591. (36.) Do spirits employ their limbs in effecting manifestations? Ans. Not necessarily. 592. (37.) Have spirits a power of creating that which they desire? Ans. Yes. 593. (38.) Like the genius of Aladdin's lamp, can spirits within their sphere create habitations at their bidding? Ans. Yes. 594. (39.) Does this creative power exist in the spirits of each sphere, or is it denied, as I have been informed, to those of the second sphere? Ans. It is denied. 595. (40.) Is this creative power more extensive as the sphere to which the spirit belongs is more elevated? Ans. Yes. 596. (41.) Are the spirits of the third sphere happy? Ans. Yes. 597. (42.) Does happiness become greater as the rank of the spirit becomes higher? Ans. Yes. 598. (43.) Do spirits of infants go to the seventh sphere? Ans. Yes. 599. (44.) Does an infant dying before noticing any thing go to that sphere? Ans. Yes. 600. (45.) Does it require care analogous to that given to infants in this world? Ans. It is carefully instructed. 601. (46.) Do infant spirits come down and reside among kindred more or less, visiting, as it grows older, those mundane scenes which may compensate it for its loss of opportunities by premature death? Ans. Yes. 602. (47.) Does not the inability to communicate with its kindred cause it to be unhappy under these circumstances? Ans. It is not rendered unhappy, in consequence of the peculiar manner in which such circumstances act upon the spirit mind. 603. (48.) Do such spirits, as for instance, those going to the other world while children, but having attained mature age, say forty, become companions for their parents and friends in the spheres who may have died after their maturity, or is there a too great simplicity or childishness? Ans. In purity and simplicity they are contented to live. 604. (49.) Is the love of children, who have died very young, as great to their parents and relations who remain in this world as if they continued to live in their society? Ans. Greater. 605. (50.) Is there a deference shown to spirits on the same plane commensurate with their superiority in learning, science, and wisdom? Ans. Yes. 606. (51.) The object of marriage in this world being manifestly the perpetuation of the species, consistently with the preservation of refinement and the welfare of offspring, and there being no such motive in the spiritual world, how can there be any motive for any such indissoluble ties? Ans. Between spirits joined by matrimony in the spheres there is a greater blending of mutual self-love into one common sentiment than in any other friendship. 607. (52.) Have spirits any fluid circulating through an arterial and venous system, which is subjected to a respiratory process, analogous to that which our blood undergoes? Ans. Yes. 608. (53.) As spirits are weightless, is not this fluid devoid of weight? Ans. Yes. 609. (54.) Has it any colour? Ans. No. 610. (55.) Does the gaseous or ethereal matter respired by spirits pervade the mundane sphere? Ans. Yes. 611. (56.) Do mortals breathe it as a means of sustenance to their spiritual organization while encased by this "mortal coil ?” Ans. Yes. 612. (57.) Does it supply the nervous system? Ans. Yes. 613. (58.) Is it communicated to inferior animals? Ans. Yes. 614. (59.) Do fishes require atmospheric oxygen while swimming, (water consisting of 8 parts in 9 of pure oxygen,) in order to get at the spiritual gas associated with the former? Ans. The spiritual gas imperceptibly accompanying atmospheric air is especially necessary to fishes. 615. (60.) Creed is alleged to be productive of no obstruction to ascendency in the spiritual world. Ans. Belief, being an involuntary act of the mind, has no merit or culpability attached to it, excepting so far as it is the consequence or is productive of prejudices; the advance of a spirit is retarded by these defects. 616. (61.) As in the spiritual world there is no necessity, desire, or passion which spirits can gratify by violence or fraud, on what is virtue founded? Where there is no motive or power to do wrong, where is the merit of doing right? Ans. In the spheres, vice is displayed by the endurance of bad passions; virtue is manifested by love, purity, and the aspiration for improvement. 617. (62.) As the diversities of human character are clearly the results of organization and education, neither of which can be controlled by the human beings whose merit or demerit is the inevitable consequence, how can there be any culpability? It is true that a man can act as he wills; but is not his will the creature of his passions and reason jointly? If his passions be increased, will not reason be less capable of controlling them? and, vice versâ, if his passions be enfeebled or his reason strengthened, will not his passions have less sway? Does it not follow that while we must in self-defence resist or restrain those who cannot govern themselves, should we not commiserate all who have the misfortune to be so badly constituted? Ans. We are no more able to answer that than you. 618. (63.) When a being virtuously constituted is murdered by one of the opposite character, who is most an object of commiseration? which is most favoured as a creature of God? Is not the difference between these beings analogous to that between the dog and the wolf? Both creatures of God—one is to be extirpated, the other cherished, as an inevitable consequence of the laws of creation ? Ans. The victim is most favoured. 619. (64.) Has not the analogy between a wicked or a savage man, and one who has the advantage of a good organization and education, a better exemplification in the case of a wild dog, and one brought up by a kind master, since the wild dog is reclaimable, may be reformed, and so may the bad or savage man. Hence, in the spheres, is not punishment or restraint made with a view to reformation rather than as a retribution for inevitable defects? Ans. Correct. EXPOSITION OF THE INFORMATION RECEIVED FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD. 620. FROM the information conveyed by communications submitted in the preceding pages, as well as others, it appears that there are seven spheres recognised in the spirit world. The terrestrial abode forms the first or rudimental sphere. 621. At the distance of about sixty miles from the terrestrial surface, the spirit world commences. It consists of six bands or zones, designated as spheres, surrounding the earth, so as to have one common centre with it and with each other. An idea of these rings may be formed from that: of the planet Saturn, excepting that they are comparatively much nearer to their planet, and that they have their broad surfaces parallel to the planet, and at right angles to the ecliptic, instead of being like Saturn's. rings, so arranged that their surfaces are parallel to the plane in which his: ecliptic exists. 622. Supposing the earth to be represented by a globe of thirteen and a half inches in diameter, the lower surface of the lowest of the spiritual spheres, if represented in due proportion to the actual distance from the earth, would be only one-tenth of an inch from the terrestrial surface. The bands observed over the regions in the planet Jupiter which correspond with our tropical regions, agree very well in relative position with those which are assigned to our spiritual spheres. They are probably the spiritual spheres of that planet. It having struck me as possible that these bands might be due to spiritual spheres appertaining to Jupiter, I inquired of the spirits; their reply was confirmatory. 623. The objection naturally occurs that ours are invisible to us; yet we know that light may be polarized in passing through transparent masses so as to produce effects in one case which it does not in others when not so polarized. It would have to pass through the spheres of Jupiter, and return through them again. This light, twice subjected to the ordeal of passing through the spirit world, when contrasted with that which goes and returns without any such ordeal, may undergo a change of a nature to produce an effect upon the eye, when, in the absence of this contrast, no visual change should be perceptible. 624. I am aware that it has been alleged that the bands do not appear always to occupy the same boundaries, and at times appear separated or more unequally distributed than at others. This may be due in part to actual changes which the spiritual essence may undergo as to its relative position, or optical delusions, if not deviations, resulting from the susceptibility of polarizing causes. 625. Possibly some peculiarity in the reflecting surface of the planet may be productive of such polarizing variations in the state of the light as to cause a difference sufficient for detection. 626. Alum, transparent to the rays of light, intercepts nearly the whole of the rays of heat. Opaque black glass intercepts the rays of light entirely, those of heat but partially. 627. Rock salt, a substance analogous to alum, intercepts radiant heat only to a very small extent. 628. When the rays of the setting sun fall upon the glass of windows, we see one portion reflected with great effulgence, yet another goes. through the glass. The last-mentioned portion of the rays received on a :second pane are reflected, while those which were reflected will pass through another pane without reflection. 629. This may demonstrate that the conditions requisite to the permeability of media by rays is affected by diversities of intestinal arrangements which are inscrutable to us. 630. The interval between the lower boundaries of the first spiritual sphere and the second is estimated at thirty miles as a maximum, but this interval is represented to be less, as the spheres between which it may exist are more elevated or remote from the terrestrial centre. 631. Each sphere is divided into six "circles" or plains. More properly these may be described as concentric zones, occupying each about one-sixth of the space comprised within the boundaries of the sphere. There being six subdivisions to each of the six spheres, in all there must be thirty-six gradations. 632. These boundaries are not marked by any visible partition, but spirits have in this respect a peculiar sense, which makes them feel when they are passing the boundaries of one sphere in order to get to the next. 633. This allegation of the existence of an invisible spirit world within the clear azure space intervening between the surface of this globe and the lunar orbit may startle the reader; and yet this idea may have been presented by Scripture to the same mind, without awakening skepticism. It was urged by a spirit friend-Is it more wonderful that you should find our habitations invisible, than that we are invisible? 634. It is plain that between the lowest degrees of vice, ignorance, and folly, and the highest degrees of virtue, learning, and wisdom, there are many gradations. When we are translated to the spheres, we take a rank proportional to our merit, which seems to be there intuitively susceptible of estimation by the law above alluded to, of the grossness being greater as the character is more imperfect. Both the spirits and spheres are represented as having a gradation in constitutional refinement, so that the sphere to which a spirit belongs is intuitively manifest. Rank is determined by a sort of moral specific gravity, in which merit is inversely as weight. Another means of distinction is a circumambient halo by which every spirit is accompanied, which passes from a darkness to effulgency as the spirit belongs to a higher plane. Even mortals are alleged to be surrounded with a halo visible to spirits, although not to themselves. Intuitively, from the extent and nature of this halo, spirits perceive the sphere to which any mundane being belongs. The effulgence of the higher spirits is represented as splendid. As soon as emancipated from their corporeal tenement, spirits enter the spheres, and are entitled to a station. higher in direct proportion to their morality, wisdom, knowledge, and intellectual refinement. 635. The first spiritual sphere, or the second in the whole series, is as large as all the other five above it. This is the hell or Hades of the spirit world, where all sensual, malevolent, selfish beings reside. The next sphere above this, or the third in the whole series, is the habitation of all well-meaning persons, however bigoted, fanatical, or ignorant. Here they are tolerably happy. 636. In proportion as spirits improve in purity, benevolence, and wisdom, they ascend. They may ascend as love-spirits, in consequence of the two |