I know nothing of esoteric marvels. In one sense, everything that exists is a marvel, and the probability is that if we knew the history of one grain of sand we would know the history of the universe. I regard the universe as a unit. Everything that happens is only a different aspect of that unit. There is no room for the marvelous—there is no space in which it can operate—there is no fulcrum for its lever. The universe is already occupied with the natural. The ground is all taken.
It may be that all these people are perfectly honest, and imagine that they have had wonderful experiences. I know but little of the Theosophists—but little of the Spiritualists. It has always seemed to me that the messages received by Spiritualists are remarkably unimportant—that they tell us but little about the other world, and just as little about this—that if all the messages supposed to have come from angelic lips, or spiritual lips, were destroyed, certainly the literature of the world would lose but little. Some of these people are exceedingly intelligent, and whenever they say any good thing, I imagine that it was produced in their brain, and that it came from no other world. I have no right to pass upon their honesty. Most of them may be sincere. It may be that all the founders of religions have really supposed themselves to be inspired—believed that they held conversations with angels and Gods. It seems to be easy for some people to get in such a frame of mind that their thoughts become realities, their dreams substances, and their very hopes palpable.
Personally, I have no sort of confidence in these messages from the other world. There may be mesmeric forces—there may be an odic force. It may be that some people can tell of what another is thinking. I have seen no such people—at least I am not acquainted with them—and my own opinion is that no such persons exist.
Question. Do you believe the spirits of the dead come back to earth?
Answer. I do not. I do not say that the spirits do not come back. I simply say that I know nothing on the subject. I do not believe in such spirits, simply for the reason that I have no evidence upon which to base such a belief. I do not say there are no such spirits, for the reason that my knowledge is limited, and I know of no way of demonstrating the non-existence of spirits.
It may be that man lives forever, and it may be that what we call life ends with what we call death. I have had no experience beyond the grave, and very little back of birth. Consequently, I cannot say that I have a belief on this subject. I can simply say that I have no knowledge on this subject, and know of no fact in nature that I would use as the corner-stone of a belief.
Question. Do you believe in the resurrection of the body?
Answer. My answer to that is about the same as to the other question. I do not believe in the resurrection of the body. It seems to me an exceedingly absurd belief—and yet I do not know. I am told, and I suppose I believe, that the atoms that are in me have been in many other people, and in many other forms of life, and I suppose at death the atoms forming my body go back to the earth and are used in countless forms. These facts, or what I suppose to be facts, render a belief in the resurrection of the body impossible to me.
We get atoms to support our body from what we eat. Now, if a cannibal should eat a missionary, and certain atoms belonging to the missionary should be used by the cannibal in his body, and the cannibal should then die while the atoms of the missionary formed part of his flesh, to whom would these atoms belong in the morning of the resurrection?
Then again, science teaches us that there is a kind of balance between animal and vegetable life, and that probably all men and all animals have been trees, and all trees have been animals; so that the probability is that the atoms that are now in us have been, as I said in the first place, in millions of other people. Now, if this be so, there cannot be atoms enough in the morning of the resurrection, because, if the atoms are given to the first men, that belonged to the first men when they died, there will certainly be no atoms for the last men.