My first endeavor to solve the new questions was to check the abandon of the trance condition, and interfuse it with more of sober consciousness. It was a difficult task; and nothing but the circumstance that my consciousness had never been entirely lost enabled me to make any progress. I finally succeeded, as I imagined, (certainty is impossible,) in separating the different influences which impressed me,--perceiving where one terminated and the other commenced, or where two met and my mind vibrated from one to the other until the stronger prevailed, or where a thought which seemed to originate in my own brain took the lead and swept away with me like the mad rush of a prairie colt. When out of the trance, I noticed attentively the expressions made use of by Mr. Stilton and the other members of the circle, and was surprised to find how many of them I had reproduced. But might they not, in the first place, have been derived from me? And what was the vague, dark Presence which still overshadowed me at such times? What was that Power which I had tempted,--which we were all tempting, every time we met,--and which continually drew nearer and became more threatening? I knew not; and I know not. I would rather not speak or think of it any more.
My suspicions with regard to Stilton and Miss Fetters were confirmed by a number of circumstances which I need not describe. That he should treat his wife in a harsh, ironical manner, which the poor woman felt, but could not understand, did not surprise me; but at other times there was a treacherous tenderness about him. He would dilate eloquently upon the bliss of living in accordance with the spiritual harmonies. Among us, he said, there could be no more hatred or mistrust or jealousy,--nothing but love, pure, unselfish, perfect love. "You, my dear," (turning to Mrs. Stilton,) "belong to a sphere which is included within my own, and share in my harmonies and affinities; yet the soul-matter which adheres to you is of a different texture from mine. Yours has also its independent affinities; I see and respect them; and even though they might lead our bodies--our outward, material lives--away from one another, we should still be true to that glorious light of Jove which permeates all soul-matter."
"Oh, Abijah!" cried Mrs. Stilton, really distressed, "how can you say such a thing of me? You know I can never adhere to anybody else but you!"
Stilton would then call in my aid to explain his meaning, asserting that I had a faculty of reaching his wife's intellect, which he did not himself possess. Feeling a certain sympathy for her painful confusion of mind, I did my best to give his words an interpretation which soothed her fears. Then she begged his pardon, taking all the blame to her own stupidity, and received his grudged, unwilling kiss with a restored happiness which pained me to the heart.
I had a growing presentiment of some approaching catastrophe. I felt, distinctly, the presence of unhallowed passions in our circle; and my steadfast love for Agnes, borne thither in my bosom, seemed like a pure white dove in a cage of unclean birds. Stilton held me from him by the superior strength of his intellect. I began to mistrust, even to hate him, while I was still subject to his power, and unable to acquaint him with the change in my feelings. Miss Fetters was so repulsive that I never spoke to her when it could be avoided. I had tolerated her, heretofore, for the sake of her spiritual gift; but now, when I began to doubt the authenticity of that gift, her hungry eyes, her thin lips, her flat breast, and cold, dry hands excited in me a sensation of absolute abhorrence.
The doctrine of Affinities had some time before been adopted by the circle, as a part of the Spiritual Truth. Other circles, with which we were in communication, had also received the same revelation; and the ground upon which it was based, in fact, rendered its acceptance easy. Even I, shielded as I was by the protecting arms of a pure love, sought in vain for arguments to refute a doctrine, the practical operation of which, I saw, might be so dangerous. The soul had a right to seek its kindred soul: that I could not deny. Having found, they belonged to each other. Love is the only law which those who love are bound to obey. I shall not repeat all the sophistry whereby these positions were strengthened. The doctrine soon blossomed and bore fruit, the nature of which left no doubt as to the character of the tree.
The catastrophe came sooner than I had anticipated, and partly through my own instrumentality; though, in any case, it must finally have come. We were met together at the house of one of the most zealous and fanatical believers. There were but eight persons present,--the host and his wife, (an equally zealous proselyte,) a middle-aged bachelor neighbor, Mr. and Mrs. Stilton, Miss Fetters and her father, and myself. It was a still, cloudy, sultry evening, after one of those dull, oppressive days when all the bad blood in a man seems to be uppermost in his veins. The manifestations upon the table, with which we commenced, were unusually rapid and lively. "I am convinced," said Mr. Stilton, "that we shall receive important revelations to-night. My own mind possesses a clearness and quickness, which, I have noticed, always precede the visit of a superior spirit. Let us be passive and receptive, my friends. We are but instruments in the hands of loftier intelligences, and only through our obedience can this second advent of Truth be fulfilled."
He looked at me with that expression which I so well knew, as the signal for a surrender of my will. I had come rather unwillingly, for I was getting heartily tired of the business, and longed to shake off my habit of (spiritual) intoxication, which no longer possessed any attraction, since I had been allowed to visit Agnes as an accepted lover. In fact, I continued to hold my place in the circle principally for the sake of satisfying myself with regard to the real nature and causes of the phenomena. On this night, something in Mr. Stilton's face arrested my attention, and a rapid inspiration flashed through my mind. "Suppose," I thought, "I allow the usual effect to be produced, yet reverse the character of its operation? I am convinced that he has been directing the current of my thought according to his will; let me now render myself so thoroughly passive, that my mind, like a mirror, shall reflect what passes through his, retaining nothing of my own except the simple consciousness of what I am doing." Perhaps this was exactly what he desired. He sat, bending forward a little over the table, his square jaws firmly set, his eyes hidden beneath their heavy brows, and every long, wiry hair on his head in its proper place. I fixed my eyes upon him, threw my mind into a state of perfect receptivity, and waited.
It was not long before I felt his approach. Shadow after shadow flitted across the still mirror of my inward sense. Whether the thoughts took words in his brain or in mine,--whether I first caught his disjointed musings, and, by their utterance reacting upon him, gave system and development to his thoughts,--I cannot tell. But this I know: what I said came wholly from him,--not from the slandered spirits of the dead, not from the vagaries of my own imagination, but from him. "Listen to me!" I said. "In the flesh I was a martyr to the Truth, and I am permitted to communicate only with those whom the Truth has made free. You are the heralds of the great day; you have climbed from sphere to sphere, until now you stand near the fountains of light. But it is not enough that you see: your lives must reflect the light. The inward vision is for you, but the outward manifestation thereof is for the souls of others. Fulfil the harmonies in the flesh. Be the living music, not the silent instruments."
There was more, much more of this,--a plenitude of eloquent sound, which seems to embody sublime ideas, but which, carefully examined, contains no more palpable substance than sea-froth. If the reader will take the trouble to read an "Epic of the Starry Heavens," the production of a Spiritual Medium, he will find several hundred pages of the same character. But, by degrees, the revelation descended to details, and assumed a personal application. "In you, in all of you, the spiritual harmonies are still violated," was the conclusion. "You, Abijah Stilton, who are chosen to hold up the light of truth to the world, require that a transparent soul, capable of transmitting that light to you, should be allied to yours. She who is called your wife is a clouded lens; she can receive the light only through John----, who is her true spiritual husband, as Abby Fetters is your true spiritual wife!"