A Book Written by the Spirits of the So-Called Dead Part 7

"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 n.o.ble 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 h.e.l.l was a feeble monstrosity and far exceeding the intuitions and antic.i.p.ations of its originators, it has a.s.sumed 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 const.i.tuted, 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 ill.u.s.trates 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 a.s.sign reasons for the existence of heavens and h.e.l.ls 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 const.i.tutes h.e.l.l 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 a.n.a.logous 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 h.e.l.ls 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 ent.i.tled 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 ill.u.s.trative of this truth."

June 26, 1882:

"As ill.u.s.trative 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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sures 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 h.e.l.ls 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 ill.u.s.trates 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 a.s.semblage 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 h.e.l.ls recorded in his work ent.i.tled 'Spiritualism,' was somewhat a.n.a.logous 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sumed interior and mysterious meaning.

"But, after all, I was fortuitous in advancing many enn.o.bling and wholesome truths. In all that I wrote I take greater pride and unto myself much rejoicing in my a.s.saults 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, a.s.sociation 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 n.o.ble in the full stature of his manhood, but he is more--he is G.o.dlike."

July 3, 1882:

"I do not affirm the non-existence of heaven and h.e.l.l, 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 h.e.l.l 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 ent.i.tled 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--h.e.l.l.

"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 h.e.l.l is swept away, and the loathsome superstructure erected thereupon falls to the ground forever.

"Heaven and h.e.l.l, viewed in any sense, are opposites, and wherever they exist they must exist simultaneously, for some are in heaven and some in h.e.l.l all the time, and therefore if the kingdom of heaven is in the children of men, so also must be the kingdom of h.e.l.l, 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 h.e.l.l 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 h.e.l.l 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 sufficient elements to enable him to gratify his hatred of the Lord in the punishment of his children. It was but natural in that day that the element of fire should be chosen, as it was supposed to be the most destructive element in nature, and best calculated in its very nature to induce the most intense and excruciating suffering to physical and material bodies possessed of the animating principle of animal life. In their unspiritual and ignorant state they supposed and believed that the bodies in the other world would be similar to those in this, and therefore subject to similar effects from heat and fire. What a monstrous conception, and how utterly inexplicable that it should ever have been believed. Even John the Revelator took a material view of h.e.l.l, and described it as a 'lake of fire and brimstone.'

"I was compelled, or rather impelled, from reason or from experiences sufficiently clear, in my frequent moods or states of spiritual exaltation to depart from this grossly materialistic view. While my h.e.l.ls were in the plural, yet I fell into nearly as great error in my creations. They were the progeny of imperfect visions, imperfectly understood and grossly erroneous in their relation.

"You have only to think a moment seriously to discover the utter folly of my h.e.l.ls, and I will only present one instance among many equally absurd.

You will find in my 'memorable relations' that I spoke of a certain cla.s.s of Jews and others wading through mud, quagmires and swamps, and being injuriously affected by them, and this for the purposes of punishment.

Now, the conception of a spirit, composed largely of pure ether, wading in the mire and wallowing in spiritual miasmatic swamps and filthy dirt, is only equaled by the mythological conception believed in and advocated by Christians that a spirit could be effected to any degree of suffering by material fire and brimstone. Both conceptions are as false as G.o.d is true.

"In reference to the mythological arch fiend of mankind let us summarize: First an angel in heaven; then a rebel; then a war in the peaceful realms of heaven, instigated by this fiend; then the fall from the angelic state; then a transformation into a terrible and grim devil; then the building of a h.e.l.l for his use, convenience and felicity, and then turning over to his control and malignant fiendishness three-fourths or more of poor, weak beings, creatures of an Infinite G.o.d, and you have fitly spoken a system that could only have originated in an orthodox h.e.l.l, figuratively speaking, and by an orthodox devil, and which for malevolence far exceeds any thing ever thought of in this or any other world."

July 17, 1882:

"The bible makers having established a heaven and h.e.l.l, with G.o.d presiding over the one and the devil over the other, were driven to the necessity of concocting a scheme for populating them. The G.o.d of their creation they represent to be possessed of infinite perfections and glory, and heaven the very ideal of grandeur and beat.i.tude. One would very naturally conclude that in their scheme they would have so arranged that G.o.d would have had the first choice, and heaven the destination of the best and wisest of the denizens of earth. Nothing short of this could have so completely enamored us of the conception and rendered heaven devoutly to be wished for; but here the arrangement in value and superlative worth meets with a severe set back. One of the weak and frail points in the scheme consists in not allowing this infinite G.o.d to have his own choice in selecting those to become consociated with him in enjoying celestial delights in heaven. Human nature, by the fall in the Garden of Eden, became weak and subjected to malign influences with an inadequacy of repellant power to overcome them. The cruel authors of this system, while they establish their G.o.d in heaven, a far distant locality, and keep him there constantly occupied and absorbed with the music and praises of the ransomed few, turn the devil loose to roam at will, and invest him not only with the deific attribute of omnipresence, but also confer upon him the extraordinary power without restraint of a.s.suming angel's garbs even to the deceiving of the elect. In addition they place under his authority and to do his bidding an unlimited number of smaller devils, whose services have been utilized by him in preying upon the peace and happiness of the children of this world, and in preparing their souls for eternal punishment and subservience to his will in the world to come."

July 20, 1882:

"To counteract this terrible invisible influence of evil no power of equal potency is furnished. They say that G.o.d's holy spirit in conjunctive co-operation with the saints embodied (they mean, of course, the preachers and good church people) is seeking man's deliverance and salvation. They confess, however, that this agency is impotent when compared with the power wielded by the devil and his invisible cohorts. They make Jesus say substantially that the road that leads to heaven is narrow and circ.u.mscribed and few travel in it, while the road that leads to h.e.l.l is broad and the many travel therein, 'many shall be called, but few chosen,'

etc., etc.

"If their system be true we are forced inevitably to conclude that when the creative energies residing in man have succeeded in producing a high order of intellection the devil straightway captures them, leaving heaven to be peopled without the presence of the great and G.o.dlike in mental power. It would seem prudent and wise that this should have been otherwise arranged in order to have rendered heaven reasonably and fairly intellectual. No wonder, therefore, that their highest conceptions of worship and grat.i.tude consisted in keeping up around the throne of the Lord a continual musical concert, both vocal and instrumental. Such distinguished and ill.u.s.trious souls as Washington, Jefferson, Webster, Clay, Lincoln, Garfield, Paine, Voltaire, and others, could not be induced to partic.i.p.ate for all future time in such exercises, for their mental const.i.tutions were too robust and great and their souls too much interested in other and more enn.o.bling pursuits. This kind of heaven would not suit souls of such intellectual proportions, and the orthodox h.e.l.l, if accompanied by suffering, would be preferable to them, because their a.s.sociations, at least, would be intellectual, for the devil is said to be exceedingly wise, and all wise souls live and delight in kindred consociations."

July 21, 1882:

"According to the orthodox scheme, heaven, h.e.l.l, and the devil, all go together, or, in other words, they are inseparably connected with and belong to the plan. Heaven would be the destination of all without a h.e.l.l and _vice versa_. Heaven and h.e.l.l are in antagonism, and there would be no strife but by and through the devil, and therefore his existence is a necessity to this end. G.o.d is too good to take part in this strife, and is either indifferent or too weak to avert it. Even when the war in heaven, according to Milton, was waged between the devil and the Lord, with relentless fury, he would take no direct and active part, but commissioned Michael his generalissimo. How could he now be expected to take an immediate and active part, even to save his own defenseless children.

Earthly parents act quite differently when their offspring are in peril, and so do the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air. I am talking ironically only to show the utter folly of the whole matter.

"In this connection did you ever think why it is that the devil is continually seeking the moral overthrow and eternal ruin of the human family? It is not because he has any ill feeling for cause against the children of men. They have never given him any occasion, and as we have seen, in their helpless condition, they could not if they would. According to the bible and the claims of Christians they have always done just as the devil wanted them to. He wanted Adam and Eve to eat the apple and they did so. He wanted Abraham to debauch Hagar, and after her ruin to turn her loose with her helpless babe on her bosom amid the wilds of the wilderness of Beersheba, and Abraham did so. He wanted Noah to drink of the wine and become drunken, and Noah hesitated not, etc. So in fact the a.s.sumption can not be maintained that the devil in capturing nine-tenths of the human family is actuated by any malignant feeling towards his victims. The reason lies elsewhere. We are a.s.sured by the bible theologians and their coadjutors that the devil is solely actuated by his intense hatred of the Lord and the purpose of wreaking vengeance upon him for banishing him from heaven and the angelic state. If this is true common justice and sympathy for the suffering of the unoffending impose most seriously the duty upon the Lord, either to conciliate the devil in the interest of harmony, peace and concord, and to save his helpless children, or destroy outright this malignant enemy of his. If he will do neither, nor arrest him in his diabolical work, then truly are we justified not only in withholding homage from him, but also in regarding him equally at enmity with our welfare and a party (_particeps criminis_) in causing our sufferings and preparing our eternal doom."

July 27, 1882:

"Why seriously discuss questions that are fast fading out of sight? The advancement of mind and the development of spiritual discernment are on the eve of relegating old antiquated theories and ideas to the past ages of heathen darkness, where they properly belong. Total depravity throwing its dark mantle over tender infancy--parent of the doctrine of infant d.a.m.nation--is no longer taught or believed by enlightened clergymen and their followers. It only has a sickly foothold where the people are spiritually dominated by an ignorant or pusillanimous priesthood. Why, therefore, seek to revive by serious discussion any interest in dogmas now almost inanimate and staggering to their final fall and eternal sleep.

Let them die serenely if they can, and be buried out of sight without pomp or regret. We have questions of greater moment and of much more value to mankind, and to them let us address ourselves. All things are not only progressive but eternally progressing. Must we therefore resolve that systems of religion and theological dogmas are finished and settled forever. If so, when did this divinely appointed consummation take place?

It certainly, if true, must be an event of recent date. By whom settled, how and when? Certainly not by the old Romish Church and the hierarchy established at Nice and Laodicia, for their history since has been characterized by quarrels and dissensions, which at times have threatened their very existence. And certainly no one will seriously maintain that they have reached the high alt.i.tude of final and definite settlement by Luther, Calvin and others in their departure from the original faith. Some of the articles of faith of these have either been discarded or quietly abandoned, and those left have been modified, and are scarcely an improvement on the originals. In candidly looking over the whole field among the religious sects now extant, only one thing is discovered to be mutually agreed upon, and that is that man lives after death. We hardly need to stop to except those semi-materialistic Christians who claim that a future existence at all depends wholly on the physical resurrection of the material body at some vague and indefinite period of future time. This doctrine is so unscientific and so disconsonant with reason that we pa.s.s it by with a mere reference to it."

July 28, 1882: