TABLE OF CONTENTS
- The method by which the messages were received--- The character of
the writing--- The communicating spirits--- The circumstances under
which the messages were written--- How far were they tinged by the mind
of the medium?--- Power of controlling by will the production of
writing--- These communications mark a period of spiritual education---
And, though to him who received them of great value, are published with
no such claim on others
- Special efforts to spread progressive truth at this special epoch
thwarted by the Adversaries--- Obstacles in the way --- The efforts now
made greater than men think--- Revelation: its continuity---Its
deterioration in men's hands---The work of destruction must precede that
of construction--- Spirit -guides: how given ---Spirits who return to
earth---The Adversaries and their work--- Evil --- The perpetuation of
the nature generated on earth --- The growth of character--- Each soul
to his own place, and to no other --- The Devil
- The true philanthropist the ideal man --- The notes of his
character--- The true philisopher --- The notes of his
character---Eternal life---Progressive and contemplative---God, known
only by His acts--- The conflict between good and evil (a typical
message of this period)---These conflicts periodic, especially
consequent on the premature withdrawal of spirits from the body: e.g.,
by wars, suicide, or by execution for murder --- The folly of our
methods of dealing with crime--- Of herding criminals together and
hanging the worst of them--Remedial methods preferable--- For in sending
a spirit prematurely forth from its body with rage and vengeance, we
send him with enlarged opportunity to work mischief---We do this in the
name of God, of whom we have a very false conception--- Pity and Love
are more potent than Vengeance---The sublimity of the idea of God
revealed in Spirit- Teaching compared with the old idea---
- Physical results of the rapid writing of the last message: headache,
and great prostration---Explanation--- Punitive and remedial
legislation---Asylums and their abuses---Mediums in madhouses---
Obsessing spirits living over again their base lives vicariously---
Children in the spirit-world: their training and progress---Love and
knowledge as aids---Purification by trial---Motives that bring spirits
to earth again--- Return to earth not the only mode of
progression---States of probation or purgation, and spheres of
contemplation--- Spheres and states within them---The descent of spirit
through choice of evil--- Its hatred of good and gradual assumption of
materiality till it sinks lower and lower--- The Unpardonable Sin---
- Time: April and May, 1873---Facts of a minute nature given through
writing, all unknown to me--- Spirit reading a book and reproducing a
sentence, through the writing, from Virgil and from an old book Rogers'
Antipopopriestian---Experiment reversed---
- Mediumship and its varieties---The physical medium---
Clairvoyants---Recipients of teaching, whether by objective message or
by impression---The mind must be receptive, free from dogmatism,
inquiring and progressive--- Not positive or antagonistic, but truthful
and fearless--- Selfishness and vaingloriousness must be
eradicated---The self-abnegation of Jesus Christ--- A perfect character,
fostered by a secluded life, the life of contemplation---
- The Derby Day and its effects spiritually--- National Holidays,
their riot and debauchery---Spirit photographs and deceiving spirits---
Explanation of the event: a warning for the future--- Passivity needed:
the circle to be kept unchanged: not to meet too soon after eating---
Phosphorescent lights varying according to conditions--- The marriage
bond in the future state--- Discrepancies in communication---
- The Neo-Platonic philosophy---Souffism---Extracts from old poets,
Lydgate and others, written---Answers to theological questions--- The
most difficult to approach are those who attribute everything to the
Devil---The pseudo-scientific man of small moment---. The ignorant and
uncultured must bide their time---The proud and arrogant children of
routine and respectability are passed by---The receptive are too often
cramped by a human theology which stifles true religious instincts---
They are armed at all points, and their honest but mistaken arguments
are very saddening---Reason, the final Court of Appeal--- How far does
Reason prove us of the devil, and our creed diabolic---
- The writer's personal beliefs and theological training---A period of
great spiritual exaltation--- The dual aspect of religion---The
spirit-creed respecting God---The relations between God and man---
---Faith---Belief---The theology of spirit--- Human life and its
issues---Sin and its punishment---Virtue and its reward---Divine
justice--- The spirit-creed drawn out---Revelation not confined to
Sinai---No revelation of plenary inspiration ---But to be judged by
reason
- The writer's objections---The reply: necessary to clear away
rubbish---The atonement--- Further objections of the writer---The
reply--- The sign of the cross---The vulgar conception of plenary
inspiration--- The gradual unfolding of the God-idea--- ---The Bible the
record of a gradual growth of knowledge easily discernible--- The
inspiration divine, the medium human---Hence each finds in the Bible the
reflex of his own mind--- And so the Bible becomes an armoury for all---
---And too much stress is laid on isolated texts, and words and
phrases--- At variance with these views, spirits endeavour to eradicate
what is so false as not to be put right, otherwise they take existing
opinions and mould them into closer semblance of truth--- So theological
views are toned down, not eradicated---Opinions are spiritualised--- In
this way has this teaching been given---How the sign of the cross can be
prefixed to it---
- Further objections of the writer---The reply--- A comparison between
these objections and those which assailed the work of Jesus Christ---
Spiritualised Christianity is as little acceptable now--- The outcome of
spirit-teaching---How far is it reasonable?---An exposition of the
belief compared with the orthodox creed---
- The powerful nature of the spiritual influence exerted on the
writer---His argument resumed--- The rejoinder---No objection to honest
doubt--- The decision must be made on the merits of what is said, its
coherence, and moral elevation--- The almost utter worthlessness of what
is called opinion---Religion not so abstruse a problem as man
imagines--- Truth the appanage of no sect---To be found in the
philosophy of Athenodorus, of Plotinus, of Algazzali, of Achillini--- To
whom earth-opinions are of little moment now---All may work in such work
as this, and there is no discrepancy--- Every statement made,
scrupulously exact, though some may have been distorted in transit---
This attempt to teach is one of many made to many different minds--- The
prospects of acceptance and rejection--- The position assigned to Jesus
the Christ---
- The writer's difficulties--Spirit identity--Divergence among spirits
in what they taught--- The reply--The root-error is a false conception
of God and His dealings with man--Elucidation at length of this idea---
The Devil--Risk of incursion of evil and obsession applies only to those
who, by their own debased nature, attract undeveloped spirits---
- Further objections of the writer, and statement of his
difficulties--- The reply--Patience and prayerfulness needed--Prayer---
Its benefit and blessings--The spirit view of it--- A vehemently written
communication--The dead past and the living future--- The attitude of
the world to the New Truth---
- The conflict between the writer's strong opinions and those of the
Unseen Teacher--- Difficulties of belief in an Unseen Intelligence--The
battle with intellectual doubt--- Patience needed to see that the world
is craving for something real in place of the creed outworn--- The
result of the contention was that the writer, having carried his point,
was lifted out of the personal dispute about the Messenger into a grasp
of the dignity and beauty of the message -- Statement of his mental
condition--- His own contention--- The reiterated claim to be an
enunciation of a Divine Message--- Spirit intercourse governed by
laws--No proper care of mediums---
- The religious teaching of Spiritualism--Deism, Theism, Atheism--- No
absolute truth--A motiveless religion not that of Spirit-teaching--Man,
the arbiter of his own destiny--Judged by his works, not in a far
hereafter, but at once--A definite, intelligible system--The greatest
incentive to holiness and deterrent from crime--- Spiritualism not bad
in the mass--Hard for those who are in the midst to judge--Means are
adapted to ends--A multiplicity of minds are being operated on by
methods best adapted to reach them, hence the apparent din and
confusion--- The question of Evil--Popular Spiritualism--Not only a
profoundly external revelation, but assurance of reunion, a gospel of
consolation
- The summing up--Religion has little hold of men, and they can find
nothing better--Investigation paralysed by the demand for blind faith---
A matter of geography what form of religious faith a man professes--No
monopoly of truth in any This geographical sectarianism will yield to
the New Revelation--- Theology a bye-word even amongst men--Life and
Immortality---
- The request of the writer for independent corroboration, and further
criticism--- The reply--Refusal--General retrospect of the
argument--Temporary withdrawal of Spirit-influence to give time for
thought--- Attempts at establishing facts through another medium
futile--- Further messages from Imperator during my absence from home,
and more evidence of identity--Advice to review patiently the past, and
seek composure---
- Difficulty of getting communications when it was not desired to give
the--The mean in all things desirable--- The religion of body and
soul--Spiritualising of already existing knowledge--- Cramping theology
worse than useless--Such are not able to tread the mountain-tops but
must keep within their walls, not daring to look over--- Their father's
creed is sufficient for them, and they must gain their knowledge in
another state of being--- Other do not think at all: they want things
settled for them--With all these we have nothing to do, for nothing can
be done--The way to know of the things of spirit is free, and that man
who struggles up to light gains more than he does who lets others do his
thinking for him--- That is now being done for Christianity that Jesus
did for Judaism: it is being Spiritualised--- Christ was the Great
Social Reformer, teaching liberty without licence, elevating man, and
living among common people--We declare truths identical with those
preached then--- The spiritual return of Christ
- Outline of the religious faith here taught--God and man--- The duty
of man to God, his fellow, and himself--- Progress, Culture, Purity---
Reverence, Adoration, Love--- Man's destiny--- Heaven, how gained---
Helps: communion with Spirits--- Individual belief of little
moment--Religion of acts and habits which produce character, and for
which in result each is responsible--Religion of body and soul
- More evidence of identity of spirits communicating--Perplexity
caused by a name, written psychographically, being wrongly splet:
explanation--- The writer's disturbed and anxious state reacting on the
communications--Doubt and its effects--- No use to maintain a dogmatic
attitude against facts--The trustful spirit--Advice as to the future--
Withdrawal of further communications
- The writer's condition, a personal explanation--- The reply:
reiterated advice to ponder on the past and seek seclusion--- Final
address by Imperator, retrospective, and closing for the time the
argument: October 4, 1873
- Imperator's despairing view of his work--- A striking case of
identity--- Personal explanation of the writer
- Progressive Revelation--- The chain of spiritual influence from
Melchizedek, through Moses, Elijah, to the Mount of Tramsfiguration, and
the Apocalyptic Vision--- The Pentateuch--- Abraham not on the highest
plane--Translations of Enoch and Elijah--- Legendary Beliefs in the
Sacred Records to be carefully discriminated
- The intervening period between the records of the Old and New
Testaments--A period of darkness and desolation, the night succeeding a
day of revelation--- The internal craving for advanced truth corresponds
to external revelation--- Points to be considered in the records of the
Old Testament of the life of Christ for the writer's own instruction--A
glimpse of the method of guidance exercised over him
- Pursuing his studies on the lines indicated, the writer found
evidence of the work of various hands in the Mosaic records--A message
thereupon, and a dissertation on the danger of quoting isolated texts,
and relying on the plenary inspiration of a translation--- The
compilation in Ezra's day--The Elohistic and Jehovistic legends--The
Canon of the Old Testament, how settled--- Daniel, a great seer--- The
progressive idea of God in the Bible developed and elucidated
- Changes in the communications--A retrospective marking the close of
another phase in the writer's relations to his Teachers--- The writer's
mental state, and the various phenomena that were presented, bearing on
the attempts to lift him into a more passive condition---
Music--Autographs of two celebrated composers authenticating a
communication
- India as the cradle of races and religions--A communication from
Prudens--- The man crushed by a steam-roller who communicated
immediately after death: explanations
- A communication in hieroglyphics by an old Egyptian--- Particulars
about Egyptian theology, and its relation to Judaism--- The prophet of
Ra, at On, who lived 1630 B.C---. The religion of daily life as
exemplified in Egypt--- The Trinity--- India and Egypt--- Progress in
religious knowledge not necessarily connected with any special belief---
General judgment--The fullness of spirit
- Danger of deception by personating spirits--A case in point, and an
emphatic warning on the subject--- The adversaries--Obsessing
spirits--The earth-bound and undeveloped--Temptation by them--- The
danger from these to those on whom they are able to fasten most real and
terrible--- Civilisation and its results--Christianity as in
England--Missionaries to the heathen--Our great cities, foul, weltering
masses of vice and cruelty--- The atmosphere of them intolerable to
spirit--- The other side not dwelt on now, but conspicuous exceptions
admitted--These causes hamper the good, and swell the army of the
adversaries, one of whose ready devices is to personate truthful
spirits, and so to introduce doubt and fraud--- The phenomenal
illusory--The spiritual real--Higher revealings wait for those who can
hear--- How to know a personating spirit--- The subject to be approached
with care, whereas it is recklessly and idly meddled--- Frolicsome
spirits, not evil, but sportive, foolish, with no sense of
responsibility--- Avoid the personal element as far as possible
- A photograph at Hudson's, and a communication thereupon--- Suicide
and its consequences--- The story of a wasted life, selfish and
useless--A stagnant life breeds corruption--- Experience of the spirit
when the cord of earth-life was severed--Remorse the road to
progress--Work the means of progression--- Help from
spirit-ministers--The fire of purification--- Selfishness and sin bring
misery and remorse--And thus sore judgment--No paraphernalia of
assize--- Man makes his own future, stamps his own character, suffers
for his own sins, and must work out his own salvation--- The threefold
life of meditation and prayer: worship and adoration: conflict---
Accountability---
- It is necessary that afflictions come--A period of conflict is a
period of progress--- Revelation overlaid bit by bit--Then comes the
question, What is Truth?--The answer in a new revelation--Esoteric at
first, then adapted to general needs--- All cannot know truth in the
same degree--Truth is many-sides--The purest truth must not be
proclaimed on the house-top, or it becomes vulgarised--- The pursuit of
Truth for its own sake the noblest end of life--- Having passed the
Exoteric, it is well to dwell on the Esoteric--- Loving Truth as Deity,
following it careless whither it may lead---
- Further evidences of Spirit-Identity--John Blow--Extracts from
ancient chronicles--Norton, the Alchymist--Specimens from a large
number--- Charlotte Buckworth and the verification of the story
concerning her--- Conclusion
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