CHAPTER XI.
COMMUNICATIONS FROM EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
The following communications, purporting to come from the spirit of Emanuel Swedenborg, at Mrs. Green’s, are arranged in the order of their reception:
September 26, 1881:
“I greet you; good morning. You hail from dear old Sweden, my native land. The same native blood that coursed through my veins flows through yours. For a long time I have realized that your thoughts have been on me and the doctrines I taught on earth, some of which I would gladly recant. In my day nothing else could have been projected through my brain, and nothing less violent, though more truthful, would have engaged attention or commanded respect. My writings, as I now see them, were a strange commingling of truth and error, though I believe with truth largely predominant. I want the world, especially my followers, the disciples of the Church of New Jerusalem, to eliminate, in the interest of truth, the errors and crudities that unwittingly, though reverentially, crept into my theological writings. The hells as I portrayed them I now know were magnified into undue and absurd proportions, colored and distorted by my own preconceived notions, and, moreover, largely attributable to the religious temper and theologic thought of the time in which I wrote. Tell your good companion and others of like convictions to discard at once and fearlessly my unwarranted denunciation against holding intercourse with the inhabitants of the spiritual world. I misapprehended, and, alas, misinterpreted the holy visions given me. I was allowed to see prophetically that the two worlds would be brought into close communicating relations, and I ought to have seen farther—that it would occur through and by the permission and co-operative agency of God and his laws, and ought not therefore to be interdicted. This has given me vast annoyance, and I am very solicitous indeed that this shall be righted. Hold fast to this spiritualism, for therein only can be found light and love and wisdom. My power to maintain control is weakening, and I must close for the present. I will meet you here again. Good bye.
“Emanuel Swedenborg.”
October 3, 1881
“In my communication a week ago I referred, not incidentally, but purposely, to my followers of the Church of the New Jerusalem. It is gratifying to me to know that they are in the main honest, faithful and intelligent people; but I regret that they have deemed it proper to resolve themselves into an exclusive sect; for, disguise it as you may, all sects are more or less exclusive. Among the many curses that afflict your mortal humanity, none are to be more deplored than sectarianism and dogmatic theology. Do you know that in the most ambitious moments of my earthly career, much less in the lofty moods of my medial inspiration, I never dreamed that I was to become the founder of a religious sect, especially one based on dogmatic formulas. The affirmations of material science now no longer questioned that in all organized structures reside the underlying, all-pervading and continually operating elements. Disintegration, decay and ultimate destruction of the organized form apply with equal and unerring certainty to ecclesiastical bodies. Modern spiritualism in this, that it is specifically and rigidly scientific, clustering beauteously around the family hearthstone, adorning and hallowing the family altar, may be distinguished by its infinite superiority to all other systems, it having no creed to establish, and steadfastly repelling all attempts at organization, is destined to survive the wreck and demolition of all theological teaching standing in antagonistic relations to it; and this God-given, heaven-inspiring humanity, embracing soul-uplifting spiritualism, is to become the universal religion of mankind. I will continue to administer to your wants and remove the scales from the eyes of the people, especially my followers. More anon.
“Emanuel Swedenborg.”
On October 17, 1881, the following communication appeared on the slate: