 
 thyself. Celebrate thyself in goodness. Testify of thyself 
 in integrity. Be a practical reformer. Seek no praise, nor 
 fulsome flattery. Intrigue for no office. Fail of thy pur- 
 pose rather than secure it by dishonorable policy. Partake 
 of the bread of honest labor. Administer reproof in gentle- 
 ness and love. Forgive as thou wouldst be forgiven. Kind 
 
362 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 to the poor, the unfortunate, the sick, the dying — live to lift 
 up others, to brighten the chain of friendship, to educate 
 mind and heart for a heaven on earth. Enflower the path- 
 way of humanity with the beautiful in life ; plant gardens of 
 love in unhappy bosoms ; welcome the angels to angelize the 
 shades of our pilgrimage, and be welcomed into light, the 
 eweet light, the music light of Immortality ! 
 
LONTENTS. 
 
 General Diyisions. 
 PREFATORY. 
 
 Page. 
 
 1.--GbBETING to A.AKON NiTB i- 4 
 
 2.— The Hokosc ?e 6- 10 
 
 I. SPIRIT OF THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 Chap. I. — Spirit df the Age 13- 19 
 
 XL— Spiritual Ratios 20- 22 
 
 II. ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 Chap. TIT.— Indian 25- 30 
 
 IV. — Egyptian 31- 35 
 
 v.— Chinese 36- 40 
 
 VI.— Persian 41- 43 
 
 VII.— Hebraic 44- 62 
 
 VIII.— Grecian 53- 67 
 
 IX.— KoMAN 68- 74 
 
 III. CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 Uhap X. — The Foreshadowing 77- 79 
 
 XL—Mythic 80- 88 
 
 XII.— Theologic 89- 93 
 
 XIII.— The Nazarene 94-110 
 
 IV. MEDIEVAL SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 Chap. XIV. — Transitional 113-117 
 
 XV.— Apostolic 118-120 
 
 XVI.— Post-Apostolic ...121-128 
 
 XVII.— Neo-Platonic 129-185 
 
 XVIII.— Churchianic 139-187 
 
 363 
 
364 CONTENTS. 
 
 V. MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 Chap. XIX.— The Prelude ., 191-194 
 
 XX.— Spirit Phenomena 197-202 
 
 XXI.— Mediumship 203-206 
 
 XXII.— Witnesses 207-215 
 
 XXIII. — Clerical and Literary 216-246 
 
 XXIV.— Poetic Testimony 247-253 
 
 VI. EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 Ofap. XXV. — Existence of God L^4-260 
 
 XXVI.— The Divn^r T>^aqj5 , 26}-264 
 
 XXVII. — Moral Status of Jesus 265-272 
 
 XXVIII.— The Holy Spirit 273-2T6 
 
 XXIX.— Baptism 277-27^ 
 
 XXX.— Inspiration 280-284 
 
 XXXI.— Beauty of Faith 285-288 
 
 XXXIL— Repentance 289-292 
 
 XXXIII.— Law of Judgment 293-296 
 
 XXXIV.— Evil Spirits 297-308 
 
 XXXV.— Hell 1 309-317 
 
 XXXVL— Heaven 318-324 
 
 XXXVII.— Historic Immortality 325-329 
 
 XXXVIII.— Resurrection 330-340 
 
 XXXIX.— Prayer 341-344 
 
 XL. — Freedom amd Function op Love 845-352 
 
 XLL — Genius of Spibitualism 868-862 
 
Index. 
 
 
 AND 
 
 Alphabetical Classification. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Abraham — 
 
 Brahminic 28 
 
 Ageippa 149 
 
 Alexandria 
 Eclectic School 129 
 
 Ambrose 127 
 
 Angels — 
 
 National superin- 
 tendence 122, 125 
 
 Incarnation 125 
 
 Reverence for 143 
 
 Higher than spirits319 
 Ministers of God... 49 
 Names of.27, 39 49, 114 
 
 Congresses 192, 193 
 
 Guardians 115 
 
 Angles — 
 
 Symbolic 10 
 
 Ante-Natal — 
 
 Perversities 348 
 
 Of Jesus 79, 94 
 
 Appollinaris 119 
 
 Apolonus — 
 
 Guarded by spirits.114 
 
 Apostolic Fathers..118 
 
 Apparitions 72 
 
 Aristides — 
 
 On healing 61 
 
 Atonement 290 
 
 Augustine 127 
 
 Beautiful testimo- 
 ny 141 
 
 Aubrey, John — 
 
 Exorcisms 163 
 
 Barne, Rev. Dr. A. — 
 Testimony 237 
 
 Baxter, Richard — 
 Testimony i2 
 
 page. 
 Baptism — 
 
 Spiritual 277 
 
 Water baptism 278 
 
 Spiritualized water 279 
 Ballou, Adin — 
 
 Testimony 229 
 
 Ballou, Dr. Eli — 
 
 Testimony 229 
 
 Babel 48 
 
 Bacon, Lord — 
 
 Testimony 160 
 
 Bacon, Roger 143 
 
 Beveredge, Bishop — 
 
 Testimony 155 
 
 Beethoven 171 
 
 Beecher, H. W. — 
 
 Testimony 217 
 
 Beauty of Faith 285 
 
 Bell, Robert — 
 
 Testimony 241 
 
 Bhagavat Gita 81 
 
 Antiquity of 84, 85 
 
 Bible — 
 
 Canonical voting... 95 
 
 Translators of. 96 
 
 Inner sense 159 
 
 Blake, William — 
 
 Testimony 166 
 
 BoDiN 149 
 
 Bcehmen, Jacob — 
 
 Testimony 158 
 
 Bread of Life 15 
 
 For spirits 43 
 
 Brahmins — 
 
 Sacred Books 27 
 
 Deific ideas 27 
 
 Bronte, Charlotte — 
 
 Testimony 233-4 
 
 365 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Bruno, Giordano — 
 Testimony 157 
 
 Brown, Sir Thomas — 
 Testimony 160 
 
 Buddha 97 
 
 Butler, Bishop — 
 
 Testimony 155 
 
 Cary, Phebe — 
 
 Testimony..... 249 
 
 Cardamus, Jerome. ..157 
 
 Cerenthus — 
 
 Testimony 116 
 
 Church — 
 
 Anglican 156 
 
 Private circles 156 
 
 Divorced from reas- 
 on 166 
 
 For the age 18 
 
 Protestant 147 
 
 English 152 
 
 Catholic fidelity 146 
 
 Uninspirational 152 
 
 ''Slough of Des- 
 pond " 153 
 
 Sectarian uses 15 
 
 Decaying tenden- 
 cies 17 
 
 Greek 142 
 
 Church Fathers — 
 Immoral teachings. 88 
 
 Evil spirits 115 
 
 Spiritual gifts 121 
 
 Miracles 125 
 
 Churchianic 139 
 
 Chapin, Rev. E. H.— 
 Testimony 219 
 
 Channing, Rev. W. E. — 
 Testimony 224 
 
366 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Chinese — 
 
 Measure of time 26 
 
 Chronology of 26 
 
 Bible of 36 
 
 China — 
 
 Mental structure... 36 
 
 By Burlingame 38 
 
 Christ — 
 
 Theologic 89 
 
 Chalda in India 28 
 
 Chkistianitt — 
 
 Primitive 105 
 
 Chrishna — 
 Identical with 
 
 Christ 81, 83, 85 
 
 Incarnation 82 
 
 Education of 82 
 
 Miracles 83 
 
 Birth 83 
 
 Descent to Hades... 83 
 
 Antiquity of 84 
 
 Worship of. 85 
 
 Circles — 
 
 Spiritual 205 
 
 "When needless" 206 
 
 Law of. ." 191 
 
 Pentecostal 274 
 
 Symbol of India... 8 
 
 Waves of 22 
 
 Ethereal 32 
 
 Civilization — 
 Western movements 
 
 266 
 
 Cicero 148 
 
 Clarke, Adam — 
 
 Testimony 181 
 
 Clairvoyance 151 
 
 Highlanders 164 
 
 Animals 164 
 
 Thomas Say 175 
 
 John Murray 184 
 
 In Asia 141 
 
 Clairvoyants — 
 
 Mistakes of. 336 
 
 Clergymen — 
 
 Refusing light 200 
 
 Cowardice of. 243 
 
 Inconsistency of. ...313 
 
 Injustice of. 61 
 
 Deceptions 81, 85 
 
 Coleridge — 
 
 Testimony 248 
 
 Conic Sections 258 
 
 Congressional Big- 
 otry 355 
 
 Constantinian Era.. 139 
 
 page. 
 Confusion op Tongues 
 48 
 
 Confucius — 
 
 Spiritual charftcter 89 
 
 Cranmer 153 
 
 Creation — 
 
 Duality of 13 
 
 Creeds — 
 
 Athanasian 90 
 
 Plan of salvation... 91 
 
 Cross — 
 
 Spiritual sign 140 
 
 Cyprian 125 
 
 Dannecker 159 
 
 Davenport Brothers 
 209 
 
 Debes — 
 
 Angel healing 162 
 
 Demons — 
 
 Classical and scrip- 
 tural 299 
 
 Worshiped 34 
 
 Good and bad 5q 
 
 Mission of 56 
 
 Miracles 153 
 
 Demon — 
 
 Of Socrates 58-9 
 
 Death — 
 
 Not redemptive...322-3 
 Professed Chris- 
 tians 328 
 
 Birth 335 
 
 Dissolves not spirit336 
 
 When conscious 337 
 
 Ascension 67 
 
 Incarnation 66 
 
 Deluge 46 
 
 Divine Image 261 
 
 Unity of 264 
 
 Divination 69 
 
 Edmunds, Judge — 
 Testimony 207 
 
 Egypt — 
 
 Psychological char- 
 acteristics 9 
 
 Wisdom of 31 
 
 Colonized by India. 45 
 
 Egyptian Jurispru- 
 dence 32 
 
 Elkin, Rev. H. — 
 
 Testimony. ..231 
 
 Epimenides — 
 
 France 61 
 
 Poetical 61 
 
 Essenians — 
 
 Mystic science 97 
 
 PAGH. 
 
 Essenians — 
 
 Physicians 98-9 
 
 Pythagoric 98 
 
 Lineage 98 
 
 Morality 100 
 
 Social system 100 
 
 DiflFusive 100 
 
 Evil 297 
 
 Relative 297, 300 
 
 In spirit life 298 
 
 Uses of 305 
 
 Evil Spirits — 
 
 Ministrauts 298 
 
 Exorcism — 
 
 Law of. 123, 163 
 
 Method of Fathers.125 
 
 By Apollinaris 119 
 
 By Jesus 302 
 
 Faith 297 
 
 Defined 285 
 
 Spiritual correla- 
 tion 286 
 
 Practical 286-7 
 
 Funeral emblems. ..340 
 
 FisK, Rev. Dr. — 
 
 Testimony 230 
 
 Fletcher, Rev. — 
 
 Testimony 180 
 
 Fox, George 161 
 
 Freedom and Func- 
 tion OF Love 345 
 
 Friends of God 146 
 
 Garrison, Wm. L. — 
 Testimony 236 
 
 Gassner, Dr. — 
 
 Prophecy 168 
 
 Ghost — 
 
 Translation of. 273 
 
 Genius of Spiritual- 
 ism 353 
 
 Gnosticism — 
 
 Origin of. 81 
 
 Inductional 130 
 
 Gnostics — 
 
 Concerning Jeho- 
 
 veh 28 
 
 Spirits ascended ... 62 
 Representatives 130 
 
 GowDY, Rev. G. S. — 
 Testimony 228 
 
 Golden Rule 104 
 
 God— 
 
 Absolute and rela- 
 tive 254 
 
 Inner soul 255 
 
 Defined 256 
 
INDEX. 
 
 367 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 God— 
 Consciousness of.. ..256 
 
 Unprogressive 257 
 
 Father and Mother. 259 
 Order of manifesta- 
 tion 259 
 
 Voice of the pres- 
 ent 15 
 
 Pythagoric 102 
 
 Testimony of an- 
 cients 102 
 
 Duality of 114 
 
 Revealed by angels. 122 
 
 Qreely, Horace — 
 Testimony 234 
 
 Greece — 
 Psychological 
 
 structure 63 
 
 Oracular religion... 54 
 Mythology and the- 
 ology 62 
 
 Gregory 127 
 
 Gregory VII 143 
 
 Grossetete, Bishop..145 
 
 GuizoT 140 
 
 Gymnosophists — 
 
 Wisdom of. 98 
 
 Haunted Houses — 
 
 Obsessed 163 
 
 Baxter's statement.163 
 Homes of spirits ...142 
 
 Hades — 
 Of the Greeks 66 
 
 Hall, Bishop 154 
 
 Hepworth, Rev. G. H. — 
 Testimony 226 
 
 Hellenists 267 
 
 Knowledge of gods 56 
 
 Hell — 
 
 Description of.309-312 
 Biblical Exegesis ..313 
 Spiritual view 316 
 
 Heaven — 
 
 Names of 318 
 
 Local 320 
 
 Promise of...320, 338-9 
 
 On earth 321 
 
 Conditional 321 
 
 Employments 322 
 
 Hebrewism — 
 
 From India 28 
 
 Origin of Scrip- 
 tures 44 
 
 Theology 45 
 
 Civilization Egyp- 
 tian 54 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Heathen — 
 
 Scholarship of 103 
 
 Hermas 124 
 
 Historic Immortal- 
 ity 325 
 
 Hierombalus — 
 
 Priest of lao 28 
 
 History — 
 
 Psychological 6 
 
 Hindoos — 
 
 Originally not idol- 
 aters 28 
 
 Howitt, Wm. — 
 
 Testimony 238 
 
 Horoscope..., 5 
 
 Homer — 
 
 Guardians of 55 
 
 Iliad and Ramaya- 
 na 55 
 
 Hooker, Judicious — 
 Testimony 154 
 
 Human Brotherhood — 
 103 
 
 Hugo, Victor — 
 
 Testimony 237-8 
 
 Hume — 
 
 Seances 209 
 
 Ignatius 119 
 
 Immortality — 
 
 Basis of 262, 264 
 
 Platonian 57 
 
 Socrates' view of.. 59 
 
 Animals 262 
 
 Universal belief.. ...263 
 Ancient testimony. .326 
 N. A. Indians 328 
 
 Imagination — 
 
 Effects of 157 
 
 Founded in facts. ..266 
 
 Indians — 
 
 Infant seership 164 
 
 Abuse of. 186-7 
 
 India — 
 
 Historic greatness.. 25 
 
 Philosophy 27 
 
 Mother of tribes ... 29 
 
 Insanity — 
 
 Obsessions 304 
 
 Cure for 305 
 
 Infidels — 
 
 Honesty of 200 
 
 Infanticide 337 
 
 Inscriptions — 
 
 Hindoo 84 
 
 Golden ages 198 
 
 Inspiration 280 
 
 page. 
 Insp.eation — 
 
 Signs of 35 
 
 Poetical 61 
 
 Varied to condi- 
 tions 281 
 
 General and special 282 
 
 Perpetual 283 
 
 Sacred everywhere 284 
 
 Iren^us 121 
 
 Irving, Washington — 
 
 Testimony 233 
 
 Island — 
 
 Ancient, now ex- 
 tinct 26 
 
 Israel — 
 
 Mental structure... 44 
 
 Jamblichus 133 
 
 Jesus — 
 
 Moral status.. 265 
 
 National culmina- 
 tion 265 
 
 Real personage 266 
 
 Brother man 268 
 
 Faithful 269 
 
 Progress of 269 
 
 Exorcising 307 
 
 Scholarship 60 
 
 Prophecy of 78 
 
 Ante-natal 79, 94 
 
 Associations 95 
 
 In Egypt 96, 97 
 
 Essenian 97, 99 
 
 Interior life 101 
 
 Doctrines derived 103 
 
 Precepts of. 106 
 
 Character of 107 
 
 Mediumship 107 
 
 Cotemporaries 113 
 
 Jehovah — 
 
 Priestly origin 34 
 
 Jeud 46 
 
 An angel...49, 115, 117 
 Jews — 
 
 Inferior to Classics 46 
 
 Jerome 127 
 
 Joan d'Abc 157 
 
 Josephine 169 
 
 John 268 
 
 Scholarship of 81 
 
 Jones, Sir William.. 26 
 
 Justin, Martyr 122 
 
 Judaism Paganized.. .13^ 
 Julian, the Apc state 
 
 141 
 
 Judgment — 
 
 Biblical 294 
 
868 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE. 
 JirDGMENT 
 
 Inward law.... 294, 295 
 
 Spiritual 296 
 
 Kabbala 41 
 
 Ker, Rev. W.— 
 
 Testimony 232 
 
 Keener 305 
 
 Knox, John 164 
 
 Secret Spiritualist.165 
 Language — 
 
 Hebrew 26 
 
 Sancrit 26, 38 
 
 Shemitic 27 
 
 Lao-tse 39 
 
 Latimer 153 
 
 Lee, Ann 182 
 
 Le Can 36 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham... 242 
 LivERMORE, Mrs. M. A. 
 
 Testimony 250 
 
 Literature — 
 
 Homeric 80 
 
 Hindoo 80 
 
 Louis XVI 168 
 
 London Times — 
 
 Testimony... 237 
 
 Longfellow — 
 
 Testimony 249-9 
 
 Lowell — 
 
 Testimony 253 
 
 Love — 
 
 Selfish 346 
 
 Not lust 348 
 
 Purely free 350 
 
 Progressive 350 
 
 Universal 352 
 
 Luther, Martin 145 
 
 Roaring Devil 146 
 
 Healing power 147 
 
 Man and Woman 261 
 
 Marriage 349 
 
 Magnetic Telegraph 
 
 355 
 
 Mather, Cotton 165 
 
 Maria Antoinette. ..168 
 Madame Elizabeth... 169 
 
 Mayo, Rev. A. D 227 
 
 Matter and Spirit. ..257 
 
 Magic Staff 33 
 
 Magicians — 
 
 Persian 41 
 
 Magic 43 
 
 Rivalship 50 
 
 "Wisdom" 50 
 
 Manetho — 
 Oa Hebrews 45 
 
 PAGK. 
 
 Magnetism 99 
 
 Materialism 140 
 
 Mediumship — 
 
 Disorderly 173 
 
 Orderly 174 
 
 Universal 203 
 
 General phases 205 
 
 Children 234 
 
 Truth in failures... 235 
 Pythian 70 
 
 Methodists 180 
 
 Melancthon, 147 
 
 Saved by spirits 147 
 
 Miracles — 
 
 Faith-principle 271 
 
 Milton — 
 
 Testimony 251 
 
 Moral Responsibil- 
 ity 298, 308 
 
 Mozart 170 
 
 Beautiful death 171 
 
 Moses — 
 
 Seeing God 51 
 
 Egyptian medium.. 34 
 Persian rites 45 
 
 montanus 124 
 
 Mouravieff — 
 
 Testimony 142 
 
 Murray, John 184 
 
 Mummies — 
 
 Hebraic heads 45 
 
 Music — 
 
 Philosophy of 64 
 
 Myths — 
 
 Brahminic 27 
 
 Mythic Jesus 80 
 
 Neo-Platonic 129 
 
 NiTE, Aaron — 
 
 Greeting to 3 
 
 NiCENE Council 353 
 
 Obsessions — 
 
 By curiosity 160 
 
 By influence 301 
 
 By neglect of rea- 
 son 122 
 
 Deaf and dumb 302 
 
 Tutelary 126 
 
 General belief in 303-4 
 Supposed di8eases..303 
 
 Law of ingress 306 
 
 Cures for 307 
 
 Oracles — 
 
 Tower of Belus 29 
 
 Golden ship 35 
 
 Inarticulate 60 
 
 Delpliian, etc 70 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Oracles — 
 
 Christ and Chrirttna 85 
 
 Origin 125 
 
 Orthodoxy 16 
 
 Parkeb, Theo. — 
 
 Testimony 221 
 
 Grave of 220 
 
 Paracelsus 156 
 
 Law of healing 156 
 
 Passions 348 
 
 Pastophora 8 
 
 Palestine — 
 
 Psychological 9 
 
 Jewish character... 9 
 
 Past — 
 
 Religious uses 14 
 
 Representatives 15 
 
 Virtues of 21 
 
 Persecutions — 
 
 Of church. ..142, 144-5 
 
 Of Catholics 149 
 
 Against Tasso 151 
 
 Of inquisition 157 
 
 Of Puritans 165 
 
 Of English 158 
 
 For heresy 159 
 
 Of Methodists 180 
 
 Peter d'Apono 144 
 
 Persia — 
 
 Psychological 
 
 structure 41 
 
 Commerce 41 
 
 Mythology 42 
 
 Pentateuch — 
 
 Brahminical 45 
 
 Pharisees 267 
 
 Philo Jud^us — 
 
 Cosmogony ...113, 114 
 
 Phcenecians — 
 
 History of 28 
 
 Commerce 28 
 
 In America 29 
 
 Cosmogony 46 
 
 Pictures — 
 
 Of Grecian saints ..142 
 
 Plato — 
 
 Dialogue 67 
 
 Planchette 208 
 
 Scientific American214 
 
 Pliny — 
 
 Oracular 72 
 
 Plotinus — 
 
 Theology of 131 
 
 Post- Apostolic 121 
 
 Potter, John — 
 
 Building church.. ..186 
 
INDEX. 
 
 369 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 POEPnYRY 132 
 
 Learning of 132 
 
 Works burned 132 
 
 Teachings 133 
 
 Poetic Testimony 247 
 
 Soul prophets 247 
 
 Poets — 
 
 Interpreters of 
 
 gods 57 
 
 POLYCARP 
 
 Vision of. 118 
 
 Moral courage 119 
 
 Prayer 341 
 
 Virtue of 342-344 
 
 Healing 342 
 
 Hypocritical 343 
 
 Receptive 134 
 
 Pre-existence — 
 
 Of Jesus 116, 271 
 
 Of all 125 
 
 Philo Judaeus 114 
 
 Prescott, Elder J. S — 
 Testimony 183 
 
 Progress — 
 
 Circles 191 
 
 Scientific 199 
 
 Relatively finite. . . . 258 
 
 Causal 13 
 
 Spiral 25 
 
 Proclus 135 
 
 Divine demon 135 
 
 Prophecy — 
 
 By fasting 133 
 
 Of inventions 144 
 
 Of discoveries 148 
 
 Laws of 144 
 
 Of schisms 145 
 
 Blazing star 153 
 
 Spirit guided 158 
 
 Of mutations 165 
 
 Of death 169 
 
 Of Shakers 183 
 
 Queen of France ...170 
 
 Of books 193 
 
 Of Miller 193 
 
 Of A. J. Davis 194 
 
 Of Nineveh 48 
 
 Of "Rappings" ...193 
 Psychology — 
 
 Fantastic forms 116 
 
 Sign of cross 140 
 
 Ante-natal 87, 114 
 
 Return of Jesus 108 
 
 By Moses 51 
 
 Pythagoras- - 
 Incarnation 86 
 
 24 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Pythagoras — 
 
 Scientific travels... 86 
 Identical with Je- 
 sus 86 
 
 Characteristics 87 
 
 Angelic child 87 
 
 Mediumship 87 
 
 Gymnosophic 98 
 
 Races^ 
 
 Shemite 27 
 
 Rashees 98 
 
 Raphael 159 
 
 Religion — 
 
 Consecutive 105 
 
 Modified 105 
 
 Psychological 106 
 
 Biblically three- 
 fold 124 
 
 Reid, Rev. H. A. — 
 
 Testimony 230 
 
 Repentance — 
 
 Law of 289, 290 
 
 In future life 291 
 
 Reformation — 
 
 Spiritual mistake ..146 
 
 Resurrection 330 
 
 Of the body 331 
 
 What to be raised..333 
 Body of RogerWill- 
 
 iams 332 
 
 Jesus' body 334 
 
 Of nature ....335-6 
 
 Idiots and infants. .337 
 
 Identity 338 
 
 Progressive 339 
 
 Rome — 
 
 Psychological 
 
 structure 68 
 
 Romulus — 
 
 Spiritual address... 71 
 
 Say, Thomas 176 
 
 Sanchoniathan — 
 
 Pupilage 28 
 
 Before Moses 46 
 
 Sanscrit — 
 
 On emigration 29 
 
 Key of Buddhism .. 38 
 Sardonapolus — 
 
 Faith in the gods .. 48 
 Sallust — 
 
 Law of correspon- 
 dence 68 
 
 Salvation — 
 
 Inner merit 92 
 
 Universal 292 
 
 Sadducees 267 
 
 PAQB. 
 
 Sanford, Rev. J. P. — 
 Testimony 230 
 
 Schiller — 
 
 Inspirational 161 
 
 Scotch — 
 
 Seership 164 
 
 Infants 164 
 
 Animals 164 
 
 Science — 
 
 Occult 34 
 
 Scandinavia — 
 
 Buddhistic descent 29 
 
 Sexual Abuses 349 
 
 Sects — 
 
 Decline of 186 
 
 Shakers — 
 
 Spirit gifts 183 
 
 Social system 184 
 
 Sherlock, Bishop — 
 Gifts of spirit 155 
 
 Simon Magus — 
 
 Teachings 115 
 
 Mediumship 116 
 
 Skinner, Rev. G. W. — 
 Testimony 228 
 
 Smith, Gerritt — 
 
 Testimony 236 
 
 Solar Spectrum — 
 Analogous with 
 
 spirit 274 
 
 Of fragrance, 
 blood, etc 275 
 
 Soul — 
 
 Distinct from spirit335 
 
 Germinal forces 350 
 
 Of things 125 
 
 Social Science — 
 
 Prospective 352 
 
 Socrates — 
 
 Testimony 58 
 
 Death of 59 
 
 Death by evil spir- 
 its , 122 
 
 Sozomen — 
 
 Church historian... 140 
 
 Spirit — 
 
 Infinite substance.. 20 
 
 In man 20 
 
 Creation developed 21 
 
 Spirits — 
 
 In prison 292, 317 
 
 Classification 301 
 
 Vanishing 334 
 
 Author's band 6 
 
 Egyptian gods 34 
 
 Sustenance of 108 
 
370 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Spirits — 
 
 Return of ..32, 110, 212 
 Of Jesus' disciples.. 50 
 
 Host of 51 
 
 Abodes of 61 
 
 Bands of 204 
 
 Spirit of the Age ... 13 
 
 Spirit World — 
 
 Causation 192 
 
 Described 
 
 ...319, 175, 176, 178 
 
 Ratios of life 322 
 
 Progressive 324 
 
 Degrees of 319 
 
 Spiritual Body — 
 
 A unit 336 
 
 Sphere of. 336 
 
 Identity 338 
 
 Spiritual Dreams — 
 
 OfCaracalla 72 
 
 Attila's bow 72 
 
 For Sculpture 159 
 
 Spiritual Deliverance 
 
 From drowning 180 
 
 From prison. ..141, 149 
 
 From fire ...134 
 
 Waldenses 149 
 
 From robbers 154 
 
 Spiritual Forms — 
 Opinion of Bever- 
 
 edge 155 
 
 Tully thro' Agrippal49 
 
 Appear as men 46 
 
 Seen by Tasso 151 
 
 Old Testament 52 
 
 Spiritual Force (Mov- 
 ing bodies) — 
 Removing stones... 142 
 
 Brahmins in air 30 
 
 Ancient media in 
 
 air 35 
 
 By hair of head.... 48 
 Simon Magus in air 116 
 
 Clash of arms 66 
 
 Commotions of 
 
 things 151 
 
 Jamblichus lifted 
 
 up 133 
 
 Guiding a ship 185 
 
 Spiritual dancing..l82 
 
 Spiritual Galleries — 
 For paintings 61 
 
 Spiritual Gifts — 
 
 Transmissible 107 
 
 Post-Apostolic 123 
 
 Christian proof of..l55 
 
 PA ^. 
 
 Spiritual Gifts — 
 
 Decline of .28 
 
 Of 3d century 125 
 
 Of early Christians 127 
 
 Spiritual Healing — 
 
 Healing temples 61 
 
 Restoring life 121 
 
 Vespasian's mira- 
 cles 73 
 
 Wesley's laying on 
 
 of hands, 179 
 
 Secret by angels ...155 
 
 By St. Bernard 143 
 
 Direct by angels... 
 
 154,162 
 
 By Luther 147 
 
 By vision 154 
 
 By sign of cross 120 
 
 By Thomas Say 176 
 
 Egyptian method... 34 
 Of the 5th century. 127 
 
 Spiritual Inventions — 
 By Roger Bacon. ...144 
 
 Spiritual Influx — 
 Conditions of 175 
 
 Spiritual Leadership — 
 
 Of Joshua 149 
 
 House of worship..l85 
 Constantine's cross 140 
 Jerome Cardamus..l57 
 
 Spiritual Music — 
 
 By angel choirs 119 
 
 For Mozart. ...170, 171 
 At death of Boeh- 
 
 men 159 
 
 In the sky 225 
 
 Inspirational. ..61, 167 
 
 In rocks 33 
 
 By staves 201 
 
 By bells 63-65 
 
 For Beethoven 171 
 
 Producing trance. ..135 
 
 For Mahomet 65 
 
 Elegant sounds 35 
 
 Spiritual Painting- - 
 Spirits seen by ar- 
 tist 166 
 
 Spiritual Poetry— 
 Inspiring Tasso.. ..150 
 Improvised, Schil- 
 ler 161 
 
 Modern 247-253 
 
 Spiritual Rappings — 
 
 Sweetness of 198 
 
 March, 1848 201 
 
 In 1849 211 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Spiritual Rappings — 
 
 Through Bodin 15C 
 
 In Wesley family. ..179 
 For warning 163 
 
 Spiritual Sects. ..97, 98 
 
 Spiritual Speaking — 
 
 From heaven 119 
 
 To Columbus 148 
 
 Spirit of Tully 149 
 
 By ancient media... 35 
 
 Spiritual Sculpture — 
 Impressed by 
 
 dreams 159 
 
 Spiritual Seership — 
 
 By Faith 155 
 
 Of Gregory VII 143 
 
 Of Plotinus 131 
 
 Spiritual Table Tip- 
 ping — 
 Chinese 87 
 
 Spiritual Visions — 
 
 By Louis XVI 168 
 
 By Sylla 72 
 
 By Hermas 124 
 
 By Ambrose 127 
 
 Mother of Hall 154 
 
 Spiritual Warriors — 
 Joan d'Arc 158 
 
 Spiritual Writing — 
 
 In 1849 211, 213 
 
 Alphabet 201 
 
 Spirit Pendulum ...201 
 
 Spiritualism — 
 
 Universal 207 
 
 English believers208~9 
 
 Catholic idea 208 
 
 Success of 210 
 
 In Peru 210 
 
 Permanency 215 
 
 Grandeur of 222 
 
 Aggressive 355 
 
 Future of. 356 
 
 Synopsis of 357 
 
 Propagative 358 
 
 Religion of the 
 
 world 359 
 
 Beauties of 360 
 
 Heavenly influence 184 
 Perils of its forces.306 
 
 Virtues of 276 
 
 Effects of infidelity 167 
 Of the 5th century. 127 
 
 Spiritualists — 
 
 Charge to 361 
 
 Illustrations....239, 240 
 Independent 256 
 
INDEX. 
 
 371 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Spheres — 
 
 Electric 204 
 
 Emanation 274 
 
 Of plants, blood etc275 
 
 Stoicism — 
 
 Brotherly 103 
 
 Stowe, H. B. — 
 
 Testimony 223 
 
 SWEDENBOKGIANS 
 
 Estimate of Spirit- 
 ualists 174 
 
 Sympathy — 
 
 Between the two 
 
 worlds 198 
 
 Harmonial. .. - 204 
 
 Musical 64, 163 
 
 Symbols — 
 
 Of Trinity 8 
 
 Of India 8 
 
 Of Egypt 9 
 
 Of Palestine 10 
 
 Taylor, Bayard — 
 " Mysterious inci- 
 dents " 226 
 
 Tasso — 
 Spiritual poems, etclSO 
 
 Temples — 
 
 Of Jove 29 
 
 Of Serapis 32 
 
 Of Memnon 33 
 
 For manifestations. 34 
 
 Tertullian 123 
 
 On exorcisms 122 
 
 Character of 123 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Tennyson — 
 
 Angel guardians... .251 
 Thackeray — 
 
 Testimony 241 
 
 Theurgy — 
 
 Conditions of 134 
 
 Theraputes — 
 
 Of Egypt 99 
 
 TiLLOTSON 155 
 
 Time— 
 
 Spiritual impres- 
 sions 20 
 
 Titus — 
 
 Address to soldiers. 51 
 Tiberius — 
 
 Warned by spirits.. 71 
 Townsend, Rev. Dr... 
 0.— 
 
 Testimony 236 
 
 TowNE, Rev. E. C— 
 
 At Pierpont's fu- 
 neral 241 
 
 Tower of Belus — 
 
 For oracles 29 
 
 Transfiguration — 
 
 Of brain organs 348 
 
 Trance — 
 
 Of Methodists .180 
 
 Quaker, Say 176 
 
 Early Christians....l23 
 
 Of boys 126 
 
 "Sacred Sleep".... 33 
 Triangle — 
 
 Horoscopic 9 
 
 1 AUB. 
 
 Trinity — 
 
 Hindoo 81 
 
 Trithemius — 
 
 Mental telegraph- 
 ing 160 
 
 Tuttle, Rev. J. H. — 
 
 Testimony «282 
 
 Universalism — 
 
 Crystalizing 186 
 
 Vespasian 72 
 
 Vice — 
 
 Spiritual injury,.... 69 
 Vishnu — • 
 
 Incarnation 81 
 
 Walton 168 
 
 Waldenses — 
 
 Spirit guided 148 
 
 Wesley, John 178 
 
 Whittier — 
 
 Testimony 252 
 
 Witchcraft — 
 
 Of New England«..166 
 Women — 
 
 Spiritual 202 
 
 Worship — 
 
 Heavenly 19 
 
 Angelic liturgy 119 
 
 YONGE 
 
 On the gods 49 
 
 Zend Avesta — 
 
 Angelic origin 42 
 
 Zoroaster — 
 
 Spiritualistic « 42 
 
Names of the Principal Authors Ponsulted, 
 
 WITH A CLUE TO THEIR MORE PROMINENT WORKS. 
 
 Biggins, Godfrey Anacalypsip 
 
 Pythagoras, by Jamblichus. 
 
 Behme, Jacob Concerning the Soul. 
 
 Jenner, Thomas What the Soul Is 
 
 Baxter, Eichard Nature of Spirits. 
 
 Priestly, Joseph Matter and Spirit 
 
 Hittell, John S Pantheism. 
 
 Fitche, J. H Phil. Confession. 
 
 Ennemoser, Joseph Historic Psychology. 
 
 Glanvill, Joseph Pre-existence of Souls. 
 
 Parker, Samuel, Bp Platonic Philosophy. 
 
 Reynaud, Jean Philosophy of Religion. 
 
 Cardano, Girolamo De Im. Animorum 
 
 More, Henry Philosph. Poems 
 
 Lavater, David Human Mind. 
 
 Hume, David Essays. 
 
 Eckermann, J. C Immortality. 
 
 Strauss, D. F The Future Life. 
 
 Parker, Theodore Sermons, Lectures. 
 
 Bunsen, C. C. J Egypt-History of Religion. 
 
 Rawlinson, George Christ, vs. Heathenism. 
 
 Schoolcraft, H. R Indian Tribes. 
 
 Mallet, P. H Northern Antiquities. 
 
 Rosellini, J Egyptian Monuments. 
 
 Champollion-Figeac Ancient Egypt. 
 
 Wilkinson, Sir J. G Manners and Customs, Egypt. 
 
 Klenker, J. F Zend-Avesta. 
 
 Pope, J. A , Ardai Yiiaf. 
 
 373 
 
374 NAMES OF THE PRINCIPAL AUTHORS CONSULTED. 
 
 Wilson's Rig Veda 
 
 Haughton, Sir. J. G Institutes of Manu. 
 
 Wilkins, Charles Bhagavat Gita. 
 
 Roer, Dr. E , Brihad Aranyaka 
 
 Colebrook, H. T Is. Vara Clirislina. 
 
 Wilson, H. H Vishnu Purana. 
 
 Ward, William Mythology of India. 
 
 Muller, Max Languages. 
 
 Gutzlaflf, Chas Buddhism in China. 
 
 Guignes, M. de Confucius 
 
 Collie, David Chinese-Sse-shu. 
 
 Legge, James Chinese Classics 
 
 Jortin, John Dissertations. 
 
 Whewell, DD. Wm Plato 
 
 Fincke, C. E Olympiodorus. 
 
 Taylor, Thomas Plotinus. 
 
 Bellows, J. N Cicero's Immortality. 
 
 Warburton, William Legation of Moses. 
 
 Tillard, John Beliefs of the Ancients. 
 
 Butler, W. A Lect. on Ancient Philosophy. 
 
 Dennis, J Hist, of Theories and Morals. 
 
 Kenrick, J Rom. Sep. Inscriptions. 
 
 Hampden, R. D Fathers of Greek Philosophy. 
 
 Calmet, Augustus Dissertations. 
 
 Priestly, Joseph Knowledge of Ancient Hebrews. 
 
 Wette, W. M. L.de Bib. Doctrines. 
 
 Chubb, Thomas Dis. on Miracles. 
 
 Philo, Judaeus De Infernis. 
 
 Josephus, Flavins Hist, of Jews. 
 
 Taylor, W. C Hist. Mohammedanism. 
 
 Renan, J. Ernest Life of Jesus. 
 
 Tholuck, F. A. G Theos. Per. Pantheism. 
 
 Olshansen, H Ant. of Immortality. 
 
 Friedlieb, Leipz Sibylline Oracles. 
 
 Child, L. Maria Prog. Rel. Ideas 
 
 Lactantius, by J. B. Le. Brun Immortality of the Soul 
 
 Savonarola, Girolamo Dialogues — Future Life. 
 
 Ambrose, I. U The Last Things. 
 
 Clarke, Samuel Lee. and Discussions. 
 
 Benson, Joseph Scrip. Essay 
 
NAMES OF THE PRINCIPAL AUTHORS CONSULTED. 875 
 
 Newton, Thomas Diss. Int. State. 
 
 Dick, Thomas Phil. Future State. 
 
 Taylor, Isaac N. Hist, of Enthusiasm. 
 
 Alger, W. R Hist, of Future Life. 
 
 Stuart, Moses Dou>. Sense of Scripture. 
 
 Bush, George Script. Psychology. 
 
 Ballou, Hosea Atonement. 
 
 Dewey, Orville Views of Death 
 
 Davis, A. J Nature^s Divine Revelations. 
 
 Campbell, Archibald Death and Resurrection. 
 
 Robinson, W Invisible World. 
 
 Miles, J. Browning Spirits in Prison. 
 
 Luther, Martin Doc. Sermons 
 
 Usher, James Abp Prayers for the Dead 
 
 Cudworth, Ralph Intellectual System. 
 
 Locke, John Immortality of the Soul. 
 
 Mosheim, John L. Yon Eccl. History. 
 
 Wigglesworth, Michael Des. of Last Judgment. 
 
 Neander, Michael Heaven and Hell. 
 
 Boston, Thomas Fourfold State. 
 
 Swedenborg, Emanuel Heaven and Hell. 
 
 Balfour, Walter Int. State of the Dead. 
 
 Baxter, Richard Saints Rest. 
 
 Chalmers, Thomas New Heavens and Earth. 
 
 Newton, Andrews Future Life of the Good. 
 
 Channing,W. E The Future Life 
 
 Home, Robert Sermons. 
 
 Campbell, Geo Dissertations 
 
 Brownson, 0. A Pun. of Reprobates. 
 
 Tillotson, John Abp Eternity of Hell Torments. 
 
 Whiston, Wm Sermons and Essays. 
 
 Law, William Address to the Clergy. 
 
 Emmons, Nathanial General Judgment. 
 
 Winchester, Elhanan Universal Restoration. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan Theo. Controversy. 
 
 Foster, John Letter on Future Punishment. 
 
 Maurice, J. F. D Theo. Essays 
 
 Crowe, Mrs.-C. (Stevens) Night Side of Nature. 
 
 Owen, R. D Footfalls— Bound, of Another World. 
 
 Howitt, William Hist, of the Supernatural 
 
376 NAMES OF THE PRINCIPAL AUTHORS CONSULTED. 
 
 Atkinson, J. C Reason and Instinct 
 
 Zschokke, Job. D Med. on Death and Eternity 
 
 Dubois, B Doc. of N. Testament. 
 
 Denon, M Hist. Anct. Religions. 
 
 Maurice, Rev. Mr Ind. Antiquities 
 
 Jones, Sir Wm Asiat. Researchea 
 
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