A Book Written by the Spirits of the So-Called Dead

by Unknown

“April 10: If you could be instantaneously transferred to the planet Mars just as you are in the form you could not live a moment of time. The intensely rarefied and etherealized atmospheres surrounding that planet would not maintain animal life such as yours. Yet the time has been when beings more crude, dense and undeveloped have lived and figured on the stage of Mar’s history. The law of evolution or unceasing progression applies to all planets and in a degree of unfoldment according to the periodic duration of time of each. Hence, under the operation of this inexorable law of the creation you can readily and with quick discerning eye see the ultimate destiny of all—that is to say, the utter overcoming of the crude and unrefined by the spiritual absorption of the whole, and yet this law that lifts the lower into the higher has no limit or ending. You can therefore see in the myriad ages of future time with this law, all the while actively working, how inexpressibly refined and sublimated will become spiritual beings and spiritual essences. This constitutes a grand revelation, and presents in contemplation the grand possibilities in store for man and the fittest of all things material. While the constituent elements are the same, yet in outward manifestation the atoms composing your physical bodies, and those in the form on Mars, are quite dissimilar. The same elements that exist here, either as applied to the spiritual or material, are essentially the same as exist in the remotest realms of the creation. They only differ in presentation or outward manifestation, and in the degree of their development and progression. Here is another theme for contemplation and study, and the fact as here disclosed ought to fill us with proud satisfaction, for the inherent elements and qualities possessed by the millions of worlds, revolving in the unexplored immensity of space and their countless myriad hosts of people, are possessed by our world and our denizens, only differing in the intensity of their action and the degree of unfoldment or approximation toward maturity—ah, a maturity that never matures. While the law of progression is infinite it deals with the finite, and as the finite can only advance toward but never become infinite, so will this mighty law of progression carry us onward and onward, upward and upward through all coming time, and yet will never cease from its labors or find repose. What a mighty destiny before and for man!

“April 14. In this and my next I will tell you some things that will surprise you, but they are veritably true. I am dealing with you in verities, however absurd and preposterous they may appear to the unprogressed mind. This is said, by your people, to be a remarkable age, and in many respects it is so. You are receiving some matter far in advance of the age in which you are living, but it will be properly recognized and appreciated in the years to come.

“On the planet Mars jails and prison houses for the confinement and punishment of malefactors are only historic reminiscences of the past. There are now no punishments inflicted because there are no offenders to punish.

“The doctrine of sacrificial atonement, with its retarding influence, was never taught to the people of that planet. They have always been taught the supreme goodness of the creator conjoined with wisdom and almighty power. God being supremely good, and supreme in the exercise of goodness, they have not for thousands of years last past entertained the slightest apprehension that any onslaught upon their peace, happiness, and future felicity, would be permitted. From this ennobling conception of God came the desire to manifest a spirit of devotion and veneration, and consequently at an earlier period of the history of Mars the worship of the people was low and groveling somewhat resembling, as I am informed, the ancient idol worship of the Egyptians and Israelites. At the present time the two worlds—the spiritual and material—of Mars are so closely allied and interblended that the spiritual forces are enabled to exercise a positively restraining influence over the conduct and actions of those still connected with the physical, so they can not, if they would, commit wrong, or perpetrate infractions upon the law of right. By reason of this high condition of development those passing out of the material form are at once intromitted into the higher conditions of the spiritual world, because they are fitted for them. All are mediums and subject absolutely to spiritual action and control. This is what your spirit world is seeking to do for you, so, if possible, to pass over and beyond some of the rough experiences of other planets, and your people do not seem to have the good sense to see it. On Mars there are no murders, arsons, robberies, forgeries, slanders, and other crimes and misdeeds, for they have progressed beyond them. Do you not perceive the sublimity of this condition? and will it not be a most glorious consummation when you shall have reached the same altitude of progress.

“April 17. Another subject of inquiry engrossed my attention, namely, marriage. I became interested to know something of the history of this people on this subject, and I found it to be an exceedingly interesting one. At this period of Mars there is no such institution as marriage in the sense you regard it. It is not an exaggeration to say that a very large per cent of your marriages are brought about as the result of the most unholy motives. Passion, lust, avarice, etc., are generally the impelling influences, and seldom is witnessed a union from purely spiritual causes. It is needless to say these marriages are not only temporal, ending with the death of the body, if not sooner by an unholy judicial system of divorcement, but entail a cruel blighting curse upon the race.

“The history of your own planet on the subject of marriage is but feebly understood by you. Enough however is known to induce all lovers of humanity to loathe and detest it as it has been practiced in the past. It is claimed that God created animate creatures in pairs, male and female, and that, as applied to man, he cemented a union of one man and one woman in the marriage relation, and that this occurred at the commencement of the creation in the Garden of Eden. Your conspicuous bible characters, such as Abraham, David, Solomon, and others, have not only ignored and trampled upon virtue in its simplest and purest forms, but with the hellish gluttony of the vampire feasting on blood, they debauched innocence, prostituted virtue to their unholy lust, and thereby destroyed the holiest relation of life. Their numerous wives and concubines attest this, and yet your pious Christians are waging a relentless warfare upon the Mormons of Utah and vehemently thundering against the polygamous practices of the Latter Day Saints. Shame for Christian consistency. On this subject your advanced thinkers do not discuss those eternal and enduring spiritual laws of attraction by magnetic and soul affinity upon which alone shines forth in eternal splendor the blending of soul with soul in an everlasting conjugal union. The people of Mars understand and adopt these laws, or rather harmonize and abide in them, and now while embodied their marriages are for all unending future time. As the result we discover on that planet a race of people almost perfect in their mental, moral, and physical developments, requiring only time, experience, and progression, to disclose the still more wonderful proportions of their being. The union of one man and one woman under spiritual conditions is the highest type of marriage, and constitutes the paramount and supreme intention of the deity, and is the ultimatum and consummation of the law of conjugal love—all others are fleeting, dishonoring, and only evil.

“April 20. Your candidates for matrimony, first obtaining each other’s consent, and the approval of parents or guardians, apply to the legally constituted authorities for a license or permit to enter the holy state, and when procured they repair to a priest or magistrate, who for a few shekels pronounces a few stereotyped phrases, followed by the solemn declaration pronouncing them man and wife, closing generally with the ludicrous and farcical command, ‘whom God has joined together let no man put asunder.’ Oh, what a caricature and farce. It is bad enough to declare whom the law has joined together, and so forth, but to assume with such solemn gravity that God has joined in wedlock’s sacred union many of the marriage alliances which are mere caricatures of marriage, is not only blasphemy, but the very apex of nonsense, and is the widest possible departure from truth.

“If it be true that God joins them together, no power, save himself could put asunder or disunite. To assert otherwise would amount to affirming that God is the author of failures. The difference between marriages that only have their basis in consent, license, and ceremony, and that marriage which God cements when two are joined by the divine laws of soul affinity and magnetic attraction—the one is of the earth earthy, the other is from the Lord through and by the operation of eternal law, and is therefore heavenly. Oh, that the children of earth might learn and conform to these subtle and glorious laws for their own good and in the interest of those to come after them.

“On the planet Mars the people have no license system on any subject. While you on earth are wrangling about licensing the sale of intoxicating beverages, on Mars they have none to license. While here you are exercised over measures of taxation to raise revenue to support the government, on Mars no taxes whatever are imposed, and public affairs for the general public good are administered freely and without compensation, purely as a labor of love. The truth is that the mundane affairs of Mars are more regulated, controlled, and conducted by the spiritual powers of the planet than by those in the form. The two worlds are so intimately related to each other, and are so closely brought together, that this is not only practicable but desirable and profitable.

“April 21. There is on the planet Mars a subterranean passage through it from pole to pole, which Mr. Swedenborg informs me he has thoroughly explored. There is more truth than poetry in what is known as Symmes’ hole as applied to your earth. When the time comes by the settlement of your as yet vast millions of uninhabited acres, and a change takes place in northern temperature and conditions, the people of that day will discover within and through the very heart center of your earth a country nearly a third as large as the exterior surface, and by that time every thing therein will be sufficiently progressed and developed to supply the wants and invite the ambition and energies of the people of that period. But this discovery, or rather the occupation of this subterranean country, is very far off in point of time, and the human race of earth will then be quite different from what it is now. They will have so changed by the lapse of time and the law of progress as to be enabled to pass into the new country by way of the north pole with ease and safety. The north pole is the true opening, and can not be reached until the fullness of time, as I have indicated. As the area of territory of Mar’s surface was about being densely covered by population, and apprehensions were being entertained for the future of the race, lo and behold, the new interior country was discovered and subsequently peopled. By the time it is crowded no more will be needed, for the planet by that time will have passed into its spiritual orbit and into the ocean of spiritual ether, where suffering can never come from lack of room. This will be the future history of your planet, and you will pass through the same experiences and reach the same ultimate. Behold how infinitely wise all things are forearranged. Just as we need by our development new limits, new appliances and new things, they are ready for our use, and are never disclosed until we are ready for and need them.