“Professor Boanerges Phospher undertakes to show in the lecture of to-night, That in the universe there are these three things: end, cause, and effect; that infinite things in the infinite are one; that they constitute a triune existence—they are three in one; that the universe is a work cohering from firsts to lasts.
“That Good is from a twofold origin, and thence adscititious. That celestial good is good in essence, and spiritual good is good in form. That the good of the inmost Heaven is called celestial; of the middle Heaven, spiritual; and of the ultimate Heaven, spiritual, natural. That good is called lord, and truth servant, before they are conjoined, but afterwards they are called brethren. That he who is good is in the faculty of seeing truth, which flows from general truths, and this in a continual series. That good is actually spiritual fire, from which spiritual heat, which makes alone, is derived.
“That all Evil has its rise from the sensual principle, and also from the scientific. There is an evil derived from the false, and a false from evil.
“That gold sig. the good of love. When twice mentioned, sig. the good of love, and the good of faith originating in love.
“That influx from the Lord is through the internal into the external. Spiritual influx is founded on the nature of things, which is spirit acting on matter.
“That physical influx, or natural, originates from the fallacy of the senses that the body acts on spirit.
“That harmonious influx is founded on a false conclusion, viz.: that the soul acts jointly and at the same instant with the body. That there is a common influx; and this influx passes into the life of animals, and also into the subjects of the vegetable kingdom. That influx passes from the Lord to man through the forehead—for the forehead corresponds to love, and the face to the interior of the mind.”
To be followed by questions in the correspondences by any of the audience who may choose to ask them, such as, To what does “horse” correspond?—To what does “table,” “chair,” or “soap-stone” correspond?—To what does “hog,” “goose,” “butter-milk,” or “jackass” correspond? &c., &c. To all of which questions the learned lecturer will give edifying answers from the stand. Admittance, one dollar—Children, half-price.
This is a long programme, to be sure, and somewhat overwhelming to we common people, who have been in the habit of regarding certain subjects with the profoundest veneration, and our modest and capable teachers with reverence. But the very length of this programme, and the enormous stretch of the themes, only go, I suppose, to illustrate the hardihood of our “admirable Crichton,” the professor of the occult—and the genial and the generous—to call it by its lightest name—gullibility, of his gaping audience.
Forth went these flaming announcements day by day, on thousand hot-pressed sheets, until New York became all agog, and the great mass conceived that they had found a new prophet. All its spectacled and thin-bearded women forthwith were in arms; the Professor wore his hair behind his ears, and, of course, was the soft and honey-sucking seraph of their dreams.