“No,” he continued; “it is the mercy of the Lord which in the present evil state of the world keeps these two realms of being from a conscious intermingling. The offices and uses of the two worlds are different; one begins where the other ends. To throw them together would be to produce inextricable confusion, to destroy free-agency, to confound good and evil, to thwart regeneration, to arrest the judgment, to close heaven and to open hell.
“All this can only be made clear to you by a thorough system of religious philosophy, embracing a true psychology and the organic relations of God to the universe, and of the different parts of it to each other. All these will be the subjects of your delightful study, and may possibly be revealed to mankind in some far-off futurity, when men become capable of receiving and utilizing such sublime mysteries.
“To seek to penetrate the veil which separates the spiritual from the natural realm, to invite an open intercourse with spirits, to consult them about earthly affairs, is one of the terrible crimes denounced and forbidden in Scripture. It is the secret source of the power and mysteries of magic. To seek such intercourse is perilous to the soul’s best welfare. Therefore it is that consulting with ‘familiar spirits’ is forbidden in the Word. It is forbidden for man’s own good.”
“These are new ideas to me,” I said, “and I cannot fully comprehend them. How should I, filled as I am with fallacies which need exposure and removal! But I am appalled, my dear father, at the thought that the world of spirits is so full of evil, and that we enter on a [pg 189]state of fearful explorations, combats, temptations and judgments on leaving the natural world.”
“Yes, my son. In heaven only there is rest. There only are perfect peace and order and love. The road to heaven lies through the world of spirits, through its instructions, its purifications, its judgments. The pathway is pleasant and beautiful to the good man; for at every step he lets fall some hateful thing that clung to him in the past, and he rises into new light, new glory, new joy.”
“You spoke,” said I, “of general judgments occurring in the world of spirits, as well as the particular judgment of each individual. What do you mean by that?”
“At the end of every church, every dispensation, every old order of things, and at the beginning of a new church, a new revelation, a new era, there is a great judgment executed in the world of spirits. This judgment is effected by the light of divine truth streaming down through the open heavens, searching people to the core, revealing their true characters, separating the evil from the good, casting the former into hell, elevating the latter into heaven. It is a destruction and reconstruction of the world of spirits. This stupendous event is described in Scripture as the great and notable day of the Lord, the day of wrath, the judgment day, the end of the world.
“You have come into the world of spirits at a period when you can witness the mighty events foretold by Isaiah and Ezekiel. There is a judgment now going on upon the last remains of the Jewish Church, and on all the pagan nations in the world of spirits; and prepar[pg 190]ations are being made for the institution of a new and more spiritual church on earth. The Messiah has come and judgment follows.”
“You astonish me,” I exclaimed. “The people on earth know nothing of these things. They are expecting a fulfillment of the prophecies in the material world. They expect the Messiah to come in splendor and power, to invest the Jewish people with supreme dominion, and to wreak his vengeance on all the disobedient and idolatrous.”
“Poor blind ones, led by the blind! They interpret literally what was written in the language of symbols and given to them for spiritual uses.”