A Book Written by the Spirits of the So-Called Dead
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Title: A Book Written by the Spirits of the So-Called Dead
Compiler: Carl Gustav Helleberg
Release date: May 1, 2011 [eBook #36009]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK WRITTEN BY THE SPIRITS OF THE SO-CALLED DEAD ***
Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive.)
[Illustration: C. G. Helleberg]
A BOOK
WRITTEN BY THE
SPIRITS OF THE SO-CALLED DEAD,
WITH THEIR OWN MATERIALIZED HANDS, BY THE
PROCESS OF INDEPENDENT SLATE-WRITING,
THROUGH
MRS. LIZZIE S. GREEN AND OTHERS,
AS MEDIUMS.
COMPILED AND ARRANGED BY
C. G. HELLEBERG,
OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
Life is real! life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal.
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not written of the soul.
--LONGFELLOW.
CINCINNATI:
1883.
COPYRIGHTED, 1882,
BY C. G. HELLEBERG.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
Introduction and Biographical Sketches of C. G. Helleberg,
Madam Fredrika Ehrenborg, and Mrs. Lizzie T. Green 1
CHAPTER II.
First Investigations with Mrs. Laura Mosser and Mrs. Cooper 6
CHAPTER III.
Remarkable Materialization Seance--Letters from Mrs. Ehrenborg
describing Inhabitants of other Planets 14
CHAPTER IV.
Madam Ehrenborg and others Materialize 23
CHAPTER V.
Investigations by Mrs. Jennie McKee--First Letter from Emanuel
Swedenborg and Communications from Polheim and others--Received
five beautiful Flowers from Madam Ehrenborg 26
CHAPTER VI.
Mrs. McKee passes away and her Spirit arranges her own Funeral 33
CHAPTER VII.
Investigations with Mrs. Green--Remarkable dark Trumpet Seance,
at which I received a most beautiful Flower from my Son Emil
and Miss Mary Muth 36
CHAPTER VIII.
Sure Identity of my Father-in-Law--Madam Ehrenborg writes to me
in Swedish 40
CHAPTER IX.
Information of a Spiritual Marriage--The Wedding and the Wedding
Tour to the Planet Mars 45
CHAPTER X.
Description of the Journey to Mars, and wonderful Information
furnished by Madam Ehrenborg 54
CHAPTER XI.
Communications from Emanuel Swedenborg 108
CHAPTER XII.
Communications from George Washington 141
CHAPTER XIII.
Communications from my Son Emil about Ex-President Garfield--
Greetings from Madam Ehrenborg--Letter from Rev. Goddard and
Swedenborg's Answer 157
CHAPTER XIV.
Communications from President Garfield, Madam Ehrenborg,
Governor J. D. Williams, President Abraham Lincoln, Judge
Edmonds 163
CHAPTER XV.
New Years' Greetings from many of my dear Spirit Friends and
near Relations 170
CHAPTER XVI.
A Prayer from Madam Ehrenborg 173
CHAPTER XVII.
Greeting from Horace Greeley, J. G. Bennett, and Henry J.
Raymond to F. B. Plimpton, Associate Editor of the Cincinnati
Daily Commercial 176
CHAPTER XVIII.
Communications from Horace Greeley, Governor O. P. Morton,
A. P. Willard 180
CHAPTER XIX.
Communications from the Drunkard, a Miser, William Gailard,
William Lloyd Garrison, Wilberforce, Tecumseh, a Suicide 187
CHAPTER XX.
Communications from Thomas Paine, Margaret Fuller, and Thanks
of Spirits 199
CHAPTER XXI--APPENDIX.
Mrs. Green's Medial History 204
CHAPTER XXII.
A Visit to Split Rock, Kentucky--Christmas Greetings from
Ida to her Parents--Annie Winterburn to her Brother, John
Winterburn, and his Testimony, and her Farewell to the Medium,
Mrs. Green 222
CHAPTER XXIII.
A Spirit peels a Banana, eats some of it, and divides the rest
in four equal parts--Reports of Cincinnati Enquirer about
Spirit Seances at Mrs. Green's 231
CHAPTER XXIV.
Extracts from each of two Funeral Discourses by Bishop Simpson
and Rev. W. H. Thomas, D. D., with Conclusions of C. G.
Helleberg 239
ERRATA.
Page 3, line 26, for most communications, read most of the
communications.
" 24, line 7, for Mrs. Stebbins, read Mr. Stebbins.
" 29, line 18, for are, read is.
" 30, line 27, for their, read his.
" 30, line 28, for them, read him.
" 34, line 8, for was, read were.
" 35, line 1, for this is, read these are.
" 46, line 2, for me and my wife, read my wife and I.
" 49, line 7, for Edward, read Edwin.
" 50, line 15, for Guthof, read Gustaf.
" 51, line 26, for thy, read the.
" 57, line 16, for were, read was.
" 60, line 6, for me, read us.
" 60, line 26, for a, read the.
" 63, line 21, for our, read the.
" 68, line 8, for miscreants, read misdeeds.
" 69, line 4, for Daniel, read David.
" 69, line 31, for laws, read love.
" 71, line 24, for nearly, read nearly a third.
" 76, line 30, for ever, read ever surging.
" 77, line 9, for of more, read of the more.
" 77, line 30, for rivulet, read violent.
" 80, line 27, for of, read and.
" 82, line 13, for formed, read former.
" 83, last line read, and out of the ambient.
" 84, line 17, for then, read there.
" 86, line 1, for mighty, read weighty.
" 88, line 20, omit again regained, and read required.
" 90, line 14, for glory, read misery.
" 91, next to last line for when, read where.
" 94, line 16, for constitutional, read constituent.
" 100, line 26, for beautiful, read beautifully.
" 101, line 5, for originated, read originating.
" 107, line 18, for you, read your.
" 109, last line, for question, read questioned.
" 111, line 18, for figures, read pigmies.
" 115, line 10, for needs, read needs but.
" 120, line 6, for or, read are.
" 121, line 14, for early, read latter.
" 133, line 22, for unbeliefs, read erroneous belief.
" 136, line 11, for hearsay, read heresy.
" 147, line 28, for he, read the.
" 157, line 22, for with, read by.
" 165, last line, for you thought, read your thoughts.
" 167, line 14, for nationalism, read rationalism, etc.
" 174, line 4, for almighty, read mighty.
" 174, last line for to, read through.
" 180, line 24, for arises, read arise.
" 183, line 3, for pacified, read purified.
" 184, line 27, for subsequent, read consequent.
" 187, line 25, for trifling, read toiling.
" 200, line 5, for actuate, read actuates.
" 200, line 23, for adapting, read adopting.
" 210, line 30, for J. & J. W. Gaff, read T. & J. W. Gaff.
" 211, line 14, for mission, read vision.
" 211, line 19, for literary, read literally.
" 221, line next to bottom, for assimilation, read dissemination.
" 231, line 2, for bonana, read banana.
" 240, line 21, for of, read to.
SPIRIT COMMUNICATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
The communications in this little volume, purporting to come from
disembodied spirits, came in the manner hereinafter stated, and all that I
had to do with them was to faithfully and to the letter transcribe them
from the slate on which they were written into blank memorandum books
which I procured for the purpose. Before laying before the reader the
_modus operandi_ of their delivery, I deem it proper that I should give a
brief outline of my own history, especially do I feel the importance of
this since I am little known outside of the circle of my immediate
acquaintances. It has always been my aim in life to live uprightly before
God and man, and as to the success of this noble purpose, formed in early
life, I may confidently refer to my neighbors, and many of the leading
citizens of Cincinnati, Ohio, with whom I have enjoyed an intimate social
and business acquaintance for nearly forty years. I do not know why I
should have been made the recipient and custodian of the truly remarkable
spirit communications contained in the following pages, except from a long
lifetime of honest endeavor to do right I was deemed worthy, and from the
additional consideration that the spirits interested in the work knew I
would cordially co-operate with them in laying the matter presented before
the world, and that, happily, I possessed the pecuniary means to do so.
I was born at Grafriset, near Fahlun, in the kingdom of Sweden, March 1,
1811, and have now passed my seventy-first year. At the age of sixteen I
entered the Swedish army, and at nineteen became a student at Upsala
University, where I remained for two years. After rendering military
service for five years, and passing a successful examination, I was
permitted to enter the civil service of my country. In the capacity of
land surveyor I served for over ten years, when a desire to personally
witness the workings of republican institutions induced me to make an
application to travel in foreign countries, which permission I obtained
for the period of two years. In 1844 I left my native land for the United
States, and in 1845 located at Cincinnati, Ohio, and soon thereafter
engaged in the art of daguerreotyping, and afterwards photographing, and
in the following year married Miss Annie E. Franks, daughter of Frederick
Franks, a leading and influential citizen of the city, who is still
remembered as the proprietor of Cincinnati's early famous museum. In
religion I was raised a Lutheran, but at the time (1879) of embracing
spiritualism and for thirty years preceding I was a devout and earnest
Swedenborgian. I commenced the investigation of spiritual phenomena in
1879, and soon became convinced of the sublime truths of the spiritual
philosophy.
As in the following pages the exalted spirit of Madam Fredrika Ehrenborg
imparts, among other things, marvelous information in regard to the
Planet Mars, of our solar system, it is deemed fitting that somewhat of
her history should be made known in this connection:
She was born March 15, 1794, in the Province of Wermland, in the kingdom
of Sweden, and at the age of seventeen married a highly esteemed nobleman,
Casper Isac Michael Ehrenborg. He left the body in 1823, and was at the
time Chief Justice of Sweden. Madam Ehrenborg was an enthusiastic
Swedenborgian, and she passed to the higher life in the Swedish city of
Linkoeping on the 20th of May, 1873. Her life in many respects was an
eventful one, and largely devoted to literary pursuits. She translated
writings on religious subjects from several languages into Swedish, and
wrote books and pamphlets in the interest of Swedenborgianism, and visited
England, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany and France in search of materials
for her works. It was not my good fortune to have met this eminent lady
during her mortal life, but I happily enjoyed a truly instructive and
pleasant correspondence with her during the last three years of her life
in the form.
I commenced my investigations in September, 1881, with the celebrated
medium Mrs. Lizzie S. Green, through whose mediumship most of the
communications to follow were written. For ten months I had never less
than two sittings a week, and the largest portion of that time four per
week, and have had ample opportunities to study her true character. As the
result I am justified by the truth in proclaiming to the world my thorough
conviction of her honesty, purity and simplicity of character. Her
education, as I have been informed, was sadly neglected in youth, and she
has had few opportunities to improve in later years. She married the Hon.
Edward H. Green, of Aurora, Indiana, before her eighteenth year, and has
devoted her succeeding years until recently to the domestic duties of life
and to the raising of a family, of whom only one, a daughter, survives.
Her husband served with ability a numerous and intelligent constituency in
the Indiana legislature of 1866-7, and served recently and to general
acceptance two terms of two years each as Mayor of Aurora, Indiana, his
native city.
The communications of spirits contained in this volume were written by the
spirits with their own materialized hands, and the process was generally
as follows: A small stand of the ordinary kind in construction, covered by
a table cloth, was used, the medium placing with one hand under the
covering of the stand a slate on which was placed a small piece of pencil.
The other hand of the medium was continually exposed to full view, as was
also her entire form. Both double and single slates were used. We heard
the writing as it progressed, and when the slate was filled it would be
indicated by distinct taps on the slate and the dropping of the pencil.
The slate would be then taken out, and as the chosen scribe I would
faithfully transcribe the written matter into the book aforementioned, and
the slate would then be cleaned and returned under the stand, and in this
manner all the matter hereinafter set forth was produced. I have reported
it _verbatim et literatim_, without changing it in the slightest degree,
neither adding nor taking therefrom a single word. Each sitting would
occupy from one to two hours, and in broad daylight. I have taken occasion
to preface some of these communications with a few lines, by way of
explanation and to secure clearness of understanding in relation to them.
This volume is truly a book written by the spirits themselves, and
whatever merit it may possess, they alone are entitled to the credit, and
whatever of demerit, if any, they alone are chargeable and responsible. Of
one thing both the mediums and myself can truly avouch, and are willing to
solemnize with our oaths, namely, that we had nothing whatever to do with
the production of the communications except so far as we may have aided
the communicating intelligences by furnishing them with the necessary and
required conditions.
I launch forth the work not, however, without misgivings as to its
reception and fate in this age of incredulity and skepticism, and my only
hope is that it may be instrumental in doing good, if but only in a feeble
degree, which alone will be ample compensation for my time and labor.
CARL GUSTAF HELLEBERG.
_177 Auburn street, Cincinnati, Ohio._
CHAPTER II.
My investigations of spiritualism commenced with the excellent medium,
Mrs. Laura Mosser, now Mrs. Carter, through whose mediumship I had the
first slate-writing, August 31, 1879, at her residence, No. 253 Laurel
street, Cincinnati, Ohio, from my spirit friend, William Gailard, and my
dear son Emil. My truth-loving friend, Mr. S. G. Anderson, at my request,
introduced me to Mrs. Mosser, at her residence, where we both on a clear
Sunday morning, after we had some communications between a double slate
from Mr. Gailard and my son, saw a spirit hand between us, into which Mr.
Anderson put his handkerchief, which was taken under the stand, and
afterwards came out tied in three knots. It was written on the slate at
the same time that Mr. Anderson's two sisters and his brother John, who
all many years ago had passed away in Sweden, each of them had tied a
knot. During this occurrence we had Mrs. Mosser in full view, who was
rocking in a rocking chair, and the only part hidden was her right hand
when it held the slate under the small stand. From this remarkable result
I concluded to go on with the investigation, and had many interesting
communications, mostly concerning family relations, until the 8th of
December, 1880, when I became acquainted with that most respectable lady,
Mrs. Annie Cooper, who is a true and honest medium. Through her gifts I
had many wonderful manifestations, consisting of slate-writings and
materializations, etc. I will mention only a few. On the 11th May, 1881,
among other things which appeared on the slate was the following:
"Good morning, my dear friend. Across the deep I have communicated to you.
With great pleasure I accept the opportunity of still doing so. I am
anxious that all I hold dear should understand this phenomenon. Hope
lingers around me that I shall be able to make myself known as if on
earth. One thing I thank you for, the kind appreciation of a small tribute
of friendship I tried to bestow. Every day since I came here I have
learned something. Knowledge is not stopped by the change. My friend, many
persons think that when the change called death comes and the spirit is
released from the body, it becomes perfect at once. That is a mistake; we
come out of the earthly body with all the propensities which actuate us
while in it, and we come out of them only as we are educated and progress.
Oh, dear friend, I can see now that there are many human beings dazed at
the wiles of mistakes made by early education, instead of looking up to
something higher and brighter. Yes, man still asks, with prayerful heart,
what are his wants to be in the future? and why was he born? and why does
he die? Oh, why does man mourn over a law that was ordained for the
benefit of all mankind? Why tears fall when he stands where the form of
some loved one is laid? Is hope gone? Yes, because they know not where
they are gone and what they are now. No one should mourn at death, for
death is as legitimate as birth. Yes, no science, with all its bright
knowledge, has been able to penetrate this system or sphere peopled by
those who once dwelt as you do now. Oh, if suffering humanity could
realize these beautiful truths, it would remove every doubt and dispel
every fear that death transports man far away from earthly loved ones. My
dear friend, to you this knowledge has been like a gentle zephyr that
cools the cheeks on a warm summer evening. I am happy to be able to see
you in possession of these noble sentiments. Let eternal progression be
engraved on your banner and you will soar far above doubt and mystery,
that surround so many in earth life. Man no longer bows to an angry God,
nor needs a mediator to propitiate him. I am so happy to be able now to
enjoy and fully realize what I believed to be true, with but little
besides my own evidence and knowledge to convince me that it was a truth.
I have been reproved even for an acknowledgment, but all do not understand
alike. I was fully assured before my spirit left the physical habitation
for spiritual inheritance that I was surrounded by angels, kind and
loving, guarding and guiding me to a higher and better life. I passed
through as if in a gentle slumber, awakening to meet many bright faces,
yes, too many to number, that had gone before and landed safely on the
bright, celestial shore. Earthly views can not comprehend heavenly joys.
Oh, think of it, my friend, to meet those to whom you are bound to by the
ties of nature in early affection, never, never to part again, but to
dwell in the light of a harmonious atmosphere of love, surrounded by
angels and music from the bright realms above. There is no end to life,
the spirit is eternal, and as we travel onward we can look upward in hope,
for there is always something above. I will be able to communicate to you
on different subjects the next interview. Give my love to your dear lady.
I will now call on her, and we will yet meet, but not as strangers. In the
language of flowers, we remember in the sweet forget me not.[1] Adieu for
the present. Your most sincere friend,
"FREDRIKA EHRENBORG."
This was the first communication between the double slate from Madam
Ehrenborg, and on the 19th of May she gave another one, as follows:
"Good morning, my clear friend. In love and justice for your kindness I
come this morning. I feel like writing on that subject, justice, for it
enters into the divine unfolding of eternity. Millions stand at the bar of
the great tribune waiting to hear their sentence pronounced. Justice
enters into the majesty of universal law. What generation can gather it
and hold it in their embrace? Yes, justice is the universal law, that no
age, no nation can control or hold in subjection. When they have gained
one step in the right direction they may then think they have gained it
all, but as we ascend the steps to that mighty throne of infinity we see
justice beyond the ken of hundreds of humanity that have passed away.
Justice is so unlimited we can compass only a part of it, according to the
knowledge we possess, and have cultivated the principal subject of the
development. No people or nation can make laws to govern any other nation
or people who can succeed them or figure on this planet. What can finite
man do to control the Infinite? Can he gather and control the winds and
the seasons as they come and go with all their powerful influences on the
globe? No; neither can he gather and control the developments of minds, or
subject them to any law that he may enact. History records the rise and
fall of empires; behold, they have all passed away; each gives place to
another form of government, better adapted to the wants and conditions of
the then existing humanity. Dear friend, the heavenly trees are filled
with divine fruit, whose beauty is reflected to earth. Truth is mightier
than man, sharper than a two-edged sword, and it will mow down every
obstacle in the way of progress. The spirit world is united in trying to
lay the corner-stone of a temple so large that it will contain the whole
human family. Oh, how grand when all can offer up the highest tribute of
love to the divine unfolding spirit, and receive the sacred knowledge and
love which shall bring humanity together in peace and harmony, then in
truth all will be free. It gives me renewed strength to see the new and
beautiful ideas floating about, spirit messengers wafted to earth,
blending with man, woman and child as they go forth clearing the pathway
to their eternal home, where all is love and harmony. The light of this
beautiful truth is fast dawning, and suffering mortals will awake in joy
to the light of it, and be crowned in the glory of the morning. It is not
hard for spirits to communicate with friends on earth, but often difficult
to have conditions. Man must have some spirituality in his soul before he
can realize the truth that his loved ones are waiting, willing to help him
upwards as they stand on the bright, celestial shore. Dear friend, I am
sure I am gaining power, and would be able to say a great deal in a short
time through this medium if no change of conditions come. I hope to help
you to do what you so much desire. I can go to my dear friends across the
water and help you by impressing them that all is true. Now I must
withdraw, but will be very happy to come again to you, and give you all
the knowledge I can. I am glad to see you so interested in learning what
can only be taught by those who have passed the sands of earth life, and
are happy exploring the unexplored field of life beyond. Good by, go on,
fear not, the course you pursue is right. Your true friend in spirit life,
"FREDRIKA EHRENBORG."
On the 24th of May, from 9 to 12 A. M., the same highly esteemed spirit
friend wrote on the slate:
"Good morning, my dear friend. I greet you this morning, united with so
many of your loved ones. Your beautiful mother says it would not be heaven
if we were shut out from the knowledge of our friends in the form. No, it
could not be heaven if it made us selfish. I am glad you have reached that
part of life and find bright rays daily. Freedom brings its own reward,
and the light that has been given to you will enable you to have yours
while life lasts. You will never be bereft of friends on this shore. You
will have them in both spheres. Is it not grand to be able to understand,
and even more, to appreciate, this knowledge? Light is pouring in, and the
minds of men are becoming more active every day. Mankind are like hungry
children who want food; yes, so great do they crave the knowledge of the
immortality that it will take firm reasoning and true workers to supply
them. We rejoice, for we are sure that progress is rapid. Earth friends
often wonder what spirits find to do. If they could realize even half the
wonderful work that is going on, they would be astonished that spirits had
accomplished so much for the welfare of humanity. I am so happy my soul
expands in love. I feel I am young, and I am, for I am born again. I am
contented to have struggled so many years in earth life, for it has
brought me grand reward. All trials are worth the privilege and pleasure
we enjoy when we reach our spirit home. I can see now that it is no
hiding-place in man's true nature, and if they are not learned upon the
terrestrial planet, they will have to learn before they can become
celestial angels. Selfishness is cold and freezing, love is genial and
warms up the human soul, and thereby will promote its happiness. Let love
be cultivated by man, for it is a favorite flower, the flower of life and
the beauty of the soul, and by it humanity is renewed continually and
brought to the newness of life's beauty, truth, beauty and higher spheres
of eternal existence, and without it man can never understand or have any
conception of his heavenly home. Oh, if love were the ruling influence,
sorrow would be hard to find, heart aches would be nowhere felt. An early
writer said: 'If you can not love him whom you have seen, how can you love
them whom you have not seen and be beloved in return?' In loving one
another we love God, for God is love. His love is manifesting in man. Oh,
that it may be cultivated, and not destroyed. Dear friend, I feel I have
given you an introduction at least in my three letters of what I believe
would be a benefit to man if they could but understand how much depends
upon them, not alone for themselves, but for the welfare and happiness of
others. I will be able, as conditions are given, to write of my
surroundings in my beautiful home, where all is love and harmony, peace
reigns and all willing to submit to the ruling power. You have done more
good than you are aware of. It is the greatest workers that always feel
they are doing least. You send forth subjects that give new ideas to those
who read them, awakening interest without any desire on their part. As I
said before, if conditions are not interrupted, you will have much to read
and to write. I have said all on this subject that I can, but I am not at
a loss for something more to write about, for in spirit home how many
beautiful things that have never yet been talked about too glorious to be
enjoyed without giving the knowledge of their existence to our earth
friends! A circle surrounds you this morning of loved ones near and dear,
and your mother is cherished in loving kindness by children, children's
children. Emil is a bright spirit, and will be able to give much knowledge
to those who are a great deal older. Dear friend, I must withdraw and obey
the law that governs my comings. All looks well for you so far as I see.
No one can be really happy until their spirit is free to enjoy that
happiness which is permanent, for all earthly pleasures are but temporary.
Farewell for the present. In God's love may you continue your journey
until you arrive on the mount where no dark ravines can intervene your
happiness. Good bye for the present. Your sincere friend in spirit life,
"FREDRIKA EHRENBORG."
CHAPTER III.
REMARKABLE MATERIALIZATION SEANCE--LETTERS FROM MRS. EHRENBORG AND OTHERS
DESCRIBING INHABITANTS OF PLANETS.
In the evening of the same day I was at a materializing seance at Mrs.
Cooper's, where the following persons besides myself were present: Mr.
Cooper, his wife, Mrs. Annie Cooper, the medium; Dr. Joseph R. Wittemore,
No. 50 Dayton street; John Winterborn, No. 19 Freeman avenue; Mr.
Oberline, Mr. S. G. Anderson, and Mr. Charles Wilhelm, all of Cincinnati.
First, Mrs. Cooper sat herself in full gas-light by the small covered
stand, under which was placed three bells, a walking stick, and my small
spring music-box, after I had wound it up. Soon after the spirits moved
the box up and down and put it on end during playing, which we could see,
because I put the box only half under the curtain. As soon as the playing
stopped, the box was taken entirely under and finally pushed out for me to
wind up. The bells were ringing and the walking stick was held up and
extended to all of us to take hold of, which we did, and the spirits shook
hands with us in that way. I had laid Madam Ehrenborg's photograph on the
table, and I expressed a wish that she would materialize, when on the
slate, which Mrs. Cooper held under the table-leaf, was written: "Good
evening, friends; yes, I am with you; I will try to appear; we are so
happy." The gas was now turned down, but not lower than we could see each
other right well, and Mrs. Cooper took her seat in a chair behind the
curtains stretched across a corner of the room, and soon after a lady
spirit greeted Dr. Wittemore, who, he said, was his first wife. His sister
also came and nodded to him. Then came a sister to Anderson and a sister
to Mr. Winterborn, together with his mother, who took a flower from him,
and nodded to him very cordially. A spirit lady did the same to Mr.
Wilhelm. Mr. Cooper brought now my music instrument, orgamina, from the
upper room and placed it before me and I played on it with the crank. Soon
after a lady spirit came, dressed in a white shining robe, and beckoned to
me, when Mrs. Cooper, who was not in a trance, invited me to come up to
the curtain where the spirit stood in the opening, and I asked if it was
my friend Madam Ehrenborg who died in Sweden, Europe, eight years ago, and
she bowed and nodded assent. Mr. Winterborn gave me a flower, which I took
and offered to Madam Ehrenborg, who took it, smelled it, and stuck it
under my nose to smell, and afterwards kept it. I expressed my gladness to
see her and she made graceful bows, which I answered with mine. I then
went back to the music instrument to play, when Madam Ehrenborg came out
again with a beautiful long piece of lace on her arm and wafted it to and
fro, and afterwards dematerialized before us. After that came a lady and
sat herself in the rocking-chair, and there dematerialized before us. Mrs.
Cooper took now a standing position in the opening of the curtain, when a
male spirit came out, stood beside her, and kissed her. When Mrs. Cooper
took her seat behind the curtain again a tall gentleman spirit came
dressed in some kind of a uniform, with a glittering star on his right
breast, and Mr. Winterborn offered him a nosegay, which he took and held
out with his hand, swinging his arm up and down, keeping time to the music
of the orgamina and that for a long time. As he came out the next time he
took hold of the rocking chair outside the curtain before him and swung it
over his head for a long time, and afterwards lowered it down to about a
foot from the floor, when he dropped it. At the same time we saw Mrs.
Cooper, who expressed her anxiety lest the chair might fall on her. Next
he placed himself at the opening of the curtain, when a lady spirit took
her place at his left side, and they kissed each other. Mrs. Cooper asked
for a glass of water, which Mr. Cooper went after, intending to give it to
his wife, but the gentleman spirit took it from him and gave it to Mrs.
Cooper, who drank the water out of the glass. The same spirit sat himself
in the lap of Mrs. Cooper and kissed her after he had placed a flower in
her hair. Mrs. Cooper was coughing, and Mr. Winterborn gave two cough
lozenges to the spirit, who gave them to Mrs. Cooper. The uniformed
gentleman spirit came again out and took the rocking-chair with his right
hand and swung it very vigorously over his head for a good while, then put
it down. All the other spirits had white robes shining as snow, and all of
us were exceedingly gratified at such wonderful performance.
The 29th of June, 1881, among other valuable communications, came:
"Good morning, my dear friend; it is with the greatest pleasure I again
come to communicate with you. Your star of hope is increasing in
brightness. I called on you and your dear lady last night (your night).
You appreciate the beauties of the heavens, it was indeed grand to the
natural eye." (My wife and I last evening were on the roof of our house on
Mount Auburn looking at the comet and the stars.) "Oh, I thought if I
could lift the veil and show you the inner life so brightly beaming once
again, what joy it would give. I have visited three planets, each one had
a distinct race (of people) and different one from another, and had mostly
white skin, walked erect, were all of the same physical shape, very much
like the inhabitants of our planet; their features are more regular and
not much contrast in size. On the first planet they were small in
stature--about four feet high. On the second sphere, about five feet high
and of uniform size and shape. On the third they were six feet high, with
large limbs and muscles, language quite different from ours, but were
highly educated; eat no animal food, subsist entirely on vegetable. The
day and night are of equal length; and as this last named planet was most
interesting to me I will speak first of it: They have a better system of
astronomy than we do and understand it more perfectly. This planet has
large water courses and a great deal of commerce. They have no religion,
such as Christians call religion, but a very high order of morals. They
know little of the immortality of the soul. They have no wars, no courts
nor prison houses, and murder is unheard of. They have no kings, no
politics, no religion, consequently no wars. They live in perfect
harmony; women suffer very little inconvenience in bearing children; the
families are large, with eight or ten children; they are contented and
happy. They have better painters in coloring in both landscapes and
portraits. Their architecture is perfection; their buildings are the most
beautiful I ever beheld. The climate is genial the year round, never too
hot, and never necessary to have fire to keep warm; but little variety in
temperature. Dear friend, I could say much more if I had power. I thank
you for your kind attention. I will be able another time. Good bye for the
present. Your sincere friend in spirit life,
"FREDRIKA EHRENBORG."
The 27th of July at a seance at Mrs. Cooper's, her control informed me
that we meet to-day under disturbed conditions, and when I asked Mrs.
Cooper what that meant, she said her husband wanted her to move back to
Louisville, as his prospects there now were better, and she had concluded
to do so, in consequence of which she intended to pack up her furniture
immediately after the present seance. Madam Ehrenborg wrote now a
communication from which I will extract the following: "This dear, good
woman, whom the angels will bless, is the first channel through which I
have been able to reach earth and friends in this way, and now to be
disturbed and taken away for a while is a loss to us. I could go to her,
but not write as I write to you, the friendship formed between us before I
passed away gives me strength and desires I might not have in any other
way, but this form of condition will not last long. * * * I will try to
communicate to you whenever condition is given, it is so easy for me to
write here. There are but few who I could say so much through in so short
a time. * * * Mrs. Cooper, if you will sit for me next Wednesday from
there (Louisville) I hope to be able to write frequently, but not like if
he was present. Good bye for the present. Your most sincere friend in
spirit land.
"FREDRIKA EHRENBORG."
Mrs. Cooper promised to do as she was requested and we agreed, as the
spirits wanted, that I at the usual hour, 9 o'clock A. M., should sit
alone at home the same time as the seance should take place in Louisville.
Wednesday, the 3d of August, I picked a few flowers and kept some of them
with me, as my spirit son Emil directed, and the rest were placed in a
glass on the stand, which was covered, and under it I put Madam
Ehrenborg's photograph and her letters sent me from Sweden. The 5th of
August I received a letter from Miss Sadie Hare, No. 222 St. Catherine
street, Louisville, Ky., wherein she states that "Mrs. Cooper came quite a
distance to our home the 3d of August to fulfill her engagement with you
and the dear spirit friends, not having conditions at her sister's that
would enable her to give opportunities to the spirits. We live a long
distance apart and some distance from the street railway, but you know the
distance would have to be very great to prevent Mrs. Cooper from keeping a
spiritual engagement. * * With this you will find your communications
which I have copied. Respectfully yours,
"SADIE HARE."
"LOUISVILLE, _August 3, 1881_.
"Yes, we see the photographs of our dear friend, and he has obeyed the
request made. We wish we could bring just one of the white blossoms he has
gathered for the occasion to you. The dear spirit friends he desired to
hear from were present when he made preparations for conditions to assist
them to come to you. Tell him all will be well with him. The knowledge he
has gained of the spirit world will not decay like the blossoms he has
gathered in his beautiful bouquet. His friend Doc." The control of Mrs.
Cooper.
"We have come, and see that you have had a long distance to come to make
conditions for us. Emil is with me, and we will do all we can to write a
message to my dear friend C. G. Helleberg. I have reached the medium
through which I have been able to write so much in so short a time. I find
her much troubled and disturbed and will not be able to say to you what I
could if you were present as in former conditions, but remember what I
have told you, my work in spirit life has only began, and I yet hope to
say much to you and through this medium. All the changes that come to our
friends in the form are not pleasant for them, but changes that come to us
in our spirit home increases the happiness and joy that we dwell in, but
not alone, for there is no real happiness that can be enjoyed alone, for
we are united in love and harmony, and we are happy that the change called
death does not sever the friendship formed in earth life. Progression is
the highest ambition of all good spirits.
"Man does not see or know the need of knowledge while in earth life, but
when he enters real life and knows there is no turning backwards he feels
forced by law of goodness to help all those who are yet in darkness; but,
my friend, there are so many who are forgotten as soon as the spirit has
left the form and believed to be dead by all they once held dear. I feel
like repeating over and over again the joy I continually receive, being
remembered by you who have opened the avenue for me to give and receive.
Be assured that your reward will come and inscribed in bright, shining
letters on a banner of truth--your work well done, good and faithful
servant. Emil is present, and desires to send a few words to his papa and
mamma. I know, my dear friend, how you missed the interview this morning
you would have enjoyed so much; but be reconciled, they are more disturbed
than our dear medium; but could she behold the bright spirits that stand
in circle around her she would not despair. It will not be long till the
way is cleared and we can draw nearer to communicate through her to you,
and of every thorn comes a blessing, the severest cross is a crown to
those who are willing to bear for the sake of truth and progression. I
desire, my dear friend, to have these interviews repeated. Had there not
been a kind, genial lady to sit for you to copy what was written I would
not have been able to say this much in a strange place. I thank you, my
young friend, for assistance and willingness on your part, and remember,
though the act may seem small to you, it is worth gratitude from us, and
you may rely upon an increase of spiritual influence to assist you.
Accept this, my dear friend; I hope to say more again. Your most sincere
friend in spirit life,
"FREDRIKA EHRENBORG."
CHAPTER IV.
MADAM EHRENBORG AND OTHERS MATERIALIZE.
I received several other valuable letters of my spiritual friends from
Louisville, and in one of them, the 18th of August, Madam Ehrenborg wrote:
"A request has been made for Mrs. Helleberg to write a letter to her
sister Emma and her father, that it may enable them to remain long enough
to communicate that she may hear direct from them, for they are often with
her, and want her to know it is not wrong for them to come or for her to
look for them."
In consequence of this I persuaded my wife to write a letter to them,
which she did, and I sealed it up with red sealing wax, with my seal on,
and sent it by mail to Mrs. Cooper, without any superscription. On the
25th of August we received a letter from Miss Hare and Mrs. Cooper,
together with my wife's sealed letter unopened, and a long and beautiful
letter from her spirit sister, Emma, who had also answered for her father,
which was so true and striking that her fear melted away, and concluded to
investigate these strange facts. In October, Mrs. Cooper revisited
Cincinnati, during which time my wife and I had several very satisfactory
seances, and on invitation from her we were present at a social
materialization seance on the 28th of said month, in the evening, in
company with the following persons: Mr. and Mrs. Stebbins, Miss Sadie
Hare, Mrs. Gano, Mr. and Mrs. Green, Mr. Cooper's mother, Mr. and Mrs.
Macky, Mr. and Mrs. Nicely, Miss Sneider, Mrs. Artzman, Dr. Taylor and Mr.
Winterborn. A curtain was stretched across a corner of the room, and the
small stand was put on the floor, and under it was placed two call bells,
a big brass bell, and a drum, with sticks and a walking stick. When Mr.
Stebbins played on the violin, or we sung or played on the orgamina, the
spirits kept time with the bells and drum. The walking stick was pointed
to different individuals of the company, who had mental questions answered
when they took hold of the uplifted stick. Mr. Stebbins put the end of the
bow under the table, and the fiddle he laid on the floor, about a foot
from the table, when the spirits played on it. The table was also lifted
up and down, keeping time with our music. When Mrs. Cooper took her seat
behind the curtain soon after, several spirits materialized to many of
their relatives and friends, who recognized them, among whom were Miss
Mary Muth and Madam Ehrenborg. I and my wife went up to the curtain, when
Miss Mary Muth touched my wife's hand and took a flower from her.
Afterwards Madam Ehrenborg came in full form, dressed in a fine dark suit,
with a black lace cap, and when my wife asked if it was Mrs. Ehrenborg,
she nodded her head smilingly several times, and then dematerialized. We
took our seats, but Madam Ehrenborg came again twice, when I went up to
the curtain with Mr. Stebbins, who also saw her very plainly, how she
nodded to me and kissed my hand, which was touched by her lips, and had a
warm feeling. She afterwards dematerialized before us. At the same time
this took place we saw and conversed with Mrs. Cooper, who is never in a
trance state at any time. When we came home we examined Madam Ehrenborg's
photograph, and we found her dress and every thing else apparently exactly
the same as that in which the photograph was taken. Her features were also
the same. I had seen her materialized several times before, but always in
shining white robes, and now she took on the same garment as that worn
when the photograph was taken, probably to convince my wife of her
identity.
CHAPTER V.
INVESTIGATIONS BY MRS. JENNIE M'KEE--FIRST LETTER FROM EMANUEL SWEDENBORG,
ETC.
After Mrs. Cooper moved to Louisville I made acquaintance with Mrs. Jennie
McKee, a real lady of high moral and truthful qualities, who had wonderful
medial gifts, and permitted me to come to her residence, No. 47-1/2
Sherman avenue, Cincinnati, for a slate-writing seance weekly, every
Thursday, from 9 to 11 A. M. The spirits wrote independent, in broad
daylight, when she held the slate under the stand, which was never covered
with any thing, and with a pencil so small (about one-eighth part of a
common wheat grain) that no human fingers in the body could write with it.
I commenced with her the 4th of August, 1881, and continued until she
passed away to the higher life, the 17th of November the same year. During
that time I received many highly valuable and remarkable communications
and gifts, of which I will only mention a few. On the 8th day of September
there appeared among other communications on the slate the following:
"My friend, I come from a higher sphere of light and truth, in compliance
with your request, and I greet you this morning in God's most holy name. I
will speak to you not as I would have done when inhabited in earth form,
but with a more expanded vision, and the more profound knowledge and the
clearer understanding of the fundamental laws and governing principles of
the Great Ruler of the universe. In those days in which I wrote it would
have been a very unwise and dangerous thing to have given these spiritual
manifestations to the people, from the fact that they were not prepared to
receive the blessings, and the ultimate desire for the amelioration of
mankind would have been defeated, and the result would have been
disastrous."
I had wished a clearer understanding about our guardian spirits, and on
the slate came:
"At the time of birth there are two self-constituted guardians, one from
the light sphere and one from the dark, and as the child advances toward
maturity, the number is greatly increased; but whether good or bad,
depends entirely upon the persons themselves. Thus, for instance, if man
leads a life of depravity and vice, he naturally attracts spirits of a
like character; on the other hand, if a man leads a moral life of purity,
bearing in his heart love and good will to others, he is surrounded by
pure spirits, who are attracted by those elements. Thus, my friend, you
see how essential it is, both for happiness here and through all eternity,
that you conduct yourself so that the pure spirit of love can come and
minister to you. I must leave, but will shortly come again."
Here I said to Mrs. McKee: "If he signs his name, I would like to have the
slate, so I could show it to my wife;" and he said to her (but I could not
hear him): "Put a paper on the slate." I cut a leaf from my annotation
pocket book, and we put it on the slate loose, and Mrs. McKee held the
slate, with the paper and a short lead pencil on it, under the table, and
on the paper, now in my possession, was the following:
"Dear heart, so true to my memory, my blessing with you,
"EMANUEL SWEDENBORG."
On the 13th of October, at a seance by Mrs. McKee, from 9 to 9:30 A. M.,
the following communication appeared on the slate:
"My beloved, I am with you, and I greet you with my blessing in the name
of the Most High and Ruling Power, and not only is it I who bless you, you
have attracted to you a number of highly exalted spirits, who love you for
your singleness of purpose and purity of heart, with which you are
promulgating the teachings you receive from us; that is why you have been
selected by us, because you have been upright and moral in your life;
because those who wish to investigate would be more impressed than did the
communication come from other sources. Fear not, we will be with you, and
each word will have weight. You must expect to be criticised and doubted;
but again I say, fear not, we are with you, and will turn the thought of
the people. We shall eventually see our efforts crowned with success. We
appeal to the senses; it would be a vain and useless thing to set up a
higher authority than man's own conscience, for that is the last final
tribunal at which he is judged. The errand of life, the education,
unfolding and strengthening the combination of the mind, the exigencies of
business, the duties of citizenship, the cares of the household, all this
requires the utmost seriousness of purpose and activity; but activity is
neither in the development of manhood. It is far more essential that the
mind and moral nature should have careful cultivation. Man should not care
so much concerning the short period of natural life. From this side,
through us who live by deeds, not years, in thought and feeling, instead
of figures on the dial, by the happiness we produce, is our only gauge of
time. There is an embodiment of selfishness underlying the human family
which will first have to be eradicated through education, and it is the
desire of the spirit world that man should be a brother to his fellow-man.
I go now, but will be with you as often as I can. I leave my blessing for
you and your household.
"SWEDENBORG."
"My friend, I come to say how much I enjoy and sympathize with you, that
those who were blind are beginning to see, and are in better condition for
the reception and appreciation of the spiritual blessing which is being
prepared for you and yours by the loved ones who are gone before. I have
brought my dear life companion with me this morning, who is working with
me in acquiring the knowledge which will be necessary for you in the
fulfillment of the mission you have been selected for to give out the
knowledge of this glorious philosophy. It is the truth, for it is vouched
for by the testimony of every atom, every bright world you observe in the
firmament, and lastly by the spirit of the past man made perfect. You may
be called fanatic, but if spiritualism is fanaticism, it is of more value
to mankind than the whole circle of the sciences. We are called away now,
but will come this evening.
"FREDRIKA."
"Dear papa, there is much joy and rejoicing among your spirit band. I am
so happy that I can come to dear mamma, and have her receive me as you do.
Kiss her for me. The power is too far gone to write any more.
"EMIL."
On the 20th of October, 1881, between 9 and 11 A. M., at a seance with
Mrs. McKee, the following communication appeared on the slate:
"Good morning, my friend. I am here, and greet you with my love and my
blessing as the one chosen by me to help me in correcting the teachings I
have put forth, and which at that time were not clearly understood even by
myself, consequently I failed to render myself sufficiently intelligible
to be properly understood by others. Now these mistakes must be rectified,
and the erroneous impression replaced by the truth. I am preparing my
statements, and they will be given to you in proper time through the
channels we have chosen. I have chosen you as my assistant, well knowing
your loyalty, steadfastness of purpose and your fearless disposition, so
like what my own was, so it would be a matter of perfect indifference
whether you received commendation of the people or only arouse their
condemnation. It was this prominent characteristic which proved the
attractive power that has drawn me to you. I ask no one to give up his
principles; I simply desire to place truth before him, and let each
individual reason according to the light surrounding him. Surely truth can
defend itself, so we will let it speak for itself. I am happy and content
with my surroundings, but I come to bring to the children of my love, the
people of the new church, more light, if they will only receive it. I am
impressed more fully each time I revisit your earth sphere that, had I
lived at the present day, my labors would have been understood and
appreciated, and I should not have felt that my best efforts were but a
sad failure in comparison to what I expected or desired. I am now called
away, so I now leave for this time, but will be with you soon. Good bye.
God bless you and yours.
"SWEDENBORG."
On the 27th of October, 1881, at Mrs. McKee's, Swedenborg gave me a short
communication, both on slate and paper, and afterwards came:
"Good morning, my friend, Swedenborg has been called away, but he has
brought me to say a word and to assist in promulgating the truth. Many
high and elevated spirits are banding together to spread the truth.
"POLHEIM."[2]
On the 3d of November, 1881, I had a seance with Mrs. McKee, and after the
slate had been under the bare stand for about ten minutes a tap was heard,
by which sign it was taken out from under the stand, and five exceedingly
beautiful, fresh flowers, giving out a delicious perfume, were on the
slate, and little dew drops had made some wet spots under them. On the
slate was written the following:
"Good morning, my friend. I bring you some flowers. Let them convey to you
the dearest essence of the high power to produce. They are the handiwork
of God. In them we see His ever living presence.
"FREDRIKA EHRENBORG."
Afterwards the following communication appeared:
"Good morning, my beloved. I am again with you, weighty with rich
blessings for you and yours, and I come also with a heart overflowing with
love, tenderness and gratitude, that I am permitted, through the goodness
and wisdom of the most High Power, to return, and through you, my
trustworthy assistant, give my thoughts and ideas to the people. We love
our mediums, our channels and our doorway, through which we come to love
and bless. Take no heed of any unkind remarks, it is only an evidence of
ignorance. Keep straight on, turn neither to the right nor to the left,
continue to scatter seeds by the way-sides, which will furnish food for
thought, and thought will lead to investigation. Investigation must
necessarily lead in the acknowledgment of the truth. You can not expect to
convince at once--it must be the work of time--and bear in mind, no one
ever yet sought to benefit mankind who was not placed under the dark ban
of suspicion. As you say, nothing can be gained by denunciation. Keep on.
My blessing with you.
"SWEDENBORG."
CHAPTER VI.
MRS. M'KEE PASSES AWAY AND HER SPIRIT ARRANGES HER OWN FUNERAL.
When the seance was over, I at once took the flowers to Mrs. Minor's to
have them arranged according to her art for preservation and now have them
in all their original beauty. The 17th of November, 1881, I went to Mrs.
McKee for a slate-writing seance, as for some time I have been used to do
every Thursday morning at 9 o'clock, where I met at the door her
step-father, R. J. William, who informed me that his daughter Jennie had,
half an hour before, passed away to the spiritual world, and invited me up
on the floor above to see her body. In the death-room I found my friend,
the wonderful clairvoyant and trance medium, Mrs. Anna Rall, and Jennie's
mother, who found that her head was not quite cold. From the house of
mourning I went to Mrs. Minor's for the five flowers I had received from
my dear spirit friend, Mrs. Fredrika Ehrenborg, through the medial power
of Mrs. McKee, the 3d of November, and which now were preserved under
glass, and afterwards went to have a seance at Mrs. Green's, where I
placed those beautiful flowers on the small stand between us. Soon we
heard writing on the slate and a tap, when we found on it the following
communication:
"Good morning, dear papa. How sad for you to look upon the face this
morning, not yet cold, that had afforded you so much real happiness, and
pure as the flowers before you that came through her medial powers. She
entered the spirit world to meet the loved ones gone before. Her suffering
is no more. She saw you, and I shook hands with her. She knew me, and she
was all smiles. She was glad she passed away on the morning she had an
engagement with you; so your heavenly influences were there to aid her
spirit. She hoped for it. She will be able to communicate to you soon and
tell you how she found the new life. She will write immediately, she
understands it. Dear papa, try to make a house not of mourning; she wants
joy, she is free from suffering and able to communicate. Will see her own
funeral and wishes to have a real spiritualist's funeral, becoming one who
has passed away in its full faith. She wants Mrs. Green to repeat that
beautiful poem that she so much admired: 'I _Still_ Live' (herself). _I
would like Mr. Green, with others, to make some consoling remarks. The
song 'There is no death,' sung._ She says that every thing so far has
turned out all right, and she wants every thing done according to her
desire. They all know what a devotee she was in spiritualism." (Here I
mentioned to Mrs. Green that I would go back to the house of mourning and
tell them of this as soon as possible, and now came.) "That is just it.
She told me all and requested me to write it. She wants them to cast away
the thoughts of her old body from their minds, and to think her free
spirit moving through the house as of old. She wants her dear old parents
not to mourn. She wants all the mediums next to her immediate family, and
spiritualists, to strengthen her so she can manifest, if possible. She
says these are her wishes; they can do as they please. Dear papa, I have
done my duty this morning for her beautiful free spirit, and happy for the
honor conferred upon me as her amanuensis. We have nothing more to
communicate this morning, only she wants Mrs. Rall, her near and dear
friend, to control affairs as far as she can, as she knows her wishes and
desires, and knows she will please her and do what is right. Love to dear
mamma; kiss her for me.
"EMIL."
"Mrs. McKee says many thanks for your kindness She will be with you often.
Much love to all.
"EMIL."
We were present at her beautiful funeral, where Jennie herself spoke
through Mrs. Rall over her own body, and it was in truth remarked from the
people that this was the most soul-uplifting funeral services they ever
had witnessed. The spirit communicates with me often.
CHAPTER VII.
INVESTIGATIONS WITH MRS. GREEN--REMARKABLE DARK TRUMPET SEANCE AT WHICH I
RECEIVED A MOST BEAUTIFUL FLOWER FROM MY SON EMIL AND MISS MARY MUTH.
"My investigations through the excellent medium, Mrs. Green, commenced the
2d of September, 1881, and I received many interesting communications from
my dear and near relatives, which I value very highly, but naturally would
not have the same value for the general reader, and therefore I deem it
best to exclude most of them and take in only writings from exalted
spirits who are more generally known.
The 19th of September came:
"From the higher sphere of light I come
To teach you the beauties of our home,
And to impart to you the golden truth
And make you feel its real worth.
"And to my dear old friend, your wife,
I wish to prove a future life,
And to assist her while she remains here,
And help to guide her to our heavenly sphere.
"Oh, the beautiful birds that sing their lay,
Come to bless me every day,
The flowers of fragrance, sweet and rare,
And heavenly music fills the air.
"From your friend,
"FREDRIKA EHRENBORG."
The 20th of October, 1881, I was present at Mrs. Green's trumpet seance in
the evening in company with the following persons: Mr. Green, the medium's
husband; Mr. and Mrs. Stebbins, a reporter from the "Enquirer," who gave
his name as Johnson, and Mr. Walker. On the stand was placed three slates,
one of which was my own, three trumpets, one glass of water, and my spring
music-box. On the floor stood the big tin trumpet and by it laid my
guitar, and not far from Mr. Stebbins was his fiddle. After the light was
put out and the doors locked I wound up my music-box and put it on the
right hand corner of the stand before me. Soon after it was taken away
while playing and carried around all over our heads, and some of us were
touched with it. Finally it came back to me and was placed in my left hand
with the spirit, whose hand I touched with both my hands. I wound it up
again and the spirit took it away and carried it around the same as
before, but when it came back it was placed on the left hand corner of the
stand, and I laid the key close by it. Afterwards I played my orgamina
when the spirit voices of both sexes joined in with their songs, and so
they did when we sang.
I intended to wind up the music-box again and felt for it on the corner,
when I discovered that both the box and key were gone. Soon after we heard
the box playing and going over our heads as before, and the box was
replaced on the corner of the stand with the key on top. All the trumpets
and the guitar were moving around in the air high above our heads, the
guitar was played on in time with the music, and we all were touched and
stroked on different parts of our bodies with these implements. The guitar
was laid in my lap, and I sang a Swedish song, accompanied by the guitar,
when we heard a spirit voice singing with me, and I and the others heard
the words pronounced by the spirit, which I declare were the same Swedish
words which I sung. Mrs. Stebbens was clasped around her neck by her
spirit daughter Ida, who whispered to and patted both her and Mr.
Stebbins. Mrs. Green and Mrs. Stebbens saw several spirit lights, and Mr.
Walker was informed by striking and tolling on the big tin trumpet that
his father in Kansas would soon pass away. I felt for my music-box again,
intending to wind it up, when I, to my great surprise, found a fresh,
beautiful flower on top of it, and my slate was placed in my hand. Soon
after the seance was closed and when the room was lighted up, we found
written on one slate the name of the reporter, and on my slate the
following:
"Dear papa, we present you the flower we promised you some time ago. The
passion flower.
"EMIL AND MARY."
It was a large, very beautiful, quite fresh flower, which I now have
preserved in a glass jar with deodorized alcohol. On seeing this flower my
wife's idea was that the flower had been brought from some garden, and I
thought the spirits made it, which caused me, at a slate-writing seance
the 24th of October, to ask which of us was right. On the slate was this
answer:
"Mary and I, with the assistance of the medium's band, _created it_ for
you and dear mamma, and you will find a dove in the center."
On a close examination we found to our astonishment a small dove there.
CHAPTER VIII.
SURE IDENTITY OF MY FATHER-IN-LAW--MADAM EHRENBORG WRITES TO ME IN
SWEDISH.
On the 8th of December, 1881, I and my wife had a slate-writing seance in
the forenoon, and were present in the evening at a trumpet seance with
Mrs. Green, and as my wife received a strong convincing test through the
name of her father, it is necessary before relating the facts to make a
short sketch of a part of his life. He was a Swedish nobleman, named Otto
Jacob Natt och Dag, who, by the favor of the dethroned King Gustaf Adolf
the Fourth, was educated in the military academy, and afterwards served as
officer in a rank regiment in Stockholm, which the new King Charles the
Fourteenth, Johan, the former Napoleon's General Bernadott, looked upon
with great favor. This young nobleman wrote an anonymous book about
reorganizing the Swedish army, in which many good and necessary reforms
were proposed. This book was not intended for sale, but a few copies had
been printed for his intimate friends. Some of his so-called friends
reported this, and mentioned his name to the King, who became enraged that
a young officer should dare to have the impertinence to interfere with his
business, and want to teach him, who had such a vast experience in
military affairs, the consequence of which was that he was transported to
serve in a common infantry regiment, far up in the northern part of the
country, a long distance from his near and dear relatives. Such treatment
naturally made him feel bad, and he asked permission to travel in foreign
countries, which he got, and went straight to Baden, in Germany, where he
called on his former King, Gustaf Adolf, and was kindly received. There he
republished his book in the German language, with some additions, which
the Swedish minister reported to the King, who then considered him a
traitor, and ordered his arrest, but his Swedish friends informed him of
this in time, and he went to America under the name of Frederick Franks,
which was the name of a German student, who gave him his passport, and
which he afterwards adopted and used until his death. The King, Charles
the Fourteenth, had him adjudged, unheard and absent, by a court for high
treason, for daring to pay a visit to the dethroned King, and the judgment
was that he should lose his place and rank in the army. Many years
afterwards the King regretted his harsh and unjust treatment of his
faithful, patriotic and skillful officer, and pardoned him, and ordered
his Swedish minister at Washington to inform him of it, so he could go
back and enjoy all his privileges; but his former guard officer had now
been for many years a republican citizen, who, with his artistic and many
other talents and business capacity, had made himself independent, and he
never went back. Nobody here but the family knew any thing of his Swedish
name, and my wife said to me that she would be more fully convinced of
her father's identity if he would sign himself with that name.
In the slate-writing seance in the forenoon I had put my own slate, which
Mrs. Green never touched, under the side of the stand nearest me, and on
Mrs. Green's slate the following appeared:
"Put out the slate and see if any thing is on it?"
I did so, and on my slate the following sentence appeared:
"God bless you both is the wish of your exalted friend,
"FREDRIKA EHRENBORG."
Among other things was the following:
"Now, dear papa and mamma, we have done all we can this morning. Much love
to you both. Grandpa will be with you to-night; Grandpa Helleberg, Mary
and Julia, too, Emil, Gustaf and Charley. You will have many bright and
beautiful spirits with you this evening to cheer you on your road to the
beautiful spirit world. There all are in peace and happiness--Emil,
Frances, Emma, Mary, Julia.
"EMANUEL SWEDENBORG."
On the evening of the 8th of December, at the above-mentioned trumpet
seance were present, besides me and my wife, the following persons: Mr.
and Mrs. Stebbins, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, Mrs. Catherine Remlin, Mr. and
Mrs. Green and Mrs. Boggs. We had spirit singing and talking, with many
other remarkable manifestations. Among the spirits who spoke were
Garfield, Washington and Lincoln, three ex-Presidents. Two slates were put
on the table by Mr. Green before the light was put out, and I had that
afternoon bought two very small silica slates, of which I gave one to my
wife, who held it in her hand, and the other, in the dark, I put on the
corner of the table nearest me, which nobody else knew any thing about.
When the seance was over several names and messages were written on the
two big slates, and on mine was the following on both sides:
"My Dear Daughter--Oh, how happy I am that I have found a way to
communicate to you. I will be with you often.
"O. J. N. D."
On the other side appeared:
"My Dear Daughter--According to promise I am with you. I have many things
to tell you. With my heart full of love for you,
"O. J. N. D."
These were the initials of my wife's father's Swedish name, Otto Jacob
Natt och Dag, and we were highly pleased with the result. Subsequently he
communicated often, signing his name in full, as above.
On the 23d of March, 1882, at Mrs. Green's, among other communications,
was the following:
"Dear Papa--All of your Swedish friends are here, and intend to use their
influence to-day and give you a surprise before the seance is over. All
are present except Swedenborg, who we expect very soon. We are not sure of
success, but we intend to try. The surprise will be Grandpa Franks trying
to communicate inside of the double slate, with your assistance holding
the slate and all of your friends influence combined. Madam Ehrenborg
withheld her message to-day to add her strength and help grandpa with his
surprise to mamma and you. * * * Swedenborg has come; get the slate. This
is all you will get from me to-day. Your loving son,
"EMIL."
We cleaned the double slate and put it under the table, where I held on to
one end of it and pressed the two slates together with my hand, while Mrs.
Green held the other end, and we both felt and heard the writing going on
inside the two slates. The writing continued about ten minutes, after
which a tap was heard, when I took the slate out, opened it, and in my
father-in-law's handwriting found the following communication, which I had
photographed and electrotyped as seen opposite:
On the 23d of July, from 9 to 11 A. M., at Mrs. Green's, I had cheerful
writings from our three sons and grand-daughter, Julia Muth first, and
afterwards there appeared on the slate the following communication in the
Swedish language:
"Dyra goda waen C. J. Helleberg! Jag prsenterar dig min Hoegaktning och
evinnerlig waenskap.
"FREDRIKA EHRENBORG."
Which, translated into English is:
"Dear, good friend C. J. Helleberg, I present you my esteem and eternal
friendship.
"FREDRIKA EHRENBORG."
I had it photographed, as shown.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX.
INFORMATION OF A SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE--THE WEDDING AND THE WEDDING TOUR TO
THE PLANET MARS.
For a long time I had regular slate-writing seances in the light and one
dark trumpet seance every week at Mrs. Green's residence, No. 309
Longworth street, and at that time were generally present the following
persons: Mr. and Mrs. Stebbins, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, Mrs. Remlin, Mr. and
Mrs. Helleberg, all of Cincinnati, and Mrs. Bogg, from Newport, Ky. In
these trumpet seances the spirits not only played on musical instruments,
which they carried over our heads, and very often touched us with them and
their hands, but talked and sung to us with or without the trumpet. The
12th of January, 1882, our son Emil astonished us with the information
that he was going to marry Miss Ida, the spirit daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Stebbins, and that she would be his spirit wife. In a slate-writing
seance, the 16th of January, he informed me that Mr. Swedenborg would
perform the nuptial ceremony, and who also had determined the wedding to
take place on Washington's birthday--the 22d of February. We were also
informed that the spirit, Mr. Henry Nieman, Ida's cousin, would be the
groomsman, and the spiritual Miss Mary Muth her bridesmaid, and that a
bridal trip had been arranged in which many bright and exalted spirits
would take part, including Madam Ehrenborg. Mr. Swedenborg would make the
wedding speech on the spiritual side, and he requested Mr. Green to make
one on this side. Mr. and Mrs. Stebbins, my wife and I, agreed that this
remarkable wedding ceremony should take place at Mr. Stebbins' residence
at the appointed time--the 22d of February--and we concluded to ask the
spirits who we should invite, and the 16th day of February, 1882, came on
the slate the following names:
"Pa and ma Stebbins, papa and mamma Helleberg, Mr. and Mrs. Green and
daughter, Mrs. Emma Muth, Mrs. Remlin, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, Miss Nettie
Williams, and Mrs. Keenan.
"EMIL AND IDA."
At a slate-writing seance, the 20th of February, came on the slate, among
many other communications, the following:
"The ceremonies are to begin at four, and immediately after
congratulation, supper. It will take one hour, Mr. Swedenborg says, to
show the medium the ceremony and Mr. Green's address. When the vision is
through, then Mr. Green, then supper, and, after that is settled, a
trumpet seance.
"EMIL."
According to this arrangement the above persons were all invited and
present, except Mrs. Keenan and Miss Nettie Williams, who could not come,
at the afternoon and evening seances the 22d, the 150th anniversary of
Washington's birthday. In the afternoon we assembled at 3 o'clock P. M.,
and at 4 Mrs. Green was in full trance, and Swedenborg controlled her and
blessed the contracting parties, after which Mr. Green made a very
appropriate and beautiful address. A private clairvoyant fell in a trance
and described not only the clothing of the bride and bridegroom, but many
other spirits present. The bride's dress was pure, sparkling white,
frosted with gold dust, with long train full of the finest lace, and a
very beautiful veil, frosted also, and adorned with a handsome wreath on
her head of white flowers set with three beautiful diamonds on her
forehead. She had also a diamond brooch and necklace, with a splendid ring
on her finger, and slippers on her feet to match. Our son Emil had
knee-breeches of royal purple, with a beautiful white toga frosted with
gold, and gold tassels and a purple and gold crown set with diamonds. (At
a subsequent seance Emil said: "Mine was Mr. Swedenborg's selection, Ida's
was Madam Ehrenborg's.") During the trance state of Mrs. Green, the spirit
Winnie described the dresses in the same way as the private medium already
had told us. After we had had a splendid repast the requested trumpet
seance was arranged, at which all were present, and had the pleasure of
being spoken to by Swedenborg, Emil, Ida, and many other spirits, and some
of them patted us with their hands. Madam Ehrenborg and my wife's father,
Otto Jacob Natt-och-Dag (Frederick Franks), sung Swedish with me, and Mrs.
Jennie McKee took my hand and lifted my arm up and putting it over the
table so I had to rise. It was a beautiful and most satisfactory and
wonderful manifestation over which we all were highly delighted.
The 23d of February, 1882, came from our spirit friends the following:
"Good morning, dear papa, we are here yet, but will immediately after this
sitting start on our bridal tour, accompanied by Swedenborg and a great
many exalted spirits. We expect to return by next Thursday, then Mr.
Swedenborg will give the marriage ceremonies, and we hope to have
something nice to write you then. Mr. Swedenborg is very much pleased
because he is able to speak and control Mrs. Green, and was very much
pleased also with the way it was conducted on your side. He says
altogether it was a splendid affair on both sides, and I think so too, and
now I will let my wife, Mrs. Ida Helleberg, write. Your loving son,
"EMIL HELLEBERG."
"Good morning, dear papa Helleberg; Emil makes me blush when he says my
wife. It used to be a joke, but now it is a reality, and that is quite
different. When we all meet on the evergreen shores of the summerland,
then we will return the compliment and have the infair at our own home, no
matter how far off it may be, you shall always receive our hospitality and
our love in the cottage. With my heart full of love for you and dear mamma
Helleberg and sister Emma, and my dear pa and ma, and Mrs. Green's family,
I bid you good morning.
"IDA STEBBINS HELLEBERG."
"Good morning, Mr. Helleberg: I was very much delighted with the exercises
of yesterday afternoon and evening. It could not have been more perfect on
both sides. I was with you all the time. It was witnessed by thousands of
spirits with much interest and delight. Whatever Mr. Swedenborg, does in
the spirit world causes great commotion and interest. He is in the spirit
world like some of your great men here, a leader. His every word, look,
and gesture, is chronicled by the spirits; therefore you may imagine the
interest they manifest towards him. Nettie could not and would not leave
mother. She is so lonely without me, but she was here heart and soul in
spirit. With my highest regards for you all, I am your friend,
"JENNIE."
"Good morning, my dear friend: As the marriage of our grand-daughter to
your son has united my son Edwin and your family, and that event caused or
rather brought us in a positive condition, and enabled us to pick up the
trumpet and manifest our appreciation of that event, I thought I would
write a few lines in regard to this happy marriage, and to show our very
high appreciation of this medium's family, for, as Ida said, it has
brought sunshine to her dear pa and ma that they could not find any-where
else outside the spirit communion, and express our very high appreciation
of your son Emil, and that we feel very proud of them both, and of our
hearts full of love for Edwin and his wife, and highest regards for
yourself and family and Mrs. Green's family, we subscribe ourselves your
dear spirit friends,
"AMARIAH STEBBINS AND PERMELIA STEBBINS."
"Good morning, my friends, Mr. Helleberg and Mrs. Green: To say I was very
much delighted, or, in fact, I have not language at my command to express
to you my appreciation of yesterday's proceedings, and happy of the
opportunity presented that I can write to-day. Winnie described me as I
was. Love to my dear daughter and her husband (Edwin Stebbins), and regard
to all,
"THOMAS KELLY."
"Good morning, dear son: Father, brother, and all of us are here to give
you our congratulations and to tell you how much we love dear Ida, and
that she is so sweet and beautiful. We were all with you last night, and
caressed you with the trumpet. It made us so happy. Father can not write
to-day, but will soon. With our blessings on you and all, your loving
mother,
"ULRICA HELLEBERG."
"Good morning: I must not fail to give a few words in appreciation of the
marriage feast. It was splendid, and I was very much pleased with the
ceremony spiritually and mortal. Love to dear Anna and yourself and
highest regard to all. Francis, Emily, Susan and Joseph join me and send
much love to all. With my prayers for you all, I bid you good bye.
"FREDRICK FRANKS."
"Now, dear papa, we are all through, and Gustaf and Charles join in
congratulations, and asked me to write for them, and tell you that they
are so much pleased with their sister-in-law. Mary, Henry, and little
Julia and Clarence, and many that I have not time to mention, join us with
much love for all. Two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that
beat as one, we bid you good bye,
"EMIL AND IDA."
The 2d of March came: "Good morning, my dear friend. The tourists,
according to promise, have not returned. I have been sent as a messenger
from Mr. Swedenborg to report to you that their reception on the planet
Mars was so grand, and they are there so nicely entertained by the spirits
of that planet that they have all been invited to participate in a similar
feast to take place to-day, and they all send their love and best wishes
to you, and hope to be with you at your next sitting. With my highest
regard and well wishes for your future prosperity, I am your spirit
friend,
"POLHEIM."
The 6th of March the exalted Swedenborg wrote on the slate: "Good morning,
friends: I am here to give you the marriage ceremony I promised in
pantomime on the 22d ultimo. It is brief, and does not include the address
and prayer given on that occasion. * * * As you have already been united
in the conjugal sense by the operation of the laws of spiritual attraction
and magnetic affiliation, no formal cementation or consecration is needed,
but in obedience to an ancient custom, originating in spirit life in the
early dawns of the physical earth-planet, and from thence projected to
mortal life, I have the pleasure of pronouncing the ceremony that blends
you, in obedience to the custom stated, into blissful spiritual
consociation as man and wife, which I now do in presence of the invited
guests here assembled. In blissful happiness you are to live in peaceful
joy, to move in heavenly love to act, so shall your onward march be
unobstructed, and as you advance increasing in wisdom, expanding and
abounding in love, and augmenting in power until the highest angels and
seraphims shall claim you for angelic companionship. Now, while the
choristers join in the marriage anthem, I present for your congratulations
this spiritually mated couple, who I now introduce as Emil Gabriel
Helleberg and Ida Stebbins Helleberg.
"EMANUEL SWEDENBORG."
Just as Madam Ehrenborg's communications were being copied for the
printer, the "Banner of Light"--the oldest spiritual paper in
existence--of date July 1, 1882, was placed in my hands, in which I find a
communication from Helen Barnard Densmore, of Philadelphia, in which she
says:
"Philadelphia has been favored recently with a course of lectures from Mr.
W. J. Colville, which have been well attended and received with
appreciation. This truly inspired speaker is doing a great work in
spreading the new gospel of spiritualism wherever he is called. His
discourses are of a high order, in an intellectual and literary sense, as
well as of great spiritual elevation. At one of the social receptions
given to him at the residence of Colonel S. P. Kase, he gave a very
interesting discourse on the physical life and development of the planets
of our solar system as compared with the earth, which was listened to with
an earnest attention and evident acceptance by those present. It was
taught in this discourse that worlds were brought into existence for the
sole purpose of furnishing a theater for souls to express themselves in
matter upon, to the end of gaining knowledge and overcoming temptations in
all forms and of all kinds; that these lives make up a system of
embodiments which closes with the soul's triumph over all the evils to be
found in material life.
"We were told that in Mercury the attainment of a high degree of physical
perfection was the highest ambition of its inhabitants; that that planet
was in a lower state of animal, vegetable and spiritual progress than the
earth, and the cultivation of the soil was their almost universal
occupation; that Venus was in a high state of artistic and aesthetic
cultivation; that art and music were the dominant passions there, with
less intellectual and spiritual development, sensuous delights every-where
abounding, and the cultivation of the beautiful the highest aim of life.
On the earth the demon to be overcome was declared to be intellectualism,
man's intellect being here worshiped and deified at the expense of the
spiritual.
"On Mars and Jupiter is to be found a much higher state of existence,
matter being dominated by the spirit to a much greater degree than on
either this earth or those planets nearest the sun; that exalted spirits
from those planets, especially from Mars, are sent as especial embodiments
to the earth, as teachers and messengers for spiritual truth.
"Life on the more distant planets from the sun, beyond Jupiter, was
declared to be of such an exalted character that there is no language
understandable on earth in which to depict its glories and achievements."
CHAPTER X.
DESCRIPTION OF THE JOURNEY TO MARS, AND WONDERFUL INFORMATION FURNISHED BY
MADAM EHRENBORG.
"March 9, 1882. Our party of tourists, after having been carefully
selected in accordance with their ability to utilize the magnetic currents
that connect the planets in our solar system, and their adaptability to
the electric and magnetic condition of Mars, whither we were bound,
started on the journey at, according to your time, midnight, February 23.
We proceeded without any incident of note until we reached Maluka Plains,
where we met a party of excursionists on a visit to our planet earth.
Maluka Plains, named after a great prophet of Mars, are located many
millions of miles from the circling magnetic belts of earth, and
immediately adjacent to the outer circle of the electro-magnetic
atmosphere of Mars. We were surprised to find that these excursionists
were acquainted with our guide and leader, Mr. Swedenborg, for he had
frequently visited the most interesting points of our stellar system. He
had even been at Mars in spirit while he was in the body of flesh, but he
finds many things quite different from what he thought he had discovered
during his spiritual visits when embodied. The party we met were on a tour
of scientific exploration, and gladly availed themselves of information
imparted by Swedenborg and Polheim, and we in return were greatly aided
by data and information furnished by them to us. While this conference, or
rather exchange of information, was in progress a courier was dispatched
by our newly-made acquaintances to the spiritual magnates of Mars
concerning our coming. I shall here stop and defer a description of our
first reception until our next sitting.
"March 13. As we entered within the magnetic radius of Mars, and were
emerging from the outer into the inner concentric circles, so
characteristic of that planet, we met a reception committee of several
thousand, and after formal greetings, we were escorted to a magnificent
edifice, where were in waiting innumerable throngs of spiritual
dignitaries and others to receive us. I here desire to remark that in my
use of words I resort to your own vocabulary, for the thought language of
the Marsians is quite different from the sound of your words, and to
employ their terms would only confound you and militate against your
proper conception and understanding of the narrative. For instance, I use
the word edifice to indicate a structure, but they use an entirely
different term and form of expression, and so on _ad infinitum_. The
edifice referred to I am unable to describe, and it can only be fully
understood in thought. In dimensions so great that your city of Cincinnati
could be settled in one corner of it without attracting but very little
attention. The material of which it is composed has no fitting
representative on earth in its present state of development. Your diamonds
and precious stones are as dim and unreflecting in comparison as a cloudy,
murky day of autumn is to a bright summer day with the sun at meridian and
the horizon unobstructed by cloud or a single mist. This comparison may
serve to give you some idea of the absorbingly intense brilliancy of the
mammoth structure, yet this is of itself but as a mote in the sunbeam to
what I am assured exists in the immeasurable immensity of the higher
creations in the inconceivable and boundless universe of God. Oh, how
diminutive is this little ball of matter called earth, when we only
measurably take in the vast immensity of the infinite domain of God. And
poor, puny man, what a mere speck--a mere infinitisimal animalcule. As we
approached this mammoth structure, it seemed to be tremulous with motion,
and the motion, superinduced by such intensely penetrating, soul dazzling
strains of music as to perfectly appal with ecstatic emotion our
enraptured tourists. But for the preparation of us for it by the
scientific spirits, who they called the Ulaetta, we could not have
withstood it. I will give you this process of preparation on some future
occasion, and I am sure it will be interesting to you and valuable when
you come over. The ceremonies of reception were performed, not in speech,
but in musical opera, which, singular to state, we were enabled to
understand by the preparation mentioned. When I say musical opera I do not
mean singing accompanied by music, but that the music itself was intensely
operatic, and infused thought by the most astonishing and utterly
inexplicable process into our interior soul consciousness. It was
something worth years of suffering and pain to enjoy, and in contemplating
its inconceivable grandeur I return to my own sphere, feeling how little I
am, and to weep for the children of earth, still in ignorance and
superstition, and I lift my voice in prayerful supplication to God to
rend the veil, that poor humanity may obtain even faint glimpses of the
gorgeous splendors of God's great kingdom; but I seem to hear a voice
answering, Not yet; wait and be patient.
"March 20. We observed the most singular fact connected with the edifice
wherein we were received. In approaching it we were unable to penetrate
into its interior with our vision. It seemed to be a solid mass of
exquisitely fine material, but on gaining admission into its interior, by
some peculiar power that seemed to affect our spiritual vision and
perceptions, we were enabled to see through and beyond it, and to perceive
objects in the far distance. In other words, the whole structure seemed to
vanish so far as to permit no obstruction to our vision far beyond its
limits, and yet it was thoroughly substantial, composed of finely
attenuated and spiritually sublimated material. I have so much to tell you
that I must forego the pleasure of indulging in details, however
interesting they might be to you.
"The presiding personage at our reception was a figure of tall and
commanding appearance, with a benevolent face, dignified mien, and large
blue eyes, that seemed constantly tremulous with love and emotion. He held
in his hand a magic wand, which ever and anon he would wave, and in
harmony with these movements the most enchanting sounds of music seemed to
be wafted far out in the viewless spiritual ether that surrounded and
enveloped us. This wonderful fact baffles the skill of mortal pen and
mortal language to describe, and you must be content with what is said as
the best that can be said, so as to reach your comprehension.
"As I caught the eye of this great presiding spirit I perceived the idea
emanating from his mind, 'I am glad to meet you,' yet not one of these
words was spoken. I essayed to answer to express my thankfulness for his
friendly recognition of us, and I found I could not speak audibly, but my
thought he caught immediately, and bowed in acknowledgment. He had been
many thousands of years before a sage and philosopher on the planet Mars,
and bore about the same relation to his people as Mahomet, Confucius,
Jesus, Swedenborg and others of their day have in your world; and he is
pre-eminent in music. All the great spirits of Mars are eminent musicians.
Music, intellectual expansion and spiritual growth seem to be wedded, and
go hand in hand together. These are wonderful relations, but nevertheless
are true.
"In my next I will introduce you to some of the societies and cities of
the planet, to be followed from time to time by revelations that can not
fail to impress you with the greatest interest, and not only be
interesting and instructive, but will be of great value to you in your
after life in the spheres. My clear and venerable friend, be of good
cheer, and in the sweet bye and bye I will accompany you on this very
tour, and then you will perceive the difficulties in the way of giving a
description so as to be understood by mortals.
"March 27. After the ceremonies of reception, the details of which, fully
set forth, would fill a large volume, we set out under the escort of a
select delegation of forty-seven in number on a tour of inspection, a few
only of the incidents of which I can imperfectly touch. Many things
observed by us I am not at liberty to mention, for the all-sufficient
reason that you would not understand them and the world is not prepared to
receive them.
"Our first visit was to a society of literary celebrities, located in a
city of marvelous beauty. For our present use we will call the place the
City of Learning, and the society, the Society of the Literati. These
names are not the real ones, but serve our purpose fully as well, indeed
much better. The city is located on the border of a vast expanse of water
of a golden hue, and this limpid stream is a vast musical organ of sounds,
whose very vibrations, as its currents flow along, disturb the surrounding
atmosphere, resulting in the production of harmonies in musical
intonations, not only delightfully enrapturing, but far beyond the power
of portrayal in human speech. We stood upon its brink, and were enchanted
by its soul-piercing melody. Ever and anon the mellowed rays of the
spiritual sun of our solar system would strike upon the bosom of this
majestic stream, producing in their rebound such marvelous, scintillating
reflections as to cause the beautiful tints of your rainbow to pale into
utter insignificance in comparison. You must elaborate in your own mind
these feeble touches of my pen, for I can not stop to give minute
delineations, but only the idea, and you can carry it onward in your
imagination without fear of overdoing the picture or exaggerating the
facts.
"The ladies and gentlemen composing the Society of the Literati of this
one city are numbered by the many thousands, with vast numbers of
co-operating branches in as many different localities. We are told that
there exist still higher branches, which we were not spiritually fitted
to visit and comprehend. We, as spirits from earth, lacked planetary
development, but we have the promise in the infinite justice of God's
eternal laws that in time, though very far distant, our earth, with its
encircling spiritual spheres, will reach unto the gorgeous grandeur of
Mars. Here let us pause and reflect.
"March 29. Herein may be found ample food for study, inspiring elements
for reflection:
"_First_--How almighty is God, yet puny man is wondering whether there is
a God.
"_Second_--How grand and noble may all his children become.
"_Third_--How patiently does God, through inflexible and unerring law,
work out such stupendous results.
"_Fourth_--Man while in the flesh would arrogate unto himself the
attributes of a God, when in truth it requires ages of effort and progress
only to disclose to him that yet he is not yet an angel. But still how
grand are the possibilities before man, inviting him onward. They can not
be fully conceived by the finite mind, much less described.
"We saw many translucent streams, whose pellucid waters were charming to
behold. There is a law appertaining to all advanced spiritual
intelligences that induces the profoundest meditation, the sublimest
adoration, when beholding, although only partially, the infinite variety
and splendors of the creation; and I must occasionally pause in my
narrative to give expression to this law of my soul.
"We were next conducted to a vast building, wherein was deposited the
grandest library of books, and they were simply collections on scientific
subjects alone. Elsewhere were vast collections on other subjects not
intimately connected with science--books as tangible and objective to us
as the slate on which I am writing is to your touch and sight. Mr.
Swedenborg, being naturally of a scientific turn of mind, became
absorbingly interested in this department, and it was with reluctance he
took his departure therefrom. He made arrangements to return to study some
things to be found here and which he has not been able to find elsewhere.
He is promised aid by the members of the Society of the Literati.
"We then visited an assembly of representative men, and I am now about to
tell you something that will surprise you, but it is nevertheless true.
When I use the expression representative men I mean that each planet has
representatives to every other planet in the solar system. I must reserve
the next sitting for a description of the grand system of planetary
diplomacy--envoys extraordinary or ministers plenipotentiary, as you would
call them. The power is too nearly exhausted to enter upon the subject at
this sitting. We notify you now that by these ministrations and recitals
you are living many, many years in advance of this age of your planet.
"April 3. In your solar system you only claim eight planets, exclusive of
the Asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, but the truth is there are
thirteen in number; five of them have long since passed into their
spiritual orbits, and consequently are not objective to your telescopes,
and this state is to be the ultimate of all planets. Every planet,
including the earth, is continually undergoing change, that is to say,
gradually passing from the gross to the more refined, and by a
continually advancing series of geologic and progressive changes from the
lower to the higher, from the crude to the more refined, from the material
toward the spiritual, all will ultimately in time pass into spiritual
conditions or orbits. But as this theme is scientific, and not directly in
the line of or pertinent to my narrative, I will abandon it, at least for
the present.
"In my last I told you that each planet was favored with representatives
from every other planet in our system, and it is from this system,
spiritually originating, that you have derived your system of
international representation. I do not mean that any spirit communicated
this to the nations, but that in the early formation of nationalities and
the commercial intercourse between nations, susceptible public men, by
reason of their exceeding impressibility, got the inspiration from
surrounding spiritual influences, and to a certain degree and extent
carried it into execution in the establishment of ambassadorial relations
between friendly governmental powers. But there is a marked difference
between your nations and the spiritual worlds in the objects and purposes
of such system. In the spiritual worlds representatives are deputed one to
the other for an entirely different purpose from yours in sending
ministers to England, France, Russia, etc. Your accredited agents of
government abroad are simply spies to watch other countries, lest some
trivial advantage may be gained against you in some minor and unimportant
matter. Selfishness is the law by which they are to be governed. They are
expected to be, and generally are, lorded and feasted, dined and wined,
all in the high-sounding names of civilization and national urbanity.
Ours are sent on an entirely different mission--to gather knowledge for
the benefit of all. Our public and representative men are not engaged in
learning the rules and laws of the stock market, how to manipulate it and
how to create corners in the bountiful productions vouchsafed by the
Infinite, nor how to secure safe investments with large and profitable
margins, but to learn the laws of the planets, to the end that they may be
utilized in the development and progress of their varied and numerous
peoples. Through whatever other planets, farther advanced than ours--have
passed, we, too, must pass, and hence by our representative spirits
learning of their varied progressive experiences, they are enabled to
prepare for and assist in the changes that must inevitably ensue.
"I can not carry my thought further than to say in addition that our solar
system, as a system in its entirety, has representatives to thousands of
other solar systems revolving in space, circling around their respective
central suns. You perceive that the grandeur of creative glory is looming
up before us in majestic proportions, far beyond our power to comprehend
and portray. We look forward with great pleasure to each succeeding
meeting, when we hope to continue our narrative if conditions continue to
favor us.
"April 6. After feasting in the examination of the library of the Society
of the Literati I felt an intense desire to learn something in regard to
the religious teachings on the planet in its past, as applied to the
embodied Marsians, in the curious desire to find out whether their
theological and religious history bore any resemblance to ours, and if
dissimilar, wherein by contrast the dissimilarity consisted. Of course,
in the very nature of things, this opened up a wide field of
investigation, and I can only give you points condensed and with the
utmost brevity, and without any attempt at elaboration. As I have already
informed you, the denizens of Mars do not use our language or mode of
speech, and therefore I am compelled to transfer their thoughts into our
language, and you must consider that much will be lost in the
transmission.
"The planet Mars, in point of time, is much older than the earth, and
consequently has passed through many more changes; these successive
changes or epochs have had their respective theologies, and I was utterly
surprised to learn that in some respects they resembled ours--that is to
say, their earlier theology--the later and truer has no resemblance
whatever to ours or any that we have had in the past. The people of Mars
in the dim and distant ages of the bygone have had many gods and many
bibles. Their older books or bibles are now treasured as simple
curiosities belonging to the infancy of the race, and the wonder now is
how it was possible at any period of their history that a people could be
found seemingly so hopelessly ignorant as to believe them. The same fate,
my friend, awaits your Bibles, Korans, Zend-Avestas, etc. But in all their
speculations in religion they were never taught to believe that their
remote ancestors had fallen from an imaginary state of perfection, nor
that somebody else's sufferings and death were imperatively necessary to
extricate them from the peril, and to reinstate them into the loving
esteem and saving grace of their creator. While they had many follies in
their early history, they had none like unto our own. They never believed
God to be angry and revengeful nor that he would ever destroy their own or
any other world by water, fire or otherwise, nor that men were made out of
dust and women from ribs, nor that fish swallowed men, preserved them in
good condition in their stomachs, and delivered them subsequently and in
safety upon the dry land. These silly recitals of your bible will be
ridiculed and laughed at some of these coming happy days."
"April 10: If you could be instantaneously transferred to the planet Mars
just as you are in the form you could not live a moment of time. The
intensely rarefied and etherealized atmospheres surrounding that planet
would not maintain animal life such as yours. Yet the time has been when
beings more crude, dense and undeveloped have lived and figured on the
stage of Mar's history. The law of evolution or unceasing progression
applies to all planets and in a degree of unfoldment according to the
periodic duration of time of each. Hence, under the operation of this
inexorable law of the creation you can readily and with quick discerning
eye see the ultimate destiny of all--that is to say, the utter overcoming
of the crude and unrefined by the spiritual absorption of the whole, and
yet this law that lifts the lower into the higher has no limit or ending.
You can therefore see in the myriad ages of future time with this law, all
the while actively working, how inexpressibly refined and sublimated will
become spiritual beings and spiritual essences. This constitutes a grand
revelation, and presents in contemplation the grand possibilities in
store for man and the fittest of all things material. While the
constituent elements are the same, yet in outward manifestation the atoms
composing your physical bodies, and those in the form on Mars, are quite
dissimilar. The same elements that exist here, either as applied to the
spiritual or material, are essentially the same as exist in the remotest
realms of the creation. They only differ in presentation or outward
manifestation, and in the degree of their development and progression.
Here is another theme for contemplation and study, and the fact as here
disclosed ought to fill us with proud satisfaction, for the inherent
elements and qualities possessed by the millions of worlds, revolving in
the unexplored immensity of space and their countless myriad hosts of
people, are possessed by our world and our denizens, only differing in the
intensity of their action and the degree of unfoldment or approximation
toward maturity--ah, a maturity that never matures. While the law of
progression is infinite it deals with the finite, and as the finite can
only advance toward but never become infinite, so will this mighty law of
progression carry us onward and onward, upward and upward through all
coming time, and yet will never cease from its labors or find repose. What
a mighty destiny before and for man!
"April 14. In this and my next I will tell you some things that will
surprise you, but they are veritably true. I am dealing with you in
verities, however absurd and preposterous they may appear to the
unprogressed mind. This is said, by your people, to be a remarkable age,
and in many respects it is so. You are receiving some matter far in
advance of the age in which you are living, but it will be properly
recognized and appreciated in the years to come.
"On the planet Mars jails and prison houses for the confinement and
punishment of malefactors are only historic reminiscences of the past.
There are now no punishments inflicted because there are no offenders to
punish.
"The doctrine of sacrificial atonement, with its retarding influence, was
never taught to the people of that planet. They have always been taught
the supreme goodness of the creator conjoined with wisdom and almighty
power. God being supremely good, and supreme in the exercise of goodness,
they have not for thousands of years last past entertained the slightest
apprehension that any onslaught upon their peace, happiness, and future
felicity, would be permitted. From this ennobling conception of God came
the desire to manifest a spirit of devotion and veneration, and
consequently at an earlier period of the history of Mars the worship of
the people was low and groveling somewhat resembling, as I am informed,
the ancient idol worship of the Egyptians and Israelites. At the present
time the two worlds--the spiritual and material--of Mars are so closely
allied and interblended that the spiritual forces are enabled to exercise
a positively restraining influence over the conduct and actions of those
still connected with the physical, so they can not, if they would, commit
wrong, or perpetrate infractions upon the law of right. By reason of this
high condition of development those passing out of the material form are
at once intromitted into the higher conditions of the spiritual world,
because they are fitted for them. All are mediums and subject absolutely
to spiritual action and control. This is what your spirit world is seeking
to do for you, so, if possible, to pass over and beyond some of the rough
experiences of other planets, and your people do not seem to have the good
sense to see it. On Mars there are no murders, arsons, robberies,
forgeries, slanders, and other crimes and misdeeds, for they have
progressed beyond them. Do you not perceive the sublimity of this
condition? and will it not be a most glorious consummation when you shall
have reached the same altitude of progress.
"April 17. Another subject of inquiry engrossed my attention, namely,
marriage. I became interested to know something of the history of this
people on this subject, and I found it to be an exceedingly interesting
one. At this period of Mars there is no such institution as marriage in
the sense you regard it. It is not an exaggeration to say that a very
large per cent of your marriages are brought about as the result of the
most unholy motives. Passion, lust, avarice, etc., are generally the
impelling influences, and seldom is witnessed a union from purely
spiritual causes. It is needless to say these marriages are not only
temporal, ending with the death of the body, if not sooner by an unholy
judicial system of divorcement, but entail a cruel blighting curse upon
the race.
"The history of your own planet on the subject of marriage is but feebly
understood by you. Enough however is known to induce all lovers of
humanity to loathe and detest it as it has been practiced in the past. It
is claimed that God created animate creatures in pairs, male and female,
and that, as applied to man, he cemented a union of one man and one woman
in the marriage relation, and that this occurred at the commencement of
the creation in the Garden of Eden. Your conspicuous bible characters,
such as Abraham, David, Solomon, and others, have not only ignored and
trampled upon virtue in its simplest and purest forms, but with the
hellish gluttony of the vampire feasting on blood, they debauched
innocence, prostituted virtue to their unholy lust, and thereby destroyed
the holiest relation of life. Their numerous wives and concubines attest
this, and yet your pious Christians are waging a relentless warfare upon
the Mormons of Utah and vehemently thundering against the polygamous
practices of the Latter Day Saints. Shame for Christian consistency. On
this subject your advanced thinkers do not discuss those eternal and
enduring spiritual laws of attraction by magnetic and soul affinity upon
which alone shines forth in eternal splendor the blending of soul with
soul in an everlasting conjugal union. The people of Mars understand and
adopt these laws, or rather harmonize and abide in them, and now while
embodied their marriages are for all unending future time. As the result
we discover on that planet a race of people almost perfect in their
mental, moral, and physical developments, requiring only time, experience,
and progression, to disclose the still more wonderful proportions of their
being. The union of one man and one woman under spiritual conditions is
the highest type of marriage, and constitutes the paramount and supreme
intention of the deity, and is the ultimatum and consummation of the law
of conjugal love--all others are fleeting, dishonoring, and only evil.
"April 20. Your candidates for matrimony, first obtaining each other's
consent, and the approval of parents or guardians, apply to the legally
constituted authorities for a license or permit to enter the holy state,
and when procured they repair to a priest or magistrate, who for a few
shekels pronounces a few stereotyped phrases, followed by the solemn
declaration pronouncing them man and wife, closing generally with the
ludicrous and farcical command, 'whom God has joined together let no man
put asunder.' Oh, what a caricature and farce. It is bad enough to declare
whom the law has joined together, and so forth, but to assume with such
solemn gravity that God has joined in wedlock's sacred union many of the
marriage alliances which are mere caricatures of marriage, is not only
blasphemy, but the very apex of nonsense, and is the widest possible
departure from truth.
"If it be true that God joins them together, no power, save himself could
put asunder or disunite. To assert otherwise would amount to affirming
that God is the author of failures. The difference between marriages that
only have their basis in consent, license, and ceremony, and that marriage
which God cements when two are joined by the divine laws of soul affinity
and magnetic attraction--the one is of the earth earthy, the other is from
the Lord through and by the operation of eternal law, and is therefore
heavenly. Oh, that the children of earth might learn and conform to these
subtle and glorious laws for their own good and in the interest of those
to come after them.
"On the planet Mars the people have no license system on any subject.
While you on earth are wrangling about licensing the sale of intoxicating
beverages, on Mars they have none to license. While here you are exercised
over measures of taxation to raise revenue to support the government, on
Mars no taxes whatever are imposed, and public affairs for the general
public good are administered freely and without compensation, purely as a
labor of love. The truth is that the mundane affairs of Mars are more
regulated, controlled, and conducted by the spiritual powers of the planet
than by those in the form. The two worlds are so intimately related to
each other, and are so closely brought together, that this is not only
practicable but desirable and profitable.
"April 21. There is on the planet Mars a subterranean passage through it
from pole to pole, which Mr. Swedenborg informs me he has thoroughly
explored. There is more truth than poetry in what is known as Symmes' hole
as applied to your earth. When the time comes by the settlement of your as
yet vast millions of uninhabited acres, and a change takes place in
northern temperature and conditions, the people of that day will discover
within and through the very heart center of your earth a country nearly a
third as large as the exterior surface, and by that time every thing
therein will be sufficiently progressed and developed to supply the wants
and invite the ambition and energies of the people of that period. But
this discovery, or rather the occupation of this subterranean country, is
very far off in point of time, and the human race of earth will then be
quite different from what it is now. They will have so changed by the
lapse of time and the law of progress as to be enabled to pass into the
new country by way of the north pole with ease and safety. The north pole
is the true opening, and can not be reached until the fullness of time, as
I have indicated. As the area of territory of Mar's surface was about
being densely covered by population, and apprehensions were being
entertained for the future of the race, lo and behold, the new interior
country was discovered and subsequently peopled. By the time it is crowded
no more will be needed, for the planet by that time will have passed into
its spiritual orbit and into the ocean of spiritual ether, where suffering
can never come from lack of room. This will be the future history of your
planet, and you will pass through the same experiences and reach the same
ultimate. Behold how infinitely wise all things are forearranged. Just as
we need by our development new limits, new appliances and new things, they
are ready for our use, and are never disclosed until we are ready for and
need them.
"April 24. At this time those living on the planet Mars do not die or pass
through the change called death as you do here. They have no diseases that
cause the untimely taking off of the inhabitants. Disease has long since
been banished. All of the procreating elements of disease residing in the
materiality of the globe or the surrounding atmosphere have been by
progressive development eliminated. And even before this had fully
occurred the people had learned the laws of health and the process of
neutralizing and rendering harmless the lurking germs that remained. You
may perceive from this what a happy people they are. There are no untimely
deaths on Mars. Children grow up to manhood and womanhood; yet there is
no fixed standard of time when all die, that is, no definite and
invariable period of longevity. And right here comes in a great law, now
operative on Mars, that the people of earth know nothing about, for it has
never been communicated before, namely, children can not die there. It was
never designed that they should die here. Marriage being brought about, as
before stated, by the grand law of magnetic attraction or spiritual
affinity, and all diseases being banished and their producing causes
annihilated, nothing but absolutely sound and perfect physical and mental
organizations are imparted to offspring by their progenitors. You see at
once the idea, for I must be brief--the children being perfect in health
of body and mind by procreation, and there being no diseases to affect
them after birth, death can not touch them, in fact can touch none before
the time arrives, varying in point of longevity for the separation of
spirit and body. None die before the full maturity of stature, and some
live to be a very advanced age. After reaching complete development or
stature, they pass out of and away from the material in point of time,
according to the antecedent conditions of their varied being. Some arrive
after maturity to the estate of progressive experience in the form sooner
than others, and when this period arrives, whether it be at thirty, forty,
fifty or a hundred years, they pass on to their ultimate and higher state
of being in the spiritual spheres. It is known when each shall pass out of
the form long before the event transpires, and all due preparation is
accordingly made therefor. Your scientists have discovered, and rightly,
too, that about every seven years the atoms and particles composing your
physical organizations change and give way to new ones. But this is
gradual and imperceptible. On Mars, at this period of development, the
changes are much more frequent, and these successive changes determine the
approach of dissolution, and instead of death in an hour or a day, it goes
on perceptibly and without pain or suffering for years. Every change
lessens the material composites of the body, and at each a nearer approach
to the spiritual takes place, until finally the physical, by the gradual
process of embodied sublimation or attenuation, passes away, and the
spiritual becomes supreme. This culmination is equivalent to what you call
death, except that there is no attending pain, no death struggle, and no
physical body afterwards to take care of and lay away. The body, by
successive changes, has seemingly vanished into nothingness and been
absorbed in the atmosphere.
"April 27. We have been expecting you to inquire of us how the people live
on the planet Mars, what kind of architecture in the construction of their
business houses, habitations, etc.; what kind of food they eat, and with
what raiment are they clothed, etc.
"You will have observed from what we have heretofore made known to you
that the services of four classes of professional worthies have been
dispensed with, simply because the people have progressed beyond their
utility, namely, lawyers, doctors, preachers and politicians. Lawyers can
only thrive and exist professionally in a land where conscience is not
permitted to exercise its native simplicity and positive purity, and where
the lower passions and propensities are largely dominant. When
conscience, active, pure and simple, is allowed to manifest its functions
in perfect unrestraint, and to act as the governing power in the
regulation of human conduct, the presence and office of the barrister are
no longer of use. Lawyers flourish as a general proposition on strife and
contention, bad faith and unfair dealing; and when these shall happily
end, like poor cashiered Cassio, their occupation will be gone. The
doctors grow opulent by medication, because of the ignorance of the people
with reference to the true laws of marriage, proper antenatal conditions,
neglect of proper hygiene, and ignorance as to overcoming or rendering
harmless the deleterious conditions, both atmospheric and from the
undeveloped state of inherent nature. But when, by progressing beyond
their harmful influences, or by enlightenment and healing gifts, the
people shall obtain a complete mastery over them, disease shall be
banished, then the avocation of the physician ends, and he will have to
seek a livelihood in other pursuits.
"The preacher lives in comfortable indolence because of the ignorance and
superstition of the people. His office is one of hypocrisy and fraud.
Hypocrisy, because if he is not a fool, he knows his teachings are not
true, and of fraud, because by dissembling he extorts from his parishoners
a dishonorable subsistence. When the people grow sufficiently wise they
will be taught by the denizens of the spirit world truth and
righteousness. Then the mission or office of the sacerdotal gentlemen will
be closed, and they can seek employment in the many more honorable
occupations. The politician, cunning and subtle, swims along smoothly upon
the rolling current of the credulity of the people and his own duplicity.
He prospers because you have not as yet grown into full political manhood,
and he succeeds in hoodwinking you with the belief that his heart is
overflowing with patriotism and anxious solicitude for the public weal.
But I must leave this class--the politicians--to the tender mercies of
several gentlemen who are waiting the opportunity to contribute their part
to your enterprise.
"April 28. The coarse food necessary for you in order to keep up the crude
materiality of which your physical make-up is composed, is not needed by
the denizens of Mars. In the composition of your physical bodies is a
representative of all the material elements in nature--iron, calcium,
wood, earth, etc.--and it is easily demonstrated by microscopic inspection
and chemical analysis, that in every drop of blood in the human system all
these varied and numerous elements are represented. Hence man may be
safely considered a microcosm, or nature in her vast domain, reflected in
miniature. But you still exist in the realm of the crude, and yet you are
vastly more refined than in the ages past, and forward, onward, and upward
is the line of march marked out for you by the infinitely wise director of
all things. On the planet Mars no animal food is used, because among other
reasons the physical properties of the body do not require the elements of
animal flesh to replace nature's wastes. Thousands of former species of
animals have become extinct, swallowed up in the ever surging maelstrom of
progression or absorbed in the higher forms. Vegetation in the planet Mars
is quite different, both in expression or appearance, and constituent
composition from the vegetation of your planet. Here the aroma residing
in the vegetable and escaping therefrom, is largely absorbed and
neutralized by the grossness of the vegetable itself, while on Mars the
grossness has become so diminished that to the senses the aroma has almost
become tangibly objective, and this aroma is food strengthening and
invigorating, is nearly sufficient of itself to support existence in the
form without the assistance of the more substantial fibers of the parent
vegetable. Yet in a certain prepared form the substantial material is
used. The time is not very far distant, as I am assured, when the people
there will subsist on aromatic emanations from material productions, aided
by magnetic, electric, and other atmospheric properties used simply by
inhalation. In the water you use are to be found teeming millions of
living and moving animalcules. They are enabled to live on the elements of
the water in its present gross state, but on the planet Mars the water has
been dispossessed of its life germinating and life sustaining properties
to aquatic productions, and has thus progressed with all other things and
beings. No life or form of life is now brought into being there, but such
higher types as are fitted to pass with the planet into spiritual
conditions; and the water being so purified by nature's refining processes
is as different from your ordinary water as clear, sparkling sprays
projected from your fountains and dancing in the sunbeams are to the murky
waters of your rivulets immediately after a violent rain-storm. I will
resume this subject in my next.
"May 1. On Mars they have learned how to produce from the soil itself any
vegetable that naturally grows therefrom. In the soil itself reside all
the constituent elements of all vegetation in their infinite variety. You
may thoughtlessly answer, that in order to produce any species of
vegetation used for table consumption, the seed or germ must first be sown
in the soil beneath the surface, but you forget that this process is but
the result of civilization and art, and that originally, that is before
you learned how to obtain and use seed, the products sprang of themselves
and apparently spontaneously from the earth. Whence did they come? and
whence were their germinating and generating powers obtained? Think a
little deeply on the subject, and you will be led irresistibly to the
correct conclusion that in the soil exists all the requisite elements in
the production of vegetation by growth. The people of Mars have acquired
the knowledge which enables them to produce out of the soil, abstractly
considered, all the essential qualities of the vegetable without waiting
for the tedious process of growth. This process is purely chemical, and
everybody there understands it. Hence you see they do not have to buy
vegetables, for all can have their essential qualities for food without
cost to the consumer. Long since the ownership of the soil by individuals
was abandoned for the general common good, and on this subject the
primitive condition of affairs in your planet prevails universally on
Mars--that is to say everybody owns realty, one just as much as another.
This is pure unadulterated agrarianism in its highest and most perfect
form.
"It is often asked in your intercourse with the world of spirits: What are
the employments of spirits? what are they about? what do they do? etc. It
is pertinent to inquire, What are the employments of the people of Mars
still embodied? What do they do since we have discovered that they do not
now toil for the acquisition of riches, because they have no possible use
for them; no taxes to pay, no governmental machinery to support, no
lawyers to annoy, no preachers to vex, torture, and maintain, no doctors
to nauseate with their drugs, no politicians to hoodwink the people and
feed at the public crib, no grocery bills to look after and liquidate,
etc. Before we answer these and many other important queries, we shall see
what the people do for raiment with which to clothe themselves, and what
they do for shelter, if, indeed, shelter is necessary. If we shall
discover that these are free gifts from the father, then the employments
of the embodied Marsians becomes a question of very interesting and
pressing importance.
"May 4. I suspect that you already anticipate the tenor of what we have to
tell you in regard to the clothing of the people of Mars, what texture,
how derived, etc. Your keen perceptions and astute comprehension enables
you to see at a glance that if this law of progression, as applied to the
material, whereby the lowest forms are reached and operated upon, lifting
with its strong arms into higher and still higher conditions, be true, it
must be true and in regard to all material things--the soil, rock, wood,
water, etc., animal and vegetable life, and as we shall have occasion to
show further on, to the mundane atmosphere surrounding the planet. All
things progress and advance in like and equal ratio, leaving nothing
behind or unaffected by the law. This advancing march of matter from the
crude and gross into the more refined and sublimated is seemingly slow,
but nevertheless sure and unerringly, indiscriminate, and precise.
Therefore the raiment worn by the denizens of Mars has reached the same
altitude of refinement as all other material things.
"The seasons, once resembling yours, spring, summer, autumn, and winter,
have nearly merged, that is to say, have nearly blended into one perpetual
season of summer loveliness. The austerity of winter, with its stormy
blasts and cold, piercing wind waves has long since ceased to be; no
frosts to nip and blight the fruits and flowers; no chilling autumns, with
withering leaf, to inspire with melancholy and sadness. What will surprise
you in this connection is, that, while the cold temperature has wrought
its work in the development of the past, and is only known to have once
existed by historic relation, the intense heat of summer has also
disappeared. When you have severely cold winters, almost unendurable even
in your temperate zones, your wise philosophers theorize that your
ultimate destiny is to freeze out; that the icebergs and ice glaziers of
the north are ultimately either to roll over the now fair portions of the
earth, destroying all things animate, or that their freezing breath will
sweep over the globe involving in death all the fair and lovely forms of
nature's productions, including godlike man, the apex and crowning glory
of creation. But lo! when the earth straightens up on her axis and the
cold waves retreat and sink away in their northern hiding place, and the
genial and vernal season with its pleasant temperature returns, these same
philosophers take a breathing spell, rest awhile, and conclude that it has
not been so very cold after all; and when the summer comes, if it happens
to be unusual in the intensity of its heat, and the solar rays seem to
almost melt into molten ruin all things, and to scorch the forest leaves
and wilt the waving harvests, these same philosophical wiseacres change
tactics, reverse their position, and with one heroic bound jump to a
directly opposite conclusion, namely: that we are all destined ultimately
to burn up and become annihilated in a general conflagration by solar heat
igniting the combustible material of the planet and its surrounding
atmosphere. Oh, how impotent in philosophy! A simple and humble inquiry
settles the question. Why destroy this fair earth, daily and hourly
becoming still fairer? Does God do any thing without an allwise and
beneficent purpose? Is it possible for Him to do a silly, foolish thing?
He would certainly not destroy the earth unless there was thereby some
noble and beneficent purpose to subserve. What grand purpose, good and
wise, can be accomplished by ending the existence of a planet that has as
yet scarcely begun to live? To assume that He will do such a thing, is to
assume that He has become disappointed and disgusted with his own
creation, which annuls His wisdom and foresight, or that He delights in
folly, making a world and then destroying it because He can, or for any
other silly and insufficient reason. To thus assume is to dishonor Him as
a God, and to invest Him with the attributes of a devil.
"Wonderful changes do occur marking epochs, or cycles, in the history of
all planets. Where you live to-day, thousands upon thousands of years ago
another race of human beings lived, attaining a certain degree of
development in science and art, but upon the fulfillment of their mission
they passed away from the face of the earth. Where you now live was once
swept over by old ocean, and where the deep waters and angry billows of
the Atlantic now roll and revel once lived a race of people called the
Atlantians, but their land with its embellishments of art and progressive
development became submerged by the changes of the mighty waters, and now
lies buried beneath its rolling deep and lashing waves. But observe in all
this that the globe goes on, and succeeding developments of man and
material things come forth far in advance of the former order of things.
What, if in the womb of time it is reserved for Atlantis to arise from her
watery entombment and to flourish again with renewed and increased
grandeur, involving the submersion of other portions of the earth's
surface, including your own? This would not be death to any portion of the
planet in any high and exalted sense, but a progressive change, a
revivifying of life, a quickening and impulsion of being in the grand
advancing march of development and sublimation. As we write, the theme
expands and enlarges, and as the power begins to wane we find we have not
discoursed minutely on the subject of raiment, and beg your indulgence for
a resume of the subject in our next.
"May 5. There being, at this stage of development on Mars, no winter with
its concomitants of winds and storm, snow and ice, you have no difficulty
in apprehending that very light material only is needed to protect and
render comfortable the persons of the people. Material of the texture of
your lightest flannel underwear would be oppressively and uncomfortably
warm, and indeed insufferable. Thin and quite gauzy robes composed of
finely attenuated and exquisitely refined material constitute their
apparel. I have told you hitherto that of the animal kingdom only the
fittest have survived the marvelous successive changes in the infinite
series of progressive advancements. Among those now living with the
ability of propagation is an animal species somewhat resembling your
sheep, but so exceedingly refined as to be remarkably striking in
contrast. Of course, and in the very nature of things, the fleecy wool,
or, rather velvety down, that grows upon this noble animal, so
distinguished for innocence, aesthetic tastes in food and refinement in
habits of life, is eminently suited for purposes of habilament, and
accordingly is thus utilized. They are propagated in unlimited numbers,
live to an advanced age, are the common property of all the people, and
have within themselves the qualities of eternal being.
"The forest and other trees, shrubs and flowers, have advanced under the
same law of progress. Very many species of the olden time
disappearing--the fittest only having survived. Among those now extant on
the planet, is a peculiar and quite extensively cultivated species, from
which is produced a fabric resembling somewhat your cotton production,
with the same difference in refinement of texture as exists between your
wool and that developed on Mars as herein stated. This is utilized for
raiment also. Besides the people there have mastered the law that spirits
employ in the materialization of garments at your materializing seances,
only much finer, and out of the ambient atmosphere, filled as it is with
sublimated atoms and emanations, they are enabled to collect and magnetize
into solidified form appropriate garments for their use and comfort. When
thus magnetized into objective and tangible being it partakes of and
assumes a varied hue and color, according to the progressed and advanced
state of the person using the garments. In other words the magnetic aura
and spiritual emanations proceeding from the individual infiltrates and
becomes interwoven in the delicate fibers of the new garment extracted and
brought into being from the viewless air, imparting hue and coloration
presenting different appearances, whereby the grade or degree of
advancement of the individual wearer is made known and determined. Here
you inquire of the spirits to know what sphere you are fitted to enter in
the spirit world, there they know by this means in advance of leaving the
body. Your spirits in imparting light and knowledge to you concerning
their state, tell you that a spirit and its proper sphere are known by the
peculiar aura, or surroundings and clothing of the individual spirit, and
this is true to the letter. But on Mars this law of spirit designation
that belongs to the spiritual spheres of your planet, reaches out and
reveals itself in the persons of the people of Mars before they have
actually entered upon the spiritual journey of life in the spiritual
spheres.
"Now the additional fact is disclosed to you that by reason of this mode
of obtaining raiment the avocation of the merchant is of slender
dimensions, and the manufacturer's art and pursuit, except as known and
practiced by all alike, are now unknown on the planet Mars.
"In our next we will discourse on buildings, habitations, etc. We had
hoped to reach this part of the subject in this communication, but as we
advance the themes and subjects broaden and expand, and we sincerely
regret that the power by this process--independent slate writing--although
the purest of all, will not last us at one sitting sufficiently to fully
elaborate our thoughts and descriptive delineations on a given subject. It
has this advantage, however, it comes directly from the materialized
fingers of the spirit without the direct use of the brain of another in
transmission. Adieu until our next.
"May 8. The same reasons assigned in our last, why very light garments
only were needed for the bodily comfort and happiness of the people of
Mars apply with equal propriety, force, and truth, to the subject of their
habitations.
"Your rains are produced by vapors, mists, and emanations from your
oceans, rivers, lakes, etc., which by virtue of solar attraction or a
reversal of the law of gravitation the vapors, mists, etc., are drawn
upward in space until a certain density is reached, differing in altitudes
of height, when they become congealed by the force of the cold attenuated
atmosphere there into small particles called rain drops, and these are
carried along by the undercurrents of uncongealed clouds until a certain
electro-magnetic condition is reached, when the clouds begin to empty and
rid themselves of their burdened contents.
"Now we have informed you of the progress the water of Mars has made in
being dispossessed of its gross and weighty elements; hence there are
none of these to ascend and to commingle in the formation of rain drops;
hence none but the purer and refined elements of the water are exhaled and
drawn upward, and consequently none but the pure and refined descend.
These are in themselves comparatively light and of greatly diminished
gravity, and therefore mild and pleasant in their effect. Especially does
this become true as a resulting necessity, from the fact that there are no
fierce winds or storms or cold temperature in the surrounding atmospheric
belts or zones. The rains on Mars are more like your gentle dews of early
autumn than your rains and showers. You at once take in the situation from
this and preceding statements of facts that crude material structures are
not necessary, even if the material for their construction could be found,
and we have seen that such is not the case, for all things, including the
material in detail out of which edifices are constructed, have progressed
beyond and above their crude grossness.
"In some portions of Mars no structures are used at all, owing to the
mildness of the climate and the total absence of inclemency in the
slightest degree. In other portions the beautifully developed trees, and
especially those that spread out their branches near the surface of the
soil, are ample for the purposes of shelter. Still in others they have a
sort of building which is a grand pavilion, embracing a vast area of
territory, thousands of miles in extent, under the same roof or cover,
which during certain periods of the year and day become luminous and
transparent. The temples and gorgeous structures, cities, and magnificent
edifices have been transferred in spiritual essence to the spiritual
spheres, and have ceased to be as material entities, so when the planet
passes into the spiritual condition outright and in toto, all that Mars
could ever boast of in architectural grandeur and excellence is preserved
and perpetuated with additional luster and beauty from the finishing
spiritual touches by the Infinite Master Builder. And now you perceive
that other questions come up right here and require recognition and
treatment. Among them these: Do the people on Mars sleep? If so, how often
and how much?
"May 11. Why is it that you require repose in sleep? In the infinitely
wise arrangement of all things there are amply satisfactory reasons for
every demand, every requirement, every manifestation, and therefore there
are reasons why sleep is induced and is an imperative necessity in your
present and past states of existence.
"When rest in sleep is long deferred from nervous derangements or other
causes, your physicians administer narcotics to induce it, for they well
know, as you all do, that sleep is necessary after intervals of
wakefulness in order to protract your being in the form, and why?
"You have voluntary and involuntary functions or organs; the voluntary
only, the involuntary never, can be suspended for certain periods of time.
Your respiration and blood circulation are involuntary, and as long as you
remain embodied in flesh will continue to perform their appropriate
functions, whether you wake or sleep, for they are not subject to or
influenced by the will. And it is by the unconscious operation of these
that your voluntary functions when suspended in sleep are replenished and
reinvigorated. You are, as at present constituted, made up corporally of
gross material, which becomes wearied and exhausted by the active exercise
or operation of the voluntary functions, and the nerve force will expend
itself unless periodically reimbursed and replenished, and restored to its
normal condition by the intervention and recuperative power of sleep. When
in the ages to come your people lose this grossness in their material
composition, your inclination to sleep and the necessity for it will abate
and become lessened correspondingly to your successive stages of
advancement in progressive development.
"Thus is revealed to you the fact that on Mars, at this time, the
inhabitants have but very little need of sleep. They sleep, but in a
modified sense as to periods, duration and manner. They rest when
fatigued, and for brief periods pass into a state of languor or stupidity,
to some extent analogous to your sleeping state, which is never required
oftener than once a week, and then only for a few hours.
"Your spirit friends will tell you that they never sleep, but rest, and
ever keep in mind that the people of Mars are closely approximating the
spiritual. Then, again, on Mars they do not have night as you do, and
consequently not the same nocturnal influences to suggest and invite
sleep. This suggests another subject germane to our line of thought. In
nature you find always two extremes, that seem to stand in antipodal
relations to each other. Let us give a few instances in illustration: You
have day and night, cold and heat, male and female, fire and water, good
and evil, etc. Some of these seem to be at fierce war with each other,
and yet what a delusion! This seeming antagonism is but the working of a
law that shall eventuate in the production of the completest harmony.
Undeveloped people, ignorant of the jewel-crowned truths, as yet concealed
from them in the grand arcana of nature and the progressive sciences,
laugh and sneer at the idea of marriages in spirit life, when the
unvarnished truth is that man, considered in his independent and separate
sexual relation, is but a half man, and can not become rounded out into
fully developed manhood until consociated in conjunctive union with the
opposite sex--not indeed and truly until the man and woman become twain,
one flesh, or, in better phraseology, spiritually unitized.
"The day and night will continue until finally and by gradual processes
the night is banished, and vanishes in the splendor of a continuously
refulgent and sunlit atmosphere. On Mars this condition is almost reached,
and the night there resembles the shadings thrown over the earth when a
cloud passes over the face of your moon at hightide, and ultimately even
this shall be no more, for in the spiritual spheres of Mars, as in your
exalted ones, there are no shadows to obscure or mar the radiant light of
the spiritual sun, and Mars itself is fast approaching this sublime
condition. We must withhold what we have to say in regard to the seeming
strife between good and evil for our next.
"May 12. The people of christendom have had it rung in their ears for
nearly two thousand years that man is essentially bad, unutterably wicked,
unspeakably depraved, and, worst of all, this horrid state comes to him,
not of his own creating, but by inevitable and unavoidable inheritance.
In our ignorance and credulity how we have wept over the weakness and
folly of our first parents in yielding to the flattery and persuasive
eloquence of the cruel serpent in the pure and primitive bowers of Eden.
Our tears have flown and flown, with no gentle, soothing hand to touch our
eyes and bid them cease; no voice panoplied with authority to speak to; no
words of hope and cheer. We have been told in answer to our anxious
entreaties for blissful hope and loving counsel that there is a
superabundance of evil in us, and a trifling, insignificant quantity of
good, and that nothing short of a miracle of regeneration can save us from
unutterable and unending misery in the life to come; that without this
miraculous interposition of divine grace, the little good that is in us
will be swallowed up and devoured by the appalling evil of our sinfully
inherited natures. Oh, man, how you degrade your true nobility, your
godlike and divine nobility, by bowing the knee to this hideous monster of
falsehood, and by kneeling at this unholy shrine. In direct opposition to
this abominable and degrading doctrine stands the truth in its pristine
and noble beauty.
"According to this Christian doctrine we behold in man a combination of
good and evil, and in the struggle for the mastery the evil is to be
mightier than the good. The good emanating from and partaking of the
majestic excellence of the eternal, infinite God must, alas, succumb to
and be overthrown by evil, its unholy rival. Can man conceive of a scheme
more degrading and heartless, and more completely dishonoring to God and
his infinite perfections of wisdom, goodness and power--a doctrine more
utterly subversive of moral goodness, deific excellence, and that more
completely wrecks the moral government of God and dumps into one common
funeral heap the hopes and happiness of the human race. No, no, this is
not true; it is false, false, basely false.
"What is the true theory of good and evil? Man, oh, man, hearken to the
voice of truth, and be wooed and won by its gentle entreaties. Let the
scales of ignorance and superstition fall from your eyes. Look upward for
truth, and be baptized in its beauteous light, and cleansed in its pure
and holy waters. Evil is the assemblage of elements in the concrete, if I
may be permitted so to speak, and is simply undeveloped good, or good in a
lesser degree. Evil is evanescent and transitory, good is permanent and
eternally enduring. The fittest of all things in the grand scheme of
progression only survive, while all else is doomed to perish. The good and
the true are as enduring and everlasting as the eternal God himself, while
the evil and the false are fleeting, unenduring, and carry within
themselves the insatiate and unappeasable elements of ultimate
annihilation. Be assured of this, for no truth in God's illimitable
universe has been more firmly established on a more indestructible
foundation. Good day.
"May 15. Astronomers will tell you that in their observations through the
telescope the planet Mars presents a red brilliancy not observably
characteristic of the other planets in your solar system, which they are
unable to account for. Considering the vastness of the subject, the
immense distance in space where the scintillating orbs are chanting their
silent songs of praise to God, the difficulties in the way of
observation, etc., the discoveries in the domain of astronomy have been
fully as remarkable, important, and satisfactory, as in any other field of
scientific investigation. But still only a very little compared with the
immensity of the subject has been disclosed and some of that mixed and
interlarded with error. Astronomy will become the greatest of all sciences
when by new apparatus and new appliances the spiritual spheres belonging
to the various planets shall have been discovered. This success will be
achieved in the coming time. On Mars the people have mastered this
problem, and I was surprised to learn that they knew all about our
spiritual spheres from their far distant standpoint of observation, and
that they knew minutely all the characteristic and inherent qualities of
your planetary atmosphere. They have long since invented instruments by
which they are enabled to photograph in minute detail and perfect fidelity
of representation every material object on the earth. And you will be
surprised when I tell you that I inspected Stockholm, London, Paris, New
York, your own queen city, Cincinnati, etc., in a more perfect form of
presentation than your artists can reproduce on canvas with pencil and
brush, and at the same time I was standing in spirit in the immeasurable
immensity of space on the planet Mars. I can not give you even in outline,
much less in detail, the modus operandi of this achievement, and will only
say that the rays of light in reflective power will yet dawn upon your
scientists and philosophers as the agent of discoveries and
accomplishments not now even dreamed of by the people of earth. I want to
add right here a prophetic statement, which you may carefully note, that
the time is not so very far distant when your inspired inventors will
devise and construct an instrument that will disclose to the human
material eye, to the astonishment of the world, your own spirit land; for
let it be well understood that your spirit world has a real, tangible,
objective existence, that will yet yield its rich treasures in scientific
revealments for the enlightenment and progress of your race. In very truth
the spirit world is the only real and permanent one, constructed by the
infinite master builder for all eternal time, while your physical and
material, except their spiritual essences, are but the shadows and
temporary projections from the spiritual. Logically and metaphysically
speaking, the spirit world is the pre-eminent cause of your world, the
mere transitory effect. This being true, your keen sense hastens you at
once to the conclusion, founded in reason and truth, that an effect can
not be greater or more enduring than the cause that produced it, but must
of necessity and in the very nature of things be infinitely less.
"May 18. A people so pre-eminently advanced in all that appertains to the
sublimation of their being, and all that surrounds them, and in which they
come in contact, must necessarily be exceedingly refined and aesthetic in
their mannerisms, habits of life, intercourse with each other, and in
their vocations and employments. In the very nature of things it could not
be otherwise. From what has been heretofore said relating to the highly
favored and inestimably progressed denizens of Mars, it is not difficult
to see that their pursuits must necessarily and almost entirely relate to
the realm of the intellectual and spiritual, as they have passed beyond
the requirements and demands of that which pertains to the material phase
of existence. Physical wants require physical exertion to supply them.
Material requirements necessitate attention to and labor in the domain of
the material, and this, for obvious reasons, that need not be stated or
discussed. It may be prudent, however, to premise that when the physical
constitution requires substantially gross materials to keep up and
maintain the corporealities of our nature, we must look to the productions
of the farm and the fruitage of the forest, and also to animal food, which
are always in quality and degree in exact correspondence to our status or
state of progression. But when we lose the constituent elements of
corporeal being that belong to the lower strata of the constitution of
things, we require something more refined and sublimated, and lo, always
it is at hand to meet the exigency, for let it ever be borne in mind that
the law that is incessantly and without intermission working away in
solving the great problem of life and being, moving upward from the lower
to the higher, is not confined in its operations to only form or species
of being, but applies to and operates upon all, whether rational or
irrational, animate or inanimate, and pushes all forward and upward with
perfect and precise equability and in exact and equally proportional
degree, none advancing more rapidly than the rest and none lagging behind.
Thus, you perceive the infinite order and the beautiful symmetry of the
great law of evolution and progression. Herein is necessitated varied
changes in the value and character of vocation and employments, suited to
the continued mutations of things in the endless series of progressive
changes.
"At one period in the history of Mars the art of photography was
discovered. Of course it attracted great attention and challenged
admiration. It was regarded not only as wonderful but marvelous. The
discoverer was almost deified, for he was thought to be endowed with
something of the divine nature not discoverable in others, until the art
advanced step by step, improvement on improvement, when the divinity with
which the discoverer had been invested by the admiring multitudes dwindled
into insignificance, and the very sensible conclusion reached that he was
merely highly gifted and spiritually inspired, but altogether human still.
Compare the primitive system of photography, limited as it was, to objects
of immediate presence to that now existing, whereby worlds and systems of
worlds are made tributary to its discoveries and achievements. Now,
instead of the wonders of the art inspiring hero worship of the men
engaged in its studies and who produce the wondrous results, a feeling of
awe and veneration for the continually increasing wonders of the creation
is inspired. The admiration is justly transferred from man to the creator
and the stupendous majesty of his laws and works. On Mars photography is
now and has been for a long time a favorite and delightful employment
pursued by the many, for all have the advantages of it. Therefore the
study, not only of their own world, but numerous others, constitutes a
pleasant, instructive, and intellectually remunerative employment. Nor is
this confined and limited to material worlds, but reaches out and
embraces the spiritual spheres of each.
"Again, take the science of chemistry. It once only dealt with material
solids, but now on Mars it has reached a higher plane or sphere, and the
sublimated substances, still possessed of modified degrees of matter,
likewise atmospheric and spiritual substances, come within the purview and
yield obedience to its powerful processes of analysis. This is still and
ever will be an instructive and profitable field for those aspiring minds
of the Marsians bent on the acquisition of knowledge and the understanding
of the infinitely varied and universal laws by which all nature and the
universe are governed and controlled.
"May 22. On Mars the people are divided up into a very great many
societies. The membership of these societies is not a matter of choice and
volition. Here you have degrees of social society, and you say there are
three grades--the lower, middle and upper. This is so in the deceptive
seeming, but in fact you have many more, but you do not understand the
subtle laws governing in their formation and diversity. You also have
secret societies, into which you require the consent of a certain number
to gain admission, while at the same time a certain other number may
object. Certain arbitrary votes in number control the question of
application, and by them your admission or rejection is determined. In
your social society quite a different rule or policy prevails. In a
certain grade or stratum true merit and worth are not considered of any
moment, but wealth and pecuniary par excellence constitute the law of
attraction. In other words, and what ought to burn your cheeks with shame,
it matters not how morally depraved or utterly abandoned to all real
intrinsic worth of manhood or womanhood, a large supply of the world's
fleeting possessions constitutes the real standard of respectability, and
the sure passport into the higher walks of social life. On Mars they have
long since passed beyond and above this purely human, unspiritual and
unholy rule. There they are known and estimated as they really are, for
they can not disguise their moral and spiritual status; it is read in the
look, the walk, the thought-words, and most potently in the aura emitted,
permeating and coloring the very garments worn, thereby disclosing by
shades of color the moral, mental and spiritual degree of advancement. You
have an old adage, which contains a very great truth, namely: 'Birds of a
feather will flock together,' 'like draws like.' Under the operation of an
immutable law of attraction and repulsion the societies of Mars are
formed, and this law, so utterly disregarded by embodied man on the earth,
applies to and is operative in the spiritual spheres of all the
innumerable worlds of the vast, illimitable universe of God. And this law
of attraction and repulsion is indiscriminate and recognizes no
distinction on account of wealth, social standing or prominence among men.
It deals with spiritual laws and spiritual truths and spiritual things.
There being different societies on Mars, formed and governed by this great
and inexorable law of selection or attraction and repulsion, you see
readily that their employments must of necessity and in some regards be
quite different.
"May 29. We have endeavored to keep before you, at the risk of being
censured for occasional reiteration and repetition, the great primary and
fundamental fact that all things under the divine arrangement advance in
the ascending scale of infinite and unending progression by regular and
gradual series, and in equal ratio; but you must note an important fact in
this connection, namely, that all do not at the same time reach the same
degree of unfoldment--some a little in advance of others, and so on. The
question necessarily arises, why is this so? We only desire to say in
answer at this time that all do not start out on their career of animate
being at precisely the same time or under the same conditions, nor with
the same or equal antenatal advantages. This carries us back behind our
mere entrance into physical life, through and by the laws of human
physical procreation, into a domain as yet unexplored, except feebly, by
mortal man. It seems to me if men could only perceive and understand the
grand sublimity and variety of their antecedent being, they would no
longer be blinded to the future greatness and glory in store for them.
This subject, if you ever enter upon it, you will find prolific of vast
knowledge, immense and perfectly astounding revelations. But the time has
not yet arrived for them. The people on Mars, like your own, not starting
out on life's eventful and momentous journey with the same or equal
advantages, have necessarily attained unto different degrees of
progressive unfoldment, and by reason of this are their different and
somewhat differing societies formed. In the same circle, order or stratum
of society on earth, the good, the bad and the indifferent associate and
seem to harmoniously blend and assimilate. But this is not true in fact.
The degree of perfection attained in moral and spiritual excellence does
not govern in their formation, and they are therefore incongruous,
unsatisfactory and transitory. On Mars two unequals in progression can not
harmonize, for the law rebels, interposes insurmountable barriers, and
will not allow it. Those only are associated who harmonize and resemble
each other, not in the accumulations of wealth, not in stature, not in
facial expressions or outward physical conformation, but those who are
drawn together by a sort of soul kinship, of absolute union of soul
feeling, sympathetic inclinations and aspirations, having for their basis,
as of prime and first importance, an equal degree of spiritual unfoldment.
Thus divided and separated, there are very many different societies or
orders, each differing in development, inclinations and aspirations, they
inevitably have dissimilar pursuits and employments, suited to tastes,
wants and abilities, but all conspiring for the general good of all.
"June 1. The people of Mars are not so large in stature as on your earth,
nor are they as large as at former periods of their history. The process
of progression in casting off the gross, and also by affecting the laws of
propagation, has materially reduced the present inhabitants in their
physical proportions. Their feet, except in the lower order, are either
not shod at all, or are covered by a very light and refined material
substance. The nearer the spiritual the people become the less they are
affected by grosser atmospheric elements, and this is directly the
opposite of your experience. Here the coarser the material make-up the
better can the severer conditions of your temperature be borne, and the
reason is plain.
"Here some are progressed, physically speaking, in advance of the progress
of the elements, and therefore they are detrimentally affected and
influenced by them, whereas on Mars a regular advance in development has
been reached, and all things now smoothly and evenly pass under the
operations of the law. After awhile the same law will commence to thus
orderly and regularly operate with you when this difficulty will be
happily overcome. The grandest achievement made by progression on Mars has
produced the greatest result in the formation of the heads of the people.
Phrenology here on earth is but feebly and imperfectly understood,
although there is in it a grand and most salutary scientific truth. Here,
however, as yet, you have the angular and uneven formation of the cranium,
with its attendant angularity of temperament and disposition. On Mars the
heads are so exquisitely formed and so harmonious in the external, and so
perfectly symmetrical, that you observe and note it at first glance, and
following this high and beautiful development is discovered a degree of
wisdom and learning perfectly astonishing to a visitor from a foreign,
though neighboring planet. The hair on these magnificent heads is of a
fiber and texture resembling your finest silk, and from under a
beautifully arched brow you behold a mild yet brilliant eye, beaming with
intelligence and affection, and they can convey thoughts and ideas without
the use of words or the intervention of audible sound.
"June 5. Hundreds, yea, thousands of years ago, the development of mind on
the planet Mars was extraordinary, and you can conceive what it must be
now. Many causes, of course, conspired and aided in bringing about this
result. The natural process of development would have ultimately
accomplished it unassisted by other agencies, but a wise and humane
governmental system was adopted, originating in the spirit world, which
constituted a complete innovation upon and revolution in previous systems,
and which gave a marked impetus to the growth and advancement of mind, and
which produced also a wonderful improvement in the physical constitutions
of succeeding generations. That system consisted of a legislative policy
of the controlling government, rigidly and unexceptionally enforced, which
provided that all children born into physical life should be given up and
relinquished to the control and direction of the government, and by the
government reared, educated, and prepared for the duties and requirements
of life. Elaborate buildings, elaborately and artistically embellished and
beautified were constructed at proper and convenient locations, where at a
certain period of gestation, very early indeed, the expectant mother was
taken and kept until a certain and proper time after parturition, when the
mother was discharged and restored to freedom, and the new-born babe was
taken charge of, raised and maintained by the fostering care of the
government. Between the period of conception and parturition, the mother
was continually kept under the most elevating influences, both of body and
mind. Her soul was kept enraptured by the ennobling influences of music,
and such music, of which you as yet have no conception. This produced in
the mother the desired condition of harmony, which had a corresponding
effect upon the little one concealed from mortal view. Twice or thrice a
week lecturers, under the pay and patronage of the government, visited
these asylums and discoursed to the inmates on scientific, literary, and
moral subjects.
"June 8. These discourses were not only designed but efficacious in
directing the minds and hearts of the auditors into the most elevating and
progressively intellectual channels, and left their inevitable and
unfailing impress upon the forthcoming offspring. In addition works of
art, rare paintings, and exhibitions of sculpture were at certain times
presented for inspection, study, and reflection, inspiring noble thoughts
of the sublime and beautiful. Artists of superior attainments and national
renown occasionally visited these places and gave exhibitions of their
skill in transferring to canvas, in an impromptu manner, their loftiest
conceptions of the beautiful in landscapes, scenes, etc., which were of
the rarest beauty of design. Books treating of the noblest subjects were
placed within ready reach and convenient access, and the inmates read them
with avidity and delight. They understood that they were thus preparing
the new generations, as yet unushered into life, to take their places, and
that their success largely depended on the assiduity with which they
availed themselves of their opportunities. The government, as before
stated, took charge of the young and trained and educated them in art,
music, and the sciences, and the result was soon manifest in producing a
race of intellectual giants, and distinguished for their ability in the
arts and sciences, and the benevolence or their religious natures. And
to-day you can not find a man or woman of adult age who is not perfectly
versed in all the higher branches of learning, and eminently proficient in
music. If a thousand of them could be bodily transferred to America, and
with her exceptional advantages, and live, they would soon, by the sheer
force of intellect, rule this world, and lift it morally and
intellectually upon a plane that would dazzle you to behold. And yet, my
dear friend, it is laid up in the womb of time that you of earth shall
reach this sublime height.
"The denizens of earth may wonder at and disbelieve these relations, but
nevertheless they are as true as that the eternal God is truth. They point
to the destiny in store for the future inhabitants of earth, and intimate
to poor disheartened mortals the certainty and greatness of the future, in
which they are to figure in no mean way nor act no inconsequential part.
"July 10. On Mars the doctrine of discrimination on the score of sex was
never taught, but the equality of the sexes has always been recognized.
This indiscrimination has always been operative in employments and in the
choosing of persons to fill official station at a period of their history
when officers were paid out of the public exchequer for their services. Of
course, at this time when office is administered without compensation the
rule remains undisturbed. Your troubles, that is, many of them, in the
present and past have arisen either from a misunderstanding of the truth
or a misapplication of it and its requirements. Can it be rationally
maintained that truth and justice require a discrimination to be made
adverse to the female? If so, there must be ample reasons for it, and what
are they? We are told that, comparatively speaking, woman is the weaker.
Is this true? and if so, pray tell wherein? You answer physically, and
thus you would establish her status in all other regards, by the rule of
mere brute force, powers of endurance, and physical capabilities. Do you
not know that the ox and the horse, for precisely the same reason, can
largely discount you? Do you not realize that by this argument you are
appealing to the lowest element of your nature, that which only
distinguishes you as connected with matter, and which as we have already
seen, is transitory and fleeting? Pray lift the subject upon a higher and
nobler plane and then let us have your arguments and reasoning. Is man
superior to woman morally? Now, if you are honest, you must blush. In
morals, man superior to woman! We all know this is not true. And do morals
count for naught in the scale of being? In what pertains to the finer
sensibilities and spiritual pureties is woman inferior? If not, are these
of no moment compared with mere physical brute force? Do women survive
death as men do; if so, which will be of greatest value in the beautiful
hereafter--brute force and physical prowess, which only have existence in
the lower realms of the spiritual world, or those finer spiritual
qualities possessed by woman in a much higher degree than by man as they
manifest in embodied life, and which belong to the higher spiritual sphere
of being in the other life?
"Beware, oh man, how you treat angelic woman, for the future will teach
you many lessons, brought about by your arbitrary and utterly indefensible
assumptions and arrogations, among which will be classed your illiberal
and unjust treatment of woman. She is your equal, and your great weakness
is in withholding it from her.
"July 13. In giving briefly and very imperfectly a sketch of what I saw
and learned on the planet Mars I have been compelled necessarily to omit
many things, among other reasons, because they would not only be not
believed, but in many instances incite unfavorable comments, if not
absolute ridicule. I am not unconscious of the fact that many things
contained in the foregoing narrative, although literally true, will meet
with unfavorable criticism, but I have not been writing to please or to
avoid censure, but to deliver the truth, much of which I am aware is far
in advance of the age in which you now live on the planet earth. But it
has been thought that a little work of this kind would be kindly received
and amiably treated by at least progressed minds--those who had
inspirationally and intuitively drank at the fountain of spiritual wisdom
and spiritual things; and, as to others, it was hoped it might cause them
to think it possible, if not probable, that man is something more than a
mere fleeting bauble, a mere creature of a moment.
"To awaken in man the consciousness of the augustness of his being, and
the mighty destiny before and awaiting its development, can not fail in
this transition period, when you are passing from old theological theories
and religious systems into something better, higher, holier, to subserve
great and lasting good. In this transition process the great effort is to
be made to direct the great body of advancing minds into the right
channels, for in many cases the tendency is found to be toward the cold
barrenness of materialism.
"The question that is to confront you in the future is not in regard to
creeds and dogmas, for they are passing away, but whether these few
fleeting years of physically embodied life is the all of your being,
whether death is the setting forever of the bright star of our being in
the night and gloom of ended existence, or whether there is for man a
glorious life of endless progress beyond the life and transitory scenes of
physical embodiment.
"July 14. With this my labors for the present end. The effort has been
more irksome than you may conceive. The difficulties attending the act of
communicating are more numerous and troublesome than the world would allow
if they were fully explained. But we have done the best we could.
"To you, Mr. Helleberg, I return my thanks and the thanks of those
co-operating with me, for the patience, earnestness and honesty which have
characterized your association with us in this work. Our blessings rest
upon you, and be assured that your greatest reward will be in the happy
land which your aged footsteps are nearing. We shall shield and bless you
here, and crown you in the land of immortal beatitudes.
"We would be ungrateful beyond measure not to speak in acknowledgment of
the virtues and noble qualities of the medium, through whose superbly
developed medial powers we have been enabled to speak to the world. In
consequence of our frequent contact with her noble and pure soul our first
admiration for her has grown into the deepest, truest and holiest
affection. Heaven bless her in all her ways and walks. Her noble band of
spirits, tireless, indefatigable and upright, have rendered us vast
assistance, without which we could not have succeeded in the slightest
degree. They are capable, true and honest, and able to guard and protect
their instrument, before whom is a great future career of usefulness, and
she may confidently trust them in all things.
"To those who may read my feeble lines I bespeak that charity you would
like extended to you. Judge not harshly, but with generous impulse. You
are in the realm of crude materiality, in the tenement of flesh,
influenced more or less by many disadvantageous surroundings, which are
not spiritually inspiring or elevating, but by and by you will survive and
pass beyond them. Let me entreat you to study and learn of the great law
of PROGRESSION, which we have constantly endeavored to keep before you. In
that law and its manifold manifestations reside all wisdom, love and
truth. It is that law that assures your future greatness and happiness,
and will work out for you a destiny, the grandeur and glory of which you
can but faintly comprehend and know. You can not die. You must live
forever. You can not retrace your steps, nor recede in the development of
your being; neither can you stand still. Therefore you must move forward,
onward and upward, forever and forever.
"FREDRIKA EHRENBORG."
CHAPTER XI.
COMMUNICATIONS FROM EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
The following communications, purporting to come from the spirit of
Emanuel Swedenborg, at Mrs. Green's, are arranged in the order of their
reception:
September 26, 1881:
"I greet you; good morning. You hail from dear old Sweden, my native land.
The same native blood that coursed through my veins flows through yours.
For a long time I have realized that your thoughts have been on me and the
doctrines I taught on earth, some of which I would gladly recant. In my
day nothing else could have been projected through my brain, and nothing
less violent, though more truthful, would have engaged attention or
commanded respect. My writings, as I now see them, were a strange
commingling of truth and error, though I believe with truth largely
predominant. I want the world, especially my followers, the disciples of
the Church of New Jerusalem, to eliminate, in the interest of truth, the
errors and crudities that unwittingly, though reverentially, crept into my
theological writings. The hells as I portrayed them I now know were
magnified into undue and absurd proportions, colored and distorted by my
own preconceived notions, and, moreover, largely attributable to the
religious temper and theologic thought of the time in which I wrote. Tell
your good companion and others of like convictions to discard at once and
fearlessly my unwarranted denunciation against holding intercourse with
the inhabitants of the spiritual world. I misapprehended, and, alas,
misinterpreted the holy visions given me. I was allowed to see
prophetically that the two worlds would be brought into close
communicating relations, and I ought to have seen farther--that it would
occur through and by the permission and co-operative agency of God and his
laws, and ought not therefore to be interdicted. This has given me vast
annoyance, and I am very solicitous indeed that this shall be righted.
Hold fast to this spiritualism, for therein only can be found light and
love and wisdom. My power to maintain control is weakening, and I must
close for the present. I will meet you here again. Good bye.
"EMANUEL SWEDENBORG."
October 3, 1881
"In my communication a week ago I referred, not incidentally, but
purposely, to my followers of the Church of the New Jerusalem. It is
gratifying to me to know that they are in the main honest, faithful and
intelligent people; but I regret that they have deemed it proper to
resolve themselves into an exclusive sect; for, disguise it as you may,
all sects are more or less exclusive. Among the many curses that afflict
your mortal humanity, none are to be more deplored than sectarianism and
dogmatic theology. Do you know that in the most ambitious moments of my
earthly career, much less in the lofty moods of my medial inspiration, I
never dreamed that I was to become the founder of a religious sect,
especially one based on dogmatic formulas. The affirmations of material
science now no longer questioned that in all organized structures reside
the underlying, all-pervading and continually operating elements.
Disintegration, decay and ultimate destruction of the organized form apply
with equal and unerring certainty to ecclesiastical bodies. Modern
spiritualism in this, that it is specifically and rigidly scientific,
clustering beauteously around the family hearthstone, adorning and
hallowing the family altar, may be distinguished by its infinite
superiority to all other systems, it having no creed to establish, and
steadfastly repelling all attempts at organization, is destined to survive
the wreck and demolition of all theological teaching standing in
antagonistic relations to it; and this God-given, heaven-inspiring
humanity, embracing soul-uplifting spiritualism, is to become the
universal religion of mankind. I will continue to administer to your wants
and remove the scales from the eyes of the people, especially my
followers. More anon.
"EMANUEL SWEDENBORG."
On October 17, 1881, the following communication appeared on the slate:
"The blessings of the most high God and the benediction of His holy angels
and spirits on you and yours. What I most desire to say to you to-day is
that since our last interview here I have participated with others in a
discussion relative to a recent scientific discovery in the spirit world
which, when imparted to the world of embodied man, will strike the learned
savants of your life with mingled feelings of awe and consternation. Our
recent experiments were exceedingly satisfactory, and the questions that
remain open are, when, to who and through whom shall it be given to the
children of earth. The general expression of our society favored some time
towards the close of the coming year as best adapted. In this view I
concurred, for many reasons. My revered friend, let me say to you to-day,
with great and positive emphasis, that the year 1882, earth time, will be
the most marvelous year of the world's history, and will be characterized
by the most stupendous events in all the circling centuries of past time.
In that year and the succeeding one astounding spiritual revelations will
be made to the denizens of this earth, utterly upsetting old, effete
theological doctrines, and mercilessly demolishing now considered well
established scientific conclusions, and your scientists' tests,
self-complacent and arrogant in their pretensions, and possessed most
fully of the spirit of vaulted ambition, the creation of their
self-conceit, will awake to the consciousness that they have been mere
pigmies in scientific research, and that on many subjects may have been so
superficial as not to penetrate beyond the mere shadows and surface of
things. I promise you that when the proper time arrives for this
disclosure you shall not be overlooked or neglected. Bound to you in
fraternal relation of a common brotherhood, embracing in grand
reciprocation the inhabitants of both the mundane and supermundane worlds,
I am yours, devoted for the truth,
"EMANUEL SWEDENBORG."
June 12, 1882
"If we concede for the sake of argument that there really exists a literal
hell, as depicted by theological teaching, and which constitutes an
article of faith in most of the Christian sects, we are forced to inquire
(and it is a legitimate subject of inquiry from the assumed premises), Was
hell made for man, or man for hell? and this involves the question of
duration of existence in point of time antecedent. Whichever way we
determine, and our determination of the question from a terrestrial
standpoint can only arise from speculation and conjecture, and not from
proofs, one conclusion we can not escape, namely, the malevolence of the
author. If hell was established prior to the time when the _fiat_ went
forth bringing man into being, and was designed for his abode and
accommodation, we can not reconcile the goodness of the Lord with such
utterly unjust and malevolent purpose, because to concede this much admits
the possession of sufficiency of power to have ordered otherwise, which
precludes impotency and concludes the will and purpose to so order and
arrange.
"If the creation of hell and man as arbitrary acts of the Deity was
coeval, then the same conclusion inevitably follows, before and behind the
act of these creations resided in the Lord the power to have differently
ordered; hence we must assume that the simultaneous creation of hell and
man was predetermined, and in accordance with the will-pleasure and
purpose of the Creator.
"If, furthermore, man was first created without any reference to hell or
any preconceived purpose or expectancy to establish it, and that its
creation was necessitated from man's unexpected disobedience, and as the
only proper means of gratifying the vengeance of an insulted God, then we
unwittingly and in a very silly way declare the absence of foreknowledge
in the Lord, and degrade him to the level of a puny, passionate man.
"To assume any of these puerile positions to be true is to assume that the
Lord, however august in power, and the physical, mental and spiritual
ability to order and to direct, is nevertheless a moral weakling, and
wholly devoid of moral excellence in degree superior to the meanest of his
creatures."
June 15, 1882:
"If hell exists, it is plain to be seen there was a necessity for it. If
created before man, there was no necessity for its existence, for the Lord
is governed by the idea of uses, and there was present no use for it. Will
it be maintained that the Lord would create any thing without a use and
wise purpose? It is the uses of things that so signally distinguish his
creative and moral governments.
"If it is said in reply that when hell was fashioned and established the
Lord had in contemplation the creation of man, and that it was to be
subsequently rendered useful as a place of punishment for disobedience,
which implies that the Lord knew in advance of man's creation that he
would be disobedient, then, oh, man, you are surely in the hands and under
the power of a merciless demon, falsely called God. If this indeed is the
true character of our Lord, then truly may his weak and helpless children
bow their heads in sorrow and despair.
"These teachers of false theology, these false interpreters of simple
truth, these false prophets of a false conception, affirm that this
appalling hell, offspring of a monster creative agency, is a fixed
location somewhere, which they have the candor to say, they know not.
"The theologians perceiving throughout the vast domain of universal nature
two confronting opposites or extremes, and that there scheme must fall if
hell were left alone to be the final destiny of the entire human family,
erect another falsity and construct another place or harbor for the
sojourners and pilgrims of earth, and consequently they say that the Lord
has established somewhere in space a heaven, the location of which,
although a locality, can not be ascertained.
"The same questions, with equal propriety, might be propounded in
reference to heaven and the same conclusions follow. Was it made for man
or man for it? Was it made before or after man was made? Where is it
situate; who go there and why do they go there, and for what purpose? If
the theologians answer these pertinent questions in harmony with their
creeds, they would make my friend John Calvin, who accompanied me here
this morning and is now standing by my side, blush with shame. He now, as
a noble spirit, pities the ignorance and credulity that characterized him
in his religious frenzy when in the form, and the credulity and weakness
of his followers."
June 19, 1882:
"The original conception of a literal local heaven and hell was a feeble
monstrosity and far exceeding the intuitions and anticipations of its
originators, it has assumed huge and alarming proportions. Originally it
was treated either as a human created joke, or as a wild vagary of the
imagination, and in both cases without even the shadow of a foundation in
fact. But as time moved along it began to grow seriously in the minds of
the morbidly curious and credulously constituted, and it found many
earnest advocates and believers, and they were not altogether limited to
the ignorant. Had this been the case it would have been harmless and
short-lived. The poet in depicting the career of vice aptly illustrates
the history of this conception:
"'Vice is a monster of such frightful mien,
As to be dreaded needs but to be seen.
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first pity, then endure, and then embrace.'"
"I unhappily lived in a day when it had been largely embraced. Had I lived
in the day when it was conceived and promulgated, or approximately near it
and been possessed of the physical, mental and spiritual organization with
which I was favored in earth life, I would have undoubtedly earnestly
combated it. But in my time it had grown into prominence and general
acceptance among Christian sects, including the Lutheran, to which I
adhered before my spiritual illumination; and hence while my spiritual
mediumistic unfoldment, mental adaptabilities and capabilities would not
allow me to accept the literal teaching of purblind theology on the
subject, I was disqualified from perceiving and promulgating the real
truth. I endeavored, however, to do what the theologians have never
attempted, namely, to assign reasons for the existence of heavens and
hells in justification and defense of the Lord. The groundlessness of my
philosophy and the impotency of my reasoning I was unable to understand
until the lapse of years after my entrance into the spiritual world, and
then only by slow and discreet degrees. Step by step only did I receive
the influx of spiritual light and truth, opening my eyes to the truth and
impressing my soul with the consciousness of the errors and falsities of
my teachings when on the earth embodied.
"In the spiritual world we are not allowed to perceive truth except by
degrees and interior growth, and only as we are enabled to outgrow and
disown error. Our errors, whether of acts and deeds committed, duties
omitted, or false theories, either taught or believed by us when in the
form, follow us to the spiritual world and cling to us with a perfectly
amazing and persistent tenacity, and this constitutes hell and it exists
nowhere else."
June 22, 1882:
"In my philosophy of correspondences there was much truth, with here and
there a shade of error. It was argumentative, speculative, and
characterized by analogous reasoning, but not sufficiently intuitive to
reach the full height of spiritual induction. But whatever errors may have
crept into this department of my writings, they have been comparatively
harmless.
"What has given me the greatest annoyance since my departure from the
flesh, or rather since I have better understood the subject; and what has
given me the greatest anxiety to have eradicated from the minds of those
who read me believingly, are my teachings on the subject of the hells in
the spiritual world. I desire here to lay down a proposition I know to be
true, whoever may state to the contrary, namely: No embodied spirit was
ever enabled, no matter how highly developed the organism of the subject,
to leave the body, go into the spiritual spheres, undergo experiences
there, behold scenes, hold converse with their inhabitants, witness events
and occurrences transpiring there, then return to the body, bring it back
into normal action, and then correctly and in detail and in purity of
narrative give to the world through the physical organism of the body,
what it had seen, heard, and witnessed, during its temporary absence. If
it were otherwise, and the spiritual world a real, fixed and objective
reality, all who visited it in spirit during physical embodiment, would on
returning and reanimating the body with the returning spiritual influx
impart the same information and recite the same story. The directly
opposite of this is true, and settles the question irrevocably in the
negative as to the absolute reliability of knowledge imparted by spirits
while inhabiting the natural body, although permitted by the operation of
a certain law which is neither wholly spiritual nor physical, but a
combination of both, to leave for a short period its tenement of flesh.
Even then the spirit entire does not vacate the body, even for an instant
of time, for if it did life in the body would become immediately extinct.
However far the _consciousness_ of the spirit may wander away from its
home in the material house it must maintain an inseparable connection with
it, at least by a portion of the magnetism of itself. Therefore during its
visits away it is nevertheless all the while connected with the body, and
hampered and fettered by it, and more or less governed by its laws and
conditions. It can not, therefore, on returning, and it has never been
wholly absent, give fully, purely, and correctly its spiritual
observations and experiences.
"When I visited the spiritual world during my embodied life I was governed
by this same law and subjected to the same limitations, and hence what I
related was not entitled to full credence and belief. So it has been in
all cases of trance in the past, and will continue to be in the future for
ages yet to come. In my next I shall speak of some instances illustrative
of this truth."
June 26, 1882:
"As illustrative of the proposition submitted in my last I will only
mention a few among numerous instances.
"The book of Revelations states that John visited the Isle of Patmos on
the Lord's day, and was then and there in the spirit. (I should have used
the expression 'entranced' or 'trance state,' or that 'the Lord permitted
me to see.') While thus in the spirit or trance state he was taken to the
heavens. After resuming his normal condition in the body he essays to
write out what he thinks he saw, or so much of it as he is enabled to
retain in memory, and call up after again fully controlling the physical
body. He says that he saw beasts worshiping around the throne of God, and
that he saw a beast rise out of the sea with seven heads and ten horns;
that a book written in heaven was handed him with the command that he eat
it, which he assures us he did, etc. Does any one believe that these were
veritable occurrences, 'that there were beasts in heaven full of heavenly
love, evinced in worshiping before the throne, and that books were written
in heaven for men to eat? The Koran of Mahomet is an improvement on this,
for it was not eaten, but preserved for use.
"Now, I want to say to the world, especially the New Church people, that
my visions of the hells had no more foundation in fact than John's beasts,
dragons and golden candlesticks. The difference between John and myself,
that is, the important difference, consisted in the fact that John's
symbolic visions were explained to be unrealities, while I was left to
believe mine to be absolute verities. In fact one was as unreal as the
other, and only forcibly illustrates the unreliability of this mode of
deriving true and genuine spiritual knowledge.
"Your own Andrew Jackson Davis is another instance corroborative of my
proposition. He avers that he has been, not 'in the spirit,' like John,
nor 'in the trance state,' like myself, but, in more aesthetic phraseology,
'in the superior state.' They all practically mean the same thing. Davis
says he located while in the 'superior state' the spirit world proper, and
found it to be in or beyond the 'milky way,' thus inflicting a cruel blow
upon the science of astronomy. Astronomy teaches, and correctly, too, as
every well informed spirit knows, that the 'milky way' is a vast
assemblage or constellation of suns, worlds and systems of solar worlds,
and yet Mr. Davis was honest.
"Judge John Worth Edmonds, in his earlier mediumship and spiritualistic
experiences, visited the other world in spirit, and his description of the
hells recorded in his work entitled 'Spiritualism,' was somewhat analogous
to mine, and very much in harmony with it. His temperament, mental methods
and spiritual development were not very dissimilar to mine, and he had
been previously as thoroughly grounded in Calvinism as I had been in
Lutheranism. So it was but natural that we should see and interpret much
alike. Yet in final conclusions we were in absolute antagonism, differing
fully as widely as the poles are separated in distance by terrestrial
measurement.
"Truth can not dissemble nor assume deceptive garbs, and all seeing the
same things differently, proves that neither could be relied upon, for if
they had been true and genuine verities, all would have seen and reported
them alike."
June 29, 1882:
"Since I have been inducted into higher light and blessed with the true
knowledge I have been utterly amazed in reviewing my writings, resulting
in the discovery of two facts, namely, their prolixity in matter and
stupendousness in folly. It seems to me now as almost utterly incredible
that in my efforts at the spiritual interpretation of the scriptures I
should have written so many absolutely silly and unmeaning things. It
becomes my duty, and I can not be happy without it, to make this
declaration, however humiliating it may be to me, viewed from your
standpoint, but the truth and the peace, happiness and progress of my
spirit require it. No work was ever written but what an ingenious
metaphysician might not twist out of its every paragraph an assumed
interior and mysterious meaning.
"But, after all, I was fortuitous in advancing many ennobling and
wholesome truths. In all that I wrote I take greater pride and unto myself
much rejoicing in my assaults upon the Lutheran doctrine of justification
by faith alone, and in my enjoining love to the neighbor. However, to
believe in and teach the doctrine of love one to another, or 'love thy
neighbor as thyself,' does not require an inspiration from heaven. It is
the doctrine taught by universal nature and in-worked in the web and woof
of human nature. To realize and understand it we have only to become even
partially civilized and to commune with nature and ourselves.
"A great portion of my life has been devoted to secular pursuits and the
study of natural science. I also possessed some inventive genius, and
during my purely secular career I was always contemplating, by silent
meditation, employing the latter part of my life in the study of the
properties of the human soul and its relation to the Lord and human life.
Therefore when I came to engage the subject, it was not a spontaneous
impulsion to it, as some have supposed, although it was immediately
attended and characterized by a degree of spiritual illumination and
inspiration. I did not approach the examination of the subject wholly free
and untrammeled by prejudice and uninfluenced by bias. I had previously
conceived thoroughly deep convictions relating to this subject, and I now
know no amount of spiritual aid could have possibly eradicated them
sufficiently to have allowed the presentation of the plain, unadulterated
truth.
"Oh, how effectually are we enslaved by education, association and mental
training. The man who can overcome them in the pursuit of truth is far
superior in all that goes to make up true manhood to the crowned heads and
pampered ones of earth; yea, he is not only grand and noble in the full
stature of his manhood, but he is more--he is godlike."
July 3, 1882:
"I do not affirm the non-existence of heaven and hell, but what I would be
understood as affirming is their non-existence as separate, independent
and fixed localities. If you will interpret heaven to mean happiness, and
hell its opposite, that is, misery, we can fully agree, for this
interpretation implies what is veritably true, namely, that they are
conditions, and not localities. As conditions they not only exist in the
spiritual world, but also in the sensual or material, and apply to both
embodied and disembodied man.
"It is related that Jesus said, 'The kingdom of heaven is within you,' and
never was truth more completely and potently uttered. At the time he was
talking to men in the body, and to _them_ he declares, 'The kingdom of
heaven is _within you_.'
"If he is entitled to credit as an authority on the subject, and
Christians certainly will not gainsay it, then it is quite clear that
heaven, being in the human, spiritual beings is as a locality nowhere
else. And inasmuch as it could not exist in the human being as a location,
for this would give us millions upon innumerable millions of localized
heavens, one for each breathing human embodied man, to become destroyed at
the death of each, which is too absurd to be seriously discussed, it must
necessarily follow, and as clear as the sunlight of heaven, that whatever
that kingdom may in fact be, it is simply and absolutely a condition. And
we can therefore readily see that as a condition, different with every
human being, owing to the moral status and spiritual development of each,
it perpetuates itself as truly and fully as does the spirit itself survive
the dissolution of the aggregated physical atoms and forces of the
material body, and moreover accompanies the real man into the spiritual
world. So with its opposite--hell.
"If this is conceded, and no Christian can deny it with any degree of
consistency, for the moment he does he dishonors Jesus as an authority,
then the whole foundation of a local permanent hell is swept away, and the
loathsome superstructure erected thereupon falls to the ground forever.
"Heaven and hell, viewed in any sense, are opposites, and wherever they
exist they must exist simultaneously, for some are in heaven and some in
hell all the time, and therefore if the kingdom of heaven is in the
children of men, so also must be the kingdom of hell, or it does not exist
at all.
"With my limited power I can not elaborate this point, or even present it
as I should like to, and you must be content with a bare and imperfect
statement."
July 6, 1882:
"Before the mythologists of antiquity had constructed a hell they had on
their hands a personal, individualized spirit of evil, known as the
serpent or satan, and more modernly as the devil. Investing this
mythological creature with all the distinguishing attributes of the Lord,
save that of goodness, they must have a localized place of sufficient
capacity, and properly arranged for the enjoyment by him of the fruits of
his labors. Divesting him of all goodness _per se_, the hell of their
creation must necessarily represent his newly-acquired condition of total
depravity, for previously he had been an angel in heaven, and must
possess the proper and sufficie
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