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 COFYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 

LUMINOUS BODIES 
 HERE AND HEREAFTER 
 
 (THE SHINING ONES.) 
 
 Being an Attempt to Explain the Interrelation of the 
 
 Intellectual, Celestial and Terrestial Kingdoms, 
 
 and of Man to His Maker 
 
 BY CHARLES HALLOCK, M. A. 
 Member of Washington Biological Society. 
 
 New York 
 The Metaphysical Publishing Co, 
 
 500 Fifth Avenue 
 
B3^ ca 
 
 LIBRARY of CONGRES 
 
 Two Cooies Received 
 
 MAY 19 J 906 
 
 Copyright Entry 
 
 CLASS fit XXC. No 
 
 COPY % 2 
 
 Copyright 190S 
 
 by 
 
 CHARLES HALLOCK 
 
LUMINOUS BODIES HERE AND 
 HEREAFTER 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. INVOCATION ii 
 
 II. L'ENVOY 15 
 
 III. BIOLOGY OF THE COSMOS 19 
 
 IV. VITO-MAGNETISM AND THE SOUL-AURA 27 
 V. COLOR EFFECTS OF THE EMOTIONS.... 39 
 
 VI. ELECTRICAL BODY OF THE FUTURE 
 
 LIFE , 45 
 
 VII. THE SUPREME SOURCE AND ITS PO- 
 TENTIAL AGENT 57 
 
 VIII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ETERNAL FELIC- 
 ITY , 67 
 
 IX. THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 73 
 
 X. THE UNITED PHILOSOPHIES.-. 79 
 
 XI. EVOLUTION AND THE FUTURE LIFE... 85 
 
 XII. CREDO: "ONLY BELIEVE" 93 
 
 XIII. ANTIPHONE: MAN TO HIS MAKER 99 
 
 XIV. APPENDIX: VIEWS AND OPINIONS 103 
 
I 
 
 INVOCATION 
 
Chapter I. 
 INVOCATION. 
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 
 What gives the mind its latent strength to scan, 
 And chains brute instinct at the feet of man — 
 Bids the wild comet, in its path of flame, 
 Compute its periods and declare its name — 
 With deathless radiance decks historic page, 
 And wakes the treasures of a buried age? 
 Majestic science from his cloistered shrine, 
 Heard, and replied — "this godlike power is mine." 
 "Oh, then," said man, "my troubled spirit lead, 
 Which feels its weakness and deplores its need. 
 Come and the shadowy vale of death illume, 
 Show sin a pardon, and disarm the tomb." 
 High o'er his ponderous tomes his hand he raised, 
 His proud brow kindling as the suppliant gazed 
 "With ignorance I war and hoary time, 
 Who wreck with vandal rage my works sublime — 
 What can I more ? Dismiss your idle pain, 
 Your search is fruitless and your labor vain." 
 But from the cell where long she dwelt apart, 
 Her silent temple in the contrite heart, 
 Religion came, and where proud science failed, 
 She bent her knee to earth, and with her sire 
 prevailed. Sigourney. 
 
 ii 
 
II 
 
 L'ENVOY 
 
Chapter II. 
 L'ENVOY. 
 
 My thesis is built upon Dr. Henry Raymond Roger's 
 "Theory of the Great Physical Forces," elucidated by 
 Sir Oliver Lodge's "Corpuscle Theory of the Uni- 
 verse." It is an attempt to explain the inter-relation 
 of the Terrestial, Celestial and Intellectual Kingdoms, 
 and Man's Oneness with His Maker. 
 
 The success of the essay does not by any means 
 depend upon establishing its hypotheses, but rather 
 upon reconciling the divine with the human by leading 
 man to recognize the eternal harmony between all 
 things existing. Intrinsically it is written in the spirit 
 of the "Lay Church," whose object as pronounced is 
 to bring to life religious forces which now lie dor- 
 mant, to define a common ground which will satisfy all 
 creeds, and to awaken such an interest in the life 
 to come as will stimulate an effort for righteousness 
 which will pass current hereafter. 
 
 My view of the future life deprecates any doctrine 
 of carnal or material limitations. I consider all argu- 
 ments against immortality as narrow, abject, and 
 founded on sensuous auto-suggestion which is a fun- 
 goid growth from a mentally morbid state. Pseudo 
 philosophers ignore the truth, while assuming to be in 
 search of the truth. They are playing at blind man's 
 
16 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 buff. Whosoever spurns the Scriptures as "folk-lore" 
 and fable, shuts off testimony which cannot be obtained 
 elsewhere. "The testimony of the Lord is sure, and 
 giveth wisdom to the simple." Psalms. 
 
 The hypothesis of an electrical soul envelope in the 
 future existence is original with me as far as I know. 
 I claim discovery of the new thought. The proposition 
 is bold ; for who can penetrate the veil ? It can, in the 
 nature of man's relation to his Maker, be no more 
 than a suggestion. I present it according to the light 
 I have gathered from the discoveries of science and 
 the declarations of Holy Writ. Some chapters have 
 appeared during the past seven years in the Open 
 Court, the Wiseman and in the Menorah Monthly, and 
 been favorably received and discussed. 1 certainly 
 could never have accomplished such a profound intro- 
 spection without spiritual light and Biblical reference. 
 Thereby, I have been able to write intelligently and 
 plausibly, "not as a scribe, but as one having authority." 
 
Ill 
 
 BIOLOGY OF THE COSMOS 
 
Chapter III. 
 BIOLOGY OF THE COSMOS. 
 
 The motion of the heavens is in the universe of 
 corporeal things as the motion of the heart is in 
 an animal, by which the life is preserved. Like- 
 wise there is in the relation which any sort of motion 
 in Nature bears to natural objects a certain resem- 
 blance to vital operation. Whence if the v/hole cor- 
 poreal universe were one animal, so that this motion 
 were intrinsically derived from that which moves, as 
 some suppose (this was the opinion of Pythagoras 
 and particularly of Zeno, who defined the world as 
 a spherical animal swimming in a vacuum), it would 
 follow that motion was the life of all natural bodies. 
 — St. Thomas of Aquin {13th Century) in his 
 Summa Theologica, First Book, first part, question 
 xviii, article 1, answer to first objection. 
 
 The subtile principle of life pervades the Universe. 
 It permeates its comminuted parts as well as the inte- 
 gral whole. It pertains no less to the incipient spore 
 than to the mature and ultimately developed growth. 
 It is manifest in all organic matter, whether it be of 
 plant or animal, from the so-called protoplasm to super- 
 lative man. 
 
 Primarily the Earth was a chaotic embryo, or cell, 
 without form and void, like all other protoplasmic 
 germs. Invested with the principle of life, it became 
 a World. By the same creative agency, Man was 
 formed of the cosmic dust; and after he had likewise 
 received the breath of life, he became "a living soul." 
 
 19 
 
20 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 All cosmic material is identical whether it be in the 
 form of animals, plants or stones. No matter what 
 metamorphosis matter may take, or however it may- 
 disintegrate or decay, the inherent principle of life 
 remains undisturbed, and will continue and proceed. 
 Wherefore there is substantially no death; that is, no 
 literal ceasing to exist, and there never can be, for 
 death is merely an incident to a metamorphosis. In- 
 trinsically, it is a temporary suspension of animation. 
 
 Unity in nature is everywhere apparent. The prim- 
 ordial unit, as well as its parts, parasites, projections, 
 and emanations, are all alike subject to the same 
 courses and the same destiny. All are involved in a 
 common fate. Ultimately they will be changed. This is 
 the universal testimony throughout all the ages. Bibli- 
 cal cosmogony teaches it, and the proposition involves 
 its own solution. There is no incoherency in the plan of 
 creation. There is a manifest oneness of purpose, one 
 entity, one systematic design, and one uniform ten- 
 dency. Logically, if all created things are "of the earth, 
 earthy," and the principle of life imbues all, the Cosmos 
 itself is as much an organic entity as any living thing 
 within it or of it, and we may as properly speak of the 
 biology of the Earth as of the biology of Man, out of 
 whose dust he was formed. Recognizing our kinship 
 with Mother Earth, of which the psalmists and poets 
 have so much delighted to speak, we practically admit 
 homogeneity of substance — a conclusion which enables 
 us not only to reconcile Biblical testimony with modern 
 science, but to show that it is right in line with scientific 
 evidence. 
 
 The tendency of the human mind has alwavs been, 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 21 
 
 from earliest historical time, toward a recognition of a 
 terrestrial personality. At one period, Cosmolatry or 
 Earth worship was widely prevalent. Not only were 
 human but divine attributes ascribed to the Cosmos, 
 and men even went so far as to sacrifice their own kin- 
 dred as propitiatory offerings to it. The personification 
 of the Earth and its most attractive objects, have af- 
 forded a constant theme for poets and inspired writers, 
 who never tire of allegorical reference to the relation- 
 ship of mankind to it and them. The sublimest lan- 
 guage of the Psalms is embodied in an apostrophe to 
 the hills and mountains, and an adjuration to lift up 
 their hands in praise of their Creator. 
 
 Genesis affords a concise, though graphic sketch of 
 the evolution of the Earth from its protoplasmic state 
 throughout its six first great formative epochs. The 
 developments which have since taken place to bring it 
 to its present perfection of fitness and beauty, have 
 been remarkable, and startling phenomena have come 
 even within the range of recent history. Scripture tra- 
 dition says it was originally "without form and void." 
 The ancient Greeks, who seem to have had about as 
 clear and correct a conception of inscrutable things as 
 modern scientists have, described it as "an egg floating 
 in the sea of chaos." In India, China and Egypt, as 
 well as in Greece, this cosmical egg (cell) was ever 
 prominent in architecture as symbolic of Creation. And 
 what physicists of any age or epoch, inspired or other- 
 wise, we may ask, have ever come nearer the truth? 
 that is, if analogies in nature are to hold good through- 
 out the entire universe. 
 
 Some eight years ago, the Biological Society of 
 
22 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 Washington listened to a lecture by Professor Seaman, 
 which illustrated in a most impressive way what might 
 be called "the principle of life." In the searching light 
 of the stereopticon we discovered an illuminated field 
 animate with marine protozoic cells, floating as it were 
 in "a sea of chaos," singly, in groups, in clusters, in 
 constellations. Imagination pictured each living germ 
 ablaze with phosphorescence, and the eye cast heaven- 
 ward, perceived them all reflected in the firmament 
 above! Venus, a shining world like ours, the earth 
 itself, Orion, the Pleiades, and the nebulous Milky-way, 
 star answering star as face answers face in a mirror; 
 some of them revolving compactly around a central 
 orb, some drifting away in scattered and erratic courses, 
 like comets, and all attracted or repelled by some great 
 controlling influence toward' or from each other, with 
 the great majority, in constant motion, changing form 
 as well as place. And the intent observer of protozoic 
 life, watching patiently and closely, and permitting no 
 iota of each life history to lapse from view, discovers 
 here and there upon the microscopic field some pro- 
 toplasmic cell, egg-shaped like the earth, putting forth 
 projections from its pulsating selvedges in the primal 
 efforts of development. After a period corrugations 
 appear upon its surfaces. Later on a muscle is devel- 
 oped in one part, and otherwhere a rib. Organs begin 
 to be defined and functions are set in motion. In the 
 course of time exquisite transformations are unfolded 
 and results appear which the wisdom of mundane sages 
 cannot comprehend or interpret. Just so the cosmical 
 cell, which was at first without form and void, and 
 erstwhile floating in the sea of chaos, with innumerable 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 23 
 
 other stellar cells and incipient worlds like it, gradually 
 developed by successive stages into a world of beauty, 
 and becomes a terrestrial physicosm. 
 
 Biology discovers that it is difficult to draw the line 
 between the animal and the vegetable kingdoms, so inti- 
 mately do they blend. Equally difficult is the demarca- 
 tion between the human and the brute creation; and 
 there are scripts in sacred history which bear witness 
 to the intussusception of the human and divine, in 
 Christ. Is it not possible to go lower as well as higher 
 and find a composite between the organic and inor- 
 ganic? What defines or separates the two? What dif- 
 ferentiates inert matter from the sentient? Scripture 
 calls this what the "breath of life." A corpse is dead 
 matter which, decaying, goes to dust. Vivified it is a 
 living creature? What are the evidences of life? Why, 
 palpable inherent heat and pulsation? Then, behold 
 them present in our Physicosm ! for cosmic physiology 
 discovers at the equator the plexus of a great circula- 
 tory system, whose pulsations are as regular as the 
 human heart-beat, with the warm arterial current flow- 
 ing outward to its polar extremities, and the colder 
 venous currents returning with the same steadfast uni- 
 formity from the antipodes; the swell of the ocean 
 conforming to the pulsation of the tides like the heaving 
 of the human bosom in respiration. The cosmic heart 
 has two auricles and two distinct arterial currents, the 
 gulf stream and the Kurosiwa ; and these arterial cur- 
 rents and all the arctic counter currents are operated 
 upon by influences which cause variations of tempera- 
 ture at the center and extremities, just as in the human 
 body ; and when the circulation is deranged the whole 
 
*4 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 body suffers. The Cosmos has the same proportions 
 of water as the human body and the same proportions 
 of organic matter ; which comprises the same chemical 
 constituents, salts, phosphates, etc. The earth has cor- 
 responding organs and functions and is subject to like 
 corporeal disorders. It has lungs, bowels, nerve cen- 
 ters, and secretory glands, with bladders, sacs and 
 pockets to retain the fluids, and vents for their dis- 
 charge. Geysers, craters, sink holes, and tunnels con- 
 stitute their connecting passages, and hot water, as- 
 phaltum, paraffine and salt solutions appear in the out- 
 flow, with foecal extrusions, intermittent or sporadic, 
 according as the body is in a normal or disordered state. 
 The earth has peristaltic action and digestion, thirst, 
 hunger, constipation, body gases, flatulence, rumblings 
 in the bowels and detonations of varying quality, inten- 
 sity and significance. It is subject to convulsions from 
 internal or external causes — from forces, magnetic, 
 dynamic, electric, capillary, etc., which are attended by 
 phenomena familiar to the every-day economy of the 
 human system. It has agues, tremors, intermittent 
 fevers, paralysis and labor pains, which, in fables, give 
 birth to mountains, and betimes to mice. Excrescences 
 crop out upon its surface, subterranean veins course 
 through it, boils afflict it, fungus grows rank upon it, 
 parasites infest it. It has absorption, respiration, ex- 
 halations, perspiration, body odors, eructations. And- 
 speaking of perspiration, only lately have physicists 
 discovered that the dew upon its surface, instead of 
 falling from the atmosphere above, was really the trans- 
 pired humor from its body. The earth has also its 
 emotions and its moods, its periods of calm and irrita- 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 25 
 
 tion, its aspects of severity and serenity, of parsimony 
 and beneficence, of beauty and gloom and melancholy. 
 So near, indeed, are the macrocosm and the microcosm 
 kin that one cannot be described except in the similitude 
 of the other, with the attributes of both in juxtaposi- 
 tion ; so that he has always been deemed the most ex- 
 alted poet who could merge, transpose and blend their 
 personalities in metaphor and trope. 
 
 The structural anatomy of the Cosmos is not appar- 
 ent on its surface, no more than that of the echinoderm, 
 which it much resembles in shape and general appear- 
 ance, the principal part of its framework and internal 
 economy being hidden within a calcareous envelope. 
 The ancients sometimes likened it to a tortoise, which 
 is not an unfit comparison, though the ovate egg, typi- 
 fied in the echinus, is much nearer in similitude and fact. 
 At the Paris exposition there was a terrestrial globe, 
 forty feet in diameter, scaled to proportions of one- 
 millionth. Upon its surface the ravines and canyons 
 appear like etchings, and the continental mountain 
 ranges of the rock-ribbed earth are shown in mean 
 projection about five inches high, representing an aver- 
 age elevation of 2,250 feet, the serrations of the loftier 
 peaks answering the spinal processes, or more nearly 
 to the ambulacral zones, which rib the body walls of 
 the trepang in longitudinal series. The coincidence in 
 number and position of these ridges is noticeable, there 
 being five in each. The ridges or ribs greatly strength- 
 en the crust or envelope of the terrestrial cells, while 
 the greater width and depth of the ocean hollows per- 
 mit easy flexures in the adjustment of the ever chang- 
 ing crust. Through the fissures which are constantly 
 
26 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 occurring in the process of shrinkages, the sea water 
 pours into the interior of the globe, and being heated 
 there by inherent caloric, reappears in the form of ther- 
 mal ejections and insensible perspiration, which gath- 
 ering volume by accumulation and precipitation are 
 again returned to the ocean to promote the circulation. 
 Analogy might be pursued further, with perhaps in- 
 creasing interest, but so far it will suffice. It would 
 seem as if the earth and man had a common origin 
 and a common end. Theology and science both agree 
 that the end must be destruction and death, in the 
 constituted order of things; and as the seed cannot 
 germinate and live except it die, so through death will 
 come metamorphoses and a reconstruction. Man and 
 earth return to dust, disintegrated but not annihilated. 
 Eventually they must enter upon a new cycle of devel- 
 opment, newly created and born again, materially, just 
 as progressive man must be reborn spiritually. Whence 
 the vivifying spark? Was is not "in the beginning?" 
 Was it not inherent in the principle of life ? Now, life 
 is knowledge, the germ of life is intelligence; and 
 knowledge is intelligence in graduated stages of devel- 
 opment. When fully developed it becomes omniscience. 
 Omniscience fills the universe and controls it. The soul 
 of man is the spiritual reflection of the principle of life. 
 It is progressing gradually toward the supreme climax 
 of omniscience, and the earth is gradually advancing 
 toward the equally indefinable status or condition 
 known as heaven. This is the biology of the cosmos. 
 The principle of life fills the earth as omniscience fills 
 the universe, and the one is subject to the other.* 
 
 * Menorah Monthly, June, 1898. 
 
IV 
 
 VITO-MAGNETISM AND THE 
 SOUL-AURA 
 
Chapter IV. 
 
 VITO-MAGNETISM AND THE SOUL-AURA. 
 
 Away back in the ages past, before the days of 
 Abraham, when Egyptian civilization and transcen- 
 dental philosophy were at their climax, astrologers 
 were wont to hint vaguely at astral bodies and soul 
 luminosity. Perhaps it was not then a new thought? 
 Because, in all the world's literature, from the gen- 
 esis of man to date, in mythology and the sacred 
 books, and in revelations, all celestial beings, from the 
 God head to the angels, have ever been represented 
 as "bright and shining ones." Everywhere the in- 
 grained conception of saints in glory is that they are 
 creatures of light, walking in light that needs no sun, 
 and reflecting the light of the Supreme Source, "in 
 whose light we see light." And whenever special in- 
 sight has been vouchsafed into the spiritual arcanum 
 to those who have been gifted to see, to the apostles, 
 prophets, saints, and seers, the visions have ever been 
 of dazzling brightness, often too intense for human 
 eyes to bear. And what perhaps is as remarkable as 
 the manifestations themselves is, that in both the book 
 of Daniel (12:3) and in the gospel of St. Matthew 
 (13:43), ages apart, the declaration is made that this 
 luminosity will be the distinguishing feature of saints 
 in the future life. 
 
 29 
 
30 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 Surely these metaphors and illusions are not mean- 
 ingless? They are nothing if not practical. 
 
 And now human curiosity and inductive science step 
 in to inquire what produces this luminosity? what 
 vital element enters into its composition? But who 
 knows? Did Christ Himself reveal? All that we 
 actually do know is, that "when He doth appear, we 
 shall be like Him." Nevertheless, in view of Biblical 
 hints and intimations, not to say actual revelations, 
 and the scientific facts that so many terrestial organ- 
 isms in all the kingdoms are luminous, is it not reason- 
 able to assume, by analogy, that the astral body or soul 
 envelope of the future spiritual life will be electrical? 
 especially as science is able to demonstrate that elec- 
 tricity lights the universe, pervades all matter, ani- 
 mates all created forms, keeps the solar systems in mo- 
 tion, and holds them in their places ? 
 
 The testimony of Professor C. F. Holder's book en- 
 titled "Living Lights," is extremely valuable to those 
 who endorse the "Electrical Theory of the Universe" 
 (first promulgated twenty-five years ago by Dr. Henry 
 Raymond Rogers, of Dunkirk, N. Y.), because it 
 shows what a very large proportion of the world's 
 living organisms are invested with the faculty of 
 luminosity. The specimens examined and scientifically 
 classified comprise several hundred forms of marine, 
 vegetable and animal species, including birds like the 
 night heron, and even man himself, several instances 
 of luminosity in human beings having been observed 
 in modern times, and quoted. 
 
 No well informed naturalist will claim that these 
 constitute even a small percentage of organisms so 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 31 
 
 gifted, or of those likely to be discovered hereafter. 
 By applied stimulation, not always of friction, the 
 operator is able to develop this power at will in a great 
 number of other organisms in a startling and visible 
 manner; and furthermore, it is often made manifest in 
 unexpected ways which Science has not been able to 
 explain, but which unfortunately, are generally dis- 
 credited because charlatans have made use of legerde- 
 main to imitate natural and authentic phenomena. 
 
 Fortunately for the success of Dr. Roger's original 
 proposition, the theory of Sir Oliver Lodge, promul- 
 gated some fifteen years ago, that all matter is electric 
 in nature, is most helpful and satisfactory. Scientifi- 
 cally stated {Electrical World and Engineer) : "The 
 electronic charge carried by the corpuscle is regarded 
 as the corpuscle itself. That is to say, instead of as* 
 suming a nucleus or core of matter to carry the elec- 
 tronic charge, the charge * * * is regarded as the 
 corpuscle. All matter is assumed to be built upon these 
 electronic charges or electrons, which are both nega- 
 tive and positive. A hydrogen atom is supposed to 
 contain about 700 of these electrons. A mercury atom 
 is reckoned to have 200 x 700 or 140,000 electrons all 
 stowed away inside * * * One might suppose 
 that they are tightly packed? But, on the contrary, 
 since the diameter of the electron, to account for its 
 inertia, has to be 10.15 meters, or the millionth of a 
 bicron, there is so much elbow-room for the 140,000 
 supposed inhabitants of the mercury atom that they are 
 roughly as distant from each other relatively to their 
 size, as are the planets in our solar system * * * 
 [The all-containing and boundless system of the Uni- 
 
32 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 verse is repeated in the infinitesimal and inappreciable 
 atom.] 
 
 "The electrons perform orbits inside these little 
 spheres, but the place which our sun occupies in our 
 visible planetary system seems to be vacant in these 
 atomic systems. According to the hypothesis, the elec- 
 trons do not swing about a grand central electron, 
 but about one another. The difference between one 
 kind of matter and another lies in the physical and 
 chemical properties of the atom; but the difference 
 between the atoms is merely due to the difference in 
 groupings of electrons." 
 
 The Lodge theory means that all matter down to the 
 ultimate corpuscle is electricity. But this potential 
 agent which emanates from the Supreme Source is a 
 substance more subtile than matter. It is like the ether 
 which composes the "outer darkness," so frequently 
 mentioned in the Scriptures. It has been called a 
 fluid, "electric fluid." Of it the Heavens and Earth 
 are made, in modified, combined, adjusted and related 
 parts and proportions. In the language of Sir Oliver 
 Lodge, "All chemical affinity is traced to aggregations 
 of electrons or atoms, with odd or unbalanced elec- 
 trons, either positive or negative. Chemical union is 
 the result of the attraction of such unsatisfied electric 
 charges on different atoms for one another. Cohesion 
 is a less locally powerful, but more extended, electric 
 attraction of groups of electrons in mutual linkage 
 or satisfaction. Cohesion, in the electric sense, as in 
 wireless telegraphy, is the artificially enhanced mole- 
 cular attraction due to electric stimulus and the mo- 
 mentary inductive displacement of groups of electrons." 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 33 
 
 This same inscrutable agent of the divine omnipo- 
 tence finds visible expression alike through nature's 
 minutest forms and its most stupendous operations. 
 It glows with mystic light in the coral polyps which 
 illuminates the ocean, and in the mycelium of fungi 
 (diatoms), which cause luminosity in decayed wood 
 and mines and caves. This so-called phosphorescence 
 is not constant. It depends upon the weather and 
 the temperature, and is always associated with at- 
 mospheric conditions that are attended with electrical 
 phenomena. It has at times been manifested supremely 
 in luminous fogs, luminous showers, in snow and ice 
 and sleet, in hail stones which gleamed like diamonds 
 and were shattered into phosphorescent spray when 
 they struck the earth, in the aurora borealis, in the ice 
 blink of the frozen oceans, in cosmic dust, which has 
 pervaded one-third of the heavens at once. It is seen 
 on gleaming mountain tops, and it rolls up from the sea 
 in great waves of light, so bright that newspaper print 
 has been read by it, and it paints the surface of the 
 southern oceans in kaleidoscopic colors (the varicol- 
 ored surface of equatorial and sub-tropical seas is 
 caused by some coral polyps which are phosphores- 
 cent*), of pink, green, purple and amber, like the 
 tints of an abelone shell. It clings in globes of St. 
 Elmo's fire (corposants) to the yard-arms of vessels, 
 and it plays at Will O'the Wisp in fens and morasses. 
 It is prominent in muscle activity; and according to 
 eminent medical authority, even the process of diges- 
 tion is electrical. As a test of this assumption, Dr. 
 Albert G. Atkins, of the California Medical College, 
 
 * Prof. C. F. Holder. 
 
34 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 "passed a specially prepared electrode into the stomach 
 of a healthy man by having him swallow it, and con- 
 nected a wire with a galvanometer, which possesses 
 a sensitive needle that is affected by an electric current. 
 As soon as the electrode came in contact with the walls 
 of the stomach the needle moved and showed ten milli- 
 volts of direct electrical current." 
 
 We are penetrating far into the Occult when we dis- 
 cover that animal luminosity is the outcome and ex- 
 pression, in many cases, of mental emotions ; and that 
 it varies in color and intensity and duration according 
 to the mood or temper of the subject This sensibility 
 is strikingly manifested in the Sialis, a seaworm of 
 Bermuda, which, during the wooing period in August, 
 glows with luminosity all over its body, changing 
 from yellow to orange, red and crimson, according to 
 its varying moods. It is vividly manifested in the scar- 
 let crests of the grouse family in the breeding season, 
 especially in turkeys, and also in their daily amatory 
 moods ; and it is alike indicative in the red spots and 
 heightened colors of most of the salmonidae at such 
 times, an explanation of which has long been sought 
 by anglers and ichthyologists. It is like the halos 
 which play about the heads of saints in medieval 
 paintings to indicate their godliness : like the blushes 
 which betray the love-lorn maiden to her swain: like 
 the scarlet of anger and the pallor of fear. 
 
 According to the Soul-Aura Cult, which is as old 
 as Oriental astrology, but has been recently revived, 
 every human body is constantly emitting a luminous 
 substance of an electrical character, technically termed 
 the "aura," which is visible to such persons as have 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 35 
 
 been educated to the higher plane of soul vision, and 
 indicates in varying colors and shades the emotions, 
 thoughts and impulses of the subject; the orange of 
 pride, the green of jealousy or deceit, the gray of 
 depression, the dark red of the sensualist, the lavender 
 of maternal love, the blue-gray of a noble ideal, etc. 
 According to well known leaders of the Cult, there are 
 some twenty-five indicative single shades or tints, 
 besides many combinations or modifications; all of 
 them indices of the relation which the psychic part of 
 man has to the physical. Now in common philosophy, 
 if these phenomena are capable of scientific proof, and 
 it can be shown that they are electrical, what is there to 
 challenge the hypothesis of a soul envelope in the 
 future life which shall be all aura? If some human 
 organisms are so surcharged with electricity as to be 
 luminous in this life or to readily light a gas jet when 
 the terminal nerves are excited by friction, or whose 
 hair will at times stand out like iron fillings on a mag- 
 net, what logic can militate against a more powerful 
 investment in the body that is to be? If God is "light 
 of light" and His chosen inheritance are to be "like 
 Him," by what more simple or direct process can they 
 be adapted for the Celestial Kingdom, which to the 
 writer's mind is presumably a substantial actual place 
 of intellectual activity, where each individual cor- 
 puscle in this inscrutable and illimitable system spirit- 
 ually endowed and divinely directed, works out his al- 
 lotted mission as a ministering angel of "flaming fire," 
 whose prototypes are recognized in Gabriel, Michael 
 and Ithuriel. 
 
V 
 COLOR EFFECTS OF THE EMOTIONS 
 
Chapter V. 
 COLOR EFFECTS OF THE EMOTIONS. 
 
 One very interesting problem is the ability of many 
 fishes and reptiles and hairless naked creatures to 
 adapt their normal body color to environment. I do 
 not refer to the gradual changes (apsotochroma- 
 tism) in the feathers of birds and pelage of animals 
 from natural causes as the result of growth, moulting, 
 age and the like, nor to any extraneous causes, or ex- 
 ternal irritations, like boiling, which causes crustaceans 
 and some fishes to turn red ; but rather to the operation 
 of the sensory nerves which cause contraction or ex- 
 pansion of the pigment cells under the epidermis. 
 
 Prof. Holder's idea, in discussing protective resem- 
 blance is that color, via the eye, causes contraction and 
 expansion of color cells, and thereby protection; the 
 proof being that blind animals do not simulate their 
 surroundings, though my own observations discover 
 that blind fishes, notably brook trout, become a velvety 
 jet black or blue black, very much like the hue of the 
 blue cat. But the darkening may come from lying in 
 shadow, whether the fish be blind or not. 
 
 To my mind no explanation is satisfactory which 
 does not admit that adaptation of body color to sur- 
 roundings is accomplished by will power in conjunc- 
 tion with vito-magnetic currents. There is no doubt 
 
 39 
 
40 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 of the ability of some human beings to blush at will, by 
 holding the breath, or to turn pale by checking the 
 heart action ; operating certain sets of muscles ; though 
 changes of color are involuntary as well, whether 
 caused by fright or emotion. 
 
 In these days of electrical discovery, we all hear a 
 good deal of vito-magnetism ; how it has positive and 
 negative poles with power to repel or attract, as in 
 any galvanic battery. Many of us have felt its mys- 
 terious influence at times very strangely in our physical 
 bodies when we have happened by chance to take seats 
 next to perfect strangers, and at once began to feel a 
 personal repugnance, or a personal attraction. In the 
 negative case we have felt uncomfortable, uneasy, and 
 perhaps apprehensive until the current was broken 
 by removal of the obnoxious stimulating presence. 
 On the other hand, pleasurable emotions are some- 
 times excited in persons even to ardor so intense as to 
 produce what is termed love at first sight. These 
 emotions are the visible expression of sensory nerves 
 operated upon by a central dynamo. It is called nerve 
 force. Vito-magnetism is often attended by luminos- 
 ity. Biologists are familiar with hundreds of forms in 
 the several organized kingdoms which have been scien- 
 tifically classed and named. Many plants and trees 
 are known which affect the compass needle at a dis- 
 tance of 30 or 40 feet, and in the case of the tropical 
 plant known to botanists as the Phytolacca electrica, 
 "a touch of a twig gives to the hand as vivid a shock 
 as that of a Ruhmkorf battery; and if the compass be 
 placed in the center of the bush the needle begins to 
 whirl." [Dr. Rogers in Sun Heat and Sun Light.] 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 41 
 
 At Rosedale, N. C, near New Berne, there is a tree 
 growing in a swamp on the Wolfenden estate which 
 no one can strike with an axe without being knocked 
 to the ground. In West Creek township, Indiana, 
 near the Kankakee marshes, there is an area of several 
 square miles which is so charged with electricity that 
 residence there is dangerous, fatalities occurring fre- 
 quently. 
 
 Ocean phosphorescence is a familiar phenomena. 
 It is known to be produced by minute living organisms, 
 but science has been slow to admit that the luminosity 
 is electrical. Sufficient demonstration of the truth 
 took place on the beach at Kittery Point, Me., in the 
 summer of 1905, following severe earthquake shocks 
 in that State and New Hampshire, when at half tide 
 "a brilliant white light, covering the whole beach rose 
 from the sand to a height of about six inches. At the 
 same time a strong sulphurous odor was emitted from 
 the same locality, it being so offensive that it was nec- 
 essary to close tightly all doors and windows of the 
 hotel. The light and odor lasted for about two hours, 
 disappearing with the full tide." 
 
 So, having discovered electricity pervades all created 
 things, we find that when concealment seems desirable 
 to a lizard, snake, fish, or molusk, through fear or ap- 
 prehension, contraction of the heart acting as a dynamo 
 stimulates an electric current which operates chem- 
 ically upon the various pigments to produce assimi- 
 lating protective colors, whereby to render it invisible. 
 After apprehension is removed the muscles relax and 
 the color returns to normal or else the creature crawls 
 out of its environment and sympathy does the rest. 
 
42 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 There is nothing more marvelous in this than there is 
 in the action of sympathetic ink. As the slight-of-hand 
 operators say : "Now you see it and now you don't see 
 it!" Thereby is really obtained a true electrotype of 
 the tints in juxtaposition, be they red, green, brown, 
 yellow, or gray. In cases of persons struck by light- 
 ning, leaf patterns from adjacent trees have often been 
 printed on their cuticle which seems to be a fairly good 
 substitute for the film of the camera. Artists have long 
 been contriving a process to transfer colored form and 
 patterns, but Nature seems still to be a little ahead. 
 
VI 
 
 THE ELECTRICAL BODY OF THE 
 FUTURE LIFE 
 
Chapter VI. 
 
 THE ELECTRICAL BODY OF THE 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 The thought that the body of the future life may be 
 electrical was suggested to the writer by the wireless 
 message and the flight of the angel Gabriel as men- 
 tioned in Daniel ix. 21. It is only a surmise. It does 
 not amount to a conviction. How can we know? It 
 is not within the mental scope of man to penetrate the 
 realm of the unknowable. If science fail to support, 
 and Bible revelation be rejected, what avenue to knowl- 
 edge is left? How can the truth be known? Reason 
 itself is shy. 
 
 At the same time it cannot be denied that Scripture 
 seems to support the postulate here presented in a start- 
 ling manner. There were a great many phenomena 
 associated with the life of Christ as recorded by the 
 Apostles which appear in evidence. 
 
 The Apostle Paul has made an imperfect attempt in 
 Cor. xv. to define the substance and nature of the spir- 
 itual body which is to traverse celestial space after its 
 transformation at the putative Resurrection; but psy- 
 chology was a crude study in Paul's days, and his expo- 
 sition does not satisfy. Modern science, however, does 
 help to explain many phenomena which were formerly 
 
 45 
 
46 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 unaccountable, or accounted as miracles, and to give 
 meaning to texts of Scripture which have hitherto 
 seemed void of significance. 
 
 During all historic time a large proportion of man- 
 kind has believed in the immortality of the soul. Since 
 Christ came many believe also in the resurrection of the 
 body. What body ? Our carnal natural body which is 
 subject to decay and corruption ? Which has been put 
 away in the grave diseased, deformed, dismembered, 
 or torn to shreds by explosions ? Christ and his disci- 
 ples say, "No." But we are told that when the final 
 call shall come "we shall all be changed." And we are 
 assured furthermore that "flesh and blood cannot in- 
 herit the kingdom of God." [This postulate is diame- 
 trically opposite to Job's idea in the Old Testament 
 times. Job xix. 26.] 
 
 Now, as man was "created in God's own image," 
 and Christ, the divine emanation, "took upon himself 
 the form of a man," and as "God is a spirit," and "his 
 angels (who were created before the world was made) 
 are they not all ministering spirits," the main split in 
 the analogy seems to consist in the fact that human 
 beings are at first mortal, and so subject to physical 
 death and dissolution, whereas the Godhead and angels, 
 archangels, seraphim, cherubim, and other celestial be- 
 ings so often spoken of in the Scriptures, are immortal. 
 But we are taught that in due time our "spirits shall 
 return to God who gave them," and then we shall be 
 like them. In what guise or substance, then, will they 
 return? The luminous transfiguration of the Saviour 
 on the Mount gives an inkling. 
 
 All the angels who have ever had intercourse with 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 47 
 
 man on earth resembled men, and we have Scripture 
 record of one hundred and thirty of their visitations in 
 Old and New Testament times ; so that their form, be- 
 havior, features, missions, and characteristics are not 
 altogether hypothetical. In the cases of Gabriel, Ra- 
 phael, Michael, and some others, their visits were so 
 frequent that their persons became familiar. Although 
 these messengers usually appeared in human form, they 
 often disguised themselves, just as Christ did during 
 his last forty days (Matt, xxviii. 3 ; Luke xxiv. 37), or 
 transformed themselves at pleasure (Mark xvi. 12). 
 Quite frequently their faces were luminous (Rev. i. 14, 
 15, 16). On occasions their effulgence was so dazzling 
 as to terrify (Matt, xxviii. 3, 4). They seemed to eat, 
 speak, taste, hear, see, feel, and assimilate food a? 
 mortals do. Three of them sat at meat with Abraham. 
 Two ate with Lot. In some instances they ordered 
 what should be served. One wrestled with Jacob, 
 showing inherent athletic strength. But they mani- 
 fested supernatural powers as well. They appeared and 
 vanished at will. Obstacles did not intercept their 
 passage or their vision. Distance did not limit their 
 flight, sight or hearing. Levitation in fire, air, and 
 water was a personal endowment. One of them 
 ascended in the flame of Manoah's altar and was not 
 consumed. They had phenomenal powers delegated 
 to them and were often employed on errands of mercy, 
 or as nuncios, or as agents of destruction, armed with 
 thunderbolts, to execute God's wrath. They seemed to 
 possess in a modified degree the divine attributes. So 
 likewise Christ ate and drank with his disciples and 
 others after his carnal body had been discarded, par- 
 
48 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 taking of bread, meat, honey, and fish at sundry times. 
 At times he changed his features so that his intimate 
 male and female associates did not recognize him 
 (Mark xvi. 12; Luke xxiv. 16, 17). He walked on the 
 water; he was caught up in the air; he appeared and 
 vanished at will. At times his face was luminous, and 
 at the transfiguration his whole body was aglow with 
 incalescence. In like phase he vanished out of their 
 sight at the last. 
 
 All this preamble is pertinent to the query: What 
 shall be our future body in life immortal ? The Scrip- 
 ture saith: "It doth not yet appear what we shall be, 
 but we shall be like Him." (1 John iii. 2.) And 
 again : "When I wake up after thy likeness, I shall be 
 satisfied with it." (Ps. xvii. 16.) Christ has said: "I 
 and the Father are one." He has repeatedly declared 
 his kinship with mankind. He assured his disciples 
 of their oneness with the Father and with himself. 
 There we argue from analogy what our body will re- 
 semble, and we may gather by the same logical process 
 what its substance will be. 
 
 Let us consider: 
 
 While the Saviour was "of the earth earthy," he was 
 subject to physical limitations. After his resurrection 
 he was exempt. His face was radiant. A halo of light 
 at times encircled his head, and on occasion "his coun- 
 tenance shone like lightning." Were not these phe- 
 nomena purely electrical? Was not his new body an 
 electrical body peculiarly adapted to the realm of infin- 
 itude ? Why not electrical ? The idea is not preposter- 
 ous. Modern science has discovered that electricity is 
 not matter. Can there not be entities which we wot not 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 49 
 
 of, so different from our own that the Saviour himself 
 would not attempt to describe them, simply because, as 
 he declared, his disciples would not comprehend; any 
 more, perhaps, than a fish (as some philosopher has 
 cited) which has known only aquatic life, can imagine 
 a species of beings living out of water and breathing 
 air? 
 
 What other substance than electricity is so subtle 
 that solid bodies present no obstacle to its passage, and 
 yet so potent that it can smash rocks to atoms ? Christ's 
 resurrected body possessed this nature. Its character 
 was manifested by the aureola which enveloped him at 
 his transfiguration and final ascension. He was elec- 
 trically luminous when he walked on the water, and the 
 sailors ''thought it was a spirit." His electrical nature 
 was manifest especially in his power of levitation. 
 The same peculiarity invested the "shining ones" who 
 sat by the Saviour's vacated tomb, and it has character- 
 ized the presence of all angels, "saints in light" (Col. i. 
 12), who appeared in visions to Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, 
 and St. John, in their spiritual seances and interviews. 
 The glare in almost every instance was blinding: its 
 effect stunning. At the Pentecost the Holy Spirit 
 showed itself in "tongues of fire." It blinded St. Paul 
 on his way to Damascus. It was present in the "She- 
 china" of the inner tabernacle, in the "pillar of fire" 
 which preceded the Isrealitish vanguard like an ignis 
 fatims in their wilderness journey, and in the Ark of 
 the Covenant. It was conspicuously manifested when 
 Nahum inadvertently put out his hand to steady the ark 
 and fell dead as if he had touched a live wire. It kin- 
 dled the wood of Elijah's altar and licked up the water 
 
50 LUMINOUS BODIES. 
 
 in its trench. It explains the transcendent glory of the 
 New Jerusalem which was beyond the power of St. 
 John to describe; it is ever present in the spectacular 
 drama of the Revelation, sometimes in brilliant corusca- 
 tions, and again accompanied by thunder and tremors. 
 Presumably it will scintillate from the "crowns of 
 glory" which are promised to the blessed. 
 
 Satan is declared to have fallen from Heaven "like 
 lightning." Lightning is not an emblem of God's 
 wrath, though it has often been used as its instrument, 
 but rather the glow of the divine beatitudes. This 
 theory of the electrical body, if accepted, makes the 
 visible phenomena of modern spiritualism possible and 
 real. It makes the hypothesis of annihilation quite as 
 possible, for lightning often consumes and leaves no 
 trace behind. An agent so potential, if wielded by a 
 Gabriel or a Raphael under divine direction, would 
 eradicate all material things as easily and completely 
 as they did Sodom and Gomorrah ; if it so pleased the 
 Almighty, rather than to exercise the divine fiat, which 
 presumably can unmake as easily as it can create. 
 
 "I am the light of the world." God said : "Let there 
 be light, and there was light." What kind of light? 
 It could not have been of the planets, for suns, moons, 
 and stars had not yet been created. Was it not elec- 
 trical light like the aurora borealis, whose displays have 
 at times within the past century lighted up a hemisphere 
 simultaneously? "His lightnings gave shine unto the 
 world." (Ps. xcvii. 4.) At creation the earth was 
 given a physical light of its own, quite irrespective of 
 the great "Light of lights." But in the future of im- 
 mortality there will be no need of the sun, "for the 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 51 
 
 Lord giveth them light." (Rev. xxv. 5.) "By his 
 light we shall see light," just as by the solar light we 
 see the sun. 
 
 The passage of man's spiritual body, the "vital 
 spark," through space in the eternal hereafter, is cer- 
 tainly not more wonderful or mysterious than the tran- 
 sit of a wireless message through the terrestrial atmos- 
 phere. That appreciable time is occupied in its passage 
 from the celestial realm to earth, or at least through the 
 domain to the stellar universe (beyond which, according 
 to Wallace, all is infinity) is evident from the divine 
 injunction to the angel Gabriel, on one occasion, to "fly 
 quickly.'' In the carnal envelope flight would be re- 
 tarded ; in vacuity the duration of electric transit would 
 probably be not appreciable. It might be as quick as 
 thought itself! But the object of an electrical body is 
 not only to facilitate transit, but to serve as a visible 
 medium of identification between those who have been 
 acquainted on earth aforetime. Our carnal faculties of 
 perception and our ever changing bodies would be un- 
 reliable factors to depend on, indeed! Any soul that 
 loves has a yearning for a visible and tangible presence. 
 Telepathy does not satisfy ; contact is desired. A living 
 soul needs a vitalized body. Electrified, the spiritual 
 body becomes the visible expression of a living soul. 
 Its audible expression has been heard in the "still small 
 voice," as well as in the thunders of Sinai ! 
 
 If mortal man on earth can conjure an electric spark, 
 give it voice, and dispatch it from continent to conti- 
 nent in three seconds, God the all-Powerful can animate 
 a "ministering spirit" of the same nature as His own 
 and make its flight instantaneous. "He maketh his 
 
52 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 ministers a flaming fire." (Ps. civ. 4.) In like man- 
 ner the human-divine being when translated can go 
 where it will. No mortal body will clog or impede its 
 passage. The law of gravitation will not confine it, but 
 its flight will annihilate time and space. Its presence 
 would be almost ubiquitous. Thereby we prove our 
 kinship with the ''Father of Lights," approximately 
 omnipresence. 
 
 "I have said, ye are gods !" 
 
 Taking this view of our oneness with the Trinity, as 
 taught by the Saviour, we get rid of the skeptic specious 
 objection that .man is too insignificant to engage the 
 special interest of a Supreme Creator who deals with 
 the infinite and illimitable ; and that the idea of a vicari- 
 ous sacrifice of the Divine Son for fallen man is prepos- 
 terous. 
 
 Is there anything more unique or improbable 
 in the assumption that the ultimate purpose of the 
 Deity in creating the universe was to subserve the pro- 
 duction of a living soul to be developed in a perishable 
 body, than there is in the scientific fact that the infini- 
 tesimal germ or protoplasm should enlarge into a crea- 
 ture so many million times its size as to be beyond 
 mental or mathematical comprehension ? 
 
 Electricity is not matter. It is a substance, an ele- 
 ment, capable of being changed into another element, 
 as has been demonstrated by eminent English scientists. 
 It pervades the whole system of created things, the air, 
 the sea, the land, objects organic and inorganic, animate 
 and inanimate, animals, plants, marine forms, insects 
 and all the rest, manifesting itself transcendently in the 
 lightning and in the aurora borealis, and extending be- 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 53 
 
 yond the confines of the universe into the unknown 
 realm of the infinite. Matter rots, decays, perishes, but 
 electricity is imperishable. 
 
 Hitherto the Creator has manifested Himself to man- 
 kind through material objects, because man is "of the 
 earth earthy," and perceives with his physical senses. 
 In his spiritual existence his faculties will be different, 
 and he will see marvelous phenomena which are not 
 perceptible now. Christ has promised this. Electricity 
 is the connecting link between the material and the im- 
 material. It is the most potent, subtle, and mysterious 
 of all palpable and impalpable media. Our carnal bod- 
 ies are already charged with it ; then why may not our 
 spiritual bodies or soul-envelopes be composed of it 
 entirely ? "As the lightning cometh out of the east and 
 shineth unto the west, even so shall the coming of the 
 Son of Man be." (Matt. xiv. 23; Job. xxvii. 2, 3, 4; 
 Job xxviii. 35 ; Ezekiel i. 13, 14; Daniel x. 6; Luke xvii. 
 24; Matt. xxiv. 27 ; Matt, xxviii. 3; Rev. iv. 5.) 
 
 Electrical phenomena are constantly occurring which 
 point toward the final consummation and explain the 
 problem of the immortal body. Suggestions to this end 
 are ever present, but our mortal comprehensions are so 
 obtuse that we fail to perceive their significance. These 
 phenomena, both in nature and invention, are marvelous 
 and inexplicable, except on the basis of my postulate, 
 but they forecast the existence which is to come. Thejc 
 are "mighty in operation." The term body implies, 
 something visible and tangible, and electricity is tran- 
 scendently palpable when applied. 
 
 If spirit or soul exist here, or anywhere, expressing 
 itself through substance other than matter, then indi- 
 
54 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 viduality and personal recognition may continue for 
 eternity; otherwise recognition would not be possible. 
 Immortality is conceivable with electricity in esse as 
 its factor.* 
 
 Open Court, 1893. 
 
VII 
 
 THE SUPREME SOURCE AND ITS 
 POTENTIAL AGENT 
 
Chapter VII. 
 
 THE SUPREME SOURCE AND 
 ITS POTENTIAL AGENT.* 
 
 The immanent presence of God is in every recorded 
 instance in the Scripture indicated by electric pheno- 
 mena ; Sinai, the Burning Bush, Horeb, the destruction 
 of the Cities of the Plain, the Transfiguration, Elijah 
 in his Fiery Chariot, the Epiphany, the Shekina, the 
 Ark of the Covenant, the Conversion of St. Paul, the 
 Ministration of Angels. So, also, all facts in modern 
 physics go far to prove that electricity plays quite as 
 important a part in nature as it ever did in any past 
 epochs. Professor Dubois-Reymond demonstrates that 
 it is immanent in muscle-activity, and Professor Au- 
 gustus Waller, of London, shows how electric fluctua- 
 tions take place so long as a substance, animal or vege- 
 table, is still alive, and that the absence of electricity 
 indicates absence of vitality. 
 
 When Benjamin Franklin first discovered that elec- 
 tricity was a potential agent, and that the lightnings 
 of the clouds and the thunderstorms were but the 
 manifestations of stupendous forces which were at 
 work inside our earth and within its atmosphere, he 
 opened up an era of discovery which has led rapidly up 
 
 * Vide Psa. 56:13; Habakkuk 3:4; Rev. 1:14, 15, 16. 
 
 57 
 
53 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 to the marvelous revelations and appliances of the pres- 
 ent period. Broadly it has been ascertained by tenta- 
 tive experiments with electricity, that it is the funda- 
 mental source of all light, heat, and power, as well as 
 of gravitation ; that by it the whole planetary system is 
 controlled, and every individual orb held in place. In- 
 duction has accomplished wonders. The field of physi- 
 cal research seems to have been remunerately traversed. 
 
 But there is an aphelion, or ultima thule, where 
 Somatologists and Theologians can unite their energies 
 in research and peradventure find a bond of co-opera- 
 tion which w,ill lead up to a conscientious recognition 
 of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe as the First 
 Great Cause, and to universal devotion and worship of 
 His Name. So be it they may be reconciled without 
 frantic appeals to Reason, or to the Prophets and Apos- 
 tles. To all true Religion, as to all true Science, the 
 Universe is an open book whose divine idiographs are 
 decipherable by systematic study. But to evolve solu- 
 tions the two must work together. Science and Faith 
 are the wings whereby the philosopher and the priest 
 can soar to a true conception of God, whom men ought 
 now to worship far more in this epoch of discovery and 
 illumination than they did in the era of so-called relig- 
 ious superstition — so little did the early philosophers 
 know of the sublimest laws of Nature, or of the Source 
 Omnipotent. 
 
 Agnostics have ever demanded demonstrations. 
 Their appeals to Reason to establish facts have been 
 most plaintive, and not without justification. Specula- 
 tive philosophy, speculative theology, and pseudo- 
 science have been the ruin of the faith. Churches 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 59 
 
 have been depleted of believers because of the obvious 
 inconsistencies which were presented. Causists are 
 eminently seekers after truth. At last we have the 
 truth. The great secrets of gravitation and of the 
 planetary courses which Newton and the Astronomers 
 guessed at but could not fathom are now made clear; 
 and Science knows and can easily demonstrate that 
 Electricity is the prime constituent of all the basic 
 elements of fire, earth, air, water, light, and mo- 
 mentum; that the Earth itself is but a big electro- 
 magnet, and all the other worlds are like unto it; co- 
 operative, co-ordinate and interdependent, and kept 
 in place and play by established electric currents con- 
 nected with one supreme great central dynamo, en- 
 abling the philosophers and astronomers to account for 
 natural phenomena which were inexplicable before. 
 The pranks of tornadoes, the recurrence of the tides, 
 the convulsions and cataclysms of the Earth, the spots 
 on the sun, the aurora borealis, the sun dogs, the water 
 spouts and parhelia, the changes of climate, all the 
 multifarious celestial and terrestial happenings which 
 amaze, delight or terrify, are accounted for with ease. 
 Indeed, the scientist of to-day can reproduce the same 
 phenomena artificially! And everywhere on the 
 habitable globe, wherever we have an electric plant 
 and lighted streets and parks, we have but a reflex of 
 the sublime planisphere of the heavens above with its 
 myriads of twinkling stars, large and small, single and 
 in clusters, some radiant and some dim, indicated in 
 vari-colored tints of white, yellow, crimson, green and 
 blue. 
 
 Each one of these celestial lamps is complementary 
 
60 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 to the rest, generating its own vito-magnetic current, 
 and so by continuous and never-ending circuit holding 
 each member of the celestial community to its ap- 
 pointed orbit, to its rotation, and to its economic 
 reciprocal relation to all the rest. Verily, the "works 
 of the Lord are mighty in operation," as the Psalmist 
 sang of old; but in his day who could understand 
 them? 
 
 By the same tokens the Scientist discovers that no 
 orbs are luminous in themselves ; that they give no in- 
 candescent heat, not even the sun itself; that they are 
 intrinsically opaque and dead, until all work together in 
 comprehensive accord to complete the order of the Uni- 
 verse in harmony with the omnipotent source of all 
 power — and of all Good. 
 
 Taxonomically, all worlds and the materials of which 
 they are composed are physically the same, with similar 
 atmospheres and homogeneous characteristics, and op- 
 erated by the same natural laws; so that a scrupulous 
 analogy would decide that they are in large part habit- 
 able and populous like our own Earth. With such con- 
 cession philosophy will be prepared to go a step farther 
 and allow that the natural law extends to the Spiritual 
 world, and that soul culture in the domain of intellect 
 is generated and promoted by correspondence and close 
 communion with the supreme source of intelligence, 
 and that "by His light we receive light." God is the 
 first great cause, and the first great cause is God.* Man 
 
 * Max Mueller, in "Chips from a German Workshop," makes the asser- 
 tion that "there is in man a faculty for correspondence with the Infinite, 
 of which the outcome is Religion. And this religion is introactive. The 
 more religious we are the more this faculty is sharpened and its scope 
 enlarged. A flash of celestial lightning should fuse in an instant and 
 forever all that is base and mean within us." 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 61 
 
 can accomplish nothing of himself. The words of the 
 Scripture are: "Without God we can do nothing." 
 Neither pole of a magnet is operative by itself. With- 
 out reciprocity the Supreme Being is as helpless to elim- 
 inate sin and depravity as Man is. Positive and 
 negative must co-operate to exert moral force, and form 
 character. Unless the circuit is established man re- 
 mains a dead wire. Is not this exact Science? 
 
 Who will gainsay that this spiritual intercourse is 
 subjectively electrical? Prayer itself is a wireless mes- 
 sage, operative only when the circuit is complete and 
 the atmosphere is fit. But between the material and 
 spiritual worlds communication cannot but be imperfect 
 and unsatisfactory, so variant and anomalous are the 
 two kingdoms. It is only when disembodied souls can 
 meet unhampered by mortal clogs that perfect inter- 
 course is possible. The two states of existence are 
 provided with different faculties and different media. 
 Here everything is material, physical. In the life be- 
 yond the grave the electrical continuity will not be 
 broken. The field will be enlarged. Transit will be 
 facilitated. The celestial community will become homo- 
 geneous. Intellectual accord will prevail. Peradven- 
 ture the bounds of the Universe may be attainable by 
 the itinerant soul in quest of knowledge ? Each minis- 
 tering spirit winging its way with the speed of a light- 
 ning flash at the divine behest, or by its own volition, 
 athwart the untracked space of the infinite ? But in this 
 astral intercourse mere telepathy between disembodied 
 spirits would be unsatisfying. To be happy the soul 
 must be invested with personality. Pure intellect or 
 mind can have no emotion, no sympathy, no love unless 
 
62 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 it is self-imbued with these attributes, like the Holy 
 Ghost. Personal contact is essential to "fulness of 
 joy." Without it intercourse would be as void as a 
 telephone message. Educated in this mundane kinder- 
 garten, with our physical senses as cues to recognition, 
 our translated spirits would naturally cling to their 
 sensuous faculties of sight, touch, and hearing, and 
 yearn for the caress of eye, and cheek, and hand. How 
 shall we be provided ? 
 
 Certainly we must be impressed by the analogue that 
 the Holy Spirit is to the Spiritual World what electric- 
 ity is to the Natural World, and that one supreme law 
 and one controlling force obtains in both? Let the 
 answer be, then, according to the logic of corollaries, 
 this great elementary principle, the magnetic fluid, 
 which fills the entire system of created things, and gov- 
 erns and binds it together, which is the essence of all 
 life, and dominates every known organism from Man 
 to the microscopic kingdom, will play its leading part in 
 the Realm of the Infinite, where limitations are un- 
 known and celerity the rule. Encysted or clothed in its 
 electrical capsule, each individual soul will at once be- 
 come visible through its luminosity, and palpable by its 
 vital force, and audible by its sound, and so become 
 recognizable instanter among its fellows. Accomplish- 
 ment of effort will be instantaneous. To will and to do 
 will be simultaneous. In this attribute, at least, we shall 
 be "like him," measurably omnipresent. Thus endowed 
 the errant soul will be able to make its choice of way 
 stations or abiding places, in this planet or that, in the 
 course of its itinerary, and this it will do according to 
 its predilections or its mortal training, and according 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 63 
 
 to the character it formed in the sublunary probation, 
 whether it were good or bad. So will the future exist- 
 ence be happy or miserable, as one makes it. Kindred 
 spirits or affinities will flock together. Personal gods 
 and personal devils will have their locum tenens respec- 
 tively. Souls termed lost will lapse into the "outer 
 darkness," named in the Scriptures, which fills the in- 
 terstellar place, while the blessed will find congenial 
 homes in "mansions" previously secured to them. 
 There is no hell place for sinners. Sin inexorably and 
 inevitably works out its own punishment; as the elect 
 work out their own salvation. Penitence and compunc- 
 tion will happily reverse the situation at any time for 
 souls termed lost, for they will be always free-will 
 agents. Penitence sets the moral force in motion, and 
 the dead wire becomes a live conductor. Redemption 
 follows. It may remain dead forever, and that is eter- 
 nal punishment. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF ETERNAL 
 FELICITY 
 
Chapter VIII. 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF ETERNAL FELICITY. 
 
 God is love. The Scriptures declare it. We have an 
 assurance of God's regard and fidelity, and of our at- 
 tainable good fortune, when we read Christ's words: 
 
 "Father, I will that those whom Thou hast given me 
 may be with me where I am." 
 
 It is the nature of all lovers to wish to be near the 
 ones loved, and of those who love wisely to be forever 
 joined. It is the burden of every prayer which goes up 
 from the bedside where love kneels in behalf of those 
 upon whom the shadow of death has fallen : "I will that 
 those whom Thou hast given me may be with me where 
 I am." We would fain hold them to earth while we 
 remain, and so beg God to spare them for the nonce. 
 As this same shadow of death is on us all the time, 
 though we do not realize it, let us hasten to reciprocate 
 the divine love, so that we may keep company together 
 eternally. Not only religious teaching, but every in- 
 stinct of the human heart assures us that God is su- 
 premely good; and what is goodness but a phase of 
 love ? It is this belief of mankind in infinite goodness 
 or regard, combined with infinite power, and spread 
 thickly with mercy, which inspires our hearts with the 
 inextinguishable hope of immortal life, which the at- 
 tested resurrection of Jesus Christ confirms. But for 
 
 67 
 
68 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 this even, the future would be all uncertainty, even as 
 it was with Job. 
 
 Logically, if we believe in the eternal love of God, 
 the resurrection of Christ from the dead, so far from 
 seeming an improbability, with presumptions against 
 it, will be in line with what we expect; that is, in the 
 direction of immortality. Without this belief, no 
 amount of historical evidence can convince, "even 
 though one rose from the dead." 
 
 Prof. Motley declares that men do not believe a thing 
 on the strength of external evidence alone. The Sci- 
 entists say differently. But we believe that eternal love 
 has bestowed eternal life, and that we are not to die 
 as the beasts that perish; creatures which modern 
 psychology tries to prove by object lessons are in some 
 respects intellectually superior to men, and that we are 
 all simply grade creatures fashioned alike but with 
 generic differences. 
 
 Sad that man, who was made in the divine image, 
 should go back on his Creator in so gross a fashion ! 
 By such token fellowship with God is out of the ques- 
 tion — drops out of the equation — and man's spiritual 
 ostracism is a foregone certainty. There must be sym- 
 pathy with affinity before we are mentally fitted to ac- 
 cept the external evidences of the Great First Cause 
 as manifested in Christ and in the works of nature. 
 To quote the Rev. Bishop Greer : "If Columbus had 
 not had in himself the spirit of discovery he never 
 would have noticed the evidences around his vessel, 
 which he did, of a nearby continent yet unrevealed" ; 
 so it is only when we have that spirit of eternal love 
 in our hearts, which reaches out to meet and recipro- 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 69 
 
 cate the divine projection, that we can appreciate ex- 
 ternal evidences at their full value, and so are impelled 
 to believe that eternal love has given eternal life. 
 
 It has been asserted with too much dogmatism that 
 "apart from the resurrection of Jesus Christ there is 
 no firm basis for faith." If this were so, what of the 
 prophets and saints of old? If this assumption be true, 
 what hope of immortality stood for the world before 
 the propitiation came? In the Psalms it is enjoined 
 no less than seventy times to "trust in the Lord," whose 
 mercy is as broad as the East is from the West. "Thou 
 shalt give him everlasting felicity. And why ? Because 
 he putteth his trust in the Lord, whose mercy shall 
 not miscarry" (Psalms 81 :6y) . 
 
 This earthly life, if properly lived, is an enviable 
 state and a happy one. It is glorious to exist, simply 
 to be alive and well. It is meet and good to live. But 
 how much sweeter and better when we know that the 
 end of life which men call death will be merely a let- 
 ting go of that which we can no longer hold — a cast- 
 ing off of what can no longer serve us — to exchange 
 for the joyous fulness of a more abundant life. It is 
 only in the light of our eternal hope that we can in- 
 terpret ourselves and know what we really are and 
 what we really mean. 
 
IX 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 
 
Chapter IX. 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 
 
 Christ taught it to His disciples to the best of their 
 comprehension. But they did not fuly understand 
 Him, and He told them so. He said, "I talk to you in 
 parables. There are many things which I have to im- 
 part, but ye cannot bear them now." He did not at- 
 tempt to discuss the theology of religion. He preached 
 unity of faith and of doctrine, and deplored sectarian- 
 ism. He warned His followers against the formula 
 of perfunctory religion, just as in the time of the old 
 prophets the sacrifice of bulls and goats was enjoined 
 as not the true sacrifice which God required — rather 
 a contrite heart and a correct walk. 
 
 Original sin is the wilful purpose to get rid of re- 
 sponsibility. When the "first parents" chose to set up 
 a law unto themselves they accomplished their inde- 
 pendence, but severed the connection between them- 
 selves and the Supreme Source. The dynamic circuit 
 was broken and the wire burned out, the incandesence 
 appearing in a blaze of electricity, which bore the per- 
 sonal outline of an angel with a flaming sword. This 
 was the first historical appearance of a ministering 
 spirit in an electrical garb. The result of this broken 
 magnetic circuit was punishment, trials, discomforts, 
 disturbed conscience, and moral degradation, com- 
 
 73 
 
74 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 bined with an unceasing effort to substitute artificial 
 and low-down carnal pleasures for the spiritual com- 
 fort and true happiness which always accompanies a 
 normal connection between a soul and its God. "By 
 thy light we shall see light." This is the divine light 
 which is from Everlasting. It emanated from the Su- 
 preme Source long before suns and moons and planets 
 were made. These orbs constitute the electric plant of 
 the Universe — the entire system of created things. In 
 due course of time they became fitted for living crea- 
 tures, man included; and all would have eternal life 
 but for man's disobedience. This is the Scriptural 
 transliteration which has become intelligible to Reason 
 only since man's psycho-electric relation to the Su- 
 preme Source has been scientifically discovered. 
 
 Religion has always been fed on superstition. Tra- 
 dition since the "Fall" has resulted in myths and alle- 
 gories, folklore, dogmas, doctrine, rituals, and a per- 
 verted theology, which has taught the necessity of con- 
 ciliating the wrath of an offended God by all sorts of 
 penances and personal sacrifices, instead of confessing 
 our sins, and by penitence and sincere efforts to amend 
 to make ourselves acceptable to Him, reconciling our- 
 selves to Him. This latter process is Religion, and 
 the knowledge how to retain it, and so re-establish the 
 spiritual connection once summarily broken, is what is 
 denominated The Truth. This truth will make us 
 "free." 
 
 Now it is a startling anomaly that man who is born 
 a free-will agent, and can control his own destiny by 
 simply "pressing the button," figuratively speaking, is 
 the most abject slave to besetting sins so long as he 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 75 
 
 continues a "dead wire." In his alienation or dissocia- 
 tion from the Supreme Being he either pettishly curses 
 his Maker for his birth and his moral responsibility, 
 or he attempts to content himself with the sensual 
 vanities of his present mortal existence; which it is 
 possible to attain to repletion under favoring condi- 
 tions and intelligent exertions. "Let us eat, drink, and 
 be merry, for to-morrow we die." These are the "fools 
 who have no understanding," and "have said in their 
 hearts there is no God." 
 
 Now, to know God, is to believe in Him. As soon 
 as this belief is established, we are at one with Him, 
 and the problem of how to attain eternal felicity is 
 solved. 
 
 There is no other key to fit it save the psycho-electric 
 hypothesis. 
 
X 
 THE UNITED PHILOSOPHIES 
 
Chapter X. 
 THE UNITED PHILOSOPHIES. 
 
 The Greeks taught the immortality of the soul, but 
 repudiated the thought of the resurrection of the body. 
 What body ? St. Paul says "the spiritual body," which 
 is according to reason the exact truth. If the carnal 
 body, the thought is distressful to those whose rela- 
 tives have died deformed or imperfect, to say nothing 
 of the dismembered multitudes and those blown to 
 atoms by explosions, or cremated, or otherwise physi- 
 cally disposed of. If the resurrection is of a trans- 
 formed body, then it is not the same body. If it is a 
 physical body, and the "new earth" is to be a material 
 earth, then we are to have food, digestion, assimila- 
 tion, growth, decline, decay, and death again! repeat- 
 ing the earthly seasons of seedtime and harvest. (Thou 
 hast delivered my soul from death . . . that I 
 may walk before God in the light of the living. Ps. 
 56:13.) If, on the other hand, we have a spiritual 
 resurrection, we are to have a spiritual body with dif- 
 ferent entity and different perceptive faculties and 
 different powers and intelligence and an envelope 
 which will help mutual recognition and serve for iden- 
 tification. I have held that body to be electrical. 
 
 Why? First, because the Scriptures of both the 
 Old and New Testaments favor that assumption when 
 
 79 
 
8o LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 alluding to manifestations of the Divine Personality. 
 In Habukuk 3 4 we read : "His brightness was the 
 light. He had rays coming forth from His hands. 
 Fiery bolts went forth at His feet"; and in Rev. 1 114, 
 15, 16, "His eyes were as a flame of fire, and His feet 
 like as if they burned in a furnace . . . and His 
 countenance as the sun shining in His strength." 
 
 The power of electrical self-illumination is known 
 to exist in all departments of the animal and vegetable 
 kingdoms, and is very largely developed in some in- 
 sects and deep sea fishes. If in these lower orders, to 
 a degree, why not to fullest intensity in the denizens 
 of the Spiritual World, even to a complete investment 
 of disembodied souls with luminous envelopes ? 
 
 When Christ was resurrected His body disappeared. 
 His disciples and friends thought they saw it after- 
 ward in the person of Christ who appeared to them at 
 different places, though it was so changed that they 
 recognized it with difficulty. This after a lapse of 
 only forty-eight hours. He appeared to them to eat, 
 and He showed them the healed marks of the nails 
 and spear in His body to assure them. But these cav- 
 ities could not have healed naturally, except by a 
 miracle, and He manifested Himself in this way be- 
 cause the disciples could not have recognized His trans- 
 formed (body without some such material helps. At 
 the same time those who interviewed Him were 
 dazzled by His luminosity, were shocked by His elec- 
 trical emanations and more or less demoralized by 
 phenomena which were not terrestrial. 
 
 My theory as published seems to reconcile and har- 
 monize all the various beliefs and speculations ; and 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 81 
 
 on it Pharisees, Sadducees, Greeks and Christian phil- 
 osophers and agnostics can all get together and agree. 
 St. Paul says that men will not have the same body 
 after death. He says they will be changed. How can 
 anything be changed and remain the same ? The prin- 
 ciple of life is the same; as it is in the grub trans- 
 formed to moth and miller, or the seed to the corn 
 in the ear; but the envelope (that is, the body) is 
 altogether different. What is life? "I am the life"; 
 the Holy Spirit. And men made in God's image will 
 be "like Him" after death. The body returns to dust, 
 and "the spirit to God who gave it." "The angels, are 
 they not all ministering spirits?" And man is made 
 but little lower than the angels. (Of course, we do 
 not select the lowest and most abject types of man- 
 kind, or the most degraded persons in a community 
 for comparison.) "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the 
 Kingdom of God." 
 
 The philosophy of those who argue for a reformed 
 physical body is not comforting or encouraging. Are 
 we who are now hampered by mortal clogs to be so 
 restricted in the future life that we shall be confined 
 to one abiding place as now? and have no chance or 
 means to explore the Universe that we may thereby 
 acquire that fulness of knowledge which approximates 
 to omniscience and become "like Him" in that respect? 
 Another attribute of Diety is omnipresence, and man- 
 kind makes every effort to imitate or acquire it, risk- 
 ing life continually to overcome or annihilate time, 
 space and distance. The more we gain in this accom- 
 plishment the more we become "like Him" here. In 
 the Spiritual World all physical disabilities are re- 
 
82 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 moved. All arguments in favor of a flesh and blood 
 body in the future life are in favor of the limitations. 
 This is not according to the promise. The promise is 
 that the spirit shall be "free." Demarcation and limi- 
 tation are not omnipresence. 
 
XI 
 
 EVOLUTION AND THE FUTURE 
 LIFE 
 
Chapter XL 
 EVOLUTION AND THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 There is no doubt, for "the spirit within us beareth 
 witness," that the world in which mortals live is a kin- 
 dergarten or primary school from which we shall pro- 
 ceed, by metamorphosis not more strange than that 
 from worm to ephemera, to a higher life and seat of 
 learning. It is a pleasant and encouraging belief, which 
 should reconcile us to the inevitable events of death 
 and dissolution. Evolution means unfolding, develop- 
 ment, progress. Divested of scientific interpretation, 
 other than the simple theory of germination, it is a beau- 
 tiful study. Angels delight in it ; for they have spoken, 
 and their testimony is true. Nevertheless, doubt and 
 even utter disbelief in immortality has never been so 
 widespread as now, albeit the idea has possessed the 
 minds of men ever since the world's history began. 
 Dr. Joseph LeConte attributes this defection in great 
 part to mental environment; that is, to the spirit of 
 the age in which we live, and in one of the issues of 
 the And over Review, printed several years ago, gave 
 utterance to a marvelous train of thought which, as 
 quoted, runs in this wise : 
 
 "Modern science, and especially biology, seems to 
 many superficial thinkers to be nothing less than a 
 demonstration of a universal materialism. The bio- 
 
 85 
 
86 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 logical objection has two branches, namely, the physio- 
 logical branch and the evolution branch. The physio- 
 logical branch is drawn from the invariable association 
 of mental phenomena with brain-changes ; the mental 
 phenomena, moreover, varying both in degree and kind 
 with the brain-changes in such wise as apparently to 
 show a necessary relation of cause and effect. 'Thus/ 
 says the materialist, *we identify mind with matter, and 
 mental forces with material forces. Thought, emotion, 
 and will become products of the brain in the same 
 sense as bile is a product of the liver, or gastric juice 
 of the peptic glands/ The evolution branch of the 
 objection is derived from the undoubted fact of the 
 existence in animals, especially in the higher animals, 
 of psychical phenomena similar to those found in man. 
 Consciousness, intelligence, will, love, hate, fear, de- 
 sire, are plainly exhibited in animals as well as in man. 
 The difference is apparently one of degree only and 
 not of kind. If, therefore, we accord immortality to 
 the psychic nature of man, how can we consistently 
 withhold it from the higher animals? But if we ex- 
 tend it to these, then we must extend it also to the 
 lowest animals ; for the gradation among animals is 
 complete and without break. And if to these, then 
 also to the vital principle of plants; for the lowest 
 animals and plants merge into one another in such wise 
 that it is impossible to separate them sharply. Thus 
 immortality, if there be any, becomes co-extensive with 
 life. But we cannot stop even here, for vital force is 
 co-related with, transmutable into, and derivable from, 
 physical and chemical forces ; thus our boasted immor- 
 tality by continued extension, becomes thinner and thin- 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 87 
 
 ner until it finally evaporates into thin air. It becomes 
 naught else than 'conservation of energy/ and not, as 
 we hoped, conservation of self-conscious personality. 
 Such an immortality will hardly satisfy the longings of 
 the human heart. Of what value to us is a continued 
 existence in the form of heat, electricity, or some other 
 physical force? 
 
 I shall now take up successively these two ob- 
 jections, and try to remove them. I wish especi- 
 ally to show, contrary to the assertion of many modern 
 biologists, that there is betwixt the psychic nature of 
 man and that of animals, even in the highest animals, 
 a difference not only in degree, but also in kind. Sup- 
 pose I remove the skull or brain-cap of one of you 
 and expose the brain in a state of intense activity. Sup- 
 pose, farther, that my senses were infinitely perfect, so 
 that I could see, absolutely, everything going on there. 
 What would I see? Evidently, nothing but molecular 
 motions, physical and chemical, molecular vibrations or 
 agitations, chemical decompositions and recomposi- 
 tions. There would be nothing else there to be seen. 
 But you, the subject of this experiment, would observe 
 nothing of all this. Your observed experiences are 
 of a totally different order — namely, consciousness, 
 thought, desires, will. Here, then, there are two op- 
 posite kinds of phenomena occurring at the same time 
 and in the same place, but never both observed by the 
 same person, nor by the same kind of senses. By the 
 outside believer with his bodily sense are perceived 
 only physical phenomena; by the inside observer, with 
 his inner or spiritual senses, only psychical phenomena. 
 
 The relation between these two sets of phenomena 
 
SS LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 is forever inscrutable. An impression on a nerve-ter- 
 minal, a vibratory thrill along the nerve-fiber, a mole- 
 cular change of some kind in a brain-cell. This much we 
 can understand. But now there suddenly emerges, 
 how we know not, nor shall we ever be able to imagine, 
 but somehow there emerges, consciousness, thought, 
 emotion, will. A brain-cell is agitated and thought ap- 
 pears. Aladdin's lamp is rubbed, and the Genie ap- 
 pears. There is just as much intelligible relation be- 
 tween the two sets of phenomena in the one case as 
 in the other. And this, mind you, is not the result of the 
 imperfection of our science. To an absolutely perfect 
 science the mystery of this relation would be even 
 deeper than it is to us, because the two sets of phenom- 
 ena would be brought closer together, even in contact, 
 and yet their relation still remains wholly unintelligible. 
 They are of entirely different orders and cannot be 
 construed, the one in terms of the other. Every 
 thoughtful materialist frankly admits the absolute im- 
 passableness of this chasm. Here, then, we have two 
 sets of phenomena of entirely different orders : an out- 
 side set and an inside set. Here are two entirely dif- 
 ferent worlds : an outer world of sense and an inner 
 world of consciousness — a macrocosm and a micro- 
 cosm. Now — mark this — one of these, the inner world, 
 is entirely peculiar to man. To him alone psychical 
 phenomena become objects of observation. In animals 
 many of these psychical phenomena are, indeed, pres- 
 ent, but are not objects of observation. Animals, cer- 
 tainly, have no self-consciousness ; no turning of 
 thought inward in observation of self, no inside view 
 of brain-phenomena. Is there not here a whole world 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 89 
 
 of phenomena, and that, too, of the highest kind, known 
 to man alone ? Man, therefore, and man alone, lives in 
 two worlds. Is there not here an enormous difference 
 in kind? It is exactly this life in another world — 
 namely, the inner world of consciousness — which is the 
 distinguishing characteristic of spirit self-conscious- 
 ness, self-active, and, as we hope, immortal spirit. 
 
 I assume the truth of evolution, because to the 
 philosophical thinker evolution is nothing else than a 
 necessary law. It is only an extension of the law of 
 continuity, or law of causation, to forms as well as 
 phenomena. Phenomena follow one another in unbroken 
 succession, each derived from a preceding as its cause, 
 and giving origin to a succeeding as its effect. We 
 call this the law of causation, and say that it is neces- 
 sary, or axiomatic. Its opposite is unthinkable. We 
 might call it a law of derivation. So, also, organic 
 forms follow one another in unbroken succession, each 
 derived by generation from a preceding and giving 
 origin to a succeeding. We call this a law of deriva- 
 tion. We might well call it a law of causation, and say 
 that it also is necessary or axiomatic. Physical phe- 
 nomena sometimes occur of which we know not the 
 cause; but we never think to doubt that they have a 
 natural cause. For so to doubt is to impeach the valid- 
 ity of reason and to doubt the rational constitution of 
 nature. I assume also the existence of God, whether 
 personal or impersonal, it matters not for our argu- 
 ment now. I assume, farther, that a divine energy 
 pervades all nature, and constitutes what we call the 
 forces of nature; and that what we call the laws of 
 nature are naught else than the modes of operation of 
 
90 LUMINOUS BODIES. 
 
 this divine energy. As scientific thinkers, we must 
 assume this, because an anthropomorphic deity operat- 
 ing on nature from the outside, as on foreign material, 
 is incompatible with scientific thought. For science, 
 either God is immanent in nature, operating at all times 
 and in all places, or else nature operates itself and has 
 no use for any God at all. On these assumptions it 
 seems to me probable — nay, certain — that a portion of 
 this all pervasive divine energy which moves the forces 
 of nature individuated itself more and more by process 
 of evolution, until it attained complete individuality in 
 the spirit of man." 
 
 Van der Naillen does not stop with a single soul 
 transmigration. Although the body of the future life 
 is to be spiritual, the process of re-embodiment, he 
 claims, is to be repeated through all the aeons of eter- 
 nity, each spiritual body being succeeded by a more 
 brilliant one as the soul progresses through higher in- 
 tellectual courses, until finally it becomes fit for alliance 
 with the Infinite Being who governs the universe. 
 
 "But," he continues, "never does the soul, even 'thus 
 exalted,' become absorbed or lost in the infinitude of 
 God." In other words, he claims that the soul retains 
 its individuality. 
 
 After describing how the earth and all other planets 
 are regulated by the electrical force of the sun, he says : 
 
 "This is the road laid out for the human soul, and 
 this road it must pursue sooner or later, for all things 
 in existence must follow fatally the lines of force, the 
 lines of evolution, leading from the negative pole of 
 the material cosmos to the positive pole of the uni- 
 versal, the spiritual sun, or center of the pure spirit." 
 
XII 
 CREDO: "ONLY BELIEVE." 
 
Chapter XII. 
 
 CREDO : "ONLY BELIEVE." 
 
 i. I believe that the Universe is homogeneous in 
 its composition, that everything created is composed 
 of matter, dominated by a substance or fluid called 
 electricity. 
 
 2. I believe that all celestial orbs and planets, being 
 homogeneous, and of same material, are as likely to 
 be inhabited as the earth is ; because where vegetation 
 is, there animals are, and they are all "for the service 
 of rnan." 
 
 3. I believe in the corpuscle theory of Sir Oliver 
 Lodge, and of the interdependence and reciprocal cor- 
 respondence between man and his Maker; and that 
 telepathic connection is kept alive by the faculty called 
 love. 
 
 4. I believe that "love casteth out fear," and that 
 we will deplore to displease Him whom we love ; even 
 God. 
 
 5. I believe that a correct walk in life according 
 to the promptings of conscience, and the counsels of 
 the Scriptures, will be pleasing to our divine affinity, 
 whom we are enjoined to call our Heavenly Father: 
 and that those who strive to walk right will be re- 
 warded according to the promises: and I believe that 
 the reward follows promptly in this life, and will be 
 
 03 
 
94 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 extended more abundantly after the death-line is 
 crossed, and the spirit has passed "within the veil." 
 
 6. I believe that "death, which guilty men regard 
 as the most awful of penalties, is to the upright man 
 the sleep which God sends to His beloved when their 
 day's work is done." [Canon Farrar.] 
 
 7. I believe that many persons whom prejudiced 
 and uncharitable theologians call atheists are nearer 
 God than they perhaps are themselves, because they 
 are open to conviction on the evidence of facts. 
 
 8. I believe in Christ as a divine messenger es- 
 pecially sent to this planet, like the angels before Him, 
 Gabriel and Michael, to demonstrate the spiritual af- 
 finity which exists between Man and his Maker, in 
 whose "image" man is made. 
 
 9. I believe that Heaven is not only a serene mental 
 condition resulting from man's own consciousness of 
 right ("the spirit within him beareth witness"), but 
 also an actual place where the intellect is divested of 
 its carnal envelope, and receives a new body which I 
 am bold to assume is electrically luminous, effulgent 
 with the visible glow of the beatitudes. Lightnings 
 are not emblems of God's wrath, though they have 
 often been used as its efficacious instruments. They 
 are, rather, flashes of the divine effulgence. (See 
 Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, St. John.) 
 
 10. I believe that our spiritual bodies will be gifted 
 with the faculties of knowledge and locomotion ap- 
 proximating to omniscience and omnipresence ; we be- 
 ing in this respect "like Him." 
 
 11. I believe that in "that day" (whenever that 
 may be) Christ will come "as the lightning shineth 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 95 
 
 from the East to the West," and that the saints will 
 be "caught up" as electrical entities to the "place pre- 
 pared" for them. 
 
 12. And that finally becoming free from sin, and 
 servants to God (following the ethical line of direc- 
 tion) we have our fruit unto holiness (right now) and 
 the end everlasting life. 
 
 Whoever assents to these tenets need not fear 
 death. "As the tree falls, so it will lie." But woe to 
 the ungodly, they will be cast forth into the "outer 
 darkness" which fills the interstellar space. I believe 
 that the ultimate redemption of many of these is pos- 
 sible of such that have erred by thoughtlessness, lack 
 of capacity, lack of understanding, or lack of oppor- 
 tunity. It will be "more tolerable for Sodom and 
 Gomorrah than for the defiant, the base, the wilfully 
 and incorrigibly depraved." These latter may exist in- 
 definitely and unconsciously as "dead wires," so long 
 as the electric correspondence is kept shut off between 
 them and their maker. Such a condition is equivalent 
 to annihilation. 
 
XIII 
 ANTIPHONE: MAN TO HIS MAKER 
 
Chapter XIII. 
 ANTIPHONE: MAN TO HIS MAKER. 
 
 Oh, Lord! our Father! who lovest thine own and 
 gives! us abundant daily proof of that dear love in 
 constantly enlarging streams of beneficence, inspire 
 our hearts to reciprocal love for Thee, so that recog- 
 nizing these, thy tokens, we may vie with each other 
 in the effort to do what pleaseth Thee; thereby en- 
 larging our own happiness each day and hour we live ! 
 
 Thus drawn closer to Thee and sustained by the 
 Comforter whom Thou hast sent ; feeling each mo- 
 ment the tender pressure of thy sympathetic hand 
 wherever we go, we rejoice in the hope that we shall, 
 at no distant day, be one with Thee, partaking of thy 
 joy and abiding in mansions which it is declared Thou 
 has prepared for us ; walking in the way which saints 
 departed have learned to walk before us ; feeling that 
 our earthly journey onward is but an excursion through 
 devious pathways to the land of everlasting beatitudes, 
 and that its trials and distresses are but the natural 
 incidents which beset all lines of travel ; so that Ave 
 may thank Thee at our journey's end that thy kind 
 hand has guided us, and thy loving care hast guarded 
 us, and thy generous smile sustained us and made us 
 glad. 
 
 Oh, our gracious Father! in Thee we trust! The 
 hope we have had gives place to the assurance that 
 L0F6. w 
 
ioo LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 we are indeed heirs and children of the promise, and 
 that our inheritance is with the blessed, through the 
 atonement and propitiation of thy dear son, Jesus 
 Christ, whom Thou hast sent; with whom it is our 
 privilege to name Thee Father. 
 
 May we look upon all mankind as brothers for whom 
 we should pray and labor, that they too may be inspired 
 with love for Thee, and learn to walk in the way ever- 
 lasting. And may we feel it a pleasure as our bounden 
 duty to bear their soul's interests in mind throughout 
 our daily walk; teaching and encouraging by our ex- 
 ample at all times, and by injunction when opportunity 
 favors, so that we may ourselves continue the Master's 
 work which he began on earth, and thereby earn the 
 great reward which is promised to those who diligently 
 serve Thee. 
 
 Oh, thou omnipotent Creator of all mankind and 
 everything existing, and whose laws the universe obeys, 
 our times are in thy hands. To Thee we commit our 
 souls and bodies, with unwavering confidence in thy 
 mercy. Thou hast pardoned our sins which we have 
 confessed and greatly bewail. Didst Thou punish in- 
 iquity, who could stand? Be with us in the hour of 
 death, when our world's work is done, and pass us 
 comfortably over the mystical river. Bespeak for us 
 a welcome on the father shore where there is fulness 
 of joy and delectable communion with spirits of just 
 men made perfect. We ask thy favor, whatever may 
 betide, in the name of the Saviour who shed His 
 precious blood that we might live, to whom, with Thee, 
 Oh, Father, and the Holy Ghost be all honor, praise 
 and thanksgiving, now and forever. Amen! 
 
XIV 
 APPENDIX: VIEWS AND OPINIONS 
 
Chapter XIV. 
 APPENDIX : VIEWS AND OPINIONS. 
 
 From Two Brother Clergymen. 
 
 "I have read your articles with much interest, finding 
 in them much to enjoy and to ruminate upon them, but 
 nothing to antagonize. My sister Fanny and her two 
 daughters, who have been here for a week, gave good 
 attention, and, when I asked their thoughts, coolly said : 
 'Much interested, but we do not and cannot give an 
 intelligent opinion to-day.' Well, I am glad you are 
 studying out those mysteries, which, in the 'sweet bye 
 and bye' will be clear to us. Now, 'we see thro' a glass 
 darkly.' Wm. A. Hallock, D.D. 
 
 "Jamestown, New York, July 30, 1905." 
 
 "I have read your 'Supreme Source and Its Poten- 
 tial Agent,' published in the Wiseman, with interest. 
 The electrical potency of the future is fascinating — 
 not the less so because elusive. I hope you will follow 
 it up in case it opens to you still further, and some 
 sweet day you will step over where you will know — 
 enriching the other world — while impoverishing this 
 one — and becoming yourself luminous and capable of 
 that immediate and intimate fellowship which your 
 theory implies. "Leavitt H. Hallock, D.D. 
 
 "Plymouth Church, Minneapolis, Minn." 
 
 103 
 
IQ4 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 From a Poet. 
 
 "Your article in the Wiseman is very sunny and full 
 cf hope. I am deeply interested in all your advance 
 ideas along transcendental lines. It seems to me that 
 your article suggesting that the future state of the 
 'Body Is Electric' is the biggest gun that you have 
 yet fired. The human soul seems to rediscover itself 
 from time to time as the ages roll by, and come out into 
 the full light, then materialism engulfs it and we plunge 
 into darkness again and grope feebly for light. 
 
 "Much of the metaphysical discussion of to-day is 
 very old in India. For instance, all the ritual of Chris- 
 tian Science was taught in the East ages ago. Emer- 
 son, who reached the highest mark in the transcen- 
 dental school of the last century, was Brahminical in his 
 philosophy. The church is also imbibing some of the 
 new ideas, and many pulpits are preaching the more 
 vital interpretation of the all-wiseGallilean. 
 
 "Clarence Hawkes, 
 "The Blind Poet of New England. 
 
 "Hadley. Mass." 
 
 From a Railroad Official. 
 
 "Hunt and other great philosophers assert that man 
 is possessed of an intuitive knowledge, as well as the 
 knowledge which necessity has ripened, and that 
 theories which can be proved by these degrees of in- 
 telligence, are always correct. Since man has been able 
 to make known his thoughts, his intuition has caused 
 him to think of the Godhead Himself, as well as His 
 angels, as clothed in light. Mr. Hallock, possessed in 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 105 
 
 a large degree of this quality of intuition, has added 
 to it a great scientific knowledge, and his hypothesis is 
 thus based on a logical footing which commands respect 
 and is not easy to refute. If, therefore, this last work 
 of his was his only one, it is sufficient to command our 
 respect for a nature which has a faith like that of a 
 little child and an education in the workings of God's 
 wondrous ways which only a lifetime of close com- 
 munion with his works could impart. If the soul has 
 an individuality after death, certainly there is no known 
 substance, if it can be termed so, so suitable to the im- 
 agination to conceive for external housing of the soul 
 as the magical substance which is the servant of the 
 Creator in all His finest and most powerful creations. 
 He uses it to light and heat the universe, to give life 
 to all things, and to carry away the spirit soul from the 
 body in which it was incased. Why should the soul 
 discard this servant which has been loaned to it for 
 all its undertakings? 
 
 "Certainly the conception was grand whenever ap- 
 plied, and Mr. Hallock's handling of the subject, while 
 performed with that reverence which is natural to such 
 an undertaking by one who has lived so long in the 
 Light of Faith and Understanding, is still marked by 
 the stamp of Genius and true insight into the workings 
 of Divine goodness to mankind. "E. Hickson. 
 
 "Intercolonial R. R., Moncton, N. B., Canada." 
 
 From a Noted Physician. 
 
 "Of a verity, the thesis The Supreme Source and 
 Its Potential Agent' stamps its author, Mr. Charles 
 
106 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 Hallock, as a daring, advanced, original, ingenious, 
 plausible and convincing thinker with a clarity as wide 
 as the earth itself, and a disposition to meet the estab- 
 lished order of things orthodox more than half of the 
 way. Whatever individual or aggregation of individu- 
 als undertakes to disprove the reasonable, alluring and 
 convincing propositions of the author has surely grap- 
 pled with the most difficult proposition liable to present 
 itself in an aeon of time. Dr. A. J. Woodcock. 
 
 "Bryon, III." 
 
 A Letter From a College Professor. 
 
 "To the Editor of the Open Court: 
 
 "I have read with great interest the article by Mr. 
 Hallock, on 'The Body of the Future : Is It Electrical ?' 
 and also the editorial comments, in the November issue 
 of The Open Court. Permit me to ask why Mr. Hal- 
 lock's theory in its main features may not be eminently 
 reasonable, if the new view of the electrical nature of 
 matter be true? 
 
 "Authorities in physics like Sir Oliver Lodge and 
 Professor Fison, and others equally as eminent, have 
 said within a few months that the 'so-called atom,' 
 which has played such an important part in modern 
 science, 'is now displaced from its fundamental place 
 of indivisibility.' It has been divided and shown to be 
 composed of electricity. Very recent investigations 
 point to the conclusion, which these scientists are an- 
 nouncing as true, that 'the fundamental ingredient of 
 which . . . the whole matter is made up, is noth- 
 ing more nor less than electricity, in the form of an 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 107 
 
 equal number of positive and negative charges.' This 
 is the doctrine toward which the best modern scientific 
 research surely points. It will be at once seen that it 
 secures that 'unification of matter such as has through 
 all Ifoe ages been sought ; it goes much further than 
 had been hoped, for the substratum is not an unknown 
 and hypothetical protyle, but the familiar electric 
 charge.' 
 
 "If, as these authorities in physics are beginning to 
 say, the essence of matter is electricity, why may not 
 Mr. Hallock's main position, that there will be a future 
 body and that it will be electrical, be reasonable? The 
 electrical nature of matter is likely to lead to a radical 
 change in some modern scientific views, and among 
 them the conception of death and the existence of the 
 body after death. 
 
 "My main point is this : On the supposition that the 
 New Testament statements about a body after death, 
 (or the resurrection body, are true, why may not the 
 electrical theory of the nature of matter give us some 
 idea of the nature of that body and make credible some 
 passages in the New Testament that have hitherto been 
 regarded as inconsistent with what has been supposed 
 to be true of matter? 
 
 "It is announced that experiments conducted very 
 lately in England show that one form of matter, one 
 so-called original element, has been actually changed 
 into another element. Some very eminent scientists, 
 it is reported, declare that they have accomplished this 
 result. This would be in harmony with the electrical 
 nature of matter and would also have an important 
 bearing on the subject under consideration. 
 
108 LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 "It seems to me that recent discoveries in physics 
 require us to develop a very different philosophy from 
 that formulated years ago under erroneous ideas of the 
 nature of matter. Not a little dogmatic science of 
 other days will have to be abandoned, it seems to me. 
 
 H. L. Stetson. 
 
 "Kalamazoo, Mich." 
 
 From an Astronomer. 
 
 Mr. Hallock received the following interesting com- 
 munication from Prof. Edgar L. Larkin, Director of 
 the Lowe Observatory, California, a man "who con- 
 stantly looks heavenward" : 
 
 "Dear Sir: — I read your article with interest. I have 
 been writing for months in the papers that nothing 
 exists but electricity. It is a matter and may assume 
 protean forms. Of course our spiritual bodies are 
 merely one phase of electricity, souls, minds, spirit also 
 — every entity in existence. Thousands of verses not 
 only in the Hebrew, but in many other Oriental script* 
 ures, are cleared up by this cardinal fact. Many mys- 
 tical facts in 'spiritualism' are also explained by elec- 
 trical hypothesis. I allude to 'refined' matter in my 
 book 'Radiant Energy." "Edgar L. Larkin." 
 
 A Reviewer's Comment. 
 
 "It is true that ail the facts of physics go far to sug- 
 gest (perhaps even to support) the theory that mat- 
 ter is condensed ether, and we may add, it is quite also 
 probable that electricity, which, barring light, is the 
 
HERE AND HEREAFTER. 109 
 
 most important phenomenon of ether in motion known 
 to us, will be found to play a more important part in 
 nature than could be anticipated in former times. But 
 all these theories are far from substantiating the as- 
 sumption that the body of the resurrection is electrical, 
 or, to go further still, that there is any body of resur- 
 rection at all in the sense of traditional religious con- 
 ceptions. On the contrary, if these theories concerning 
 matter and ether be true, it would only indicate that 
 our present world-system built up of atoms might 
 finally be dissolved again into its primordial ether. The 
 atom has so far resisted analysis, and it is likely that 
 all the methods at the disposal of scientists will fail 
 to resolve it, but if the atom be a compound we may 
 be sure in the long run of world cycles it will finally 
 be dissolved again into its elements. All compound 
 bodies within the reach of our experience, even the 
 eternal rocks, so called, break up into their ingredients, 
 and there is no reason to doubt the universality of the 
 law (so energetically enunciated in Buddhist meta- 
 physics), that all compounds are subject to disintegra- 
 tion. 
 
 "Professor Dubois-Reymond proved that electrical 
 phenomena play some important part in muscle-activ- 
 ity, and Professor Augustus Waller, of London, has 
 brought to light further interesting facts. He proves 
 that electric fluctuations take place so long as a sub- 
 stance (be it animal or vegetable) is still alive, and 
 the absence of electricity indicates absence of vitality. 
 But all this does not prove that electricity alone with- 
 out any bodily substratum may constitute a person, that 
 such a person after death should retain the shape of the 
 
no LUMINOUS BODIES 
 
 material body, and that his electrical body should float 
 about after the manner of the ghosts of folk-lore. 
 
 "Mr. Hallock succeeded in proving the presence of 
 folk-lore in the Bible, but no amount of Biblical quota- 
 tions will prove that the folk-lore view is tenable before 
 the tribunal of science. 
 
 "I will not venture here to state the reasons that 
 prevent me from accepting the theory of an electrical 
 body of resurrection, for that would lead me too far 
 and it is difficult to say why a thing is not. I will 
 limit myself only to the positive statement that the 
 monistic drift of modern science, especially, our re- 
 vised notions of ether and electricity, contain not the 
 slightest argument in favor of proving that the soul 
 should be possessed of an electrical resurrection-body. 
 We might as well assume that a dynamo which has 
 been built to change molar motion into electricity 
 would, if broken to pieces, continue as a purely ethereal 
 dynamo, and that it would thus form a superior kind 
 of machine, a maakheru dynamo. 
 
 "The theory of a transfigured body, maakheru as the 
 Egyptians called it, is so natural a fabrication of human 
 fancy, that it originated among all nationalities. 
 
 "Dr. Paul Carus. 
 
 "Editor of Open Court. 
 
 "La Salle, III./' 1903. 
 
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