Spirit Teachings

The Bible.

1. Divine inspiration?
2. The prophet or medium.
3. Biblical interpretation.
4. Biblical revelation.
5. The prophetic chain.
6. Myths and legends.
7. The Old Testament authors.
8. God in the Bible.

Divine inspiration?

".... The tendency of all classes of religionists has ever been to make much of the letter and to neglect the spirit: to dwell at large on expressions drawn from individual writers, and to neglect the general drift of teaching. Men have gone with preconceived notions to search for the truth, and have found that which they expected. Single words and expressions have been drawn out of their context by those who have professed to comment on the texts of your sacred books until they have been made to bear a meaning which their writers never intended. Others have gone to the authors solely to find words to prop up a theory without even the poor pretence of seeking after truth; and they, too, have been able to dig out something which has served their purpose. And so, by slow degrees, the edifice has grown, built up laboriously by men who delight to dwell on peculiarities of language and expression, and by men who, having evolved for themselves an idea, strive only that it may be confirmed. Neither class has any idea beyond the text of the sacred records which lies before it.

"We said before that much of what we should have to say to you would turn on what you understand by Divine inspiration.

"Those who are known to you as the orthodox defenders of the Christian creed tell you that a mysterious person--one of the three individual persons who compose the Undivided Trinity--took possession of the minds of certain men, and through their organisms gave to your world a body of truth, which was whole, complete, and of eternal force: a system of Divine philosophy from which nothing might be removed under the direst ban; to which nothing would ever be added; and which was the immediate word, the very utterance, the mind and will of God, containing within it the whole body of truth, actual and potential, contained in divinely worded phrases and expressions. Not only are the sentiments of David and Paul, Moses and John, consonant with the will of the Supreme, but they are the very thoughts of Deity. Not only are the words divinely approved, but they are the very diction of the Supreme. In short, the Bible is the very Word of God, both in matter and form: every word is Divine, and fit to be studied and expounded as such, even in that version of it which is translated into your language by men who, to complete the marvel, are again supposed to be in their turn the recipients of Divine truth and guidance in their work of translation.

"Hence, you will see that doctrines the most tremendous, and conclusions the most far reaching may be founded upon mere words and expressions, for is not every word and turn of phrase the revelation of God divinely preserved from admixture of human error? These are they who have grounded a number of dogmas on phrases picked out at their pleasure, neglecting and passing over all that pleases them not. To such the Bible is the direct utterance of the Supreme.

"Those who have abandoned this view have entered upon a process of destructive handling of the Bible, the only termination of which is the view which we shall put for your acceptance. They revere the sacred records which compose your Bible as being the records of God's truth revealed to man from age to age, even as it is still being revealed. They study the records as showing man's progressive grasp of knowledge of God and of the destiny of the spirit. They watch the gradual unfolding of this revelation from times of ignorance and brutal barbarism when He was known as the friend of Abraham, who ate and conversed at the tent door, or the Judge who governed His people, or the King who fought at the head of the armies of Israel, or the Tyrant revealed through the medium of some seers, down to the time when He became known in His truer character of tenderness, and love, and fatherly kindness and compassion.

"In all this they see growth, and they will believe, if they pursue their investigations to the end, that such growth has never ceased; that such progressive revelations has never been closed; and that man's knowledge of his God is far from complete, though his capacity for receiving that knowledge is ever enlarging his means of satisfying the craving that is within him. And so the seeker after truth will be prepared to receive our teaching on this head at least. To such we address ourselves. To those who fondly fancy that they possess a perfect knowledge we say nothing. Before we can deal with them they must learn to know their ignorance of all that concerns God and Revelation. Anything that we could say would glide off the impenetrable defence of ignorance, self-conceit, and dogmatism in which they are encased. They must be left to unlearn hereafter in pain and sorrow that which has so retarded their spiritual growth, and will be so dire a barrier to future progress. If you have rightly understood what we have previously put before you, we may now proceed to add further some words on the nature of revelation and the character of inspiration.

"We say, then, to you that the sacred books which make up your Bible, together with many others which are not included in it, are the records of that gradual growth in knowledge of Himself which the great and good God has given to man. The principle which pervades all these utterances is one and the same: identical with that which governs our intercourse with you. So much of truth is given as man can grasp; no more under any circumstances, but just so much as he can grasp, so much as suffices for his present craving."

"Inspiration, we again say, is not different in kind in different ages, but only in degree. The words in all cases are the words of the inspiring spirit conveyed through a human medium; and in proportion as the medium is pure and elevated are the utterances trustworthy and the conceptions sublime. The plane of knowledge of the medium is the plane of revelation through him. And we need not say at length that in the world's earlier days--such as those spoken of in ancient records of the Jews--that plane was low, and these conceptions, save in rare instances, anything but sublime.

"Man has progressed in knowledge since the days when he feigned for himself a vacillating, puny God who repented and was grieved at the failure of his plans in man's creation, and who was compelled to undo them as a failure. If you seek for conceptions more sublime and true, you will go to a later age, when man had unlearned somewhat of his folly, and had ceased to be content with a God framed after the devices of a barbarous imagination and an undeveloped mind. The barbarous age could grasp nothing nobler, and accordingly nothing nobler could be revealed. That is in accord with the universal practice, viz., that God's revelation is proportional to man's mental plane. The error has been that you have laboured to perpetuate these foolish and crude views. They have been held by your theologians to be of Divine inspiration, binding for all time. This fallacy we desire utterly to uproot.

"Another error even more destructive of truth is the fable that Divine inspiration, plenarily communicated, guided all the writers of all the books of your Bible into absolute truth; and that, as God was in every case the Author, so each individual utterance of each scribe is of paramount as well as permanent authority. This error we have uprooted in your mind, for you now know that God cannot be the Author of contradictions, nor can He have said at one time what He contradicts at another. The light shone through a dark medium, and was distorted in the passage.

"In place of these false views we have taught you that inspiration is the control of the inspiring spirit; of various degrees of elevation, perfection, or reliability; to be judged in each case by reason, and to be estimated in precisely such manner as you would criticise and judge works of professedly human source. You will therefore accept no text as an argument. You will deal with these ancient books as you deal with all that is put before you. And in criticising them you will find it necessary to deny much that has been affirmed and believed with respect to them and their contents."

The prophet or medium.

"That truth is revealed through the instrumentality of a man and is always more or less mixed with the thoughts and opinions of the medium. Nay, the communicating spirits are perforce obliged to use the material which is found in the medium's mind, moulding and fashioning it for their purpose: erasing fallacies, inspiring new views of truth, but working on the material which is already gathered. The purity of the spirit message depends much on the passivity of the medium and on the conditions under which the message is communicated. Hence, in your Bible there are traces here and there of the individuality of the medium; of errors caused by imperfect control; of the colour of his opinions; as well as of special peculiarities addressed to the special needs of the people to whom the message was first given, and for whose case it was primarily adapted.

"You may see for yourself numerous cases of this. If Isaiah spoke to the people the words of the message with which he was charged, he impressed upon that message the individuality of his own mind, and adapted it to the peculiar needs of the people to whom he spoke. He told, indeed, of the one Supreme God, but he told of Him in strains of poesy and ecstatic imagery far different from the metaphorical and characteristic imagery of Ezekiel. Daniel had his visions of glory; Jeremiah, his burdens of the Lord who spoke through him; Hosea, his mystic symbolism: each in his individual fashion told of the same Jehovah, as he knew Him, but each told his message in his own style, as it had been revealed to him. Similarly, in later days, the characteristic nature of individual communications was preserved. If Paul and Peter found occasion to speak of the same truth, they almost necessarily viewed it from different sides. The truth was not less true because two men of varying minds viewed it from different points, and dealt with it in his own way. The individuality of the medium is palpable in the manner if not in the matter of the communication. The inspiration is Divine, but the medium is human."

Biblical interpretation.

"Hence it is that man may find in the Bible the reflex of his own mind, whatever the tone of that mind may be. The knowledge of God is so small: that which man has grasped of His nature is so little, that each person who lives on past revelations, and cannot or will not extend them, must find in the Bible the reflex of his mind. He goes to find his own ideal, and lo! it is mirrored for him in the utterances of those who spoke for persons on his mental plane. If no one seer can satisfy his ideal, he selects from many the points which please him, rejects the remainder, and manufactures his own revelation piecemeal.

"So it is with all sects. Each frames its own ideal, and proves it by revelations taken from the Bible. None can accept the whole, because the whole is not homogeneous. But each picks out its suitable pieces, and from them frames its revelation. When they are brought face to face with others who have picked out other passages, then comes the twisting and distorting of words, the explanation (so they call it) and the commenting on text: the darkening of plain meaning: the interpreting of sayings in a sense never meant either by the communicating spirit or by the prophet or teacher. By this means inspiration becomes a vehicle for sectarian opinions; the Bible, an armoury from which each disputant may draw his favourite weapon; and theology, a matter of private notion, backed up by false and misleading interpretation.

"With a theology so framed, we are accused of being at variance. It is true. We have no commerce with it. It is of the earth, earthy; base and low in its conception of God; degrading in its influence on the soul; insulting to the Deity whom it professes to reveal. We have no part in it. We do indeed contract and disown it. It is our mission to reverse its teaching, to substitute for it truer and nobler views of God and of the Spirit.

Isaiah. "Another reason why much that is false with respect to God is current among you, as derived from the Bible, is, that the assumption of infallible inspiration leads men not only to lay too much stress on words and phrases, but also to fall into the error of interpreting too literally that which was intended to be spiritual and typical interpretation. In communicating to your mental plane ideas which are to you inconceivable, we are obliged to use expressions which are borrowed from your ways of thought. We ourselves are very frequently at fault in misusing such expressions; or they are themselves inadequate to convey our meaning. Almost all spirit utterances are typical. Especially when spirits have endeavoured to convey to men ideas of the great God of whom they themselves know so little, the language used is necessarily very imperfect, inadequate, and frequently ill-chosen. But it is always typical, and must be so understood. To press to the end of literal accuracy any spirit-teaching about God is mere folly.

"Moreover, the revelations of God have been made in language suited to the capacities of those to whom they were originally given, and are to be so interpreted. But they who have framed for themselves the idea of an infallible revelation applicable through all time interpret every word literally, and so deduce erroneous conclusions. The hyperbole which was intelligible in the mouth of the impulsive seer who uttered it to an imaginative and enthusiastic Eastern hearer becomes overstrained, untrue, and misguiding when coldly interpreted in the light of comment and verbal exactness to those whose habits of thought and language are widely different or even totally dissimilar.

"It is this cause that we must attribute many views of the Supreme which are alike false and dishonouring to Him. The original language was inadequate enough; it has become coloured more or less by the medium through whom it has passed, and is then less adequate than before. But interpreted as we have pointed out, it becomes positively false; and is in no sense the revelation of God. Rather it is man's notion about a Deity whom he has framed for himself--framed as really as the image which the savage forms for his fetish.

"With such views, again, we have no accord. Them, too, we denounce, and our mission is to substitute for them a truer and nobler knowledge."

Biblical revelation.

"It is not wonderful that our message should seem to contradict some human utterances. Nay, that it should really controvert some details of the teaching given through human minds more or less undeveloped in days long past is to be expected. We have no desire to hide the plain fact that there is much in some parts of the Bible which does not amalgamate with our teaching, being, indeed, the admixture of human error which came through the mind of the chosen medium. We need not repeat on this head our previous argument which is familiar to you.

"Revelation, as contained in your Bible, includes many progressive developments of the knowledge of God which are in themselves irreconcilable in minute detail. And, moreover, it contains much admixture of human error which has filtered in through the medium. You can only arrive at truth by judging of the general drift. Private opinions selected without reference to the body of teaching are but the sentiments of the individual, valuable as showing his mind, but not in any way binding as of faith. To imagine that an opinion uttered many centuries ago is of binding force eternally is mere folly. Indeed, all such opinions are contradictory in themselves, and are contradicted by other and opposite opinions contained within the same volume. No doubt it was a current belief, at the time when many of the writers of books in the Bible composed the treatises which you call inspired, that Jesus was God, and harsh denunciations are made against any who should deny the dogma. No doubt also that the same men believed also that He would, in mysterious manner, return in the clouds to judge the world, and that before their generation should die. They were mistaken in both beliefs, and over one at least more than 1800 years have rolled and still the return is unaccomplished. So we might push the argument were it necessary.

"What we wish to impress on you is this: You must judge the Revelations of God by the light which is given you: in the mass, not by the dicta of its preachers: by the spirit and general tendency, not by the strict phraseology. You must judge of us and our teaching, not by conformity to any statement made by any men at any special time; but by the general fitness and adaptability of our creed to your wants, to your relations with God, and to the progress of your spirit."

The chain of prophecy from Melchizedek to Elijah.

[On Nov. 2, 1873, a question which I proposed to put was set aside, and a communication was made as to the progressive revelation of God in that part of the universal Church of which we have the record in our Bible. I had been told before that this was but one of many collateral revelations:--]

"We would speak to you of the revelation of God amongst men in times of old by agencies similar too those which we use now. Throughout the history of which you possess the record in the earlier part of your Bible there stand out noble spirits who, during their bodily lives, shone as lights of truth and progress, and who, when released from the flesh, inspired in their turn those who were to succeed them. Such, in the early days when God was fabled to deal with man more personally than now--such was he whom you know as Melchizedek. He blessed and conveyed to Abram the seal of Divine favour. He was the chosen vehicle of spirit power in a day when man had not cut himself off from belief in spirit intercourse. He was the light shining in darkness, the prophet of God to one section of His people.

"And it is well that we warn you here, on the threshold of your enlightenment, that you must learn to discriminate in the ancient records between that which is record of fact and that which is only expression of belief. The writings which give history of those early days are full of inconsistent statements. They were not, as we assert to you, the compilation of their reputed author, but were compiled from traditional beliefs in a far later age, at a time when history had merged into legend, and much of mere opinion and belief had become stamped with the mark of authenticity. So, though it be most true that fact is embodied in these records, as indeed in the sacred books of other faiths, you must beware how you accord implicit belief to every isolated statement contained in them. Hitherto you have read these stories from a standpoint of unquestioning assent. It is needful now that you study them in a new light--one more profitable, and not less interesting.

"God did not associate with man after the anthropomorphic fashion described in Genesis; nor did He personally govern a favoured nation save through His selected instruments.

"His dealings with man have been uniforms through the ages--intimate in proportion as man cultivates spirituality, remote as his animal nature asserts itself, and he becomes corporeal and material in his instincts.

Abraham and Melchizedek. "So, in those now distant days, it was Melchizedek who bore to the chosen Abram the Divine Benediction. He whom Christian and Mahommedan alike have agreed to exalt was not the immediate recipient of spirit guidance as was the Priest-King of Salem. Abram faded from power when he passed from the body, and in the centuries since his incarnation he has been but little concerned in influencing men. It may seem strange that it should be so; but it is so with many a spirit whose name fills a large place in your world's history. The work has been done, and the new work does not bring the spirit in contact with matter. Or, perchance, the work has been badly done, the chosen vessel has lost its perfume, and becomes in spirit-land savourless and useless.

"Melchizedek returned again to influence the most powerful reformer your world then had--the leader of the Israelites out of Egypt, and the Lawgiver who framed for them their code and constitution. He was a most powerfully organised and developed instrument of spirit-power. A keen intelligence had been developed in what was then the best school, the esoteric wisdom of the Egyptians. A powerful magnetic will fitted him for the post of ruler; and a powerful band of spirits operated on the Jewish nation through him, and through them on the world. A code of religious observance was perfected, a system of government elaborated, and laws and regulations laid down which were adapted for the specific necessities of a great people in a great crisis of their history. The Jews were then passing through a phase not unlike that which has come to other people in later days--one to which the present age bears some noteworthy points of resemblance, a period of development of knowledge, when old things are passing away, and the creative spirit makes all things new.

"Here again beware of false deductions. The laws then given were not meant for all time, as some of your teachers falsely pretend. They were the power of God to that distant age--so much of truth as man could grasp, inspired in the same way, and in no other, as have been all the utterances of truth which the good God permits His messengers to declare to men. They set forth the needed truth that the One Supreme God rules over His people and cares for their well-being. The love due to God and the charity and loving-kindness due to the brother were embodied for a nation which had drunk in the baser forms of Egyptian polytheistic teaching, and had had no part in the inner mysteries where alone truth dwells.

Chinese painting of Moses. "These commandments which have been perpetuated till now, embodied for a changeful age a phase of truth. They contain laws of action which are true in spirit, but not binding in literal exactness on those who have outgrown the necessity for them. They were given by the spirit-guides to Moses on the secluded top of Sinai, above the turmoil of Israel, and removed from the lower influences of earth. They knew then what man has forgotten now--how that perfect isolation is requisite for perfect communing, and that if you would have pure and unadulterated spirit- teaching, it must be communicated to one who has been removed from the mixed influences, the cares and anxieties, the jealousies and disputes which crowd the lower air. So is the message more pure, and so does the medium hear and receive with sincerity and truth.

"Moses was to select seventy elders--men of spiritual development, for such alone were then chosen for offices of power--upon whom his own influence was perpetually brought to bear, and who were the channels by which that influence permeated the people. So the code was elaborated and set in operation, and when the Lawgiver passed from his work on earth he became an exalted spirit whose name is emblazoned for all ages as a benefactor of men.

"He, too, in his turn, influenced men after many generations as the inspiring guide of Elijah. We intentionally pass over the other manifestations of spirit-power which occur in other directions, in order that we may preserve intact the grand chain which stretched from Melchizedek to the Christ. Nor do we name more than it is necessary to indicate in order to show you the continuity, and to press on you the fact that these, who had been great workers for God during their lives on earth, did influence man's destinies even after their withdrawal from the body. Many other chains of influence there were, and many other centres from which truth, more or less advanced, was diffused, but you are not concerned with them. That which culminated in Jesus Christ is that with which you are concerned, though we implore you to cast aside that ignorant and selfish sectarianism which would arrogate to itself the sole proprietorship of truth.

"Elijah, the great master, the grandest spirit who ever graced the nation of Israel, was in a very high degree the recipient of spiritual guidance from Him who had been the Leader of His people. The traditional reverence for Moses and Elias felt by the Jewish people is shown you in a fable that God buried the body of Moses, while he caught up Elijah in a chariot and horses of fire to the skies where he fancied heaven lay. Such was the reverence felt, that they were fabled to be singular even in death. We need not tell you that no material body was ever translated to lead a corporeal life in the land of spirit. You know that such is but an allegory to indicate the glorious translation of an exalted spirit from a sphere where his work is done, to one where his extended influence is to begin. He left to his successor a two-fold portion of his spirit, not indeed in that Elisha was endued with double virtue, for that was far from being so, but that the glorious results of Elijah's power showed with two-fold force in the days of his successor, who seconded his efforts and carried on his work.

"He, too, reappeared in after ages, and exercised his great influence again, and stood, as you know, with his Master side by side with the Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. And in the vision of John the Divine, they are again depicted as coming to revisit the earth in still later days."

[I did not at all understand the allusion made to his return in later days when the communication was written, November 2, 1873. It has only been lately that I have been led to refer it to "the two witnesses" mentioned in Revelation xi. 3, etc. Nor should I have noticed this at all, but for a pamphlet on the Apocalypse which some unknown friend sent to me. The pamphlet deals with these witnesses, and their prophesyings, and came to me most opportunely to elucidate what I could not understand.

I asked some questions at the time, and, among others, whether there were not some before Melchizedek who were recipients of Divine inspiration. It was replied:--]

"Assuredly. We commenced with the first link in the chain which culminated with Jesus. In it we left many links unnoticed, and we expressly said that out of it there were many who were recipients of Divine inspiration. Such was Enoch, a highly-gifted spirit. Noah, in like manner, but imperfectly. Deborah was highly favoured, and all they whom history calls Judges of Israel, were chosen for the special reason that they were amenable to spirit-influence. It were long to particularise all, and we shall speak hereafter of other manifestations of spiritual power in the Jewish records. For you will see that we confine ourselves now, first, to the Jewish records; and, next, to one particular chain in these records."

Myths and legends.

The translations of Enoch and Elijah. What were they?

"Legendary beliefs. A halo of glory was shed around even the death of those whom men reverenced. In earliest days the man who attracted to himself the reverence of his fellows, and round whose name a certain reverential awe had gathered, was fabled to have been taken to join God in the heaven for which his life had fitted him. Moses, the mysterious agent of Divine power, the commanding head of his people, was so fabled to be mysteriously removed from earth. He had talked familiarly with the Deity whom he had revealed, and now he was to go to join Him. Elijah, in like manner, the strange, weird, mysterious power, who came and went as with the freedom of air, who seemed to be guided by no human laws, governed by no such restrictions as fence in man's movements--he, too, it was imagined, was translated from earth to heaven in such sort as he had lived. In all cases it was the imaginings concerning an anthropomorphic God and a material heaven that lay at the root of the fancy. We have before told you that man can only receive such ideas about God and heaven as he is fitted to grasp by his spiritual development. In the early days of your world's history man pictured a God who was but an omnipotent man--a man in every respect, with certain qualities superadded, those qualities being such as man would fancy as natural additions to the being with which he was already acquainted. In other words, man took the highest ideal of humanity, and added to it certain qualities; the result he called Deity. In this he was doing only what man has always done. The human conception of Deity must ever be clouded with mortal mist, even as the revelation of God can only come through a mortal medium, and be proportioned to human capacity. This is a natural and invariable consequence of the conditions under which you exist. So, the knowledge of God being progressive, and man having grown in wisdom, he discovers from time to time that his conception of God must be revised. The need is felt, and the additional light is given. (This is the best answer to those among you who fancy that man can learn nothing from us of God and the spirit's life and progress.)

"So it is with regard to heaven. You have unlearned much that previous ages have fancied about heaven. And none save the most ignorant would now imagine that a material body could find a home in heaven, as once men thought it could. The time of material heavens, into which mysterious beings who had been deified on earth were translated bodily into the society of an anthropomorphic God, is past. You do not imagine God as an omnipotent, omnipresent man, living in a place where His throne is surrounded by a throng who do naught else but worship and adore, as men would worship were they to see God amongst them on earth. Such a heaven is but a baseless dream. Into spirit-life spirit alone can enter. You know that you have outgrown the fable of the bodily translation of a material frame somewhere into the skies, there to live as it had lived on earth, in the society of a God who was human in all respects save that He was superhuman, in a heaven which was borrowed from the images of a vision which typified under a symbol spiritual truth to John the Seer. You know that no such God exists. A translation will await each good and true man, but not of his human flesh and bones. His glorified spirit shall rise from the dead and worn-out shroud of flesh that has served its purpose, to a brighter life than man has pictured, in a brighter heaven than human seer has ever imaged.

No doubt there are a number of legends which come in the end to be accepted as truth. The difficulty is to know truth from legend, and the danger, to uproot the tares with the wheat. And even a myth may have a very discernible meaning, and embody truth.

"It is so. The legends of which your sacred records are full are in very many cases superstitious beliefs that have centred round great names. There is a nucleus of truth enveloped in a surrounding of myth. We have frequently told you that man has erred greatly in his conceptions of us and of our influence and work. Some causes which have produced this result are beyond his control, others he can govern. He cannot in the childhood of his intellect grasp knowledge which his mind has not the power to comprehend.

"That is unavoidable. He cannot picture correctly a condition of life which is utterly different from the state in which he has lived, and with which alone he is acquainted. He must be taught by illustration and analogy. That too is unavoidable. But he heaps together words and ideas which were intended to be figurative, and constructs from them a notion which is incoherent and absurd. Each step of knowledge will lead you to see this more clearly.

"Moreover, man has fancied that each revelation of God enshrines permanent truth of universal application, of literal and exact accuracy. He did not see that man is taught by us as man teaches his own children; and accurate definitions of abstract truth do not suit the comprehension of a child. With all the literalness of a child he accepts the very words of revelation as mathematically and logically accurate, and builds upon them a number of theories, absurd in their nature, and conflicting among themselves. The child accepts the parent's word unhesitatingly, and quotes it as law. It is only later that he learns that he was being taught in parables. Man has dealt with Revelation in the same way. He has assumed literal exactness where there is only Oriental imagery, and mathematical accuracy where he has only a very fallible and frequently legendary record. So he has perpetuated ignorant ideas about a jealous God, and a fiery hell, and a heaven in the skies where the elect are gathered, and a physical resurrection, and a universal assize, and such notions, which belong to the age of childhood and are outgrown by the developed man. The man should put aside the notions of the child, and soar to higher knowledge.

"But in place of that legendary belief, primitive superstitions, ignorant fancies, are perpetuated. The hyperbolical visions of an imaginative people are taken for hard fact; and a medley of fancy, folly, and truth is jumbled together, which no reflecting mind on an advanced plane of knowledge can continue to accept as matter of belief. Faith is the cord that has bound together this incoherent mass. We cut that cord, and bid you use your reason to try that which has been received and held by faith alone. You will find much in the mass that is of human invention, dating from the infancy of man's mind. You will reject much that is both cumbersome and profitless. But you will find a residue that commends itself to reason, is attested by your own experience, and is derived from God. You will gather hints of what the good God destines for his creatures. You cannot get more in your present state. Sufficient that you enter on a new phase of being free from the blunders and misconceptions too rife in the present. You will see by degrees that the past is valuable principally for the light which it sheds on the present, and the glimpses which it gives you of the future.

"This, as you should know by this, is the purpose of our present work--to lead to purer and less dishonouring views of God, of life, and of progress, than have hitherto obtained among you. To this end we must first point out the errors in your creed, the human figments that have passed current for Divine truth, and the legendary fancies that have become crystallised into history, accepted by faith, but rejected by right reason. We do but require patient and honest thought on your part. Nor think that our work is all destruction. We shall be able to construct when the rubbish is removed. Till then, if we seem to be scattering destruction broadcast, bethink you that we are but gathering the rubbish in heaps, and removing it, preparatory to the erection of a nobler edifice, a holier temple to a Diviner God."

The canon of the Old Testament, and their authorship.

You said that the ancient records were not to be depended on for literal accuracy. As to the Pentateuch, is it the work of one author?

"The Books to which you refer are the compilation of the days of Ezra. They were compiled from more ancient records, which were in danger of being lost, and some parts of which had to be supplied from tradition or memory. The original records of the days previous to Ezra Rewriting the Sacred Records. Moses did not exist; and the record which you have in Genesis is partly imaginary, partly legendary, and partly the transcript of records. The account of the Creation and the story of the Deluge are legendary. The account of the Egyptian Ruler, Joseph, is transcribed from records. But in no case are the books as they now stand the work of their reputed author. They are the compilation of Ezra and his scribes, and do but embody the conceptions and legends of the period. The accounts which concern the Mosaic law are more exact, because precise records of the code were preserved as sacred books, and from thence the particulars were drawn up. We mention this to avoid at once the necessity of replying to any texts from these books which may be quoted as an argument. The records themselves are not of literal accuracy--in the earlier portions not to be relied on at all, and in the later, only where they refer to that part of the Mosaic record which was preserved."

Imaginary, you say.

"It was necessary to supply lost books, and what was drawn up was from memory or legend."

[Following up the investigation into the nature of the Mosaic record with the new light which I had received, I detected plain traces of a gradual evolution of the idea of God, which seemed to point to the conclusion that the Pentateuch was not the work of one author, but a compilation of many legends and traditions. I inquired as to this.]

"In the investigation to which you have been directed you have arrived at correct conclusions. We have directed you to it in order that you may see how little reliance is to be placed upon isolated texts taken from books which do but embody the floating legends and traditions of an ancient people, decipherable only by those who had the key. We wish to insist on this point. The amount of credence to be placed in any statement drawn from the ancient books of your religion depends on the nature of the book from which it is taken, and on the specific nature of the utterance itself, as well as on your understanding of its true meaning. It is possible for you to select from your oldest books words which sublimely picture an elevated conception of Deity. It is possible, on the other hand, to select from other and later writings conceptions of God the most dishonouring, the most human, the most repellent. Such are they which represent the Pure and Holy One as wrestling in human form with man; as discussing with a mortal his plans for vengeance on an offending city; as a monster of cruelty and carnage, revelling in gore, and glutted with the blood of his enemies: yea, even as a man who sat at the tent door of his friend and consumed flesh of a kid and cakes of bread. You may select conceptions the most dissimilar, and no separate utterance can be of more than the individual weight judged by the rules of right reason. And even thus it behoves you to see well that you understand aright the hidden meaning which frequently underlies such passages, lest you wander from truth and err through ignorance....

"You have asked information respecting the Pentateuch. It is, as we have before hinted, the compilation by Ezra of legends and traditions which had been orally handed down from generation to generation, and which were collected by him to prevent their loss. Some parts of the Pentateuch, especially the early portion of Genesis, are mere legendary speculations collected and arranged by the scribe. Such are the Noachic and Abrahamic legends which exist in collateral forms in the sacred books of other peoples. Such, in another way, are the statements of the book Deuteronomy, which are the direct additions of Ezra's day. For the rest, the compilation was made from previous imperfect collections made in the days of Solomon and Josiah, themselves in turn records of previous legends and traditions which again had still more remote origin. In no case were they the very words of Moses; nor do they embody truth, save where, in dealing with the law, they draw their information from authentic sources.

"We shall dwell hereafter on the notion of God which pervades the early books of your Bible. Sufficient that we now point out that the mythical and legendary sources from which most of them were compiled forbid you to attribute any weight to their historical statements or moral precepts, save when they are confirmed by reasonable evidence from other sources."

[I found this communication to confirm my own researches. I thought I could trace the two sources--Elohistic and Jehovostic--from which the compiler drew his information: as in the account of the creation, Gen. i., ii. 3, compared with Gen. ii. 4--iii. 24, and in the seizure of Sarah at Gerar by Abimelech (Gen. Xx.), compared with xii. 10-19 and XXVI. I-II. I inquired if I was right.

If this was the way in which the Canon of the Old Testament was settled, I inquired how far the case was the same with the Prophecies.]

"What you have given is but an instance out of many. When you recognise the fact, you will see evidences of it all around you. The documents in question were the legendary sources of the compilation of Ezra's scribes, Elnathan and Joiarib. They were many in number, some compiled in the days of Saul, some even earlier, in the days of the Judges of Israel, and some in the days of Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah--crystallisations of the floating legends which had been orally handed down. We have already pointed out to you the true line of inspiration from Melchizedek. All prior to that is untrustworthy: and not all, indeed, that is recorded concerning the lives of the real recipients of spirit-guidance is accurate. But on the whole, the channel of Divine teaching was such as we have said.

"The books you name were all added and arranged from existing sources by Ezra's authority, save and except those which were afterwards added--those called by the names of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Haggai was concerned in the compilation of the book of Ezra, and he and Malachi finally completed the Old Testament by the addition of the later books. They, with Zechariah, were much in communion, having been the privileged attendants of Daniel when he saw his great vision and received his commission from Gabriel, the Archangel of God, the Chief of the Ministering Angels, and from Michael the Archangel, the Chief of the Hosts of the Lord against the adversaries. Of a surety Daniel the seer was a highly-favoured recipient of Divine inspiration. The great God be thanked for His mercy, and for the manifestation of His power."

Is that the vision recorded in Daniel x. ?

"That by the banks of the Hiddekel."

The same. Then selections only were chosen from the utterances of the prophets?

"Only selections, and they chiefly for some hidden meaning, which does not lie on the surface. As the open vision was about to cease, selections were made from the records of the past, and the canon was closed until the days when the voice of spirit-teaching should sound again amongst men."

You speak of Daniel as a great seer or medium. Do you know if the gift was common?

"He was a very favoured recipient of spirit power. Such became more rare as the spiritual age was about to close. But men cultivated the power more then. They valued more and knew more of spirit power and teaching."

Vast masses of trance addresses, visions, and the like, such as those preserved in the Old Testament, must have been lost?

"Assuredly. There was no need to preserve them. And many that were preserved are now excluded from your Bible."

Ideas of God in the Bible.

[A few days later (November 16th, 1873) I asked that the promised communication about the idea of God might be given.]

"We have already spoken in passing of the conception of Deity in your Bible. We desire now to draw out more clearly this fact, that the growth of the idea of God was a gradual one: that the God of Abraham was an inferior conception to the God of Job: that the cardinal truth which we have ever insisted on is manifest in your Bible even as elsewhere, viz., that God's Revelation is correlative with man's spiritual development, and that He is revealed in proportion to man's capacity.

"You have but to read, with this idea prominent to your mind, the records of the lives of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Daniel, to see that this is so. In early patriarchal times, God, the Supreme, was adored under many anthropomorphic Jacob wrestling with the Angel of the Lord. representations. The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob was superior, in the opinion of those who worshipped him under that title, but only superior, to the gods of their neighbours. The father of Abraham, as you know, worshipped strange gods, i.e. gods other than his son's God. Nay, this was invariably the case, each family having its own representative deity by which its members vowed and swore. The name given to the Supreme, Jehovah Elohim, shows you so much as that.

"Laban, too, remember, pursued and threatened Jacob for having stolen his gods. And the same patriarch collected on one occasion the images of his household gods, and hid them under an oak tree. Here you see Jehovah was, as he was constantly called, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: not the One Only God, but a family deity.

"It was only when the children of Israel grew into a nation that the idea gradually enlarged itself to that of the national God of Moses and Joshua. Even the great lawgiver, in his elevated conception of the Supreme, was not entirely emancipated from the notion of a superior God; for he says expressly that there is none like to Jehovah among the gods. And many like sentiments are to be found in the recorded sayings. Indeed, in the commandments given as the very words of the Supreme Himself, it is said that the Israelites should have no other God before Him. Read Joshua's dying address, and you will see in it too, the notion of a Superior Deity.

"It was not until the development of the nation had so far progressed as to make these anthropomorphic notions repulsive, that you find truer ideas of God becoming rife. In the prophetical and poetical books of your Bible you get far nobler conceptions of the Deity that in the earlier portions.

"This is assured. God is revealed in your Bible in many forms. Some are noble and elevated, as the books of Job and Daniel. Some are grovelling and mean, as the books which are called historical. In all you see an exemplification of the truth that God is revealed in proportion to man's capacity.

"And it was not always a progressive revelation. As master minds stood forth so was the God-idea chastened and refined. It has ever been so. It was markedly so when Jesus revealed to man His conception of the Supreme. It is so still, as, one by one, exalted spirits have found an aspiring soul to whom they could convey ideas of the Great Father, and through them shed forth a brighter beam of truth. Such have stood forth in well-nigh all your generations, and through them from time to time revealings of Deity have been vouchsafed brighter than ever were shed forth before. And an unprepared world has blinked and shielded its eyes from the unwonted glare, and has chosen the gloom, for that it was not prepared for full radiance of the Divine truth."

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