A Book Written by the Spirits of the So-Called Dead Part 8

"The Catholics have three states for the dead, Heaven, h.e.l.l and Purgatory; the thorough orthodox Protestants two, striking out purgatory; while the Universalists insist on expunging h.e.l.l from the catalogue. Some will have one G.o.d, and others a trinity of them. But they differ materially as to the course to pursue in order to obtain the divine favor, holy unction and saving grace of the Lord. Here they are put to the severest test. It is infinitely of less moment to ascertain how many G.o.ds rule above, or how many states of the dead, as it is to know how to reach the much desired haven of peace and happiness in the eternal world.

"A prudent man would be comparatively indifferent as to how many ruling sovereigns over the destinies of man, or how many locations of consignment for their souls, so he is enabled to attain unto the highest good, and this consideration more imperatively absorbs his attention. Knowledge of the former would be valueless without knowledge of the latter. And hence in seeking to become familiar with the latter is where he becomes lost in the labyrinthian mazes of divergent and perplexingly diversified theologies.

"One would have you attend to the confessional, do penance and observe and conform to the dictums emanating from the Roman Pontiff and the imperious mandates of priests, thereby securing absolution from the consequences of sin, and due preparation for the next world. Another admonishes you that your salvation depends on the nature and degree of faith in the atoning sacrifice. Another that you must become regenerated and washed of inherited and committed sins by belief in and conformity to certain specific and definitely prescribed tenets. And still another, that a good, moral life is the one thing needful, Jesus having paid the penalty of sin and triumphed over it for the whole of mankind. And so on, scarcely without limit, do these various and varied systems present themselves to perplex and annoy."

July 31, 1882:

"Instead of there being one, two or three states of the dead, the truth is there are an infinite number and variety of conditions in which the children of men exist in the spiritual world with the qualification that they do not remain in them longer than they are enabled to progress out of them into other and higher ones. The plain truth is, as every intelligent and fairly progressed returning spirit will tell you, that faith and belief have nothing whatever to do in determining your status in the spiritual world, nor will what a man believes, however erroneous it may verily be, if he is honest in it, have any potency in preparing the spiritual conditions or a.s.signing him his spiritual sphere. Here we must be clearly understood, that we may avoid both misapprehension and misrepresentation. I do not affirm that false beliefs and erroneous conceptions of the hereafter do not have any effect on the spirit. They do have a very troublesome effect. They do not, however, in the slightest degree, determine the spiritual status, for this is regulated by other considerations--moral conduct, n.o.ble acts, spiritual unfoldment, etc. But when the proper sphere is reached after death, for which the new-comer is spiritually fitted, they halt him there, and for a time impede and r.e.t.a.r.d his progress, at least until he shall have outgrown false beliefs and conceptions while in the material body. A man may sincerely believe that the veritable orthodox devil is his constant companion, or that the air is swarming with malevolent creatures bent on his ruin, or that he is totally depraved by inheritance, and destined to utter and endless wretchedness in the other world, or any thing else, however absurd and untrue, and yet that man's whole earth life may have been justly distinguished for charitable deeds, love of the neighbor, and in all his habits, walks and ways all that the severest moralists could require, do you not at once see that in all justice and righteousness the man's life, acts and deeds must inevitably determine his sphere or spiritual condition, without the slightest interference by what foolish things he may have believed. And yet it is nevertheless not difficult to see further, that he must disabuse his mind of those errors of conception and belief before he can make any appreciable and valuable progress. And I tell you these erroneous belief and unfounded conceptions cling to the man with more obdurate persistency than the most of mankind could be induced to believe. Hence the prime importance of forming correct ideas of the future while still animating the material body."

August 3, 1882:

"Acts of charity and deeds of benevolence are estimated by the spiritual laws of our being in just correspondence to the motives inspiring and actuating them. By the motives prompting them, more than the acts and deeds themselves, do they become either valuable or valueless to our spiritual promotion and good. I have known men who devoted a lifetime of arduous labor in the acquisition of wealth, all the while wholly regardless of the interests and wants of others, and toward the end of the puny life, and in antic.i.p.ation of the near approach of death, they bequeathed their acc.u.mulations to charitable and benevolent inst.i.tutions, only to find themselves the merest spiritual paupers in the spiritual world. And why? Because being governed a lifetime by grasping and selfish motives, they only dispensed the acc.u.mulated results of the cultivated spirit of avarice and cupidity under the selfish and painfully delusive motive of enhancing their interests in a world to which their aged infirmity admonished them they were hastening. Upon their entrance to the spiritual world the motive met them, and overshadowed them with its pitiless condemnation.

"Had charity and benevolence characterized their lives all along for the sake of doing good and blessing others, it would have been quite otherwise with them in the eternal world of justice and truth.

"Charities bestowed only possess eternal value when done for sweet charity's sake, and with the unselfish object of helping others. This const.i.tutes love and genuine love of the neighbor, and is consequently divine and heavenly and of permanent and enduring value.

"The Confucian doctrine, 'Do unto others as you would they should do unto you,' reiterated by the man Jesus, contains the great and salutary rule of life, which if practiced with the holiest and most disinterested motives will inevitably work out a most glorious future reward for the spirit.

The shepherd kings promulgated this rule in a finer sense and reduced it to the fine realm of mind. The Confucian rule related to the _actions_ of men, one to the other, but the other declares, 'Think of others as you would have others think of you.' If your thoughts and actions are governed by these rules you may conclude you are not far from the kingdom of heaven or angelic sphere. If you observe these because you love the right, you can not fail to love the Lord with all your heart and the neighbor as yourself, thus fulfilling the law of spiritual growth and development while in the temple of flesh, and insuring a condition of superlative happiness in the spiritual world. If in your present state of development you can not do this, you can, at least, make the honest and persevering effort to do it, and your reward shall be great."

August 7, 1882:

"Abstain from evil-doing from the conscientious conviction that it is wrong to do evil and right to abstain. Do not allow yourself, in choosing between right and wrong, to be governed by a fear of future punishment, or hope of future reward, for this is cowardly and pusillanimous and of no practical value to your future happiness. Do right for the sake of the right and not from the selfish motive of deriving a personal benefit. You have in your world two very injurious and reprehensible doctrines taught by learned men, namely: materialism and forgiveness of sins. They are both degrading and far reaching in their baleful consequences. Christians treat materialism with scornful derision, and yet it is just as true as that the misdeeds of life can be overcome and rendered harmless in their following consequences by death-bed repentance and the blood of atonement. One is as true as the other, and my presence here in spirit proves materialism to be groundless. Materialism is the doctrine of one world only, a mere pa.s.sing moment of life, and suggests very naturally to make the most out of it. I do not mean to be understood as a.s.serting that there are not good honest people who believe in this doctrine, but that they are good and honest in spite of their belief and not as a result of it. The theological heresy which proclaims the necessity of conversion, new birth, and regeneration (they are convertible terms) would be much more plausible if not supplemented by the more alarming and reprehensible doctrine of obtaining full pardon for repeated crimes and misdeeds just preceding or at the imminent moment of departing from the material body by so-called death.

The first becomes bereft of its value, if indeed it has any, by the latter. It is tantamount to asking a man to liquidate an indebtedness now, when, under the law, he has ten or twenty years option. In a purely business view he realizes that the possession and use of his money for ten or twenty years is to him a matter of pecuniary interest and profit. So likewise is it with the man of the world with an organization tending to licentiousness and vice. He perceives no wisdom or practical use in becoming regenerated in the days of his youth, when in old age the opportunity is afforded to repent and thereby avoid the consequences of the loose indulgences and vices of a lifetime. Every villain who has run a lifetime unwhipt of justice and unpunished for his crimes, must be fascinated with this indulgent fallacy, while all truly n.o.ble souls must silently, if not avowedly, abhor and detest it."

August 10, 1882:

"While the Universalists are considered liberal and progressive, yet their doctrine is equally dangerous and untrue. Indeed, I have more respect for the others. They (the Universalists) claim to stand upon the Word, and affirm that the blood and death of one man propitiated sin so far as the future life is concerned, and that therefore sinning entails no hurtful consequences but such as are met with along the journey of life from the cradle to the grave. In other words, that the consequences of sin are visited upon us during our earth life, or not at all. They attempt to justify and defend their doctrine by a mere play upon words found in isolated pa.s.sages in the bible, especially the epistles in the New Testament. The declarative a.s.sumptions of the bible, as translated for your use and guidance, are utterly at war with their teachings, and it is folly to deny it. In this age when the human heart and mind are reaching out for something better it is useless and unproductive of good to go back to the root of words in originals to bolster up a doctrine founded in error. The effort will always prove unprofitable and must inevitably fail of its purpose.

"I am aware that some advanced and more spiritually minded Universalists believe in progression in the future life, and in this regard their conclusions are better and far in advance of their premises.

"I would say to those, however good and pure, who expect to awake to consciousness in an ideal world of transcendent beat.i.tudes without shadows and crosses that they will realize a most perplexing disappointment. They will find a world more natural than this, because more substantial and enduring, and what is more they will find they lack very much of being perfect, more perfect indeed in undevelopment than in that soul growth and unfoldment that would enable them to command the joys and delights vouchsafed by a.s.sociation with progressed spiritual beings in the higher walks and spheres of the spiritual world. To attain unto this state is the work of time and the reward of labor.

"The true doctrine is, as all shall know in time, that conscious and willful sinning, that is, where volition in choosing between the right and the wrong was within our power, is treasured up in the memory of the spirit and confronts us in the spiritual world, and will remain until outgrown and overcome by arduous effort. Happiness can only be enjoyed by the finite in contrast with misery, and shadows and crosses will fall upon us, marring our joys, until in the ages of coming time we shall so expand and grow towards deific perfections and excellences as to think no evil, thus not only rendering our actions submissive to the highest wisdom, but our hearts and minds to the divine love, and in a happy union of love, wisdom, and the will, we shall become something more than finite in our approach to the infinite."

August 11, 1882:

"Nevertheless let it be said to the humblest, struggle on, strive to battle for the right as you perceive it. If you see it not aright in good time it will be revealed unto you. Be of good cheer. You must needs suffer, for suffering in the right is spiritual growth--you are continually encircled by infinite love. You shall rise step by step, unfolding this latent power and that, gradually and by discreet degrees casting aside this harrowing and distressing memory and that, all the while aided by those spirits who have pa.s.sed through tribulations and sorrows into higher unfoldments and joys, until finally you shall rejoice in blissful disenthrallment from the imperfections of your past being.

Then you will be enabled to see why you have thus suffered and rejoice that it has been so. No pang will afflict you worse than those you have inflicted upon others, or of greater magnitude than thousands and millions have endured. Be kind and forbearing to the erring, be merciful to all, even the humblest creature of the creation. Deal justly with all, live uprightly, fear nothing but evil and fly from it. Be brave for the right.

Love your neighbor, which being spiritually interpreted, means all mankind. Endeavor to learn and believe truth wherever found; try, if possible, to think no evil; wors.h.i.+p at no shrine but that of eternal truth, and no harm can come to you in the everlasting realms of immortal souls. No shadows shall darken the pathway of your progress other than those incident to your connection with matter and your undeveloped spirituality. And these shall be dissipated, facilitated, and accelerated, by the sweet memories of good deeds and good thoughts.

"In the feeble communications I have given you, by the permission of the Lord, I have not been able to impart my ideas in the same language and style that characterized my writings when embodied. I know they will be subjected to this criticism, but the difficulties of projecting my ideas into form in words have been many and great. If they were explained they in turn would be criticised with equal virulence. When coming within the radius of mediumistic aura we encounter obstacles great and difficult to overcome at their state of mediums.h.i.+p. Happily in time these difficulties will be surmounted. The aura of the medium and sitter blending with my spirit magnetism, your continued thinking and also the medium, thereby disturbing the equability of the magnetic and electric emanations, and to a corresponding degree affecting the psychic forces of the communicating spirit, and other things you would not understand if told you, all conspire to enfeeble the spirit intellectually, and, to a certain extent, limit it to the mental sphere of those present, especially the medium, upon whom we are so largely dependent. If you understood the subject as it really is, you would be surprised that we could even do so well. You, my dear Swedish friend, have aided us n.o.bly; your motives being so pure and honest, we found in that itself a great auxiliary, and we sincerely thank you. I shall be with you often, and shall reward your many kindnesses by helping your sweet and interesting children in spirit life and others dear to you, to learn spiritual wisdom in their progress, and shall take a deep interest in you when you come to our life.

"G.o.d bless this medium, for she is worthy. In earnest supplication we invoke the blessings of the Lord, angels and spirits upon you both.

"EMANUEL SWEDENBORG."

CHAPTER XII.

GEORGE WAs.h.i.+NGTON.

On the 16th of June the following communication was received, and those following at the dates mentioned, from the spirit of George Was.h.i.+ngton:

"From my home and congenial a.s.sociations in the spirit world I come to you to-day feeling and hoping that I may possibly be of some service to my country, which I have never ceased to love with the tenderness of a mother's love for her children. Indeed, my country--the n.o.ble young republic--was kind to and considerate of me far above my merits.

"In the memorable struggle for independence I was a.s.signed to duty at the head of the colonial army, and by this circ.u.mstance occupied a position that attracted to me more general attention than to others who were in nowise less meritorious. After seven long years of patient suffering, heroic endurance, and almost superhuman exertion, our gallant and illy-provided army won an honorable peace, and I trust an imperishable renown. A nation of freemen was brought into being, and a system of government established far in advance of its predecessors. The old Roman republic, grand in many respects and a marvel of excellence for its time, was still in many regards vastly inferior to our own. Being at the head of the brave army whose herculean efforts, exerted under many disadvantageous circ.u.mstances, eventuated so gloriously, it was natural, although no more worthy than many others who rendered patriotic services, that I should be chosen the first executive of the young republic. This, to me, was a most flattering testimonial of the high appreciation of and affection for the gallant citizen soldiery who so valiantly acted in the stirring and sanguinary events of the memorable contest. Regarding my elevation to the chief magistracy of the nation as a reflection of public sentiment as indicated more than as a personal compliment to myself, it behooved me by discreet official conduct and patriotic action to show that the general appreciation and esteem for that n.o.ble soldiery was not misplaced nor unworthily bestowed.

"If I have rendered worthy services to my country, either in the line of military duty or in the performance of civil trust, or both, they must proclaim my right to speak from my higher conscious life to my countrymen on matters pertaining to their best and dearest interests. If the gallant army that fought to a successful issue the battles of freedom in the infancy of its struggles here have claims upon the attention and consideration of the present generation, and those of the future, they beg you to earnestly consider the words that may fall from my lips and pen. I have marshaled those mighty hosts of n.o.ble souls in spirit land, and with them have recounted our struggles and sacrifices for you and those to come after you, and they are in hearty accord with what I shall deem proper to say to the nation through the much abused and little understood channel of human mediums.h.i.+p. You will hear from me in the immediate future in obedience to the purpose indicated."

June 23, 1882:

"Your complex system of government needs and will receive reconstruction or remodeling. When we emerged from the revolutionary struggle, and came to give the fruits of our hard earned victory some definite shape in the formation of a government for the new nation, we adopted the articles of confederation as the best we could then devise. It required but a short time to teach us that they were defective, and that prudence and wisdom dictated something different and better. The const.i.tution was consequently fas.h.i.+oned and superseded the confederation, and there has never been any disagreement as to the superior wisdom of the const.i.tutional form of government, at least, as an improvement on the original confederation form. When this had been accomplished we were fully persuaded that the reorganization of the government under the const.i.tution was the apex of statesmans.h.i.+p and the acme of the science of governmental construction, and were consequently happy and content. But alas, for poor human foresight. It very soon became evident that the new arrangement was imperfect, if not absolutely defective, and twelve amendments to the new const.i.tution were proposed by Congress and ratified by the states. After and as the result of the late unhappy conflict between discordant states, or, rather, rebellion of certain states by secession against the rightful authority and sovereignty of the federal government, several additional amendments became necessary and imperative, and they were accordingly incorporated and ingrafted upon the already amended const.i.tution. And now others are earnestly talked of and advocated; and does this not teach you the plain lesson that your system is still imperfect?

"The trouble is found to be that statesmans.h.i.+p is without foreknowledge, and is either blind to or oblivious of the requirements of the future. In other words, that the ceaseless mutations of human affairs, the ever acting and onward march of the law of change and progression, fail to strike the consciousness of statesmen or to secure their recognition. Of one thing you may be a.s.sured, your plan of government will be revised and remodeled to its vast betterment. When the time comes this will be most vehemently resisted by those who on all questions affecting the interests of the race and the happiness of mankind persist in remaining with the bats and owls of past ages rather than to be baptized in the light of the present and the foregleams of the future. But they must get out of the way of the car of progress or be crushed beneath its merciless and continually revolving wheels."

June 30, 1882:

"In the formation of your present system of government three co-ordinate branches were established--the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial--and they were designed to be checks, one upon the other. If in the zeal and frenzy of partisan strife, or under the baleful influence of venality and corruption, the legislative department should exceed its const.i.tutional authority or enact legislation inimical to the public interests, the executive was invested with the veto privilege whereby the evil might be arrested. If, however, the President should be found to be in accord and sympathy with the legislative branch in its hurtful legislation, and gave thereto the sanction of his approving signature; or, in case the President exercised his veto power in the particular matter, and Congress should pa.s.s the measure over his objections by the requisite two-thirds of each branch, then and in either of these events there still remained the supreme court with its supervisory power or power of final determination.

"But it may be very properly asked, what if the supreme court should be influenced by the same or similar considerations as the other co-ordinate branches, what help, relief, or remedy, is left to the people and the nation? It can only be answered--force, revolution, rebellion. Does not this plain statement present a dangerous contingency and indicate a palpable weakness?

"It should be remembered that in our form of republican government all powers are derived from the people, and it should be furthermore very emphatically understood that all powers belong to them. If this view is correct, then in the hypothetical case mentioned for the purpose of ill.u.s.tration, the people themselves should be the last court of resort, or the high court of appeals.

"It was thought by the founders of your government that the judiciary would always be pure and safe, but unfortunately experience has taught us quite differently. It is humiliating to an American citizen, whether he be in or out of the body, to be compelled to make this confession. But truth not only justifies but demands it, and it is best that it be frankly made and acknowledged."

August 14, 1882:

"We are not permitted, for prudential reasons, to tell you how the new system is to be fas.h.i.+oned. To do so would not facilitate its accomplishment, but might possibly operate detrimentally by inducing premature consideration and discussion. Suffice it to say that the subject has been deliberately considered and the plan carefully matured by wise statesmans.h.i.+p in the realm of causation, and will be given to your world at the proper time and in the proper way.

"I desire to briefly discuss two propositions:

"1st. What are the duties of the citizen to the government, or what the government has the right to exact of and from the citizen?

"2d. What are the duties of the government to the people, or what the people have the right to exact of and from their government?

"First. The citizen owes the government affection and homage. This springs from patriotism and self-interest.

"Second. To render a cheerful obedience to and acquiescence in all lawfully const.i.tuted authority, reserving always and of primary importance the natural and inalienable right when all civil remedies prove unavailing, of revolution against and resistance to, tyranny, usurpation, and oppression.

"Third. Prompt compliance with all the lawful edicts and mandates of government. If they are deemed unlawful, unjust, and oppressive, first appealing to judicial supervision and all lawful means for relief and protection--revolution the dernier ressort.

"Fourth. Loyally protecting, defending, and sustaining the government when a.s.sailed from within or without, and when waging a just war upon a foreign foe, or in the suppression of an unjust and indefensible internal war, insurrection, or rebellion.

"Fifth. Aiding the government both in peace and war by being honest to and with it in official station, and by helping to uphold and foster its credit and honor.