Chapter II - Imposition and Demonstration
95:1
be remembered other doctrines name the name of God
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 Wis-
dom. Its military drills on Sabbath, the aboriginal ver-
nacular 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 mat-
ter; and if our departed friends are Spirit, and we
believe ourselves in matter, we cannot commune to-
gether; 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 tan-
gible to personal sense.
95:19
Again, if we would commune through the affections,
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.
96:1
Mediums describe sickness, sin, and death; and this
Mediums describe sickness, sin, and death; and this
description is supposed to come from Spirit that is
wholly unconscious of matter or error, thus perpetuat-
ing 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 immortahty.
But the majority of what is termed mediumship, is sim-
ply imposition, not even clairvoyance, or mind-reading,
but a catch-penny fraud. Until the so-called communi-
cations between the dead and living are stopped, sick-
ness, 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 opin-
ions and mortal views. A ball propelled upward or
onward and subject to gravitation, will never pierce
immensity. The gravitation earthward must be with-
drawn, 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