COMMUNICATIONS FROM EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.

The following communications, purporting to come from the spirit of Emanuel Swedenborg, at Mrs. Green’s, are arranged in the order of their reception:

September 26, 1881:

“I greet you; good morning. You hail from dear old Sweden, my native land. The same native blood that coursed through my veins flows through yours. For a long time I have realized that your thoughts have been on me and the doctrines I taught on earth, some of which I would gladly recant. In my day nothing else could have been projected through my brain, and nothing less violent, though more truthful, would have engaged attention or commanded respect. My writings, as I now see them, were a strange commingling of truth and error, though I believe with truth largely predominant. I want the world, especially my followers, the disciples of the Church of New Jerusalem, to eliminate, in the interest of truth, the errors and crudities that unwittingly, though reverentially, crept into my theological writings. The hells as I portrayed them I now know were magnified into undue and absurd proportions, colored and distorted by my own preconceived notions, and, moreover, largely attributable to the religious temper and theologic thought of the time in which I wrote. Tell your good companion and others of like convictions to discard at once and fearlessly my unwarranted denunciation against holding intercourse with the inhabitants of the spiritual world. I misapprehended, and, alas, misinterpreted the holy visions given me. I was allowed to see prophetically that the two worlds would be brought into close communicating relations, and I ought to have seen farther—that it would occur through and by the permission and co-operative agency of God and his laws, and ought not therefore to be interdicted. This has given me vast annoyance, and I am very solicitous indeed that this shall be righted. Hold fast to this spiritualism, for therein only can be found light and love and wisdom. My power to maintain control is weakening, and I must close for the present. I will meet you here again. Good bye.

“Emanuel Swedenborg.”

October 3, 1881

“In my communication a week ago I referred, not incidentally, but purposely, to my followers of the Church of the New Jerusalem. It is gratifying to me to know that they are in the main honest, faithful and intelligent people; but I regret that they have deemed it proper to resolve themselves into an exclusive sect; for, disguise it as you may, all sects are more or less exclusive. Among the many curses that afflict your mortal humanity, none are to be more deplored than sectarianism and dogmatic theology. Do you know that in the most ambitious moments of my earthly career, much less in the lofty moods of my medial inspiration, I never dreamed that I was to become the founder of a religious sect, especially one based on dogmatic formulas. The affirmations of material science now no longer questioned that in all organized structures reside the underlying, all-pervading and continually operating elements. Disintegration, decay and ultimate destruction of the organized form apply with equal and unerring certainty to ecclesiastical bodies. Modern spiritualism in this, that it is specifically and rigidly scientific, clustering beauteously around the family hearthstone, adorning and hallowing the family altar, may be distinguished by its infinite superiority to all other systems, it having no creed to establish, and steadfastly repelling all attempts at organization, is destined to survive the wreck and demolition of all theological teaching standing in antagonistic relations to it; and this God-given, heaven-inspiring humanity, embracing soul-uplifting spiritualism, is to become the universal religion of mankind. I will continue to administer to your wants and remove the scales from the eyes of the people, especially my followers. More anon.

“Emanuel Swedenborg.”

On October 17, 1881, the following communication appeared on the slate:

“The blessings of the most high God and the benediction of His holy angels and spirits on you and yours. What I most desire to say to you to-day is that since our last interview here I have participated with others in a discussion relative to a recent scientific discovery in the spirit world which, when imparted to the world of embodied man, will strike the learned savants of your life with mingled feelings of awe and consternation. Our recent experiments were exceedingly satisfactory, and the questions that remain open are, when, to who and through whom shall it be given to the children of earth. The general expression of our society favored some time towards the close of the coming year as best adapted. In this view I concurred, for many reasons. My revered friend, let me say to you to-day, with great and positive emphasis, that the year 1882, earth time, will be the most marvelous year of the world’s history, and will be characterized by the most stupendous events in all the circling centuries of past time. In that year and the succeeding one astounding spiritual revelations will be made to the denizens of this earth, utterly upsetting old, effete theological doctrines, and mercilessly demolishing now considered well established scientific conclusions, and your scientists’ tests, self-complacent and arrogant in their pretensions, and possessed most fully of the spirit of vaulted ambition, the creation of their self-conceit, will awake to the consciousness that they have been mere pigmies in scientific research, and that on many subjects may have been so superficial as not to penetrate beyond the mere shadows and surface of things. I promise you that when the proper time arrives for this disclosure you shall not be overlooked or neglected. Bound to you in fraternal relation of a common brotherhood, embracing in grand reciprocation the inhabitants of both the mundane and supermundane worlds, I am yours, devoted for the truth,

“Emanuel Swedenborg.”

June 12, 1882

“If we concede for the sake of argument that there really exists a literal hell, as depicted by theological teaching, and which constitutes an article of faith in most of the Christian sects, we are forced to inquire (and it is a legitimate subject of inquiry from the assumed premises), Was hell made for man, or man for hell? and this involves the question of duration of existence in point of time antecedent. Whichever way we determine, and our determination of the question from a terrestrial standpoint can only arise from speculation and conjecture, and not from proofs, one conclusion we can not escape, namely, the malevolence of the author. If hell was established prior to the time when the fiat went forth bringing man into being, and was designed for his abode and accommodation, we can not reconcile the goodness of the Lord with such utterly unjust and malevolent purpose, because to concede this much admits the possession of sufficiency of power to have ordered otherwise, which precludes impotency and concludes the will and purpose to so order and arrange.

“If the creation of hell and man as arbitrary acts of the Deity was coeval, then the same conclusion inevitably follows, before and behind the act of these creations resided in the Lord the power to have differently ordered; hence we must assume that the simultaneous creation of hell and man was predetermined, and in accordance with the will-pleasure and purpose of the Creator.

“If, furthermore, man was first created without any reference to hell or any preconceived purpose or expectancy to establish it, and that its creation was necessitated from man’s unexpected disobedience, and as the only proper means of gratifying the vengeance of an insulted God, then we unwittingly and in a very silly way declare the absence of foreknowledge in the Lord, and degrade him to the level of a puny, passionate man.

“To assume any of these puerile positions to be true is to assume that the Lord, however august in power, and the physical, mental and spiritual ability to order and to direct, is nevertheless a moral weakling, and wholly devoid of moral excellence in degree superior to the meanest of his creatures.”

June 15, 1882:

“If hell exists, it is plain to be seen there was a necessity for it. If created before man, there was no necessity for its existence, for the Lord is governed by the idea of uses, and there was present no use for it. Will it be maintained that the Lord would create any thing without a use and wise purpose? It is the uses of things that so signally distinguish his creative and moral governments.

“If it is said in reply that when hell was fashioned and established the Lord had in contemplation the creation of man, and that it was to be subsequently rendered useful as a place of punishment for disobedience, which implies that the Lord knew in advance of man’s creation that he would be disobedient, then, oh, man, you are surely in the hands and under the power of a merciless demon, falsely called God. If this indeed is the true character of our Lord, then truly may his weak and helpless children bow their heads in sorrow and despair.

“These teachers of false theology, these false interpreters of simple truth, these false prophets of a false conception, affirm that this appalling hell, offspring of a monster creative agency, is a fixed location somewhere, which they have the candor to say, they know not.

“The theologians perceiving throughout the vast domain of universal nature two confronting opposites or extremes, and that there scheme must fall if hell were left alone to be the final destiny of the entire human family, erect another falsity and construct another place or harbor for the sojourners and pilgrims of earth, and consequently they say that the Lord has established somewhere in space a heaven, the location of which, although a locality, can not be ascertained.

“The same questions, with equal propriety, might be propounded in reference to heaven and the same conclusions follow. Was it made for man or man for it? Was it made before or after man was made? Where is it situate; who go there and why do they go there, and for what purpose? If the theologians answer these pertinent questions in harmony with their creeds, they would make my friend John Calvin, who accompanied me here this morning and is now standing by my side, blush with shame. He now, as a noble spirit, pities the ignorance and credulity that characterized him in his religious frenzy when in the form, and the credulity and weakness of his followers.”

June 19, 1882:

“The original conception of a literal local heaven and hell was a feeble monstrosity and far exceeding the intuitions and anticipations of its originators, it has assumed huge and alarming proportions. Originally it was treated either as a human created joke, or as a wild vagary of the imagination, and in both cases without even the shadow of a foundation in fact. But as time moved along it began to grow seriously in the minds of the morbidly curious and credulously constituted, and it found many earnest advocates and believers, and they were not altogether limited to the ignorant. Had this been the case it would have been harmless and short-lived. The poet in depicting the career of vice aptly illustrates the history of this conception:

“‘Vice is a monster of such frightful mien,
As to be dreaded needs but to be seen.
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first pity, then endure, and then embrace.’”

“I unhappily lived in a day when it had been largely embraced. Had I lived in the day when it was conceived and promulgated, or approximately near it and been possessed of the physical, mental and spiritual organization with which I was favored in earth life, I would have undoubtedly earnestly combated it. But in my time it had grown into prominence and general acceptance among Christian sects, including the Lutheran, to which I adhered before my spiritual illumination; and hence while my spiritual mediumistic unfoldment, mental adaptabilities and capabilities would not allow me to accept the literal teaching of purblind theology on the subject, I was disqualified from perceiving and promulgating the real truth. I endeavored, however, to do what the theologians have never attempted, namely, to assign reasons for the existence of heavens and hells in justification and defense of the Lord. The groundlessness of my philosophy and the impotency of my reasoning I was unable to understand until the lapse of years after my entrance into the spiritual world, and then only by slow and discreet degrees. Step by step only did I receive the influx of spiritual light and truth, opening my eyes to the truth and impressing my soul with the consciousness of the errors and falsities of my teachings when on the earth embodied.

“In the spiritual world we are not allowed to perceive truth except by degrees and interior growth, and only as we are enabled to outgrow and disown error. Our errors, whether of acts and deeds committed, duties omitted, or false theories, either taught or believed by us when in the form, follow us to the spiritual world and cling to us with a perfectly amazing and persistent tenacity, and this constitutes hell and it exists nowhere else.”

June 22, 1882:

“In my philosophy of correspondences there was much truth, with here and there a shade of error. It was argumentative, speculative, and characterized by analogous reasoning, but not sufficiently intuitive to reach the full height of spiritual induction. But whatever errors may have crept into this department of my writings, they have been comparatively harmless.

“What has given me the greatest annoyance since my departure from the flesh, or rather since I have better understood the subject; and what has given me the greatest anxiety to have eradicated from the minds of those who read me believingly, are my teachings on the subject of the hells in the spiritual world. I desire here to lay down a proposition I know to be true, whoever may state to the contrary, namely: No embodied spirit was ever enabled, no matter how highly developed the organism of the subject, to leave the body, go into the spiritual spheres, undergo experiences there, behold scenes, hold converse with their inhabitants, witness events and occurrences transpiring there, then return to the body, bring it back into normal action, and then correctly and in detail and in purity of narrative give to the world through the physical organism of the body, what it had seen, heard, and witnessed, during its temporary absence. If it were otherwise, and the spiritual world a real, fixed and objective reality, all who visited it in spirit during physical embodiment, would on returning and reanimating the body with the returning spiritual influx impart the same information and recite the same story. The directly opposite of this is true, and settles the question irrevocably in the negative as to the absolute reliability of knowledge imparted by spirits while inhabiting the natural body, although permitted by the operation of a certain law which is neither wholly spiritual nor physical, but a combination of both, to leave for a short period its tenement of flesh. Even then the spirit entire does not vacate the body, even for an instant of time, for if it did life in the body would become immediately extinct. However far the consciousness of the spirit may wander away from its home in the material house it must maintain an inseparable connection with it, at least by a portion of the magnetism of itself. Therefore during its visits away it is nevertheless all the while connected with the body, and hampered and fettered by it, and more or less governed by its laws and conditions. It can not, therefore, on returning, and it has never been wholly absent, give fully, purely, and correctly its spiritual observations and experiences.

“When I visited the spiritual world during my embodied life I was governed by this same law and subjected to the same limitations, and hence what I related was not entitled to full credence and belief. So it has been in all cases of trance in the past, and will continue to be in the future for ages yet to come. In my next I shall speak of some instances illustrative of this truth.”

June 26, 1882:

“As illustrative of the proposition submitted in my last I will only mention a few among numerous instances.

“The book of Revelations states that John visited the Isle of Patmos on the Lord’s day, and was then and there in the spirit. (I should have used the expression ‘entranced’ or ‘trance state,’ or that ‘the Lord permitted me to see.’) While thus in the spirit or trance state he was taken to the heavens. After resuming his normal condition in the body he essays to write out what he thinks he saw, or so much of it as he is enabled to retain in memory, and call up after again fully controlling the physical body. He says that he saw beasts worshiping around the throne of God, and that he saw a beast rise out of the sea with seven heads and ten horns; that a book written in heaven was handed him with the command that he eat it, which he assures us he did, etc. Does any one believe that these were veritable occurrences, ‘that there were beasts in heaven full of heavenly love, evinced in worshiping before the throne, and that books were written in heaven for men to eat? The Koran of Mahomet is an improvement on this, for it was not eaten, but preserved for use.

“Now, I want to say to the world, especially the New Church people, that my visions of the hells had no more foundation in fact than John’s beasts, dragons and golden candlesticks. The difference between John and myself, that is, the important difference, consisted in the fact that John’s symbolic visions were explained to be unrealities, while I was left to believe mine to be absolute verities. In fact one was as unreal as the other, and only forcibly illustrates the unreliability of this mode of deriving true and genuine spiritual knowledge.

“Your own Andrew Jackson Davis is another instance corroborative of my proposition. He avers that he has been, not ‘in the spirit,’ like John, nor ‘in the trance state,’ like myself, but, in more Æsthetic phraseology, ‘in the superior state.’ They all practically mean the same thing. Davis says he located while in the ‘superior state’ the spirit world proper, and found it to be in or beyond the ‘milky way,’ thus inflicting a cruel blow upon the science of astronomy. Astronomy teaches, and correctly, too, as every well informed spirit knows, that the ‘milky way’ is a vast assemblage or constellation of suns, worlds and systems of solar worlds, and yet Mr. Davis was honest.

“Judge John Worth Edmonds, in his earlier mediumship and spiritualistic experiences, visited the other world in spirit, and his description of the hells recorded in his work entitled ‘Spiritualism,’ was somewhat analogous to mine, and very much in harmony with it. His temperament, mental methods and spiritual development were not very dissimilar to mine, and he had been previously as thoroughly grounded in Calvinism as I had been in Lutheranism. So it was but natural that we should see and interpret much alike. Yet in final conclusions we were in absolute antagonism, differing fully as widely as the poles are separated in distance by terrestrial measurement.

“Truth can not dissemble nor assume deceptive garbs, and all seeing the same things differently, proves that neither could be relied upon, for if they had been true and genuine verities, all would have seen and reported them alike.”

June 29, 1882:

“Since I have been inducted into higher light and blessed with the true knowledge I have been utterly amazed in reviewing my writings, resulting in the discovery of two facts, namely, their prolixity in matter and stupendousness in folly. It seems to me now as almost utterly incredible that in my efforts at the spiritual interpretation of the scriptures I should have written so many absolutely silly and unmeaning things. It becomes my duty, and I can not be happy without it, to make this declaration, however humiliating it may be to me, viewed from your standpoint, but the truth and the peace, happiness and progress of my spirit require it. No work was ever written but what an ingenious metaphysician might not twist out of its every paragraph an assumed interior and mysterious meaning.

“But, after all, I was fortuitous in advancing many ennobling and wholesome truths. In all that I wrote I take greater pride and unto myself much rejoicing in my assaults upon the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone, and in my enjoining love to the neighbor. However, to believe in and teach the doctrine of love one to another, or ‘love thy neighbor as thyself,’ does not require an inspiration from heaven. It is the doctrine taught by universal nature and in-worked in the web and woof of human nature. To realize and understand it we have only to become even partially civilized and to commune with nature and ourselves.

“A great portion of my life has been devoted to secular pursuits and the study of natural science. I also possessed some inventive genius, and during my purely secular career I was always contemplating, by silent meditation, employing the latter part of my life in the study of the properties of the human soul and its relation to the Lord and human life. Therefore when I came to engage the subject, it was not a spontaneous impulsion to it, as some have supposed, although it was immediately attended and characterized by a degree of spiritual illumination and inspiration. I did not approach the examination of the subject wholly free and untrammeled by prejudice and uninfluenced by bias. I had previously conceived thoroughly deep convictions relating to this subject, and I now know no amount of spiritual aid could have possibly eradicated them sufficiently to have allowed the presentation of the plain, unadulterated truth.

“Oh, how effectually are we enslaved by education, association and mental training. The man who can overcome them in the pursuit of truth is far superior in all that goes to make up true manhood to the crowned heads and pampered ones of earth; yea, he is not only grand and noble in the full stature of his manhood, but he is more—he is godlike.”

July 3, 1882:

“I do not affirm the non-existence of heaven and hell, but what I would be understood as affirming is their non-existence as separate, independent and fixed localities. If you will interpret heaven to mean happiness, and hell its opposite, that is, misery, we can fully agree, for this interpretation implies what is veritably true, namely, that they are conditions, and not localities. As conditions they not only exist in the spiritual world, but also in the sensual or material, and apply to both embodied and disembodied man.

“It is related that Jesus said, ‘The kingdom of heaven is within you,’ and never was truth more completely and potently uttered. At the time he was talking to men in the body, and to them he declares, ‘The kingdom of heaven is within you.’

“If he is entitled to credit as an authority on the subject, and Christians certainly will not gainsay it, then it is quite clear that heaven, being in the human, spiritual beings is as a locality nowhere else. And inasmuch as it could not exist in the human being as a location, for this would give us millions upon innumerable millions of localized heavens, one for each breathing human embodied man, to become destroyed at the death of each, which is too absurd to be seriously discussed, it must necessarily follow, and as clear as the sunlight of heaven, that whatever that kingdom may in fact be, it is simply and absolutely a condition. And we can therefore readily see that as a condition, different with every human being, owing to the moral status and spiritual development of each, it perpetuates itself as truly and fully as does the spirit itself survive the dissolution of the aggregated physical atoms and forces of the material body, and moreover accompanies the real man into the spiritual world. So with its opposite—hell.

“If this is conceded, and no Christian can deny it with any degree of consistency, for the moment he does he dishonors Jesus as an authority, then the whole foundation of a local permanent hell is swept away, and the loathsome superstructure erected thereupon falls to the ground forever.

“Heaven and hell, viewed in any sense, are opposites, and wherever they exist they must exist simultaneously, for some are in heaven and some in hell all the time, and therefore if the kingdom of heaven is in the children of men, so also must be the kingdom of hell, or it does not exist at all.

“With my limited power I can not elaborate this point, or even present it as I should like to, and you must be content with a bare and imperfect statement.”

July 6, 1882:

“Before the mythologists of antiquity had constructed a hell they had on their hands a personal, individualized spirit of evil, known as the serpent or satan, and more modernly as the devil. Investing this mythological creature with all the distinguishing attributes of the Lord, save that of goodness, they must have a localized place of sufficient capacity, and properly arranged for the enjoyment by him of the fruits of his labors. Divesting him of all goodness per se, the hell of their creation must necessarily represent his newly-acquired condition of total depravity, for previously he had been an angel in heaven, and must possess the proper and 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 hell, 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 hells 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 hells, and I will only present one instance among many equally absurd. You will find in my ‘memorable relations’ that I spoke of a certain class 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 God 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 hell 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 God, and you have fitly spoken a system that could only have originated in an orthodox hell, 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 hell, with God presiding over the one and the devil over the other, were driven to the necessity of concocting a scheme for populating them. The God of their creation they represent to be possessed of infinite perfections and glory, and heaven the very ideal of grandeur and beatitude. One would very naturally conclude that in their scheme they would have so arranged that God 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 God 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 god 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 assuming 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 God’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 circumscribed and few travel in it, while the road that leads to hell 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 godlike 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 gratitude consisted in keeping up around the throne of the Lord a continual musical concert, both vocal and instrumental. Such distinguished and illustrious souls as Washington, Jefferson, Webster, Clay, Lincoln, Garfield, Paine, Voltaire, and others, could not be induced to participate for all future time in such exercises, for their mental constitutions were too robust and great and their souls too much interested in other and more ennobling pursuits. This kind of heaven would not suit souls of such intellectual proportions, and the orthodox hell, if accompanied by suffering, would be preferable to them, because their associations, 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, hell, 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 hell and vice versa. Heaven and hell 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. God 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 assumption 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 assured 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 damnation—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 altitude 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 pass it by with a mere reference to it.”

July 28, 1882:

“The Catholics have three states for the dead, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory; the thorough orthodox Protestants two, striking out purgatory; while the Universalists insist on expunging hell from the catalogue. Some will have one God, 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 gods 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 assigning 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, noble 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 retard 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 anticipation of the near approach of death, they bequeathed their accumulations to charitable and benevolent institutions, 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 accumulated 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 constitutes 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 passing moment of life, and suggests very naturally to make the most out of it. I do not mean to be understood as asserting 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 noble 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 passages in the bible, especially the epistles in the New Testament. The declarative assumptions 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 beatitudes 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 association 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 passed 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; worship 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 mediumship. 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 nobly; 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.

“God 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.”