456. The raps are produced by voluntary discharges of the vitalized spiritual electricity, above mentioned, from the spirit, coming in contact with the animal electricity emanating from the medium. These discharges we can direct at will to any particular locality, thereby producing sounds or concussions.
457. The question being often asked, “How do you move solid substances?” I would partly answer it by asking, How does a magnet attract and raise from their resting-places certain bodies within whose sphere it is brought? How does a man move his body and direct it whithersoever it goeth? How does God, the almighty cause of all causes, move and keep in perpetual motion the immense systems which revolve in space, and maintain each in its due relative position? I answer, By the magnetism of a positive will.
458. We, in common with you and all animals, possess an infinitesimal portion of this power, varying in degree in different classes and in different individuals. When you raise your arm, as in the act of lifting or moving a body, you direct by the force of your will-power galvanic currents on the muscles required to perform the function. The muscles acting as levers, through the stimulus of the subtle element, act and react on the more solid parts, the bones, and thus is the object laid hold of and moved, and still you do not come into direct contact with the object. Now, this is called a very simple operation, and so it would appear, but who understands it? Although advanced spirits are much more conversant with the forces operating in nature than the most intellectually developed man in the form, still they do not, nor can they ever, as long as eternity rolls on, understand the hidden sphere of cause. The operation of the will it is impossible to understand. Now, as I have said, we are not possessed of physical bodies; still we can make the imponderable elements subserve our purposes by acting as bones, nerves, and muscles.
459. Touching our peregrinations and voyages of discovery, about which so much has been said by spirits, as well as mortals, I will say that it is a fallacy to suppose that every spirit can visit at will the planets of the solar system, much less those of the more remote systems, since I am certain that none but the residents of the seventh sphere, or the angels of the “Supernal Heavens,” have the power to do so; because each planet, being an inhabited globe, hath its concentric or spiritual spheres, through all of which in order to reach it a spirit must pass. It is obvious, therefore, according to the immutable law of progression, that the transit of a spirit to a distant planet would require its adaptation to the highest sphere of that body.
460. Having spoken of the angels of the “Supernal Heavens,” I will explain what is meant by this designation. They are those pure and comparatively exalted beings who, having advanced beyond the highest sphere of the planet to which they belonged, and attained a very high state of moral and intellectual development, have been admitted into that great and illimitable sphere of progression which lies outside of all other spheres, and in which the greatest conceivable degree of harmony reigns. It is composed of one grand harmonial society, whose members are privileged to go wheresoever they will through the boundless empire of space. They are principally from the planets Jupiter and Saturn, and hold a much more distinguished rank in the intellectual, moral, and social system than the inhabitants of earth. I have not learned that any spirit from our planet has yet reached the Supernal Heaven.
461. It has been said that spirits hunger, thirst, and stand in need of repose. It is true that those states do pertain to spirit life agreeably to the law of spiritual correspondences. The grosser and more undeveloped the spirit, the closer is the analogy between it and the physical states.
462. Physical laws and substances are gross or externalized spiritual laws and things. The more refined and developed the spirit, the less it requires of gross aliment. Refined, intellectual, and moral beings are nourished and sustained by refined, intellectual, and moral nutriment. Their food is derived from the “Tree of Knowledge,” and they slake their thirst at the crystal streams which continually flow from the inexhaustible fountain of God’s wisdom and love. The lowest undeveloped spirit lives on comparatively refined aliment to that on which mortals subsist. It consists of the more refined elements of spiritual fruits and vegetables. The spirit’s need of rest depends on its particular degree of development, diminishing in proportion to its advancement from the material plane.
463. Though the principles embodied in our teachings and philosophy may be regarded, by the majority of mankind, as strange and incomprehensible, they are, nevertheless, no more so than the principles of natural science would be to the unlettered mind. As the ability to comprehend the principles on which the natural sciences are based increases with the expansion of the intellectual faculties, in like manner is the power of perceiving spiritual things and relations increased by the development of the interior or spiritual faculties.
464. As there are no words in the human language in which spiritual ideas may be embodied so as to convey their literal and exact signification, we are obliged ofttimes to have recourse to the use of analogisms and metaphorical modes of expression. In our communion with you we have to comply with the peculiar structure and rules of your language; but the genius of our language is such that we can impart more ideas to each other in a single word than you can possibly convey in a hundred.
465. I have thus given you a general outline of the leading facts connected with the destiny of the race. I have endeavoured to show you that man is a progressive being, that he possesses a refined material ([449]) organization, which, going with him at death, serves as a medium through which he may communicate with the visible world. I will here add that, under certain circumstances, this spiritual organization has the power of reflecting the rays of light, so as to be rendered visible to the natural eye, as are certain gaseous bodies.