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PHENOMENA not understood belong to the things
that are, but which we venture not to explain, not having gained their origin
and specific character from science. That which is real is not characterized by
'ism or belief; and the understanding grasping a subject is satisfied to name
it only as it names itself. Phenomena based on science produce good results
only, and never the opposite; this rule is invariable, and should measure every
calculation. Whatever can work discord, accomplish a sinister purpose, or harm
our neighbor, is not science or the phenomenon of Truth, but the manifestation
of some belief and error. What are termed spiritual manifestations, as progress
compels the change, will be found not mediumship, but openly defined, and when
confined within the limits of harmony and it be found impossible to do evil by
means of them, it will be time to consider them demonstrations of science, but
not until then. These manifestations at present are the result of tricks or
belief, proceeding from the so-called mind of man, and not the mind of God,
from the mind of body and not the mind of Soul, from person and not Principle,
from belief and not understanding; yea, from matter and not Spirit.
Mind is divided into idea and belief; idea is
based on and represents Principle; belief has no foundation in
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science, and is illusion. What we term the mind
of man is belief, forming the visionary basis of matter, therefore matter
embraces not the reality of man. Belief is not a manifestation of Intelligence,
but of non-intelligence. To distinguish between the mind of Soul and the
so-called mind of body, we must remember one is idea, and the other belief,
alias the counterfeit and claimant of mind, even as error claims Truth. Mind is
immortal, but belief is mortal, it being the so-called mind of mortal body,
whereas the mind of immortal Soul is idea, even science revealing Truth.
Mediumship overlooks the impossibility for a sensual mind to become Spirit, or
to possess a spiritual body after what we term death, while science reveals
this more inconsistent than for stygian darkness to emit a sun-beam. When we
are Spirit we shall have gained the high import of this Scripture, "I and the
Father are one," and shall find, too, this oneness occasions no loss of
identity, but that "I" signifies Spirit and not matter, Principle and not
person, Soul and not body, even the Intelligence represented by all ideas,
symbolizing harmony from the blade of grass to a star. The question at present
is, whether this "I" is Principle or person, Soul or body, yea, God or man?
Principle is Soul, Intelligence, the "I am," but where do we place the "I"; is
it Spirit in matter, Soul in body, Life in the flower, or the outside
Intelligence and Life, that form these; is it man or the Soul of man, outside
of matter? The science of being reveals God not in matter, therefore this "I"
not body, nor in body, but Soul outside of matter, the infinite, and not
finite, yea, Spirit and not person, and through this reckoning, man gains
eternal identity.
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A suffering, sinning, and dying condition such
as must ever remain while the belief of Soul in body and Intelligence in man or
matter remains, cannot be preferable to the sinless joy and perfect harmony
that a recognition of Life, as Spirit, possessing all beauty and good, without
a single demand pleasure, or pain of body confers; why so many called
"spiritualists" are very gross materialists is because they make personality
Spirit and the only conscious existence, and rejecting a personal God, make a
God of persons, which is equally fatal to the science of being; persons called
"spirits," instead of Principle that is Spirit and Truth, are their trust,
while a belief in "spirits" belongs to the darker ages, and is demonology.
There is but one Spirit, viz., God, Truth; in other words, Wisdom, Life, and
Love, and nothing is real but what is good or the idea of goodness; evil has
neither identity nor individuality, having no Principle.
Charles Sumner was a great man, because of his
unswerving adherence to right; he had, more than others, the true idea, and
less than others, the beliefs of man. His professions were few, his acts
colossal, his might was mind; not person but Principle, not man but God.
Science never caused a retrograde step in being,
or a return to positions outgrown, or that Truth has destroyed. To admit the
so-called dead and living commune together, is to decide the unfitness of both
for their separate positions, and that a mistake occurs when a man dies to
sense or lives to Soul. Any supposed midway between Life outside of matter, or
in it, is a myth. We should either see the so-called dead, materially, or they
should be advanced beyond our sight.
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Conservatism never was right, absolute Truth is
all that is right, and absolute error is easier made right than a half-way
position. Mediumship assigns to their dead a condition worse than blighted buds
or mortal mildew, even a poor purgatory where one's chances for something
narrow into nothing, or they mast return to the old stand-points of matter.
"He is not dead but sleepeth." Jesus knew
Lazarus was in the dream of a midway condition when Truth wakened him; if we
could do this, we might claim his spirituality. Until the imaginary connection
between the so-called dead, named "spirits," and those supposed to be living in
matter is destroyed, mortal man is not dead, only changed, for the immortal is
not gained, and belief can gather itself on the wrong side of the question, and
continue the old conclusion of Life in matter; this, however, is far from the
science of being. When Life is really gained outside of matter, it is
understood, in which case the belief that Life was ever in the body is gone and
cannot be resurrected; our friends thus advanced are Spirit, that never rose
from dust and can no more return to, or commune with matter than a blossom can
return to its bud.
The period required for the dream of Life in
matter embracing pleasures and pains of personal sense to vanish, "no man
knoweth, not the son but the Father." It will be of longer or shorter duration
according to the period of error, before the reality of being is understood and
eternal Life won. What advantage then would it be to us, or the departed, to
prolong this state, by prolonging the belief of Life in matter.
There is not as much evidence of
intercommunion
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between the so-called dead and living, as the
sick have of their positions relative to disease, which science decides an
error, for it denies all identity or reality to discord. The entire phenomena
of mediumship are deceptions or delusions; what is capable of error is not
science, but destitute of Principle. When the so-called medium understands even
in part the science of being, his belief of mediumship is gone, and the result
is, be no longer produces the manifestations said to originate with departed
"spirits," but which are really contingent on the beliefs of the living,
instead of the dead.
The phenomena of science based on a demonstrable
Principle, are explainable, but personal interpreters may create an 'ism in
which phenomena are not understood, and subject to gross misjudgings. Thus
error is engrafted into their net-work, and error is not linked to Truth, hence
the gulf impassable that separates the so-called Life in matter, from Life not
subject to death, and the mischance and mischief that characterize the
so-called spirit-returns; the natural result of the attempt to unite such
opposites as Spirit and matter is discord; as soon might fire and frost mingle,
for in either case one would destroy the other. That matter communes with
Spirit, or that Spirit communes by means of electricity or personality with
Spirit or matter, is impossible, and would destroy the order and harmony of
progress. If communion is possible between the so-called dead and living, the
departed go backward in the scale of being, even as the oak holding on to its
primitive acorn, or the so-called medium advances to Life independent of
matter, like an acorn, becoming instantaneously an oak. Again, if the medium
is
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on communicable terms with Life, Spirit,
independent of matter, there can be no appearance of Life in the body, no
action, animal or organic, and to restore this former condition of so-called
Life, would be as impossible as to restore an acorn absorbed into a germ risen
above soil, and seed. The seed that has propagated is gone, a new germination
having taken place, and until the belief of Life in matter is destroyed, the
real Life that is Spirit, is not won; no correspondence or communion exists
between these two opposites.
There is but one possible moment when the
so-called dead and living commune; the moment called death when the link
between them is clasped. In this vestibule more awake to the welcome of those
gone before, than to present pains of personal sense; the departing sometimes
breathe aloud their vision, naming the face that smiles upon them, and the hand
beckoning them; even as a man standing at the falls of Niagara with eyes only
for that wonder, whispers aloud his rapture, forgetful of other scenes. The
recognition of spiritual Life -- and all Life is Spirit -- comes not at once;
even beyond the grave existence is but a belief of personal sense until the
science of being is reached, for error brings its own outer darkness and
self-destruction, both now and then.
There is but one spiritual communication, and
this proceeds from Soul; personal sense takes no cognizance of it; what are
termed "spirits," are mere personalities. A shook would not be felt, or
sensation held for a moment in the body, if in reality we communed with
Intelligence, Spirit, outside of matter. The only living Principle of man
speaks through immortal sense, and if
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mortal sense was touched by this Principle, it
would present no appearance of Life, possess no sensation, and the immortal
would appear in its stead, and the spiritual take the place of the material;
even as light destroys darkness and in its place all is light. Soul is the only
truthful communicator with man. Mortal belief and immortal Truth, like tares
and wheat, grow side by side until the harvest, but to divide instead of unite
these, is the design of Wisdom that separates the wheat, and gathers it away
from the tares.
That all things are possible to Truth, is a
scientific position; and that all error is possible to belief, is equally
apparent. Secretiveness, jugglery, credulity, superstition and belief, are the
foundations of what is termed mediumship. But the so-called mediums have a
strong hold on the sympathies of those who mourn the loss of friends; in the
sorrows of bereavement, when thought like a fermenting fluid is ready for a
chemical change, they turn the gushing emotions into the belief they are not
separated, and this consolation comes to the mourner like heaven's benediction,
gaining a strong foothold in the minds of millions. Hence the hold mediumship
has on community, a belief coming at the hour of individual acceptance, clad
with the drapery of heaven, a mystery and marvel, its phenomena not understood,
what needeth it more, as the foundation of a new 'ism? Perfection is not
expressed through imperfection, therefore Spirit cannot pass through matter;
there are no temporary sieves, even, that strain Truth through error.
Matter controlled by Soul, God, is harmonious,
and governed by a demonstrable Principle; but when one
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belief controls another--and this is
mediumship--every possible imitation of the real is made by the unreal. The
possible to Soul is the impossible to body, so also the impossible to science
is the possible to belief. The ideas of God never amalgamate, but retain their
distinct identities and are controlled only by the Principle that evoked them.
The mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms have their distinct identities,
wherein one creates not or controls the other, all are created and controlled
by God. Admitting Life and intelligence in matter, admits mediumship, making
man create and control man; beast, bird, and plant create and control each
other. But this reverses the order of creation, introducing confusion and
discord.
Darkness and light, infancy and manhood,
sickness, health, etc., are distinct beliefs that cannot blend. To suppose
infancy is uttering the idea of manhood, or thinking its thoughts, would be
rejected by reason and revelation; and vice versa, that darkness
represents light, and sickness health, or that we are residing in Europe when
we are on the opposite hemisphere, is simply absurd! Logic would not attempt to
bridge over these distinct conditions, and they are not more markedly distinct
than the so-called dead and living, that you think to unite again on planes so
different! the one called substance, and the other shadow, matter and Spirit
communing together; one would inevitably blot out the other. That Spirit and
matter amalgamate is the error progress and science will destroy.
Mediumship pre-supposes one man is Spirit, and
controls another man that is matter, while both remain the Same opposites; that
bodies which return to dust or new
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bodies called "spirits " are experiencing the
old sensations, and desires material, and mesmerizing earthly mortals; that
shadow is tangible to touch, and imparts electricity, etc. Every one of these
conclusions are ridiculous; God is not named in them all, and for the best of
reasons, viz., that matter is supposed to take care of itself, and mesmerism,
and person take the place of idea and Principle, or man and God. Who that has
witnessed mesmerism would say it was science, the Truth of being, or that this
was electricity? God controls man, and is the only Intelligence, attraction, or
Spirit. Any other control, attraction or Spirit supposed to be exercised over
mail is a belief and error that ought to be known by its fruits. The
caterpillar, transformed into an insect of beauty, is no longer a worm; and to
push the conclusion that a butterfly returns again to affinitize with, or to
control the worm, is to take mesmerism to befool reason! Change controlled by
Principle is science, but some belief may hide its science; progress is the
evermore of Wisdom, but nothing save science reveals progress.
Whatsoever utters falsehood is error, therefore,
the impossibility for mediumship to be science, and governed by Truth. Our only
resignation to a new 'ism or some new disease, is the hope that another stir
made in the waters of belief will help to show their muddy foundation.
The electric telegraph is a symbol of mind
speaking to mind, that in progress of time will not require wires, for Spirit
destroys matter, electricity, etc.; but spiritualism would preserve these to
destroy harmony. Truth pervades all space, needing no material method of
transmitting its messages; we only know it blesses man, but
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"cannot tell whence it cometh"; the sick are
healed by it, the sorrowing comforted, and the sinner reformed; these are the
manifestations of Soul, not sense, of science, and not mesmerism. Soul sends no
despatches on matter; but to-day the electric wire carries to Europe a
submarine whisper foreshadowing the science that is to come; little by little
the action of thought is losing its matter element, becoming spiritualized,
expanding outside of fetters, and science is pushing onward the centuries. The
operations of Intelligence teach us God made man upright, but belief has sought
out many inventions; Life, Truth, and Love act through no erring medium.
Immortal man communes not with the mortal, and
cannot be made manifest through matter; these are distinct and opposite
conditions; one is the idea of God, of Spirit outside of matter, and the other
a belief of "spirits" and substance in matter; before we commune with Spirit
that is immortal, the belief of death must be destroyed. What would be said of
an English scholar unacquainted with the classics, before he had entered this
department of learning, to claim he understood Greek? You would say he was
either an imposter or laboring under some hallucination. What then of believing
we are wearing out Life and hastening towards death, communing with
immortality! If indeed this communication was possible between the mortal and
immortal, the media would never die, or pass the change called death. And if
the departed communicate still with mortality, then are they sinning,
suffering, and dying still, in which case, wherefore look to them for proofs of
immortality and accept them as cracks ? Commu-
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nications gathered from ignorance are pernicious
in their tendencies; mediums describe disease, its symptoms, locality,
fatality, etc., who know nothing about it, warn people of death, and frighten
them into it! This obnoxious practice makes sickness. The case has been proved
that a man died from the belief he was being bled to death, showing the cause
of his death purely mental; hence the danger of ignorant charlatans dealing
with disease. What science finds requisite to destroy in order to heal the
sick, mediumship strengthens and perpetuates.
Jesus cast out " spirits," error did his work,
confessed the oneness of God, Spirit, and never described disease, but healed
it. If the sick are made more comfortable through some error of process they
are ten-fold more the victims of disease in the end. The mysticism of
mediumship gives force to its words of doom, enabling it to do more harm than
drugs, for the sick are more frightened by what a medium pronounces fatal, than
when an M.D. so decides; and this fear is the mental condition that develops
disease. Science would have to go over the whole ground and uproot every seed
of their sowing to destroy disease. The evidence of belief is all the medium
has to rely on, while science repudiates belief with the evidence of
understanding, and demands the Principle of being to bring out the harmony of
Life.
At one time a medium informed us we were ill,
said our brain was overtasked, and we must have rest. To this we filed a
vigorous objection, contending for the rights of Intelligence, that mind
controlled body and brain, and the views she insisted on were the ones to be
rid of, in order to be well. Whereupon she stopped
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the conversation, exclaiming, Dr. Rush is
present, and says you must use valganism; (meaning undoubtedly galvanism,) "and
rest or be sick." But even this pretended oracular warning failed to convince
us, and the consequence was we went on in a good state of health; having strong
doubts that fifty years of post-mortem experience had so demoralized the
orthography of that learned man, or perpetuated his old beliefs of matter.
Thousands of oar church members who are rational on other topics, are
sustaining and believing just this mummery, while yet they send forth the cry
against science as dangerous to Christianity.
In the slimmer of 1869, it was stated in the
Banner of Liqht, published in Boston, that the late Theodore Parker
said, through a medium, "there never was and there never would be, an immortal
spirit"! At the same time this paper was repeating weekly that spirit
communications were our only proofs of immortality! While we entertain no doubt
of the humanitarianism of many spiritualists, we have strong proofs of the
incorrect views of spiritualism. A man's assertion that he is immortal, is no
more proof of this than we would gain of an opposite condition, were he to say,
"I am mortal "; Theodore Parker was beyond such vague hypothesis. Life, Love,
and Truth are immortal, and only when these are realized will Life be
understood. Truth is eternal Life, and science the only medium of Truth, or
Life, hence the saying of Christ, "I am the Way, the Truth, and Life, and no
man cometh unto the Father " (the Principle of being) "but through Me."
Though the grass seemeth to wither, and the
flower to fade, they reappear; erase the figures that express num-
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hers; shut out the tones of music; give to the
worm the body called man, the Principle of these survives despite the so-called
laws of matter, and holds its ideas immortal. If the inharmony of belief hides
the harmony of Truth, it cannot destroy this Principle, for it is God, supreme
over all; "who doeth according to His own will in the army of heaven, and among
the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto Him, what
doest thou."
Matter cannot reply to Spirit, but have you ever
ruminated on this heaven and earth expressly declared to be inhabited by man,
controlled alone by supreme Wisdom? Did you understand there is no other world,
you would be reaching sooner that which is real of Life, where substance is
Soul and not matter, and realizing it thus all would be harmonious and eternal.
It should never be said, nothing but God; for all that is real comes with God,
the substance, Life, and Intelligence of all. Principle and its idea are God
and man, co-existent and eternal; there is no substance-matter. The imaginary
line called the equator, is not substance, the earth's action and position are
sustained alone by Intelligence, that launched the earth into orbit and said to
the proud wave, "here shalt thou be staid," that holds the, winds in its fist,"
"numbers the hairs of the head," and furnishes sublime proof of the control
Spirit holds over matter. Even the simple planchette is made to testify to
mind's power over matter, and no longer a mystery and marvel.
The point to be determined is, shall we allow
science to explain all action and phenomena, or leave these to speculative
belief; to admit one's self Soul instead of
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body, sets us free to master the infinite idea;
it shuts the door on death, and opens it wide on immortality. The belief that
God has a separate being leads to multitudinous errors, in which phenomena are
ascribed to supernatural and personal causes. Man is the phenomenon of Soul, of
Intelligence and not matter, and created by God and not man.
Divest belief of substance in matter, and the
movements and transitions possible to mind would be found just as possible to
the body; and then would Spirit identify being without the loss of body, that
we suppose must occur before this science of being is acknowledged. The final
understanding that we are Spirit must come, and we might as well improve our
time in solving the so-called mysteries ofon this Principle. At present we know
not what we are, but hereafter we shall be found Love, Life, and Truth, became
we understand them. Do you say the time has not yet come, in which to recognize
Soul the only substance, and gain our entire control over the universe and man?
Then we refer you to Jesus, who demonstrated this over eighteen centuries ago,
and said, "The works I do, ye shall do," and "Behold the time cometh and now
is, when they who worship the Father shall worship Him in Spirit and in Truth";
but this method of understanding God and doing good was Dot electricity,
materia medica, mesmerism, or mediumship.
Matter is neither Intelligence, nor a creator;
the tree is not the author of itself; sound is not the originator of music, or
man the father of man. If seed produces wheat, the latter flour, and one animal
another animal, etc., who made Intelligence, and how were the loaves
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and fishes multiplied without meal or monad?
Miracles are impossible; they are phenomena not understood, but which their
Principle explains, and we should reach this explanation and understand it as
did our Master, who demonstrated it controlling man and matter. The decaying
flower, withering grass, blighted bud, gnarled oak, or ferocious beast,
together with all discords including sick, sinning and mortal man, were not
created by supreme Wisdom; these are the falsities of matter, things of sense
instead of Soul, the changing images of mortal mind, not in reality substance,
or Life, but only a belief of these. The mind of Soul embraces immortal ideas
only, but the so-called mind of body illusion, and not the Truth of being.
Personal sense declares matter substance, but what is this sense but a belief
of Life and Intelligence in matter.
Eloquence is inspiration, not contingent on
erudition, but a scientific phenomenon, showing that all things are possible to
Intelligence; sometimes it is supposed to arise from knowledge obtained from
books, and again from mediumship. When eloquence proceeds from the belief a
departed "spirit" is speaking, and can say what the so-called medium is
incapable of uttering, or even knowing alone, the fetters of mind are
unclasped, and forgetting her ignorance, by believing others are speaking for
her, she becomes eloquent beyond her usual self, and because she thinks some
individual, and not the one Spirit, is helping her. Now destroy this belief of
aid, and the eloquence disappears, and the old limits personal sense assigns
are resumed, and she says I am incapable of "words that glow," being
uneducated, proving the fact, "as a man thinketh, so is he." Be-
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lieving she cannot be eloquent without
book-learning, her body responds to this thought, and the tongue grows mute
that before was eloquent, loosened on the scientific basis that mind is not
confined to the development of educational processes, but possesses primarily
all beauty and poetry, together with the power to express them; harmony is
caught and not understood by the medium; caught through a belief, and dependent
on it; but Soul gives utterance to itself when sense is silent, hence the
improvement; she was always capable of this, and a "spirit," or person, had
nothing to do with it.
The beliefs of personal sense, of Soul in body,
etc., limit mind; Soul sets man free, which explains the phenomena of impromptu
poets and uneducated orators; witnessing this in moments falsely called
mediumship, 'tis construed supernaturally, which circumscribes the phenomenon
by an 'ism. Matter is moved because of mind, through the volition of belief, or
the understanding; all harmonious phenomena are produced by the latter, and the
inharmonious by the former. Science removes phenomena from mysticism into the
hands of interpretation; in which it is no greater mystery that mind moves a
table without a hand than that it primarily moves the hand, and secondarily the
table, in obedience to the belief that the only method of doing this is by
seizing hold of it with the hand. Mind causes all action in the case, through a
belief that "spirits" did it, or that electricity caused it, or the more common
belief of voluntary muscular power; in other words, matter moving matter.
Likenesses of individuals, landscape views, fac-similes of penmanship, certain
forms of
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expression that belonged to the departed, and
even sentences of their saying, may be taken as directly from minds as
from objects cognizant to personal sense; mind sees what mind embraces, the
same as personal sense feels what personal sense touches. Nor is it necessary
that the mind embracing the picture, or paragraph, be individually present with
the clairvoyant. Any mental link touching mind, though bodies are leagues
apart, is sufficient to reproduce these to the clairvoyant; if the individuals
have passed away, their aroma of thought is left, which is mentally scented and
described. Mind has Senses sharper than the body; this we know from experience,
yet we never believed ourself a medium, and always openly avowed this.
Matter is moved solely by mind in accordance
with science or belief. But mediumship removes phenomena from rationalism into
mysticism, and gives Intelligence to matter, instead of mind. Pictures are
formed mentally before the artist gives them to canvas; thus clairvoyants
perceiving pictures of thought can copy or reproduce them, even though lost to
the recognition of the mind whence they are taken. The strong impressions
friendship, or any intense feeling leaves on mind is ineffacable, except to
personal sense, hence another mind can perceive and reproduce the emotion.
Clairvoyance is mind-reading alone, whereas science in contradistinction to
clairvoyance reveals Truth through the understanding, by which we gain the
Principle and explanation of phenomena; these are distinctly opposite
stand-points whence to obtain information; and the right interpretation of
cause and effect, belongs alone to science. Clairvoyance reaches only the
fancied
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realities of mortal mind, whereas science admits
none of these things, but reveals Truth, outside of mortality and error. We can
do good to our neighbor through the science of being, but through it we cannot
do evil also. Clairvoyance can do evil, accuse wrongfully, and explain
unscientifically. If we act from the stand-point of spiritual sense we are
right, but if from personal sense, we do evil continually. The sensuous may be
clairvoyant, but cannot be scientific, and the scientific cannot be sensual.
Foretelling events is to discern them spiritually outside of personal sense,
which is prophecy, and accords with the ancient worthies; or through a belief
which is clairvoyance, or mind-reading.
If advanced in the science of being sufficiently
to blend with the Truth of being, we are seers and prophets involuntarily, not
because we are controlled by "spirits," persons, but by Spirit, which is
purity, righteousness, and omnipotence. To know the past, present and future,
is the office of Intelligence, yea, it is everpresent Truth; and to
understand we are not pent up within the boundaries of personal sense, confined
to the ear, and eye, for sound and sight, or to muscles, bones, etc., for
locomotion, is science, whereby we discern somewhat of being that is real.
"Though we take the wings of morning and flee to the uttermost parts of the
earth, behold Thou art there." Soul is ever present, embracing its likeness,
man, and supporting the idea of Truth to carry out proofs of omnipotence. The
science of being enables us to read mind, foretell events that concern
the universal good, to trace records of Soul, and receive inspirations from
God; but not from idle curiosity, or to work evil, or dip into the
experiences
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of the dead, or connect erring and mortal belief
with Principle and its phenomena.
In science, we read mind from the stand-point of
Soul, and with all the accuracy of the astronomer calculating the path of the
planets. This mind-reading is distinguishable from clairvoyance, in that it is
the understanding of being back of personal sense, and possessed by individuals
highly spiritual. Its intuitions are from Soul, revealing what disturbs the
harmony of man, and what promotes it, and enabling us to heal the sick. We can
never learn Christ, as the Principle of healing, except we are able to read
mind after this manner, and discern the error we would destroy. The Samaritan
woman said, "He told me all things that ever I did, is not this the Christ?"
Again, as be journeyed with his students, understanding their thoughts, he
rebuked them, etc.
Through this spiritual sense Jesus healed the
sick and events of great moment concerning the Christian era and the history of
the world were foretold by the glorious old prophets, through spiritual vision.
Our Master referred to a lack of spiritual discernment in this direction, when
he said, "Ye hypocrites that can discern the face of the sky, but cannot
discern the signs of these times"; in other words, whose personal sense was
acute, but whose spiritual sense was wanting; he knew it was a wicked and
adulterous generation, who seeking material signs, lost the prerogatives of
Soul; his cut at the materialism of the age was pungent, but requisite, and he
never spared hypocrisy the sternest condemnation. Again, he said to this class
of believers, "Ye do the things ye ought not to do, and leave undone
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those ye should have done." The great Teacher of
Christian science knew a good tree sendeth not forth evil fruit; that Soul
emits only unerring Truth, while that which proceedeth from personal sense is
error; also, that Truth and error cannot mingle; they are the tares and wheat
side by side that never blend, but await the harvest, when belief shall yield
to understanding, and error be self-destroyed.
At present Truth is trampled upon, while error
holds the reins, with virtue at a discount! "Well done, good and faithful
villain," is the merit mark for to-day, and youth seems eager for the prize.
Such surprising aristocracy of evil is owing to the gilded falsehood of
individual character, those whited sepulchres that hold the dead carcasses of
conscience ; students of the Science of Life are responsible above all others
if false to the teachings of conscience and reason. Said the wicked king, "I
hate him because he prophesieth evil continually of me." Reformists are mostly
traduced by the class that feel them most: let the good tell the Truth and live
it, and the evil publish a lie and live it, and the former will be doubted and
the latter believed, until the world advances nearer to what is Truth, when
their relative positions will be seen and appreciated.
Those who understand the science of being, bear
testimony to Truth, insomuch as they must understand what is indispensable to
gain it. Never refute calumny except for Truth's sake; leaving the future years
to expose the slanderer and bar, and reward those who wait on God; fear not the
individual falsehood, and promulgate Truth sufficiently to gain some balance
for the world. Earth holds not a majority of righteous men,
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and in proportion as we rise in the scale of
being, do we learn this, but because evil boasts of greater numbers, this hath
no advantage for the sinner. To-day sin offers a premium; let down the bars of
morality, and you are society's favorite; put them up higher than society can
leap, and you bring opprobrium on the bartender.
Woman especially should hold the standard that
rebukes vice, and saith virtue, join us, and though we battle beneath stripes,
we will fall in our armor, or lay it down on the field of victory. To ask in
prosperity, "am I right?" is wiser than to ask this in adversity. One in a
million does this, but can we lessen the number against that one?
Right advances slowly and with bleeding
footsteps, but Truth can afford to wait, for "the eternal years of God are
hers."
We have investigated the phenomenon called
mediumship both to convince ourself of its nature and cause, and to be able to
explain it; and have succeeded in the first instance, but may have failed in
the second. It is more frequently in company with those who believe in
mediumship that mediums narrate something of the departed, describe them
personally, etc., showing it to be the effect of mind on this plane acting on
theirs. Again, all the information imparted comes from the minds of the living
instead of the dead. That some one knew the individual deceased is evident, and
it is not more difficult to read mind far away than near. We think of an absent
individual as easily as one present; hence the equal ease to discern the absent
mind that we visit mentally. The demand to talk of the dead proceeds
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from the mind of the living, who, believing in
this process or yearning for this communion mentally call for it, and this
reaches the mind touched to response, and brings on the mood called mediumship.
All theories and manifestations growing out of belief are error: and the
important era for this age is the awakening or resurrection of understanding
through which the unreal yields to the real, and 'isms are given up; the
corruptible yields to the incorruptible, and the belief of Life in matter or
Soul in sense gives place to the understanding of Life, that Wisdom, Love, and
Truth, in which there is no conscious matter.
It follows not that in sleep we communicate with
the dreamer at our side, because of his proximity, or that we both are dreamers
wandering through the mazes of thought. If Life has become real to the
departed, they cannot return to the unreal; or if they are at our side, and
Life goes on to them the same as before, we are not in their conscious
existence, nor they in ours, hence, we are debarred intercommunion; our dreams
being distinct they cannot blend, though we are side by side. If those we call
departed have gained a better understanding of Life than ours, they have
advanced beyond us; in which case, we would not if we could draw them back to
our ignorance in order to meet us, and we could not if we would; neither can we
advance to their plane of understanding except through their footsteps, and
these have not yet been taken. If one man dreams he is crossing the Atlantic,
and another the Andes, they are not in communion, though they are side by side,
and dreamers both. This therefore represents the so-called dead and living who
are on earthly planes of
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error, and have not become Spirit, but cannot
communicate, because their beliefs of death have separated them. Again,
supposing one man is dreaming and another awake, conscious of his friend's
illusion, they certainly do not meet mentally and mingle; even thus the dead
and living are parted, either through a belief that they died, or the
understanding of Life outside of matter. Memory may repeat the alphabet, and
mind here hold the history of the dead, but if we can read, we never in reality
go back to the alphabet, or find pleasure in it; thus the advanced mind cannot
return to matter.
Soul's vision is independent of optics; but the
belief that sight depends on the eye, and thought mast have sound to reach our
apprehension, shuts out the understanding of mind, and reverses the order of
science. Destroy the belief that we owe to organization, our hearing, seeing,
feeling, etc., and we hear without an auditory nerve or typanum, and see
without optics, We shall all ere long prove this, and that spiritual senses are
true, arid the personal, false. An organ is but the symbol of sight, hearing,
etc., the expression only of these; and to hold it thus, would be to retain our
faculties by right of Soul's ownership arid government; and to hear, see, etc.,
with mind instead of matter; which is the only scientific statement of sense
and the Principle of immortal man. The real relation between Soul and body
reveals the latter without sensation or Intelligence, and the idea of Soul; to
understand this opens to view the capabilities of being, untrammeled by
personal sense, explains the so-called miracles, and brings out the infinite
possibilities of Soul, controlling matter, discerning mind, and restoring
man's
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inalienable birth-right of dominion. Silence the
belief we are in the body, and we discern the past and future as readily as the
events of to-day; but this is the science of Life, and not mediumship. The
order and naturalness of phenomena that we deem a mystery and marvel, are
perceived when we remember mind controls mind, and that matter is only another
name for mind; a table or piano is moved by mind instead of muscle, and we
should prove our power in this and other directions if we admitted it, but not
admitting it, we virtually have it not, like the horse feebly submitting to the
rein, unconscious of his power; phenomena that proceed from belief lose their
power when we lose the belief that occasioned them; matter is manifest
mind.
Misinterpretation hinders the harmony of
phenomenon, and leaves it to ignorance and abuse. Clairvoyance foresees the
future and repeats the past that is daguerreotyped on mortal mind only, and
based on no Principle or Truth; it is mortal opinions unworthy obtaining. A
past event is memory, a faculty of mind, and a future one is perception,
another mental faculty; all events are mind before matter. Mediumship is a
belief of individualized "spirits," also that they do much for you, the result
of which is you are capable of doing less for yourself. Why some event,
conversation, or even simple circumstance is more readily traced by the
clairvoyant than others, is owing to the fact the mental emotions they produced
were more vivid, therefore they are more distinctly defined in mind. When told
by a clairvoyant something you have long since forgotten, 'tis useless to say
they never read it in my mind because I recollected it not. It is by no means
necessary the
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memory of those present retains what the
clairvoyant sees. Beliefs, and images of thought are not limited to space or
personal sense, that grosser strata of mortal mind. The clairvoyant sees not by
means of solar rays, or an object striking the retina; and our proof that
mortal mind is the element of all sublunary things is, that they exist to this
mind the same as to personal sense. The reader must make due distinction
between mediumship and the individual; there are undoubtedly noble purposes in
the hearts of noble women and men who believe themselves mediums.
The science of Life, gained by slow and solemn
foot-steps, at the expense of all 'isms and 'ologies, will unite being into one
silken chord of good-will to man; and there is but one right way under the sun,
even the pathway of holiness. We should not hang on the skirts of others, but
in our own identity possess, some merit of our own not borrowed from others;
and is there any so blind as not to admit individual faults? But mediumship
well-nigh disavows all individual responsibility, and literally lays the charge
of all good or evil on the shoulders of the dead. While we cherish all charity
for our fellow-beings, we have none for a belief that inevitably shuts the door
on reason and revelation, and robes the mind in darkness akin to barbarism. But
for the misinterpretation of mental phenomena, through a belief of mediumship,
the signs of science would have been discerned ere this, in the phenomena of
to-day, and what is ascribed to personal agencies, have rested on the basis of
Principle. Phenomena not understood had better be let alone, until the
explanation is given that deprives humbug and avarice of advantage, and
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contributes to the general welfare. Principle
demands to be understood; but phenomena not based on Principle, you can explain
falsely, insomuch as they are creations of sense instead of Soul.
When sensation proceeds from Soul instead of
body, the impressions are lucid and pure, and the intuitions correct and
harmonious. But when mortal mind, or belief produces them, discord, disease,
sin and death are the result. Mesmerism is error that leaves man at the mercy
of matter, will, caprice, and mortal mind; God, Spirit, never mesmerized man or
matter. The simplest object in the hand of a mesmerized subject may- shock him
with a belief of danger; a napkin becomes to him a serpent that stings him; and
this is the sensation that is belief, Place in his hand a cold apple; create
the belief it is hot, and it produces at once the sensation of pain, the same
as fire; destroy this belief of a burn, and the pain disappears. Is not this
proof that pain is a belief? Again, whatever object the mesmerizer presents
mentally to his subject, he sees; do not these facts prove the so-called senses
of the body, mind, instead of organs and nerves? But mesmerism should be put
under bonds not to do evil; at any estimate it is a shameful waste of reason
and honesty. That pain and pleasure are produced by belief, in the absence of
all conditions to occasion them, is another proof that sensation is mind and
not matter. To admit Mind sees, bears, feels, etc., without the agency of
matter, is a step toward science.
In genuine clairvoyance there is no sensation in
the body during its continuance. But to see in belief is not to see in reality;
the basis of the science of being
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repudiates mesmerism, producing precisely
opposite results; it destroys belief, and insists on understanding. Personal
opinions or belief cannot be dismissed too soon. To admit that error requires a
certain period in which to prepare us for the higher school of immortality, is
a grave mistake; there is no necessity "to do evil that good might come";
science begins right, in order to end right, and it cannot begin right too
soon. Reasoning from false premises never presented correct conclusions. God
never made evil; error produces error, and belief disappears when Truth is
understood, even as a cloud passes from before the sun. Science contradicts
mortal sense, and reveals in its stead the immortal understanding that gives
harmony to man. Wisdom is not gained of knowledge that brought sin and death
into the world; neither is it found in pulp, or the brains of man; this
so-called mind is but a belief that matter embraces mind.
Magnetism is without a scientific basis; it is
one belief or error controlling another one. That Spirit mesmerizes, or
vitalizes matter, giving it Life and Intelligence, is the fundamental error of
mortal man. Spirit cannot impart Intelligence to non-intelligence, it has no
electricity, etc. ; emanations of materiality are electricity, and mesmerism is
an unmitigated humbug. The immortal basis of man is not matter, electricity,
brains, bones, etc., but Spirit that hath understanding; not sense but Soul;
and phenomena that proceed from this fundamental Principle of being, are real
and harmonious. A desire to do right may mistake the method of doing it, for
belief is changing and unreal; intention may be right, but if the Principle of
phenomena is misconstrued
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and assigned to a person, electricity, etc., its
foundation is a belief only, in which case science is not discerned, and
phenomena left to misinterpretation and discord. It is not very uncommon to
find one's self mistaken in belief. The miser thinks himself rich, but the fact
remains he is poor; one individual thinks money makes a man, another, that man
is more than money; still another believes man controls man in partnership with
God, but these are grave errors; the M. D. thinks his method right, being
learned in the school of Hippocrates; but Truth reveals knowledge the cause,
instead of the cure of disease, and that there is but one physician that
destroys sickness, and never loses a case if the patient observes directions,
and yet this doctor is unpopular at present. Would you learn His name? it is
the Science of being.
Our false reasoning does all the harm that can
be done; it admits power in matter, and divides Wisdom between matter and God,
giving them both separate Intelligence and distinct action and power, when
there is in reality but one mind, there being but one God; man is not a
separate Wisdom or Intelligence. God embraces all Intelligence, and enters not
into partnership with man or matter, for this would involve the whole firm in
disgrace, and imply at times that Truth is beaten by error. The reign of man is
not the kingdom of heaven, or reign of harmony; for the government of God
requires loyalty to Soul, and not sense; but manmade views endorse loyalty to
sense, and a traitor to Soul; in fine, they have, other gods before me."
Civilization is not without its idolatry; a drug
is its Dragon, Principle is prayed to, not worked for, and
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matter controls mortal man; all inharmonies come
from this source. Nerves, brain, lungs, heart, liver, etc., master man ; tea,
coffee, tobacco, liquor, etc., are idols to which he bows down. There is no
other volition, action, or government, but God, and yet the dream of Life in
matter denies this, and gives all to personal sense, which would make evil
stronger than good. The belief that matter is a power holding the reins of
government over man, predominates, and the result is, broken bones, paralyzed
limbs, softened brains, disease and death. The Master healed the sick on the
opposite basis of man, and controlled matter to issues worthy Intelligence ;
primitive Christianity heard the utterances of Wisdom, and cast out
"spirits."
The Rochester rappings inaugurated a mockery
destructive to order and good morals. Physical signs; that manifest the
infinite Wisdom contradict not Truth; manifestations of personal sense in time
or eternity are the results of error. Healing the sick is not the entire
demonstration of the science of being, but it embraces a better understanding
of God, of Soul governing sense than materia medica, or mesmerism. Healing the
sick in science, is Truth casting out error; yea, it is taking God the
Principle of man to govern the body; but healing the sick with mediumship,
mesmerism, drugs, etc., is the greater error overcoming the lesser, and holding
forbidden ground stronger because of this. Is it well to expect from drugs a
blessing that Wisdom has not? is not God sufficient for the wants of man?
Mystery is the offspring of ignorance, and
oppression grows out of governments not understood. Let us choose to-day whom
we will serve, and abide the deci-
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sion; frankly naming our master whether it be
God or matter. No sequel is left to disease destroyed by Truth, never a
consumption in consequence of measles; for this would take the demonstration
out of the hands of Wisdom and give the balance of power to disease. I am, is
the Intelligence that touches the chords of man to every harmonious issue, but
the dream that Life and Intelligence are in matter would make this "I" both
matter, and Spirit; a thing impossible.
Healing the sick through Intelligence, is
science in obedience to Wisdom, that gave man dominion over serpents, deadly
drugs, etc., and is the natural and normal control that Soul holds over sense.
One of the greatest absurdities of human reasoning, is to admit person, or
matter, better doctors than the Principle of man and the universe, learned of
science. Would we not blush to say, man is a better musician than the Principle
of music? Physiology, hygiene, or materia medica has no claims in common with
Intelligence, the Principle of being; and mediumship, galvanism, mesmerism,
etc., are the right bands of humbug. The remark was once made in our bearing,
"My guardian spirit is nearer to me than God." This was undoubtedly true,
understanding literally nothing of the science of being, personality was more
to him than Principle; and any change of belief would erect a new standard of
conscience.
The theory called spiritualism objects to a
personal God, but no 'ism So directly depends on personality. The individual
exceptions to this error will reach a higher standard, sooner or later; and
leave their material basis, such as electricity, matter conditions, medium
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ship, dark seances, etc., for the science of
Life. The word spiritualism, is comically misapplied when made to designate a
sect supposed to hold commerce with "spirits," not Spirit, but personality, in
some instances, "sensual and devilish." The true significance of spiritualism,
is a reign of Spirit over matter, of Principle over person, in which Soul,
instead of sense governs man. Any error is a belief of matter, and cannot
proceed from Spirit, God; when the departed become Spirit, those of earth who
believe in substance-matter can no more communicate with them than darkness can
enter light, that would destroy it. When you reach communion with Spirit, you
will gain the utterances of Truth only.
What is called mediumship, tends to destroy all
reliance on understanding and science. Admitting intercommunion between evil,
here and there, both in time and eternity, we are afloat on the breakers of
error, where nothing can stop its flood-tides breaking perpetually on the
shores of time.
We learn Truth from divine revelation and our
own demonstration; what we cannot understand and demonstrate with scientific
certainty and harmony we had better let alone, for it leaves us at the mercy of
a belief. The illustration of mediumship is a circle inside of which waits a
material body to be mesmerized by a spiritual one, under the table, or perhaps
in it, who informs you he rotates eternally back to things of time, and this is
progress, through which he becomes Spirit, God (?) while in glorious rapport
with matter, sensuality and sin!
In contradistinction to the 'ism of
Spiritualism, let it
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be remembered other doctrines name the name of
God with reverence; hold the Bible the book of books; teach our infant lips the
Lord's prayer; and bid man obey the ten commandments, that are perfect in
Wisdom. Its military drills on Sabbath, the aboriginal vernacular of its
oracles, its rites and ceremonies that choose darkness rather than light, and
above all its loose morals, do not entitle spiritualism to the standing it has
gained in society; hence aside from these its worst features, it has a
humanitarianism and liberality that should redeem it from under the infatuation
of mediumship. Spirit has neither Life, nor Intelligence in matter; and if our
departed friends are Spirit, and we believe ourselves in matter, we cannot
commune together; or if they are yet in matter-beliefs, we have shut them out
of our consciousness by a belief of the change death has wrought, making them
no longer tangible to personal sense.
Again, if we would commune through the
affections, we must be on the same plane of belief, or understanding with
them, to make this possible; and if their body is changed to us (as is manifest
by its burial), so are their affections changed; and we cannot commune on
former terms of personal sense and sympathy. We are separated mentally
according to our own views, and on our own grounds, as effectually as distance
here separates our bodies. Mediumship is mind-reading on this plane, and
nothing more. Some one here knows all the mediums tell; the imagery with which
they clothe expression is but futile conjecture and imagination, else thoughts
let loose from the limits of personal sense, and the regret is that in this
step they should not understand it.
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Mediums describe sickness, sin, and death; and
this description is supposed to come from Spirit that is wholly unconscious of
matter or error, thus perpetuating the error that needs to be dissected and
destroyed. Mediums have a certain circumference, and never go outside of these
limits; at the same time protesting mediumship is progress that takes hold of
immortality. But the majority of what is termed mediumship, is simply
imposition, not even clairvoyance, or mind-reading, but a catch-penny fraud.
Until the so-called communications between the dead and living are stopped,
sickness, sin, and death will continue; talking error and believing it, make
all the reality there is to it. What is termed mediumship rises no higher than
personal opinions and mortal views. A ball propelled upward or onward and
subject to gravitation, will never pierce immensity. The gravitation earthward
must be withdrawn, or the ball stops. So with mind that would leave matter; and
would you fetter the unbound with ties of earth to matter conditions? But you
cannot if you would; we commune together only as Spirit with Spirit, the
immortal with the undying; or matter with matter, the mortal with mortality;
and do you hold yourself free from mortal fetters, or your dear departed bound
with you? The dream of Life and Intelligence in matter is destroyed when
heaven, man's harmony, is reached. The dead to personal sense are alive to
Soul, and preserve all the prerogatives of being, but because personal sense
buries their bodies it loses sight of this fact, showing virtually we are
separated, and they no longer in sympathy with us, for there is no conscious
change to themselves; hence we lose sight of each
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other. We are holding a belief of them as dead,
in one sense, and pursuing it, and they the opposite, understanding, and
pursuing that, therefore our directions commence from that hour apart, if they
commence in science, for ours is error, else we would not bury the body, and
the old and familiar faces would not disappear; a new field of action should be
taken by the so-called dead, and the old left to us. Any departure from this
natural result in progress is but a belief and. error.
Some mind here retains the image of the
departed, or they have left this image in the atmosphere of mind in general;
the words and acts of great men other minds may repeat, at least in part.
Belief says the departed produce the phenomenon of Spirit communing with
matter, but all there is to mediumship, is belief To say the dead assert the
reality of sickness and death after the falsity of these are proved by those
who have learned disease did not kill them, while we say it did, is a very
erroneous effort through post-mortem evidence to confirm an error of personal
sense, that ought to be fading away to the departed and to us. The science of
Soul destroys the dream of Life in matter, consequently of sickness, sin, and
death, saying, "let the dead bury their dead," that is, let the error of
personal sense be destroyed and not resurrected through mediumship and "follow
thou Truth," the Life of man.
Intercommunion between the so-called dead and
living is a belief only and not a reality; it is another 'ism that makes war on
science and opens wide a Pandora box on mankind. Just as the age is getting
ready to emerge from dogmatical error, to have the fountains
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of thought poisoned and dammed up with such
mystery and madness is a miserable catch-penny plot, or an ignorance worthy the
dark ages. As mind throws off its cruder beliefs of matter and becomes more
spiritualized, phenomena resulting therefrom will become more wonderful, and
should be understood on the basis of Soul, throwing off its own idea of
Intelligence and Life, and opinions of mountebank and charlatan, that
perpetuate sickness and sin, discord and mortality, be held back. But here the
advanced thinker must wait before some 'ism, and the vain pause before caste,
so the vultures that prey on the hour have it much in their own hands.
Supineness and hypocrisy on the one hand and persecution on the other, are
porters at the door of error to shut out glimpses of Truth. Although the
science of being is greatly in advance of to-day as our iniquities declare, it
is demanded even more for this, and he that layeth not down all for Truth, is
not worthy of it. Every step of spirituality is linked to Wisdom, but it
carries us thither through much tribulation; greater violence will be done
Truth as the capacities of mind develop, until mind is better understood, and
can be met and restrained with science.
Penal law may restrain the manifestations of
error, and punish them, but cannot reach the subtle thought before it is
manifested; but the higher law of science destroys the mental error before it
results in deeds; thus avoiding the penalty, and affording a remedy for dismay
and wickedness between the periods of materiality and spirituality. The contest
between error and Truth whereby all 'isms will finally disappear, and the age
pass into science, has been going on with pen and
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tongue for centuries, and yet, sin, sickness and
death abound, because science that called the battle has been suffocated with
opinions and theories. We boast of material law, but find it fails to save from
sickness, sin and death; what we need is spiritual law, the Soul's jurisdiction
over sense, more potent than man to work out salvation in obedience to the
command, "Work out your own salvation," for God worketh with you. Mankind have
wrought centuries on material platforms, now let us labor on a spiritual one
for succeeding generations, and the body will become harmonious and
immortal.
Any mode of treating the sick through
manipulation, will-power, or mesmerism is a very poor substitute for science;
in the first place it is morally wrong. because it does wrong by inoculating
error, and it is better to take the inanimate poison, than the evil of some
people's nature. The less limited the power of an evil mind, the more sin it
commits; it is the escaped felon that ventures on more daring crimes according
to opportunity. Unless the moral growth equals the knowledge you obtain of the
powers of mind, to meet and restrain them, confining them to doing good only,
this developed power is to be dreaded. Stealing is not worse physically than
metaphysically, and you have no more business to control your neighbor's mind
except to do him good, than to control his body, or his household; any attempts
to do this should be exposed and punished; mind should be protected as well as
body, and any interference therewith outside the moral law of science, is a
flagrant wrong. The higher law of justice forbids this evil action, and in
spiritual science your quickened sense of
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right makes it impossible. We may know how a
felon steals on the sleeper, and for his purse plunges a dagger in his breast,
but a common moralist even could not do this. To bring the Truth of being to
the consciousness and understanding of the sick, is the science that heals
them, and lifts its possessor above such a crime; but to control minds for
purposes of avarice or revenge, sinks a practice to the committal of any error.
The law of Truth written on the Soul is the governing motive in science, and he
who pours into the minds of patients falsehoods for his own sinister purposes,
has made a fatal mistake that will be seen in his patients; it will not only
hinder their recovery, but render the practitioner unfit to name the name of
Christ, and thus make Truth powerless in his bands; all he accomplishes after
this, is through mesmerism. Any interference in practice with the mind's free
and unbiased action, farther than what relates to disease, and bearing one
another's burdens, "and so fulfilling the law of Christ," is averse to science,
and leaves the wrong-doer only the alternative of talking science and
practicing mesmerism; if sentence against an evil work be not executed
speedily, this sin is not without a witness. The mischievous link between mind
and matter, called planchette, uttering its many falsehoods, is a prototype of
the poor work some people make of the passage from their old natures up to a
better man.
We are accustomed to think seeing without optic
is second sight, but this is first sight; even our normal condition of being.
He that formed the eye, did He not see? hath not Spirit every faculty of
Intelligence? That sight is not in the eye is apparent when the mes-
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merized subject sees through different portions
of the head, leaving this optional with belief. The question is at issue with
mankind, whether we begin to demonstrate being in science, or leave it longer
in the bands of belief, and at the mercy of theories, -- to heal the sick with
Intelligence, or hold on to lifeless drugs to do the work of Wisdom, and call
on departed personalities to direct our lives. What we need is understanding
the Spirit that is Truth, and not "spirits," for there is but one Spirit, even
universal Soul, that knoweth all things. Moving matter, mentally seeing,
feeling, etc., has its scientific explanation thus; but phenomena not
understood are at the mercy of belief, and their true interpretation will not
be gained until the belief be destroyed. Again, the understanding of Truth is
not gained by what we see, hear, or feel, for a personal sense of things
depends on belief alone; therefore the starting-point for the evidence of
mediumship is unscientific. If the belief was as positive that we converse with
the dead, see, bear, and feel them, as our belief of Life in matter is, they
would be as apparent to us, and yet this would not present the Truth of being,
a body without sensation. Soul and its manifestations are all that is real;
whatsoever can make discord, or utter a lie is proved without Principle, and
not the idea of Truth; when the science of our being is gained, tricksters will
lose their occupation. In the onward march of Truth, error will bury its dead
and never resurrect error; but before this hour, it may take to itself seven
beliefs more erroneous than at first, and launch deeper into the dark. This
Babel has already begun; mediumship helps becloud the way of Truth; greater
discord is inaugurated
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because of it; a link formed between the error
of another plane of existence and this, would be another error for Truth
finally to destroy.
We say of matter, it is opaque or luminous, but
this should be said of mind that is transparent, its images readily perceived,
or that absorbs, and reflects but little. A mind transparent, reflects the
thoughts of other minds, and reproduces them, and this is supposed to be the
work of the departed. Legerdemain, or slight of hand, has produced more
remarkable manifestations than mediumship, and what is done understandingly is
better than mysteriously; skill is more rational at this age than superstition.
Matter is moved, history repeated, and pictures drawn by mind on this plane;
and that which we understand not, we know nothing of; we say matter moves
matter here, but that Spirit moves it there; let us have the interpretations of
science on these points, and link not error to error throughout time and
eternity. Lacking the basis of science, we say, Intelligence is in matter, that
mind alone cannot produce phenomena; also, that body is diseased independent of
mind; that matter is self-acting, etc.
A circumstance was related to us by an old
gentleman, a distinguished mesmerist. He said to a mesmerized subject under
control of his will, "You have a bum on your hand," and he immediately appeared
to suffer; the flesh rose up in a blister that was opened and discharged a
watery fluid. Then, continued the narrator, I destroyed the belief that he was
burned, and the cuticle became smooth and natural as before. We did not witness
this test of belief, but having seen the mesmerizer's performances on other
occasions, and knowing
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the man's veracity, and the power of belief, we
could not doubt it.
The evidence of one of the personal senses is
not more improbable than that of another; mentally to see another's mind is not
more impossible than to feel it; then wherefore doubt that we see what mind
contains, as well as feel it? We can feel the pain of the sick, and the sorrow
that is not ours causes us to weep; the fact is we both see and feel, hear,
taste and smell, because of mind and not matter, and from sympathy with mind;
all is mind, and matter one of its beliefs. But for the interpretations of
ignorance, the basis of all physical manifestations would have been discovered
long ago, and given a scientific explanation; thought awake to this subject
would have discerned the signs of science in phenomenon, had not a belief, as
usual, misinterpreted it.
An absence of eloquence is caused by the belief
that schools and colleges possess alone the key to it, or that some especial
endowment is wanting; destroy this belief, and you break the shackles of mind
that imprison its faculties, and set the captive free to utter the beauties of
being. Flowers, birds, waves, mountains and storms are eloquent, and so is man;
even the sons of the forest are sometimes orators beyond their learned
neighbors, for the reason the nearer we approach our native being, the more we
give utterance to Soul; and it is this universal Intelligence outside of
language, that supplies all that is sublime, or beautiful in words. It was
inquired concerning Jesus, "bow this man knew letters, having never learned?"
Eloquence is the voice of Soul, the God-utterance untrammelled by
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books, conventionality, or the fear of man; even
the self-accusing reminder he is unlearned, cannot disturb the inspired man. I
have seen learned men at the mercy of books, and the unlearned eloquent beyond
them; the so-called mediums let go their beliefs by supposing somebody else is
talking for them, and thus speak beyond the admitted limits of their own
capacities. Soul is infinite in eloquence, as in all else, but sense is finite
in this as in all else; the Soul-inspired are not comprehended by the man of
sense, and the sense-inspired are mediums deceived in the origin of what they
say. The victim of delirium sees objects through the shadowy evidence of
delusion, and so does the sleeper, the medium, or clairvoyant, and mortal man.
Where neither certainty of phenomena nor evidence of Principle exists there is
no real foundation. All theories founded on the belief that Soul is in body,
God in man, and Intelligence in matter, therefore, that we must develop from
within outwardly, are false, and fatal to science. Wisdom is from without,
development is to learn this, to leave the belief of Wisdom within a
skull-bone, and take hold of our God-being outside of matter. There is no
"inner life;" for Life is God, and God never migrated from man! cause was never
in its effect. In common practice we make no attempt to put the greater into
the less; and if Soul is superior to body, it is outside of it; and if God is
superior to man, he is not in man; and furthermore, man must get out of six
feet of Intelligence before he is immortal in Soul. Wisdom cometh from without;
Principle is circumference, and idea centre; Soul is Principle, and man the
central idea of Soul.
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Science reverses the conclusions of personal
sense in every instance, and abides by a given statement of man to bring out
the harmony and immortality, that theories have failed to do. No condition of
matter can change the fact in numbers that four times three is twelve; science
should govern thought, and nothing can mar or destroy man controlled by
science. Mediumship is without a scientific statement or proof, and claims to
gather Wisdom from "spirits," personalities, outside of matter, while the basis
of its evidence is admitted to be matter conditions. The theory called
spiritualism admits that God is Principle, but leaves this admission without
practical proof. If God is Principle, science alone reveals God; then wherefore
ask personalities of another plane to explain Life, Truth and Love? why not
strive to reach these beatitudes through science, and hold them your own
instead of another's to bestow on you. Person cannot interpret Love, for Love
alone explains itself; science reveals and explains Principle, but man cannot
explain God; six feet, nor the stature of ancient giants can represent "the
fullness of the stature of man in Christ," in other words, the idea of Truth.
Measurement may represent the man of personal sense, but this is not the man of
Soul.
Mediumship communes with person instead of
Principle, the only Intelligence, Life and Love; and accepts a personal version
of Principle, praying God to be God, as if Love was idle, and omnipotence
uninformed. To call on light for light, is absurd. "Let there be light," is the
will of Wisdom; and this full effulgence has nothing to do with mortal stint,
but shines for 0. Universal Love bestows all good without respect to per-
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sons; and man receives, or rejects it; but a
prayer or tear changes not divine economy, or eternal order. Sin shuts out
light and blessings, and is the author of all tears and prayers. Wisdom helps
those only who help themselves, and cannot bless evil; it destroys sin only as
man gives up sin, acting in this direction only as we act. We have seen
patients who could not be healed through science, until they gave up the belief
of mediumship, and controlled their own bodies; for man is not governed in
science except by his own Spirit.
Harmonious man is governed by the Principle of
being; the inharmonious by a belief of personality; therefore, the folly to
desire personal control that leads into all error; there is no Truth except
Principle, the one God, and thou shouldst have no other."
We learn in science that God and His idea are
all that is immortal; but mediumship would establish the immortality of
error. Science reveals progression only, but mediumship retrogression. Should a
pupil continue in the primary school, when fitted for a higher school? If the
departed are unfit for the advanced understanding of Life through which they
take a spiritual place in the scale of being beyond us, why impose their
ignorance on us as oracular; and think mediumship privileged to be a strainer
for error. That the so-called dead return to torment us, or to comfort us, or
to seek aid from us, is but a belief and error. When wandering in Australia,
are you seeking comfort, or giving support to another, dwelling in the
snow-caverns of the Esquimaux? Two different dreams, or different awakenings,
separate consciousness. What is named mediumship is a phenomenon of belief,
without reality, or science; and
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we ought to know the consequences of launching
into new and stronger fellowship with error, when we are already in it
up to our necks.
In an age of sin and sensuality hastening to
greater development of power, 'tis fearful to consider the influence of belief
without more honesty and understanding to steer clear of the fearful shoals on
this dangerous and unexplored coast. The peril of Salem witchcraft even is not
past, until that error be met by the understanding and destroyed; not the
gallows, but explanation, destroys error. Science must be allowed to explain
this phenomenon of belief, in contradistinction to that of Truth and
Intelligence controlling man. An evil and artful mind is all the satan there
is; and this is the fallen angel, or abused capacity; such a mind learning its
control over other minds, will take the reins into its teeth, and Truth alone
must take them out and guide it; as of old this mind works its spell in some
manner on all it would harm, because the barriers against evil influences from
such a source are not understood by the world in general, and the door is not
readily closed against them. To this end metaphysics are important; study mind
more and matter less, for we must find refuge in Soul, to escape the error of
the latter days; and mediumship and mesmerism more than all else contribute to
a terrible future development of discord. We should strongly insist on the
majesty of Truth, and its control over error; and begin to-day denying right or
reality to aught but God, and the true idea; saying, "depart from me all ye
that work iniquity;" and thus break up the reign of error, and let the world of
harmony and Truth re-appear. If spirit-returns were pos-
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sible, they would grow beautifully less at every
advanced stage of existence; for the departed would pass away from our
ignorance, and we away from the belief of mediumship, until the beliefs of
matter were gone, and we united through science; and the will of God "done on
earth as it is done in heaven."
The mind of Soul has no fellowship, or
communion, with the so-called mind of the body; the changing, sinful and erring
thought is not immortal Spirit; matter and brains are not mind, notwithstanding
opinions and beliefs to the contrary! But we welcome the increase of knowledge
even though it never has borne the fruits of harmony and immortality, and never
will approach the demonstration that Jesus gave, because knowledge must have
its day, and we want that day over. The so-called mind of body, is belief and
error, but the mind of Soul is understanding, even the science of being. Paul
learned that to be present with Truth, we must be absent to the body; but Cain
concluded very naturally if man gave life he bad the right to take it away, and
attempted to kill his brother, showing this belief of Life in matter, or man,
was error from the beginning. We name a mistaken thought, mind, while it is
error only, without intelligence, but imitating it; without Principle, but
claiming to be Truth. Mistakes are impossible to understanding, and
understanding is all the mind there is; ignorance and evil are not
Intelligence. Soul is the only Intelligence, and a creator not at the mercy of
its creation; we see, hear, feel, etc., not because of eyes or ears, these
faculties are symbols or expressions of understanding, which is the mind of
Soul; the mind of body loses them if an organ be destroyed; but
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they cannot perish, or be marred in Spirit. The
senses of Soul are not matter, but Spirit, that apprehend and reflect
Intelligence, and Life; hence, their immortality. Inspiration is the utterance
of Soul, giving forth its own idea, or spiritual sense. It is safe to trust
this communication; but it would no longer be so if matter, or personal sense
interpreted it. The garment in which belief, error, hides itself is, that Soul
is in matter, holiness in unholiness, and literally God in man.
Midnight foretells the dawn; and beholding a
solitary star the wise men of old were led by spiritual vision to foretell the
hour of Truth. But what shepherd-sage today, seeing the light is allowed to
explain the darkness. The world is asleep! lulled by stupefying beliefs; in the
cradle of infancy dreaming away the hours under its spell. Entering upon an
unknown eternity, personal sense will be found as an outlaw escaping to a
foreign land, where he is doomed to an unlooked-for death. The footsteps of
belief have not advanced man a single league toward immortality; and the
unwillingness to learn man and God of science, holds christendom in chains. So
much hypocrisy swells the catalogue of society, the honesty that demands
demonstration is not desired, and incurs the enmity of mankind. Science never
plays the hypocrite. To claim you understand a problem of Euclid, and fail to
demonstrate it, would exhibit folly or dishonesty; but to solve the simple
problem according to its rule proves you perceive the Principle. Science is the
rule of harmonious and immortal man; Jesus the example, and Christ the
Principle. This rule of man is embraced in Life, Love and Truth; and the
spiritual sense of the Scripture reveals the science of being.
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The prophets did anciently what the worshippers
of Baal failed to do, yet in some instances, artifice and the faith of belief
feigned the work of Wisdom. Necromancy and legerdemain are the inventions of
man that originate in brains, or the so-called mind of matter, while science is
the mind of God; one proceeds from Soul and the other from sense. The beliefs
of man manifest error only; but this is sometimes called a phenomenon of Truth,
that proceeds from "spirits"; the phenomena of Principle are outside of matter,
and not in the least dependent on person. Mesmerism hod mediumship are
dependent wholly on belief or the so-called person of man. Mind evolves images
of thought, and these are the apparitions seen by the so-called medium; it is
not more mysterious, only because it is less common, for us to see, than to
feel a thought. To feel the grief of another's mind is not unusual, but we
think, to see the mind's images of departed friends, is to see them in reality;
here are two equal senses, seeing and feeling, that we separate in power. There
are those that feel another's pain as quickly as their own; the sick may not
have touched them, or spoken on the subject, and yet they feel their pains and
can tell their locality, and this because of sympathy the same as yawning is
produced. Seeing belongs no less to personal sense, or belief, than feeling;
then why more difficult to see a thought than to feel it? Education alone
determines the difference, and in reality it is not more marvellous. Haunted
houses, unusual noises, voices, apparitions, dark-seances, etc., are tricks
produced by tricksters; else they are images and sounds evolved by mind on this
plane. The mind of Soul embraces all that is real and
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immortal, and the so-called mind of body which
we name the mind of man, embraces all that is unreal and mortal.
Truth proceeds from Spirit; error from the
material body. The mind of Soul, Spirit, is science giving only the idea of
Truth; but the so-called mind of body, or man, is belief giving false
appearances. Because there is no mind of man, that is, no material mind,
thoughts said to emanate from body or brain are delusions. How may we determine
the ideas of Truth from belief? By learning their origin; thoughts from the
Soul are ideas, and from the brain beliefs; the former proceed from spiritual
sense, are not substance, and are harmonious; the latter are the product of
personal sense, and are supposed substance at one time, and spirit at another,
and are inharmonious; the former are understanding, the latter, beliefs
begotten of error. To love our neighbor as ourself is an idea from Soul, yea,
from Wisdom, Love and Truth; and this idea personal sense cannot see, feel, or
understand, but the spiritual sense can ; "the carnal mind cannot discern
spiritual things."
Matter is but a grosser strata of mortal mind,
wherein one belief introduces and destroys another in Darwinian process. As
before stated, Spirit is Intelligence, whereas the basis of matter is belief;
the former is science, the latter mesmerism. The body that is mortal is an
individualized belief that germinates, grows and decays, "dust unto dust," and
mortal man is just this belief; even a phenomenon of mesmerism, an error
construing man matter. Excite the organ of veneration or the religious tone of
this belief, and it manifests the most profound adoration; but change the
action to an oppo-
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site development, and it blasphemes. Mesmerism
is a belief, constituting mortal mind, error is all there is to it, which is
the very antipode of science, the immortal mind. The former is hallucination,
the latter reality; one a wholesale mistake, the other the Truth of being.
Mesmerism assures the sick they are recovering, when there is no evidence or
basis for this conclusion, turns belief whithersoever it wills, and is the
blind leading the blind. Nothing can be more antagonistic to science; it bides
the Truth that man is the image and likeness of God, and as such cannot be
sick, sinning, or dying, and claims that mortal mind and substance-matter
constitute man, thus admitting through personal sense what Soul denies in
science. Mesmerism is a direct appeal to personal sense, proceeds from it, and
derives its only prestige from belief; it is predicated on the supposition that
Life is in matter, and a nervovital fluid at that; whereas science reveals
man's Life, God, and therefore dwelling not in matter. Mesmerism is error and
belief in conflict; but science masters error and belief with the understanding
of Truth, and reveals man immortal, sinless and undying. Mesmerism is one error
at war with another, "a kingdom divided against itself that cannot stand;" but
science is harmonious and eternal. Mesmerism is personal sense giving the lie
to its own statements, denying the pains but admitting the pleasures of sense;
whereas science denies all sensation to matter, and holds the reins in the
hands of Spirit. The gulf fixed between science and mesmerism is impassible.
Vitalized matter is a grave mistake. Electricity is the last boundary between
personal sense and Soul, and although it stands at the threshold of
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Spirit it cannot enter into it, but the nearer
matter approaches mind the more potent it becomes, to produce supposed good or
evil; the lightning is fierce, and the electric telegram swift. The more
ethereal matter becomes according to accepted theories, the more powerful it
is; e.g., the homeopathic drugs, steam, arid electricity, until possessing less
and less materiality, it passes into essence, and is admitted mortal mind; not
Intelligence, but belief, not Truth, but error. But the nearer belief
approaches Truth without passing the boundary, where it is no longer belief,
but understanding, the more plausible and dangerous is the error. Mesmerism
attracts man to matter, science attracts to Principle, therefore to Spirit, or
God. The more material man is, the more mesmerism he possesses; but the more
spiritual, the less mesmerism and the more science, and the higher his
demonstration of Truth. In reality brains and matter are one; but we call them
mind and matter; but if the brain be the organ of mind, and to destroy this
organ, destroys mortal mind, how can you distinguish between them? What we call
mind and matter-man is mind only, but this mortal mind grows finer towards the
core, and we name its exterior matter, and the interior mind, in
contradistinction to the Truth of being that reveals all Intelligence outside
of matter.
The generic name of matter is mind; its
different species are the beliefs that say Intelligence, Life, sensation,
Substance, good and evil are matter, and the body called man; also, that Spirit
and matter commingle, and form mortal man, on the foundation of sickness, sin,
and death; this theory is not the Truth of being,
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but its opposite, viz., error. Life is not
organization, and Intelligence takes no cognizance of matter, these are God,
Spirit, and to Spirit there is only Principle and idea. The so-called man of
matter together with every material belief of a material world, must pass away
before sorrow, sickness, sin, and death can disappear. The millennial glory
cometh only as science reveals Intelligence and Life outside of matter. Alas!
that man should take a material sword to slay error when the two-edged sword of
Truth destroys it so much more effectually.
The history of the Chinese Empire derives its
antiquity and renown from the truer idea the Buddhist entertains of God,
contrasted with the tyranny, intolerance and bloodshed based on the belief that
Truth, Life, and Love are in matter, and the great Jehovah formed after error's
pattern of mortal man, or intelligent matter. To suppose matter and Spirit
mingle, is the error that hides science on which to base our conclusions of God
and man, of Soul and body, and our proof of immortality. At one time, we define
law, Intelligence, and again, matter, over which Intelligence holds no control,
as in sickness, sin, and death. The law of Spirit is the only law, and this is
Truth, destroying the so-called laws of nature, and its idea is walking the
wave, destroying error, healing the sick, and raising the dead. This is Soul
triumphing over personal sense, putting to fight belief, walking over sin and
matter conditions.
Jesus taught and proved this Truth the
prerogative of Spirit, and left his example for us, saying, "The works that I
do ye shall do." Paul was not one of his
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disciples, or cotemporaries, and yet he tested
these teachings, and demonstrated their Principle. To conclude man and the
universe are governed in general by material law, but occasionally that Spirit
walks over this law, and holds the control in its own bands, is to divide the
capacity of Omnipotence and Wisdom with matter, and to give the latter the more
general claim. These are the false conclusions of belief; understanding rebels
at such folly, mortal belief produces and governs all that sins, suffers and
dies. There is but one law and but one law-giver, the former is science, the
latter God, Soul, the only Life, substance, and Intelligence of man and the
universe; and not in the least dependent on matter conditions, or acting by
reason of them, but destroying them all. This Truth knocks at the door of
history; it is for us to say whether we will open and receive it.
Materia medica, hygiene, physiology, creeds and
ritualism will lose their power for good or evil, when man loses his belief in
them, and makes Life its own proof of harmony and God. That which is right is
immortal, and the opposite of right is mortal. When Truth lays its hand on
error to wipe it out, all will be growing immortal; but before the final doom
of error there will be interruptions in what we call the order of nature, and
earth will become dreary and desolate. Not that summer and winter, seed-time
and harvest shall utterly cease, before the final spiritualization of all
things, but that their order will be interrupted, owing to the change in
belief.
The next step in progress is to learn how mind
controls matter, and how to destroy error. The science of being emancipates man
from belief, giving him under-
116
standing, through which his harmony and
immortality are obtained. There is neither mortal mind, nor substance-matter;
mind is the emanation and atmosphere of Principle, and not person; it proceeds
from God, and not man, from Spirit, and not matter, from Soul, and not sense;
therefore mind is not in mortality, and man has not a separate mind from Deity,
for that would make other Intelligences, and there would be more than one God.
When Truth is admitted, and thinking brains and intelligent bodies are found a
myth, then will the harmony and immortality of man and the universe appear.
When we learn matter has neither Intelligence, substance, nor Life; and neither
suffers nor enjoys; disease will be found a belief only, and healed by
destroying this belief, and giving man the understanding of himself. Personal
sense contradicts the science of being, and so do dreams contradict the daily
experiences of sense; personal sense and science are opposites, that dispute
each other. In dreams you fly, or meet a far-off friend, and hold your body
with your mind, carrying it through the air, or over the ocean, and this dream
of sleep is nearer man's being in science, than the waking dream of Life in
matter; because personal sense governs it less.
The era of science comes in on this statement
and its proof; viz., that all is mind, and there is no matter. Sickness, sin,
and death are creations of mortal mind, that Life, and Truth destroy. Order and
beauty emanate from the mind of Soul, that is immortal; and the scientific
statement that all is mind, will gain its first proofs in healing the sick on
this Principle. A single demonstration of this is important evidence.
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A lady having an internal tumor, and greatly
fearing a surgical operation, called on us. We conducted her case according to
the science here stated, never touched her person, or used a drug, or an
instrument; and the tumor was wholly removed within one or two days. We refer
to this case to prove the Principle. We have stated all is mind, but the
distinction between what we call substance and essence, is made by naming one
matter, and the other mind.
Christ understanding that Soul and body are
Intelligence and its idea, destroyed the belief that matter is something to be
feared, and that sickness and death are superior to harmony and Life. His
kingdom was not of this world, he understood himself, Soul, and not body,
therefore he triumphed over the flesh, over sin and death. He came to teach and
fulfill this Truth, that established the kingdom of heaven, or reign of harmony
on earth. The demonstration he made of this Principle and Truth of being, is
the strongest proof that God is the only Intelligence that produces a perfect
man, and is the Life that is without death, and holiness without sin. Only the
science of being reveals the possibility of meeting the command, "Be ye perfect
even as your Father in heaven," (the Principle of man) "is perfect." Let us
then yield the belief that man is a separate Intelligence from God, and reach
his unerring Principle of being, and be governed by Life and Love, outside of
matter.
As music is harmonious controlled by its
Principle, so man governed by his Principle of being, by Soul and not sense, is
harmonious, sinless and immortal. The error of belief regarding Soul and body,
and God and
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man, introduces discord into the demonstration
of man, even the sickness, sin and death of which we complain. The idea of Life
is obtained only from its perfect Principle, and gained through science in
which man is sinless and immortal.
Sickness, sin and death belong not more
naturally to immortal man than to God, to body than to Soul, for it is morally
impossible that these should adhere to either, and what gave Jesus authority
over sickness, sin and death was the understanding of his scientific being. He
stood boldly up in the face of all accredited evidences of personal sense,
Pharisaical creeds, etc., and refuted them all with his healing. We never read
of his saying a creed or a prayer makes a Christian, or searching into disease,
to learn of discord, if it was acute or chronic, recommending laws of health,
giving drugs, etc., or even asking the will of God regarding man's Life, for
this he already understood. He reckoned sickness, sin and death, "liars from
the beginning, "and destroyed them with the truth of being that was
self-evident to him and his only physician. He kept the commandment, "Thou
shalt have no other gods before Me," and we must do likewise and adopt this
Truth of being before we obtain its harmony or immortality.
While Jesus rendered to Caesar the things that
were Caesar's, he also rendered to God the things that were His, viz., Truth,
Life and Love, and we, too, should acknowledge these God, and sufficient to
destroy every discord of man. Jesus paid no homage to diplomas, to forms of
church worship, or the theories of man, but acted and spake as he was moved by
Spirit, the Princi-
119
ple of being. To the believing Rabbi and
Pharisee he said, "Even the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of heaven
before you," not that he scoffed at Christianity, but he knew there is neither
Spirit, Life, nor Truth in mere forms of religion, and that a man can be
baptized, partake of the sacrament, support the clergy, observe the Sabbath
day, and make long prayers while yet a sensualist and hypocrite. Forms of
personal worship may not be voluntarily wrong, but involuntarily so, inasmuch
as they hinder the Spirit. To be a hypocrite in the science of Christianity is
morally impossible, for here Christianity is based on demonstration, or proof,
and yet many will come falsely in its name as predicted. When God is
understood, man will need nothing besides God to make him healthy and
harmonious. Jesus established his church on this very understanding, and taught
his followers it cast out error and healed the sick. Instead of believing
Christ a person, he said, Christ is "Truth and Life," and "I and the Father are
one," thus claiming no separate Intelligence, action or Life from God, and
despite the persecution and cross this earned from a Pharisee, he wrought out
on its Principle harmonious being.
The question was then as now, at issue with
mankind, how did Jesus, through Christ, his God-being, heal the sick? Jesus
answered this question in the explanation that the world rejects, when he
appealed to his students, thinking they would better understand him; and asked
"whom do men say that I am? " referring to the "I" that healed and cast out
error, and they replied, "Some say Elias, others Jeremiah," etc.; but these men
were dead, therefore, their answer implied that some thought
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Jesus a medium controlled by the so-called
"spirits" of the departed. We cannot doubt the belief of mediumship prevailed
to some extent at that time, for Herod had before given the same definitions of
Christ's healing; saying, "John the Baptist has come back, and therefore mighty
works show forth themselves in him." That this wicked king and debauched
husband should gain no higher interpretation of the science of being and the
great work our Master (lid, was not surprising; a sinner could not be supposed
to comprehend this science if the disciples understood it not fully. They
comprehended his spiritual explanations better than did others, but the
connection they had with man's physical harmony or their application to heal
the sick, they did not yet fully understand, so their Master patiently
persisted in teaching and demonstrating to them that the Truth of being healed
the sick, cast out error, and raised the dead. This science of Life was not
comprehended by his students, until his final demonstration, when their great
teacher stood before them the victor, not only over sickness and sin, but over
death.
In secret yearnings to be better understood, the
Master turned in confidence to Peter, saying, "But whom say ye that I am?" This
inquiry meant simply, who or what is it that casts out error and heals the
sick? And because he turned from the other disciples' answer and put anew the
question to Peter, it plainly indicated he disapproved the belief he was a
medium as he bad before signified, saying, "I and the Father are one." Peter's
reply so unlike the others admitting He was "Christ," Truth, that healed the
sick and cast out error, called forth the answer, "Our Father in heaven,"
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that is, the Principle of man "hath shown thee
this," in the science of being, and also that Jesus is the "Son of God," the
offspring of Soul and not sense. On this Principle and with this Truth he
wrought all his so-called miracles. It was not man, or medicine that healed the
sick, but God; not matter that controlled man, but Spirit that controlled
matter. This, his interpretation of God and man was the rock or foundation on
which Jesus built his church, that is, established his demonstration of Truth,
God, against which the gates of error could not prevail, but there was neither
a creed nor rite named in it, and mediumship plainly denied.
To be Christ-like is to triumph over Sickness,
sin and death, to open the prison doors to the captive; that is, to break the
fetters of personal sense, and give to being full scope and recompense. This is
the ultimate of the command to love our neighbor as ourself, and an idea from
Soul, yea, from Wisdom, Love and Truth; but this idea personal sense cannot
see, feel, or understand, whereas spiritual sense can; "the carnal mind cannot
discern spiritual things." This idea is vague to personal sense, but to
spiritual sense it is harmony. To favor his faults, conciliates the man of
error; but it prolongs discord; belief produces all the errors of personal
sense, and Soul condemns them. Those hated by personal sense are loved of Soul,
and for the very things sense hates them.
The foundation error that makes a mortal man is,
that personal sense is Truth; the next that it is pleasure; the third that it
is pain; but from this point dates its destruction; hence the so-called pain of
personal
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sense is comparatively encouraging, it being
productive of less sin than its pleasure; but personal sense suffers only from
imaginary self-hood ; its pleasures and pains are all unreal. The belief that
matter has Life and substance is the error that produces all suffering, sin and
death; the chemical action of Truth on this error will destroy it. Truth gives
the idea of Spirit-substance, and destroys all supposed matter-substance, while
error gives the belief of matter-substance, and hides the idea of
Spirit-substance.
Immortal man is an idea of Spirit-substance,
Life and Intelligence; but the mortal is a belief that Intelligence, Life and
substance are in matter. The idea of substance guided by understanding, becomes
the infinite idea, even as the Soul of immortal man is the infinite Principle.
Mortal man is a belief of Intelligence, substance and Life in the body,
therefore of a limited Infinite!
To let oneself out of this nutshell, we must
understand the scientific relationship between God and man, or Principle and
its idea; but before this is really understood, the interval will be filled
with approaches to it through belief; and this will be attended with doubt,
discord and sin.
The material world, at a future date, will
become a spectacle of disorder and dismay on one hand, and of science on the
other. There will be convulsions of mind and consequently of matter, spasms of
error, earthquakes, famine and pestilence. Sickness will become more acute, and
death more sudden: but to those who understand this hour, as explained in the
science of being, length of days will increase, and harmony and immortality be
near, even at the door. Knowledge
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will then diminish and lose estimate in the
sight of man; and Spirit instead of matter be made the basis of generation. At
this period phenomena will be spiritually discerned, but there will be strong
conflicting opinions and results. Those understanding Life scientifically will
hold in check those, letting go of old opinions, who would hang an M. D., a
mesmerist, or a medium, -- thus curbing the violence of old beliefs exercising
retributive vengeance. The truly scientific will be a law to themselves of
Love, Wisdom and Truth, and "do violence to no man, neither accuse any
falsely." Sin will make deadly thrusts at the science of Life, as penal code
goes out to give place to. higher law. But those controlled by Soul will spare
the rod contrary to the religious persecutions of past history, and save the
erring from the gallows and gibbet. The martyrs will be the adherents to
Science, in the coming centuries, and to-day their fate is foreshadowed. In
coming years the person or mind that hates his neighbor, will have no need to
traverse his fields, to destroy his flocks and herds, and spoil his vines; or
to enter his house to demoralize his household; for the evil mind will do this
through mesmerism; and not in propria personae be seen committing the
deed. Unless this terrible hour be met and restrained by Science, mesmerism,
that scourge of man, will leave nothing sacred when mind begins to act
under direction of conscious power. Sensuous man makes war to the death on his
enemies; but the spiritual pours blessings on them unseen and unacknowledged;
like the chamomile, that crushed, yields the sweetest odor, spiritual minds
emit an atmosphere of Truth that blesses their enemies and destroys error while
it is persecuting
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them; but stir the evil sensual mind, and worse
than the deadly Upas are the plagues it emits. Those who gain the essential
points of the science of Life will Buffer from the sensual world more than even
the primitive prophets and disciples did; but the science of being supports its
followers amid shoals and quicksands.
Spirituality is the only Christianity; and its
basis is, to be absent from the body and present with the Lord; " sensuality is
personality ever present with the body. We have already sufficient professions
of goodness without the Spirit: too many religions and not enough Christianity
is the genius of the age. Man knows already too well how "to make long prayers,
to be heard for his much speaking," and to enlarge the pharisaical borders, to
steal in private and give in public, but this is political, not Christian
economy. What we want is, "Christ and Him crucified," in other words, Truth and
the cross-bearing that attends it, to make mankind better.
Because a man has uttered the law and ten
commandments to fashionable audiences some quarter of a century, it does not
follow that he can demonstrate the Christianity of the prophets, and of Jesus
who cast out error and healed the sick. Sometimes people resort to a cup of tea
or coffee to help them preach, as if matter was superior to Truth in this
direction. Is the Truth we utter matter, or God? and if the latter, "giving
does not impoverish nor withholding enrich; " have we less of the Spirit that
is God for having given utterance to it, and is matter or Spirit our strength?
Because a man has obtained a high social and public position, are we to
conclude he must be a good man? The soft palm
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upturned to a lordly Salary, and architectural
power -- making dome and spire tremulous with beauty, that turns the poor and
stranger from the gate, shuts the door on Christianity. It is a skeleton of
religion that requires a doctor of physic to save the body and a doctor of
divinity to save what? immortal Soul that is already saved. This is not having
"Christ in you the hope of glory," nor does it cast out devils and heal the
sick; the manger and cross tell in vain their story to pride and prejudice.
Taking wealth, popularity and sensuality by the right band, takes God by the
left, and palsies that hand, making moral lepers instead of Christians. Hear
our Master's words on this subject, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
Ministers should make the pulpit the rostrum of Truth, whipping creeds and
pride out of their synagogues to let in humility and the science of God, using
those strong arguments, cords, that Jesus twisted together to scourge out of
synagogues the money changers and make them temples of Truth. The prophet of
to-day beholds in the spiritual horizon the bow of promise; the demonstration
of Christianity that our Master gave, is again required, and no other "sign
shall be given you." Christianity brings with it a phenomenon that will be
misinterpreted by the material age in which it appears, because it is the
phenomenon of Soul, and not matter, that personal sense cannot comprehend, but
when spiritually discerned will be found to destroy sickness, sin and death.
Creeds, doctrines and beliefs do not express it, much less can they demonstrate
it; we must understand God to demonstrate Truth. Jesus of Nazareth, the fittest
teacher of mankind, possessed this understanding; but the
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scorning Rabbi, the rival Pharisee, Gethsemane
and the cross were ready to devour him.
Over eighteen centuries ago the mere religionist
was willing to hail Christ, Truth, with pomp and sceptre, but it came not thus,
and though the modern scourge is a scoff, instead of the lash, the doors of
some churches are quite as effectually closed against Christ to-day as then.
Truth bids man watch, but is there guard or control held over personal sense by
mere religionists? The Christianity of Jesus was the science of being; it
destroyed sickness, sin, and death, denied personal sense, bore the cross, and
reached the right hand of God, even the perfect Principle of man. Our Master,
meekly, and yet as a victor bore the mockery of his self-conscious God-being.
"He maketh himself as God," was the foundation of all accusations against him;
and the indignities he met, his followers must now meet, until this Truth is
understood. He overcame the world, temptations and sins, proving their
nothingness. He wrought through the science of being, the example of salvation
from sin, sickness, and death, and established the proof that he was Christ,
and that Christ is God, the Soul and Life of man.
Every good word and work of our Master evoked
but denial, ingratitude, and persecution, from sensualism and malice. Of the
ten lepers be healed, but one returned to give God thanks, that is, to
acknowledge the Principle that healed him, therefore, but one interpreted his
healing aright; and yet he wrought on for his enemies. He felt their
sicknesses, but more he felt their sins. Despised and rejected of men, yet
returning blessing for cursing, his spirituality must destroy their
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materiality, and through his stripes must they
be healed; because error had felt the blow Truth gave it, the scourge and cross
awaited Jesus. The man of sorrows was not in danger from salaries or
popularity; deserving the homage of a world, and sharing pre-eminently the
approval of Soul, brief was his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and followed
by the desertion of all save a few mourners at the cross. This is what it means
to be spiritual in an age of materiality. The impossibility for worldly favor
to attend Christianity is seen in its great moral distance from it. When
personal sense approves, Soul condemns, and where man praises, God receives no
thanks. One of the evidences of materialism and error is when the belief of
Life in matter is full of worldly prosperity.
History informs us that Jesus, feeling the gross
materialism that surrounded him, at times experienced a momentary weakness, and
turning, asked "Who hath touched me?" The more material, thought this inquiry
was occasioned by contact with his body, but he knew it was mind in the
multitude that called on him for aid to destroy its beliefs, and make it more
spiritual, even as himself. His quick apprehension of this arose from his
spirituality, and their misconception, from their materiality; not that he
deserved less the advantages of adroitness, because of his goodness; but
possessing the insight and honor that cometh from Soul, only, he had less
personal sense; these two come from opposite directions, and the treasures of
our Master were laid up in Spirit, not matter. Christianity turns from sense to
Soul, as naturally as the flower turns from darkness to light; those things eye
hath not seen, or ear heard,
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neither hath it entered into the heart of man to
conceive, belong to it.
Paul and the loving John had a very clear sense
of the science of being; they knew a man achieves not worldly honors except he
labors for them, and lays a sacrifice upon the altar of mammon, by giving his
affections to the world. And they also knew to make this offering to wealth or
fame, was not to leave all for Christ, Truth, that comes from the opposite
direction, and from opposite means and aims; also, that a man walks in the
direction he is looking; and that, "where his treasure is there is his heart
also." If our hopes are spiritual, we are not looking, or yearning for the
material, but will wear the "image and likeness of God," at any worldly cost;
in reality we are coming out from the world of sense, and being separated from
it. The favor of sectarianism, the homage of wealth, and smiles of ambition
flee before Christianity; but Wisdom crowns its brow.
If my friends are going to Europe and I am
making my way to California, we are no longer journeying together; but have
separate time-boards to consult, and different routes to pursue; in fine, our
paths have parted, and we have no interests in common, to help each other on in
opposite directions; but if they will pursue my course, I will give them my
railroad guide, and interest myself to make their passage pleasant; or if will
take theirs, they will help me on, and our companionship will continue. Thus
the scientist must choose his course, and be honest, acting consistent with
that choice; his route lies not with the world of sense, and if he gravitates
thitherward, he is like a man who
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travels one day east and another west, but
thinking the passage west a more fashionable route, the company more alluring
and its pleasures more enticing, changes tactics and journies six days
westerly, and the seventh day toward the east, vehemently protesting he is
traveling in one direction only. You would say of that man he is untrue and
cannot be trusted; and don't let him cajole you into the belief he is really
going east because he produces from his pocket a ticket earned by some
toil-worn pilgrim, who had explored the way, and from whom he begged it, and
with this passport means to make his passage. Unless a man advances
spiritually, he is not scientific; and if he is scientific he must start
honestly, and journey some every day; and however long he is in reaching the
desired goal, if his honesty be preserved, he will finish his course. Many
starting with the letter of science, will omit the Spirit, and make shipwreck
of their course. We must not only seek, but strive, or we cannot enter the
narrow path of science; for broad is the opposite one of sense that leadeth to
destruction, and many go in thereat.
Jesus experienced few of the so-called pleasures
of personal sense; perhaps she knew its pains, for "he bore our infirmities
that through his stripes we might be healed; " Truth in contact with error
produced chemicalization. Hence our Master's sufferings came through contact
with sinners; but Christ the Soul of man never suffered. Jesus mapped out the
path of the science of being, and through poverty of sense was enriched by
Soul; but to those buried in the belief of Life in matter, and insisting that
we see alone with eyes, and hear with ears, and feel through nerves, he said, "
Having eyes ye
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see not, and ears ye hear not, that ye might
understand and be converted and I might heal you." Their belief of personal
sense shut out the communications of Soul; hence the saying, "Ye cannot serve
two masters." Jesus adhered to one only, was guided by spiritual sense;
therefore the sensualism of the age separated from him, and hated him. His
affections were pure; theirs carnal; his senses were Truth; theirs but error,
therefore Love with him was spiritual science; with them it was material sense;
their imperfection and impurity felt his perfection and purity an ever-present
rebuke; hence the worlds hatred of the just and more spiritual Jesus; and the
prophets' foresight of the reception it would give him. The people knew not how
to interpret their uncomfortableness arising from his presence with them; and
the chemical changes he instituted in their being. When those opposites met,
had they understood the meaning of the stir it produced, they would, like
Peter, have wept at the warning, and begun a warfare with personal sense that
opposed Truth. They in their ignorance of the science of Life, never regarded
the fact that the good are hated only by the evil, while the former suffer for
the latter in life-long sacrifice. He bore their sins in his own person; that
is, he felt the suffering their error brought, and through this consciousness
destroyed error. Had the Master utterly conquered the belief of Life in matter,
he would not have felt their infirmities; he had not yet risen to this his
final demonstration, or bad he partaken equally of their sensuous being, he
would not have so suffered from them, nor they from him. By overcoming his own
temptations he had measurably
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conquered for them, even while they knew
it not; he demonstrated purity and Truth, and their power to heal the sick, and
assured others they might give his demonstration, but for their disbelief in
its science. Though they saw not his righteousness, they must all gain the
harmony of being from the Truth he taught, and plant their demonstration on the
foundations he laid, on what he had experienced for them, and poured liberally
into their ears. This was the cup drank by the pioneer of the science of Life,
by him who came with those higher proofs and practices of Truth and Love
unperceived by the age in which they appeared; they neither understood him, nor
his works, and would not accept his explanation who did understand them.
Anomalous though it seems, I have no doubt that
Jesus was shunned, and deemed a bad man at the period of his public labors, by
all, save the few unpretentious ones whose Christianity enabled them to
understand him. This was the cup drank to the dregs, by our Master; he also
spake of those who followed him, drinking this very cup; which must indeed be
the case if they are in advance of the public sentiment. Referring to himself
as doing nothing beyond the ability of others to do, he said, "The works I do,
ye shall do, and greater." Before this he had established the platform that "a
tree is known by its fruits," indicating, if they healed the sick on the
Principle that he healed, they must be Christians. Though it is in vain we
stretch our weary wings to the full realization of that saying to-day, yet in
centuries to come I look for its fulfillment. Whosoever shall triumph over
personal sense, and lay down his earthly all on the altar of the
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science of being, will drink his cup, and be
able to give the demonstration of healing the sick, casting out error, raising
the dead, and triumphing over the grave, that our blessed Master gave for our
example. But earth hath no recompense for such a life; personal sense can
neither give nor receive this reward; the understanding of God is its only
recompense that lifts being above mortal discord and gives it immortal
harmony.
A person may reward unjustly, but Principle
cannot. That we receive all deserved punishment on earth, is quite as false as
that all our rewards are mundane; and who that toils and sacrifices unceasingly
bearing the cross only to see their existence mocked, will say this is
sufficient from the hand of Love? Or again, that those have suffered all they
have to experience, who still gloating in sensuality and hypocrisy, or murder
and rapine, succeeding in all villainies up to the time they pass suddenly from
sight in this loathsomeness, are pardoned, and pushed straight into glory?
Their punishment here was certainly insufficient to reform them, which is the
design of Wisdom, and the good man's heaven would be to them a hell. How can
they find bliss in purity and Truth, to whom these are the very opposites of
themselves. There is nothing in mercy or Love, that can pardon the necessity in
science for sinners to suffer after death. To destroy the penalty due to sin,
would be for Truth to pardon error; in which case, the sinner is no wiser for
what he has experienced; for if he escapes the punishment he deserves, it is
not according to God's government, in which justice is the handmaid of mercy.
For sin to produce suffering is the only way to destroy it to him who believes
in the pleasures of sin.
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When man admits there is no pleasure in sin, he
has begun to save himself.
Contemplating history from every moral data,
down to the present, we learn the faith in Christ, Truth, that caused our
martyrs to be burned, and the rights of man to be christened on a gallows,
repeats itself in the just suffering for the unjust; then how has God pardoned
sin? We all suffer because of sin, and must until science destroys sin and its
sufferings. Did the martyrdom of John Brown make one of the crimes of Jefferson
Davis less, or less deserving its reward? What awaits the God-inspired martyr
is the crown of thorns here, and the victor’s palm hereafter; but what
awaits the pampered hypocrite, is the laurel here, and the thorns there.
The demonstration Jesus gave of God, did for the
world more than a problem wrought and explained in mathematics does for the
learner; it taught the human race how to demonstrate aright the Principle, that
is God; and if this demonstration had been understood, man would have reached
the example of Jesus, and solved his being harmoniously ere this. The
martyr-spirit is the stepping-stone from the human to the divine; martyrs are
the luminaries of Soul that go down to personal sense, like the sun to appear
again in the amplitude of their being, when sensuality shall give place to
spirituality, and the leaders' stand-point is reached. Truth is self-conscious
right that brings its own reward, but not amid the smoke of battle is it seen,
or appreciated.
The personal belief of God that holds Spirit
person instead of Principle, making Soul intelligent matter,
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and possessing all the tyranny and passion a
belief of Life in matter manifests, was the very error that crucified Jesus;
and that to-day is shutting out the reign of harmony. Jesus knew there was but
one God, hence that man's Intelligence was God, and not man; Principle, and not
person; therefore, said he, "I and the Father are one; " and because of this
scientific statement, and the demonstration it brought with it, the rulers
cried out, "Crucify him, he maketh himself as God," " and what further
witness need we against him." To-day this very statement is met with the same
opposition from sensualism it ever was, and why? Because it cuts off right
hands, and plucks out eyes by denying personal sense; and lays the axe at the
root of the tree, cutting off the medium of all sin. God is perfect; and if
there be no other intelligence, we can have no imperfection; the only way to
destroy error is to divest it of supposed Intelligence, by which it can give
pain or pleasure. Now to admit there is a separate Intelligence from good,
called evil, is the error that admits two powers, namely, God, and devil,
simultaneous, but gives superiority and all worldly success to the latter; this
error is waning somewhat, and to-day his Satanic majesty is not deemed so much
a distinct individual as a universal power. The next step in progress is to
learn there is no devil; that error and sin have no Intelligence; the
Scriptures deny aught but God, and his creation; and assert there "was nothing
made without Him," while "out of the mouth of the most high proceedeth not good
and evil;" in other words, that God never made a demon, for a pure fountain
sends not forth corrupt streams, and nothing but God is self-
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existent; Jesus stripped all disguise from this
error, had he only been understood; he explained it impossible to have another
Intelligence than God, or for Him to create evil, and demonstrated this by
healing the sick, and casting out devils, showing that God destroyed satan
instead of making it; in other words, that Truth destroys error by proving its
nothingness. The personal belief that man is a separate mind from God, and that
this mind comprehends, feels, and exists, an entity within the cranium, and
sins, and suffers, ad libitum, is the only personal devil there is, and
the one we should begin to cast out.
This error is not the result of brains, but is a
belief that brains are Intelligence; in other words, that God is in matter: it
is not the result of Intelligence in matter, but a belief that matter is
intelligent; not the product of man's mind, but a belief there is mind in man,
and this belief is delusion, and delusion, error. Do you ask who or what is it
that believes? Insomuch as you admit God is not the author of error, and that
"all things were made by him and without him nothing was made," we answer no
one believes: it is only that error is a belief, and a belief is error. The
prerogative of Soul is understanding, but personal sense has no claims whatever
to this. We need not cite anatomy, physiology, materia medica, etc., that place
Intelligence in personal man, but will cover the ground with the Scripture
metaphor that named belief the "tree of knowledge," whence sprang sickness, sin
and death. A belief is not Intelligence, nor its result, neither God, nor the
result of this Principle; it is not Soul, nor its manifestation. What then is
it? The opposite of Soul,
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called brains, and personal sense. Error is the
opposite of Intelligence and imitates it only by falsehood, calling Principle,
person, God, man; thus pre-supposing man intelligent matter. Is it an error to
believe Truth? It is impossible to do this; all we receive of Truth comes
through the understanding, The so-called mind of man can be deranged or
destroyed by a blow on the cranium; but Intelligence, that governs man and the
universe, is not lost. Intelligence is Life, Love and Truth, and by no means
personal sense, sin, sickness and death. The mind of Intelligence understands
and never believes, and the body of Intelligence is spiritual not material;
idea, and not substance; yea, it is the reflex shadow of Soul, even man that is
"the image and likeness of God; " what besides this we name man, is but a
belief and error, dust to dust. Hereby we learn a lie is all the satan there
is, and marking its footsteps we gain this proof, all the discords of earth
proceed from false conceptions of God and man; besides, falsehood preys on
harmony in society, and hides individual character. Truth is generally
unperceived, because a lie is a more natural conclusion for the wicked. Expose
sin, and it turns the lie on you; a sinner for the time prospers in secret
wrong-doing until the final hour that "whatsoever is hidden shall be revealed."
We must tell the Truth concerning sin and sinners, because of the moral
necessity not to cover iniquity; they will deny what we say, of course, but at
the same time it produces the desired effect, and we receive our reward, for it
introduces new light and makes sinners afraid to repeat the offence when they
are found out. The higher you rise in the scale of Truth, the more intense and
multiplied
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are the lies concerning you; the louder God
speaks, the higher the devil lifts its voice to be heard above Him; the more
Truth you bring, the more error is stirred by it, until the final conquest on
the side of right.
Jesus taught his students the science he
understood, but they never reached his demonstration, and rose toward it only
as they followed implicitly his directions. It is of little importance whether
self-abnegation and faithfulness are rewarded in the present or future; their
recompense is sure. There must be a going out of personal sense, and coming in
of the spiritual, to understand the science of being, and to give a higher
sense of Omnipotence whereby to control man and matter. Jesus taught and
practiced the science of being, tested the reception it would meet before it
was understood, and notwithstanding the malice that error aimed at Truth,
fulfilled his Soul-mission, triumphed over sense, and sat down at the right
hand of the Father, having solved being on its Principle, which is Truth, Life
and Love. He who was God, and not in man, was "no respecter of persons; "
therefore, claimed no personal worship. Persecuted from city to city, he went
about doing good, for which he was maligned and stoned. Jesus taught us
Principle is God, and God is Love, but Pharisee and Priest affirmed God is
person that can love and hate. Truth that is felt is hated by the sinner; for
it cuts off right hands, plucks out the eyes, and calls on him to become wise.
The belief of God in matter, or a personal Deity, never yet made a Christian,
and will go down in a moral chemical that has already begun arid will continue
until God is admitted Soul outside of sense, and the only Intelligence.
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The basis of all health, sinlessness and
immortality is the one great Truth, that God is the only Intelligence, and for
this Truth, the great Teacher of the science of Life was martyred. The reward
of our Master was not on earth, and not in matter, but Spirit, while all his
sufferings came from the materiality of the age, and were not because of his
own sins, but the sins of others. Then was it just for him to suffer? No, but
it was inevitable in this wicked world where the good suffer because of the
evil, even as the evil derive blessings from the good. Jesus taught us, that
the way of Truth is the way of salvation, which is spiritual; material religion
consists of rites, ceremonies, a personal God, etc., but this is not
Christianity. Seventy students Jesus sent forth whom he had faithfully taught;
but of twelve only have we any especial record, and one of those had a devil.
His final crucifixion drew near, the hour of triumph over personal sense, and
all the pangs this world could occasion-the boar that gave the highest proof of
the science of being, proof so important 0 mankind. Judas thought to take
advantage of the world’s ingratitude to his teacher, and betray him into
the hands of his enemies for thirty pieces and the smile of a Pharisee. Well
did the pitiful traitor know his time, for the world was then in mystery
concerning him and his teachings. Perhaps Judas feared the period approached
that should reveal the great goodness which enabled his Master to demonstrate
above him, and to rebuke the sinner as none other could; the moral distance
between himself and his teacher had already created his enmity, wherein greed
for gold held empire over gratitude. He also knew the sensuous world loved
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a Judas better than it did a Jesus, and this was
another point through which to victimize his Teacher, and raise himself with
the people. Judas had all the world's weapons, Jesus none of them; therefore he
chose not to defend himself before those who understood not that defence, so
"he opened not his mouth." The great exponent of Truth and Love silent before
error and hate! They to whom he had given the highest proofs of the science of
being, misinterpreted them, and said deridingly, "He maketh himself as God."
Those "who turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most high,"
esteemed him "stricken and smitten of God," he was "brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep dumb before her shearers," and "who should declare
his generation," who in future should say whence cometh Truth, and answer the
question, what is Truth?
The Rabbis could not decide this momentous
inquiry; they must wait on the centuries; but the women at the cross clued say
he was right who had inspired their devotions, winged their faith with
understanding, healed the sick, cast out error, and caused those he sent forth
to say, "Even devils are subject to us through thy name." But where were the
seventy whom he had taught, were all conspirators, save eleven; had they
forgotten his weary years of explanations and patient waiting, all his labors
of Love as clay by day he taught them the science of Life, and spake to them
the Truth of man; could they not give him even a cup of cold water in its name,
and satisfy for a moment his yearning for one proof of their fidelity to what
he had taught? >From early boyhood, he had been about his
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master's business; and they about theirs; but
their masters were unlike; one was Spirit, and the other matter; one God, the
other man, one was Soul, the other personal sense. He had suffered and
experienced for them, to give liberally his dear-bought bounty unto their
famine; but what was his reward? Forsaken of all save a loving few, who knelt
in woe at the scene of his crucifixion. Peter would have smitten the enemies of
his master, but he bade him put up the sword, and take not the world's weapons
to defend Truth. Jesus disdaining artifice or brute courage, when Truth could
not protect him from the false accusation, was able to submit to a felon's
death. His mission was to vindicate a Principle, and not a person, while their
highest ambition was the applause of man.
Jesus could no doubt have withdrawn from his
enemies, but he permitted them the opportunity to destroy his body mortal, that
he might furnish the proof of his immortal body in corroboration of what he had
taught, that the Life of man was God, and that body and Soul are inseparable.
The opposite belief was the error he came to destroy. Neither spear nor cross
could harm him; let them think to kill the body, and after this, he would
convince those he had taught this science, he was not dead, and possessed the
same body as before. Why his disciples saw him after the burial, when others
saw him not, was because they understood better his explanations of this
phenomenon; he had given them the Principle of it, in healing the sick; hence
the unsatisfied malignity of his foes, that he was not dead, but furnished a
higher demonstration than ever of the Principle he taught, and for which they
had hoped to kill
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him. Another important feature was, that he
sought not the protection of law from their unjust wrath, but chose in every
instance to demonstrate the higher law that governed being, that cast out
error, healed the sick, and was about to prove its triumph over death, over the
beliefs of personal sense and Life and substance in matter. Jesus knew the body
is but a reflex shadow of immortal Soul, also that it is impossible to lose
this, for, as the Scripture saith, it is the image of God.
Alone, the meek demonstrator of God and fittest
teacher of man, met his fate; no eye to pity, no arm to save; he who had saved
others, a solemn, faithful sentinel at the threshold of the great Truth he
would establish, unprotected by man, was ready to be transformed by its
renewing. He had taught what he was about to prove, that Life was God, and
superior to all conditions of matter, above the wrath of man, and able to
triumph over the cross and grave. In the garden night-walk, that hour of gloom
and glory, the utter error of supposed Life in matter, its pain, ignorance,
superstition, malice and hate, reached him in their fullest sense. His students
slept. "Can you not watch with me one hour?" was the supplication of their
great spiritual Teacher, but receiving no response to this last human yearning,
he turned forever away from earth to heaven, from sense to Soul, and from man
to God. The triumph of Soul over sense demanded by the great Principle of being
must be proved, and Jesus availed himself of Life and glory outside of matter,
in this supreme hour, and final demonstration of the science of being; and yet
viewing its utter magnitude, and feeling the lack of all human sympathy, he
momently exclaimed,
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"Hast thou forsaken me?" Had this appeal been
made to a person, we might have doubted the justice or affection of that
father, who for an instant could withhold the clear recognition of his presence
to sustain and bless so faithful a son. But it was not made to a person, it was
made to Truth, Life and Love, the Principle he was to prove: and the momentary
fear was, that his understanding of these was not sufficient to meet that hour
of the world's hate. Jesus knew God is Love, that He, not man, was Love,
insomuch as Love is Soul, and not personal sense; but suppose this recognition
should falter under stress of circumstances, what would his accusers say? Even
what they did, that Truth should be confounded, and there should be no
re-appearing of Jesus. The weight of mind bearing on him at that hour from the
throng of disbelievers in the great Principle for which he was crucified,
weighed heavily; not the spear, nor the cross, but the ingratitude of the world
drew forth the half suppressed "ali sabacthani," that unpinioned
for a moment the wings of faith. The world's hatred of Truth caused that moment
of agony, harder to bear than the crow, up the hill of grief. A Life that was
Love, all the good he did, rewarded with a cup of gall! Behold the sweat of
blood falling in holy benediction on the grass of Gethsemane, and say, was
Christianity then the privileged of earth, and can the followers to-day of that
Truth so persecuted then, expect the world's approval? Principle bestows few
palms until we reach through demonstration, its fullness. Love must triumph
over hate, and Truth and Life over error and death, before the thorns are laid
off for the crown of glory, and "well done good
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and faithful," bestows immortal honors. Our
Master had realized and demonstrated the science of Life when he was found
talking with his disciples after the burial; and whom the Rabbis had hoped to
bury in a sepulchre, to-day is acknowledged God! and this God, and this Truth
that Jesus taught and proved over eighteen centuries ago, in days to come will
be understood.
Soul triumphed over personal sense, and said to
death, where is thy sting, and where thy victory, grave? But many who saw this
phenomenon misconstrued it; his disciples even, called him a "spirit," but his
reply was, Spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have; Jesus
demonstrated man's unchanged condition after what we call death, also that
Spirit is not person or man; and to convince Thomas of this, he caused him to
examine the prints of the nails and spear; he proved for time and eternity that
death is but a belief of personal sense, because Life is Spirit, alias God, and
God the immortality and Soul of man; but those consenting to the martyrdom of a
righteous man were only willing out of their wicked work to make a doctrinal
platform for saving souls? His students, not sufficiently advanced to
understand the lesson of that hour, performed not their wonderful healing until
their Master reappeared, and talked with them of its science, and at length
rose out of their sight, that is, his third demonstration was so beyond their
understanding, we have no farther record of him to explain. Then received they
the holy ghost, in other words, the fuller interpretation that science gives of
God, and wrought after the example of their Teacher, when they had no longer a
person, but a Principle to lean upon.
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In the crucifixion of our Master, human error
and divine Truth met, and Truth conquered through "the man of sorrows," who
best understands the nothingness of Life in matter, and the substance of Life,
Truth and Love. Because Jesus was the fuller manifestation of Spirit therefore,
the higher representative of God among men; the world of sense hated him. Fully
comprehending this, he said to his disciples, "You hath it loved, but me hath
it bated;" proving that mortal man is not allied to Life, Truth, or Love, that
personal sense is the very opposite of Soul, in its attractions, joys and
sorrows. Herod and Pilate could lay aside old feuds, to unite in putting to
derision and death the best man on earth; they could take up common cause
against the exponent of Truth, because they both secretly hated it, and were
united in their malice against him that upheld it. To get rid of Jesus and his
accusing Wisdom, was the design of them both. Said the Rabbi, and Pharisee, "He
stirreth up seditions," "he maketh himself as God," "he is a glutton, and a
winebibber," "he casteth out devils through Beelzebub," "and is the friend of
sinners." The last was the only correct view taken of him. Because his life was
nearer Truth, he was more belied than all other men; and because he was the
friend of sinners, he failed not to rebuke them pointedly and unflinchingly;
hence they regarded him their strongest enemy; and so he was, the strongest foe
to error, but the friend of man. Through demonstration Jesus established the
foundations of the science of Life, controlled matter, and proved Intelligence,
neither matter, nor man, but the Principle of man, able to hold and govern the
body, and to destroy sin, sickness, and death.
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People's opinions of Jesus were the very
opposite of the man, and mark you wisely what will be said to-day of the
science he taught and its followers, and see if there be no resemblance between
the reception it received in the past, and that accorded it at present. We have
few demonstrators to-day in part even, of the great Truth taught by Jesus; but
we hesitate not to say it is the privilege and possibility of all Christians to
follow his example, and what they claim to do, but they must keep his first
command, "to heal the sick," as proof they understand this example, and the
Principle that healed. We see some amelioration of the stake and gibbet in this
age, but the vengeance with which doctrines and beliefs pursue Truth, has not
ceased in this century.
When the science of being's purity, confronts
the impurity of sense, and humanitarianism lifts a voice above sectarianism,
blows will fall liberally on science, its true followers will be traduced and
persecuted, and imposition and malice will smite their destroyer. Doctors in
general will trample on it, insomuch as it heals the sick without drugs, and
must ultimately destroy sickness, when their "occupation will be gone." But
shall we serve the old masters because Truth has enemies, and disturbs the
tranquillity of error? Wisdom has given us more foresight than this; to the
advanced thinkers perceiving the scope and tendency of Truth we may look for
support; while others will say to the science of being, as did one of old, to
please the Rabbis,
Go thy way for this time."
The highest stand-point of being, is its
science, but opinions, doctrines and beliefs afford no demonstrable
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Principle to reach it, and enable man to work
out his own salvation; 'tis Truth, the Principle of man that does this. But is
there not a smoother and broader path to harmony or heaven; and cannot
Christianity lie coupled with worldly peace and prosperity? The very nature of
it is peace and blessedness, but its joys and triumphs are not earthly, they
are passing away from matter to Spirit. By this we do not mean death, nor a
sudden ecstasy; but the gradual fading out of material things, of earthly
desires, possessions and pleasures, and the coming in of purity, Truth and
immortality. The demands of personal sense will grow less, the appetite become
simple, pride, malice and all sin yield to meekness, mercy and Love, until
finally the belief of Life in matter yields to the consciousness that Life is
Spirit, and Spirit, God. AM good thoughts and deeds are science that proceeds
not from a doctrinal basis, but is soul subduing sin, personal belief, personal
pleasure, or pain; and revealing all harmony, righteousness and blessedness in
our God-being.
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