Strange Visitors
by
Henry J. Horn
Part 4 out of 4
ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
_ALONE_.
Far away from earthly care,
Free as a bird, I soar through air,
And think of thee in thy sad, lonely home,
Watching and waiting for thy love to come.
Dost thou hear me call thee, Sweet! Sweet!
Many the years till we shall meet.
My spirit home is bright and fair
With flowers and birds and wonders rare.
Seraphic the faces that on me smile,
But the one I love is on earth the while,
Will she hear me calling, Sweet! Sweet!
Many the years till we shall meet.
Many the years I'll watch and wait
Till I see thee at the golden gate,
Then in my arms will I bear thee away
To my jewelled home where sunbeams play.
Then together we'll sing, Sweet! Sweet!
Well worth the waiting thus to meet.
BARON VON HUMBOLDT.
_THE EARTHQUAKE_.
This mysterious and awful visitant, which convulses the earth apparently
without warning, is, however, like all the manifestations of nature,
preceded by signs which the observing and understanding eye can perceive
and calculate upon as unerringly as the astronomer can determine the
approach of a comet.
The inhabitable earth is merely a shell or crust over the great mass of
uninhabitable matter. The world beneath the earth's surface is as
diversified as the world above. It has its mountains, its streams, its
plains, its caverns, and its internal volcanoes.
As fearful storms, accompanied by lightning and rumbling thunder, sweep
over the earth's surface, so beneath the crust occur electric storms,
accompanied with terrific combustions of gases, which in their efforts to
escape convulse the outer earth, and in many cases rend the shell
asunder.
The earthquake which has recently (August 13, 14, 15, and 16, 1868)
shaken the Pacific coast was occasioned by the discharge of the pent-up
gases beneath, and also in part by the heated condition of the outer
surface.
The "tidal phenomenon," as it is called, is the effect of the electrical
condition of the earth beneath. The chemical components of the sea form a
sensitive magnetic body, which is subject to attraction and repulsion,
and as the magnetic current extended for several thousands of miles, and
was caused by a collision of negative and positive forces, the sea was
attracted and repulsed along the whole line of the internal commotion by
the action of these forces.
The northern portion of this globe has in times past suffered from
convulsions similar to those which now visit the tropical climates.
The fearful privations and heart-rending calamities which visited the
earlier inhabitants of the earth are only known to the student of the
cosmos of nature after he has attained the second birth.
The forces within and around the earth are now in comparative
subjugation, but in the earlier periods of its existence, while still it
was in the process of changing from a state adapted to a lower condition
of animal life to one fitted to a higher state of animal and intellectual
existence, the elements were in a frequent state of rupture and disorder.
No mortal pen can depict the scene which I recently witnessed on the
occurrence of the earthquake on the Pacific coast. Forty thousand souls
arising amid smoke and blackened clouds of flying stones and upheaving
earth, with outstretched arms, and faces strained with horror, emerging
suddenly from their old bodies into their spirit-forms--looking awestruck
into each other's faces; a vast swarm clinging together almost as
helplessly as young bees to their hive--suddenly cut off from their
occupations and their pleasures, their homes, and their familiar affairs
of earth!
But what they experienced, proud and noble cities of the past have
experienced likewise. Grace and ornament, art and grandeur, beauty, love,
and manly strength have been swept away time and again by the bursting of
the treacherous doors that lead into the heart of the earth!
Change marks the footsteps of the Creator. The solid mountain, the firm,
unyielding earth, which to the unthinking mind seem durable and eternal
in their strength, like mankind carry within themselves the seeds of
their own dissolution.
Yet the day will come when man, by the aid of science, will, through
these premonitory symptoms, foresee the coming events, even as the wise
physician can discern the time when his patient's soul will leave its
body.
Nature misunderstood is a fearful mystery; but understood, she is a
simple and beautiful piece of mechanism; and the earthquake may not be
more disastrous than the flood or the avalanche when science and
experience have taught men to avoid the localities of danger, and to
watch the hour of its approach, that they may flee before it.
Nature is never abrupt in her actions. She heralds her intentions long
before she enacts them, but as it requires the quick ear of the
savage--the child of nature--to detect the far-off prey, so it requires
the student of nature to discover the distant tread of the earthquake.
SIR DAVID BREWSTER
_NATURALNESS OF SPIRIT LIFE_.
The human mind is subject to false and specious reasoning, and time after
time opinions which have been held and argued upon with seeming logical
acumen, have, by further developments and discoveries, been proven
fallacious. And yet of so elastic a nature is the mind of man that he is
not crushed nor discouraged by his mistakes, but immediately commences to
build new theories; but as he establishes them by specialties instead of
generalities, he is again defeated.
The European mind has adopted a certain line of thought respecting the
future state of existence, which it substantiates by narrow reasonings
and isolated facts.
Of the future we can only judge by analogy of the past with the present.
Nature ever shadows forth her new developments upon the old.
The many periods or stages through which the earth has passed in reaching
her present state of refinement, have been stamped one upon the other so
that the Geologist can determine definitely what would be the result of a
certain period from the characteristics of the foregoing.
Now it is educible: if the Creator of the race of men who inhabit the
terrestrial globe had intended for them a future state or destination
differing in every respect from their present one, he would have prepared
their minds for different pursuits, and ordained them for other
occupations than those they follow to the very grave.
Take man in his most natural condition--examine those nations that are
most ancient, and unmixed with other races--and you will perceive that
their ideas of a future state were in accordance with the life they were
living on earth.
The Asiatic race in burying its dead prepares the favorite food of the
deceased, the fragrant tea, and the money so useful on earth. Also slips
of paper on which messages are written to departed friends are lighted at
these burial ceremonies, and reduced to ashes, that the spirit of the
text may be transmitted to their friends in the world of souls.
In these "Pagan rites," as they are termed, we discern the workings of an
intuitive belief that the spirit of man still retains the sensations,
attributes, and desires which have accompanied it through life.
The ancient Greeks and Romans held similar opinions, likewise the
Africans, Hindoos, and the Indians of North and South America.
By far the largest portion of mankind believe in a _natural state_
hereafter, corresponding to their earth existence, but the European
nations which are supposed to be advanced in science, art, and
philosophical attainments beyond all the nations of the earth, have, in
their speculations and in their efforts to penetrate the mysteries of the
world of spirits, lost sight, of the natural and entered the
supernatural, where they are surrounded by fogs, clouds, and
_ignes-fatui._
Now if these people are told that the spirit world is divided into states
and continents, cities and towns, as is their own world (though under
spirit appellations), they would scoff at the statement.
But as mankind has a natural love of locality, and as congenial minds
will select similar locations, adapted to their ideas of beauty and
comfort, the result is that spirit inhabitants unite and form cities and
towns as on earth. Thus combining, they must have some points of interest
to occupy their minds, and as they still possess their power of
construction and ingenuity, their love of beautiful forms and of
architecture, they prefer not to live in the open air and on the bare
ground (as they can certainly do), but choose rather to employ their
various faculties in building cities and habitations in accordance with
their tastes and ideas of convenience.
Once grant that man is provided with a spiritual body after he emerges
from his original one--accept the hypothesis that this body must possess
form and sensation, and with sensation, eyes, ears, mouth, taste, and
motion--then you must provide means for that body to exist. In providing
these means you must place him upon a soil capable of producing
vegetation, where his intelligence may compound the various articles
adapted to his use.
Some individuals enter the spirit world deformed, some feeble in
intellect, some incapable of constructing or arranging. All these must
have provision made for them; their wants must be supplied. The effort to
supply want or demand produces a system of exchange or barter.
Many of the inhabitants of the spirit world are both good and kind. They
are spiritualized in their natures, and are influenced by a desire to
assist those who are needy.
Nature, or God, has ordained that existence should depend upon effort;
that a state of inactivity should produce dissolution; and much the same
means are taken there to enforce activity as in the material world.
True, some men possess natural gifts, by which knowledge is acquired
without labor. The power of seeing before the demonstration belongs to
all humanity. It is the negative form of knowledge; but combined with
that power is the positive, which compels man to desire a visible
representation or demonstration of the knowledge he has received by
intuition.
The astronomer thus, before he constructs his telescope, perceives
intuitively the very stars which his telescope proves as existing, where
none are visible to the eye.
It was this active-positive principle, that made him construct the
instrument; and in the spirit world, as on earth, that active-positive
principle acts in conjunction with the negative-intuitive one, in
impelling him to exertion, and forcing him to acquire knowledge in every
department of science, art, philosophy and religion. As well expect this
earth to rest in her revolution and still retain her place in the solar
system, as to suppose that the spirit of man can lose its activity and
sink to rest eternal.
Man is not only active in constructing and exploring in the spirit world,
but he is also engaged in inventions. Most of the discoveries that have
lessened manual labor and made gross matter subservient to man's use
originated in the land of spirits. The inventor finds full field for his
talents in the superior state.
Man naturally delights in knowledge, and the individual who knows how to
construct a steam locomotive finds a thrill of satisfaction in the
possession of that ability. So does he who can arrange and construct any
piece of mechanism, any domestic tool. That feeling of gratification at
the accomplishment of his plans accompanies man to the spirit life.
All persons do not follow the same pursuits in which they were engaged on
earth, yet they adopt a kindred and congenial employment. The clergyman
thinks his work done when he leaves the earth; but in the next state,
also, he will find beings who need to have their spiritual and moral
natures instructed--men who desire to be led--who cannot think for
themselves, but lean upon the thoughts and inferences of others.
So with almost every pursuit--there is opportunity to exercise it in the
world of spirits. The painter finds nobler themes for his pencil, more
angelic faces for his canvas; and the desire to reproduce them as they
appear is as intense there as it is here. Although a spirit can impress
his form in color and raiment upon the sensitive plate in the spirit
world, and the image remains fixed and permanent (for the photographic
art is essentially spiritual in its origin), that result though definite,
is as unsatisfactory to some minds in the spirit world as it is in the
natural. And thus, while persons differ in their desires and perceptions,
there will be the same varied modes of expressing thought in the superior
life as in this.
The question is often asked, "Why should immortals walk, when they can
move with greater velocity than light?"
In return I would inquire, "Why, when men can travel by the steam-engine,
do they prefer the slow movements of the horse?"
Again, it is asked, "Why, if spirits can converse by thought-language--if
they can express with their eyes, or impress magnetically their wishes,
or the words they desire to utter--why should they employ their vocal
organs?"
But I rejoin that the deaf and dumb on earth converse by signs with great
celerity, yet would gladly express their thoughts with voice also.
Many trancendentalists and idealists fancy that the inhabitants of the
spirit world do not converse audibly; yet they would be greatly shocked
if told that in that world there reigned one vast silence; that sound was
unknown; and yet such a condition would exist, if their mode of reasoning
were correct.
No unbiased person would suppose for a moment, that song was unheard in
this land of the immortals; that the voices of the spirit maidens never
burst forth into melody; and that they could not give utterance to their
feelings and sentiments, in the warbling notes of music!
Spirits can read each other's thoughts, although possessing a universal
spoken language, and also retaining in many sections the native dialect
they used on earth.
Though the spirit world is a world of marvels and miracles, and things
unutterable, which the tongue cannot express, yet it is a world similar
to the natural one; a glorified body of the old earth.
The soul visiting that new country will not feel itself an utter stranger
on its shore, but will find that it can assimilate with the thoughts and
feelings of the residents of that land, and the knowledge and experience
which it developed on earth will be useful to it there.
If the teachers on your planet, and those who instruct concerning the
condition of the soul after death, would employ the same reason and
intelligence that they exercise in investigating any other obscure
subjects--either chemistry, astronomy, or natural philosophy,--they would
arrive at more truthful data respecting the spirit globe which ultimately
they are all destined to inhabit.
H.T. BUCKLE.
_THE MORMONS_.
Looking upon the world, the voyager through space discerns vast tracts of
land, uninhabited barren wastes, and immense forests echoing only the
tread of the wild beast and the cries of birds of prey.
It becomes the duty of the political economist to reclaim these lands and
place them in the hands of civilization.
How is this to be done? Shall it be by following in the beaten track of
custom? No: it can only be accomplished by the zeal of the enthusiast.
Joe Smith was an inspired man; even as Columbus was he inspired. Through
his agency a colony was started near the dismal Salt Lake. Through his
agency, and by the aid of his apostles or followers, the hardy men and
women from the overcrowded population of Europe, cramped by man, and
priest-ridden, have been brought across the ocean into republican
America. They have been placed in this seemingly unpropitious Salt Lake
country. There they have founded a city; they have erected factories and
mills. The steam engine, the plow, and the sewing machine have aided
them; and now, in place of a company of barbarous peasants, ignorant and
benighted, and steeped in poverty, you find them transformed into
energetic, intelligent citizens, surrounded with comforts and luxuries.
And all this has been brought about by a religious enthusiast; by an
enthusiast whose religion is believed to be inferior to the religion of
Protestants.
Imagine for a moment what result would ensue from a movement of this kind
set on foot by the followers of the Protestant religion as it is taught
by the churches of the present day. No theatres or places of amusement
would add gayety to the sombre city. The dance and the sound of mirth
would be hushed. The inhabitants would walk ever in solemn fear of the
awful future that might await them; they would despise their physical
frames, crucify their passions, and trample under foot the most divine
attributes of their nature.
But the religion of the Mormons is a natural religion; it is primitive.
They people the world even as God peopled it in the time of Abraham and
Isaac.
They enrich the state by their tithes. They bring in their corn, their
wine, and their fruits, as offerings, and the state pays them back by
improving their roads and building houses for instruction and pleasure
for them.
Their domestic system, which has been so much despised and ridiculed,
does not greatly differ from the custom of the civilized world. Such as
are wives with them become with you the neglected women of the town. What
with you is considered dishonorable, with them becomes honorable.
The man of wealth in Utah does not concentrate his riches on a few
relatives; he distributes it among his many wives and numerous children.
In all times, nations which have grown rapidly and have been developed in
arts and sciences have been peopled in the same manner. The female
element introduces into a community taste, ornament, and grace. Look at
California previous to the emigration of women to that land! Misrule and
misery reigned. It is a law of nature that men and women should be
united. In the present form of civilization, a large proportion of women
are compelled to remain single, and their usefulness to community and
humanity is dissipated. The Mormon system eradicates this evil.
The progress of civilization points to a time when a magnetic relation
shall be established between all the inhabitants of earth; when the globe
shall form one vast circle of mind as it does now of matter. At present
the chain is broken; the intermediate spaces are not filled up by
population. The spirit world is using all its skill to bring about this
magnetic connection, but till this is complete the magnetic relation
between the spirit world and earth cannot be perfect.
Wise intelligences in the world of spirits have originated and guided the
Mormon movement, and these intelligences will develop new communities
under similar auspices. The legislators of the land, the Napoleons of the
day, would do well to investigate the policy of the leaders of Utah.
The crimes common in your large cities are not known among the Mormons.
They live on friendly terms with the red men of the plains, and are just
in their dealings.
Each citizen is taught that the public welfare is his own welfare. In
your own large towns the citizens shirk public duties; but in Utah there
is a oneness of feeling, which it would be well for those who consider
themselves superior in the scale of civilization to imitate.
W. E. BURTON.
_DRAMA IN SPIRIT LIFE_.
"Honor pricks me on. Yea; but how if honor pricks me off when I come on?
How then? Can honor set-to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the
grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is
honor? A word. What is that word, honor? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath
it? He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No.
Is it insensible, then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the
living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it."
What is honor? A mere word. What is Heaven? A word--a phantasy. A
vaporish place, too delicate and subtle for such fun-loving, corpulent
specimens of the Creator's wisdom as old Jack Falstaff.
O rare Jack Falstaff! He was a child of nature, and to my thinking, his
homely phrases displayed more intuitive knowledge of the laws of nature
than the finest transcendental imaginings ever discovered.
We shock the feelings of a thousand playwrights and play-goers by
asserting that in this impalpable land of souls we are guilty of
encouraging the playhouse! But so it is; we cannot live on "honors;" the
fame and glory which has been awarded to us by our fellow-men on earth is
like chaff to us.
It was with hardly an emotion of surprise that I beheld theatres in the
spirit land, though I have seen many who, having been fed on the false
system of religion, and pampered on glittering imaginings, start back
with alarm on beholding the magnificent buildings we have erected to the
drama, thinking, that by some strange turning, they had entered through
the wrong gate.
The drama with us is a source of both enjoyment and instruction. The
history of past ages in the spirit world is enacted with thrilling
interest, and each new spirit from earth has an opportunity thus to
become acquainted with the transactions of the past in the land of
spirits.
The gay and brilliant theatre of which I have been induced to take the
management, is original in its structure, and of a light and beautiful
style of architecture. The balconies are suspended and movable. Outside
the building, and overlooking a placid sheet of water, are galleries
connected with and corresponding to those within, where persons who
desire may pass out during intermission, and regale themselves with the
fresh fruit and the fine prospect.
The partitions are constructed of light frames with ornamented pillars,
covered with a fabric resembling parchment. As the climate is warm, the
partitions on the outside of the gallery are merely trellis-screens, and
the whole building is open in structure and perfectly ventilated.
The plays which are enacted are generally composed by persons in the
spiritual condition. We have many good farces; and an unending source of
material for amusing plays is found in the relationship between the
spirit world and earth, and the eccentric conditions growing out of that
relationship. For instance, there is a laughable comedy being enacted at
my theatre, depicting the adventures of a pious merchant, who, after the
toils and cares of life, becomes a resident of the spirit world.
The graces and beauties of the angelic women whom he meets on every side
enamour him; he forgets his past life, forgets the wife who has ruled him
on earth, and in a moment of ecstasy chooses another mate.
While in the enjoyment of his bliss, and surrounded by bands of
immortals, the news runs through the electric wire that his earth-wife is
deceased, and has come in search of him. The consternation and fear of
the poor man furnishes ample occasion for amusement, hilarity, and
fellow-sympathy.
Our tragedies are cast in a higher mould; many of them are more sublime
than those of earth, representing the catastrophes of worlds. We also
have dramas which awaken the affections, representing the condition of
those from earth who are neglected, or who, in consequence of a long
career of vice and misery, cannot be approached by friends.
These brief hints will give a slight idea of the source and character of
our dramatic representations.
Some men are born actors, as others are born painters, poets or
preachers; and in the spirit world they can no more lay aside those
powers which have become a part of them, than they can lay aside the
gifts of observation or reflection. Understanding this fact, it will not
surprise you to learn that those most famous in the histrionic art
exercise their talents to listening thousands in the spirit world.
Garrick, Kemble, Kean, Booth, Cooke, also Rachel, Mrs. Siddons, and a
host of illustrious actors of different nations, are now "treading the
boards" of spiritual theatres.
Their time, however, is not exclusively devoted to the exercise of these
gifts, as on earth. A considerable portion is spent in the study of the
arts and sciences; and many a noted actor becomes an able painter or
musician, and many a low comedian a philosopher. Our life is one round of
pleasant progression.
What I have said about our attractive theatre and my enjoyable condition,
I hope will not induce any of you, my fellow-players, to emigrate to
these shores before you are sent for; but, like good Jack Falstaff, I
trust you will live in your own world as long as you can, and when Dame
Nature is done with you, we will give you a hearty welcome and _a free
pass to the dress circle_.
CHARLES L. ELLIOTT.
_PAINTING IN SPIRIT LIFE_.
My friends know that I was not much given to writing or speaking, and I
reluctantly answer the call that has been made for me to give my views on
art in the spirit existence.
The old masters whom we have worshipped from boyhood, Raphael, Titian,
Michael Angelo, Da Vinci, and all the illustrious names of the Bolognese
and Venetian schools of art, have passed away from this sphere of spirit
life, and no longer walk the streets of these wonderful cities which they
have adorned with their works.
Reynolds, however, is with us still, and most of the army of painters who
have been born on earth since his day, here live in bodily shape; and I
have had the pleasure of meeting many admirable geniuses of the French,
German, and English schools, and have seen some of their extraordinary
works, which, for diversity of subject and majesty of conception, seem to
rival omnipotence itself!
The great majority of American artists are secretly spiritualistic in
their faith, and believe that they can be inspired by departed painters.
Innes, Page, Church, and Powers, have each felt and acknowledged the
inspiration of the spirit of some great master in art.
I must confess that these masters are not existing in the sphere occupied
by spirits who visit earth, and will explain the manner in which they
impress persons congenial and partaking of like sympathies with
themselves.
I am informed that it is not material to what sublimated sphere they may
have ascended; it is merely a mesmeric influence which they exert over
their disciples, and this influence can penetrate through all degrees of
matter.
The reason why all artists are not alike inspired by the great masters is
that they are not all subject to mesmeric influence, or on the same plane
of thought.
Every disciple of high art, I have no doubt, has observed the magnetic
quality which seems to pour forth from the canvas of any great master.
This arises from the brain effluvia which they have left upon the canvas,
which is more powerful in its quality than a grain of musk, which will
impart its odor for a hundred years.
The colors which the artists here use are formed upon the same model as
those they have been in the habit of using on earth. They are more
brilliant pigments, but color has always the same origin. Some paint with
the brush and some paint with their fingers.
I had heard it remarked that the spirit had only to breathe on the
canvas, and his thought would be represented, painted, and shaded in a
second of time.
The substance of this statement is correct, but there is a slight
misapplication of the facts.
'Tis true we have the power which we had on earth to a modified degree,
of projecting the desired form upon the canvas. I remember always, after
looking at my sitter, I could trace in imagination on the canvas the
outline and expression of his countenance. This is what we do: the power
of execution is so rapid that the time required for painting a picture
might with you pass for a moment; but it is only a trained artist whose
thoughts and comprehension are skilful enough to produce an effect so
rapidly.
Those who have not learned to give form and shape to their ideas while on
earth have to pursue a more painful and laborious process.
The modern school of color differs widely from the Venetian, being crude,
cold, and sharp in comparison; and, in accounting for this difference, I
can simply state that one can only represent what one sees.
The poetic, dreamy age, when men saw nature as through a veil, is past;
the matter-of-fact, investigating mind has lifted that veil, and now sees
objects as if in mid-day; but, as no condition is stationary, I am told
that the mind is gradually moving on in the world of art to a point where
it will again see nature in a more subdued and generalized light, as
under the declining sun.
The past represented the morning, the present exhibits the noonday, and
the future will indicate the evening.
Such is the constant revolution of mind, and its revolution though slow
is certain.
In our works of art, sentiment is the prevailing characteristic.
Portraits are in great demand.
Spirits send portrait-painters to earth to obtain likenesses of their
friends; and those spirit-artists who have the power of seeing the
lineaments of these friends and portraying them are constantly engaged.
Leutze has been employed by Lincoln and others to represent scenes in the
American rebellion; and Colonel Trumbull, also, has executed some
magnificent pictures of the battles of Seven Pines, Fair Oaks, and a
skirmish at Hampton Roads.
Stuart has completed a splendid portrait of General Grant, and is now
engaged by John Jacob Astor on a likeness of a beautiful lady dwelling on
earth. I have received a commission from Mr. James Harper to paint a
portrait of his daughter, who occupied the carriage with him when he lost
his life. I am at present engaged on a likeness of a lady residing at
Albany.
COMEDIAN'S POETRY.
_ROLLICKING SONG_.
Hurrah! hurrah I my boys so bright,
For merry ghosts meet here to-night.
We'll sing and dance till dawn of day,
Then up we'll mount, away! away!
Then up, up, and away!
We live in spirit land so gay,
And with grim Satan's fires we play.
You need not fear the future state,
For we will meet you at the gate.
Then up, up, and away!
Come, friends of earth, and read our bill,
'Tis called the "sugar-coated pill;"
'Twill sweeten all life's bitter care,
And lead you up, the saints know where,
Then up, up, and away!
Come laugh with us each man and wife;
A player's stage is earthly life;
The sting of death is only a prick,
And _hell_ the parson's "_trap-door trick_,"
Then up, up, and away!
Here's Garrick, Booth, and Kean so bright,
They shine like stars to give you light.
So haste and join the merry throng,
And loudly swell our happy song.
Then up, up, and away!
LADY HESTER STANHOPE.
_PROPHECY_.
The star of prophecy shines in the east. To those nations who were first
in the order of creation belongs by right the power of investigating the
mysteries of life.
The people of the East have been known in all past history for their gift
of prophecy.
As water gravitates to its level, so I gravitated to the East.
I left my native land, and for many years sojourned among the wandering
Arabs. This course of action was not understood by my countrymen. They
could not see the mystic star that drew me away from their busy haunts.
The Magi of the East had stood at my cradle and endowed me with the noble
gift of the Seeress.
The power of reading the future does not belong to the Northern people.
It is the darkest and deepest well that reflects the star above it; the
dark and swarthy East is thus endowed. The pale North cannot give out
impressions. I was an exception to this rule.
There are those who at birth are possessed of Eastern spirits--Asiatics.
Andrew Jackson Davis is not a Northern man--he is an Asiatic. Look at his
olive complexion, his keen eye, his beard and hair of jetty black, his
visage,--all betray the race which inspired him.
The faculty of discerning the future belongs only to certain races, and
it cannot be universal. Many spirits profess to read the future, but few
can do so correctly.
Yet the life of man is mapped out in every particular, even before his
birth. Men are like planets. The future of the planet Earth could have
been foretold before it was thrown off from the sun and while it was yet
in a molten state; so each step in an individual life could be foretold:
yet it requires ability to enter into the peculiar magnetic condition in
order to obtain the power of foretelling. It may be said if the future of
man is thus mapped out, even as was the creation and progression of the
earth, it becomes merely a scientific affair to prophesy the future of
any given individual. This is true, but the inquirer will observe how
many hundreds and hundreds of years science has been engaged in
discovering facts concerning this world's history. The eye of prophecy
could foresee those facts and foretell them, though it could not lay down
any scientific basis in regard to them.
The events which will take place to-morrow may be said to have already
transpired.
The water that is rising from yon creek will increase in volume.
Conditions which have been for days and weeks in preparation will
suddenly conspire, causing the stream to rise to such a height that the
city will be overflowed, bridges swept away, and certain individuals
submerged by the current and their lives lost.
This disastrous occurrence is governed by a law which the keen observer
of nature could have foretold years previous to the event.
As in the natural world the traveller in the desert beholds the mirage of
some city which is hundreds of miles distant, suddenly arising upon the
sandy waste, so, in the spirit world, the spectrum form is projected, and
events which are to take place are made visible before their actual
occurrence. But, as in the natural world spectrum forms occur only under
certain atmospheric conditions, so in the spirit world it is the
conjunction of circumstances and the blending of magnetic currents that
make it possible for coming events to be revealed upon the level plane
which is set apart for this purpose in the summer land.
Man at the present day is so constituted that a revealment to him of
coming events in detail would be injurious; and experience proves that
such disclosures, when made to him in dreams or otherwise, are
profitless, as he always fails to foil the evil of which he is
forewarned.
History and biography show that individuals have time and again, been
admonished by their assiduous friends of evils or calamities that were to
befall them, yet the admonition, though timely given, seldom enabled them
to avoid their fate. Men have been warned of murderous assaults, but they
have not evaded them; premonitions have been given of falling buildings,
and these have fallen, involving in their destruction the loss of the
individual's life at the precise date which his dream foreshadowed.
The time will come in the far future when man will understand prophecy as
a science. There are few persons living at the present day, who, looking
back upon their past history, would conscientiously wish it had been all
revealed to them at the outset of their career.
The withered, faded beauty, at the dawn of her life of youthful triumph
could not have endured a vision of the haggard unfortunate wretch which
she would represent in the course of a few years.
These remarks apply more especially to the so-called civilized state of
society at the present day.
The semi-barbarous nations, so termed, are in closer sympathy with
nature. Life and death, prosperity and adversity, are to them as natural
effects as the sunshine and rain of the terrestrial globe.
Their equanimity, their perfect repose upon the bosom of nature, causes
them to see more clearly into the future than do civilized nations. There
is a spirit of prophecy which does not comprehend the detail, and only
takes cognizance of the grand events of life.
This prophetic condition is attainable by every being in a certain state
of exaltation.
The poet, the painter, the statesman, the preacher, can alike in moments
of ecstasy ascend this mount of inspiration, and foretell the advancement
of the world in relation to art, science, and spiritual development. But
the oracle, the sybil of the East can penetrate a height beyond and above
this mount, and can perceive the detail of an individual life in its
minutest events.
The Bible prophecy which foretold that "knowledge should cover the earth,
even as the waters cover the sea," and that "the wilderness should
blossom as the rose," was given in an ecstatic vision, and was simply a
spiritual comprehension of the power of soul over matter.
As a knowledge of distance is relative, a keen perception on the part of
the prophet revealed to him, as he beheld the birds soaring in air, that
the journey to lands beyond the sea was no greater distance to those
winged creatures than a few miles would be to him. The prophecy Isaiah
made more than eighteen hundred years ago, is fulfilled to-day. Science
has annihilated space; knowledge becomes universal, and the wilderness
disappears.
The sages of centuries agone are animating the bodies of to-day. The
doctrine of pre-existence is not a fable, yet to have lived two lives
belongs only to a chosen few, or those whom a fortuitous circumstance has
blest.
Napoleon was one of these. The spirit of a great warrior took possession
of him at birth.
But the condition of a pre-existing soul taking possession of a body can
occur only under peculiar circumstances. The soul principle is male and
female, and its perfection depends upon the two sexes as much as the
formation of the body depends upon the coalition of the two. In states
superinduced by opium or intoxicating liquor upon one party, the spirit
principle becomes deadened so that an active immortal spirit may take its
place.
This male and female spirit principle, after forming a magnetic relation
by the joined bodies, lies inactive in the soul atmosphere of the mother
until material birth. If, as is sometimes caused through accident, there
is but one spirit principle active, the child when born will be idiotic.
If the male or female spirit of the pre-existing intelligence is of
superior order, then the child, as its intellectual faculties develop,
will display extraordinary abilities, which will be in accordance with
the peculiar development of the pre-existent spirit.
The history of individuals thus circumstanced can be more clearly
discerned than others. Prophecy in bold and clear characters foretells
the events which will transpire in their earth life.
In like manner Jesus, the celebrated child of Bethlehem, had lived a
pre-existent life on earth. He had reigned over a people in his previous
life, a wise and loving king. Vague remembrances continuously fluttered
across his vision and colored the thoughts to which he gave utterance.
When his mother conceived him, she was not conscious; delirium of
religious ecstasy, superinduced by priestly influence, rendered her
oblivious to events, and enabled this wise, tender, loving king to take
the place of the native spirit. Christ never married in this life,
because the spirits which possessed him were not male and female.[A]
[Footnote A: The well-known eccentric character of this writer while on
earth may partly explain the singular views here set forth. ED.]
The power of foretelling the future is yet in its infancy. Coming events
are said to cast their shadows before; and as the barometer indicates to
a skilful eye the approach of a storm when no sign is visible in the calm
sky above, so the events which will befall an individual are marked upon
the delicate spiritual barometer which forms a part of his being, and can
be read with unerring precision by the clear and practiced eye of the
optimist.
PROFESSOR MITCHELL.
_THE PLANETS_.
The worlds of light that nightly illume the firmament of earth are not
mere spheres of uninhabitable matter, nor are they simply appendages to
earth,--glittering ornaments to attract the eye of man,--but vast systems
of suns and tributary planets, with worlds whose products and inhabitants
far exceed in organized development those of this little planet Earth,
whose astronomers are just beginning to realize the capacities of the
worlds revealed through their telescopes.
Many of these worlds have existed centuries prior to the formation of the
planet you inhabit, and their inhabitants have attained a degree of
civilization which only time can give to you.
The intellectual development of many of the dwellers of these planets is
as far superior to your highest state of culture as your condition is in
advance of the first stages of barbarism.
Men of earth erect temples to their God--their Deity--which to them are
imposing and grand; but compared to the magnificent structures that rear
their towers high into space from those glittering points that attract
your eye, they are poor and insignificant.
Yet, as being the highest expression of your intellectual unfolding, we
look upon them with admiration, even as you regard the rude attempts of
the Egyptians and the earlier races in their grotesquely formed images
and temples.
The inhabitants of some of the planets attain a life many times the
duration of man's. One of the causes of this prolonged existence is the
great age and refinement of the planet. While it is undergoing change,
and preparing the vegetable for the animal, and the animal for the mental
creation, the conditions that ensue are insalubrious, and conducive to
disease and death. But when the perfection of the natural world is
attained--when it becomes, so to say, spiritualized, and its grosser
elements are absorbed--then the human being can live on its surface arid
develop his faculties from century to century.
The thoughtful reader will perceive from this statement that the spirits
who have inhabited these superior planets must have attained a far
greater perfection than those who have inhabited your earth, and the
spiritual existence, or heaven, to which such beings migrate, is in
advance of the heavens in which the dwellers of earth are born.
The spiritual heavens correspond to the firmament of the natural world,
and thus there are myriads of systems of spiritual worlds.
The residents of these planets visit earth as elder brothers who take by
the hand the little faltering infants. But intercourse with the earth is
more difficult for them than for your own native spirits, from the fact
that the magnetic atmosphere does not assimilate with them. From the
earth's spirit world, scientific minds of rare development only have been
able to visit the spirit homes of those planetary inhabitants.
What I have said can give but a faint idea of the population of the
unseen worlds. As a drop of water which is clear and unoccupied to the
eye, when viewed through the microscope is found to be peopled with
living creations, so the worlds that overspread the heavens are peopled
in every part that the eye can cover.
Man is indeed nothing; and yet he is the whole--a mere speck, a point,
and yet God himself in the aggregate.
DR. JOHN W. FRANCIS.
_THE INFLUENCE OF MIND UPON MATTER, AND THE CAUSES OF INSANITY AND THE
VARIOUS DISEASES WHICH AFFLICT HUMANITY AT THE PRESENT DAY_.
The rude nations of the earth believed that disease was the result of
evil spiritual agencies, and the untutored savage, without the aid of
books or any of the advantages which the learned physician possesses of
studying the human system, arrived at the conclusion that disease was
inflicted by living, unseen individualities.
Science has discarded that idea. It has dissected the human body, and,
finding the result of the diseases, has assumed to have found the cause;
assumed that it is mere bodily disarrangement. Yet any intelligent
physician will tell you that in his own experience he has witnessed the
effect of mind upon the body; that he can give a bread pill to a patient,
informing him that it is a purgative, and it will act in that manner;
that a certain powder will create nausea or a burning sensation, and it
will produce those results when the powder itself is harmless.
As the body, if permitted to decay, comes to be infested with vermin, so
the spirit, if allowed to remain idle and inactive, will become infested
by spiritual vermin which will taint and destroy it; and the savage idea
that disease is caused by spiritual agency is correct.
If an individual permit any one idea to obtain predominance, and he dwell
upon that idea to the exclusion of other thoughts, he will attract
spirits who fill the air--not organized spiritual beings who inhabit the
spirit world, but half-organized beings (polypus) who live in this
atmosphere and were originated from the brains and the physical organisms
of the inhabitants of the earth; these beings, finding his mind
concentrated or magnetized to a point, will effect an entrance. Suppose,
for instance the person centres his mind upon the loss of a friend or of
money: this concentration becomes a magnet, which, like the rays of
sunlight acting upon a portion of vegetation, produces decomposition upon
which spirit vermin may feed. So by dwelling too continuously upon one
thought, certain faculties of the mind become excited by constant action,
while others become paralyzed and the result is insanity.
Now spiritualists, or believers in spirit intercourse, should be the most
healthy persons in the community, for they understand, or should
understand, the laws of psychology which teach that constant dwelling
upon one thought will bring spirits of like character who will intensify
that thought, and they also know that they have but to use their will and
the whole magnetic relations will change and a new influence will be
brought to bear.
Tell a man he has heart disease, make him believe it, and his heart will
beat like a sledge-hammer. Tell him his liver is diseased, make him
believe it, and he will feel bilious and look bilious.
Tell a man he looks well, compliment him upon his appearance, and he will
feel well, look spruce, and his spirits will become elastic.
It has been a matter of surprise to some why the spirits have taken such
an interest in the science of medicine, and why they have developed so
many as healers. It is that they may teach man that disease is generally
a magnetic condition; and they hope to teach the community, through those
physicians whom they develop, to discard drugs and rely upon magnetic
influences and the power of the will to keep the body in its normal
condition of health.
Too much stress cannot be laid upon the power of the will in dispelling
disease, and in expelling it.
A diseased patient may be likened to a medium who is possessed by a
spiritual being of low order. The very low condition of the spirit causes
him to adhere and cling to the medium, and unless the will is directed to
exorcise him, he will keep his subject continually under his influence
and the proper individuality of the person will be annihilated.
Thus, disease, like an evil spirit, takes its hold upon an individual,
and can only be overthrown from its position by a strong will, which
sends it shrinking away like a criminal from the body it has infested.
If the will of the patient is not sufficiently strong, then the will of
some good friend must be used. These good friends are known as healing
mediums. Also a change of air and scene should be obtained, which brings
the will into a new action, and thus dislodges the tenant.
The will is like a sharp two-edged sword, which cuts right and left, and
leaves no chance for skulking to anything to which it has directed its
power.
I will close my remarks by repeating that the savage is right in his
belief, and that disease is indeed the result of--I might call them
spiritual harpies, who, though they may not in these civilized times be
driven out by the beating of drums, the tom-tom, and the howling of
frenzied savages, yet can be dislodged by kindred manipulations, such as
mesmeric passes, deep breathing, and a positive though almost quiet
exercise of the will.
Some of my brethren of the profession will be surprised to find these
views advanced by one whom they believe held more rational opinions on
earth; but there are others whose keen intellects have pierced through
the wisdom of the schools, and have discovered that the physics they have
concocted, when applied to the complex mechanism of the human system, in
palliating the disorders of one function disarrange some half a dozen
others, and that the soul and the body are so interblended that we must
heal a disease of the body through and in conjunction with the spirit,
its counterpart.
ADELAIDE PROCTER.
_THE SPIRIT BRIDE_.
You told me you loved me, and vowed of old,
When you reached that land of jasper and gold,
To me you'd return in the hush of night,
And show me a glimpse of your land of light.
I sit in the shadows, and wearily wait
To see you throw open the starry gate:
Through my golden ringlets the chill winds blow,
While I watch your coming through falling snow.
How long must I wait? Are you ling'ring where
The blue-eyed angels your sweet kisses share?
Is your home so radiant that never more
Your steps will be heard at my lowly door?
Ah! what do I see through my blinding tears?--What
misty form through the tempest appears?
A cold hand now touches my burning brow,
A low voice whispers, "I am near thee now."
Bend low--let me kiss thee, thou viewless thing;
No rising passion thy cold lips bring;
But hushed is the throb of my burning heart
As upward he bears me--no more to part.
THE END.
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