“But,” says some one, “all that is done for us instantaneously at death by the miraculous power of God.”
God works always by organic and eternal laws. The spirit, like the body, grows, develops, progresses by definite means. Seeds do not expand instantaneously into trees. A diseased tree is not changed in a moment into a healthy one. The soul which attains heaven does so by regular and progressive steps, many of which (if there has been a commencement on earth) are taken in the world of spirits. The idea that miraculous power changes a bad man into a good one, an impure soul [pg 186]into a pure one, in a moment of time, in answer to prayer and faith, is a childish fallacy disastrous to the life of true religion.
The population of this world of spirits is immense. Not only the dead from our world are there, but angelic spirits from heaven and evil spirits from hell all meet on this grand arena of spiritual combat and instruction. In the time of Christ many generations and centuries of human life were accumulated there; for evil had become so predominant, and the spiritual element in man so nearly extinguished, that few or none could be prepared for heaven. Unless, indeed, God had descended in the human form and executed a great judgment in that world, casting the evil into hell and revealing a higher dispensation of truth, mankind would have perished and heaven itself have been threatened with chaos.
But all this is myth and mystery to those who have busied themselves only with the historical movements of the natural world, not even knowing that the world of spirits above and around them had far grander historical movements,—the key and cause of all others.
Every human being living in the natural world, is attended by two good and two evil spirits who are living in the intermediate state. I saw the spirits who had accompanied me during my life; and, what is singular, although I had never seen them before, they appeared like old acquaintances and friends whom I had known from my youth. Let no man suppose that he will rise from the dead into the world of spirits, and find himself a stranger there, friendless and alone.
It seemed very wonderful to me that this mighty realm [pg 187]of spirits should be so near to men, secretly connected with them by affections and thoughts, flowing down into them, giving them life and power, and instigating them to good or evil, and still that the human race should remain ignorant of the stupendous fact—benighted by all kinds of false philosophies and false religions.
“Why,” said I to my father, “are not our earthly friends permitted to see us in this better and brighter sphere, to converse with us, and establish social relations with us?”
“They are in natural bodies,” said he, “and they cannot see our spiritual forms with their natural eyes. Their own spiritual eyes would have to be opened before they could see us. The opening of their spiritual senses would bring them into conscious communication with the world of spirits.”
“Well,” said I, “so much the better. They would then see all these wonderful things for themselves, and their doubts would be wholly dissipated.”
“Ah! you know little as yet of the world of spirits. It is full of evil and wicked ones, who share the bad passions and prompt the sinful deeds of men on earth. If men came, by the opening of their spiritual senses, into visible and audible communication with their own attendant evil spirits, the power of hell on the earth would be immeasurably increased. The power of a wicked companion in the flesh is great; but the power of an evil spirit enthroned in your bosom, possessed of your entire memory, and governing from his more interior stand-point every movement of your brain, would be fearful indeed!”