On Spiritualism. SEED BED OF SPIRITISM.

Bruce Herald, Volume VI, Issue 435, 11 September 1872, Page 9

On Spiritualism. SEED BED OF SPIRITISM.

CHAPTER VIII.

I (By Stockwhip.) The account given by Swedenborg himself, as to how these visions began, is as follows :— " I was in London, and one day dined rather late by myself at a boarnling house, where I kept a room in which at pleasure I could prosecute the study of the natural sciences. I was hungry, and_ ate with great appetite. At the end of the meal I remarked that a vapour as it were clouded my sight, and the walls of my chamber appeared covered with frightful creeping things, such as serpents, toads, and the like. I was filled with astonishment, but retained the full use of my perception and thoughts. The darkness attained its height, and soon passed away. I then perceived a man sitting in the corner of my chamber. As I thought myself alone, I was greatly terrified when he spoke and said, 'Eat not so much.' The cloud once more came over my sight, and when it passed away, I found myself alone in the chamber. This unexpected event hastened my return home. I did not mention the subject to the people of the house, but reflected upon it much, and believed it to have been the effect of accidental causes, or to have arisen from |my physical state at the time. I went home, but in the following^ night the same man appeared to me again. He said, 'I am God the Lord the Creator and Redeemer of the world. I have chosen thee to lay before men the spiritual sense of the Holy Word. I will teach thee what thou art to write.' On that same night were opened to my perception the heavens and the hells, where 1 saw many persons of my acquaintance of all conditions. From that day forth I gave up all mere worldly: learning, and labored only on spiritual things according to what the Lord commanded me to write. Daily he opened the eyes of my spirit to see what was done in the other world, and gave me in a state of full wakefulness to converse with angels and spirits." Such is Swedenborg's own account of how his visions began, and certainly it taxes one's charity and power of swallow to believe that they had a spiritual source, much less a heavenly or divine source, as he claims for them. It is worthy of notice also that just shortly before he began to have these visions he had suffered from a severe attack of fever accompanied with delirium, brought on by severe mental application to some works he was publishing. The likelihood is that the dregs of that illness remaining on his system were waked up by his long, fast and heavy dinner to new activity, and given a new direction, so that they assumed different phases, and settled into a chronic affection. In reading an account of the early life and conversion of Alfred Monitz Meyers, a Prussian Jew, as narrated by himself, I was much struck with many references he makes to the Talmud, and the writings of the Rabbis, from which it would appear that they teach a somewhat similar doctrine concerning the spiritual world to that of Swedenborg and spiritists. And as Swedenborg i was a very learned man, and lived and studied in some parts of Germany, it is not unlikely that he may there have come into contact vith learned Jews,— indeed he oould scarce help doing so — and may have picked up from them and their books the seeds of his after visions. I quote from the narrative of Meyers: — "It is a custom among my brethren that when a parent dies and leaves children, the latter must sit for seven days on a very low stool, without shoes, as mourners for the dead, and every morning and evening, for the space of a whole year, offer up a prayer for the departed soul that it may the sooner enter Paradise." Numerous are the traditions on this head (which of course are implicitly believed among the Jews} respecting the evil consequences which resolt when a child neglects to pray for a departed parent. The following taken from the writings of the Kabbis, may serve as a specimen. I saw in a vision, writes a certain Rabbi, a man heavy laden with a large bundle of sticks on his back. I asked him where he was carrying the wood to. He answered and said my name is ; I came from ; and I died some years ago, and I have been ever since in hell ; every day lam burnt and made alive again, and I am obliged to fetch the sticks from yonder wood wherewith to be burnt daily. The Rabbi then asked him whether he had left any children? and the man told him that he had. left one boy. Have you taught him to read ? The man said No ; I was a bad character all my life, and did not care about my child. He then told the Rabbi where he might find his boy if he was alive. The Rabbi went in search, found the lad and taught him to say the prayer for the dead, and " as soon as he could repeat it he went every morning and evening to the Synagogue to pray for his father." The Rabbi then gives a further account how that in another vision he saw the same man again, who tbM him that he was novy one degree out cf hell ; and again, in subsequent visions, until it states how, through the prayers of his son, the father got promoted into Paradise. Now, is it not most probable that in these traditions of the Jews, who reject altogether the light and teaching of the New Testament, we have the seed-bed of the visions and the doctrines of Swedenborgianism and spiritualism. Spiritists can now give a pretty full sketch or description of the future state, with its various spheres, and what classes of spirits enter each sphere. How they pass oh in process of time into other and higher spheres. Ifbw lftosj; enter- the. onr4 sphere pn. ljsayip g this garth , and few Bfev reach, or at leasjJ have ye.t reached*, the highest or seventh sphere. M?v Smith's fupthest; adya^oed' F}r«t Cfoureb, after 21 $00 jem of jwogress,

have only reached the sun! Not very rapid progress certainly, and their mental and "moral does not seem to have even attained that state. '