DESCRIPTION
Published in 1871 | 470 pages | PDF reader required
CONTENTS
General Statement of Principles.
I. Introduction.
II. Evidences or Spiritualism: a Discussion of the various Theories advanced for its Exposition. The necessities of immortal being. Proofs of immortality drawn from the constitution of the mind. Science not necessarily conflicting. Are we self-deceived? Unreliability of the senses in the border-land. Hallucinations. The circle,—are its members hallucinated? Theories examined. Evil spirits. The Devil. Electricity. Magnetism. Od force. Failure of any one theory to explain all phenomena. Interposition of spirits must be accepted. Identification of spirits.
III. Evidences of Spiritualism. Materialism. The impossible. The positive. The senses. Belief educational. Why have not these phenomena occurred before? Spirit is individualized force. One fact of more value than a thousand theories. How is it possible for spirits to return? Not new. First manifestations. They assume a new character. They extend to other localities. Spiritualism in France. Unexpected report. The evidence of psychometry. Spirit-identification by psychometry. What good? Personal experience.
IV. Matter and Force: their Relations to Spirit. The present tendency of thought. Force. Motion,—resolution of into heat, light, electricity, magnetism. Atomic attraction. Chemical affinity. Theories. Speculations. Grand cycle of correlation. Cause of motion in living beings. Cause of heat, light, electricity. Relation of this doctrine to life. Intelligence. Spirit.
V. Physical Matter and Spirit. Divisibility of matter. Its eternity. What is matter?
What an atom? An attribute? A principle? Proper ties? Resolution of all phenomena. The chemical atom. The basis of positive science. The theory of atoms and of forces. Shape of the atom. Space, is it an entity? The old notion of the impenetrability and inertia of matter discarded. Cause of change in properties by chemical union. The atom nothing: force everything. The highest philosophical ground. The spiritual sense.
VI. Spiritual Atmosphere of the Universe, Instrument employed in investigation. The impressibility of the brain. Impressibility of animals. Sympathy a form of impressibility. Influence of the external world on the nervous system. Reichenbach's experiments. Influence of magnets. Influence of crystals. Crystallic flame. Impartation of influence. Polarity of the body. Abnormal sensitiveness of the diseased. Disease and sleep. Influence of the moon. Of the sun. Of locality. Of churchyard ghosts. The image sometimes remains. Individual spheres. Conclusions.
VII. Relation of the Spiritual to the Animal in Man. The lower faculties of the mind traced in the animal world. Their necessity. The spirit cannot lose any of its propensities at death. Instinct never misdirects. Perfectly selfish. Man never satisfied. Sin, cause of. The animal faculties united with the intellect, insatiable. Their true relations. Illustrations.
VIII. Animal Magnetism,—its Boundaries, Laws, and Relation to Spirit. Necessity of investigating the laws of magnetism. Magnetism among the ancients. Man possesses this influence over animals. Animals can influence man. Each other. Why do we think of those who are thinking of us? Influence of man over man. Generalization. Atmospheric ether. Impressibility of the brain. Psychometry applied. Application to fortune-telling. Animal magnetism as a curative agent. Application to spirit-communion.
IX. Spirit—its Phenomena and Laws. Immortality the base of all religion. Tendency of savage mind. Definitions of spirit. Pre-existence. Evolution of the spiritual body from the physical. Degrees of the magnetic state. Natural and induced. Illustrations.
X. Spirit—its Phenomena and Laws. Magnetism intensifies the spiritual perceptions. Not imagination. Clairvoyance: applied to the realm of spirit. Testimony of the seeress of Prevorst. Of Swedenborg. Spirits retain and appear in their earthly form. Do the senses of spirits recognize physical objects? Does the spirit of the clairvoyant leave the body? Double presence. Impressions made on the mind never effaced. Prophecy.
XI. Spirit—its Phenomena and Laws. Cause of failure. Value of Clairvoyance. Condition of the freed spirit. Can the spirit possess senses independent of the physical body? The spiritual organism. The most subtle form of matter. An erroneous hypothesis. Electricity not employed. Progress of the elements. Spiritual elements realities. Spirits of animals. Spiritual attraction and repulsion. In the spiritual world the same law holds supreme. Why, if material, spirits cannot be seen. Why seek immortal existence outside of physical matter? Origin of the spiritual body. How far the body affects the spirit.
XII. Philosophy of Death: a Review of some Old Theories. What is life? What is death? Christian idea of death terrible, but that of the ancient Greeks beautiful. Terrors of death. Myths of the resurrection of the body. Christianity takes a deep draught from Paganism. Mohammed receives the dogma of the resurrection. Teachings of the Bible. Resurrection of Christ.
XIII. The Change called Death. Ultimate of nature's plan. Death is not change of
being: it is change of spheres. The spirit and the body. Man should mature like the fruit of autumn before death. Death no occasion for rejoicing. The spirit after death. How received.
XIV. Mediumship. Mediumship and spirit-influence among savages. The Australians. The Maori. The African and New Zealander. Connection between the person and his name. The hermits of the Ganges. The Red Indian. The Pythonic oracles. Position of the medium. Why disreputable media are used. Sensitiveness does not exonerate media for their waywardness. Mediumship constitutional. Impressibility, how induced. Mediumship. Mental excitement. Sickness. Fasting. Death. Organic impressibility preferable to induced. Desire for
mediumship. How to become a medium. Influence of individuals on the communications. A physical state negative to mediumship. Why communications are contradictory. Contradictions referred to the circle. How circles should be formed. Responsibility of mediumship.
XV. Mediumship during Sleep. Sleep. Dreams. Somnambulism. Spiritual communications given in dreams. Presentiments. Prophetic dreams, origin of. Facts from Martineau. Abercrombie. Macnish. Addison. Coleridge. Dreams of animals. The dreaming dog. Presentiments. Mr. Calderhood, Prof. Bohm. Of accidents. Future events. Death. Prophetic dreams. Susceptibility during sleep.
XVI. Heaven and Hell, the Supposed Abodes of the Departed. Where located by the ancients. Beneath the earth. Above the clouds: between the earth and moon. Comets the location of hell. The childhood of the race outgrown. Heaven the actual of desires. Why another state is asked for. The "New Jerusalem." The popular idea. Election, how known. From whence come these dogmas. The terrors of hell. The joys of the redeemed.
XVII. The Spirit's Home. Law rules supreme. The same holds good in the spiritworld. No miracle. An unknown universe. What and where is the spirit-world? The testimony of spirits reliable. What they say. Nature works in cycles. Where do the refined atoms go? Form of the zones. Distance of the spheres from the earth's surface. Their thickness. Matter when it aggregates takes the form in which it existed on earth. Relation of the spirit. Spirit-locomotion. Can they pass to other globes? Relation of light to the spheres.
XVIII. Religious Aspect of Spiritualism. Spiritualism considered wanting in a vital system of ethics. Reasons offered by the church for doing right. Not an easy affair to become a Spiritualist. Spiritualism the essence of philosophy. Doctrine of salvation. We are responsible for the thoughts and actions of all others. The teachings of spirits on the moral capabilities of man. Equality in the future. The ideal of Spiritualism. How may it be obtained? The object of being. The creed of
Spiritualism.
XIX. The Old and the New. The Radical and Radicalism. Protestantism brings from Catholicism everything but the Pope. A religion of abnegation. Religionists not necessarily insincere. Is the present form of religion demanded? Christian and infidel. Can Christianity live? Churchianity bedridden. Churchianity dying. Spiritualism. Comprehends the universe. An American religion. Perfectly democratic. Leaderless. Persistency and extension. The Spiritualist. Pleasures of a belief in Spiritualism. The coming contest. The totality of Spiritualism.
List of Authorities.