idea of spiritual actualities[1] All that passes current, as such, is far more ideal and material than spiritual, and are referable, as to their origin, to excited ideality, and other peculiar mental states, rather than to the Supernal world. Amidst the three million speeches a year, delivered under professed spirit influence, it is my deliberate conviction, that not over ten in one thousand has its source in the pure Soul-realm, but many originate in the Middle-states of the spiritual world; very many of the vivid and beautiful descriptions of spirit life, scenery and so forth, which so please us to hear, are transcripts from the individuals' inner-self, or rather of the out-creations thereof. Of course, these are true to the individual, but to no one else: let it be once remembered that the man is as immortal in the past, as he is now, and will be; and that during that state (as Monad or Pha-soul) of pre-carnate being, he had an experience as real to him then, as his present is to him now; and we shall no longer marvel at genius, or at the stupendous powers of the human mind. During the sublime experiences of my soul, which I am endeavoring to recount, I became thoroughly satisfied, not as the medium, not from spiritual teaching, but from soul-observation, that man, like God, had no beginning, as did matter as we know it—and that like Him, he will never positively have an end; albeit the modes of God, and those of man—for at bottom, they are one, continually change conditions. This brings us to the question, "What is God?" * * * * Up there,[2] upon
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DEALINGS WITH THE DEAD.
