How strongly does Prof. Blake sustain my theory when he says, "All atoms of matter are charged with electricity. All vital actions are always connected with electricity." He also shows how medicines affect the human body, how antidotes neutralize poison, why stimulants arouse electrical energy, and how narcotics stupify and deaden it.
Electricity, I contend, is the active, energetic and all-pervading ultimate force in nature, controlled by the still more refined and ultimate spiritual force. It is the medium and ever-active agent in evoking all visible forms and substances; the medium which produces all affinities and repulsions in matter, gyrating from the lowest to the highest elements and from globe to globe, and constitutes the invisible controlling element whose results are known as laws. Electricity is the guardian and executive of the invisible laws of nature. It is the suspension bridge spanning the darkness and chaos of space between suns and worlds.
Man is the product of the perfect unfolding of nature's invisible electric laws, and aggregate atomic elements; and unites within himself all the elements and forces of the combined and harmonious universe. He is an epitome of the universe and an atom of deity. His form, like all visible forms, is only the temporal combination of material substances woven by invisible electric force out of invisible ether. The thoughts of man's mind are the governing force of his organism. The thoughts of the Great Creative Mind constitute the laws of nature and the controlling force in the electric organism of the universe. Man is a Soul clad in air.
The results of these thoughts of deity are the vast expanse of the universe and varied forms of animate and inanimate nature; just as the result of man's thoughts are the varied structures, temples and works of art, constructed by him upon the surface of the earth. All things man creates are the representatives of his thought, the outward expression of his soul. He creates nothing but what is a living evidence of his previous thought or concept. All things tangible are the living evidence of a soul—the invisible soul or spirit of deity and man. All material things are the forms of God's thoughts or man's thoughts, which is the interior cause, producing tangible effects. For the natural world is the spiritual unfoldment made manifest in matter by electric energy. But I must not consume space by a repetition of these things. What the world wants is the truth, and we are discovering it at a very rapid rate. And if these theories are not the truth they are nearer to it than nine-tenths of the accepted truths of science.
The ancients knew little about their bodies, or the mysterious operations of physical life. They looked only at effects and the outside of things, and knew nothing of the invisible forces of nature. They regarded all the mysteries they could not understand as supernatural, as outside of nature, and produced by demons, wizards, necromancers, or their imaginary gods.
Their knowledge of their bodies was as limited as their knowledge of the universe, which they regarded as a little span of flat earth and bending sky; and they relied on incantations and prayers to restore the sick, and on the flight of birds and the entrails of beasts to reveal the mysteries of the future. They believed in obsession and deemed all sick, insane and diseased persons as possessed of demon spirits or devils, and their restoration to health or their right minds was called "the casting out of devils."
The ancients also believed every evil propensity was the prompting of some demon spirit that possessed the human body, and that there was as many devils as there were evil propensities. Mary Magdalene was possessed of seven devils, and the man who had more evil propensities than they could enumerate was said to possess a "legion of devils."
But the world is fast outgrowing the ignorance and superstition of the past and this is a fortunate and happy age in which to live. This is pre-eminently the age of electricity—of mind and invisible forces—as the past century was an age of matter. The whole world is feeling the electric thrill of a new life. New voices call us, new inspirations are in the air, new thoughts crowd upon the thinking mind. The reasoning soul catches whispers from the stars and celestial benedictions from the radiance of the sun. Man is a heaven-bound spirit in an electric body woven of dust and air, of infinite ether and eternal atoms, sifted through boundless space, and tossed from suns to worlds; and he is climbing to loftier spiritual heights and a diviner atmosphere.
The great men of the past had false ideals. They were the ambitious conquerors, who despoiled their own race and deluged the world in blood. Their thrones were built on pyramids of human skulls swimming in a sea of human blood and tears. Their triumphal march was heralded by the clanking chains of miserable captives, and the wailing cries of widows and orphans. For many ages human slavery, grinding poverty and abject misery were the common heritage of the despoiled masses who lived in hovels, were made food for cannon, or were sold into bondage for debt, while a few fortunate rulers reveled in luxury and swayed despotic power. Up to the recent centuries the chief vocations of men were the soldier and the priest—the one for slaughter and the other to appease the gods.