Strange Visitors / A series of original papers, embracing philosophy, science, government, religion, poetry, art, fiction, satire, humor, narrative, and prophecy, by the spirits of Irving, Willis, Thackeray, Brontë, Richter, Byron, Humboldt, Hawthorne, Wesley, Browning, and others now dwelling in the spirit world; dictated through a clairvoyant, while in an abnormal or trance state

by Henry J. Horn

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.