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to admit the possibility of the psychological state into which Swedenborg declared himself to be brought, and which alone could make him cognizant of the realities of the spirit-world, because I saw that a similar immission into that world had been granted to the prophets and apostles, which showed that such a state could exist, and if it had once existed, I saw not why it might not again, provided sufficient reasons could be pleaded for it; and the reasons alleged I felt to be sufficient, if they were but sound; and this was a question that I was willing to consider, which I think the mass of the Christian world is not. But I found, notwithstanding, such a violence done to all my preconceptions of that world, that I doubted exceedingly the absolute reliableness of his statements. I could not help distrusting the clearness of his perceptions. I was continually haunted by the suspicion that his preformed ideas on the subject had both shaped and colored his visions. This was more especially the case in regard to his descriptions of celestial and infernal scenery. I had the greatest difficulty imaginable in conceiving the possibility that any objects similar to those with which we are conversant here should even appear to exist there. Again and again did I propose to myself the question, What kind of an entity is a spiritual house, animal, or bird-a spiritual mountain, garden, grove, or tree-a spiritual cavern, lake, or stream—not dreaming that these things there exist by the very laws of the human mind, as outbirths or emanations of the interior spirit, and as living representatives of its affections and thoughts. It did not then occur to me that a spirit dislodged from the body must, from the necessity of the case, be introduced into the midst of spiritual realities, and that these cannot in the nature of things be any other than what Swedenborg describes them to be--that is, they must be what we should term mental creations or projections. A little deeper reflection would have then taught me, as it has since done, the truth of Swedenborg's statement, that thoughts are substances, and that to spirits that alone can be substantial which is spiritual, and consequently that alone can be real.* We indeed, in common parlance, reverse these terms, and denominate that substantial which is material, and which comes under the cognizance of the external senses. But the spirit, on leaving the body, leaves the region of dead matter, and comes into a sphere where itself and its emanations are the real substances or the substantial realities. Consequently what is here subjective becomes there objective. One spirit's thoughts and ideas become to another spirit just as much a bona fide objective reality as the spirit himself, for how can we separate them?

"It is to be observed, that knowledges and truths are things no more abstracted from the very pure substances appertaining to the interior of man or his spirit, than vision is abstracted from its organ the eye, or than hearing is abstracted from its organ the ear. There are purer substances, and those real, from which knowledges and thoughts exist, whose variations of form being animated and modified by an influx of life from the Lord, present them to the mind, whilst their agreements and harmonies, in succession or simultaneously, affect the mind, and constitute what is called beautiful, pleasant, and delightful. Spirits themselves are forms, that is, consist of continuous forms, equally as men, but of a purer nature, and not visible to the bodily sight. And whereas these forms or substances are not to be seen by the corporeal eye, man at this day conceives no otherwise than that knowledges and thoughts are abstract things; hence also comes the folly of mankind in the present age, in that they do not believe that they have a spirit within them which is to live after the death of the body, when yet this spirit is a substance much more real than the material substance of its body: yea, if you will believe it, the spirit, after being freed from corporeal, is that very purified body, which many say they are to have at the day of judgment, when they believe that they shall first rise again."-A. C. 3276.

Is not a spirit spiritual, and is not his thought, like himself, spiritual also? If so, does not the one come to the cognition of a fellow-spirit by the same means as the other? In the present world we can only perceive each other's spirits through the intervening medium of the body, except as it is manifested through written expression. But in that world the body is laid aside, and the cognizance of the interior being is comparatively immediate and direct. Why then shall we not perceive the thoughts as well as the subject from which they flow?

The case may be illustrated from the phenomena of dreaming. In this state the body with its sensations is dormant, yet the mind, which is really the man himself, who is an embodied spirit, beholds a world of objects which are to him, for the time being, real. Yet the things seen are of the same nature with the being who sees them; they are an emanation from himself; and we have only to suppose two persons in this state to behold the objects of each other's dreams, to gain a very tolerable conception of the true rationale of the visual scenery of the other life. In regard to their own dreams they see respectively only what is an outbirth from their own interior essence, and yet to their consciousness it is as if they saw with an eye objective realities as truly without them as are any of the objects of vision in the material world. So a man's image in a mirror or on a thick mass of fog, is at once extraneous to himself, and yet from himself; it can have no existence apart from himself, although it can be seen by another as well as by himself. If now we go a little farther in our illustrative fancy, and imagine a person to be suddenly translated in a dreaming state into the spiritual world, we approximate still nearer an adequate view of the subject. For what is it that makes the transition but the very part of the man that dreams? The body is left behind, and the spirit goes forth, and a spiritual essence should of course go into a spiritual world. What does it there meet with but beings like itself? what does it there see but the things which are appropriate to spirit? and what are these, ontologically considered, but the things with which it was conversant a moment before in its dream? I do not of course say, that the visible aspect and character of the objects seen are in the two states the same, for in the other world the external scenery is always a reflection of the internal states of those from whom it emanates. But my position is, that the mode of vision, and the nature of the substances with which it deals, are essentially the same. The spirit must necessarily find itself surrounded with scenery there analogous to what it sees here, because it carries it with it. Why not? It was in the midst of objects appropriate to its nature while the body was dormant, and why should it find itself in a desert or a blank vacuity upon leaving the body? Will it not be embosomed in the midst of forms and substances as real as itself? Let no one be stumbled by this use of the word substance. There are spiritual substances as well as material, nor have we the least hesitation in applying the word to "the stuff that dreams are made of." In like manner, the mental creations of spirits projected forth to the view of other spirits are to them as real, as veritable, as palpable, as a granite pillar is to us in our corporeal condition.

This I am aware will find with many but a slow admission on its first announcement, from their having been always accustomed to regard these manifestations of mind as simple acts, exercises, operations, &c. But let the matter be pondered, and judgment rendered, whether the fact be not actually so. How can anything exist which is not a substance? And how can anything that exists

act but by the putting forth of its qualities and functions as a substance? The sun acts by the emission of its light and heat. Are not the light and heat of the sun a part of its substance? A flower acts by sending forth a sphere of fragrance. Is not the fragrance as real a substance as the flower, though vastly more rariefied and etherial? So of the human spirit. A man's thoughts and mental images are the goings forth of the substance of his being; they are as substantial as his being; and if a spirit himself can be an objective reality to another spirit, his intellectual conceptions, for the same reason, must be equally objective. Consequently nothing more is needed for one's being introduced into the most splendid celestial scenery than to find himself surrounded by the mental creations prompted by the pure and angelic affections of the countless multitudes which constitute that kingdom. These must be beautiful, because they originate in a moral state of the inner man which can only be represented by objects of a corresponding character; and that they are real, arises from the nature and necessity of the case. Spiritual objects must be the real objects to a spirit. The infernal scenery, though a counterpart to this, depends upon the same law.*

A great advance was accordingly made towards a full reception of the disclosures of Swedenborg, when the objections on this score were overcome. I saw that here was a rational and philosophical theory of the dominant conditions of the other life, and yet it was evidently a revelation of such a nature as to transcend the utmost grasp of the unassisted human faculties. The inference therefore was not only fair, but irresistible, that Swedenborg was brought into a preternatural state in order to his being enabled to make it, and the admission of this was a virtual admission of the main item of his claim-the claim of having been divinely empowered to lay open the verities of man's future existence, and the essential nature of Heaven and Hell.

This primary fact then having been established to my own satisfaction, I was of course very strongly disposed to listen with the deepest respect to whatever other reports he brought from that world of mystery and of marvel, although I was still very far, as indeed I hope ever to be, from a blind surrender of my own judgment as to every point of his announcements. I was not yet prepared to receive the distinctive features of his theological doctrines, and especially was I stumbled by his unsparing critiques upon the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone, which I had been taught to regard as the grand tenet established by the Reformation, and which I supposed to be true of course, simply from its having been the result of that struggle, which is so often spoken of as the glorious Reformation from the errors of Popery. I had yet to learn that there were a great many things in the Reformation that need much further reforming. So also in regard to the peculiar views advanced respecting the true nature of the Atonement, from which the current doctrine of Justification is inseparable. It was

* "The representations which exist in another life are appearances, but living ones, because they are from the light of life; the light of life is the divine wisdom, which is from the Lord alone; hence all things which exist from that light are real, not like those things which exist from the light of the world; wherefore they who are in another life have occasionally said, that the things they see there are real things, and the things which man sees are respectively not real, because the former things live, and thus immediately affect their life, whereas the latter things do not live, thus neither do they affect the life, unless so far, and in such a manner, as the things which are of this world's light with them, conjoin themselves adequately and correspondently with the things which are of the light of heaven."-A. C. 3485.

long before I could so entirely emancipate my mind from traditional sentiments as to embrace fully what I now regard as the far more scriptural views of the New Church on that subject, to wit, that the atonement was what is signified by the word-reconciliation—God reconciling the world to himself, instead of reconciling himself to the world. But the great rock of offence with me was the interior or spiritual sense of the Word. This, I was strongly assured, even if there were to some extent a basis of truth on which it rested, was yet carried to an entirely fanciful extreme in Swedenborg's interpretations, and I had scarcely a doubt that if I ever fully accepted the system as a whole, it would still be with a reservation on this score. One who is at all acquainted with the general scheme, will see at once from this, that I had thus far failed to apprehend the true genius of the Science of Correspondences, on which it rests, and from which it flows by inevitable sequence. The truth of this science, however, gradually loomed up more and more to view, as I become more clearly aware of the spiritual nature of man, and of the fundamental fact, that all natural things are pervaded, acted, moulded, vivified by the influx of spiritual causes.

And here I am constrained, by fealty to truth, to acknowledge, that the circumstance of my being brought, about this time, into contact with the phenomena of Mesmerism, had a most decided bearing upon the progress of my convictions, nor do I scruple to say that in all human probability I should never have come to the position which I now occupy, had it not been for the overwhelming evidence of truth derived from this source. It was not simply the fact that persons thrown into the Mesmeric trance invariably made the same report, as far as their perceptions extended, that Swedenborg does in regard to the laws and realities of the spiritual sphere, however ignorant beforehand of his disclosures; but the state itself, with its most obvious manifestations, was such as to afford a demonstration to the very senses of the truth of his general assertions in respect to the principles and mode of spiritual existence in the other life. When I saw my own volitions controling the muscular movements of another organization-when I saw the train of my own unuttered thoughts distinctly followed and read out to me-when I beheld even my own bodily sensations sympathetically transferred to another person-I could no longer doubt that a system was true which affirmed, in regard to the spiritual being, the principles that lay at the foundation of these phenomena, and which fully and satisfactorily explained them. The laws which Swedenborg lays down in regard to mental intercourse between spirits, are precisely the laws which are developed in the Mesmeric manifestations, so that I hesitate not in the least to affirm, that if the latter be true, the former must be.

I am of course aware of the light in which this subject is viewed by the mass of intelligent men. I am not ignorant that they reject the whole matter as a vile medley of imposture and delusion, and that they will at once pronounce all asserted experience in the premises as phantasy and fallacy. Such persons are welcome to their opinion. I know that I have not been deceived as to the facts averred. I know that the conceptions of my own mind have been reproduced in another mind without any outward signs, simply as the result of my coming into a peculiar communication with the mesmerized subject. I know too that this is the very result which one is taught to expect from what Swedenborg has

revealed of the laws of man's spiritual economy, as disclosed to him that they might be made known to the world.

I make the foregoing statement with the full belief, at the same time, that there are often delusions and deceptions, and often perhaps abuses, connected with the exhibitions of this remarkable power. But the question is not in regard to the uses made of it, but in regard to the truth involved in it. On this, head alone do I now speak, and I do not hesitate to speak the language, not simply of belief, but of assurance. If I know a single fact in any science-in Geology, Chemistry, Opties, or Acousties-I know the truth of the leading phenomena of Mesmerism, and I utter it too as my unwavering judgment that this class of facts is doing more at this moment, under the counsels of divine providence, to beget in thinking minds a conviction of the well-founded character of Swedenborg's claims than any other mere human agency. I am, at the same time, well apprised of the prejudice which exists against these developments as viewed in connexion with the doctrines and disclosures of Swedenborg. I know it is thought to be a perilous compromising these doctrines to have them named in any kind of relation to what is deemed by multitudes the charlatanry of mountebanks and visionaries or the diablerie of infernal powers. But so long as I clearly perceive in them the showings forth of a grand psychological law of our being, implanted by the Creator himself, I cannot think or speak disparagingly of them without a bold and daring arraignment of the constitution which he has given to his creatures. "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus ?" Methinks the friends and adherents of the New Church, though not entering into it practically, ought to be truly thankful that they are enabled to appeal to such a convincing testimony of the truth of certain tenets of their creed on which it is usually so difficult to produce conviction with the mass of men. An immense advance is gained for truth when once the conviction takes deep root that there is a spiritual world, and that it is continually acting upon the natural world. The fact is no doubt vaguely admitted by the great body of Christians, but how practical becomes the assurance when we behold the influence of one spirit upon another, notwithstanding the interposing veil of the flesh! If such effects are witnessed as flowing from spirits in the body, what stupendous agency must be exerted upon us by spirits out of the body!

But to return to my narrative. The progress of my inquiry soon brought me acquainted with another feature of Swedenborg's system which took me altogether by surprise, as nothing of the kind was in the least anticipated. I allude to the philosophy which it involves. I had not the least conception that I was to find in it a profound scientific exposition of all the grand problems of the physical universe. I had begun to see indeed that it proffered the most satisfactory theory of the spiritual world, that it lifted the curtain which ordinarily hides the sublime future from our view-but it was only by degrees, that I perceived that it swept the whole range of being and aimed at nothing less than to bring into entire harmony the Works and the Word of God-to wed Reason and Revelation to establish the unity of true Philosophy with true Faith. A deep impression on this score was received from the small treatise entitled the "Athanasian Creed," and this was vastly confirmed by the larger work, "The Divine Love and Wisdom," which certainly contains more true science in respect to

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