“This is a representation, a pictorial prophecy of a reality yet to come,
before Christ has finished his conquering work in the world of spirits.
These people do not see the things we see. This heavenly light has come
into our minds that we may discover what their interior life really
is,—devoid of all spiritual vitality; desolate, dark, lurid; full of evil
beasts and unclean birds and creeping things.”
This sphere of ecclesiastical pride and presumption is not peculiar to the
Jewish Church or nation. It is predominant in all religions, churches and
individuals, when the religious instincts are satisfied and delighted with
grandeur, power, numbers, fashion, wealth and glory.
“What will be the effect,” I inquired, “of this disastrous judgment in the
world of spirits, upon the Jewish nation in the natural world?”
“There will be fearful dissensions and conflicts; wars within and without;
the city and the temple will be destroyed; the country made desolate; the
people scattered as exiles and vagabonds among all nations. Their
descendants, coming into the world of spirits, will recede toward the
circumference among the pagans. A new church springing up among other
nations, will take the central place, and give rise upon earth, after
great struggles, to a purer religion and a nobler civilization.
“You will now see, in symbolic representation, the three great classes
into which the Church will be dissolved at its judgment.”
Then there appeared before us a great many domestic animals; oxen, horses,
asses, camels, sheep, fowls, etc.; all mingled together in confusion, and
all looking poor, jaded, filthy and wretched.
“These are the beasts of burden,” said my father; “the ignorant and
innocent masses, presided over by a corrupt and cruel theocracy, which
desecrates the name of God by imposing upon his children a spiritual
despotism.
“Advance nearer to these creatures, and you will behold a wonderful sight,
such as can never appear in the natural world, but is common enough in the
world of spirits.”
We came nearer, and lo! all the animals were found to be men and women.
Some of their forms and faces seemed taken from my memory; for I thought I
recognized the crowds which followed Jesus in the world.
“From these people,” said my father, “the remnant will be taken—the
remnant about which the prophets speak so often. This remnant of Israel,
starting with the apostles chosen by Christ, will be the seed and
starting-point of a new Church.
“Such are the forms of those who are interiorly good. Observe now the
forms of those who are interiorly wicked.”
The former scene passed away and three wild beasts appeared standing at
the mouth of an immense black cavern, in front of which many human bones
were scattered. The animals were a wild boar, a wolf and a tiger, all of
gigantic size and terrible ferocity.
We advanced nearer to these also, and they changed into men; the wild boar
into Caiaphas, the high priest; the wolf into the cunning and cruel
Magistus; and the tiger into the robber Barabbas. The meaning of this
tableaux I perceived intuitively without explanation.
“Between these two extremes,” continued my father, “is a great class who
are in mixed states of good and evil. Their sufferings will be severe
before they can put off either kind of life so as to live entirely in the
other; for a separation of good and evil must be effected,—if not upon
earth, at least in the world of spirits.”
A sandy wilderness then arose to view, in which I saw but two figures; a
zebra, wild, beautiful, intractable, snuffing proudly the air of the
desert; and a white dove which was struggling frantically to escape from
the jaws of a monstrous serpent.
These I approached more eagerly; for I was impelled by an earnest desire
to caress the beautiful zebra, and to rescue the dove from the fangs of
the serpent. They changed also in the twinkling of an eye. The zebra was
our friend the Son of the Desert, and the dove was Mary Magdalen. As the
latter stepped forward, a shining and beautiful woman, the serpent
shriveled and fell behind her like a black garment cast upon the ground.
As the last picture faded away, my father resumed his instructions.
“The scenes you have witnessed are phantasmagoric, but symbolical and full
of spiritual truth. They illustrate the law of appearances which governs
in the spiritual world. The phenomenal world around us, animal, vegetable
and mineral, is all representative of the life within us; not by accident
or with confusion, but according to fixed and eternal laws.
“The sphere of life radiates from a spirit like heat from the sun, or like
perfume from a flower. It flows forth and falls into successive zones or
belts of spiritual substance, in each of which it produces some spiritual
form representative of itself. Outside of his human sphere, the life of a
spirit takes form in the first zone as an animal, in the second as a
planet or flower, in the third as a mineral, a stone, a drop of water, a
cloud, a star.
“The life which animates a wicked spirit becomes a corresponding wild
beast in the first zone; a loathsome fungus in the second; a poisonous
mineral in the third. The sweet spiritual life of a good heart becomes the
innocent lamb in one zone; the beautiful rose in the next; the brilliant
gem in the last.
“Observe, however, that each spirit always appears to himself in the human
form; and always so to others when they are near him. He only takes on
these typical or correspondential forms in the eyes of others, when he
recedes to or approaches from a distance.”
“What a deep philosophy you are unfolding!” I exclaimed. “I see already in
what you have told me the germs of a thousand brilliant ideas. Oh that I
could teach these beautiful things in the porticoes of Athens! How they
would ravish the Grecian heart!”
“You are mistaken,” said my father. “Some simple soul from whom you least
expected it, would accept your doctrines, weeping for joy. The great, the
rich, the learned, the powerful, would scornfully reject them as fables or
dreams.”
“That is strange and sad.”
“Yes—but it is true. The mind which is wedded to falsities in religion or
philosophy, is proud, self-reliant, self-satisfied, bigoted and
intolerant. The genuine truth which makes the soul free, makes it also
liberal and loving.”
“Will the Jews on earth reject the Messiah, proving his mission as he does
by stupendous miracles?”
“Yes: miracles avail nothing with the unbelieving. Truth is not seen
merely because it is truth. No truth is received or seen but that which
corresponds to some love in the heart. The hatred which these Jewish
spirits feel for holy things, will descend by influx into the priests and
scribes at Jerusalem: and the tender seed of the New Dispensation will be
sown in darkness and watered with tears and blood.
“Do not suppose,” added my father, “that spirits and angels have any
special power to foresee the future. Oh no! We only live nearer to the
Fountain of causes, and reason more acutely from cause to effect.”
I treasured these strange things in my mind, having only a faint
perception of either their truth or value. I was especially surprised at
the fact, that a church could actually come to an end, a dispensation be
spiritually closed and a new one inaugurated, while the adherents of the
old were in the full flush of power and numbers, and regarded themselves
as the favored repositories and faithful interpreters of divine truth!
[Illustration: Ornament]