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 GIVEN BY 
 
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ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITT 
 
 I 
 
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 UNFOLDING OF THE CELESTIAL SENSE 
 OF THE DIVINE WORD, 
 
 THOMAS LAKE HARRIS. 
 
 PART III.— THE APOCALYPSE 
 VOL. I. 
 
 "Tii.^,T:me is ai H-ii.^.'' 
 
 i^eto ^ork ^ iL0nli0n : 
 
 BKOTHEEHOOD OF THE NEW LIEE. 
 
 1867. 
 
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SPECIAL NOTICE. 
 
 Owing to the great variety of publications, professedly of a spiritual and heavenly 
 origin, the Beotheehood of the^New Life deem it proper to request, that friends, 
 desirous of becoming acquainted with the principles which they maintain, should 
 be careful to observe that the title-pages of the works which they consult bear the 
 imprint of their Society. Orders for their publications, for other than commercial 
 purposes, may be addressed to Akthue A. Cuthbeet, Esq., Amenia, Duchess Co., 
 New York, U.S.A. 
 
 For list of booksellers of whom this and other works issued by the Brotherhood 
 may be had, see advertising pages, at the close of the volume. 
 
ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Celestial sense of the word " Revelation." — A new organic creation from 
 the humanity of the Lord. — This organic creation known, received, and 
 descending through the Heavens. — Threefold revelations of the Divine 
 Spirit in each Heaven. — Typal forms of Divine attributes. — That new 
 creation a new harmony of the universe. — First and second illustra- 
 tions. — Men who receive the new creation called, " Brethren of the 
 New Life." — Divine respiration, simple, composite, and coronal, im- 
 parted to them. — The Seven Churches, seven types of open-respiring 
 men. — Seven-fold perceptions of men in the new creation. — Revelations 
 of our Lord in the new creation. — Third illustration. — Attributal men : 
 their species and use. Fourth illustration. — The new social order 
 established through attributal men. 
 
 1. The apostle Jolin did not possess tlie gift of opened in- 
 ternal respiration ; neither did any of the apostles. The con- 
 dition into which the beloved disciple was intromitted, for the 
 purpose of being made the instrument of communicating this 
 concluding portion of the record of the Divine Word to man^ 
 was one of utter rest : the body slept ; the natural senses 
 reposed in entire quiescence. A former beloved inhabitant 
 of the eartlij whose departure from the terrestrial world had 
 been unaccompanied by the usual phenomena of physical dis- 
 solution, entered into conjunction with his spirit, which arose 
 into the Celestial Heaven. 
 
 2. It was in the Celestial Heaven that the Apocalypse was 
 communicated, as to his spirit, to John. It contains, as do all 
 other books of the Word, three divine senses within the letter, 
 which severally are related to each other, as are the three 
 Heavens, celestial, spiritual, and ultimate. No generation of 
 
8 ARGANA OF CRBISTIANITY. [chap. i. 
 
 tlie human race will ever be able to exliaust tlieir contents. 
 New and more amply qualified interpreters^ permitted to enter 
 into their sublime recesses, will bring forth from them treasm*es 
 of wisdom and of knowledge, more brilliant and more copious. 
 There are single phrases in the Word, each of which contains, 
 in the least degree of its internal senses, far more than the 
 most gifted natural intellect is enabled to peruse in the full 
 letter of Eevelation. 
 
 3. The objection of the natural reasoner to statements 
 like 'the foregoing is as follows : — '^ The copies of Scripture 
 exhibit a various reading; moreover, as no students of any 
 language attach, as a matter of necessity, precisely the same 
 shade of meaning to the most significant words ; and as, 
 moreover, the precise significance attached to important 
 phrases, by the writers themselves, is' unknown, therefore it is 
 impossible to maintain, by any valid evidence, that the Scrip- 
 tures, as we possess them, stand in their entirety as a verbal 
 inspiration. We should require to maintain this, first, infallible 
 proof of the mechanical accuracy of the inspired man, in 
 transcribing to the minutest point of punctuation, so that each 
 sentence stands as the script of Almighty God. We should 
 require, second, the same proof that every successive copy 
 from the original had been reproduced with the same accuracy. 
 And third, that, to the minutest of shades, every meaning of 
 the original had been preserved and reproduced in our version." 
 It is needless to say that this evidence is not attainable. 
 " Therefore," it is continued, " by the failure of an unbroken 
 and infallible letter, the superstructure of a higher sense fails 
 entirely." 
 
 4. How then is it that the revelation of Scripture is the 
 Word, and the revelation of its symbolisms the unfolding of 
 an internal, a spiritual or celestial, a superior and archetypal 
 sense, from the Word ? The answering of this would require 
 the opening of profound mysteries ; but, for the present, the 
 following hints must suffice. Ten different readings of the same 
 Greek or Hebrew text, each containing a separate modifica- 
 tion of language, yet each embodying, with relative accuracy, 
 the primitive letter ; or, to alter the case, some of them in a 
 degree defective, may be all open to a servant of the Lord, 
 
SEC. 3—6.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 9 
 
 qualified to expound their internal significance. The contra- 
 dictory, or variously shaded readings, perplex him, only so 
 long as the spiritual eyes are closed ; only so long as he feels, 
 sees, and takes cognisance merely of the natural meanings and 
 variations of meaning, which might be inferred from the letter ; 
 only, in fine, as he is mentally in the darkness and bondage of 
 the letter. This perplexity ends when he is taken up into the 
 illumination and freedom of the Spirit. 
 
 5. The Holy Scripture contains the Word, as the body of a 
 man contains that archetypal image and likeness of the Divine • 
 Truth from which it was unfolded. The nails may be defective, 
 a limb may have been amputated, the flesh may be bruised, the 
 skin in parts abraded, till the frame is a mere torso ; but 
 within the frame is the man-image, with not a member impaired 
 or a feature obliterated. Thus it is with Holy Scripture. The 
 archetype of the Word, of which the verbal revelation was the 
 out-growth, and of which also it is the expression, is within it, 
 as the archetype of man is within the image of man. Now as 
 the qualified seer of man, though the hand were bruised, 
 maimed, or but visible through bandages, would yet behold 
 the archetypal image of the hand, perfect in the shape, and 
 continuity, and use of all its members; so the seer of the 
 Word, within any scriptural book, any organ of the body of 
 revelation, perceives those archetypal ideas which were pro- 
 jected from the Infinite Consciousness, and by the descent of 
 which, toward the original seer or writer of them, they were 
 first communicated to man. Though the Scriptures were far 
 more veiled than at present, and the letter of them almost ob- 
 literated ; though they stood in fragments, like the ruins of the 
 Parthenon, that mental and verbal artist, whom the Lord might 
 qualify, would rise, through the contemplation of those ruins, to 
 the conception of their original design. Thus, through the wear 
 and change of ages, the Word endures, and shall endure, be- 
 cause it is a temple of God, eternal in the heavens ; and whoso 
 would describe that temple is not dependent solely upon that 
 representation of it, which has been wi^ought out in verbal stone. 
 
 6. In treating of the celestial sense of the Apocalypse, the 
 task has been easy, so far as the letter has been concerned, 
 notwithstanding the fact of various readings and interpreta- 
 
10 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. i. 
 
 tions. I liave seen tliat Temple of Harmony^ the glorious 
 image of wliicli was let down into the mind of John. So far 
 as it has been possible and lawful^ I have described it ; and if 
 my readers will seek to attain to the state of utter receptivity 
 of the divine life, and of complete obedience to its law,, of which 
 the character of John affords so beautiful a symbol, they will 
 not have occasion to ask, whether, if the writer had followed 
 at any point a different reading, he would have evolved a dif- 
 ferent significance ? In the fallen cone of the pine-tree the 
 spiritual mind may discover, not alone the natural form, but 
 the living germ ; and again, through that, discern, by life- 
 inflowing, the Pine of pines, the celestial tree, on whose 
 branches are the birds, and in whose leaves the winds of 
 Heaven. If he tramples that cone under foot, it may perish 
 from his use ; but if he plants and tends it, his old age may 
 be shadowed by its foliage ; — and the jDine-tree is the Word. 
 
 Chap. i. 1. — ''''The Eevelation op Jesus Christ, which God 
 GAVE UNTO Him, to show unto His servants things which 
 
 MUST shortly come TO PASS ; AND He SENT AND SIGNIFIED 
 
 IT BY His Angel unto His servant John." 
 
 7. In the "revelation "-symbol, is signified, in this verse, a 
 new organic creation. By "of Jesus Christ," is signified, that 
 this new creation was evolved within the glorified humanity of 
 our Lord. By " which God gave unto Him," signifies, that 
 this new organic creation was formed by the Divine Spirit 
 within the structure of His humanity. " To show unto His 
 servants," signifies, that all angels throughout the universal 
 Heaven, in each degree, were to behold this new creation. 
 By " things," is signified, celestial, spiritual, and ultimate 
 heavenly forms and substances, which are the particulars of 
 this new creation. By "which mvist quickly be done," is 
 signified, the descent of the forms and substance of this new 
 creation into the natural universe. 
 
 8. By " and He sent," is to be understood, that our Lord 
 caused to be opened the perceptions of the angel through 
 whom the mysteries of this new creation were to be unfolded. 
 By " and signified," is denoted, the evolution of the truths of 
 this new creation into pictorial forms of the divine representa- 
 
SEC. 7— lo.] THE APOCALYPSE. H 
 
 tive language. By " His angel/^ is understood, the prophet 
 Elijah, through whom the enunciation Avas made. By " unto 
 His servant John," is understood, the descent of the series 
 of the pictorial and representative forms of truths into the 
 internals of the mind, and thence into the perception of the 
 understanding of the celestial man. Elijah also signifies, as 
 understood, an angelic man clothed upon with the body of the 
 resurrection, which is composed of the spirits of the primates 
 and the ultimates of the terrestrial human form. For par- 
 ticulars of the resurrection, see A. of 0. 1, 1. 490. By " His ser- 
 vant John,'^ is also understood, the reception of this revelation 
 into the interiors of celestial men, who were once inhabitants 
 of the planet Earth, and who wait, in their respective heavenly 
 societies, their full investiture with the glorified body, com- 
 posed of the spirits of the primates and the ultimates. 
 
 Chap. i. 2. — ^^Who baee eecoed of the Word oe God, and 
 
 OE THE TESTIMONY OF JeSUS ChRIST, AND OF ALL THINGS 
 THAT HE SAW.^^ 
 
 9. By "^ who bare record of the Word of God," is signified, 
 first, that the celestial man, inhabiting the heavens of the 
 planet Earth, bears perpetual witness to the truths of this new 
 creation. By '' and of the testimony of Jesus Christ," is signi- 
 fied, first, that it is the declaration of the celestial man, as was 
 said, that this new creation is formed and fashioned by the 
 Divine Spirit, solely in and through His assumed and glorified 
 humanity. By " and of all things that he saw," is signified, 
 that these forms and substances of the new creation are made 
 representatively visible to the celestial man. The second 
 significance of this verse applies to the beloved disciple, as in 
 his intromission into the Heavens ; making one of that celes- 
 tial humanity, and so perceiving, receiving, and communicating 
 in its collective wisdom. 
 
 Chap. i. 3. — " Blessed is he that eeadeth, and they that 
 
 HEAE the WOEDS OF THIS PEOPHECY, AND KEEP THOSE THINGS 
 WHICH AEE WEITTEN THEREIN: FOE THE TIME /,? AT HAND." 
 
 10. By '^blessed is he that readeth," is signified, that the 
 ultimate sub-degree of the celestial sense of the Word shall be 
 
12 ABCANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. i. 
 
 opened. By " blessed " is signified, tlie beatitudes into wliicli 
 those shall enter who shall become partakers of the new 
 creation, in so far as it pertains to the reconstitution of the 
 celestial, spiritual, and ultimate degrees of the internal man. 
 These things are read in the heavens, and they excite a lively 
 desire, in the minds of all who read, to become, organically, 
 partakers of the forms and substances of the new creation. 
 
 11. By "and they that hear the words of this prophecy,^' 
 is signified, the preaching of the truths of the new creation, 
 from the ultimate sub-degree of the celestial sense of the 
 Word ; that those who hear, through divine faith and love, may 
 become partakers, not alone of the new creation, as received 
 by the celestial man, who readeth in the heavens of the orb ; 
 but also in the descent of that new creation, into the soul and 
 body of the terrestrial form ; when the operation of the Divine 
 Spirit shall reinstate mankind in the orderly mode of respira- 
 tion, which is from internals to externals, by the incoming of 
 the divine life, through the heavenly degrees, into the earthly 
 degrees, of the human frame. By "and keep those things 
 which are written therein,''' is signified, first, that the celestial 
 man becomes a partaker in the forms and substances of the 
 new creation, through his acceptance, in freedom, of the divine 
 will for his will; and that the man on earth enters into the 
 same felicities through yielding implicitly to the divine breath, 
 which prompts to instant, continuous, and universal obedience 
 to every divine word. By " for the time is at hand,'' is 
 signified, the beginning, the continuance, and the triumph of 
 the new creation. 
 
 Chap. i. 4. — "John to the seven chueches which are in Asia: 
 Grace be unto you, and peace, prom Him which is, and 
 which was, and which is to come ; and prom the seven 
 Spirits which are bepore His throne." 
 
 12. By " John," is signified, the inspired celestial man, or 
 humanity, of the inmost Celestial Heaven, who receives the 
 archetypal forms of the revelation or new creation. " To the 
 seven churches," signifies, here, the seven-fold series of heavens 
 in each Heaven, these being arranged in groups of octaves, 
 as in the musical scale, and through which descend the seven- 
 
SEC. II— 13.] THE APOQALTPSE. 13 
 
 fold series of tlie truths of the new creation^ in successions of 
 typal forms. By *■'' which are in Asia/' is signified, the most 
 ancient states ; the word Asia being understood as referring 
 to that which is most ancient, or before all others. It denotes, 
 in the text, the universal concurrence of the most ancient 
 Heavens in the reception and transmission of the typal forms 
 of the truths of the new creation. By " grace be unto you," 
 is signified, the bestowment of an increase of substantive 
 forms, from the new creation, in the fivefold sphere of each 
 Heaven. For fivefold order of the Heavens see A. of C. 1, 
 I. 620. By " and peace," is signified, a new tranquillity, or 
 harmony, ultimately to result throughout the Heavens, from 
 the incorporation of the new creation in and throughout their 
 extenses. 
 
 13. By " from Him which is, and which was, and which is 
 to come," is signified, the threefold revelation of the Divine 
 Spirit in each Heaven. God shines through each Heaven from 
 east to west, by a prospective ray, revealing things to come; 
 and this light is through the frontal regions of the brain. He 
 shines also, by a luminous appearance, from the west of each 
 Heaven to the east. This effulgence penetrates the brain in the 
 basilar region in three degrees, and revives or imparts know- 
 ledges concerning all antiquity. There is, besides, a third 
 shining, which is from the zenith of each Heaven, and which 
 penetrates the brain in the coronal region ; the effect of which 
 is to make known the present states of universal existences. 
 The west of Heaven is, moreover, from time to time, in its 
 firmament, a sublime panoramic field, where, through imaged 
 outlines, as on the stage of some vast aerial theatre, the 
 universes and systems of universes that have passed away, 
 dramatise the epochs of each eventful history. Otherwise 
 with the east, where shines for ever the Sun of the Divine 
 Glory, and wherein, from time to time, appear the wonder- 
 thoughts of the Infinite Mind, descending to be wrought into 
 substantial creations. " And from the seven Spirits," signifies, 
 the typal forms of the divine attributes, which representatively 
 appear to the eyes of the celestial angels. By '' which are 
 before His throne," is signified, that the typal spirits of the 
 attributes are made visible in the glory of the Divine Sun. 
 
14 ABCANA OF GRBISTIANITY. [chap. i. 
 
 Chap. i. 5. — "And pkom Jesus Christ^ wno is the faithful 
 witness, and the first-begotten of the dead, and the 
 Prince of the kings of the earth. Unto Him that 
 loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own 
 
 BLOOD." 
 
 14. The nature of that visible form in which our Lord 
 appeared on earth, was crucified, rose from the dead, and 
 afterward ascended into Heaven, has been heretofore treated 
 of. See A. of C. 1, I. 807, and sequel. Also A. of C. 2, I. 1, 
 and sequel. " And from Jesus Christ," signifies, that the 
 typal spirits of the attributes are in the glorified Divine 
 Humanity of the Lord, and are visible through it. " Who is 
 the faithful witness," signifies, that all divine truths are com- 
 municated primarily from Him through His glorified human- 
 ity." " And the first begotten of the dead," signifies, that the 
 beginnings of the new creation were through His human 
 person, subsequent to the resurrection. " And the Prince of 
 the kings of the earth," signifies that, in His human person. 
 He is the head of the spirits of the primates and the ultimates. 
 By " kings of the earth," is signified, the sentient, atomic men, 
 through whom all atomic particles, in their first forms, are 
 moved and actuated. For atomic men,, see A. of C. 2, L 15. 
 
 15. "Unto Him that loved us." In this clause is concealed 
 an endless series of truths concerning the forms, in which 
 the Divine Love descended into, and was and is communi- 
 cated through, the visible humanity of our Lord. By " us," 
 is signified, the universal series of angels, fay-souls, and 
 atomic men, and also the universal series of world-souls 
 and universe-souls. For particulars concerning these, see A. 
 of C. 1", I. index. "And washed us from our sins in His 
 own blood." In the assumed body of the Lord were as many 
 degrees of substance as exist throughout the universal series 
 of divine creations ; otherwise the incarnation would not have 
 been from beginnings to ends, from first to last, and from causes 
 to consequences. For the degrees of substance assumed by 
 our Lord in the incarnation, see, especially, A. of 0. 2, I. 
 chapter 1. 
 
 16. By "and washed us," signifies, the outflowing of the 
 
SEC.I4— 18.] THE APOCALYPSE. 15 
 
 Holy Ghost, througli its discreted appearance of person, from 
 tHe Lord, after His glorification, by means of whicli tlie new 
 creation began to appear. By " from our sins," is signified, 
 that the effect of the new creation, from the glorified humanity 
 of the Lord, is successively to elevate the whole creation, from 
 the former harmony, or series of universal movements, in which 
 it existed prior to the beginnings of evil, into a new condi- 
 tion, or superior harmony, the nature of which will presently 
 be made to appear. By '^in His own blood,''^ is signified, that 
 there was a vicarious sacrifice for evil, oflTered by the Lord in 
 His humanity ; that He assumed in Himself the agony of the 
 universe, consequent upon its derangement through the origi- 
 nation, introduction, and extension of sin ; that the ' whole 
 universe was reconstructed in its harmony by means of the 
 works which He performed and the sufferings which He 
 underwent ; and that the old harmony died in His organiza- 
 tion, in which also the new was born. 
 
 Chap. i. 6. — "And hath made us kings and peiests unto God 
 AND His Father; to Him be gloey and dominion foe 
 
 EVEE AND EVER. AmeN." 
 
 17. "And hath made," signifies, the process, through which 
 the new harmony is introduced into the constitutions of the 
 universal series of the world-souls and the universe-souls, the 
 suns and earths of the universe, the Celestial, Spiritual, and 
 Ultimate Heavens, the soul-germs descending through the 
 Heavens to ultimation as natural men, the Ultimative Earths 
 of Spirits, and also the spirits and bodies of world-inhabiting 
 human creatures. By " us," is signified, the collective unity 
 of the creations, which receive the new harmony. By " kings 
 and priests," signifies, seven degrees of executive and sacer- 
 dotal inspiration, into which successively inherit, each accord- 
 ing to his own quality of life, the various intelligences and 
 existences, who receive the new creation. 
 
 18. "Unto God and His Father," signifies, the unition, 
 efiected through the seven degrees of resj)iration, between all 
 who are made receptive of them and the typal spirits in the 
 Divine Humanity of the Lord. By " Him," is signified, the 
 
16 ABC AN A OF CRRISTIANITT. [chap. t. 
 
 Divine Humanity, in its present state of glorification. The 
 body of the Lord, in which He appeared on earth, is now 
 apparent, by means of the transmission of the divine ray, 
 from centres to circumferences, at once, by every glorified 
 immortal, from the beginnings of creation. " To Him be 
 giory,^' signifies, that He is clothed upon, in that humanity, 
 with typal forms of truths, each resplendent from an inmost 
 divine shining ; and that these truths are the organic first 
 forms, with which He travailed on earth ; and that they are 
 projected through His visible person, and are to serve as 
 nuclei of constellations. By " and dominion," is signified, 
 first, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the enthroned centre of the 
 series of the typal spirits, who preside over all orbs, whether 
 of the heavenly or sidereal universe, and that He inspires their 
 motion. By " for ever and ever," is signified, continuities of 
 times, in which He is to rule in the sidereal universe ; and of 
 states, in which He rules throughout all Heavens. "Amen," 
 signifies, response. It contains arcana, referring to modes of 
 the celebration of divine choral service by angels. 
 
 FIRST ILLUSTEATIOK 
 
 A harvest-field in the Celestial Heaven. — Conversation with Moses concern- 
 ing the human body in which our Lord was incarnate ; and also con- 
 cerning events in the Spiritual World at that period ; also concerning 
 fays and fay angels. 
 
 19. I stood in the Celestial Heaven, in a wheat-field, and 
 observed Angels reaping the abundant grain. One drew 
 nigh and welcomed me to the field, which was in a province 
 of the heavens corresponding to the cornea of the right eye. 
 A splendour of illumination was visible in the east, which 
 denoted prophecy. Here, for the first time, I beheld Moses, 
 that man of God. Although the field bore a luxurious har- 
 vest, it was also covered with a short springing grass, inter- 
 spersed with flowers, of the hues of purple and azure, which 
 emitted a delicious perfume. I talked with Moses concerning 
 the body in which our Lord was visible on earth, during the 
 days of His humiliation. It was said to me, by him, that 
 Christ's body was composed, in its visible form, of seven zones 
 
SEC. 19—21.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 17 
 
 of animated substance ; and that^ altliough its forms were so 
 minute to a man^s natural eye, yet tliose wlio beheld with 
 angelic perception, perceived seven continuous degrees, so 
 vast as to insphere within themselves as many fay races as 
 might otherwise have existed in conjunction with all men of 
 our earth, from Adam to that time, though all of them had 
 been harmonic creations. I asked him to say something, from 
 his knowledge of the Word, concerning the changes which 
 occurred within the visible human body of our Lord, prior 
 to the last days. Twelve particulars which he mentioned I 
 here narrate. 
 
 20. (i.) This body was born with open respiration. It never 
 slept as do other infants, who relapse from a state of active 
 sensation upon the surfaces of the frame, into a state of 
 cradled rest, in which states they appear inmostly in the lowest 
 places of the Heavens, with angelic guardians there. It was 
 the peculiarity of this body, in its first days, that, while it 
 seemed naturally to sleep, the spirits of the divine attributes, 
 heretofore spoken of, descending through it, in a sevenfold 
 series, interknit that visible childlike structure with the entu^e 
 infantile humanity of our planet. It became, therefore, a 
 mediatorial centre, in pivotal sympathy with all infants upon 
 the globe ; and the goings forth of the human essence of the 
 Divine Child were not of the nature of reabsorptions, through 
 the Heavens, towards its Infinite Original ; but, to the contrary, 
 of the nature of descents and outgoings into the various 
 organic degrees of the structures of all terrestrial infants. It 
 may be absolutely said, that, in this manner, the Divine Child 
 visited, in the most intimate sense, every child on the earth, 
 excluding none. 
 
 21. (ii.) It was furthermore stated that, by this process, the 
 Divine Child, by means of the descent of the seven spirits of 
 the attributes, through its inmost, penetrated into and held 
 communion with the inmost psychical form, which centres the 
 personality of every human spirit in Hades or the invisible 
 state. It was narrated by one who himself abode at that time 
 in the invisible state, and who arose from it at the judgment 
 which followed the glorification of our Lord (A. of C. 1, I. 
 846 and sequel) that the most prepared of its inhabitants, who 
 
 B 
 
18 AUCAJSTA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. i. 
 
 enjoyed vision, beheld the Infant . Saviour, appearing in their 
 inmosts, and awakening mysterious heart-voices, so that some- 
 thing in them seemed to be glad and to sing for joy. It was 
 said also that David, or one representing him, who was at 
 that time an inhabitant of the invisible state, became^ at this 
 period, inspired to utter songs of the Divine nativity. 
 
 22. Mothers, who were there, experienced a sensation as of 
 a child^s spirit, encircled with divine auras, gliding in and 
 through the expanses of the frame, and irradiating their in- 
 most places with love, containing light and perfume, and with 
 music in its beams. One described to me her sensations. A 
 lovely flower, which was called the "flower of the incar- 
 nation," appeared therein, springing from the soil and radiant 
 in its own light. These blossoms diffused a fragrance which 
 lasted through states corresponding to seven earthly years; 
 and those who saw them were impelled, by an irresistible 
 desire, to gather and press them to the heart, whereupon they 
 exercised a sovereign virtue, diffusing an elixir through the 
 frame. 
 
 23. I saw a representation of one of these flowers. It came 
 up out of dry ground. One might have trodden upon it, 
 esteeming it of no account, no, of not more than a wayside 
 thistle. I beheld an Evil Spirit, who, for the purpose of an 
 illustration, had a representative figure of the plant shown to 
 him, and he began to point to it hatefully, and to hiss like a 
 serpent. While I was gazing upon it, the Lord drew nigh, 
 and I fell upon my face and worshipped. The flower produced 
 in me a desire, in spite of the sharp spines by which it was 
 surrounded, to clasp it in my arms, and press it to my bosom. 
 The woman, now an Angel, to whom I have referred as having 
 resided in the invisible state at that time, described to me 
 its appearance there, saying, that it grew up in the night, and 
 presented, in the day, the likeness of some compound plant, 
 bearing the leaves of the cacti upon the stem of the thistle. " It 
 was at first without any form of beauty, nevertheless, those 
 who were in conditions which made them susceptible of the 
 redemptive influence, called it " the Saviour flower." 
 
 24. The most beautiful and singular fact connected with 
 its manifestation remains untold. Wherever one of these 
 
SEC. 22—27.] THU APOCALYPSE. 19 
 
 appeared, it became the centre of a parterre,, and spirals of 
 blossoming plants grew around it, as if to constitute the rays 
 of a floral sun, each opening toward it, and so inwardly to its 
 variegated corolla, as if absorbing from it light and heat, 
 through which to bloom. Those who approached and gathered 
 blossoms from this encompassing floral zone, beheld them 
 speedily vanish, as if to instruct them in the truth, that Christ 
 was not to be received through any reflex image, however 
 beautiful. When they approached the rude, unsightly plant, 
 the demons, by whom they were infested, mocked them. The 
 exhalations from it were spiritually so poignant that they pro- 
 duced humiliation, and a sense of utter unworthiness in the 
 soul, and there were whispering voices in all the leaves, which 
 seemed to converse with the internal principles of the breast 
 in their own occult tongue. 
 
 25. Those who found courage, from faith, to pluck the 
 thorny leaves, and to press them to the bosom, declared that, 
 when the first hurt was over, inefiable joy remained, and that 
 they were a cure-all of those diseases of the spiritual person 
 with which the inhabitants were afflicted — blindness, palsy, and 
 the like. There also appeared in the invisible state, at the same 
 period, snow white lambs, without spot or blemish, and full 
 of eyes without and within, so that they resembled creatures 
 of white and jewelled fire. 
 
 26. (iii.) All respiration through the lungs of the Divine 
 Infant was from the Infinite Spirit. Its breathings during sleep 
 varied from those of the active hours. There was a universal 
 conspiration in the respiration at all times, not with one 
 Heaven alone, but with all Heavens. It is not generally 
 known that the world-souls respire ; yet, this being true, it is 
 also true that the infantile humanity of our Lord respired in 
 conspiration with the world-souls of the universe. His respir- 
 ation, in fine, was universal. It was thus that He maintained 
 ubiquity, even through the natural degree of His human 
 organism. 
 
 27. (iv.) The consciousness of the Divine Child, through 
 respiration, was continuously enlarged in its natural degree. 
 Through His incarnation, the pre-existent harmony of the 
 universe, which had been invaded because of sin, was repeated, 
 
 B 2 
 
20 ARCANA OF CEBISTIANITY. [ceap. t. 
 
 by means of respiration, in every organic act ; so that He 
 never was without a consciousness of pain. This pain became 
 more acute incessantly, and the fiery serpent of sin, which 
 had effected a lodgment in the system of the universe, was 
 felt continually, as a stinging adder in the breast. 
 
 28. When the internal respiration is opened, and continued 
 to the natural degree, and the Holy Spirit breathes through 
 a man, in ever so slight a manner, through that respiration 
 the economy of the human kingdom on our orb, which is all 
 connected, and which sympathises as an organic whole, is 
 shocked as by electric charges. So far as respiration has 
 proceeded, there is a fine vibration through every part of 
 the frame which thus respires, in opposition to that universal 
 vibratory movement, from externals to internals, which is the 
 consequence of the closed or abnormal condition of mankind. 
 From this cause it ensues, that the universal body of the Hells, 
 as a composite form, in close conjunction with the humanity of 
 earth, discerns the approach of the Divine Spirit, and is filled 
 with unspeakable indignation against the human agent or 
 agents through whom it proceeds. Those who respire in 
 accordance with the restored divine order of creation, breathe 
 against the breaths of the whole world, and against Hell itself. 
 
 29. In so far as any hereditary inversions or malformations 
 exist within the structure of the brain, or to the extent in 
 which evils obtain a lodgment therein, the body of the one who 
 respires resists the action of the Divine Spirit ; the organization 
 becomes the theatre of a divine war, and the breaths which 
 descend from the Holy One, begetting a continuity of celestial- 
 natural vibrations within the structure, are met, in hostility, 
 by the breaths which emanate from Pandemonium, which 
 produce an opposite series of vibrations that are infernal-- 
 natural. 
 
 30. (v.) But, when our Lord was first incarnate, He took 
 upon Himself, in the organism fashioned in the womb of the 
 virgin, a universal series of inverted forms, which resisted 
 the divine breath from the beginning. The symmetry and 
 harmony of the Divine soul-germ, within the natural, was so 
 great, that the body was held subject to the vibrations des- 
 cending through it ; nevertheless, a sea of pain surged around 
 
SEC. 28—32.] TRE AFOCALTPSE. • 21 
 
 it continually. The Lord^s divine body existed perpetually 
 within the apparent human, but it was first in appearance that 
 of a child. During the first seven years, the natm-al conscious- 
 ness was enabled to receive only the perceptions proper to 
 children of the unfallen worlds ; suffering, and the knowledge 
 of evil in the natural world, and also in the spu-itual world, 
 being exceptions. During this period. He was much, as to 
 perception and natural consciousness, with children of a 
 corresponding age, from the sun and from planets in our 
 own solar system, where evil has no place. In this way, the 
 natural plane of the understanding was made the repository 
 of the affections and the delights, and also of the knowledges 
 peculiar to the harmonic infancy ; of which, however, so great 
 was His discretion, that, to all in the natural world. He 
 maintained an unbroken silence ; becoming perfect in the great 
 lesson, which all must learn who would serve as pivotal or 
 associated men in the New Christian Age, — absolute isolation 
 from the subversive movement of the inverted natural man ; — 
 perfect sympathy with the hai'monic movement and order of 
 the unfallen universe. 
 
 31. (vi.) The unfallen man respires invariably from internals 
 to externals, the Holy Spirit breathing through the organs of 
 the frame. This was Adam's original mode of respiration ; 
 but our Lord, as the second Adam, conquered back the lost 
 respiration of the orb. He wrested from the Hells their or- 
 ganic force, by means of which they were enabled to sufibcate 
 all members of the human family open to respiration after the 
 internal or primeval mode. All His life was properly a battle 
 of respiration. 
 
 32. (vii.) During states of natural waking, the Divine Child 
 consociated strictly with the various fay races of the earth and 
 of the universe. He lived thus in nature and in time with 
 the incorporated sphere of innocence, unpolluted by the evils 
 of the fall. By means of His respirations. He attracted the 
 universal fay race. The finer elements of nature, reconsti- 
 tuted through the action of His breaths, served as the basis 
 of an orbed, revolving sphere, which encompassed Him, and 
 in which He moved, more glorious to the inner eye than is 
 the natural sun. This, densely peopled, and successively un- 
 
ABCANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. i. 
 
 folded into seven, was matui-ed througli every breathing motion 
 of tlie frame, and became at length a composite fay-sphere of 
 the natural degree. 
 
 33. At every glance of His benignant eye, or utterance of 
 the voice, or movement of the hand, but especially in the 
 breaths which proceeded from His lips, the fays moved forth 
 in choral myriads; and, as the rays of the divine sphere 
 emanating from Him pervaded human organizations, they 
 found access to them, rejoicing within the heart, and wor- 
 shipping within the breast. Internal respiration not being 
 restored to any of the disciples, the fays maintained their 
 place within the organic structures of the followers of the 
 Lord, by remaining entirely within the Divine sphere, ad- 
 vancing in its advances, and disappearing in its recessions. 
 Demons were cast out by means of the fay sphere, which, 
 being that of perfect forms of innocence, pervaded by the 
 Divine Spirit, which is Innocence itself, wherever it permeated 
 the human system expelled its opposites. 
 
 34. (viii.) It was by means of the fay- sphere that our Lord, 
 prior to His glorification, diffused the Spirit which He im- 
 parted to His disciples. None but the simple-hearted and 
 the obedient were enabled to receive the fays, even for a 
 moment. They entered the systems only of such as began to 
 receive the Word. As the presence of harmonious and gentle 
 birds fills a grove with melody, and diffuses upon the air an 
 inexpressible exhilaration, so the presence of the fays within 
 the human bosom, and within the groves and gardens of the 
 affections there, awoke a silent song of praise and gratitude. 
 
 35. (ix.) When our Lord was tempted of Satan, He was 
 encompassed by the fay-sphere, impenetrable by the adver- 
 sary ; and Angels beheld the fays in their successive degrees, 
 grouped together as into shielding garments for His human 
 natural form. The fay cannot be injured, even when connected 
 with the sphere of an open-respiring disciple, except through 
 violations of the laws of order, upon the part of that dis- 
 ciple, or of those for whom he labours in martyr love ; but, 
 inasmuch as the Lord in His humanity was sinless, the fays 
 were incapable of being hurt. 
 
 36. (x.) When the Lord languished upon the cross. He 
 
SEC. 33—38.] TRE AFOCALTPSE. 23 
 
 broke His own fay bocly^ and distributed tlie fay souls of which 
 it was composed throughout the humanity of the entire orb, 
 those fixed in evil being the sole exceptions ; investing each 
 tiny agent of His will with an impenetrable aromal element, 
 impervious to evil. The fays, who were in the seven spheres 
 of the Lord^s natural body, followed Him to the Heavens, 
 and are now called divine fay angels. 
 
 37. (xi.) The breaths which descended into the human 
 natural lungs of the Divine Child were through the seven 
 spirits of the attributes. There is no fire on earth, which, by 
 any known process of intensification, can suggest an idea of 
 the ardours which inflow into the bosoms of the good upon 
 the orbs of the harmonic universe. The sensation of heat, to 
 which the physical system is gradually accustomed, is such, 
 that evil spirits beholding them from afar, see them standing, 
 as to appearance, in furnaces of white and living fire. It 
 was the breath of the Lord^s mouth, during His incarnation, 
 that excited, in the bosoms of those fixed in evil among the 
 world^s inhabitants, an opposite flame of utter rage and hate. 
 The bodies of evil men become filled, through indulgence in 
 corrupt passions, with a debased aura, which loads the lungs 
 and densely impregnates the brain. This absolutely kindles, 
 and bmms with a fierce heat, when exposed to the breath of 
 the Divine Spirit. As it burns, the evil passions, which have 
 become enormous organic bodies within the frame, cease to 
 gorge themselves, and vsTithe from the midst of their agonies, 
 unconsumed, yet burning continually. 
 
 38. It is otherwise with the evil passions, which have 
 acquired organic forms within the bodies of those who are 
 seeking to become regenerate. All evil passions are procrea- 
 tive within the body, and it swarms, in its internal spaces, 
 with reptiles and creeping things. The descent of the divine 
 breath into the body, through the retm^n of the true respira- 
 tion, causes them to languish and decay. The fays descend 
 into the organic spaces which they occupied, and remove their 
 remains. The mighty breath of the Lord, however, descend- 
 ing through His body, in which He was incarnate, performed, 
 in the bodies of the disciples, many of the first results which 
 ensue upon the return of open respiration. It extirpated 
 
24 ABC AN A OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. i. 
 
 multitudes of embodied evil passions, existing as organic 
 natural entities witli monstrous shapes, witliin tlie human 
 spaces of the frames of the disciples ; and enabled them to 
 become the immediate agents of the Divine Spirit, after the 
 Son of man was glorified. 
 
 39. (xii.) So vast were the human oxtenses within the 
 natural body of our Lord, that the fays, who dwelt therein, 
 and who followed Him to the celestial state, were as the small 
 dust for number. Upon the day of Pentecost they began to 
 return in their glorified forms. They appeared, in their 
 efiluent spheres, as tongues of fire upon the disciples, and 
 served as the vehicles of a continuous divine inspiration, of 
 which, however, the disciples were unconscious as to its mode 
 of operation. Were men at the present day (1861) fully re- 
 stored to a true respu-ative state, divine fay angels would again 
 return ; and they will do so at no distant period ; not for the 
 protection and quickening of the good alone, but also to the 
 discomfiture of the evil. The removal of the obstruction 
 between the spiritual and the natural lungs of man, by means 
 of which the divine breath descends into the natural, is 
 invariably effected through a divine fay angel from the glorified 
 divine human body of our Lord. " But who may abide the 
 day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth ? 
 for He is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' sope : and He 
 shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver : and He shall 
 purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, 
 that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteous- 
 ness." (Mai. iii. 2, 3.) 
 
 SECOND ILLTJSTEATION. 
 
 An interview with Galileo, Tyclio Brahe, and Copernicus ; also with spirits 
 from Mercury and Jupiter. — Statements concerning the ancient harmony 
 of the solar system.— The ancient respiration, simple and composite ; 
 also relating to respiration on our earth in the most ancient times ; also 
 concerning respiration and harmony, as invaded and interrupted through 
 moral evil. 
 
 40. I saw the philosopher, Tycho Brahe. He was in com- 
 pany with Galileo, and both of them were in a state of exceeding 
 joy. The former was attired in a garment of flamy purple. 
 
SEC. 39—43.] THE APOCALYPSE. 25 
 
 the latter^ in one like tlie blue lieaven bestudded with constel- 
 lations. For a period of celestial time^ corresponding to many 
 hours of that of our planet^ I was in their society; this was 
 in the year 1858. Spirits from Mercury, and also from Jupiter, 
 were in consociation with us, and the subject which occupied 
 our attention was the ancient harmony of the Solar System, of 
 which our orb is a member, prior to the introduction of moral 
 evil therein. Nicholas Copernicus joined us, and, in com- 
 pany with him, an ancient Swede. 
 
 41. There were twelve methods of respiration peculiar to 
 the inhabitants of the earths and suns of the universe, before 
 this ancient harmony was invaded. These were respectively 
 as follows: — First, respiration from internals to externals 
 through the Celestial Heaven : Second, through the Spiritual 
 Heaven: Third, through the Ultimate Heaven : Fourth, through 
 the Ultimative Earth • of Spirits : Fifth, through the series of 
 world-souls : Sixth, through the life-world of each Heaven : 
 Seventh, through the love-world of each Heaven : Eighth, 
 through the form-world of each Heaven: Ninth, through the 
 essence-world of each Heaven: Tenth, through the harmony- 
 world of each Heaven : Eleventh, through the most immediate 
 access of the Divine Spirit through the inmost degree of the 
 will : Twelfth, through the full and plenary possession of the 
 man by the Divine Spirit. 
 
 42. In the first of these states of respiration, the Celestial 
 aura descended, pure and unmixed, and a perception was 
 afforded, as from without, of the appearances of objects in 
 that Heaven. In the second respiration, the aura of the Spirit- 
 ual Heaven descended, free from admixtures, resulting in 
 perception of the types and images of the creations there. 
 In the third respiration, the aura was solely and purely of 
 the Ultimate Heaven, and it was followed by visual per- 
 ception of the magnificent embodiments of art and nature in 
 the final or extreme region of the heavenly expanses. Res- 
 piration through the Ultimative Earth of Spirits was attended 
 with the phenomena of the perception of the universal series 
 of forms extant thereon, whether types of the animal, vegetable, 
 and mineral kingdoms, or of the art-creations. 
 
 43. It was the peculiarity of respiration, through the world- 
 
2G ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [cuap. j. 
 
 souls, tliat perception was given in consequence, in a unitary 
 view, of the sublime forms of animated nature, of the human 
 races, and of their civilization, from planet to planet and from 
 sun to sun. In A. of C. 1, I. 620 to 640, the reader will 
 find statements concerning the five inworlded degrees in the 
 order of each Heaven. The inspiration which resulted from 
 the inhalation of the Divine aura, descending tfirough each of 
 these, was attended by corresponding perceptions of their 
 truth, quality, and substance, each in its own separate sphere. 
 Higher and nobler than any of the preceding modes, that 
 form of respiration which ensued from the immediate approach 
 of the Divine Spirit, through the inmosts of the will, resulted 
 in an elevation of the mind to a perception of the divine ideas, 
 immediately descending from the Father Deity. The twelfth 
 and last mode was one in which the Divine Spirit inbreathed 
 directly through all the organs, and temporarily suspended the 
 objective consciousness, making use of the man as a direct 
 medium and organ of communication. 
 
 44. As men upon the orbs were simple or composite in 
 character, respiration was simple or composite as well. Simple 
 respiration is accompanied by the opening of but one pro- 
 vince of perceptions of a corresponding character, into the 
 region whence the breath descends. Composite respiration 
 is a simultaneous descent of the breaths into different degrees 
 in the respu'atory system, and results in a multiform per- 
 ception of truths and objects in as many degrees. For 
 instance, in cases of simple respiration, as from the Spiritual 
 Heaven, the province in the mind which corresponds to that 
 Heaven would be opened to a perception of its forms, and 
 vast extenses of its magnificent landscapes might delight the 
 quickened sense of vision. In composite respiration the 
 divine breaths might descend at once from the three Heavens, 
 into as many degrees of the man, producing a trinal respir- 
 ation of the corresponding quality, and resulting in a trinary 
 view of the celestial, spiritual, and ultimate heavenly expanses, 
 the one within and above the other. It is apparent, from 
 this fact, how wonderful were the possibilities of knowledges 
 to be acquired by man. 
 
 45. After the fall of the first parents of om- own human 
 
SEC. 44—48.] THE APOCALYPSE. 27 
 
 race, the superb Nation of the Golden Age^ formed from the 
 good of their descendants, existed in simphstic respiration. 
 Composite respiration did not exist_, nor was it possible, for 
 many reasons, of which this may here be specified. The in- 
 herited organic evils in the will, though in a latent state, 
 were immanent there. The stream of influx was exceedingly 
 small and guarded, as, otherwise, it would have, by inflowing 
 into and through these inverted organic forms, aroused from 
 their partially quiescent state, the fierce wrath of the anarchs 
 in the hell of the lost orb, who, at that time, were seeking 
 continually to acquire dominion over our human race. 
 
 46. So long as evil was non-extant in the universe, the res- 
 piration was vast, and only limited by the receptive capacities 
 of the organs j nor were there, in the organization, any latent 
 cupidities and lusts to be stimulated by it ; nor was there any 
 spiritual combat, as between good and evil, produced thereby. 
 This was because there was nothing in man opposed to Divine 
 Order, and no hell of demons to be roused into wrath and to 
 inflow. 
 
 47. Moreover, in consequence of the fall, so imperfect were 
 the ultimate bodies of the organs for the reception of influx, 
 that physical death would have ensued had the tendency of the 
 influx to the individual, resulting from the past motion of the 
 universe, not been restrained. The position of these earlier 
 descendants of the first Adam was indeed anomalous. While 
 inheriting into the capacity of respiration, from internals to 
 externals, in an imperfect manner, the latent evil selfhood, 
 which they had also inherited, was endeavouring, through the 
 absorption and misappropriation of that very influx, to unite 
 itself organically with hell. This was the condition of the 
 nations before the event which is known symbolically and 
 scripturally as " the flood." 
 
 48. As generation after generation receded still farther 
 from that blessed state of charity, which may not inaijpro- 
 priately be called '' golden," the hells were enabled still more 
 copiously to inflow into the minor and lesser organs of the 
 frame. In the same proportion, also, the Heavens receded; 
 for all Heaven, in one organic form, clothed upon with the 
 world-souls of the universe, as man became more prone to 
 
28 ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [cuap. 
 
 evil, experienced repulsion from liim. The analogy is found 
 in tlie law of disease in the human frame. Up to the point 
 whereat a diseased member of the body ceases to appropriate 
 the influx from the animal soul for the purpose of restora- 
 tion, all the faculties in that animal soul conspire to impart 
 continuous healing circulations. When, however, this point 
 is passed, and the diseased member feeds the death within 
 it from the influxes of the corporate life, endeavouring 
 thereby to pour a counter current of decay through the organ- 
 ization, the animal soul seeks to avert the circulations from 
 the aS'ected point. 
 
 49. The universe, prior to the origin of evil, did not possess 
 distributive organs, for the possible readjustment of itself 
 against an inversive movement hostile to Divine Good ; liable 
 to occur from the voluntary fall of the creature. The per- 
 fection of the action of its universal mechanism depended 
 upon the concurrent and unbroken obedience of all men, upon 
 all earths, throughout space, whether solar, aromal, or terres- 
 trial. 
 
 50. When, therefore, the anarch of the lost orb wilfully 
 inverted his gigantic powers, gave birth to the iniquity of 
 sin, and led away so many of his kindred and their kind to 
 the final destruction of their planet, the Lord God, by a new 
 descent of His Divine Spirit into ultimates, in answer to 
 prayer from the Universal Heavens, and from the menaced 
 and invaded human creature, or the humanity of the uni- 
 verses, provided means for the maintenance of equilibrium, 
 so that evil should not, except through the moral concurrence 
 of a new race of tempted human creatures, overflow its bounds. 
 The introduction of moral evil, into the midst of the inhabi- 
 tants of the present earth, inevitably placed mankind thereon 
 in equilibrium ; and the human will was held in play, on the 
 pivot of moral freedom, between the opposite inflowings, and 
 consequent attractions, of the Heavens and the Hells. For 
 certain particulars, concerning this series of events, see A. of 
 C. 1, I. 654 to 669. 
 
 51. From the time when the first golden race began to 
 recede from charity, and so from obedience — for without 
 charity there is no obedience — the tendency of mankind was 
 
SEC. 49—53] THE AFOCALTPSE. 29 
 
 rapidly toward a state in wliicli, tlirougli tlie inversion of the 
 organic forms in the selfhood, a ground or theatre was formed 
 for the deploy and action of Satan and his hosts. The hells 
 rose successively, in the lapse of man from order, first into 
 the spiritual organs which form the soles of the feet ; then 
 through the feet themselves, and gradually upward to the 
 organs of procreation. Having conquered the organic centres 
 of reproduction, the quality of the delights of marriage under- 
 went a change and deterioration; and potency, which hereto- 
 fore had been from a mixed influx in which the heavenly pre- 
 dominated, now became sensual, inclining to the infernal. 
 
 52. From this period ensued the most rapid degradation 
 of mankind. The heavenly influx was still farther arrested 
 from this point, because, being inverted in the diseased 
 organs, the descendants of such as received it in an impure 
 condition of the affections of the will, would have developed a 
 stupendous capacity for sorcery, through conjunction with the 
 demons of the lost orb. It was in view of these, among other 
 considerations, that our Lord finally caused respiration, from 
 internals to externals, to cease altogether. Man was then sunk 
 deeply into the corporeal to cut him ofi" from direct access to 
 Pandemonium, and to prevent him from becoming utterly 
 infernal. 
 
 Chap. i. 7. — " Behold, He cometh with clouds ; and every 
 eye shall see him, and they also which pieeced him : 
 and all kindreds op the earth shall wail because op 
 Him. Even so, Amen.''^ 
 
 53. " Behold," signifies, perception. " He cometh with 
 clouds," signifies, the evolution of the new creation, through 
 spirals of vortices, from the Sun of suns, which is the centre of 
 the universes. " And every eye shall see Him," signifies, a 
 new degree of perception, imparted to all angels, enabling 
 them to behold the wonders of the new creation in their Final 
 Cause. "And they which pierced Him," signifies, that all 
 Lost Spirits, in the hell of the orb which was destroyed because 
 of sin, together with all who have become Evil Spirits from 
 the planet Earth, shall, inversely, and by antagonism, until 
 the times of the end, receive an obscure perception that this 
 
30 ARCANA OF GHBISTIANITY. [chap. i. 
 
 new creation is being establislied. *^ And all kindreds of the 
 earth shall wail because of Him/' signifies, the descent of the 
 new creation into the internals of all natural men upon the 
 planet Earth, producing, to those receptive of the Divine in- 
 fluences, the agony of a death to sin in the ultimate bodily 
 parts ; but totally destroying the bodies of those who resist, 
 being confirmed in evil; casting also their spirits into hell. 
 "■ Even so. Amen." By this is implied, the sympathy between 
 the universal Heaven, in which the new divine order is estab- 
 lished, and the operation of the Divine Spirit, which shall 
 cleanse and purify the planet Earth. 
 
 Chap. i. 8. — "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and 
 
 THE ENDING, SAITH THE LOED, WHICH IS, AND WHICH WAS, 
 AND WHICH IS TO COME, THE ALMIGHTY.''^ 
 
 54. The ground of the creation is in the Divine Spirit. 
 Whatever, therefore, sin excepted, exists in time and space, 
 or in the Heavens, must be considered as the symbol of a 
 reality within the Infinite First Cause. Nature, sin excepted, 
 is an organic Word, revealing Deity. " I am Alpha,'"* signi- 
 fies, the Divine Infinitude above the universe. '' And Omega," 
 signifies, the Divine Infinitude in the ends of the universe. So 
 inconceivably august is the structure, even of the least atom, 
 that, as a complex form, it is receptive of a direct stream of 
 influx from the seven spirits of the attributes, through whom 
 the universe is measured and maintained. I saw the spirit of 
 an atom, mirrored, by a Divine art, upon the wall of a temple 
 in the Celestial Heaven. It was magnified, to bring it 
 within the plane of view, more times beyond its dimensions 
 than the natural intellect may compute. It was more magnifi- 
 cent than aught the imagination can conceive of, concerning 
 God's throne ; and the books that might be written concerning 
 its wonders, would fill immensity. I then perceived that there 
 was a distinct and separate divine manifestation in every 
 atom, and that these were capable of being magnified to vision, 
 as I have described, so as to be perceived by Celestial Angels. 
 Not so much as the arcana in the outmost degree of one of 
 those atoms has ever been fully made known, even in the 
 Heavens. The atoms differ, as star difiers from star in the 
 
SEC. 54—56.] TRE APOCALYPSK 31 
 
 firmament ; and as Angelic Societies vary in their resplendent 
 beauties. " And Omega/* signifies, God revealed tkrougli the 
 atomic Word ; of which more in another place. 
 
 55. " The beginning/' signifies, the Divine Fatherhood. 
 ''The ending/* signifies, the Divine Motherhood." " Saith 
 the Lord," signifies, the infinite conjunction of the male and 
 female in the Infinite Divine Man, so that they are not two, 
 but one Personality, indivisible and eternal. " Which is," 
 signifies, God in His Divine Humanity, since his assumption of 
 the universal human form, through the Incarnation. " Which 
 was," signifies, that this universal human form was from eter- 
 nity pre-extant in the Divine Consciousness, as a means for 
 the begetting of a new creation. '' Which is to come," sig- 
 nifies, the more visible and magnificent revelation of the Divine 
 Spirit, when the new creation becomes ultimated, according to 
 the divine design. " The Almighty," signifies,, in this con- 
 nection, the supreme ability of the Lord, in His divine hu- 
 manity, to envolve new and superior creations. 
 
 Chap. i. 9. — " I John, who also am your brother, and com- 
 panion IN tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience 
 OP Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, 
 
 POR THE WORD OP GoD, AND FOR THE TESTIMONY OP JeSUS 
 
 Christ." 
 
 56. " Patmos," signifies, isolation and separation. The man 
 who desires to become celestial-natural, that is, to breathe by 
 influx from the Lord, through the Celestial Heaven, must be 
 isolated from all ties which have their origin and action in the 
 principle of self-love. To him there must be literally no coun- 
 try ; since he must esteem all men, of whatever race, as with 
 an equal nearness, brethren and friends. To him also there 
 must be no kindred, in the principle of self-love; he must 
 place the children of his own loins at an equal remove from 
 himself, with the children called from others ; acting and doing 
 toward them as the Lord*s agent of benefaction, guided by 
 Him. Coming out of all personal and private friendships, in 
 the same manner, he loves companions, but as the Lord loves 
 in and through him ; dissociating himself from them, conjoin- 
 ing himself to them, ministering or ceasing to minister, solely 
 
32 ABCANA OF ORBISTIANITT. [chap. t. 
 
 by direction from above. The state whicli lie is in is tben called 
 " Patmos." It signifies also tlie beginning of revelation, con- 
 tinued from tbe celestial into tbe natural mind. 
 
 57. '^ Jobn/^ signifies, in this connection, the celestial man, 
 discreted from the natural, freed from all the inversive move- 
 ments of a disorderly social system, disconnected from the 
 world-soul of the Earth, and present by perception in the 
 Celestial Heaven. " Who also am your brother," signifies, 
 that every celestial man, caught up to this condition, in a 
 new solidarity, becomes, for ends of mercy, an integral mem- 
 ber in the great family of all those in the world, who are in 
 states of preparation for the descent of the Divine respirations, 
 into the natural lungs. 
 
 58. There will arise on earth a Society called the " Brother- 
 hood OP THE New Life," internal respiration being the bond 
 of union in the Lord. In Christian and Pagan nations, among 
 Jews and Gentiles, both bond and free, this fraternity will 
 exist. Whoever becomes a Brother of the New Life, through 
 the full re-opening of the respirations, being in preparation to 
 become a living human tabernacle of Christ, will henceforth 
 stand to the Lord, to the angels, to men, to evil spirits, in re- 
 lations radically difierent from those of others. 
 
 59. When the Lord has re-opened the respiratories of any 
 man, and continually breathes, by His Divine Spirit, through 
 the spiritual into the natural lungs, the laws of the new king- 
 dom, which is righteousness and peace, become his laws. The 
 time passed of his life sufficeth him to have wrought the will of 
 the gentiles. The constant burden of his aspiration is. Thy will, 
 O Lord, be done. He bears the visible fruit of the angelic life 
 on earth. No Spirit can be bound, except, directly or mediately, 
 through those who have passed through the lesser stages of 
 internal respiration, and entered into the first of its greater 
 stages ; as will be explained in another place. These are called 
 " kings and priests to God." They rule through total self- 
 abnegation, and minister through simple, direct obedience to 
 the Lord. Being in this condition, they are dependent, for a 
 vital breath, upon the air of Heaven, as other men are upon 
 the terrestrial atmosphere ; and upon the food of Heaven, as 
 others upon daily bread; on the divine guidance through the 
 
SEC. 57—61.] THE APOCALTPSK 33 
 
 Inmost Voice flowing into and quickening tlie super-rational 
 judgment^ as otliers upon the rational judgment; and con- 
 sciously amenable to tlie standards of tlie Celestial Society, as 
 others to the tribunals of the terrestrial state. This is the 
 prospective condition of the New Christendom, wherein, as the 
 Lord declares, all things shall be made new. 
 
 60. " Companion,^^ denotes, that no isolation will exist be- 
 tween the subjects of the new celestial kingdom of our Lord 
 on earth. The new respirations, imparting a simultaneous 
 accordant vibration to all lungs, will attract, through the 
 operation of a Divine affinity, and cement the bonds of a per- 
 fectly reliable and permanent fraternity, in which civil discord 
 will be impossible ; except as some may fall. 
 
 " Companion in affliction," signifies, that the new celestial 
 man on earth, advancing in the process of regeneration through 
 open respiration, will take upon himself, from time to time, 
 the bodily maladies and mental distresses of his brethren, who 
 are following on in the pathway of newness. " In the king- 
 dom and patience of Jesus Christ," (patient expectation) 
 signifies, that there is a natural kingdom of new created 
 divine forms, in the earth ; and that the man of the new age 
 becomes encompassed by them. " And patience,^'' or patient 
 expectation, signifies, the slowness of the growth of the celestial 
 state, in men, dm^ing the earlier and incipient eras. " In the 
 isle called Patmos, for the Word of God," signifies, that the 
 object of isolation from the invei'ted movement of the corrupt 
 social and natural order in the world, is the reception of 
 Christ, who is called the Word, and who becomes inworlded 
 anew, through the open respirations of His people. " And for 
 the testimony of Jesus Christ," signifies, the proclamation of 
 the Lord in the divine life of the new celestial man, which 
 then ensues. These are the lowest significatives in the ulti- 
 mate sub-degree of the celestial sense ; there being many others 
 which are higher. 
 
 Chap. i. 10. — "I was m the Spieit on the Lord's day, and 
 
 HEARD BEHIND ME A GREAT VOICE, AS OF A TRUMPET." 
 
 61. '^I was in the Spirit," signifies, that the natural man, 
 who in his interiors, is celestial, and who is an illustration of 
 
 c 
 
34 ARCANA OF GRBISTIANITY. [chap. t. 
 
 tlie Divine Word, may receive composite respiration (see Nos. 
 41 to 44), and through composite respiration, may tend per- 
 petually towards ubiquity, without ever becoming ubiquitous ; 
 may be at once in the three Heavens, and in the five worlds 
 in each, from internals to externals of each of their proceeding 
 and encompassing spheres. He may also be present, through 
 the same state, in perceptional knowledge, in the earths of the 
 universe, through a respu-ation in any of the world-souls, to 
 whose breathing he has become habituated. 
 
 62. " On the Lord's day,'' signifies, the coronal state of 
 respiration, by which all the series of the composite breathings 
 is crowned and consummated in direct respiration from the 
 Spirit of the Lord. " And heard," signifies, that there is an 
 immediate voice of the Lord, then audible. " Behind me," 
 signifies, that this divine voice penetrates the ganglions, 
 through the point of junction of the spine and the base of the 
 brain. ^' A great voice," signifies, composite utterance of 
 many truths in one. "As of a trumpet," denotes that the 
 auditory nerves are made in an ultimate degree the vibratory 
 media. 
 
 Chap i. 11. — "Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first 
 
 AND THE last : AND, WhAT THOU SEEST, WEITE IN A BOOK, 
 AND SEND IT UNTO THE SEVEN CHUECHES WHICH AEE IN AsiA ; 
 UNTO EpHESUS, and UNTO SmYENA, AND UNTO PeEGAMOS, 
 AND UNTO ThYATIRA, AND UNTO SaEDIS, AND UNTO PHILA- 
 DELPHIA, AND UNTO LaODICEA." 
 
 63. " Saying," signifies, that our Lord speaks directly to 
 the inly breathing celestial man, as well as intermediately 
 through the Heavens. " I am," signifies, that Jehovah reveals 
 Himself in that degree of His own nature which corresponds to 
 the celestial. " Alpha," signifies, that to the inmost perceptions 
 of the celestial man, the celestial in Deity is revealed. " And 
 Omega," signifies, that the celestial from Deity is also revealed 
 to the utmost ultimates. " The first," signifies, the revelation 
 of the celestial principle in the Divinity of the Lord. " And 
 the last," signifies, the ultimate revelation of the celestial prin- 
 ciple, as it is in the Humanity of our Lord. " What thou 
 seest," signifies, that nothing is made known from the Divine 
 
SEC. 62—65.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 35 
 
 through, the celestial^, but such as is made apparent throuo-h 
 open perception in the Word. ^' Write in a book/^ signifies, 
 that the things which are inscribed throughout the universes, 
 in the harmonic civilizations of the new order, are to be made 
 known. " And send \t," signifies, that every branch of the 
 human race upon the earth, through oral teaching, must 
 be instructed in the approximating order of the new age. 
 '' Unto the seven churches,^^ signifies, all men ; and implies 
 the command to bear this Word wheresoever the Lord appoints, 
 as internally-breathing men are quickened to exemplify and 
 communicate. " Churches,^' signifies, the adaptation of the 
 celestial truths of the Word to the religious principle in man, 
 rather than to the natural scientific principle. " Which are," 
 signifies, that the seven churches in a seven-fold series of 
 organic planes in the human constitution, according to the 
 seven special types of the new humanity, may become estab- 
 lished with every human being. " In Asia," signifies, that 
 these organic conditions pre-exist in that most ancient part in 
 man, which constitutes the inmost germ, and which is extant, 
 prior to natural generation, and which descends through the 
 heavens. See A. of C. 1, I. 343. 
 
 64. " Ephesus," signifies, the inmost state of the celestial 
 man also ; and refers to a new church to be established on 
 earth, to consist of those, who, besides being in the supreme 
 good of love, shall respire continually through the Celestial 
 Heaven, and shall be called celestial-natural men. '' Smyrna," 
 refers to a second church, to be established, and to consist of 
 men who shall respire through the Spiritual Heaven, and who 
 shall be grounded principally in the truths which pertain to 
 the good of love. " Pergamos," refers to a third church, also 
 to take a place in this series, whose members shall be such as 
 respire through the Ultimate Heaven. Ephesus, Smyrna, and 
 Pergamos form a trine. 
 
 65. '' Thyatha " typifies a fourth church, to consist of those 
 who shall possess respiration, continued from the Celestial 
 Heaven through the world-souls, and who shall especially be 
 versed in the arts, sciences, and knowledges of order, estab- 
 lished upon those earths of the universe, whose inhabitants 
 represent most fully, in time and space, the qualities of the 
 
 c 2 
 
36 AECANA OF CHBISTIANITY. [chap. i. 
 
 Celestial Heaven. In like manner^ '' Sardis/' refers to a fifth 
 churclij to be composed of a type of mankind whose respiration 
 shall be continued from the Spiritual Heaven through the world- 
 souls. Of them^ it may be said, that, having access to the 
 types of harmonic civilization, established upon unfallen 
 worlds, which represent the splendours of truth pertaining to 
 the Spiritual Heaven, they shall be pre-eminently wise in the 
 composite sciences. The signification of " Philadelphia," is a 
 sixth church, composed of members of the human family who 
 respire from the Ultimate Heaven through the world-souls. So 
 great is the strength put forth from the Ultimate Heaven, that 
 those worlds of the universe, peculiarly under its influence, are 
 peopled by races combining titanic powers with the most joy- 
 ous fulness of sensation. In this church will take place the 
 perpetual nuptials of industry and love. The three churches, 
 Thyatira, Sardis, and Philadelphia, constitute a second trine. 
 
 66. " Laodicea," signifies, the fulness of humanity : a 
 church which shall be the crown of all others, composed of an 
 artistic race, respiring in the composite order through the 
 three Heavens, mth respirations continued through the world- 
 souls. So great will be the heats evolved through the endless 
 nuptials of Divine charity and truth in the constitutions of 
 these inly-breathing men among the- Afi'ican tribes, that the 
 present sable complexion of the features will disappear, and 
 the organization be entirely reconstituted in a new outline of 
 symmetry, in which the hue will be a golden redness, resembling 
 that of the inhabitants of the orb Polyhymnia. For particulars 
 of this orb, see A. of C. 1, I. 607—618. 
 
 Chap. i. 12. — ''''And I tuened to see the voice that spake 
 WITH ME. And being turned, I SAW SEVEN golden candle- 
 sticks.-'^ 
 
 67. The Divine fires which penetrate the human system, in 
 the stages which precede the re-opening of the respiratories, are 
 injected into the system at the junction of the spinal column 
 with the base of the cerebellum. '^ And I turned," signifies, 
 the gradual inclination of the face of the celestial man, as he is 
 by degrees di-awn aside by the inflowing and action of these 
 fires, from conformity to the inverted social and natural order 
 
SEC. 66—68.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 37 
 
 of the world. '' To see tlie voice/-' signifies, that this turning 
 is to a state of perception, in which the words spoken in the 
 ear of the understanding, are apparent in the divine sky as 
 representative images. 
 
 68. " That spake with me/' signifies, that, being turned, the 
 Divine voice now penetrates into the inmost places of the under- 
 standing of the man, awakening the dormant aflections of good 
 and truth, which, since the days of first infancy, have been ren- 
 dered inert, and made seemingly dead through the corruptions 
 of the world. These human affections of innocence are in the 
 human form, and come forth from the deep places of the will, 
 as from their graves, when they hear the Divine Voice. " And 
 being turned,^^ signifies, the new state of the celestial man, 
 clothed with a fay sphere, and with the loves of innocence that 
 had become inert within him restored to life. " I saw/^ sia;- 
 nifies, the degree of illumination possessed by the celestial 
 man, extending from the knowledge of atomic men, who are 
 the leasts of forms, through the fay series, and the human 
 series, and through the series of the world-souls to the series 
 of composite humanities of universes and of heavens. It sig- 
 nifies also the knowledges, which are derived from these, all 
 of which are contained within the Word. " Seven," signifies, 
 the series, composed as follows. First, atomic men ; second, 
 fay races ; third, human races of earths and suns ; fourth, 
 world-souls and universe-souls ; fifth, angels of the Ultimate 
 Heaven and composite angelhoods and archangelhoods therein ; 
 sixth, angels of the Spiritual Heaven and composite angelhoods 
 and archangelhoods therein; seventh, angels of the Celestial 
 Heaven, and composite angelhoods and archangelhoods there- 
 in. " Golden,''^ signifies, that, from the least to the greatest 
 of the series, the Divine Love is supreme, and nothing within 
 them inclined from or opposed to life, order, and blessedness ; 
 but that they form a unity of harmony in the Divine Word. 
 " Candlestick," signifies, that from the least to the greatest of 
 this stupendous and universal series, its members are aU organs 
 for an illumination from the Lord. 
 
 Chap. i. 13. — '''Ajsd in the midst of the seven candlesticks 
 oke like unto the son op man, clothed with a garment 
 
38 ABGANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [cirAP. i. 
 
 DOWN TO THE TOOT^ AND GIRT ABOUT THE TAPS WITH A GOLDEN 
 GIRDLE.'^ 
 
 69. " In tlio midst of the seven candlesticks/' signifies, the 
 universal form in the interiors of each and every unit of the 
 seven-fold series of the created human forms. " In the midst 
 one like unto the Son of man/' signifies, that the Divine 
 Humanity, as now visible to the perceptions of the illumined 
 celestial man, infills the inmosts, actually, in every atomic 
 man, every fay man, and every unfallen human creature of the 
 earths and suns, the entire harmonic series of the world-souls, 
 and universe-souls, and every angel, and composite angel- 
 hood, and archangelhood, throughout the trine of the universal 
 Heavens. " Clothed,'' signifies, that our Lord is visible in the 
 midst of a sphere, which is in the midst of all these things, 
 and which is proceeding from Himself. " With a garment " 
 (with a long garment), signifies, that He is enveloped in this 
 universal sphere. He is thus made known as the Messiah of 
 worlds. "Girt about the paps with a golden girdle," signifies, 
 a zone, which is apparent, proceeding from Himself, which is 
 to succeed the present order of the universe, and which con- 
 tains, in first principles, a new sidereal creation. 
 
 Chap. i. 14. — " His head and Ris hairs were white like 
 
 WOOL, AS white as SNOW j AND HiS EYES WERE AS A FLAME 
 OE EIRE." 
 
 70. ^' His head," signifies, that in the Divine human reason of 
 the Lord, is contained a new creation of the threefold Heaven, 
 celestial, spiritual, and natural ; which shall sustain the same 
 relation to the present Heaven, that the Divine since the 
 assumption of the human, sustains to the Divine before that 
 assumption. " And His hair," signifies, the spirals of rays from 
 His Divine intelligence, in which systems of systems, in their 
 archetypes, are seen proceeding forth. " White like wool, as 
 white as snow," signifies, conjoined with hair, the spiracles 
 proceeding from the spirals, in which the new system of a 
 threefold Heaven, containing universes, is seen projected into 
 the space which is above space beyond the present Celestial 
 Heaven. "And His eyes were as a flame of fire," signifies. 
 
SEC. 69—72.] THJE APOCALYPSE. 39 
 
 a twofold river of all-creative lights proceeding through the 
 Divine human reason of His Divine Humanity. 
 
 Chap. i. 15. — '^'^And His feet like unto eine beass^ as ip they 
 burned in a euenace ; and his voice as the sound op 
 many waters.-'' 
 
 71. '^''And His feet like unto fine brass/' denotes, a Natural 
 Heaven, discreted from the present Natural Heaven ; upbear- 
 ing a Spiritual Heaven, discreted from the present Spiritual 
 Heaven ; and this upbearing a Celestial Heaven, discreted 
 from the present Celestial Heaven ; and successively to appear. 
 "As if they burned in a furnace,'' signifies, the exceeding 
 glory from the Divine Humanity, in which these Heavens are 
 to shine. "' And His voice as the sound (voices) of many 
 waters," signifies, the proceeding of the new creation into the 
 old creation. 
 
 Chap. i. 16. — "And He had in His right hand seven stars : 
 AND OUT OP His mouth went a sharp two-edged swoed : 
 AND His countenance was as the sun shineth in his 
 
 STRENGTH." 
 
 72. "And He had," signifies, that the life of all the forms of 
 the new creation was within the Lord. "In His right' hand," 
 signifies, seven states of regeneration for the men of the 
 new order upon the harmonic orbs, corresponding in glory to 
 the states of regeneration given to men before the intro- 
 duction of evil into the universe, as the visible glory of 
 the Divine Humanity corresponds to the manifested glory of 
 the Divine, before our Lord assumed the human. "And out 
 of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword," signifies, the 
 penetration of the influx from the Lord to the extremest 
 points of matter in creation; so that, from the suns to the 
 obscurest earths it shall be resplendent with a communicated 
 Divine, unknown to the pre-existent orbs of space. "And 
 His countenance," signifies, that the internals of the faces of 
 all the forms, in which the Son of man appears, from those of 
 the atomic men to those of the composite archangelhoods of 
 the Celestial Heaven, shall each be made, in its degree, a 
 medium for the beaming forth of the countenance of the 
 
40 AliCANA OF CHRISTIAN ITT. [chap, i 
 
 Divine Love ; so tliat Infinite Love shall gaze upon its tmi- 
 verse, in degrees of tlie benignity and tlie resplendency of 
 beauty, corresponding to tlie lieart-wants of all creatures from 
 tlie greatest to the least. " As the sun shineth in his 
 strength/' signifies, that the lustre of the Divine Humanity 
 shall envelope the space-orb (see A. of C. 1, I. 344), and the 
 centre sun of the universal creation (see A. of C. 1, I. 465), 
 with a glory of shining which shall be as the glory of the 
 Divine Humanity increasing to eternity, compared to the 
 visible glory of the Divine Presence in nature, before the as- 
 sumption of the human. Thence this glory shall be distributed, 
 through the series of the suns, to the last solar orb, and thence 
 to every terrestrial and aromal world. Of the increase of His 
 dominion shall be no end. Amen. 
 
 Chap. i. 17. — "And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as 
 DEAD. And He laid His eight hand upon me, saying unto 
 me. Fear not ; I am the fiest and the last.'''' 
 73. " And when I saw Him,'' signifies, the revelation of the 
 Lord, in His glorified Divine Humanity, with the first princi- 
 ples of His new creation, in the interiors of the universal series 
 of His sentient, imjsersonal, and intelligent personal creatures, 
 spoken of before. "^I saw Him," signifies. His visibility in 
 the new creation to all sentient impersonal, and intellectual 
 personal creatures in the series. It also signifies, that He was 
 ■visible to the composite perception of the universal heavenly 
 and the universal cosmical creature. " Saw," signifies, that 
 they were in perception from love. "I fell," signifies, that 
 no sentient impersonal, or intellectual personal creature, was 
 able to maintain the harmony of motion and thence of sensa- 
 tion and intelligence, in which it previously existed ; but that, 
 from the beginning of the advent of the new creation in the 
 inmosts of forms, the ancient harmony of the universe began 
 to cease. In corroboration, I may here adduce a statement 
 from many angels, to the effect, that, when the Lord, in His 
 new creation, began to appear in their interiors, a new order 
 of respiration inflowed. So great was the inflowing, that a 
 sea of light deluged them, in the midst of which, overwhelmed, 
 they fell prostrate. "At His feet," signifies, that, when the 
 
SEC. 73—74.] TSE AP0GALTF8K 41 
 
 new creation appeared^ in tlie interiors of tlie creatures, im- 
 personal and personal, slumber ensued as to inmost conscious- 
 ness as 'upon Adam in paradise. It also signifies that this was 
 beneath, the Lord, who ruled above it absolutely, causino- 
 modifying, and determining all its states and their issues. ''As 
 dead,'^ signifies, the total suppression of inmost consciousness 
 during that which followed, — namely, the insemination of the 
 new creation, in its forms, in the substance of the creatures. 
 
 74. " And He laid His right hand upon me,^'' signifies, the in- 
 finite reviving potency of the Lord, at the end of sleep. " Saying 
 unto me," signifies, the unveiling of an inmost sense of the Word, 
 in the inmost of the Celestial Heaven, and thence a new unfold- 
 ing, from the internals of the Word, in all Heavens, and from 
 this a new unfolding from the internals of the Word through- 
 out the solar and sidereal universe, containing declarations 
 from causes to ultimates, of the new order that was to appear. 
 It also signifies a new inmost Divine voice, as the voice of the 
 Lord in His divine humanity to that of the Divine utterance 
 before the assumption of the human. Of the ravishing sweet- 
 ness of this new voice it is impossible to speak, because it is 
 incommunicable. It also signifies, the universality of the 
 revelation, concerning the new creation, through the Heavens 
 and through the solar and planetary systems. "Fear not," 
 signifies, new arcana then unfolded, as a love revelation of 
 the Supreme Infinite. This descended through the silent 
 and interinvolved feminine person, in the composite oneness 
 of the angelic conjugial tie. It became a speaking voice, 
 through illustrative angelic men and their consorts. " I am 
 the first," signifies, a new unfolding of the Word, full of know- 
 ledges concerning the new creation, which descended in the 
 manner spoken of before through the inmost Spiritual Heaven 
 to all of its degrees. " And the last," signifies, a new unveil- 
 ing of composite civilizations, from the internal of the Word, 
 descending from the supreme degree of the Ultimate Heaven 
 through all its empires and their provinces. 
 
 Chap. i. 18. — " I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, 
 
 BEHOLD, I AM ALIVE FOR EVERMORE, AmEN ; AND HAVE THE 
 KEYS OP HELL AND OF DEATH." 
 
42 ABOANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [cnAP. i. 
 
 75. " Hg that livctli/^ signifies, the Infinite I Am. '^And 
 was dead/' signifies, the composite humanity which He assumed 
 in the Incarnation ; in which the former harmony of the uni- 
 verse, being centred, was made extinct and passed away. 
 " Behold I am alive for evermore,^' signifies, the universal 
 harmony in the structures of the divine human form of the 
 Lord, in which He victoriously proceeds to the new creation. 
 " Amen,^^ signifies the praises of the creature in the descent 
 of the new harmony ; and also the conjunction in that praise 
 of the Lord with His creatures. "Keys," signifies the loosen- 
 ing power resulting from the incarnation of the Lord, by 
 means of which to bring deliverance to the spirits of the pri- 
 mates and the ultimates now involved in nature ; which, had 
 evil not been introduced, would have been inwrought into the 
 ultimate degree of the angelic body of the ascended man. 
 See A. of C. 1, L 489. " Keys of hell,'' signifies the ability 
 of the Lord, through His Incarnation, to revive the atomic 
 spirits, iuAvi'Ought into the present constitution of the lost 
 human spirits of our orb ; and in recombining them in new 
 forms, to cause them to serve the ends of a new creation of 
 human spirits, to stand in the places of such as, through sin, 
 shall have passed away. " The keys of death,'' signifies, the 
 deliverance, through the same process of the atomic spirits, at 
 present inwrought into the structures of the bodies of the de- 
 mons of the lost orb ; and their new combinations in the bodies 
 of a human race, who shall replace in the universe that which 
 fell. See A. of C. ],L 717. 
 
 Chap. i. 19. — "Weite the things which thou hast seen, and 
 
 THE things which ARE, AND THE THINGS WHICH SHALL BE 
 HEEEAETEE." 
 
 76. "Things seen," is the mystery of iniquity; in other 
 words, the false creation of subterfuges and deceits; which 
 the demons of the lost orb, in their series grouped about their 
 pivotal chief, inflowing into the minds of the lost spirits of the 
 three hells of the planet Earth, in the last times, will endeavour 
 to inseminate into the spirits and bodies of our world's inhabit- 
 ants. 
 
SEC. 75—79-] TRE APOCALTFSE. 43 
 
 THIED ILLTJSTEATION. 
 
 The world-soul of the Earth, and mysteries therein. — English plutocrats and 
 dignitaries in the World of Spirits. 
 
 77. At tlie present time^ tlie world-soul of our orb, to angelic 
 vision, is perceived pierced with many wounds, and bleeding 
 therefrom. She is supported by the world- soul of the planet 
 Mars, and the two are interknit through the conjunction of 
 attributes. I was conducted to the earth Mars, in spirit, and 
 there beheld a representation of the wounded world-soul ; the 
 spirits of African nations in her brain, of European nations in 
 her lungs, of Mahommedans in the loins, and of Asiatics in 
 the principal organs of the viscera; the Anglo-Saxon race in 
 Australia and America in the right and left arms. She is 
 crippled in her extremities and impotent. Her limbs are 
 shrivelled, because the races which should have been placed 
 within them are non-existent through sin. 
 
 78. I was surprised to observe that the African race occupied 
 a position within the cerebrum and cerebellum; but soon 
 observed the reason. At the present time the dormant intel- 
 lectual organs of the African people are replete with stored-up 
 germs of the most sublime arts, sciences, philosophies, and in- 
 ventions, in first principles. A new creation is literally exist- 
 ing there ; and that race which is supposed to be the lowest 
 upon the earth, is really the highest from the stand-point of 
 the Celestial Heaven. The world-soul holds this afflicted 
 people quiescent ; and will not suffer them to be subjected to 
 the processes, by means of which an inversive civilization is 
 developed elsewhere. Spiritually the African is the most 
 inoffensive of all Earth^s inhabitants ; and the most easily 
 elevated into angelhood after the decease of the body. 
 
 79. The World-Soul cried, '^ See how I am wounded in the 
 house of my friends ;" and, looking into her breast, I beheld 
 European nations therein, engaged in deadly war. Europe, at 
 the present moment, is one festering ulcer, offensive to God 
 and abominable to all good men. The Anglo-Saxon race is 
 rapidly exhausting its stored-up vitality, and, spider-like, 
 spinning away its own bowels. Its present use is to open the 
 way for the new civilization, by applying the results of science 
 
44 ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. i. 
 
 to the consolidation of tlio peoples^ tlirougli trade and com- 
 merce, into one body. The mainspring of its motive is an in- 
 tense ambition, and its purpose is to monopolize tlie world's 
 wealth for the aggrandizement of industrial chiefs, to whom 
 the artisan who produces, and the remote barbarian who pur- 
 chases his commodities, are less precious than the merest 
 dross. 
 
 80. I saw one resembling Richard Arkwright in the World 
 of Spirits, wringing his hands, and crying, " Woe is me, woe 
 is me. Gold is misery ! " He is wasted away at his extremi- 
 ties, so that his hands and feet appear to be those of a skeleton. 
 The base of his brain has fallen in, but the organs of calcula- 
 tion project like horns over his eyes. The development of the 
 abdomen and stomach is enormous, and they are covered with 
 leprous sores. I drew near him ; his meanings were piteous 
 in the extreme. He was calling for water to cool his parched 
 tongue, and an image as of a ragged artisan stood at his right 
 hand, out of a golden goblet pouring liquid fire. He cursed 
 me for an " agrarian '^ and " leveller,^' as I drew near, say- 
 ing that " I wished to impoverish his family, and reduce them 
 to the necessity of toil.^^ It was a most woeful, pitiable sight. 
 
 81. I saw a certain English spirit, who, on earth, dm'ing the 
 life of the body, had rolled in riches, acquired in cotton spin- 
 ning. This man's conduct, while in the flesh, had been most 
 brutal and murderous to those in his employ. He had not 
 hesitated, though enormously opulent, to rob the operatives in 
 his service of much of their miserable pittance, under a variety 
 of dishonest pretexts, known to those in that trade. He sits 
 in a massive carved seat, which he cannot leave. In conse- 
 quence of the habit of griping and extortion, which he 
 cherished on earth, his bowels there have become knotted and 
 strangulated, and, in portions, hard as corrugated iron. He 
 hugs the insanity that he is a rich man still ; and dreams of 
 paintings, pineries, of court preferment, and the prudent dis- 
 position of a vast income perpetually on the increase. He is 
 tormented incessantly by fears of robbers, who, as he im- 
 agines, seek to kill him for his gold. His cheeks are loathsome 
 and livid, and myriads of creeping things have their habitation 
 within his breast. The fiery face of this spii-it I never shall 
 
SEC. 80—84.] TSE APOCALYPSE. 45 
 
 forget, tlie knit brows, the gathered, but hound-like lips, the 
 masses of coarse, iron-grey hair heaped upon the brow. 
 
 82. I saw another who had lived not remote from AVolver- 
 hampton, England; a mighty man on earth, with thews and 
 sinews like a bullock. He cried aloud that "his sons had 
 robbed him, cast him out of his mansion, and driven him dis- 
 guised to excavate coal.^^ This was his fantasy. I saw, 
 perhaps, three hundred spirits, all of them, on earth, possessors 
 of estates acquired in the same manner; but here, in the re- 
 verse of conditions, dwelling in a barren moor, without a green 
 leaf to diversify its steaming cinerated surface. Their habita- 
 tions are volcanic hovels, excavated apparently in the midst of 
 the refuse of furnaces. One invited me to dine with him. I 
 asked him where his food was, and he replied, '' See, my servants 
 have prepared a banquet.^' Before him was what resembled a 
 perforated mass of slag, on which were objects that appeared 
 like newts, slugs, and other reptiles. These he devoured with 
 greedy voracity, his manners being those of a beast. A pitchy 
 liquor exuded from the bituminous rocks at his left hand, which 
 he drank. 
 
 83. I saw, in conjunction with them, a divine, who had been 
 a pluralist, and a prime favourite at the court of George IV. 
 To him religion had been a stalking-horse. A godless sensual- 
 ist in heart, his chief end in life had been to obtain prefer- 
 ments by flatteries of the great. The hardness of heart, which 
 he had cherished on earth, had literally, in the spiritual world, 
 oozed through his members, and petrified them, so that his 
 feet and lower limbs seemed cased immovably in solid rock. 
 Still attired in the garments of religion, he seemed a living 
 monument. Upon a blasted tree at his left were three croak- 
 ing vultures ; they flew as I disturbed them, and concealed 
 themselves in the cavern of his bosom. As I drew near, he 
 shouted that his three gods were angry with me- The obscene 
 birds then flew forth and disappeared. 
 
 84. I saw a miseress ; a titled lady, of great rank, also of 
 a recent period. Her position had been such that she had 
 been enabled to control the bestowment of preferments and 
 pensions. She wore a head-dress of owls' feathers, and her 
 countenance had become owlish in its aspect. The nose horned 
 
46 ABCAI^A OF CEBI8TIANITT. [chap. i. 
 
 and hooked like a hcak, and the eyes like those of a spiteful 
 cat. Her breasts had been extirpated through her crimes. 
 She sat counting bits of pumice,, which, in her madness^ she 
 esteemed diamonds. One drew nigh with the grimace of a 
 courtier^ and presented her with more of this substance. She 
 patted him at this, on the right shoulder, with something that 
 resembled a fan, and promised to intercede in his behalf, that 
 he might receive accession of dignity, and become an earl. 
 
 85. "' By things which are," is signified the planet Mars, 
 in the world-soul whereof arc stored up vast treasures of in- 
 crements, from the three Heavens, which, as pollen, when it is 
 wafted from flower to flower, are designed, in the opening of 
 internal respiration, to impregnate the internals of the celestial- 
 natural faculties upon om' earth ; concerning which, more in 
 another place. " And the things which shall be hereafter," 
 signifies, the insemination of the regenerate humanity on earth, 
 with the beautiful joys in the bosoms of the inhabitants of the 
 planet Mars; a sinless and holy people. These joys are celes- 
 tial in their character, and descend into the natural. 
 
 Chap i. 20. — " The mystery oe the seven staks which thou 
 sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candle- 
 STICKS. The SEVEN stars are the angels op the seven 
 
 CHURCHES : and THE SEVEN CANDLESTICKS WHICH THOU 
 SAWEST ARE THE SEVEN CHURCHES." 
 
 86. By " mystery," in this verse, is signified, celestial arcana 
 concerning the spirits of the attributes in the bosom of the 
 Divine Humanity. " Of the seven stars," signifies, arcana 
 concerning seven types of attributal men, so called, to appear 
 on earth. Of these men, it is permitted now to state that they 
 shall be celestial-natural, spiritual-natural, and of the third 
 heaven continued into the natural, making one trine. Of solar 
 men, aromal men, and terrestrial men, a second trine. And 
 of Children of the Ray (See A. of C. 1, I. 530), Children 
 of the Shadow (see A. of C. 1, I. 529, 631 and sequel), and 
 Childi'en of the Wave, a third trine. 
 
 87. It is also permitted to mention seven particulars, where- 
 in attributal men are invested with pre-eminent royalty. To 
 
SEC. 85—89.] TSE APOCALYPSE. 47 
 
 the first type are entrusted the seasons ; they have power to 
 determine the new types of vegetation. To the second type 
 is entrusted respiration. Through their openness to the Lord 
 they are media for the descent of new respirative conditions to 
 mankind. The third class preside over waters and floods ; 
 and the powers in them from the Lord_, determine the currents 
 of celestial^ spiritual^ and ultimate heavenly influx, by means 
 of which the water streams and springs themselves are sur- 
 charged with qualities from the three Heavens, promotive of 
 health, longevity, and new vital conditions, both for animals 
 and men. The fourth have power over marine animals, and 
 the finny tribes in general ; determining the decease and dis- 
 appearance of inverted species, the purification and re-creation 
 of those which are orderly, and their distribution throughout 
 the waters of the globe. 
 
 88. The fifth preside over the universal fauna of the planet ; 
 they are charged with the oflS.ce of the distribution of influx 
 into the natural degree, by means of which the animal races 
 are to be demagnetised from the hellish poisons which have 
 inflowed from human and spiritual disorders, and, in fine, 
 their progressive elevation to a new Edenic state. The sixth 
 have power over decay, and ability from the Lord to extir- 
 pate death-producing larvee from soils, waters, systems, and 
 atmospheres. The seventh have power over death; and, as 
 agents in the Divine hand, to add years, through the imparta- 
 tion of a quickening spirit, to the life- duration of the human 
 natural form. "Which thou sawest,^' signifies, attributal 
 men in the suns and in the terrestrial and aromal planets. 
 
 rOUETH ILLUSTEATION. 
 
 Attributal men in the planet Jupiter, and works performed by tliem. 
 
 89. I saw an attributal man of the first type on the orb 
 Jupiter; one of that race mentioned in A. of C. 1, I. 142-149. 
 I was with him for several days of their time, as to the spirit, 
 and our breaths were as one. Being conscious, in his interiors, 
 that I was present with him in my ofiice as an interpreter of 
 the celestial mysteries of the Word, he executed many things. 
 
48 ARCANA OF CHBISTIANITY. [chap. i. 
 
 some of wliicli I hero relate. A fruit-tree grew in a series 
 witli many others in the open air. It became covered with 
 ripe figs in about the space of twenty-four hours^ while those 
 in its vicinity, in leaf at the same time, hardly changed as to 
 the appearance of their fruit. It was effected by a determi- 
 nation of heavenly influxes into the natural. The tree was not 
 injured by the process, but rather enhanced in its fruit-bear- 
 ing properties. I was informed by him that fruit-trees, which 
 ordinarily produced but one crop in the season, might bear 
 seven, when disposed for that purpose under the influence of 
 the vitalising elements descending from the Lord, when dis- 
 tributed through this type of attributal men. 
 
 90. Another tree was then shown me, producing an egg- 
 shaped fruit, partaking somewhat of the nature of the peach, 
 and like that in size. He showed me the process, by means 
 of which, one branch, selected from others, by the determina- 
 tion of a peculiar influx thereto, produced a delicious quality 
 of the species, more than seven times as large. 
 
 91. For a third illustration, he caused me to perceive, that, 
 by the descent of influx, those trees of the forest which 
 are used for timber, change their mode of growth, and are dis- 
 posed into flattened cubes, which take that precise shape, as 
 layer after layer is added to them, which fits them for the 
 builder^s hand. A fourth illustration disclosed influxes, by 
 means of which attributal men either expand the air cells of 
 the wood of trees to make them exceedingly light, when their 
 use requires ; or otherwise, for opposite purposes, by condens- 
 ing the air cells, cause them to grow with almost metallic 
 solidity. These are some of the wonders I noticed while in 
 his society. 
 
 92. I was conducted to the stately pyramidal mansion de- 
 scribed in A. of C. 1, I. 142, to behold an attributal man of 
 the second type, who was in his great ofiice, as a trainer of 
 novitiate youths, for the reception of a vast variety of super- 
 terrestrial knowledges. He was attired in an over-garment of 
 flamy purple, which descended to his feet. He wore the 
 emblem of a white dove upon his breast, set in a badge with 
 jewels. He was made aware of my approach, as a spirit, by 
 the change in his respiration, and instantly perceived the 
 
SEC. 90—93.] THE APOCALYPSE. 49 
 
 object for whicli I came. Smiling a grave and courteous 
 welcome, lie continued a discourse, in whicli he evidently had 
 been engaged ; a description of the modes of respiration prac- 
 tised by the inhabitants of the sun of our own system. I 
 gathered from his statement that some of that race are of 
 extreme buoyancy, and that they traverse their atmosphere at 
 times, with a bird-like swiftness. Rising for an illustration, 
 at the same time, he floated lightly in space with extended 
 arms, then folding them upon his breast, resumed his former 
 standing position. I will observe here, that he did not rise 
 as a spirit in partial disconnection from the natural form, but 
 ascended with and in it. Being permitted to inspect his per- 
 son, I observed the immense voluminousness of the respiratory 
 system. The bones and cartilages seemed flexible for its 
 operation, and the apparent bulk of the body was varied con- 
 tinually as the respirations underwent a change. Attributal 
 men, who preside over respiration upon that planet, are en- 
 abled to communicate instantaneously, through the change of 
 respiration, with any of their globe to whom they have a 
 message, irrespective of space. By means of this air telegraph, 
 communications are universal. States of supreme clemency 
 and mercy, of strength and exultation, of active waking or 
 sweet repose, are transmitted with electric rapidity, through 
 attributal men of this type ; and they bear a name which sig- 
 nifies, " breaths of Jehovah," in the language of that world. 
 
 93. " Which thou sawest," signifies, seven series of truths 
 concerning attributal men, hereafter to be spoken of '^ In my 
 rio-ht hand," signifies, palm-vision and its terrestrial manifest- 
 ation. In the right hand of many angels appears, within the 
 palm, a lucid crystalline lens, in which, as in a mirror, they 
 behold, with an endless change of perspective, illustrations of 
 those portions of the Word wherein they are being instructed 
 by the Lord. These illustrations are an endless museum and 
 gallery of art, varying in particulars with every angeFs state. 
 " And the seven golden candlesticks," signifies, a now social 
 order, whereof the pivots or chiefs aro attributal luon. 
 Some of the particulars may be inferred from what has been 
 written of the nature of the gifts with which they havo been 
 
 D 
 
50 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. i. 
 
 endowed. This is also contained with innumerable specialities 
 in the clause which follows ; the " seven stars/' or seven 
 varieties of attributal men, being the Divine messengers for 
 the communication of gifts, to the " seven candlesticks," or 
 seven types of the now humanity, in their new social order. 
 
 Pkayee. 
 O Thou, in whoso bosom, in Thy Divine Humanity, are the 
 seven attributal spirits of Almighty God ; who dost designate 
 in Thy new order on earth attributal men ; grant, we beseech 
 Thee, through the reopening of internal respiration, a terres- 
 trial ministry of these Thy servants ; and, unto us who read; 
 perception of the truth of this Tliy Word, from the affections 
 of the heart, for Thy most glorious descent, in light, liberty, 
 and love to all men. Amen. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 Ephesus a church or people in the New Harmony. — Methods wherehy 
 this new process is begun. — The seven lamps of life. — Eelapses and 
 recoveries. — Judgments against transgressors of the law of the new 
 creation. — Inversions produced through the antagonism of the hells. 
 Seven-fold and final blessedness of the people called Ephesus. — SmjTna 
 a second chiirch or people. — Fifth illustration. — Ke construction of 
 science in the new creation. — Seven crises of deliverance for this 
 people. — Temptations and relapses. — Sixth illustration. — False scientists 
 in the Spiritual Hell. — Ten persecutions awaiting this people. — Spiritual 
 imprisonments and their cause ; also means of deliverance. — Tests of 
 faith during processes of the new creation. — Seventh illustration. — In- 
 fernal elements in modern literature. — Eighth illustration. — Represent- 
 ative faculties in this people. — Ninth illustration. — Ten states of arduous 
 endeavour, and ten of representative glory for men of this type. — A 
 bodily resurrection to be obtained by them. — Pergamos a third church 
 or people. — Radiative men, pivots of order. — Types of men respiring 
 from the Ultimate Heaven. — Beginning of martyrdoms. — Wars of the 
 natural man against the new creation. — Temptations. — Inversions from 
 the disorders of the natural man. — Tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, 
 and fourteenth illustrations. — Punishment of tempters and blasphemers- 
 — A new divine voice, and thence a new eloquence. — Seven felicities 
 for men of this type ; also seven conjugial arcana respecting them. — 
 The tree of life. — Thyatira a fourth church or people. — Their com- 
 posite respiration, — Harmonic civilization through them. — A new 
 mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdom. — Radiative centres in the new 
 harmony. — Casting out of demons.— Liberators of mankind. — Subju- 
 gation of the larvae. — Healings of the sick.^ — Expulsion of the false 
 Hymen. — Fay work. — Celestial literature and art. — New agriculture, 
 and new commerce. — New physical powers. — The new woman. — 
 Fifteenth illustration. — The woman's Word and new harmony through 
 it for woman. — Temptations and fallings away. — Judgments. — Uses 
 of the woman's Word. — Childhood, maidenhood, mamages, and genera- 
 tions in the new life. — New periods in existence. — Seven changes 
 through which woman is translated. — Evangelization of the world. — 
 Modes of the second coming of the Lord. 
 
 D 2 
 
52 AECANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 Chap. ii. 1. — ''Unto the angel of the Church of Ephesus 
 WRITE; These things saith He that holdeth the seven 
 STARS in His right hand, who walketh in the midst 
 op the seven golden candlesticks.^' 
 
 94. " Epliesns/' as said before, signifies, tlie inmost state of 
 tlie celestial man ; and refers to a New Church, to consist of 
 those who shall respire through the Celestial Heaven. '' Unto 
 the angel,'' signifies, the descent of the Divine Spirit, thi-ough 
 seven Heavens of the celestial degree, making one. " Of the 
 Church," signifies, the evolution of the peculiar civilization, 
 which, in archetypes, exists in those Heavens, through the 
 unitary form in which they mediate as one composite celestial 
 man. " Of Ephesus," signifies, all internally respiring men 
 on Earth, of the first type, which is entitled celestial-natural. 
 '' Write," signifies, the open disclosure of the Divine reve- 
 lation from the Word, concerning the regeneration of the 
 celestial-natural man. '' These things," signifies, all arcana 
 pertaining to the progressive establishment and glorious 
 supremacy of Divine order in the celestial-natural type of 
 humanity. " Saith," signifies, voice-communion from the 
 Lord, audible in the internal celestial mind of those who are 
 to constitute this church on earth. 
 
 95. " He that holdeth the seven stars," signifies, the Lord 
 descending in His Divine Humanity, and making disclosures 
 of Himself through attributal men, all of which will be germane 
 to the condition of the worshipper who inherits into the divine 
 harmonies of the celestial-natural degree. " In His right 
 hand," signifies, that the Lord is descending in seven degrees 
 of progressive regeneration, adapted to the peculiar genius of 
 the celestial-natural man. " Who walketh in the midst of the 
 seven golden candlesticks," signifies, that the proceeding in- 
 fluence, by means of which our Lord renovates the man, in 
 this degree, is by the universal conspiration of the atomic men, 
 the fay men, the human inhaljitants of unfallen worlds, the 
 world-souls in their series, and the angels of the three Hea- 
 vens. The atomic men of the inmost of the atoms of the 
 human form, receiving influx from the Lord, through atomic 
 men of the unfallen creation, make war against the accretions 
 of atomic nebulae in the human system, which is undergoing 
 
SEC. 94—96.] THE APOCALYPSE. 53 
 
 regeneration, and tlirougli Divine outbreatMngs, resolve tliem 
 into disconnected atomic forms ; liberating thus the atomic 
 men, whose material systems are involved in a subversive 
 body, from its disorders. The fay men have access to all the 
 living affections, which, in their aggregate, constitute the body 
 of the will, the body of the understanding, and that of the pro- 
 ceeding spiritual person. They work thence, by correspond- 
 ence, upon the forms of the affections insphered within the 
 natural body, whether good or bad. The Lord, descending 
 through the fay men, who are connected with the systems of 
 men of the celestial-natural type, inspires them, each after his 
 own kind, to operate upon the embodied forms of affection 
 within the extenses of the inner man; preserving the good 
 and destroying the evil. 
 
 96. As the celestial-natural man begins to rise into that 
 new order into which he is instituted, by the descent of the 
 Divine Spirit through open respiration, great joy prevails 
 wherever he is perceived, in the spirit, by men of the unfallen 
 worlds, who assimilate to him by genius. It is said among 
 them, '^ Let us refresh ourselves anew with Di^^ine Good and 
 Truth, and rejoice; for one that was dead begins to be made 
 alive again ; and a brother who was lost is found.'^ When 
 such a one, though still a great way off, by reason of the im- 
 purities of the selfhood, is seen turning to the Lord, and ab- 
 sorbing through the spirit into the body, ever so little of the 
 Divine breath, they run in spirit to meet him, and fall upon 
 his neck, and kiss him, and internally seek to clothe him with 
 the starry mantles of their knowledges; placing talismanio 
 jewels, which burn with the divine fire of repugnancy to evil, 
 on his hand, and clasping about his feet the shoes of light and 
 love, with which spirits of unfallen men are endued for astral 
 pilgrimages. He then lives for a time in great peace, as to the 
 internals of his spirit, with these transcendent friends of the 
 unfallen universes. He knows their names, their attributes, 
 and [qualities of mind and heart. In fact, a man is unfit to 
 advance beyond the minutest seed-germ of internal respira- 
 tion, until he begins to associate interiorly with congenial 
 societies of the inhabitants of those earths where moral evil 
 has no place. Until men begin to familiarise themselves with 
 
51 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 the doctrines of the unfallcn universe, disabusing their minds, 
 especially, of the monstrous fallacy that sin is a normal and 
 necessary fact in creation, they cannot arise from the gross 
 condition which now obtains in the world. The conception of 
 the unfallen universe, and of a condition of obedience main- 
 tained in freedom through Divine inbrcathings, from the celes- 
 tial to the natural degree of the human constitution, prepare 
 the way, as Divine messages, for the Lord's coming in the 
 new creation. 
 
 97. After unfallen men, as to their spirits, have begun to 
 consociate with the individual, the truths of the celestial degree 
 of the Word begin, at first like remote starry nebulas, to 
 glimmer upon the consciousness. He delights, as to his, heart, 
 because he is in a first condition of renovated good, in the 
 awful and almost overwhelming conception of the astral sys- 
 tem, revealed through the celestial sense of the Word. It 
 is to him more inspiring and energising, more promotive 
 of holiness and felicity than aught that else appears in 
 universal literature. He feasts upon its knowledges with in- 
 tense delight. The body of the brain, and thence of the 
 whole system, prepared through these contemplations, by the 
 conspiration of sympathy in every part, presents less and less 
 resistance to the starry influxes. Then comes on the period in 
 which the world- souls of the universe begin to awaken their 
 conscious melody within the depths of the being. 
 
 98. The world-souls of the universe exist in pairs, male 
 and female. They maintain a vast impersonal consciousness 
 throughout the electrical natural spheres of the orbs to which 
 they respectively pertain. The world-soul of our own orb is 
 feminine, and its masculine countei'part is that of the planet 
 Mars, thi'ough which it is supported in its fearful struggles at 
 the present time. The world- soul, otherwise, is negative to 
 the condition of the inhabitants of the orb in which it rules. 
 When nations are non-existent through sin, which otherwise 
 should deploy their forces in industrial pursuits, and in the 
 walks and works of a varied civilization, the organs in the 
 body of the world- soul, with which, by correspondence, they 
 agree, are shrivelled and paralytic ; dying nations appear in 
 her body as festering ulcers ; while tribes which exist in a con- 
 
SEC. 97—100.] TRE APOCALTFSE. 55 
 
 dition of wai% fever and incessantly inflame tliose portions of 
 the system in whicli tliey appear. Nations wlierein inverted 
 forms of religion and philosopliy exist and prevail, develope 
 a condition of delirium. The world-soul mourns in the misery 
 of her unhappy and enslaved offspring. 
 
 99. In spite of these most melancholy details, the aspect 
 of the world-soul of our orb is extremely beauteous. She is 
 enveloped in a coruscating splendour, which takes the place 
 of garments, and which is derived from the glorified humanity 
 of our Lord. She is often heard, by those to whom the Lord 
 vouchsafes the gift, discoursing in a most exquisite music that 
 trembles through the pulses of the budding leaves. The ani- 
 mated forests are tuneful with its utterance. It flows, with a 
 pleasant undertone, through the sounds of the growth-pro- 
 cesses of the flowers, and leaps in jets of harmony through the 
 rocky structures of the earth, awakening, in metals and 
 minerals, a vibration of their own. It is not the sweet sad- 
 ness with which the poet mourns the days that are no more; 
 it partakes not of the quality of the impassioned muse, who, 
 stung to madness by the desolations of mankind, wails upon 
 the harp strings of her own spirit, until, in the tumult of her 
 grief, they are broken. The burthen of the refrain of the 
 world-soul is, continually, " I know that my Eedeemer liveth.'^ 
 It will yet grow audible to the dullest ear, and travellers in 
 lone wildernesses, and voyagers amidst the majestic solitari- 
 ness of the sea, shall hear the wide atmosphere, pervaded by 
 an undulant and continued mellifluence of sound, in harmony 
 with all things deep and deathless in the quickened human 
 soul. It is the office of the world- soul, to move by interfluent 
 melody, in unison with the rythmic harmony of the universe, 
 on mankind ; and the song that swells through the seven-fold 
 afi'ections of her being, descends from the new harmony which 
 is filling the universe, and which the Lord in His Incarnation 
 began. 
 
 100. To the angels of the Celestial Heaven, as the internal 
 respiratories are being prepared for their re-opening, are 
 entrusted various duties ; of which the first is, to reduce the 
 natural potencies inherent in the selfhood of the will. The 
 individual feels inmostly, within himself, a sensation as if the 
 
50 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [cuap. it. 
 
 ability to exercise controlling influence over liis felloAvs were 
 at an end. He languishes deeply within himself; starts at a 
 shadow ; is aifected by the slightest concussion or vibration of 
 the atmosphere ; suffers from impaired memory ; finds it diffi- 
 cult to condense and arrange the dim, floating thoughts that, 
 cloud-like, wander over the deeps of consciousness ; becomes 
 more keenly alive to atmospheric changes ; and feels a disposi- 
 tion to retire from the discord and confusion of society into 
 utter solitude. Mysterious pains begin to invade the nervous 
 system ; heats and colds, which may be felt within the body, 
 and yet which sustain no relation to the heats or colds of 
 natural sensation, announce the approach of a new order of 
 phenomena in the frame. It becomes difficult to express 
 thought. To those who are in wedlock, the nuptial enjoyments 
 rapidly decrease, as if potency were giving way to impotency. 
 A sensation of strange, ethereal lightness makes its presence 
 felt within the bosom. Keen hungers are experienced for 
 some divine food, which this world does not know, and a con- 
 tinual impression, by day and night, affects the spirit, that the 
 day of the Lord draweth nigh . 
 
 101, The Spiritual Angels inspect, at this time, the under- 
 standing, wherein the germs of the acquired knowledges which 
 the individual has gathered are conspicuously apparent. They 
 sprinkle the brain with a slow opiate which benumbs the 
 organs of self-derived intelligence. They call out from deep 
 seclusion the latent germs of divine truths implanted in the 
 inmost mind. Whatever were the previous opinions, if not 
 grounded in the inmost principle of life, they begin to recede 
 and disappear. Ideas scintillate at times before the mental 
 eye, with sudden and surpassing brilliancy, and as rapidly 
 vanish. A feeling, as if there were subjective plains, and moun- 
 tains, and rivers, and waterfalls, and oeeans, within the mind, 
 and these composed of a substance more real than Nature, at 
 times prevails. Slowly the intellect arrives at a perception of 
 the world within. The Angels of the Ultimate Heaven, at this 
 period, marshal themselves about the man. He is sometimes 
 accompanied by thousands, respiring in unison, and with a 
 sound, which, to demons who oppose, resembles thunder, or 
 the deep heavings of the sea. 
 
SEC. 101 — 104] TEE APOCALYPSE. 57 
 
 102. When it is borne in mind that all the individuals, and 
 entities of this seven-fold series, contain within themselves, 
 from the Lord, forms of the new creation, which the Divine 
 Spirit is to establish with man ; and that, throngh all the 
 seven-fold sei-ies, it is the Lord who moves forth in the stately 
 miracle of redemption; it may be understood how He "walketh 
 in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks ;" though there 
 are here innumerable arcana, not as yet explained. 
 
 Chap. ii. 2. — " I know thy woeks, and thy labour, and thy 
 
 PATIENCE, AND HOW THOU CANST NOT BEAR THEM WHICH 
 ARE EVIL : AND THOU HAST TRIED THEM WHICH SAY THEY 
 ARE APOSTLES, AND ARE NOT, AND HAST POUND THEM LIARS." 
 
 103. ^^ I know,"' signifies, the descent of the new creation, 
 called knowledge, through internal respiration, into the minds 
 of such as are becoming celestial-natural. There is a new 
 cerebrum formed within the old. This is first within the in- 
 most celestial degree of the brain. It is projected through 
 the divine humanity of the Lord, and organized through His 
 glorified human person. By this is meant an absolute new 
 degree of celestial substance, and not the old reconstituted; 
 for which see more hereafter. '^ Thy works," signifies, the con- 
 spiration of the celestial-natural man, through his breathings, 
 with the Divine Spirit, which forms the new cerebral system 
 within that which existed before. " And thy labour," signifies, 
 gestation. The throes of the celestial-natural man at this 
 period, are indescribable. New organs in the cerebrum are 
 first involved within the old, as in matrices ; but the new divine 
 movement, evolved through unfolding organs, wars against 
 the subversive movement, which reigns in the prior organs 
 
 , in which they are involved. There is an effort upon the part 
 of the old organs, to subject the new; and all the pre-estab- 
 lished motions of the frame conspire for this purpose, but the 
 new prevail. 
 
 104. ^^ And thy patience," signifies, that year by year, day 
 and night, sheltered or shelterless, at ease or trampled on, 
 the celestial-natural man struggles to maintain the new order, 
 which is descending into the frame. "^And how thou canst 
 not bear them which are evil," signifies, the intense repugnancy 
 
58 ABGANA OF GRBISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 felt by the celestial-natural man, against the invcrsive culture 
 of the world, against its false shows, its hypocritical deceits 
 and frauds, and against the extortions and oppressions which 
 prevail; seeing in those who are the agents of evil, so many 
 mechanical and motive powers, unconsciously operated by 
 Pandemonium. ''^ And thou hast tried them which say they 
 are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars," signifies, 
 the ability to discern the quality of spirits, and to detect 
 the falsehoods of those who counterfeit angels. 
 
 Chap. ii. 3. — '' And hast boenb, and hast patience, and foe 
 
 MY name's sake hast LABOURED, AND HAST NOT PAINTED." 
 
 105. " And hast borne," signifies, oppression. The celestial 
 man, in whom the new movement is instituted, suffers organi- 
 cally in a seven-fold manner. First, the atomic nebulae in the 
 form, which are deranged from their true orbit, are moved 
 upon by evil spirits and demons, to torment and afflict. He 
 struggles against successions of diseases, resulting from phy- 
 sical derangements, which have this cause, and the friendly 
 assistance of medical advisers of the old order, often aids on 
 the maladies which seek to prostrate the form. Herein is seen 
 the need of physicians of the new order, divinely illumined. 
 The baleful magnetism of terrestrial men, set on fire with 
 their evil lusts, is a second source pregnant with agony. As 
 the celestial -natural man proceeds toward his new state, he 
 finds himself in a world which deifies the carnal selfhood, and 
 systematically violates the first precepts of the Divine rule. 
 The bad man mm'ders the affections of innocence within his 
 own breast first, and from the organic murders within his own 
 soul, go forth legions of invisible diabolical creatures, that seek 
 to penetrate the newly constituted paradises within the bosoms 
 of the good, and utterly to extirpate every affection born from 
 the sweet nuptials of faith and charity therein. But, in the 
 third place, the man struggling into the new order, is griev- 
 ously oppressed by the world-soul of the lost orb, which, as 
 an organ of inverted motion, wars against the new Divine 
 motion, which is being instituted in the spirit and body of 
 the frame. 
 
SEC. 105—108.] THE APOCALYPSE. 59 
 
 106. That utter hopelessness, and that inconceivable despair 
 which suddenly invade the man of the new age, are the results 
 of an invasive movement, which periodically is communicated 
 from this source. The demons of the Natural Hell, both of our 
 own and the lost orb, acting in juxtaposition of power, are 
 fully aware whenever internal respiration is at hand. Their 
 rage knows no bounds. They stir up, first, wandering spirits 
 who are evil; (see A. of C. 1. I. 776). And second, individuals 
 of ultimate genius, who are under their control on earth, making 
 use of them as agents for subtle and cruel sorceries, particulars 
 of which in due time will be made known. Every species of 
 fi'audful subterfuge, every falsity of reason, every heresy 
 against the Word, which it is possible for the fallen ingenuity 
 to invent or to conceive, is as a fixity or substance in the 
 societies of the dark demons in the Spiritual Hell, both of our 
 own race, and the former race which fell. 
 
 107. The celestial -natural man meets, in the sixth place, 
 volumes of infernal breaths, composed in their particulars of 
 myriads of living organized forms of blasphemies, which are 
 bred in the organisms of demons of this degree, and breathed 
 by them into the bodies of wandering spirits of their class, 
 and also injected into the mental structures of depraved men 
 of a spiritual type on earth. These intellectual larvse, that bite 
 like serpents, that sting like scorpions, emerge tlirough the 
 bodies of those addicted to diabolical arts : and, like the black 
 and stifling odour from a volcano, or the noisome exhalations 
 of the city of the dead, float above and encompass the systems 
 of those in whom they originate, until a human being is seen 
 who is opened, in ever so slight a degree, to the Divine order 
 now descending through the New Heaven. When such are 
 near, they precipitate themselves into whatever organ of the 
 form is accessible, and endeavour to take possession of the 
 reason in its natural substances, and to inflame the organs 
 to delirium, or chill them with paralysis, or infect them with 
 some noisome plague. 
 
 108. Hands, and other members of the human system, 
 which are often made visible in seances of spiritualists, and 
 which seem invested with dazzling brilliancy and purity, are 
 formed, as a rule, by demons of a Spiritual Hell, and are simply 
 
GO ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ir. 
 
 the aggregations of niagnetio breaths embodied in nature, 
 through mediatorial organisms. 
 
 109. Besides the loves of self, of the world, and of dominion 
 over others, Avhich constitute the very life of the infernal mnn, 
 and which manifest themselves through all evil spirits, there 
 are certain passions peculiar to the demons of the lost orb. Of 
 these the first is, to be reinstated in corporeal bodies which shall 
 become immortal in their physique, and invulnerable against 
 the arrows of the Almighty. A second love, with them, scarcely 
 inferior in intensity to the former, is hatred of that new move- 
 ment which descends into the human body, through the re- 
 opening of internal respiration ; seeing as they do the frustra- 
 tion of all their schemes against the universe, through the 
 descent of the Divine Spirit, in this manner. Now Satan, the 
 former magnate of the lost orb, in whose personality evil 
 began, is acutely sensible, by means of his pivotal position, 
 that the new condition is about to make its appearance with 
 our human race, and that its premonitory symptoms are 
 begun. 
 
 110. He is worshipped as a god in the lowest hell of our 
 orb, and is viewed from afar as some stately omniarch invested 
 with principalities and powers without number. This is the 
 order of inversion established in that desolated abyss which is 
 his prison house. Seven " throne spirits,^' so called, typify, 
 in the utmost extreme of blasphemy, the seven spirits of the 
 attributes in the divine humanity of our Lord. 
 
 111. The reason why these key notes, as it were, of the 
 infernal vibrations are thus arranged, will be seen hereafter. 
 (See Magic of the Hells.) Throughout all this fierce anarchical 
 realm. Crime is organized and solidified, for one titanic end, 
 capable only of emanating from itself. It is through the seven 
 sub-centres, each holding at its command satellite spirits of an 
 order approximating to itself, that the stupendous machinery 
 of rebellion is kept in action. The object of the demons of the 
 lost orb is to place their whole force in such a form, that it 
 shall be in the inverse and opposite to the order of the attri- 
 butes in the intelligence of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is 
 through the conspiration of all minds therein as one mind, that 
 they are enabled to present to the false eyes of the evil spirits. 
 
SEC. 109— 113.] TRE AP0CALYF8E. 61 
 
 in the deepest liell of our own worlds the likeness of an infernal 
 sun j to which they turn the faces of their affections, inverting 
 themselves from the Divine luminary of the Heavens. 
 
 112. To break the defences which surround the personality 
 of the terrestrial man, they saturate the human magnetism, 
 emanating from all the inhabitants of the earth, most thoroughly 
 confirmed in evil, with an element which flows forth upon the 
 air as a distilled perdition. This human magnetism is visible to 
 the spiritual sight as an oily, acrid fluid, emitting through itself 
 a putrescence from the hearts of the lowest of demons. When 
 a drop of it is applied to the spiritual body, unless that body 
 is shielded by a Divine influence, it produces cold cramps, 
 which vibrate to the pit of the stomach with a sensation of 
 condensed ice^ reacting upon the natural body with similar 
 phenomena. This is the prime agent made use of by the 
 lowest infernals, for the purpose of subduing the organization 
 of the celestial-uatm'al man ; strychnine is less potent in its 
 effects ; but God has provided an antidote. Through the 
 seven modes just described, the new man, through whom the 
 Lord descends, whether he be of eminent or low estate, expe- 
 riences oppression, 
 
 113. ''And hast patience '^ (endurance), signifies, the con- 
 tinuity in struggle of the celestial-natural man. One by 
 one the illusions, which mask the surfaces of things, veiling 
 their true nature, drop away, as the breath of the Divine 
 Spirit approximates to the natural organs of respiration, 
 through the internal. Wastings commence, which must now be 
 spoken of. There are seven lamps of the golden candlestick 
 of life, which feed the fire of man's composite personality. 
 The first of these is the lamp of the atomic particles. These 
 are massed into granular bodies, so long as internal respu'ation 
 is closed. From the time when it begins, in ever so slight a 
 degree, to be opened, a process of disintegration commences, 
 in the condensed atomic masses, which tend to separateness 
 and freedom. Through the atomic human entities of which 
 they are composed, they distribute themselves in a new scries, 
 to the brain, or to the lungs, or to any other member of the 
 system, as the case may be, acting as universal solvents and 
 distributives, so gradually introducing a now orJcr in the place 
 
G2 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 of tlie old. Every breath of the new respiration witnesses the 
 disengagement of many, and their redistribution. The fire of 
 the Divine love burns brightly through them, as they tend to 
 a new solidarity ; but the transition is painful ; and could a 
 celestial microscope be applied to the eye, it would reveal 
 earthquakes, volcanoes, stupendous conflagrations, the upheav- 
 ing of plains, the suppression of mountains, and the gathering 
 up of the firmaments of the form, the disappearance of their 
 suns and moons and stars, and the destruction of animal and 
 vegetable races. 
 
 114. The second lamp is the fay life (for who and what are 
 the fays, see A. of C. 2, I. chapter 1). Through open respira- 
 tion the fays descend into the finer parts of nature connected 
 with the frame, and work by correspondence against its evils. 
 The false and evil affections which have been inherited or 
 acquired, are represented in the body by minute organic 
 forms, corresponding to whatever is inverted or impure in the 
 vegetable world, and to the obscene and ferocious creatures of 
 the animal kingdom. So long as respiration is not opened, 
 at least in its premonitory stage, there is no access, except in 
 so far as the fays are enabled to operate through the inflowing 
 spheres of such other persons as have become opened to 
 
 'respire from the Holy Spirit. When, however, individual 
 openings begin, the fays first descend into the lungs, working 
 by correspondence, to overthrow the organic forms of the evils 
 in the body; thence they extend the theatre of aggressions, 
 until it includes the entire system ; but this gradually. When 
 it is taken into consideration that the forces of the individual 
 are determined by the appropriation of life from the Lord into 
 the universal series of the organic forms, it is obvious that 
 successive inroads and the slaughter of myriads of these re- 
 ceptive and distributive media for influx, must waste exceed- 
 ingly the natural potencies of man. The building-up process 
 in the fay series will be described hereafter. 
 
 115. The thii'd lamp of life is that which proceeds from the 
 mediative influence of unfallen men. The states of individuals 
 are determined by consociation, through afiinity. If the Lord 
 sees fit to grant to the individual, as to his spirit, consociation 
 with the men of the unfallen universe, he enters at first 
 
SEC. 114— 117.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 63 
 
 into this intercourse with extreme delight^ and his evils are 
 quiescent for a time; but the order of this new life is soon felt 
 to be at war with habit, custom, pre-established ideas in the 
 natm'al mind, determined volitions in the senses, and, in fine, 
 with the great bulk of the natural constitution. Were a har- 
 monic man on earth, he would be Crucified, or in other ways 
 put to death, before he had Hved seven years. To consociate 
 internally and inmostly with such, then, begets in the mind 
 trains of thought, in the will habits of action, which are as 
 flaming fii'e agaiust man's inversions. 
 
 116. But society, as organized, is one stupendous falsehood. 
 Whatever, therefore, in the unregenerate parts of the nature, 
 is in sympathy with the courses of things as they are, with the 
 seven-fold force of a huge anaconda wound round the lungs, 
 endeavours to crush out the new order of the respirations. 
 How fearful is this contest ! It is as if, within the organi- 
 zation, there was a war in Heaven, and Michael and his angels 
 fought against the Destroyer and his angels. Everything in 
 the man germane to the old order is quickened withia, to pro- 
 test against the new. Often the much-endmnng man, groan- 
 ing in spirit, looks upon annihilation as a boon. The wheels 
 of being roll heavily. The disc of the imagination is seen 
 wrapt in a flame of blood. The powers of the understanding, 
 in the self-derived nature, are shaken, and the stars of many a 
 formed opinion become meteors, and fall "as a fig-tree that 
 casteth her untimely figs." It is then that evil spirits, of every 
 grade, plunge into the man, if possible to obsess and ruin him. 
 The body, recoiling from the fiery ardour of the Divine em- 
 brace, protests against its martyrdom. Evils long buried, 
 with importunate, flamy visages, rise, forcing their way up 
 thi'ough the reopening strata of the dissolving atomic forms. 
 It is as if the barbaric inhabitants of former generations should 
 leap embodied from the old sepulchres, full armed, mailed, and 
 panoplied with fire, siding with every sin of misrule, and 
 seeking to overturn all peaceful civilization. 
 
 117. Beyond this, through endurance, comes the dark night 
 which succeeds a battle. The moaning, heljjless, bleeding 
 sins, the old organic forms, which life from Heaven has 
 pierced, seem to protest against the unfallen men as agents 
 
Oi ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ir. 
 
 of tlieir assassination. To the moral will^ whicli thus far has 
 led them on, they cry piteously, as did the Israelites against 
 Moses, " Why hast thou led us from a land flowing with milk 
 and honey to perish in this wilderness?" Their voices die 
 away in the dumb, blank silences of the dead. The body 
 wastes during this process, as well it may. 
 
 118. The fourth lamp of life is that of the world-souls. 
 Every man has his own place, as the member of an affiliated 
 series of human spirits, organically connected with the whole 
 humanity of the orb; and this place is determined by his 
 individual relation to the series, and its relation to the world- 
 soul. But internal respiration, as it descends, first loosening 
 one band, and then another, disconnects the subject of it from 
 his series. The man of our earth appears, as to his spirit, on 
 no other earth than our own. He is bound within its pre- 
 cincts. The orbs of space, because they are unfallen, hold 
 him at bay with closed world-souls ; preventing his access to 
 that cherub-guarded Eden, where the worlds bloom like flowers 
 in the expanse of an unbounded plain, or rustle like golden 
 grain for a supernal harvest, or arch in magnificent rainbows 
 through stellar space. He is excluded by reason of the fall. 
 
 119. But the woi'ld-souls welcome the child of earth, who 
 begins to be celestial-natural. They attract his spirit during 
 sleep, and waft it to their choicest bowers of contemplation and 
 perception. Through their open, quickened spirits, the mild, 
 reposeful inhabitants, in the resplendent majesty of a man- 
 hood, or ineffable purity of a womanhood, clasped in the closest 
 conjunction to the Divine life, behold the essence of the pale 
 new comer, floating between the dark and dawn, and emerging 
 from the chaos of inversions into the established rest and 
 settled harmony of their beautiful estate. What vistas of 
 wonder open upon the vision then ! But, measured by the 
 ecstasy of the pilgrimage, are the pangs of parting, and the 
 tortures of the return from worlds where there are no tyrants 
 or slaves, no parasites, no flatterers, none who defraud or defile 
 the neighbour, nothing that worketh abomination or maketh a 
 lie, but those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. 
 
 120. To return to the sphere of Earth is to re-enter the pur- 
 lieus of some thronged, oriental or occidental city, where vice 
 
SEC. ii8— 121.] THE APOCALYPSE. 65 
 
 is considered by the wisest rulers as a necessity wliicli cannot 
 be overthrown. The universal contamination obscm'es the 
 perceptions of the wisest, and blunts the sensibilities of the 
 best. And here, with a body locked in its interests, and sub- 
 ject to its ordinances, he plods the weary diurnal round ; happy 
 if, through Divine grace, he continues able to preserve within 
 the outer processes of consciousness, the better vision, the 
 purer day. But his body, which has learned to expand and 
 dilate itself in the unmeasured space, has become diffused far 
 beyond its visible outline. Internal respiration, especially 
 when continued through the interaction of the world-souls, 
 broadens the area of sensation. While man is locked up in 
 the death-bound material state of closed respiration, his sensa- 
 tions are within himself, and of one; he now begins to ex- 
 perience the sensations of others, as within himself. The 
 agonies of a thousand who are writhing and struggling in the 
 embrace of evil, the heart-break, the despair of humanity, 
 instantly telegraph themselves into the centres of the senso- 
 rium. He sympathises in the sorrows of the world-soul of his 
 orb, until by degrees he begins to be re-established, through 
 deeper sympathy continued into her heart, when Christ begins 
 to triumph in his breast. 
 
 121. After this time there is rehabilitation. The fifth lamp 
 of life is that of the ultimate angels. Man subsists in in- 
 timate consociation with angels, not alone of the Celestial and 
 Spiritual, but also of the Ultimate Heaven. Those of this 
 Heaven who come to him, when in the transit from the earlier 
 to the more complete stages of the new respiration, belong 
 principally to the heavens derived from the earths of the uni- 
 verse most immediately in conjunction with our own. The 
 Ultimate Heaven presides over longevity. There are instru- 
 ments, which I have beheld in some of the angelic societies 
 there, by which one may read, to a moment, the allotted span 
 of the terrestrial duration of our earWs inhabitants, provided 
 the natural organization meets with no casualty, and evil pas- 
 sions do not accelerate the waste of the organs. The condition 
 of the individual, as it changes, is instantly noted in these in- 
 struments, so that one at a glance perceives the probable dura- 
 tion of the human natural Hfe. 
 
 E 
 
6G ARCANA OF CHBISTIANITT. [chap. it. 
 
 122. Byan appcndago to tlicra, tlio proximation of internal 
 respiration to the organs, is also determined. It is amazing 
 to behold, as one may do in this manner, tlie narrow, filmy 
 thread, that at the present time is all that separates tho 
 spiritual breath from tho natural lungs. Seven-eighths of tho 
 distance in the organic space has been worn away in tjie 
 last seventy years. An ultimate angel stands with every 
 man, who is charged with tho modification of the Divine in- 
 flux, which aSects, by correspondence, the motion of the form. 
 He is instantly aware of even the slightest change, and as 
 rapidly graduates the pressure of the Divine influx to the 
 varying state of the vessels into which it flows. As internal 
 respiration begins, besides the degree of respiration proper to 
 himself, which he maintains from the Lord, he breathes in and 
 through the lungs of his terrestrial brother, assisting the feeble 
 organs. A sphere which descends from his own lungs literally 
 encompasses the respiratories of the one to whom he ministers ; 
 and this without impairing freedom. In the beginnings of tho 
 new respiration some will receive it tentatively ; the thin mem- 
 brane in the space between the spiritual and natural lungs not 
 being absolutely destroyed, but pervaded, so that a certain 
 sense of opening shall be given, which becomes full opening 
 through faithfulness. When this occurs, it is because those 
 who are the subjects of it require vastation before the breath 
 can be applied in its more absolute fervour. Should such 
 prove incapacitated for its full descent, a thick membrane- 
 ous cuticle overgrows, and they become intensely corporeal. 
 The effect of the presence of the ultimate angel in this inti- 
 mate manner is, at first, to weaken, while from time to time 
 it occasions no inconsiderable pain. The impure affections in 
 the body of the mind and the will, which are hostile to the 
 Divine life, and especially that degree of it which the ultimate 
 angel possesses, resist the flow of the influx, and the motions 
 thence derived. See more upon this point hereafter. 
 
 123. The sixth lamp of life is that of the spiritual angels. 
 When internal respiration is begun, rigid rules for the conduct 
 of the life, are, by an interior process, made known from the 
 Lord. The understanding is illumined to perceive laws of 
 food, of attire, of the division of the day, of prayer, of recrea- 
 
SEC. 122—125.] THE APOCALYPSE. 67 
 
 tion^ and of intercom^se with tlie worlds wliicli form tlie chap- 
 ters of a Divine decalogue, and tlie penalty of the violation 
 of which is extreme. The spiritual angels breathe in con- 
 sonance with the movements of the intermediate degree of 
 the natm'al lungs, as the divine movement flows into them, 
 respiring in a plane above that of the ultimate angels. When 
 it begins to be difficult to respire from internals to externals, 
 as is often the case, the demons have risen from below, 
 and are endeavouring to suppress the respiration altogether. 
 The spii'itual angels combat then against the infemals ; but in 
 combating against the infernals, they wage war against what- 
 ever falsities remain embedded within the understanding of 
 the one in whose behalf they strive. 
 
 124. The seventh lamp of life is that of celestial angels, 
 who, as internal respiration begins to open, respire in instant 
 conjunction with the celestial degree of the lungs, and thence 
 with the celestial-natural. Were one of these to breathe fully 
 through the opened respiratories, the ardours of the Divine 
 Love which possess him, would, in their descent to the natm^al 
 body, consume the structures and leave but charred remains. 
 They modify their breathings, therefore, with extreme caution, 
 keeping their faces directly to the Lord, and moving in the 
 pulse-beats of the Divine harmony. They recede from, or 
 draw near the man, as the Lord directs, receding during wake- 
 fulness, and advancing dm-ing sleep. They deposit, through 
 consentaneous respu'ation, mjTiads of germs of new qualities 
 of divine love within the will. But these germs, as they un- 
 fold, are procreant, and serve as parents of a multitudinous 
 progeny, taking the place of the hereditary affections of the 
 selfhood, which are evil. Wars thence ensue and wastings. 
 The celestial angels keep pace, in the intimacy of their rela- 
 tions, with the degree of the openness of respiration, and with 
 its fulness. But combat ensues from their presence continu- 
 ally, until nothing remains in the man opposed to the new 
 movement from the Lord. 
 
 125. "And for my name's sake hast laboured," signifies, first, 
 that prior to the opening of respiration, a flame proceeds from 
 the divinity of our Lord, and through His humanity, which 
 bums, enveloping in seven lustres of prismatic revolving light, 
 
 E 2 
 
G8 ABGANA OF GRBISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 that inmost psychical form, which constitutes the very centre 
 of personality. There is tlius a flame of the divine humanity 
 of our Lord actually burning there perpetually. This flame is 
 guarded and tempered by Him, lest it should destroy, so 
 tei'rible is it in its naked brightness. From this period a 
 supernal reverence for the name of Christ agitates the whole 
 being. When that Divine name is spoken, there is within a 
 sensation as of the leaping of fire. It is productive of a deep 
 delight, which cannot be described, and that is overwhelming, 
 and subdues the being into implicit obedience. Henceforth 
 Christ is received as the One Infinite Everlasting God, and 
 besides whom there is none other. Henceforth the spirit lifts 
 itself internally, opening from within the ears of the under- 
 standing, to hear the Master speak. The cry of the soul is, 
 " Lord what wilt Thou have me to do ? " And there is an 
 inmost determination to have no kin but the Divine Father 
 and Redeemer. 
 
 126. As this love is the most deep that can be known in 
 the universe, so it is the most intense. Others compared with 
 it are all pale reflections ; but this the solar beam. From this 
 Divine flame break out periodically, burnings, like inunda- 
 tions, preceded by deep states of self-examination and humilia- 
 tion before the Lord. As regeneration advances and respira- 
 tion is more thorough, the flames enlarge their circle and are 
 more frequent, until they extend from the crown of the head 
 to the soles of the feet, and envelope the body itself; though 
 not necessarily to natural sight. 
 
 " For my name's sake hast laboured.''^ The second significa- 
 tion of this differs from the former ; when the man, in whom 
 this Divine fire is kindled, begins to experience quickening, he 
 ceases to contend. He breaks off all endeavours to justify 
 himself with mankind. He bears willingly and joyfully all 
 reproaches. He is led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a 
 sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. 
 He ceases from all eSbrts for the maintenance of personal 
 popularity. He gives fame, position, influence to the winds 
 of heaven. Disputatious strife is put away ; gathering the 
 spirit into a profound internal stillness, he awaits the pleasure 
 of the Lord. If friends become enemies and persecute, he 
 
SEC. 126—127.] THE APOCALYPSE. 69 
 
 meekly receives the blow, and returns evil witli good. " And 
 hast not fainted/^ signifies, that respiration does not cease. 
 
 Chap. ii. 4. — " Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, 
 
 BECAUSE THOU HAST LEFT THY FIRST LOVE.''^ 
 
 127. There are relapses, to which the man who is becoming 
 celestial-natural is liable, as is to be generally inferred. " I 
 have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first 
 love.^' Here it becomes necessary to speak, in generals, 
 concerning the peculiar temptations which must attend the 
 opening of respiration. Society is barbarism in disguise. 
 The decorous civilizee learns from infancy to veil his real self. 
 The odious Yahoo, depicted by the great English satirist, in 
 the bitterest of all invectives against mankind, is a real im- 
 personation of a human spirit abandoned to self-love. The 
 rational animal possesses a nobleness to which he has no 
 claim, because there is no ground for it in his base affections. 
 To this condition we are all tending in civilization, so far as 
 we succumb to its master influences; as witness that great 
 continental European city which is rapidly becoming a second 
 Gehenna, where the fires of evil passions consume the bodies 
 of the living dead. Thinly veiled with the scented grasses 
 and the bulbous flowers of a sweet and brilliant sentiment, the 
 bloom and verdure of society repose upon the bosom of a 
 treacherous morass, and those who attempt to stir uj) its 
 hidden elements, expose quagmires of corruption. The man 
 who becomes celestial-natural must look realities in the face ; 
 must introspect humanity. His temptation is to forget the 
 hideousness of the vision. Why should he be righteous over- 
 much and so destroy himself ? Why afiect a sanctity beyond 
 the philosophy or the wisdom of the age ? He is beset by 
 treacherous voices, wooing him into forgetfulness of what the 
 inner eye lays bare, or the inner light discloses. His state is 
 called morbid and one of unwholesome subjectivity. Litera- 
 ture, the press, the pulpit, all social voices, whether tongued 
 with honey or with scorpions, protest against his animad- 
 versions. The madmen of the world^s huge hospital seat 
 themselves in judgment on his sanity. He becomes, without 
 fault, a self-made outcast from former ties ; a revolter against 
 
70 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 tlie very organic form, the mould and pressure of his time. 
 He feels the iron entering into his soul and piercing its 
 vitals. He leapt toward that inner light that seemed to 
 herald, in the soul, the day of paradise. He dreaip.ed so pure 
 a radiance would find the world waiting to kindle its torches 
 at the flame. AVliat shall he do ? Ho begins to express the 
 truth that burns within him. Where are the eager thousands 
 waiting for its advent? His life is embittered ; now his body 
 is made the theatre of a strange anguish ; and Satan whispers, 
 " Oh fool, fool, the world is right, you are wrong ; the 
 Avorld is sane, you are tending to delirium; abandon your 
 convictions ! " " Nevertheless,''^ saith our Lord, " I have 
 somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love." 
 He does leave his first love. He bitterly repents in sackcloth 
 and ashes. Momentary irresolution is followed by weeks of 
 anguish, until he is restored. When irresolution manifests 
 itself in the first stages of the return of respiration, before 
 it is obvious, darkness covers the mind, felt darkness. The 
 labouring breast becomes a sea of grief. The agonies of a 
 seeming physical disease invade the frame, and death is heard 
 at the very doors. Gnawings as of scorpions are felt within 
 the vital parts. The process of the rehabilitation of the 
 faculties being arrested, death and hell seek, the one to 
 corrupt the body, and the other to destroy the spirit. 
 
 Chap, ii. 5. — " E-emembek therefgee trom whence thou art 
 fallen, and repent, and do the pirst works ; or else i 
 will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy can- 
 dlestick out op his place, except thou repent.''^ 
 128. " Eemember,^^ signifies, the absolute manifestation of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, in His divine-human person, breathing 
 into the inmosts a reviving flame. Visitations occur to the 
 man who is becoming celestial-natural. When the Lord sees 
 him in the extremity of temptation. He visits him, not me- 
 diately through an angel, but dii-ectly, and with His own hand 
 applies balms and healings to the spirit. When once the pro- 
 cess of the new creation of the man is begun, through internal 
 respiration, even in its first incipient stage, and the receiver 
 sufiers himself to give way to the inversive movement of evil. 
 
SEC. 128— 131.] THE APOCALTFSK 71 
 
 nothing but a direct operation of the Lord can cause a resump- 
 tion of tlie new movement in him. The remorse of love then 
 takes possession of the breast, and with it the sense that we 
 have displeased the Lord. 
 
 129. "From whence thou art fallen,^^ signifies, that anew 
 perception is imparted, and a restoration offered. " And re- 
 pent/^ signifies, the gladness of the celestial-natural man, as 
 the Lord^s mercy is revealed. "And do the first works,^^ 
 signifies, the instant determination, upon this, that the Lord^s 
 will shall be done utterly ; and that sins in the body and 
 temptations without shall be put down. " Or else I will come 
 unto thee quickly,'^ signifies, the doom of those, who having 
 begun to be celestial-natural, and to receive the premonitory 
 influxes of the Divine breath, which precede the new creation, 
 make idols to themselves. These idols may be, first, covetous- 
 ness; second, timidity; third, pride. No man can covet either 
 property, influence, or station, much less that which belongs 
 to his neighbom', and live beyond the earlier era of the re- 
 opening of respiration. No man can halt, vacillate, evade 
 the full force of the Divine call, or attempt to enter into com- 
 promises between the new divine movement and the world^s 
 inversions, without, in like manner, withering in the Lord's 
 presence. No man can direct to his own self-aggrandisement 
 the Infinite Divine Glory in these conditions, without being 
 cast into hell. 
 
 130. " I will come,""' signifies, the method of life extinction. 
 The Lord withdraws His divine breath. The evil spirits who 
 existed upon our earth before the flood, and who, through the 
 abuses of respiration, were cast down, having approximated 
 into rapport with the transgressor, rise to take possession of 
 him, as an agent of sorcery. The guards being withdrawn, 
 hell-fire gushes into the opened respiratory organs, and the 
 body suffocates. It is to be feared that some wiU perish by 
 this means. It is said, " I will come,''' because there is an 
 approximation of the Lord to withdraw that which is of the 
 substance of the new creation within the man, who has been 
 guilty of the final sin, and who is given over, as to his body, 
 to be destroyed by antediluvian demons. 
 
 131. " Quickly," signifies, the instantaneousness of the pro- 
 
72 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [ciiap. ii. 
 
 cess. In many instances which might occur, consciousness 
 will cease without a moment's warning, when the fiat has gone 
 forth. In none will it be protracted, unless the Lord sees fit 
 to make use of individuals, in the terrors of the final state 
 from this cause, as warnings to mankind. ''And will remove 
 thy candlestick,'' signifies, that all and singular the vivifying 
 principles and forms of the new creation being removed from 
 the man who has begun to become celestial-natural, and who 
 defiles himself with idols, and who is cut off, he awakens in 
 the Earth of Spirits, after the cessation of natural life, in seven 
 particulars adjudged to have denied the Lord. 
 
 132. First. For having denied and sought to crucify the 
 Lord, by putting an end to the process for the new creation of 
 the body, in so far as affected through the agency of the atomic 
 men. Second. For having denied the Lord, by destroying 
 the fay-work in himself, as carried on for the purpose of 
 eradicating the organic forms of the impure affections from 
 the internal spaces of the body. Third. For having denied the 
 Lord, in resisting that divine process, by means of which the 
 order of the unfallen worlds is let down into the will and the 
 understanding, and man, by consent of love, re-established in 
 the harmony of the unfallen universe. Fourth. For having 
 denied the Lord, by rejecting the movement of the world-souls 
 for the establishment of new motions in the organization, re- 
 sulting from the new harmony of creation. Fifth. For having 
 crucified the Lord, in violently forcing the affections of the 
 will, and thence in seeking to invert the respiratory action in 
 the body of the lungs, as established through sympathy with 
 the ultimate angels. 
 
 133. Sixth. For having denied the Lord, in having aban- 
 doned the guards established for the defence of the inter- 
 mediate places of the breathing system ; for having set up 
 anew the overthrown idols which God hates, within the under- 
 standing, and so far instituting anew the subversive movement 
 of thought, opposed to the order of the spiritual regions. 
 Seventh. For having both denied and crucified the Lord, in 
 offering oblations to idols, and seeking to sacrifice upon the altar 
 of the false gods; for overthrowing the new creation, established 
 in the will in first principles, and thus destroying the new 
 
SEC. 132—135.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 73 
 
 tarmony in the frame; and especially and finally^ for instituting 
 an adverse movement hostile to that descending through the 
 celestial angels. The man is pronounced fallen, and fallen, 
 and thrice fallen. " Out of his place/^ signifies, the blotting 
 out of his name from the life-record of those who are called 
 to be kings and priests in the new creation, and who walk 
 before God in the movements of the new harmony ; of which 
 more hereafter. 
 
 134. ''Except thou repent," signifies, that no man loses his 
 place in the new harmony, until the Lord sees that through 
 inmost perversions, inclining the ear inmostly to the sug- 
 gestions of the demons of the lost orb, and warring in his 
 place against the true order of the celestial-natural church, 
 now being established in the world, he is fixing his own soul 
 in irredeemable conditions. Then he is cut off, lest, being an 
 agent corrupting many, the ruin in which he is involved shall 
 be even more disastrous. It is needful at this place to insert 
 a solemn caution. Some will say, " Let us remain, eating and 
 drinking, gathering unto ourselves the goods of the natural 
 world, keeping the letter of the commandments, and trusting 
 for salvation to the letter of the law." Others, again, will 
 exclaim, " The good old way our fathers trod in, is available 
 still. All will be well with us if we conform to creeds and 
 rituals of antiquity, keeping our places in the midst of the re- 
 cognised respectabilities of our day." When internal respira- 
 tion comes to the man who eases his conscience with such 
 palliatives as these, after having rejected the light approved 
 to the inmost consciousness, from the celestial sense of the 
 Word, he will fall suddenly, no preparation having been made 
 in the quickened conscience to adapt the frame to the incom- 
 ings of the Divine breath. 
 
 Chap. ii. 6. — " But this thou hast, that thou hatest the 
 deeds op the nicolaitanes, which i also hate." 
 
 135. By " deeds of the Nicolaitanes," is signified, inversions 
 in the body, mind, and spuit of the will ; the body, mind, and 
 spirit of the understanding ; and the body, mind, and spirit 
 of the ultimate spiritual person, resulting from the anarchical 
 movement of the lost orb. By " this thou hast," is signi- 
 
74 ARCANA OF CnBISTIANITT. [chap.- ii, 
 
 fied, tliat so loug as the man, who is being quickened by the 
 descent of the Divine breath for the development in himself 
 of the new creation, organically maintains internal respiration, 
 the end is not with him ; in the sense of the final cutting off. 
 Nevertheless it is true, that man may hold himself to be main- 
 taining this organical movement in the respirations, for a 
 space after the Lord has found him guilty. The recessions of 
 the breath, in some instances, are slow, and the transgressor 
 may delude himself with the fallacy that all is well with him, 
 even while he is approaching the bar of final judgment. The 
 innocent must not suffer in the ruin of the guilty ; and after 
 the preliminaries have been estabhshed, time is afforded, in 
 order that the fays may remove the minor forms of good and 
 truth led forth by them into the expanses of the frame ; 
 otherwise, both these and the fays will be liable to destruction, 
 as to the natural form of their lives. By " that thou hatest," 
 is signified, that so long as he seeks to breathe in the new 
 movement, from its cause, which is the Divine Love seeking 
 to purify the race and restore the planet, the Lord will hear 
 him wheu he calls, and vanquish his enemies ; by degrees 
 perfecting his state, and making it eternal. "Which I also 
 hate,'' signifies, the infinite repugnancy of the Divine Spirit 
 against the subversive movement in the internals and ex- 
 ternals, both of the spirit and of the body, of the individual 
 and the collective man. 
 
 Chap. ii. 7. — "He that hath an ear, let him hear what 
 THE Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that 
 
 OVERCOMETH WILL I GIVE TO EAT OP THE TREE OP LIFE, 
 WHICH IS IN THE MIDST OP THE PARADISE OP GoD." 
 
 136. Every man called celestial-natural, through whom the 
 descent of the divine breath is carried on, in the seven-fold 
 ascent and progress of regeneration, to its end, will become 
 a composite man of the Celestial Heaven. He will receive 
 the redeemed body from first principles to ultimates : nor will 
 it be possible for him to be destroyed by sickness, by fire, by 
 the sword, by the perils of the deep, so long as obedient to 
 his Master's will, and with an unfulfilled calling in the world. 
 The spirits of the primates and the ultimates, which, with 
 
SEC. 136—138.] TRE APOGALTPSK 75 
 
 other men in whom the new respiration is not, are removed 
 from the spiritual body at physical decease and deposited 
 within the elements of nature, — through a process hereafter to 
 be spoken of — ^will go up before him, successively, to the place 
 that awaits him in the Heavens, constituting there the temple 
 of his body. Those spirits of the primates and the ultimates, 
 which have been disintegrated from the atomic nuclei, revolv- 
 ing in a subversive order in the frame (see No. 113), rise by 
 degrees, as the fay-souls, indwelling within the life of the 
 oro-anism, fulfil their terrestrial cycle and are translated to 
 the Heavens. " He that hath an ear," signifies, the celestial- 
 natural man in whom the Divine fire is kindled in the inmost 
 centre of the personality, and who lifts the ear of the under- 
 standing absolutely to hear and to obey the Lord^s voice. 
 
 137. "Let him hear,^"* signifies, that such things pertaining to 
 the new creation as may be made known to him, as in this form 
 through the natural senses, may be internally felt, perceived, 
 judged, and with blessedness absorbed into the mind through 
 the listening attitude by which the Lord^s voice is heard. 
 " What the Spirit saith,''^ signifies, an endless Divine utterance, 
 by means of which all truths, made known objectively, shall 
 increase through the ages to the consummation. " Unto the 
 churches," signifies, the endless unfolding of the divine truths 
 through internal respiration, to all those in the millennial 
 state, which is one of absolute, continuous, conscious, direct 
 obedience to every breath which emanates from the holy spirit 
 ot God. " To him that overcometh," signifies, a final state 
 ot blessedness attained by the man who becomes celestial- 
 natural. This blessedness is seven-fold. All the atomic men, 
 insphered within the various members of the organization, 
 having resolved to their units the atomic nebulio within the 
 system, and having, from the crown of the head to the soles 
 of the feet, with linked hands and with accordant breaths, 
 become one form circulating in the movements of the celestial 
 choir, cry, " It is finished." 
 
 138. All the fay-sovds having vanquished every organic form 
 of an evil or false afiection, throughout the organic lengths and 
 breadths and heights* and depths, and having seen that there 
 remains no more to conquer, and having grouped themselves in 
 
76 ABCANA OF CHRISTIAN ITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 societies, according to the fulness of the members of the body 
 and the great affections of the spirit, until the whole subjective 
 man becomes a fay paradise of many Edens ; seeing the Lord's 
 divine glory everywhere present, cry, "It is finished/' Those 
 venerable and gracious harmonic men of the unfallen universe, 
 who visited the mind in the premonitory states of the new 
 respiration, having seen, that, as trees of heaven mirrored in 
 waveless pools of the waters of life, the harmonic truths of the 
 unfallen creation pencil themselves with utmost accuracy upon 
 the fluent mirror of the consciousness, while every pulse and 
 every electric vibration within the frame is rythmically true to 
 the entire stupendous movement of all their starry scheme ; 
 and that the man has no thought or feeling or passion opposite 
 to the wavelets of the divine impulse through time and space ; 
 cry, " It is finished/' The world-soul perceives the new man 
 in a condition to be rightly delivered from the matrix, and 
 cries, " It is finished/' The ultimate angels perceive the 
 body of the spiritual person, with no member deficient, shorn 
 of no attribute, revealing in plenary fulness the perfect mea- 
 sure of the heavenly sensational man. They breathe for the 
 first time with no restriction through the full body of the re- 
 spii'atory system, and cry, '' It is finished." 
 
 139. The spiritual angels rejoice with joy unspeakable and 
 full of glory. They survey the beauteous image of the eternal 
 Word, built into the organic structures of the person. Truth 
 is adjusted to truth, as stone to stone, and the base is as pure 
 gold, and the superstructure polished jewels. Man is lighted 
 from internals to externals, by a continuous shining from the 
 presence of the Lord. Now breathing through the uplifted and 
 emancipated mind of the respirative organs, they cry, " It is 
 finished/' The celestial angels, in their eternal world of 
 cause, complacently survey their Lord's triumph. They rejoice 
 to behold their brother embraced within the absolute circum- 
 fusing sphere of Messiah. They behold the instant divine 
 conjunction, as the Lord in His divine humanity imprints the 
 final kiss upon the lips of His accepted son. They behold the 
 baffled demons who shall molest him no more for ever. They 
 perceive the Lord's shekinah within the bosom, and listen 
 therein to the oracular voice, and cry, " It is finished." Even 
 
SEC. 139— 141.] THE APOCALYPSE. 77 
 
 so come. Lord Jesus_, come quickly, Am.en. "To Hm tliat 
 overcometli will I give/^ signifies, tlie next state of the celes- 
 tial-natural man beyond the earth ; and the conclusion of the 
 verse refers to a series of states ascending to eternity. 
 
 Chap. ii. 8. — "And unto the angel op the church in Smyrna 
 WRITE ; These things saith the first and the last, which 
 
 WAS DEAD, AND IS ALIVE ;" 
 
 140. " Smyrna'^ refers to a second church to be estabhshed 
 on earth in the new age, which is to consist of men who 
 shall respire through the Spiritual Heaven, and who shall be 
 grounded principally in the truths which pertain to the good 
 of life. This church will also be called the new Eome, and its 
 government will be a triplicate hierarchy, to be spoken of 
 hereafter. " Unto the angel,'' signifies, that the new church, 
 called Smyrna, will be evolved on earth by the descent of the 
 Divine Spirit thi^ough seven heavens of the spiritual degree, 
 " Of the church," signifies, all who shall become regenerate of 
 that type of men who, in the new order, shall respire primarily 
 through the spiritual degree of the lungs into the natural, 
 in conjunction with the angels of the Spiritual Heaven, and 
 who shall be called spiritual-natural as to their new state. 
 " Smjnrna,'' signifies, a divine body of truth, in which they 
 shall respire. " Write,'' signifies, the open disclosure of the 
 divine revelation from the Word concerning the regeneration 
 of the spiritual- natural man. 
 
 141. By " these things," is to be understood, a perpetual 
 unfolding from the Word, exceedingly composite and rich in 
 its character. " Saith," signifies, that the Lord will talk, in 
 the fulness of his state, with the spiritual-natural man, as in 
 the midst of the angels of the Spiritual Heaven. " The first 
 and the last," signifies, derivatively, the knowledge of the past 
 and the future creations; the past unfolding from the first 
 harmony, and the future from the new harmony descending 
 from the Lord. "Which was dead," signifies, ai'cana con- 
 cerning seven degrees of descent, by means of which the old 
 harmony of the universe expired in the body of the Lord. 
 " And is ahve,"' signifies, seven degrees of ascent, by means of 
 which the new harmony of the universe became established 
 
78 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. ir. 
 
 tlirougli tlie glorified body of the Lord. All those knowledges 
 pertain especially to the spiritual-natural man, as will bo seen. 
 
 Chap. ii. 9. — "I know thy works, and tribulation, and 
 
 POVERTY, (but thou ART RICh) AND I KNOW THE BLASPHEMY 
 OP THEM WHICH SAY THEY ARE JeWS, AND ARE NOT, BUT 
 ARE THE SYNAGOGUE OP SATAN." 
 
 142. "I know," signifies, as before, the descent of the new 
 creation through internal respiration, into the minds of such as 
 are becoming spiritual -natural. " Tribulation," signifies, the 
 intensity of the anguish through which the man who is called 
 spiritual- natural must pass, from the proclivity of his mind, in 
 its dead-natural form, to reasoning from externals to internals, 
 and for rejecting faith. 
 
 FIT^TH ILLUSTEATION. 
 
 Sorrows, perplexities, and hallucinations of natural scientists in the World 
 of Spirits. Alexander Von Humboldt and his experiences there. 
 
 143. Shortly after the bodily decease of the celebrated savant, 
 Alexander Von Humboldt, I beheld him in company with two 
 angelic men; one of them Copernicus, and the other Kepler. 
 They were, as to locahty, in one of the provinces of the upper 
 Earth of Spirits connected with our globe. Two evil spirits, 
 in one of whom I recognised a likeness to Diderot, the French 
 encyclopedist, while of the other, a German, I had no know- 
 ledge, — approached for purposes of temptation. At the same 
 time, a recent king of Prussia was not far distant, and beheld 
 the sight. 
 
 144. The angelic men were endeavouring to instruct this 
 ci-devant philosopher and naturalist, that, by means of the 
 ascent of the afiections in prayer toward the Lord, the inhabit- 
 ant of the spiritual world is able to ascend mountains with 
 ease; and that the rapidity of the ascension depends upon a 
 peculiar intensity in worship. " First," said they, " convince 
 yourself that this before you is a real mountain." This he did, 
 bringing in his hand a piece of copper ore from a boulder at 
 its base. When he had thus done, one of them said to him. 
 
SEC. 142—146.] TRB APOCALTFSK 79 
 
 " It is more wonderful, tliis mountain, tlian Cotopaxi. The trees 
 of tlie tropical-celestial world grow toward its summit. In its 
 middle expanse there is a temperate zone, with a correspond- 
 ing flora and fauna ; and toward its feet regions of moorland, 
 barren as they descend. The air is more balmy and odori- 
 ferous and also more stimulating as one rises. There are 
 spiritual philosophers residing midway, in a district that 
 abounds with the finest silver, and which is indeed an inex- 
 haustible Potosi. In a region above this is a noble, golden 
 country, with all of the rich luxuriance of the tropics. There 
 reside sages of a celestial wisdom, at whose feet we might sit 
 as babes.''-' 
 
 145. The philosopher began to ask questions concerning the 
 mountain, and wished to prove that the statement must be 
 incorrect ; arguing that ascensions must be from one degree 
 of cold to another more intense. One of the angelic men in 
 answer to this, proposed to ascend a certain distance into the 
 mild, temperate zone, and bring back branches from the fruit- 
 bearing trees in the orchards. The philosopher consented to 
 this, and with great astonishment beheld Kepler gliding 
 rapidly upward, with feet that did not seem to touch the soil. 
 Soon after the traveller returned and was seen descending as 
 before, bearing branches of apples and pears fully ripe and 
 dehcious both to taste and smell. A little winged boy stood 
 by them at the same moment, or one who thus appeared, wear- 
 ing upon his head a chaplet of myrtle flowers and leaning 
 upon a golden caducous. " See this messenger,^^ one of the 
 angehc men began again ; " he is more swift than fabled 
 Mercury. I will request him to ascend rapidly to the nobler 
 mountain-land above the" clouds, and gather a specimen of 
 products from the fruit-trees there.''' The child, borne upward 
 in the balmy atmosphere, rapidly ascended at their request 
 and speedily returned, his locks and garments dripping with 
 spices. The pomegranate, orange, nutmeg and cinnamon were 
 among the branches in his hand. 
 
 146. The philosopher now cried, '^Perhaps you will ac- 
 company me ; I should much like to ascend the mountain." 
 At this joined them a man clad in royal purple, whose majes- 
 tic countenance, of a golden colour, radiated glories as the 
 
80 AECANA OF CEBISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 disc of a sun. The shoes also upon his feet shone with a golden 
 gleam. Smiling with incredible sweetness, he accosted Hum- 
 boldt in words like these ; " Thou hast a desire to journey to the 
 top of this elevation. Thou hast been journeying all thy days. 
 Advance one step above the level." Seeing that the angeHc 
 men moved on, commencing the ascent, the new comer from 
 the earth followed them. On the level he could walk, but as 
 the elevation began, he came to a dead halt, declaring that 
 there was magnetic iron beneath the soil, that seized upon the 
 particles of iron in his blood and j&xed him to the spot. A 
 mao-net was given him for the purpose of testing, and after 
 gravely using it, still in his fixed posture, he concluded that 
 there was no ii'on there, and that the soil was of a copper 
 pyrites and more solid than granite. 
 
 147. He now began to sink bodily into the rock on whicli 
 lie stood, and soon his feet had disappeared to the ankles. At 
 this he turned to the glorious sage arrayed in purple, asking 
 what it meant. The answer was, that below that mountain 
 was hell ; that the reason why he sank was, that a society of 
 evil spirits were attracting liim downward, and that his foot- 
 hold upon the upper soil could be maintained only through, 
 prayer. He began to sneer when the word " hell " was men- 
 tioned. The sage mildly and gravely rebuked him, observing 
 that sneers were for the ignorant,. not for the wise; and that 
 the philosopher, when novel experiences presented themselves 
 should seek to know their cause. To this he answered, that, 
 in his interior mind, he had not believed for many years that 
 devils or that hells had any existence, except in myths, and 
 that there were philosophical truths confuting them. 
 
 148. While fixed thus in the rock, and still slowly sinking, 
 two demons, who had been his invisible and unsuspected fami- 
 liars while on earth, exclaimed together, " Who is there, being 
 wise, but that esteems the Jewish mythology a relict of barba- 
 rism?" Humboldt turned eagerly, as if the voices had something 
 famihar in them ; and then observed a way winding down- 
 ward through rock-crevices. " venerable sage, what fictions 
 have these miners and harlequins been attempting to palm off 
 upon you ! " cried the elder of the demons. " You are now 
 upon the moorlands of superstition, above which are the mis 
 
SEC. 147— 151.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 81 
 
 and fantasy regions of moon-struck niinds^ to whom a cloudy 
 romance of religion is congenial. But follow us ; we are 
 about to return by a -winding road over the lower declivities 
 of this mountain. ]\Iidway down you will find^ as experience 
 and reason would suggest, a salubrious, temperate region, and 
 finally, at its base, the tropics of wMcli you are in search." 
 At this moment he suddenly beheld two inscriptions in the 
 German language. The one was upon a hand-board pointing 
 to the ra\ane through which the demons had risen ; " Wide is 
 the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction. ■'■' 
 The other hand-board, jDointing to the path up the mountain, 
 bore upon its palm the text, " Strait is the gate, and narrow 
 is the way, that leadeth unto life." 
 
 149. One, resembhng Neander, with an honest, upward- 
 looking face, now approached, and Humboldt turned to him as 
 to a countryman, asking what it meant, that such contradictory 
 statements should be made to him. The new comer answered, 
 " Herr Von Humboldt, you are dead and in the Spirit Earth j 
 Hell being underneath, and Heaven on high." He screamed 
 at this and shuddered, exclaiming, " I. am not dead. Every- 
 thing about me is corporeal. The Spirit Land is vacuity and 
 intangibility. Tell me, what is this ? " lifting up again a 
 piece of the copper at his feet. His agonies were frightful to 
 behold, as in spite of his denial, it dawned upon him that he 
 was, to use his own term, " a ghost." 
 
 ]oO. While this wise man of the Earth, but bewildered 
 seeker of the Spu'itual World, utterly confounded, stood medi- 
 tating, devout Moravian women of a former age were heard 
 singing from a little chapel, in the midst of a small wood over 
 a brow of the elevation. The sweet tones, like a di"eam of 
 infancy, melted into the heart, and the aged man exclaimed, 
 " If this be a reality my life has been a dream." Slowly, at 
 this, he began to rise, until his feet were delivered from the 
 bondage of the metallic sod. This illustration carries its own 
 forcible moral. 
 
 151. To reconstruct science, from knowledge of the instant 
 operation of an immediate personal God, infinitely hostile to 
 
82 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [cuap. ii. 
 
 the ao-o-ressive movcMiiont in the universe, who clothed Himself 
 with a form in nature, for the purpose of eradicating evil 
 from nature, and who manifested Himself as man, that He 
 might vanquish the spiritual inversions in man, will be the 
 chief intellectual employment of the child of the new age, who 
 becomes through open respiration, spiritual-natural. These 
 are the meek who shall inherit the earth, by penetrating to the 
 divine laws which manifest themselves in the varied processes 
 of creation and of re-creation. Given, as a starting point, the 
 divine fire, which makes all things new, in the centre of the 
 personality, and in conjunction with it, breathings from the 
 Lord in harmony with the Spiritual Heaven, continued into 
 the lungs in their natural degree, and Humboldt would not 
 have been less, but far more, the philosopher. His mountain 
 of laboriously constructed formulas brings forth the smallest of 
 pilfering and burromng animals, squeaking with a ridiculous 
 and effeminate voice against the majestic verities of the true 
 religion. The reader of his " Cosmos " is lost in vague con- 
 jecture at every point beyond the merest rim of matter. In all 
 that pertains to the real, as opposed to the phenomenal, the 
 closed scientists are irrational men, and few of them exhibit 
 more than a dubious sanity after their entrance into the 
 spiritual world, where most of them are pantheists. To reason 
 from Christ and from the love and wisdom and operation of 
 Christ into nature, is the test of real sanity. We may well be 
 apprehensive that those fixed, in heart repugnancy, against 
 reasoning in this manner, will perish at last in the confirmed 
 madness of the Hells. 
 
 152. "And tribulation,^^ signifies also, crises of deliverance 
 appointed for the purification of the will and the reconstruction 
 of the understanding, of such as become, through respiration, 
 spiritual-natural. The angels of the Spiritual Heaven think 
 and reason from the Lord. The scientist of the Earth thinks 
 and reasons from himself. The first lesson for the man of the 
 type we are considering, who would enter into life, is to sup- 
 press his thoughts when self-derived. To assist him, when 
 earnestly he seeks the divine aid for this end, the Lord causes 
 seven processes to be wrought upon and in him. First, cold 
 shiverings throughout the entire person, as of a coming ague. 
 
SEC. 152—153.] THE APOCALYPSE. 83 
 
 Tliis is indicative of an angel's presence, wlio is cliarged with 
 pouring into tlie ultimate organs of tlie cerebrum the spiritual 
 fire, which is kindred to the intelligence of the Spiritual 
 Heaven. When we consider that in the process of thought, 
 midtitudes of organic entities are evolved from the internal 
 organs of the brain, and that these are forms of ideas, we shall 
 understand the object of the process. The fire which the 
 angel pours forth, being opposed to the quality of the heat in 
 which these are generated, chills them, until paralysis ensues. 
 The icy torpor into which they fall, aflects by correspondence, 
 the brain. 
 
 153. Discussions, whether oral or epistolary, in all cases 
 conducted in and from the promptings of the self-derived 
 intelligence, characterize the man of scientific attainments, 
 who is in the inverted state ; nor can he conceive that truth 
 should grow in the world, by a silent operation of the Spirit 
 of God in the human faculties, and by a divine periception 
 in the spiritual degree of the mind of the causes, forms 
 and relations of ideas ; and of the relation of divine for.ces to 
 natural phenomena. Those who, being quickened from this 
 dead state, look to the Lord for new vibrations from Himself 
 which shall institute new movements of the divine harmony in 
 the intellectual system, experience keen anguish throughout the 
 region of the left viscera descending from the heart, acoom.- 
 panied by a sensation of paralysis extending to the extremities. 
 The loves of science reside in their embodied forms, in this 
 portion of the system. Intense intellectual action after the 
 subversive manner now practised, is to them, in their organic 
 forms and lives, so far as they are of self-derived origin, the 
 very essence of delight, and periodically they insist upon their 
 gratification ; while their urgent inner cries are mistaken for 
 inspirations by the natural man. Their typical name is 
 " Wormwood,'' for which see more in another place. Angels 
 who are in the divine love of science, and who are of the 
 Spiritual Heaven, when conjunction is estabhshed and the 
 Lord sees fit to answer praj^ers for the objects stated before, 
 pour forth a second fiery element upon these, which destroys 
 them by multitudes, and the perturbations of the animal spirits 
 and apparent sensations of incipient palsy auuouucc their death. 
 
 F 2 
 
84 ARCANA OF CIIBISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 154. The ability for rapid utterance, for arranging ideas in 
 crystalline order, and for defining tliem Avitli matliomatical 
 precision, yet wholly in the selfhood and in its dead intelli- 
 gence, is the means by which the scholar of this type acquires 
 and maintains pre-eminence. The organs of the cerebrum, in 
 conjunction with the basal faculties, swarm with millions of 
 embodied ideas which are false in their essence. These ideas 
 rush to utterance, making their possessor seem wise, brilliant, 
 and accurate. When ho begins to die as to the intelligence of 
 the selfhood, and to be quickened for the reception of the 
 divine harmonics of the new creation, giddiness of the brain 
 ensues, and the former power of marshalling facts of science to 
 confirm or illustrate natural hypotheses, begins to pass away. 
 A third angel of the Spiritual Heavens laves the surfaces of the 
 mental system with a fluid element akin to the whitest flame of 
 truth ; which causes these defined ideas, in their organic lives, 
 to fall in heaps, as if plague stricken. They lie in the streets 
 of that great city of the cerebrum, which spiritually is called 
 "Sodom and Egj'pt;^' where also in the denial of creation from 
 Christ, " the Lord is crucified," until there are not left living 
 aSections to remove the dead. A childish confusion of the 
 thoughts, coupled with a strange incompetency, now, for a 
 time, prevails as the result. 
 
 155. A fourth tribulation is occasioned, when through the 
 re-opening of respiration, celestial fay angels descend into the 
 highest degree of the brain, working there by correspondence 
 into the inmosts of the mental structures. A white bolt of cold 
 lightning seems striking through the spinal marrow affecting 
 sensationally the ganglions. It produces inabihty consecutively 
 to converse from causes in nature to natural effects, which is 
 the forte of the inverted scientist. Nature seems collapsing 
 before the mental eye and the deluge to overspread the scien- 
 tific world, in which the mountains and the earths of a science 
 that exists solely in appearances sink from sight. This state 
 is accompanied constantly by painful dreams, by loathings of 
 food, by the decline of the capacity for joys in the natural 
 body, and by a sensation as if the end of all things were very 
 nigh. The lusts of reasoning from appearances and of confirm- 
 ing the fallacy that nature is God, denying that the Lord Jesus 
 
SEC. 154—157.] THJE jrOQALYPSE. 85 
 
 Christ is tlie Creator^ actually breed a species of parasitical 
 insects too minute for vision. These are the infinitesimal 
 forms of what appear to gross sight as polypes and their 
 congeners^ residing principally in the nerve- spirit. In their 
 aggregation they become monstrous ; wrapping in multitu- 
 dinous folds the various organs ; darting to and fro with incre- 
 dible velocity^ tearing and rending one another, and abstract- 
 ing for their food, the finest essence from the animal spirits. 
 There is not a single member of the frame exempt from their 
 presence. Man carries them with him, as to their most living 
 principles, into the world of spirits, where they become in 
 then' appearance, embodied and diabolical ferocities. 
 
 156. Spiritual angels inject into that region of the natural 
 soul which such inhabit, an exquisitely delicious pabulum like 
 embodied nectar, which these creatures eagerly feed upon. To 
 introduce this into the region which they occupy in the frame 
 causes a commotion there, such as would be produced in a 
 tropical harbour, whose waters are infested by the shark and 
 the most venomous serpents, were little children helplessly to 
 be cast amongst them. They rise, eager to devour ; but the 
 food inciting them to the full development of their inmost 
 essence, which is hate, prompts them to mutual destruction. 
 It is during this transition state that the man has dreams in 
 which serpent combats and analogous images predominate ; 
 though there are variations. When this state begins to abate, 
 or sometimes during its height, as well as afterward, disrelish 
 for all books, and wandering thoughts during the pursuit of 
 fondly loved scientific explorations, begin to be manifest. A 
 something almost defined and of the nature of the filmy, watery 
 cloud, swims between the vision and the page. It announces 
 the decline of the perceptions for science in the selfhood. 
 
 157. There are now within the abdominal region, slight 
 internal swellings, continued in many instances to the groin, 
 and a feeling of the transfer of sensation from the cerebrum 
 to those localities. When this occurs with a corresponding 
 desire to walk erect with expanded lungs, while tlio whole in- 
 ternal being seems melting in contrite tenderness and reveren- 
 tial Avorship before the felt presence of tlic Lord, tlie most 
 agonising of the crises are safely past. The abdominal I'Optilia, 
 
86 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [cuap. ii. 
 
 that swim witliin tlie nervous fluid, correspondiug- in type to 
 the extinct monsters of the lizard race, gasp and swell and 
 float in death swoons. The correspondential scenery within 
 the bosom, — which was before a cursed land, alternating from 
 terrific heats, beneath which great serpents with a musky and 
 fetid odour sweltered in the sands, to hyperborean winter, 
 where the ice and snow-clouds congeal into death-like, moving 
 apparitions, — begins to change. There are children in flower- 
 enameled plains and smiling pastures, where they lead the 
 tamed lion or adorn with chaplcts the snow-white lamb. A 
 fifth angel of the Spii"itual Heaven causes destructions prior to 
 this delightful change, by distilling through the nervous fluids 
 in the life of the abdomen, a celestial vapour which sufib- 
 cates the noxious creatures there. 
 
 158. When the sixth angel of the Spiritual Heaven ap- 
 proaches, the man of this quality who is preparing to be made 
 spiritual-natural, might, if not otherwise instructed, imagine 
 that the days of his terrestrial career were drawing to a close. 
 The dear faces, fondly remembered from first infancy, dimly 
 ghde through the recollections of the waking hours. A tender 
 sadness, gentle and infantile, disposes the eyes to a soft dew 
 which yet but seldom forms itself into tears. There are ter- 
 rible perturbations at intervals, when the dethroned scientific 
 lusts of the natural man, embodied in more subtle, invisible 
 affections than have yet been brought to judgment, seem for- 
 cing the whole being into the channels of its former life. The 
 hells invade him at this time by means of creations pro- 
 jected into the finer part of nature through obsessed human 
 media, and wandering spirits. Should he incautiously become 
 familiar with spiritual manifestations, in their common form 
 through seances, a new brood of embodied evil lusts invade 
 him from without ; not self-born, but ascending from demons 
 through their subjects in the natural world. These have power 
 to develop passional madness. They are an actual locust in 
 first principles depositing in the forms of the natural soul their 
 ova ; in many instances a million from one. 
 
 159. The ova become in their second stage, voracious larvae, 
 subsisting upon the fine essence in the nerves, and projecting 
 through their persons a triple forked string. They finally at- 
 
SEC. 158— i6i.] THE APOCALYPSE. 87 
 
 tack tlie brain. Sliould they not be met by a counter divine 
 influence, after a series of years, dependent for tlieir number 
 upon tlie rapidity of tbe life-processes, utter naturalism would 
 develop itself tbrougb tbe intellect, and an absolute madness 
 of the internal mind. But there are counteracting processes 
 provided in the Divine Providence. The sixth angel from the 
 Spiritual Heaven wars against the larvae from without, which 
 continually invade the spirit of the nerves, there to deposit 
 their ova, and eventually to develop the madness of internal 
 atheism. God smites the media who, being warned, lay them- 
 selves open to anonymous spirits, being unable to discriminate 
 between the workings of the Divine Spirit and the invasions 
 of Antichrist. 
 
 160. It is the province of the angel of the Spiritual Heaven 
 who ministers in this sixth crisis, to unlock the spiritual degree 
 of the understanding, and to let forth into the natural mind, 
 the things that are therein. When the latent, invisible false- 
 hoods nourished there during the former subversive states, are 
 let down into the natural degree of the mind, he pours forth upon 
 it the elixir of life, which, distilled from aromatic plants in the 
 inmost of the fivefold worlds of the Spiritual Heaven, revives 
 from torpor the slumbering affections for divine things within 
 the human spirit. But the opposition of quality is so great 
 that the flames burst forth from centres to circumferences 
 through these evil forms, and are destructive. The man then 
 feels as if he could wash his hands of false science. He loathes 
 the empirical speculations of the dead natural mind, and de- 
 lights chiefly in prayer and the Word, which now begins to 
 become unspeakably precious in its internal senses. 
 
 SIXTH ILLITSTEATION. 
 
 False scientists in the Spiritual Hell— A scientilic congress on Earth.— In- 
 spirations received by false scientists on Earth, from the Spiritual Ilell. 
 
 101. I saw in the depths of the Intermediate Hell, a mighty 
 man of tlie eighteenth century, confirmed in the impieties of a 
 godless life. Here he was famous for reasoning iVoin the ap- 
 pearances of the natural world, and deducing from theiu argu- 
 
88 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 mcnts a2:ainst internal things of true reason and the Word of 
 God. The Lord caused mo to approach him, and gave me 
 words in which to converse. I cried, " Hail, man ! do you 
 teach here ? " The answer was, " I am no man ; but Science, 
 and Nature ; I create. I am also Chronos, consuming mine own 
 creations, to reproduce them again in new forms of being from 
 the one substance, myself. I am the absolute Ego, and the su- 
 preme Reason of the Cosmos ; but at present only generate more 
 ancient t}^es." I replied, " AVhat is the origin of species ? " 
 He answered, " There is but one substance, of which I am the sole 
 body ; but one life, and I am its essence. Beyond me there is 
 nothing. All things are in me, and I am in all things, and 
 they are the projections of one absolute Ego ; I am He.^' On 
 the left side came up a silly spirit, who nudging me on the 
 elbow whispered, "Be reverent; that is God.'' I perceived 
 internally, through illnniination from the Lord, that I saw 
 before mc a scientist, sunken from terrestrial to infernal states. 
 Chanting a wild incantation, the demon cried, " I will bring 
 forth annelides.'' Then grew out through his arms into a spiritual 
 exjianse like waters, which enveloped him, huge primitive sea 
 worms. Continuing the chant, his breast opened with a sudden 
 gush of fire, in the midst of which were teeming waters, and 
 the subjective reptilia grew enlarged as they issued from his 
 lungs and wantoned in this foul lethean pool. 
 
 162, After this the Lord opened my eyes in the spirit, and 
 led me into a scientific congress ; one of those scientific con- 
 gresses upon the earth, where one of the chief exponents of the 
 natural sciences of the present day, whose name I do not here 
 mention, was delighting a group with, a discourse on palseon- 
 tology; and his invisible demon, the inspiring genius of his 
 pursuits, was the infernal scientist who had called himself 
 " the absolute Ego.'' As the earthly scientist discoursed that 
 the source of all things was in nature, the gloomy demon ex- 
 cited the propellant organs of the brain, and thought, as it were, 
 through it, until the natural savant felt himself to be, in his 
 personality, a continuation of this pseudo god. 
 
 IGo. The seventh angel of the Spiritual Heaven most 
 deeply operant from the Lord in the system of the man who 
 
SEC. 162—165.] THE AFOCALYFSE. 89 
 
 is becoming spiritual-natural^ evolves, after tlie former process, 
 the hidden forms witliin the spiritual degTee of the will, and 
 they descend as before, when the inmost lusts for reasoning from 
 appearances, and for a dead philosophy, lost in the seemings 
 and the shows of things, flutter upon the lower surfaces of the 
 mind to a short-Hved career ; being destroyed by the flame 
 which goes forth from the Lord, through the Spiritual Heaven 
 and through the inmosts of the angels there. After this comes 
 peace. All this is signified in the phrase '^ tribulation,^^ ad- 
 verted to before. 
 
 164. "And poverty, but thou art rich,^^ signifies, that when 
 the man who is becoming spiritual-natural through opened 
 respiration has gone through the wastings, spoken of before, 
 the pride and the conceit have passed away. He is humble before 
 the Lord, and becomes at the same time inly opulent in the 
 divine forms of science. 
 
 165. "When the Lord in His divine providence, ended the 
 terrestrial labours of His servant, Emanuel Swedenborg, the 
 spiritual sense of the Word, expounded through his labours, 
 should have served, in conjunction with its illustrations, as an 
 agent for intromitting its readers into states for the percep- 
 tion of truth from good, '' I know the blasphemy,^^ signifies, , 
 the abominations committed by those who avail themselves 
 of truths pertaining to the knowledges of the spiritual- 
 natural man, and who engender strife and controversy, and 
 libel the name of the holy city descending from God, the 
 New Jerusalem, by claiming to represent it to mankind. " Of 
 them which say they are Jews,^^ signifies, the assumptions of 
 those, who in the carnal letter of a dead faith springing from 
 no internal divine source, assume to be of the New Church, 
 because they are able to see, in the natural mind, and to reason 
 concerning the things revealed in the spiritual sense of the 
 AVord. " And are not," signifies, that such are out of all 
 churches and only in the shams and subterfuges of ecclesiasti- 
 cism. " But are the synagogue of Satan," signifies, an inver- 
 sive movement from the Hells, but especially centering in the 
 Spiritual Hell, against the descent of that new harmony from 
 the Lord, which is the holy city, New Jerusalem. 
 
90 ARCANA OF CURISTIANITY. [chap, ii- 
 
 Chap. ii. 10. — " Feau none of those things which thou shalt 
 suffer : behold, the devil shall cast some op you into 
 prison, that ye may be tried ; and ye shall have tribula- 
 tion ten days : be thou faithful unto death, and i will 
 give thee a crown op life." 
 
 IGG. This is proplictic ; containing arcana relating to the 
 evolution of the church or \inivorsal type of spiritual-natural 
 men called Smyrna; first, in the descent of the respiration; 
 and second, in the unfolding of the mind to spiritual know- 
 ledges. This church will suffer exceedingly, and many of those 
 of whom it is constituted must expect martyrdom. " Fear 
 none of those things which thou shalt suffer,'^ signifies, ten 
 persecutions to which they will be peculiarly liable. First in 
 place is cerebral infestation. In the organs of the cerebrum 
 are stored up, when the man becomes spiritual-natural, truths 
 pertaining to the various forms of the divine sciences. So great 
 is the hatred of the demons of the Spiritual Hell against these 
 truths, that when they scent the effluence from them, which is 
 aromal and fragrant, the jDassion of murder becomes predomi- 
 nant over all other lusts witliin them. They go from place to 
 place in the Spiritual Hell, after this discovery has been made, 
 saying that Christ is come to destroy them, but that they 
 have found His infantile body without strength, and there- 
 fore that self-preservation makes it incumbent on them to put 
 it to death. The reason why these lost ones say that they have 
 found the body of Christ, is, because the forms of divine 
 sciences, grouped within the minds of spiritual-natural men, in 
 their aggregate resemble the image of a divine infant. 
 
 167. They work against the brain nby correspondence, as 
 follows. An exact image of the cerebral system of the person 
 they would infest is fashioned by a diabolical art, vdth marvel- 
 lous skill. It is then enlarged to many times its oi^iginal 
 dimensions, and infilled with poisonous breaths throughout the 
 organs. It is then instilled into the subtle parts of nature, 
 and embodied in highly potent magnetic spirits, who are 
 wanderers, being distilled through the leprous bodies of evil 
 genii ; it then becomes an infernal torture-machine, operating 
 thus : — As many individuals are selected from among reprobate 
 
SEC. 166—168.] THE AFOCALTFSE. 91 
 
 and abandoned men as correspond to all the prominent organs. 
 Spider-like it is woven as if it were a web, from brain to brain, 
 encircling the whole body of them in magnetic shafts and 
 radiations, but in a condition to be loosened from them in- 
 stantaneously. Plots are then laid to induce the individual 
 whom they would infest, through friendly courtesy, or from 
 motives of worldly necessity, to become familiar with any one 
 of the series through whom the net is woven. This being 
 accompHshed, the close-fitting cerebral investiture is removed 
 from the brain of their decoy to that of the victim, and the 
 whole series of these magnetic cells begin to close fold after 
 fold. Each organ of the brain is now fixedly compressed. 
 Magnetic darts begin to interpenetrate its textures; and did not 
 the Divine Providence prevent, the result would be insanity. 
 
 168. For a second mode of infestation suicides are made use 
 of. The suicide, in this peculiarity, differs from all other spirits. 
 He is closed in nature by a triple veil for a period, being able 
 to destroy his own natural body, but not able to dissipate the 
 animal spirits. Still invested with this invisible corporeality, 
 he appears to spirits as with them, yet as not with them, and 
 dimly visible through an intervening cloud. He is an anomaly ; 
 hungry, and never fed ; thirsty, with no one to give him drink ; 
 experiencing periodically all natural desires, in a most ultimate 
 sense, and clutching vainly at the phantoms of satisfaction. 
 He is nearer to nature than are the wanderers, and more able 
 to operate on corporeal substance. He becomes enslaved by 
 demons, who seeing him invested with this nervous shell, per- 
 ceive that they have found an ag'ent for their nefarious ends. 
 Every sensation of the death-blow, whether by poison, drown- 
 ing, the knife, strangulation, or dashing the form to fragments 
 by precipitating it from some lofty eminence, periodically re- 
 asserts its presence. The pains, wounds, contusions, or dis- 
 locations reappear, until the nerve-body in which the spii"it is 
 prisoned, gradually perishes. This nerve-body may be infilled 
 in all its parts, with the distillations of the passions of the in- 
 fernals of the Spiritual Hell. Metallic substances, ornaments, 
 articles of apparel, food, and drink, and even the floors and 
 walls of dwellings to Avhich the wandering and guilty suicide 
 has access, may be made repositories of those iuferual fires. 
 
92 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 clothed in manfiiotic substance, wliic]i ho bears about in his 
 nerve-body. He becomes in fact a walking hell to enter the 
 apartments of dwellings, distilling everywhere perdition. 
 
 169. The demons of the Spiritual Hell make use of such as are 
 of this character, to destroy the bodies of those who are becom- 
 ing spiritual-natural. Not alone are the liquid essences of the 
 hells infiltrated through them, but the living passions of the lost 
 become venomous creatures within the nerve-body, serving as 
 the ready means of working ruin. The man who is becoming 
 spiritual-natural, being marked for the especial hostility of the 
 Spiritual Hell, has assigned to him, if possible, a suicide Avho 
 dogs his steps, following him on journeys from place to place 
 and even from continent to continent ; entering, if it can be 
 effected, into the house or the apartments which he is to 
 occupy, and depositing magnetic poison where it most readily 
 can reach the person. The fixed idea of the suicide is to bring 
 about some horrible catastrophe like that by which he de- 
 stroyed his own natural form. His object is to him as food 
 and drink and for the time takes place of all others. He is 
 made to believe, in his madness, that provided he can destroy 
 the body of a spiritual-natural man, his anomalous state will 
 end ; and that bursting its magnetic shell, the spirit may enter 
 into a glorious empire of exquisite sensational delights. 
 
 170. The spiritual-natural man is infested and tormented, 
 in the third place, as internal respiration begins, by fierce 
 wanderers of a genius akin to that of the inhabitants of the 
 Spiritual Hell. The total number of wanderers on the continent 
 of Europe exceeds by a large proportion, the terrestrial in- 
 habitants. There are cities where the number of the li\Tng is 
 exceeded by the number of the dead who still retain the mag- 
 netic substance of their former bodies. Eobespicrre, Couthon, 
 St. Just, and a horde of Jacobins of the vilest sort who 
 perished at the close of the Reign of Terror, may be seen 
 with the spiritual eye, surrounding the steps of the imperial 
 throne, and communicating under the assumed names of the 
 Emperor Napoleon I. and others, at seances for spiritual mani- 
 festations at the Tuilcries. Heaven has receded from that 
 doomed spot to such a degree, that the wandering spirits of 
 tyrants and voluptuaries from the whole world are rushing to 
 it as to a centre. 
 
SEC. 169—174.] THE APOCALTFSE. 93 
 
 171. As tlie spiritual-natural man enters through, internal 
 respii-ation into power^ he is seen as a pillar of fire by night, 
 and as a piUar of cloud by day^, by the haunters of the subtle 
 realms of nature ; and they are di-awn to him as tmlight insects 
 to a lighted candle-flame. They cannot understand the pheno- 
 menon, and imagine in their madness, that the whole of the 
 magnetic sphere in which they move, will be kindled by such 
 presences into conflagration. How to extinguish the flame 
 becomes the grand topic of discourse, and manifold are their 
 experiments. One, and the fourth of the series to b,e enu- 
 merated, consists of a cold plague introduced into the natural 
 lungs, in the hope of destroying the external breathing organs 
 by tuberculous consumption. 
 
 172. The fifth, sixth, and seventh modes consist, with nume- 
 rous particulars, in the attempt of the demons in the upper, 
 intermediate, and lower Hells, to stoiTu the defences by which 
 internal respiration is gTiarded in the new recipient, and to 
 expel the di^ane breath; substituting for it infernal vapours. 
 The fierceness and persistence of the demons who seek this 
 end, cannot be described, however well it may be inferred. 
 These attacks are made respectively against the body, mind 
 and spirit, and the breathing organs. Successions of infernals 
 rising from week to week and fi-om year to year, — sometimes 
 ten thousand of them, in embattled array, — are at the same time 
 engaged in combat against one individual. Then there are 
 spiritual battles like those described in A. of C. 1, I. 791, 793. 
 Such wonders attend the return of internal resj)iration to the 
 race. 
 
 173. At this point a subject must be presented which, how- 
 ever veiled, must pain the delicate ear. The man who becomes 
 spiritual-natural is conscious at first of the decHne of nujDtial 
 potency. This is occasioned by the varied wastings referred 
 to in preceding paragraphs. In this wasted condition harlots 
 approach him during sleep, and by correspondence endeavour 
 to induce lasciviousness. They taint the air with their loath- 
 some breath, and the cold burnings of Pandemonium afflict 
 the frame. 
 
 174. Persons who are becoming spiritual-natural are also 
 exposed to afflictions from two causes which follow ; both of 
 
9i ARCANA OF CUBISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 wliicli, iov tlic sake of tlie salvution of tlie souls and bodies of 
 maukiud, I am forced to name. \Vlien a young virgin begins 
 most earnestly to crave full regeneration from the Lord, if of 
 tlie genius called spiritual-natural, tlio demons of the Spiritual 
 Hell project for the purpose of destroying her, the phantom 
 imago of a youth before the inner eye ; endeavouring at the 
 same time to persuade her that this is an angel who is her 
 nuptial counterpart. Media for spiritual communications are 
 then sought out, and demons endeavour to enforce the impres- 
 sion by declarations as from some angelic youth, to this effect. 
 Finally a sorcerer invested -with the magnetic form, so that his 
 breath can be felt, and even a sensational demonstration made 
 to the person, representing himself to be this youthful angel 
 of light, endeavours to cohabit and to establish sexual rela- 
 tions Avith the ultimate natural person. The young man is 
 liable to the same loathsome proximity. These attempts are 
 made however, on others open to the spirit world, through 
 mesmerism, through the practice of hypnotism or electro-biology, 
 but chiefly from the habit of attending the spiritual seance. 
 When the individual is becoming spiritual-natural, sorceresses 
 from the Spiritual Hell often attempt their odious and impious 
 familiarities, always to be overcome and thrust aside, through 
 openness to the Spirit of the Lord. 
 
 175. A tenth affliction to which the spiritual-natural are 
 exposed consists in the assaults upon the nerve-body; assum- 
 ing chiefly in the external the form of neuralgic pains. These 
 proceed from the intellectual demons of the Spiritual Hell, and 
 are parts of a general scheme to convulse the body with 
 anguish, induce the conviction in the mind that God has for- 
 saken it, and break the faith-state through which the respira- 
 tion becomes perfect. " Fear none of those things which thou 
 shalt sufi'er.^' This passage also signifies, the most intense 
 afflictions which the man of the spiritual-natural type must 
 undergo, from the attempts of evil spirits to suppress respira- 
 tion during thought- states ; of which more in another place. 
 
 176. " Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison.'^ 
 Under this head the subject of spiritual imprisonments, with 
 especial reference to those to which the spiritual-natural man 
 is liable^ must receive consideration. The evil monarch of the 
 
SEC. 175—178.] THE APOGALTPSE. 05 
 
 lost orb^ now cast witli liis followers into tlie lake of fire, lias 
 power to resist tke inauguration of the new harmony wliich 
 descends from our Lord, as it begins to be made apparent in 
 tlie changed constitutions of such as receive tlie gift of opened 
 respiration in its fii-st initial degree. " Behold, the devil shall 
 cast some of you into prison/'' signifies, that some in whom in- 
 ternal respiration commences, and who are of the spiritual- 
 natm'al type, being hardly pressed and grievously beset, will 
 remain with the respirations in a state almost imperceptible to 
 themselves until the Lord sends dehverance. The causes follow. 
 
 177. First^ conjunction with married partners who are in- 
 mostly repugnant to the entire self-abneg*ation of the spirit 
 before the Lord, has power, but for a time, to secrete within the 
 aerated body of the lung's, a nerve sphere emanating from the 
 wife, or husband, and controlled by the cerebral, aortal and 
 respiratory action. This, distributed throughout the person 
 and blending with the circulations, serves as a field for the 
 deploy of hving organic entities from the selfhood of the one 
 who opposes, rendering the process of the estabhshment of 
 the new harmony in the frame slow, dangerous, and exceedingly 
 laborious. When either partner thus resists, care must be taken 
 to maintain the highest and the amplest charity for him or her ; 
 nor should this serve under any circumstance, as a cause for 
 nuptial separation. More on this subject hereafter. 
 
 178. The respiration passes first into the soul, or inmost 
 degree of the natural lungs ; second, into their spirit ; and last, 
 into their body, in three degress. After respiration has begun 
 in the soul of the lungs, it may be arrested there for a time 
 by means of magnetic relations resulting from the friendship 
 in the selfhood of persons of either sex, whose bodies may 
 serve as the medium for the transmission of an opposing in- 
 fluence. A friend may be highly estimable, and still serve to 
 prevent the increase of respiration. The touch of the hand, 
 the glance of the eye, the tones of the voice, the perusal of 
 letters surcharged with their sphere, in fine the radiation of 
 their effluence through miles of space, as by the electric flash, 
 may continually serve to suspend the process of the new crea- 
 tion. This is a second cause of imprisonment. More under 
 the head of disorderly friendships. The second c;uise of im- 
 
9G ARCANA OF CRRISTIANITY. [cuap. ii. 
 
 prisonmout results from these disorderly friendships bctwecu 
 persons of the same sex, and a third from the same relation 
 between those of opposite sexes. 
 
 179. Entire self-consecration to the Lord, accompanied with 
 the determination from deepest principles, at any hazard to do 
 His holy will, when certainly made known, requires for its main- 
 tenance as a state, the morning, noon, and evening prayer in 
 secret, and a habitual reference to the Sacred Word. If in 
 consequence of a recession of spiritual combats or infestations, 
 an interval of comparative peace ensues, and the individual so 
 blest allows himself to indulge in the reviving emotions of the 
 partially subdued selfhood, a pause in the extension of the 
 respirations takes place, and spells that have been broken re- 
 assert their power, though sundered perhaps for years. This 
 serves as a fourth cause. 
 
 180. Imprisonment results, in a fifth instance, from the ex- 
 posure of the mind to unholy and insidious religious ceremonies. 
 The individual who is in the earlier stages of the state called 
 spiritual-natural, feels led by his reviving desires for the ease 
 and comfort of a religious home, to pass from place to place 
 where public worship is celebrated, seeking rest and finding 
 none. He at length is drawn into a temple artfully constructed 
 through unconscious ages for a Satanic decoy. Perhaps millions 
 of demons have conspired from the hells, to galvanise the 
 corpse of a deceased religious party, through its revived body 
 to arrest the liberation of mankind. Veiled as angels of light, 
 and making use of the bodies of wandering spirits or of human 
 media, whether conscious or unconscious, they distil a seductive 
 opiate upon the air; and in fine, by meretricious arts, they 
 succeed in breaking through the defences cast up around the 
 organism. From this time, until the unhappy imprisonment is 
 ended, the outer and the inner mind are at variance, and the 
 new man spell-bound within a natural prison-house. 
 
 181. A special form of this bondage springs from ritualistic 
 observances. At the present time, a seductive, enslaving 
 Paganism is elaborating a magnetic body in the world ; and, 
 availing itself of Romish traditions, is establishing an alluring 
 and baneful superstition. Crosses, sacerdotal garments, the 
 decorations of the altar, the very carvings and ornaments 
 
SEC. 179—182.] THE AFOCALYFSE. 97 
 
 of tlie oratory and tlie cliapel_, are all sui'cliarged with a triple 
 poison. A veil of illusion is spun over tlie true reason of the 
 worshipper. The partition between the spiritual and natural 
 degrees of the lungs becomes indurated. The elements of the 
 new creation which have begun to vitahze the body are diiven 
 back from the air cells and openings of the frame. There is, but 
 in another sense from that which the Jesuitical administrator 
 declares, a transubstantiation of the eucharistic elements ; for 
 an infernal substance of evil is instilled into the wafer, and 
 an infernal element of falsity distributed within the wine. By 
 every act of his ceremonial the priest magnetises the supersti- 
 tious and deluded novices. Behind him, but invisible, are the 
 powers of those dread hells that wrought the murders of Torque- 
 mada and the slaveries and corruptions of Loyola. But still 
 behind^these, and operant through them, are those foul, false 
 gods and goddesses whose magic was wrought through all 
 debasing and tkrice accursed rites, when men passed their chil- 
 dren through fire to Moloch, or offered human hetacombs upon 
 the altars of Baal. Those who submit to the incantations of 
 the ritualistic reaction, if spmtual-natural, are spinning fetters 
 of steel for the reason, and building labyrinths that open into 
 chambers of torture and of horror for the captive heart. It may 
 be objected that devout and virtuous men are engaged in this 
 movement; that culture and taste, an acute scholarship and a 
 pure morahty, as well as patriotic and philanthropic sentiments 
 and ascetical practices, characterize its leaders. This is all veiy 
 true ; nevertheless, in the interests of a former ritualistic re- 
 action, the learned and pious scholars, priests, and ceremonial 
 saints of Judeea murdered their Christ. History repeats itself, 
 and these are of that generation who crucified the Spirit, while 
 they were careful to make broad the phylacteries and leave no 
 oblation wanting at the daily sacrifices. 
 
 182. A sixth form of bondage results from the magical arts 
 of females, who are far more subtle and dangerous, as speaking 
 subjects for the demons of the Spiritual Hell, than males are. 
 The feminine sphere combines positiveness with insinuating 
 and pertinacious subtilty. As a general rule, the woman, in 
 the hands of the demon, is ten times more dangerous than 
 the man. When ambitition has entered into the heart of one 
 
 G 
 
98 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 of tlio fcmalo sex, aud tlic tliouglit to become a foundress of an 
 ecclesiastical institution, she generally succeeds in convincing 
 herself that the sources of her impressions are supernal, or even 
 of the Infinite. But having the sphere of her sex, which is one 
 of pliant absorptiveness, she teems with conceptions which 
 cannot become fully embodied fantasies, without the assistance 
 of the masculine element. Hence she seeks disciples who 
 shall serve as reservoirs of spiritual magnetic vitaHty ; drawing 
 through them an important element of life, and through the 
 male influx, in a subversive order, becoming pregnant with 
 ideas. When such sirens find access to those who are be- 
 coming spiritual-natural, and can conjoin themselves so as to 
 produce fiiith in their pretensions, the slavery which ensues is 
 rigid, and may be long protracted. The most honest and con- 
 scientious, who are physically open to an extreme influx from 
 foreign bodies, will be very liable to this form of bondage. 
 
 183. Others who are becoming spiritual -natural, are in pecu- 
 liar danger of falling into bondage to the general sphere of the 
 selfhood, not of individuals, but of beloved and attached fami- 
 lies. The greater body attracts the less, not alone in physics 
 but in the human world. A certain solidarity is developed, 
 through the ordinary familistic ties. The individual attracted 
 into the magnetic sphere of a potent family circle, begins to 
 experience a sensation of unity with the qualities of its life. To 
 break that charmed influence often requires an efibrt as if to 
 burst the bands of death, and break the yoke of a disease 
 abeady feeding on the vitals. Relationships of this kind, when 
 they exist in the selfhood, are singularly prejudicial to those 
 led in ^the Divine Providence, in the beginnings of the new 
 respiration, to the glorious harmonies of a divine state. It is 
 to be feared that many, irresolute where most decision is re- 
 quired, will sufier themselves to perish in the subversive move- 
 ment, from this cause alone. Many involved unconsciously in 
 it must expect to make no progress, but to remain until such 
 slaveries are broken. This is a seventh imprisonment. 
 
 184. An eighth means and form of bondage, to those who 
 are becoming spiritual-natural men, results from exposure to 
 the operations of a class of bigoted and fanatical promoters of 
 revivals of religion. The revivalist, in the selfhood, is a pro- 
 
■SEC. 183—186.] THE APOCALYPSE. 99 
 
 moter not of cliarity but of strife. He intensifies tlie sectarian 
 bigotry, and inflates the pliarisaic pride of tlie ecclesiastical 
 body wlioni lie represents. In liis unbounded arrogance, he 
 sets up a poor charlatanry as superior to the supremest moral 
 inspirations. He brings the sacred cause of religion into con- 
 tempt before the world, by palming off the tricks of mesmerism 
 as the genuine operation of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 185. When persons in whom the spiritual-natural state, 
 through fitness of endowment, is beginning to manifest its 
 incipient conditions, begin to experience the visitings of the 
 Holy Spirit within the breast, many will be in extreme igno- 
 rance. They know but vaguely, if at all, that there is a World 
 of Spii'its. The dead natural organs of the mind begin to re- 
 ceive, the intellect is open to persuasions, the body facile to 
 magnetic spheres. The church is deemed, of all places, that 
 most fitted to nurse the noblest emotions ; but the revivahst in 
 the selfhood, possessed of an immense mesmeric power, suc- 
 
 • ceeds too often in checking the still, sweet growth of the divine 
 principles within the breast, and in arresting the descent of the 
 new creation. He is accompanied, invisibly, by familiar spirits, 
 who have risen from Hell to facilitate this pulpit mountebank 
 in playing ofi" fantastic tricks against high Heaven ; knowing 
 that the frenzy which to-day makes the multitude disposed to 
 hysterical prostrations before the altar, will be followed by a 
 reactionary chill, in which profanities will abound and material- 
 ism win its easy victories. A swarm of wandering spirits feed 
 upon the vital element of the unfortunate, who is completely 
 subject to the combined control of the actor in the pulpit and 
 his invisible associates. Many who might otherwise rapidly 
 advance through the initiatory stages and become spiritual- 
 natural, are depleted of the nerve fluid, through one course of 
 such excesses. In some instances transiently, but ia others for 
 long periods, they are subjugated, as to their bodies, by the 
 sectarian clan. Years may ensue before their deliverance. 
 
 186. A caution needs here to be inserted, lest the preceding 
 paragraph should be misunderstood. The revivalist in the 
 selfhood, seeks to imitate, with a profane sorcery, a genuine 
 divine work. His success is owing to the fact, that, with closed 
 respiration, the church is unable to discriminate between those 
 
 G 2 
 
100 ABCANA OF CHBISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 preachings which are followed by effusions of the Holy Spirit, 
 and those which tend to the development of cataleptic and 
 mesmeric, as well as disorderly mediatorial phenomena. 
 
 187. A ninth cause of imprisonment of the spiritual -natural 
 man, in his infantile states, is from monkery in its peculiar 
 tenets, both as developed in the Romanist and some of the 
 Protestant persuasions. There is one text of Scripture, whose 
 misinterpretation has been productive of incalculable misery 
 and irreligion. Our Saviour declares that in Heaven they neither 
 marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels. This, 
 in its letter, is no declaration that the conjugial union which 
 springs from the Divine ordinance that two persons, the one 
 male the other female, created as a dual, and so complete 
 humanity, may not unite in accordance with the requirements 
 of the eternal divine law, and so blissfully exist as two in one to 
 all eternity. Our Saviour's declaration is simply that there are 
 no formal unions from without, dependent for their validity 
 upon the sanction of the sacerdotal officer, or the custom of the 
 land. It is a protest from the divine stand-point, against the 
 idea, that the earthly shadow of the marital institution, which 
 merely has an external sanction, is suffered to intrude itself into 
 the province of the heavenly and the eternal harmonies. It is 
 to be borne in mind, however, that our Saviour recognised the 
 arbitrary time and sense marriage, as binding ; but only for the 
 natural world. An interpretation placed upon this text, ahke 
 in violation of the natural import of language, of the internal 
 senses of Scripture, and of the testimony of those to whom the 
 Lord permits perception of divine things, ignores entirely the 
 tendency to internal conjunction between the inmost psychical 
 principle of the woman and of the man. It is impossible to 
 think in conjunction with angels, or to breathe in conjunc- 
 tion with them, without a recognition of the divine conjugial 
 order of the skies. But marriage, as involving a possibility 
 of internal and divine conjunction, by which the twain shall be 
 become really one flesh, were it mooted as a doctrinal point 
 throughout the nominal Christian world, would, with here and 
 there an exception, be considered as blasphemous. 
 
 188. The latent feeling throughout those who represent the 
 religious world is that, of the two, celibacy is far holier than 
 
SEC. 187— J 90. THE APOOALYPSE. 101 
 
 the marriage state. The ground for monkery is thus almost 
 co-extensive with Christendom. When internal respiration, 
 in its most incipient state, is at hand, that type of mind which 
 is spiritual-natural, in the recession of the aboriginal life of 
 the selfhood, and in the beginning of the deaths of the minute 
 organic forms, spoken of heretofore, experiences a profound 
 sensation of nuptial cold. Fostered by the universal heresy 
 against the divine grounds and the ineffable purities of mar- 
 riage, the misinstructed intellect cherishes the idea, that the 
 chill which invades the being is identical with the holiness of 
 the superior life. The fructifications of the divine ideas in 
 the intellect cease from the moment this fantasy prevails. Not 
 one Divine truth, in its symmetry, perspicuity, and demon- 
 stration, has ever been shed abroad upon the world by an 
 original unfolding, through the intellect of any who have suc- 
 cumbed to and remained enslaved by the monkish conception 
 of the nature of the divine life j not one. 
 
 189. It is this destructive inversion of doctrine, which, rooted 
 and grounded within the body of the creeds, prevents the de- 
 scent of the Divine Spirit into the lungs of Christendom. When 
 those who are becoming spiritual-natm-al begin to entertain 
 the idea alluded to, the monastic province of Tophet, filled 
 with idolaters and idolatresses of self, who cruelly persecuted 
 the conjugial principle in man, and sought to extirpate it, in- 
 vades the body with its subtle breath. To the extent to which 
 this fantasy has power in the mind, the organs of the thinking 
 principle are controlled by vibrations from the chill monastic 
 hell. Many are imprisoned thereby. 
 
 190. The tenth cause, which tends to produce imprisonment 
 and to lock up in slavery the germinal powers of the new man, 
 who is becoming spiritual -natural, is the suppression of the 
 principle of trust in the Lord, as applied to common things. 
 Owing to the intense constructive action of the reflective facul- 
 ties, more than all others those of spiritual-natural genius fore- 
 cast the future, and lay out, in deep and arduous meditation, 
 the plan of life. Here is the barrier which few pass who are 
 of this quality of mind ; for, seemingly of a texture as of the 
 web of the field spider, it proves nevertheless adamantine. 
 That God desires that man should enter into a condition. 
 
102 ARCANA OF OHEISTIANITT. . [cnAP. ir. 
 
 in wliicli to liavc no life but the Divine love, and no guidance 
 but the Divine direction, seems incredible to nearly all. Few 
 deem it possible that the Lord Jesus Christ can direct, by the 
 instant guidance of His Spirit, the banker at his desk, the 
 artist in his studio, the merchant in his commerce, the woman 
 in her housewifery, and the mariner upon the sea. 
 
 191. Christ is considered in the church the ruler of Heaven, 
 but self-calculation the supreme governor of Earth. "Who 
 succeeds ? " is the question ; and the answer, " Whoever, ir- 
 respective of moral quality, plays best the game of fortune." 
 The prayer, " Give us day by day our daily bread," is on almost 
 all lips, but, for the most part, is a meaningless formula. The 
 greater petition, " Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done as in 
 heaven so on earth," is reduced to an unmeaning platitude. 
 That creation is governed by general laws, and that those who 
 understand and avail themselves of those laws are successful ; 
 while those who cannot grasp their scope, or apply their powers, 
 must be ground to powder, is now the faith of the enlightened, 
 with but few exceptions. TTiat there are laws of faith as well 
 as laws of physics, and that the prayer which moves the hand of 
 God, may touch the springs which control the operation of the 
 law, few believe, but those who, in the divine life, have tested 
 the fact ; yet they, by experience, do know it to a certainty. 
 
 192. Without the prayer that springs from the profoundest 
 depths of the heart, that utterly renounces self, there can be 
 no establishment of the new respiration. It may flutter upon 
 the faculties, as the dove before it lights ; but unless the yearn- 
 ing, concentered affections of the spirit struggle upward to the 
 Lord, the beauteous messenger spreads its returning pinions to 
 the Divine bosom. According to the depth and the divinity 
 of the prayer, which is the upgoing of the heart to God, will 
 be the quality and the measure of the respirations that retm'n. 
 Utter forgetfulness of self must characterize the prayers that 
 organically precede Chinst's advent, in the fulness of the 
 divine breath, in the body of the breathing frame. From this 
 time prayer is the kiss from the lips of the yielding bride, that 
 establishes the eternal love-union with the great Bridegroom, 
 the Lord. We must in spirit, and literally, thus open our lips 
 for the breath of His mouth. 
 
SEC. 191— 194.] TRU APOOALTPSE. IO3 
 
 193. But of wliat quality is that wife who, while seekino' the 
 marriage relation in appearances, resolves that she will think 
 and live in a house by herself, and journey to and fro, and 
 transact a varied round of employments, and seek advice and 
 guidance wherever she will, indifferent to the truth that the 
 bridegroom is the head ? Thus the soul which seeks to be 
 in the reception of the Divine gifts, a member of the church 
 which is called " The Bride, the Lamb's wife," can enter into 
 no ultimate conjunction with Him, while, like the foolish woman 
 of the parable, she assumes the direction of her own house 
 the origination of her own pursuits, the guidance of her own 
 commerce and association with mankind. Conjunction can 
 only be attained by absolute sm-rendery to the Divine Will • 
 only maintained by daily, hourly renewals of that consecration, 
 by making the whole plan and action of the being subject to 
 the Lord's divine spirit. Therefore the man in whom the 
 growths of the new creation have begun, finds, at this point, 
 deliverance or long continued vassalage. No compromises are 
 possible. Those who vacillate fall into many temptations. 
 The Lord tries those who yield themselves to His direction, 
 often painfully; and no trial or affliction seemeth for the present 
 to be joyous but rather grievous, but afterward, if accepted 
 and endured in the conjunction of faith and charity, and so 
 with unswerving devotion to the issues of the new life, it works 
 the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised 
 thereby. 
 
 194. Of the nature of the imprisonments to which those are 
 subjected, who at this turning point are weak and wavering, 
 this needs to be written. The ark is before them ; the foun- 
 dations of the earth are being removed from beneath their feet ; 
 around them the deluges are rising ; the floods are falling from 
 on high. The worldly prosperity which they think to secure by 
 falling back and sheltering themselves within a shrewd, saga- 
 cious calculation, a choice of then- own pursuits, an alliance 
 with artful, successful, worldly men, is, even if realized, perdi- 
 tion. In the divine life, the only safety consists in the onward 
 march. The foe, resisting the advance, derives his power from 
 our own faithlessness, our half-resolute or faltering condition. A 
 step forward, and the obstruction proves a shadow which melts 
 
lOi ARCANA OF ORRISTIANITY. ' [chap. ii. 
 
 beneath the feet ; as a step backward, and wliat would other- 
 wise have been the shadow,, is the armed man, flushed with the 
 omens of victory, who tramples us under foot. If Christ is for 
 us, who can be against us ? The new movement which descends 
 from om' Lord Jesus Christ, and which seeks to invert the 
 present organic conditions of the man, to expel disease, 
 to rebuild the constitution, to enthrone the intellect above the 
 illusions of all creeds and all times, to knit the moral principle, 
 and through it the whole man, to the established harmony of 
 Heaven, demands, by virtue both of its cause and of its end, 
 nothing less than the yielding up of the whole being to the in- 
 flowing breath of the Redeemer • nor can that breath inflow, in 
 this manner, till we have once for all made up our minds to 
 be His practically, and daysmen before His face. 
 
 195. " That ye may be tried," signifies, the following tests 
 of faith, varying in particulars, to which the spiritual -natural 
 man is subjected, dmnng the processes which ultimate in the new 
 creation. To be conjoined in all things to the spirit and person 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ, is the solemn privilege of the man 
 through whom the new creation descends and is realized in the 
 earth. The glorified fay-souls, in the ultimate temple of the 
 divine human body of the Lord, may be agents of this conjunc- 
 tion. One of these descends and is stationed as a guard where 
 spiritual respii^ation descends into the soul of the natural lungs. 
 Afterward he descends with the advance of respiration, to the 
 point where it enters their body or ultimate form. After this 
 he is enabled to descend through the breaths into the body of 
 the lungs, and to go forth through expirations from them into 
 the natural air. The fays are elsewhere called seed (See A. of 
 C. 2, I. 5 — 10), but these are the seed of Grod in man. 
 
 196. As the genius of the glorified fays from the divine 
 human temple of our Lord^s body is varied, so the one which 
 descends to each man partakes of his own genius. They are also 
 called openers of the soul. They descend with a sharp pang as 
 if it would rend it. Every advance which they make is attended 
 with fierce internal conflict ; for it is the Lord, who through 
 them, fights the inbred evils which resist, and which in their 
 goings forth are successfully met and subdued. The trials to 
 which the man who is becoming spiritual-natural is subjected 
 
SEC. 195—197.] THE APOCALYPSE. 105 
 
 are tliese. First; by the illumination of tlie internal memory lie 
 is made to see Ids whole past life, wldcli passes in solemn review 
 before bis eyes. The deeds that were done in darkness are 
 revealed in hght; and there is nothing, however covered by 
 the shades of the past, but is now made known, revived from 
 the body of the inner memory ; the sins of the understanding 
 from its mind, and the sins of the will from its inmost essence. 
 The man is allowed to judge himself; but he is himself judged 
 according to the justice of the sentence which he passes on his 
 own deeds. If he endeavours to make them seem to himself 
 otherwise than they are and were, he must painfully undergo 
 new wastings, which, in their accomiplishment, round the cycle, 
 and he is again permitted in this ordeal to review the past. 
 When it is found that he is in the fullest earnest in reading him- 
 self, and that he is judging his sins, as an impartial jurist sits 
 over against a body of criminals, when he introspects thoroughly 
 the structure of his heart and fearlessly analyses the quality of 
 its defilements, then he is said to have jDassed the trial of 
 judgment ; at which many may fail. 
 
 197. The next trial is that of constancy. God, who governs 
 circumstances with an infinite power, so involves him in the 
 stern contests of a fight with sin, that every profession which 
 he has made to God is put to a test. After duties are assigned 
 him in the guiding light of the spirit, which at first, perhaps, 
 were prosperously entered upon, prop after prop upon which he 
 had accustomed himself to lean in the external world, is taken 
 away. Does he rely too much on wealth ? He sees it taking 
 wings. Is he fed and stimulated by applause ? Reproaches 
 overtake him. Is he constitutionally of a sluggish temperament ? 
 Ease becomes impossible. Are luxurious and enervating habits 
 cherished? He is perhaps rudely dealt with by calamitous 
 events. Are there extreme refinements of civilization, — the 
 opera, the music saloon, the splendid gallery of art, and the 
 sweet solaces of literature, which have become idols ? They 
 must take their place with things denied. Is he dependent for 
 exhilaration upon the society of friends ? He must acquire the 
 habit of isolation. Is he of a fondly cHnging nature, parasiti- 
 cally absorbing strength through the countenance and support 
 of cherished intimates ? The roots and fibres of his being must 
 
lOG AEGANA OF CUBI8TIANITY. [chap. ir. 
 
 bo unclasped from tlicin, liowever tliey may bleed. Aro 
 religious associations so needful for liim, that he is weekly 
 maintained in an artificial piety thereby, as exotic plants are 
 forced into their bloom under the glass of conservatories ? The 
 sheltering barrier to the inclemency of the elements is broken 
 down. Opportunities are afforded him for dispensing with 
 every object of idolatry, for developing a hardy nature, which, 
 like the sturdiest oak, shall brave the world^s winters and 
 wi'estle with its gales. 
 
 198. If, as experience after experience occurs, he shrinks 
 effeminately in the hour of trial, new wastings occur, and he is 
 thrown back to undergo the discipHne of a new cycle of events 
 which shall end, if he is worthy, in bringing him anew to the 
 same ordeal. God tempers souls for His new kingdom, as 
 the ancient oriental armourers tempered the blades of Damas- 
 cus. One such heroic spirit, when furnished for his mission, 
 can chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight. It 
 is not here to be inferred that friends, or the enjoyments of 
 society, or the results of culture and civilization, in themselves, 
 are evil. It is not to produce anchorites of the desert, that the 
 Lord imparts His breath. We shaU see hereafter how God 
 gives all needful blessings to His children in their time. 
 
 199. The Lord, in the new age, will demonstrate that He is 
 God alone. Ho will give or lend for purposes of test and trial, 
 precisely as He takes away. It is true, of riches, whether in- 
 tellectual or natural, of friendship, sympathy, the privileges of 
 rehgious association, and of enlightened instruction in the 
 Word. It is His object to bring the believer into a state, in 
 which he shall esteem the Lord's service, heaven ; and hold 
 all earthly things at the Lord's disposal and in His employ. 
 This is the second test. 
 
 200. The Lord disposes events, so as inevitably to bring 
 persecutions around His servants, who are being trained for 
 service in the new age. He touches with His finger the painted 
 bubble of exemption from detraction, in which the self-com- 
 placent soul is floating to eternity ; and all that is left of it is 
 acrid gall. The hates of the infernal spirits are indescribable. 
 They rage that man should ever attain to open respu'ation, 
 inasmuch as its consequences involve their subjection. When 
 
SEC. 198—201.] THE APOGALTPSJE. 107 
 
 therefore tliey begin to see the approach of the divine breath, 
 they raise up enemies around the man. The most frivolous 
 pretexts seem to excite animosity, when the black bile of an 
 infernal hatred seeks to vent itself from its subterranean river 
 in the will. It is an intense gratification, though at the same 
 time a madness, for the unregenerate man to hate, and injure 
 such as are being trained for Heaven. It is the first stimulat- 
 ing draught of eternal fire. To be hated, without cause, or 
 with sHght cause, to bear opprobrium meekly, and cruel wrongs 
 with a sweet tenderness to all who injure, is the third trial-test. 
 Aggravated injuries must succeed those that are shght and 
 superficial. The goal of this test is triumphantly won, when 
 the man who is becomiag spiritual-natural, bears as not bear- 
 ing, sees as not seeing, and feels as not feehng; lookiug uj)on 
 every foeman as a brother, and remaining undistm'bed in his 
 harmony, by the storms that beat and roll below. 
 
 201. In the fourth test, temptations come through Wander- 
 itig Spirits, whose magnetic bodies burn with an impoisoned 
 and magnetic fire. Into them it would seem as if mad-houses 
 had emptied then* insanities, and pest-houses poured their 
 plagues. As they begin to approach, the first feeling is hor- 
 ror, as of some unnameable loathing drawing nigh. The 
 atomic spirits shi-iak, and, with singular perturbations, agitate 
 the heart. The spiiits meet the eye sometimes, not as human 
 beings, but as beasts and serpents ; for their evil passions, in 
 their periods of utmost turbulence, iuvolve the magnetic forms 
 which they wear into series of outlines, typifying the abomina- 
 tions that swell within. Monsters as they are, it is needful 
 that the spiritual-natural man should pass into a condition to 
 mind them as little as the traveller does the fantastic clouds 
 above ; or the unseemly objects that disfigure the roadside. If 
 one, when brought to the ordeal, is not disposed to endure, 
 through a timorous and vacillating spirit, as in the' former 
 cases, the test is withdrawn; untd, through a series of new 
 wastings, the more deeply tried and experienced believer is 
 brought again to face the intrusive horrors. They become 
 perfectly harmless, at last, and one need no more observe them, 
 though conscious of their presence, than to notice the loathsome 
 human objects that haunt the midnight streets of cities. 
 
108 ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap, ii, 
 
 202. The fifth test is more severe. Human beings in the 
 flesh serve as the most potent agents for the distribution of 
 fires that burn, poisons that waste, and griefs that crucify the 
 soul. There is a period dm-ing the noviciate experiences of 
 the spiritual-natm*al man, marked by extreme susceptibility to 
 magnetic emanations through human bodies. One person in 
 seven is very obviously mediatorial at the jDresent time in 
 England, though individuals to themselves are unconscious 
 that they are so. In America, the proportion of mediatorial 
 persons is much greater. As one becomes spiritual-natural, 
 not alone the bodies of the bad, but of the good, are often 
 made the distributive agents of the magnetism of the dark 
 death of the world of woe. A single nerve diseased, an organ 
 chi'onically affected, may be the conduit of internal fire, which 
 only those who are in this internal consciousness can distinguish 
 or detect. The inexperienced are apt to imagine that those 
 through whom they may be thus affected are unregenerate, or 
 backslidden from the good of life. It is not so. The bad are 
 bodily so closed and guarded, sometimes, that the magnetic 
 fires from Hell in them are measurably suppressed ; the good 
 so infested, and in such fierce combat, that even the garments 
 which they wear may be for the time surcharged with the foul 
 distillations of the lost. 
 
 203. Often, too, a man in evil is closed in an impenetrable 
 body of nerve spirit, and through the acquired habit of secret- 
 ing emotions -svithin himself, may seem, as to the emanating 
 influence, harmless and inoffensive. The Spirit of God may 
 visit him, and his spirit strive after divine things. As he 
 overcomes his secretive habit, and learns to pour forth his soul, 
 the pent up malarias from Tophet, within his nervous system, 
 gush out in torrents. Or again, there are times when the Lord 
 sends an angel, who seals up an impure person, so that the 
 poison of his state, and of the demons who inflow into him, 
 shall have no outlet through the nerves ; and so long as he is 
 thus sealed, he would seem bodily to diffuse no more of an 
 impure virus than the good old man in his last days. But when 
 the sealed Tophet is uncovered, his real imparities come forth. 
 These considerations are here adduced, for the purpose of 
 enforcing on those who sense and are afflicted by the magnetic 
 
SEC. 202—205.] THE APOCALYPSE. 109 
 
 emanations through, human bodies, the necessity, first, of ex- 
 treme caution; second, of large charity. Extreme caution is 
 demanded, because, as in cases of sealing, the inofi'ensiveness 
 of the emanating sphere is no proof of the advanced regenera- 
 tion of the heart. A large charity is imperative, since, other- 
 wise, the good, struggling against evil, might be falsely con- 
 demned, because they bear upon the person some trace or stain 
 of the adversary against whom they combat in the Lord. 
 
 204. During the experiences involved in this fifth trial, the 
 man who is becoming spiritual-natural learns at last to put 
 impHcit confidence in his dear Lord. Nights of anguish are 
 succeeded by days of rest ; and the griefs are transient, but 
 the joys remain. Every injection of evil magnetic fii^e into the 
 system searches out something organic which is impure, and of 
 a kindred quality ; and if it brings struggle, and dispute, and 
 even torture in the frame, the results are peaceful and glorious. 
 For evil, when it finds nothing congenial to itself, recedes. 
 Under the head of vicarious atonement, the apparent exceptions 
 to this rule will be taken up. Our Lord is the Infinite Econo- 
 mist, and turns the current of evil to advantage for the good. 
 It is literally true, that the Devil's rivers must turn the miUs 
 of his Divine Conqueror. When the individual has learned 
 wisely to profit by every affictive visitation of this sort, he is 
 approved in its degree. 
 
 205. The sixth trial-test of faith and obedience, to the man 
 who is becoming spiritual-natural, is cessation from correspond- 
 ence, except when directed from within by the Divine Spirit. 
 This, which seems comparatively an easy thing, is one against 
 which there is a great rebelHon. The natural man sits down 
 to write a letter to a friend, his thoughts and feelings flow into 
 the page. It is talismanic, and transmits the essence of his 
 affections ; or otherwise, magnetised by a famihar spirit, serves 
 as a channel for a virus from the lower land. The transmission 
 of thought, harmless in persons who are in dead closed states, 
 becomes to those who begin to be quickened and opened, o 
 momentous consequence. No man who is becoming spiritual- 
 natural can so much as write a letter, to any individual, without 
 entering by the telegraphic projection of a mental ray, into 
 absolute rapport. This is perceived alike by the angels and 
 
110 ARC Ah'' A OF CnRISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 evil spirits atteiKlant at cither extremity of tlio electric line, 
 Tliouglits pass and repass along it, from the inmost lives of one 
 to tlie other, so that, were they divested of the flesh, it would 
 be a conversation face to face. 
 
 206. There are in the Spiritual Hell horned beasts, full of 
 eyes, which emit, from every point, lurid, meteoric rays. A 
 demon of that Hell is sometimes seen attended by two of these 
 beasts. Obedient to his slightest request, for a time, they 
 cruelly delight, with their darting fii'e-flames, to make war 
 against such in the earth as are becoming spiritual -natural. 
 Woo to the man over whom one of these beasts gains power. 
 They are created by means of a convergence from the inmost 
 and deepest Hell of the embodied hatreds of the lost. Each 
 hatred is composed of a serpent shape, bearing in the centre 
 of its wormy forehead a fixed, gleaming eye-ball. All these 
 eye-balls revolve in conjunction, and in a ten thousand times 
 concentrated glare. The intelligence which resides within the 
 creature is such, that, when it is once directed to a spiritual- 
 natural man, it can remain fixed and motionless for months 
 upon the object on which it gloats and glowers. It is of the 
 natm-e of the vampire. In this position, provided it can obtain 
 a magnetic hold upon the cerebrum of its victim, it punctures 
 the little cells in the spiritual degree of the brain, and attracts 
 toward itself the spiritual nerve essence. 
 
 207. Now the reason why the Lord, at a particular stage in 
 the process of the establishment of the new creation in the 
 spiritual-natural man, absolutely forbids, by a divine suggestion 
 from within, that epistolary correspondence should be carried 
 on independently of and ignoring the divine guidance, is espe- 
 cially, that the mind, becoming fixed upon the object of its 
 correspondence, is terribly in danger from the infestations of this 
 creature. Its horns are indicative of power in ultimates. It 
 is the boast of demons that they conduct the chief part of the 
 correspondence of mankind. In correspondence, carried on 
 without order, the mind becomes bewildered internally in a 
 labyrinth of tortuous ideas. It is unconsciously attempting 
 to impress its thoughts upon the correspondent; and at the 
 same time to distil the very essence of its mentality into a 
 fine and subtle fluid, which shall charm the page. 
 
SEC. 206—210.] THE APOCALYPSE. Ill 
 
 208. It is entirely in order tlius to write in tlie Divine ap- 
 pointment. Writing becomes finally a terrific act. It involves 
 tlie Mgliest potencies of the man. Hearing tlie Divine Voice 
 calling him to correspond^ his immensely diSused sphere is 
 gathered together. A ray from the Divine Intelligence leaps 
 through the brain. It finds unerringly the one to whom com- 
 munication is to be made. If there be a demon intervening, 
 it smites him down as with a thunderbolt, that the divine ends 
 may be carried out. The words that are written in the Spirit 
 are media for the Spirit. They are charmed with persuasion. 
 The divine influx is distributed through every cell of the 
 texture of the substance on which they are written. They 
 are sent in the divine harmony. The ends for which they are 
 intended are already prepared, deep within the subjective con- 
 sciousness of the one or ones to whom they are to go. The fire 
 from the Lord which secretly burns within them, goes thrilling 
 to the heart, pervaded with a sweet and secret charm. 
 
 209. It is to prevent such letter-writing as this, that, while 
 the man who is becoming spiritual-natural wavers, perhaps, and 
 hesitates, and from external judgment seeks to write without 
 an internal dictate, the infernal rays from the concentered vi- 
 sion of the creatm-e of the Hells, of which we have spoken, rise 
 up to attack the brain. Woe again to that man who becomes its 
 slave. That Imid, baneful thing is sometimes visible, when 
 lucid vision begins, as a single eye, turning in a fathomless eye- 
 socket, set in nether darkness ; or luridly phosphorescent, float- 
 ing above the plane of vision. When seen as from above, it 
 is an evidence that the nerve-spirit, floating about the system, 
 is being attracted toward it. It is a warning of danger ; what, 
 ever the man is doing he should cease, as far as possible, and 
 engage in the wrestlings of mighty prayer. 
 
 210. The seventh trial which awaits, is entire abstinence 
 from literary composition ; if for the author, the production 
 of works ; if for the lawyer, the preparation of briefs and argu- 
 ments j if for the divine, the composition of sermons or essays, 
 except there shall be felt a direct and conscious prompting 
 from the Lord within the breast, with influxes of power. The 
 roots of the tree of literary composition, as practised by the 
 unregenerate man, go down deeply into the under world. The 
 
112 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 sermon, the novel, the forensic argument, the Ijo-ic or romantic 
 poem, the song of the ballad--vvriter, the stately and elaborate 
 historical narrative, or philosophical disquisition, the dry trea- 
 tises on natural science, are all woven, when conditions are 
 favourable for infernal action, through the agencies of the gulf 
 of lost souls in the Spiritual Hell. 
 
 SEVENTH ILLUSTEATION. 
 
 Evil genii of novelists in the Lowest Earth of Spirits and in the Spiritual 
 Hell. — Magic wrought by them on terrestrial authors, whom they in- 
 fluence and inspire. 
 
 211. The author of a profane novel of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury stood before me. I will not say its natural author, but in 
 any case a mind thi-ough whom it was elaborated, either in the 
 natural, or by conjunction, from the infernal abode. "Write," 
 he said, " for us a novel. I was the author of Peregrine 
 Pickle. But I can do better now." I hesitated in the reply, 
 until words were given me of the Lord ; rejoining then, " Are 
 you a servant of Him I serve ? If so, continue your discourse.^' 
 To this, with a curt dignity, he responded, " Sir, I serve no 
 man, Jewish or Pagan, Cicero or Jove ; I serve myself, and am 
 a hard master. I assisted that Ainsworth to compose Guy 
 Fawkes, and a sad botch he made of it, to be sure. A famous 
 romance writer was spoiled, my dear sir, when you took up the 
 trade of a parson. But whet your invention; forget your 
 style of moralising ; leave the gods to take care of themselves ; 
 study the taste of your contemporaries ; and, harkee ! 1^11 
 father the bantling; see, I have him already in my brain- 
 box !" 
 
 212. More to the same effect was adduced, not here to be 
 repeated. He whistled, as if in an abstracted state ; in a 
 moment after, when an associate of his approached as if by 
 chance ; whether truly or falsely, he stated himself to have 
 been known as the composer of the " Beggars^ Opera." I was 
 then led, in the spirit, to accompany them, being invisibly 
 guarded from above, to many scenes in the Lowest Spiritual 
 Earth connected with our globe, where souls are in their last 
 state prior to being cast into Hell. This thing, from many 
 
SEC. 211— 213.] TRE AFOCALTPSE. 113 
 
 other Sj is laid upon me to narrate. I saw tlie evil genii of 
 Lord Lytton, Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the 
 late James Fennimore Cooper ; perfect fac-similes in appear- 
 ance, and even dress, of the gentlemen whose names I have 
 repeated. They evinced the same spmt of professional rivahy 
 which distinguishes the literary class on Earth, indulging in 
 acute and profound criticisms of each other^s works, claiming 
 as their own the well-known productions of the authors whom 
 they represented ; but invariably, by direct or indirect remark, 
 accusing their natural prototypes of keeping back the best 
 things which they suggested to their imaginations, as not pre- 
 cisely adapted to the present polish of the age. 
 
 213. One said of Mr. Charles Dickens, " When I get that 
 fellow here, he shall know where the feathers came from that 
 he struts under.^^ Another retorted with, " Perhaps he will 
 not come here at all ; " to which the reply was, with a horrible 
 grin, '' I have bird-limed the twig he stands on ; we will have 
 him for an actor jet." They then made a wager, which of the 
 two, Dickens or Thackeray, should be first in that loathsome 
 place. I recognised in the mind of one, the aptness of roman- 
 tic description, the 'penchant for sentiment, which characterize 
 the brilliant author of ^^Zanoni." The knowledge of the 
 world, the humour, the clear-cut, epigrammatic distinctness 
 of the pen that wrote " Vanity Fair " and " Pendennis,''^ were 
 displayed by another. The genius who claimed for his humble 
 earthly servant and copyist, the facile and graceful writer of 
 " Pickwick " and " David Copperfield," was the most protean 
 and versatile of all ; now, hopping on one leg, he hid his hu- 
 man features under a feathery mask, as if he were a huge barn- 
 door fowl, and then became, in rapid successions, an hostler, an 
 inn-keeper, lackey, boots, champion of distressed virtue, and 
 nobleman in disguise. My indignation was kindled within me, 
 as he profanely parodied " Tiny Tim " and '' Little Nell.^^ At 
 this he did not seem at all offended, but took it as a compli- 
 ment, cracking nuts a moment afterward, in the character of a 
 heartless policeman conducting a relative before a magistrate 
 to answer to a charge of murder. A moment after he assumed 
 the well-known likeness of " Mr. Pickwick,'' and presented me 
 his card. 
 
114. AECANA OF CRBI8TIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 214. Theso jolly fellows soou after became revealed in a 
 more terrible aspect, accusing each other of having stolen fa- 
 vom'ite characters one from another, and cutting up in a most 
 merciless style the persons, situations, plots and incidents of 
 one another's books. A portly man, who represented a lite- 
 rary nobleman of the last age, interposed to make peace, and 
 fell to flattering them with an adroit grace, full of courtier- 
 ship ; but he was a demon from the Spiritual Hell, and, as if 
 he could not conceal the secret from a bystander, whispered, 
 so that they should not hear, " These simpletons think that 
 they suggested to the earthlings of the author tribe, certain 
 popular romances : and so they did. But, my dear sir, they are 
 our lackeys after all, and we spout through their minds our 
 superabundant humour, that trickles out into the natural world . 
 Stand apart and the real Messrs. Dickens, Thackeray and Bul- 
 wer shall appear. Then see wonders fit to be narrated in a 
 senate of Olympian gods.V 
 
 215. A smiling, graceful young man, affecting extreme 
 fashion, emerged from some jslace invisible, mimicking court gen- 
 tility, and holding a manuscript. The old courtier whispered, 
 sotto voce, " Dickens the first, the original ! " The spirit, who 
 had previously represented the author, obediently approached, 
 as drawn by some magnet, and the young, elaborately cos- 
 tumed gentleman, in the blandest tones, observed, " Have you 
 done my bidding, sir.^' Instantly the self-consequence and 
 elation of the one thus addressed disappeared, and he replied 
 in the affirmative. " Good,''' was the response ; '' I have no 
 objection to your assumptions of my cast-off clothes. They 
 are the perquisites of the body servant. Inform this guest, 
 whom I wait to entertain, that you are the channel of commu- 
 nication between the Mr. Dickens, and the person in London 
 who acts as the vendor of his works and the representative of 
 his name." Humbly, and yet with a certain twinge of hate in 
 his face, masked by smiling humovir, and relapsing into the 
 character of the facetious valet of " Pickwick," the original per- 
 sonator muttered something about a '^mutton swarry," and 
 remarked in a louder tone, " I am the humble servant of Mr. 
 Dickens." His smiling master added, " Who does himself the 
 honour to bid vou welcome to his house." 
 
SEC. 214—218.] THE AFOGALYPSU. 115 
 
 216. Behold;, then, tlie self-styled master in tlie character 
 assumed first by the servant ; the inspiring demon substituted 
 for the inspired familiar ! Of what I saw in that demon^s dwell- 
 ing-place I can, speak but in part. — " I could a tale unfold." 
 Costly paintings, in frames of sumptuous, golden, filagree work; 
 with here and there a statue in the antique, or some superb 
 mirror doubling the efi'ect of the coup 3/ ceil, snowy stalactital 
 pendants from the carved roof, and on the floor tapestried 
 carpets, blushing with tropical tints, met my sight, as the 
 demon introduced me to the superb horror, which he called his 
 home. Then, suddenly stooping down, and taking up a handful 
 of what seemed dust, while a vengeful glare illumined his 
 countenance, he cast it into my bosom, and cried, " Take hell 
 seed, take hell seed." 
 
 217. " I w'll take them," the Lord gave me words to answer, 
 " and use them. And the first use I make of them shall be 
 to narrate this scene." His former courteous smile returned. 
 "I am subject," he blandly whispered, 'Ho an infirmity, 
 which I know not at what moment may overcome me. I 
 think, as good Swedenborg somewhere remarks, I must have 
 an attendant demon ; and who knows but this may be premo- 
 nitory of one of those experiences which he facetiously terms 
 ' temptation combats from the hells. ^ But come," — approaching 
 a sideboard where shone an array of sparkling wine bottles, 
 to which he motioned me, — '^ here is that which cheer eth the 
 heart of god and man. What beverage do you prefer ? The 
 good bottle imps respect my seal, though it isn^t Solomon's. 
 Solomon, by the way, has an oriental villa just below. Capital 
 old gentleman, but rather proverbial." 
 
 218. In this gay, nonchalant manner, the demon rambled on. 
 I approached the tempting array before me, where apparently 
 every famous vintage found a place ; but while an embossed 
 metallic label denoted the quality of each, there were cabalistic 
 characters inwrought, and I read on one, as the Divine percep- 
 tion was given me to interpret, '' Emotions of a suicide ; " on 
 another, '^ Sensations of Damiens when broken on the wheel." 
 On another still, "The prince D. slew his paramour from 
 jealousy ; his emotions." On another, " Distillation of coquet- 
 ry." Beyond this, one that seemed aged, bore the inscription^ 
 
 H 2 
 
116 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. it. 
 
 "Judas sold J. C. Wliat lie experienced during tlie passion 
 of the cross." I dare not repeat further on this point. 
 A curious double smile flickered upon his visage, and he 
 pressed nie to a draught. I thought of the text, and of the 
 promise of the Master, " These signs shall follow them that 
 believe. If they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt 
 them.''' And again, " They shall not be hurt of the second 
 death." So words were given me to answer, " I will drink 
 with you, even of this," pointing to the very last. "'No/' 
 was the answer ; " I have not drunk of that. Pardon me, I 
 had this of a particular friend, who, I assure you, produced 
 the vine from seeds of his own planting. I am a charitable 
 acquaintance, and keep that to solace the last hours of any 
 protege who is about to shuffle off the mortal coil. It is well 
 to tone up the nerves. I have a man now, with my eye in his 
 heart, too coarse to write books, though he would be glad of 
 the author's fame. He is a ripe one. This I reserve ; he will 
 need it to distil hope upon his pillow." 
 
 219. '^Pardon me," I rejoined, "but you start a singular 
 psychical problem. It looks as if it gushed from the sur- 
 charged veins of a suicide. How can this comfort ? " " Why," 
 came the ready response, " were I to affect a faith which some 
 of my over- credulous friends entertain, I might say, nothing 
 so sweet or bitter, but that, under given conditions, acts by 
 contraries. That man's soul is boiling with secret rage 
 against the Nazarene; this vintage grew in the garden of 
 one who conferred a favour on that gentleman's particular 
 enemies. It might soothe the transit of our expected friend 
 and my jyroiccie, to quaff a distillation from the bosom of a 
 forerunner, when bursting his chrysalis. If a little of the un- 
 palatable is in the grape, contraria contrarihus, it might taste all 
 the more delicious." I looked at the demon, while he spoke, 
 noticing still the same peculiar double smile. He pressed me 
 to another draught, with a phrase about " Horace and his old 
 Falernian ; " but, scrutinising this, I detected that it was of 
 the quality of the despair of a poet whom long-continued vices 
 had cast into the World of Pain. 
 
 220. Shortly afterward the demon resumed the conversa- 
 tion. " You were conversing with a convive of mine about 
 
SEC. 219—221.] THE APOCALTPSE. 117 
 
 authorship. The transmission of thought is one of the best 
 jokes going. It is the current fashion with the literary, to 
 deny ghosts and that sort of thing. My representative person, 
 Charles Dickens, does his best to lead the world that way ; 
 that is because it affects my whim. It pleases the evangelical 
 sects, with whom at present he is rather in disfavour, this sneer- 
 ing at the idea that spirits ever make any mischief, or intrude 
 their ghostly presences on mundane soil. Satan, you see, is a 
 private property of that concern ; good as a lay figure in the 
 studio of the pulpit artist ; but wholly an affair of the property 
 man. Ha, ha ! picture the defunct majesty of Denmark, rising 
 through the solid floors of the conventicle, and startling the 
 meditations of these gentlemen at ease, who star it in Zion^s 
 holy halls. Their Satan is a lay figure, I assm-e you; and 
 what is more, they bless Dickens the third, the shadow of my 
 shadow, for setting the tide of public prejudice against the 
 belief of apparitions from the World of Spmts. We thrive, 
 sir, we thrive." 
 
 221. I began to be tired of this demon's assumptions, and 
 said, " You never composed the character of ' Tiny Tim.' You 
 never imagined the reality of female saintliness, the trust in 
 an overruling Providence, embodied in the sweet lyric notes 
 which celebrate the homeward journey of the pure in heart to 
 the father-land above. Let the Mr. Dickens on earth have the 
 credit of another source for the true and noble things, that 
 often make hearts glow with sacred pity, or melt in authentic 
 love as they peruse his page.'' The demon interrupted me with, 
 " Hold, hold, enough ! let me anticipate. You imagine that 
 the sentimentalists have been caught ; ha, ha ! " " No," I 
 replied, '' that bad men have been shamed ; that irresolute 
 men have been held spell-bound tiU a better genius has 
 turned the tide against wrong ; that sweet womanly trust has 
 been nourished and lonely hours soothed." " My good friend," 
 was the response, "you talk like a Chadband. A dash of 
 pineapple rum, on to the lastly, would sanctify the discourse 
 unto many a vessel's heart. The jest aside, I take credit to 
 myself for it all. I can show you a woman, in this house, who 
 will more pathetically speak, more exquisitely delineate the 
 stage-virtues, than Siddons did, or than any earthly actress can. 
 
118 ARCANA OF GIIRISTIANITT. [chap. n. 
 
 I draw my inspirations from an armfull of delicious woman- 
 hood, whose feminine sweetness distils in embodied essences 
 of surpassing beauty through the mind. She isn't the only 
 one. Not that I am immoral, far from it ; but paradise is a 
 holy land, as I have heard you sing : — 
 
 " There is a land of pure delight 
 "Wlierc saints immortal reign; 
 Infinite day excludes the night. 
 And pleasures banish pain." 
 
 222. Methinks I hear the reader say, '' Horrible, oh hor- 
 rible ! " Indeed it is. — The demon now drew my attention to 
 the paintings. Human loveliness seemed to live again, as I 
 gazed upon the canvas. The Aphrodite, rising from the deep, 
 and blushing at her own half infantile beauty, reflected in the 
 gleaming lines of the pearl shell, that seemed itself suspended 
 between an aerial and an oceanic heaven ; the realized imagi- 
 nations of the masters of classic poetry; the long representative 
 line of chivalrous and kingly heroes ; the world queens of the 
 court, the boudoir, and the stage ; Pompeian apartments with 
 the gay Roman at his feasts, crowned with flowers ; English 
 country houses with happy groups around the fireside, and 
 hospitable welcomings for the Christmas cheer; antique 
 churches clad without with the twining ivy, and within bear- 
 ing monumental devices upon the walls, while Youth and 
 Beauty, in the costumes of the bridal-day, knelt before the 
 altar; scenes which for their exquisite, magnificent grace, 
 might make the artist of words or colours despair of their re- 
 presentation, — all these, turn where I would, produced at once 
 astonishment and admiration. Then the demon exclaimed, 
 '' You wish to disbelieve that I am able to delineate, through 
 an earthly mind, certain artistic character-pictures. But can I 
 not paint these pictures ? I hold that man in sleep, till image 
 by image these things are left indelibly imprinted behind the 
 eye, where mind and vision meet together. He is indebted 
 to me for prosperity. I have made him what he is." 
 
 223. If thus feebly I attempt to narrate a conversation with 
 this versatile and brilliant demon, I am far from endorsing his 
 pretensions. Still, I am compelled to admit that it is possible 
 for any novel of our day, good as well as bad, any play, any 
 ballad, to have an infernal origin. Not one of the characters 
 
SEC. 222—224.] THE APOCALYPSE. 319 
 
 of Dickens, Bulwer, or Thackeray, so far as my perception 
 extends, can cope as a verbal delineation with the pictorial 
 representations in that demon^s house. One says here, " You 
 make hell so beautiful that it cannot be, after all, any other than 
 a delicious retreat. What glories astonish, what beauties feast 
 the vision ! There are the charms that intoxicate the senses, 
 and the mental powers for which the intellect strives with 
 every faculty on earth. 
 
 " The hero's deeds, the martjr's prayers, 
 And the wrapt poet's haunting airs.'" 
 
 224. No, they are not; as the sequel proves. The silver 
 bell chimed. A cock crew. The true dawn light shone from 
 Heaven upon that scene of mock delight. It was baseless all, 
 having no foundation in the purity of the accepted heart. The 
 demon, at this moment, was unable longer to maintain that 
 mental condition in which the form-glories of the Heavens, 
 by a process of sorcery, can be made to clothe and conceal the 
 horror. First, his bloom faded, as when some worn hahitue of 
 the stage, or haunter of the pave, exposes the rouged cheek 
 to the grey dawn light and the pelting rain. I saw a comely 
 youth no longer, but gnawing the nether lip, while the eye 
 balls rolled through a watery rheum of fire, streaked and 
 mixed with blood, shone a countenance in which every bad 
 passion seemed to have set its indelible seal. A Medusa-like 
 woman darted out from some foul secrecy at hand, and oh, 
 horror of horrors ! Enough of an imitative loveliness survived 
 to make her fiendhood insupportable. One breast was that of 
 a virgin in the prime, — this the illusion ; the other an ulcerous 
 cavern, — that the reality. The right hand fair, full, with taper- 
 ing fingers, lit with amethysts and emeralds ; — such hands 
 have spiritualists at seances more than once beheld ; — but here 
 was the deception ; from the thin, skinny fingers of the other, 
 of a dead white, mottled with the green of the grave, dropped • 
 the foul worms and the black tears that trickle from the 
 putrescence that is hid in coffins; and this the fact. The 
 right side of the cheek still retained the illusive glow, the 
 auroral freshness ; and half the lips were pouting full carna- 
 tion, but the other half, rottenness. 
 
 " Can sucli things be, 
 And overcoiuo us, like a suminer cloud, 
 Without ouf special wonder ? " 
 
120 ABCAWA OF CnBISTIANITT. [ckap. ii. 
 
 The two embraced, and tlie woman-fiend literally tore him 
 from the ground on which he stood, and drew him shriek- 
 insT into her secret habitation. 
 
 225. I would make this earnest appeal to literary men, and 
 especially to those who know by experience what putrescence 
 is extant beneath the world's brilliancy and bloom. If there 
 be such a thing as sin at all, it cannot be a thing of moderate 
 quality. It must be the very opposite and antagonist of the 
 essential purity which the Divine nature Is. If men are spirits 
 at all, they either in their finest affections cherish a supreme 
 love for moral good or for moral evil. If the latter, since 
 sympathy, which is wide as space, is deep as spirit, this finest 
 essence of their nature must beat, in pauseless pulsations, with 
 the finest essences of all artist natures ; therefore it is possible, 
 through sympathy, for the sinful heart on Earth to drink in 
 distillations from its great inversive brotherhood in final night. 
 But the nature of the literary man is eminently representative. 
 The successfid character upon the page must have its prior life 
 within the brain. Now what is there to prevent, as the demon 
 said, the insemination of the brain from the embraces of that 
 secret essence to which it is allied ? 
 
 226. Now again, what novel of societyis there which embodies 
 this fundamental truth, that the human spirit is the theatre for 
 the evolution of Heaven or Hell; that shows the visible actors on 
 the mundane theatre to be the inspired recipients of the divine 
 loves or then* infernal opposites ? Or again, what novel of 
 society is there which reveals the fiend in-souhng himself within 
 the gay, courteous, gentlemanly devotee of fashion, of art, of 
 pleasure, of politics, who yet is living, as to his motives, without 
 God in the world ? Where are the publishers for such books 
 when written ? Where are the readers when published ? Ai'e 
 not authors dependent upon the illusions of their time ? They 
 xide the crocodile of corrupt taste under penalty of being de- 
 stroyed by him. If either literally or symbolically it be true that 
 the prince of demons deceived Earth's first mother with cun- 
 ning subterfuges, may not all her children be spiritually open 
 to the myrmidcns of the one arch-fiend ? Is the still small 
 
SEC. 225—228.] TRE AFOCALTPSE. 121 
 
 voice of God lieard througli current literature ? Do men who 
 write^ purify themselves in holy converse and communion with 
 the Father of spirits before they essay the pen ? Is it believed 
 that God has anything to do with the book which is to win 
 bread or gain applause ? But if we are^ so far as conscious- 
 ness goes, confessedly godless as to our inspirations, whence, 
 from what other source may they possibly proceed ? If the 
 infernal intellect evolves successions of ideas, why may it not 
 insinuate those ideas into the minds of men who write on 
 Earth ; if not in waking, then in sleeping hours ? 
 
 227. That trial test of cessation from literary composition, 
 except in the opening of the mind to clear perceptions that the 
 form and order of the work is from the Lord, is for the pur- 
 pose, first, of arresting the inflow of suggestive thoughts and 
 images from the attendant demon who is with every literary 
 man. The familiars or spirits from the lowest Spiritual Earth 
 of evil in conjunction with our globe, alluded to before, are, in 
 truth, the false ones to whom demons from the Spiritual Hell 
 have assigned the task of instilling, and so far as they are 
 capable, of organizing ideas and trains of thought, into the 
 minds of those terrestrial authors of whom mention has been 
 made. It is true, as well, that the demon who claimed to be 
 the original delineator of the character- sketches and groupings 
 in the recognised works of one of these well-known men of 
 letters, is that infernal spirit who from the cradle has stu- 
 diously sought to control and direct his mind, and at the same 
 time to close it against the Divine Source of light, eloquence, 
 and power. 
 
 EIGHTH ILLUSTEATION. 
 
 A conversation with angels in the Spiritual Heaven, who are attendant on 
 the authors spoken of in the last illustration, on the methods of 
 development of the powers of novelists. 
 
 228. The author-world on Earth, at the present day, is 
 balanced in equilibrium between the author-world in Heaven, 
 and its inversion in Hell. Shortly after my intromission into 
 the latter, I was in the spirit, on a clear, bright Sabbath-day. 
 The birds of the early summer were in the bran,ches, and the 
 
122 ABCANA OF CnRISTIANITT. [citap. ir. 
 
 natural world in the utmost of her cliarra. I was translated to 
 a broad, luminous landscape in the Spiritual Heaven. Here I 
 behold spiritual angels, who are attendant on three of the 
 earthly authors spoken of before, and was made acquainted 
 with them. Here I saw the celestial prototypes of the fairest 
 and noblest characters delineated by the three. I was informed 
 that from time to time heavenly ideas are instilled deeply into 
 the minds of each of them, and that whenever the demons per- 
 ceive it, they present, if possible, an inverted conception ; that 
 there are thus two opposite scries of ideas deploying into the 
 surface ground of consciousness, but that neither unmixed 
 good or unmixed evil prevail ; and hence the hybridised ro- 
 mances, not too earnest and searching to be made unpalatable 
 to the fastidious sinner; nor, on the other hand, calculated to 
 offend the sensibilities of the average devout. I asked the an- 
 gels why an effort was not made to cause the realities of Heaven 
 and Hell, and of human life on Earth, to flow forth through 
 these exquisite artists ? The reply was, that nothing could be 
 done against the freedom of the individual; that each knew, by a 
 fine tact, the cravings of the pu1)lic taste, and that neither had 
 the most remote conception of the terrible near proximity in 
 which they stood to the demons and their satellites. I forbear 
 the melancholy tale which one of them narrated. 
 
 229. I inquired again, concerning the process of the develop- 
 ment of the power of the novelist. I was told that in Heaven 
 exists a vast magnificent literature, which, in a modified form, 
 is all extant in the Upper Earth of Spirits in connection with 
 our globe. Children on Earth, in sleep states appear, as to 
 their spirits, in the higher World of Spirits. There Dickens, 
 when a child, absorbed the sweet essence of the thought which 
 flowed forth afterwards in creations of childish beauty. Cooper 
 was with American Indians of a noble character, in their pro- 
 vinces of those upper Earths. Bulwer was almost a spirit seer, 
 and tremulously alive, in his young senses, to supernal influ- 
 ences; Thackeray, a spirit child of most exquisite presence, 
 who in his infantile days, nearly heard celestial voices. The 
 author career of each might have been far different, but for the 
 degraded condition of the world of terrestrial authorship. 
 Society, travel, and a varied experience of men and things, 
 
SEC. 229—232.] TSJE APOCALTFSE. 123 
 
 simply formed a body in the mind for the latent conceptions 
 immanent within it from the higher life. 
 
 230. This mixed and doubtful condition of the terrestrial 
 and literary man is to end. Already the death omens arc not 
 far off. Such literary men as have become fixed in the service 
 of the fiend, which is identical with the service of self, will feel 
 the approximation of the Divine breath as a consuming fire. 
 The Herods of literature, who, when the multitude, listening 
 to fascinating and highly wi'ought delineations, applaud them 
 with the cry, '^ It is the voice of a god and not of a man,^^ ap- 
 propriate to themselves the glory, will be consumed by the 
 rapid and almost instantaneous descent of spiritual fires. We 
 live in the sunset hour of the present literary age. The Lord 
 will have a new literature. For this purpose, while as yet the 
 spiritual-natural man is in his trial states, the requisition is 
 sharply laid upon him. Write not but from the Spirit. He 
 now finds, if obedient, a recession of former self-derived or 
 demon-derived ideas, and incurs at this point, and until the 
 end, the implacable hostility of the fiend and the familiar. 
 
 231. So long as man writes in the selfhood, pursuing what- 
 ever inclination is uppermost, he receives infernal assistance 
 in his works. The demon stands ready to pour oil from the 
 capacious reservoirs of a teeming and affluent imagination, 
 into the seven lamps of the inner consciousness. If at any 
 time thoughts flag and imagination loses its accustomed bril- 
 liance, it is either because the angel has received permission 
 to arrest, in part, the inflow from the under world, or because 
 wearied and diseased bodily faculties call the over-tasked brain 
 to silence, and bid it sleep. When the author who begins to 
 be spiritual-natural and who hearkens to the Divine Voice, 
 determines henceforth and for ever, to write as the penman of 
 the Spirit, the demon retires to a distance. Knowing what 
 consequences must ensue to him, should this resolution for a 
 series of years be carried out, he now pursues a policy of 
 changed tactics, varying with the life-conditions of the indi- 
 vidual. 
 
 232. His first effort is by insidious inflowings of thought 
 
124 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. it. 
 
 during sleep, to beguile the mind into the belief that the pro- 
 jections from his fancy are divine, and must be ultimated. 
 But failing in this, he sets his intellect in battle against the 
 thought-processes necessary to authorship. Having been in 
 attendance upon the individual for years, and having fed and 
 stimulated the organs of thought, they crave, so far as there is 
 disease, their accustomed stimulus and pabulum. " The horse 
 knoweth his rider, and the ass his master^s crib.^^ So the facul- 
 ties of composition which the demon has once bestrode, are 
 not indifferent to his voice ; and so the vessels of the brain 
 that have replenished themselves from the essence which he 
 instils, know the source from whence they have derived nutri- 
 ment, and eagerly seek it again. From this time there is war ; 
 first, between the author and the rebellious faculties of his own 
 organization, which must be coerced into the new harmony 
 and restrained from their attraction to the demon. It is 
 through conquests of this sort that terrestrial literature is to 
 be redeemed to God. ^Vhen the demon is bafSed in his first 
 attempts, he re-enters his society in the Spiritual Hells, — for he 
 is a member of a series there, — and propounds his difl&culties. 
 From this time sorceries are resorted to, which will be spoken 
 of hereafter, in the Magic of the Hells. 
 
 233. The tenth trial test is especially applied to the man 
 becoming spiritual-natiu-al, whose calling has been the stage. 
 It amounts to a prohibition to act, except as the Lord, de- 
 scending into the internals of the mind, through new respira- 
 tion, shall endow him with the new representative capacities. 
 Upon harmonic and unfallen worlds rejDresentative amusements 
 are frequent and of an incalculable variety from planet to 
 planet and from sun to sun. The theatre on earth springs as 
 an institution, from that representative element which under- 
 lies all consciousness. 
 
 234. There is no plane formed, in the natural reason of man 
 for discrimination between the things of Heaven and those of 
 Hell. It is only when the Spirit of God has descended into the 
 natural consciousness and quickened the reason from its dead 
 state, that man begins to perceive. Were demons at the present 
 day to possess the faculty of time and sense presentation, so as 
 to be able to appear as natural men, the world would elect them 
 
SEC. 233—234.] TUB APOCALYPSE. 125 
 
 its magistrates, presiding functionaries in the state, and min- 
 isters of religion. They would also fill the professorships of 
 universities and conduct themselves in so dignified a manner 
 as to win golden opinions everywhere from unregenerate man- 
 kind. For it is the genius of self-love, which is the essence 
 of the infernal life, to clothe itself with simulations, and 
 to appear well to all men by a dexterous adaptation of the 
 prevailing sentiment and character of the time. " Crush the 
 wretch,^ ^ was the Voltairian motto and war-cry against the 
 Lord. The demon would, however, with a policy more astute, 
 commend the faith in the letter, and seek, by shrewd, evasive 
 expositions in the natural sense, to crucify the Regenerative 
 Spirit. Dissimulations practised in any mind are the ground 
 into which the demon instils his life. The art of seeming 
 better than he is, brings man into direct relations with the 
 huge theatre of pandemonium. The sleek bigot of the con- 
 venticle is a more superb actor than the applauded mime who 
 treads the boards. To act a part is natural to humanity. The 
 body puts on and repeats the states of the atmosphere about 
 it, of the earth, the winds, and the sky. The mind falls readily 
 into the trick of sorrow, and sympathetically weeps with 
 those who weep. We grow glad by sympathy with the joys 
 of om* kind. As the acute shepherd dog puts on, after years 
 of association, a certain animal likeness to his master's face, 
 so the man who lives professionally with the canine race, acts 
 at last the dog, imbibes the animal instinct, and often the 
 peculiar quality of his ferocious nature. The Arab and his 
 fleet courser take upon themselves each other's dispositions. 
 In cities, types of human nature are developed and fixed, 
 which re-enact the drama of a civilization whose inversions 
 are akin to Hell. The worst, the most ferocious, uncleanly, 
 and altogether inhuman types of men, are developed from the 
 reckless classes, who hide their shames and miseries in the 
 by-streets of capitals, where the human wolf is seen be- 
 decked with orders and called, perhaps, a " Marshal of the 
 Empu'c." No internal differences necessarily exist between 
 the pi-inco and the galley slave. The king is trained to act a 
 part, no less than the professional beggar. Seemings arc the 
 stock in trade of almost all the world. 
 
126 ARCANA OF CHBISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 235. Men are seldom or never surprised into reality. The 
 bad man is liis own worst dupe. By acting, others than re- 
 cognised stage-players derive their bread. Ho is but the 
 representative of a principle in human nature. The acting of 
 the man who is a divine, from merely professional motives, 
 differs from that of the tragic or comic delineator but in this, 
 that the first denies that he is acting, while the latter glories 
 in it. The one fits himself permanently into the assumed 
 character, while the other wears it for an hour and is glad to 
 shako it off again. But the representative function has its 
 ends. We take on the states of men as we do those of 
 climates. One whose life is patterned after a great ideal, 
 drops perpetually his mantle upon a troop of followers. The 
 man who breathes from internals to externals cannot walk the 
 "world for twenty years, in his divine part, without inspiring in 
 some of the multitude a desire for throwing open the lungs to 
 the infinite aura of the Holy Spirit. Men unconsciously repeat 
 the gestures of the eloquent actor, who, in earnest himself, 
 communicates the posture of his mind to others ; but men still 
 more truly take on the posture of the eloquent soul that seeks 
 to posture forth the Infinite Righteousness. The free man 
 who is enfranchised from the errors and vices of his time, and 
 who walks the world as a native citizen of Heaven, repeats 
 in himself the posture of the Lord Jesiis Christ. He acts 
 Messiah. All angels act their Lord and King. It is this con- 
 dition into which the Lord seeks to bring the new man, — 
 namely, that of representing or bodying forth Himself. And 
 for this reason it is that He forbids the one who is becoming 
 spiritual-natural to embody a part, but from the Holy Ghost. 
 
 236. The demon theatres of Hell endeavour, through the 
 representative ground in man, to posture forth the tragedy 
 and comedy, if comedy be possible, — say rather the tragedy 
 and farce, — of Hell. The knotted brows, the gnawing lips, 
 the sinister smiles, the hypocritical gestures of mankind are 
 taken on. The passions group themselves within the spirit. 
 In obedience to the great dramatic principle, Infernus seeks 
 its outlet, and finds fit men for its purposes through the 
 instinct for representative display. The test of faith applicable 
 to the player is hence appHcable to all men ; but to those men 
 
SEC. 235—237.] THE APOCALYFSK 127 
 
 who are becoming spiritual-natural^ it applies in a peculiar 
 manner. The celestial-natural man is more remote from the 
 representative field. The command is sternly and imperatively 
 given, " Be open to the Holy Ghost ; take on the state the 
 Lord would assign you. Assume that cast in the divine world- 
 drama which the Infinite Dramatist prepares.^^ Here, in a 
 true sense, the representative faculty finds its opportunity of 
 display. The stiffness and monotony of life are thus displaced 
 by flexibility and variety. The true man takes on the states 
 the Holy Spirit gives ; and those depend again upon the 
 function of the hour. The king will be every inch a king, 
 representing divine honour and justice ; but not the less the 
 perpetual lover in the sanctities of the conjugial retreat ; with 
 children, the wiser child ; with men of practical affairs, an 
 equal in their own field. The Holy Spirit represents a vast 
 variety of functions through the spiritual-natural man. He is 
 cut off from representations in the selfhood, that he may 
 posture forth a living and heroic inspiration. 
 
 NINTH ILLUSTEATION. 
 
 Interview in the Spiritual World with a distinguished actress from our 
 earth. Her sorrowful condition, her call on Jesus for mercy, and her 
 deliverance. 
 
 237. A distinguished foreign actress, recently deceased, 
 stood by me in the Spiritual World. The basal region of the 
 brain since the body's decease, had developed dugs like those of 
 a sow. She screamed with horror, as she felt serpents sucking 
 at them. I said to her, "Do you know what these are?" 
 She answered, "1. do." Tearing at one in the inefiectual 
 
 effort to draw it from the dug, she said, " This is ; and 
 
 this," tearing at another, "is . Cursed be their fathers." 
 
 Her countenance was livid and blotched, and here and there 
 marked with little spots, like those on playing-cards. She 
 wore a horn protruding from, or adjusted to, the forehead; 
 and over this a singular head-dress, like a veil which de- 
 scended. She continued, " Every night come those ten ser- 
 pents, and they suck their fill. I was attracted to you because 
 I heard some story about snake-charming in connection with 
 
128 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [cnAP. it. 
 
 yoiu' name. Can you rid me of tliese ?" "They are/' I 
 replied, "tlioii suffering one, lusts wliicli were bred in tliy 
 own body, through its habits while it lived on Earth.'' 
 " Ah," was the reply, " I know this. Pity me ; you love our 
 race." " Yes," I responded, " I love Him who, in the form 
 of one of your race, .was incarnate. From Him I drink love, 
 and it fills me with pity for the wretched." She drew a little 
 nearer, and, with all her might smote me upon the left cheek, 
 hissing and endeavouring to spit upon mc when I spoke of 
 Christ. 
 
 238. I blessed her in His name, whereat she turned and 
 said, "Do curse me, hate me ! God, I hate myself;" then, 
 in her French phrase, " I horror at myself. The men I en- 
 tertained were atheists. You do not knoAV my history ; no 
 
 man knows it, or why or what " " One knows," was given 
 
 me to respond, " Behold the mighty power of His name ! He 
 hath said to His servants ' they shall take up serpents.' See I 
 take this up." Then in spirit I put forth my right hand, and 
 grasped the flaming, writhing creature, and there appeared at 
 my right a fire of coals, and I cast it therein, saying as I did 
 so, " In the Lord's name." " You are a Hebrew," was her 
 astonished reply, " and our fathers had such gifts." Then 
 she drew a little nearer, whispering, " I did act superbly ! I 
 did live infamously ! I did die horribly ! I did wake in 
 infamy ; and here is a hell ! I have gone barefoot over a crust 
 of fire to meet you, bearing these ten serpents at my back ; 
 and my madness is in me to return." 
 
 239. Then words were given me, and I cried to God, and 
 said, " Jesus Christ, who didst cast seven de^dls out of Mag- 
 dalene, if this woman hath in her the least quickened germ 
 into which Thou canst descend, may she become from this 
 time divested of the serpents who absorb her life." At this 
 moment I heard a horrible scream, and winding a long, sinewy 
 arm around the woman, while his countenance blazed with 
 copper coloured flame, stood a bronzed man, holding her and 
 crying, " Forbear." I answered, " Sister, if it be the Lord's 
 will to give thee strength, put forth thy hand." Instantly, 
 slowly as the hand of a corpse might rise, it came forward 
 and touched a Hand that came forth through me ; for, breath- 
 
SEC. 238—241.] THE APOCALYFSJE. 129 
 
 ing in tlie Holy Ghost, God's miglity spirit descended in that 
 form, as a hand, until it touclied the woman. Thereupon 
 stood at my right hand a beauteous, majestic virgin, an angel 
 of the Heavens, with a crown of twelve stars upon her head, 
 and white raiment flowing to the feet. The long night and 
 trance broke, and the woman passionately threw herself for- 
 ward, weeping, and crying aloud, " Not the carpenter's son, 
 but the God. Jesus, have mercy ! Jesus, have mercy !" The 
 demon was then cast down into Hell, but she was taken into 
 a society of repentant women, where there is instruction, 
 discipline, purification, and preparation for the skies. 
 
 240. The spiritual-natural man passes through ten states 
 of arduous endeavours, into ten others of representative glory. 
 These are as follows. In the first state he acquires the hear- 
 ing of the ear in the spiritual-natural degree. Kespiring, 
 though at first in a tacit manner, in conjunction with a society 
 of spiritual angels, he is trained into a new state in the audi- 
 tory organs, by means of which to discriminate, as to the 
 quality or spirit of sound within its physical vibrations. Every 
 man speaks from a secret quality of love. An auriscope, by 
 means of which to determine the quality of love from which 
 the sound is uttered, exists in first principles, through every 
 human ear, but dormant because of the closed conditions. Our 
 Lord heard the very affections speak through soimds. The 
 dominant love, for the time, keys the voice. With the be- 
 ginning of the new respiration, the man who is becoming 
 spiritual-natural, is trained through the ear to know the 
 language of the affections. ^^And ye shall have tribulation 
 ten days,'' signifies, ten states of struggling endeavour for 
 the acquisition of the new gifts, of which this is the first. 
 
 241. The second of these states consists in the development 
 of the faculty, by means of which, through sound, the voices 
 of spirits, angelic or infernal, may be detected in the breath- 
 ings. When internal respiration does not exist, the natural 
 lungs take upon themselves a modified motion from the pres- 
 sure of the nerve-spirit. But this again is dependent on the 
 presence of spirits, good or bad, and the predominance of affec- 
 
 I 
 
130 ARCANA OF CniilSTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 tions, pure or impure. In the low, pleasant breathing of the 
 cradled babe, the spiritutil-uatural man discovers a succession 
 of motions modulated by celestial angels. Spiritual angels 
 are discovered at a later period as present in a second modi- 
 fication of breathing; and through the same process angels 
 of the Ultimate Heaven at a subsequent date. It requires a 
 cessation from self and from the loves of self in the breathing 
 man^ who is becoming spiritual-natural, for the training of this 
 fine gift. By it as the faculty becomes cultured, in the lungs 
 even of the closed or natural person is found a criterion of all 
 moral states. Painfully through pr^^ctice he learns to detect 
 by the variations in the breathings, when infernals are near, 
 and of their predominant quality. 
 
 242. The third state of patient education, during which tribu- 
 lation exists, is in the development of the eye. Aromal sight 
 comes first. This is a perception of the emanation forms of 
 natural objects. It reveals within the imponderable realms of 
 nature an unsuspected universe. A winter field is often gay 
 with the flowers of the aromal life. In December days, when 
 the landscape seemingly is dead, the aromal leaf, which pre- 
 cedes the natural, displays a sparkling green. Above the 
 buried bulbs, which to the natural sight do not indicate their 
 presence, rise essential flowers, exhibiting an aromal beauty 
 and resplendence. The orchards teem with fragrant blossoms, 
 or display their yellow-crimson aromal fruit, unaflected by 
 external natural changes of temperature. The aromal birds, in 
 gay and variegated myriads pursue their sports, or make the 
 essence of the atmosphere all vocal with tender songs. In fact, 
 within and about and above that plane of nature which the 
 gross external sight beholds, a creation of aromal objects, often 
 surpassing the rarest and loveliest of visible natural things, 
 displays its beauties. 
 
 243. But here, as everywhere throughout the domain of our 
 unhappy planet, subversive creations are visible. Myriads of 
 magnetic insects that sting, of parasites that infest, of foul 
 larvEe that destroy, may be discovered. The asp, the serpent, 
 and the scorpion, the ravenous beast of carnage and bird of 
 prey, make known their occult presence. This realm has been 
 withdrawn from natural sight for providential ends. The fine 
 
SEC. 242—245.] THi: AFOCALYPSi:. 131 
 
 vision of tlie man^ as he becomes spiritual-natural, enters it, 
 but only through deep moral experiences, which try and call 
 forth the utmost energies of the heart. 
 
 244. At first the eye lights upon a confused mass of glitter- 
 ing objects. Here apply the laws of a new perspective. The 
 natural souls of colours are represented in the aromal world. 
 In secluded, untrodden paths, where the miasm of the ulcered 
 moral state of man is least potent, the charmed wanderer be- 
 holds the habitation of the fay, — an airy landscape that rises 
 or that falls, now crystallescent in its bases upon the green 
 grass, now extending in airy campaign above, and following 
 the undulations of the forest trees. How wonderful the sio-ht ! 
 The wood pigeon is seen in her secluded haunt; a thousand 
 birds of summer, in their green retreat, to whom the fay is a 
 presiding genius; and now, with some aromal nepenthe, he 
 pours the fecundating principle into the pollen of flowers, 
 or drives his airy flocks, invisible to sight, through pastures 
 where the cattle feed. He glides through the aromal body of 
 the oak or plane ; perhaps displays his treasures. The hollow 
 recesses in the aromas of the wood are his castle, and his 
 gay wife pursues the tasks of the household, and his merry 
 children sport in gleeful security. 
 
 245. On the wild moorland, or where the bare rock displays 
 its aged crest, concealed from sight within the depths of its 
 aromal element, a darker but heart-luminous brotherhood are 
 seen. What charm in their magnetic glance ! what spirit and 
 fire and fervour ! Thus, pass where we will, as the eye is 
 opened to this aromal world, man walks insphered in wonders 
 of which a veiled suggestion only is afforded here. In places 
 where good men, intromitted into the aromal world, or, kindred 
 to it by innocence of mind and heart, have lived and died, 
 though man has forgotten their name, the spot is indicated by 
 aromal gardens. Here, also, dark inversions come to light. 
 The blood plant grows where mui'ders have been committed, 
 with piercing daggers from its red, spiny hand ; an incarnation 
 in fine matter from the seeds of hate that sprouted in the 
 human breast. Where suicides have met their fate, are ice cold, 
 venomous fungi, whose breath suggests abandonment of God. 
 Thus crimes everywhere reveal their presence^ growing from 
 
 I 2 
 
132 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 tlie seeds generated in the passion soil of fallen man. The 
 world's wonderful dramatist has said, — 
 
 " The evil that men do lives after thorn ; 
 The good is oft iiitcrrt'd with their bones." 
 
 The very bones of men, when good is buried in them, are 
 pregnant with a latent seed. It is recorded in Holy Writ, 
 that once a buried man woke from the death swoon when his 
 cold body touched the bones of an ancient prophet. From the 
 unsuspected soil holy ashes revealed their presence. The aromal 
 germs which were deposited within them have sprung broad- 
 cast and beautiful. So, in France, an aromal flower lives that 
 grew from the dust of Joan of Arc. The Wickliff blossom, a 
 disc of purple and gold, springs glorious in the aromal air of 
 England. The martyrs of the Cevennes and the Alps have 
 given birth from their dust to an airy flora. Italy bears a 
 queenly plant that commemorates the virtues of Savonarola. 
 Imperishable Nature holds the dust of the saints in honour, 
 and represents, through them, in ever- springing life, her wor- 
 ship of Him they worshipped, her sympathy with the great 
 cause they served. 
 
 246. But the foul and odious refuse, tainted with the vices 
 of the souls that rotted and festered within it, ere it can be 
 purified and blend again with the universal element, also gives 
 forth its seed. Sprouting through the monumental marble, 
 ripe and rank in thick, polluted air, the passion seeds, buried 
 in the hearts of impious voluptuaries and libertines belies the 
 epitaph ; and Nature writes, in sweltering and fetid growths, 
 her contradiction of the blazoned lie. These must continue to 
 grow, until earth is purified in the new creation. 
 
 247. Passing through the province of aromal sight, the 
 fourth trial of education, which awaits the man who is becom- 
 ing spiritual-natural, is the development of the organ of vision 
 into the nerve-spirit. It is by means of the nerve-spirit 
 that the intercourse between the immortal man and his natural 
 body is carried on. The nerve-spirit, called elsewhere the 
 natural soul, is itself organic within the mineral basis, and 
 subsists as a living entity throughout the natural form. It is 
 the first home of the passions after they have descended from 
 their birth-place in the spiritual person. The delights are 
 
SEC. 246—249.] TRE APOCALTFSE. 133 
 
 stored up, wlietlier tliey be pleasures of innocence, or frenzies 
 of impurity, organ by organ within it. The nerve-spirit is 
 liable to diseases, and to corruptions of its essences ; but 
 especially to wastings and depletions, from two causes ; first, 
 from the evil wrought upon it by base passions within ; and, 
 second, by diabolical sorceries from without, from wandering 
 spirits and from demons. 
 
 248. It is by means of the nerve-spirit that intercourse, 
 on orderly earths of the universe, is maintained, with the 
 friendly races who inhabit, from immemorial time, the realms 
 of wonder and of mystery concealed within the organic crust 
 and the mineral formations of the globes. It is well known 
 that two substances, and indeed many more, can occupy 
 different degrees of space within one structure. The solid 
 crystal is traversed by electric substance, with no abatement of 
 its motion or separation of its elements. Our Lord entered, in 
 all the substance of His humanity, through closed doors, to 
 stand in the midst of His wondering disciples. So to the 
 heart and mind, prepared by the operations of the Divine 
 Spirit to enter into ineffable mysteries, it excites the highest 
 faculties of reason, and calls forth the noblest affections, to 
 behold the workings of the Creative Man within the depths of 
 mundane things. 
 
 249. First, behold the People of the Rock. We have sur- 
 prised this ancient of the mountains at the door of his rude 
 dwelling-place, through the degree of sight pertaining to the 
 reconstructed nerve-spirit. The rude primeval mass, in which 
 he makes his home, is the triumphal arch to realms of magni- 
 ficence, utterly beyond the flights of the most stupendous 
 intellect. Emerging from the grey, dark mist, in which he 
 sits, and which itself might be mistaken for a stone, a being 
 meets us, whose vest is all ablaze with jewels, and whose regal 
 surcoat shines with linked ornaments of massy gold. In his 
 origin he is a fay of the Celestial Heaven, but ultimated into 
 space and nature through an insemination into that living 
 element which chemical art can never fathom ; the source of 
 crystallization, the ground and base of the universal mineral, 
 the blood of fire. Our welcome is pronounced in tones of a 
 dialect, terse, compact, and rounded as mountain boulders. 
 
131- ARCANA OF CHBISTIANITY. [chap. ir. 
 
 He is evidently one whose race have long withdrawn them- 
 selves from contact with polluted man. He is called, " trold/^ 
 and '' dwarf," and " guomCj" and many an uncouth name 
 besides, in the rude Northland traditions, and is supposed to 
 be invested with a baleful power. We shall see. A smoke 
 rises through the blue rock. He sees it and disappears. The 
 trold has gone to call his brothers. 
 
 250. We slide from the natural form, and with a pure body 
 of nerve-spirit, subtle and impalpable as flame, are lost to 
 natural sight within the bowels of the earth. With new ears 
 wc listen to the music of crystallization, to the low and joyous 
 laugh, the first melody of the primal element ; to the song of 
 the stone. Him whom wc call the " trold," seems now a man 
 in proportions like our own. He throws his arms around our 
 neck, and presses us to his breast, Ynth. '' Welcome to the 
 stone house of All Father." This is basalt around us and 
 hidden deep. He opens doors that lead beyond this vestibule. 
 With the swiftness of the electric arrow we are conducted 
 through unknown lambent stratifications. What vigour is in 
 them, what delight ! The electric senses quiver. The heart 
 of the nerve-body throbs to pulses of a rich reviving youth. 
 Deeper still ; and now we emerge into a vast luminous region, 
 where the soil is soft to the feet and garmented with flowers 
 and grasses that are themselves the essences of the fire. What 
 joy is here beneath the vest of the bounteous teeming Earth- 
 Mother ! This is near her heart. The vast and stalactital 
 firmament is glorious, and illuminated by the nerve-spirit of 
 the sun. When he retires from sight we shall behold the 
 nerve-spirits of the stars, an ordered train. 
 
 251. A slow stream meanders. We dip the hands of the 
 nerve-body in the cool tide, and lift them dripping ; but as the 
 drops are scattered from the finger ends, they are agate 
 pebbles, fire and stone, stone that fashions itself from fire ; 
 stone that is itself fire ; fire and stone everyAvhere. The 
 sparkling, striated, impearled fishes, how they dance and 
 sport, with what lithe motion within the pools ! The trold 
 draws one out ; and see ! this is a stone also. Were his fire- 
 life withdrawn, the terrestrial -natural world would declare 
 him to be the fossil form of one of an extinct race, sporting 
 
SEC. 250—254.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 135 
 
 once in water^ not in fire. Eock-built is all this soil. Here 
 are fir-trees, gay brancliing ferns also, rainbow-tinged, a scarf 
 of many colours. And fire animals ; they, too, were the blood 
 of fire which circulates through their systems abstracted, and 
 were they left to chill and darken for ages, wise men would 
 say, exhuming them, ^'^ These once were flesh and blood." 
 How still it is ! A voice ! The trold is speaking to his 
 brothers. They draw nigh. What bodies ; subtle, fleet, agile, 
 symmetrical ! It is all stone, stone and fire. Were they 
 found, ages hence, through some vast upheaval, learned trea- 
 tises would tell of men who lived during the incalculable 
 cycles of pre-Adamic time. What peach bloom in the face ! 
 What crimson velvet upon the lip ! what flowing locks ! all 
 fire ; stone and fire ! 
 
 252. The fifth trial of faith and endurance, to which the 
 man is subjected who is becoming spiritual-natural, consists 
 in the gradual evolution of expanse-sight. Expanse-sight 
 involves a new arrangement of the optical organ in its finest 
 natural degree. By it, those in whom the faculty is prepared, 
 perceive at one glance solids and their contents, spaces and 
 their inhabitants, heights, lengths, breadths, distances, on a 
 scale of giant perspective ; world-souls also and the gigantic . 
 colossi which are the souls of universes. 
 
 253. After this, in the sixth place, comes another trial and 
 strengthening for the man who is becoming spiritual-natural ; 
 the education of the touch, to become radiative, and to feel, 
 by means of projections through the organs, the dynamic 
 qualities of distant objects. The eye, the hands put forth 
 feelers of sensation, which traverse space with electrical swift- 
 ness, and touch the objects which they seek at any point of 
 distance. A man who is spiritual-natural to whom this gift is 
 given, may sit in a chamber in Europe, and touch, by means 
 of the emanations through the hand, the eye, the brain, and 
 the body of a cherished intimate in Asia or America, and 
 absorb redundant, or impart deficient qualities. Nevertheless, 
 this requires deep heart-trials, total abandonment of self, and 
 living for others in the divine service. 
 
 254. It is for the purpose of preventing such gifts as these 
 that the demons of the Spiritual Hell, at the present time, put 
 
136 ABGANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 fortli tlieir utmost power. The time is not far distant wtien 
 a subtle, demoniacal sphere from that Hell will rise and sur- 
 charge the Earth's atmosphere. Felt as delicious stimulation 
 in the minds of evil men, it will develop utter impiety. The 
 wave rising in America will complete the circuit of the globe, 
 everywhere producing similar results. Inordinate greeds, de- 
 veloped through its fierce fervours, will prompt the sagacious 
 to treat with utter contempt the rights of the lowly ; and at 
 the same time, the huge engines of civilization, with their 
 immense wcalth-pi-oducing faculties, monopolized in the ser- 
 vice of those already powerful, will be made use of, if possible, 
 to grind the poor as never before. Questions of monarchy or 
 republicanism, of prelacy or papacy or neology, will lose in- 
 terest, and the great issue loom up : Shall the huge proprietors 
 in every land combine in a universal alliance, subjecting to 
 their combined power the labour of the world ? 
 
 255. This will be put forth as a project for the salvation of 
 society, and with an abundance of surface-argument in its 
 behalf. It will be felt that there is one great party in every 
 civilized country, however divided by traditional and specula- 
 tive theories ; the party of sagacious worldly men to whom the 
 one question is, the cementation of power by intermarriage, 
 and by the substitution of combined for competitive enter- 
 prise. It will treat the questions of cooly labour, of the African 
 slave trade, of negro serfdom in general, and of the wellbeing 
 of the multitudes in every land, if possible, from a simulta- 
 neous agreement, that its interests shall alone determine the 
 world's policy. It will attempt to hold out such inducements 
 to potentates as shall prevent wars, and cheapen the social 
 cost of governments. It will, — in its essence intensely irre- 
 ligious, — regard man as a rational animal, with whom a 
 ripened self-interest is the one true and living God. By the 
 combinations of the huge capitalists of Christendom one with 
 another, it Avill preside, so far as successful, in all cabinets. The 
 age of mammon will then develop more fully its inner life. 
 
 256. Against this will fight the spiritual-natural man, in 
 his seventh state of education, rightly named a " trial,'' 
 but not by worldly weapons. He will go into his chamber, 
 and gather to himself the Divine breath. He will penetrate 
 
SEC. 255—257.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 137 
 
 into the bodily structures of the powerful anarchs who seek to 
 inaugurate this new inversion. He will be to them an evil 
 angel, breathing against them ; and setting the current of the 
 Divine breath, descending into the world through his natural 
 breathing organs, as a flaming fire day and night, against such 
 as he is inspired of God to meet. When the eye and hand 
 have been trained in the projection of their elements, to 
 friends afar, as stated in the number previous, the direction 
 of the breath is the next formidable endeavour. Whatever 
 angelic society of the Spiritual Heaven breathes in conjunction 
 with the spiritual-natural man, will empower him with its 
 unity, absolutely controlled by the Divine Sphit. The breath 
 of God will thus flow through him to whatever ends it will. 
 
 257. The spiritual-natural man will now be advanced into 
 his eighth state of arduous endeavour and heroic burden 
 bearing. Having penetrated into the subterranean earth, into 
 the seminal essences of stone, into the society of the flame 
 and stone embodied fays, who are its impersonal men ; he will 
 draw them forth, invisibly, through their entrance into his 
 nerve-spirit as subsidiary allies to the will. Napoleon had no 
 such will as the least spiritual-natural man, refreshed in the 
 nerve-spirit, through the providential conjunction of it with 
 one of these. He will laugh at the combinations by means of 
 which evil men and sorcerers from pandemonium seek to 
 arrest his progress in the divine path given him to tread. In 
 the depth of secrecy, in which he veils such processes within 
 him as God would keep hidden, men will find him as the 
 stone, which speaks not. But His name to those who love 
 the Lord will be the synonym of gentleness. Then he will 
 be Petrine ; that is, a rock. Many years of trial, much open 
 breathing, long wi-estlings against infernals, great patient 
 obediences must precede. I am not permitted to write any- 
 thing concerning how, and in what manner, the relation 
 between the spiritual-natural man and this friendly race will 
 proceed. At present I would advise no man, if he values 
 physical life, to attempt to invoke any such. The unprepared, 
 should the Lord allow one of this race to appear in answer to 
 a call, would find him, by the stern, inexorable necessity of his 
 organic life, a destroyer; though as a fay, utterly without 
 
138 ARCANA OF CURISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 evil. Many centuries elapse, rolling their slow round, before 
 tlie workers in tliis fire and stone kingdom finish their task 
 and rise to bo impersonal existences in Heaven. To breathe 
 with them is to inhale longevity. They are potent against foes 
 that infest the nerve-spirit ; hence their important use in the 
 new creation. 
 
 258. To work slowly, silently, as the sure-footed dawn, 
 bringing illumination to mankind, the spiritual-natural man 
 now devotes his gathered energies; attaining to a ninth 
 introductory state, in which he baffles magic. Here I am not 
 permitted to delineate particulars. 
 
 259. When the tenth trial comes, he finds himself prepared 
 and waiting. He lives consciously with the fay-souls, both 
 of the aerial, terrestrial, and inner terrestrial expanse. He 
 breathes in conspiration with the angels of the Spiritual 
 Heaven, but also in conjunction with those of the Celestial 
 and the Ultimate. He is disconnected from the inversive 
 movement which through the Hells invades mankind. No 
 flatteries can beguile him; no allurements dazzle him; no 
 solicitations move him ; no terrors appal him. His motto is, 
 " Christ and the Eight V and, led by Christ, he executes the 
 right as the Holy Ghost works through him. He is religious 
 without ostentation, devout with secrecy, a niggard in nothing, 
 a trafficker in no man's secrets, a gatherer without parsi- 
 mony, a giver without prodigality ; doing all things wisely and 
 well. None know his deep secrets, but the races to whom 
 they belong; for he lives with many kinds, and grows power- 
 ful through orderly association. To the fay, he is as one of 
 them; a brother beloved. To the man of earth, a just, im- 
 passive instrument ; working God's will impartially ; not to 
 be turned aside ; a terror to evil doers. He traverses land and 
 sea, executing the Divine behest, punctual to the appointments 
 of Providence as the evening or the morning star. Through 
 the interpervasion of the world-soul from the hell of the lost 
 orb, he learns to combat its flame, then to make it innoxious. 
 After this is reached, his " ten days " are said to be fulfilled. 
 
 2G0. '' Be thou faithful unto death.'' "When the fay of the 
 stone and flame comes to the man who is becoming spiritual- 
 natural, he eats, as food, the basis of his bones^ commencing 
 
SEC. 258—262.] TRE APOCALYPSE. I.39 
 
 witli tlie very roots of tlie osseous system ; and by-and-by 
 tbe trunk of the life falls ; tlie brancliy honours of the brain 
 are divested of their foliage. The man .tree^ Idrasgil^ whose 
 roots are in Hela or the subterranean earth of fire^ whose 
 trunk is in the animal^ vegetable^ and mineral kingdoms of the 
 earth, whose fruit is passion from the blood of instinct, whose 
 branches wave fruit-laden in the air-deep and sky-deep of the 
 world's breath, falls prostrate. The old man being no more ; 
 original sin is thus destroyed in the body. Should it be in 
 the Divine appointment, the re-creation keeps place with the 
 destruction. Nevertheless, unless the man who is becoming 
 spiritual-natural, is faithful until the completion of the tree's 
 fall, here called " death," he cannot attain to that which is 
 beyond, and which is entitled the crown of life. 
 
 261. The crown of saintship is not alone a spiritual, but also 
 a terrestrial possibility. It involves, as the student of this 
 statement has seen, a long series of organic transformations. 
 Of the old man nothing remains ; the discreted germs of being, 
 fi'om All Father, which were stored up in the divinely given 
 constitution, excepted alone. There are " fathers of the flesh, ""^ 
 wrote St. Paul, " and we gave them reverence : shall we not 
 much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?'' 
 Yea, verily. The veil of partition, in the rupture of that which 
 closed the spiritual lungs from, the natural, is taken away ; 
 and, in the descent of the Divine breath, with its new vibra- 
 tions, into the body of the form, Christ makes of the spiritual 
 and the natural organizations one new man, so making peace. 
 It is peace. Who can make hurt ? Not hell ; that is con- 
 quered. Not the inversions of the world ; they bend before 
 its sway ? Heaven is realized below. This is the second 
 coming of the Lord Jesus, in the man of the spiritual-natural 
 degree, called the church of Smyrna, in his collective form. 
 
 Chap, ii, 11. — "He that hath an ear, let him hear what 
 THE Spirit saith unto the churches; He that over- 
 
 COMETH shall NOT BE HURT OP THE SECOND DEATH.'' 
 
 262. " He that hath an ear," signifies, the new man who is 
 made spiritual-natural. " Let him hear," signifies, openness 
 through the auditory nerve to the Celestial, Spiritual and 
 
140 ARCANA OF CnRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 Ultimate Heaven, to the world-souls, to liarmonic men of 
 unfallen orbs, to the fay- souls and the life movement of the 
 atomic men ; the diyino harmony in its new form, being com- 
 municated through them, and his own being conspiring and 
 respiring therewith. " Unto the churches/^ signifies, his 
 ability to receive and communicate the inner spiritual senses 
 of the Word; and in them, varied knowledges, kindred to 
 sciences of the Spiritual Heaven, following in their ultima- 
 tions ; but this ability is of the Lord alone, and is dependent 
 upon the modulations of the breath. 
 
 2G3. " He that overcometh," signifies, the state of the 
 spiritual-natural man, after the ultimate work treated of 
 before, when the old life-tree has fallen. " Shall not be hurt 
 of the second death,^' signifies, that he shall be one of those 
 to whom is given, through the involution of the spirits of the 
 primates of the body, into the spiritual body proper, when 
 and after the crisis shall have taken place, spoken of in A. of 
 C. 1, 1. 713, 714, to rise full and perfect, as an harmonic man to 
 the Heaven of spiritual angels. It also signifies, prior to that 
 period, a partial investiture of the man with his resurrection 
 body through the ascension of the fay-spirits with whom he is 
 conjoined. These cease to die as to their ultimates, through 
 conjunction with members of the human family in w^hom in- 
 ternal respiration is established, after a certain preparation 
 has taken place. They complete their harmonic cycle, involve 
 their atomic spirits in the general body of their spiritual form, 
 and rise to become fay-angels. This is in the new creation, 
 and can only take place in the triumph of the new respiration ; 
 but of this more elsewhere. 
 
 Chap. ii. 12. — "And to the angel op the church in Pergamos 
 WRITE ; These things saith He which hath the sharp 
 SWORD with two edges.''' 
 264. Radiative solar men are spoken of in A. of C. 1, I. 516, 
 and are inhabitants of the suns of space. These inherit into 
 the composite genius and separate perfection of the varied 
 peoples of their kind. Such men, with a modification adapt- 
 ing them to planetary life, are spoken of here. " Unto the 
 angel,'' signifies, radiative, terrestrial men, in harmony with 
 
SEC. 263—267.] THE APOCALYPSE. 141 
 
 radiative solar men who have become angels in the Ultimate 
 Heaven, as a distinct class, to be organized in the New Jeru- 
 salem. It is needful to treat of them at this point. 
 
 265. The radiative man of the new creation, will be fivefold, 
 and open, consciously, when internal respiration is copiously 
 advanced, to the fivefold series of worlds involved in the 
 Ultimate Heaven. He will dwell apart, as distinct from his 
 kind in many things, as if he were the inhabitant of some 
 other orb. The Celestial and Spiritual Heavens will respire 
 in conjunction with his breaths, but inflowing through a pe- 
 culiar process and embodying themselves in the breaths of 
 his own peculiar Heaven, which is Ultimate. His nature will 
 represent the embodiment of truth in love. He will crown 
 the great orb harmonies of future time, and reign as the 
 pivotal representative of heavenly order in the mundane 
 sphere. Through the nerve-spirit, he will be in direct and 
 universal communication with all to whom he ministers, sitting 
 in the centre of the planet^s complex harmonies. He will be 
 the head of industrial armies, fountain of social honour, dis- 
 penser of titles and dignities, universal monarch, whether 
 called by a kingly or republican appellation ; ruling by fitness 
 and breathing in the composite order from the Lord. 
 
 266. By breathing in the composite order, implies, a dis- 
 tribution of the breaths from the Lord in series and degrees. 
 The Lord will breathe a breath in its varied successions, 
 through the lungs of the radiative man thus made pivotal, 
 which shall felicitously conspire with the separate or simple 
 breaths of all to whom he ministers. It is by this process that 
 kingship is established and made known. 
 
 267. When the true king is found, he commences to respire 
 in such preliminary states as shall best serve for the full 
 evolution of his powers. Knowing in himself experimentally 
 the new emotions of the atomic men, the blessed and beautiful 
 societies of the fay-souls, and the deep secrets of their bretlu-en 
 of the stone and fire, he sits in the ear of the world-soul and 
 hears the deep keyed utterance and diapason in which the 
 world-souls of the system commune with her. He goes be- 
 yond the inner belt of the flame-crystals of the globe, to 
 nourish vast powers of vitality within his system from her 
 
142 ABCANA OF CIIItlSTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 fecundating essence. Tlirougli octaves on octaves of unfallen 
 men, lie wins his way at last to council-cliambers, where sit 
 vast, many-structured minds, the monarclis of the worlds, the 
 radiative men of suns and planets. He breathes in responsive 
 motions to these huge respirations of power. In his internal 
 heavenly experience, radiative solar angels are made, in the 
 Word, media of education. When not otherwise employed, he 
 pursues a round of culture in all practical sciences. Especially 
 is he accomplished in the industrial, mechanical, and agricultural 
 arts. He wins the deep divine secrets ; studies the distribution 
 of races upon the surfaces of the globe ; takes cognisance of 
 archetypes in the world of cause ; and of the law, mode, and 
 manner of their descent and terrestrial distribution. This is 
 his preliminary labour, in the use-works of a regal position. 
 
 268. As are the divine breaths in him, so are the affections 
 which are evolved and wrought to forms of consciousness. 
 Hence, without necessary communication, he knows through 
 a divine love, and enters, through a divine sympathy into so 
 intimate a mental rapport ^vith his people in their' series, that 
 the derangement of the economy of a group, or the disturbed 
 state of an individual, is to him a matter of personal sensation. 
 From the Lord he seeks and in the Lord applies the remedy. 
 For certain particulars concerning this state, see A. of C. 1, L 
 514, 575. The disturbance produced in the human harmonies 
 of our orb, through sin, caused the first Adam to sink from his 
 pivotal radiative place. Our Lord, who is the second Adam, 
 will eventually raise up such as He will. 
 
 269. " In Pergamos,^' signifies, the new type of men, pre- 
 pared through the descent of the Divine breath, who principally 
 respire in conjunction with the Ultimate Heaven, through the 
 body of the spiritual lungs continued into the natural, and who 
 are called ultimate heavenly-natural. " Write,^^ signifies, know- 
 ledge by induction, made known to such. " These things,^^ 
 signifies, all that follows here concerning the ultimate hea- 
 venly-natural man. " Saith," signifies, the open speaking 
 voice of the Lord, descending into the body of the mind. 
 " He,^' signifies. Almighty God, as He is made known in His 
 new creation through the universal Ultimate Heaven. " Which 
 hath the sharp sword with two edges,^^ signifies, Heaven and 
 
SEC. 268—271.] THE AF0CALYP8E. 143 
 
 Hell, and tlie piercing divine flame wliicli penetrates tlirougli 
 the spiritual lungs, and thence into and through all degrees of 
 the natural ; raising the good to heavenly states in the new 
 creation, and cutting off the -wicked. 
 
 Chap. 11. 13. — '^I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, 
 
 EVEN WHERE SaTAn's SEAT IS ; AND THOU BOLDEST FAST MY 
 NAME, AND HAST NOT DENIED MY FAITH, EVEN IN THOSE 
 DAYS WHEREIN AnTIPAS WAS MY FAITHFUL MARTYR, WHO 
 WAS SLAIN AMONG YOU, WHERE SaTAN DWELLETH." 
 
 270. " I know," signifies, that the Lord, as before, but 
 specially through the Celestial Heaven, diffuses knowledges 
 throughout the internal degrees of the minds of the new men 
 of this type. '' Thy works," signifies, that the Lord labours 
 in and through the composite pivotal man of this type. " And 
 where thou dwellest," signifies, that he is enthroned in the 
 midst of the antagonisms and inversions which endeavour still 
 to cover the earth with wretchedness, oppression, and misery. 
 " Where Satan's seat is," signifies, that the ultimate home of 
 the demons of the lost orb in nature, through the Hells of our 
 own orb, is present in the disorders of the terrestrial portion 
 of mankind. " And thou boldest fast my name," signifies, that 
 the pivotal monarch here spoken of, will be inmostly united 
 to the Lord, and will represent the Divine in action. " And 
 hast not denied my faith," signifies; the boundless homage and 
 implicit obedience which the pivotal monarch will pay to Him 
 he represents. " Even in those days," signifies, trials which 
 will threaten the stability of the new and heavenly civilization 
 established in the world. '^Antipas," signifies, subordinate 
 men of this type, slain as martyrs to the Christian religion, in 
 its struggles for supremacy, through the descent of the Divine 
 Spirit, against the evils of mankind. A few particulars must 
 here follow. 
 
 271. The introduction of the principles of the new creation, 
 through the descent of the Divine Spirit, bringing man into 
 the new respiration, will introduce this grand issue ; implicit 
 obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, or the opposite. When it 
 is considered that the Lord requires of those who own Him in 
 His new kingdom, unwavering, uncompromising hostility to 
 
lU ABCAN-A OF CHIIISTIANITT. [chap. it. 
 
 every evil principle, that His kingdom may come, and His will 
 be done on cartli as it is in heaven, it becomes apparent that a 
 test of the sincerity of the Christian profession will be insti- 
 tuted by it. Men will openly revolt and protest against it, as 
 involving the most infernal despotism, and the issue will be 
 raised, obedience to the Lord, received through internal re- 
 spiration, or the direct, determined resistance of the whole man 
 to the innovations of the ncAV power. The presence of one 
 whose respiratories are opened, and who declares the Word, 
 with the Divine Spirit descending through him, when the force 
 of the power is made apparent, will call forth violent prejudice, 
 especially from carnal men who control the machinery of re- 
 ligious sects. Then men will begin to blaspheme the Holy 
 Ghost and to incur the tremendous consequences. They will 
 declare, that through the new respiration the demons work ; 
 and that God requires them to excite the hostility of Christians 
 against its influence. 
 
 2 72. Poisons will be resorted to, as some of the consequences, 
 and public mobs ; while the ferocious classes in great cities 
 will be stirred to madness, as was the refase of the population 
 of Jerusalem by the Jewish rulers when they sought to crucify 
 the Lord. There are spots which the forecasting eye discovers 
 when glancing over the map of the world, to be marked by an- 
 ticipation, with the blood of internally breathing men. It will 
 be penal after a period, in more than one nation^ for the word 
 " internal respiration " to be spoken except in denunciatory 
 terms. The knife of the bravo will be resorted to by ecclesias- 
 tics, where it is practicable. Tender women will be stripped 
 and scourged in public with the knout. The rage of the Greek 
 church will be infernal. Against the descent of the Holy Spirit 
 will arise the embattled animosities of the globe. 
 
 273. The Catholic and Protestant, those nominally Christian 
 and those Pagan, the Mussulman, the Jew, every species of 
 religionist, so far as evil prevails, will set their faces to 
 crush out with fire and blood the invading Spirit of the Lord. 
 It will be the last and fiercest of all the crises which have 
 taken place upon the globe, and the inversive civilization of 
 the planet will roll up its billows of armed men to overwhelm 
 the faithful. It will be discovered that the fire which pro- 
 
SEC. 272—275.] TRE AP00ALTP8E. I45 
 
 ceeds tkrougli men who possess tlie new respiration, contains 
 witMn itself a subtle principle wliicli kills the bodies of those 
 who resist, after a certain period has arrived. Its earliest 
 symptoms will therefore be watched through a vast system of 
 espionage from land to land. Fathers will betray their chil- 
 dren and children their parents. The most intimate friend- 
 ships will prove no safeguard, nor the holy obligations of the 
 marriage tie. Masters will execute their serfs. God^s king- 
 dom will come as a thief in the night to the whole earth. 
 
 274, ^'^Antipas/^ signifies, the man of the ultimate heavenly 
 order who falls a victim to the wrath of the persecutor. " My 
 faithful martyr,^' signifies, the Lord's acceptance of the faith- 
 offering of those who are put to death. It will only be by 
 the Lord's permission that any of the men of the new age will 
 be slain. One of the reasons why it will be permitted is the 
 following : — Shed blood is the most powerful medium, both in 
 the natural and spiritual realms. When a martyr begins to 
 pour forth his life-currents, having been previously established 
 in internal respiration, the disengaged and liberated spirits of 
 the primates and the ultimate s of the natural form go forth 
 through the wounds, and marshal themselves in impalpable 
 aerial clouds, and after a while precipitate themselves into the 
 human bodies that are pervious to their influence, preparing 
 new systems, to be opened for the divine breath. For more 
 on this point see elsewhere. 
 
 275. ''■"Who was slain," signifies, that while murders and 
 assassinations will occur, which apparently are the results of 
 the brute rage of the ignorant, the secret inciters will be 
 philosophers, priests, public functionaries, and inversive men of 
 wealth, who hate the truth. "Among you," signifies, the en- 
 circling of the person of each who becomes a martyi', with the 
 universal family sphere of all the faithful. The Voice of the 
 Spirit will say to those who survive, " Weep not. The Lion 
 of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed in him, as one of many, 
 to open the book of the harmonic future of the planet and to 
 loose its seven seals." He will die, as on an altar, a pure 
 oblation, a lamb without blemish, through whose wounds the 
 Quickening Spirit shall proceed to establish the faith in many ; 
 nor Avill he grieve tliat he is one reserved for so glorious a 
 
146 ABGANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. it. 
 
 consummation of the terrestrial career. Martyrdoms will in- 
 spii'O the body of tho faithful and be followed by the most 
 glorious descents of the Holy Ghost throughout the breathing 
 system. Every martyr will be visible, spiritually, combatting 
 against the earth's enemies until the j^urification of the planet 
 is complete. "Where Satan dwelleth/* signifies, that in 
 every stronghold of the inversive principle in every nation 
 tinder heaven, men will be raised up in the new respiration 
 to testify of the Lord and to proclaim the judgment of the 
 world. 
 
 Chap. ii. 14. — " But I have a few things against thee, be- 
 cause THOU hast there THEM THAT HOLD THE DOCTRINE 
 
 OF Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling- 
 block BEFORE THE CHILDREN OP ISRAEL, TO EAT THINGS 
 SACRIFICED UNTO IDOLS, AND TO COMMIT FORNICATION.''' 
 
 276. " But I have a few things against thee," signifies, the 
 inversions to which the new man of the ultimate heavenly 
 type is especially liable. These are, first, to hesitate in his 
 earliest stages of new respiration, between God's service in- 
 ternally made known, and the demands of ofispring. The 
 celestial-natural man sees most his oifspring in the children 
 of the faithful, and loves them all with inefiable tenderness. 
 The spiritual-natural man yearns chiefly toward such as imbibe 
 the new sciences and appropriate readily the new knowledges, 
 nltimated through the Spiritual Heaven. The man of the 
 ultimate type clings more closely to those begotten in the 
 flesh; ties of parentage in the natural degree being strong 
 and durable. " Thou hast there them,'' signifies, that some 
 who are becoming new men in the ultimate heavenly-natural 
 degree will undergo fearful temptations on account of ofi"- 
 spring. 
 
 277. " That hold the doctrine of Balaam," signifies, the 
 nature of these temptations. The insane love of family prompts 
 the individual, though he sees on every side its ruinous con- 
 sequences, to isolate the child from privations necessary for 
 the development of the true character, and to interknit its 
 destinies with those who inherit titles, privileges, and colossal 
 fortunes. It is hard for those whom we are now considering. 
 
SEC. 276—279.] THE APOCALYPSE.. 147 
 
 in the early stages of tlieir career, to consecrate the all of 
 eartlily goods to tlie Lord. The desire will be to bequeath 
 possessions, which the Lord has caused to fall into their hands, 
 for the maintenance of the dignities of posterity. Some, it is 
 greatly to be feared, from this cause will lose their souls. It 
 is to be understood that there is nothing in the Word against 
 bequeathing estates to children. The prohibition is against 
 bequeathing them in opposition to the felt and known dictates 
 of the Holy Ghost within the breast. The will should be a 
 sacred document. The Lord should be sought to inspire 
 its provisions. It should be signed when the Lord God 
 declares His approval- otherwise the offence committed is 
 malfeasance or breach of trust, heavily punished on earthy and 
 not less so in the divine chancery. 
 
 278. By " the doctrine of Balaam,^^ is also to be understood, 
 the subjugation of faith, when it is the result of the indwelling 
 and descent of the Holy Ghost through the new respiration, 
 to the hostile and seductive operations of the fantasy sphere, 
 which emanates from the Hells. Until internal respiration is 
 begun, but a slight and partial idea can be received of the 
 extent to which seductive influences operate upon the under- 
 standing. The whole world lieth in wickedness. , The whirl- 
 ing, bhnding meteors of falsehood obscm'e the true stars of 
 the celestial firmament. '' Balac,^' signifies, unregenerate men 
 who tempt those in whom the new order is beginning to be 
 established, with plausible reasons from the external world, to 
 substitute self-derived intelligence for divine inspiration, in 
 the acts of life. '' Balaam who taught Balac,''' signifies, that 
 nnregenerate men who thus tempt are agents of Satan, thi'ough 
 fantasies projected into the brain. 
 
 279. "To cast a stumbling-block (scandal) before the 
 children of Israel," signifies, that the new man will receive 
 (continual and most insidious overtures from the men of the 
 world, the effect of which would be, if accepted, to re-involve 
 the organism in the inverted movement of society on which 
 the Lord sits in judgment. " To eat things," signifies, the 
 temptations of the new man to acquire wealth, place, and social 
 secm'ity, as well as friends and alliances, through succumbing 
 to the exactions of the subversive movement. " To eat things 
 
 K 2 
 
148 ABC4NA OF CnBISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 sacrificed unto idols/^ signifies, tliat tlio goods of tlie world, 
 acquired tlu'ougli any denial of the Holy Gliost, in the manner 
 specified, have already been pui'posed to be made use of as 
 temptations by demons, and that theii' acquisition is in reality 
 a sacrifice to demons. " To commit fornication,^' signifies, 
 that those who thus sacrifice to demons in the acquisition of 
 wealth, honours, and alliances, deny their inward marriage with 
 the Lord ; and in spite of it, prostitute the mind to become 
 the bed, where the demons of the Third Hell engender their 
 odious and atrocious purposes. 
 
 Chap. ii. 15. — '' So hast thou also them that hold the 
 
 DOCTTIINE OF THE NiCOLAITANES, WHICH THING I HATE." 
 
 280. By " doctrine of the Nicolaitanes," may be under- 
 stood, disorders pertaining to such as otherwise might be 
 ultimate heavenly-natural men. "Which thing I hate," 
 signifies, the infinite repugnance of the Lord to these dis- 
 orders, the specification of some of which follows here. 
 When a man of this type begins to be re-created, he en- 
 counters stern opposition in the flesh to the dictates of his 
 spirit ; while so far as he is in the flesh, he labours under 
 cloudy perceptions, and is apt to imagine his own trials and 
 privations to be excessive, and his own labours exceedingly 
 meritorious. So long as- he continues in states like this, it is 
 almost impossible to induct the believer into orderly social 
 use. 
 
 TENTH ILLTJSTEATIOI^. 
 
 Angels of the Society of Friends,— Chastenings produced by them, resulting 
 in purification from sexual disorders. 
 
 281. I was in the World of Spirits on a certain occasion, and 
 there beheld a pomegranate tree, the seed of which had been 
 planted by an angel. Being in a temperate place, sheltered 
 from the blasts of the nether expanse, it grew vigorously. 
 One of the keepers of the spot where it stood in the lawn, 
 approached me, saying, "Twelve varieties of fruit grow on 
 this heavenly plant, each variety being conducive to health 
 and vigour, both to the spirits and bodies of those for whom 
 it is provided. You will observe many things exceedingly 
 
SEC. 280—282.] THE APOCALTFSU. 149 
 
 important for you to know^ as you stand beside the tree and 
 watcli attentively those wlio approach it, for the purpose of 
 gathering.''^ I now saw one aj^proaching, exceedingly ema- 
 ciated, with a very sorrowful face, a woman, I should judge 
 of about thirty-five years. Her garments were particoloured, 
 denoting a celestial affection for truth in the will, veiled by 
 misapprehension of the mind and impure passions of the body. 
 One, who seemed to be her husband, but nearly blind, followed 
 her, she leading him on. His state seemed inferior to hers, 
 his will weaker, his reason less serene, his senses more 
 corporeal. Approaching the tree, they stood in wonder ; she, 
 through open vision beholding the fruit, while he listened to 
 her description of it. Both desired earnestly to partake of it, 
 but she most earnestly. At the same time an angel appeared 
 and said, "Oh ye two, whence come ye, and what is your 
 errand V The woman modestly answered, " From the natural 
 world we come, and I seek bread.'' To this the husband 
 assented, though with an abashed look. The angel smiled as 
 he asked, " Have you open breath ?" The woman answered 
 him, " Sir, I touched the Lord's hand, as it seemed to me, 
 in visions; the obstruction in my lungs was cleft, but my 
 husband is waiting still." " Come then," said the angel, 
 " gather the fruit which is nearest you." She put out her 
 hand and gathered a pomegranate, golden in the shadow, but 
 rosy toward the sun. 
 
 282. Another approached, also a woman, and without asking 
 permission, clutched at the fruit in the first woman's hand, 
 crying as she did so, " Good for you is good for me." But 
 the fruit, as she took it, seemed to escape, as to its essence, 
 leaving in her grasp but a thin rind which stung and blistered 
 in her palm. Casting it back into the face of the first woman, 
 she angrily exclaimed, " What a cheat it is ! You may have 
 it, for all I care." The one addressed reverently took the 
 rejected rind thrown at her ; instantly it rounded and became 
 full with the aromal substance proper to itself. Observing that 
 her husband was feeding on something that was provided for 
 him, she began to partake of the pomegranate. Her eyes 
 then became opened for the first time to the condition of her 
 garments. Weeping, she cried aloud, " How shall I cleanso 
 
150 ABC ANA OF CIIRISTIANITT. [chap. it. 
 
 my apparel V A voice spoke through her breast, replying, 
 " By keeping tho ultimates of the commandments pertaining 
 to the Lord's new kingdom/' At this, blushing as from some 
 inward discovery, she breathed a deep inward prayer, and I 
 was permitted to hoar these words, " How can I, Lord, since I 
 am conjoined to a man who is in natural disorders V 
 
 283. After this I saw a company of angels in a garden 
 through whicli flowed a pellucid river of the water of life. 
 They had been, whilst on earth, members of the Society of 
 Friends. How great the change to observe the one sex 
 attired in raiment of the very simplicity and exquisiteness of 
 beauty, while the other had exchanged their formal garb for 
 floAving garments in the oriental style. They welcomed me in 
 the midst of the group, cheerfully adapting their breath to my 
 condition. At the same time my own respiration, advancing 
 to meet theirs, was elevated and exhilarated. Among them 
 was the angel who planted the pomegranate tree. One 
 advanced and said, " You were meditating upon the sins 
 specified as the doctrines of the Nicolaitanes. Look around 
 you and behold. As members of the Society of Friends, we 
 sought in many respects to chasten ourselves while on earth. 
 The Society on earth is dying. We lived in the freshness of 
 its manhood. It is only by chastening the flesh that the 
 fruits of the spirit can ever prevail. • The pomegranate tree 
 which you saw bears fruit, producing, in the minds of those 
 who partake, a willingness for chastenings. Here stands one 
 who is called a chastener." Approaching me, came forward 
 a rosy youth, breathing in sweet unity with his tender 
 counterpart, who looked as if the rude blasts of mortality 
 had never touched her cheek. I was drawn towards them with 
 the strong sympathy of the spirit ; at which, both clasping me 
 by the hand, pronounced a word of welcome. 
 
 284. This word of welcome contained an invitation to with- 
 draw in their society, and to it the response in my bosom was 
 full and immediate. The young man after we had gone apart, 
 said, " My wife will tell you her concern." The smiling angel, 
 who had been a quakeress, in the language of the Celestial 
 Heaven then commenced in a silent speech of ideas without 
 words, presenting them in series before the vision, rapidly 
 
SEC. 283—285.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 151 
 
 as wlien stars come forth in the blue expanse at eventide. 
 " Woman," she said, " suffers from the doctrines of the 
 Nicolaitanes, far more than man. Her single state is prefer- 
 able to that, which, entering through a flowery gateway of 
 bridal hope, she learns, too late, to be a garden of thorns and 
 thistles. I discover in your mind great grief because woman 
 is enslaved. Never fear ! The purifying mission of our 
 Lord's most holy breath will prove effectual. It is not 
 possible, for man without that breath, to attain to a state of 
 corporeal sanctity in its fulness; though he may win to an 
 utter death of sense, as the earth despoiled of summer heat 
 becomes a wintry sepulchre. With the breath of God all 
 things are possible" to him, — sanctification, holiness," full re- 
 demption. He will not be a frost crystal, but a flower crystal ; 
 as witness these who are partaking of the fruit of the pome- 
 granate tree." She then touched me in the breast, saying, 
 '' Feel with me ; feel as the woman feels, and then become wise 
 in the peculiar knowledges stored up in the breasts of the 
 celestial matrons.'' I had before thought it impossible for 
 man on earth to be purified without almost incredible morti- 
 fication. I had thought also that a thousand would find it 
 impossible to attain to a perfect sanctity, where one would 
 win the crown; except as they passed through states of 
 wilderness desolation, reaching nearly to the end of life. 
 Hidden in the interiors of the affections of the pure matrons 
 of the Heavens are living arcana from the Word ; arcana, by 
 the practice of which man can be purified. A tremor of in- 
 tense joy vibrated through my frame. The Word was radi- 
 antly opened to my vision, and I wrote what follows, having 
 now a conjunct sense in the wisdom both of the masculine 
 and feminine mind. It was blessed to inhale the sweet breath 
 of purity and peace, while the sentences flowed from my pen 
 without mental effort or sense of weariness. It was in this 
 manner that the Woman's Word, so far as here presentedj 
 opened its resplendent pages upon my thought. 
 
 285. When the young child is first initiated into the external 
 world, it is enveloped in as many encompassing electrical- 
 natural spheres as correspond to all the states of regeneration. 
 Provision is made by our Lord at birth,, as well as before 
 
152 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ir. 
 
 birtli, for a progression in infancy to open respiration. Pro- 
 vided it be possible for tliem to be isolated from man's con- 
 taminations, all children of parents who pass through the 
 initial respiratory states, to the death of the natural soul, and 
 the re-birth which follows, may see their offspring delivered, 
 some of them at an early age. Infancy is a perpetual protest 
 against ancestral crime ; an eterual exemplification of the 
 doctrine of entailed sin and consequent misery. It is in this 
 purification of infancy that we are to look for the great man- 
 hood and womanhood of future time. The beautiful infant is 
 an embryo volcano, surface veiled with evanescent untimely 
 bloom. But the woman through whom the children are to be 
 re-born into the breath of Heaven, must be herself a living 
 witness of the second state; Avhen formed holiness has re- 
 placed within the body the structures of original and here- 
 ditary sin. A\nien children breathe the natural air, the new- 
 born lungs take in through the natural breath of those who 
 surround them, a seed of coiTuptious. They are poisoned at 
 birth. It is to kill this seed, to neutralise these poisons, that 
 the open breathing woman takes upon herself the re-birth of 
 suffering, perishing infancy. 
 
 286. She hates with hatred that is at once principle and 
 passion, the huge, creeping serpent of corrupt sensual desire. 
 She longs for its destruction, because she sees it to be that 
 terrible thing which organically renews the dynasty of Evil, 
 and plants the throne of Death in the organic centres of each 
 new-born generation. She loves in the immensity of this 
 hatred ; — loves the pure breath of God that generates the pro- 
 lific and immortal virtues, the afiection that wastes not, the 
 excellence that builds forth the structures of righteousness in 
 man. She lives in the new home of God's open breathing 
 world. She represents Maternity enthroned in virtue, and 
 wielding the sceptre of its potent rectitude. Upon the bosoms 
 of the little childi-en she lays her pm^e hand, whose holy touch 
 dispenses heaHng. At her breath the blights are dissipated, 
 the noxious vapours from the lungs of evil exhale away. Here 
 is wisdom, which none of the princes of this world,— that is, 
 the rulers of womanhood, — have known ; for had they known 
 it, they would not, by their fierce lust, have crucified the 
 
SEC. 286—287.] TRE APOCALYPSE. I53 
 
 Lord of Glory in each unborn cliild. Thus I wrote and 
 paused. An angel took up my pen, and added, " The respi- 
 ration of woman is different from that of man. The maternal 
 office in its super-teirestrial degree, restored through her new 
 breath, rebuilds for infancy its overthrown organic structures, 
 and prepares the way for a new race.^^ 
 
 ELEVENTH ILLUSTEATION. 
 
 A synod of trans-terrestrial men from Polj^hymnia. — Openings of truths 
 concerning certain obstructions to the new order, with means for over- 
 coming them. 
 
 287. I was at a synod of trans-terrestrial men, of the nature 
 of those inhabiting the orb Polyhymnia. In number they 
 were about forty; pivotal chiefs. The subject under con- 
 sideration was, by what process to aid on the prospective new 
 kingdom of our Lord on Earth. They were in spirit elevated 
 to the Ultimative Earth of Spirits, and here the interview took 
 place in the night season. One of the sages addressed me in 
 ideas, some of which follow: ^^Your earth,^^ said he, "is deso- 
 lated to a degree so great that one beholds it as a sepulchre, 
 where harpies feed on the bodies of the dead. The present 
 rule on earth is harpy rule. With gorged beaks and dripping 
 talons the chiefs of industry feed upon the gory body of in- 
 dustrial man. Without the organization of industry, no new 
 age can dawn, no new people rise, no new church be estab- 
 lished. How to extricate open breathing servants of the 
 Lord from the domain of misrule ? is the vital problem. Tou 
 could be made use of, in your capacity as a chief of respiration, 
 did proper auxiliaries exist, to lead into open breath a million 
 men, during the. period allotted to your terrestrial life. What 
 seemed to you a mountain when this work of the Apocalypse 
 was first commenced, is now levelled to a hill of moderate 
 dimensions. I will tell you, in a word, what is given me. 
 Say sternly, to each man who approaches you on this topic, 
 make yourself a day-labourer ; make yourself a bread-earner ; 
 make yourself one of those who produce more than they con- 
 sume. Hesitation here is fatal. If men will not work faith- 
 fully as to the Lord; if they will not serve Him with the 
 
154 ARCANA OF CUBISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 fervour, yea, and iron perseverance, with wliich the strong 
 self-lovers serve self, they had better be left to perish in 
 their corruptions. Every weak-handed man or woman, every 
 lame-backed, knock-kneed, vapouring child of clay, is so much 
 dead weight cast upon the lungs of the willing ; so many iron 
 cinders thi'own between the wheels of that great revolving 
 sun of life, whose revolutions produce the new harmony in 
 man. I discriminate between the weak physically, who will, 
 when quickened, rise above fleshly infirmities ; and the weak 
 essentially, who only act as goaded on by spiritual forces. 
 What horse is that which requires incessantly to be spm^rcd 
 on ? What man is that who cannot be trusted in the absence 
 of an overlooker ? The fatal thing about your race is stupid 
 soul-indolence. To rouse them from this requires more than 
 angels have ; more than herculean solar men possess. God 
 conspires freely with the willing heart ; but your race drowse 
 on with a sluggish torpor." 
 
 288. Another added, '^ The working force of an open breath- 
 ing man is dependent on his determination to centre his whole 
 being in the use given him. He must conquer his use or be 
 subject finally to fierce obsessions. To do this, however, that 
 is, to centre one^s self in the use, requires the death of the prin- 
 ciple of scortatory love. It is this which debilitates the soul, 
 more than thought, more than labour. .It eats the bones as if 
 it were so much vitriol. It makes every leaf of the human tree 
 now hectic, and anon sicklied over with the pale hues of inci- 
 pient decay. Written in the organon of God's new harmony, I 
 read this ; (opening as he said this, the Word) the truths of the 
 Heavens, falling into defiled channels, have produced modifi- 
 cations of natural social order. Mark the truth, deflected 
 into the theory of the followers of Ann Lee. They say, that, 
 until man can rise out of the carnal ordinance in the sex, a 
 loving social union is an impossibility. They see plainly that 
 the man who loves in self, marries in self, and procreates off- 
 spring in self, and is only fit for a social system based upon the 
 interests which spring from self-love. Until, therefore, men 
 can love in the Lord, and only receive offspring as a divine 
 dictate and purity, they are trammelled by the old, they cannot 
 receive the new. The unmarried man is asking whom he shall 
 
SEC. 288—291.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 155 
 
 marry ? The married man, so long as natural, witli closed 
 respiratories, by every sex-act makes himself more and more 
 an incorporate element of the huge self-system of mankind. 
 There is no liberation into order, but by dethronement of the 
 tyrants, subversive sex-desire, subversive sex-relations/' 
 
 289. " The waste of womanhood throughout your orb,^^ con- 
 tinued another speaker, '' the deterioration of her powers, in 
 consequence of the disordered sex-life,averages,in Christendom, 
 one pulse beat in every two seconds of time, very nearly. The 
 motive force of the organism is diminished one-half, and the 
 capacities of endurance and longevity, both, to this extent, cut 
 off. But, while the coarse force is thus diminished, the fine 
 force of resistance in the body against Pandemonium is taken 
 away in a ratio of a thousand to one, and even more. In com- 
 bating for others, you will discover a thousand weights upon 
 a struggling organism, all of which are so many mill-stones 
 around the neck of life, sinking it in the sea; and of these, 
 perhaps, all but one are directly or consequently the result of 
 sex-disorder. It is through the door, strait as the narrowest 
 entrance into ancient Zion, the needless eye, that of the reno- 
 vated sex, that the good man may be saved, entering into 
 golden use and rich fruits. ^^ 
 
 290. All assented to this. One added, '' When'a young child 
 has gone out into the natural world, its breath cannot be opened 
 until the vii'us of an absorbed scortation, full of larvae, like 
 locusts, is drawn back from the lungs .'^ Another continued, " If 
 you can surround children with an influence wholly hostile to, 
 and fully destructive of this latent hell within the blood, such 
 can pass with little difficulty into an open respiratory state ; 
 suitable teachings and examples being given.^^ A third finally 
 added, " A hundred such children are more easily led up to 
 the whole newness of the frame, than one reformed man whose 
 body has been made an imaginative hot-bed of disordered pas- 
 sions j yea, verily, and a thousand little maidens.^' 
 
 291. At this I was filled, directly from the Lord, with so 
 intense a zeal for the promulgation of the truth concerning 
 these things, that a belt of white light came forth through my 
 frame, and wrapped it in a zone ; and when this had occurred, 
 fays began to congregate within its radius, all of them of the 
 
156 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ir. 
 
 kind iulaabitiug the expanses occupied by trans-terrestrial men. 
 So I sprang in spirit to an enlianccd power, and came "back to 
 earth, refreshed and exhilarated in a wonderful degree. For 
 particulars of trans-terrestrial men, see hereafter. 
 
 292. By '' doctrines of the Nicolaitanes/'must be understood, 
 again, the instinct in the natural soul for absorbing into itself 
 the madness of the Hells, and for seeking sex-union in that 
 state. So long as man and woman are in a closed respiratory 
 state, so long, in fine, as the old natural soul dominates, there 
 is no absolute purity in any sex-relation ; though, for divine 
 ends, the present existing order in Christendom has been 
 permitted as a bar against worse evils. 
 
 TWELFTH ILLUSTEATION. 
 
 Conversation in tlie Earth of Spirits with a man, respecting the collective thought 
 of Christendom concerning conjugial love. Warnings and advice to youths of 
 the new age. 
 
 293. I asked a man who represented the collective sentiment 
 of the entire Christian church, now extant on earth, to speak 
 to me, from that combined sentiment, on this particular ; and 
 he responded. " We hold in spirit that there is no sex in 
 Heaven, because it is essentially carnal.^^ I replied, " Do we 
 not hold that man may become the temple of the Holy Ghost 
 so far that utter santificatiou may ensue. ^^ He replied, '' It is 
 dimly held by some among us ; when they are sanctified, how- 
 ever, to this extent, they are as the angels, without any sexual 
 love." He further continued, "When a man is married, to 
 a woman the priest who celebrates the nuptials gives them 
 to each other, and they are conjoined, jpro sacerdota, in a legal 
 manner to beget lawfully. Do you suppose that the sexual 
 passions which mix, differ from those of pagans who do not 
 marry ^ro sacerdota ? It is all one thing." I thanked him 
 for his courtesy. He then asked me, '^ What do you think ?" 
 Seeing it to be in order I stated my belief; but when I ex- 
 pressed my faith that orderly nuptial union might result from 
 a direct interflowing of the Divine Spirit, he burst into incon- 
 
SEC. 292—295.] THE APOCALYPSE. 157 
 
 trollable laughter and exclaimed^ " You are a man ; every man 
 knows better tlian that V I was moved witli indignation, 
 though not to rage, and had abnost answered him, '' If your 
 thoughts were above those of a gorilla, you and Christendom 
 would know better." 
 
 294. I admit that in the youth and freshness of the heart, 
 the man may love a woman at first ideally and romantically, 
 but as that ideal sentiment embodies itself, he desires grossly. 
 The two meet upon a high plane often, but however orderly, 
 in a legal sense, the relation that ensues, it drops to results 
 which are commonly profanations. To those who would shun 
 the "hateful doctrines of the Nicolaitanes,'' there is a plain road. 
 Let the young man seek first of all, the kingdom of God and 
 His righteousness ; let him seek to be an open respiring man ; 
 let him ask and receive a use of the Lord, and become in that 
 use thoroughly proficient ; let him continue in it till by degrees 
 the old natural soul which he has inherited, coerced into sub- 
 mission, pierced in its centre of life, dies within the frame, 
 and the new natural soul created as an ultimate form for the 
 new man, made in God^s image and likeness, is instituted in 
 its place. He is then, for the first time, in a state to receive of 
 the Lord, the wife who is prepared for him. This will require, 
 upon his part, the observance of rules in the conduct of life 
 which are strict and imperative. He cannot, during the 
 initiatory states, pursue an acquaintance with even the most 
 chaste and elevated of maidens ; but must isolate himself from 
 female society. The natural soul feeds upon an insensible 
 emanation ; first, from the collective life of woman ; second, 
 from wandering spirits of women in the subtle parts of natm^e; 
 and third, from specific individuals toward whom exist attrac- 
 tions. Now the natural soul, full of instinctive longings, both 
 seeks to draw beauty towards itself, and then to be nourished 
 by taking in its fine personal aromas. 
 
 295. The Romeo and Juliet play of youthful life cannot be 
 enacted on the actual stage of our Creator^s coming kingdom. 
 The natural soul that is first content with drinking in the rose 
 fragrance in the sphere of the chosen object, becomes con- 
 tinually more corporeal, till it exhausts, if possible, the very 
 heart of its organic life, till it consmnes the elixir of the form. 
 
158 ARCANA OF CURISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 It is in the bcginuing that tho first stand must be made. The 
 youth, in the horoisiu of these iDcrfections, will not so much as 
 touch the lips or hand of the pui'e maiden till he can say to 
 her in truth this ; " My body has become an earthly palace 
 and sanctuary for the Spirit of the Lord." " It is/' says one, 
 *' a hard doctrine. Who can bear it ? " Nay, young brother, not 
 hard ; think of what you do in the alternative. By permitting 
 your natural soul to fasten and feed upon the aromal ele- 
 ments of an impure one, you drink in perdition seven times 
 distilled. By absorbing the life of one of the sex in mere 
 natural corporeal breath and thought and beauty, you enter 
 into communion with the mere corporeal elements of such as 
 are sunken in nature ; you feed upon that which nourishes 
 in you a gross corporeality. By taking into yourself the 
 effluences of one in Avhom the Lord's new breath is a presence 
 and a power, but who is not fully ascended into the perfection 
 of the new frame, you bring her organically, not alone into 
 rapport with your own natm'al soul, which is evil, but also 
 into rapport with the infernals who flow through it ; while at 
 the same time that evil natural soul of yours grasps or seeks 
 to interlock itself with hers, and endeavours to become positive 
 over your higher natm'e, by going out to insidious conjunction 
 with all the powers germane to the hereditary evils in her 
 frame. You murder her sleep by the projection of a disturbing 
 influence into the nervous system, and are made to haunt her 
 and torment her. You endanger the permanence, while you 
 retard the advancement, of her new-formed open breathing 
 life. 
 
 THIETEENTH ILLUSTBATION. 
 
 A conversation in the Spiritual World between a Swedenborgian, recently 
 deceased, and two young men from the .earth, on conjugial love. — Their 
 carnal views rebuked by an angel. — A suffering wife fleeing from her 
 husband. — Ineffable purities of the orderly marriage state. — A warning 
 to young maidens. — Two virgins from the earth, entering a temple in 
 the Spiritual World, have their lamps filled and lighted. — They seek 
 purification through internal respiration. 
 
 296. I was present in the World of Spirits on a certain occa- 
 sion, and met two men, both of whom had heard of open 
 respiration, and both of whom had some faith in it, as a coming 
 
SEC. 296—299.] THE APOCALYPSE. 159 
 
 fact for man. Neither were married ; their ideas concerning 
 respiration were gross, and one was felicitating his comrade, 
 saying, " How delightful it will be ! Swedenborg has said, 
 which is true, that marriage brings on earth impotency and a 
 satiated state ; but that the angels live in a corporeal plenum 
 of delights of this sort. You get open respiration, and you 
 will be like an angel.^' ^^Yes,''' replied the one thus ad- 
 dressed, " that is just what I want, blessed be God." They 
 then fell to conversing upon the New Jerusalem, wholly from 
 this point of view. One touched them upon the shoulder, and 
 said, " Friends, your remarks are offensive. If you go back 
 into the body, let me tell you, that as you take this thought 
 into the natural degree of the mind, the Hells will have 
 strong power against you through it." One of the two 
 thus addressed, starting back, cried, ^'1 base this faith on 
 Swedenborg. What more true than his doctrine concerning 
 conjugial love ? " 
 
 297. At this moment, a spirit who had been on earth a 
 Swedenborgian, and much immersed in corporeal things, came 
 up, looking dejected, and said, " Gentlemen, there is somewhere 
 a mistake. I was a New Churchman, and fully expected, on 
 leaving the body, to have my conjugial associate assigned me 
 of the Lord. This was done ; but, bless me, I have none of 
 the powers of a husband. Give me Earth for that. She re- 
 cedes as I approach, and I wither." Knowing by perception 
 the last speaker, I called him by name. He took my hand in 
 his, and expressed himself delighted to see me, but mournfully 
 spoke on, " I say, there is some mistake." 
 
 298. The angel then opened and read to them the words 
 concerning the doctrines of the Nicolaitanes, saying, "Brethren, 
 you are involved mentally in these hateful things, and fail to 
 discriminate." To those from our world, he continued ; " If 
 you receive open respiration from our Lord, and it advances to 
 its perfection, you will learn to loathe the idea, concerning sex 
 relations, which you now cherish, and blush at ever having 
 thought as you do." To the spu-it, he said, " Dear friend, when 
 you are purified of the remaining increments of evil, the mis- 
 take of which you complain will be adverted to no more." 
 
 299. While returning to our earth, after this, I met another 
 
IGO ARCANA OF CHBISTIANITY. [citap. it. 
 
 of its inliabitants, -whose body must have been wrapt in sleep 
 at the time. He was dragging after him by the arm, a shrink- 
 ing, protesting figiu-e, clothed in white, and was savagely cry- 
 ing, " God has given you to me in the holy marriage relation." 
 Both addressed me by name, both appealing to me. I asked 
 them what was the trouble ? The man cried, " Heaven itself 
 cannot bear, nor God require it." The woman interposed, 
 " Heaven itself cannot bear what I bear, nor our Lord require 
 it." The man spoke again, " You are unwilling to be a wife." 
 The woman answered, " If this is being a wife, I would rather 
 be annihilated." Now, perception being given me, I saw that 
 both man and woman possessed high and growing natures, but 
 the one evil, a disorderly sex relation, was breeding discord 
 from heart to form. He said, "When she gets out of the body 
 and I leave it in sleep, she is like a wild deer ; I might as well 
 try to catch a chamois on the Alps." She solemnly said, 
 " Husband, it is my only chance for life. If you were orderly 
 with me in the body, leaving it, clasjDed in each other's arms, 
 we should ascend to some delightsome paradise and breathe 
 the airs of purity together. "We are disjoined in heart, dis- 
 orders make it so ; you come here out of the body and you find 
 A and B," mentioning names, " and who else I know not, 
 who confirm you that sex is carnal, and that as men understand 
 it, it is perpetuated in Heaven ; you insist that I shall stay there 
 with you and imbibe what saturates them. Drag me into the 
 body with you. By-and-by I'll leave it, never to return. Then 
 you may get a woman to think with you. God have pity on 
 me!" 
 
 300. Whoever stirs up the pool of the world's corruptions 
 must expect to incur the enmity of the foul fiends that cra-v^l 
 within it. One bad man givesthe cue to his cotemporaries, and 
 a million of the weak, half good, take up with his suggestion ; 
 but I defy any man with quickened conscience, coolly, calmly, 
 and prayerfully to meditate upon the topics here presented, 
 without admitting the general principles now laid down. The 
 natural man is mad on this point. It is as impossible to 
 reach him by fact or argument, as it is to convince the insane. 
 How diflFerent might things be ! The young might meet 
 with bodies pure as Eden, with hearts sweet as the breath 
 
SEC. 300—301.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 161 
 
 of its unwasting, undying flowers. Kecognition of fitness 
 miglit be given, by perception from our Lord, tliat they 
 were breathed forth in blissful coalescence from His Infinite 
 bosom to run the varied rounds of being in most pure com- 
 munion. Marriage might be the public recognition of the truth 
 that the Lord stood within them interclasping them as in 
 the arms of His own divine human life. Over every act of 
 endearment angels might bend with no averted eye. What 
 prevents the realization of this better than Arcadian vision ? 
 Nothing but this ; for the shadow, the foolish, the insane, forego 
 the reahty. Nothing but this ; that the deluded seekers after 
 shadows confirm themselves by reasonings in the natural mind, 
 that shadow is substance and that fiction is truth divine. 
 
 301. The prompting cause to marriage with nearly all men, 
 is the craving of sense. With woman far more often it is the 
 craving of the heart. How is it possible for the heart of woman 
 to find that sweet companionship which it requires, from the 
 partner in whom the fine instinct of the heavenly nature is 
 blunted and deadened by a sense appetite, which is madness de- 
 prived of its gratifications, and which, when indulged, like a cold, 
 slimy serpent, twines itself about the being and lies down to 
 sleep in gorged stupidity. "Give me," cries the heart of woman, 
 '^what I require, an interflowing love, in whose ascending breath 
 I may go up Godward ; give me an element quickening, ener- 
 gising, soul-purifying, in which I may become complete." 
 
 " A perfect woman nobly planned, 
 To warn, to comfort, to command." 
 
 She finds a solitude. The home which should be an Eden 
 garden with the tree of life in the midst, where flow the rivers 
 from the fourfold heart of the Divine affections, and where the 
 blossoming vii'tues never die, but ripen to eternal beatitudes, 
 is made in its inversions like one of those petrified forests 
 which have been submerged beneath the ocean till every tree 
 is coated with its acrid, salty crystals, and then lifted in some 
 vast upheaval, like those stony woodlands on the ledges of the 
 Andes, set in a rim of barren sand, and thrown in desolate 
 relief against a blazing, torrid sky. It is a fearful thing to 
 ' touch a woman's heart ; a fearful thing to lay hands profanely 
 on the temple of her body ; a fearful thing to let loose ihQ fiends 
 
162 ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 of passion and bid them gorge themselves upon her delicate 
 beauty, as if tigers were turned into some awful sanctuary to feed 
 upon the vestal virgins; a fearful thing, as every mother feels, 
 gazing upon the blooming daughter first entering upon young 
 life. But where shall be found the remedy ? How shall she 
 escape from the hateful works of the Nicolaitanes ? Blessed be 
 God that open respiration breaks up the tyranny of the senses, 
 and liberates the imprisoned affections of the breast ! 
 
 302. For the young daughter who hesitates, who falters, 
 who is deficient in moral resolution, there is no hope and no 
 escape. Deliverance only comes to those who resolutely dare 
 the ordeal, which, in the path of open respiration, becomes 
 evident. If she compromises, if she allows the fetters, woven by 
 the natural soul of man, to be thrown upon her, desolate must 
 be her fate. Daughter, let wisdom counsel thee, let the Divine 
 Wisdom guide thee, take counsel of thy Lord. The virgin in 
 whom open respiration begins, open through her Bible to her 
 God, has before her an open door of perfect freedom. She has 
 to adopt one motto, " a husband wholly in the Lord, with a 
 purification of both soul and body, or a life of single purity 
 and peace." Hers is utterly to renounce and scorn and set her 
 foot upon the allurements to a courtship and a marriage when 
 the seeker seeks with an unsanctified flame. 
 
 303. I saw two virgins. Both of ,them, as to the body, in- 
 habitants of Earth, transported during sleep to the World of 
 Spirits. Both cried, " We are seeking Almighty God, in the 
 person of Jesus Christ." An angel met them. He led them 
 up to a celestial temple where a great multitude were engaged 
 in worship, and which stood at no great distance. Each, as 
 she drew near, prostrated herself in silent adoration. Entering 
 in, they were greeted by the whole assembly, who arose as 
 one, while a h5"mn of welcome pealed through the sacred 
 edifice. They held lamps, seeking to fill them, and instantly 
 a divine oil was poured into each, and a flame lighted ; but 
 the lamps were then by some occult process drawn into their 
 bosoms. I was told that these, on returning into the body, 
 would long to receive the quickening breath and visitation. 
 
 304. As they returned toward the earth, I heard them con- 
 versing, and one said to the other, " I know three things from 
 
SEC. 302—305.] THE APOCALYPSE. 163 
 
 tlie Lord. One is^ tliat a demon, through every young man 
 whose old natural soul is alive, and who seeks to pay attention 
 to me, endeavours, through my natural soul, to rob and ruin 
 my spirit. Another is, that I can never become the wife, full 
 wife, the perfect vessel of life to a husband, till the old natm-al 
 soul in my own frame is dead. The third thing is, that I can 
 only attain to this state by giving up my being to the Lord in 
 open respiration, and following the rules laid down in the Word 
 concerning it.'" The other virgin answered, " I know three 
 things, also, from the Lord. The first is, that I must seek a 
 specific use in the Lord^s new kingdom, and make myself per- 
 fect in it. The second is, that I must give myself no thought 
 of any youth, but hold every afiectiou disengaged till my new 
 natural soul is given me. The third is, that I must plainly 
 and unreservedly make profession of this my faith, though it 
 m.akes me an outcast from my home, the subject of open 
 ridicule and scorn. My lamp burns brightly and is full of oil ; 
 I must keep it trimmed and burning till the Lord cometh." 
 
 305. They were met, as they passed down toward the earth, 
 by two youths of prepossessing appearance, each of whom 
 seemed to be an admirer. One young man said to the other, 
 as they approached, " There are our beauties.^' At this moment 
 an angel with a flaming sword interposed between the youths 
 and the virgins. His appearance was dazzling as the sun. 
 The suitors were terrified as if it were an apparition of Deity. 
 One youth fell upon his knees, the other fled in consternation. 
 The one upon his knees was lifted by the angel, who said to 
 him, " My son, be not afraid, I am one of those who serve 
 God and keep His commandments. Tell me with what end 
 you sought yon maiden." With trembling awe the youth 
 responded. '^My motives will not all bear inspection. In 
 plain terms, I wished to solace myself with her charms ; but 
 I also held her in honour. I now see by a new something 
 that shines in my breast that the carnal heart but lusted. The 
 sentiment that flowed in the most tender and afi'ectionate ex- 
 pressions held a fiery virus. I turn away from it. I repent, 
 indeed I do, most bitterly repent ; but alas ! when I re-enter 
 the body, my natural instinct will seek a union which I know 
 will coerce her to a dead, natural insanity.'' 
 
 1/ 2 
 
164 ABCANA OF CSBISTIANITT. [chap. ir. 
 
 306. The other youth seeing that the angel now appeared as 
 a man amicably conversing, took licart and came back. Well, 
 said he, " Prettyfixce has gone and left us.^' The angel looked 
 at him, and said, " Sir, what is it that you say ? " He replied, 
 " I meant to sec the girls home ; but they have given me the 
 slip.'^ At this he looked knowingly at his friend, and, as if 
 forced to unbosom himself, went on. '' I knew a country 
 fellow who could play nine tunes on a Jew^s harp, but I could 
 play ninety and nine tunes on that girFs heart. The way to 
 get her is to get converted first and join the church. How 
 they thaw out when they think we are pious ! That I call 
 entering at the strait gate. When I get that rose of Zion 
 at my button hole, I'll give her a slight exhibition of the old 
 Adam.'' The angel smote him on his mouth, and, as he did so, 
 the man, driven back to his body, awoke in the natural world. 
 But the other, upon his knees, and struggling against the 
 spirit of wickedness, began asking what he should do to be 
 saved. 
 
 307. By '' doctrines of the Nicolaitanes," may also be under- 
 stood, the abominable evils which take possession of children 
 in consequence of the culpable ignorance concerning the more 
 sacred subjects of life and its origin, in which they are suffered 
 to grow up. A mother said to me, when I requested her to 
 inform her child concerning these things, " I cannot ; I dare 
 not." Parents of both sexes are ashamed to state to their 
 own offspring how they came into the world. 
 
 FOUETEENTH ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 The boast of a man in Hell, of his power to undo the work of Christ in 
 youthful hearts, by means of obscene books. — The importance of in- 
 structing children in the laws of the origin of life.— The woeful wrongs 
 committed against offspring in their conception and thence to birth. — 
 The agonies of the World-Soul over the miseries of little children. — 
 Directions from our Lord for the organization of methods of relief for 
 infantile humanity. — His wonderful manifestations in its behalf. 
 
 308. I met a man in Hell who on Earth had been the author 
 of a most infamous book. He was boasting in a circle of 
 
SEC. 306—309.] TRE AFOCALYJPSE. 165 
 
 demons of the access wliicli he had through it to youthful 
 minds. " Jesus Christ,'^ said he^ " and all His apostles, may 
 preach, and argue, and work miracles, but I can turn the 
 tables upon them, for I am read privately and understandingly 
 till pi-ayer is snuffed out like a candle." I was horrified by 
 their conversation, and went away in extreme anguish, crying 
 to our Lord, " How can the power which is exercised by 
 demons through impure writings be put down ? '' There is 
 no subject which exercises such a mysterious influence over 
 the young as that which treats of hfe and its origin. The 
 natural soul of both sexes is instinctively amorous and adul- 
 terous. It is born of magnetised states in the bodies of its 
 parents. The Lord has little access because its doors are 
 shut. 
 
 309. I was meditating profoundly when a matron came 
 to me leading by the hand a little girl. '^ Ah," said she, 
 '' brother, it is indeed true as the demon boasted, that he 
 has more power with the young, as to their bodies, than 
 Christianity has, in this dying state of religion. Ignorance 
 is the door to evil, and the knowledge of the truth the 
 appointed means for its overthrow ; especially the knowledge 
 of open respiration which brings down to the bodies of chil- 
 dren the inspirations of the Holy Ghost. On introspecting 
 the states of a hundred children in the natural world, three- 
 fourths of them are fully able to comprehend whatever should 
 be told them concerning their germ existence in the Heavens, 
 prior to their descent into nature, and the process pertaining 
 to this descent. Again, there is hope of the young. Divines, 
 for the most part, though of the utmost experience and right 
 knowledge in dogmas, cannot be made to see the truth or feel 
 it as these children can. They are like hollow gourds con- 
 taining empty pebbles." " Why," said I, " do you call them 
 hollow gourds containing pebbles ? " She replied, " Because, 
 emptied of true knowledge, by the extinction of the innocent 
 and pure germs of ideas, which the child has, concretions of 
 material facts or suppositions lie at loose ends within their 
 minds. Set up a gourd within the pulpit with a serving-man 
 to shake it, and it conveys about as much essential information. 
 I visited as a watching angel a hundred theologians, fathers of 
 
16G ABC AN A OF CRRISTIANITY. chap. n. 
 
 fiimilies, learned bishops, cniinent presbyters, — gourds all of 
 them, dry gourds containing pebbles ! Can you wonder that 
 the children of clergymen run wild ? " " No," I replied. She 
 added, '' Solid and substantial truth should bo taught to infants 
 through open respiration. They must know the inversions of 
 the age, but parents so blush at their own misdeeds, that they 
 cannot open truths to their innocent offspring. Tlie terrible 
 questions which infancy puts, are terrible to them because 
 they are not in states of innocence. I am one of a society 
 whose use it is to instruct children who die young, and I avow 
 to you that seven-eighths physically perish in consequence of 
 the woeful wrong committed in their conception, and thence 
 to their natural birth. They rise into the Spiritual World, and 
 there must be delivered from an essence which clings about 
 them in the shape of the wretched ape. Parents beget the 
 ape image. Oh, woeful night of ignorance and subsequent 
 contamination V 
 
 310. I afterward saw a little child about two years old, 
 whose spirit had just been taken from the dead body; 
 swathing after swathing of essential substance, ape form after 
 ape form, skin after skin, each made up of superficial organs, 
 loathsome, livid, full of crawling creatures. When the little 
 one was taken from this, it lay pale and languid in an angel's 
 arms, so that I saw that the spiritual -fingers were but rudi- 
 ments. Organ after organ exposed to sight was in this rudi- 
 mentary state. I saw also a terrible fact, at which I wondered. 
 The male parent of this child had grown up in ignorance of 
 the life laws, except as educated through fearful misstatements 
 and loathsome perversions. These misstatements and perver- 
 sions had each become a living thing in the natural soul, per- 
 petuating itself into the body of the babe. Well might the 
 demon boast of his power to destroy. Let down into the 
 lowest Earth of Spirits, near the Hells, I there saw many men 
 and women who go down by night to absorb a virus from the 
 pit, and who come back into the body filled with its contamina- 
 tions, and incited by them to lust. My perceptions were then 
 extended into the natural world, and I saw their offspring con- 
 ceived in sin and shapen in iniquity. These also are doctrines 
 and resultant crimes of the Nicolaitanes, hated of our Lord. 
 
SEC. 310—314.] THE APOCALYPSE. . 167 
 
 311. I heard upon a certain occasion a deep moan proceed- 
 ing as through, the whole body of the globe, and trembhno- up 
 into the atmospheric region. It was the voice of the world- 
 soul in distress, and grieving, in her sensitive nature, over the 
 miseries inflicted on little childi'en. I then left in spirit the 
 terrestrial orb, and was conducted to the planet Mars. An 
 ancient of that world met me, and after tender salutations, 
 conducted me to the auriferous region in or near its tropics. 
 He laid his hand upon my breast, and said, " Listen.^^ I did 
 so, and distinctly heard the world- soul of that orb in deep 
 vibrations sympathising with the distress of ours. The spirits 
 of the minerals inflowing into my feet brought up the vibra- 
 tions into the expanses of my own frame. I then became 
 indignant, though in a righteous manner, at the wrongs which 
 children sufier, and went back to Earth in a state of mother- 
 like solicitude. 
 
 312. On awakening there, I looked forth into the aromal 
 expanse, and beheld a cloud, interinvolved within itself, con- 
 taining fire, which journeyed westward and settled upon the 
 ground. Out of the cloud, wrapt in fire, came forth One as a 
 man, and said to me, '^ I am the God of thy father, and thy 
 father^s fathers ; the Alpha and Omega, the Almighty.^^ I 
 cried to Him, '' Lord Jesus, give me victory ; I beseech 
 Thee give me victory, that I may become wholly disintegrated 
 from the terrestrial elements which corrupt and destroy, that 
 Thy perfect work in me may be accomplished.''^ I had great 
 boldness in approaching Him, for I seemed held up between 
 the two world- souls of Mars and our own globe. He breathed 
 upon me, and spake, saying, " Receive My Spirit, with power 
 to be continued into ultimates." 
 
 313. I then looked around me, and in the same aromal ex- 
 panse beheld congregating vapours, cloud mingled with fire. 
 Out of each cloud stepped forth, as to the spirit, trans-terres- 
 trial men, and they cried aloud, " Lord, Lord, take, we be- 
 seech Thee, demagnetised earth, and let it be the beginning 
 of a demagnetised place for little children.'' I then received 
 instructions from Him concerning the means and measures to 
 be taken to institute relief for infantile humanity. 
 
 314. Soon after, lying upon my bed in the night, voices 
 
IGS ABC AN A OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ir. 
 
 were heard in tlie aromal atmosphere producing' vibrations in 
 the epigastrium. Then came a cokl hand hiid upon the same 
 region. I felt it as a sohd substance. The hand was drawn 
 into me, resolving into spheruk^s of light, each of which was 
 a Kttle hand. But these in turn were taken into the circula- 
 tions, and distributed until thej were felt within each of my 
 own hands, fingers within fingers, and in the hands were in- 
 numerable infantile voices praising the Saviour. In these 
 voices I recognised the tender and sacred intonations of the 
 fays. After this I was again awakened in the night watches 
 by songs of exultation, and beheld infantile spirits, numbering 
 thousands, floating as a cloud above me. This cloud descended 
 and touched the earth, and I beheld coming forth from it the 
 sacred woman, the Virgin, encompassed by children, while 
 a soft and sweet dehght emanated from the respirations. I 
 arose as a man in spirit, and went forth toward her, and she 
 said, " Oh, servant of my God, I am sent to visit you. Till 
 the times of the revealed Apocalypse, such visitations have 
 not taken place." I then knelt as she knelt, in the midst of 
 the kneeling train, and breathed into her lungs while a deep 
 sleep came upon me. 
 
 315. When I awakened I saw a wicker cradle, containing' 
 as it were the spirit of a new born child wrapt in swaddling' 
 clothes, but it was not a child, being composed entirely of 
 seed. Wkile kneeling over it in speechless wonder, I per- 
 ceived that I was in the Celestial Heaven. The desert Earth 
 lay far below. Looking down, the red Hght which encom- 
 passed it gradually parted, and the archetypal form of a habi- 
 tation for open breathing children in the midst of a garden, 
 shone visibly. Then came forth a woman, folded in a white 
 robe, from this archetypal house, demagnetising from her 
 extended palms a space of terrestrial soil. I saw that the 
 archetypal mansion and its enclosure were designed for gii-ls 
 alone, and over the door was written these words in golden 
 fire, "Industrial School of the Brotherhood of the New 
 Life." As my vision descended a Kttle farther, I beheld a 
 man, though really it was an angel, watering the soil. His 
 left hand was concealed behind his back at first, but soon 
 after he reached it forth. It contained a precious tahsman, or 
 
SEC. 315—318.] THE APOCALTFSE. 169 
 
 talismanic jewel, inscribed in letters of the Word. There came 
 out of the soil, as he watered it, magnetic serpents in great 
 numbers, and also noxious reptiles of many varieties. Casting 
 the jewel into their midst thej were benumbed by it, but soon 
 burst into flame and became magnetic ashes ; these he hid in 
 a pit. 
 
 316. I then saw in the Heaven, close to me, a white robed 
 boy, who had come forth, partaking of his morning meal, 
 bread and white grapes. A little priest he seemed to be, as 
 to his genius. Reverently offering thanks when the meal was 
 over, he knelt for a little while. I then saw him again in a 
 second attitude, with innocent wonder perusing a little book 
 of instruction. My heart melted within me with an inexpress- 
 ible tender feeling, and I cried, " O Lord, wilt Thou not Thy- 
 self adopt means that Thy little ones on Earth may be saved ?'^ 
 Then the Lord stood again and spake, " Thy soul^s request is 
 granted. I will.^^ 
 
 317. The doctrines of the Nicolaitanes, hateful and infernal 
 as they are, who would not fight against them to the death ? 
 All Heaven, as one living child in whom the Lord abides, 
 fights mightily to overcome them. All Hell, as one fierce 
 serpent wherein embodied evil is enthroned, struggles to 
 increase and extend them. I solemnly adjure all parents 
 to whom these things come, in the name of the living God, 
 to ponder them in their hearts. 
 
 Chap. ii. 16. — "Repent; ok else I will come unto thee 
 
 QUICKLY, AND WILL FIGHT AGAINST THEM WITH THE SWOED 
 OP MY MOUTH.^^ 
 
 318. ^^ Repent," signifies, that when the man of the type 
 we are considering is tempted and di'awn aside, in the weak- 
 ness of his first states, there is opportunity ofiered to re- 
 trieve his error. " Else I will come unto thee," signifies, a 
 divine judgment appointed, in which the Lord will appear 
 to him as a Divine Man, through the third Heaven, descend- 
 ing to cut ofi" his spirit and cast it into the Hell of those who 
 have denied the faith. "Quickly," signifies, the suddenness of 
 
170 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 the judgment wliicli will come to those who violate the inward 
 injunctions of the Holy Spirit, in a time and mannci' unfore- 
 seen, and cast them to their doom. " And will fight," signi- 
 fies, that the Lord within the bodies of the unfaithful, will 
 breath forth a sharp, consuming, subtle flame through the 
 bowels, which will destroy physical life. ''Against them," 
 signifies, the judgments of the Lord against those who tempt, 
 as well as against those who, being tempted, fall, and return 
 not to their first love. " With the sword of my mouth," 
 signifies, in this place, internal respiration of all men who 
 indulge in evil. Those who mock and blaspheme the Holy 
 Ghost, in denial of the truth of internal respiration, are in the 
 most danger of being penetrated by the divine fire through 
 the lungs, which, descending into the natural organs of re- 
 spiration, will sever the spirit from the flesh. 
 
 Chap. ii. 17. — "He that hath an ear, let him hear what 
 THE Spirit saith unto the Churches; To him that 
 overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, 
 
 AND WILL GIVE HIM A WHITE STONE, AND IN THE STONE A 
 NEW NAME WRITTEN, WHICH NO MAN KNOWETH SAVING HE 
 THAT RECErVETH IT." 
 
 319. When internal respiration is fully established in the 
 man of the ultimate heavenly type, our dear Lord and Saviour 
 speaks to him, in a deep sonorous voice, which rolls throHgh- 
 out the internals of the mind, as if it were the tone of melo- 
 dious and vibrating thunder, or the deep swelling of the sea. 
 Sometimes these thunderings will proceed from societies in the 
 Ultimate Heaven, wherein new unfoldings or revelations from 
 the bosom of the Word are descending. He will be caught 
 up in the spirit and listen to those things which the delighted 
 angels reverently and joyfully receive. Embodying those truths 
 in active humane employments, he may perhaps imagine that 
 during this interval he is losing something of the fine quality 
 of that mental state in which the glorious Divine Voice was 
 thus made audible. But to the contrary, every step which 
 takes him in seeming farther from the Heaven into which he 
 was lifted, and deeper into the terrible things of human inver- 
 sion, if he is faithful to his trust, but prepares him for another 
 
SEC. 319—321.] THE APOCALYPSE. 171 
 
 season of nobler and deeper intromission, a festal day of jubi- 
 lee and triumph, when having been found faithful in a few 
 things, he will be made ruler over many ; and descend again 
 into his terrestrial avocations, more richly freighted with the 
 divine afflatus. 
 
 320.. " He that hath an ear,^^ signifies, the new man of this 
 variety, uplifted, to receive the Divine Voice in this majestic 
 form descending through the Ultimate Heaven. It also sig- 
 nifies, the fineness and delicacy of the new auditory organs, 
 both in the ultimate heavenly, and thence into the natural 
 degree. He will hear the flowers laugh around his feet, detect 
 the spirit of melody in the song of birds, and listen to the lyric 
 whisperings of the aromas of the earth, apd the tones in which 
 the electric currents waft their message. This, however, 
 implies a condition of great advancement in the organs of the 
 new creation. ''^Let him hear," signifies, the Lord's voice made 
 audible to him, as he enters into combat, by direction of the 
 Holy Spirit, with the evils that invade and infest mankind. 
 With a calm boldness, utterly astonishing to his enemies, he 
 will meet the perils that inevitably beset his path, and when 
 mobs rage around him and the demons incite them to his des- 
 truction, fixed in the new harmony, he will direct his ear to the 
 reception of the words that he shall speak. In the earlier stages 
 of the new respiration many will find words to halt upon the 
 tongue ; but great gifts of speech, full and majestic as the vast 
 rivers of the western continent, will outflow in the latter periods 
 of their time. Such oratory the world has never heard, nor has 
 it a conception of, for its fire, tenderness and searching power. 
 
 321. '''What the Spirit saith," here signifies, oratory from 
 the Lord. Man in his inverted state is of all creatures the 
 most artificial. He is trained to speak from the false self 
 which he acquires and developes during years of contact with 
 the world's inversions. Even on the death-bed the false self 
 often dictates the very prayers. Men die as they have lived, 
 masked in simulations. The great deeps are broken up in the 
 soul and in its life, through the new respiration; but men must 
 fight their way to new powers of utterance from the Lord, by 
 combating in the heart against infernal spheres. The new 
 eloquence will be a pouring out of the Spirit through the deeps 
 
172 ARCANA OF CUBISTIANITY. [cnAr. ir. 
 
 of tlic new affections of the man. Those who attempt its 
 imitation will disastrously fail. "Unto the churches/' sig- 
 nifies, in this place, the gift of the presentation of the Word 
 through a mediatorial priesthood, opened in the new respira- 
 tion. " To him that overcomcth/' signifies, the last state of 
 the ultimate heavenly-natural man. Eespiration is full and 
 perfect. Every organ of the body, every vohtion of the will, 
 is subject to its superior sway. The Lord directs him in the 
 fulness of the breaths. He has no longer a divided will, an 
 understanding whose faculties conflict, a body wherein the old 
 and the new sensations contend for mastery. His state is 
 sweet and genial as spring, ample and ardent as summer, 
 fruitful as the varied autumn, which holds concealed within its 
 breast the promise of a nobler year. 
 
 322. There are seven particulars here to be mentioned, con- 
 cerning this state and its felicities. First, the new man attains 
 to a condition, wherein, after the tree of the first natural life has 
 fallen, the new natural soul, natural spirit, and thence natural 
 body in its essence, in a trinity of love, wisdom, and oper- 
 ation,. from the Lord, deinonstrate theii' presence through the 
 frame. The natural soul received through the natural parentage, 
 is the first form of the disorders of the body, and contains in 
 first principles every disease which the family stock has exhi- 
 bited throughout the generations. It is a reservoir for the 
 insanities of the will. The natural mind thus inherited, is 
 essentially self-deceived and idolatrous, prone to imagine itself 
 a spark of Deity ; beholding in the universe a mirror for the 
 reflection of its own glory ; believing all greatness to be latent 
 and inherent within itself. In this respect it is a reservoir of 
 the infatuations of all its progenitors. The natural body, in 
 first principles, being the form in which the natural soul and 
 mind cohabit, as in a bed-chamber, is also the house in which 
 the vain passions, developed in this manner, bear sway. The 
 tree is known by its fruits, the parents by their off'spring, the 
 principles by their manifestation. After internal respiration has 
 been for a time established, there are judgments (for which refer 
 to index) . When the natm'al soul which has been inherited 
 receives a death wound, the new natural soul in which the 
 Lord more immediately flows, being first let down in embryo 
 
SEC. 322—324.] THE APOCALYPSE. I73 
 
 to dwell within it ; at the same time the old natural mind 
 receives its death wound, and the new natural mind, fashioned 
 for the Lord's presence, in ultimates, but also in embryo, is let 
 down to be within it. The inmost and the finest form of the 
 natural body, from which all the natui*al organs are extended 
 and developed, is let down in the same act, and in its embryo 
 form is within the old natural organisation, extending into it, 
 the new members into the old. 
 
 323. When the fays, who ascend from the hidden fire and 
 stone world, have conspu-ed with the actions of the newly 
 breathing man for a certain series of times, the natural body 
 approximates to a last state. It is honeycombed without and 
 within, and like a tree without sap, stands ready for the fall. 
 Sensation recedes from the surfaces, the day is a long di^eam, 
 the night a mystery not here to be spoken of. The pulse waxes 
 feeble and is almost motionless, the respirations alone indicate 
 a mightier presence than that of death, the impressions of the 
 world recede. The natural soul, which is old, the natural mind, 
 its associate, like a feeble and decrepit pair, whom death sur- 
 prises, feebly gasp in each other's arms, and the natural body 
 sympathises with and represents their state. It is now of the 
 Lord to determine whether His servant shall commence a new 
 existence-cycle in the natural world, or painlessly and trium- 
 phantly depart. 
 
 324. If the former, the spring of a new youth is felt within 
 the body ; a bloodless body almost before, by degrees it be- 
 comes mysteriously vigorous. The pulse's throb with a living 
 element ; the veins are full ; the voice, at first sweetly in- 
 fantile, rises and becomes awful as from the harmonic earths 
 of the universe where sin is not. But the man rises not as 
 he laid down ; death resigned his trophies and heaped them 
 at the feet of the conqueror. He cannot now die, except 
 through catastrophic occurrences, and in the Lord's permission, 
 until a new cycle has been fulfilled. He is in the internals 
 of his natural being, as Adam before the fall. The organic 
 frame of the selfhood, inherited through the long course of 
 progenitors, including the natural soul and natural mind, are 
 dissipated and removed. The new spirit now lives within the 
 structm'e- of a new natural soul and mind, continually enlarg- 
 
174 ABOANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 ing themselves into the visible body, which is their own. 
 When a conjugial pair, husband and wife, have both entered 
 bodily into the new creation through this process, though 
 potency has left the one, and the period of child-bearing is 
 over with the other, they may receive of the Lord the pro- 
 creative gift of begetting children ; mighty men and women, 
 majestic in a noble beauty of righteousness and truth, inherit- 
 in o-, with modifications, into a vast affluence from the- un- 
 fallen worlds. These offspring receive a natural soul, spirit, 
 and the first principles of a natural body, exempt from ori- 
 ginal sin or the evil proprium ; born to internal respiration 
 from the womb, though there is a struggle at first between 
 the two breathings, (fenerations thus arise, and the begin- 
 nings of a new race. 
 
 325. Third, by means of the universal conspirations of the 
 organs of the natural soul and natural mind with the Celestial and 
 Spiritual Heavens, vast accessions of respiration are received, 
 as indeed from the beginning of a new infancy. But this 
 involves, as they are married, the beginning of the descent of 
 new aromal creations in a majestic unbroken series. More of 
 this under the head of aromal creations in the new age. 
 
 326. It involves, fourth, an open sensation of the whole orb, 
 as one unitary form, pulsing and respiring in the sphere music 
 of the universe. At this period a large portion of the immense 
 body of the vitality demanded for the exigencies of the new 
 system, is taken in through the soles of the feet, which are 
 media for the absorption of the life-essence from the earth. 
 The whole body feeds through new and living pores, and is 
 nourished by the astral system. Man realizes now that he is 
 one, through his body, with the universal series of orbs in 
 stellar space. He pulsates in his joyous circulations, to the 
 rich arterial gladness of the people of the suns. 
 
 327. When this new condition thus demonstrates its pre- 
 sence and its glory, a fifth state is superinduced. Seven 
 degrees of aortal respiration, one after the other, enable the 
 lover of the Lord to feel his nerve spirit, unfolded into 
 seven continuous degrees, pavilions of fairy life. He moves 
 surrounded by a hymning, joyous multitude, and drinks in re- 
 freshment through their continuous inspirations. Brain-life 
 
SEC. 325—329.] THE APOCALTFSE. 175 
 
 now assumes a new form. Tlie division of the brain into 
 seven continuous degrees now follows. With it vast acces- 
 sions of knowledges. 
 
 328. Finally, discreted from his natural body, which still 
 remains an adjunct, he is imperishably invested with such of 
 the spirits of the primates of his own form as are to serve for 
 the nucleus of the final body of the spirits, composed of the 
 spirits of the ultimates, which he is to assume in the general 
 resurrection. The spirits of the primates are the atomic men 
 who constitute the superior degree of the natural ; the spirits 
 of the ultimates, those who constitute its extensions. Dis- 
 creted consciously from his natural body, though yet inhabit- 
 ing it, the spirits of the primates are, at will, withdrawn from, 
 or centered in, the corpuscular spherules, which are their 
 nature-bodies. In this new condition, access is afforded to 
 new degrees of knowledges in the Heavens, sealed at the pre- 
 sent time. " Will I give to eat," signifies, joy prepared for 
 those who attain to this condition. " Of hidden manna," sig- 
 nifies, of what quality that joy is composed. Conjugial arcana 
 occur first, herein. There are seven statements preluding 
 others at another place. 
 
 329. The procreative ability, under conditions spoken of 
 previously, is permanently established. Consequent on respi- 
 ration, the descent of the soul-germ which is to be instituted 
 in the form, is made known of the Lord, and the future man 
 is received, wafted down into the male body through threefold 
 Heaven. The husband now says, '^ I have gotten a man from 
 the Lord." The Lord now intromits the two into an inefiable 
 condition, the sanctification of the nuptial rites having been 
 previously the result of years of purification. The celestial, 
 spiritual, and ultimate degrees of the internal love of the wife 
 for the husband, and the husband for the wife, are opened into 
 consciousness, continued through the new natural-soul and 
 spirit, into the natural form. In beautiful conspiration of nup- 
 tial love, from inmosts to outmosts, while the Holy Ghost 
 breathes through both of them in conjunction, the soul-germ 
 is transmitted to the receptacle prepared for it in the chaste 
 womb, and there is joy in Heaven, and felicity in nuptial 
 societies of angels there. 
 
17(5 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [cuap. ii. 
 
 330. The wife uow feels tlie Holy Ghost descending into 
 the embryo, from its initiament; and her whole frame conspires 
 with the action of the Lord, who forms within her the terres- 
 trial vestibule for the temple of the new man. The trine of 
 the heavenly mothers, (see A. of C. 1, 1. 343) through whom the 
 soul- germ descended, are now with her, and she consciously 
 with them. The atomic men delivered into the order of the 
 new creation, felicitously build its grand and varied organs. 
 The earth feeds it from her inmost part. The fays, both those 
 of the aerial spheres and of the mystic realm of inner fire and 
 stone, delightedly engage in storing gifts within its organic 
 receptacles. The great world-soul wafts to it her purified 
 essence. It receives also from the essence of the sun-soul. 
 Celestial angels not only assist through the breaths, in the duo 
 arrangement of its will-organs, but also in the groupings and 
 combinations of the primates of matter in the natural soul- 
 form. Thus the spiritual angels work in the body of the 
 mind, and the ultimate angels in the inner parts of the most 
 extreme physical structure. 
 
 331. Again, such is the character of the holy embryo, that it 
 leaps and thi'ills with conscious joy to the new harmony in the 
 bosom of the Lord, which descends to fashion it for uses in 
 His new kingdom. Born out of the course of the natural 
 movement which now exists, it is encircled in a continuous 
 nuptial embrace. The process of the discretion of the atomic 
 forms from both father and mother is continued to the period 
 of birth, for its complete incarnation is through the breaths of 
 the Divine Spirit. Its body thus becomes a living harmony of 
 the new creation. 
 
 332. The life world, love world, form world, essence world, 
 and harmony world of the Heaven of theii* degree. Celestial, 
 Spiritual, or Ultimate, during this period are open, and within the 
 inmost appears the Lord. So exquisite is the construction of 
 the organs of the new child, that all five'worlds of the Heavens 
 directly conspire to make it perfect, as a vessel for Him who 
 is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Of 
 such a child it may be said, that who receiveth one such 
 receiveth in it our Lord Himself; and blessed, yea thrice 
 blessed the womb that bare it, and the paps that gave it suck, 
 
SEC. 330—335.] THE APOCALYPSE. 177 
 
 and blessed tlie nation over whose landscape shines its beam- 
 ing natal star. All worlds make one worlds as all heavens 
 one heaven, and all unfallen men compose one consciously- 
 interwoven humanity, as all the angels one universal angel- 
 hood. The life-action of the conjugial associates, on unfallen 
 worlds, interflowing through the nuptial sphere of its terrestrial 
 parents, maintains in it an exquisite vibration, from part to 
 part. It becomes thus, in a sense, a child of the universe. 
 Over its unborn faculties what seven-fold efiulgencies of inter- 
 woven light, archangelic, angelic, and solar-terrestrial, inter- 
 weave their wedded harmonies ! Its body is an earthly para- 
 dise in miniature, and not, as in the inverted infantile frame, a 
 microcosm of the disorders and diseases that take hold on hell. 
 
 333. Further conjugial mysteries are as follows : Joy is main- 
 tained throughout the beauteous, teeming being of the wife, 
 by the interplay of nuptial societies in the varied Heavens. 
 Two in one, they consciously respire in the nuptial blessings of 
 the angels, and drink their joy. The conjunction of ultimates 
 is the result of a conjunction from inmosts, and the loves are 
 wedded in the soul. It should be said here, that none who are 
 in states of passion are able, so much as from afar, to behold 
 the lucid purity of this thrice-blessed state. The two begin to 
 appear in the distance to angelic vision as rosy infants crowned 
 with flowers ; they are also visible in correspondences as tender 
 lambs. 
 
 334. All procreations of ideas from the internal to the 
 natural intellect of the husband, are solely now through bosom 
 conspiration with the wife. There are endearments of a nuptial 
 nature from will to will and mind to mind, and thence fi*om 
 person to person in the heavenly degree by correspondence and 
 respiration. There is conjunction hence fronj will to will and 
 mind to mind to the endearments of person with person, in the 
 natural degree. It is now said of them with modifications grow- 
 ing out of the unfinished state, that they neither marry nor are 
 given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in Heaven. 
 From the heavenly to the natural they have become one flesh, 
 and are no more known as the twain, but as the one. 
 
 335. Nuptial joys of the new order are attended with the 
 Lord^s visible presence, and the interblending which is natural. 
 
178 ABGANA OF GHBISTIANITY. [chap. if. 
 
 grows iuto a two-in-onc respiratiou from tlic Lord, by wliich 
 they arc lifted consciously into tlioir Heaven ; first, into its 
 outer or harmony world, but tbence, througb orderly stages 
 into its inner provinces. It is tbus that in the nuptial sphere, 
 and in the love-relations of the two in one, the kingdom of 
 God is established, and the will of God obeyed on Earth as 
 it is in Heaven. Perpetual youth now irradiates the human 
 eye, which brightens through the changes of the cycle, and 
 seven degrees of nuptial Hght make plain a seven -fold interior 
 creation within the husband to the wife, and within the wife 
 to the husband, in which they seem to each other as animated 
 paradises ; and the haloes blend and interblend, and there are 
 four rivers of aromal sweetness from the heart, and the re- 
 presentative forms within them are paradisal, and the tree 
 of life is in their inmost essence ; and over against the outer 
 defence of the seven-fold sphere which encompasses them, is 
 the angel with the flaming sword. 
 
 336. Procreations of ideas are first from the Lord by means 
 of the internal sense of the Divine Word. Whether celestial, 
 spiritual, or ultimate, can alone be set forth when the seminal 
 vessels of the understanding are impregnated through the 
 descent of divine truth into the will. When the ovarium 
 within the understanding has yielded up its impregnated ovum, 
 it is absorbed into the womb of the natural mind. Thence, after 
 many changes, it is taken into the body of the natural brain ; 
 speech then ensues, and the truths, one by one are committed 
 to writing or discourse. Impregnations of this sort are in 
 three degrees ; tiniths concerning the Celestial Heaven are in 
 a degree of the mind called Ephesus in celestial correspond- 
 ence. Truths of the Spiritual Heaven are in the degree of 
 the mind called Smyrna, and truths of the Ultimate Heaven, 
 in a third degree designated as Pergamos. The three degrees 
 of the brain are encompassed by an orb-hke expanse of organs, 
 containing truths pertaining to the world-souls, the souls of 
 suns and of universes. 
 
 337. It is also in this degree of the brain that knowledges 
 are received concerning the universal principles of the starry 
 scheme. The especial series of truths concerning the flora 
 and fauna, together with the human kingdoms of the unfallen 
 
SEC. 336—339.] TSE AFOCALTPSK 179 
 
 worlds^ is generally contained within organs, wliicli separately 
 are interinvolved tlirougliout, and form an external expanse 
 in tlie midst of, but let down a little below, tliat degree of 
 form pertaining to the world-souls. Below this still is another 
 degree interinvolved throughout the latter, and in all the 
 interstices of the latter, devoted to knowledges of the fay 
 race. And interinvolved throughout the last, in the most 
 minute of forms, but below it still, that region of the mental 
 body appropriated to the knowledges of the atomic men. 
 The last four are called respectively in the correspondences of 
 the ultimate sub-degree of the celestial sense, Thyatira, Sardis, 
 Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Until a mind discreted from the 
 inverse movement of the fallen creation was provided of the 
 Lord, means in the natural world did not exist for the evolu- 
 tion of the celestial sense in its ultimate degree, from the 
 letter. 
 
 338. The man of the ultimate heavenly-natural type serves 
 as the matrix for the insemination, descent, and giving forth 
 of the truths contained within the Divine Word, in its ulti- 
 mate heavenly sense. This sense has never yet been made 
 known. Men of this class will arise in the appointment of 
 Providence to charm and bless mankind with harmonic 
 knowledge. This, also, is signified in the sentence, " hidden 
 manna." 
 
 339. '^^And will give him a white stone," signifies, that 
 when the victor in the regenerate career attains, through 
 opened respiration, to the new life-tree, spoken of elsewhere, 
 the fays of the stone and fire-world, through whom the world- 
 soul herself ultimates atomic crystalhsations, marvellously re- 
 build the general mineral structures of the form. " And in 
 the stone a new name written,"" signifies, the perception of 
 the new man through the new harmony of the respirative move- 
 ments, of a vast series of Divine truths hidden in nature. The 
 new name is that of the Lord, which is given to the man, with 
 a sufiix denoting his own inmost relation and private jjlace 
 in the afiections of Deity. It denotes, therefore, inscrutable 
 arcana. The name is inscribed in the interinvolved forms, 
 which constitute the body of the new creation. " Which no 
 man knoweth saving he that receiveth," signifies, the powers 
 
 M 2 
 
180 ARCANA OF GRBISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 given with the name, private and peculiar to each, but of 
 which the knowledge is hidden in the depths of consciousness. 
 
 Chap. ii. 18. — "And unto the angel op the church in 
 
 ThYATIRA WRITE; ThESE THINGS SAITH THE SON OP GoD, 
 WHO HATH His eyes LIKE UNTO A PLAME OP FIEE, AND 
 
 His feet are like pine brass.'" 
 
 340. Harmonic civilization is treated of in this verse. It 
 refers to a fom'th type of mankind to be unfolded in the new 
 Christian age. As to their bodies, they will consciously respire 
 in conjunction with the world-souls of the universe, but their 
 respii-ation \Anll be continued from the internal to the natural 
 degree of the mind, as spoken of in all that pertains to the 
 Ephesian Church, or man of the type called celestial-natural. 
 Their respiration, so far as it is in conjunction with world- 
 souls, will be from the orbs that represent, in time and space, 
 the qualities of the Celestial Heaven. " Angel,^'' here signi- 
 fies, this new type of composite breathing men, in their first, 
 or solar series. " Church,'^ signifies, all of the seven series 
 into which the type will be divided. " Thyatira,^' signifies, 
 seven degrees of composite civilization, which they will perfect. 
 There are seven things hereafter to be spoken of concerning solar 
 men of this degree. This earth is to become, in the new 
 creation, a type of the universal order into which the universe 
 flows through the Incarnation and Glorification of the Lord. 
 
 341. It involves, in the first series, a new mineral, vegetable, 
 and animal kingdom, of which the types are extant in the 
 cause world. The earth, at the present time, is pregnant with 
 a second mineral kingdom. Every type peculiar to the igneous 
 era is provided with a successor. The new mineral kingdom 
 will rise through the old, in cold, electric flame, shooting in 
 solid jets of crystal, without displacement of the stratifications 
 which exist, in silence, and unaccompanied by catastrophic 
 throes. Its development will not be a process of instants, 
 but of generations. It is impossible to delineate in words 
 the matchless splendour of the new creative mineral basis, 
 which shall serve to enrich and glorify that orb of space 
 honoured by the Incarnation of the Son of man. In ribbed 
 shafts and arches of stony foliage, transcending the noblest 
 
SEC. 340— 343-] TEE APOCALYPSE. 181 
 
 ideas of architecture, rising througli tlie massive eartli-forma- 
 tions of preceding eras, and growing -with, a slow harmonv, 
 obedient to tlie Master's will, man shall behold on Earth the 
 literal representatives of houses not made with hands, that 
 await the just in Heaven. We are to look upon the Saracenic, 
 Byzantine, Eomanesque, and Gothic types of architecture, as 
 well as those more ancient, as purely typical and as denoting 
 man's struggle to outline the unseen. 
 
 342. The earth has been left in the unfinished state, with 
 here a chain of wedge-like pinnacles, here a scooped-out void 
 of cavernous depressions ; vast regions that breed malaria, bor- 
 dered by thin strips of belting and firm alluvian, or else with 
 sand-wastes that swelter beneath a burning sun-glare ; and 
 still in another quarter arctic solitudes of everlasting ice and 
 snow ; because man's inverted, struggling, partially restored, 
 partially demonised state, required the huge terrestrial symbol- 
 ism. Heat and cold, their changes and distributions, depend at 
 last on influx. A divine ray might fuse the silver candlestick 
 upon a table, without aSecting the temperature of the room ; or 
 illuminate one half of the chamber, leaving the rest in opaque 
 night; or consume the alternate pages of a manuscript, leav- 
 ing the rest untouched ; or crystallise scattered coin and orna- 
 ments into the candelabra, with no derangement in the economy 
 of objects the most fragile and in nearest proximity. It is the 
 design of our Lord to make this earth the very mirror of His 
 resplendent providence. A stream or current of divine influx 
 resting on the summit of the Alps, or any similar mountain 
 chain, would melt the snows and clothe the loftiest pinnacles 
 with perpetual verdure ; nor would this afiect, save by slight 
 modifications, the plains below. Again, touching a point of vast 
 glacier beds, like the Mer de Glace, a slow, copious river would 
 discharge from it, and in due time the original valley appear 
 clothed in richest emerald. By the same process the inhospit- 
 able depths of the Arctic and Antarctic terra firma would quietly 
 disrobe themselves of the ice garments they wear, the earth 
 appearing again as in the era prior to their present state. 
 
 343. Storms also are strictly obedient to the motion of influx ; 
 so that the divine breath in its new harmony beniguantly 
 appoints to end the present reign of tempests and tornadoes. 
 
182 ARCANA OF CHBISTIANITT. [ckap. ii. 
 
 succeeding tlicm by gc^ntlo and invigorating, but never de- 
 structive airs. The animal tribes arc hieroglypbics, typifying, 
 in a modified form tlie divine ideas. By tlio operation of influx 
 from tlie Lord eacli miglit either change its present character, 
 or evolve, by generation, species and genera prefigured in the 
 symbol of which it is the particular embodiment. In decline 
 and degradation, the animal sympathises with man; but he is 
 to follow the human family as it becomes youthful, paradisal, 
 and complete. This holds good of the vegetable kingdom. 
 The cereals, also, in a modified manner, typify a succession of 
 divine ideas. Under the operation of influjc, the partial ■ type 
 assimilates continually to the full image of the archetype. A 
 shock of corn might thus be succulent, and hold a secretion of 
 the saccharine principle in its stalks, and bear a seven-fold 
 series of the ultimate type of bread on one stem. By the same 
 law the astringent acorn might literally become a loaf, contain- 
 ing within itself such qualities of the divine sweetness and 
 virtue as the tree represents. The pumpkin might refine to a 
 delicious vegetable manna, and all the varied products of the 
 vegetable world contain, not alone aromal food for man, but 
 within it an element from the threefold Heavens. 
 
 344. So, once more, the mineral is a rude shell, typifying at 
 present but an ultimate degree of the Lord's goodness to man. 
 Of its capacities, under the operation of influx, hints are 
 afibrded in the historical portions of the Word. The cold 
 flame within the farnace burns not the Hebrew childi'en ; but 
 mighty men are consumed by the fierceness of its emanations. 
 The billows bear up the human person of the Lord, and fall 
 into curves of quiescent beauty as He breathes upon them. 
 The loaves expand into food for thousands ; the charmed fish 
 contains within its mouth a coin. The molecules of matter 
 obey incarnate Deity. Those molecules, as we have seen, are, 
 in their inmosts, atomic men. At His past commands they 
 stood arrayed in serried ranks to form the first types of the 
 animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. They obey the 
 seven-fold harmony proceeding through His attributal spirits 
 which are within Himself. This day did a stream of that har- 
 mony touch Mont Blanc or Chimborazo, the atomic men who 
 stand fast in the atoms, holding all things in coherence, might 
 
SEC. 344—347.] TSE APOCALYPSE. 183 
 
 change their combinations, and so before sunset the mountain 
 disappear. Were the Lord to speak in the proceedings of this 
 new harmony, and say through any organ or channel, " Oh 
 mountain, be thou cast into the sea," the atomic spirits would 
 hearken and obey, and the mountain be resolved at His bidding 
 into least particulars. 
 
 345. I saw, when present through the body of the nerve spirit, 
 in the inner mineral kingdom of the globe, the unborn basis 
 of the new Earth. How glorious, how wonderful the sight ! 
 There, in first principles, stood the latent stone, while through 
 all, a low murmur announced the language in which the atomic 
 spirits held communion with each other. " For brass,'' said 
 our Lord, through the prophet, " I will bring gold, and for 
 stones iron. I will make thy officers peace and thine exactors 
 righteousness.'' The gold waits to ascend. I saw the primates 
 of its particles. They will ascend at His commandment, and 
 stand embodied in refulgent ore. I heard the primates of the 
 iron. Their multitudinous host await His whisper; the new 
 minerals, typical of the seven-fold series of the attributes, are 
 in their place. 
 
 346. " These things saith," refers to unfoldings concerning 
 harmonic civilization. They pertain especially to the new 
 metals, minerals, and all the products of the vegetable and the 
 animal world. " The Son of God," signifies, God manifest in 
 the flesh, who, having glorified His human form, distributes 
 through it the harmonies of the new creation. " Who hath 
 His eyes like unto a flame of fire," signifies, the heat of 
 His divine love, descending to soothe the asperities of climate, 
 to create an harmonic temperature for the globe, and to prepare 
 for human use the inhospitable regions of the mountainous 
 districts of the temperate latitudes and also of the polar 
 circles. "And His feet are like fine brass," signifies, the 
 new metallic kingdom, distributed through the divine harmony 
 ascending in His glorified Divine-Human form. 
 
 Chap. ii. 19. — " I know thy woeks, aot? charity, and service, 
 
 AND FAITH, AND THY PATIENCE, AND THY WOEKS ; AND THE 
 LAST TO BE MORE THAN THE FIEST." 
 
 347. " Works," signifies, obedience rendered by the new 
 
184 ARCANA OF CURISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 man after he is cstablislied in the full state of internal respira- 
 tion. How swift, how dclig-htsomc, how unquestioning the 
 service of the new man ! There is nothing divided in him, the 
 very body thrills through the atomic men, with instant joy to 
 hear the Lord, and distributes its particles according to His 
 commandment in the new harmony. The cheerful fays dis- 
 tributed through the proceeding sphere, and involved in all the 
 actions of the person, absorb His influence within the breast, 
 and bow their faces to the earth in lowly homage. Their eager 
 feet are swift to run upon the messages of the Word, and all 
 their life its celebration. The will clasped within its under- 
 standing, thrills in marriage union, drinking in refreshment 
 through the breath of Deity, and grows impregnate from His 
 infinite ideas. The understanding lives by faith, and ceasing 
 to reason in the self-derived intelligence, adopts for truth all 
 that it perceives as good. It widens in the circuit of the 
 brilliant knowledges that pertain to its degree, and holds 
 within itself a myriad of living thoughts which derive their 
 attributal qualities from the Divine Spirit. The house divided 
 against itself cannot stand. Either the subversive principle, 
 typified by closed respiration, conquers the re-creative princi- 
 ple, typified by returning internal open respiration, or the 
 latter preponderates, and the former by degrees is slain. All 
 dies that is opposed to its antagonist in the completion of the 
 state, in either case. If good triumphs, the afiections of evil in 
 the will, the thoughts of falsity in the understanding, their 
 organized results in the spiritual person, decease. The sub- 
 versive and destructive creations, born of falsity and evil, and 
 representing death and hell, are expelled from the nervous 
 essence, the work proceeds throughout the natural frame until 
 nothing remains to cast out or extirpate. 
 
 348. But as all the floral families spring from geographical 
 centres, so the families of the new creation spring from hmnan 
 centres. Men learn, sympathetically, to respire from internals 
 to externals by involuntary conspiration with the respirations 
 of those in whom the new order has been established. So the 
 unconsciousbreathing action of the new man, sleeping or waking, 
 goes forth to human beings approximating to the same state, 
 and by sympathy of lungs with lungs, strugghng natures are 
 
SEC. 348—351.] THE APOCALYPSE. 185 
 
 respirationally new born. Tliere is a procession through the 
 breath, of fay forms which pass in this manner from lung to 
 lung throughout the world. As individuals begin to enter into 
 the new respiration, the opened organic spaces in the natural 
 degree of the breathing organs are taken possession of by 
 fay-souls who represent, in ultimates, Divine innocency. New 
 organs, of which they are the builders, are instilled into the 
 organic spaces of the organs wliich precede. Every new man 
 who thus breathes is builded forth ; and in turn, through his 
 unconscious respiratory action, the fay world proceeds to act as 
 the agent in the re-creactive process in others. 
 
 349. "Works," also signifies, in this place, the conscious 
 action of the new man, seven particulars of which follow. 
 He casts out demons from the bodies of the obsessed. This is 
 effected as follows : The Lord breathes out through him an 
 invisible, subtle flame, which after it has taken full effect, 
 arrests respiration in the demon. Thought ceases, conscious- 
 ness is suspended, the organs fall dormant and as dead. The 
 persecutor becomes, for the time being, as a stone, during 
 which condition he is incarcerated within a place of confine- 
 ment which the Lord provides. 
 
 350. Second ; he liberates the minds of human beings, 
 whom demons, without obsessing the body, have reduced to 
 captivity. The Divine breath goes forth, clothing itself with a 
 body in the finest parts of nature, elaborates a structure, and 
 through the nerve spirit is absorbed into the body of the per- 
 son to be relieved, distributing its vitalising contents thence 
 throughout the nervous circulations, until they ascend into the 
 organs of the cerebrum, where, in the series, they cast out the 
 infinitesimal forms of impurity and falsity by means of which 
 the evil spiiit works. 
 
 351. There is, third, a descent of the Divine breath through 
 them, which breaks up such states of slavery as magnetic men 
 in the flesh have induced upon their victims. In this case the 
 Divine breath assumes a body for itself, which is still more 
 ultimate, and winning its way through the dense mephitic 
 masses, which encompass and pervade the subjugated person, 
 it gathers them together, rolling them up as a scroll, and 
 dissolving them by the intensity of the redeeming fire. 
 
ISO AECANA OF CHIilSTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 352. It arrests, in tlio fourtli place, the operations of those 
 wandering spirits who, as vampires, prey upon the bodies of 
 mankind. The breaths go forth, and, ultimated into a fine 
 aromal essence, flow between the vampire and his victim. In- 
 stead of inhaHng the aerial principle from the one he feeds 
 upon, the Divine breath inflows and he is forced to inspire 
 it. He flies terror-stricken, burning with internal heat. The 
 body of the magnetic substance which clothes his spirit-form 
 is rapidly enveloped in billowy fire, and is stripped from him so 
 that he is cast out of nature into the subterranean "World of 
 Spirits. 
 
 353. By it, in the fifth place, the bodies of the good are 
 vitalised ; the soft, mild breath, surcharged with healing, gently 
 woos its way into the sufiering frame, distributing new life to 
 the nervous essence throughout the physical structui'es ; and the 
 vapours and miasms which engender disease, and which contain 
 infinitesimal larvae productive of decay and death, are driven 
 out and dissipated. The organs respond to the benignant im- 
 pulse, and the wheels of life resume once more their play. 
 
 354. Sixth, it visits the victims of prepossession, enchanted 
 though demons to desire nuptial unions with such as are 
 inaccessible to them, or who would prove unmeet associates. 
 Both for the male and female sex is this good work performed. 
 When prepossessions are by means of -charms, talismans, and 
 magnetic objects in general, it restores the object to its natural 
 condition by expelling the infernal substance, which has been 
 injected into it from below. It gently absorbs from the spirit 
 and also from the person, the death-dealing magnetism by 
 means of which the demon who has wrought the prepossessions 
 maintains his sway. It should be mentioned here that pre- 
 possessions of this kind are often wrought without the one in 
 whose behalf they are exerted being conscious, or indeed will- 
 ing to take part in them. It matters not to the fiend whether 
 the one whose image he would impress upon the mind of the 
 yielding or desiring person is good or evil. It is enough for 
 him to imagine that results, prejudicial to peace of mind, can 
 be brought about. The wafted breath in many instances per- 
 forms a twofold work; it divides from itself, and while one 
 element or essence remains with the prepossessed person, restor- 
 
SEC. 352—357.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 187 
 
 ing tiie faculties to their normal action, the other, as a shaft of 
 Hghtning, strikes down the demon who pursues. 
 
 355. Finally, the Divine breath which thus descends and is 
 incorporated into the elements of the earth, in the last ex- 
 tremity closes the terrestrial career of such as make war against 
 the beloved of the Lord who seek to serve Him in the new 
 creation. It does this by arresting the action of the heart. 
 After this is accomphshed, the breath returns, restoring the 
 elements through which it has descended, to their incorporate 
 place. Through internal respiration, therefore, the seven-fold 
 series of labours here enumerated are designed to be wrought 
 out. Let it be taken notice of, that whoever may be the agent, 
 whether of high or low degree, the whole work, from inception 
 to consummation, belongs to the Lord, and by Hiiii is carried 
 on. 
 
 356. '^'' And charity,^' signifies, organic relations existing be- 
 tween the new celestial-natural man, respiring also in conjunc- 
 tion with the world- soul of our orb and of many earths and suns, 
 through conspiration with whom, the mighty works which he 
 is made use of to accomplish in the world, are carried on. The 
 fays who live in the aerial spaces and extenses of the celestial 
 systems of unfallen men, however remote in space be the orb 
 which is their habitation, when a certain stage in the death of 
 the selfhood is reached, are wafted forth in pairs and com- 
 panies, and in the swiftness of the cerebral light are led into 
 the inhabitant of oui' earth who begins to receive the new 
 creation. With every heart-throb of brotherly kindness and 
 charity experienced by the unfallen man of the harmonic orb, 
 to the man of the new creation upon our orb, some precious 
 increment of divine substance descends through his respira- 
 tions, and is contained within his own person, uutil sent forth 
 by an opening of the breath of one into the breath of the 
 other. 
 
 357. Vast arcana begin here to be seen. The happy, joyous 
 fays, sporting in the human air, experience in themselves a 
 sympathy for the terrestrial man, who begins to revive in the 
 new life ; as those who journey into a far country they bid 
 farewell to their kindred and to their father's house, and are 
 conducted into the stranger habitation, carrying with them 
 
188 ABCANA OF CIIBISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 the peculiar quality of the bosom life in whicli tlicy have been 
 formerly inspherod. Initiated into their new home, they be- 
 come domesticated in it, and live to promote the uses to which 
 it is devoted; conspiring with a SAvcet consent in the universal 
 motion, and warring against evil in the impulse communicated 
 by the divine breaths which descend into it. Eeplenished 
 thus, and enriched by innocent and beauteous impersonal 
 bretkren, who, though in space insignificant, are powerful, as 
 forms, for the reception and distribution of heavenly poten- 
 cies, the new man wars mightily to enfranchise and redeem 
 his race. 
 
 358. After the old natural soul has begun to perish, a vast 
 enlargement occurs in all the plenitudes of the body. Wlicre 
 before, through sympathy and correspondence, one fay could 
 find a place, ten thousand now may have room and locality. 
 At first, their work is confined to combat against infinitesimal 
 living creatures bred from evil passions, and injected from 
 the Hells, which have found a lodgment within the system. 
 When this is done, peace is established within the human space 
 inhabited by them. The Holy Spirit then descends through a 
 series of breaths, encompassing the man with the first degree 
 of a protective aura, which becomes to the happy fays involved 
 landscapes wherein they dwell. But out of this and through 
 it, that inmost flame of the Divine presence, kindled in the 
 centre of the personality, shines with lasting glory, and is to 
 them what the sun is to our mundane sphere. In it they see 
 All-Father's face, and drink rapture and vigour from its 
 enlivening and death-dispersing rays. When this process of 
 extension is made permanent thus far, the fays who have here- 
 tofore been engaged in the various combats, enter into rest 
 and peace, engaging in the composite labours of the harmonic 
 civilization-sphere, living in the glory and beauty of an 
 infinitesimal Eden. 
 
 359. " Charity,'' signifies, again, such things as the new 
 man accomplishes in the bodies of earth's inhabitants, through 
 fay work. If his use be that of a teacher of the Word, the 
 Holy Ghost, which imparts through the breaths its mighty 
 influence, clothes its proceeding rays as they go forth with 
 the subtle human element in which the fays exist, dispersing 
 
SEC. 358—361.] TRE APOGALTPSM 189 
 
 it tlirougliout huge places of assemblage. Prior to this^ 
 however, from illustrious minds iu tlie perception of the 
 knowledge of the internal senses of the Word upon the har- 
 monic orbs, solar and planetary, the fays who correspond 
 to the combatant pi'inciple in the Divine mind against evil 
 and its inversions, go forth and occupy the outermost space 
 in the fay realms of the new man. As the glory of God 
 through the Divine breath descends, it becomes to them a sun- 
 litten space in which, moving forth, they address themselves to 
 the work for which they are empowered. The Divine Spirit, 
 through the spoken Word, penetrates the receptive and the 
 contrite ; touching the conscience and rousing up the latent 
 affections for divine truth and charity within the will. At this 
 the demons endeavour, by inflowing into the infinitesimal 
 organic forms, which are evil, to suppress the state of humilia- 
 tion and reception, and to induce obstinacy, increduHty, and 
 heart-hardness. But the fays do battle against the embodied 
 aifections of evil, into which the demons have instilled their 
 virus, slaying multitudes ; while the individual thus assisted 
 feels mountains of earthiness rolled away. 
 
 360. " Charity,^' also signifies, the introduction of celestial 
 literature and art thi^ough men of this type, who, bodily upheld 
 by the world-soul, and spiritually in conjunction with the 
 Celestial Heaven, produce lyric, epic, and dramatic poetry, a 
 varied romance, true to the spirit of the celestial humanity, or 
 develop a new school in pictorial art. " Charity,^' signifies, 
 also, that men of this type, through insensible respiration, will 
 absorb a deadly virus from the Hells, by means of which 
 demons at the present tirae are preparing the way for the 
 seven last plagues. But this virus will harm them not, being 
 neutrahsed by the breath which they receive from the Lord. 
 
 361. Many noble works in the more durable arts will arise 
 among those who are of this quality. The vast genius of 
 Benvenuto Cellini, though warped through self-service, and 
 contracted through vice and debauchery, and by participation 
 in the cm-rent madness of his time, yet represents, with these 
 great exceptions, a something of the style of genius which 
 such will possess. But the mind of CeUini was a hovel, com- 
 pared to the palatial structures in the new understanding 
 
190 AECANA OF GHBISTIANITT. [chap. ti. 
 
 wliicli tlieso will exliibit. They are under a copious influx 
 from tlie Celestial Heavens, tlirough tlie world-souls of the 
 the suns. Cellini was an egoist, but these will be men of the 
 rarest humility, doing all things for the Lord, and esteeming 
 themselves simply as agents for the outworking of the inspira- 
 tions of the artist God. 
 
 3G2. "And service," signifies, the new agi'iculture to which 
 another variety of new men of this genius will be devoted. 
 The whole world will eventually be underdrained and sub- 
 soilcd, — provinces occupied by evil nationalities excepted — its 
 earths chemically reduced, its whole substance, so far as need- 
 ful for agricultural pursuits, prepared for the Divine ends, with 
 an art that emulates and imitates the fine culture of the har- 
 monic orbs. The Great Mother, the world-soul, though im- 
 personal, delights to impart a rich rejuvenating essence to all 
 of the new order who seek to redeem the noble agricultural 
 art from savageness and from a mercenary spirit. When the 
 field becomes the altar, and the husbandman the priest, and 
 the products of the season a tribute to the All-bountiful, that 
 His merciful ends may be fulfilled, the world-soul will inflow, 
 and men will live through a century of delightful and genial 
 activity, passing away at last as does the golden, setting sun. 
 
 363. It also signifies, another variety of the same genius ; 
 Shepherds in mountain-lands. The sierras both of the eastern 
 and western continents will yet behold their slopes adorned 
 with a pastoral race, simple in habit and delighting in a round 
 of beautiful harmonic festivities. Arcadia, pictured by the 
 poets, shorn of all impurities, and replete with the innocencies of 
 the celestial angels, will appear with man. The care of flocks 
 to men of open respiration wiU afibrd, in the new age, a 
 dehghtfal preparation for the subsequent labours of religion 
 and the State. The lonely man who lives for ends of sei"vice 
 in companionship with the gentle domesticated animals, breath- 
 ing the pure air of hills and mountains, who bares his bosom 
 to the winds, and through his feet takes in the juices of the 
 rocks, meets the invisible spirits of an impersonal kind, through 
 whom admittance is obtained into the natural temple of Deity. 
 For descriptions of impersonal spirits in the Heavens and 
 upper Spiritual World see A. of C. I. 1, 33. To culture the 
 
SEC. 362—365.] THE APOCALYPSE. 191 
 
 mind iu sucli fine knowledges, books are insufficient. Internal 
 respiration must return, and tlie selfhood pass away, and the 
 false kabits of corrupt society be bravely put aside, and prayer 
 and faitk and purity and honour and self-sacrifice, with all 
 their gentle train, lead forth the child of genius into com- 
 munion with the whispering leaf and the talking stream. To 
 such the dryad, the oread, the nymph of the vale and the 
 hill and the fountain prove no fable. The universe which 
 God has made is richer than we dream. 
 
 36.4. The illustrious merchant princes who founded and 
 aggrandised the lordly houses of Genoa, Florence, and Venice 
 directing their attention at once to the increase of knowledge, 
 the embelHshment of their respective countries with the beau- 
 tiful arts, the patronage and the sustentation of genius, and 
 the enrichment and freedom of the State, afford, though in 
 that dim and distant manner spoken of before in the case of 
 Cellini, dubious points of resemblance whence to sketch the 
 lofty and magnanimous minds of the new age, of the quality 
 next under consideration. These are pivots, on whose enterprise 
 shall revolve the wheels of the new commerce. The world 
 awaits the true commercial dignity, nor will it wait in vain. 
 Ships sailed by direct inspiration will yet traverse the oceans, 
 and in the new type of master-mariners appear the true 
 chivalry of the sea. Far more readily than the vessel obeys 
 the tiller, will their spirits yield obedience to the touch of 
 God. These, also, will respire in the open manner through 
 the celestial in conjunction with a breath continued through 
 the world-souls of the universe. 
 
 365. " And faith," signifies, that all such will be elevated 
 at last, through obedience, above all resistant influences and 
 powers j holding, fast the pivotal doctrine of the new man, the 
 absolute, implicit obedience of the spirit to the Holy Ghost. 
 " And thy patience," signifies, triumphs which they will 
 achieve through this absolute unwavering obedience. These 
 may be generally inferred by all that has been said before. 
 "And thy works," here signifies, new labours. Their fii-st 
 toils will be simplistic. In whatever profession they may be 
 engaged during this time, they will respire in conjunction with 
 societies of angels who are in simplistic uses in the skies. 
 
192 ABCANA OF CIIBISTIANITY. [cuap. ii. 
 
 Nothing is permaueut, except the general fact of obedience, 
 in the state of the open respiring man. He inherits a future 
 of which no man knoweth, nor can he predicate, except so 
 far as the use is given, the state of to-morrow from the con- 
 dition of to-day ; nor even this except in a remote manner. 
 He is apt to imagine, at first, that like the man of closed 
 respiration, he may fulfil a round of employments during life, 
 with little change either of thought, sensation, or conduct ; nor 
 is it without much experience that he discovers how much the 
 Lord delights in practising upon every side of character, bring- 
 ing out through unexpected conditions, requiring new faith 
 and new faculty, those qualities of the personality which, in 
 the customary uses, were becoming inert. How much the 
 Lord abominates pedantry, and delights in spontaneity and 
 freedom, can hardly be expressed in words. 
 
 366. Exercises are provided, as the divine breath begins to 
 institute new motions in the frame, for reviving disused mus- 
 cular powers. God is the divine gymnast, and the Holy Spirit 
 moving in the faculties restores free play, relieving from 
 cramped attitudes and restrained postures, not alone the body 
 of the mind, but of the person. The man of the type now 
 under review will unfold an immense muscularity, whether com- 
 pacted "UTLthin a body of small dimensions, or extended into one 
 of magnificent proportions. The present- race of narrow-chested, 
 piping devotees, painfully contracted into pews, are nar- 
 rowed by the discom'se which, in skeleton Hues of opinion, 
 claims to represent the Word. With lean angular mental sys- 
 tems, stripped of the flesh of life, they tend painfully to morose- 
 ness and savageness over the creeds which they recite, the 
 psalms they sing, and often the prayers that formally they 
 utter. The men whose religion has a keen frostiness in its air, 
 that nips the young growths of spontaneous, heartfelt aspira- 
 tion to the Creator, will vanish, like incubi, from the breast of 
 the sleeper, when the young morning releases him from the 
 brooding vampire. 
 
 367. The drilled soldiers of Theology, who are only distin- 
 guished from the inglorious herd by a perception of routine, by 
 a knowledge of how to keep rank and file, and, at the same 
 word of command, to fire with automatic precision, will disband 
 
SEC. 366—368] TSE APOCALYPSK 193 
 
 before tlie mighty tones of tlie Eternal Spirit, and tlie world 
 will know their place no more for ever. The entire habit of 
 worship will undergo a change when the pulpit is occupied by- 
 men of the new respiration. Mighty in this use will be the 
 Thyatiran church, when respiration is established as a known 
 and normal fact. The tide, which first is slow and can scarcely 
 be seen to glide as it stirs amidst the sluggish human mass, 
 will force its way as with wedges and bolts of moving light- 
 ning. Ten men will shake a city. The riveted lightnings of 
 divine argument, leaping from the surcharged electric clouds of 
 the Holy Spirit^s eloquence, a power revealed from an infinite 
 depth, with persuasion and constraining cogency, shall be, in 
 every land where it breaks forth, penetrative as the fire-cry in 
 the dead of night, but sweet as the spicy breath wafted before 
 the morning. As this ministry appears, the Thyatiran church 
 will be conspicuous in labours ; developing men of vast resource 
 and powerful physique, giants of the pulpit, to whom the body 
 is a huge storehouse of vital energies. 
 
 368. '^^Works,^^ also signifies here, editorial labours through 
 men who have won their way by multiform duties and vast 
 series of experiences to the composite condition. The press 
 will be liberated from its bondage. The free play of the pen 
 has yet to come. The morning article should be bolder, as a 
 sketched outline of events and principles, than a cartoon of 
 Eaflfaelle's representative figures. The man who writes, breath- 
 ing the fire-breaths fi'om the world-soul of his planet, and 
 glancing from its heart upon the orbed completeness of human- 
 ity, whose lungs repeat in rhythmic play the pulse of the Celes- 
 tial Heaven, and all whose mental motions follow in the train of 
 the vibrations which the Holy Ghost inspires ; who lives in the 
 instant perception of the divine round of all the sciences, and 
 comprehends the new harmony of God, through each degree of the 
 vast series, from atomic formations to archangelhoods ; who sees 
 the fiery floods of divine arts, philosophies and industries leap- 
 ing through silent depths of regenerate natures, to their terres- 
 trial field, and writes for truth and humanity in this completeness 
 of light and life ; that man will be the representative angel of 
 the world^s new press, and, of the works through him it shall be 
 declared, " God said. Let there be light : and there was light." 
 
 N 
 
194 ABC AN A OF CHBISTIANITT. [chap. ir. 
 
 369. Without open respiration this is impossible, but with 
 it, at last, as easy as now to perform the common duties of the 
 pen. The hard thing is, to will in God, to have no will but His 
 will ; through years of patient struggle, toil, and suffering, to 
 feel invading death and hell seeking to subdue the will and in- 
 tellect, and still to press on to the goal of the noblest inspi- 
 rations ; to give one^s self up wholly to Him who clothes the 
 grass and rays forth beauty through the flowers. Tlie state of 
 newness in Jesus Christ, pei-petuated and consolidated through 
 the long series of given respirations, at last makes the indi- 
 vidual adequate for the performance of colossal functions. But 
 men must be willing, from the inmost heart, to be sold into 
 physical slavery and be esteemed all their days as the vilest of 
 convicts, if their Lord requires, without a murmur of regret, 
 before they can be enlarged and glorified in " works ^' like 
 these. 
 
 370. It may furthermore be said that the organization of 
 the divine kingdom, or empire, or cosmopolitan theocracy and 
 commonwealth through this people, as men are found therein 
 who are faithful and heroic, and fully competent, will be the 
 most gigantic work, and involve the most stupendous series of 
 achievements that has ever been attempted or carried out in 
 the history of the world. 
 
 371. It will first be the means of displaying the true charac- 
 ter of Holy Scripture through its celestial ultimate degree, 
 whereof the work is already begun. When it is considered 
 that it is by means of this degree that open respiration is 
 brought into the world, and the Lord's coming made manifest, 
 both in its fact, its methods, and its ends, it will be seen that 
 all societies for the circulation of the Bible hitherto have un- 
 dertaken, when compared with it, but the shadows of enter- 
 prises. Yet this is but the beginning of its toils. 
 
 372. Through this people our Lord restores the binding and 
 the loosing powers ; — the binding power, by means of which, 
 as elsewhere stated, vast legions of the infernals, as they rise to 
 suppress the di\aue breath, and to enslave and kill the inhabi- 
 tants of the race who are entering into composite regeneration, 
 are rendered powerless and restrained as captives. It institutes 
 from first principles the new chivalry, and arms every one of 
 
SEC. 369—374.] THE APOCALTPSK I95 
 
 its rank and file with angelic weapons. It makes tlie whole 
 world, so far as it extends, an entrenched fortress, a fortified 
 city. It weds the sword to the sword arm, and measures blades 
 with Lucifer. In this connection also it introduces the loosing 
 powers. Universal liberations are effected in the advancement 
 of its breaths, and in the concentration of its forces. It holds 
 in its constitution those universal solvents that liberate from 
 captivity the imprisoned elements of the divine affections, 
 whether as infinitesimals in the atomic nuclei, or as fettered 
 nationalities in the humanity of the globe. 
 
 373. Through it the fays are re-introduced into the ex- 
 panses of the human constitution. Through it their kindred 
 fraternal species descend from the open-breathing systems 
 of the mighty men of the unfallen worlds, and march forth 
 with heroic stimulations and invigorations to build up the 
 emaciated organisms of the human race. Through it right- 
 eousness and justice and mercy, in their first principles, re- 
 appear. Through it the elements in the terrestrial atmosphere 
 begin to be purified, and its fine forces extend into soils and 
 waters. Through it that vast infernal-natural creation, which 
 is called " Imozen," elsewhere spoken of, begins to be con- 
 sumed, as the fii'es of judgment sweep by their vortices and 
 whirlwinds into the aromal space. Through it the drooping 
 fauna and flora of the world are interpervaded, and preparations 
 made for the final regeneration of the animal and vegetable, 
 no less than the human kingdoms. Through it, by degrees, 
 the wandering spirits infesting the subtle parts of nature are 
 checked in their marauds, divested of their potencies, and ren- 
 dered subject to harmonic sway. In fine, there is no disorder 
 that it does not meet and menace ; and no specialty of order 
 that it does not endeavour to organize, extend and lead forth 
 to a supreme dominion. 
 
 374. But the Thyatiran church, by the very necessity of its 
 constitution, can only maintain and extend its presence in the 
 world, by meeting evil on its ultimate natural ground. It is 
 the pioneer, the forerunner, the herald. It throws out its scouts 
 in a perpetual reconnaissance. As through it begins the celes- 
 tial-ultimate unfolding of the Word, so through it begins the 
 heavenly-natural reorganization of the individual man ; and so 
 
 N 2 
 
196 ARCAJiA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. it. 
 
 through it begins the cliseutangloment of individuals from all 
 spells and bondages and their reunition in collective harmony, 
 At the present time, throughout Christendom, the three great 
 things are tending to dissolution; namely, the Church, or the 
 religious system; the State, or the political system; and 
 Society, in which both Church and State are embodied, and 
 which is the universal industrial and monetary system. At 
 one end of the line all faiths are shattered, and at the other 
 all properties and tenures made insecure. As the human 
 race bursts its ancient enthralments and limitations, it tends 
 to a point where the ancient equilibrium of forces exists no 
 more. 
 
 " Democracy, a flame, devours 
 The shrines, the palaces and tx)wers, 
 Ruling in awful judgment hours." 
 
 375. The world is full of the ruins of attempts at the em- 
 bodiment of something different from the lowest and most 
 degraded selfish and sensual principle in associated life. 
 Christ, by His constraining presence, kept a little circle of 
 immediate disciples in a supersensual and unselfish attitude. 
 When the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost, these followers 
 of the now risen and glorified Redeemer, seem to have been 
 conscious that the embodiment of the Christian principle in- 
 volved new societary regulations. They were not the subjects 
 of an infallible guidance, as their own admissions in the records 
 prove. The practical difficulties in the way of administration 
 of fraternal order and equity, fell upon them with appalling 
 force. Economical disputes first menaced the integrity of the 
 brotherhood; and the complaint arose that certain "widows 
 were neglected in the daily ministrations." At this point was 
 developed the germ of that weakness which led to the long and 
 dark and bloody train of all schisms, heresies, and apostasies. 
 The apostles shrank from this issue, as they had faltered twice 
 before ; namely, when they would not watch one hour, support- 
 ing by their active sphere the agonized human body of our 
 Lord in the garden of Gethsemane ; and as, immediately after, 
 they forsook Him and fled, when He was betrayed and led to 
 crucifixion. They had gathered a multitude of earnest, faithful 
 proselytes, and they had pi-eached self-renunciation, and living 
 and labouring for one another, and had accepted in trust the 
 
SEC. 375—377.] THE APOCALYPSE. 197 
 
 wealth wLich these earnest, honest neophytes had poured at 
 their feet. 
 
 376. The chi'onic, incurable weakness of that twelve here 
 betrayed itself again. Possessed as they were of many of the 
 virtues, as a body they were deficient in the crowning grace. 
 The Spirit of the Lord God, through His now Glorified Hu- 
 manity, had descended. They had taught the multitude how 
 to drink in, and how to be filled with that Spirit, and 
 loyal and in good faith had been the response. But they 
 seem to have thought that Christianity could organize itself, 
 that this germ dropped down from Heaven, provided there were 
 ground for it to fall into, would become a tree. They had not 
 the most remote conception that the infant body was entering 
 upon a historic course, the result of which would be a Greek 
 antichrist, a Latin antichrist, an antichrist, in fine, developed in 
 the midst of every aggregation of believers throughout mankind. 
 Whatever forecast they possessed, they did not look forward to 
 the time when great kingdoms should be nominally in the fold, 
 the heads of the Church be drunken rakes, and the prelates 
 opulent sinecurists, while millions of the brethren should be 
 ground to powder between the exactions of the regal and of 
 the sacerdotal power, and multitudes of the sisters driven to 
 prostitution for a little bread. They did not see the choicest 
 revenues of kingdoms consecrated, generation after generation, 
 and their opulence cast at the feet of those who were to be, in 
 the order of time, their successors, but only to be squandered 
 afterwards by ecclesiastics, elevated into dignity through buy- 
 ing preferments of the concubines of Christian kings. What- 
 ever page of the future they may have read, it was not the 
 history of the religious establishment of Italy or of Great 
 Britain. They never scanned those of its paragraphs which 
 sum up the history and the development of the ecclesiastical 
 principle under the Christian name in Spain, or the slave states 
 of America, or the Dutch and Portuguese East Indies, or the 
 French and Brjtish and Spanish West Indies. But why enu- 
 merate a sickening catalogue of abominations ? 
 
 377. They undertook to propagate Christianity without or- 
 ganizing it ; to wrest men out of an old system without prac- 
 tically initiating them into a new system. They said, " It is 
 
198 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ir. 
 
 not reason that we should leave the Word of God and serve 
 tables, but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and the 
 ministry of the Word/' The record goes on to state that they 
 advised the brethren to select seven men to discharge certain 
 duties in respect to these charities ; that the saying pleased 
 the people, who thereupon made a choice, whereupon the 
 apostles praj'od and laid their hands upon them ; and that, 
 practically, ended the work of the twelve, so far as the embodi- 
 ment of Christianity in social life was concerned. Henceforth 
 the number of the believers multiplied with incredible rapidity ; 
 but, in a more alarming ratio, the quality of their faith, the 
 essential divinity of their life deteriorated, till, in a few centu- 
 ries, the churches and the nationalities of the disciples, with 
 isolated individual exceptions, were packs of howling barba- 
 rians ; till the moral and affectional and fraternal standards 
 of Christendom were below those of the Confucians of China, or 
 the worshippers of the Great Spirit in the wilds of Western 
 America. In a word, they propagated faith without organizing 
 it into social charity, and into industrial equity, which is the 
 foundation of charity. As a result, in spite of the presence 
 of the Holy Spirit, doctrinal divisions rose among themselves, 
 as the " Acts of the Apostles " proves. As another result, 
 doctrine became continually more nebulous. 
 
 378. All things march hand in hand; the principles of truths 
 can only be verified and understood to the extent in which 
 they are carried out in practical application. The apostles 
 instituted a spiritual work which led regeneration into the 
 spiritual nature of man, but not down through the corporeal, 
 to all ultimates. As a result they retained or elaborated as 
 much of the Lord's truth as applied to what they did, but they 
 were unable to retain and to preserve in the Church, or to em- 
 body in clear statement, those principles which they did not 
 teach men to embody. They divorced, at tliis point, the 
 spiritual from the temporal, the internal from the external. 
 The consequences were universal. Failing to build solid work 
 beneath the feet of the disciples, failing to embody order in 
 ultimate works, they left the door open for failures everywhere. 
 They expected that miraculous gifts were always to continue. 
 Mankind, in the decHning age before the flood, did not dream 
 
SEC. 378—379.] THE AFOCALTPSE. 199 
 
 but that open respiration would always endure ; so the apostles 
 evidently expected a potent personal inspiration always to 
 endure. In limiting the area of their own works, they limited 
 the operations of the Holy Spirit. How far they were respon- 
 sible or culpable let no man judge ; but on the other hand let 
 no man say that they were fully excusable. They, at least by 
 indirection, instituted here the beginning of that fatal divorce 
 between the religious function and the practical function, 
 which has resulted in the moral and social atheism of the nine- 
 teenth century. One almost hears the Lord in Spirit repro- 
 nouncing over them those touching words, " Could ye not 
 watch one hour V One almost sees the Lord uplifted in Spirit 
 upon that great industrial cross, whereon His faith was to be 
 re-crucified through nineteen centuries of inversion, in the 
 broken hearts and bleeding bodies of the innumerable toilers 
 of the globe ; sees Him looking in vain for those who ate with 
 Him the passover, but have now forsaken Him and fled. They 
 had an exaggerated idea of the importance of praying 
 and of preaching, as compared with that of embodying and of 
 organizing the truths of duty and the inspirations of self- 
 sacrifice. They should have known, if they were the followers of 
 the Carpenter, that their Master dared not preach till He had 
 trained Himself through industrial service. In a word, they 
 shrank from industry, and in so doing, the orb of their inspira- 
 tion began to wane. 
 
 379. One is astonished if he will but dare to let himself 
 face the question, of the tremendous failure, in appearance, of 
 the most full and absolute of all the promises and predictions 
 of the Master, " These signs shall follow them that believe ; 
 in my name shall they cast out devils ; they shall speak with 
 new tongues ; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any 
 deadly thing it shaU not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on 
 the sick, and they shall recover." What is the legitimate deduc- 
 tion from this, but that the Lord God was to fill with His Spirit 
 the aggregate^ body of the new Christian people, which should 
 cast out the world's diaboHsms, and expel its satanhoods, and 
 take into itself — yet in so doing, neutralise and destroy — the 
 very bulk and substance of all its poisons and con-uptions ? He 
 did not predict and promise that very soon His disciples should 
 
200 ABCANA OF CUBISTIANITT. [cuap. ii. 
 
 be divided into great bodies, Orthodox and Arian, cutting 
 each other's throats, confiscating each other's properties, and 
 dooming, so far as man might doom, each other's spirits to 
 everlasting damnation. Yet He did His part. He fulfilled 
 His promise. He came again at Pentecost. The apostles re- 
 ceived those powers, but received them subject to the one in- 
 evitable condition. Their duty was to have endeavoured to have 
 instituted unity,. and to have allowed no individual to have been 
 accepted as a full member of the Church of God on Earth, in 
 whom those gifts of the Spirit were wanting or deficient. In 
 a word, again, they should have made slow progress but sure 
 progress. There were two paths open before them. They 
 chose the one which at the first promised the largest immediate 
 result. Evidently their great desire was to multiply believers ; 
 they could not bear to wait ; they did not see, as one might 
 infer, that enthusiasm without organization leads inevitably to 
 dissension and destruction. Instead of organizing a militant 
 host, in whom the prayer of our Lord in His humanity found 
 its fulfilment, '"^ I in them, that they all may be one, even as we 
 are one ; I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made 
 perfect in one j " they organized a body that from the begin- 
 ning was never thoroughly unified or consolidated ; a body 
 negative to the world and to its ruling powers ; a body that 
 has always been enslaved through despotisms generated prin- 
 cipally within itself. 
 
 380. Of all gifts, those which are spiritual are of the most 
 uncertain tenure. The spiritual can only be kept as it is em- 
 bodied within the material. One can see, in this hght, to what 
 kind of succession the Divine Carpenter, who was also the 
 Divine Builder of the cosmos and all its wonders, promised 
 perpetual prolifications of this divine -natural potency. Cannot 
 the most superficial reader of His life see that, from the begin- 
 ning to the end. He was simply a Working Man ? His very 
 outermost frame was built up as a sanctuary of indwelling in- 
 dustries. He did not cease to labour when He laid aside the 
 axe and hammer ; He was simply working on in the very 
 marrow and spirit of toil. His preaching was not what men 
 now understand by preaching. The words that went out 
 through Him were projected as forms of the divine force ; His 
 
SEC. 380—382.] THE APOCALYPSK 201 
 
 first workshop was that of tlie carpenter, but His latter tlie 
 body of humanity ; He simply meant that His disciples should 
 carry on this work, that they should be knit together as the 
 affections were consolidated within His bosom, or the sub- 
 stances throughout His frame. 
 
 381. The life of Christ is the gospel of industry. He was 
 able to be an artisan, a physician, an exerciser, a ruler over 
 nature, a teacher and lawgiver, a Prince and a Saviour, and at 
 last the universal Redeemer, through the perpetual unition 
 maintained between His human nature and the divine. By 
 means of that divine-human. He came to dwell in the spirits 
 and bodies of the disciples ; giving Himself, however, according 
 to the planes in which they embodied the inspirations. That 
 kingdom of harmony, which verbally is contained in the spirit 
 of the apocalypse, was waiting to become an embodied new 
 creation through His people. The powers that constitute the 
 seven Chm'ches were, in first principles, descending then. 
 There were nationalities beyond the Roman empire whereto 
 the apostles might have journeyed, wherein they might have 
 gathered the germ of a Christian people; there were unin- 
 habited lands to which they might have been led for this pur- 
 pose. They took a narrow, technical, and Jewish view of their 
 commission. They founded abortions instead of terrestrial 
 angelhoods. They failed to comprehend the principle of ex- 
 clusion. They failed to organize the rising body upon the 
 ground of non-complicity with evil. They lingered in the 
 border-lands of compromise. Paul withstood and overcame 
 that prejudice in their midst, under the influence of which the 
 converts from among the Pharisees taught, that without cir- 
 cumcision there was no salvation ; but the astounding thing is, 
 that this church in Jerusalem, which is the mother of churches, 
 should from the start have embodied within itself the heresy of 
 ritualism. Who can tell what other heresies were generated 
 there ? In this primitive field, the full ears and the barren 
 ears, the fat kine and the lean kine, were planted and herded 
 together ; and, as in the ancient vision, the full ears were 
 devoured by the barren ears, and the fat kine wasted by the 
 lean kine. 
 
 382. In the elaboration of this subject, volumes might be 
 
202 AFCANA OF CHUISTIAKITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 written. Cliristiauity is not speculation^ and not merely morals, 
 but solidarity. Christ came to establisli solidarity, and this is 
 the hitherto unfulfilled mission of Christianity in the world. 
 These considerations inevitably connect themselves with what 
 is stated concerning the "works '^ of the Church called Thyatira. 
 As the new creation begins to be established, even in one man, 
 he will gradually cease from the inculcation of doctrine, and 
 confine himself to the instituting of harmony. As this church 
 is established with two or three, their state must inevitably be 
 one of isolation and of solidarity. As this church extends to 
 ten or twenty or a hundred, all are included within this circle 
 of isolation, and knit together in this "body of solidarity. If 
 converts are made in reality, as methods of dehverance are 
 opened to them, they are caught up through the openings of the 
 respirations into that body which thus begins to be revealed. 
 The divine respirations which then inflow, can only be retained 
 in the body as it begins to institute the works of harmony. 
 For instance, each, series or band or body can only affiliate 
 to itself a new member, as it is prepared to institute the indi- 
 vidual into his or her own suitable employment. This people, 
 therefore, generally, is obliged, as the condition upon which 
 depends the perpetuity of its existence, to organize righteous- 
 ness into industrial service. 
 
 383. Much that is here stated is preliminary to future 
 expositions, but a few further specifications must be made. 
 The organization of industry seems a simple thing, neverthe- 
 less it is the most diflacult of all things when wrought out from 
 first principles in the Word. For instance, three or four shoe- 
 makers, from motives of self-interest, may form an equitable 
 combination to carry on their business, and be successful. 
 There is nothing absolutely in the way of the organization of 
 crafts and guilds in the world, in the natural form of the co- 
 operative principle. But when it comes to first principles, 
 much is in the way, which, when stated, will seem shadowy, 
 but when encountered, prove mountainous. In marching 
 from di\ane principles to their realizations, one stands at last 
 face to face with a solid wall. The two grounds of industry 
 with the natural man are self-interest and especial taste ; under 
 the stimulus of either there is persistent and successful 
 
SEC. 383—384.] THE APOCALTPSE. 203 
 
 labour. When men in the natural selfhood combine for in- 
 dustrial purposes, what is termed "enlightened selfishness/* 
 that is, the infernal principle embodied in rational wisdom and 
 prudence, is sufficient. Men may go by night, as to their 
 spirits, into Hell, and form intimacies with demons, yet labour 
 by day in the co-operative union with increased efficiency. 
 The co-operative principle is successfully embodied and with 
 astonishing pecuniary results, by the Oneida Perfectionists, the 
 ground of whose religious union is an indiscriminate sexual 
 relation between all the members. 
 
 384. But the rudest and simplest of co-operative movements 
 with the new people is impossible, except as it proceeds from 
 working in the law of the new harmony of God. Instead of 
 self-interest and the special taste being consulted, the worker 
 has to fall back upon the divine interest and the divine taste. 
 For instance, the man may be of delicate habits, accustomed 
 from infancy to be waited upon in a varied and assiduous ser- 
 vice ; he may have gratified his religious sentiment by pictures 
 of the heavenly forms upon his walls, and by the writings of 
 saints in his library ; he may have delighted himself by giving 
 from his superfluity to the needy. Prayer may have been a 
 luxury, and Sabbath devotion in some ritualistic temple, a 
 refined, aesthetic, and spiritual indulgence. He may have 
 deemed it a privilege to visit his bishop, and perhaps to spend a 
 week amidst the elegant and refined, yet chastened hospitali- 
 ties of the episcopal palace ; but that dear man, though he 
 came with the wealth of a continent, could find no such indul- 
 gences in the church called Thyatira. He would find himself 
 there not for pleasures, but for services. As respiration was 
 opened in his frame, he would discover that his body was full 
 of ancestral impurities, which could only be removed by the 
 embodiment of influx in physical toil. He might inquire of 
 some one far more illamined than any bishop, what literature 
 was best adapted to his state, and in answer to earnest desire 
 to be shown the right way, might have placed in his hands, 
 not the works of some devout mystic, but the trowel or the 
 plane. The Lord God Almighty saith in this church, " Whoso, 
 however rich or cultured or accustomed to delicate ministra- 
 tions, will not force and form within himself such a love of 
 
204 ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 absolute and ultimate service as sliall make him content and 
 joyful to engage in any industrial use, shall liave no part or lot 
 in its first resurrection, or its crown of life." 
 
 385. The stimulus of self-interest and that of taste must be 
 removed, before a man can be fully aware as to the grounds 
 and motives of his labours ; he must fall into whatever special 
 labour shall most conduce to the good of the divine family or 
 series, into which he is admitted. The experience of the world 
 has proved that men will die as martyrs for religious truths, 
 whose working principles they Avould rather die than embody. 
 Divine co-operation only becomes possible from this ground. 
 " Where two or three are gathered together," saith our Lord, 
 " there am I in the midst of them." To understand what the 
 fulfilment of this promise implies, the believer must find his 
 way into one of those groups who embody God^s will through 
 new industries opened in church Thyatira. A man finds it 
 impossible to advance in these new industries, except as he 
 advances in respiration, regeneration, and bodily sanctification. 
 The Spirit of God takes possession of him, as he takes posses- 
 sion of his use. The Spirit of God reconstructs his spirit and 
 his body in harmony, as he puts forth labours to reconstruct 
 his own especial industry, into a vehicle of representation of 
 that harmony. He begins to respire at one with the angels, 
 as he begins to labour in unity with his .companions. He in- 
 draws more invigorating and copious inspirations, as he iden- 
 tifies himself more completely with his industrial function. 
 He enters through a new and living way into the tabernacle 
 of the Holiest, that is, the life of Christ realized in him. He 
 soon begins to comprehend more fully than can be taught in 
 words, concerning the nature of the "works" allotted to this new 
 people. More knowledge concerning the casting out of devils 
 and the other works which are promised as " signs following 
 those that believe," is evolved in a brief space through the 
 co-operative labour of one such series, than can be derived 
 from all the literature extant upon it in the world ; for the 
 knowledge is practical, that is, the substance of knowledge. 
 
 386. It is by the consolidation of individuals into harmonic 
 series for specific industries, that harmonic society is rendered 
 possible. Every pursuit, from the finest intellectual to the 
 
SEC. 385—387-] TRE APOCALYPSE. 205 
 
 most soKd ultimate^ has its specific infernal inversion in the 
 Hells. Before the least of series, in the least of industries, 
 can be established in divine order, the new man must combat 
 the demons who represent the embodiment of the aggregation 
 of the powers in the Hells, who work magic for the inversion 
 of that industry. For illustration, when the time comes for 
 the work of banking, of milling, or of manufacturing wooden 
 ware, to be engaged in by the new man, specific infiuxes de- 
 scend which begin to quicken the faculties for this end. At the 
 same time arrayed against them the hostile powers of Infernus 
 lead up their battalions. It is only by embodying the first 
 principles of divine order in the will and by leading out afiec- 
 tions for these especial uses into invincible determinations, 
 and then by engaging with all his might and force of character 
 in the indicated pursuits, that the subject of the Lord's king- 
 dom can maintain his ground in the new harmony ; can keep 
 his respirations from receding, can hold his feet from sliding, 
 can hold open the doorways that lead through his organism 
 into the spaces of the Heavens, or preserve his physical life 
 from ultimate destruction. 
 
 387. But when the grounds are conquered for a new 
 industry to rest on, a stone begins to be rolled against the 
 mouth of that especial Hell which opposes it, and a triumphal 
 archway begins to be opened into that Heaven which flows 
 down into it. The first new miller begins, by Divine aid, 
 to open that sluiceway, through which waters shall ulti- 
 mately flow to turn all the mill-wheels of the world. The 
 first new banker, who can stand in a truly ordered financial 
 institution, lays the foundation, not of a Bank of England, but 
 of a monetary power so vast, that ultimately, in the growths 
 and the extensions of the Divine kingdom, it shall stand repro- 
 duced as the imperial and colossal ruler of the exchano-es of 
 the planet. The initiament of each of the new industries is a 
 greater thing than the conquest of a continent. In course of 
 time the shoe-making brother becomes one of a terrestrial 
 angelhood of cordwainers, holding by sheer force of faithful- 
 ness of will, in deep subjection, the multitudinous demons who 
 invade the world through this variety of the pursuits of men. 
 Men can pray together in the same prayer-meetings for long 
 
20G ARCANA OF CHRISTIAN ITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 years, and at the end of that time di^dde on doctrinal and 
 speculative points, and become bitter personal enemies ; or 
 differ on political questions and burn each other's houses and 
 take each other's lives. But introduced into the new industries 
 they become so near and so dear in the sweet fellowship of 
 a divine use, that nothing can separate them. If one is sick, 
 thousrh removed to another continent, the other is aware of 
 it, and pours forth healing circulations from his own frame, 
 which traverse the electric circuits of the globe with vitalising 
 and nourishing powers. If one is infested and tormented 
 by some terrible rising from the Hells, whether sleeping or 
 waking, the other is spiritually and bodily aroused and eager 
 for his relief. This is fraternity indeed, and not its pietistic 
 simulation, and such are among the first beginnings of the 
 " works " of this new people. 
 
 388. The peculiarity of the genius of the Thyatiran people is 
 industrial comprehensiveness ; they are of those whose separate 
 industries thrive best as they are built together with others in 
 the great solidarity of harmony. The men who have founded 
 great empires have always been, in some sense, though in a 
 closed and often fearfully inverted condition, of a kindred make 
 to those who shall be its representative characters. Here are 
 natures who are well content, for their dwelling, with a house 
 of logs, but who lay out the plans of enterprises that shall 
 stand at last in harmonic cities, with an average architecture 
 surpassing the imperial and sacerdotal grandeur of Baalbec and 
 PalmjTa. Here is the germ of a people who are miserable 
 unless grouped and organized, respiring together and engaged, 
 as one, in laying such industrial foundations. Here is a wealth 
 of conception that dazzles one's imagination, combined with a 
 husbanding of resources and a quickening and evolution of 
 personal powers that multipHes wealth in the ratio of the in- 
 crease of all virtues. Here is an antique devotion to ideas, 
 and a loyalty to leaders who embody those ideas, that makes 
 the whole body compact as granite and penetrative as fire. 
 Here is granite and here is fire ; organization as coherent as are 
 the foundations of the globe, and ardours that are inexhaustible 
 as the heats within the earth's bosom and the flames that kindle 
 from its firmament. In a word, here are men, not shadows of men. 
 
SEC. 388—390.] THE AFOCALTFSE. 207 
 
 not pigmies, not simulations -, liere are personal forms for the 
 indwelling of incarnate God. (See " Pleasures of the Angels.^') 
 
 389. A pivotal man of this type, physically located in Great 
 Britain, can make his presence instantly felt, by accession of 
 force in respiration, among groups of his society at one and 
 the same instant, from America to the extreme east of Asia. 
 Those respiring in series, because labouring in series, in the 
 interchange of respirations can in the same manner uplift, 
 solace, and reinforce the pivotal man. This is one of the first 
 applications of the revived principle of solidarity. In the same 
 manner, if individuals of a given industry, in a series, are 
 suffering through specific infernal or infernal-natural attempts 
 to destroy that industry, a pivotal chief of the society, thouo-h 
 absent in space at the extremities of the globe, may inter- 
 unite himself with them and interflow through all their facul- 
 ties, by means of his radiative powers. But, in turn, if there 
 is an excess of life developed in their nervous organisms, co- 
 acting thus in unity, which is not required for their own phy- 
 sical necessities, in the interflow and interchange they lovingly 
 give out that surplus, not into the waste aii', but into the 
 bosom of their radiative leader and exemplar ; this is another 
 of the '"^ works" in the incipiency of solidarity. And such 
 interchanges are accomplished, whatever maybe the terrestrial 
 distances between them. 
 
 390. Wlien the Thyatiran church begins to assume form 
 and substance, what is here said will be but as the beginning 
 of "works."' The apostles in Gethsemane, as has been said be- 
 fore, slept supinely, while Jesus sweat great drops of blood, 
 and cried from His humanity, in the extremity of anguish, " If 
 it be possible, let this cup pass from me."' In the very begin- 
 nings of this order pivotal men of such a genius will be able 
 to pass months and seasons without one single interval during 
 which the natural will ceases to battle, the natural reason to 
 desist from thought, or the natural body to be relaxed, so that 
 it is no longer physically and actively in combat with the ulti- 
 mate forces of infernal sorceries. Or again, months and seasons 
 may thus pass, during which a pivotal man Avill never cease 
 from the more terrific watchings and combatings in the 
 spiritual degrees of the will, the reason, and the frame. Spirit 
 
20S ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 and body, knit up into one grand persistence, will be as the 
 mailed statue of a warrior, whoso sword-arm falls with the full 
 force of all the kindled and gathered powers, and shears re- 
 sistlessly through whatever infernal organism provokes the 
 blow. Or again, pivotal men of this quality may, at one and 
 the same time, serve as forms through which soft infantile re- 
 spii-ations may go forth for open breathing infants in their series; 
 and sharp, perceptional respirations for practical intellectual 
 men in their scries ; and corporeal, mechanical respirations for 
 different groups of artisans in their series ; and soothing and 
 restorative respirations for the suflFering and the infirm in their 
 series ; and acute and monitory respirations for the dull and 
 sluggish in their series. And so through vast particulars; 
 while, nevertheless, they may be carrying on, as occasion 
 serves, separate and individual works ; dealing with men of 
 the world as men of the world ; appearing with financiers as 
 financiers, or as men of external culture with the literati. 
 These " works '^ also are in the beginning of solidarity. 
 
 391. There are as elsewhere stated, means by which the 
 infernals labour to produce a respiration which is infernal- 
 natural, and so opposed to the divine-natural. A pivotal man 
 of this society exists in continuous rapport with all the organ- 
 isms in his society. If one of the body is thus menaced, 
 through his radiative and absorptive powers he gathers himself, 
 and begins at once to make his presence felt, as an agent of 
 the Lord, in the midst of the respirations of the afilicted frame. 
 If persons are in partially opened respiration, but with bodies 
 that have been obsessed or possessed, poisoned throughout by 
 infernal substances, infilled with magical elements, and weak- 
 ened through physical disease ; and if, moreover, lesions have 
 taken place in the brain, with paroxysms of insanity (supposing 
 here a hypothetical case), such persons would seem to be hope- 
 less ; especially if the infernals should begin to pour the 
 currents of the breathings of the Hells into their bodies. 
 There are two forms of infernal-natural respiration to which all 
 of a mediatorial character are liable. In the first of these, the 
 breaths proceed through the generative organs as through an 
 open mouth, inflate the subtle air-passages of the bowels, take 
 possession of the lungs, and drive back the respirations that 
 
SEC. 391—393.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 209 
 
 are divine-natural. In the second^ the infernal respirations 
 rise tlu'ougli the anal ducts in the same manner, ascend by the 
 way of the intestines, make air-chambers of the stomach, and 
 roll up into the lungs as before. These two infernal respira- 
 tions may combine and act as one ; then come such exhibitions 
 of the power of sorcery as it is almost impossible to write, while 
 the statements will seem too incredible to be believed. 
 
 392. Through the interaction of these two of the great 
 breath-falsities and breath-sorceries, the titanic pivotal power 
 of the Hells comes up to measure swords with the new man of 
 the spirit ; a myriad of demons all engaged, in-breathing as 
 one, and forcing up the inverted respirations through the 
 body of their subject victim. The exhalations then become 
 so powerful and so offensive, that even though the most 
 active of natural disinfectants and deodorisers are made use 
 of, the effluvia is almost insupportable, and so deadly that it 
 threatens all who inhale it with death. The stomach and 
 abdomen of the sufferer distend like those of the bodies of 
 drowned persons, that from decomposition have become 
 inflated, and that have arisen to the surface. The infernal 
 breaths surge in through the lower orifices spoken of, with 
 a hoarse, gurgling sound. The breaths rush upward until 
 there is one current from the anal passage through the mouth 
 and nostrils and ears ; while in the last extremity the body 
 becomes cold and rigid, the flesh of a black purple, the saliva 
 bloody foam, the heart ceases to beat, the pulse is felt no 
 more, and death and hell apparently have triumphed in the 
 extinction of physical life. 
 
 393. In the beginnings of sohdarity, pivotal-radiative men 
 are competent in the Lord to meet and overcome such forms of 
 false respiration as this, even though carried on through all 
 such stages, to all such consequences, even to the last; and they 
 have power in God to break the pivotal force in the Hells 
 through which such false respiration is embotlied, to close up 
 the ruptured aerial passages, to lead an ordered divine respira- 
 tion throughout the whole frame, from the head to the feet, to 
 expel the infernal impurities, and so absolutely to conquer death 
 and hell, even where they had apparently completed the con- 
 quest and taken possession of their prey. Vast are the fields 
 
210 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITY. [chap. ir. 
 
 of tliougLt, and reacliing out into the widest of perspectives ; 
 but vast as they are, the men of this type, if found faithful, will 
 also be found adequate to cope with the demons on all of their 
 battle-fields ; these also are among the " works/^ 
 
 394. The pivotal-radiative men of this species, again, have 
 power to institute society from first principles in the Divine 
 image. They do this, first of all, by taking into themselves 
 elements of the new creation, and by maturing new substances, 
 wliich, through the concert of respiration, they impart to others; 
 they take well-meaning disciples, as a father takes his sons, 
 and adopt them hterally into their essence and substance, their 
 flesh and blood and bone. Tkrough their divinely quickened 
 celestial and natural life, and working by means of an immense 
 conspiration through the Heavens, they organize about them- 
 selves noble and heroic characters ; individuals, for whom they 
 would suffer and die to the last ; and who, in due time, so put 
 off the old man and put on the new man, that they would suffer 
 and die to the last for them. Such love, so organized, the 
 world hath never seen. Thus are laid the foundations of the 
 real Christian state, and these are the beginnings of reorganized 
 society. Such persons become sub-pivots, chiefs of series, 
 captains of tens and hundreds and thousands in the industrial 
 armies ; and, through such means as will hereafter be shown, 
 from the centre to the circumference, the divine family becomes 
 a unity. 
 
 395. Pivotal-radiative men also have power, as they pass 
 from stage to stage of their career, to loosen and remove those 
 magical webs or veils by means of which the infernals cause 
 paralysis, torpor, lethargic sleep, a general bodily weakness 
 and negativeness, impotency, and other of the more direful 
 infestations ; the injections of a false breath into the abdomen 
 and other grievous things. Whenever in the incipient con- 
 ditions of the new harmony neophytes are taken, it must always 
 be with the knowledge that any short-coming on their part 
 will involve most fearful sufferings to those of the series con- 
 nected with the pivotal, and especially sacred, function. In 
 the new order, no servant of the Lord, working in or near the 
 centres of power, can undertake a task, whether mediately or 
 immediately, like the training of a new convert from the dis- 
 
SEC. 394—397.] TSE APOCALTFSE. 211 
 
 orders of the world, witliout being for the time in the condition 
 of a capitalist who lays out his wealth upon an undertakino- of 
 which the results are uncertain. It may be that the disciple 
 will respond with alacrity to every monition of the Spirit, 
 grow in grace daily, cause little suffering, comparatively; be 
 found, as a rule, faithful in every trust, display a deep humihty, 
 die swiftly to all evil loves, and be born again powerfully into 
 the divine affections. It may also b« that the human soil wiU 
 prove, if not worthless, yet so near it as to call for a work that 
 is tremendous, a solicitude that is painful and unceasing, and 
 to involve a danger that, were the Lord not infinite, would 
 produce death in a short time. 
 
 396. The whole world is wrapped in mantles of illusion. 
 "When persons enter the Spiritual World after physical decease, 
 they put off veil after veil, skin after skin, which there appear 
 as corporeal substances ; but which on Earth were concealed 
 within the mind or heart, existing there as false persuasions of 
 doctrine, obstinate and wilful determinations born of selfish 
 or sensual desires, conceits of the understanding, or self- 
 delusions of the moral nature. Some of these lie loosely about 
 the surfaces of character, and are removed with ease ; others, 
 Hnk by link, are interknit from organ to organ of the spiritual 
 person, and are held in their place with an almost fatal per- 
 tinacity. It is the operation of the new respiration successively 
 to loosen these garments of the old self, these tainted vestures, 
 saturated both with ancestral and with actual lusts. 
 
 397. In the more ancient of the religions of the world, the 
 neophytes were instructed to lay aside their old raiment, and to 
 present themselves before the altars in vestures utterly white 
 and clean. But the unclothing of the individual is a terrible 
 process. The spu'it shrinks and cowers, and, as it goes on, 
 almost calls upon the rocks and mountains to fall upon it, to 
 hide it from the presence of the Lord. As a rule, the pagan 
 has much less to lay aside than the self-styled Christian de- 
 votee. The educative process, as carried on in society, is in 
 reahty a clothing process. Men dig pits in the bosom, and 
 bury their own hearts out of sight. The intellect, when no 
 longer guided through the purified will, whatever may be the 
 seemings of outward rationality in which it appears to men, 
 
 '1 
 
212 ARCANA OF GHBISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 is drugged and drunken and mad from faculty to faculty. 
 Christendom is educated cMcfly by insane priests and lunatic 
 philosophers. From infancy, generations are trained into the 
 habit of appearing otherwise than as they arc ; consequently, 
 when men begin to seek the new harmony of God, spiritually, 
 mentally, physically, the veil of the covering is cast over all 
 of the faces ; no man knows what he is, no man knows what 
 ancestrally is buried in him, no man knows what diseases may 
 be latent in the body, what perversities are in the reason, what 
 insanities in the will. 
 
 398. Some natures, toned down into the repose of high-bred 
 ease, approach the new life almost with the grace and sweet- 
 ness of angels; they have received the finishing touches in 
 that terrestrial school which prelates and nobles support and 
 eulogise, but which Satan possesses by his falsehoods, that he 
 may weave within it a body of all accomplishments, for the 
 spirit of all crimes. The divine charm of manner is deceiving 
 to the soul. The new life is approached by such as have been 
 lulled by these perfumed opiates, honestly and sincerely it may 
 be, but they come nevertheless as smiling and unconscious 
 impostors ; the faculty of moral discrimination, in its finer 
 essence, being almost lost. 
 
 399. This beauty blackens and turns to ashes ; this surface 
 gold wears thin and exposes the basei* metal which it con- 
 cealed. The garnish of sentiment wastes away, and within the 
 bosom, which seemed at first to move but to the most gentle 
 and beautiful affections, gulfs of corruption are revealed, wastes 
 of spiritual desolation, where the air is sulphureous with me- 
 phitic fire. Such, if in earnest in seeking the divine life, learn 
 utterly to hate these simulations. They are seen like the pub- 
 lican who stood afar off, not daring so much as to lift up his 
 eyes to Heaven, but falling upon his face, and crying, " God 
 be merciful to me a sinner.^' The sense of self-loathing, self- 
 detestation, finally overwhelms them, and they cannot see how 
 it is possible that they have ever been permitted so much as 
 to feel the first breath of the Lord^s visitation. When this is 
 reached, there is hope of them ; but nothing, save a doubtful 
 apprehension, before. It is easier to convert a thousand 
 pagans than one spoiled child of society. Wlien one veil of 
 
SEC. 398—400.] TSE AFOCALYFSU. 213 
 
 false appearance is taken away, a measure of the ease and 
 sweetness may return; but soon coldnesses and fears begin, 
 and it is obvious that another veil, a Httle deeper, is being 
 brought to the surface. In four or five years, hundreds may 
 be removed in the advance of respiration. The courtly duchess, 
 on the unregenerate side of her hidden self, will feel, perhaps, 
 and look and act and converse in the tones of some brutal 
 Irish char-woman. The coui't beauty, as her unveilings pro- 
 ceed, on the same evil side may exhibit the features of a savage 
 of the age of stone. The highly-cultured scholar and polished 
 gentleman, the courtier, the prince or prime minister may 
 shrivel and waste, as the assumed but not assimilated per- 
 fections are taken from him, and in the deeper stages of his 
 vastation startle one with the resemblance to some pirate or 
 freebooter, seme gamester, parasite, some uncultured peasant, 
 or frightened barbarian. When God sets our secret sins 
 before us in the light of His countenance, and the illusions 
 vanish from the splendours of His face, who shall abide ? 
 
 400. On the other hand, an artisan comes, whose progeni- 
 tors for ages have been menials and serfs. With him there is 
 a surface roughness, a lack of polish, a grossness of manner 
 offensive to good taste ; and here one might say there is little 
 covered ; almost everything is palpable ; here is an artless 
 child of the workshop, or an unsophisticated son of the soil. 
 It may be so ; painful are the unveilings with the very best, 
 but far more probably the veilings, the self-delusions, the 
 meannesses, the degradations, though different in manifesta- 
 tion, will be as impervious and complicated as in the former 
 case. If gold lacquer does not cover gold ore, neither does the 
 muck and mire of ages. In general, men of the mechanical 
 class, inheriting its peculiarities, are just as thoroughly in- 
 volved in the varieties of illusion as are princes. Ages of 
 suppressed hatred, not of evil, for that has been loved, but of 
 individuals, simply because better circumstanced in life ; ages 
 of wishes that were murders, and hopes that were rebelh'on ; 
 ages of petty competitions, fraternal jealousies, treadings-down 
 and stampings-out of the class just below them, that they 
 might force the way up into the class above ; ages of fierce, 
 wolf-like hungers, ravenous appetites for power and pleasure. 
 
214 ARCANA OF CHRISTIAN ITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 for dignity and despotic rnlcj and the sweet luxury of enslav- 
 ing others ; all these things, tier upon tier, lie packed and 
 folded away within their ancestral cells. In this respect, 
 again, the working men of Christendom are a thousand times 
 inferior to pagans and savages. On the whole, it is easier to 
 train an earnest man of large culture, elevated station, and 
 easy fortune, into a life which involves every species of self- 
 sacrifice, than it is to train into the same habit a hereditary 
 mechanic, or agricultural labourer. Of course there are large 
 classes of exceptions, but this requires to be especially said 
 concerning those who are termed " working men.^^ 
 
 401. Such will not misunderstand me. Blind must be the 
 eye that cannot see that the liberation of labour and the estab- 
 lishment of industrial equity, are here set forth, with no favour- 
 itism shown to those who are called the fortunate classes. The 
 ouvriers, however oppressed by others, are their own worst 
 tyrants. Those of whose exactions they have most reason to 
 complain, are men who have risen from their own ranks. As 
 the liberated slave becomes the most cruel of slave-masters, 
 so the uplifted workman becomes the most cruel of task-mas- 
 ters. The world has seen many cruel systems, but the most 
 cruel of all will be that of labourers combining among them- 
 selves, and enslaving capital, and culture, and genius, and 
 refinement, and high moral excellence; at the bidding of 
 vulgar demagogues. When one introspects the collective 
 body of the unregenerate artisanhood of Christendom, one sees 
 that in it are capacities for organized crime sufficient to sweep 
 away the civilization of the globe. Those hungers, those 
 thirsts, those madnesses, gigantic and insatiable, those are 
 the great cause of social oppression. From step to step the 
 combinations of such powers will bring about eventually, un- 
 less overruled, not the golden age of fraternal peace, but the 
 chaos that is the grave of all the ages. They will simply make 
 organized society impossible. Few indeed in Christendom 
 are the artisans to whom the Lord^s new harmony will prove 
 acceptable. Were the sufii-ages to be polled, for one vote cast 
 for Christ there would be ten for Robespien-e. The good 
 ouvrier is a blessed man ; and when such gather in their series, 
 and are engaged in their appropriate toil, the workshop will 
 
SEC. 401—403.] THE APOCALYPSE. 215 
 
 be as that place where stood the tree that burned with fire, 
 yet was unconsumed. One approaching it may hear the voice, 
 " Put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place where thou 
 standest is holy ground." Kings and princes, great capi- 
 tahsts, the lordly and the noble of the generations shall come, 
 humbly beseeching that they may take the lowest place. 
 The blouse of the artisan, worn by such, shall be more than 
 the imperial robe. Nevertheless, the oiivriev in approaching 
 the new creation has stupendous class-conceits to put aside, 
 and with them class-traditions, class-inversions, class-depra- 
 vation. 
 
 402. The Christian pilgrim, whose habitation has been 
 amidst the inversions of civilization, is roused as to the spirit 
 by the Divine appeal. Is he a monarch? he discovers 
 himself to be, as the false appearances vanish, a poor 
 unfortunate being. Is he a serf? he discovers himself to 
 be in the same light, as to his inmost, a child of the Infinite 
 and Everlasting King. One may imagine Christendom a 
 physical ruin; the remains of the Victoria tower, or afarade 
 of St. PauVs, rising over heaps of rubbish, where once was 
 London. The river that now bears upon its bosom the fleets 
 of the world, obstructed by the fallen masonry of its bridges, 
 ebbs and flows, perchance reclaiming to its bosom the ancient 
 morasses. A thick, unsightly, tangled vegetation disguises 
 the omnipresent decay. The fire and the flood, the invader 
 and the home-bred enemy, the earthquake and the rising sea, 
 have done their work thoroughly and well. Yet the ruin of 
 London is but an incident in the ruin of the isle. 
 
 403. A man has fallen asleep in the last hour of England's 
 imperial greatness, and has been miraculously preserved to 
 wake, to come forth in the noontide of a summer day. For 
 the sound of wheels, the steps of the multitudes of men, are the 
 whisperings of the leaves of the forest, the stealthy motions of 
 the wolf or the brown deer, the gurgling of the waters, and now 
 and then the fall of some mouldering stone. God mercifully 
 preserves his brain from madness, and his heart from despair. 
 Gradually, little by little, he begins to comprehend that he has 
 wakened from a long trance, during which his island has be- 
 come as Assyria, and his city as Carthage. Yet still he lives ; 
 
21G ABCANA OF CUBISTIANITY. [chap. ir. 
 
 the instincts of his kind are strong within him. He calls upon 
 the Lord, and sees after a while, raising his face that was 
 bowed in supplication, a man of another age, who addresses 
 him in tender and kindly accents, thougli in some sonorous 
 and majestic tongue compared to which the language of the 
 Anglo-Saxon is as the chatter of barbarians. After a while 
 the awakened man begins to comprehend his language, and 
 the two converse together. The stranger tells him of how 
 that ruin liappened; how self-love ran its course through 
 prosperity to anarchy ; how a new civilization has been born ; 
 how the Lord God has come down to reign among men, having 
 organized the just through respiration into solidarity, made 
 them for number as the sands of the sea-side, while their order 
 and their glory are as the motion and resplendence of the stars. 
 Weeping, touched, overwhelmed, he who has come forth from 
 the spoils of the long trance, longs to escape from the ruin, to 
 leave this oppressive silence, this sepulchre of empire. He 
 turns to the friendly stranger with words like these, " You 
 know the way into this kingdom of harmony. I adjure you 
 have pity on me, and show me how to escape. Poor, helpless 
 being, must I lie down and perish ? The wolf already waits to 
 rend me, as the night comes on.^^ 
 
 404. This is the actual condition of the man of the nine- 
 teenth century, who begins to awaken from the stupor of the 
 true intelligence, and the drugged sleep of the internal heart. 
 That ruin which has been supposed is the fact ; it is the in- 
 ternal reality within the surface magnificence of Europe. Its 
 cities, spiritually, are howling wildernesses. But let us carry 
 the picture a little farther. The spells of the trance begin to 
 re-asserfc their power ; the man, as all objects grow dim and 
 hazy before him, imagines himself entangled in the labyrinths 
 of some frightful dream. The stranger responds to his adjura- 
 tion, " Come with me, my vessel is below ; the tide runs sea- 
 ward, we have no time to lose." But now there is a shrink- 
 ing back, a hesitation, and the words are drowsily, petulantly, 
 or beseechingly uttered, " Let me find my way back out of 
 this nightmare ; let me sleep while the dream is dissipated, and 
 I re-awaken at the morning bell that brings to the door of 
 my chamber the valet with the Times." And so the dreamer 
 
SEC. 404—406.] THE APOCALYPSE. 217 
 
 dreams and perishes. This, again, is an illustration of how 
 the man who has once been awakened, relapses into the illusions 
 of appearances ; for evermore the real appears as the unreal, 
 and the unreal as the real, till the Spirit of Light, which this 
 age bars its breast against, brings the true awakening and 
 withdraws the veil of appearances which is cast about the 
 soul. 
 
 405. Here then stands in his office the pivotal and respira- 
 tory man. Around him lie the sleepers in the valley of the 
 dead ; but as it is written, " The dead shall hear the voice of 
 the Son of God,^^ and " many that sleep in the dust of the earth 
 shall come forth." He stands, but only for a brief space, with 
 each to whom he bears the message. He cannot linger, for 
 his office is to the many and not to the few. He cannot linger, 
 for the tides of the Divine Providence that have brought him 
 hither, flow out for his return. Men of this type are thus, in- 
 strumentally, quickeners. Versed in realities, they visit the 
 slaves of appearances j while their administration continues, 
 there is an inshining of Divine light upon the individual ; they 
 are encircled by the moving atmospheres which are the breaths 
 of Deity. These breaths uphold them in rationality and free- 
 dom while they decide between the new works and the old. 
 By " works " is here to be understood, again, the use of 
 pivotal respirative men of Thyatira, in gathering human beings 
 out of appearances into reahties ; breaking the enchantments 
 and illusions by which the world holds them in slavery, and 
 serving as agents for introducing them into states, during 
 which they shall be divested of appearances, and reconstructed 
 in the heavenly realities. 
 
 406. In building up a true order, the beginning has to be made 
 with wretched men, wasted men, sorrowful men. It is useless 
 to attempt to present the new life, as a practical consideration, 
 to any who are at ease, to any who are either self-satisfied, or 
 satisfied with the existing condition of things in the church, 
 state, or society. Those who have learned how to keep them- 
 selves drugged in the affections and the understanding, always 
 have a ready answer to every appeal of the momentarily quick- 
 ened conscience. As the demon who represented himself as 
 the evil genius of Mr. Charles Dickens declared, there are 
 
218 ABCANA OF CIIBISTIANITT. [chap. ir. 
 
 drams of every species adapted to all tlie peculiarities of the 
 heart and brain; sedatives for life, opiates in death. As 
 Theodore Parker averred, " I have known many bad men, but 
 never saw one afraid to die/' Men may glide out of natural 
 existence, composed to a delicious dream ; the spices of senti- 
 ment may embalm their remains. Woe for the waking ! Woe 
 for the unveilings when these sedatives soothe no more, and 
 the smell of these spices wafts away ! Better to be unveiled in 
 this life ; for here that Avhich is unveiled can be removed, that 
 which is impure abolished, that which is wasted supplied, and 
 that which is the least germ of buried good unfolded into a 
 plant of paradise. That germ may live, in some cases, where 
 appearances might indicate that it had decayed. It is not 
 always the seeming saint in whose bosom the seed of God re- 
 tains the germinating power ; nor is it always the seeming 
 sinner in whom that seed has utterly perished. God judges 
 according to the heart ; and the inner experience of each in- 
 dividual is fully known only to his Maker. 
 
 407. '^ Works,'' again signifies here, that pivotal-respirative 
 men have power for the time, when those to whom they minis- 
 ter are being visited by the Spirit and brought to decisions 
 between the old and the new life, to drink those deadly things, 
 with which the infernals endeavour to stupefy the reason, the 
 conscience, and the will, and suspend the powers of the moral 
 judgment. They drink the deadly things ; that is, they inter- 
 pose themselves between such minds and the infernal genii, 
 exposing their breasts to the invading venom. For much on 
 this topic, see " Magic of the Hells." It is through this pro- 
 cess that men are ministered to with a royal munificence. 
 Pivotal-radiative men sufi'er excruciating agonies from the 
 more deadly of these poisons, for they must hold them till the 
 Lord elaborates through their own persons a divine -natural 
 element which neutralised them. 
 
 408. By " works," is also understood, the labours of pivotal- 
 radiative men ; their wise dealing, their prudence, justice, and 
 firmness, in separating from the working series, in societies of 
 the new life, those individuals who, from whatever cause, are 
 unable to enter into solidarity. There are three distinct types 
 of persons who will be unable, though well-meaning, and in 
 
SEC. 407—409.] THE APOCALYPSE. 210 
 
 regenerative conditions, to become tlie members of working 
 series, until such times as they have been ploughed to the very 
 quick and almost reorganised in body and mind. These are, 
 first, those who possess vampirising organizations ; second, 
 those who are unable to prevent their personal spheres from 
 inflowing into organisms of members of the series ; and 
 third, those in whom conscientiousness is lacking in ultimate 
 works. 
 
 409. Vampirising organizations are especially to be guarded 
 against. Some persons eat and drink for themselves, and carry 
 on the assimilative processes chiefly in their own systems. 
 We do not feel weakened by contact with them. Another 
 class live principally by absorbing the finest essences of the 
 bodies of those who can be drawn into sympathy and rapport 
 with them. These are unconscious cannibals, man-eaters, 
 woman-devourers, appropriators and spoiators of childhood, 
 through all its series, to the cradled babe. When this is done 
 wilfully, persons who practise it are guilty of atrocious rob- 
 beries. Chiefly, however, it is the sin of ignorance. These 
 parasitical systems, where introduced into a series, twine 
 themselves around the trunk of the brotherhood or the sister- 
 hood, as rampant vines that clamber over fruit-trees; as the 
 ivy nourishes itself upon the bark, or as the misletoe fastens 
 upon the branches. They cling to every twig and tendril 
 like the funereal hanging moss of the southern morasses. To 
 change the figure, they are the blood-suckers both of the red 
 and the white circulations. They are like gigantic, many- 
 armed polypi of the deep ; they strangle the living system 
 they embrace. When good persons, who have inherited into 
 these parasitical systems, begin to be attracted toward the 
 recipients of the new creation, they begin to experience an 
 exhilaration and immense refreshment from their presence, 
 and look upon the love which they possess for such esteemed 
 friends as a sentiment for which they may give themselves an 
 infinite credit. So far as they love with the Spirit, there may 
 be a divine graciousness in it ; but the vampirising body, 
 through its corrupt natural soul, overflows with spontaneous 
 and constraining tenderness, because it has found something 
 to love, in the sense in which a wolf has found a fine, well- 
 
220 ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 fed and succulent lamb ; it is good eating and drinking ; 
 nothing more or less. 'VVlicn tliis has become chronic, it is 
 humanly incurable. 
 
 410. Men who have lived much on the sympathies of 
 women ; women who have delicately imbibed the flesh and 
 blood of a variety of male friends ; those of both sexes who 
 have been dependent upon the offices of the magnetiser, have 
 much to undergo, to learn, and to lay aside, before they can 
 enter into series. Pivotal-radiative men stand between such 
 and the general society of the new life ; such careful guardians 
 are continually, through their radiative senses, on the alert; 
 and when they discover that there are vampires, whose sphere 
 begins to absorb the sacred essences and substances of the 
 new creation from those who have received them into their 
 frames, they put forth, through methods known to themselves, 
 Herculean powers, separating and untwining the spheres j 
 they also deal tenderly with those whom they thus separate, 
 and endeavour to open ways by means of which the Lord^s 
 new creation may triumph, bringing even those most delete- 
 rious organisms into states of fruitfulness and vigour for the 
 divine employ. Those who live by selfish appropriations of 
 the common life are, as we have seen, cut off; but there is a 
 second class in whom the manifestation of an inversive power 
 is totally different. 
 
 411. The private and personal sphere of the individual 
 should never be intruded on, never broken into, never inter- 
 pervaded by the sphere evolved through the selfhood of 
 another. Personalities should be as distinct as are the stars, 
 and shine upon each other from the crystal privacies of space. 
 With some there is an innate sense of order, fitness, and pro- 
 priety in this respect ; others are ignorantly invasive, demon- 
 strative, and obtrusive ; they give themselves, as a musky 
 jungle wafts its fetid odovu's. Now in the divine process of 
 physical regeneration, immense bodies of latent evils embodied 
 throughout every plane of the organism, when disturbed, as 
 buried plagues within the soil yield up their gross effluvium. 
 Here then are two types of men ; the one with an iron deter- 
 mination hold themselves both physically and spiritually with- 
 in themselves, to prevent these poisons from afiecting the 
 
SEC. 410—412.] * THE APOCALYPSE. 221 
 
 bodies of others. But another class give themselves out, 
 emptying these corruptions into the bosoms of those with 
 whom they are connected by sympathetic relations, and with 
 whom, by reason of association in labour, they stand in close 
 proximity. Consequences ensue which are most deleterious; 
 others are made their scape-goats, others imbibe their ances- 
 tral diseases. Effluvias of murder and theft and robbery and 
 adultery may be communicated, as are the smallpox and the 
 cholera. The labour of an entire series may be brought to an 
 end or rendered comparatively fruitless by one such member, 
 and yet the individual may be, in the beginnings of open 
 respiration, the subject of Divine grace, and destined, when 
 purified, to discharge, perhaps, functions of great importance. 
 Pivotal-radiative men continually exercise a scrutiny, as if 
 the lamps of judgment were kindled in their eyes. When 
 calamities like these are liable to occur, they endeavour gently 
 to lead those who possess such death-imparting bodies, into 
 disassociated uses, and suggest such methods of discij)line 
 combined with strict self-examinations, as shall result in 
 purification. The conceit of man and the pride of woman 
 require and receive many a painful lesson. 
 
 412. A third class who are found oppressive and of a dele- 
 terious presence in series, are those who have not been trained 
 to a rigid conscientiousness in ultimate duties. The habits of 
 sliding over work, which should be done thoroughly, of neglect- 
 ing the minute economies, of doing the Lord^s work imper- 
 fectly, of permitting waste, of indulging in extravagance, of 
 taking things for granted on inference or hearsay which re- 
 quire personal examination ; in a word, of unfaithfulness in 
 service, most surely will cause those who give way to them, 
 for a time at least, to be excluded, as by the sword of fire. God 
 makes every daisy as perfect as a sun. The unbounded 
 opulence of the universe is the result of a calculation that de- 
 scends to the economies of atoms. If one could shake God^s 
 ordered method of working in the growth of the blades of 
 grass, the same process would jar and shake and overwhelm 
 the crystallizations and firmaments of the cosmos. If a man 
 cannot work with conscience in the brain, in the eyes, and at 
 the finger ends; if he cannot work as faithfully in the humblest 
 
222 ABCANA OF CRRISTIANITT. [chap. tt. 
 
 of routine duties, us the hero does when he gathers into his 
 bosom the ardours of Infinity, and flames forth in subhme 
 martyrdom ; if, in fact, he cannot work instrumentally, as God 
 works, even to a perfect ministry to the blades of grass ; or, at 
 least, if he cannot endeavour with all his might to do his very 
 best, he drops out of series, he deranges the harmonies, he 
 opens doors for the incoming of the wasters and the destroyers ; 
 he must be set aside till he shall have become faithful in 
 the ultimates of things. Pivotal-radiative men have here a 
 painful task, to analyse these failures from first principles, to 
 disengage the spheres of such open breathing neophytes, and 
 to labour with them and in them, till such times as their short- 
 comings may cease. 
 
 413. They preside thus over the wealth-producing function, 
 and are set as with the drawn sword over against all powers, 
 all disciples, who in their weakness or disease, or from the un- 
 thrifty habits of previous life, introduce confusion and arrest 
 the process of the evolution of the industrial harmonies. 
 
 414. Nationalities, as at present constituted, are incoherent, 
 factitious, and composed of human elements, whose tendencies 
 are often antagonistical to each other. This is the fruitful 
 cause of political disturbances, of civil wars and rebellions. 
 The Anglo-Saxon race is not a unity. The British islands are 
 occupied by the remains of many septs or clans, between 
 whom the fusion has never been complete. What is here said 
 of the Anglo-Saxon applies also to the other great races of 
 Christendom. There are, in point of fact, but seven great 
 types of humanity. The child of the Japanese may inherib 
 into that peculiar genius which we call Latin or Anglo- 
 American. The child of the Hottentot may unfold into the 
 Aryan or Semitic type of character. The blue-eyed German 
 may be the father of children in their idiosyncrasies Chinese 
 or Tartarian. There is no spiritual identity even where the 
 nationalities most cohere. It is true that, in many instances, 
 similars beget similars, but also true that similars beget dis- 
 similars. What is termed patriotism is a mere natural senti- 
 ment while closed conditions continue. It is generally the fact 
 that hereditary peculiarities are transmitted, though with a 
 constant modification of type. 
 
SEC. 413— 416.J THE APOCALYPSE. 223 
 
 415. As open respiration begins^ these factitious distinctions 
 and differences gradually fade ; there will be but seven types 
 of nationalities in the harmonic future of the world. The open 
 respiring man who has entered into the new creation of our 
 Lordj will realize the fulfilment of the scriptui-al statement, 
 that '' there is neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian or Scythian, 
 but Christ is all and in all." It is wonderful to observe the 
 destruction of national peculiarities in the new man. Those 
 in whom the Hebrew blood has preponderated, those in whom 
 the Latin element has been predominant, those in the remote 
 east of Asia, those from the close-grained and compact races 
 of North Britain, in fine all varieties of mankind, rising out of 
 their old conditions, shed the natural wrappages of ancestral 
 character, and emerge into a glorious likeness of the Lord. 
 It is the peculiarity of the Thyatiran church, that through its 
 pivotal-radiative men, the old tribal and national distinctions 
 fade and disappear. In spite of the different facial outlines, as 
 for instance between the Asiatic and European, the same ex- 
 pressions begin to be manifested in the features of those who 
 enter into one life, one respiration, one spiritual and physical 
 regeneration, one order, and one harmony. 
 
 416. " Works " signifies again, the varied processes through 
 which pivotal-respirative men are enabled to detect the internal 
 and essential likeness, which qualifies indi\'iduals, gathered from 
 every tribe and people under heaven, to be knit into the same 
 series, and marshalled into one solidarity. Men of this type, 
 in their wondrous oSice, penetrate to the most hidden interiors 
 of the psychical nature of man. They clothe themselves with 
 the peculiarities of the races. To the Japanese, they seem as 
 if born amidst the sanctities of Miaco, or beneath the shadows 
 of Fusiyama; to the Anglo-American, nursed at the breasts 
 of liberty, and built of that human substance that is fashioned 
 into the elements of the Republic. It is by means of this 
 power of entering into the nationalities, that they are able to 
 Bxplore the internals of men of each nation, and gather to- 
 gether the millions of similars from the millions of dissimilars. 
 It is through the same gift that their subtle sphere diffuses 
 itself into the world, touching as with electric fingers each 
 soul to whom they have a mission. It is thus that they are 
 
224 ARCANA OF CRRISTIANITT. [chaj. ir. 
 
 enabled to labour with an exact discrimination, and hold in 
 reserve their potencies of life, till such are formed as are, in 
 spirit, seeking to be led out of darkness into light, and from 
 the shores of death to the confines of immortality. 
 
 417. It is through this administration that composite fra- 
 ternities are gathered for the new life. Our Lord said, in His 
 humanity, " And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto 
 Me." In other words, by the operations of His Spirit, He 
 draws the separate individual natures out of the sheaths of 
 their various nationalities. Sects, parties, schools of philo- 
 sophy, new clans in the religious or intellectual world, stand 
 in the extensions of the continuous degree which the whole 
 earth occupies. But the Lord's new people stand elevated by 
 a discrete degree, above that universal plane. The sects stand 
 involved in the nationalities, and stringent political necessities, 
 and raging national animosities array them, however devout, in 
 arms against one another. The catholic Irishman and the 
 catholic Englishman, the evangelical Prussian and Dane, the 
 episcopal Carolinian and New Yorker, intrigue against one 
 another diplomatically, and slay each other on the battle-field. 
 This is because the sects are extended on the continuous natu- 
 ral degree. Brother puts the brother to death, the father the 
 son. The Swedenborgian pro-slavery secessionist is armed 
 to the teeth, that he may smite and slay the Swedenborgian 
 Northern anti-slavery Unionist. Tens of thousands of Bap- 
 tists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Eoman Catholics, have killed 
 each other, fighting under opposite standards on the recent 
 battle-fields of America. . 
 
 418. The pivotal-respirative men, being themselves first 
 elevated into this discrete degree above the natural plane, are 
 forms through which the Lord draws, up, to stand upon that 
 degree, those who are being called into the new creation. They 
 love all nations with an equal love ; they pay an equal respect 
 to all just governments ; they respect the temporary use of 
 even incomplete institutions ; they do not lead men from the 
 narrowness of one nation into the narrowness of another; they 
 do not seek to supplant the bigotry of the tricolour with the 
 bigotry of the stars and stripes ; nor to levy war from internals 
 in behalf of democracies against monarchies, or monarchies 
 
SEC. 417—420.] TSE APOCALYFSK 225 
 
 against democracies. The new man dies to his own selfliood, 
 to the selfhood of his nation^ and to the selfhood of humanity ; 
 he lives henceforth and for evermore as Christ liveth in him ; 
 the nations whom he learns inmostly to love^ intellectually to 
 recognise/ and bodily to labour for, are the seven new and 
 glorious nationalities that are struggling to be born. 
 
 419. "Works/^ also signifies, power which such possess of 
 remaining for months, and even years, in a peculiar rapport 
 with individuals who are being quickened by our Lord. It is 
 effected through the conspiration of all of the radiative senses. 
 They focalise these senses on distant persons, to whom they 
 minister, and by means of a modified and most exactly gradu- 
 ated respiration, adapt the radiative divine-natural heats, first 
 to the lung conditions and thence to the general bodily con- 
 ditions of those for whom they have this work to do. For 
 instance, the radiative man may be in America, and an indi- 
 vidual may be struggling toward the divine life in Europe or 
 Asia. The person is brought within the circle of his mental 
 horizon, though unknown by outward name ; there is then a 
 clear perception given of the work that is to be done for him. 
 As the focalised ardour and clearness of a calcium light, 
 beams concentre themselves through the bosom and softly 
 play into the space before the lungs of the distant individual. 
 There is no effort to biologise, to persuade, to possess, but 
 on the contrary, a constant demagnetizing and dispossessing 
 process is carried on. If there begins to be a decision in the 
 will against the Lord's life, this focal splendour instantly is 
 withdrawn ; but if the desires become fixed in the right way, 
 the beams converge more closely. 
 
 420. They must be held thus, often for long durations. 
 They must be held without allowing either personal sympathies 
 or antipathies to exercise the slightest influence ; they must be 
 held at all hazards, though the pivotal man is suffering in the 
 extremest anguish, through the rages of the resistant HeUs. 
 They must be held till the Lord orders otherwise, though the 
 labour seems to be without result in the past, promise in the 
 present, or hope in the future. They must be held though 
 the demons who infest the individual marshal the powers of 
 their infernal societies, and seek to slay the pivotal man, in 
 
 p 
 
226 ARCANA OF CRRISTIANITT. [ciiap. ii. 
 
 tlieir liopo tliat tliey may tlius arrest tbo new creation. The 
 pivotal man must still hold, as a part of his labour never to 
 be interrupted, whether the physical body wake or sleep. 
 Men, even the very best, are so knit into the magical body of 
 the world, so clouded in their perceptions, and so benumbed 
 in their better loves, that few can be liberated without such 
 '^ works " as these. 
 
 421. Finally, when the preliminary work is done, if there 
 is full response, the converging rays enter into the lungs ; and 
 the fay angels from our Lord, at the point where the rays 
 converge and enter, when the command is given, proceed 
 to the work of the breath opening, conspiring from without, 
 with the divine descent from within. When this is done, 
 other fays begin to enter and begin the work of extirpating 
 the impure passions in the now open respiring frame. From 
 this time, through all the degrees of the advance of respiration, 
 the rays penetrate more deeply till the man is free from all 
 that he inherited of natural iniquity. The reason why such 
 superhuman love exists between all who thus respire in unison, 
 and especially why a pivotal-respirative man calls forth such 
 deep and sacred affection is, that as the work advances, the 
 very body feels and responds to that divine faithfulness and 
 tenderness in which the Lord descends through servants who 
 thus execute His will. The waves of that love become at 
 last like the encircling billows of the sea, and the pivotal- 
 respirative man, as his work goes on to its consummation, may 
 offer up that prayer to the Lord in His humanity, which the 
 Lord through His human uplifted to the Infinite Divine, " I 
 in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect 
 in one.^^ 
 
 422. From this point other '^works" begin to follow. The 
 pivotal-radiative man is encircled by a divine family. He dwells 
 in them by the interpervasions of the divine elements through 
 his radiative senses ; they dwell in him in a wonderful manner ; 
 but each according to their especial quality and function in the 
 new harmony. Those who are of a more interior and sacer- 
 dotal quality, waft through the expanses of his frame a dis- 
 creted element from their sacerdotal loves. Those who are in 
 the most ultimate of strengths and uses by vibratory impul- 
 
SEC. 421—424.] TSE APOCALYPSK 227 
 
 sions yield a return of strength and life. Whatever there is 
 tender in him is nourished through the full life of all their 
 tenderness. Whatever is intellectual is ministered to by the 
 return givings of all their intellectuality. Whatever is brave 
 and strongs and self-denying^ and world- embracing, and Christ- 
 receivings and death- over comings and sin-extirpating, is per- 
 petually sustained, quickened, and reinforced, as the organs of 
 corresponding qualities in them are fashioned, enlarged, and 
 perfected to receive and pour forth the life of Heaven. A 
 pivotal-respirative man stands in the perfection of health and 
 life, through the respirative and the regenerative unity of the 
 body that has been gathered through his sacrifices. 
 
 423. Twelve sub -pivots grouped around the pivotal man 
 and each and all co-operant in perfect unity, constitute the 
 pivotal luminary. When the pivotal man requires relaxation, 
 they, as one, maintain the equilibrium of the society and pre- 
 serve unimpaired its general sphere. It then becomes pos- 
 sible for him to enjoy real rest. The night which has hitherto 
 presented to him the whirling and stormy concave, now be- 
 comes a starred firmament of quiet and peaceful light. He is 
 encircled by the general body of their breaths, by the concur- 
 rent vigour of their purposes, by the pure harmony of their 
 intelligence, and by the Divine surety and sweetness of their 
 afiections. He is henceforth enabled to engage in vaster 
 undertakings. The power of the order begins to appear, the 
 throne is set up in Zion. From this time also, each sub-pivot 
 begins to be enlarged. The groups and series formed in end- 
 less spirals from infancy to maturity, respire in a common 
 felicity, worship in the midst of unearthly sanctities, and in- 
 herit into larger measures of vitality, health, power, knowledge, 
 sensation and happiness. Thence the work increases through 
 time to eternity. This must suffice for an illustration of 
 " works ; " but it is devoutly to be hoped that the reader may 
 be one of those who shall share in the beautiful abundance of 
 such ministrations, and be builded, as a living stone, in the 
 living temple of our Lord. 
 
 424. ''And the last more than the first.'' Manifold de- 
 clarations are involved in this, concerning the now sphere of 
 the new woman. First, she will respire in the beginning, 
 
 p 2 
 
228 ASCANA OF CniilSTIANITY. [chap. it. 
 
 through sucli pains as may now bo denoted by pangs of par- 
 turition. The kings arc, in point of fact, a new womb. The 
 breaths of the Holy Spirit of God are born through them, in 
 endless generations. ^Fhe knowledges concealed within the 
 celestial degree of the mind, and which descend from it into 
 the natural degree, are evolved through labour pangs also. 
 The function of natural maternity is a universal symbol. The 
 inception of every emotion from the Lord into the inmost de- 
 gree of the will is of the nature of the initiament of the soul- 
 germ into the feminine ovum. The growths of the bodies of 
 the affections of the will are all through eras of gestation. The 
 child-bearing faculty is proper, in the intellectual sense, to the 
 husband, as in the physical sense, to the wife. God impreg- 
 nates the married will of the husband in the new age, through 
 the wife^s will. The same thing is true of the relations of the 
 wedded minds. The invisible and latent germs of truths with- 
 in the body of the feminine intellect, wafted through loving 
 conspiration, ascend into the receptive vessels of the masculine 
 understanding, and become there clothed upon with the veils 
 of language that precede, and are necessary to their appear- 
 ance in the world. Nor are the bodies of the natural affections 
 in the husband other than the receptacles for an impregnation 
 of divine qualities, through the inflowings of the wifely heart. 
 The heart of the woman is the medium through which the 
 mind of the man becomes prolific. In plenary fulness it is there- 
 fore true, that in the sphere of intellect the wife is the impreg- 
 nator, the husband the impregnated. This is not the case 
 where nuptial unions from internals to externals, in the three 
 degrees of composite unition, celestial, spiritual, and ultimate 
 heavenly, and thence in corresponding degrees of the earthly, 
 do not exist. 
 
 425. Before God can be with man (masculine), he must be 
 with woman. The arid, barren, unfruitful, because unsexed, 
 unmated masculine mind, lacking the sweet impregnation 
 which results from the true conjugial union, bears no fruit to 
 God, of the quality which pertains to the celestial degree of 
 the Word; it rises no higher than the spiritual degree. Sexless 
 and barren men, as to mentality, are found extracting rays of 
 light from the arcana of the Scriptures in their spiritual sense. 
 
SEC. 425—427.] THE APOCALYPSE. 229 
 
 because the spiritual itself is but a moonbeam_, a reflection of 
 an object that receives the solar ray. The coldj watery quality 
 of the spiritual sense, separate from the celestial, steals over 
 the brain with a numbness, disposing it to the abstract and 
 coldly speculative. Exceptions occur in cases where men or 
 women of ardent temperaments, having the celestial sense 
 ri23ely germinant but unexpressed within themselves, wed the 
 feeling of one with the written statement of the other. Then 
 the spiritual sense is illumined to their minds by heart percep- 
 tion, serving as an outward mirror to reflect the splendours of 
 an inward sun. 
 
 426. The sexless plant of conventional Swedenborgianism 
 is the development of the religious idea which minds of frigid 
 temperament have evolved from their own internal mental 
 states. The unexpressed but generous and human and liberal 
 tendency, developed side by side with this, upon the part of 
 another class of the readers of the spiritual expositions of the 
 Word, is the celestial sense, as yet unclothed with its letter, 
 clasping the spiritual sense in close conjunction and struggling 
 on to a noble embodiment in the natural and practical. Cold 
 minds, unimpregnated through conjugial union with a noble 
 wifely essence, accreting into themselves abstract ideas, have 
 given birth both in America and England to the ecclesiastical 
 unions that fondly arrogate the title, " New Jerusalem /^ or if 
 others of a warmer genius have been involved in such crea- 
 tions, they have been led captive through persuasive arts, and 
 a mistaken sense of the importance of external organizations 
 and ceremonies. 
 
 427. There can be no genuine New Jerusalem on Earth with 
 man, except in a sense which is tentative and of the nature of 
 a verbal prophecy, till the new woman rises, side by side with 
 the new man \ till, in other words, the masculine and feminine 
 properties, equally and fitly conjoined, embody in whole-hearted 
 union humanity's fulness. Internal respiration is the seal and 
 bond of the nuptial union, in the will, the understanding, and 
 spiritual person of the woman, with the Re-creative Spirit. 
 Then she is called "the Bride, the Lamb's wife." She marries 
 the man as her conjoint partner in Jesus Christ. Through in- 
 ternal respiration is given an absolute knowledge of the true 
 
230 ABCANA OF GRBISTIANITY. [chap, ir. 
 
 marriage, as an iuner revelation of tlie Divine Will. The 
 readers of Swedcnborg attempt to construct a new churcli by 
 preserving old states. Witli closed respirations, no two halves, 
 male and female of tlie human unit, can discern each other. 
 The sense attractions are so strong, the motions of the spirits of 
 the blood and of the nervous life, where two are not internally 
 the components of each other, so humanly resistless, that discri- 
 mination becomes impossible in practice. Com'tships may have 
 been pure and sweet, relatively speaking, and marriages entirely 
 proper and in the Divine appointment, and valid for natural 
 life, in many cases between two who conjugially were not one. 
 
 428. Internal respiration ends this condition of affairs. Bear, 
 O sisters, with a brother^ s voice, speaking as an exponent of 
 Divine oracles ! Proceeding we advance then, as fundamental, 
 the proposition ; woman, tkrough internal respiration, becomes 
 the queen of the new marriage state. Her highest love i3 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. Every prayer is a mystery of con- 
 jugial union, by means of which she is impregnated in the will 
 by the Divine breath, not as in the sense of an impregnation 
 
 n God, but in the sense of an impregnation in the finite, 
 from God. The nuptial union which the soul has, in this 
 sense, with the All-Inspiring Spirit, is first in the internals of 
 the lungs into which the Holy Ghost descends, with the 
 surrendery of the being to the Divine service. Soul-union with 
 Deity has been a fact in ages of closed respiration, and the 
 Quietists are its historical exponents ; but soul-union is never 
 complete, except as it embodies itself in all the corporate 
 plenitudes of the person. This is realized through open respi- 
 ration, when the marriage union with the Infinite is celebrated 
 in the loving conspirations of the motions of the whole obe- 
 dient frame with the breaths of the Holy Ghost. We speak 
 now of the organic fact. The new woman then attains to the 
 wifehood which consists in unition with her Divine Redeemer 
 in body and in soul ; and she is espoused to Him, so that she 
 can say, " My Maker is my husband," and '' my bridegroom 
 the Holy One of Israel." 
 
 429. Now she is in a condition to know not alone her 
 Maker^s will in the abstract things, but also in the concrete 
 tilings of duty. She has but to resolve in the nuptial choice 
 
SEC. 428—430.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 231 
 
 to give lier hand as the Holy Ghost shall within her declare. 
 No considerations of friends, fortunes, dignities, or worldly- 
 pleasures must sway her choice ; this is, when the respiration 
 is open, an equivalent to spiritual adultery. She is to be led 
 as the Lord wills to the youth whom He selects for her ; other- 
 wise their union is to proceed with customary formalities. 
 When the woman with open respiration gives her hand at the 
 marriage altar, she takes no covenant upon herself but the one, 
 obedience in the Lord. It is a profanation and a blasphemy 
 to covenant otherwise ; it is a compact with death, an agree- 
 ment with hell. Both bridegroom and bride being in open 
 respiration, it is the Holy Ghost breathing through both in the 
 interblending of the breaths, that unites them in the natural 
 from a coequal oneness and innermost union, which has never 
 been sundered since, two in one, male and female, God breathed 
 them 'forth as soul-germs, wafting them in the auras of His 
 joy from the Celestial Heaven. It is but the re-uniting of two 
 streams that are one stream where they issue from the fountain- 
 head ; and so, high above all marriage in the customary sense. 
 Two such stand before the nuptial altar in order to comply 
 with God^s sacred ordinances as embodied in civil institu- 
 tions ; because God is a God of order. 
 
 430. The whole subject of marriage lies under a cloud that 
 is impenetrable to the vision of the natural man. When 
 persons are becoming spiritual-natural or celestial-natm^al, they 
 are led through many changes of state, during which there is 
 a gradual preparation going on, so that at last they may see 
 the truth as it is, and not be consumed by the breath of its 
 presence. Were the naked reality of the Divine Truth in 
 marriage to be presented before the proper season, the effect 
 would be almost to suppress respiration; the organs in the 
 mind and thence in the frame, not being qualified to incor- 
 porate into themselves those elements through which alone they 
 would know the truth and live. The depths of impurity into 
 which the world is plunged are so profound, and the qualities 
 of that natural sex-desire which is inherent with man, are, 
 from the Divine stand-point, so odious, that men must bo led 
 through a long course of preparation ; otherwise the knowledge 
 would be so paiuful as to beget insanity. God does not let 
 
232 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [ciiap. ii. 
 
 men know what tliey are delivered from until tlieir deliverance 
 is already, in part,, accomplished. It is only in the new crea- 
 tion, in its truth, its life, its love, its individual and associated 
 harmony, that those things, as knowledges, advance beyond 
 their first dim dawniugs towards the perfect day. What is 
 here written is, in many places, tentative and preparative. 
 
 431. There is one word which defines the new conjugial state, 
 established in man through the new creation ; that word is 
 wrought in the very textures of the frame ; it is holiness ; that 
 holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. It was the 
 determination of Almighty God, that the carnal idea of marriage, 
 as it existed, should not be extended into eternity, throughout 
 the Christian world ; and hence His answer to the query of the 
 woman at the well. He declared most absolutely that they 
 neither married nor were given in marriage in Heaven. Upon 
 the idea of marriage, as understood in the world, when viewed 
 in the light of an ordinance for Heaven and for angels. He 
 stamped His foot and ground it into dust. There is no such 
 thing, there can be no such thing. The sentimentalists, 
 whether in the Church or out of it, who imagine that earthly 
 nuptials are reproduced in the Divine domains of eternity, are 
 the subjects of a scortatory insanity which has mounted to the 
 brain, or reproduce the illusions generated in the hot-bed of 
 the scortations of the world. Our God is a consuming fire, 
 and that is conjugial fire. To understand marriage as it is, is 
 to understand God as He is, so far as it is possible for the 
 finite to understand the Infinite. 
 
 432. But here three truths must be made known. First, 
 there are tentative marriages ; second, there are representative 
 marriages ; and third, there are final or absolute marriages ; and 
 it is impossible for those, even though in states of open respi- 
 ration, whose marriages are tentative or representative, to know 
 otherwise than that they are valid and real ; for they are valid 
 and they are real -, they are conjugial also, in a preparative and 
 disciplinary sense. The man who is married to a woman, though 
 she is incapable of being a wife to him, having been taken out 
 of the old dead world, and being held in a state of quiescence as 
 to her inward evils, may never in this world know otherwise 
 than that she is his inmost counterpart. In fact he cannot 
 
SEC. 431—434.] THE APOCALYFSJE. 233 
 
 know it^ for there is no knowledge tkat the Lord hides so 
 deeply as He does the knowledge of counterparts. It is an 
 incredible mistake to imagine that this knowledge lies open. 
 Every avenue of access to it is guarded as by the seven-fold 
 crossed swords of the attributes of the Almighty. The Lord 
 may give the man to the woman or the woman to the man, 
 first, in the natural nuptial relation, and they may cohabit and 
 have children born to them, while bodily, their states have 
 been of the nature of the scortatory natm-al. One of the two 
 may pass into open respiration and catch glimpses of conjugial 
 love as a reality opposed to scortation : here many paths open. 
 If the one who thus begins to respire in God can grasp two 
 ideas and hold firmly to them both, they can be safely tided 
 over the narrow and dangerous bar, the rocky reef, or devouring 
 quicksand, and find beyond secure harbourage or the open sea. 
 
 433t First comes the idea of conjugial marriage as a fact in 
 God, a state proceeding out of God, a life hidden in God. The 
 illusions of the whole world concerning marriage have to be 
 put .beneath the feet, and the bosom opened to that thrice 
 awful principle, the conjugial of God, which, as it begins to 
 work in the frame, creates organically, even within the nuptial 
 organs, forms that are in the image of marriage. When these 
 forms, which are in the image of marriage, are thus created, 
 those individuals in whom they exist, to a certain extent share 
 in the blessings of a special protection. Upon the nuptial 
 organs themselves there rests a sphere of the holiness of the In- 
 finite. It is through these organs, in conjunction with the con- 
 jugial in the will and the understanding, that the new creation 
 is carried on. It was the most ancient custom of taking oaths, 
 for the man to be sworn in the presence of Jehovah, not by 
 laying his hand upon the manuscript of the Word, but by 
 placing it between the thighs of the one to whom he made it. 
 This was because from the most ancient times the knowledge 
 subsisted, that the sacredness of the person, and the most 
 plenary presence of the life of God, centered thus, both with 
 the woman and the man. The remains of this truth, finally 
 inverted, led to the worship of the organs of generation. 
 
 434. Now if, when struggling, suff"ering individuals be- 
 gin to be opened to the powers of the life which is to come. 
 
234 AUGANA OF CniilSTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 tliey cau daro to say to God, '' Purity is my desire above all 
 tilings, and I had ratlier enter into life sexless, than ever feel 
 or respond to the scortatory passion ; '' if, in a word, they can 
 dare to invoke God in the generative organs, and as the most 
 contrite and heart-broken and self-hating and yearning of 
 penitents, desire to receive Him in the depths of the moral 
 nature ; if, finally, they can, from the depths and in the fulness 
 of their being, carry the regenerative yearning into the gene- 
 rative system that it may concentre there, they have touched 
 the first point of safety. 
 
 435. God answers this desire in different ways, both to the 
 woman and to the man ; answers it as He answers all true 
 prayer, by giving Himself in that form and manner, and with 
 that specialty of life that shall accomplish His own ends, 
 which are regeneration. Further arcana on this point should 
 not be written for the indiscrimiuate public, they belong to 
 the husbands and wives in the " Brotherhood of the New Life." 
 It is perfectly impossible for men and women to advance 
 beyond a preliminary stage without such knowledges. Their 
 profanation would increase, in some cases, a thousand-fold the 
 powers for evil possessed by bad men and women in the world. 
 They are knowledges which are ineffectual for the good, unless 
 the modes of deliverance from scortation which they specify 
 can be put in operation, and the key to. their practical out- 
 working is found alone in ultimate associated industry. It 
 may as well be stated in plain words ; there is no deliverance 
 from scortation except through one of two processes. By 
 means of asceticism the sex passion can be killed; men can 
 become eunuchs for the kingdom of God. The other process 
 is sexual regeneration ; but this is impossible, save in the 
 Lord's new harmony ; and only possible for those who live in 
 its spirit, and keep its laws, and labour for its ends with an 
 absolute and supreme devotion. 
 
 436. The second thing upon which safety depends, in the 
 case of one coming into respiration, is, so far as the spirit of 
 the will is concerned, to empty one's self of selfism and fami- 
 lism, in place of self to put God, and in place of the family His 
 new harmony. Now it is impossible to keep the former, or the 
 conjugial fact, without conforming to the latter or harmonic 
 
SEC. 435—439] TRE APOCALYPSE. 235 
 
 social and industrial fact. The nuptial organs cannot be re- 
 generated, cannot, in fact, begin to be regenerated, -svithout 
 the special operation of Deity, and the processes which He thus 
 institutes. All fail, even after their initiament, unless con- 
 jugial holiness is completed through associated holiness. We 
 are now touching on the most fearful problems, not alone of 
 this tinle,^ but of all times. 
 
 437. Now through the formation of these new organs, in the 
 organs, the divine influx fights there effectually. If the man is 
 maiTied to a wife who is scortatory, or in that state of cold nup- 
 tial death, which is the result of scortation, through this life of 
 God in his frame, let down and held in the manner spoken of, 
 he may continue to dwell with her and maintain such relations 
 as are requisite ; just as an angel may live in the lower Spiritual 
 Earth or even go down into Hell, for ends of use and order. 
 It is a -grand and heroic school. Here are painful ordeals, 
 wonderful experiences, glorious victories. Enough is here 
 said to indicate the path of truth, and those who require ex- 
 tensions of the truth for divine purposes, will know where to 
 look for more ; but, to the general world, nothing further will 
 be afforded. 
 
 438. When a woman is thus opened, and her husband con- 
 tinues in his old condition, her case is different, being bodily 
 the receptive vessel. For her more is done by our Lord than 
 for the man, for she needs more. There is a power, by means 
 of which the poisons from the sphere of a scortatory husband 
 may be neutralised. There is a power, even by which he may 
 be reduced to order ; and, if germs of good are in him, be made 
 celestially chaste, and afterward be revivified in the new life. 
 Upon this point the Sisterhood in the New Life will always be 
 ready to impart such information to those of their sex as shall 
 conduce to dehverance and established righteousness. 
 
 439. " And the last more than the first.^' The arcana here 
 are voluminous, but for the most part of too sacred a character 
 for publication in a work designed for general circulation. It is 
 through the formation of the Conjugial Sisterhood, in the new 
 life, that these divine charities are organized, dispensed, and 
 made effectual. A few words concerning the organization of 
 the Sisterhood are here in place. When our Lord said, " Thou 
 
236 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITY. [cuap. ii. 
 
 slialt love tlio Lord tliy God witli all tliy heart, mind, and 
 strength, and thy neighbour as thyself, and on these two com- 
 mandments hang all the law and the prophets,'^ He enunciated 
 the fundamental law of His new harmony. But no person of 
 cither sex can love the Lord with all the heart, mind, soul 
 and strength, without becoming both a will, an understanding, 
 and a person, in Avhom conjugial love is tabernacled, enshrined, 
 ensouled, and embodied ; and no person can love the neighbour 
 as the self, unless that love, in like manner, becomes the aflFec- 
 tion for unity, fraternity, solidarity, association, and co-opera- 
 tive harmony. Fm-thermore, as these conjoint loves sweep 
 through the frame, they remove all obstacles; sin, disease, 
 infestation, decay, and a tendency to premature dissolution. 
 On these, as a foundation, rests harmonic society in Heaven. 
 
 440. Chastity and solidarity ; the latter the outgrowth of the 
 former, the means for its extension, its perpetuity, its perfec- 
 tion ; the former the central hfe, the vital force, the organiz- 
 ing power, the distributive element, the perpetually sanctifying 
 quality in the latter ; — chastity and solidarity ; — these are the 
 alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the 
 last of righteousness. Chastity and solidarity ; — words to be 
 inscribed in letters of gold over the entrance of the new Chris- 
 tian home ; inseparable principles and powers, neither possible 
 in a full and ultimated sense, without the co-operation of the 
 other ! The wives in the new order become married chastities ; 
 in the perfection of their state they are as the angels of God 
 in Heaven. They know, through their unition with the In- 
 finite Divine Bridegroom, and through the possession of the 
 conjugial sense, which is the sense of purity ; they know, prac- 
 tically, and in detail from day to day, by what means in each 
 society into which they are gathered, first, how solidarity is to 
 be maintained, second how elevated, and third how multiplied. 
 Disorder, as it approaches, first attacks the conjugial sense. 
 Why has God made the most sacred of the bodily organs the 
 most sensitive in the system of the frame ? It is because, sin 
 being removed, they are magnets ; they tremble for evermore 
 towards Himself, their pole star. The wives in the new life 
 dwell perpetually as in the bosom of the Infinite Bridegroom. 
 There is not an atom in tlieii- frames but that vibrates musically 
 to the whispers of the Infinite affection. 
 
SEC. 440—442.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 237 
 
 441. It lias been said tliat tlie husbands in Heaven are 
 organs or sensoriums for tlie inflowing of tbe affections of 
 their wives. But as the new womanhood arises^ the wives on 
 earth who are celestial-natui-al^ are grouped in series in their 
 societies, and not disjoinedly but adjoinedly and in their 
 solidarity. The composite womanly organism becomes, in 
 turn, one multiplied sensorium and complex organic system 
 for the inflowing of the affections of Almighty God. In a 
 word, the hand of woman holds the key that unlocks the 
 harmonies, but the body of woman is the temple that includes 
 the harmonies. All of the wives of a society are as one wife ; 
 there is a perfect blending of the womanly individualities into 
 one composite individuality; the confidences between them 
 are perfect ; the relations between them are ineffable ; there is 
 a marriage between themselves of attributes from heart to 
 heart. She among them in whom the conjugial life is most 
 perfect, most intense, most exquisite, because most blossomed, 
 as an opened lily on the still waters in the heart of God, she is 
 by common consent and recognition a sister, yet a queen. 
 They are gathered together as the petals in one blossom ; 
 however diverse may be the rayings forth of each special in- 
 dividuality, they aU meet in their centre, growing from a com- 
 mon point where the Divine conjugial life of the Lord branches 
 forth into them. They constitute, in their collective unity, a 
 household sun, which becomes a societary sun, a national sun, 
 and finally a planetary sun. This is the tree which burns 
 with its proceeding flames, refulgent and heat dispensing, but 
 unconsumed and unconsumable to eternity, because God is 
 in the midst of it and reveals Himself in His conjugial fire. 
 This fire in which they dwell strikes the demon who ap- 
 proaches with horror; it withers up the faculties of the 
 scortatory who invade such thrice sacred precincts ; it at once 
 attracts those in whom the principles of chastity and solidarity 
 have place, and repulses those in whom they are deficient. 
 
 442. Man by himself alone may organize the shell, the ap- 
 pearance of harmony, but it never becomes a reality of har- 
 mony till filled and possessed by the womanhood whom God, 
 even the most High God, has purified and consecrated, and 
 whom He loves and in whose midst He appears. On the other 
 
238 ARCAIfA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 hand, a harmony for woman alone is impossible ; the one sex 
 comes up to the Divine Presence and to the feast of everlasting 
 days embosomed in the other. The Lord appears in the midst 
 of them, and says, " My sheep hear My voice and follow Me." 
 The young man finds here an embodied motherhood, through 
 which, with outstretched hands and yearning bosom, leans 
 forth the thrice ineffable and awful Motherhood of God. Dur- 
 ing the trying time of youthful life, the immaculate chastity 
 of the Infinite Motherhood descends to him through the 
 shielding and sheltering embodiment of maternity. Here, 
 step by step, and stage after stage, the dear and tender little 
 boys, infantile priests of holiness, guided and clothed upon 
 with living and elemental spheres, clearer than diamond and 
 sweeter than all floral incense, are led, until they stand at last 
 hand-joined, because heart-joined, to the sweet maidens who 
 are prepared for them, and are initiated into the bosom of 
 those mysteries which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, and 
 which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive, 
 but which God hath prepared for them that love Him. Fall 
 thou upon thy knees, listening spirit, veil thy face in the 
 dust at the feet of this embodied chastity ! The best of mortal 
 men can only approach this shrine as did the publican of 
 old, falling upon his face, and crying, " God be merciful to me 
 a sinner.'^ More hereafter under the head of series. 
 
 443. Not all are called to this order at the present time. 
 Devout men and women may read this, whose relations and 
 obligations are such as to make it impossible for them to share 
 in the earthly realizations of the divine life. Many also will 
 read and be charmed and convinced, but who it is sadly to be 
 feared will never ripen into fruit. Many, especially, who have 
 been accustomed to a refined and exclusive life, will accept 
 the truth of coujugial chastity as a most vital and infinitely 
 desirable thing ; but they will be unable to receive it and to 
 become divinely conjugial in the absolute sense, because, from 
 the habits of life and the force of education, as well as from 
 inversive social complications, they will be unable fully to ac- 
 cept and embody the complemental truth of solidarity. They 
 will rot down bodily amidst the putrefactions of the accursed 
 inversive social system of Christendom, because they have not 
 
SEC. 443—445.] THE AFOCALYPSK 239 
 
 moral fortitude to touch, tlie hand of that great Christ, who 
 comes as He came of old, not to repair an old social system, 
 but to lay the foundations of a new ; yea, to make all things 
 new. Here, too, wives will stand between the desiring eyes of 
 their husbands and the tree of life ; and here husbands will 
 put fetters on the feet of their wives, lest they should walk in 
 the path to paradise, and deaden their minds and corrupt their 
 bodies with the emanations that distil from Hell. 
 
 444. Another class who read will eminently prize the truth 
 of solidarity, but they will be principally from among those 
 who have not blossomed £esthetically in the midst of dainty 
 refinements, and whose natures have been coarsened, and 
 whose finer feelings been worn away by contact with the 
 greeds and sordors which obtain in the great marts of labour. 
 Alas, there is no solidarity possible for man; — say, rather, 
 blessed be God, there is no solidarity possible for him, but 
 through that chastity which is its vital essence. Fourier saw 
 it, but is dead ; and the monument above his remains is com- 
 posed of the ruins of every phalanstery. Owen saw it in 
 another, a communal form, and lived to be for years the grey- 
 haired solitary mourner over deceased communism. What 
 shall be said more ? The Perfectionists of America have seen 
 it, as Satan saw the possibilities of an harmonic civilization 
 growing out of systematized and organized libidinousness. 
 They have yielded to that tempter whom Christ overcame, and 
 have fallen down and worshipped Lucifer, in the embodiment 
 of the infernal sexual principle ; and he has promised them, 
 as if he were God, the pleasures and the kingdoms of the 
 world ; but those who see them rioting now in the incipiency 
 of a prosperity which they deem shall be lasting as the sun, 
 shall yet stand afar off, and behold the smoke of their burning, 
 when the mystery of their iniquity shall have been fully 
 revealed. 
 
 445. The dear and worthy Shakers have seen it ; they have 
 taken into their hearts the fact that scortation is a serpent that 
 stings even to the second death, and that social antagonism is 
 the result of disorderly sex-relations. They have based a system 
 on the negation of sex and the annihilation of individual in- 
 terest. Their chastity has been denied by the vile, and their 
 
210 ABCANA OF CIIRISTIANITT. [chap. ir. 
 
 sincerity and honesty doubted by the religionists ; but, upon a 
 ground hedged in by the necessary limitations of their theory, 
 who shall dare to say that their work has not been faithful and 
 praiseworthy ? Yet starved hearts and lonely lives, affectional 
 want in the midst of material abundance, stamp their system 
 as, on the positive ground, a failure. Chastity and solidarity 
 are not negations but affirmations. Those who enter into 
 them require no espionage ; the greatness of the new harmony 
 does not require the smallness of the individual, but greatness 
 grows by greatness ; and the royalty and magnificence of the 
 system are the radiations of the royalty and magnificence of 
 wifely women and husbandly men. 
 
 446. Co-operative industry and associated life are repulsive 
 to those who have been brought up in king's houses, who are 
 clothed in purple and in fine linen, and who fare sumptuously 
 every day ; though, as was said before, the best among them, 
 when enlightened, can receive the truth of conjugial chastity 
 and can desire and accept it as the very crown and complement 
 of all their felicities. Never having practically known the 
 agonies of the industrial classes, however ideally they may 
 have sympathized with them, the thought of becoming artisans 
 themselves is, in a majority of cases, more terrible than being 
 killed for their religion by a swift death. Great examples are 
 needed. When cultm-ed and high-placed ladies and gentle- 
 men take to living the divine life, they will break the social 
 sphere which holds myriads of the most refined and sensitive, 
 the fairest blossoms of the garden of humanity, in bondage. 
 Their example, in due time, as they become a resplendent soli- 
 darity, will afiect mankind throughout Christendom as if Christ 
 bodily had again risen from the grave. ^ 
 
 447. It is no sacrifice for the masses to struggle for soli- 
 darity, since, socially, they have everything to gain thereby, 
 and nothing to lose. But for those who already enjoy the 
 visible beauty, affluence, culture, and repose, which are the 
 very efflorescence and fruitfulness of civilization, to pass out of 
 a dignified seclusion into solidarity, does, without doubt, in- 
 volve many sacrifices ; yet it is easier to accept solidarity from 
 a prior conviction of the greater worth of conjugial chastity, 
 with all that it involves, than it is to accept chastity from a 
 
SEC. 446—448.] TRi: APOCALYFSJE. 241 
 
 prior conviction of the worth, of solidarity. For solidarity is 
 the body of which chastity is the soul, the viialising and in- 
 forming essence. Throngs of artisans will fail, because never 
 having been accustomed to the refinements, the elegancies, 
 and the comforts which are the fruits of co-operative industry, 
 they will fix their eyes on these things as ends, and become 
 worshippers of them ; or, if this saying is too hard, the utmost 
 modification permitted is to say, that herein will consist their 
 great temptation. 
 
 448. It is harder for the high-placed than the lowly to 
 accept the form in which the divine order comes ; but easier 
 in another sense. To those who have known and mingled with 
 worldly society, and fathomed its depths, and tasted its quali- 
 ties, that worldly society offers no more temptation. The 
 temptation is to those who never have entered its charmed 
 precincts, who never have inhaled its subtle, and at first 
 delicious aromas. To those who have held power, and exer- 
 cised a large authority in the world, a dominant position is 
 felt simply as a burden. There are no crowns in the world 
 but that in some sense are crowns of thorns. It is the man 
 who has not tasted power who is liable to be tempted by it, 
 and to find in its cup, not refreshment, but intoxication. To 
 those who have never been narrowed in their expenses by a 
 hard and rigid penury, but who have enjoyed habitually an 
 easy affluence, wealth does not possess the fascination that it 
 does to those who have toiled strenuously for daily bread. 
 The vision of wealth is overpowering to the indigent, but the 
 fortunate know that riches are spiritually an illusion. Those 
 accustomed to elegancies are not bewildered by them as those 
 are who have been circumscribed by painful needs ; hence the 
 lofty in the new age are saved many of the temptations which 
 beset and almost overpower the lowly. Their temptation is 
 threefold ; first, a shrinking from industry in itself and as a 
 use ; second, from the associations that grow out of a divine 
 fellowship in industry; and third, from censure, from criti- 
 cisms, from ridicule, and from the loss of caste. Again, it is a 
 safe thing, as far as the world goes, to hold a doctrine specu- 
 latively ; but the danger comes when it begins to be held 
 practically. It is one thing for a gentleman to talk Utopia in 
 
212 ABCANA OF CIIBISTIANITY. [chap. ir. 
 
 a circle of clioice intimates after dinner and over tlie wine, and 
 quite another thing to throw the whole life into efforts for the 
 realization of Utopia. In one case he is called a man of fine 
 imagination, but in the other a fanatic, an agitator, and a 
 fool. 
 
 449. Again, with much show of reason, men in their early- 
 states may say, " We know that chastity, in its highest sense, 
 is a divine thing ; we can seek for this with no disturbance of 
 relations ; but solidarity is the unsolved problem of all ages, 
 the Isis whose face has never been unveiled. It has been the 
 crucial test of all systems, and all have failed when they have 
 made efforts for its realization." The teacher of divine things 
 is looked up to with a reverence, so long as his countenance 
 wears the glory of the transfiguration, and he discom*ses of the 
 beauty of holiness without laying bare the unholiness in the 
 hearts of his listeners, which can only be removed by the 
 heroism of strenuous deeds. But when he says, " Come, now, 
 follow in the path wherein I tread," men take the alarm, and 
 soon begin to cry, " This is a fanatical fellow who would lead 
 us out to perish in the wilderness." And once more ; so many 
 illusions have arisen in the progress of Christianity, that men 
 have lost confidence in their ability to discriminate between 
 illusion and reality, and as a rule will risk themselves for 
 eternity upon the verity of faiths for which they dare not take 
 risks in time. Considerations such as these have necessarily 
 great weight ; and yet the obstructions which they interpose 
 are but temporary. The embodiment of the new life, in social 
 harmony, will afford, what no theory of religion can otherwise 
 give, an actual, tangible, vital, practical demonstration. By 
 their fruits shall ye know them. 
 
 450. Higher being involves higher doing; but, in turn, higher 
 doing is a necessity without which higher being is sufibcated 
 and abolished. The Lord saith to the lofty who seek conjugial 
 purity, " Take it, take it freely, take it all ; though its orbs 
 are as the constellations and its expanses are as the firma- 
 ments, take it all." He holds back nothing. Is there vigour 
 in the bosom of All-Father? Is there sweetness on the 
 lip of All-Mother ? Are there joys that embosom angels in 
 their felicity, and that kindle suns by their reflected intensity ? 
 
SEC. 449—451.] TSE APOCALTFSE. 243 
 
 Still He says, " Take them, I keep back nothing of my store. 
 I, the Most High God, for this became incarnate, and for this 
 iu that humanity was glorified ; but the price, the condition of 
 conjugial purity, is strenuous labour for universal solidarity/' 
 This saith that Most High God ; but He also saith to the lowly, 
 " ye oppressed, ye ground between the wheels, and ye 
 trodden beneath the horse hoofs, ye to whom life offers little 
 beyond a daily and cruel battle against daily and cruel and 
 ever-recurring and material needs ; ye ask the formal harmo- 
 nies of my upper kingdom, its organized industries, its grate- 
 ful recompenses, an industry carried on as amidst the bowers 
 and beside the streams of paradise. Lo, I keep back nothino- ! 
 Whatever there is sumptuous and beautiful, whatever there is 
 felicitous and uplifting, whatever there is sure and steadfast 
 and enduring in the civilization of the harmonic and unfallen 
 worlds, I deny none of these things. See, I throw open the 
 gateways of Eden, and the angel stands with the flamy sword, 
 not to debar you from entering within those portals, but to 
 smite down the enemies who rise against you, and to lead you 
 and your wives and your little ones where the fountains flow 
 with immortality, and the fruits are of the tree of life. But 
 ^e condition of solidarity is conjugial purity ; without this, the 
 apples are not of Eden but of Sodom ; without this, ye are as 
 men who dream that they feast, yet die meanwhile of hunger ; 
 ye are like men who imagine to themselves that they are en- 
 tering into a land of fountains, of gardens, and of palaces, but 
 who are mocked by mirage, and perish in the desert.'^ O 
 Thou most merciful God and Lord Christ, Thy words are 
 true; help us, that we perish not of illusion and unbelief ! 
 
 riFTEENTH ILLUSTEATION. 
 
 'j'lie Heaven of Ancient Israel. — Messages to the Hebrew race on eartli. — 
 Prouiises for tlium. — Tlie Heaven of ancient Syria, and niauifesta- 
 tions tlierein. 
 
 451. I stood in Heaven, far to the east; it was a Celestial Hea- 
 ven. The vast amphitheatre of hills which formed the back- 
 ground and, like a crescent^ enclosed the scene, shone with 
 palaces; but in the foreground were tents blue and purple, 
 
 Q 2 
 
2U ABCANA OF CnBISTIANITT. [chap. n. 
 
 beneath spreadiuj^- trees like cedars of Lebanon. A moist fra- 
 grance rose from tlieground^beneatli the cool and grateful shade. 
 Heading from an ancient scroll, at the door of the first tent 
 which I approached, sat an angel, who rose with the saluta- 
 tion, " Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord.^-* 
 I replied, " Blessed is he that receiveth a little one in tho 
 name of a little one.^' He answered, "baracha,^' in the He- 
 brew tongue, substituting it for the celestial dialect, that I 
 might know that he had been on earth of that nation. A 
 matron came forth and he bade her make welcome. She took 
 fine flour, a Hebrew measure full, and kneaded dough with her 
 own beautiful hands, baking it afterward, and sprinkling the 
 unleavened cake with a sweet powder, diffusing a delicious 
 odour through the place. As the smoke went up from the 
 bread, the apartment became illumined with a rosy light, and 
 the two, speaking in one voice, said, " Eat the bread of God ; 
 may it do you good." 
 
 452. After this introduction, I said to them, " What is new 
 in this Heaven ? " To which the answer was returned, "This is 
 new ; we are appointed to descend to ancient Israel, scattered 
 throughout the nations upon the earth ; that the sons may re- 
 turn to Jehovah, and the daughters to His law. This is the 
 beginning of that day whereof we read, ' It shall come to pass 
 in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord''s house shall be 
 established in the top of the mountains, and all nations shall 
 flow unto it.' Therefore, such as are celestial angels from the 
 tribes of Israel, overshadow the remnants that survive, till Mes- 
 siah shall appear.^' I responded, ''How do you expect Messiah 
 to appear ? '' " Lo," said the husband, " the Man V At this I 
 fell prostrate. God appeared in His Divine-human form, and a 
 cloud of amber sm'rounded Him; then these words were given 
 me to say to the wives of the daughters of Judah, " Declare the 
 days of your languishment. Behold, if ye will, I will end them ; 
 the beautiful pomegranate shall be between thy knees; and 
 the princes be fed from thy bosom. I will open the womb with 
 holiness seven-fold. I will make you a glory to the nations. 
 Wherever ye dwell I will dwell with you. I am JAH." I 
 rose afterward and found the angel and his wife bathed in the 
 tears of a new joy too great for words. May He who gave the 
 
SEC. 452—454.] THE APOCALYPSE. 245 
 
 message add confirmation to those of Israel, to wliom this 
 utterance may come ! 
 
 453. I was afterward in an ancient Syrian Heaven, which 
 overshadows Damascus, and is also celestial ; and there I re- 
 mained for many days with the inhabitants of the country, 
 eating and drinking, as is their custom, and receiving gifts. 
 I gi'ew to be delighted more than I can tell with their sweet 
 air. Here I met a man who was so changed since he left the 
 natural world that I know not how to narrate of him. In the 
 midst of tropical scenery stands a palace of cedar wood. Roses 
 and myrtles perfume the air, mingled with white oleanders ; the 
 nightingales sing all night long. John Bunyan abides in this 
 place, and seldom appears with such as have become angels of 
 the English nation. He was of the fervid oriental genius, both 
 of the heart and of the imagination ; the remembrances of his 
 former state are curiously intermingled with the realities of his 
 present joy. A dear, meek woman, his wife, startled me by 
 gliding in an instant from the costume of an Enghsh woman 
 of the seventeenth century, into the flowing graceful robes of 
 the consort of an oriental prince. She became, in her enhanced 
 beauty, these flowing garments right well. 
 
 454. Among the companions of Bunyan are orientals of this 
 ancient Heaven, whom I Avould term artists in metaphor ; and 
 I here saw a Christian version of many of the marvellous ro- 
 mantic legends which survive in the "Arabian Nights Enter- 
 tainments." Bunyan made me a present of a turquoise ring, 
 and said, " The quality of this precious jewel is this : it is a 
 crystallized drop from the sea of the celestial solar light, whence- 
 descends the vivifying property of the natural sun. Tou re- 
 ceive here a talisman, which, when you perceive it upon your 
 finger, with the celestial sight, will enable you to summon 
 the twelve representative spirits of our Heaven, who preside 
 over tales of enchantment and of transformation, for the delec- 
 tation of the children of the new age ; but use it carefully as 
 the Holy Ghost inspires you." His wife added, "Go to Bedford 
 jail ; think of where he was ; " alluding to her husband, " and 
 where he is now, and let the thought instil comfort into your 
 own bosom." This talismanic gift, since my return, I have 
 not yet scon, but am conscious of its possession. 
 
21G ABC ANA OF CUEISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 455. The harmonic woman upon the inifallcn orbs must bo 
 the ty^Q and pattern of the woman of the new ago who breathes 
 with open respiration. They all with inner eyes perceive the 
 glorious Divine Person, and know that He is the Lord and that 
 all their life is a gift from Ilim. But they know as well that 
 evil spirits, once inhabitants of an orb, have seduced tho 
 womanhood of our planet into unfaithfulness to the Bridegroom. 
 There are upon the orb Jupiter, religious structures of vast 
 extent, wherein those who arc privileged to enter may behold, 
 not alone the scenery of our natural earth, but also the terrible 
 desolations which afflict its inhabitants. This is effected by a 
 species of nerve-vision, of which statements must appear else- 
 where. The earth appears to' them symbolically clothed in 
 black garments and weeping. Frequently they contemplate 
 the spectacle of wrongs inflicted on woman through slavery, 
 polygamy, want, oppression, legislation, and the various bru- 
 talities of the male sex, and always with the clear perception 
 that it results from the alienation of the universal feminine 
 principle of our earth from the Divine Life. Nothing but 
 opened respii^ation, whereby the Divine breath descends to 
 renew the body, illumine the mind, and inspire tho whole being 
 with chastity, is able to establish the new era for the woman- 
 hood of our race. The stupidity of the husbands on earth, the 
 wise women of Jupiter declare to be caused by the suppression 
 of heart-life upon the part of the mves. Womanhood con- 
 trols the manhood of every unfallen planet with gentle sway. 
 Living with the one divine end before them, the impregnation of 
 every thought and feeling from the Holy Spirit of the Lord, 
 the husbands become bodies, in which their affections con- 
 tinually take form ; since, as was said before, it is the wonmn^s 
 office spiritually to impregnate the man. Until the law of 
 spiritual impregnations is known and practised, man will 
 scarcely be able to rise. UjDon this depends the evolution of 
 the victorious intellect which sways the sceptre of the mundane 
 sphere. 
 
 456. The good Mussulman, to whom the tidings of the new 
 age of humanity is brought, will instantly bring to a close the 
 polygamic relations permitted by the faith of Islam. On the 
 approach of internal respiration, his first care Vv ill be to restore 
 
SEC. 455—457.] THE AFOCALTFSK 24.'7 
 
 tlie female inmates of his dwelling to absolute liloerty; guard- 
 ing them, however, against the evils to which they might be 
 liable from the fanaticism of devotees and the general inver- 
 sions of society. Polygamic marriage is no marriage. The 
 women with whom he thus stands related being enfranchised, 
 his next care will be wisely and cautiously to introduce into 
 their midst some woman of the new age, in whom internal 
 respiration has begun. The presence of the Divine Spirit co- 
 piously descending in the living breath of charity, will bring 
 to light the buried heavens of womanly affection, and the dead 
 Islamism give place to vital Christianity. That a new breathing 
 state has come into the world, that the Divine Spirit actually 
 breathes through the lungs of human beings who please Him, 
 and that this brings to the womanhood of the planet purity, 
 holiness, freedom, "and the perfect conjugial tie, after a period 
 will-^o forth upon the wings of morning. To woman^s mission 
 to woman, the living church will be indebted for its ultimate 
 success. 
 
 457. How far woman should teach her own sex is an open 
 question in the world. In the Heavens ladies interpret the 
 truths of the Word which pertain exclusively to their own sex. 
 There is in every Heaven a feminine sense and a masculine 
 sense, side by side, and evolved through the identical symbols 
 of the Holy Volume. Of the feminine sense, I am permitted 
 here to say that it relates to mysteries of woman^s nature. Oh 
 the love- depths of that heart in which Jesus dwells ! It is this 
 feminine sense which woman interprets to woman, and it is 
 the masculine sense which man interprets to man. There arc 
 priests, who, by consciousness, embrace the two spheres, and are 
 sacerdotal both to male and female. The priesthood is mascu- 
 line, bvit with this remarkable peculiarity, that it includes a 
 type of hierophants, who serve as local organs for the inner 
 sense of the Divine Word, appearing as woman to woman, and 
 as man to man. Appearing as woman to woman, because the 
 Divine conjugial sphere absorbs them into itself, inseminates 
 into them the feminine forms of the ideas to be unfolded, 
 and presents them, through an embodiment in the mascuhne 
 sphere, in their perfect purity and symmetry of outline. Suck 
 men are called " life-fathers " in the Heavens, and are seen 
 
248 AROANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap, it, 
 
 alternately in botli tlio womanly and manly provinces. They 
 arc, moreover, the heart-interpreters, through pubhc teachings 
 of the Word, of man to woman, and of woman to man. 
 
 458. The internal senses of Holy Writ are to be eventually 
 opened upon our planet in their parallel currents through the 
 identical symbols, that from the same Word may flow a perfect 
 revelation of God in man to man, and of God in woman to 
 woman, and also of God in man to woman, and of God in 
 woman to man. It is the heart-yearning of woman after the 
 feminine expression of truth from Deity that descends into the 
 universal movement for the elevation of the sex. I have seen 
 in Heaven the celestial-feminine sense, but never except in 
 woman's custody. A man angel cannot read it ; not from 
 arbitrary law, but because the Lord turns his eyes from the 
 page; only his wife can peruse it, that she "may open through 
 its truths her own inmost to God. It burns with such an 
 intense effulgence when gazed upon, that no man\s eyes can 
 bear the sight. The wives of the angels keep it in httle 
 caskets in their conjugial bowers, and read it when alone, that 
 they may know how to vivify their husbands and silently in- 
 troduce new forms of nobler knowledges into the depths of 
 consciousness. 
 
 459. The Word in Heaven, it should bo borne in mind, as 
 here, is a book, written from Heaven to Heaven in pictorial 
 symbols, which contain sense within sense. The symbols are 
 veiled and modified from Heaven to Heaven, that each angel 
 may see it as adapted to his own degree. The feminine sense 
 is read from left to right and from love to wisdom ; and the 
 'masculine sense from right to left as from wisdom to love. 
 There is within these senses, which are separate, a double 
 conjugial sense, which none can read but through the abso- 
 lute lapsing of the one life into all the forms of the other 
 life; so that eyes read through eyes, minds through minds, 
 and hearts through hearts. On the masculine side there are 
 branch senses treating of arts, powers, governments, and 
 learnings of various degrees, in which angels are trained from 
 one degree of angelhood to another with perpetual increase. 
 There are corresponding branches of sense on the feminine 
 side, pertaining to the vivifications of the angelic husbands. 
 
SEC. 458—461.] THE APOCALTPSJE. 249 
 
 and to all tlie peculiar trainings of the wives. Of tlie many 
 tilings in these branch feminine senses, no more is permitted 
 me to speak. The Word is, in fact, the wisdom-tree of 
 Heaven, with a fragrant branch laden with fruit in every 
 wife^s bower, and with a corresponding branch of leafy know- 
 ledge over every husband's door. 
 
 460. The true priest, with open respiration, both to the mind 
 and heart of the masculine and the feminine spirit, proves the 
 bisexual quality of his inspiration by an equal comprehension 
 of woman and of man. To receive such knowledges as pertain 
 to feminine human nature in its new state, those who are 
 chosen become initiates into the province of woman in the 
 Heavens. They see with woman's eyes, and meditate with 
 woman's mind, and are woman-hearted to love as woman 
 loves. Then they return to Earth, and woman feels the priest 
 not alone as a brother, but as a sister-brother; not alone as a 
 father, but as a mother-father; recognising a two-heartedness 
 in him, in which, for the first time, her most deep spirit may 
 be divined. God, who keeps, at every feast which He honours 
 by His presence, the best wine to be given from Him when 
 other supplies have been exhausted, reserves the rare vintage 
 both of the Word for woman and the Word through woman, 
 to that great coming era, wherein it shall be discovered that 
 the masculine intellect, divorced from the feminine spirit, is 
 barrenness and impotency, nor is this time far oflP. 
 
 461. The Word for woman is the very heart in each degree 
 of the Sacred Volume; and the Word for man the body of 
 that heart. When open-breathing wives begin to manifest 
 thgir sweet presence, the open-breathing husband will discover 
 the celestial-feminine sense descending in the spirits of know- 
 ledges into his heart, embodying themselves and becoming in 
 his consciousness the truths of the corresponding masculine 
 degree. I would have every youth whose affections are drawn 
 towards a pure virgin, rcaHze that, in the first principles of her 
 regenerate will, she contains ensouled the womanly body of 
 the Word of God. It is that Word within her which becomes 
 impregnated, in the feminine body of its ideas, when the Holy 
 Spirit breathes. There is within the youth a corresponding 
 boily, composed of organic vessels for ideas. When the two 
 
250 ABCANA OF CIIBISTIANITT. [chap. it. 
 
 nro made one in the state of open respiration, the insonlcd 
 ideas of God's AVord go forth to clothe themselves with the 
 organic vestures •which await them in the husband's form. 
 Herein is made known the mystery of the new union in Jesus 
 Christ. The feminine Word dwells in all the woman, the 
 masculine Word in all the man, and the feminine Word enters 
 into the masculine Word, dwelling within it, and accepting it 
 in triune conjunction as a mind for its spirit and as a body for 
 its soul. 
 
 462. We are now at the threshold of still more sacred 
 mysteries. Through the body of the female Word, God reveals 
 Himself to the woman in the plenary fulness of His own 
 Personality; the Joy-bringer, the Life-imparter ; and she 
 kneels and worships at His feet. The conjunction between 
 God and woman is through Woman's Word. No man can 
 attain knowledge of that Word, for the reason, that, so long as 
 masculine modes of thought endure, or masculine modes of 
 affection and perception, he embodies it in his own state, and 
 makes of it a masculine revelation. The woman can feel it, 
 because she embodies it, but cannot clothe it because it is 
 wholly composed of the spirits of ideas ; it needs therefore the 
 hierophant, who becomes masculine-feminine, supplying from 
 his masculine mind the bodies for the spirits of the ideas 
 disrobed of their ultimate appearance, .and left as feminine 
 bodies for woman's eyes. The spirits of the ideas have then 
 womanly forms, and are Woman's Word clothed upon with 
 all heavenly ultimates. 
 
 463. I would have every unregenerate woman remember, 
 that until, in the denial of self, she yields implicit obedience 
 to the Master of Life, the feminine body of the Word does not 
 become in her interiors an adjoined vivifying essence. To the 
 influence flowing through it she is indebted for every sacred 
 emotion that vibrates to the senses, while it plays upon the 
 soul. Should she confirm herself in love of self, when the 
 trial time is over, when she is pronounced to be confirmed 
 therein, the Word, in its sweet feminine body, is so far ab- 
 stracted that it can no more become the hand of the hand, 
 the bosom of the bosom, the lips of the lips, the eye of the 
 eye, the heai't of the heart. She is pronounced " Wordless," 
 
SEC. 462—466.] THE APOCALYPSE. 251 
 
 and so becomes at last an associate of the Wordless demon 
 and a dweller in the Wordless Hell. 
 
 464. Unsexed women are among the most guilty of the 
 peryerters of the Word^ because they pervert in themselves, 
 not merely the intellectual body, but the spirit of its ideas. 
 Woman sinks, vrhen she becomes an evil spirit, into a deeper 
 Hell than man sinks into ; not into the intellectual body, but 
 into the vital essence of which the Hells consist. Woman, 
 when lost, is more fiendlike than man, her burnings more 
 intense, her sorceries more subtle, her frenzies more terrible • 
 she absorbs the very heart of the virus of the demons of the 
 lost orb, giving place in her affections to Lucifer instead of 
 God. The brain life in which man exults, and which is fed, if 
 he is an evil spirit, through the fierce body of the passions in 
 the deepest places of the abyss, by a terrible inversion of 
 properties, begets on woman, when it approaches her, an in- 
 tense desire to be as man. The movement for the chanp-e in 
 woman^s condition, which at the present day agitates the 
 more advanced Christian nations, so far as it is evil, springs 
 from the effort upon the part of the intellectual body of the 
 Hells to demonise the sex by instilling this desire, namely, to 
 be as man. 
 
 465. The ratio of velocity with which woman sinks is seven 
 to one as compared with the average of men. But, on the 
 other hand, their ascent into godliness and the new life, when 
 internal respiration is begun, may be seven-fold more rapid. 
 The quality of the feminine Word is to hasten the development 
 of changes in the will, whether directly received by the woman 
 or proximately and through her, by the man. The Word now 
 spoken of is that which exists in the interiors of woman in an 
 organic form. As the Word descends more fully to dwell 
 within the sex, the whole being becomes more sweetly and 
 fully feminine, the voice melodious, exquisite, unspeakably 
 soft, with a thrilling vibration in it which is inimitable. It is 
 the Word, the Woman's Word, which makes the airy bodies of 
 the sounds a vehicle of expression, and surcharges the atmos- 
 phere with the inmost life in which the Heavens dwell. 
 
 466. The married woman who chooses lovers, pl'atonic or 
 otherwise, absorbing into herself a masculine sphere as varied 
 
AltCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. it. 
 
 as is possible, is living in tlio delight of the essence of adul- 
 tery. Sirens of this character go, before their bodies, in spirit 
 to perdition. The first germinations of this love are almost 
 imperceptible ; it begets a simulated softness ; the core of the 
 affection is for some demon lover who bodies himself, as far as 
 possible, in many men, yielding her the delight of his presence 
 through fresh masculine spheres, as one after another yields 
 up his finest vitalising quality. The passion for spiritual 
 adultery is very rife among women of the present day ; society 
 in both hemispheres being pervaded by it to an alarming ex- 
 tent. Women, who are the devourers of the aromal spheres 
 of the opposite sex, are vampires ; they derive their power of 
 fascination, and the hold which they obtain over male captives, 
 by their own occult connection with the siren womanhood of 
 pandemonium. The demon woman of the Hells endeavours to 
 absorb, through the seductive coquette and covert wanton, 
 the very finest spiritual essence from the men whose souls she 
 covets. 
 
 467. This, then, is the origin of those infatuations which for 
 the time obscure from view the Divine Sun that illuminates 
 the celestial firmament. The yearning to possess itself of in- 
 nocence, in the opposite sex, more deeply still is in its origin 
 infernal, and partakes of the desire for child-murder. The 
 demon covets, whether male or female, -a quality which is 
 stored in the first affections; this becomes, when absorbed 
 through the corrupt on Earth thus made use of, a youth- 
 renewing medicament. Through it the hags and sorcerers, 
 advancing to the latter stages of infernal decay, clothe them- 
 selves with a fictitious vernal bloom. Of this character also 
 is the desire of evil old men and women for those in the 
 tender beauty and freshness of their prime. The old, worn 
 body of the natural soul clings to Earth, and seeks to gather 
 back its essence which is lost, by appropriating, feloniously, 
 the life-fluids that are surcharged with the fragrance and the 
 dew of the human morning. To build up the old dying body 
 of the nerve-spirit by this process, and to prolong physical life, 
 is ghoul-like. 
 
 468. It is through the Woman's Word that Antichrist, with 
 his myrmidons, is put to flight. The object which especially 
 
SEC. 467—469.] TRE APOGALYFSK 253 
 
 our Lord lias in causing tlie present celestial unfolding to be 
 given, as it relates to woman, is to form a natm-al plane in the 
 understanding, by means of wliicli the Word within her can 
 descend into her universal affections, and embody itself there- 
 in. The shape in which the spirits of the ideas, which com- 
 pose the Woman^s Word, are grouped within the personality, 
 is uniform in every case ; a seven-fold woman-image, holding 
 in the right hand seven stars, and with a sharp two-edged 
 sword proceeding out of her mouth, surrounded with a fire- 
 halo above the features, clothed with a soft resplendence of 
 gold and silver and azure, wearing about the waist a golden, 
 silver, azure girdle, and with feet like fine brass, set with 
 jewels. It is the peculiarity of this Woman's Word, that the 
 knowledges which pertain to the feminine essence of atomic 
 spirits, fay-souls and races, world-souls, the harmonic families 
 of the unfallen universes and of the Ultimate, Spiritual, and 
 Celestial Heavens live within it. Access is only to l)e ob- 
 tained to this seven-fold series of verities through the opening 
 of woman's heart wherein it is concealed. 
 
 469. To evolve this Woman's Word into unspoken ulti- 
 mates, obedience is required to the seven following specific 
 laws. First, to speak not, except as moved upon by the Holy 
 Ghost through open respiration. Second, to write not, either 
 in the freedom of epistolary correspondence or in the more 
 studied forms of composition, until the Lord descends in such 
 modes of access as He chooses through the internal voice, then 
 made audible in the spiritual ear. Third, reading, whether of 
 serious or popular literature, indulged in without stint, and 
 with no reference to the Divine law, must cease. The Lord's 
 will is, that, after internal respiration has begun, and the 
 Divine breaths guide the conduct, not a paragraph should 
 ever be perused except in the light of the approving eyes of 
 the Infinite Bridegroom, who, by internal modes, makes known 
 His will. Costume is the fourth thing in place. In Heaven, 
 the wives of the angels are clad according to the divine idea, 
 which directs through the Woman's Word the apparel which 
 shall express and represent divine attributes and seraphic per- 
 fections. Upon a Babel tower of taste and skill unrcgencrate 
 woman endeavours to climb so high that sho can grasp from 
 
25i ARCANA OF CliBISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 tlic Upper Land tlio raiment wliicli invests tlio glory-clad in- 
 habitants. The new woman comes down from tlaese cloudy 
 elevations ; her desire is to bo clad as the Divine Lover shall 
 direct ; and He has styles for woman^s wear no less than beau- 
 tiful vestures for fields and flowers. The sphere of adornment 
 thus passes from the control of the lost womanhood of the pit ; 
 regenei'ate ftishion is found kneeling at Messiah's feet. The 
 open breathing woman will clothe herself only as fitness and 
 propi'iety are made known to her by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 470. The fifth law applies to food. There are many reasons 
 why the food of 'the race should chiefly be prepared by woman, 
 some of which follow. She is the love dispenser, and all food 
 is an ultimate embodiment of affection. The quality of food, 
 when prepared by the hands of open breathing woman, under- 
 Q'ocs a celestial transformation. The hands diffuse the entire 
 quality of the body. The man's hands impart stimulating 
 principles to the brain ; the woman's, on the contrary, 
 soothing and quieting cerebral qualities, imparting in the same 
 order visceral life. The woman who prepares food in divine 
 order, does it with her countenance turned internally to the 
 love-face of the Divine Sun. Bounteous and tender mother, by 
 the feminine genius, the inmost essences of health are copiously 
 in-poured in that most blessed use, and she nourishes, through 
 her culinary office, the guests for whom the hospitable board 
 is prepared with a divine- food, stored up in its natural and 
 visible manifestation. Woman's hand is so finely receptive, 
 that, when ministering in this heavenly order, the impure sub- 
 stances which have flowed into the j^roducts given her to pre- 
 pare, undergo an instant detection, which is not the case with 
 man. Whether as daughter, wife, sister, or mother, or as the 
 affianced, man in his heart desires, especially as the new order 
 is embodied within him, to receive food only as woman gives. 
 
 47L A sixth law applies to festive pleasures, which in the 
 new order will, without exception, fall within the province of 
 the open-breathing woman's exquisite perception of order and 
 of taste. As the initiameut to this, the Lord requires at 
 woman's hand, through the breathing of the Holy Ghost, a 
 withdrawal from those festive scenes which contain elements of 
 impurity and disorder, however veiled or countenanced by the 
 
SEC. 470—472.] TRE APOOALYFSU. 255 
 
 custom of the times. The seventh and closing rule of this 
 series is one which to many will seem at first indelicate, but 
 which, nevertheless, is found in the sweetness and dignity of 
 purity itself. Over the whole realm of knowledge concerning 
 sex-relations and the development of natural life a dense miasm 
 is spread, rank with every foul decay, from lost hearts in the 
 nether world, and from the abandoned in this. The sexual 
 doctrine of the Lord, clothed with its ultimates in nature, 
 should be instilled from the mother^s lips into every child 
 given her of Him. Sons and daughters should go into the 
 school or the society of their mates grounded in the truth of 
 purity, so that when the loathsome abominations that make up 
 the staple talk, even of children, in many districts, on these 
 topics, are propounded to them, they can encounter them 
 with the wisdom and sobriety of young apostles, versed in the 
 lawslDf their divine and heavenly origin, and trampling under 
 foot the serpents of the world's corruption. 
 
 472. To leave a child in ignorance concerning these thino\s, 
 is an almost inexcusable sin. The general feeling of children 
 who begin to taste the fruits of this tree of specious and satauic 
 knowledge, is that their origin is of so gross a sort that the 
 parents are ashamed to instruct them in it. With how much 
 reason many thus imagine, let others judge. Such woeful hells 
 of passionate madness boil in the cauldron of society, that the 
 eyes should be opened, as soon as the young intellect demands 
 the solution of the birth-question, to God's realities and the 
 earth's inversions. Were He, who was once incarnate as a 
 child, to speak in words, audible in secret to every mother's 
 heart, the message would be, " Communicate, yourself, all 
 life-secrets to the child I have given you." By observance of 
 the seven laws which are in their generals specified here. 
 Woman's Word will by degrees descend and clothe itself with 
 all the fulness of her breathing system. All these irhings are 
 specified within the arcana of the passage, " and the last moro 
 than the first." 
 
 Chap. 11. 20. — " Notwithstanding I have a few things 
 against thee, because thou suffeuest that woman 
 Jezebel, which calletu uekself a pkophetesSj to teach 
 
25G ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 AND TO SEDUCE MY SERVANTS TO COMMIT FORNICATION, AND 
 TO EAT THINGS SACRIFICED UNTO IDOLS/* 
 
 473. " Notwitlistantliug, I have a few things against thcc," 
 signifies, that the woman who receives the first gifts of open 
 respiration is in clanger of falling into complicity with the 
 customs of the age, especially into seven states of repugnancy 
 to the strict letter of the seven laws which precede. " That 
 woman Jezebel/' signifies, first, the infernal womanhood in 
 the Hell of the lost orb ; second, the various societies of demo- 
 niac womanhood in the Hells of our earth ; and, third, all evil 
 women who are becoming infernal in the three lower Earths of 
 Spirits in connection with our orb, and preparing themselves 
 to be cast into the Hells. '' Which calleth herself a pro- 
 phetess,'' signifies, the infatuations and falsities which infest 
 the universal mind of the fallen womanhood, and wliich each 
 possesses in the inmost will, with the delusion that her wisdom 
 is divine. " To teach,'' signifies, the sophistries concerning life, 
 dress, marriage, the family, society, and the world, which have 
 their origin in the corrupt mind of the infernal womanhood. 
 '' To seduce my servants," signifies, that woman in the new 
 order, before her states are fixed in open respiration, suffers 
 herself to be persuaded to comply with false customs, uncon- 
 sciously endeavouring to propitiate the false divinity. 
 
 474. " To commit fornication," signifies, that the woman of 
 the new age, also before her states are fixed in open respira- 
 tion, through fear and love of society, allows herself to absorb 
 into the nerve-spirit, through many minds, the masculine virus 
 which emanates from the Infernals, the seeds of which sow 
 poison in the understanding, and beget a mistrust of the Lord 
 and an unwillingness to be led in all things by His divine 
 voice. It is called " fornication," because the new woman is 
 the " Bride, the Lamb's wife," and her thoughts should be 
 impregnated by His divine breath; but by giving way to the' 
 insidious operations of those involved in the world's inversive 
 movement, the demons endeavour to inflow into the nerve- 
 essence, and to produce mental prolifications there of which the 
 results are thoughts against the truth. " To eat things sacri- 
 ficed to idols," signifies, that the woman of the new age, 
 before she is fixed in states of open respiration, may be also 
 
SEC. 473— 476.] TRIE APOCALYPSE. 257 
 
 seduced into a partial desii-e to feed tlie evil affections in her- 
 self, which have been subdued, with the foul food on which 
 demons thrive ; namely, honours, titles, selfishly appropriated 
 riches, books that pander to a false mental state, indolence, 
 an overbearing disposition to those inferior in the social scale, 
 heart-burnings against those more opulent and prosperous, 
 scandal, backbiting, and recrimination. 
 
 Chap. ii. 21. — '''And I gave her space to eepent op hee for- 
 nication ; AND SHE repented NOT.'" 
 
 475. The general signification of this verse is, that oppor- 
 tunities were offered to those women of the lost orb who 
 became demons, to all of our planet who have been cast into 
 Hell, and to all in the lower Earth of Spirits who have pre- 
 pared themselves for the Hells, to escape so great a condemn- 
 ation.~" It teaches, in the most absolute sense, that none are 
 lost but those who will to be lost, in giving themselves up to 
 the love of self and its consequent evils. It signifies also, 
 that none of those thus cast down did repent of their deeds, 
 in the abjuration of self-love. 
 
 Chap. ii. 22. — " Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and 
 
 THEM THAT COMMIT ADULTERY WITH HER INTO GREAT TRIBU- 
 LATION, EXCEPT THEY EEPENT OF THEIE DEEDS.''' 
 
 476. " Behold, I will cast her into a bed,'' signifies, the 
 punishments which await the women of the Hells of our own 
 planet, especially those who plot and compass, by any device, 
 the destruction of terrestrial women who are preparing to be- 
 come of the new age. The punishment of the bed is the most 
 terrific that can be inflicted in the abyss. As in the true 
 nuptial relation are delights which flow from the direct pre- 
 sence of the Lord, when married associates are in open respi- 
 ration, and pervaded by the Holy Ghost, so through them 
 comes the just punishment of the sirens and sorceresses wlio 
 seek to invert the new order in the bosoms of men. The 
 result of this holy nuptial union is a twofold flame of the 
 Divine breath, which takes to itself, from their living spiritual 
 bodies, degree after degree of elemental substance, and de- 
 scending through them becomes a woven fiery mantle, which 
 
 E 
 
25S ARCANA OF CURISTIANITT. [chap. ir. 
 
 is also a whirlwind enveloping, by intert^vining folds, those evil 
 ones, and so holding* them irresistibly ^tvithin its embrace. 
 The demon woman, who is thus cast into the bed, for the time 
 endures in her own body every agony which she has in her 
 heart to inflict upon the good. 
 
 477. " Them that commit adultery with her," signifies, men 
 who are verging towards open respiration, but who commit 
 offences which open them to sirens from below. " Into great 
 tribulation,'^ signifies, that they are cast finally, unless they 
 abjure their errors, into the enveloping ligatures and burial 
 folds formed by the Divine breath, and which serve as beds of 
 punishment for the sorceresses. They are there forced to 
 absorb into each other those infernal madnesses which finally 
 kill the soul. They pass through states of mental attraction, 
 into others, in which they oppose each other from the inmost 
 will, and are compelled thus to inflict in their incorporate 
 madness, agony for agony, which, othei'wise, they would seek 
 to concentre in the hearts, minds, and bodies of the good on 
 Earth, who are tending to the new age. " Except they repent 
 of their deeds,'' signifies, a brief period, during which men 
 who have fallen into evil, in the most incipient states preceding 
 respiration, may bo still disconnected from the demons, both 
 male and female, to whom they have conjoined themselves; 
 but this repentance must be most deep. 
 
 Chap. ii. 23. — ^^And I will kill her children [sons] with 
 
 DEATH ; AND ALL THE CHUKCHES SHALL KNOW THAT I AM He 
 WHICH SEAECHETH THE EEINS AND HEARTS : AND I WILL 
 GIVE UNTO EVERT ONE OP YOU ACCORDING TO TOUR WORKS." 
 
 478. '^And I will kill," signifies, the destruction which 
 awaits, in the new age, the men who submit themselves to the 
 inflowings of the infernal womanhood. " Her children " [sons] , 
 those who thus submit themselves, '^with death," signifies, 
 irredeemable destruction in the second death. '^AU the 
 churches," signifies, men of all types of the new humanity. 
 '^ Shall know," signifies, their perception of the Divine Provi- 
 dence in judgments. "That I am He which searcheth the reins 
 and hearts," signifies, that their perception is that judgment is 
 from internals to externals, and according to the absolute state 
 
SEC. 477—480.] THE AFOGALTPSE. 259 
 
 of the affections of man. The next clause of the verse. " And 
 I will give unto every one of you according to your works/' 
 is vast in significance^ containing arcana concerning seven 
 celestial-natural states to be enjoyed on Earth after the old 
 life-tree has fallen, as follows : — 
 
 479. The Woman's Word alluded to elsewhere, exists within 
 the female child as a divine feminine appearance of infancy, and 
 when the Lord causes the infant to be born with open respira- 
 tions, it is discovered that every breath of the beauteous babe 
 is the result of the direct effusion of our Lord's personal ten- 
 derness for i#i She is called '^ the Word-child," because it is 
 discovered that the Divine Father has caused the universal 
 series of the spirits of the truths which are the Word, organ 
 by organ and faculty by faculty, to be inseminated into her 
 whole being. As language is unfolded in the first sweet tones, 
 she begins to converse concerning internal and heavenly inno- 
 cence, borrowing from the natural world images by means of 
 which to express and body forth germs of ideas present to the 
 internal consciousness. To the young child who sees through 
 Heaven's inner eyes, Heaven is opened continually, and her 
 respirations are at first with the innermost of the angels in 
 her own heavenly society, because in these the state of inno- 
 cence is most supreme. In its first form the Word, which is 
 thus contained within her is called the " Gospel of Innocence." 
 
 480. Advancing through orderly stages, should no distur- 
 bances intervene, the daughter of the Word becomes conscious 
 that she is ministered unto through the living Word, which is 
 composed of spirits of ideas within her own body, and that 
 our Lord by it and through it is her constant benefactor. The 
 process of conversion, as it is recognised throughout Christen- 
 dom, by devout hearts, never takes place with her, because 
 there is nothing to unlearn in the mind or to undo in the will, as 
 to internals, and obedience to the Divine Yoice is to her native 
 and natural ; as in the case of children inheriting into the old 
 movement and its closed respirations, the desire to obey the 
 self is native and natural. Herein commences a new era m 
 religious instruction ; for to this young daughter of the Word, 
 all that pertains to childhood, as at present constituted, is un- 
 natural. Her child's faith clothes itself in words like these, 
 
 li 2 
 
260 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. it. 
 
 which catechetically may be thus disposed in questions and 
 replies. • 
 
 Q. Tell me, thou blessed child, what is thy name ? — A. I am 
 the daughter of the Word, and named after His name, which is 
 Truth, Love, Charity. 
 
 Q. How knowest thou that thou art thus called? — A. My 
 Father calls me thus, speaking within me. 
 
 Q. In what manner doth He thus designate thee ? — A. It is 
 as the song of a bird in my heart, as a voice of a man in the 
 mind, but in the body it is peace and joy. 
 
 Q. Who is He that doth talk within thee ? — A. The loving 
 Father of all, who is over all, and in all, and through all ; the 
 blessed God who was made manifest on Earth as man. 
 
 Q. What doth He teach thee, little child ? — A. To breathe 
 as He breathes in me, and with this to run with my feet upon 
 His errands. 
 
 Q. Dost thou see within thyself, as out of thyself? — A. That 
 I do most clearly ; and first, I see Him who is my life ; and 
 second, I see multitudes of little children like myself, but more 
 glorious and beautiful j and third, I see the wonderful land in 
 which they dwell and which is called Heaven. 
 
 481. It is in this manner that the Word unfolds in simple 
 truths, by open perceptions in the joy-breathings of the new 
 child, who sees the spirits of the ideas arrayed in her own sub- 
 jective being, in which they are grouped together as paradi- 
 siacal infants in the midst of paradises. This she calls Heaven, 
 but the One who moves in the midst of it, the Lord. The 
 spirits of the truths open, moreover, as subjective mirrors, 
 holding in themselves the marvels of the celestial landscapes 
 which they resemble, and the angels who dwell therein. The 
 whole Word is thus subjectively disclosed, as far as is neces- 
 sary to her degree. 
 
 482. By means of Woman^s Word the female children of the 
 new age will be governed and brought into association in the 
 most exquisite manner with their kind ; guidance being from 
 the Lord through open respiration, and the Divine mandate de- 
 scending with the breath from the spiritual to the natural de- 
 gree of consciousness. Because there are three degrees in the 
 Word, the child will behold through these, as times serve, the 
 
SEC. 481—484.] THE APOCALYPSE. 261 
 
 trine of tlie angelic motliers from tlie Heavens. The celestial 
 mother replete with the sweet charm of the Heaven where the 
 spirits of the affections enjoy eternal beatitudes ; the spiritual 
 mother from the Heavens where the spirits of the ideas reside 
 in stately palaces of understanding ; and the ultimate-heavenly 
 mother from that embodied Heaven of sweetness, fulness, and 
 delight, where the forms of the pure virtues exist. Thus con- 
 scious of the stately lines of the internal parentage, the natural 
 mother will serve as the earthly expression of the angel mother- 
 hood ; the natural Earth, in its new harmony, the basis and 
 extension of these Heavens, and her own natural body the 
 guarded shrine of a spiintual body containing within itself the 
 living organisms of the spirits of ideas. A divine human evan- 
 gel, most fully to be revered, most deeply to be loved, as in- 
 deed the one in whose being the Infinite Trinity of power 
 and wisdom and goodness personally exists, the sweet child of 
 the new age receives the Lord, and learns the language in 
 which He speaks, and so comprehends the Divine things of 
 life, with an ever-growing expansion of the heart. 
 
 483. The child of the degree we are now considering, namely, 
 the one respiring from the Celestial Heaven in conjunction with 
 world-souls of orbs in which the celestial genius is supreme, 
 will be, as to subjective consciousness, during states of natural 
 repose, adjoined to harmonic infants of such unfallen worlds. 
 That orb with which she most accords by virtue of the pre-exist- 
 ent harmony of which her life is the expression, will be her 
 spii'itual star, shining through the heart with soft diffusive 
 splendours (see heart-sight elsewhere); in conjunction with its 
 delicious air she will respii-e, and represent in our earth the 
 charmed beauty of feminine children who make its paradises 
 their terrestrial home. The children of Venus, Mars, Saturn, 
 and other planets, where moral evil has no place, will be con- 
 spicuously represented on our earth in this manner. As the 
 area of the new life widens, it will be finally perceived, that 
 every infant daughter of the Word born upon our planet is the 
 representative of the feminine spirit of some familiar star. 
 
 484. The child of the new age will live in the perception of 
 atomic spirits, fay souls, inhabitants of the unfallen worlds, the 
 world-souls, and the ang-els of three Heavens. To her clear 
 
2G2 ARCANA OF CnBISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 vision nature will bo discovered as one universal animate exist- 
 ence, subsisting by dependence upon the Lord. In her second 
 state the "Woman's Word will be lovingly present in the whole 
 form, and she will exist and respire by means of the Divine in- 
 fluence through it. In its second degree of manifestation in 
 the child, the woman's Word is called " The gospel of child- 
 hood, or of Eden ;" the last word signifying the childhood of 
 the race. The Word "\viU serve as an internal ministrant most 
 exquisitely pervading every organ, while from the archetypal 
 spirits of truth witliin it, in which her own womanhood is pre- 
 figured, the child will unfold into that special type of love and 
 beauty which she is to illustrate on Earth. 
 
 485. As maidenhood advances and the soul-flower parts its 
 calyx to unfold its deep corolla, a third state will intervene. 
 The Word which has heretofore been within her person will 
 open, dispensing its qualities in a fivefold luminous radiation ; 
 the first from the life heaven, the second from the love heaven, 
 the third from the truth heaven, the fourth from the essence 
 heaven, the fifth from the harmony heaven, or outer expanse 
 of the celestial society with which she is especially at one. 
 Clothed thus in spotless woven innocence from the Lord, she 
 hears, in her deep subjective life. His voice more fully and 
 nearly within, while, in all the ardent blushing afiections of 
 vii"ginal being, she consecrates herself in unreserved and abso- 
 lute obedience to His eternal will. The Woman's Word within 
 her is called, in this third state, " The gospel of virginity," 
 or " The vernal gospel,'' because her state is one of Spring. 
 
 486. Marriages in the new age, where there are female 
 childi'cn perfected to the prime of womanhood, in whom Wo- 
 man's Word is thus unfolded, will cease, so far as in any man- 
 ner typical of the subversive state. But the two who are one, 
 through the operation of the Divine Spii'it, will thus conduct 
 the sweet courtshij) which terminates in the nuptials of ever- 
 lasting life. The two who are to be united will breathe in a 
 consent of breaths, the divine respiration being coalescent 
 within them. The youth will, from the moment when the fair 
 virgin is presented to his gaze, breathe only in concert with 
 her breath. There will not be two respirations but one. 
 Through consent of respiration they will be ever present with 
 
SEC. 485—487.] THE APOGALYPSE. 263 
 
 each otlier in spmt^ however physically remote in space. 
 When the period for the celebration of nuptials arrives, instead 
 of solemnising an external union by priestly consent and ap- 
 probation, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and with 
 believers present for a testimony, they will attest and avow 
 themselves two in one. From this time they will be recog- 
 nised as conjugial partners ; making the act a fact of state and 
 society by its registration, according to such custom and 
 statute as may exist. From this time the Woman^s Word, 
 which exists in the spirits of ideas within her in the virgin state, 
 will impregnate the Man's Word which exists within him, in a 
 universal series of forms or bodies for the spirits of the ideas. 
 Behold then the holiness of nuptials ! The husband and the 
 wife are led together, that the two forms in which the Word 
 exists, masculine and feminine, may interknit their essence. 
 After ^marriage is established the Woman's Word is called 
 " Fruitfulness." 
 
 487. We approach now the mysteries of life-generation. As 
 the male and female Word co-act, insphered separately within the 
 husband and the wife, the descent of the spiiits of the ideas 
 into the bodies of the ideas is marked by rites of nuptial union, 
 till, in due time, the soul, the mind, and the body of the bride- 
 groom, as a matrix of truth, are impregnated through the bride. 
 From this time there are bii'ths in the man according to his 
 social use. Truths of art, of science, of government, of wor- 
 ship, display themselves within the outward provinces of the 
 understanding. He is inspired to execute the works given 
 him to do ; the truths being begotten in him through Word- 
 conjunction, and in Kke manner evolved and made known. 
 The wife also becomes pregnant from time to time with the 
 children whom the Lord gives to her as a holy seed; they 
 are conceived without sin and shapen without iniquity, being 
 begotten in and through the conspiration of the Word mascu- 
 line and the Word feminine, while the divine breaths go forth 
 holding within themselves the soul-germ, conducting it to its 
 place within the ovum, depositing the latter in the womb, and 
 then elaborating fold by fold the tissues of its natural frame. 
 Least some should mistake the force of the statement here con- 
 veyed, forming from it an argument against the Infinite lucar- 
 
2GJ. ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 nation of our Lord, the reader is referred to A. of C, 2, I. 
 Chap. I, for an epitome of the doetrine of the descent of the 
 Divine Man into the human form. 
 
 488. It is during this period that the man becomes born 
 into successive states of internal Hfe, love, truth, essence, and 
 harmony, to be ultimated through his body in the noble 
 employments of the outward world. As is the woman^s 
 gospel, so is, in its place, the man^s gospel into which it flows; 
 and as are the two in their conjunction, so are the births 
 in the natual system of the man. The decline of life in the 
 terrestrial world does not take place, though existence is 
 lengthened out to one, two, or three generations, while there 
 remains, in the ultimate degree of the mind, any unborn pro- 
 creation from God's Word, unless physical existence ter- 
 minates through martyrdoms or some transgression. When 
 the two in one have received the Word in its lyrical expres- 
 sion, the melodies of many worlds are begotten through it. 
 Those to whom the Word is given in its tragic or dramatic 
 manifestation, evolve from suns and systems the vast ideas of 
 the corresponding muse; and work follows work in the mas- 
 culine, as babe succeeds babe in the feminine life, till all is 
 wrought out that the Lord has for His children to accomplish 
 in the terrestrial sphere and their life-circle is full. 
 
 489. The Word ceases to beget, through the interaction of 
 the conjugial pair, long before manifestations of mental fertility 
 and fecundity are at an end. The period for the evolution of a 
 work of truth or art. Word begotten, may vary from the hour 
 to threescore years and ten ; the simplest works being most 
 rapidly organized, the most composite slowest in the process. 
 The works of old men will be gigantic when a hundred years 
 have made their majestic imprint on the venerable face. 
 
 490. The close of mental prolifications in the man is marked 
 by a period of langour, during which the mind, the imagina- 
 tion, the fancy, in fine the whole cycle of the truth- bearing 
 powers, fall into a reposeful state. It is a crisis corresponding 
 to that which terminates the period of maternity with the 
 woman. New inseminations from the Word, after this period, 
 do not occur; exceptions however, for especial divine ends, 
 modify this rule. It is accompanied with a profound sensation 
 
SEC. 488—491.] TRE APOCALYPSU. 2G5 
 
 as of a fiuislied and accepted cycle of employ. Cool wafting 
 winds^ wliicli are auras of the Heavens^ play about tlie greater 
 brain. The mental ova in the ovaries of the brain which have 
 not already received impregnation^ become deprived of the 
 germinative gift^ and the mental ovary itself, losing its func- 
 tion, is gathered together. The abdomen of the body experi- 
 ences a sympathetic action, and accommodating itself to the 
 new condition, developes fibre and muscle. The sole use of the 
 human tree is henceforth perfectly to mature the fruit-germs 
 already set. Often the germs of intellectual creations are con- 
 cealed for periods varying from three to thii'ty years, growing 
 unsuspected in the mental system all this time. The con- 
 sciousness of the close of the era, during which new mental 
 impregnations may occur, should not of necessity denote that 
 the terrestrial career is nearly ended • it may be in its nobler 
 cycle hardly begun. 
 
 491. The art-breathing of Deity, beauteously manifest in 
 the exquisite foliage and flowerage of the varied year, is more 
 conspicuously displayed in the events that crown the seasons of 
 this chaste conjugial life. One breathing spirit animates, one 
 goodness presides, one wisdom forms and fashions all ; and the 
 end, hke its Author, is very good. After the period of mental 
 prolification has ceased with the husband, and its terrestrial 
 symbol with the wife, the richest enjoyments of existence are 
 begun. Henceforth all that remains is to ripen in their wealthy 
 places, and to diSuse a varied plenty through the cycles of 
 their year. The Woman^s Word now ceases to dispense such 
 impregnating qualities throughout the bodies of the ideas 
 which constitute the Word in man; but the Divine Spirit 
 flows through it gloriously to mature the embryos which have 
 already received their quickening. Yet the life, which before 
 has been the promise and the prophecy, is now ripe with har- 
 vest. This period is the true work-day of a great career. The 
 men on Jupiter seldom emerge from their private walks to 
 occupy illustrious places, whether as poets, hierophants, or 
 governors, until the era of prolification terminates, and with 
 them there is a sunset which precedes the seven-fold day. The 
 Gospel which now emanates from the Woman's Word within 
 her breast, is called " Ripeness,'' and the spirits of the truths. 
 
200 ARCANA OF CnElSTIANITT. [chap. ir. 
 
 when thoy arc interpreted into language, arc found to relate 
 to tlio diWno harmonics, which conspicuously unfold in the new 
 duties of the pair. 
 
 492. The procession of the days moves on. A sixth period 
 dawns for a nobler unfolding of the Wonian^s Word. It is an 
 era marked by colossal fulness in the affections. The germs 
 of a new quickening luvvo descended into the Word, and a 
 nobler pregnancy begins, Avliere tho surcharged affections 
 receive from the Divine Spirit the germs, not of knowledge, 
 but of solid things. Not alone is woman, through the Word, tho 
 mother of nations, but of natures. She feels within her breast 
 the throes and pulsings of a celestial mineral life. The quick 
 essences which weave the structures of gold and silver, of 
 every valued metal and every precious gem, are operant within 
 the consciousness, and she exclaims that she is ahve with tho 
 spirits of a world's great basis ! The thoughts that rise in 
 the morning hke odours, or with brilliant winged forms, and 
 that flit throughout the day from bower to bower in the 
 chambers of the understanding, repose at eventide, to be 
 transformed, thi-ough sleep, to first principles of metallic and 
 mineralised existence. Now also unearthly melody is heard 
 at night ; the underworkers below the deep mineral bases of 
 the orb, the flame dwellers and the stone dwellers, the fiiys of 
 carbon and of iron, of the ruby and the diamond, epitomise 
 their mystic dance ; and the song, a fluent, gliding stream of 
 love, flows in red fire to frame, -within such bases of the natural 
 body as are in their degree, a new celestial mineral formation. 
 It is the dust of thought that scintillates in living jewels. 
 Star is heard chanting to star ; the wonder-process by which 
 orbs are evolved in space amidst the measured moving strokes 
 of thi'obbing world-souls, is repeated in the brain. At length, 
 from within the waters of the mind, rolls up to sight an inner 
 orb, resonant with an embodied harmony. This proceeds 
 thi'ough seven beauteous eras to perfection, and moves forth 
 from within the mind, and is caught up into the aromal spaces 
 of the world, where it unrolls and becomes a floating islet of 
 sun crystals and of star crystals, knit together by the chemic 
 law, a basis for subsequent aromal vegetation. 
 
 493. Upon the orb Jupiter may be discovered, first, its 
 
SEC. 492—494.] THE APOCALTrSJE. 2G7 
 
 terrestrial soil, mantled with glorious vegetation in hues in 
 which the emerald predominates j but far above, suspended in 
 the pure ether, floating gardens of substance more exquisite, 
 with their own peculiar minerals and earths and waters, their 
 own paradisiacal fruits and flowers, of which the predominant 
 colour is a softly shaded gold. The substance of which they 
 are composed is evolved through Woman^s Word ; first from 
 one primate woman of the orb, and then through sisterhoods 
 of generations. So will it be after the new woman begins to 
 fulfil in our earth a perfect cycle. Illustrations of the operant 
 power of the Divine in ultimates might be multiplied from the 
 illustrations of miracle in Holy Writ. The husljand conjoined 
 to the wife is, during this period, developing, in forms of lan- 
 guage, or works of art, or material and social employments 
 and industries, the creations from the Word, previously gene- 
 rated^within his mind. 
 
 494. Still, as the Divine Spirit, through Woman's Word, con- 
 tinues His wonderful operations in her breast, she becomes 
 pregnant again, through the spirits of the ideas of which it is 
 wrought, with a soft, sweet, floral babe, whose body is com- 
 posed of unborn essences of every holy plant and sacred flower. 
 The fays of garden and field and grove sing continuously within 
 her. She sympathises with the universal flora. She is impreg- 
 nate with the essence of an orb of flowers. The spirits of the pine 
 and fir, the palm and bread-fruit, the myrtle and the oleander, 
 and every graceful thing that loves the ground, or hides within 
 a germ of springing bloom, in her low, delicious meltings of ac- 
 cordant breaths, together seem throbbing into life. Now, too, 
 the play and action of the universal world-souls softly inter- 
 penetrate the frame, and the orb of crystals is succeeded by 
 the orb of floral life, ascending through the composite structure 
 of the twofold brain, and distributing aromal germs, to fashion, 
 as they rise above the surface of their airy paradise, the sub- 
 stanced emblems of her own delightful state. I saw upon the 
 planet Jupiter a celestial-natural woman of that type which we 
 consider here as of the Thyatiran Church, and was permitted 
 to behold the termination of the second process which I here 
 narrate. The floral creation gathered itself up, having been 
 previously distributed through her whole frame, and ruse 
 
2GS ARCANA OF CHBISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 through the open spiracles of which the brain is fashioned, 
 until, unfolded above her, it floated eastward as toward the sun. 
 
 495. The woman is rich and great with a substantial opu- 
 lence of varied sensation, replete with charm, exhaling constant 
 satisfactions. The husband gazes on her with a fondness, 
 which is renewed, enhanced, and more blissfully perfected day 
 by day. The eyes more tender and deej?, the breath more 
 spicy, the warblings of the voice more sacred and profound; 
 the rose-flush upon the cheek, dispensing, through its rich car- 
 nations, a crimson goldonness as of celestial skies ; the lips in- 
 spired with an ecstasy akin to that of angels ; the body glowing 
 and ardent, the health more consummate, above all the breath- 
 ings of a seven-fold continued Divine operation, betoken the 
 Genius, through the spirits of the ideas of which the Woman^s 
 Word is constituted, and the third internal kingdom wrought of 
 the essences of the forms of sensitive life. The songs of birds 
 are heard within the brain ; 51 winged hymning sphere ascends 
 therefrom; at length it becomes a germ of the bu'd world, 
 and contains within itself the germ of a typal, aromal-animal 
 creation. So the work is finished, and a triune aromal world 
 or nature born through woman in her sixth great stage. 
 
 496. The Word within her dm^ing this period is called "In- 
 crease," and the spirits of the ideas, when translated into lan- 
 guage, are found to contain truths of a corresponding quality. 
 This orderly increase of growths through the wife is necessary 
 to prepare her for the next great state which now begins to 
 dawn. Her use as the mother of men and the mother of 
 nature being perfected, she receives into herself from the Lord 
 and through the Woman's Word, ovarian receptacles, deposited 
 within unimpregnated ova preserved for that purpose from 
 the period of birth within the ovarium. At the same time 
 soul-germs of a new type of exquisite human children descend 
 from the Lord through the Heavens, and are clothed upon with 
 appropriate nerve-bodies in the holy respiring system of her 
 nuptial counterpart. In due time they conspire, when, through 
 the generative law, the wife becomes pregnant with an aromal 
 child, beautiful beyond imagination, the charm, the wonder, 
 the delight of all who gaze upon it. Aromal love-milk now 
 distends the breasts on which the infant feeds, and when infancy 
 
SEfc. 495—498.] THE APOCALYPSE. 269 
 
 is finislied, it is cauglit up and becomes tlie Adam of the airy 
 paradise, wlio in due time finds his Eve. These I have seen, 
 ■when intromitted through the opening of perception into the 
 wonders of the planet Jupiter. They are in size an harmonic 
 octave less than the terrestrial race in whose chaste perfection 
 they originate,, and the bodies of some are like the golden 
 starred, azure heaven, and others of a golden redness like the 
 dawn. It is the solace of this pregnancy that it announces 
 glories unspeakable beyond the world. The well-beloved gift 
 is our Lord's approval of the whole life, the seal of attestation 
 preceding the final welcome to eternal joys. A final name, by 
 which the gospel unfolding from Woman's Word is called, is 
 " Rest.'' Of the felicities which the nuptial pair enjoy, there 
 is no earthly language of purity so exquisite as to shape the 
 statements that might otherwise be made. They are as the in- 
 cense of incense, the beauty of beauty, and the peace of peace. 
 
 497. '^And I will give to every one of you according to 
 his works," signifies, furthermore, seven beauteous changes, 
 through which the celestial-natural woman of this type under- 
 goes translation, to be with the Lord in the Heavens. In 
 the first, the Woman's Word envelopes her through its fivefold 
 sphere spoken of before, and flashes such scintillant splendour 
 that momently there occurs a transfiguration. This precedes 
 the change. There are heard voices in the natural atmosphere 
 as of thunder, mild and melodious, and earth-echoes as of 
 vibrations within the bosom of the soil; deep calleth unto 
 deep. It is committed to the fays of stone and fire, who 
 heretofore from time to time have wrought within the metallic 
 and earthy bases of the body, to begin chanting within its 
 human extenses the fire-song which precedes the consumma- 
 tion of terrestrial things. The low, sweet melody seems to 
 weave itself in flying circles, in the midst of all that golden 
 splendour wherein the woman stands; and the flame commences 
 to consume the outmost particles, which by a slow music ex- 
 hale away in the midst of the song of the Word which the 
 woman sings. 
 
 498. Now the fays, who have inhabited the human extenses, 
 and wrought into the varied degrees of the bodily structure, 
 having previously ceased their generations, behold their seven 
 
270 ARCANA OF CHBISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 respective fay earths Lrcakiug up and undulating beneatli the 
 feet. The mild, miracuhjus liamo at the same moment inwraps 
 every object within itself. The fay Heaven is opened, and the 
 fay races who have ascended beckon to their glowing progeny. 
 From the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, they rise. 
 At this moment the glorified woman feels the spirits of the 
 primates and the ultimates infolding within themselves the 
 zones by which they have been manifested in time and space. 
 The world-soul opens ; instantly the sidereal harmony which 
 has heretofore interknit the system in its motions with the 
 music of the space, is felt as if by a self-conscious volition 
 withdrawing from the frame. The soul of the woman now 
 darts with instantaneous motion where, reverent and worship- 
 ping, the husband beholds the sublimation of the essence of 
 his wife, and through her enraptured hand he receives the fire- 
 crown and glory-mantle of deathless translation to Heaven. 
 The wife comes first to the husband, by the love-breathing of 
 the Holy Ghost, to rest as the bride within his bosom, serving 
 as the beauteous agent for the inspiration of the forms of the 
 ideas with which the Word is extant within his own nature. 
 Anon the Woman's Word puts forth its seven-fold flame which 
 the Man's Word within him receives, and as the two Words 
 interflow, the fays of stone and fire perform their work, and 
 are themselves involved into the ultimate Word-sphere, in 
 which they rise followed by the fay earths within the man, 
 while the atomic spirits, with one consent involve themselves. 
 All is prepared ; the earth holds them no more. The dissolving 
 extended spheres of the nerve essence emit their unspiritual 
 elements, which melt to rose and purple, and dissolve away 
 upon the stainless ether. This is the first stage. 
 
 499. Behold the bridegroom and the bride ! The Heavens 
 open to receive them. The human extenses of the will, the 
 understanding and the proceeding spiritual form, orbed in un- 
 speakable majesty, become the composite habitations of the 
 fay race, who have put on immortahty during the periods of 
 their terrestrial duration, and at its close. The two in one, 
 lords of a few things of a fay earth below, are rulers over the 
 many things of a fay heaven above. Surrounded by this aerial, 
 hymning multitude, they rise toward their rest. This is their 
 
SEC. 499— 50X.] TRIE APOCALYPSE. 271 
 
 second stage. Over tlie wide-oxtendecl landscape sliines in 
 fivefold lustre the sun of the Divine Presence. Hitherward 
 proceeds the bridegroom, still led up by the bride, enclasped 
 within the twofold Word ; and the winged spirits of the ideas 
 are involved within the bodies of the ideas : " a great cloud, 
 and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and 
 out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the 
 midst of the fire.^^ Such was a translation which I witnessed 
 in the spirit upon the planet Jupiter, where reside a majestic 
 people who correspond to the Thyatiran Church. 
 
 600. They are borne upward in the "Word; and now in the 
 third stage its appearance becomes more majestic and terrible. 
 " Out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living crea- 
 tures. And this was their appearance ; they had the likeness 
 of a man. And every one had four faces, and every one had 
 four mugs. And their feet were straight feet ; and the sole of 
 their feet was like the sole of a calPs foot : and they sparkled 
 like the colour of burnished brass. And they had the hands 
 of a man under their wings on their four sides ; and they four 
 had their faces and their wings. Their wings were joined one 
 to another ; they turned not when they went ; they went 
 every one straight forward. As for the likeness of their faces, 
 they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the 
 right side : and they four had the face of an ox on the left 
 side j they four also had the face of an eagle. Thus were their 
 faces : and their wings were stretched upward ; two wings of 
 every one were joined one to another, and two covered their 
 bodies. And they went every one straight forward : whither 
 the spirit was to go, they went ; and they turned not when 
 they went." 
 
 501. Their fourth state followed. The woman still proceed- 
 ing drew by fine absorptions the yielding spirit of the man 
 toward herself, and the soft auras of her presence diffused 
 yielding raptures throughout his frame ; the Spirit of the Word 
 encompassed them proceeding to the Most High. " As for the 
 likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like 
 burning coals of fire, and hke the appearance of lamps : it 
 went up and down among the living creatures ; and the fire 
 was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.'^ 
 
272 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [cnAP. ii. 
 
 502. I now also beheld their fifth state, and the man said to 
 his beloved, " The rapture is insupportable, nor can I endure ;" 
 and she soothed him with the kisses of her mouth, and a deep 
 sleep fell upon him, and the body of his essence opened, and 
 the spuit of her essence entered it, and the Word encom- 
 passed them. The spirits of the atomic particles were about 
 them for a firmament of amber light, forming a canopy. The 
 body of the natural soul which they had inhabited on the 
 planet was beneath them as if it also were a canopy, and the 
 two made one sphere, in which they floated on ; but within it 
 were earths, airs, and waters, in which all their deeds were 
 represented, every good work as a living form ; and over the 
 zenith of the firmament was a seven-fold rainbow. 
 
 503. Afterward I looked, and there were marriage festivities 
 in Heaven, at which the bride and bridegroom, clothed in 
 sparkling jewelled robes, appeared, surrounded by a celestial 
 company. Many were present who had ministered to them 
 during the period of their terrestrial existence ; and when all 
 respired together from the Lord, the Word which was within 
 them combined with the Word with each other, " and the 
 living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash 
 of lightning,^^ and they were encompassed by spheres of 
 vaulted firmaments full of innumerable eyes, in which were set, 
 encircled by zodiacal lig4its, the spirits of the ideas which were 
 the Word of woman, encompassed by the bodies of the ideas 
 which were the Word of man. Then I saw them in a paradise, 
 as to its most extreme substance, resembling the terrestrial 
 world of which they had been natives. The wife gave me a 
 single leaf; I laid it on my forehead, and for three nights, in 
 tranced attitudes of thought, conceived in the internal under- 
 standing the truths of that wisdom which this leaf from the 
 tree of knowledge in their Word contained. The Word was 
 now sometimes objectively within them, in which condition 
 they slept as to the outward degree of consciousness ; but 
 sometimes the Word was without them, though still pervading, 
 and then through it our Lord, as through an ultimate body, 
 disclosed His infinite presence, and was their Friend. 
 
SEC. 502—505.] THE APOGALYFSU. 273 
 
 Chap. ii. 24. — " But unto you I say, and unto the best in 
 Thyatiea, as many as have not this doctrine, and 
 
 WHICH HAVE NOT KNOWN THE DEPTHS OP SaTAN, AS THEY 
 SPEAK; I WILL PUT UPON YOU NONE OTHER BURDEN,''^ 
 
 504. " Unto you I say/' signifies, the Divine Voice, audible 
 tlirough the inmosts, addressing those to whom the Lord has 
 committed the priesthood. This verse contains arcana per- 
 taining to the world's evangelization. '^ And unto the rest in 
 Thyatira,'' signifies, that all who are of this genius co-operate, 
 not in the discharge of the duties of the priesthood, but in 
 those which pertain to the embodiment of the truths made 
 known. " As many as have not tins doctrine," signifies, that 
 the communications are addressed in independency of the in- 
 versive movements which emanate from the Hells. " And who 
 have not known the depths of Satan,-" signifies, that in the 
 desires of the will they have not been permanently conjoined 
 with anything which partakes of the nature of the ingressive 
 movement from the demons of the lost orb. '^ As they speak,'' 
 signifies, three degrees of resistance by means of which the 
 faithful maintain positive power against this inversive move- 
 ment. "1 will put upon you none other burden," signifies, 
 the ease with which the man of the new kingdom, after his 
 entrance into the possession of the new natural soul and spirit, 
 and in first principles, the new natural body, maintains alle- 
 giance to divine order. 
 
 505. The arcana concerning the priesthood in this chm'ch, 
 to which will be entrusted no small share of the world's evan- 
 gelization, are in part as follows. Those who become priests 
 will be adjoined through series and degrees to the working 
 body, in which the truths of the new creation are taught by 
 means of a practical exemplification. It is the mission of this 
 church to establish harmony tlirough conjugial purity. Mis- 
 sions will be established in due time, and in the order of provi- 
 dence, wherein the great mistake of the primitive church will 
 not be repeated. Those to whom the work of missions is in- 
 trusted will be, so far as possible, individuals selected from 
 among the trained, disciplined, tested, and experienced mem- 
 bers of the fraternity. They will start on the assumption that 
 
274 ABCANA OF CHBISTIANITY. [chap. ii. 
 
 the Word lias no permanent foothold until it is embodied in 
 works. They will be^ therefore, not alone the teachers of har- 
 monic truth, but the distributive media of harmonic life and 
 the organizers of harmonic civilization for those who receive the 
 truth and the life. 
 
 50G. The character of the preaching of this priesthood may 
 be inferred from what has before been wi'itten. That preaching 
 which is silent, after a certain point has been attained, will be 
 by far the most effectual. Words will be held much in re- 
 serve, but be ultimatcd in works. But when words are given 
 they will be almost overwhelming. In fact the great danger 
 against which they will have to guard will be to restrain the 
 impatience, to moderate the zeal, to temper the enthusiasm of 
 those di'awn and charmed by the magnificence and certainty 
 and complete fulness of the Word thus unveiled, but who do 
 not realize sufficiently the depths of those corruptions into 
 which they have inherited, and the ordeals through which they 
 must pass in order to their deliverance. 
 
 507. The history of religious delusion, were it accurately 
 written, in generals and with a self-evident truth, would affect 
 mankind like another deluge, and wash away the past. It 
 seems impossible for men in large bodies either to arrive at any 
 absolute and fundamental principles in religion, or even to 
 retain for any continued period those partial verities, those 
 ghmpses of reality afforded to a better age. The best that 
 can be said of any religious system of the past is this, that 
 some one essential truth in some way burst forth, and wrought 
 by some process irresistible conviction ; or that some illustrious 
 personage embodied in life a something of the Divine essence, 
 and communicated virtue to his disciples. It is from this stand- 
 point that we are to judge religions. Christianity differed 
 from the rest in this, that its Founder embodied the Infinite in 
 ultimates. But the gospels, when considered and judged by 
 the same critical methods which are applied to all other reve- 
 lations or histories, involve the candid reader in no small per- 
 plexity. The teachings of Christ are ambiguous ; they are to. 
 the natural man enigmatical. A large portion of them are 
 silently rejected by every doctrinal school. On one side of the 
 gospel is a face acceptable to the Kationahst, the Unitarian, 
 
SEC. 506—508.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 275 
 
 tlie Humanitarian^ but profoundly repulsive to those of so-called 
 evangelical, or ritualistic belief; but, on tbe other side, a face 
 fiery and terrible, wliicli the liberal reject, but which the or- 
 thodox, so-called, accept as the very fulness of revelation. 
 Suffer the student to ehminate one j)ortion, and the residue 
 appears to be a gospel according to Channing or Parker. 
 Eliminate another portion, and what remains might well serve 
 as the nucleus of the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian 
 creed. The astounding fact remains, which theologians studi- 
 ously put out of sight, namely, that the church of the first 
 century held a dogmatic faith which is maintained by none of the 
 existing sects of Christendom, a faith that is utterly dead. It is 
 by putting an arbitrary gloss upon Scripture that the natural 
 man, enlightened according to the wisdom of our time, holds it 
 at all. These are painful reflections, but true nevertheless. 
 
 508.- Our Lord said, " He that doeth the will of my Heavenly 
 Father shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.'' He 
 also declared, " Blessed are the pm'e in heart, for they shall 
 see God." Collectively or unitedly these two affirmations sug- 
 gest a truth which can only be understood through that uni- 
 son. There is a something or somewhat, here called '' purity," 
 through which men have access to the Divine Presence. 
 There is another something called " doing the will of God," 
 which serves those who practise it as an infallible guide to re- 
 ligious truth, a test of revelation. Nevertheless, when we 
 come to criticise these statements, we meet with facts like 
 these. The pure Buddhist, whatever be his purity, is not led 
 out of Buddhism. The pure Mahometan remains a child of 
 Islam. The pure Calvinist remains fixed in the doctrine of 
 unconditional election and reprobation. The pure Eationalist 
 is equally immovable in his conviction that the ideas of God 
 cherished by the Calvinist are blasphemies and impieties. 
 Evidently, if our Lord's statement is correct, the idea which 
 He conveyed by the term purity is higher than the idea either 
 of the Christian or the Pagan world. So again with doing 
 the wiU of God. Men with the same high aSections and aspi- 
 rations embody, to a great extent, the requirements of the 
 moral and ceremonial law. The devout Israelite does this, and 
 remains fixed in the conviction that Messiah has not come. 
 
 s 2 
 
276 ARCANA OF CnBISTIANITY. [chap. ir. 
 
 The Romanist does it^ but remains fixed in tlie conviction tliat 
 his sect embodies the fulness of pure truth and religion. It is 
 sad and terrible to reflect that all the sects, even those that 
 most outrage humanity, include among their disciples men 
 and •women whose purity and whose works are unimpeachable, 
 yet who believe, notwithstanding, in all kinds of hallucina- 
 tions. What does this mean ? Are we in consequence to 
 make shipwreck of our faith ? In spite of myriads of such 
 examples, we hold, as a fact of consciousness, that there is a 
 purity through which God should be seen, and that there are 
 works through which every doctrine may be tested, that men 
 may know beyond doubt the verities that are of God. 
 
 509. We are to bear in mind that Christ spoke as never man 
 spake. The meaning that men put into words varies according 
 to the depth and fulness of experience. Words are symbols 
 which express a value dependent upon the ideas in the thought 
 of each who utters them. They reveal no more of that thought 
 than the listener is able to appropriate. When a man says 
 "purity,'^ the word means as much as he means. When an 
 angel says "purity,^^ the word means what the angel means. 
 When the Divine Man says " purity," then the word means 
 what the Divine Man means. So with the phrase "he that 
 doeth the will.''' We are not to gauge this by the idea of 
 works cherished by the ecclesiastical <Jew. We are not to gauge 
 it by any standard entertained by fallen human natm^e. There 
 shone an idea of what the will of God is, in the mind of Christ, 
 that determines the significance of the phrase, '' he that doeth 
 the will." He knew in His humanity that pm-ity and obedience 
 organize the intellect as an orb to reflect the lustres of the In- 
 finite. The definition of religious truth accepted in the 
 schools is this, that it must be supernaturally revealed, but 
 that, when revealed, it can be understood by the natural intel- 
 lect of man. The true definition is, that it is a truth which 
 never can be understood except by those who practically em- 
 body it in the life. Hence the preaching of the Thyatiran 
 Church will be, not like .the preaching of the pulpit, but like 
 that other preaching by the Sea of Galilee, — the preaching of 
 truths that never can be understood except as they are em- 
 bodied in the life. 
 
SEC. 509—511.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 277 
 
 510. Youtli, early manliood, tlie splendid prime, are the sea- 
 sons of liuman eloquence. The luminaries of the pulpit, as a 
 rule, are neither aged men nor practical men. The power of 
 oratory declines with advancing age. The Churches ask for 
 young and brilliant men. This is because the pulpit is not a 
 supernatural, but a natural institution. It is not sound health, 
 but briUiant disease. If a man heartily is in love with truth, 
 he does not require, in order to retain it in memory and prac- 
 tice, that one day in seven should be given up to hearing about 
 it. If men heartily love things, they so fully embody them 
 after a season that the truth concerning them ceases to be ob- 
 jective ; it becomes subjective, it is themselves, it is their life. 
 The teaching which they continue to require is of truths that 
 they have not yet embodied. A^Tien they have embodied them, 
 they cease to reqmi'e insti^uction in them. The Chidstian 
 pulpites a rule is at daggers di-awn with itself upon every 
 question that is beyond a mere pagan morality; it does not 
 lead men farther in regeneration than does the system of Con- 
 facius. It exists upon the alms and sufferance of a debased 
 pubhc sentiment. This the truly heroic and just men in the 
 pulpits of all sects know to be a fact. The Christian Churches 
 are like files of blind men walking in the dark, and stumbling 
 over the dead bodies of the advance guard, killed, not by the 
 enemy, but through murderous dissensions among themselves. 
 
 511. It is with a knowledge of all these facts that the 
 Thyatiran Church renews the task of preaching the Gospel 
 that Christ taught, and renews it at that very point where the 
 original behevers faltered ; renews it with the jaossession of the 
 signs which Christ predicted; and only counts those as truly 
 rescued from religious delusion, in whom those signs appear 
 that are promised to all who shall behove. It is a preaching 
 as of John the Baptist. Our ears are saluted with the cry, 
 " Repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.^^ But 
 John came baptizing with water, while those to whom this 
 ministry is committed shall baptize with the Holy Ghost and 
 with fire. This ministry does not depend for success upon the 
 eloquence of the statement ; the bare enunciation of the truth 
 in the Spirit is all sufficient. It is so entirely unartificial, so 
 Divinely natural, that its doctrines are as the dew, percolating 
 
278 ARCANA OF CREISTIANITY. [chap. n. 
 
 and penetrating everywhere. Tliis ministry has no more formal 
 piety than the wild roses in a hedge-row, or the larks who sing 
 as sweetly on the Sabbath as if it were a week day. It comes 
 eating and drinking. It is so grandly true as to afford to dis- 
 pense with all professional dignities. How grand is that man 
 who in simple humility can take his place as one of a series of 
 cordwainers or tailors, reaching them through adopting their 
 peculiar handicraft, making himself one with them by a 
 common burden and a common skill, and so revealing Christ 
 the God, till that chamber of industry gathers into itself, as 
 into the disc of a burning glass, the diffused rays of Divinity 
 that flow thi'ough Heaven ! It is not Chrysostom, the mouth 
 of gold, that preaches here. The mechanic will thus go, high^ 
 awful, sacerdotal ; and so will he communicate to those of his 
 own pecuKar trade. Thus too, mariners will reach mariners, 
 and nobles will reach nobles. Thus every man will hear the 
 Gospel preached in his own tongue, that is, through his own 
 peculiarities of mind and ways of life. It is the blessed pecu- 
 liarity of this peo]3le that they are all-penetrative and all-diffu- 
 sive. They are as the dew that falls, and as the sun that 
 shines. They do not go like the theorists of medicine, who 
 carry a verbal theory of health ; but they go with health, and so 
 with power. In this universe all shams in the long run expose 
 themselves : this ministry will not perform the miserable task 
 of the controversialist; it will carry, not contradictions, but 
 aJBfirmations ; its voice will be '^yea, yea, and nay, nay, for 
 whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.'^ Instrumentally, 
 it will redeem men by adopting them. It is filled and bur- 
 dened, and carries with it that spirit and power of adoption, 
 whereby men cry, " Abba, Father." The arms of the Divine 
 Maternity and Paternity put forth through it will gather the 
 desolate and outcast, but yearning and contrite myriads, into 
 purity and solidarity ; and so the pure shall see God, and so 
 those who do the will of the Father shall know the doctrine, 
 whether it be of God. 
 
 512. Christ came to save that which was lost. The universal 
 salvation that He brings is made up of all particular salvations. 
 This is the test which determines the value of all systems which 
 claim to represent Christianity. The test of the Divinity of a 
 
SEC. 512—513.] TRE AFOGALTPSK 279 
 
 religion for a nation is, tliat it shall bring all things needful for 
 overcoming tlie evil of a nation. It must be able to solve the 
 intricacies of its pohtics, and to place its affairs upon a solid 
 footing, both at home and abroad. So when a religion is 
 brought to a trade, the test is that it brings salvation for 
 the trade ; as for instance, it must be able to go to London 
 tailors and Sheffield cutlers, and open modes of operation by 
 which each industry may lay off its vile raiment, its sordors 
 and filths, and come out of its huts and kennels, and put 
 on beautiful garments, and enter with singings and rejoic- 
 ings into the industrial palaces of God. It must come with the 
 special remedy for the special want, the special cleansing for 
 the special defilement, the special opportunity for the special 
 necessity. An archbishop, so to speak, of industry ; in other 
 words, an hierarchal man going forth from Church Thyatira as 
 she becomes an organized power, should be able to organize all 
 obedient men, all just men of a given employment in any place, 
 till each worker is found as a distinct leaflet in the corolla of 
 one flower, or as a separate note in one Divine symphony. 
 
 513. So, but with even a more intense and absolute force, 
 this ministry must be able to rescue the womanhood in each 
 craft ; nay more, to organize crafts for womanhood ; to search 
 out for her through the industrial slums, to rescue her from 
 the industrial prison houses, to stand between her and her 
 enemy as an angel of defence, between her and her God as a 
 celestial form of life and inspiration. So, once more, the test 
 of the divinity of a gospel to the individual man is, that it 
 comes with a specific application to his own case ; comes to 
 each individual woman as Jesus came of old. Much here, as in 
 a former instance, wherein " works '^ are specified, is omitted 
 because it is almost impossible, in the present narrowness of 
 thought, and with the present limits of language, to utter 
 those oracles of mercy with which the heart of Heaven over- 
 flows. This ministry rescues the gospel both from its his- 
 torical perversions and its literal technicalities. It sets men 
 to building, not cathedrals, but godly, industrial harmonics. 
 It recognises the truth, that God docs not live in sacred 
 edifices like St. Paul's or St. Peter's, technically set apart to 
 what are called, but profanely called, " religious services.'' 
 
280 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. it. 
 
 The French socialist writes in his book, " Property is robbery," 
 but God writes iu His record, " Ecclesiasticism, when debased, is 
 robbery ; ecclesiasticism is sacrilege/^ It is a curse and a shamo 
 for England, that it devotes stately temples to bo inhabited 
 during the week by rats, but perpetuates a system that huddles 
 together childhood and womanhood, and manhood and old age, 
 vice and virtue, purity and prostitution, honesty and robbery, 
 as the prisoners were crowded in the black hole of Calcutta, 
 or almost as the victims are flung into promiscuous heaps in 
 the holds of slavers. This too is the crime of all so-called 
 Christian nations. The Church that cannot solve every social 
 problem is no Church ; at best it is but a memory or a pro- 
 phecy ; for the test of a Church is that it brings salvation. 
 
 514. Another peculiarity of this ministry is, that it reverses 
 the common maxims and practices in regard to charity. Those 
 most liberal iu alms-giving are often the perpetuators and 
 generators of shame, want and misery ; for instance, without 
 changing the spiritual state of a horde of Irish peasants, a 
 benevolent person supplies the pittance that is wanting to 
 keep them in theii' yearly meal and potatoes. The result is 
 that, instead of being forced by necessity, which is often the 
 only effectual teacher, to change their indolent and barbarous 
 customs, they live as their fathers did, and multiply a barba- 
 rian race, the slaves of the most oppressive priesthood under 
 the sun. There is a charity, so-called, that is sometimes 
 murder. The general rule is that alms emasculate the receiver. 
 Society cannot be saved till the means squandered in alms- 
 giving are devoted to the organization of industry. The alms 
 given to poor seamstresses swell the profit of the middle men, 
 who keep slop-shops. So long as the wants of any industrial 
 class can be partially supplied by charity, wages are kept down 
 in the same ratio. The motto of the Brethren of the New 
 Life is, " Charity is organization.''^ Alms-giving perpetuates 
 poverty, but organization abolishes poverty. 
 
 515. The Thyatiran Church is the church of social re- 
 organization. It must organize industry upon the ground of 
 purity, or be blotted from existence. Its ministry, therefore, 
 moving forth from the bosom of a solidarity, carries with it a 
 re-oro-aniziuc; force. It cannot convert a middle-man and 
 
SEC. 514—516.] TH:E AFOCALTPSK 281 
 
 leave liim a middle-man. It cannot convert tlie non-pro- 
 ductive and leave th.em non-productive ; it turns everythino" 
 to use. It finds men gathered in social hordes ', it leads tliem 
 forth to be the dwellers in industrial paradises. It cures the 
 barbarism of society by first removing the barbarism of the 
 heart. Christendom puts the new wine in old bottles ; sur- 
 rounds good men with evil conditions ; places virtuous women 
 who are queens on pillars where they stand alone in terrible 
 isolation, and murders annual myriads of the queen^s sisters 
 at the foot of the pillar. Men blame the Jewish hierarchy for 
 crucifying Chi'ist. They said, " He is a good man, yet we 
 must destroy Him if we would preserve .the state." But 
 France is a Christian nation, and in its great industrial centres, 
 ninety nine per cent, of the children are sacrificed to the 
 exigencies of the labour market, and this is justified on the 
 plea Crf the same necessity. So in Great Britain and America ; 
 the hands of the State are gory, and its robes bedabbled and 
 its feet stained with the blood of the innocent. 
 
 516. So with what is called the '' social evil." In many re- 
 spects the condition of woman is higher and better among the 
 Mahometan than among the Christian nations. Christendom 
 says that prostitution is the foulest crime for woman in this 
 world, and entails the most inevitable damnation for the world 
 to come. But, while saying this, it brings up myinads of 
 females in such mental and moral states that their power of 
 resistance to evil is almost destroyed, and then so closes up the 
 avenues to remunerative toil, and so subjects them to the sharp 
 competitions and periodical famines of the labour market, that 
 they are literally forced into the brothel to escape starvation. 
 Christendom is the disgrace and scandal of the world. We are 
 a people of hard hearts and reprobate minds. Men occupy 
 the centres both of aristocratic and democratic rule, who com- 
 bine the cruelties of the pirate and the lusts of the adulterer. 
 Men occupy the centres of ecclesiastical rule, who indirectly 
 fatten upon the spoils of piracy and upooi the wages of adultery. 
 We are so accustomed to compromise between good and 
 evil that we have lost sight of their distinctions. The com- 
 pass of the heart turns no more toward Christ, the load- 
 stone. We have made this Christendom, not a house of 
 
282 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 prayer, but a den of thieves. Now comes tlio ministry of de- 
 liverance ; a cliiircli wliicli brings spiritual salvation from spiri- 
 tual evils, moral salvation from moral evils, physical salvation 
 from physical evils, industrial salvation from industrial evils, pas- 
 sional salvation from passional c\'ils, and social salvation from 
 social evils, and thus universal salvation from universal evil. 
 
 Chap. ii. 25. — " But that which ye have already hold fast 
 till i come." 
 
 517. In the significance of this passage many things are 
 contained of the last importance to be known. First, it con- 
 tains a full exposition of the glorious second coming of our 
 Lord. AVhen He ascended up on high, the human being 
 glorified in the Divine, He appeared in a sublime series of 
 manifestations from Heaven to Heaven ; but He will descend 
 in like manner as He ascended, visible again as the Word 
 made flesh, from the inmosts to the outmosts of the Heavens, 
 retracing His triumphal pathway ; no more to suffer, and in 
 His human person no more to die. When man attains open 
 respiration and becomes in all things new, the eyes of the 
 spirit being opened, the glorified human person of the Lord in 
 which the Divine is visible, is from time to time apparent. To 
 eye, to ear, to the sense of touch, to the whole sensitive body, 
 and to every faculty of the adoring, the worsliipping, and the 
 loving heart, Jesus is revealed, the God of universes, the All- 
 Father. 
 
 518. There are time and sense manifestations of our Divine 
 Eedeemer, since He has assumed and been glorified in the hu- 
 man person, upon the harmonic planets. Instantly, in concrete 
 ultimated substance, the Lord stands apparent to their worship- 
 ping gaze, breathes out a blessing, and is invisible again. So 
 also the earth will yet behold Him, standing for the time in a 
 luminous body, as instantaneously visible as a kindled lamp, but 
 becoming invisible with the same instantaneousness. He in- 
 folded, when He ascended, the primates and the ultimates of the 
 body into Himself, and re-appears by unfolding the spirits of 
 the primates and ultimates which embody themselves in atmos- 
 pheric particles. Altogether more glorious in majesty than 
 can be conceived, Jesus will re-appear on earth, sometimes 
 
SEC. 517—520.] TRE APOCALYPSE. ^ 283 
 
 where but one is, at others to a conjugial pair, and then where 
 two or three are gathered together, and then where hundreds 
 are respiring in the new breath, until all flesh shall see Him 
 together. Nor will these manifestations be uniform as to the 
 degree of glory, but vary. To the man of the Ephesian 
 Chui'ch, spii-itually. He will be glorious in the resplendence of 
 the Celestial Heaven. To the man of the Smyrnian Church, 
 the awful intellectual beauty of the Spiritual Heaven will 
 irradiate His person. To the man of the Church of Pergamos, 
 He will come in the rich displays of a joy-diffusing health and 
 vigour, in which He is visible in the Ultimate Heaven ; walking 
 in each church according to its degree. 
 
 619. There are wounds throughout the internal spaces of 
 the natural organism, which can only be healed through the 
 direct action of the human person of the Lord. In His second 
 coming. He descends to each especial object of His ministra- 
 tions, spiritually to his spu^t, and bodily to his natural person ; 
 for instance, if there are wounds in the internal spaces of the 
 heart, it is thi'ough the organs of His own Divine-human heart 
 that the healing processes are carried on. Evil passions that 
 have their home within man's natural organism, by their pre- 
 sence and inevitable action, exercise a destructive power. 
 First, they corrupt the nervous fluid; second, they engender 
 noxious forms through all the expanses ; third, they pierce and 
 wound, organ by organ, the house of the body, the vital shell, 
 destroy its defences, and open avenues by means of which in- 
 fernal poisons may flow in. As man becomes regenerate and 
 devotes himself to the service of the Lord, the spirit of right- 
 eousness, henceforth enthroned within the spiritual will, coerces 
 the natural will, coerces the natural mind, coerces the natural 
 body, and endeavours to hold in strict subjection the natural 
 appetites and passions in which evils have their dwelling-place. 
 In the openings of respiration, the old warfare, which was one 
 of coercion, is merged in a more terrible warfare, which is one 
 of destruction. 
 
 520. It has been shown heretofore that ancestral and ac- 
 quired evils generate myriads of living lusts within the bodily 
 frame. These are the tenants of the natural man's personal 
 world. With the advance of respiration, they arc restricted 
 
284 ARCANA OF CIIBISTIANITY. [chap. it. 
 
 withiu narrower boiaudarics. As tlie divine fire proceeds from 
 one continuous degree to another, many organic lusts are suf- 
 focated, and 60 expire. Those which escape hide themselves 
 more deeply within the centres of the nervous essence. As 
 gradually the nervous essence itself is permeated by a new 
 nervous clement, the lusts that have retreated into it are 
 pierced and slain, till finally the expanses of the body, to a 
 great degree, are depopulated of the natural and carnal appe- 
 tites. The old natural soul, however, which is evil and irre- 
 claimable, exists within the body as an unconquered 'fortress 
 in the midst of a city that has been conquered, depopulated 
 of its former inhabitants, and subjected to a better sway. 
 Still, though coerced and hemmed in on every side, the re- 
 maining lusts of the body live within the life, and are mar- 
 shalled within the organs of the corrupt natural soul, but 
 otherwise the body is reduced to a negative and passive order ; 
 it is a land held under military rule. 
 
 521. In this condition the inner form of the person resembles 
 a palHd corpse ; the pathetic language of the Preacher, who de- 
 scribes old age, applies to it with a most pecuhar significance. 
 "Those who look out of the windows are darkened; desire fails ; 
 the mourners go about the streets ; the years draw nigh wherein 
 they say, I have no pleasm'e in them." As the Lord destroyed 
 the first-born of Egypt, so, passing through this land, Ho has 
 smitten the sentient lusts ; they have inhaled the fiery flame 
 and perished. He has truly come as a refiner's fire. Here are 
 human continents where every passional voice has ceased, and 
 where the cities of the sensations are tcnantless of their ancient 
 dwellers ; it is like bmied Nineveh, or Tadmor in the Wil- 
 derness. 
 
 522. The jjrocesses which ensue can hardly be understood, 
 but by personal experience. While the old natural soul con- 
 tinues to exist, the forms and elements of the new creation, 
 which are introduced into the frame, are the results of a special 
 process, not of re-creation, but of preparation for re-creation. 
 The condition is anomalous. The sin growths which have been 
 destroyed were unfolded by a process of natural development. 
 The results of spontaneity, they were germinated and matured 
 in obedience to the organic law through the pivotal action of 
 
SEC. 521—523.] THE APOCALTFSK 285 
 
 the natural soul. The whole process^ though in an evil sense, 
 was as normal as are the developments and prolifications in the 
 natural world. The evil lusts were the natural and normal 
 products of the natural man. It is different with that which 
 succeeds. The new nervous fluids and essences are radiated 
 throughout the person and made available for the purposes of 
 life, they are constantly renewed, and led from one degree of 
 potency to another, and extended throughout the spaces of the 
 frame, by the pivotal action of another natural soul, that which 
 exists in the human person of the Lord. Of Him, by Him, and 
 through Him is this stupendous re-creation carried on. The new 
 nervous element is formed in the Lord^s descent, and by and 
 through the action of the natural soul which He assumed in the 
 incarnation. This element exists first in a single degree, but 
 is then gradually divided into seven continuous degrees, in each 
 of which glows a separate warmth of the Divine heart, shines a 
 separate light of the Divine mind, and operates a separate 
 power of the Divine activity, all in their unition being one. 
 During the course of these changes there are continual modifi- 
 cations in the respirations. Openings are made, by means of 
 which the dead forms that were evil lusts are cast out upon the 
 natural air ; those in the province corresponding to the under- 
 standing being expelled through the left nostril, and those of 
 the province corresponding to the will by the right. This pro- 
 cess continues, through obedience to the Divine command- 
 ments, until the old nervous element and all the corrupt motives 
 within it are expelled ; till in fine, so far as thus relates, " the 
 former things have passed away, and all things become new.''' 
 523. When the new nerve essence begins to be unfolded, 
 first it is a vacancy, changing from day to day. It be- 
 comes at length a fit receptacle for the habitation of new 
 motives in each degree, and these are in the human form, male 
 and female. The prohfications that take place through them 
 are by means of conjoined pairs, and begotten through obe- 
 dience upon the part of the man. The now nerve-essence, as it 
 is formed, serves as a boundary, whoso fiery outer wall, though 
 it may be attacked by evil spirits and demons, cannot, except 
 through disobedience, be overthrown ; and the embattled mo- 
 tives of good sui-round the new man, fighting for him to resist 
 
286 ABCANA OF CIIBISTIANITT. [chap. ii. 
 
 and put down the invadinf^ evils wliicli seek to enter in and 
 take possession of him. The man, in his turn, must maintain 
 the new nerve-essence, because it is founded on the breaths, 
 and subsists through instant influx from the Lord. It is 
 called by a name in the celestial dialect which signifies plea- 
 santness, and also in the spiritual by an epithet indicating 
 peace. A proverb is extant, coming from remote antiquity, 
 that " all its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths 
 are peace." 
 
 524. The motives in the province of the nerve-essence, 
 which represents the mind in its new state, are all to tliink the 
 Lord's truth ; and the varieties of the motives there are ac- 
 cording: to the varieties of truths in the Word. The motives 
 in the province which corresponds to the heart, desire unceas- 
 ingly that the Lord's will may be done and no other. They 
 are distributed in groups which correspond to the distribution 
 of the Divine volitions through the recipient affections. The 
 motives of good and truth coalesce, and are as one in tliis 
 grand attribute. The motives in the new body of the nerve- 
 essence are all to do the Lord's will, and they are arrayed in 
 societies according to the varieties of deeds through whicb 
 that will is to be wrought out. The bodies of the motives in 
 their separate and combined conditions are vehicles for the 
 descent of special inspirations, having no life in themselves, or 
 wMch, properly speaking, may be called their own. Instan- 
 taneous obedience as a condition is thus kept up, the nerve- 
 essence in its body and through its motives serving as a new 
 temple, in which the will and the understanding, themselves at 
 one, respiring, conspiring, and expiring as the breath of God 
 is operant in them, grow wise and loving in obedience to 
 them. 
 
 525. The experience of St. Paul struck the key-note which 
 determined the experience of subsequent Christian ages. 
 Evidently at the first he was under the impression that the 
 work of the Spirit in him was destined to bring about both 
 spiritual and corporeal redemption. He was, at first, in a 
 state of wonderful mental exhilaration and elevation; by a 
 transfer of sensations he felt the regenerative life of Christ 
 working within him, whUe the body seemed to sympathise and 
 
SEC. 524—526.] THE AP0CALYP8K 287 
 
 to throw open all its cloors^ as triuinplial arcliways for tlie 
 entrance of the Eang of Glory. It was for liim afterward to 
 realise that in the state of closed respiration there is no bodily 
 redemption, but, at the highest, bodily subjugation and 
 passional extinction. It is affecting to trace out through the 
 epistles the perilous line of his experience. He tells us how 
 sin revived in him, and he died ; in other words how the 
 carnal and natural man, stunned with the flash and the visita- 
 tion of the Spirit until it lay as dead, woke from that seeming 
 trance and powerfully warred against the work of regeneration 
 in the will. He groaned under the bondage of corruption. 
 He clearly saw that under the spiritual administration in- 
 augurated through the Apostles the corporeal nature of man 
 might be held in check, but could not be regenerated. To his 
 perception the whole world was in hke condition. He lived 
 continually in hopes of a second coming of the Lord, which 
 should accomplish that which was left unfinished in His first 
 advent. 
 
 526. This doctrine has long lost its life, and exists but as 
 bony remains. The popular theory with those divines who 
 most embody and represent the fine cultm^e and philanthropy 
 of the present day is radically different. Men once recognised 
 that physical death was an anomaly, the result of the apostasy 
 of the race, and symbohcally they made the tomb a place of 
 desolation; now the sepulchre is a parterre of ilowers. We 
 look upon physical death, in the main, as a normal and neces- 
 sary fact, whose symbols are the bud that parts the calyx to 
 become a flower, or the insect that sheds the chrysalis and puts 
 on the butterfly. It is the age of the apotheosis of Natural 
 Eeligion, — not the Divine-natural but the sentimental-natural. 
 The preaching of the great popular divines most in sympathy 
 with the spirit of the age is of the same character. If the 
 doctrine of the corruption of the natural heart is retained as a 
 formula, the feai'ful reality of which it is the exponent is buried 
 out of sight. The current idea is that, though possibly the 
 spiritual nature of man may require redemption, the natural 
 and passional body is already in harmony with God's gracious 
 and glorious creation in the visible universe. Men who be- 
 lieve that the spiritual affections are corrupt, and cannot, with- 
 
288 ABC AN A OF CUBISTIANITT. [chap. it. 
 
 out entire transformation, enter into tlie kingdom of God, vir- 
 tually hold the body, unless diseased, to be a piece of pure^ 
 healthful, and uncorrupt creation. 
 
 527. A large class have swung in the extreme reaction to an 
 error directly opposite to that of the Manichees. These sec- 
 tarists held that the spirit was incorrupt and incorruptible, 
 and the body only capable of sin. How obvious it is that a 
 great heresy is now springing up, which virtually teaches that, 
 though the spirit is liable to corruption, man^s natural essence 
 and organism, his primal, natural instincts and appetites, in 
 their actual state and exercise, are beautiful, and sweet, and 
 holy. But it is evident that there was a natural fall from 
 natural holiness, as well as a spiritual fall from spiritual holi- 
 ness. Apostasy and degeneracy adhere not alone to man^s 
 invisible and psychical essence. Men act on the theory that 
 the body is naturally incorrupt, and that its instincts only 
 require guidance and direction ; they are far from believing 
 that the body is naturally corrupt, and that its passions and 
 its motives require extinction. 
 
 528. Through this great error Theology is vitiated, and the 
 stream of the Divine teachings turned aside from men. Who 
 can make a mother believe that the body of her babe is other- 
 wise than pure ? Who can make a lover believe that the 
 person of his mistress is other than sacred, and redolent of the 
 aromas of Divinity? The nineteenth centmy renaissance clings 
 to the Christian doctrine that man is fallen and needs a Saviour 
 spiritually, while it vii'tually admits that man has not fallen 
 corporeally and naturally. But in giving up the ultimate 
 ground of Christianity, it prepares the way for the extir- 
 pation of Christianity. If sin, organically reproduced from 
 the beginning of the ages, has not been able to corrupt the 
 instincts and the appetites through which it has held 
 corporeal sway, what is it but a myth, a chimera ? If our 
 childi-en inherit incorrupt natural organisms, then sin itself is 
 but a weakness and a circumstance. " Nature,^' says Emer- 
 son, " is incorrupt, but man has fallen.^' Out of the mouth of 
 the apostle of Natm'alism, the Spirit speaks to overwhelm his 
 fallacy. We are approaching the era of the deification of the 
 natural soul, its instincts and its appetites. It has escaped 
 
SEC. 527-530.] THE APOCALYPSE. 289 
 
 already from the theological ban^ and arrays, in behalf of its 
 progeny, the finest eloquence of the Churches. The outposts 
 of the Christian faith are thus given to the enemy ; yet 
 here it is difficult to convince men intellectually that the 
 natural motives and affections are apostate ; they must be 
 converted vitally and know it experimentally. 
 
 529. It is on this ground that Satan is fighting and at 
 present winning the battle of the world. Men do not feel that 
 they are depraved bodily, and therefore deny that they are 
 depraved bodily. The natural mind and heart are obdurate; 
 because the spiritual nature of man, even though it has begun 
 to be regenerate, is in a measure driven out of the corporeal 
 frame. The moral life is excluded from the natural sensations, 
 but they have an infernal life within them, and this thing can 
 be proved irresistibly. AVhen spiritual communications are 
 opened, invisibles communicate, whom every Christian man 
 is forced to admit are devils, because their teaching and the 
 consequences of their operation are infernal. The force that 
 moves ponderous substances, that creates flaming lights, that 
 uplifts human bodies, is a dynamic power, — that is a spiritual 
 operation. Now thousands of Christian poets, artists, theo- 
 logians, devotees, have assisted in these seances, and their 
 bodily sensations have been sympathetic with this element. 
 What does that prove ? It proves that the lives, the essences, 
 the elements, the sensations of their corporeal natures, are 
 akin to the virus and madness and devilishness of infernal will- 
 force and so of hell fire. 
 
 530. How infernally corrupt then must be the natural sen- 
 sations of man, if he can take elements into his body, sur- 
 charged with the essences of the lust and hate of the demons of 
 the pit, and be soothed and stimulated or exhilarated thereby ! 
 Man is involved in a gross, sensuous apostasy, which is the 
 result of a gross spiritual apostasy. Paul was right : " The 
 flesh lusteth against the spirit.^^ Bodily we transmit from gene- 
 ration to generation the virus of that old serpent, who coiled 
 himself amidst Eden's flowers ; and the reason why men have 
 no sensational discrimination between divine influences and 
 diabolical influences, is because the senses themselves are in- 
 toxicated by this \arus, and steeped in its pollutions. AVhen 
 
 T 
 
290 ARCANA OF CHRISTIAN ITT. [cnip. ir. 
 
 St. Paul wrote, " I see another law in my members warring 
 against the law of my mind/' the old nerve essence, with its 
 inbred motives, was resisting the Spirit of holiness and obe- 
 dience that wrought upon the will. The motives inbred in the 
 old nerve essence never die so long as the life of the body 
 endures, unless the natural lungs begin to be perforated by 
 the fire of the Spirit of God. On this point the Lord, in His 
 second coming, centres the ultimates of force, as, in His first 
 coming. He centred the beginnings of force upon the inmost 
 principle of the spiritual will. 
 
 531. "That which ye have already, hold fast till I come," 
 signifies, the maintenance of the good afiections in the con- 
 trite and submissive will, in their warfare against the old in- 
 herited and inbred motives in the body of the former nervous 
 essence. The kingdom of order established throughout the 
 extenses of the frame, when the new nervous essence is un- 
 folded, and when the new motives have their place, is seen, 
 when the eye is opened into this plane of sight, as a paradise 
 of fairy nations. These are the new motives, and they are 
 infinitesimal forms in the image of the Divine Wisdom and the 
 Divine Love. These are grouped in series and degrees, ac- 
 cording to their respective qualities, building their homes on 
 the basis of new and elemental earths, respiring in the airs of 
 new atmospheres, and beholding the glory of God through the 
 spaces of new firmaments. " Holding fast " implies, then, a 
 command, a power, and an obligation : a command of God to 
 maintain this new order in the frame ; a power from God to 
 resist all ingressions of evil that menace its perpetuity ; and an 
 obligation to God, the beneficent Re-creator, the Indweller in 
 these personal paradises, by all effort, by all prayer, by all 
 purification and determination, to maintain this new created 
 ground against the enemy. It is as if the will of man were 
 iusphered within one crystal drop, from which the destructive 
 animalcule were expelled, and their places supplied by myriads 
 of tiny indwellers, each one an angel in essence, and concealing 
 the potencies of Heaven in the least minutenesses of space. It 
 is as if that drop, disconnected and revolving within itself, 
 were sent forth into the ocean made up of multitudinous hydra 
 dwellers, yet with power to initiate the beginnings of a trans- 
 
SEC. 531—532.] THE APOGALYPSi:. 291 
 
 formed ocean, whicli should be, at last, as that sea of glass and 
 fire before the throne of God, whereon stand the gathered 
 angelhoods crying, " Holy, holy, holy \" It is as if the will, 
 having power from God, is required to keep that crystalline 
 di'op, within which it dwells, free from the invasions of the 
 universal ocean, and positive and dominant over all its 
 powers. " Till I come,^^ signifies, a stage beyond, during 
 which the Lord proceeds to the i-emoval of the old natural 
 soul. 
 
 Chap. ii. 26. — " And he that ovekcometh, and keepeth my 
 works unto the end, to him will i give powee over 
 the nations.-" 
 
 532. " And he that overcometh," signifies, the new natural 
 soul, in which the Lord Jesus Christ is present in the natural 
 degree, as He is present with the regenerate man in the inmost 
 of the will in its spiritual degree. It also signifies, in like 
 manner, His presence thence in the new natural mind, and in 
 the new natural body. For full expositions concerning the 
 new natural soul, see index. The open breathing man, the 
 doer of God's will, being thus organically rebuilt, the extenses 
 of his frame, through all of their degrees, are made the habi- 
 tations of living motives of purity and obedience, in each of 
 which singly, and in all of which collectively, the Lord abides. 
 " And keepeth my woi'ks,'' signifies, the obedience of the new 
 man to the Lord in the collective motives of his being. " Unto 
 the end,'' signifies, completeness in that obedience. " To him 
 will I give power over the nations," signifies, that through tho 
 organic body of the new man, complete in the new motives 
 and the new obedience, the Divine forces go forth and combat 
 against whatsoever is opposed to this new order throughout the 
 world. One especial significance is, that a power is exerted from 
 the Lord through this channel, against the old or evil natural 
 soul, whether in its collective form in the body of humanity, 
 or its general forms in the bodies of nationalities, or in its 
 individual form in the bodies of individuals. " Over the na- 
 tions," signifies, again, that power is exerted, first, over every 
 type and class of men, and second, over every class and type 
 of the old motives in men. 
 
 T 2 
 
292 ABCANA OF CIIBISTIANITY. [cnAP. it. 
 
 Chap. ii. 27. — "And He shall kule them with a hod of ikon; 
 as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to 
 
 SHIVERS : EVEN AS I RECEIVED OF MY FaTHER." 
 
 533. " And He sliall rule tliera/^ signifies, tlie descent of 
 Divine influxes through the now natural soul into the body of 
 the new natural mind and nervous essence, and into all the 
 motives. This influx penetrates the resistant and evil natural 
 souls and organisms of mankind, and wars against the de- 
 praved and corrupt motives, self-engendered, which resist the 
 new harmony. Men are punished who, in an evil selfliood, 
 resist the new breath, its motives, truths, and works. This pu- 
 nishment is administered through the new natural soul, as before 
 said. The flames of the Lord which go out through it pene- 
 trate the old bodies of nerve essence pertaining to those who 
 oppose, and bind and fetter the organic forms of the dejDraved 
 motives which dwell within them. The wrath against the 
 kingdom of God which they possess, though it may influence 
 the will to madness, and overspread the understanding with 
 the cloudy and mephitic darkness of pandemonium, is prevented 
 in the execution of its fell purposes against the Divine order 
 and those who labour for its blessed increase ; the body of the 
 nerve essence being fettered, and its motives in their aggre- 
 gate forms being broken. '' As the vessels of a potter shall 
 they be broken to shivers," signifies, that the receptive organs of 
 the motives in the old and depraved nerve bodies and essences 
 of men, by means of which the potential influx from the Hells 
 reinforces the hateful human will and understanding, and invi- 
 gorates them to war against the ~ new kingdom of our Lord, 
 are ruptured and pierced, that the infernal influx through them 
 may be no more potential. ''Even as I received of my Fa- 
 ther," signifies, that it was through the universal natural soul 
 and nerve essence which our Lord possessed in His humanity, 
 and which contained within themselves the universal series of all 
 motives of good, of truth, and of obedience, that the old cor- 
 rupt natural soul and nerve essence of mankind, with their 
 diabolical and infernal motives, first being invaded, began to be 
 subdued during the period of His incarnation. 
 
SEC. 533—536.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 293 
 
 Chap, ii, 28. — " And I will give him the morning star." 
 
 534. Upon tlie orb Venus, tlie Lord is especially inworlded 
 in a manifested form through the natural souls of all its peoples 
 as one people, and all its men as one man. To the man who 
 inherits into the new natural soul, and passes upward through 
 a succession of Divine compliances, the inworldiug of the Lord 
 through Venus is contiuued, while the vibrations in and 
 through the natural soul respond to the harmonic order insti- 
 tuted upon that lovely planet. He becomes an epitome, in the 
 families of His motives, of the industrial civilization which 
 there is gloriously manifest. It signifies, beyond this, descents 
 of the Divine Spirit of our Lord through the universal series 
 of solar, aromal, and terrestrial orbs, where He is inworlded 
 through the world-souls more amply still. Thus in its final 
 sense it signifies also, a complete unition of the body of the 
 natural soul of the new man with the natural soul of the body 
 of the harmonic universe, wherein Jesus Christ, the one true 
 and living God, is all and in all. 
 
 Chap. ii. 29. — " He that hath an ear, let him hear what 
 THE Spirit saith unto the churches.''^ 
 
 535. In the month of July, 1860, being then at Bolton 
 Abbey, Yorkshire, England, my senses were saluted in the 
 morning by voices in the Celestial Heaven, chanting in unison 
 with a vast majestic movement of harmony. A single white 
 cloud gathered itself above the secluded retreat which I then 
 occupied, as if it were the home of thunder, and loud respon- 
 sive thunderings proceeded from it, filling the natural air. 
 This signified open revelation from the celestial sense of the 
 Word, through the opening of respiration, which here appears. 
 The world-soul of the planet was in sympathy with the 
 Celestial Heaven, and the divine song which then descended, 
 inflowing into her ear, bade her gather together, as she 
 wrought through the body of the planet, the atmospheric 
 elements, by means of which the terrestrial thunderings pro- 
 ceeded. I was given this illustration that it might be intro- 
 duced preceding the expositions which follow here. 
 
 53G. As are the degrees in the Word, so are the degrees in 
 the auditory sense of man. When the new breath descends 
 
291 ABCANA OF CHBISTIANITY. [crap. it. 
 
 tlirougli the continuous degrees of the lungs, provision is 
 made for the opening of as many representative degrees in 
 the natural auditory sense. As are the qualities of objects, 
 governed by their states, so are the respirations which pro- 
 ceed through them. All things breathe, and all good things 
 breathe in harmony. The Hells breathe against the Heavens. 
 The hatred born in the centres of the rebellious will, proceeds 
 to organize itself in breaths, which in turn determine the 
 affections of the body and the thoughts of the mind. Hearing 
 follows respiration, and is determined by it. The demons 
 who infest the auditory organ are conquered by a divine 
 breath going forth through the ear, more of which under the 
 head of " Auric Eespiration.'^ The deadness of the human 
 ear, like the partial paralysis of the eye-ball, is the result of 
 sin and the death which has passed upon the membrane 
 through sin. The Lord through the new natural soul puts 
 forth a new auditory sense. When this become established, 
 so finely and so exquisitively is it wrought, that breathings 
 become audible as a test of the qualities of spirits and a 
 revelation of human states. The soft love-breathings of the 
 celestial angel, the universal love-respiration of the Celestial 
 Heaven themselves inflow, and the new harmony which thus 
 unites itself with respiration, buoys the spirit into that celestial 
 atmosphere where the sorrows of earth are forgotten, and 
 " the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at i-est.''^ 
 537. But more deep, more sonorous, the raptures of intelli- 
 gence, in which respires the Spiritual Heaven as a grand 
 organic unity, where another state of respiration exists, are 
 audible. The song is in the Word. It unites itself with the 
 mental vibrations, and is the key-note to lasting knowledges. 
 More nearly allied to the sensitive fulnesses of the bodily 
 frame are the joy-notes of the ultimate angel, as he breathes 
 in bliss of fine sensation. The airs and breathings of the 
 great Ultimate Heaven, as a corporate form of purest pleasure, 
 steal deliciously over the soothed nerve, and laden as with 
 spices of paradise, diffuse themselves in transports which are 
 both heard and felt. This is continued from each Heaven 
 into the natural soul and nerve essence, whence it becomes 
 a great harmony, to which responds the body of the new man. 
 
SEC. 537—539.] THE AFOCALTPSE. 295 
 
 538. '^VTiat the Spirit saitli/^ signifies, all tliat grand 
 series of transports and loves and knowledges wliicli tlie Lord 
 imparts through the new ear. " Let him hear/^ signifies, 
 that the man of the Thyatiran Church enjoys great copious- 
 ness and fulness of hearing through the new auditory sense. 
 " Saith,^^ signifies, vocal utterance. It may be said here that 
 the Lord will speak to the new man through each new opened 
 degree. " Unto the churches," signifies, a revelation from 
 the Word, age after age, unfolding through the new man, 
 of the type addressed as of the church in Thyatira. To 
 those who have internally perused and morally embraced the 
 series of statements which this chapter contains, the Lord 
 gives me this message, involved in and deduced from its 
 manifold arcana. 
 
 539. It is not to make men wise unto speculation, but unto 
 salvation, that the rich and wonderful treasures herein set 
 forth are given. The truth that is not made a means of 
 embodying the Divine life, of which it is the form, in corres- 
 pondent human ends, however cherished in the intellect and 
 adopted as an article of belief, produces induration in the 
 cerebral system of the mind of the spirit, petrifaction of the 
 fibres of the heart, congelation in its blood, till coldness 
 takes the place of heat, and the body becomes, as to its 
 internal, aged, deformed, and withered. The man at last 
 resembles a human boulder, and the inmost shape of its intel- 
 lectual organ the reptile closed within a mass of clay, hardened 
 into rock through the process of ages. Let those close this 
 book, who are not willing, in whole-souled, Avhole-bodied con- 
 secration, to do the Lord^s will, as far as consciously and 
 reasonably evident. To the class who receive in the intellect 
 alone it will be death unto death ; but life unto life to those 
 who, being hearers, are also doers of the Word of God. 
 
CHAPTEJR III. 
 
 Sardis a fii'tli church or people in the New Ilarmony. — Inversions of this 
 human type throughout Christendom. — Sardis a republican common- 
 wealth. — Seven degrees of the republican series, and seven pivotries. — 
 Works in this series and through these pivotries. — Attempts of men in 
 the selfhood to organize harmonies. — Dangers after open respiration. — 
 False respiration. — Examinations and examining angels. — Temptations 
 and repentances. — Inversions of the type Sardis: ancient Greeks; 
 Parisians ; Jesuits. — Modes through which the New Harmony is 
 initiated. — Sixteenth illustration. — The understanding in Sardis. — 
 Seventeenth illustration. — Philadelphia a sixth church or people. — Its 
 heavenly-natural perfections. — Arcana of sensation.— Ultimate conditions 
 of harmonic earths initiated by this type. — Pivotal men restoring 
 paradisiacal order. — The structures of a paradise. — Arcana of the new 
 terrestrial paradise. — The new respiration opened through the mineral, 
 vegetable, and animal kingdoms. — Communion with the world-soul. — 
 Strengths of this type. — The world-soul an agent of blessings and 
 judgments. — Abasements of the ungodly .through these judgments. — 
 Seven great trials to befall mankind. — Seven trials for the good. — Pillar- 
 men. — The New Jerusalem and its significances. — Social science. — 
 Modes of the descent of the New Harmony. — The solidarity of man. — 
 The law of the series. — Eighteenth illustration. — Punitive system in 
 the New Harmony. — Laodicea a seventh church or people. — The great 
 respiration.- — Miraculous works. — New forms of the Word. — A new 
 creation to appear in Polynesia. — The wounded world-soul. — The 
 natural man adapted to disorders, the new man to harmonies. — Judg- 
 ments for the Piomish, Greek, African, Calvinistic, Anglican, Evangelical, 
 Protestant, and Wcsleyan Churches.- — Nineteenth, tAventieth, twenty- 
 first, and twenty-second illustrations. — Twofold pulmonary respiration 
 and vision ; knowledges thus made known. — Divine commerce from 
 earth to earth. — Outpourings, visitations, and repentances. — Seven 
 degrees of new perception, hearing, and communion. — Pillar-men ; 
 journeyings, ascensions, thrones, pivotal centres. — Human translations. 
 — God in the harmonies of light and melodies of day. — New races 
 unfolding through the seven churches. — The new Divine joy and com- 
 munion therein. 
 
SEC. 540—541.] THE APOGALTPSE. 297 
 
 Chap. hi. 1. — "And unto the angel of the chukch in Saudis 
 WRITE; These things saith He that hath the seven 
 Spirits op God, and the seven stars ; I know thy works, 
 that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead/' 
 640. The " cliurcli in Sardis/' signifies, tliat type of men of 
 tlie new age wliose respiration is througli the SpirituaA Heaven, 
 continued into the natural lungs, and in conjunction with the 
 world-souls of terrestrial orbs under the influence of that 
 Heaven. These may be called intellectual-natural. Through- 
 out Christendom, at the present time, the vast majority of its 
 ruling intellects reveal the inversion of this type; they are 
 the worst men in the whole world, because possessed of the 
 highest advantages, which they most fearfully abuse ; their 
 , judgment is at hand. " Angel '' signifies, in this verse, seven 
 pivotal servants, or, in the world's phrase, rulers, constituting 
 a permanent representative series, centering the new harmony 
 with this exalted genius of men. The Republican form of 
 government is most consonant with its attributes. The sub- 
 stitution of Republican States for other forms of order will 
 everywhere mark its evolution, and indicate its sway. That 
 ideal form, which is in part wrought out in the North Ameri- 
 can Republic, is from the Sardis of the Heavenly World. The 
 law of the series, as there exemplified, whose successive terms 
 are the district, town, county, state, and commonwealth, needs 
 but two additions to make it perfect, the greater and universal 
 commonwealths of nations, including the Republican frater- 
 nities of all the globe. 
 
 541. The Church in Sardis, a republican commonwealth, 
 whose states are as the stars in the firmament, may be traced 
 throughout the sidereal expanses where the orbs revolve under 
 the influence of the Spiritual Heaven. The seven pivotal 
 servants of the Church in Sardis, as it, through this form, is 
 manifest, will be first, the chief of the district, second, of the 
 town, third of the county, fourth of the state, fifth of the lesser 
 republic, sixth the greater republic, and seventh of the woi-ld 
 republic. Terrestrial divisions mark out in space the corres- 
 ponding divisions in the spiritual states of men. The district 
 is the repubUc iu a minute form ; it consists in the ideal of 
 
298 ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. irr. 
 
 not more than fifty families occupying contiguous homesteads, 
 or the unitary pahice, and grouped in order around an open 
 respiring man of tlie genius Avliich we now consider. The 
 pivotal chief of the district knows the wants and sorrows^ and 
 is the federal head of the community. His special function 
 is to decide all tlie questions which naturally arise between 
 neighbours_, to see that heart-burnings do not exist, that dis- 
 cords do not creep in, that nothing opposed to internal respira- 
 tion and the laws of the new harmony invades the territory. 
 It is called a star of the least magnitude when thus organized, 
 and the least of the seven stars in the Lord's right hand. 
 
 542. The selection of the pivotal chief of the republic in this 
 least form is through the suffrages of every open breathing 
 conjugial man. The suffrage is neither of the male separate 
 from the female, or vice versa, but of the two in one. It is by 
 consent of all, because where open respiration thus exists, the 
 one divine breath communicates the same electoral inspiration 
 to all who respire from the Holy Ghost. The man thus chosen 
 respires in sympathy with all whom he represents. The Lord 
 inspires him through the Word to preserve order in righteous- 
 ness. Society falls into its natural classification as open 
 breathing is extended, as follows : First, the series of infancy, 
 which includes all of that tender age who require the imme- 
 diate care of the mother and the nurse.- Second, the series of 
 novices ; this includes both sexes of the children of the dis- 
 trict, extending to the close of the period preceding puberty. 
 It is, however, subdi^dded. The third series is the virginal, 
 consisting of youths and maidens who continue in it till mar- 
 riage. The fourth series is parental, including husbands and 
 wives, till the close of the child-bearing joeriod. The fifth 
 series includes conjugial pairs, who have advanced beyond 
 this era, merging into the sixth, and finally succeeded by the 
 seventh, where those are found to whom the Lord gives the 
 capacity of parentage for the aromal child. 
 
 543. The ease with which communications will take place 
 from one portion of the globe to another in the new age, will 
 serve, among others, this important end. The youth, prior to 
 marriage, will journey forth as led by the Spirit, until he finds 
 that community wherein the respiration is most in unison with 
 
SEC. 542—544.] THE APOCALYPSE. 299 
 
 liis own. Into it lie will be incorporated by the union of the 
 breaths^ and there become permanently established with his 
 wife. The same facilities for travel will serve as a means for 
 closing the old marriage era and instituting the new. Led by 
 internal respiration^ the youth will find the dear maiden through 
 whom God shall consummate both his terrestrial and eternal 
 bliss. Upon the basis of the family of the district rests the 
 superstructure of the order of the world. Each little republic 
 will emulate^ from motives of divine charity, the loftiest of its 
 neighbours. The tillage of the garden, of the farm, together 
 with such industrial pursuits as are practised in conjunction 
 therewith, will afford the needful modicum of labour and of 
 physical recreation in labour. For all, individualism, in its 
 heavenly sense, as among angels, will be studiously main- 
 tained, and an exceeding thi'ift and even opulence exhibit 
 their presence. The Lord will direct the sowing, the tillage, 
 and the gathering of every field by the Holy Ghost, and not a 
 vine will grow, or a fruit tree be set forth except where, and 
 when, and as He willeth. Thus also will the division of lands, 
 the arrangement of avenues and pathways and bridges be 
 directed. The temple of worship will be constructed according 
 to the Divine plan, and all worship be conducted from within 
 and from above. 
 
 544. The rural priest of genius similar to those in whose 
 midst he ministers, will exercise his function by divine inspira- 
 tion, administering the Gospel in the perfect unition of truth and 
 charity. In fine, the Heavens will rest on Earth on that basis 
 of order, and the two co-act and inter-act perpetually. Where 
 mechanical employments are engaged in, the Lord will direct 
 to the most minute details; nor will so much as a water bucket 
 be constructed but through the breathing life of the Divine 
 Spirit, which gives motion to the hands. In this manner 
 Society will bloom forth with a celestial fragrance and beauty, 
 and the earth become the nursery of the skies. To provide for 
 all its members a liberal education, artistic, industrial, and 
 scientific, each least republic will conspire, and progress in the 
 truths of science, art, or industry will be from love, " The fear 
 of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of 
 the holy understanding.''^ In the new order, sinless, exact, uu- 
 
300 ABC AN A OF CIIBISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 swerving obedience to tlie Divine breath will be the first great 
 lesson^ and the care and conduct of respiration the universal 
 study. The artificial will be succeeded by the divine-natural, 
 and all earthly things be regarded as means for the accom- 
 plishment of divine ends in life. The key note of life's har- 
 mony will be found through open communion with the Lord, 
 and prayer serve as the means of enlargement in the organic 
 measures of love, wisdom, and power. Herein is realized 
 Arcadia, and fulfilled Palestine. 
 
 545. None will be able to live in a social district of this 
 character except by influx from the Lord through open breath- 
 ing. Such of the old type as cannot be opened into it will 
 recede, not expelled by human agencies, but led away by 
 Providence. A peaceable reconstruction of the earth by these 
 means will ensue. Where a community comes thus into social 
 order in its new form, God is present with them so abundantly 
 that they sing for joy, even in their sleep. The morning dawns 
 on blessings, and the day closes with delights. Instead of the 
 thorn of scandal, blooms the rose of sympathy, and it is for 
 an everlasting sign which shall not be cut off. Dead to the 
 world's inversions, the converse of the grave elders is concern- 
 ing the new harmony on Earth and in the Heavens, and thence 
 exhaustless as the universe. Monotony is avoided by the in- 
 dwelling operation of that Divine Spirit, which delights in 
 graceful variety, and, while all are free, each spirit is unfolded 
 to embody on Earth the special quality prefigured in its hea- 
 venly ideal. Life is spent as consciously in the presence of 
 God as it was by the first parents before their fall. The arms 
 of a common friendship encircle the miniature State. All 
 parents are one in the sympathies of common parentage ; all 
 children are one in the sympathies of common infancy. Wher- 
 ever a pulse beats, or bosom thrills, or hand labours, it is from 
 the Lord. 
 
 546. AVhere seven of these afl&liated districts exist in the 
 new order typified by Sardis, they constitute the township, 
 thotigh a better word at that time will be given. In the centre 
 of the town is a sacerdotal edifice, devoted to education in 
 spiritual mysteries. The seven pivotal chiefs of smaller dis- 
 tricts are themselves ministered to and strengthened in gifts 
 
SEC. 545—547.] TRE APOCALTFSJE. 301 
 
 for their office by the social elder, whose larger circle of ad- 
 ministratious embraces all who live within the township's 
 boundaries. He represents them in congresses of the State, 
 holding his position through concert of electoral inspirations 
 as before. In concert with him appears the pivotal teacher of 
 the township, and the priest who ministers in the correspond- 
 ino- decree of the hierarchate. The mansions in which they 
 reside are correspondentially arranged as centres of the ad- 
 vanced holiness of which they are the types. The dense con- 
 gregation of the human race in cities ceases when the new 
 order obtains sway. Every conjugial pair resides in a dwel- 
 ling surrounded by the pure air, singly or in series. The 
 noisome alley, the crowded tenement house are supplanted by 
 the cottage with its garden and its field, or by the indus- 
 trial palace. To breathe noxious odours, unless a mission 
 demands it, is no part of the duty exacted of the new olfactory 
 sense ; and filth is looked upon as an earthly symbol of the 
 sordors of the pit, and the miasmatic exhalation of corrupt 
 hearts decaying through self-love. The sacerdotal edifices 
 denoting the centre of the township are occupied respectively 
 by the masters of arts, of sciences, and of the various indus- 
 tries. 
 
 647. Third in the series, the county, in the new order, glo- 
 riously illustrates the sovereignty of God in man. Here, 
 smiling in the midst of blooming gardens, where the genius 
 of the new age delights to display a sumptuous though chas- 
 tened taste, appears the distributive mart for eveiy article of 
 need which the industries of society require. The distributor 
 of goods serves in that function, as before, by electoral inspira- 
 tion. He typifies the genius of Commerce. It is his special 
 employment to know the requirements of the families in every 
 disti'ict. He appoints in each town and district centre, the 
 man whom God selects to act as a distributive agent. The 
 cost of every article of merchandise is regulated by the Divine, 
 Voice, nor can it be otherwise. None purchase but as they 
 are moved by the Spirit. Where God governs there is no 
 waste. The chief of trade in a county receives directly, 
 or through subordinates in the towns and districts, the pro- 
 ducts which its dwellers annually yield for the supply of 
 
302 AECANA OF CHRISTIAN ITT. [cuap. tit. 
 
 other districts than thoir own. He conducts an immense 
 trade through Divine direction, not endeavouring to enrich 
 himself, but receiving such compensation as shall best afford 
 him means to accomplish the providential ends. The hungry 
 class of small traders, who elbow each other in all towns, and 
 subsist precariously, is thus suppressed. Except in the Divine 
 order, middle-men are no more. It is virtually the Lord who 
 distributes and who interchanges productions, and the chief 
 factor is simply the Lord^s agent working out His will. 
 
 548. A third series of pivotal rulers and instructors, also 
 in the hierarchate, here holds its seat. Here also the art 
 palace is maintained, of which perhaps the crystal palace at 
 Sydenham may serve, so far as its harmonic features are con- 
 cerned, as a tj'po. Here the great painter, the sculptor, and 
 musician, the chief expounders of the principles of art and in- 
 dustry, maintain their place. 
 
 549. The State consists of such counties as are territorially 
 situated within boundaries most convenient for purposes of 
 mutual assistance. A fourth order of pivotal servants, chosen 
 as before, occupies the seat of its chief magistracy. To the 
 State belongs the duty of opening and maintaining all great 
 public works which connect and inter-unite its communities. 
 This is its principal function. It establishes and maintains 
 the postal system, connecting it with one of universal expresses, 
 and another for the transmission of all bulky packages. The 
 function of the superintendence of all modes and means of 
 transit, in fine, all that in the subversive order pertains to 
 competitive and desultory enterprise in these departments of 
 public use, falls entirely to the pivotal state chief, and his sub- 
 ordinates. The State is self-supporting, and maintained from 
 revenues arising from the duties which it thus joerforms. 
 
 550. Fifth, the Lesser Republic compinses an association of 
 States, who combine to maintain uniformity in weights and 
 measures, currencies, postal exchanges, and the like, and to 
 facilitate intercourse upon a grander scale. The chief of the 
 Lesser Eepublic is especially entrusted with high and grave em- 
 ployments connected with the reclamation of vast unproduc- 
 tive districts of earth; the sending forth of colonists, the 
 arrangement of colonies, and at a later period still, the compila- 
 
SEC. 548—551.] THE APOCALYPSE. 303 
 
 tion and redistribution of the new liarmonic literature of other 
 lands. Through his series he makes his people familiar with 
 whatever of benefit to the race is transpiring by act, or revealed 
 from the Word. The printing press and its collatei-al inven- 
 tions are his implements. He sits in the centre of the literature 
 of humanity. His means of communication with the Republic 
 which unites around him, are books, periodicals, and the weekly 
 and diurnal press. The crafts of printers, engravers, etchers, 
 and lithographers principally compose the more immediate 
 agents of his sway. The literature of the world undergoes a 
 change both in its mode of production, publication, and dissemi- 
 nation. The author writes in the series of the divine breaths, 
 where, when, and as moved by the Spirit of the Lord. His works 
 are sent as the Spirit commands to the literary chief of the Re- 
 public, who in the Lord commits them to the printer and to the 
 publisher, each of these being the servant of the State. The 
 editions, great or small, are regulated by the Divine command- 
 ment, and froni a centre distributed, either through the univer- 
 sal post, or to depots where commerce presides. Thus, at a 
 cost of but trivial moment, whatever works are produced 
 through the Lord's servants, go forth from the Republican 
 centres of administration, reaching every cottage throughout 
 the lands. There are no dissensions, because the same divine 
 breath is omnipresent in all. 
 
 55 L The Greater Republic embraces each its continent or 
 archipelago, including all lesser republics thereupon. It will, 
 when it becomes established, maintain the lesser forms of 
 civilization dependent from it, by centering the universal 
 system, through a solar ministry, around a pivotal arch- 
 republican head, of whom this may be stated : He will be the 
 centx'alization of the genius of his continent : He will typify- 
 in one intellect its manifold genius, and respire in harmony 
 with the pivotal heads of each lesser republic, wielding power 
 with a vast sway against the remaining inversions not yet 
 extirpated from the globe : He will be the ^ater-familias of 
 all, mediating between them and supreme Heaven; ceutei-iug 
 also the radiative system of administration, composed of hier- 
 archal men, who pass, impregnated with higher arts and 
 sciences and industries, from land to land, initiating mankind 
 
304 ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [cmkv. iir. 
 
 inter the perpetually asccuding scries of divine gifts. Princi- 
 pally tlic arcli-repuLlic will serve tliis end. 
 
 552. Seventh in the series will stand the Confederation of 
 the Republics of the System of the World. It will be charged 
 with the introduction of the divine and universal language, 
 into which, after a period, by the operation of the Divine 
 Spirit, all partial dialects will flow and disappear. Its capital 
 will also be the crown of the hierarchate, and that holy place 
 w^here divine coramuuications of the most exalted character 
 will, through the Word, be given, to lead on the advanc- 
 ing steps of universal unity, till all regenerate men shall 
 breathe as one man. This greatest of the Republics will thus 
 exert its sway. Its chief will be the highest angel of the 
 church in Sardis ; the amplest burden-bearer and servant of 
 all. Thus, in aerial perspective, we behold the outlines of the 
 prospective Republic of Mankind, arcana concerning which 
 are contained within these words, " He that hath the seven 
 Spirits of God, and the seven stars.'" 
 
 553. The principle of competitive industry in the American 
 Republic is organized into working forces as follows. First, 
 every child is taught that the highest political positions are 
 open to him, and are attainable through the trade of politics. 
 Personal ambition is thus stimulated from the earliest years. 
 Politics is made a trade ; offices being .principally monopolized 
 by persons of the legal profession, the bar becomes a training- 
 school for the debates of public assemblies and of the Sena- 
 torial and Representative Chambers. The common maxim is, 
 that in politics there can be nothing wrong. The Jesuitical 
 doctrine that " the end justifies the means '' is silently omni- 
 present. Except in certain great crises, when public senti- 
 ment for the moment becomes incontrollable, the people have 
 no real voice in the election of State and National function- 
 aries, A secret and an irresponsible power rules. Political 
 intriguers, by secret combinations, nominate the candidates, 
 and the electors at the polls have no choice but between two 
 sets of rival demagogues. Here is a system which demoralizes 
 everything with which it comes in contact. The corruptions 
 of the American Republic are to be traced to this source. 
 Presidents are made by poHtical tricksters and sharpers. 
 
SEC. 552—555.] THE APOCALYPSE. 305 
 
 Society is corrupted at tlie fountains of its life. Not alone are 
 there parties against parties^ but parties within parties. Those 
 who engage in the strife for high office are obliged^ as a rule, 
 to connive at practices as bad as those of highwaymen. It is 
 the merit of the An ti- Slavery party that it has not been in- 
 volved in these infamies ; nevertheless, had it been sufficiently 
 powerful to have controlled the disposal of offices, it would 
 have sunken, probably, as low. 
 
 554. However intelligent, virtuous, and well-meaning may 
 be the electors, they are virtually powerless ; governments 
 being made up through the intrigues of the demagogues. 
 The legislature of the most powerful state in the Union always 
 has a large minority, and frequently a majority, both in its 
 Higher and Lower House of Eepresentatives, whose votes 
 are purchased with money. The highest body, the Senate of 
 the United States, has repeatedly been bribed by enormous 
 sums, both by agents of foreign governments and by com- 
 binations of capitalists. Thus the British government pro- 
 cured the passage of the " Reciprocity Treaty " with Canada, 
 and thus agents of the Stock Exchange saddled upon the 
 nation the debt of the former Republic of Texas. It is only 
 by seeming accident, that is, by the secret interposition of 
 Providence, that the Presidential chair can be filled by a vir- 
 tuous, honest man. 
 
 555. Politics being thus made a trade, a trickery, a specu- 
 lation, the public morals are officially debased. The title 
 ^' Honourable " implies, as a rule, that he who bears it has 
 made himself dishonourable. The sentiment of honour is 
 almost extinguished. The name of ^^ gentleman ^^ has lost its 
 primitive significance. In order that a government may be 
 permanent, its dignitaries must be men of personal honour ; 
 otherwise, instead of being the conservators, they are the 
 assassins of the State. Candidates are nominated in the 
 caucuses through a system of organized corruption. Here is 
 a Praetorian guard of attorneys and their adherents, who sell, 
 every four years, the republican purple to the highest bidder. 
 It has been said that every ecclesiastical corporation entrusts 
 its financial afiairs to the most depraved of its members, as of 
 old Judas was the treasurer of the apostles; but it is more 
 
 u 
 
306 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 true that, wherever the disposal of public patronage is to bo 
 obtained through political combinations, the shrewdest trick- 
 sters of the nation will combine for that end. Good men feel 
 themselves obliged, for the sake of the accomplishment of 
 humane ends in legislation, to ally themselves with the grand- 
 masters of the art of corruption, the professors of the art of 
 legislative bribery ; and eloquent men, with a passion for high 
 office, are willing to be their proteges. Names that will shine 
 on the pages of history, as among the best and noblest of 
 their time, revolve as double stars in this unnatural juxta- 
 position with others whose light was darkness and whose 
 influence worse than any pestilence. Politics implies the 
 close alliance of the virtuous with the vile. 
 
 556. For the stability of a nation the first thing necessary is 
 a fixed and stable executive ; but in America this is impossible. 
 It is notorious that one cabinet in Europe, the Russian/ accom- 
 plishes its master strokes of diplomacy by the secret bribery 
 of the cabinet ministers and other great officials of foreign 
 powers. Wlien the President of the United States has won his 
 brief eminence through unholy and secret intrigues, and when 
 the officers of his Cabinet are selected from a class of hungry 
 attorneys, accustomed all their days for a fee to argue any case, 
 however infamous ; when, in addition to this, as is too often 
 hinted at, they betray their own clients for a bribe from the 
 opposite party; and when, furthermore, they have added a 
 long experience in political corruption to the arts of their 
 own special profession, what security has the nation ? What 
 reasonable hope that its foreign afiairs will be conducted with 
 a due regard to its own rights and interests ? When a large 
 class of the senators and representatives of either dominant 
 party are connected with the former as allies and accomplices ; 
 when, furthermore, they have the control of the political press, 
 which reaches every household in the land, and have but to 
 issue their edicts in order to cause an almost universal mis- 
 leading of public opinion, is it not evident at a glance that 
 here is a. system which contains within itself the seeds of 
 national and social ruin ? It may be answered that one corrupt 
 party neutralises the venom of the opposite. But when did ever 
 two diseases make one health, or two dangers one safety, or 
 
SEC. 556—558.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 307 
 
 two depravities one morality ? This is what Christian nations 
 come to by submitting their affairs to the dictation of un- 
 christian men. The principle of selfish competition here has 
 full sway. The faith that Democracy is the only government 
 to which a nation can accede, maintaining at the same time its 
 liberties and its self-respect, is so fixed and made a pai't of 
 public sentiment that there is no human solution of the difii- 
 culty. If ordinary laws have their course, the final result 
 must be the dissolution of the Republic, through weakness 
 at its centre, and corruptions at its sources of power. But 
 democracy is a transition phase through which man passes, and 
 in its very weakness and changeableness are Divine oppor- 
 tunities. 
 
 557. If the politics of a nation are depraved, all other 
 depravities follow by an inevitable course. If the compe- 
 titive gambling spirit rules in the election of officers and the 
 administration of affairs, it debauches everything, high and 
 low; poisons everywhere, reaching rich and poor. It sows 
 universal dissensions ; it gives rise to universal iniquities. The 
 judiciary is dependent on the executive in some instances. 
 Where this is the case, the interests of party require that un- 
 scrupulous partisans shall be invested with the ermine. Thus 
 the chief-justice of the United States, during most critical 
 epochs, was Roger B. Taney, a man who, to the unscrupulous - 
 ness and wickedness of Jeffreys, added the bigotry and plausi- 
 bility of a Romanist devotee. The competitive system moulds 
 the Judiciary in its own image and likeness. Again, when, as 
 in other cases, the Judiciary is elective, its candidates are the 
 nominees of the caucus, and that conclave being inevitably 
 corrupt, it selects its creatures. Wliere public sentiment is 
 debased, electing, as it does, the bench, it must be reflected 
 and represented there. Hence we have the loathsome spec- 
 tacle of courts, where the client, if he would win his case, must 
 entrust it to the secret legal partner of the judge, who decides 
 it. Hence we have the spectacle, still more loathsome, of judges, 
 elected by combinations among the dissolute classes, for the 
 protection of the interests of vice. 
 
 558. Where the influx of immigration is immense, public 
 sentiment is debased to the level of the half pauperised 
 
 u 2 
 
308 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. iir. 
 
 hordes that Europe vomits upon the shores of the Western 
 Continent. The triumphs that Great Britain could not win by 
 the armies of Howe, Burgoyne, and Cornwallis, the destruction 
 of the integrity of American institutio^s, she is reaching now, 
 through the offscouring of her emigrants, and chiefly through 
 the Roman Catholic Celt. In districts and states where great 
 parties are nearly equal in numbers, the priest holds the balance 
 of power. Hence, though the Roman Church is a small 
 minority, nineteen-twentieths of the public donations to reli- 
 gious institutions are made, in the state of New York, to those 
 of this persuasion. In a Democracy it is not quality that 
 governs, not rectitude, not intelligence; but quantity, brute 
 force. It is the best system, if the quantities represent Divine 
 qualities; but the worst system, when the reverse is the 
 case. Now, prior to the late rebellion, politics in America were 
 controlled by a combination of the dissolute and ignorant and 
 foreign and priest-ridden classes at the North, organized into 
 a unity by party managers, with the despotic, slave-trading, 
 slave-breeding, and slave-working classes at the South ; these 
 holding at their beck also enormous bodies of ignorant, de- 
 based, and almost pauperised white citizens. This alhance 
 being providentially broken for the time, through its own dis- 
 sensions, a minority candidate, representing the moral convic- 
 tions of the people, was enabled to rise, as by an oversight, to the 
 Presidential chair ; this, too, made it possible to overthrow the 
 system of slavery and to institute the beginnings of justice. 
 
 559. But the elements are all rife for a new combination. 
 " One woe is past, but another woe cometh quickly.''^ The 
 utmost that can be hoped is, that the Divine Providence will 
 prevent the dissolution of the Republic, till in some part of it 
 a regenerate and enlightened intelligence may numerically 
 preponderate. It is also a providential fact that, owing to the 
 results of the recent conflict, men of the New Life can, with- 
 out complicity with evil, exercise the duties and the rights of 
 citizenship. This is a great thing; it is possible now for a 
 man to be a citizen of the United States, without renouncing 
 his citizenship in Heaven ; hence, too, it is possible to embody 
 the principles of the latter, while complying with the require- 
 ments of the former. In fact, no man can fully fulfil what is 
 
SEC. 559—561.] TSE APOCALYPSE. 309 
 
 implied in allegiance to tlie American Constitution, without 
 becoming the recipient of the Divine Spirit, and embodying it, 
 through open respiration, in the affections of purity and the 
 works of solidarity. 
 
 560. The merit of that Constitution is this, that it recog- 
 nises the will of majorities as the supreme law. This would 
 be a demerit were majorities to remain ignorant, depraved, 
 and at the mercy of party leaders; but there are powers 
 operant from the Heavens that are preparing the way for the 
 opening of Christ's people in large bodies ; and for the descent 
 of the principles of the new creation into organic forces, which 
 it is to be hoped, through human faithfulness, will give the 
 balance of power to the men of the New Life, and eventually 
 establish a Divine Eepublic, through this very principle, that 
 the supreme law depends upon the will of majorities. Again, 
 the reorganization of the district according to the principles 
 herein set forthi as those by which Church Sardis executes the 
 Divine will, no less than the concurrent principles alluded to 
 in what is wi'itten concerning Church Thyatu-a, must lead to 
 political reorganization, thorough and effectual, so far as their 
 sway extends ; and all this in strict conformity with republican 
 law. 
 
 561 . But the American mind is such, that it believes in prin- 
 ciples when they are fulfilled in their demonstrations. It will 
 beheve in the reorganized district or township or county when 
 it sees them. It will believe in the New Life, when it beholds 
 it lived out in shining and illustrious solidarities. It will be- 
 lieve in the pohtical necessity of its principles, when it sees 
 that they inevitably reconstruct all institutions, the adminis- 
 tration of which pertains to the districts or communities where 
 such tenets hold personal sway. There is an intense yearning 
 after that ideal which was prefigured in the aspirations of the 
 Puritan and in the expectations of the patriotic founders of 
 the nation. There is a fixed belief that the Old World is 
 dead ; that salvation cannot come by the transfer or the re- 
 vival of any of its institutions. There is a solemn, awful 
 instinct, that God has reserved the Western Continent, and 
 peopled it with the most strenuous enterprise of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race, for some majestic and transcendent manifestation. 
 
310 ABCANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. in. 
 
 It was this that made myriads eager for Liberalism in Reli- 
 gion, and that led to the incipient struggles of Socialism. A 
 better ideal glances perpetually before the eye. An accursed 
 politics; the growth of slavery; the" failure of social enter- 
 prises; the terrible revelations of Spiritism; the pagan 
 spirit, the subtle sphere, the allm-ing appeals of Ritualism, 
 have deadened down these aspirations, quenched these hopes, 
 obscured this dawning, but only for a time. 
 
 562. There is an agony that may be felt in the more 
 quickened elements of the common mind. The heart of 
 America nurses a noble dissatisfaction ; it is like the instinct 
 of a plant, that, rooted in a desert, creeps slowly by its roots 
 towards the distant water-spring. Great combinations, both 
 natm-al and infernal-natural, have temporarily blinded the 
 intelligence of the yearning and aspiring classes. They 
 lavished life and treasure profusely in the religious movement 
 of the Unitarians ; but Unitarianism cannot grapple with the 
 vital problems of humanity, and, as a popular movement, it is 
 dead. They have been for the last ten years exploring the 
 occult facts of Spiritism ; but Spiritism, unfolding and embody- 
 ing no divine ideals, in its turn is losing its fascination with 
 all men of nobler quality. They have turned, in their dis- 
 heartenment, to English Ritualism, to Romanism, and even to 
 oriental Buddhism ; but this is a reaction from weakness which 
 is but temporary, and from the momentary eclipse of hopes 
 which are as inextinguishable as the sun. The motto of 
 Church Sardis is, "America for Christ, and Christ for America." 
 It holds the key of that door through which He shall descend 
 by the inaugm^ation of Republican harmonies. 
 
 563. It is a common reproach, that the Americans, as a 
 people, are devoted to mere money making. Unfavourable 
 comparisons are drawn between the gentlemen of the Republic 
 and the opulent in Europe, and especially in Great Britain ; 
 but these comparisons involve questions of great moment, 
 only to be satisfactorily answered in the light of the New 
 Life. What has the gentleman of Europe attained to with all 
 his golden leisures ? What is there to show for them beside 
 palaces, decorated landscapes, galleries of art, sumptuousness 
 in the decorations of religion, a certain nobility and grace of 
 
SEC. 562—564.] THE APOCALTFSE. 311 
 
 manner^ an addition to records of travel and adventure ? Had 
 these leisurely gentlemen, whose wealth is fourfold, — that of 
 time, of station, and the culture and opulence of ages, — ^had 
 these gentlemen, placed on these heights of vantage above the 
 world, made any real discoveries, on the earthly ground or 
 . in the heavenly horizon, the mind of the Western continent 
 would have been prompt to take advantage of them. But 
 they have neither discerned a better ideal nor wrought out a 
 better actual. A Judsean Prince, the flower of all gentleman- 
 hood, unfolded certain principles. Alas, the gentlemen of 
 Europe have lost sight of that cardinal idea of the nature of 
 a gentleman that He both taught and embodied. Has the 
 gentleman of Europe a higher idea of chastity than the 
 peasant, than the philosophical pagan ? Does he live for the 
 race, or live upon the race ? 
 
 564. The intellect of America tends to organization and 
 enterprise ; it is not content with the conservation of privi- 
 leges. It was an American gentleman who invented the 
 steamship, and another instituted the vast system of canal 
 navigation ; others are the founders of great universities. 
 The munificence and magnificence of hereditary opulence are 
 thus outdone and outshone by those who founded their own 
 fortunes. The instinct of the gentleman of Em^ope is for the 
 exquisite, the recherche ; he is a man of good taste. The instinct 
 of the gentleman of America is for the stupendous ; he is a 
 man of action. Contact with Europe weakens him; the old 
 world is his snare. England is his Rome, and France his 
 Capua. He is a half-quickened Israelite, whom these old 
 tribes in his borders beguile into idolatry. There is a finer 
 instinct of gentlemanhood and ladyhood among the childi^en of 
 the Puritans in the new world than among the descendants of 
 cavaliers in the old world. The heart has not quite been 
 stifled ; the equal origin of humanity has not been quite for- 
 gotten. If there is, in a high sense, neither church nor state, 
 still there are but few reproductions of that organized exclu- 
 sion and obstruction which are the church and state of Europe. 
 There are no queens or duchesses, but there are fewer female 
 mendicants and prostitutes.' There are no kings or dukes, but 
 there are fewer flunkies and sycophants. The tui"f has nut be- 
 
312 ABCANA OF CIIRISTIANITT. [chap. iit. 
 
 come a great national institution tliat swallows np the fortunes 
 of princely houses. There is an aristocracy of cornland and 
 woodland, of shipping and petroleum, that often exhibits the 
 vulgar attributes o^ W\g vonvemix rlchc ; but there is no aris- 
 tocracy of ducal houses descended from the concubines of 
 kings. 
 
 565. From one point of view America may be poorer for 
 what she has not borrowed from Europe; but from another 
 she is richer by what she has not borrowed thence. The dead 
 weights are removed or removable. She cannot stand in the 
 class inertia of ages. The key to her future is not buried in 
 ancestral graves ; she holds it in her own hands. Europe 
 subsists by the statu quo that is the result of universal com- 
 promise ; but, unless America can hold her ground by the or- 
 ganization of principle, she must perish. There is in America 
 an instinct which teaches that, after all, there is something 
 excessively ungentlemanly and unladylike with large classes 
 of Europeans who especially come under these appellations ; a 
 feeling that it is not gentlemanly to surround one's self with the 
 luxurious privacies of a great estate, while the farm tenants 
 are huddled together in hovels not fit for dogs. There is, in 
 fine, though unorganized and most inadequately expressed, 
 that sentiment which a recent writer has called, " the enthu- 
 siasm of humanity.^' Those highly placed cannot patronize 
 the people, for they are of the people. The people stands for 
 the class, and popular privileges for class privileges. Here is 
 a vineyard of unripe grapes, but, as they ripen, and One comes 
 predicted of old to tread the wine press, the new vintage 
 cannot be put in the dried leathern skins of European or 
 Asiatic institutions. 
 
 566. The abolition of the laws of entail and primogeniture 
 has effected this good ; even the most obtuse must see that no 
 family can remain in an elevated position for a long time with- 
 out a correspondent elevation of the people. The aboHtion of 
 church establishments has done this good, that it has forced 
 men to the conviction that organized Religion, and a learned 
 and dignified class of religious teachers, can only be maintained 
 permanently by means of an educated religiousness and in- 
 tegrity in the people. The abolition of hereditary rule has 
 
SEC. 565—567.] THE AFOOALYPSU. 313 
 
 wrouglit this good also, that it has made men see that wise 
 and virtuous government must disappear, unless perpetually 
 re-born from the mind and heart of a fraternal and noble 
 people. In a word, the artificial is swept away, and America 
 rests for perpetuity upon the permanence of the ideal in the 
 actual. This is not perpetual boyhood, safe by reason of guar- 
 dianships and restrictions ; it is manhood, with its unlimited 
 dangers, but also with its unlimited possibilities. The gentle- 
 man of Europe finds no class in America identical with his class 
 at home ; here is not a nation finished, but a nation just begun. 
 567. It is this Spirit from God, embodied in the life and 
 works especially of this type of men called Sardis, though in 
 connection with men of all the other types, that, for the first 
 time in the workVs history, makes good society a fact of 
 morals and of spirituality, weds visible beauty to invisible 
 goodness, and introduces into the common way of living all 
 that is humanly valuable in that special existence that has 
 heretofore been inclosed in palaces. It weds nobility of 
 manner to nobility of reason and of heart. As God draws 
 round the wholesome, faithful earth the starred mantle of the 
 heavens, so, in this new life. He invests manly and womanly 
 faithfulness with dignity and with magnificence. Here the 
 duchess is not in her thought at an infinite remove from the 
 washer- woman, for she, who in the morning is engaged in the 
 beautiful works of the laundry, may be found in the evening 
 with the manners of an empress, dispensing an imperial 
 hospitality to her guests, who are themselves nobler than 
 earthly nobles and kinglier than mortal kings. Here is Christ 
 on His industrial throne, surrounded by the resplendent and 
 adoring ranks of industrial hierarchies and nobilities and 
 chivalries. Chatsworth is base and vulgar, surrounded by its 
 eleven miles of park and with its imperial conservatories, for 
 it ministers but to unregenerate and unholy family ambitions. 
 That one man may have a Chatsworth, how many must be 
 landless, till the mould is heaped over them ! But here is 
 Chatsworth, here is Versailles, yea, more than either, not as 
 nourishing the pride, or concealing the loneliness and deso- 
 lation of some solitary man. Here are royalties of surrounding 
 that are the reflections of the royalties of person and of state. 
 
311. ARCANA OF CUBISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 5G8. It would be a great mercy to youths like the Prince of 
 Wales aud his courtly associates, if they could be taught some 
 honest trade, and learn to earn their bread by the sweat of the 
 brow; if they could be instructed ' in the value of time, the 
 excellence of laboui*, the sweetness and the dignity of service ; 
 more especially if they could be placed under the control of 
 noble industrial womenj and made to feel, in their own expe- 
 rience, just how much life and strength a sewing girl puts 
 forth to earn her scanty pittance. England commits a great 
 wrong in her educational system, both to her princes and 
 nobles, by shutting them out of the knowledge of the common 
 lot. Perhaps the illustrious lady of the land would throw her 
 gracious affections more fully into needful, industrial reforms 
 for women; perhaps she would lay by less for her children 
 by blood, and more for her children by office, the daughters of 
 the people, if for one six months of her girlhood she had been 
 practically instructed in the burdens of their inevitable life. 
 How potent would be her example for reform, if she had en- 
 throned herself in the midst of the womanhood of the isle ! 
 Surely her loneliness in widowhood would be less lonely, 
 nay, full of all divine and all celestial companionships, if the 
 thronging benedictions of this great sisterhood of misery, 
 whom she found ready to perish, and whom she cradled in her 
 very heart and ministered to with faithful hands, distilled 
 themselves around her as the morning and the evening 
 sacrifice. 
 
 569. Isolation from divine use is starvation. Isolated indivi- 
 duals are starved individuals ; isolated classes starved classes. 
 Those who isolate themselves from any human care, isolate 
 themselves with its correspondent human curse. Those who 
 identify themselves with a misery, identify themselves also 
 with its recompense. The system of solidarity, led forth 
 through the new creation, is a system of recompenses. Here 
 for the first time there is fulness of bread for all bread-earners, 
 but also fulness of life for all life-givers. In this respect it 
 is entirely the opposite of the present American system, whose 
 competitive industries develop every sj)ecies of present and 
 prospective starvation, thi'ough their second great specialty, 
 selfish competitive toil. 
 
SEC. 568—571.] THE APOCALYFSi:. 315 
 
 670. Competition is to Society wliat lust is to the heart : it 
 organises robberies. The competitive pursuits make men at 
 once smooth and callous on the side that is manward, and 
 specious and obdurate on the side that is Godward. Where 
 competition runs its inevitable rounds it makes personal reli- 
 gion almost impossible. Schiller sings that " the immortals 
 never come alone.''^ The virtues are social; the inspirations 
 that visit the human heart are never solitary. Men are affected 
 for weal or woe by the attitudes in which they stand towards 
 their fellows. Men are made morose or genial_, iron-hearted 
 or golden-heartedj suspicious or confiding^ in a large degree, 
 by means of the relations in which they stand to others. Child- 
 hood and youth are imitative, and take upon themselves the 
 peculiarities of the society whose habits and customs encompass 
 them. The savage becomes a hunter of animals ; he learns to 
 waylay, to entrap, to outmatch animal cunning by his instinc- 
 tive sagacity ; he becomes wise in the ways of the brute crea- 
 tm'es who are to serve as his prey. But the civilizee is the 
 hunter of men; he is taught by the customs and habits of 
 society that there are myriad modes by which, without en- 
 dangering the soul or violating civil law or custom, to aggran- 
 dize himself at the expense of his fellow-man. Where society 
 is organised selfishness, religion will be, for the most part, 
 deified selfishness. 
 
 571. Both the virtues and the vices move in series; if the 
 sefish principle is enthroned in trade, it will also be enthroned 
 in marriage, in the family, everywhere. Competitive Society 
 is a baser savageism. So long as men are hordes they will be 
 ruled by robbers. Competitive Society places the balance of 
 power in the hands of the unscrupulous. The attorney, the 
 merchant, the money-lender become the rulers of the hamlet, 
 and set the fashion, not alone in style, but in life. The clergy- 
 man, himself the member of a competitive body, and engaged 
 in competitive efforts against rival sects, is controlled in his 
 ministrations by the views of men who have grown sharp and 
 hard in competitive pursuits. The exemplars of the village are 
 its successful men. Each rising generation is trained by the 
 example of the one before it. A slave-holding system imbues 
 the young with the spiint of slave-holding, and a competitive 
 
316 ABCANA OF CnBISTIANITY. [chap. iir. 
 
 system imbues the young with the competitive spirit. It un- 
 settles the pure and just economies of God ; it destroys, in the 
 mental system, and also in the moral system, the planes for co- 
 operation ; and, according to its success in this, the planes for 
 regeneration. It is not confined to one sex ; it makes woman 
 cold and hard and narrow, no less than man. He who repre- 
 sents Mammon to his fellow, cannot represent the Lord to his 
 wife and in his family. Competition and scortation are well-nigh 
 inseparable. No man can have golden bridals who does not in- 
 sphere his life in golden rectitudes and charities. Mammon is 
 one of the series with Moloch and Belial. Unselfishness can 
 never work its will through the public sentiment, unless em- 
 bodied in representative institutions. 
 
 572. Church Sardis, in conjunction with the other churches, 
 rescues industry from its defilements and degradations. There 
 is something downright and terrible in the genius of this 
 people ; their modes of dealing with the evils that result from 
 competition, like their modes of thought, are sharp and incisive. 
 They do more than organize industry on the grounds of right- 
 eousness ; they diffuse a spirit of burning hatred against com- 
 petitive unrighteousness. They put into contempt a grandem' 
 and a divinity, till men learn to loathe the hireling attorney and 
 the grasping middle-man, with a keener detestation than is now 
 the meed of pii*ates. Here is the germ of a new public senti- 
 ment, against which in its development it would be impos- 
 sible for the base to lift their heads. These righteous hatreds 
 proceed through respiration. Society has always been a net, 
 whose meshes have caught the small criminals without holding 
 the great ones ; but New Society will be a net that will close 
 the more firmly against criminals in the proportion of the 
 magnitude of their crimes. 
 
 573. It will be demonstrated in this church that men are 
 made sharp and keen, and exact and uncompromising, and 
 prudent and practical, in the precise ratio of their disinte- 
 restedness. It will be as impossible for the men of the world 
 to outwit or overreach them, as it is for men to outwit or 
 overreach the laws of gravitation or electricity. The intro- 
 duction of the spirit and power of Sardis into politics, juris- 
 prudence, law, medicine, divinity, trade, wHl be more terrible 
 
SEC. 572—575.] THE JPOOALYFSK 317 
 
 to tlie worldly^ engaged in the same pursuits^ than can well bo 
 stated; for tlie man of Sardis takes delight in developing a 
 sphere that tears to pieces whatever is selfish and competitive. 
 The man of this type will be terrible in presence to his oppo- 
 nents^ for there will proceed through him a divine overbearing 
 of ill. Bach will move among men as a last judgment in first 
 principles. They will grind and reduce opposition as mill- 
 stones grind corn. Such is the sharp and penetrative quality 
 of the breaths of the man of this type^ that few will care to meet 
 them more than once in opposition. It must also be men- 
 tioned here that these respirations have a singular quality ; 
 proceeding forth against the adverse and the wicked^ they 
 interpenetrate their bodies between all the joints of the bones ; 
 they afilict opposers with a cold trembling; they take out 
 courage from the heart ; they produce, if opposition is con- 
 tinued, paralysis, loss of memory, and a general impotence 
 of the frame. 
 
 574. Among the special industrial tendencies which this 
 respiration leads forth, are to be mentioned, spinning, weaving, 
 and whatever relates to the spindle and loom ; the manufac- 
 ture of iron in all its branches; building of ships and locomo- 
 tives. Men of the Thyatiran Church tend more to the finer 
 works, to indoor and outdoor architecture, to the manufacture 
 of such things as belong to domestic use and comfort; to 
 whatever pertains to wood, to the planting and care of forests, 
 to the working of them up into every conceivable form of 
 useful elegance. The two churches, Thyatira and Sardis, are 
 very closely connected ; and it is almost impossible for the first 
 to proceed beyond a few families, without the second begin- 
 ning to unfold in close unity. As the thunder follows the 
 lightning, the reverberating force of Sardis will be felt almost 
 as soon as the electric flash of Thyatira. 
 
 575. The competitive principle takes a third and very 
 odious form in the organization of the class of military leaders 
 and instructors. Soldiers, as a class, are unscrupulous, godless 
 men. The genius of Sardis is intensely military. Its emblem 
 is the unsheathed sword. Here is power that inures to the 
 salvation of the new order which God creates. So long a3 
 evil exists there must always be a national appeal to ultimate 
 
318 ARCANA OF CIIBISTIANITT. [cux^. iit. 
 
 force. Tlie nation that can maintain the largest and most 
 powerful army, without the impoverishing or lessening of 
 resources, must inevitably hold its own against the world. 
 Now Sardis is invincible, because here is the power which 
 organizes pm'ity into social and industrial solidarity, and 
 again inspheres these in the complex network of political 
 unity, and again secures this against invasion by organizing 
 its affiliated groups into one universal soldiery. As in Thyatira 
 it is found that respiration cannot be maintained without 
 solidarity, so in Sardis it will be discovered that respiration 
 cannot be maintained without skilful and consummate soldier- 
 ship. It will be as impossible to live morally without martial 
 exercises as it is to live without habitual devotion. No series 
 in a district can maintain respiration, unless every adult in his 
 vigour is a member of the battalion, and every youth a cadet. 
 The very decorations of each place of religious worship will bo 
 the gleaming arms, the breech-loaders, the swords, and the 
 bayonets. 
 
 576. These men will all move with a martial step, and carry 
 the bearing of the soldier into every industry. This respiration 
 will make them deep-chested as so many harmonic lions. Ten 
 thousand such, gathered upon a field day, will all respire in 
 unison, and perform martial evolutions as the Spirit of God 
 enunciates through pivotal chiefs of arms. Here are cavalry 
 mounted on open breathing horses ; here infantry whose sight 
 along the barrel of the rifle is like the sure glance of God ; here 
 artillerymen, whose guns are unlimbered at the command 
 of the Infinite, and in whose deadly missiles proceed the 
 powers of Jehovah. Here reigns the Christ who " comes 
 in righteousness to make war," and who is revealed in His 
 advent as the Messiah of hosts. Here is the military system 
 that almost prevents the necessity of war, by organizing a 
 people into invincibility. All this is j)refigured in the genius 
 of Sardis ; her assemblies are encompassed by a cloud of fii'e. 
 It is impossible too much to admire the benignity and wisdom 
 of that providence of God, which orders that men shall be 
 encompassed with the strength of lions, in the ratio in which 
 they proceed into the innocency of lambs. As the Lamb 
 of God was also the Lion of the tribe of Judah, so His new 
 
SEC. 576—578.] TRB APOCALYPSE. 319 
 
 people with purity shall put on power. Those who pass the 
 ordeals of judgment shall be entrusted with the power of 
 judgment, since this is the judgment era of the political world. 
 
 577. "I know thy works/' signifies, the attempts of un- 
 breathing men, from motives of an illuminated self-love, to 
 establish on earth, permanent, but inversive types of the 
 heavenly republic. " That thou hast a name," signifies, the 
 existence of such self-based, self- formed Plutocracies for a 
 time. '^ That thou livest and art dead," signifies, their reality 
 in appearance ; their unreality in spirit ; being grounded not 
 in obedience to the Lord, but on considerations of temporal 
 policy. The transition ages of the world, wherein the face of 
 mankind undergoes a change, and old institutions, being out- 
 worn, gradually decay and perish, are invariably marked by 
 these pecuharities : First, by copious outpourings of the Di- 
 vine Spirit; which are met, as they begin to penetrate the 
 human will and understanding, by correspondential and resist- 
 ant uprisings from the collective will-force and intellectual 
 power of universal evil ; every nearer approach of the Spirit of 
 God-Christ by a nearer approach of Lucifer, enthroned amidst 
 the embattled potencies of the demons of the orb that fell. 
 Second, the general and particular life of the universal Heavens 
 moving responsively in obedience to this inflowing of God, 
 approximates nearer to mankind ; but, in the same ratio, the 
 Hells, which are respectively- in the inversions of the celestial, 
 spiritual, and ultimate heavenly life, being roused up to mad- 
 ness, resist with subtlety and great power. Third, the world- 
 soul of our orb, being quickened through conspiration with 
 world-souls and universe-souls, more copiously distils her ele- 
 ments into the body of humanity ; but the natural soul of 
 humanity being evil, and being subtly wrought upon through 
 the natural potencies discreted from the demons of the lost 
 orb, endeavours to invert this universal influx, and to inaugu- 
 rate through the revived strengths new epochs and dynasties 
 of crime. 
 
 578. A fourth influx from God at such eras is through the 
 Word as foUows : thi'ough the forms of the universal Word 
 throughout the Heavens and the harmonic orbs of the universe ; 
 through the forms of the most ancient, and ancient Words of 
 
320 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 tlic Golden and Silver Ages, which, altliougli tlioy have dis- 
 appeared as written documents, still exist in vast series of 
 representative structures, preserved within the internal space 
 and fine elements of our planetary sphere. ' The written Word 
 also serves to the same end, and amidst the mass of those who 
 ignorantly venerate the mere letter, some begin to be found 
 who discern that there is a divine spirit both in the meanings 
 and influences of the Holy Volume. As this takes place, the 
 Anti-word, that is the universal series of the organic forms of 
 falsity, and thence of evil, inscribed within the minds, first of 
 the demons of the lost orb, second of the demons of our plane- 
 tary Hells, third of the abandoned of the lower Earth of Spirits, 
 and fourth of the depraved, oppressive, and idolatrous among 
 mankind, both in generals and to all particulars, is marshaled 
 as an intellectual and elemental host, meeting ideas with 
 ideas, and principles with principles, and also potencies with 
 potencies. 
 
 579. There have been two great crises in our world's his- 
 tory before the present. In the first, known as the deluge, 
 the old open respiration passed away, and a large portion of 
 mankind was destroyed. For particulars see Nos. 51, 52, 
 also " Heavenly Mysteries," index. Men, at this time, sank 
 down into corporeal nature, and were unable any more to 
 think, feel, respire, or act according .to the primitive modes. 
 The second great crisis was at the Incarnation ; but this was 
 a crisis in first principles, which did not so obviously affect the 
 natural organism of the race. The third crisis is now come ; 
 it involves, as it proceeds, the gradual return of man's open 
 respiration, and with it the reinstatement of the good in the 
 normal order of the universe. The Divine Man comes a second 
 time to be glorified in those who believe, and to establish 
 seven new resplendent nationalities or harmonic types of 
 humanity. For this crisis all things stand prepared. Open 
 respiration has begun both with a seed in Christendom and 
 among the nations beyond its boundary. Our Lord is making 
 Himself directly known and felt as the One Divine Man, the 
 Father and Eedeemer, directly in communion with the human 
 creature. In Asia the Words of the ancient Golden and 
 Silver Ages are opened and pour forth elements of Divine 
 
SEC. 579—581.] THE APOCALIPSU. 321 
 
 vitality ; while in Europe tlie corresponclential verbal unfold- 
 ings have begun^ as here written. That embattled army of 
 angels who were martyrs, heroes, and confessors of that great 
 race whose inverted members followed Lucifer in the apos- 
 tasy, is now present through open respiration, beginning to 
 inpour its martial qualities into those who are the firstborn 
 of God's new people, resisting unto blood, striving against 
 sin. At the same time, and in conjunction, the angels of our 
 planet's Heaven, the men of the harmonic orbs, the world- 
 souls and impersonal races, marshal their forces for the dread 
 and final conflict, making themselves felt and known through 
 the new respirations, the new motives, the new knowledges, 
 and the new purities. 
 
 580. But while this takes place, depravity having the van- 
 tage ground in the organized forms of old disorders, in 
 ignorance, in misconception, in falsity, and vice, all serving as 
 forms for the action of the infernals, works with a universal 
 conspiration against the right. Christendom, though warned, 
 has prepared itself through its lusts for the greatest of calami- 
 ties. At this point a law requires to be set forth, which will 
 demonstrate both the cause of these calamities and their cer- 
 tainty. It is written, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and 
 His righteousness." In the youth of men and the youth of 
 nations,before thoughts are crystallized into systems, and desires 
 organized into institutions, in a word, before the great embody- 
 ing process begins, men must see to it that the affections are 
 right which they would thus crystallise into ideas, and that the 
 desires are good which they would embody in institutions. If 
 the afTections and desires are good, a good mental and social 
 organism will result ; if they are evil, the consequences will be 
 evil dogmas and evil institutions. If doctrines and institutions 
 are good, they become vast organic forms, extensions, as it 
 were, of the will and understanding into the continents of earth, 
 whereby organs are fashioned, by means of which righteous- 
 ness and salvation multiply thoir powers. If those desires and 
 affections are evil, organisms are created, which when once 
 fixed are vast complications of infernal mechanism, that en- 
 close the greater part of the people, rule them, and ruin them. 
 
 581. Man, individual, entering on a career whose beginnings 
 
 X 
 
322 ARCANA OF CnRISTIANlTY. [chap. hi. 
 
 aro not determined by regeneration, involves himself in tlie 
 complications of an evil life. Man, national, does the same 
 thing ; the nation working from principles opposed to regene- 
 ration, organizes institutions that impede regeneration. These 
 institutions ramify and solidify; they become pest-houses, 
 prison-houses, and, finally, death-houses. But this is not all. 
 Men are bom into these houses according to their classes, and 
 aro so stamped from infancy with the falsehood, curse, and 
 doom, that the dogmas and institutions work for ruin with an 
 accelerative power. They corrupt the popular good; they sub- 
 vert the popular truth; they uncreate what is primarily just, and 
 re-create it in the image of their own evil ; they throw man 
 out of equilibrium ; they generate permanent classes of men 
 whose interests, and, consequently, affections, are conservative 
 both of dogmas and institutions, irrespective of righteousness. 
 So long as depravity is not organized into system, its power is 
 comparatively small ; but after it is made system, it becomes a 
 force : a world as it were, whose soils bring forth poisonous 
 fruits that men must eat, poisonous waters that men must 
 drink, poisonous airs that men must breathe. They floor the 
 chambers of the world with death, and curtain them with con- 
 tamination. Thus evil are they in their strength ; but as they 
 begin to perish they yield up their stored corruptions, and pre- 
 pare mankind for lower and baser eras.- 
 
 582. Now Christendom, prior to the age of change which 
 began with the renaissance, was an organized pest-house. 
 First, the church was slavery ; second, the state was tyranny ; 
 third, marriage was scortation. These three, slavery, tyranny, 
 scortation, were the ruling powers. The ecclesiastics had 
 generated a sacerdotal system, which, wherever opposing reli- 
 gious parties did not prevent it from maturing its fruits, 
 brought forth every species of lust and crime. Is this a sunken 
 orb, and are these seeming men mere devils ? The light of 
 discovery illuminates the horizon. The Portuguese open the 
 orient; the Spaniards open the Occident. Behold the conse- 
 quences ! the lust of power, of riches, of proselytism, and of 
 scortation, a fourfold river of crime, gush forth from Christen- 
 dom. The Latin, the Anglo-Saxon races rival each other, 
 though nominally Christians; not in preaching the Gospel 
 
SEC. 582—583.] TJSE APOCALYPSE. 323 
 
 tkrougliout this new world, with the signs that follow those 
 who believe ; not in carrying salvation to the earth's extremi- 
 ties. What do they carry ? Poisons_, which the body of the 
 pagan was too pure to generate, but which have made Christen- 
 dom writhe with anguish; poisons resulting from scortatory 
 lust, instilled throughout these youthful, teachable, receptive 
 people, cause theta to rot down by myriads, like sheep when 
 plague has entered the sheep-fold. It was from the bosom of 
 Christendom that this plague went forth that decimates the 
 so-called pagan world. Where are the nations of the West 
 Indies and of South America ? Extirpated by the Spaniard. 
 Where are the races of North America ? Extirpated by the 
 Anglo-Saxon. Wherever there is on the earth a people which 
 the so-called Christian nations have not defiled by lust, and 
 polluted by the diseases of lust, and enslaved for dominion, and 
 extirpated by slavery, and robbed for riches, they are now en- 
 deavouring to., exploit it by a civilized system, which is the 
 scientific combination and final Consequence of them all. Let 
 us for once, if only for once, as Christian nations by profession, 
 hear the truth about ourselves. Where have been om* churches ? 
 Those who did these things were the laity of all the churches, 
 often aided on by the clergy of the churches, who du-ectly or 
 indirectly fattened on the spoil. 
 
 583. We have made base institutions, and in turn the in- 
 stitutions have made us and our children base. All things 
 end by time. The lusts of scortation, of dominion, and of 
 riches have become so powerful that the multitudes are no 
 longer willing that the monopoly of these things shall be held 
 by a few. This is the meaning of democracy on its evil side. 
 A more copious life begins to descend from God, flowing into 
 Christendom. That life flowing into such channels as we have 
 provided for it in the mind, but controlled by our evil lusts, 
 stimulates and excites the'cupidities. The sunbeam is not evil, 
 though it quickens the growth of all plants of poison, though 
 it revives the asp and invigorates the anaconda. Power, gold, 
 and lust, for these men crave, and know that they are now 
 attainable in larger measures by the applications of thought to 
 matter. So rolls on the age of invention. Selfishness once 
 robbed by instinct, and destroyed nations in sheer wantonness. 
 
 X 2 
 
324 ARCANA OF GIIBISTIANITY. [chap. iir. 
 
 Selfislmess now robs by calculation and preserves nations as 
 wealtb-producing factors. The diplomacy of Christendom is 
 falsehood, treachery, and every odious crime. The ruling love 
 of Christendom is to monopolize all wealth and power ; it has 
 taken the influx of God, and retained that which could stimulate 
 its inventive and scientific faculties ; it has inverted that which 
 it could invert to nourish its depravities, and all the rest it 
 has trampled on as pearls are trodden by the swine. 
 
 584. The summer of 1867 is marked by two events. At 
 Paris, the world^s fete in honour of the triumphs and achieve- 
 ments of civilization. This is presided over by a wretch who 
 a few years since was known but as a vile and dissolute 
 adventurer. Now, the eldest son of the church, emperor, as 
 he is styled, by the will of God and the people, he rules as 
 the representative and embodiment of murder and adultery. 
 Here is the industrial heart of Christendom; here are the 
 results of all its civilization"; and this the nearest approach 
 which the world has yet seen to the morals and manners of 
 the lost orb. Here the richest wealth of earth and life is 
 lavished on the demi monde ; it is the triumph of organized 
 selfishness ; it shows what the nations can accomplish 
 through the prostitution of the intellect and the corrup- 
 tion of the heart. Many good men toil in the service 
 of the system, but the system, - being selfish, is ne- 
 cessarily base. The second event is celebrated in Eome. 
 Surrounded by the desolate Campagna, where brigands and 
 murderers are papal devotees, the sacred city lifts itself upon 
 the seven hills, the metropolis of the Christian religion, as 
 understood by the great pivotal sect, the mother of all sects. 
 Here twenty-five thousand ecclesiastics, gathered from all the 
 world, celebrate the eighteen hundredth anniversary of the 
 martyrdom of a fisherman, the disciple of One whose whole life 
 was a warfare in behalf of simple human justice and charity. 
 These men in their unity claim to be His living successors, to 
 embody His spirit, to be empowered with His forces, and to 
 carry out His pm-pose. 
 
 585. Here are Mexican bishops from a land where the dis- 
 ciples are now engaged in pillaging and murdering each other. 
 Here are Cuban and South American bishops and priests, who 
 
SEC. 584—586.] THE APOGALYPSJE. 325 
 
 at home are gamblers and public libertines, and wliose dis- 
 ciples of tlie most respectable class subsist tkrougli wrongs 
 inflicted on their slaves. Here are Americans, their brethren 
 in office, who, as a body, represent the vilest elements of the 
 western civilization, the ignorant classes, the drunken classes, 
 and who have been accomplices in that great conspiracy which 
 aimed at making human bondage eternal. Here are Spanish 
 prelates, representing a land whose monarch is at once one of 
 the most bigoted of religionists and notorious of harlots. Here 
 is the church which boasts that it is infallible and cannot err, 
 inflexible and cannot change, perpetual and cannot die. Here 
 is the church which has just decreed that a Jewish peasant girl 
 shall be worshipped as the Queen of Heaven. Here is a church 
 which claims that it has power to forgive sins, to work mira- 
 cles, to lift men into Heaven, and to cast them into Hell. Here 
 we see enthroned the twin demons, slavery and superstition. 
 Here, doubtless, are kind and amiable, as well as conscientious 
 men ; but deliided, conceited, and pledged to the service of an 
 organization, which, if its claims are not all infinitely and ab- 
 solutely true, is a stupendous blasphemy. Yet here those 
 anomalous things, half farce, half profanation, which ritualists 
 call divine services, are celebrated with such pomp and magni- 
 ficence as is hardly known by man. These shall go forth re- 
 freshed by communion with each other, and compass land and 
 sea not to make one, but millions of proselytes ; to found, if 
 possible, in the west a new Italy, or in the east a new Spain. 
 By their fruits ye shall know them. The very goodness of 
 these who are good serves as a snare ; these are the decoys 
 who lead the wild birds of the air into the net of the fowler. 
 
 586. Meanwhile a third representative event is taking place, 
 of finishing significance. The first islands discovered, whose 
 hospitable and kind-hearted inhabitants welcomed the Euro- 
 pean, were the Bahamas and the Antilles. The gentlest, the 
 most loving and unsuspecting of all western races, in three 
 generations they were literally annihilated; their exquisite 
 paradises became the prey of the slave-trader, the buccaneer, 
 and the pirate, and over all flaunted the cross. The circle of 
 conquest is now complete. The Western Powers have extorted 
 from the Government of the only nation whose doors had been 
 
320 ABCANA OF CIIBISTIANITT. [chap. hi. 
 
 closed against tlicm, tlie last concessions. The cup of bitterness 
 first pressed to the lips of the West Indian, is poured with all 
 its loathsome dregs into the bosom of Japan. Christendom 
 may pause here ; it has reached the 'Ultima Thule. There are 
 no more opulent races to impoverish, no more unsuspecting 
 races to deceive, no more gentle races to enslave, no more com- 
 paratively virtuous races to debauch, no more relatively innocent 
 races to prostitute. Here is a people with a civilization older 
 than Christianity, more virtuous without the Bible than Chris- 
 tians with the Bible, who have kept themselves from ruin by 
 shutting out the foreigner, and so excluding the iron, remorse- 
 less will that sacrifices all dynasties to its ambition, and all 
 chastities to its lust. The last insult is flung in the face of 
 the Almighty ! It remains to be seen, in the course of events, 
 whether God's just judgments against Christendom will much 
 longer be deferred. 
 
 587, Great Britain holds India in her right hand. Through 
 her misgovernment there, half a million of her subjects, during 
 twelve months, have been destroyed by famine in the single 
 province of Orissa. Yet crimes like these are committed with- 
 out national remorse, and almost without public attention. The 
 so-called Christians of Christendom are so accustomed to mur- 
 dering each other, that the slaughter of believers by believers 
 in enormous mja-iads on battle fields, is a periodical necessity. 
 To keep the great states from destroying one another, each 
 must maintain standing armies of hundi^eds of thousands of 
 men. But no armies are able to prevent the march of the 
 more insidious and terrible destructions ; commerce slays more 
 by the difi'usion of deadly drugs and di^nks and implements; 
 adventure slays more by the difi'usion through the world of the 
 depraved and the unprincipled -, literature slays more by the 
 dissemination of falsities and abominations, than war on all its 
 ghastly battle fields. The Jews murdered a few prophets and 
 worthy, religious men, but our Lord declared that the conse- 
 quences of those murders should re-act in the destruction of 
 their final generation ; and that ruin came. Christendom, 
 instead of murdering prophets has slaughtered races and 
 nationalities; instead of crushing a few representatives of 
 charity and religion, has almost driven the spirit of charity 
 
SEC. 587—589.] TSE APOCALYPSE. 327 
 
 from tlie globe. The plutocracy holds in its bosom the prelacy ; 
 but it is written, " Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall 
 not go unpunished. '^ 
 
 588. To whatever future tend the nationalities, so far as the 
 power of the so-called Christendom can determine them, with 
 all the combined sciences, inventions, arts, and powers of the 
 nineteenth century, they tend to immense plutocracies. Great 
 Britain, within the shell of an aristocratic monarchy ; France, 
 within the forms of its imperialism; America, within the 
 mechanism of its democracy; all have germinated, all are 
 maturing, and all, for a time, seem destined to unfold pluto- 
 cratic empires. 
 
 Chap. hi. 2. — "Be watchful, and strengthen the things 
 which eemain, that aee eeady to die : for i have not 
 found thy works perfect before god." 
 
 589. Internal respiration proceeds through seven preliminary 
 stages to its hrst crisis, and then through seven others to its 
 second. The first crisis is when the old natural soul is de- 
 stroyed and removed, and the new natural soul, as a germ, 
 descends from the Lord into the centre of the frame. Hence- 
 forth there is in the frame a ground for the establishment of 
 individual solidarity and harmony ; nevertheless, the new 
 natural soul being thus an embryo, it can only grow, first, 
 through the constant determination of the man, with whole- 
 hearted energy and fixedness, to do God^s will ; and, second, 
 through his conspiration, in doing that will, with those who, 
 like himself, are struggling into the new creation. "^ Be 
 watchful, and strengthen the things which remain,"" signifies, 
 first, that unless the individual holds himself fixed in this 
 twofold manner, both before and after this crisis, there are 
 continual dangers, manifold dangers, enumerations of which 
 follow. So long as the old natural soul remains, it yearns to 
 be nourished with infernal-natm^al life, and puts forth continual 
 efforts for re-invigoration ; it is sleepless, ever vigilant, and at 
 every point aggressive. As the outer provinces in which it 
 operates, namely, in the nerve essence, begin to be invaded 
 through the divine respiration, it saves all that it can from the 
 destructions which there take place. It makes itself compact of 
 
328 ARCAXA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 power. As fost as its forces arc driven from the circumferences 
 of tlie frame, it endeavours to throw up new fortifications about 
 its more vital seats ; it is not subject to the law of God, neither 
 indeed can it be. It constantly Avorks and Avars against every 
 pure affection in the will, every pure thought in the understand- 
 ing, and every pure determination which thence endeavours 
 to descend into the frame. The men of the ancient Golden 
 Age declined from charity, and their state was finally destroyed 
 from this fact, that the natural soul which each inherited was 
 a base for evil in the natural degi'ee, and they were invaded 
 through it, not yielding such a perfect obedience to the Lord 
 as He demanded and required. Inheriting natural souls still 
 more depraved, and therefore still more capacious as a ground 
 for evil, the men of the Silver Age, as a whole, transmitted to 
 their posterity still more extended bases for inversion therein. 
 The men of the Copper Age, who were their descendants, con- 
 tinued the same course of deterioration till natural good almost 
 ceased from the face of the whole earth. 
 
 590. Respiration may open in two ways, from internals 
 to externals, and from externals to internals. It may also 
 open in a third and fom'th way, through the surfaces of exter- 
 nals, and through the surfaces of internals, proceeding at once 
 from the outmost to the inmost, and from the inmost to the 
 outmost, and meeting in the midst of the superfices of the 
 central and continuous degree. And again, it may begin from 
 a point in the central degree, and ramify by spirals toward 
 externals, and toward internals. Respiration necessarily began 
 from externals to internals, when it first made its appearance in 
 the world. The process by which respiration is continued after 
 its beginning, perpetually varies until the varieties become in- 
 numerable; for instance, if respiration has begun with a pivotal- 
 radiative man, before he comes to the first crisis, the breaths 
 may disengage themselves from his organism, clothe themselves 
 with a quickened element in his new nerve essence, and be 
 condensed into the smallest of forms. When thus condensed, 
 by a divine process they may be led, either in the natural lungs, 
 or in the natural brain of such persons as the Lord shall will. 
 
 591. The breaths are then, through a divine process, un- 
 folded into aerial spaces within the spaces of the lungs and 
 
SEC. 590—592.] THE AFOCALYFSE. 329 
 
 brain. They sympatliise as organic forms with each respira- 
 tory vibration in the system whence they have been brought. 
 Fays^ who are themselves forms of the affections of respira- 
 tion^ are enabled to enter into these^ and through them to 
 maintain an action, and with comparative safety to begin their 
 warfare upon the evil motives and affectionSj the progeny of 
 the base natural soul. The natural soul operates as the 
 most potent barrier to regeneration, since, by means of it, a 
 field is opened for the cultivation of natural intercourse with 
 evil spirits. These detached volumes and organs of breaths, 
 formed throiigh open respiration, are led into frames where a 
 divine warfare is to be begun against the old natural soul and 
 its depravities. Being indued with instinctive life in its own 
 degree, when these living clouds of respiration first begin 
 to operate in the high and secret places of the lungs and brain, 
 the natural soul, as a tyrant whose usurped dominions are 
 invaded, or as a condemned malefactor, with all the potencies 
 of the depraved passions and perverse inclinations, endeavours 
 to arrest the breath. This initiates a new warfare. 
 
 592. These breaths can be carried into the bodies of indi- 
 viduals, irrespective of regeneration, as follows : If a non-re- 
 spiring person is connected with those who respire by ties of 
 blood, there is a nerve rapport ; they are in one family sphere, 
 and, if negative and open, the organic respiration-forms may 
 be led into them. Children may receive these folded breaths 
 as preparatives for respiration, whose parents respire openly, 
 and are becoming forms for the new creation. Second, it 
 follows the line of the marital relation. If the husband is one 
 of a series grouped around a pivotal centre, and is himself 
 fixed in conjugial purity, and by his pervasive sphere neutral- 
 ises the scortations that invade his marital associate, the 
 breath cloud may enter her with efficacious influences. Thus 
 also the wife may instrmnentally bring such visitations to her 
 companion. Third, it follows in the line of sympathy : If one 
 who respires and one who does not respire maintain an in- 
 tense friendship for each other, not in the selfhood, the respi- 
 ring person yearning for the baptism of the non-respiring with 
 the Holy Ghost and with fire, the same consequences may 
 ensue. Fourth, it may be an answer to inspired and special 
 
330 ABOANA OF CRRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 prayer. Fifth, it may be to open some specific individualj in 
 whose organism is to be fought a specific battle, which shall 
 result in the the bringing down of specific divine influences, 
 and in the overcoming of specific infei^al powers, neutralising 
 of poisons and averting of plagues. Sixth, it may be sent as 
 a preparation for judgment, and seventh, as a judgment. 
 
 593. When respiration is continued from one blood relative 
 to another, it may pass from one in a higher state of regene- 
 ration to one lower, from equal to equal, from one lower to 
 one higher, or from one in whom regeneration has commenced 
 to one in whom it has not begun. This law also applies to 
 persons connected through other ties. The volume of detached 
 breath may be taken from one higher to one lower with the 
 greatest ease, provided there is earnest desire to receive purity 
 and the chastenings of purity, humility and the experiences of 
 humility, ser\'ice and the trials necessary for the training in 
 service ; this follows in the orderly law of series. It is not so 
 easy between equals and equals in regeneration, because there 
 is not as great an impulsive, or as reduced a resistant force. 
 It is very difficult when it passes from inferiors to superiors 
 in regeneration. This is possible under certain conditions; 
 as when a person, through family, or social, or sympathetic 
 nearness to some individual in the great potencies of respira- 
 tion, has, by reason of that nearness, taken in the quickening 
 element, been, as it were, bathed and flooded with it, and 
 greatly enriched organically. Such, in the course of events, 
 may meet the man or woman far superior to themselves, but 
 never brought into personal and direct relations with those 
 who openly respire in the Lord. The divine breaths within 
 them may then begin to go forth into such waiting and recep- 
 tive frames ; quickenings may thus be communicated uncon- 
 sciously. When persons in low states of regeneration thus 
 serve the divine ends, the rapport established from frame to 
 frame would cause their destruction, were there not another 
 process by which they are thrown into instant relations with 
 pivotal-radiative centres and sub-centres, who meet the in- 
 fernal opposition that arises. An individual who has not lived 
 up to the light of the new life, and whose respiration is reced- 
 ing, may, in this manner, and for such ends, have volume after 
 
SEC. 593—594-] THE APOCALYFSE. 831 
 
 volume of the divine breaths taken away ; and this is an occult 
 fulfilment of the declaration in the Word, " Unto every one 
 that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance ; but 
 from him that hath not shall be taken away, even that which 
 he hath/' Finally, respiration may proceed from persons in 
 whom regeneration has not begun, in the same manner. The 
 talent committed to one, and buried in the earth, may be 
 taken from him and given where it will bring to the Lord His 
 own with usance. 
 
 594. When a husband has given himself, body, soul, and 
 spirit, to God, he may be led into respiration, and breathe with 
 such copiousness, the breaths moving in the circuit of his 
 affections throughout the frame, that the scortatory elements^ 
 being destroyed, will be followed by conjugial elements, vital- 
 ities of purity. It then becomes his duty as a new Adam, to 
 lead his Eve, if possible, into the new Eden, that she may 
 bathe in the fourfold rivers, and partake of the fruits of the 
 tree of life. The heart of the conjugial husband overflows 
 from this time with an infinite tenderness, and he yearns to- 
 wards her incessantly. If she resists, he seeks to find some 
 means by which everything can be removed from her organ- 
 ism which keeps her from perfect freedom and rationality. If 
 she is obstinate and perverse, he may, in God, go on from 
 stage to stage, till every quality of obstinacy and perversity is 
 removed from her natural organism, and nothing left but what 
 she makes her own by the determination of the spiritual will. 
 If she is in a sense passive and negative, he is enabled to 
 swathe her in the spheres of his own personality ; above all, 
 he is enabled to dissipate the scortatory virus, unless she con- 
 tinues to generate it in first principles. If she eats and drinks 
 damnation for him, by transforming food into nervous fluid, 
 and surcharging this with the virus of scortation, he eats and 
 drinks salvation for her by changing food into nervous fluid, 
 surcharged with Divine love, peace, clemency, mercy, purity. 
 His breaths go forth as spoken of before ; they are first taken 
 into the brain and lungs, and although her respiration may 
 not change, they perpetually diffuse a pm^ifying influence. 
 After a time, she may begin to respire by sympathy with his 
 respiration, in unison with the pivotal force. 
 
332 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. iir. 
 
 595. The apostle declares that it is a great mystery, but that 
 the love which the Lord bears towards His church is like the 
 love which the husband bears towards the wife. This is unquali- 
 fiedly true. The regenerate man is the crown and head of the 
 woman, and bears these proud titles, not as the kings of the earth, 
 who rule from the love of rule, but as the kings of the Heavens, 
 who rule from the desire and ability to serve and bless. What 
 cannot the good husband do for the wife through this impe- 
 rial quality ? He can do everything instrumentally, but one 
 thing ; he can be made use of to lead the respirations into her 
 body, to restore the pure quality to the nervous fluid, to rege- 
 nerate the nerve essence, to extirpate the forms of natural 
 motives which are evil, and, if he attains to the new natural 
 soul, through the conjoint intercession of soul and spirit, there 
 may even be a new natural soul let down into her frame ; he 
 all the while standing in his strength from God, and in the 
 form and image of the Bridegroom, that he may afibrd an 
 illustration, by this very uttermost, of what the Lord's love is 
 to His people. But this is not all. He may continue to hold 
 and bear for his wife until that point is reached wherein the 
 Spirit of God no longer will wait upon her dallying, but forces 
 her, as a responsible moral creature, to decide whether she will 
 accept the fulness of the affections and duties of the new life. 
 If she chooses these, the husband is still made use of, and 
 after a time her woman's heart, feeling all that has been done 
 for it by the Lord through him for it, loves that dear and 
 faithful man with an ever-renewed tenderness ; she becomes 
 great and glorious in conjunction with him in the new crea- 
 tion. It is otherwise if she dallies beyond a certain point. 
 
 596. The world has yet to learn the infinite loving -kindness 
 of our Lord in the mystery of redemption, but some illustra- 
 tions of it are afforded here. Whatever organically is done 
 for the husband in the new creation, if he will only be aU the 
 Lord's in all things and to all ends, the same work is extended 
 through him to her organism, because the Lord treats the two 
 as one. They are not declared in the Word one spirit, but 
 they are declared one flesh ; and being thus one flesh, they 
 may be one in all that pertains to the fleshly or natural degree 
 of rehabilitation. Knit up into one nervous essence, they 
 
SEC. 595—598.] THE APOCALYPSE. 333 
 
 maintain a unity of nervous life. Hence the fays engaged in 
 organizing tlie spaces of one frame, continue the same process 
 into the expanses of the other. These expanses can never be 
 broken up, and the forms of the new creation destroyed, but 
 through gross and wilful unfaithfulness. 
 
 697. After a certain point is reached, if the woman is not 
 found faithful and willing to advance, the new natural soul in- 
 stilled into the wife makes its complaint to the natural soul of 
 the husband. It says, " O friend, hitherto I have been main- 
 tained in my place in the centre of this organism through 
 loving conspirations, by which you have ministered to me ; 
 but I cannot grow as you grow. Your infancy begins to be 
 youth, my infancy remains infancy." The two natural souls 
 then counsel together, and they are seen internally, as in the 
 human image, looking to the Lord. Then warnings begin, 
 but if they are not heeded, the following results ensue, as 
 distinct stages between the beginning of the destructions 
 and withdrawals of the forms of the new creation, from the one 
 who is sinking out of her place in the Lord^s new harmony, 
 and the ultimate catastrophe. These, however, are diversified 
 with innumerable variations, which depend upon special con- 
 ditions with the individuals, and special agencies that are ope- 
 rant without and within. Whenever the person thus affected 
 begins to experience any other dominant desire than to belong 
 wholly, both in spirit and body, to the new kingdom of our 
 Lord, and when indifierence begins to be manifested to the 
 outworkings of the new harmony in the world, with a germi- 
 nant state of coldness or indifference to its interests, when 
 -there is a looking about for a more easy path in life, a wish to 
 avoid its burdens and sorrows, to be exempted from its com- 
 bats, and to be exonerated from a strict obedience to its laws, 
 the general body with which she is connected begins to be 
 affected. 
 
 598. When one such woman is a member of a working 
 series, pains begin to be experienced throughout the bodies of 
 the sisterhood. Inasmuch as the Lord^s life is coujugial life, 
 and she has rejected that life, and inasmuch as the virus of the 
 Hells is all scortatory virus, and she absorbs that virus, plagues 
 begin to appear from her^ infesting both the bodies of the vir- 
 
334) ARGANA OF GRBISTIANITY. [chap. iir. 
 
 gins and tlie wives. Those plagues take the form at first of 
 inexplicable sadnesses of heart, perturbations of the animal 
 spirits, and bodily coldnesses. They diffuse a mental and 
 moral evil. Another marvellous thing must here be stated ; aU 
 of the new natm-al souls throughout the sisterhood unite toge- 
 ther as one, and insphere the new natural soul of the woman 
 who is thus falling out of place, holding and shielding it in 
 their embrace. Then begin condensations, solidifications ; the 
 natural souls coalesce, and all as one make war against those 
 determinations through which the woman who has lost her 
 place makes war against the new creation. Gradually a veil 
 interposes, and this lost sister is visible no more. Then the 
 fays, who are working to transform the spaces of the body into 
 a physical Eden, as a first symptom begin to experience pains, 
 numbnesses, and coldnesses. 
 
 599. After a season, the solid soil in the organic spaces 
 opens, fissures are seen, bituminous liquids exude, water 
 springs cease to flow. A dense malarial cloud begins to be 
 formed in the atmosphere, the new vegetation droops, the 
 flock and herds of fairies and also the winged creatures are 
 seen sinking into apparently inanimate conditions. The re- 
 splendent crystalescent or arboreal dwellings of the fays appear 
 as if blackened by gunpowder or scorched with fire. A fuli- 
 ginous vapour, which forms itself into a- pitchy dew, begins to 
 fall. Alternate winds of intense coldness and of a dead cor- 
 roding heat succeed each other, now flowing in long, wave- 
 like streams, then moving as whirlwinds. The incipient for- 
 mations around the new natural soul begin to contract about 
 it, and her respiration diminishes. At a divine voice the fays 
 then begin to depart from that desolated land. 
 
 600. Where a short time before had been orchards, gardens, 
 exquisite paradisal landscapes and harmonic villages of the fays, 
 nothing remains after their departure but lifeless ashes. When 
 they have finally removed all their possessions, the new soils, 
 waters, and atmospheres are seen weltering together in disso- 
 lution, while gradually the new natural soul, more and more 
 contracted in its province, and encircled within a crystalhne 
 sphere, begins to be prepared, not for decease, but for separa- 
 tion from the degraded personality. There is a period during 
 
SEC. 599—602.] THE APOCALYPSE. 335 
 
 wliicli a new creation, wholly made up of seemingSj though to 
 a natural clairvoyant's glance it might seem real and glorious, 
 unfolds its witcheries within the spaces wherein the fay work 
 has been destroyed, and then for a time those who are thus 
 sliding out of the new creation are glassy upon the surfaces of 
 the mind, as if the intellect were vitrified, and torpid in the 
 affections, as if the heart were no more a warm-blooded organ. 
 They eat, drink, take exercise, discharge labours, pray or fast, 
 read the Scriptures, converse as before, unable to comprehend 
 their declining condition, because unwilling to see the grounds 
 for it in themselves, that is, in their moral state. 
 
 601. A change now begins to take place in the blood, the 
 nervous fluids, in the emanations from the person, and in the 
 outbreathings from the lungs. The blood has been poisoned ; 
 the elements of the blood that circulates in the veins of the 
 general body of mankind, and from which their circulations 
 were being freed, gradually return. The heart begins once 
 more to reunite itself with the family, the tribal and the 
 universal heart of the race, from which it had been iu part 
 separated. The nervous fluid is tainted also, but with a more 
 deadly substance; and in the same manner reconnects itself 
 from particulars to generals with the nervous fluid in the 
 universal body of the race. The effluvium from the body, in a 
 short time, first through one little congeries of pores, and at 
 last from head to feet, distils into the air a cold malaria, iu 
 which at times is felt a hot, musky, and saccharine element. 
 When afians have reached this pass, there is seldom any 
 retm-n. Now also the breaths from the lungs begin to become 
 wateiy ; the outbreathings of the mouth are henceforth desti- 
 tute of vitality, they are rheumy and cold, alternating and 
 becoming dry deadnesses. 
 
 602. The next series of phenomena are intestinal. The 
 finer elements of food neither nourish the brain nor the body. 
 The natural organism, as it relapses, can only appropriate 
 those elements which correspond to the old natural, corporeal, 
 sensual, and mental principles ; this also holds good of the 
 atmospheres and emanations which are absorbed into the 
 frame; but these finer essences pass into a new magical 
 creation ; a new corporeal plane, a new mental jDlane, and this 
 
33G ABCANA OF CUBISTIANITY. [cuap. hi. 
 
 in turn npliolding another wliich is natural-affcctionul. These 
 planes are called deaths and shadows. They cannot be 
 accreted and built into the body, because the old natural soul 
 has been removed ; nevertheless, for a time they are extended, 
 and only wait the last process of consolidation. 
 
 603. There is a perpetual magical excrementation. The 
 demons who have been bound while the individual has been 
 led into the beginnings of the new creation, and who have 
 remained in a torpid, partially inactive state, feel the finer 
 essence, by correspondence, through the lower Spiritual World, 
 as food injected upward into their own bowels, and thence 
 resolved into an infernal chyle and chyme, and so distributed 
 into the organs of vitality. At the same time, the bandages 
 by which they are hold begin to become attenuated. They 
 begin to breathe strongly, with every breath experiencing a 
 vivification in the powers of the will, which are the powers 
 of greatness. There now begin to be conspirations and re- 
 actions, through intermediate spirits who are in the lower 
 Spiritual Earth, with the body which is thus sinking into their 
 power. It is difficult to realize that persons having been thus 
 uplifted can so fall. It is, nevertheless, possible ; and this 
 introduces us to a peculiarity in our branch of the human race, 
 which is strikingly analogous, in this respect, to one typo of 
 the inhabitants of that orb wherein evil originated. 
 
 604. There are trees that grow, and yet that for a long time 
 hardly seem to grow. A generation passes, during which the 
 aloe is silently secreting and maturing its wondrous flower. 
 So there are minds in which the kingdom of God grows 
 solidly, banding atom to atom all the while, but compressing 
 the very elements into theh* smallest appearance, and becom- 
 ing substances and potencies ; minds that tend, in this sense, 
 perpetually from porousness to solidity, from movabihty to 
 immovability ; minds that build up the body into one structure 
 of inflexible resolution ; minds that at last, if we compare 
 them to the vessel, do not resemble the gay and sumptuously 
 decorated steam barge, built of wood, and everywhere at the 
 mercy of the flame ; but are rather like the turret ship, iron- 
 armoured for defence, steel beaked, and mounted with most 
 perfect enginery for offensive war. 
 
SEC. 603—607.] TEH APOCALYPSE. 337 
 
 605. But anotlier tjipe of mankind rapidly take into them- 
 selves tlie emanations^ the vitalities of those who are becomino* 
 spiritual-natural or celestial-natural ; they possess an enormous 
 absorptive power, an equally capacious adaptive and repre- 
 sentative power j they seem to grow, yet can hardly be said 
 to grow. If circumstances are favourable, they for years may 
 invigorate and replenish themselves by absorptions from the 
 lives of those who are in the new creation, or from the general 
 body of those lives. They may receive the truths of the divine 
 order intellectually, but always with a certain underlyino- 
 stratum of irreverence. Through this vital rapport with the 
 general body of the new harmony, the winds of the divine 
 breath may course from degree to degree through the ex- 
 ternals of their frame ; at last they may pass, for a time, 
 physically into the embodied movement of the new creation, 
 and exist wholly in its force and by virtue of its potencies. 
 
 606, They may yield up the will even, to work the will of 
 the Lord in the new order to this point, that they will fulfil 
 the letter of its requirements up to that place in which the 
 preponderating influence in the organism sways them to the 
 way of right. They may thus appear to be with angels ; they 
 may thus, when visible in these objective truths and deeds, 
 appear as angels or angelic spirits. When our Lord's new 
 harmony is a formed fact of society in the natural world, they 
 may so project themselves bodily into the body of those har- 
 monies as to pass through every preliminary stage, to the 
 instant preceding the decease of the old natural soul. If at 
 this point they can hold the will acquiescent, unrebellious, 
 passive, and if they are entirely included in the bodily sphere 
 of the general body of the new creation upon earth, the new 
 natural soul descends and takes its place for a divine jDurpose 
 within the organism. 
 
 607. They are liable, at the slightest touch, to pause from 
 this suspended and quiescent state in the spiritual will. Out- 
 wardly and organically they may seem as fixed in the new 
 harmony as porphyry or granite in the universal system of the 
 globe; but inwardly they are like infants or children who are 
 very sweet and obedient, because excluded from the inversivo 
 forces. They arc held in a tentative condition ; the evil spirits 
 
 T 
 
338 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITY. [chap. iit. 
 
 are driven out of the lioiiso, and all the chambers are swept 
 and garnished. A vast work has been done organically for 
 them, just as, in a certain comparison, the Lord God does 
 great things upon the unfallen orbs ; great things structurally 
 and bodily, while as yet there is a certain softness and pli- 
 ability in the will, rather than solid and unflinching resolution. 
 As it was with the men upon the planet where evil originated, 
 a vast structural righteousness is formed about them, and the 
 conditions are made most favourable for a resplendent evo- 
 lution of the inmost nature, from seminal principles of good. 
 
 608. Om' Lord is seen as the Good Shepherd, carrying 
 some upon His bosom into the new creation and the bodily 
 re-creation, while He is seen leading others, who follow Him 
 often painfully, along the steep acclivities. He carries those 
 who are most imbecile. He leads those who are least imbecile, 
 though in a sense He carries all. Persons who of themselves, 
 while enveloped in the meshes of the magical net which 
 encompasses society, would never seek the new creation, and 
 never begin to take into themselves its quickening elements, 
 through the various relations of life, may be uplifted by means 
 of those in whom the Lord is making His open manifestation. 
 It is what on a lesser scale we see all around us ; through the 
 wisdom of the wise many are made intelligent ; through the 
 righteousness of the righteous many are made righteous ; 
 they are brought, through the acquiesence of the nature in 
 good, by peculiar processes, into a fixedness in good; they are 
 lifted from the quagmire and delivered from the prison house ; 
 they are of the lunar rather than of the solar type; they 
 require an infinite forbearance at every crisis in their con- 
 ditions ; they are only able to advance if persons from a 
 superior degree stand as sureties for them before the Lord, 
 taking into their own bodies the pains and penalties that 
 grow out of suretyship, and subjecting themselves to the 
 danger of fearful catastrophes. 
 
 609. They are like one class of those of the orb Oriona, in 
 another respect, namely, in their expectancy of a perpetual 
 exhilaration from the inpouring life of the associated har- 
 mony. Nevertheless, it is possible, all things being provided, 
 that they may become in season solid, positive, indomitable. 
 
SEC. 608—611.] TRE AFOCALTFSI]. 3S9 
 
 and invulnerable. After such have passed the transition and 
 entered into that state that begins with the incoming of the 
 new natural soul, a point is reached, where, first in small 
 things, and afterward in larger things, peculiar bm-dens are 
 laid upon them, and there is a time of trial. They are dealt 
 with very graciously. Our Lord deals more graciously with 
 the subjects of His care, in the ratio of their tendency to 
 negativeness and imbecility. They are gradually roused out 
 of their quiescent- state. 
 
 610. These persons then must be divided into two classes ; 
 a division not necessary in itself, yet made necessary by the 
 unwillingness of some to put forth the energies which result 
 in fruitfulness of use in the new creative powers. As they 
 have been born structurally into the new harmony, so they 
 must, — and from this there is no escape, — embody its life in 
 a fulness of aifection ; grow able to hold themselves in equili- 
 brium, and be set off as plants that have sprung from a parent 
 root, and now have sufficient rootage of their o\vn to live 
 and ripen and increase. Some, when they find that their new 
 states of life open doorways into persistent labours, that can 
 only be carried on through more observant and careful self- 
 abnegations, and through taking all sorrows as joys, and all 
 accessions of burdens as new causes for thanksgiving, may 
 change the quiescent state of the will to one of gradual holding- 
 back or shrinking away or tacit resistance to the requirements 
 of the law. When duties are assigned to those in the Divine 
 Providence, which are given for the purpose of ripening them 
 into fixed godliness, they will silently murmur, complain, and 
 protest ; becoming oblivious to the felicities of their lot, its 
 wholesome discipline, its thrice profitable burden-bearing will 
 become irksome. If they continue to discharge duties, it will 
 be because they seem inevitable and pressed upon them. 
 
 611. Those who are ripest in the Divine life will first begin 
 to feel the premonitions, which announce that such are re- 
 subjecting themselves to the slavery from which they have 
 been emancipated and the death which had been vanquished 
 in their behalf. Those in the Lord's new kingdom most con- 
 versant with their spiritual state, and acquainted with their 
 vicissitudes, and especially those who have become responsible 
 
 Y 2 
 
310 ARCANA OF CERISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 in surctysliip for tlioir profitable use of tlie divine substances, 
 wronglit into their new bodily creations, will begin to ex- 
 perience such sorrow as we might imagine the Spirit of the 
 Spring to suffer at the blighting of her flowers, or the 
 Genius of the Summer to undergo in the cutting off of her 
 unripened fruits ; while the general body of the living 
 members of the Lord^s now creation will be oppressed, as is 
 a mother whose unborn babe is dying and tending to a slow 
 corruption within her. 
 
 912. From this period those in whom the divine life thus 
 recedes are as ulcers, putrifying sores, bleeding wounds in the 
 body of the new creation of the Lord with man. At last they 
 are engaged organically, by the compulsion of the movement 
 into which they have now entered, to fight against the new 
 harmony, to the action of which they are in vital opposition, 
 but from which bodily they are not, unfortunately, disengaged. 
 Those who have most laboured for them are in the position 
 of parents whose offspring are falling into parricidal insanity ; 
 of married partners whose associates rise by night to introduce 
 venomous serpents into the bed, or burn the house with 
 fire ; or like the crew of a ship far from land, amidst the lone- 
 liness of the sea, when one of their number is boring through 
 a planking below the water-line, and letting in the waves ; 
 they are like soldiers in a beleaguered fortress, one of whose 
 band has silently thrown open an entrance to the enemy. 
 The vocabulary might be exhausted in describing the calami- 
 ties which such might cause, were it not for the merciful 
 providence of God. On the lost orb individuals of this type, 
 held in the receptivity but not in the adamantine incorporation 
 of good through the old harmony of their planet, when that 
 harmony was shattered by the birth of sin and by its organi- 
 zation into rebellion, gave themselves up by myriads to be- 
 come the supporters of the apostasy ; and such will become 
 on our earth, it is greatly to be feared, and after the body 
 has perished, magicians and sorcerers, enchanters and en- 
 chantresses. 
 
 613. If such have been delivered from any physical mala- 
 dies, or from the consequence of them, through the ministra- 
 tions of those who have become sureties, those who have thus 
 
SEC. 612—615.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 341 
 
 become responsible will be attacked bodily by those diseases 
 in the very spirits of their potencies. If these sureties have been 
 made use of to help to deliver them from any mental or moral 
 insanities^ the infernal powers that dwell in and work their 
 magic through such insanities, according to their specialties, 
 will have power terrifically to assail them both in spirit and 
 in body, both directly and mediately, both separately and 
 by societies. If they have been cut off by this blessed mini- 
 stration from corrupting associations, a like tornado will bm-st 
 upon the heads of these, their benefactors, through the sluice 
 ways of evil in the natural world. Those who have been made 
 use of to bind, and in other methods to restrain infernal spirits 
 for their relief, (for binding evil spirits, see index,) must be 
 prepared to behold all of those infernals organized into one 
 compact body and stimulated to the very fierceness of hatred, 
 and raging like so many demoniacal wolves, with power, by 
 means of sorceries, to tear at the flesh of the flesh, to ravin 
 for the possession of the finest essence of the frame. 
 
 614. Gradually a false appearance of the organized form 
 of the new natural will, unfolding into vastness, ascends from 
 the deep interiors ; in the same manner with the preceding 
 extensions, the false appearances, which simulated the bodies 
 of the new natural mentality and corporeality. As when the 
 larva matures itself to become a caterpillar, so this embodied 
 form, feeding, crawling, and spreading its loathsome lengths 
 throughout the intricacies of the nerves, lies at last like a dead 
 stupid grub, nourished with a fatty humour, touchiug out- 
 wardly the very processes of the skin, becoming more gross 
 perpetually, stupefying the brain, making the hearing dull, the 
 vision opaque, like the sensations of those who have gorged 
 themselves with excesses of food and drink. There is now a 
 strong desire for longevity in the natural world, not so much 
 for active enjoyment as for sloth. When this state is won 
 two distinct paths diverge, two different results appear, one 
 for those who retain a little germ of good, whose fall is of the 
 nature of lethargy and stupidity ; the other for those whose 
 fall is occasioned by a desire to become devilish and infernal. 
 
 615. The first are stricken of God with slow wastiugs; for 
 so long as that principle of good remains, in ever so small 
 
842 ARCANA OF CIIRISTIANITT. [chap. hi. 
 
 a germ, tlie Lord seeks to arouse tlic spirit into regenerative 
 effort. They are kept alive tlirougli the circulations of the 
 general body of the Lord's new harmony ou earth, the move- 
 ment of which mediatorially sustains the new natural soul. 
 Such are utter anomalies. Though this small germ remains, 
 they evade the application of the divine truth when its processes 
 become searching, as the fish darts under water when pursued 
 by one of stronger and more ferocious type. They can be 
 almost, but never quite, made to see, to feel, to act. At times, 
 under these Divine searchings, all but the most experienced 
 would be deceived by their apparently contrite, subdued, and 
 seeking condition. They are insane, though not hopelessly so ; 
 not insane in the medical sense, as understood in the world, 
 but held in a qualified rationality by that divine harmony 
 that refuses to cast them out from itself while hope remains. 
 
 616. Under these visitations they are by turns morose and 
 apparently genial, foolish and -wise, dull and brilliant, timid 
 and courageous, ascetical and worldl}'^, now given to weeping 
 and then hard as stone ; but their general state is one of 
 tacit resistance, tacit pride. They are then like those Israelites 
 who journeyed for forty years in the wilderness, and are pre- 
 paring for themselves a slow, sluggish existence for centuries, 
 as wanderers, unless the divine agencies intervene. Their 
 condition is peculiar ; certain great tjuths have been so made 
 a part of the internal understanding, so organized into memory, 
 that while these burning verities do not lead them into the 
 Heavens, they nevertheless fill them with horror lest they 
 should be taken into Hell. The demons of the lost orb are 
 their great dread ; next the antediluvian demons of our own 
 planet. Though they had once been Calvinists, they live in 
 mortal fear of the demons who move in the infernal body of 
 Calvinism ; and though from childhood steeped in the tenets 
 of Eomanism, the sight of spirits who were male or female 
 ecclesiastics causes them to shudder and scream. They begin 
 to shrink into themselves. 
 
 617. There is a peculiar place allotted for them spiritually 
 on the borders where Nature and the World of Spirits seem to 
 meet. They now cease to appear, as a rule, spiritually, except in 
 this vacuity, and here they begin to elaborate their future 
 
SEC. 6j 6—618.] THE APOCALYPSU. 343 
 
 dwelling-place. Theirs is eminently the province of negations; 
 hence the positive^ by its presence^ causes sufFerino-. What- 
 ever is the quality of their constructive genius^ henceforth it 
 works here in a small;, trivial way ; everything is left undone, 
 nothing finished ; there is no adjustment ; they can never draw a 
 celestial vortical line, or an abysmal involution of a line ; every- 
 thing breaks off as it is begun. The very appearances of the 
 domestic articles in which they coldly delight, are not like the 
 ware of the potter, elaborated on the wheel, but resemble little 
 fragments of shards, painfully agglutinated together by means of 
 that pitchy liquid, spoken of before as secreted within them. 
 If objects that resemble food are on these dishes, they shrink 
 from them unless they are made of neutralised elements ; their 
 flesh must be, as it were, neutralised between the cat and the 
 hare ; their fowl, between the buzzard and the goose ; it must 
 not, as to its odour, emit an absolute taint, neither must it give 
 forth the savoury fragrance of healthful juiciness. Their cloth- 
 ing must not be quite monastic, or quite worldly. 
 
 618. The elements which, discreted, would resolve themselves 
 into the separated forms of fantasy and reason, seem with them 
 always to be upon the point of separating, but do not separate, 
 yet gyrate in a perpetual whirl. The eye has neither the 
 celestial perspective nor the infernal perspective, therefore 
 there is no horizon. They know not how to discriminate be- 
 tween the mole-hills and the mountains ; the back-ground and 
 the fore-ground lie together. They have neither the celestial 
 ear nor the infernal ear ; and, except when terrified, cease to 
 hear at all. Some of them will put on the appearance of Indian 
 devotees, but always with the protest that they are not de- 
 votees ; others have masks, imitation jewels, head dresses, and 
 some forlorn resemblance of sjalendid garments, over which 
 they busy themselves ; protesting always that it is not from 
 vanity or worldliness, or from any love of finery or display. 
 They cannot be pleased either with gifts from angels or devils. 
 If they begin to grow warm from a celestial fire kindled near 
 them, they are afraid of liquefaction, and hasten to bring about 
 what they deem a proper frigidity; this also with respect to 
 infernal fire. They have no friends, though in a distant sense 
 they recognise the Lord as a Great Protector, and angels as 
 
314 ARCANA OF CURISTIANITY. [cuap. iir. 
 
 servants of Ilim, The gleam of their faith maybe compared 
 to moonlight in its last possible attenuation. They are chiefly 
 dangerous in the night while they remain in the body. 
 
 619. Such are of a frog-like nature; they live within those 
 increments which they fossilize about themselves, as this crea- 
 ture subsists for ages in a cell of stone. Unless, as before said. 
 Divine influences intervene, they prepare for themselves, after 
 the dissolution of the body, an imprisoned life. That germ of 
 good remains within them which prevents their sinking into 
 Hell ; it is like that grain of wheat buried in the bosom of a 
 mummy, that is said to retain for ages the germinating 
 principle, but which makes no growth, though over its sepul- 
 chre troop the fervid seasons of forty centuries. There is a 
 process by which they are gently, softly, harmlessly cut off 
 from the living vine of God's new harmony ; and another pro- 
 cess by which their new natural soul in the decease of the body 
 is gently uplifted to a place in the archetypal world prepared 
 and apart. There is still a third process by which they are 
 kept as a sort of harmless, inoffensive spectre or phantom, in 
 proximity to the boundary land of the new creation ; and a 
 fourth process by which they are taught how, yet without 
 seeming to be taught, one step in a year, to advance. They 
 are styled " untimely births " and " imbeciles." All of this 
 must be written prospectively, as of things that are liable to 
 be. 
 
 620. Wives who are being uplifted organically into the new 
 creation, by means of the bridegroom tenderness of the Lord 
 working through husbands principled in the new life, should take 
 this text as addressed especially and with great force of mean- 
 ing to themselves ; to watch their states, to resist all coldnesses, 
 to search out for the beginnings of pride and of indifference, 
 and zealously to guard the life of every new and incipient 
 affection of good. In a word, it behooves them to " be watchful, 
 and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to 
 die." 
 
 621. The Woman's Word is let down in a tentative manner, 
 through conjugial respiration, into the natural organism of 
 women, when they are becoming celestial-natural. That is to 
 say, there are minute forms throughout the organs of the 
 
SEC. 619—623.] TRE APOCALYFSU. 345 
 
 frame^ perceived in tlieir unity, if that sight is permitted, in 
 tlie shadowy image of a woman, infinitely beautiful, floating as 
 it were in her own pure atmosphere, as described before. Con- 
 junction is then gradually effected between the forms that are 
 from the Woman^s Word and the organic structures of the 
 person into whom it is let down. This is the crisis time with 
 the woman. Shall she adopt the Woman's Word within her, 
 for the inspirer of the volitions of the will, and thence the re- 
 gulator of the motions of the frame ? If yea, then she enters 
 both into chastity and solidarity, she becomes one with God's 
 open breathing people, and she cannot act but in theii* com- 
 bined series, or labour but for the beautiful harmonies of the 
 new creation. 
 
 622. Was she naturally cold, torpid, phlegmatic, physically 
 indolent, disposed to reverie, fond not of serving others but of 
 being served, prone to look upon labour as a burden and a 
 curse ? Was she naturally indifferent to the welfare of others, 
 hard, exacting, critical ? It is wonderful to behold the change ! 
 Her frame is so full of the new life, descending through the 
 Woman's Word, that at times she feels to herself, from the 
 abundance of influx, weighty as if advanced in pregnancy. 
 An inexpressible tenderness dwells in her eyes, and, though 
 dead and lustreless before, there are now periods when they 
 are as liquid stars, beaming from the fulness, the purity, and 
 intensity of unutterable love. She becomes warm physically, 
 sensationally, conjugially. The fire of chastity glows within 
 her bosom and is distributed thence. Her zeal is to serve. 
 She carries conscience into the minutest things. She worships 
 God as revealed in the new industry. Her place is deter- 
 mined for her by aptness. She develops a charming spon- 
 taneity ; her old traits disappear ; she becomes continually 
 more loveable, more firm in use, yet more docile as a pupil of 
 use. Is she unmarried, the Word unfolds in her through its 
 vestal sense, making her a member of the series called the 
 ''^ Vestalate." Her thoughts are sweet as bridal flowers. The 
 affections of a new innoccncy irradiate her face. 
 
 623. The Woman's Word opens in married females, not in 
 its vestal, but its marital sense. Here besfin arcana too sacred 
 for public expression. The vestal sense is a Spring, but the 
 
346 AFiCANA OF GHBISTIANITT. [chap. hi. 
 
 marital a Summer ; the vestal sense a tender dawn, the marital 
 the refulgent sunrise, advancing thence by ordered states to 
 the everlasting meridian, and shining there. The vestal sense 
 brings with it respiration continued into the bosoms of the 
 virgins in the Heavens, and of series of virgins throughout 
 harmonic worlds, and suns of the unfallen universe. There is 
 a breathing both by inhalation and by expiration of the sacred 
 quahties of this pure virginity, till, though the woman were 
 old and stricken with the inj&rmities of age, she becomes, from 
 head to foot, as replete with youthful fragrancy and freshness 
 as a maiden in her prime. Those in whom the marital sense 
 is opened, respire through it into the bosoms of their sisters of 
 the great wifehood of the Heavens, and the wifehood of the 
 suns and the planets. They share in the first qualities of that 
 ardom" which generates the processions of the flowers. 
 
 624. But those who possess the marital sense opened ^vithin 
 them, have also the vestal sense ; so that they are with virgins 
 as virgins, or rather as wife-virgins, while they are with wives 
 as wives. A husband in the Heavens is sometimes surprised 
 in retm'ning to his habitation, after the resplendent uses of the 
 day, to behold his wife advancing to meet him as in a new 
 maidenhood, and seven times more a maiden than she ever was 
 before. From this new flowering of the soul unfolds for him 
 a new wifehood in her, in which she is seven times more a wife 
 than ever before. These changes of state, and thence of the 
 appearances of the person, are efi'ected through the alternations 
 of the respirations by means of the changes and interplays 
 between the vestal and marital senses in the Woman's Word, 
 insphered within the individual person. So, as the new crea- 
 tion appears on earth, one conjugial series of states comes to 
 an end with the wife, and they terminate not in coldness or 
 deadness, but in a new spring-time of afiection and sensation, 
 through a new opening of the vestal sense, and thence they 
 rise to a new summer-time of affection and sensation, through 
 a new opening of the marital sense. 
 
 625. When a new wife is added to the series, there are new 
 nuptials and nuptial festivities between every conjugial pair, 
 constituting the series, whereof no more can be said, except 
 this, that there is new holiness, that is, a superadding of holi- 
 
SEC. 624—627.] TSE APOCALYFSK 347 
 
 ness to holiness, and thence of joy to joy. So when a new 
 vestal is added to the vestalate, there is new joy both through- 
 out the marital and vestal series, the joy is ineffable, unutter- 
 able. The Infinite Mother-Woman, the Divine Femininity, 
 who is one with the Divine Masculinity, extends Her arms 
 throughout the organic forms of Woman\s Word, and as it 
 were, ingathers each new wife-child or virgin-child into the 
 Great Bosom that is the home of all chastities and all felicities. 
 
 626. But to this picture there is a terrible reverse. Pro- 
 portionate to the height to which woman may rise in the new 
 life,, is the terribleness of her fall out of that life, and out 
 of those budding, blossoming, and ripening harmonies. All 
 states, good or evil, unfold from the minutest of seed-germs, 
 first generated in the will. A wish, an organized desire em- 
 bodied in a determination, a state of encom-aged coldness 
 which makes a winter in the will and fights against God's 
 summer-breath therein, these conjointly, though at first in- 
 finitesimal, may go forth by due increase until they re- 
 conquer for winter and for death the whole orb of the person- 
 ality. When persons of the feminine sex are found utterly 
 deficient, after long trial, the Great Mother banishes them 
 either from the vestalate or wifehood, according as then' place 
 has been, by quietly infolding and updrawing the forms of the 
 Woman's Word that had been let down into the expanses of 
 the frame. They then return to their original fantasies. If 
 they were wildly imaginative, cold-blooded, fantastic, garru- 
 lous, secretive, bustling, absorptive, or whatever were their 
 peculiarities, they return with modifications ; or reappear, 
 rather as the cold and waning lights of autumn, than as the 
 lustres of the spring ; not as rising, but as setting rays. 
 
 627. It is in mercy that the Woman's Word is withdrawn 
 from them. After it is taken away they gradually pass, to 
 spiritual sight, out of sunshine into shadow. Their equili- 
 brium undergoes an entire change ; instead of balancing be- 
 tween direct Heaven and direct Hell, and of fighting against 
 a direct infernal life by means of a direct celestial life ; even 
 while natural existence continues, they put on the habitudes 
 of those spirits, in the limbo or intermediate space, who are 
 wanderers. The mind wanders in vague fantasy ; the imagi- 
 
34.8 ARCANA OF CURISTIANITT. [chap. hi. 
 
 nation teems with incongruous forms ; apathetic coldness is 
 manifested in the general concurrence of all their states. The 
 features alternate between a vacant mental, and a dull cor- 
 poreal expression. Night comes at last. If their sin has been 
 of that species which, while it cuts them off from the new 
 harmony, does not kill the last germ of regeneration ; if it has 
 been, in a word, partly a fatuous evil, for which there is for- 
 giveness in a final time of restitution, before they die they 
 may become passive, harmless, gentle, though imbecile. If 
 their sin is of a mortal character, the result of grasping after 
 demonhood, they drop as if a millstone were tied about their 
 neck, and they were cast into the depths of the sea. 
 
 628. To vision, opened in the Word, those of the first 
 quality may be seen islanded ; that is, with elements grouped 
 about them which serve in some sense as a protection against 
 worse magic. The elements which take the place of the new 
 creation, throughout the expanses of their bodies, gradually 
 waste, and are resolved into thin, white clouds about them. 
 In these clouds they are seen for a time, whilst in the body ; 
 by means of them they are veiled from the subtle demons ; 
 through this means both celestial lights' and infernal dark- 
 nesses are tempered to them. They compose, after such leave 
 the body, veils in wliich they walk as Avanderers, till their 
 vastation is complete. To those in whom there is the first 
 incipiency of coldness, the first shrinking into self, and from 
 the outgivings of divine use, all of the text applies as with the 
 sound of a trumpet, as with the alarm at midnight : " Be 
 watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are 
 ready to die : for I have not found thy words perfect before 
 God." 
 
 629. That true and faithful wife who has been led into the 
 new creation, and established in its glorious harmonies, with- 
 out the conspiration of her married partner, may minister to 
 him as follows : — Through the Woman^s Word which is formed 
 within her, provided there is a negativeness and passiveness 
 on his part, a willingness to be guided by the Lord, through her, 
 there is first led into his frame a series of revolving breaths. 
 These do not at first bring about open respiration ; they may 
 be in the frame unsuspected by him. Their fii-st and direct 
 
SEC. 628—631.] TSF. JFOCALYFSU. 349 
 
 tendency is to extirpate scortatory de.sire ; tliey inundate the 
 lower brainj where the scortatory passions dwell_, and thence 
 diffuse themselves into the organs of the higher brain, where 
 myriads of thoughts pertaining to these passions have their 
 hold ; they take their places in the centres, where food, throuo-h 
 the gastric juice, the blood and the nervous elements, is trans- 
 formed into the passional virus ; they neutralize that virus, till 
 gradually the man, if good, begins to hate and detest all pas- 
 sional impurities. 
 
 630. In these advances there are variations, dependent on 
 individual peculiarities. Through the Woman^s Word, in the 
 organism of the wife, its virginal sense is first unfolded in 
 the male organism. The gospel is preached in spirit, in the 
 midst of his determinations and affections, in the midst of his 
 appetites and passions. The gospel is diffused. The principles 
 from the Word thus unfolded are spirit and life. The perfect 
 wife in God through this process may see the depraved pas- 
 sional instincts of her husband reduced to perfect quiescence. 
 Afterward, by the unfolding in him through her of her Word^s 
 marital sense, he may be led on to marital states, which 
 are conjugial, the arcana concerning which belong purely to 
 the Sisterhood of the New Life. She being one in the purity 
 and solidarity of the sisterhood, and in the common possession 
 of the Woman's Word, as her husband's breath begins to be 
 opened through the pivotal-radiative chief of series, gives her 
 being into the bosom of her companion. 
 
 631. Ten years of organic change and growth, of quicken- 
 ing and rehabilitation, of purifying and of transformation, under 
 very high conditions may be condensed into one ; so imperial 
 womanhood leads up the man, to whom she is conjoined, to a 
 crowning with the crown of life. The husband is to under- 
 stand in such cases, that these organic transformations are 
 effected in a large degree through the wife's nobility and 
 purity. He is to watch himself with unsleeping vigilance. 
 The forms of the new creation that are within him may recede 
 or be destroyed should he give way to evil. To him also is the 
 message " Be watchful, and strengthen the things which re- 
 main, that are ready to die." To him, if there be holding 
 back from the fulness of purity and the perfection of use. 
 
350 ARCANA OF CHBISTIANITT. [chap. in. 
 
 comes also tlic alarming declaration, " I have not found tliy 
 works perfect before God.'' 
 
 632. The infolded breaths which precede open respiration 
 are also led forth from those in the new creation and its har- 
 monies, in obedience to the law of sympathy, where friendships 
 exist wholly in the Lord. Much here is of great importance ; 
 dangers must be known in order for their avoidance, and the 
 line for new life action traced out with extreme precision. 
 From friendships which exist upon the old grounds, the result 
 of former relations and intimacies, there are times when the 
 heart seems bursting \nt\i excess of love, and the desire for 
 the redemption of such cherished intimates is almost resistless. 
 Wliy should this yearning, constraining desire exist, and yet 
 the manifestation of it be forbidden ? The reason is plain ; 
 God the Redeemer, in the new life carries on the redemptive 
 process, so far as bodily transformations, bodily purifications 
 are concerned, in and through a special operation from Himself, 
 secreting the substances that are made use of in redemption 
 in the bodies of His willing people. Is one yearning for the 
 bodily sanctification of another ? That yearning proceeds 
 from an affection, embodied and made known as a sensation. 
 Elements are b^ing matured within the person, destined event- 
 ually to go forth beyond it, gathered up into unity to be 
 separated from the body, and to be carried whithersoever the 
 Lord wills. 
 
 633. The only mistake arises from the fact that thought 
 travels on the lines of old association. It is difficult at first to 
 disentangle the remains of the old mentality from the begin- 
 nings of the new mentality. The images of friends are im- 
 printed in the sensorium. As the tides of the new formed 
 elements of life rise within the bosom, the images of the old 
 friendships are revived, and the divine yearning is hardly to 
 be restrained from flowing forth to such specific ends. But 
 as the remains of the old mentality are removed, the yearning 
 exists without giving rise to such impressions and desu'es. 
 The life currents flow, not in the circuits of the old sympathies 
 which resulted from friendship and former association; they 
 flow in new circuits by a wonderful way. First, those in this 
 order learn to hold the sympathies ; otherwise the life wastes 
 
SEC. 632—635.] THE APOCALYPSE. 351 
 
 and tlie divine elements in tlie frame are stolen, absorbed 
 into bodies of unregenerate persons, and finally made use of 
 tlirougli magic and sorcery to work ruin and produce death. 
 The state has to be attained wherein, no matter how high the 
 tides of the Divine life rise within one, no matter how much 
 the organism is filled and even burdened with them, no matter 
 what seasons and even years elapse during which their pre- 
 cious elements seem to exist for no purpose within the frame, 
 there is a constant, fixed determination that all shall be re- 
 tained, not one atom lost. 
 
 634. There is a tendency in young fruit-trees to overbear, 
 and in the young of all creatures to waste themselves in seed. 
 It is by holding this tendency under rigid control that power- 
 ful organisms are matured in the natural creation. Strength, 
 longevity, and harmony are thus secured in our Lord^s ncAV 
 creation. We must not too rapidly and luxuriously effloresce ; 
 we must learn, by restraining the sympathies, to extend the 
 roots of the personality, and enlarge and energise the solid 
 trunk of life. A fruit-tree dies by overbearing; but in the 
 new creation the human tree perishes if the precious divine 
 elements secreted within the frame are taken away from it, 
 either before a fruit-bearing condition is attained, or afterward, 
 more rapidly than the organism can mature these elements of 
 virtue. The sick were healed through the person of our Lord 
 because virtue went out from Him. He breathed upon His dis- 
 ciples in order that they might receive the Holy Ghost. All 
 His wondrous works were the result of the outgoino- of Divine- 
 human life. 
 
 635. This is the case again in His second advent throuo-h 
 the bodies of His people. There is a zeal for service, born in 
 the beginnings and increased in all the growths of the new 
 creation. But this zeal of service requires education. The 
 use cannot safely proceed till the love of it is united to the 
 wisdom, and the two made one. Here another consideration 
 finds place ; God has no more elements in the world, directly 
 available for the ends of the new creation, than those that are 
 matured in the bodies of its members ; every atom therefore 
 of this new divine-human substance is of immense value. We 
 know not for what ends He is matm-ing these elements in 
 
352 ABCAXA OF CHRISTIANITT. [chap. iir. 
 
 each personality, but whatever tlicse euds may be, all must be 
 rigidly conserved in order that the resources of each organi- 
 zation may be at His command for any emergency ; the corn 
 and oil and wine undiminished. When He wills to lead forth 
 the breaths filled with precious increments, that new organisms 
 may be quickened and restored, the divine yearning is wedded 
 to its divine purpose ; a sympathy springs up that is wholly 
 in Him. Then it is that He, by occult methods, gathers 
 from one frame, or from many frames in the solidarity, such 
 varieties of living virtue as shall be effectual for the restorative 
 processes. 
 
 636. The infolded breaths move forth again, in answer to 
 inspired and special prayer. Of this it must be said, that one 
 of the first things taught in the new creation is how to pray, 
 and what to pray for. We are taught to pray for conjugial 
 purity till it is led forth through the frame ; then to pray for 
 solidarity until we are led into solidarity. Through the first 
 we are delivered from scortation, and through the second from 
 false relations, obstructions, and the general round of social 
 depravities ; through the two in their 'conjunction we are made 
 living purities, vestal or marital, and thence initiated into 
 those vestal and marital series whose members, male and 
 female, are the embodiments of the purities. These are the 
 first great things we j)ray for. Becoming the members of a 
 solidarity, the true education is begun ; it is only through edu- 
 cation in solidarity that the divine wisdom can take possession 
 of us, and re-construct the organs of the faculties. The prayers 
 that we offer, when thus led into series, are inspired and 
 special petitions ; the prayer of the day is determined by the 
 work of the day, the prayer of a series by the work of the 
 series. Each is summed up in one formula, " Lord, what wilt 
 Thou have me to do ? '' 
 
 637. Prayers offei-ed, so long as persons are out of purity and 
 solidarity, partake of the general disease and incoherence of 
 the World's depraved life. Even the Lord's Prayer is uttered 
 without specific meaning, with partial meaning, or with false 
 meanings. Men, in their phrase, besiege the Throne of Grace, 
 and weary God, if He could be wearied, with endless imj^or- 
 tunities for the triumph of their rival sects, for the supremacy 
 
SEC. 636—639.] THE APOCALYPSE. 353 
 
 of their belligerent nationalities. The prayers fight against 
 each other on their way to the Mercy Seat. Could the great 
 majority of prayers be seen in their representative forms, it is 
 greatly to be feared we should behold serpents instead of doves. 
 Prayers are debased by the corruption of the religious senti- 
 ment. Genuine prayers among so-called Ckristians are the 
 strong cries and supplications of the creature, groaning under 
 the bondage of corruption. Prayers in the New Life are the 
 thanksgiving of the creature, rising out of this bondage, and 
 simple, honest requests to be made use of as the Lord wills, 
 that this glorious work may be carried on for others ; this is 
 the living and abiding prayer. 
 
 638. But there are times when it begins to be known by 
 those who thus are organized purities, that the pure God wills 
 in special ways to lead forth this kingdom of purity in other 
 regions and to other peoples, to the distant or to the near, 
 to those of their own type, or to those of other types. In- 
 stantly there are inspired and special prayers that rise concur- 
 rently and spontaneously, and in the progress of those prayers 
 the prepared substances are involved into the breaths, which 
 become detached and go forth as on the wings of the morning, 
 even, if necessary, to the uttermost parts of the sea. 
 
 639. Again, the infolded breaths are led forth to open some 
 specific individual, in whose organism is to be fought some 
 specific battle which is to result in overcoming certain specific 
 powers and plagues. Here we touch the doctrine of election. 
 There are men in the world, in all ages, who elect from child- 
 hood to do certain specific things, men called from the womb, 
 yea, even from the initiament into the womb. Many of these 
 doubtless fall. All fall who do not accept their destiny as 
 a means for the deliverance of man, in that specific vein. 
 " Many are called but few are chosen ; " but those who choose 
 are again chosen of God in return. In the age that is now 
 dawning, specific individuals will be born organically, consti- 
 tutionally, pivots and sub-pivots, chiefs of series, and in generals 
 to fill all the working posts in the prospective solidarities. 
 For instance, youths in the extreme of Asia, members of pagan 
 races, may be chosen in this way ; insphercd and isolated, 
 though in the midst of their fellows; breaths infolded into 
 
354 AUGANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. iit. 
 
 lungs and brain. They may tlicn bo watched over with un- 
 tiring vigilance day and night, by a great conspiration of 
 pivotal and respirative forces. When in the Divine Provi- 
 dence they are brought into open, face to face communication 
 with the members of the great affiliated brotherhood, it is dis- 
 covered that almost all of the work, prior to the opening of 
 respiration, has been already done. They come as doves to 
 their houses. Surely our " Lord's arm is not shortened that 
 He cannot save.'' 
 
 " Surely, surclj', ever onward, 
 
 March regenerate mankind. 
 Led by God Messiah throneward, 
 
 To a Heaven in labour shrined, 
 rcrislied now the old traditions 
 
 Of the death shot and the sword : 
 Answered now the world's petitions. 
 
 In humanity restored." 
 
 640. But the mercies of our God move forth as a winged 
 throne, out of the midst of which proceed the lightnings and 
 the thunderings of the judgments ; and before this throne are 
 the armies of the breaths, which enter into men and nations 
 as a preparation for judgments. I saw a man in England, in 
 the year 1860, in whom one of these preparatory breaths was 
 infolded ; he was powerful, subtle, worldly wise, and wielded 
 at his will an enormous aggregate of influences. The breath 
 was infolded into him ; it penetrated as a fiery worm into the 
 internal spaces of his lungs; it finally penetrated a space 
 where the spiritual and natural meet. Instantly one fiery 
 drop of condensed force from the Heavens percolated through 
 this opening, and in forty-eight hours that man was a corpse. 
 I saw another man given up to the vices of polite society, 
 and moving in a maze and whirl of pursuits, with kings, 
 courtiers, dij^lomafs, and the literati. An involved breath was 
 led forth into his lungs also, and though in the prime of life, 
 after a season, such a quickening took place in consequence, 
 that he felt the internal corruptions of the imperial centres of 
 Christendom so acutely as to realize that society is death, 
 and civilization a repository of the abominations of Hell. 
 Illustrations might be multiplied here, but these must suffice. 
 641. These infolded breaths go forth and enter into men, 
 penetrating deeply into their organisms, and at last making 
 
SEC. 640—643.] TRE APOCALYPSJE. 3o5 
 
 openings into the spiritual degree ; tlien comes the judgment. 
 A second infolded breath follows^ which is inscribed through- 
 out with the processes of judgment. If that infolded breath 
 reaches the inmost place, it serves as a natural matrix, which is 
 inseminated by raeans of a single vital drop let down through 
 the opening into it ; when this thus enters, it is life unto life, 
 or death unto death. If the man is found hateful, rebellious, 
 determined to be fixed in evil, he speedily deceases. If he is 
 repentant, contrite, broken-hearted because of sin, his old 
 state gradually dies, and after that he may learn to respire, 
 be baptized into the purities, and knit into the solidarities. 
 " He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall 
 suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." " Our God 
 is a consuming fire." These things are contained in the signi- 
 fications of the text, " Be watchful, and strengthen the things 
 which remain, that are ready to die ; for I have not found thy 
 works perfect before God." 
 
 642. The caU to open respiration is a call to battle. The 
 man of the church in Sardis, from the beginning of his breaths, 
 is in a peculiar sense a combatant. Chm-ch Sardis and Church 
 Thyatira in conjunction, respire in direct antagonism to the 
 breaths of Lucifer. There is a particular process of breath 
 involution, by means of the extension of which these combined 
 churches all are set in battle array. No just person can feel 
 the quality of this respiration without being born again out 
 of his old, into a new divine nationality. These churches, by 
 their genius, inevitably gravitate in their movements toward the 
 centres of power. This must be so, otherwise the inversions 
 will prevail against them. Certain statements of a political 
 character must be inserted here. 
 
 643. A second series of significances in the text, concerning 
 'things that remain," pertain to the vastnesses rather than 
 the smallnesses of existence. By '' things that remain,^^ is 
 signified, the remains of the organic forms of the prime virtues 
 of humanity, stored up in the bosom of those races which 
 Christendom has not yet entirely defiled and destroyed. There 
 is a small remains in Africa ; but unless men are speedily 
 raised up in the new creation, the vices and disorders of west- 
 ern civilization threaten to finish the work of corruption. It 
 
 z 2 
 
356 ABC ANA OF CnUISTIANITT. [chap. ni. 
 
 is a fearful consideration, tliat tliero are at present ignorant 
 pagan tribes, in whose bodies are a few of the last organic 
 remains of tlie most ancient Word ; and that in the ratio of 
 the inflowing of the magnetic stream from the bosom of the 
 so-called Christian society, these remains are wasted away. 
 Verily, Anglo-Saxon Cain, the blood of thine African bro- 
 ther Abel crieth against thee from the ground ! The approach 
 of the European to the African means death. 
 
 644. But Africa is more remote from the combined churches 
 under consideration than Asia, as will be seen. Wherever 
 Confucianism exists, it has preserved the remains, say rather, 
 the vestiges of the remains, of the Word of the ancient Silver 
 Age, which was once with man. In the judgment it will be 
 found that to certain great truths and principles of this ancient 
 revelation, preserved through tradition, incorporated in philo- 
 sophy, and established as rules of poHtical and moral science 
 among the Chinese and Japanese, the world has been indebted 
 more largely than to all the boasted results of modern science 
 and invention. It is not without reason that the Confucian 
 moralist scorns the western nations. That scorn, however 
 uncalled-for in many of its manifestations, however mixed-up 
 with pride and self-conceit, has in it an element of Divine 
 justice. 
 
 645. But while the remains of the ancient Word thus linger, 
 those of the most ancient Word are found among a peculiar 
 class of people, and throughout the east of Asia. There is 
 much more latent Christianity there than there is active Chris- 
 tianity in America or Europe. There is even more latent 
 Chi'istianity in a large class of Mahometans, than active Chris- 
 tianity in any recognised Christian sect. It is the direful 
 thing about the so-called Christian nations, that they extir- 
 pate the last remains of good and truth, the prime virtue of 
 the race, the vestiges of the most ancient and ancient Words, 
 the last concealed and latent effluences of the Golden and the 
 Silver Ages, the only surviving aromas of the perished Eden ; 
 they do this without substituting anything beyond the specio- 
 sities of Mammon, their god. 
 
 646. This criticism will seem untrue. But there are two 
 classes of men who can receive it ; first, unprejudiced dlijlo- 
 
SEC. 644—648.] THE AFOCALYPSK 357 
 
 matS) savants, and travellers, thougli men of tlie world, wlio 
 have lived on intimate terms witli Turks and Arabs, with 
 Chinese scholars and gentlemen, with enlightened Parsees, 
 with the people of Madagascar, and especially with the Daimios 
 and Samari class of Japan. Here one learns to blush for the 
 blind stupidity and intolerance of the sectarists. There are 
 many reasons why the civilization of the West seems superior 
 to that of the Orient. We have been educated in an entire 
 misconception as to the influence of that ecclesiasticism, which 
 styles itself, but is not, Christianity. If it had not been for 
 the providential rise of Mahometanism, the corruptions of the 
 great mother and universal Church were becoming so ofiensive, 
 and spreading so rapidly, that the moral element in mankind 
 was threatened with annihilation. The morals of the Saracens 
 were far superior to those of the Crusaders. The government 
 of the Saracens in Spain was, at one time, far better than that 
 of any Christian state. The despised and scattered Israehtes^ 
 male and female, as a rule were superior in personal charac- 
 ter, to their so-called Christian oppressors. 
 
 647. In the first place, the Western nations were baser in 
 their origin than those of the East. It was the custom in the 
 primitive eras, for the nations who maintained the integrity and 
 purity of the Golden and Silver Ages, to banish from their midst 
 those of each tribe who were irreclaimable. The west of the 
 planet was uninhabited, and the steady stream of this corrupt 
 migration tended westward, pausing only upon the shores 
 where the Atlantic beats against the Irish coast. The vast 
 expanses bordering upon the Danube, the immense regions 
 that are now Germany, France, and Great Britain, were in- 
 habited by these races. These again were divided into a com- 
 paratively inoflFensive, and a brutally savage type of man. 
 
 648. The typal Cain was stronger than the typal Abel. The 
 evil natural soul labours most effectually in the beginnings of 
 things, to construct vigorous, athletic, and subtle frames for 
 those who accept corruption as a fact, and fashion life in obe- 
 dience to its instincts. Hence the powers followed in the lino 
 of the inversions. When Christianity first began to be preached, 
 it was a gospel of charity, of forgiveness, of reconciliation ; 
 but the dogmas rapidly quenched the Spirit, and it became, m 
 
358 ARCANA OF CUBISTIANITY. [cuAr. iii. 
 
 its inversions, peculiarly adapted to the barbaric genius of 
 tliese western tribes. It was congenial, in its inversions, to 
 their tliouglit. Tlie doctrine of a sacrificial atonement for sin, 
 wberein one Deity imolatcs anotber. His equal, yet His Son, 
 was a conception that never could have originated, except with 
 minds whose thinking organs had been warped by the brutish 
 and inhuman religious rites of idolatry. Christianity, as adopted 
 in the West, was a religion hybridized between the words of 
 Christ, and the misconceptions of polytheism. 
 
 649. Christianity took its firmest hold with the races in 
 whose interiors the last remains of the more ancient Words had 
 been swept away ; men whose fathers were the expelled con- 
 victs of the East ; men who had rioted in the forests as barba- 
 rians; men who laid the foundation of their civilization by 
 bursting from their fastnesses and entering into the possession 
 of the conquered territories of the decayed Koman empire. 
 The ages of stone and of iron exist as latencies embosomed 
 in the sects. Sti'ip a so-called Christian of Christendom, and 
 when his skin is removed there is found the painted, idol-wor- 
 shipping barbarian ; in other words, call out the interiors of 
 men, and we do not evoke the genius of the Golden Age ; 
 what comes forth is a monster clad in skins, and armed with 
 the bloody mace. The Word is yet misunderstood and unre- 
 vealed, because Christendom has never been Christianized; it has 
 been a wilderness, with here and there an opening, a morass, 
 with isolated islands in the midst of its quagmires. 
 
 650. Christianity produces one of two results : if taken 
 merely into the intellect as a system, it developes the brain at 
 the expense of the heart ; if taken into the mere imaginative, 
 gesthetic, artistic faculties, it developes verbal, ^^ictorial, archi- 
 tectural beauty. If taken as a system of salvation, to be 
 wrought out through allegiance to a sect, it calls forth, in con- 
 nection with sectarian enterprise, political and administrative 
 ability. In a word, it is stimulation, activity, the end of re- 
 pose ; this may be the activity of Heaven or the activity of 
 Hell. But Christianity fell into the control of ecclesiastics, 
 and they corrupted, still more, the forming nations of half- 
 civilized savages, by certain specific falsehoods; first, that 
 God was their God, their Sa\dour, but the infinite enemy of 
 
.BEC. 649—652.] THE JPOCALYPSE. 359 
 
 the so-called pagan people ; and second, tliat tliis God liad 
 given to the Christian the pagan, as a lawful prey, and his 
 lands and properties as a lawful possession. So it passed into 
 a maxim of state policy, that if a Christian nation discovered 
 an unexplored part of the world, priority of discovery con- 
 ferred absolute dominion. The common idea which the self- 
 styled Christians have entertained, of those whom they call 
 pagans and idolators, has been that they were hastening en 
 masse to eternal damnation. The pharisaism of the Jew was 
 limited and local, but that of the Christian was universal. 
 These ideas have penetrated everywhere. Types of character, 
 qualities of mind, have been formed under their influence. 
 
 651. Christendom is omnivorous, all-grasping, all-conquer- 
 ing. The last descendants of the outcasts, driven to the West, 
 are revenging their expulsion from the ancient Orient upon 
 the children of the just, who banished them so far. There is 
 something magnificent as well as terrible in this appropriation 
 of the East ; the iron-clads go first like floating war eagles to 
 smite the living victim ; the trade ships follow as clouds of 
 carrion vultures, to feast upon the fragments of the corse. 
 The ruin of the Orient, so far as its ancient order is concerned, 
 is a thing accomplished; and all the pretences about civiliza- 
 tion, Christianization, are so many decoy words used to drug 
 the conscience, while the wasting is carried on. It was with 
 this pretence that Spain exthpated the American races. 
 With this pretext, in our own time, divines and statesmen, 
 rulers of society, have defended the exploitation of Africa, 
 slavery, and the slave trade. By this pretext the Russian 
 justifies yearly appropriations of provinces, till now he stands 
 with one hand over Pekin, and the other over Constantinople. 
 Our misfortune is that we can see crimes as they are, when 
 committed by our fathers or by foreign nations, but cannot 
 see them when perpetrated by ourselves. There is no public 
 conscience. If a man steals the purse of his fellow, there is a 
 prison ; but if a nation appropriates the possessions of a na- 
 tion, there is glory and renown. 
 
 652. The nations who possess the remains of the Word^in 
 their interiors, are being destroyed by those in whose interiors 
 the Word has no place. The situation is full of anomaHes. 
 
360 ARCANA OF CRRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 The peoples who have most of Christ subjectively^ know least 
 of Him objectively. The peoples most decidedly antagouist- 
 ical to Christ, most organized against Christ, most engaged in 
 the destruction of all that pertains to Christ, are the peoples 
 who dogmatically profess Christ. Tlie nations who go forth 
 with the written Word in their hands, are those who destroy 
 the last remains of the Word, whether extant in the private 
 virtues of men or the public equity of nations. By conse- 
 quence equilibrium is destroyed; thei'e is no longer an adjust- 
 ment of forces. Wliat is required for the salvation of men is 
 to restore this equihbrium ; and this is what is signified in the 
 text which speaks of strengthening the remains. 
 
 653. By this is to be understood, that through the new har- 
 mony of our God, means must be provided through which 
 those nations who possess the remains of the Word in their 
 interiors, shall receive the knowledge of the Word as it was 
 with their fathers ; this knowledge being explained to them 
 rationally and demonstrated by open respiration. Thus also 
 it means, that the things which are ready to perish, the things 
 of Christ and of the prime virtue of the race, stored up in their 
 interiors, shall be conserved from destruction and vivified. 
 Thus again it means, that the same things preserved in frag- 
 ments, as scattered truths of morality and pubhc policy through- 
 out the Orient, which are the ultimate remains of ancient wis- 
 dom and vii'tue, shall be saved from perishing in the same 
 way. These are not old bottles, in the sense in which the 
 traditions and customs of Christendom are, they are the shat- 
 tered fragments of the cup that held the golden wine of 
 the primitive creation ; and the fragments must be gathered 
 up that God may restore them to their unity. It also means 
 that the tribes and nationalities themselves, that are ready to 
 perish from the inroads of Christendom, must be preserved. 
 Christendom must be resisted in every manner in its approaches 
 to the East, and to the peoples that yet hold out against its 
 influence. The methods of defence are treated of elsewhere. 
 
 654. Church Sardis, in connection with Thyatira, contains 
 all of the specific qualities sufiicient for the regeneration of the 
 Orient. The exhortation to " strengthen the things that re- 
 main," is addressed especially to Sardis, because in her bosom 
 
SEC. 653—656.] THE APOCALYPSE. 361 
 
 are tlie breatlis of battle continued into ultimations, and gi\ano* 
 military skill, vigour, and determination. Wlien tlie first open 
 breathing host, from among the Children of the East, in God's 
 new creation, meets the brutal and licentious, though perfectly 
 drilled, armed, and ofiicered soldiery of the self-styled Chris- 
 tendom, it will be demonstrated that there is a Power which 
 in its conquests will arrest the progress of the enemy who re- 
 moves the ancient remains of righteousness. Here is found 
 the open way of dehverance for Madagascar and Siam, for 
 China, and for the Japanese Isles ; the power that can re-or- 
 ganize India, after such a time as Great Britain is no longer able 
 to coerce its peoples to her rule. Here, finally, is the power 
 that by results must demonstrate to the nations of Christen- 
 dom, that their religious hope is delusion, since they are 
 neither the benefactors of humanity, nor the agents of the 
 Divine Purpose. Here is the power that must turn back the 
 streams of a corrupt civilization upon itself, till the scorpion 
 stings itself to death. 
 
 655. The power by which Christendom stings to death the 
 nations of the world, is dependent wholly on closed respira- 
 tion. Its nations are organized in potencies wholly in and of 
 the closed state of man. By closed respiration its diplomats 
 .deceive and intrigue, its mechanics construct, its adventurers 
 carry on commerce, its artists produce works of luxury and 
 display, vailing corruption with magnificence, its armies and 
 navies are enlisted, and organized, and made humanly omni- 
 potent against the eastern races. With closed respiration they 
 are the positive power magnetically, and hence the subduing 
 power. The Asiatic is clasped in the embrace of the European, 
 as the child is enveloped in the folds of the boa constrictor. 
 So abandoned internally are the ruling elements of the West, 
 that the process by which a new diplomacy, with armies and 
 navies for its service, can be ultimated, must be very slow. The 
 Ithuriel spear of a Divine respu^ation penetrates the breast of 
 Christendom, and upstarts the couchant devil. The demons 
 in the collective Hfe of Christendom can only be cast out 
 through rending tlu-oes. 
 
 656. With open respiration the balance of power must bo 
 with the Orient in due time, because the nations of the East 
 
3G2 AECAJ^A OF CnBISTIANITT. [chap. in. 
 
 are moro easy to bo dispossessed. Localities are to be found 
 Avliere seven-eighths of the inliabitants of towns and rural dis- 
 tricts, would rapidly flow, through open respiration, both into 
 the service of Christ and the fraternity of virtue, and embody 
 the divine purity and be embodied in its solidarity. But it is 
 hard to find a European hamlet where one in ten, or one in fifty, 
 is organically suited for change into these better conditions. 
 Again, Christendom, as has been shown, is extended in one 
 continuous degree of self-service; that is, of demonolatry; 
 and by the insatiable lusts of this demonolatry is extending its 
 continuous degree to fill the world. So long as its diploma- 
 tists do not intrigue against each other, they possess a 
 collective power in the sphere; they are Christendom's lying 
 lips. So long as commercial and other adventurers act in that 
 degree of concert which selfish competition allows, they are 
 Christendom's devouring jaws ; so long as its armies act in 
 harmony of purpose, they are Christendom's murderous hand. 
 All this power is in the closed breath, and is dependent upon it. 
 
 657. If the diplomat comes into open respiration, to nego- 
 tiate treaties in behalf of Christendom will cause him to drop 
 dead. If adventurous commercial men become converted and 
 openly respire, — though this is almost impossible, — all their 
 sagacity and experience will henceforth be devoted to the ar- 
 restation of those robberies by which- Europe and America 
 defraud the East. The nests of plausible schemers at Hong 
 Kong and Yokohama will cease to remit golden spoil to their 
 confederates in New York and London. When the man at 
 arms, in the service of these great freebooting races, is thus 
 visited of God, he will no longer serve under the tricolour, the 
 stars and stripes, or the bloody cross, exce^Dt as those banners 
 are unfurled above the hosts of the Divine Humanity. 
 
 658. All open respiring soldieries are one soldiery, as all 
 open respiring peoples are one solidarity. Hence should even 
 a weak and obscure people, in the combined breath of Sardis 
 and Thyatira, accept the Lord for its God, and His will for its 
 collective statutes, whoever is most skilled of God's servants 
 in the practices and in the wiles of courts, whoever is most 
 versed in the intricacies and subtleties of commerce, who- 
 ever is most proficient in the profession of arms, and in 
 
.SEC. 657—659.] THi: APOCALYPSE. 363 
 
 tlie use of warlike implements^ moved as one man tlirougli 
 open respiration^ and filled with the fiery embattled ardours of 
 that respiration, its strengths, its wisdom, and its loves, will 
 there be found, breathing in unison, and clasping in solidarity 
 each new formed brotherhood, each infantile society. Thus 
 the very elect of earth* s real chivalry and nobility, the very 
 flower of all its courtesy, and sweetness of its purity, and ripe- 
 ness of its regeneration, will be concentred in time of need. 
 Then it shall be said concerning the aggressive and belligerent 
 races of Christendom, " Why do the Heathen rage, and the 
 people imagine a vain thing ? the kings of the earth set them- 
 selves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord 
 and against His anointed, saying. Let us break their bands 
 asunder, and cast away their cords from us." Then, too, it 
 shall be said, " He that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh : 
 the Lord shall have them in derision." The dynamic forces of 
 Christianity will thus be arrayed through open respiration 
 against the great national apostasies ; not, however, as armies 
 of invasion, but armies of defence. 
 
 659. It is written, " My Spirit shall not always strive with 
 man." There comes a period when the individual, having 
 confirmed himself in evil, and being utterly insensible to the 
 Divine appeal, is striven with by Him no more. While this con- 
 tinues, men, though deep sunken in ungodliness, are encom- 
 passed with such surroundings, as, if they were visible, would 
 overwhelm the mind with their terrible magnificence. There 
 are emanations and radiations of the Holy Spirit that play 
 about the frame with a wind, and encompass it with a mantle. 
 There are moments when the frame is clasped from without 
 with moving radiances of God, high and solemn visitations. 
 Now what is tru§ of the individual is true of Christendom as a 
 unity. God has one way of visiting Islamism ; another way 
 with idolaters. His mode of appearing in the midst of the 
 Christian nations is wholly difierent from these. Through the 
 sphere which is diffused out of the Written Word, there spreads 
 a sea of Divine aromal light, a vitahsing substance. Chris- 
 tendom is literally in the midst of continuous series of angelic 
 societies, because, through the written Word, the life of Heaven 
 is diffused. But this life, which has been so long the property 
 
3G1 ABCANA OF CRRISTIANITY. [ciiap. hi. 
 
 of Cliristiau uations, is unappropriated by tlicm. They receive 
 it as a means for intellectual stimulation ; it leads, as it is 
 diffused tlirougli the spaces of the intellect,, to vast material 
 discoveries ; it thus lifts them to a dominant eminence above 
 all other peoples, enthrones them in the centres of the powers, 
 and enables them to pursue their career of conquest and 
 aggrandisement. 
 
 GGO. But the Spirit does not always strive with nations. 
 After a season they are given over to destruction ; as was the 
 case with Palestine. Truth, received in the intellect alone, 
 produces a secret insanity in the will, that manifests itself by 
 an infernal pride, which in a nation, as it rises up and becomes 
 insufferable and unbearable, is the sure precursor of its over- 
 throw. "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty 
 spirit before a fall." The will is in the form of its concuiTcnt 
 affections ; so the will of a nation is in the form of its concur- 
 rent affections. As is the form of the national will, in conjunc- 
 tion with the national understanding, so will be the forms of its 
 ruling powers. For motives, instincts, desires, appetites, and 
 determinations in the organism of the individual, there are 
 classes and congeries of men in whom these things are em- 
 bodied and enforced upon a universal scale. 
 
 661. The individual, through the form of the corrupt will, 
 generates perpetual miasms in the body; but the national 
 will, when corrupt, saturates the invisible spaces of earth, air, 
 and waters with deadly plagues. It is this terrible law, grow- 
 ing inevitably out of the fixed constitution of the universe, 
 which gives to evil in its earlier national stages such terrific 
 powers, but which nevertheless fixes the ruin of all such 
 peoples as, being unrepentant, suffer themselves to act as 
 asrents of crime. The forms of the will, which at first are 
 plastic, tend to rigidity, and when this becomes constitutional, 
 whether with the man or the nation, fiendhood is the next 
 result. But the collective will, in its national form, detaches 
 elements, which, instead of moving as clouds in the electrical 
 expanse, put on at last the specific images of the affections, of 
 which they were the outbirths. Thus, at the present time, 
 Christendom has detached from itself, and organized in the 
 pure nature, an infernal creation in first principles. 
 
SEC. 660—664.] TSE APOOALYPSK 3G5 
 
 662. "WTiatever is true of tlie processes whereby nations, 
 tlii'ougli regeneration^ become angelhoods^ inversely describes 
 the processes whereby nations through depravities become 
 fiendhoods. Now, with the Jews, Christianity was a separat- 
 ing element, which abstracted from Jerusalem those accessible 
 to Divine influences, and left the rest to their own devices. 
 The Spirit of God, though infinite and though infinitely present 
 everywhere, is latently present or actively so, with innumerable 
 degrees of latency and activity. There is a more or less of 
 the Divine activity with every man, with every nation, and 
 this varies with every human state. For generations the Spirit 
 of God in Christendom has been less latent than elsewhere 
 throughout the world; there has been a striving with the 
 public mind and heart; but though the religious sentiment' 
 has been intensified, it has also been corrupted. Gradually the 
 balance is lost ; the masses shde out of belief into indifference ; 
 men revive ceremonies and seek to call up the ghost of the 
 dead past from its grave ; they garnish thus the sepulchres of 
 the prophets, from a dumb instinct, that, when the forms of 
 the faith have perished, the Spirit will not long remain. 
 
 663. The prevalence of the true religious sentiment among 
 closed nations is determined by the prevalence of charity, 
 and by a general and concurrent honesty. When public con- 
 fidence is lost between man and man, and a spirit of dishonesty 
 prevails in trade, the religion of that people is in its last decay. 
 Nevertheless, as there are remains of good, forms of living 
 virtue, organically stored up in the bodies and spirits of men 
 who are becoming fiend-like, so there are small classes of men 
 and women, where a country or a family of nations like 
 Christendom, is becoming past contrition, and therefore past 
 hope. To preserve the " things that remain, that are ready to 
 die,'' signifies again, a conservative power, in the last stages 
 of the moral life of Christendom, put forth through open 
 respiration by Church Sardis in conjunction with Thyatira, for 
 the purpose of preserving these feeble remnants, these last 
 vestiges of Christ, which survive in the midst of the decay. 
 
 6Q4:. To " strengthen the things which remain, that are 
 ready to die,'' signifies again, that the church in Sardis, in 
 conjunction with the others, preserves the last vestiges of what- 
 
3G6 ABC AN A OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. m. 
 
 ever survives throughout Christendom of good co-operative 
 works, whether of au industrial or a religious character. AVith 
 the extension of the area of rational freedom and the quicken- 
 ing of man's intelligence by means of liberty, individuals 
 and classes have struggled for the inauguration of certain 
 fragments of divine principles into the affairs of life. The 
 good and evil are strangely intermingled. There are merchants 
 who, by a certain preliminary quickening, are morally at war 
 with the competitive principles of trade. Like the Israelites 
 in bondage to the Egyptians, they nourish in their hearts 
 hatred of the system which uses them for its services. Capi- 
 taHsts, members of the plutocratic hierarchy, loathe the labour 
 system which knits up all classes into composite slavery. 
 Professional men despise the conditions under which clergy- 
 men minister to souls, and physicians to bodies, and barristers 
 and judges plead in the courts, and sit in judgment on cases 
 of life and property. 
 
 665. There are members of all aristocracies who hunger and 
 thirst for social enfranchisement, and artisans of every species 
 who yearn for a divine system of labour and of recompense. 
 Here and there is a statesman or diplomatist who pants for the 
 inauguration of governmental harmonies. There are inventors 
 who long that their discoveries shall inure to the benefit of 
 the overtasked masses. Soldiers may' be found, who would 
 gladly be enrolled in the ranks of a chivalry of righteousness. 
 So in the opposite sex, the heart of womanhood, so far as 
 regenerate, is almost bursting with an influx which, under the 
 fixed inversive institutions, it is unable to embody. There are 
 germs of reforms, fragments of discoveries, of which no man 
 knows their number, value and potency, everywhere latent, 
 everywhere struggling, everywhere suppressed. There is an 
 element of capital, that longs to pour itself at the Lord's feet ; 
 of invention that craves to consecrate to Him its discoveries ; 
 of philanthropy that would devote itself to the permanent 
 estabhshment of His dominion. These are Hke the remaining 
 virtues that feebly contest the ground in personalities that 
 are rapidly becoming confirmed in evil. In due time, the new 
 types of humanity, through the intellectual natural principle, 
 find access to struggling men and women, and to the valuable 
 
SEC. 665—667.] TRE APOCALTPBE. 3G7 
 
 tilings of liuman use of wliicli tliey are tlie exponents and tlie 
 executives. So by degrees the Divine Providence, winnowing 
 tlie Christian world by its breath, separates the wheat from 
 the chaff. The wheat for the garner, the chaff for the quench- 
 less fire. 
 
 QQQ. Here the man of this type must move with guarded 
 discretion. "Be watchful," signifies, again, that the man of 
 the church in Sardis is especially liable to an arrest and sus- 
 pension of the new respiration, as it first descends. "And 
 strengthen the things which remain," signifies, that nerving 
 himself up in the divine might, he must force the resistant 
 breaths to recede which rise up to invade the natural lungs, 
 and through which the Hells endeavour to produce suffocation, 
 driving them down to their own place. He will be perfectly 
 conscious, as the state goes on, of an attempt to induce 
 respiration in him from Pandemonium. It will seem sensa- 
 tionally as if winds were striving to enter him through the 
 lower abdomen, and seeking to inflate a vast unknown visceral 
 system co-extensive with all the lower bowels ; it will dart 
 as fire from Hell into the organs of the generative system, 
 wherein scortations will endeavour to assert their sway. The 
 normal action of the liver, spleen, alimentary canal, and also 
 of the greater and lesser stomach will be exposed to interrup- 
 tions of a serious character. 
 
 667. It is in the organs that the battle will be fought, organ 
 by organ. Within the aromal structure of the diaphragm a 
 series of respiratory tubes exist, unknown to the external 
 scientist, through which, as through ducts, aerial currents 
 descend into the whole body and aerate the cells. If these 
 ducts fall into the control of the demons through the breaths 
 which they project from below, death ensues, or idiocy. 
 Death when the respiration. is opened to the Spiritual Heaven, 
 idiocy when it is opened to the Celestial Heaven. These 
 ducts are guarded through continual air currents playing in 
 and about them from the Ultimate Heaven. They, are seven 
 in number, and the softest sensational harmonies exquisitely 
 permeate them, when regeneration is complete. There are 
 crises during which deep inbred evils are stirred by the influent 
 divine breath, and when they rage like hungry beasts to tear 
 
368 ABCANA OF CnBISTIANITY. [chap. tit. 
 
 to pieces the now mnii ; tlioy cannot pass the guarded region 
 of tlie ducts, unless tlio respiring person is gviilty of dis- 
 obedience. "And strengthen the things which remain/' 
 signifies, the acts of incessant obedience, by means of which 
 these ducts are kept open for the Divine operation. They are 
 said to " remain/' because they exist in the aromal organiza- 
 tion of the body from the ancient Eden state. The disease 
 called diaphragmatis, is often an attempt of demons to control 
 them. There is in fact an electro-nervous diaphragm in which 
 these exist. " That are ready to die/' signifies, their perish- 
 able condition. 
 
 668. " For I have not found thy works perfect before God." 
 The new age is established first among the sufi'ering, the weak, 
 the downtrodden members of the human family ; to this the 
 exceptions are very few. It requires a discipline that racks 
 the heart and that destroys the inherited evil confidence of 
 man in himself, the experience that convicts the soul of sin 
 in its inmost parts, that reveals the whole world to be guilty 
 before God, the humbling knowledge that we have all gone 
 astray, and that there is none that doeth good, no not one. 
 It requires, further, the knowledge that existing religious insti- 
 tutions are unable to assist the spirit in its extreme state ; 
 that unless the Lord helps, man must perish. The gay illusions 
 of the senses, the tapestry-tissues that hide the assassins who 
 infest society, must be seen through. Moreover, a state must 
 exist within the will, of willingness to become Christ's servant 
 in all things, to have Him for sole ruler, sole actuator. The 
 feeling of the soul is. Give me Christ or I die. The hidden 
 will pants for its life till He come. 
 
 669. The Lord examines a man at this period through ex- 
 amining angels, and he is stripped bare of disguises in the 
 light of Heaven. The examining chamber is called " secrecy," 
 because the inspection is conducted solely by the appointed 
 ones, and no results are permitted to transpire when it is over. 
 The seven ducts spoken of before are opened, and the work 
 which prepares the novice for the new condition is directly 
 begun. As soon as it is announced that the Lord directs that 
 lie shall be carried on, so far as obedient, into the new king- 
 dom, the Angelic Society to which he is most, by genius, in a 
 
SEC. 668—670.] TRE AFOCALYPSE. 369 
 
 state to be adjoined, becomes aware tbat his name is enrolled 
 as a noviciate spirit from tlie eartli, and a deep internal state 
 is induced, during wliicb, while all things in the body rest, and 
 the remaining evils in the will and the false persuasions in the 
 mind are kept quiescent, he is, as to his spirit, permitted to 
 go up and find his welcome therein. " I have not found thy 
 works perfect,^^ signifies, that none to whom this welcome is 
 extended are faultless ; they are received as novices, only to 
 become permanently joined through the perpetual advancement 
 of respiration day by day ; this advance of respiration being 
 dependent upon obedience to the Holy Ghost. "Works 
 perfect before God,^^ signifies, the divine introspection which 
 reveals to the examining angels the absolute condition of the 
 interiors, both of the will and understanding, prior to the period 
 when this intromission and adjunction to the Heavenly Society 
 takes place. 
 
 Chap. III. 3. — "Eemembee therepoee how thou hast received 
 
 AND HEARD, AND HOLD EAST, AND REPENT. If THEREFORE 
 THOU SHALT NOT WATCH, I WILL COME ON THEE AS A THIEF, 
 AND THOU SHALT NOT ENOW WHAT HOUR i WILL COME UPON 
 THEE.-"^ 
 
 670. It is not to be supposed that respiration, in its media- 
 tory states, betokens that the man^s evils are put down or that 
 his life-cross may be laid aside ; far from it. It announces 
 these distinguishing blessings : First, that he has been examined 
 as before, and approved as a novitiate spirit for the new life. 
 Second, that the Heavenly Society, of which he may finally be- 
 come, in bliss and victory, a member, enrolls him for a can- 
 didate for its endless fellowship, and spiritually embosoms him 
 in its sanctities. Third, it indicates, conditionally, forgiveness 
 of all past offences, and preparations, if he is faithful, for their 
 total eradication. Fourth, evidence is afforded by it that the 
 loving Lord has vouchsafed in the most glorious open manner, 
 to make preparations for triumphal advent into his being. 
 Fifth, that it is an assured token that if he is faithful he shall 
 have ability to persevere to the end. When these things are 
 considered, light indeed becomes the burden, which for a space 
 might otherwise appear grievous to be borne. Exceptions hero 
 
 A A 
 
370 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [ciiap. hi. 
 
 must be noted, referring to persons who are opened in prepara- 
 tion for judgment, and also for judgment. 
 
 671. The temptations are, first, to renounce the faith that has 
 been received, that internal respiration may occur. This marks 
 the approach of the most direful enemies ; terrible by number, 
 subtlety, persistence, and the most cruel hate. To be overcome 
 by the man, whom persistently from birth he has followed, 
 tempted, and flattered to make a fiend-slave, is the demon^s 
 most extreme fear ; it involves, after a time, the arrest of the 
 evil spii'it, his binding, the destruction of his vain-glorious 
 schemes, the entire suppression of the ability to destroy. When 
 the danger is seen to be at the doors — for the lungs are the 
 doors where through God's holy breath comes forth — the demon 
 retires for a time into the deepest Hell to which he has access, 
 and impregnates himself therein with the germs of actual living* 
 creatures that sting and kill. These he feeds within himself 
 until they burst from their cockatrice shells, and with infernal 
 forms crave to find a nerve essence in a human body where they 
 can ultimate themselves, and mount up in madness to a new 
 spirit and ruin it utterly. The infestations which then ensue 
 are primary and secondary : primary, when the demon finds 
 immediate access, and injects into the nerve essence some 
 creature of this fatal brood; secondary, when there is no 
 direct access, through the nerve organization of parties in- 
 termediate. The danger is to be guarded against by never 
 visiting any place of business or amusement, by engaging in 
 no pursuits, by cultivating no friendships without the inward 
 guidance, earnestly sought in obedience to light already given. 
 
 672. '^ Repent'^ in this verse signifies, instantaneous turning 
 to the Lord, whenever there is consciousness, however slight, 
 that the afiections have lapsed away. '' Hold fast,'' signifies, 
 that through prayer, by means of which a stream of divine in- • 
 flux penetrates the lungs, livirsg rapjjort must be maintained 
 with the Lord. " Remember therefore how thou hast received 
 and heard," signifies, that the man when tempted must, 
 throvigh prayer, keep that upper degree in memory open, in 
 which the truths from the Word concerning internal respira- 
 tion and the new kingdom, are inscribed in divine light. The 
 rest of the verse contains most fearful declarations relating to 
 
SEC. 671—673.] THE APOCALYPSE. 37I 
 
 swift destructions to overtake tlie man who trifles with the be- 
 ginning of the new breath and the monitions of the Holy- 
 Spirit. When once the Lord has pronounced the trifler un- 
 meet to enter into the golden-gated city of the perfect opened 
 respiration and the sublime newness of the re-established man, 
 he is first happy; a weight seems to be taken from him, 
 as if an enemy who persecuted him were dead. The man be- 
 gins to laugh within himself at the superstitious terrors to 
 which he had weakly given way. The world looks as never 
 before, pleasure never so sweet, wealth never so alluring, 
 passion never so^ intoxicating, fame never so glorious : He 
 drops dead, when the fantasies have reached their culmination, 
 without a prayer, without a passing moment for repentance. 
 The breath of Hell mounts up producing instantaneous suffo- 
 cation. The gay smile is on the lip, and the cheek flushed in 
 one moment with brilliant hues ; a gasp, a groan, he falls ! Some 
 will read this and turn from it to the idle world ; not theirs the 
 taste to indulge in disturbing apprehensions ; nevertheless for 
 them the shadow waits. "If therefore thou shalt not watch,^' 
 signifies, that the man who is not careful to maintain his state, 
 through holy obedience, incm-s the Divine displeasure. "I 
 will come on thee as a thief,^^ signifies, that the trifler will be 
 overtaken in a state of imagined rest. " And thou shalt not 
 know what hour I will come upon thee," signifies, that after 
 being found unfaithful and adjudged, the Lord will execute that 
 judgment, when he despises and secretly denies the Master, in 
 the unguarded breath of aspiration after the things he covets. 
 
 Chap. hi. 4. — " Thou hast a few names even in Saedis which 
 have not defiled their garments ; and they shall walk 
 with me in white : foe they are worthy.''^ 
 673. Ancient Greece presents the most conspicuous illustra- 
 tion of a race in whom the genius typified by[the Church in Sar- 
 dis, though inverted to a great degree, displayed its attributes. 
 Paris affords at the present time an exemplification of the gay, 
 luxurious tendencies of the same mental species ; while a cor- 
 responding type of mankind seeks to evolve a light and airy- 
 gaiety in America, upon the original basis of the Anglo-Saxon 
 race. Of all varieties this is most godless, in its palmy hour, 
 
 A A 2 
 
372 ABOANA OF CHBISTIANITY. [cnip. iir. 
 
 most given to surface display, and prone to oscillate between 
 demon worship and refined materialism. It will in its extreme 
 rage against the new kingdom of our Redeemer, first ridicule 
 in light, polished irony, then satirise, but finally murder. It 
 does not in its heart believe in the just man. The hollow pulpit 
 charlatanism that seeks to clothe a luxurious practice with 
 the tinsel and glitter of ceremonial rites, denotes an adjoined 
 ministry of infernal men in the same condition. 
 
 674. Jesuits are principally of this type. The successful 
 men of the diplomatic world, who deal with human rights as 
 the sharper with the packed handful of playing cards, however 
 courtly or ostentatious in sect service, chiefly belong to the same 
 body. The brilliant, superficial poets, who write merely from 
 externals to internals ; the men of letters, who review for hire, 
 and prostitute the conscience from day to day as public opinion 
 dictates ; the vast philosophical class, who reason with them- 
 selves that expediency is the chief virtue of mankind ; the illu- 
 sive scientists, whose great aim is to make it appear that matter 
 is the father of man, and the mental system indebted to the 
 mundane elements for its every inspiration; the nineteenth 
 century men preeminently, who boast themselves the giants 
 and the crowning race, and in their hearts deny that they have 
 need to be regenerate, these, and their number is legion, who 
 walk on the prostrate bodies of the lowly, are principally in- 
 heritors of the same organic quality. '' Thou hast a few names, 
 even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments,^^ signi- 
 fies, the presence of a divine sphere, which surrounds and 
 clothes the inmost degree of the understanding in which pre- 
 cious things of faith are preserved. " And they shall walk with 
 me in white,^^ signifies, a progress through open respiration 
 into celestial surroundings of joy, truth, peace, and power. 
 " For they are worthy,^' signifies, their inmost desire promptly 
 and effectually to execute God^s will. 
 
 Chap. in. 5. — '^He that ovekcometh, the same shall be 
 
 CLOTHED IN WHITE RAIMENT; AND I WILL NOT BLOT OUT HIS 
 NAME OUT OP THE BOOK OP LIPE, BUT I WILL CONPESS HIS 
 NAME BEFOKE MY FaTHEE, AND BEPOEE HiS ANGELS.-" 
 
 675. The intellectual-natural man^ typified by the church in 
 
.SEC. 674—677.] THE APOCALYPSE. 373 
 
 Sardis, will establisli social harmony tlirongli initiament into 
 full open respiration as follows : Cburcli Sardis moves to the 
 initiament of harmony embosomed in Church Thyatira, the 
 intellectual-natural being thus pervaded by the celestial- 
 natural. It is more easy for the two churches to begin as 
 one_, than for either to originate separately. In a sense, 
 Thyatira is the father and mother of Sardis, but afterward its 
 brother and sister. The reason why Thyatira precedes is 
 because order is initiated through the celestial-natural sense 
 of the Word, and open respiration begins with that type of 
 man. It is impossible for a single series of industries or of 
 harmonies in Thyatira to be unfolded without corresponding 
 series in Sardis pressing toward them in unison. It is equally 
 impossible for celestial-natural men to be led into our Lord^s 
 new harmony, without intellectual-natui^al men of similar 
 quaHties being extricated from the world's corruptions, and in 
 the one great process brought forth to light and hfe. What 
 therefore follows concerning the initiation of harmony applies 
 to Sardis as in this conjunction. 
 
 676. When open respiration first begins, the whole earth 
 being closed, there must be some one man by whom it may be 
 organically led into the world. Open respiration may begin in 
 an individual who through it may be illumined to a knowledge 
 of the internals of the Word. The object for which the open- 
 ing takes place may be the setting forth of certain divine 
 knowledges. It may never pass the bounds of the one person- 
 ahty, and may die with him ; or if it is the Lord's will that the 
 goings forth of the Spirit shall be both verbal and vital, then 
 one may be chosen who shall be introduced from stage to 
 stage both into knowledges and potencies. In this ease the 
 respiration does not die with his decease, but goes on from 
 conquering to conquer through the generations. It is obvious 
 that the unfoldings from the Word in our own time have been 
 both verbal and vital, because open respiration follows in the 
 train of the advancing principles. 
 
 677. Our Lord, during His incarnation, was but a passing 
 guest ; He found no place wherein to lay His head ; He was 
 landless, and consequently homeless. In His second advent 
 He first of all makes new soils, atmospheres, waters, and 
 
374 ARCANA OF CIIBISTXANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 breatliSj in those wliom He begins to establish in the new 
 creation; this is the first stage. He then conducts the in- 
 dividual or family in whom He is maliifested to some secluded 
 locality, where in the privacy of domestic life there may be 
 formed an internal aromal sphere, resting on demagnetized 
 soil, and purifying the surrounding air; this is the second 
 stage. He then brings the pivotal man of the family to the 
 first great crisis, mai^kcd by that stupendous change, the 
 death of the old and the iuitiament of the new natural soul. 
 In order that this may be effected, a certain number have to 
 be brought into the new respiration ; otherwise death would 
 ensue in the crisis, because it is only through a volume of 
 concurrent breaths that the demagnetized natural organism 
 can be held in a state of isolation from the universal inversive 
 magnetic currents of the depraved race, through which the 
 Hells endeavour to destroy. 
 
 678. If this crisis is safely passed, the first principles of 
 solidarity begin to operate. The open respiring man, through 
 his new natural soul, rapidly becomes involved in new aromal 
 spheres. It is to him a change greater than death, and brings 
 with it experiences that are incommunicable ; the internal 
 nerve essence becomes a fiery sea, a fulness of divine -natural 
 life. The fays of earth^s upper surfaces, the dwellers in the 
 realms of fire and stone, organ by organ, in the universal 
 concurrence of their fay breaths, hold up the new natural 
 soul. In due time every diurnal change is marked by the 
 outgoing of a specific infolded breath, elaborated and detached 
 by the Lord through all this organic action. Individuals are 
 brought thereby into preparedness for respiration, and thence 
 into the openness of respiration. Then begins the initiament 
 of social harmony, there being an open respiring family in its 
 prepared and guarded place. 
 
 679. Then begin great educative processes. Before specific 
 industries can be inaugurated, a specific Divine industrial 
 descent occurs. The respiration is brought into continuousncss 
 with the respirations of angels who work according to the 
 correspondences of such industries, in Heaven and in the 
 archetypal world. Then begin combats against the infernals 
 who specifically control the inversive forms of those industries. 
 
SEC. 678—681.] TRi: APOCALYPSK 375 
 
 Tlie success of tlie ultimative results is wliolly dependent upon 
 tliese great divine laws^ these descents, tliese battles. Tlie 
 sjnnbols of the process are the symbols of regeneration. In 
 the midst of such mysteiy the new order of the world is born. 
 There are visitations, searchings, wastings, watchings, tempta- 
 tions, combats, strengthenings, upliftings innumerable, to 
 recount which would fill volumes. There are descents and 
 outgoings of divine respirations, manifold in quality and 
 potency, against which rise up the infernal respirations from 
 Hellj and so there is, as it were, a martyr preparation, a 
 martyr struggle, and at last, through the indwelling of the 
 Divine Martyr, a martyr victory. From this time a fourth 
 state is begun. 
 
 680. Heretofore this work has been wrought in seclusion, 
 and those passing through its ordeals have been weak through 
 wastings and watchings, and manifold struggle ; but now, heart 
 begins to be adjoined to heart in a Uving way ; a divine human 
 life and light and power reveal themselves in the affections ; the 
 beams of this love are the radiances of the Spiritual Sun. A 
 gradual condition of positiveness to the world is let down from 
 Heaven. It is now possible to be in the world without being 
 of the world, to grapple with the great social and industrial 
 problems, to lead forth industries, and thus to initiate har- 
 monies. Gradually one domain is brought into order. Con- 
 forming to public institutions, never causing needless offence, 
 abstaining from proselytism, never obtruding opinions ; but 
 rather commending themselves as chaste, industrious, quiet, 
 peaceful, law-abiding men, insphered in a Divine love, which 
 clothes them as with a palpable atmosphere, and beams 
 through them as a perpetual witness, — tliose who initiate this 
 holy work wiU proceed, at first slowly and softly, but with 
 a divine safety in all their ways. From the love and service 
 of the one God proceeds one respiration, one chastity, one 
 affection, one bearing of each other's burdens, one universal 
 intercommunion of sympathies, one concurrence of intelligence, 
 one fixedness in the form of unity, and one resistless power to 
 work His holy will. 
 
 681. To those who know nothing of such things, this will 
 seem as unreal as the most baseless of the poet's gorgeous 
 
376 ABCANA OF CIIBISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 imaginations. To those who have participated, on the con- 
 trary, and seen the shckinah of this tabernacle, it will be felt 
 that nothing has adequately been told. These things can never 
 be understood through verbal delineation, however ample and 
 exquisite. It is written " Taste and see that the Lord is good, 
 blessed is the man that trusteth in Him." Here is a sorrow 
 that is richer than the world^s joy, and a burden that is easier 
 than its rest. Here is not happiness, as the world knows happi- 
 ness, but blessedness, as the heart uplifted into Christ knows 
 blessedness. Here is miracle instituted into natural law, and 
 natural law uplifted into miracle. In the endless ascension of 
 their states and days, '' there shall be no night there ; and they 
 need no candle, neither light of the sun ; for the Lord God 
 giveth them light ; and they shall reign for ever and ever." 
 
 682. At this point all the children of Thyatira and Sardis, 
 born into this new life, would concurrently desire to add, that 
 it is not by their own virtue, or wisdom, or might, that they 
 have been able to enter into such things ; they have simply 
 been invited to the banqueting hall, and led up into the 
 chambers of the Presence, that in turn they might testify of 
 the Lord's mercy, and bear witness to the sureness and abun- 
 dance of His love. 
 
 683. In these new centres of the Avorld's order none can 
 dwell except by a special call, a special love, a special conspi- 
 ration, and a concurrent respiration of all in each, and each in 
 all, and so of all in Ckrist, and of Christ in all. As respiration 
 becomes established, it is continually more and more secret. 
 The angels walk among men, they move in cohorts and batta- 
 lions ; they converse, and chant loud and lofty melodies ; the 
 lustre of their garments is as the glory of the sun, and the 
 sweetness which exhales from them as the most intense and 
 fragrant of spices, yet men do not see the angels. The whole 
 world, with all of its combined force of mentality, cannot bring 
 to knowledge one truth from their Word, till the Lord permits 
 it to be known. This is the peculiarity of men who enter into 
 the new purity and solidarity, they breathe as none others, but 
 the natural man cannot detect the difference of the breath 
 when it becomes perfect. Theirs is angehc power, that is, 
 veiling power ; they move upon God's errands as the angels 
 
SEC. 682—685.] THE APOCALYPSE. 377 
 
 move ; tlie world is not able to detect the messengers ; they 
 liave the power from the Lord of working in space as if out of 
 space. The men of these Churches now labour in the world on 
 three continents^ yet none can say, " That is one/' or, " That is 
 one/' except in special cases. Here is the fountain springing 
 in the desert, that reveals its presence by ever-living virtue. 
 
 684. One of this order, writing, not of himself, but of the 
 Brotherhood and Sisterhood in the New Life, is forced to say, 
 that the fruits of the Spirit which they bear, are as the fruits of 
 the trees in the garden of God. There is with each a sense of 
 profound unworthiness and humiliation ; each does esteem the 
 other as better than himself; and each, so far as quickened, 
 loves the other better than himself. Of the unsearchable riches 
 of the love of Christ, thus shed abroad, language is unworthy 
 to utter. 
 
 QQo^. Here is the embryo of the new Christian world. Above 
 it rests a pillar of light, nor will it move so long as the chief 
 centre of life and inspiration for the planet is there maintained. 
 None will join themselves thereto, nor can they, except through 
 harmony of breaths. These grave and holy men, advancing 
 from condition to condition, will burn with divine fire, and so 
 copiously -pulse forth the quahties of the Heavens, that, more 
 than patriarchs, prophets, or apostles, it shall be said of them, 
 that they possess that futm'e of which patriarchs, prophets, and 
 apostles caught but a distant fore-gleam. In their midst it 
 will be demonstrated that Christ has come. " He that over- 
 cometh,'' signifies, open breathing men made use of in the 
 evolution of New Society. "The same shall be clothed in 
 white raiment," signifies, a final state on earth which they 
 shall attain, conspicuously illustrating therein the sweetness, 
 humility, patience, wisdom, and implicit obedience of the 
 angels. " And I will not blot out his name out of the book of 
 life,'' signifies, that such having been first enrolled as proba- 
 tionary novices in their respective heavenly societies, find their 
 names permanently inscribed in the records, to be received as 
 angels. "But I will confess his name before my Father," sig- 
 nifies, the Lord Christ dwelling -svithin, in His divine humanity. 
 " And before the angels," signifies, that they are visible finally 
 as angols to angels, and the Lord God gloriously shines forth 
 through them. 
 
37S ABCANA OF CHBISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 SIXTEENTH ILLUSTEATIOK 
 
 Interview with demons, — dcniers of open respiration. — Attaclcs from them. 
 Their respiration suppressed by the Divine power. — A confession of one 
 of their number. 
 
 686. I was attacked at tliis place, during my work of dic- 
 tation, and beheld six demons falsely personating Kosciusko, 
 William Penn, Martin Luther, Sidney, Wilberforce, and "Wash- 
 ington. They cried aloud, " Wliat folly is that ! We respire 
 from body to soul, as do all men ; how then can a man respire 
 from spirit to body ? " Since permission was given me to 
 reply from our Lord, I answered, " He that respires from soul 
 to body is in the body of the Heavens, the Lord being in 
 him.'' They shouted, as one, in reply, " God's elements are 
 nature ; the fii'st form of resjjiration is that of the plant, the 
 next the animal, the next the man, and the next the spirit. 
 We breathe by sucking up such flavours as delight the nostrils, 
 and feed thi'ough them on what is congenial." At this they 
 began to mock me, and one cried, " Ha, ha ! let him smell us ; 
 that will change his thoughts." I answered, " Our states are 
 opposite. Could I absorb willingly the breaths in which you 
 live, I should, indeed, as you say, think as you think. But I 
 cannot think as you think, unless I cease to breathe as I 
 now breathe. Were your inclinations- suppressed for a while, 
 since they cannot be changed, but only suppressed, a different 
 breathing would come upon you, and you would confirm all 
 that you now deny." 
 
 687. One of them had approached me, and was endeavour- 
 ing to induce his own mental state. An angel appeared at my 
 right at this moment, holding in his right hand a brilliant 
 star. The demons denied that it was possible for one of them 
 to breathe as I had said ; instantly, however, the foremost one 
 fell on his face, and became pallid and like a stone. They 
 looked at him in wonder, for he breathed not in this condition. 
 Slowly rising, he stood upon his feet, facing them ; a sharp 
 dart flashed through his open mouth and struck the others, 
 driving them to a considerable distance, but still within ear- , 
 shot. I now said to the one on whom this condition was in- 
 duced, " Who are you ?" He responded, ^^ A man-devil of the 
 
SEC. 686—689.] THE APOCALYPSE. 379 
 
 second Hell/^ I continued, '^AVhence come you now V Then. 
 followed the answer : — "From infesting the ghost in the World 
 of Spirits, who was called ' Lord Macaulaj/ So lono- as he 
 keeps in appearances, I play the vampire, and smell out the 
 exudations of his mind, greedily absorbing them as food. That 
 respiration may be from internals to externals, I admit, be- 
 cause I now breathe by means of a fire which enters where my 
 lungs join the understanding and the will.'^ 
 
 688. The angel now said, " This is enough for the illustra- 
 tion.^^ The breath was withdrawn, and the demon fell senseless, 
 but afterward arose, made a painful effort, gasped, and spoke, 
 crying, " Lord Macaulay is an angel. I will summon him, and 
 he will testify that there is no such thing as respiration from 
 the soul to the body, known where he is." I answered, " You 
 have just stated to me that you were a man-devil, and had 
 come from preying upon the spirit of whom you speak, as does 
 a vampire, and nourishing yourself upon his mental exudations ; 
 asserting also that a flame of fire entered you, and caused re- 
 spiration from internals to externals.-'^ His five associates then 
 drew near and began abusing him as having gone mad ; but 
 he cried, " We all know we are devils: I cannot resist an ano-el 
 of God. Did the bolt strike you, each would make such con- 
 fessions as I did." They passed away. 
 
 Chap. hi. 6. — '' He that hath an eae, let him hear what the 
 Spieit saith unto the chukches." 
 
 689. The understanding of the new man of the Church in Sar- 
 dis, is especially of a quality to comprehend the reconstruction 
 of society in the new harmony. " He that hath an ear," signi- 
 fies, the new man of this type. " Let him hear," sio-nifies, an 
 open declaration within him from our Lord, when He comes to 
 reconstruct the social edifice. " What the Spirit saith," sio-ni- 
 fies, the unfoldings necessary for the initiation of the new social 
 order and its evolution from its first and least to its composite 
 and universal states. " Unto the churches," signifies, the 
 demonstration of this harmony to all the regenerate races of 
 open breathing man. 
 
380 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 SEVENTEENTH ILLUSTEATION. 
 
 Experiences in the Heavens prefiguring the destruction of Cliristendom in 
 its present evil natural form. — Things hereafter. — A sabhath of sor- 
 cerers in Hell. — The Archetypal American Commonwealth. — Illustra- 
 tions from Archetypa. — Spiritual facts connected with the recent 
 rebellion in America. — The infernal England, and events transpiring 
 there, which affect the political and social condition of Great Britain. — 
 New barriers against the Hells formed in the new creation. — Dissolu- 
 tion of the remains of ancient order. 
 
 690. I was in the Heavens^ and heard a great voice from the 
 east, crying " New bread." Then manna began to fall imme- 
 diately, diffusing in its descent a pleasant odour. At the same 
 time, by apposition, I was made aware of a terror in the oppo- 
 site Hells, and heard a cry proceeding from a dark Society in 
 the west, that they were being battered by hailstones and de- 
 stroyed. The descending manna was gathered in the Heavens 
 by conjugial associates, appearing in the distance as little chil- 
 dren ; and I heard them singing in a delightful unison while 
 at theii' employment. I experienced a strong desire to partake 
 of this food, and grew hungry and faint for it, when an angel 
 approached and said, ''Who is this that hungers?" Words 
 were given me to respond, " A man of sorrows from the earth.^' 
 Then the angel replied, " Be not sorrowful, for there is much 
 reason for good cheer." At this I was invited to partake of 
 the manna, which satisfied not alone the appetite of the sense 
 for food, but the craving of the soul for righteousness. 
 
 691. When the repast was over, I was invited into a pleasant 
 garden, where about a hundred members of the Society, of 
 which the angel was one, were variously engaged, some in 
 irrigating the soil, others in the pruning of vines, or the various 
 disposition of plants and herbs principally of an edible cha- 
 racter. Although it was bright day, and the Divine Sun was 
 glowing in the east, myriads of stars shone in the unclouded 
 azure, and a soft dew was falling. At the extremity of the 
 garden appeared a pavilion, and over it inscribed in golden 
 letters on a green wall, '' Blessed are the meek, for they shall 
 inherit the earth;" yet, while gazing upon the inscription, one 
 sentence flashed from within another, variously irradiated with 
 many-colom-ed lights. I entered this pavilion, and there found 
 
SEC. 690—693.] THE APOCALYPSE. 381 
 
 a man in a scarlet mantle writing at a table. He looked in- 
 quiringly at my approach, paused, and gently said, " Brother, 
 what would you have V At this I replied, " I have been fed 
 this morning with manna, and I now ask work. None can be 
 in Heaven without work ; give me all I can do, and let me be 
 instructed that I may do it well/' A silver bell rang at this 
 moment, a door opened, and one emerged from an inner cham- 
 ber in whom I recognized the Prince of the Society, who with- 
 out circumlocution or preface, said, " I perceive his quality ; he 
 is adapted ; give him a hammer, and let him take his place 
 among the stone masons ; equip him also with a drill." 
 
 692. Being thus prepared, I was conducted to the north of 
 the region occupied by the society, and there found many men 
 employed; some in turfing over newly prepared soil, and others 
 busy in shovelling away the dehris of blasted rock. A little 
 farther on lay a mass of copper, shaped like a lizard, and be- 
 yond it huge tumuli of heaped stone. As I gazed upon this 
 copper monster, I observed life in it, and filled with indignation 
 that such a thing should be seen near Heaven, asked permis- 
 sion to strike it. " Beware," was the reply, " how can a man 
 strike at his own natural soul and live ? Look closer and you 
 will see more." At this I began to examine, and perceived 
 that the reptile was made up of more than two millions of 
 minute organisms, each of which had been projected from or 
 through the natural soul of some inhabitant of earth, and that 
 they were so connected as to interact; — each being weak in it- 
 self, yet became a power through the coalescent unity of all. I 
 grew indignant again upon observing it, and again demanded 
 permission to strike ; but the chief of the working group gravely 
 answered as before, '^^ Beware of what you do. Who can 
 strike his own natural soul and live ?" At this I cried, " If 
 my natural soul eliminates from itself any creature to become 
 a part of this idol, I would rather by far enter into life with- 
 out a natural soul. I begin to think now that the natural soul 
 of man is at best a misbegotten beast, and of its fether the 
 devil." 
 
 693. I now heard the blasters again at their work in the 
 rocks ; the soil shook with explosion after explosion, but still 
 I could not desist from observing the copper monster, which 
 
3S2 ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. m. 
 
 began to spout fire from its nostrils, scorcliing, sulphurous, 
 and mephitic. Again I demanded permission to strike, and 
 tliis time received tlie answer, " He that hateth his own soul 
 for Christ's sake and the gospel's shall do well. Let your 
 hand be strong, and your eye keen : then breathe deeply, and 
 to the work/' At this appeared about a hundred labourers, a 
 group of which I made one, and the strength of a hundred 
 men seemed in my right arm. Each having for his instrument 
 a sledge, all raised them at the same moment, and in the same 
 instant they fell. At the same time 1 heard the cry, " The 
 anakim, the anakim ! " while a spouting breath of vapour, 
 forced through the nostrils of the beast, wi^apt us as in white 
 steam. 
 
 694. Then hieroglyphic symbols or images began to appear 
 upon its scaly back, raised as if in burnished c rbuncle, 
 though one might perceive that the gems were fictitious ; 
 among the symbolic images were music, painting, rhetoric, 
 philosophy, and the like. At every blow the monster became 
 more resplendent, throwing off flakes of a green slimy light, 
 horribly putrescent, and the stench of decay was almost too 
 dreadful to bear. The atmosphere then burst into flame of a 
 sickly yellow, while still, as if each were a Thor or an Odin, 
 the hundred plied the sledge, all breathing in unison. At 
 length it began to bleed, and the blood rose until the workmen 
 stood up to their waists in the red, steaming, noisome fluid ; 
 but still with incessant action they continued to ply it with 
 heavy blows. I was informed that a period corresponding to 
 one month of natural time had passed, during that which 
 seemed to me but as an hour of the morning. At length one 
 mightier blow than the rest smote him upon his head, and broke 
 its massive arch ; when, with a roar that seemed as if it might 
 shake mountains, its odious life was at an end. 
 
 695. Afterward the lifeless body was cast into a furnace un- 
 til it became a liquid, and lo, each minute organism of which 
 it had been constructed began to change, until it became, as it 
 were, a miniature man, and finally rose, a million-fold in power, 
 utterly purged, as if it were a copper Titan. An imper- 
 sonal creature, it awaited a Divine fiat to perform mighty 
 deeds. 
 
SEC. 694—697.] TSE APOCALIPSJE. 383 
 
 696. The labour in wliicli I had. participated wearied me^ and. 
 during the whole period of the intromission^ the physical body- 
 was anguished with hardly a respite from pain. I knew that I 
 had been representatively present^ for the purpose of illustration, 
 at the work of the destruction of Christendom. It appears at 
 the extremity of the Heavens, because it claims that it is in 
 such direct juxtaposition thereto that its accepted members, 
 with the twinkling of an eye, pass from the death-bed to par- 
 take in the felicities of the spirits of just men made perfect. It 
 appears in the image of a reptile, because in its collective form 
 it is not divine but bestial, performing no functions in a true 
 order, but voracious, treacherous, deceptive, and impure. It 
 appears as if made of copper, because it simulates a natural 
 good ; that is, it claims to have been regenerated into a divine 
 excellence, adapted to conditions that obtain in nature. As 
 this image was overthrown, Christendom, in its organized form, 
 is destined to perish. 
 
 697. It is in the natural soul of man that the evils of the 
 planet have their ultimate stronghold. Through the inverted 
 natural soul, the whole aspect of Divine order is treacherously 
 distorted, till that which is designed to be man's noblest bless- 
 ing is made his dhest curse. It is impossible to effect a divine 
 transformation in the social aspect of Christian peoples, ex- 
 cept by the dissolution of the natural soul of man, and by a 
 divine process of reconstruction. If the dispositions of the 
 will can be changed, if the affections of the heart can die yet 
 live again, if the processes of the intellect can undergo a trans- 
 formation, if the hands of the soul that clasp the hands of Hell, 
 and the breaths of the soul that go out toward the lungs of 
 Hell, under the restorative influence of the Lord, in utter 
 change of tendency, can raise themselves to the lungs and 
 hands of Heaven, it is purely rational to believe, since all 
 divine processes tend to ultimates, that the theatre of these 
 august wonders can be transferred to the vital outposts of man's 
 natural organization. It is very obvious that if the natural 
 soul of man is thus transformed, the action of the human race, 
 in nature, so far as regenerate, must undergo a corresponding 
 transformation. Peoples, families, religions, governments, in- 
 dustries, knowledges of every type, joys of every species, all 
 
384 ABCANA OF CEBISTIANITT. [chap. in. 
 
 tilings in fine^ from tlie least to the greatest, pass through the 
 fire-birth and become divine. 
 
 698. I was afterwards conversing with the Angel, and he 
 said, quoting from the language of Paul, " Behold, I show you 
 a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." 
 At this there was the loud sound of a trumpet, piercing and 
 even shattering the air. I looked down toward the natural 
 earth, and there beheld what must be hereafter. I saw a 
 family circle, united and harmonious in natural things, and wor- 
 shipping God with great decency and formality, as is the custom 
 with the best of Protestants. Suddenly all tliis was changed ; 
 the internals of each character, heretofore secret, now began 
 to be revealed. The father became an atheist, publicly owning 
 himself a devotee of nature ; the mother, in great anguish 
 of spirit, clung for a season to surface opinions, imbibed 
 from her youth, but eventually renounced them and accepted 
 the doctrines of Ann Lee. The fates of the children were 
 various, the eldest son drank in the poison of Mormonism in 
 a modified form; for at this time began to be developed a 
 dangerous, veiled abomination ; partaking of the nature of 
 that heresy, he became the master of a harem in a nominal 
 Christian land. About three-eighths of all church members 
 are polygamists at heart. I speak now of males, not of 
 females. In all the family there was found but one who 
 possessed real spiritual sanity ; after many trials, this declared 
 itself through all of the surfaces of the mind; he became an 
 open respiring Christian of the New Age. 
 
 699. A second time the trumpet sounded, and again, looking 
 forth, I saw that which appeared to be a board of bankers, all 
 decorous, conventional men, principally of the Church of Eng- 
 land, by external profession. One thing led to another, until 
 one proposed, and all the rest acceded to the proposition, that 
 each should, under the bond of secrecy, reveal his doubts upon 
 religious topics. The formation of this compact precipitated 
 internal states to external, and each confessed that he had no 
 faith in anything but forecast, calculation, and selfish sagacity. 
 They confirmed one another by adducing many instances, 
 
SEC. 698—701.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 385 
 
 wherein men of tlie basest life had amassed^ and were enjoying 
 fortunes and distinctions. One, a little bolder tlian the rest, 
 announced it as liis belief that all men whatever, who had out- 
 grown the state of romantic illusion, cherished at heart the 
 same sentiments. I saw here an illustration of the growth of 
 great events from invisible beginnings ; one remarked that he 
 felt freed and benefited by unbosoming himself, to which all 
 the rest assented. It was resolved thereupon that an informal 
 Society should be established, confined to opulent and eminent 
 men of the street, for hke unbosomings and refreshment in 
 scepticism. Scepticism, like religion, is gregarious in its 
 habits. Men confirm themselves, both in truth and falsity, by 
 confidential opening of then* states. 
 
 700. A third trumpet sounded^ and closely observing, I per- 
 ceived a vast affiliated Union, co-extensive with the influential 
 classes in society, and styled in substance a club for the en- 
 couragement of freedom in religion. One requisite of mem- 
 bership was that each should be connected with some eminent 
 sect, and appear as a conformist before the public. An esoteric 
 doctrine was taught among them, that all religions were alike ; 
 but that the world being governed, and society maintained 
 through appearances, it was socially incumbent on man to live 
 as a Pharisee ; and whatever his indulgences were, to cherish 
 them behind a veil. It was singular to observe the unanimity 
 with which almost all, of a certain class, fell in with such views 
 as these. An odious Epicureanism rather than a saintly 
 Heroism governs at the heart of modern life. It is not true, 
 however, that men's interior conditions come nakedly into 
 externals, because it is a fixed part of those internal condi- 
 tions to think that, however men beheve or act, both belief 
 and actions require shrouding in fold after fold of semblance. 
 Hence, as the new states of worldly men declare themselves, 
 society will possess at once an esoteric and exoteric constitu- 
 tion, and the shameful orgies of ancient heathenism revive in 
 the bosom of the world ; while outwardly the ceremonials of 
 worship are conducted with due pomp, and Sabbaths made 
 days of high solemnity. 
 
 701. I was afterwards in perception, by direction, at a Sab- 
 bath of sorcerers, in Infernus. One rcscmbhug a pontiff 
 
 B B 
 
386 Ali.OANA OF CnBISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 greeted anotlier, who might have been a king, with ^^Hail, 
 Cesar ! Now shall our joowors return, and a new infernal age." 
 To this the potentate replied, " Hail, Christ ! " But when he 
 styled him thus, in so blasphemous a perversion, he fell head- 
 long, and another rose from a lower pit, crying, " Make no 
 allusions to the destroyer. Here let us style om-sclves anti- 
 christ, for we arc so ; otherwise mischief will befal." The two 
 demons, who represented pontifical and imperial rule, cour- 
 teously advancing, joined hands ; when, in the interblending of 
 their spheres, the organized falsities of their minds were also 
 united, and, proceeding through them, rose as in a brazen 
 column, which towered apparently to the zenith. Many on 
 either side now arranged themselves, according to the order of 
 an infernal series, and the ascending column became more vast 
 with every accession of numbers. 
 
 702. At length it penetrated the natural world through the 
 interiors of kingly and priestly minds open toward that Hell, 
 and fed them with injected fantasies. This process was 
 watched with great interest by the deeper infernals, and 
 among them by antediluvian sorcerers. One among them, in 
 some unknown dialect which I interpreted by an attentive 
 listening to the quahty of the sound of falsities in the evil, 
 whispered to a colleague, " We have found it : our submerged 
 city rises above the engulfing floods by which it was over- 
 whelmed anciently, and now we shall obtain great power, and 
 reign.''"' One then struck at me with a rod, made to imitate a 
 serpent, because it was suddenly made known to them that a 
 listener was present; but his rod shivered like a stem of 
 glass, while a Voice cried above, " As this rod is shivered, so 
 shall all sorceries be destroyed." 
 
 703. The Archetypal American Commonwealth is placed in 
 the centre of the new Heaven, because it is the will of Al- 
 mighty God that the pivotal power of the earth shall descend 
 through it, and that it shall become, through human obedience, 
 the central power on earth, representing Divine harmony 
 above. I saw the banner of this Republic, which represents 
 the starry heaven, illumined with a cross of fire displayed in 
 the sun_, and emblazoned with the words, " Christ conquers all." 
 
SEC. 702—705.] THE APOCALYPSE. 387 
 
 704. It is represented as encompassed by a triple wall. 
 Firstj from witliout_, are seen battlements of brass^ polished to 
 glittering clearness. Above these rise crystallized silver ram- 
 partSj tkrougb. wMcli the light is soft^ fleecy^ and impearled. 
 The innermost circle of walls is invisible, except as seen 
 through the silver ; they are of gold, or its , correspondence, 
 through which flushes a soft crimson as of the perfect dawn. 
 I was conducted thither in company with an angel, represent- 
 ing the Mourning Church (see A. of C. 1, I. 562), who had 
 himself occupied an imperial office. We were stopped at the 
 gate of brass with the inquiry, " Whom do you serve ? '' and 
 I answered, " The living God, the Lord ; " upon which ac- 
 knowledgment we were led to the silver gate, where the 
 warder propounded the inquiry, " What is the use which calls 
 you here ? " to which I answered, " The King's service.''^ 
 When I had thus said, he replied '' The King of kings, and 
 the Lord of lords ; " and I responded, " Who is alive and was 
 dead, and now liveth and reigneth forevermore ; slain as to 
 His Human, now infinitely glorified by the involution of the 
 Human in the Divine.'" The gate then opened, and there 
 appeared within it a vortex of burning fire ; and I smiled, be- 
 holding it, for it was the fire of respiration in the celestial- 
 ultimate degree. Thereupon the warder, pointing to us, said, 
 " The King's servants are those who are able to walk in the 
 King's paths." I answered him, "Even so, for I possess a 
 new natural soul, which my Lord has given me, to which this 
 heat is most congenial ; it is the path of respiration for open 
 breathing men." All this while the angel with me said no- 
 things being of a superior degree. 
 
 705. As with the swiftness of thought, we passed up this 
 vortical avenue, and in a short time beheld an inner gateway, 
 where stood a man clothed in flamy purple. We paused before 
 him, being restrained by the resistance of his breath. He be- 
 gan in words corresponding to those, but containing arcana 
 within them of infinite beauty. " The Lord is in this place, 
 and this is as the house of God and the gate of Heaven." I 
 replied in words given mc, " Blessed are they who have come 
 up through great tribulation, and washed their robes, and made 
 them white in the blood of the Lamb ; and blessed are they 
 
 B B 2 
 
388 AUGANA OF CEBISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 who keep His commandments^. that they may enter in through 
 the gates into the city." When I had thus spoken, he rephed, 
 " Upon what ground do you enter ?" In words also given, I 
 said, " On the new ground ;" at this he made response, " AVTiat 
 new ground ?" I said, " The only possible ground, as all other 
 ground must bo swallowed up," martyr love, the faith of mar- 
 tyr love, and the hope, service, and life thereof. " First," came 
 the voice, '' I must test you ;" and I replied, " Willingly and 
 joyfully." He then put his hand upon my breast and drew it 
 out white, then put his hand upon my head, and drew it back 
 with the same whiteness. When he had done so, two birds 
 appeared at his right upon a myrtle-tree, one of them a 
 harmonic eagle, and the other a harmonic dove ; and on the left 
 appeared, upon a corresponding tree, two other birds of a similar 
 kind. My heart was glad and my mind rejoiced witliin me. 
 ^^You have come just in time," sweetly and solemnly this 
 keeper said ; " had you tarried by the way, this door would have 
 been closed. Enter." 
 
 706. When I had entered, my former garments were taken 
 away, or rather dropped in atoms, and I was clothed in raiment 
 wholly new, such as is worn in that society, and conducted for 
 a short time into an apartment built as in the wall, over whose 
 door was the inscription, " The strength of the hills is about 
 thee, and the everlasting arms thy defence." I observed in the 
 east door of the arch a cyi3her, " G. W.," and on turning beheld 
 a man in the full beauty of youth, attired in the Roman manner 
 with a toga, and wearing upon his left breast an emblem of 
 office, two silver crooks crosswise, the unslumbering eye above, 
 and the figures of sheep below ; the whole set in jewels, and in 
 the midst the legend, " Feed my sheep." When I had entered 
 the room he approached me with these words, " You were sent 
 for because the day of the Lord is at hand, and it is appointed 
 that you be initiated into the work which devolves upon you 
 in the earth ; but first rest. I observed that the apartment, as 
 his words proceeded, grew dimmer, or perhaps my vision, 
 which had been taxed to its full capacity, was being closed ; 
 I began to breathe more lightly, and sank to sleep. 
 
 707. This affords an illustration of the infinite care with 
 which the new formations of the Divine order, of which church 
 
SEC. 706—709.] THE APOCALYPSJE. 389 
 
 Sardis in conjunction with Cliurcli Tliyatira, is exponent^ 
 are defended and prevented from profanation; but this also 
 suggests a corresponding defence and protection, as the 
 Heavenly order begins to embody itself on earth in new un- 
 foldings of the Eepublican principle. 
 
 708. Since the close of I860, the changes in the Spiri- 
 tual World nearest our earth have been very great. The tu- 
 multuous throngs of spu'its who gather there evince the wildest 
 anxiety. As when birds of prey gather, scenting from afar the 
 bodies of the slain, so legions of infernals, attracted by the 
 prospect of carnage, and delighted with the expectation of 
 nourishing themselves upon decay, rushed from their Asiatic 
 and European seats, precipitating themselves upon the western 
 continent. I saw George B. McClellan in the Spiritual World, 
 riding between two demon chiefs, one calling himself Kleber, 
 and the other Soult, though these names were pretences. I 
 asked the reason why he was seen thus accompanied, and was 
 told that he was fearfully infested, and that their mission to 
 him was to form an external fatuous plane about his mind, so 
 that he might waste away the armies of the E-epublic entrusted 
 to his charge. I was taken in spirit to a battle-field near Rich- 
 mond, Virginia, and beheld about a million of spiritual vampii-es 
 and wanderers, in the middle expanse of ether. They encom- 
 passed the city of Richmond as with a triple wall, their mission 
 being to deplete the armies of the Republic of animal life, and 
 to nourish thereby the despotic forces. 
 
 709. I beheld the spirit of a man, known in the body as a 
 bishop of the Episcopal Church, by name Meade ; he was 
 mounted on a pale, spectral horse, riding through the ranks of 
 the vampires, and seen by them as St. lago in the legend 
 moving before the Spanish chivalry, a false prophet of the 
 demon god ; with him were many ecclesiastics. I saw the 
 traitor, Jefferson Davis, on his knees in a private cabinet, con- 
 fessing his sins in a fantasy, while at the same time the spiritual 
 demon who governs him, whispered in his ear encom'agemeuts 
 to the belief, that, come what might, his calling and election 
 were being made sure. Ho is one of those whose conscience 
 
390 ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. iir. 
 
 lias bccu drugg-ed tlirougli intercourse witli demons, and 
 wliose lungs reek with crime. In tlie visions of the night I 
 beheld a mighty man from Pandemonium, instilling into 
 the breast of one of his presiding military cliiefs, a subtle 
 "wisdom, a defiant courage, a policy at once daring and circum- 
 spect. The same demon has alternately visited this chief and 
 the general of the Republic, spoken of before, so connecting 
 them by magnetic bands, forged as of infernal steel, that the 
 positive sphere of the one saturates the oppressed mind of the 
 other, impeding the operation of the mental faculties. 
 
 710. I heard in the night, an angel whispering in the ear of 
 the President of the United States, " You must emancipate, 
 you must emancipate •/' but at the same time the evil genius of 
 this kind man, wove subtle spells to hold him in a state of ir- 
 resolution. I beheld the spirits of the lost inhabitants of the 
 Slave States, almost en masse, moving in advance of the rebel 
 hordes ; great numbers of them being present in every battle. 
 The wickedness of the armies of the Republic was the cause 
 of their frequent overthrow, especially their profligacy, intem- 
 perance, and profanity. The South was characterized by com- 
 parative unity of council and inflexible decision of purpose 
 but the North, spiritually, was a divided house. Ties of self- 
 interest alone unite the present States of the Republic. The 
 nation must ultimately perish, in convulsions thrice fearful, 
 unless the present judgment is followed by the renovation of 
 its moral heart. There is a Divine limit beyond which disas- 
 ters cannot penetrate, and this not because of the merits of 
 the people, but in view of ulterior ends in the councils of Di- 
 vine Providence. I saw, in spirit, the present usurper of the 
 French Empire, a thrice devoted son of Satan, plotting with 
 his familiars how best to rend asunder the sacred robe of Free- 
 dom, and to cast lots for its vesture. Woe to humanity, when 
 rulers of the spirit of Iscariot hold seats in cabinets, and dic- 
 tate to nations from the throne ! 
 
 711. After these things had been shown me, I was taken far 
 into the interiors of the celestial Heaven, and charged to have 
 no connection with the pohtical world of America, it being said 
 to me that if I did so I should perish in its disasters. Liber- 
 ty's final hope will be, eventually, the open respiring church. 
 
SEC. 710—713.] TRE APOCALTFSK 391 
 
 and those who labour for its establisliment are building for 
 Freedom her last fortress on Earth. The spirit of liberty is 
 abandoning the poHtical social edifice^ both in Europe and 
 America. Events must proceed henceforth with great rapidity. 
 712. Prosperity without righteousness brings a snare both 
 to nations and to men^ weakening the powers of moral resist- 
 ance, and preparing the way for inevitable destruction. It is 
 impossible for state-craft of any sort to save a cursed land. 
 Republican Commonwealths can only obtain permanence as the 
 right of suffrage is exercised prayerfully in sacred trust. The 
 price of Liberty has well been said to be eternal vigilance. 
 Men cruel as Jeffreys, and corrupt as Titus Gates, at the present 
 day, through the influence of party organization, gain the 
 suffrage of masses, and obtain and keep representative and 
 executive power. The liberty of the j)eople hangs upon the 
 frailest thi^ead, and there is no hope but in God. Yet let not 
 the subject of a Monarchy exult over a Democracy that tends 
 to ruin. The American Republic was first composed of sepa- 
 rate states, each a little nation. It is possible for each or any 
 of these, wholly given up to the Divine guidance, by the moral 
 renovation of its people, to hold its own till better times. The 
 smallest commonwealth becomes a unit through the moral co- 
 hesion of every element. If a wave of open respiration passes 
 over and takes possession of one county in any state, the sal- 
 vation of that state is no longer j^roblematical ; for God has 
 sworn to protect His servants, and has entered into covenant 
 with them as with ancient Israel. He will gather His elect 
 from the four winds, and they shall inherit a kingdom that can- 
 not be moved. 
 
 713. The infernal England is governed by a king. The pre- 
 sent monarch is called " the Destroyer,'^ and resembles in his 
 heart George IV., in his intelUgence Henry YIIL, and in his 
 potency WiUiam the Conqueror. The spiritual rule is repre- 
 sented by a synod of prelates, corresponding in number to the 
 present Episcopal sees, and they style themselves according to 
 their respective designations. These are connected with the 
 infernal Roman and Greek Church and with the Lutheran 
 
392 ABCANA OF CUBISTIANITY. [chap. m. 
 
 Episcopacy, as to their infernal elements. The rule of uoblo 
 families, Avhicli exists in Britain, is represented by a correspon- 
 dent rule below, so tliat every ducal or lordly family has its 
 representative family. Those evil spirits of the British nation 
 who have imbibed democratic ideas are excluded, and occupy 
 a zone encompassing the former cii'cle. Theirs is emphatically 
 a government of terror j they exult in the titles of the Eadical, 
 the Revolutionist. In their genius they resemble the American 
 Pantheists. Theirs is an increasing power; they believe in 
 democracy pure and simple, and at the present time are 
 organising their Society as a state without a church. Their 
 zone is rapidly expanding and pressing upon the circle which 
 it includes. The intestine war which rages in the earthly 
 England is a struggle between the circle and the zone. 
 
 714. Within the last eighteen months [1867] a man has 
 appeared in the zone who resembles an infernal opposite and 
 simulation of our Lord ; he styles himself " The father of the 
 people, the friend of man." Suave, dignified, genial, balanced, 
 moving with an immense rapidity, attracting spirits to himself 
 as floating particles are drawn to a vortex, he has begun to 
 organize those turbulent democratic masses. His is the power 
 of the arch-magician, the power of supreme corruption that 
 assimilates substance to itself. For the first time the ancient 
 organism of the infernal England is imperilled ; his is the 
 regnancy of attraction. Such demons rise from the deep Hells 
 of old antiquity in the decay of empires, and when great poli- 
 tical changes are impending among men. He empowers those 
 who amalgamate with his sphere, till, subtilised and intensified 
 in thought and feeling, they become a moving wheel of swift 
 revolving human adamant, whirling amidst the zone, and war- 
 ring by means of an impoisoned mental effluence against the 
 powers of the circle and all the organisms that cohere therein. 
 From this wheel proceeds a light which simulates the splendom' 
 of divine intelligence ; which shines into the dark spaces of the 
 brain, producing there intoxication, exhilaration, and a rapid 
 action of the mental faculties, and instilling a courage and an 
 energy, which, were they not infernal, might well be called 
 sublime. 
 
 715. The power of the circle depends upon its immobility; 
 
SEC. 714—718.] THE APOCALYPSE. 393 
 
 it is the petrifaction of the past. But Satan's kingdom now 
 is there divided against itself, and the elements are exposed to 
 the danger of liquefaction from that burning heat. Already 
 those who inhabit the expanses of the circle which are con- 
 tiguous to the zone, are infected with fears and forebodings, 
 with tremblings and palsyings, and with death-like torpors. 
 Men appear there in the streets crying, " Equal rights ! uni- 
 versal equality ! death to the aristocracies ! '' 
 
 716. There are also other signs of change. Within about 
 six months of natural time, a connection has been established 
 between the spirits moving in the wheel of the zone, and the 
 infernal democratic power of the United States ; since which 
 event infernal armies have entered from America into England. 
 One hears now, throughout the inner spaces of the isle, such 
 martial music as sounded at the capitulation of Burgoyne and 
 the surrender of Cornwallis. The cross of St. George is quar- 
 tered with the stars and stripes. There is an infernal frater- 
 nization in the common principle of hatred to the institutions 
 that represent the past. There is now a presence of America 
 in the very air. The third circle will represent the interfusing 
 American zone. 
 
 717. All of the nationalities which have sprung from Eng- 
 land, as the mother isle, are essentially one. There is one 
 great Anglo-Saxon people, interknit in the myriad comphca- 
 tions of a composite familism, whom no affinities can perfectly 
 unite, and whom no antipathies can entirely separate, until a 
 disconnection is established in the invisible world. The An- 
 glican type of state religion carries with it the seminal prin- 
 ciples of an aristocratic monarchy ; it is England's invisible 
 hand upon the throat of America ; but Puritanism contains 
 the seminal principles of Democratic institutions, and is 
 America's hand upon the throat of England. Church prin- 
 ciples involve aristocracy and royalty, while Puritanism is but 
 another name for radicalism and revolution. So the bad man 
 who has been a churchman, gravitates to his place in the body 
 which is dominated by an infernal hierarchy ; while the equally 
 corrupt dissenter gravitates to his own place with his own 
 kind below. How wonderful are these thino-s ! 
 
 718. The planes formed in the mind on earth determine for 
 
394. AECANA OF CHBISTIANITT. [chap. hi. 
 
 cycles tlie conditions of eternity ; wliile, tlirougli these formed 
 planes, tlie wicked spirit is always able to inflow into minds 
 on earth, in whom similar planes are in process of formation. 
 The man who wishes to escape infestation should never choose 
 a haunted house for his abiding" place, and those who seek the 
 new life should fly with an equal swiftness from the haunted 
 church, the haunted pohtics, the haunted family, and the 
 haunted land. In a word, they should seek to emerge from 
 a sphere made up of magic, into a realm whose forms are 
 fashioned wholly from the divine archetypes ; otherwise, they 
 will find it impossible to become the recipients of the divine 
 terrestrial harmony ; and, if their spirits are finally saved, it 
 will be as by the ordeal of fire. 
 
 719. Thus far of the England below; a gloomy realm that 
 hath no dayspring upon its darkness. The fiend is by nature 
 intrusive, and must find vent for his restlessness by ceaseless 
 aggressions upon mankind. Where the avenues to Heaven are 
 choked by the sins of men, the roadways into Hell are opened 
 wide. Whatever bars out the angel lets in the fiend. Here, 
 in the lustful hearts of men, are fields grown ripe for harvest ; 
 here, where things exist, not by reason of divinity but by an- 
 tiquity, the powers of darkness come forth in near approach to 
 the light of upper day ; here, where an appeal is no longer 
 possible to the intrinsic righteousness of things, but only to 
 hoary custom and immemorial precedent, the powers that work 
 in the darkness of unrighteousness lay claim to all their ancient 
 possessions. 
 
 720. The oldest human relics in England date back to the 
 age of flint and bone. It was settled originally by the enemies 
 of the Noachic Church, men who possessed the last remnants 
 of powers resulting from the ancient open respiration ; men, 
 huge in stature, demoniacal in aspect, who journeyed westward 
 until they found the remotest clime. This they called '' Hell,^^ 
 from, the remains of the correspondential language, which 
 placed the infernal region remotest from the east ; this they 
 also called the " Land of Meat,"" swarming as it did with car- 
 nivorous and ruminating animals. Here they lived lives of 
 riot and of rapine, and laid the foundations of that singular, 
 insulated, secretive, and aggressive nationality whose peculiar- 
 
SEC. 719—723.] TRi: APOCALYPSE. 395 
 
 ities yet remain. Their crimes were great, and rose up to 
 Heaven. 
 
 721. What thousands of years have passed since then ! The 
 earth is far older and far wickeder than modern generations 
 know. Those who first possess a soil have an advantage over 
 all of their successors ; for the qualities of their life, whether 
 good or evil, flow into the innermost space of nature; planes 
 are formed in nature itself by their presence and their action ; 
 the outgoings of their crimes or of their virtues are stored up 
 therein. One murder makes a house a place of hauntings and 
 of fears ; but a race with whom murder is a passion, an instinct, 
 and a law, prepares the land which it wrests from primitive 
 nature, for the hauntings and terrors of all subsequent time. 
 The soil of England has never been dispossessed of this abori- 
 ginal quality, for it requires a race empowered with the princi- 
 ples of an opposite vu'tue to institute a cleansing, and to work 
 an exorcism. 
 
 722. What long generations of the subsequent age of bronze, 
 and of an age of iron, whose histories have perished ! The 
 rude aborigines whom the Romans found, were the wasted and 
 commingled relics of the races, growing feebler with time and 
 with the decline of primitive force, breathing an air of moral 
 malaria, and nourishing the instincts of the brute and the 
 passions of the fiend. Here, where early cannibalism cele- 
 brated its orgies, a latter cannibalism immolated men upon 
 idolatrous altars, and ate their flesh as a religious rite. Mexico 
 is still accursed by the Aztec teocallis, but the soil of England 
 groans with buried blood ; the world-soul of the planet has been 
 deeply wounded here. The Roman came, and added idolatry 
 to idolatry ; then the Danish pirate swept over the isle with 
 troop after troop of blood-thirsty furies. Last of all followed 
 the conquering Norman, '' sparing no man in his anger, and 
 no woman in his lust." Truly it is a doomsday book in which 
 these annals are written. Race after race of robbers has suc- 
 ceeded in the possession of the old haunted house. Compared 
 with the long antiquity, the years since Norman William are 
 but sunset hours. Yet what years of blood ! 
 
 723. Crusaders went out, a cruel and licentious horde; 
 prelates and nobles remained at homo to wrauglo over the sad 
 
396 ABC AN A OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 remains of liberty, like wolves contending for the fragments 
 of a slain lamb. That Norman chivalry, what was it but a 
 long oppression ? Ago after age the guiltiness of the people 
 has been absorbed as a poison, till the elements reek and the 
 earth is tainted thereby. Over well-nigh extinct Feudalism, 
 all-victorious Mammonism, in this last age, erects its throne. 
 It is a social hell. Every man who sins through the body 
 infuses, through bodily sin, bodily poison into the body of 
 nature. What then must the body of this terrestrial England 
 be ? It is this all -pervading, elemental taint that benumbs 
 the moral rational faculties, and that makes even the just 
 connivers at the iniquities of the unjust, till Christians take 
 pleasure in the triumphs of aggressive war, and benches of 
 bishops uphold slavery and the slave trade ; that makes this 
 nation esteem itself the best and purest on the globe; that 
 causes it to sit in lordly places, the Pharisee of peoples. It is 
 rich and increased in goods ; it enlarges its storehouses ; it is 
 the fool that hath said in his heart, " There is no God." But 
 the crimes that are buried in its soil are coming forth to take 
 possession of its body ; the judgment of this nation is at hand. 
 724. This is the land of common sense ; the hard, shrewd, 
 practical, bargaining, money- getting-, power-holding country, 
 that has undertaken to be the merchant, the manufacturer, and 
 middle-man for all the globe ; the land of the heavy purse and 
 of the strong arm. Well has it thriven upon its traffic in 
 human flesh. Men dimly discern, in this hour, the sins of their 
 fathers. AVe see now what accursed wretches were the Cru- 
 saders who met Mussulman cruelty with a worse cruelty and 
 wickeder lust. We see what thrice besotted tools of Despotism 
 were the old Tory priesthood, who grovelled for preferment 
 at the feet of kings' mistresses, and held that every crowned 
 oppresso'r was the Lord's anointed, who grew fat from, the 
 spoils of rapine and butchery, tUl the oppressed were mad- 
 dened into scepticism, and no God was believed in, but that 
 false god who helps the strong against the weak. There is a 
 judgment in this world. The enlightened conscience now re- 
 hears and sets aside the decisions of the past. Eighteousness, 
 that always was a sentiment, is fast becoming a science. The 
 thunders of the four gospels are loosening their voices. Lips 
 
SEC. 724—727.] THE APOCALYPSE. 397 
 
 crushed into dumbness for generations and trodden into dust, 
 are faintly lieard ; and lo, all around us, it is tlie cry of our 
 brother^s blood tbat goetli up from tbe ground. The invisible 
 Hades lias broken loose, and like a subterranean torrent, men 
 hear the hollow voices of the under-world. Men stand upon 
 an earth that is crumbling, amidst institutions that are perish- 
 ing, and beneath a firmament that is being cleft asunder by 
 the swift down-rushing of the final breath of fire. 
 
 725. Sodom and Gomorrah would have repented before that 
 preaching of Divine Love which proved ineffectual in Capernaum 
 and Jerusalem ; in other words, the nations grow harder as they 
 grow older, and as the world grows old about them. The truth 
 that would reclaim an African and transfigure a Japanese, pro- 
 vokes, in stiSened antiquated lands like this, the sneer of 
 derision and the cold smile of incredulity. In fine, we have 
 marched in the progress of civilization, and by the outgrowth 
 of nationality from nationality, to the spiritual west, as the men 
 of the age of bone to the edge of the material west of the 
 known world. We have graded and terraced the precipitous 
 mountain- sides, and planted om* gardens, and built our palaces 
 thereon, but they overhang the pit. For this land in the future, 
 there is but one of two things possible ; utter abnegation of 
 self, utter abjuration of vices, utter casting out of devils, utter 
 acceptance of divine life in all things ; or the last days and the 
 last experiences of an old man grown grey in evil, paralysis, 
 and imbecility, and idiocy, and death, and judgment, and hell. 
 
 726. What one would fain hope for this dear England, where 
 so much wealth of generous aspiration exists amidst the over- 
 growth of evil, is that better part which shall not be taken away 
 from her ; the lowly place at the feet of the Master, a use in 
 His service, and a home in His heart. 
 
 727. I beheld in Archetypa' an illustration of three things : 
 I saw, first, the process by which every form of the Lord's 
 incoming harmony is to be inaugurated among men ; I saw, 
 second, the processes whereby all transitions fi-om the present 
 social into the divine social system may be effected, with no 
 more confusion or disturbance than characterizes the death of 
 
308 ABC AN A OF CREISTIANITY. [chap. m. 
 
 winter and the birtli of spring. I saw, in the third place, the 
 stored up elements, forces, and powers which are laid up and 
 prepared to infill the organisms of men through whom this 
 new order shall be established in the world. 
 
 728. Hand work, heart work, and brain work, are, in the 
 divine order, inseparable. In the foundation of new society 
 on earth, new states cannot be grafted into old conditions j all 
 things must become new. Between the old and new societies 
 a great gulf is fixed, and the man of the old system shall 
 finally be seen on the one side, hke Dives, wrapped in the 
 lurid, burning mantle of his embosomed lusts ; while on the 
 other side, the man of the new order shall be visible, infolded 
 in the paternal harmonies of the primeval and the archetypal 
 world, as risen Lazarus clasped in Abraham's bosom; while 
 Abraham himself is visible, folded in the arms of the resplen- 
 dencies and the beatitudes of God. 
 
 729. The historical past, as Biblically understood, is divided 
 into three eras, called respectively the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, 
 and the Clu-istian. Abraham was not in himself a miraculous 
 man, but was the subject of a miraculous guidance from with- 
 out, and from above. Moses, the next in succession, unlike 
 Abraham, was a miraculous man, clasped in the encircling 
 powers of the divine attributes, and quickened both in the 
 spirit, the mind, and the body of his' will, so that he endured 
 and laboured, as seeing the Invisible ; yet the era which Moses 
 inaugurated, and the nation which he established, were both 
 non-miraculous, in this general and universal sense. 
 
 730. In the Christian dispensation we behold its Divine- 
 human Founder bodily as high above Moses, as he in turn was 
 above Abraham ; and the nation or people whom the Lord pre- 
 pared were not selected by the adoption or the consecration of 
 the family, the tribal, or the national instinct, but were taken 
 from all types of mankind indiscriminately, wherever was 
 found a nature willing to accept this Divine Leadership, and 
 to overcome the baseness of self-love by the divinity of self- 
 sacrifice. Yet while Christ founded by this incarnation of 
 Himself a divine kingdom in first principles, it never was ex- 
 tended into ultimates. Unity, fraternity, co-operation, liberty, 
 solidarity, and harmony were all mirrored on its firmament. 
 
SEC. 728—733.] TSJE JPOOALYPSE. 399 
 
 and slione above it as tlio stars; tliey made tlie niglit-time 
 l)eautiful; but still tbe eigliteen centuries liave been as one 
 long liour and power of darkness. The spirit of Christ has 
 been a quickening, an illuminating, a disturbing, and a 
 revolutionary element in society; but never a reorganizing 
 element. It has never embodied itself; there is no purely 
 Christian town or city, much less a state or empire. The 
 spirit of humanity is visited and profoundly moved by in- 
 dwelling Christian principles and powers, but the body of 
 humanity is unconverted, unregenerated, and subject to de- 
 spotic and anarchical rule. 
 
 731. We wait, then, for the fourth kingdom, wherein the 
 spirits of men shall be filled with the Divine Spirit of Christ, 
 and the bodies of men with the Divine Body of Christ, so that 
 the ensoulment and the embodiment of Chi'istianity shall be 
 complete. This is the order with which creation has travailed 
 from the beginning, but whether the incoming of that order 
 shall be catastrophic or harmonious, depends upon the active 
 obedience and conspiration of enlightened men. 
 
 732. The misuse of the Old Testament, the perversion of the 
 New Testament, at the present day, combinedly operate to 
 prevent the religious classes from exercising a unitary influence 
 and an uplifting power in the world. The idolatry that is 
 generated by a blind devotion to the unillumined letter of 
 Scripture, is as ruinous in its final results as any other form of 
 idolatry among savage nations. The Bible is a help, so long 
 as men make use of it as a means for overcoming self-love, and 
 for taking in the Spii'it of truth, freedom, holiness, and self- 
 surrendery ; but a positive evil when made use of, as it is 
 now most commonly used, for the purpose of quenching the 
 purest and noblest of all our aspirations. It' is just as easy to 
 build up a Paganism through the Bible, as it is to build ujd a 
 Paganism through nature. Scripture, rightly used, becomes 
 like that chariot and those horses of fire that bore up the pro- 
 phet to his translation; but Scripture, misused, is like a mill- 
 stone tied around the neck, and sinking both the intellectual 
 and moral nature in the depths of the sea. 
 
 733. Unless a man can divine, spiritually, some, at least, of 
 those archetypal truths, from the descent of which into the 
 
400 AECAJSTA OF CHRISTIANITY. [cnAP. iii. 
 
 world tlie Bible was written, lie virtually is left without a reve- 
 lation. Practically, at tlio present time, there is in Christen- 
 dom but the smallest remains of revelation. The Hebrew race 
 have the Old Testament, but throughout the whole of that eni- 
 blazoned record, from Genesis to Malachi, they cannot find the 
 least clue by which to be led from the dark labyrinth of tradition, 
 to the open sunlight of the incarnate Christ. So the sects and 
 nations of Christendom have the New Testament, but from the 
 song of the Nativity to the thunderings and the trumpets of the 
 Apocalypse, so imbedded are they in the frost-work and rock- 
 work, in the corruption and the petrifaction of dogmas, rituals 
 and systematic inversions of theologies, that the whole is to 
 them an inexplicable symbol, a shining mesh of glittering and 
 startling but incomprehensible affirmations. It is as difficult 
 for them, by its aid, to find Christ in the present, as it was for 
 the Jews, by their older record, to find Christ in the past. Both 
 of the revelations mislead their bhnded and traditional wor- 
 shippers. 
 
 734. One central and archetypal principle, seized by the 
 intellect, and incorporated into the life as a working power, is 
 of more practical value than all the records of a sealed and 
 hidden revelation. One uplook into the face of the Living 
 Christ, one radiant morning hour when His Divine Presence 
 illuminates the personality, is of more value to the individual 
 soul than all that Moses saw on Sinai, or James and John upon 
 the mount of the transfiguration. Revelation is worthless 
 until it is interpreted through experience ; till then it is like 
 music to the deaf, or sunlight to the blind ; till then, the self- 
 complacent and sophisticated carnal heart makes a fetishism 
 or a blind fatuity of its pregnant oracles. The probability is 
 that Christendom will be deprived of revelation, and that both 
 the Old and New Testaments will, until seen with new eyes, 
 loved with a new heart, and understood with a new mind, for 
 a time be displaced from their position of supreme authority. 
 
 735. Nations possessed of superficial enhghtenment will 
 not long believe in the truth of records, whose seeming dis- 
 crepancies they have not the insight to reconcile. It is con- 
 ceded now by theologians that the statement in Genesis is 
 not a literal record of creation ; to this they have been forced 
 
SEC. 734—737] TRE AFOCALTFSE. 401 
 
 by the stern necessities resulting from scientific discovery. 
 The angel of Geology has put forth his finger of stone, and 
 written, " Weighed in the balance, and found wanting-/^ upon 
 the ancient, massive palace wall. But while the records of 
 geology have seriously impaired the power and prestige of the 
 sects, they have, in a measure, recovered themselves by taking 
 refuge in the hypothesis, that the record of creation is true as 
 a magnificent symbolism, a piece of Divine picture-writing, 
 wherein ages were typified as days. 
 
 736. But still, Christendom is committed to the literal accu- 
 racy of biblical history and human chronology. It cannot 
 stretch the line of the generations beyond the orthodox six 
 thousand years; it is committed to the theory that makes 
 Adam, and all of his descendants to Abraham, historical per- 
 sonages. To admit a mere symbolism, or picture-writing, here, 
 would annihilate, in the popular judgment, every priesthood 
 and every dogmatic church ; in fine, it would sink Scripture 
 as a revelation utterly out of sight ; would overthrow the house 
 by taking from under it the foundations. But now the most 
 reverent and cautious of scientific thinkers and explorers 
 claim that they have demonstrated an antiquity of at least 
 twenty-five thousand years for the human race. Again the rocks 
 have spoken, the earth has revealed her secrets and the re- 
 mains of the immemorial dead. Where shall theology turn 
 now ? Who were these fathers of humanity, compared to 
 whose grand antiquity, Adam, of the creed, was a modern ol 
 the later time ? If the Church denies the facts. Science 
 rises to overwhelm her with incontestable evidences ; if she 
 admits the facts, then she must bid a final farewell to her 
 long line of antediluvians ; she must say, " This roU of names, 
 from Adam to beyond Noah, is a series of inspu-ed symbols ; 
 the record is a truth of allegory, but not a truth of history." 
 
 737. But then comes the last objection; How do you pi'ove 
 that this is a divine allegory, a celestial correspondence ? If 
 this is a divine picture-writing, you cannot ask the world to 
 believe it without a rational demonstration. " Then from' the 
 passive hands of the dogmatic priestly classes falls that Word 
 of which they have claimed to be the infallible or accurate ex- 
 pounders ; then Scriptui'e finally becomes valueless, except to 
 
 c c 
 
402 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 tlioso wlio receive and embody it in tlie inspirations of a new 
 life and the harmonies of a new age." 
 
 738. I saw in the night a star of the fifth magnitude, which 
 gradually increased the proportions of its disc and the intensity 
 of its radiance, until it became, to my vision, a sun, shining in 
 the eastern Heaven. The rays were pure life, the heat from 
 them pure love, and the light which they dispensed pure in- 
 telligence. A'VTiile gazing, two men approached from a cavern 
 at my left ; the first an Egyptian, and the second a Greek, — 
 both of them magicians. They stumbled as if blinded, and 
 moved forward groping their way. Said the first, " Hereto- 
 fore I have travelled this path with clear light in which to see, 
 but now it is night." The second answered him, " The gods 
 are angry, and have eclipsed the sun." 
 
 739. The Egyptian began to evolve from the internals of his 
 mind, by magic, a light of the quality of that which exists in 
 the Hell of which he is a member, and it made to my sight a 
 cloud in which he was enveloped ; smoke at the same time 
 issued from his nostrils. The Greek at the same instant, and 
 by the same process, enveloped himself in a similar cloud, and 
 they both began then* upward passage, dimly discerning the 
 path which it was their purpose to' pm'sue. At length they 
 came to an iron gateway, and the first said, " This is new; " to 
 which the other replied, shaking with a sudden palsy of fear, 
 " We are shut off." They both fell to examining it, and essayed 
 various magical processes for its removal ; but at length, find- 
 ing their arts ineffectual, they began to sink, until finally the 
 earth covered them up. 
 
 740. " This," said an angel who stood within the gateway, 
 " is a new barrier between the new formation which our Lord 
 is establishing in the internals of the substance of the bodies 
 of His people, and the magic of the abyss ; behold, and note 
 well." I took my stand within the guarded boundary, and 
 saw a space of hill and valley encompassed by it ; but while 
 gazing, my hands were attracted to the slender bars, and I 
 took hold of them ; when, to my astonishment, they dissolved 
 as water, affording no impediment to the passage, or as air 
 
SEC. 738—742.] TS:E apocalypse. 403 
 
 tliat eludes tlie grasp and is invisible. The angel then said, 
 " What is a barrier to the Lord^s enemies, is an open way to 
 His servants.''^ 
 
 741. I then began to muse upon the obstructions which 
 prevent, at least in seeming, the enunciation of truth, and the 
 publishment of the laws of the Lord^s New Harmony among 
 men; and while thus meditating, I saw a wall that had 
 once stood, and which was now overthrown. A venerable 
 ancient sat near it, costumed in Tyrian purple, with a crown 
 of mp'tle upon his brow. He arose as if beholding a stranger, 
 and after exceedingly kind salutations had passed between 
 us, he directed my attention to these ruins, pointing out the 
 traces of battlements, the remains of lofty pillars, and the 
 vestiges of covered ways, leading me from place to place ; but 
 all of these once stately and ponderous works were so friable, 
 so honey-combed by age, that it seemed as if they were 
 ready to crumble into dust. "And so,^^ he said, '^they are 
 dust, and unto dust they return ;" and said it sighingly and 
 with a far-away voice, with a plaintive music in it, as if the 
 spirit of the wind of night were wandering and whispering 
 among the ruins. I fell upon my knees, and cried, " God, 
 if it be possible, establish Thine order among men, amidst the 
 ruins of that primal order which evil hath overthrown ;" and, 
 as I prayed, the agony that filled my heart found utterance. 
 
 742. When I had ceased, the light was resting sacredly, 
 cheerfully, upon each sad vestige of the ruins, and they were 
 dissolving, losing outline, and becoming indistinguishable. 
 At length I rose to my feet, and still in deep meditation, 
 began pacing to and fro, but with wearied feet, and with 
 the body bowed by infirmity, in my heart no gladness and 
 no song. I then saw lightnings jDlaying through the bars 
 of the slender boundary, and heard a Voice moving as in the 
 swiftness of that lightning along those bars, and in the Voice 
 words unutterable in the tongue of man, words pathetic and 
 yet awful, encouraging but overwhelming, addressing them- 
 selves to the very spirit, and winning their way to the depths 
 of the spirit. The last and feeblest of the adumbrations of 
 these words were like these, " The world and all things therein, 
 whether they be governments,. or societies, or languages, or 
 
 c c 2 
 
40J. AECANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 peoples^ or marriages, or reasonings, or festivities, or sects, 
 or customs and ceremonies, or medicines, or inventions, lo, 
 they are wasting before ]\Iy Lrcatli, and they shall perish and 
 be obliterated. I keep My promise from everlasting to ever- 
 lasting. I bequeath My testimonies, and I have fulfilled My 
 words ; and those testimonies shall not perish, and all those 
 words shall be fulfilled." 
 
 Chap. hi. 7. — " And to the angel op the Chuech in Phila- 
 delphia WRITE ; These things saith He that is holy. He 
 that is true, He that hath the key op David, He that 
 openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no 
 
 MAN openeth.-*^ 
 
 743. It is impossible, verbally, except in a remote sense, to 
 convey to the mind any adequate description of those harmonic 
 men of the unfallen universe, who inherit into the perfections 
 of that human type, described here as the Church in Philadel- 
 phia. Respiring in conjunction with the Ultimate Heaven, in 
 union also with the world-souls of the planets and the suns 
 into which it especially flows, they serve as illustrations, in the 
 most practical and concrete sense, of the divine felicities which 
 that Heaven contains within its bosom. The sensational life 
 of the harmonic man of this class preponderates over the 
 intellectual, and sentiments are interpreted through physical 
 sensations. The truths that illuminate the understanding are 
 suffused in lovely lustres of every exquisite variety, as if the 
 light were diffused upon them through canopies of interwoven 
 tropical flowers. They illustrate most fully the well-nigh ob- 
 literated truth, that every bodily organ is itself the seat of a 
 subordinate mind, endued with faculties of a corresponding 
 sort. This is seen in the light of science in the Spiritual 
 Heaven, but in the Ultimate Heaven receives a vivid, speak- 
 ing demonstration. 
 
 744. The terrestrial harmonic man of this class derives his 
 wisdom principally from the unwritten symbols of the Word, 
 as they are extant in natural objects ; endued with a fine ob- 
 jectivism, he makes the earth his university, and his teachers 
 the representative objects of a visible creation. He detects the 
 
SEC. 743—746.] TRE AFOOALYFSU. 405 
 
 innumerable flavours tliat await tlie tongue, tlie endless sweet 
 odours for tlie nostrils, tlie soft gradations of tlie thousand 
 colours within their primates, the harmonies within their har- 
 monies, that fill the world as if it were the living breast of an 
 inspired musician. He makes his study the body, and esteems 
 lightly other truths which refer to it but remotely ; not that he 
 is a body worshipper, but, reverencing it in its completeness as 
 a temple for the Divine Mind, whose structures should not be 
 impaired. 
 
 745. There is in every organ an articulate human voice, 
 audible to the soul's ear, by which its pains or raptures are ex- 
 pressed. To interpret these voices, the harmonic man of the 
 genius we now note, possesses the sympathy that draws out 
 their deepest utterance. Sensations are living things that reside 
 within the nervous essence. A primary number of sensations 
 are born in the infantile structure; to the eye of the angel 
 of the Third Heaven they are visible entities. There are no 
 pains in the body of the unfallen man, the sensations being all 
 pleasures. The diseased though still living sensations, which 
 God made to be pleasure-bodies, since the derangement caused 
 by sin, become pain-bodies. An exquisite palpitating creature, 
 somewhat resembling a white butterfly, was presented to me 
 by an angel of the Ultimate Heaven. He said, " This is a 
 pleasure of sensation, sporting in the ether of the nervous 
 essence in the region which corresponds to the left lower jaw." 
 He thence caused it to enter into my own nervous essence, and 
 I began to experience delight. A creature sjDrang up and 
 seized it with sharp mandibles, containing cutting teeth, and 
 then it began to writhe, while neuralgic thrills afflicted me. 
 The angel then di'ew out the two and disengaged the one from 
 the other; the first regained its beauty and flew away, the 
 second changed, as the angel held it, from green to Hvid blue 
 and was destroyed. He then threw out the creatm^c, which 
 a demon caught, closed his hand over it as if he had found 
 a prize, and revived it, carefully placing it in his own breast 
 afterward. 
 
 746. The joys of angels give birth to lovely, sportive, aeriform 
 creatures, which flutter down, and, undergoing a change, enter 
 the nerve essence of harmonic men on unfallen earths, where 
 
406 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 they multiply. The delights of sensation are thus perpetually 
 maintained with increase where there is open breathing. These 
 ultimate angels also give forth bodies of pleasure of many 
 varieties, according to human states. Since, however, the man 
 of the church in Philadelphia is to respire in conjunction with 
 this Heaven and with the world-souls of the orbs under its in- 
 fluence, he becomes, in a pre-eminent sense, the depository of its 
 embodied pleasures. We may know them by their symbols in 
 nature, the innocent birds, the gay butterflies, the honey bee. 
 They are moreover in forms which correspond to objects in 
 the animal kingdom, but earth affords but comparatively few 
 symbols. The pleasures denote the loves. As are the organic 
 pleasure-bodies in the nervous essence, so are the truths in the 
 understanding and the afiections in the heart. Eolations of 
 sympathy are maintained between man and nature by means of 
 these pleasure-bodies in his nerve essence. He is thus at one 
 with the living objects of the woods and fields. Nothing is 
 slain upon harmonic earths, no more germs of life being per- 
 mitted to unfold than are necessary to maintain the due pro- 
 portions of the living forms, which are organs for the outgoings 
 of the Infinite Harmony. They dissolve rather than decease 
 at the termination of their terrestrial cycle. 
 
 747. It is reserved for the man of the Church in Thyatira to 
 initiate on earth the ultimate conditions of the harmonic orbs. 
 He will eat no flesh and partake of nothing which must pre- 
 viously be slain for sustenance, subsisting entirely upon the pro- 
 ducts of the vegetable kingdom and the milk of the domestic 
 animals, which is the most concentrated form for heavenly 
 influx, and where harmony exists, the most congenial food 
 to the afiections of man. " The angel of the Church in 
 Philadelphia,'^ signifies, a pivotal man to arise, who shall first 
 become, with his wife, established in the higher states of open 
 respiration, and who shall restore paradisiacal order upon the 
 planet for those of his type who shall follow. He will go forth 
 to a mild, temperate region of the globe, fixing therein the 
 seat of the type of civilization which he prefigm^es. The 
 angels of the Ultimate Heaven will be permitted to surround 
 him till he grows ripe in the afiluence of Heavenly sensation. 
 He will be the first to plant a garden, called Eden, the first to 
 
SEC. 747—748.] THE AFOCALYPSE. 407 
 
 institute tlie serial arrangement among plants^ shrubs^ vines, 
 flowers^ and orcliard and forest trees, whicL. shall at once 
 sjmbolise tlie Heavenly mysteries, and afford continued forms 
 for the distribution of tlie superior influx into nature. After 
 tMs time paradises will become frequent for tlie deligbt of open 
 breathing men. The idea of a paradise is this : An area wherein 
 the disposition of the natural world shall be according to the 
 order of the series of the affections of the soul. The pomolo- 
 gist, by affection, is commonly of this class of men, as also are 
 those who combine the passion for the pursuits of the orchard 
 and garden with a delight in rearing and tending sheep and 
 kine. 
 
 748. '' Write,'' signifies, the arcana of the new terrestrial 
 paradise. " These things,'' signifies, particulars concerning 
 those arcana. " Saith," signifies, the inward declaration of 
 these truths to men of this type and also a knowledge from 
 good, and by internal perception, of their truth when unfolded 
 through others. " He that is holy," signifies, a peculiar mani- 
 festation from the Lord in the Ultimate Heaven where He 
 communicates joys of sensation by open presence. " He that 
 is true," signifies, an open manifestation of the Lord by which 
 He prepares a ground in the rational natures of the angels 
 there, causing truths to upspring in it in visual correspon- 
 dences. '' He that hath the key of David," signifies. His 
 power to open the world- soul of the planet and unlock its 
 harmonies for open breathing men. " He that openeth and 
 no man shutteth," signifies, the descent of a new vegetable 
 kingdom ; and a clothing of the whole world with comjoosite 
 beauties from it, which, in that day, the Hells shall not 
 be able to prevent. " And shutteth and no man openeth," 
 signifies, that paradises established in the earth in the new age 
 will be closed for the security of their dwellers against the 
 natural forms of demoniacal infestation. Paradises may also 
 be established in a preliminary order, when Chui'ch Thyatira 
 unfolds in conjunction with Sardis. 
 
 Chap. hi. 8. — " I know thy works : behold, I have set befoke 
 
 THEE AN OPEN DOOE, AND NO MAN CAN SHUT IT : FOR THOU 
 
408 AECANA OF CRBISTIANITY. [cnAP. m. 
 
 HAST A LITTLE STRENGTH, AND HAST KEPT MY WORD_, AND HAST 
 NOT DENIED MY NAME." 
 
 749. The new cultivator of tlie earth, of this type, through 
 open respiration will become aware of seven facts which fol- 
 low. First, that plant-life is rooted within the sensations of 
 the world-soul, and that the great bounteous mother pulses 
 affections through her trees, shrubs, and flowers. Second, 
 that particular affections in the world-soul for man, are distri- 
 buted through particular varieties of the forest, orchard, and 
 garden. Third, that there are seasons during which she com- 
 paratively withholds from species and genera of the great 
 series, a vital quality essential to the resistance power by means 
 of which they are able to maintain their structures unimpaired 
 against vegetable contagion. Fourth, that a little influx is 
 distributed, in amount just sufficient to keep vegetable families 
 from extinction. Fifth, that the world-soul is able, through 
 changes in the typal arrangements of the atoms, to unfold new 
 families from existing families. Sixth, that no terrestrial art or 
 science can introduce influx from the world- soul into plants when 
 she withholds. Seventh, that the same fruit-bearing trees, during 
 different years, contain within their products qualities of affec- 
 tion deiived from her, imj)regnated with an essence, now from 
 aromal, now from terrestrial, now from solar luminaries. Men 
 of the three types will serve in the deliverance of the animal 
 creation from its bondage. There is in the animal organism 
 but one continuous degree. The world-soul would respire 
 openly through the universal animal kingdom were the 
 human race restored to harmony. Great changes, modifica- 
 tions of types, animal wastings, visitations, quickenings, and 
 ascensions into higher vigour and beauty of form, purer 
 qualities of emanation and attribute, will mark the pei'iods of 
 the new respiration in the animal kingdom. 
 
 750. After internal respiration has been established, and 
 advanced through many trials borne, duties performed, and 
 temptations baffled, the Lord permits the voice of the world- 
 soul to be heard in the man of this type. Her voice has some- 
 thing of a quiet grandeur which suggests the broad, cloud- 
 less horizon at evening twilight, and it seems to open thought 
 horizons within the mind of singular aspect. The angels of 
 
SEC. 749—752.] TEE APOCALYPSE. 409 
 
 the Ultimate Heaven are tlien witli man, conspiring with, 
 her breaths, and interpenetrating her sensitive inflow of song. 
 The world-soul can best be heard under these conditions just 
 before and just after the rise and set of sun. It trembles 
 through the being with a rich undertone, as if all earth and 
 ah- were pervaded by a nerve-essence in which it moved by 
 vibrations ; but its voice speaking in articulate tones is heard 
 within the breast. 
 
 751. "1 know thy works/^ signifies, how much the man of 
 this type must suffer, bear, achieve, and resist in obedience 
 to the Holy Ghost, before he can enter into communion with 
 the world-soul. " I have set before thee an open door,^^ sig- 
 nifies, that when the period of preparation is worthily fulfilled, 
 the world-soul is opened and respires toward him and in him, 
 in due rythmical response to the divine respirations, which 
 supply the lungs of the body through the lungs of the 
 soul ; by this response of respiration the union is maintained, 
 and the truths perceived in and through the Word. " And no 
 man can shut it,''' signifies, that when the world-soul com- 
 mences thus to respire in man, she has power given her, so 
 long as there is a divine respiration through the lungs, to vi- 
 brate to it by her breaths. It also signifies, that this mode of 
 communication is inviolable and fixed against the assaults of 
 the demon world. The rest of the truths in the verse pertain 
 to the world-soul. 
 
 752. " Thou hast a little strength," signifies, that she con- 
 tinually revives from year to year through the rich results 
 wrought in her by our Lord when He was incarnate. " And 
 hast kept My Word," signifies, that the afiections which she 
 has contained within herself, epitomise and represent the In- 
 finite Divine afiections which are the essence of the Word. 
 " And hast not denied My name," signifies, that though im- 
 personal, and so incapable of choice between moral good or 
 evil, she sensitively is conscious of the two, and absorbs the 
 influence in which the Divine Name is present. 
 
 Chap. hi. 9. — " Bkhold, I will make them op the syna- 
 gogue OP Satan, which say they ake Jews, and aee 
 
410 AB.CANA OF CnHISTIANITY. [chap. m. 
 
 NOT, BUT DO LIE ; BKHOLD, 1 WILL MAKE THEM TO COME AND 
 WOKSHIP BEFORE THY FEET, AND TO KNOW THAT I HAVE 
 LOVED THEE." 
 
 753. A^Hien the unfallen man upon liarmonic orbs begins to 
 worship in his paradise, the world-soul delightedly responds in 
 unison of breath, and the sparry arches and fire recesses of the 
 orb grow vocal. It is this which is the cause, in combination 
 with other springs of harmony, of the multiform floral, orchard, 
 and forest groves, the unexampled fruitfulness that enriches 
 the year. If she brings forth, through her organised forms, so 
 bountifully for self-loving men and nations with us, it is be- 
 cause she sympathises with the dealings of that Providence 
 that perpetually seeks to win man by mercies to his aban- 
 doned allegiance. She, sympathising with the world-souls of 
 the unfallen creation, is preparing at the present moment to 
 execute a changed office with man. When the apple will not 
 ripen, when the corn will not fill, — these words will be read 
 again. When the murrain affects the cattle, and there is no 
 remedy ; when the pastures mourn the scant growth, that 
 exhibits but a faint and sickly hue ; when the grasses refuse 
 to reproduce their seed, — again these words will be perused. 
 When the blossoms drop before the germs set ; when, without 
 frost, the efiects of frost are evident ; and, without fire, the 
 blight that attends fire, — again will this page pass before the 
 sight. 
 
 754. She specially inflows, — since all universal influx is 
 composed of particulars, — into every member of the vegetable 
 kingdom. She brings forth now in obedience to the provi- 
 dential ordering alike for good and evil. Not so in the future ; 
 she will distribute then to him who, with open respiration, is 
 all devoted to his Master's voice, three hundred, six hundred, 
 and a thousand-fold. To him who needs most as a steward of 
 Divine bounties, most will be given. The hand of avarice will 
 sow full grain, but reap chafi". " Synagogue of Satan,'' signi- 
 fies, inhabitants of earth who reap and sow, entirely disregard- 
 ful of Providence, in its distributive laws, and who use the 
 earth as their own, denying its sole proprietary, our Lord. 
 " Which say they are Jews," signifies, the multitudes who 
 nominally profess a Christian faith, but in their hearts idolise 
 
SEC. 753—756.] THE APOCALYPSU. 411 
 
 tlie self. " And are not/' signifies,, tlie unreality of tlie pro- 
 fessions made by such. " But do lie/' signifies^ their states 
 of internal falsity and evil. " I will make them to come and 
 worship before thy feet/' signifies^, the abasement put on such 
 in the new day, when it begins to be apparent that the har- 
 vests are for the pure and bountiful who do the Lord's will, 
 and the famines for the impure and covetous, who have de- 
 spised and rejected it. " And to know that I have loved thee/' 
 signifies, their discovery, from facts palpable to the senses, 
 that the* world-soul is a form into which the Lord pours His 
 bounty, that she, through the surface of the earth, may distri- 
 bute it at His command. 
 
 Chap. hi. 10. — "Because thou hast kept the woed of my 
 
 PATIENCE, I also will KEEP THEE FEOM THE HOUR OP 
 temptation, WHICH SHALL COME UPON ALL THE WORLD, TO 
 TRY THEM THAT DWELL UPON THE EARTH." 
 
 755. Within this verse are contained truths which pertain 
 to seven great trials to befal mankind. First, magnetization 
 from evil spirits ; this has already begun. Second, enormous 
 agonies in the nervous system which they produce ; these are 
 in their infancy. Third, poisonous swellings and ulcerations 
 visiting the entire form, though sometimes malignant cancers 
 will prevail in portions of the frame. Fourth, leprosy, in- 
 curable by natural means. Fifth, fever burnings at night, 
 and partially suspended natural respiration. Sixth, bronchial 
 and trachial ulcers and- impaired vision. Seventh, giddiness, 
 which results in epilepsy ; all of these to be produced through 
 demoniacal action. These are now advancing with giant 
 strides, as occult influences from nation to nation, but of them 
 more at a subsequent place. The civilized man is on his 
 deathbed, and the Lord will cause such subjective evils as are 
 nourished in the will to reproduce themselves in diseases upon 
 the bodily system. The agony of the good has been pro- 
 tracted since sin entered into the world; but the next cycle 
 will see the refluent tide which casts the plagues upon the 
 bodies of the evil. 
 
 756. The descent of the divine breath through open respira- 
 tion causes a state of diminished vigour, marked by many 
 
412 ABOANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. hi. 
 
 peculiarities, wliicli occupies seven years, a period wliich may 
 be mucli increased, though seldom much lessened. There are 
 twenty years afterward, likewise extended or abridged, of 
 such consummate strength that the performances of one man 
 may astonish millions. Of the trials that precede it, state- 
 ments have been before made. " Because thou hast kept the 
 word of my patience," signifies, that the endurance quality in 
 man, having been brought out through the seven years, he 
 will enter into twenty years called " omnipotence,^^ being all 
 powerful to accomplish every end for which he "is set apart. 
 He represents the Divine Conqueror. There are periods be- 
 tween these states. " I also will keep thee from the hour of 
 temptation,^' signifies, the new cycle of power, during which 
 he goes forth from conquering to conquer. It also signifies, 
 his exemption from the bodily scourges that smite mankind. 
 " Which shall come upon all the world," signifies, the uni- 
 versality of these bodily scourges as they increase. " To try 
 them that dwell upon the earth," signifies, the special end 
 which the Lord has in these scom-ges. 
 
 757. These are, first, to deploy the sins of the spirit into the 
 organs of the body; second, to exhibit the loathsomeness of 
 evil by its physical ultimations ; third, to convict the natural 
 scientific man of powerlessness to arrest, ward ofi", or remove 
 God's judgments ; fourth, to demonstrate the utter incapacity 
 of the decayed religions and their priesthoods ; fifth, to bring 
 on, by desolations, a state of human humiliation, after which 
 the preaching of the Word through open respiration will pre- 
 vail ; sixth, to dissipate the common error that sin cannot be 
 reproduced in the natural system, by showing man that his 
 deeds in the body must come to judgment ; and seventh, to 
 point on the faithful to a period wherein Satan's kingdom in the 
 human body, in nature, in society, no less than in the worlds 
 of emotions and ideas, shall be overthrown and swept away. 
 
 758. '' To try them," also signifies, seven trials which shall 
 call out men's latent qualities, removing the artificial incrus- 
 tation which obscures the hidden mind and heart. The first 
 trial will be through subjective visions ; the fiery sword cleav- 
 ing the firmament, dreadful and terrible, around whose swift 
 passage the atmosj^heres burst in flame ; the trumpet, sound- 
 
SEC. 757—760.] TSi: APOCALYPSE. 413 
 
 ing from tlie east to the westj while tlie fire-floods seem to 
 roll beneath it^ giving up the lost who move palely over the 
 billows like aflFrighted men ; the world-soulj a mighty woman^ 
 throned upon the orb, holding the burning keys of the sepul- 
 chres, and waiting to cast them at His feet who comes to 
 judgment ; the locusts with crowns upon their heads, rising 
 through the bowels of the earth and stinging and killing the 
 bodies of mankind. These and myriad others will revolution- 
 ize the world of sleep, and men will tremble at the bed and 
 fear the coming of nightfall as if one were the sepulchre, and 
 the other that nio-ht wherein no man can wake. It is not far ! 
 
 759. The second trial is the anguish of the sensational 
 organs which lie about the heart. It will seem as if a being 
 were there, apart from the consciousness, yet with a sensitive 
 life peculiar to itself, and ever and anon communicating mys- 
 terious, thrilling pains. This will never leave men till they 
 are wholly delivered from evil, or buried in it. I am not per- 
 mitted to speak of what this is ; but when it is most utterly 
 still, we have most reason to tremble at our states, and when 
 we most are awakened by its unwelcome presence, to self- 
 examination, repentance, and zeal for right things, we have 
 most reason to believe that our salvation will not tarry. The 
 third trial is the night siren to the man, and her conjoined 
 male spirit to the woman. The night siren never haunts by 
 day, nor during wakefulness, but the dead hours and states of 
 repose are scented by her as the wolf scents the dead. She 
 brings on by contact with the man, through sleep, one of two 
 things, intense desires for adulterous delights, or most fearful 
 agonized combats, during which he seems contending against 
 their embodied representatives. Less powerful as a rule 
 against the opposite sex, a corresponding trial nevertheless 
 occurs. 
 
 760. A fourth trial is the iron hand. This comes forth 
 from utter darkness ; it first is felt lightly, touching the hair, 
 or softly tapping on the forehead, or delicately imprinting 
 the cheek or chin ; it is then discovered with a nice adjust- 
 ment thrilling with manipulation some organ of the greater or 
 lesser brain. It is produced as follows : men who have sinned 
 most through the hand, as murderers, ruiners, and the like. 
 
411. ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [ohap. hi. 
 
 are souglit out after tliey liave "been cast into Hell ; the liand 
 having been the chief agent of wickedness holds in it as a 
 result a bony hardness of the passions which have become 
 scoria. These, fused in the volcanic^ seething vortex of the 
 being of a mighty child of crime, are ultimately injected into 
 some murderous sjairit, yet wandering in the invisible realms 
 of nature, with a magnetic body, which brings him near to 
 man. By degrees he is conscious that a vast inspiration 
 possesses him, and his hand becomes to the finer natural sight 
 like black iron emitting sparks, which are now fierce from the 
 fever, and then cold, frost-like and death-like, from the chill 
 of the infernal world. It is this iron hand that is the chief 
 agent in the greater part of the physical manifestations from 
 spirits at this day. Soothed and delighted by it, the child of 
 time and sense imagines the manifestation to be from some 
 kind angel, nor is it discovered to be otherwise, except by the 
 Spirit of God awakening suspicion and rousing the heart to 
 rigorous self-examination and a holy life. There is no limit 
 to which odious familiarities, through this object, may be 
 carried, unless barriers in the moral nature interpose. Its 
 caresses are to be feared and shunned, for it inevitably ruins 
 the soul that does not rise in the appeal to God for victory 
 over it. It becomes a necessity of life to those who yield 
 criminally to it. After a while, God sometimes overrules it 
 for good, in this, that sooner or later a decision is forced, and 
 a rapid combat, either .of the sinful heart to put away the Spirit 
 of God, or the yearning, struggling, changing heart, to have 
 God^s Holy Spirit enter it and overcome the destroyer. 
 
 761. A fifth trial is the death tick. This is produced by 
 the insinuation of a species of creeping worm into the finer 
 parts of the nervous fluid. Wherever it can find in the organ- 
 ization a place where the nerve essence exudes, it absorbs 
 into itself the animal spirits. Sometimes it is coiled round 
 and round the body in the netve fluid where it dwells. Tor- 
 pidity of the liver is sometimes caused by the presence of 
 these objects in the nerve fluid. There is a ticking in the 
 nerves, loud sometimes to the sense as that of a watch, which 
 bespeaks their animated movement. The vibrations produced 
 announce that evil spirits electrically surcharge their bodies^ 
 
SEC. 761—763.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 415 
 
 producing small concussions. It is tlie peculiarity of this 
 creature^ when excited by this mode, pleasurably to stretch 
 itself at length, and open its whole coil to the demon. A 
 sixth trial will be hand-magic. The human hand\vill be taken 
 possession of, even when the other members of the body are 
 inaccessible. It will be made use of by the fiend as if it were 
 his own, and through it, while the unconscious subject of the 
 attack is carelessly unaware, the effects of the most powerful 
 enchantments will be produced upon any organ with which 
 the fingers are suffered to lie in contact. This will not be 
 confined in its deleterious effects to the one person whose 
 member is thus subjected, but all exj)osed to its touch wiU be 
 liable to injury. 
 
 762. The seventh trial will be the lamia, and this the most 
 fearful of all ; for particulars concerning it see A. of C. 1, I. 
 656, 663. It is by means of the lamia that the demons of the 
 lost orb will inundate the souls of men with extreme ano-nish. 
 Near the heart of every human being, in the nerve essence, is 
 a wound organically opened from birth, and inherited through 
 every ancestor from the first parents of the race. All thus 
 bear in themselves an open demonstration of the fall. A long 
 serpentine stream of influx is projected from the Hells of the 
 lost orb, into and through the Hells of our planet, and it rises 
 into nature tkrough wandering demons who retain magnetic 
 bodies, clothing itself thus with coil after coil of subtle poison. 
 It projects a small exquisitely shaped human face, below which 
 are iridescent wings of emerald, changing to vermilion and 
 violet. It puts forth from between infantile lips the keen 
 poison-tongue, and strikes it, if possible, into the spirit through 
 the open wound in the nervous essence. These constitute the 
 seven trials which await the whole earth ; but there are innu- 
 merable heights, lengths, breadths, and depths, concerning 
 which, from the inadequacy of language, it is impossible to 
 write. 
 
 763. " I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation," 
 signifies, that the open breathing man of this t}^e will rapidly 
 pass the ordeal of these varied trials, and become, through 
 conflict, an adamantine man to whom the infernals find no 
 ino-ress. 
 
41G ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. hi. 
 
 Chap. hi. 11. — "Behold^ I come quickly: hold that fast 
 
 WHICH THOU HAST, THAT NO MAN TAKE THY CROWN." 
 
 764. " Behold, I come quickly/' signifies, that a crisis 
 verges on, during which from land to land the tokens of open 
 respiration will appear. " Hold that fast which thou hast/' 
 signifies, that the new man in whom these tokens are manifest 
 must isolate himself from complicity with the false inversive 
 movement of society in its various relations, that he may retain 
 open respiration, in its incipient degree, until it becomes estab- 
 lished. "That no man take thy crown;" for significance of 
 "crown/' see Nos. 2G0, 201. 
 
 Chap. hi. 12. — "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar 
 IN the temple op my God, and he shall go no more 
 
 OUT : AND I WILL WRITE ' UPON HIM THE NAME OP MY GOD, 
 AND THE NAME OP THE CITY OF MY GoD, WHICH IS NeW 
 
 Jerusalem, which cometh down out of Heaven prom my 
 God : and i will write upon him my new name." 
 
 765. " Him that overcometh," signifies, the new man of 
 this type in whom the old nerve essence and natural soul have 
 passed away, and been followed by the new. " I will make 
 him a pillar," signifies, that into him shall descend one of the 
 many vortices of breath, through the Heavens from the Lord, 
 which determine the movements of men, and establish the 
 foundations of the new society. These vortices of breath come 
 forth from the Lord as columns of light, and whirlwinds in- 
 folding flames; they descend from Heaven to Heaven, and 
 stand at last in mid-air over against the man who is, if faith- 
 ful, to become incorporated into their moving harmony. When 
 they stand still in a community encompassing a pivotal man, 
 so long as he is faithful to his mission, the new kingdom of 
 our Redeemer advances, souls arc quickened, minds illumined, 
 hearts fed with living bread ; when they recede, sorrow falls 
 as of cloudiness after bright sunshine. These pillars are the 
 moving tabernacles of Jehovah's presence with man. 
 
 766. " I will make him a pillar," signifies, by imputation, 
 that the man with whom the Lord thus takes His abode, 
 becomes strong to execute, against all defiance and contumely 
 
SEC. 764—768.] THE APOCALTFSE. 417 
 
 his Maker's will. '' In the temple of my God/' signifies, that 
 every pillar-man becomes one through whom, by degrees, the 
 new celestial-natural firmament is created, which finally is to 
 overspan the globe. From pillar-man to pillar-man the light, 
 like a gigantic column rising in flaming splendour above the 
 utmost clouds, begins to incline, till gradually meeting the arc 
 of the pillar which is over another, it forms a perfect bow in 
 the clouds ; and when at last myriads of pillar-men are in their 
 place, the bow of the new covenant, springing from one 
 to the other, forms a terrestrial firmament, and the sky of 
 humanity is spanned from land to land as with involved 
 arches, prismatic with a seven-fold resplendence of supernatural 
 light. The men are seen standing in the midst of the majestic 
 light-columns as if irradiant with robes of fire, solid and bril- 
 liant as the diamond. They upbear that moving sky-harmony 
 through which the Lord reduces the kingdoms of the elements 
 to peace. 
 
 767. "And he shall go no more out," signifies, that no man 
 thus called, except through unfaithfulness, loses his pillar, or 
 passes from his pivotal position, but dwells in it where it 
 dwells, or journeys in it where it journeys, till he is rapped 
 away in it in the final horn* when he leaves the earth. " And I 
 will write upon him," signifies, that everywhere in and through- 
 out the new man who becomes a pillar-man, the angels read 
 the names of the divine knowledges, which, as embodied 
 ideas in the human form, are a shape within his shape from 
 head to feet. " The name of my God," signifies, the most 
 vast mystery yet made known. When the pillar-man is 
 established in his office, the lambent embodied ideas of the 
 truth of Jehovah stand within him, and are a typal form for 
 the display of the infinite attributes. They are not the man, 
 but he is invested in them ; they never subserve the ends of 
 his personality, but reign supreme above that personality; 
 and God binds through them the demons, and casts them into 
 a quiescent state, from time to time, when they rise to resist the 
 progress of that fiery pillar in which he dwells. More is 
 contained within this which it is not now permitted to utter. 
 
 768. " And the name of the city of my God, which is 
 New Jerusalem." This signifies, the new harmony for in- 
 
 D D 
 
418 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITY. [cdap. hi. 
 
 dividual and collective man, whose knowledges through open 
 respiration are manifest in the understanding, and set forth in 
 the new life. " Which cometh down out of heaven," signifies, 
 the harmonic civilization, celestial, spiritual, and ultimate, ex- 
 tant in the societies of angels who all respire in the Holy 
 Ghost, and are grouped in series and degrees, in nearness to 
 or distance from, or relative position toward each other, as the 
 divine breath is operant within them. The proposition of a 
 recent sociologist, " the series distributes the harmonies," is 
 strictly true, but practically useless, as it is impossible for un- 
 regenerate men to form the series. The Lord alone is compe- 
 tent to this work ; no science, no scale of passions, no arbitrary 
 force, no appeal to interests, can harmonize the relations of 
 man. For it there are required, first, the absolute surrendery 
 of the individual to the Holy Spirit ; second, the descent of 
 our God by His Spirit through the degrees of the organism, 
 until He breathes, and so begets volition through the entire 
 person ; when this is accomplished, men are classed in series, 
 and so brought into a position for the evolution of harmony by 
 the operant breath of Deity. 
 
 769. '' Down out of heaven," signifies, the mode of the de- 
 scent of the new harmony. Man inbreathes from the Lord at 
 every breath in his new condition, and goes forth whitherso- 
 ever the Spirit will, taking up that employ to which his Master 
 assigns him, labouring in it with assiduity as directed, while, 
 by means of the breath, the direction that is communicated^to 
 the mind works itself out in executive movements through 
 the frame. The illustration might be that of a shoemaker, 
 who, receiving in the divine breath the special dii'ection for 
 the day's labour, would find the breath begetting, through the 
 nervous and muscular system, the exact series of motions 
 necessary for the perfect work. Social science now stands for 
 the first time upon authentic feet of fact ; it rests on two pro- 
 positions which are verities for body and mind. First, the 
 inspiration or breath directs the action; second, the breath 
 which directs the action begets in the frame the series of 
 movements necessary for its accomplishment; on these two hang 
 all the law and the prophets. The office of man is simply 
 joyous, willing conspiration with his God. 
 
SEC. 769—772.] THE APOCALYPSE. 419 
 
 770. " From my God/'' signifies^ that the new harmony even 
 in its minutest points^ must be directed by the breath of Deity. 
 There is left no crevice for the intrusion of self. Man accepts, 
 in open breathing freedom, God's will for his will. The result 
 is that discord is impossible, the Infinite Intelligence evolving 
 every unit of the race into its own orbit, and afibrding to each 
 ample room and verge for the due perfection of every faculty ; 
 the unfolding of the germinal soul into a glorious flower of 
 virtue and intelligence. " I will write upon him my new 
 name,'' signifies here, the whole series of directions necessary 
 for the life-employment, which are inscribed by the Divine 
 breath within the new man. 
 
 Chap. hi. 13. — " He that hath an eae, let him hear what the 
 Spirit saith unto the chueches." 
 
 771. The solidarity of man in the new harmony is the topic 
 involved in this. The breaths distribute the employments. 
 The perfection of the individual requires relations, first to 
 the soil ; second, to the natural kingdom ; third, to culture ; 
 fourth, to the filial series ; fifth, to the conjugial series ; sixth, 
 to the parental series; and seventh, to the series of series 
 above. The crushing system of modern society subjugates 
 the human unit to the ferocious demands of any class of petty 
 tyrants, and is oblivious to the requisitions of the living soul. 
 Men are grouped in series already, though in an inversive 
 order, and involving lust, hatred, malice, guile, robbery, and 
 war. Rulers constitute one series, but an inversive one. 
 Francis Joseph, Napoleon, Alexander II., Victor Emmanuel, 
 the Sultan of Turkey, are neighbours, all engaged in seeking- 
 to outwit and circumvent each other. The Pope of Rome, the 
 Patriarch of Constantinople, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the 
 Sheikh el Islam, and the Grand Lama of the Buddhists, are 
 neighbours of another series, all intent, if zealous for their 
 respective systems, in degrading and humiliating the chiel 
 religionists of other types. 
 
 772. The great iron masters of Birmingham or cotton 
 spinners of Manchester, the silk manufacturers of Lyons, and, 
 in fine, the subversive chiefs of industry everywhere, consti- 
 tute another series, unity and unanimity, for the most part 
 
 D D 2 
 
420 AMCANA OF CHEISTIANITY. [chap. ni. 
 
 involved in fierce competition ; the exigencies of the market 
 now compelling bankruptcies, now adulterations, and now 
 sudden pauses or changes, destroying masses of invested capi- 
 tal, and driviilg the operative class to beggary, exile, or crime. 
 Artisans in their vast varieties form a composite series involv- 
 ing many. They are hordes of savages, so far as a Divine 
 order is involved, following the supplies of labour from place 
 to place, as the ancient Celt or American Indian hunted the 
 deer or buffalo ; now gorging the body with coarse excess in 
 periods of plenty, and again stalking gaunt and haggard in 
 times of want. Middle-men, or traffickers in products needed 
 for the daily consumption of communities, form another series, 
 also manifold, and chiefly predatory, as evinced from the fact 
 that adulterations of all fabrics and all foods, so far as possible, 
 are practised. Each acts from self-derived motives, carrying on 
 a social war, to succeed in which he must affect to undersell 
 his neighbour ; an odious hypocrisy being generated, as a rule, 
 by the avowed compulsions of trade. So illustrations might be 
 multiplied, showing that men must move in series, but that as 
 at present constituted, the series involves inevitable disorders, 
 corruption, waste, and crime. As a rule the buyer expects 
 to encounter smooth deceit, and the seller to accomplish his 
 end by equivocations and absolute falsehoods. 
 
 773. But in the present social arrangement the 'chiefs of 
 series prey upon subordinates. The chiefs of the State, as 
 emperors and kings, luxuriate in immense profusion, but the 
 subjects of the series range at but one degree above mendicity. 
 The chiefs of the ecclesiastical series, as witness prelates of 
 the various faiths in and out of Christendom, are sumptuous 
 livers, while their humbler brothers, the dervish, the friar, the 
 village parson, are often hangers-on upon the skirts of gen- 
 tility, or dependent upon avowed or secret alms. The chiefs 
 of industrial series, if successful, emulate hereditary nobles in 
 expense and display ; while, periodically, the lowest class, or 
 artisans, swarm the streets or subsist upon the most meagre 
 pittance. Kapacity characterizes the chiefs of series, and 
 smothered hate the inferior members. Again, certain crimes 
 may conspicuously display themselves and be matters of 
 universal tolerance. The chief of the state may be a libertine, 
 
SEC. 773—775] TRE APOCALYPSE. 421 
 
 but must respect tlie ceremonials of his position. The chiefs 
 of religion may not be incontinent ; they must respect studi- 
 ously the dogma and ritual of which they are the titular 
 representatives ; but avarice^ extortion^ simulation^ and an un- 
 scrupulous ambition^ combined with the most odious tyranny, 
 may characterize them with impunity. 
 
 774. A certain series is also obvious with the female sex. 
 Women of rank form one, conspicuous as holding sway in 
 etiquette, and contributing in no slight degree to the splendour 
 of com'ts and the adornments of drawing rooms -, but it is a 
 series without sisterhood, and its heart a nest of buzzino- 
 hornets. Women of opulence form another series, but the 
 bond being the possession of wealth, its loss results in social 
 oblivion; the feted guest of to-day, who occupies the state 
 apartments, may to-morrow seek employment as a needle- 
 woman, and support existence on a smaller modicum than her 
 petted spaniel once required. Female artists and women of 
 letters form another series, embodying perhaps the noblest 
 women conspicuously before the world ; but the series is war, 
 as witness the coteries of reviews, where spite and detraction 
 pm-sue the noblest efforts of those in disfavour, and preten- 
 tious, egotistical works, written by associates, are palmed upon 
 the public with an absence of truth made more conspicuous by 
 a ghtter of eulogy. Witness also the unhallowed passions 
 which rankle in the hearts of many who represent the stars in 
 the firmament of the opera, the concert room, and the theatre. 
 What havoc of character behind the scenes ! Another series 
 stni enrolls the female artisan, commonly of better antecedents 
 than her position indicates, pining in a faded gentility, and 
 struggling beneath the feet of the social crocodile which once, 
 perchance, she rode, with little commiseration for those who 
 then suffered as she does now. 
 
 775. Another series introduces us to the class of house 
 servants, with few exceptions utterly unconscious of the great 
 internal life of womanhood ; sometimes rising far above their 
 social class, but commonly eye-servers, intent by ready obse- 
 quiousness and servility to realize the most of profit with the 
 least of toil. The series of female chiefs of industry is, as a rule, 
 more false, more treacherous, more despotic than the correspond- 
 
422 ABCAI^A OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. m. 
 
 ing class with man,biit also open to tlie same criticisms, as intent 
 to crusli rivals, and perhaps more unjust in its dealings with 
 operatives. Last in the catalogue we encounter the flaunting 
 profligacy of the series of the women of the town. The chiefs 
 of this series, who often riot in afiluence, are the most godless 
 of monsters, and it is almost impossible to find an instance 
 where one experiences a throe of genuine contrition, or escapes 
 demonhood at last. Their subjects, perpetually vanishing, as 
 often renewed, are of three classes. First, animal creatures 
 coarsened and vulgarised in spirit, corresponding to the brutal 
 type with man ; of these nothing need be said. Second, weak 
 sentimentalists, subject at intervals to hysterical tears, but 
 mainly unwilling to exchange the false glitter and excitement 
 of their position, in its better fortunes, for the painful toil and 
 self-restraint of the woman artisan. Third, a wise, prudent, 
 semi-intellectual, accomplished and utterly heartless class, to 
 whom the chief motives of their debasing career are ease, style, 
 and the mixed desires which induce another type of unre- 
 generate woman to make a marriage of convenience. Few 
 ever reform even superficially, except from mercenary motives ; 
 few desire to reform, except at brief intervals. Fourth, a 
 class of enslaved victims is also to be found. 
 
 EIGHTEENTH ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 Eelentless persecutions of open respiring persons by women in closed con- 
 ditions. — Effects of the breath on women of rank and wealth. — The 
 bravest battles fought by women of art and letters in the new order. 
 
 776. ''^ Write," said a celestial woman with whom I was 
 respiring, and in thought was present, " these things for our 
 sex. The men of the earth, whose respiration is not opened, 
 will not persecute the open breathing man as relentlessly as 
 the woman, who hates that open respiration should be given, 
 will persecute the open breathing members of her own sex. 
 We will give you the reasons : Woman, when she becomes 
 io-noble, becomes a spirit of ignobility ; and where the man 
 often hates but partially and coldly, her passions burn with 
 utter flame. The woman of rank, who obtains internal respira- 
 tion, will seek favourable opportunities of stating the truths 
 
SEC. 776—777.] THE JFOOALYPSF. 423 
 
 of tlie new kingdom to tlie sisterhood of tlie series ; but to 
 those who con&m themselves in pride^ the revelation will be 
 terrible. They will instantly consult courtly prelates^ who 
 will arm them with sophistries against it, and represent the 
 daughter of the new age as a heretic. Few will stop to reason. 
 The divine breath will be opposed as irreligious and hostile to 
 creed. Daughters of noble families will be secretly imprisoned, 
 when open breathing is given, lest they should bring discredit 
 on relatives. Where it appears in royal families, the women, 
 unless Divine Providence interposes, on the charge of lunacy 
 will be excluded from the world. The woman of opulence will 
 be deprived of her fortune as insane, where liberty is not 
 explicitly guarded, and women will testify that their sister is 
 monomaniacal. The woman of art and literature will fight the 
 br,avest of battles, because gifted with the faculty for the 
 various presentation of sublime gifts. Her j)ictures, statues, 
 sacred and social melodies, works of dramatic and lyrical 
 poetry, and touching quickening prose, will identify her with a 
 school destined to introduce the divine literature ; but her trials 
 notwithstanding this will be very great, and her sisters chiefly 
 will oppose her on the ground that she communicates through 
 words and works a mysterious delirium." 
 
 777. The inauguration of the true law of the series, as is 
 self-evident, will restore all things to a terrestrial order, in 
 which the order of Heaven shall appear. As the present 
 social system is the result of the operation of the selfhood in 
 man, modified by the divine influx, which superinduces a 
 certain external boundary, beyond which those who commit 
 evils are coerced and punished, and in which those who do 
 well are protectively encircled by a species of guardianship, 
 instituted by the Lord to meet the anomalous state of man ; 
 so, in the new order, men will deploy into harmonies, socially 
 illustrative of divine truth and righteousness, of which we 
 may state here a few particulars. All open breathing men, 
 through the respiration, have the guarantee of entire integrity 
 in each other. They may fall, it is true ; but this involves a 
 finally closed state as the consequence, since they breathe 
 
421 ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 not ill tlic Lord but against the Lord. Instead of letters of 
 credence or confidence, the fact of open respiration becomes 
 a divine guai^antee that the man does the Lord^s service, 
 enjoys the Lord's favour, and has devoted himself in implicit 
 obedience to execute His will. Heretofore all social schemes 
 have failed when they have come to be tested, first, by the 
 incompetency, and second, the irresponsibility of human 
 instruments. The honest have been like men struggling in 
 darkness with secret foes. From the irrepressible conflicts of 
 the present individualism, upright natures have endeavoured to 
 disenthrall themselves by social schemes for the realization of 
 the co-operative principle, but only to find that the attempt 
 at humane union involved a mental friction and developed new 
 species of repulsions. This is further evinced from the fact 
 that when, from convenience and economy of living, two 
 families divide one tenement, they soon find, as a rule, that 
 the wear and tear of mind far outbalances the material 
 inducements. A city of brotherly love is an impossibility, so 
 long as in the selfhood men are men. 
 
 778. The introduction of open respiration for the first time 
 makes social harmony a possibility for mankind, by provid- 
 ing an adequate punitive system. The temptations to the 
 abuse of power are so great, that it is hardly expected that 
 those entrusted with authority shall execute it with an absolute 
 rectitude. It is absolutely impossible to devise any human 
 system which Avill arrest an influential transgressor. The 
 great fish break the nets; the beneficed prelate corrupts 
 religion by chicanery and despotism ; the man of vast 
 hereditary possessions and hereditary dignities fearlessly 
 debauches the morals of the State. The law is made practically 
 for the rich, and the poor are kept by this knowledge in states 
 of dumb protest against otherwise intolerable oppressions. 
 No power strikes the popular despot, while victorious armies 
 and a shrewd state-craft maintain his throne. The millionaire 
 may periodically produce commercial crises which arrest in- 
 dustry and ruin those embarked in trade ; but he is safe 
 within a prudent observance of legal form. The crimes without 
 law may with cost and risk be curtailed and punished, but the 
 crimes within law are unassailable. With open respiration, this 
 
SEC. 778—781.] TBE APOCALYPSE. 425 
 
 era terminates. The man entrusted witli power among men, 
 through the beginnings of the new state, is absolutely in 
 the grasp of a law which no artifice can evade. It is no longer 
 a question for judges who may be mistaken, or for juries who 
 may be influenced and misled by skilful debaters. The Holy 
 Ghost judges, condemns, and executes ; from its bar there are 
 no appeals. Thus in the new order the chief of a state, the 
 pivotal head of any series, enjoys by his position no immunity. 
 " The axe is laid at the root of the trees. Every tree that 
 bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the 
 fire.'' 
 
 779. In the new order, again, it is absolutely impossible for 
 a corrupt majority to overrule a just minority. The good man 
 finds his open respiration to increase through faithfulness, and 
 jDower increases in the same ratio. If smitten and per- 
 secuted in one field of labour, he still persists, while the 
 column of Jehovah in which he stands is stationary. If men 
 hear, well for themselves ; if they do not hear, still well for 
 him who breathes forth the Master's message; he is not their 
 slave, but when the long-suSering of the Lord has been 
 proven, and the dreadful pillar of fire, infolding itself, moves 
 away, the pillar -bearer moves in it. 
 
 " He sits serene upon tlie floods, 
 Their fui-y to restrain, 
 And, as tlie everlasting God, 
 For evermore shall reign." 
 
 780. "He that hath an ear," signifies, arcana concerning 
 social harmony to be unfolded by the man of the church in 
 Philadelphia. " Let him hear," signifies, discrimination and 
 perception, by means of which to evolve the new heavens of 
 co-operative industry among men. " What the Spirit saith," 
 signifies, the forms of the harmony in its practical appHcation. 
 " Unto the churches," signifies, social harmonies in their varied 
 application to all varieties of open breathing men. 
 
 Chap. hi. 14. — " And unto the angel op the chukch or the 
 Laodiceans write ; These things saith the Amen, the 
 faithful and true witness, the beginning of the crea- 
 tion OP God." 
 
 781. We approach now the conception of the noblest of the 
 
426 ABCANA OF CHEISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 created types of men. The man of tlie Laodicean cliurcli is 
 the epitome of the varied perfections which are displayed 
 through all of the preceding churches. ''By the angel of 
 the church of the Laodiceans," is signified, the Great Respira- 
 tion, after all previous states spoken of have been established. 
 The man of this type becomes aware of a slow decease within 
 the cortical glands and the cineritious substance of the greater 
 brain. He lies in a slow trance for many months, and awakes 
 to feel himself openly respiring, in a melody of action inde- 
 scribable, from the centre of the solar plexus as from a pivot ; 
 while at every impulse of the divine respiratory wave this won- 
 derful thing occurs, that a fay soul, residing as a fay man with 
 his mate in some human extense of the body, arises in its re- 
 fluent action toward the Lord, caught up to be a fay an^^el in 
 Heaven. Day and night this process is continually carried on, 
 with an open glory impossible to discribe. The calamities of 
 the flesh are ended. The great respiration, in its inauguration, 
 is marked by this phenomenon : The soul is said to be trans- 
 lated, because it sits in a new nerve spirit descreted from the 
 body, and encompassed by golden families of motives, who 
 fulfil the volitions of the Divine Spirit with choral obedience. 
 The breathing frame is at one with the respirations of the 
 angels ; the great Saturnian year dawns at last ; the goal of 
 humanity is won. The great respiration is called " the angel,^' 
 because the nerve essence is now organized as a sevenfold cor- 
 respondence and representative of the highest of the angelic 
 functions, the function of obedience. 
 
 782. Besides this signification of the word " angel,'^ there 
 is another. It denotes every man of the type under considera- 
 tion, who thus receives in the establishment of the great respi- 
 ration the wondrously organised nerve body, and its con- 
 stituents mentioned before.. It applies with fulness, because of 
 the entire concurrence of the body in its loves and instincts 
 with the will of God. It signifies again, the workers in stone, 
 wood, metal, porcelain, glass, jewels, and the materials of 
 caligraphy, for reasons hereafter to be seen. Metals, minerals 
 and the like, are presided over by fay men; for illustration 
 of which see Nos. 249 and 251. These vary in their genius 
 according to the divine aflfections typified by the objects of 
 
SEC. 782—783.] TRIE AFOCALYPSJE. 427 
 
 their ministry. In the establishment of the great respiration, 
 the moving harmony of an especial fay series enters into 
 and becomes connected with the nerve essence of man. In 
 this fine connection , with natnre the body puts on throughout 
 a simultaneous action consonant with the specialties of its em- 
 ploy. The worker in stone is a living, moving form, in whom 
 tend to a central consciousness in his reason the universal pro- 
 perties of the mineral kingdom. His thoughts play in har- 
 mony with the concentric circles of the stone world ; the live 
 crystals in his blood throb and palpitate to the music of the 
 stars ; he lives in loving unison with the denizens of the mine- 
 ral empire, the loves that express themselves in its prime 
 formations. The world-soul, which pours into eveiy terrestrial 
 plant a quickening influx from a special love in her great heart, 
 impulses into this human tree the loves that shape the mineral. 
 He detects the art by which the new mineral kingdom may be 
 updrawn through the old stony basis. He works in the live 
 stone of new foundations. " Greater works," said our Lord, 
 " than these shall ye do," referring to an objective superiority 
 over nature, through which the children of His second coming 
 should display His presence. What fluent floods of the new 
 mineral world await the fire-birth which is to lead them forth, 
 it is impossible to delineate, till Christ comes in the man of 
 stone, to demonstrate the riches which He has concealed for 
 the architectural adornment of His tabernacle in the latter 
 day. 
 
 783. The world-soul forms fruits through her orchard trees ; 
 but through her living tree, the man, she forms the home, the 
 temple, the sanctuary of art, and lastly the palace of transla- 
 tion. Here these must be spoken of: First, the home. In 
 cold electric jets, which with equal facility ascend through the 
 ooze of rivers, the alluvial soil of deltas, the desert sands, the 
 rock foundations, as the Holy Ghost moves through the stone 
 world, the new marbles demonstrate their presence. As the 
 cylindrical white shafts arise, they are modified and varied 
 by means of motions of the Holy Spirit distributed through the 
 moving hands. There is no hard contact with the forming 
 mineral; but the motion determines the shape which the struc- 
 ture shall assume. The stone worker takes his place, inspired 
 
428 AECANA OF CHIilSTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 by the Holy Ghost ; the world-soul jets forth the electro mine- 
 ral essence ; not a particle is lost, but, working as the Spirit 
 works in him, she lends herself passively to supply the growing 
 substance. First, the smooth spaces indicate that which shall 
 servo as a boundary and basis of the mansion, and, standing in 
 the midst, the master-worker arranges from the movements of 
 the breath the electro crystalline atoms, which impearled, or 
 striated, or rainbow-tinted, or azure as the heavens, fonn the 
 pavement of the edifice. This, being pronounced accepted by 
 the Lord, closes the day. Obedient to the same process, first 
 the outer walls are similarly fashioned, the crystallization be- 
 coming solid and naturally visible. When the Lord speaks, 
 porticoes, doorways, bases, shafts, and capitals of columns, in 
 fine, whatever is essential to the form of structure thus arises, 
 till the body of the edifice is declared complete. 
 
 784. The workers in wood observe the law spoken of in 
 No. 91, when they have attained to this degree; but it must 
 here be mentioned that a certain influx from the Heavens, 
 which the woodman absorbs and communicates through the 
 motions spoken of before, independent of the concert of the 
 natural tree, forms and produces the same material in ex- 
 quisite varieties. The body of the substance is furnished by 
 a fluent influx ascending from the world-soul, but its sjjirit 
 through the Celestial Heaven. The fluent wood is thus poured 
 forth by means of the evolution of its constituents in their 
 particles, and, following the motions of the Spirit, is arranged 
 to beautify and perfect the dwelling, as is required in the 
 primitive design. Let none doubt this who beheve that 
 manna fell, that the dead body of Lazarus was reconstituted, or 
 that the condemned fig-tree withered away. The ground is 
 covered when it is admitted by the Christian that substance 
 follows the fiat of the Lord, appears or disappears, or takes 
 that form of manifestation which His Holy Spirit wills. 
 
 785. The metallic bases of the substance all typify resultant 
 harmonies from the Lord, which stand established in Heaven 
 in their nobler styles ; but the world-soul holds the vehicles for 
 their transmission and embodiment. In the new mineral-man 
 takes place the wedding of the celestial and terrene forces ; his 
 body is the bed-chamber where the married spirits coalesce. 
 
SEC. 784—786.] TEE APOCALYPSE. 429 
 
 As the breatlis vary whidi tlie Holy Spirit gives^ he now inspires 
 the celestial essence of iron or of aluminum ; again of silver 
 or platina ; again of tin^ or copper, or gold ; he is a worker in 
 the simple or complex metals which represent in him their 
 harmony. As Christ the Lord evolved through Himself, into 
 and through His natural form, the earthly bases of the bread 
 which supplied the three thousand and the five thousand, so 
 through the new metallic man, in whom Christ lives, sub- 
 stances are evolved according to his degree. Through the 
 body, in that moving action, are formed bells of a miraculous 
 chime, which vibrate according to the harmonies of the 
 Celestial, Spiritual or Ultimate Heaven. The necessary 
 utensils for the preparation of food have "Holiness to the 
 Lord'^ inscribed upon them, being fashioned through the 
 evolution of substance, and modelled in the motion of the 
 breaths. When it is considered to what a variety of uses the 
 metals are applied, it is seen at a glance to what enormous 
 work the metal-man is given. 
 
 786. Upon the finest porcelain, embellished with exquisite 
 pictorial and floral designs, holy angels partake of their joy- 
 inspiring food. This porcelain is of the essence of substance ; 
 but the new man, who respires in the porcelain atmosphere, 
 inhales and communicates that essence, which, through his 
 conjunction with the obedient world-soul, is rounded from his 
 hand, and tinted with splendid harmonies of colour and out- 
 line, daguerreotyped livingly within it from the sunbeam of 
 Deity which flashes in the pictures of his intelligence. Art 
 attains its divine coronation here; and the divine thought, 
 which tints the landscapes of the imaginations, and clothes 
 itself in the flowers of the field, is reproduced again in beau- 
 teous newness for the service of the new man. But from the 
 porcelain table service the transition is rapid to the porcelain 
 temple, where pictures that Correggio never drew are frescoed 
 on such cathedral walls as William of Paris never imagined; 
 where the statue follows the sculptor's hands, and flows in 
 fluent music to stand a substance of verity, and living light 
 gathers in the eyeball, and every line of feature is carved to 
 the express imago of the thought, and every hue of vein or lip 
 or varied flesh denotes symbolically the idea and the love. 
 
430 ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. iii. 
 
 Thus sculpture becomes, in the Word, and in conjunction with 
 painting and the edifice, God^s dramatised revelation, man's 
 most exquisite, sublime delight. 
 
 787. Glass is the correspondency of skies. The arched roofs 
 of the houses of the angels in the second Heaven are lit with 
 brilliant resplendencies through crystalline substance. When 
 the glass-man comes, the representative elements which com- 
 pose its combinations are in him, and go forth through him to 
 be wrought, according to the previous law, to simple or compo- 
 site structures, from the cup or the drinking goblet, to the 
 gigantic conservatory, within which all the types of the floral 
 world may live and bloom together. So stand fixed the crystal 
 windows of home and temple ; so rise the shafts and combine 
 the arches of the ultimate embodiment of the spiritual sanc- 
 tuary. So stand, in great congregations, in high s bmnities, 
 the multitudes of the open breathing men ; their floor a sea of 
 glass mingled with fire, through which inflows the choral song 
 of the great world-soul in crystalline vibrations. 
 
 788. It has entered into the hearts of but few to consider 
 the spiritual significance of the gem. Believed by all nations 
 from immemorial antiquity to possess dynamic virtues, it rarely 
 serves in our day a higher purpose than that of a trinket, or a 
 gift from friend to friend. A vain display is ministered to by 
 the sumptuous devices of the jeweller. Precious stones have 
 lost principally their virtue ; few can believe what solar fire 
 once emanated through the diamond ; what lustre resided in 
 many jewels, from the fixed stars. The gem is nature's casket, 
 where she keeps, in little, her precious ornaments. The new 
 man, in whom the gem-world lives, will see the child's romance 
 a realized verity ; and good and precious thoughts, all scin- 
 tillant with divine ideas, follow the fluent moving fingers as 
 dropping from rubied lips. The cameo and the intaglio will 
 then appear in their perfection. The Divine Artist will thus, 
 through his human channels, symbolise the most precious of 
 virtues in the most glorious of substances. A crown will thus 
 become literally the thing it represents, and the diadems of 
 monarchs in the divine order a jewelled display of the human 
 harmonies in which they rule. 
 
 789. God writes His thoughts on the fair petals of every 
 
SEC, 787—790.] THE APOCALIPSJEJ. 431 
 
 flower ; tlie rose blushes and tlie lily wliiteiis to serve as tlie 
 tables to a divine caligrapby, but will work to fairer things 
 for man. In the Celestial Heaven the angels write on a great 
 variety of textures, in which three things are conspicuous ; 
 softness of tint, delicacy of structure, and delicious odour. 
 The angel writes on substance with a stylus, which as it 
 touches the page calls out a tint to express the affection of the 
 thought ; hence the colours blaze along the pages there, now 
 rising to a meridian of lustre, then shading through sunrises 
 to sunsets, and pale white glimmerings of moon and stars. 
 So, in the new creation, married to matter^ will the fair pages 
 of the Heavens unfold for open-breathing men. The touch of 
 such pure substance will awaken in the heart yearnings to be 
 clothed upon with equal purities. All books will be in due 
 time impressed on this. Substances for caligraphic use vary 
 in the Heavens according to the specialty for which they are 
 designed. That which is to serve as the medium for the 
 Word is most holy ; so will it be below. The white thought 
 light, the golden love light, and the red joy light of three 
 Heavens will so interweave their married beams, while the 
 world-soul supplies a threefold element for their absorption 
 and incorporation, that, following the motions of the inspiring 
 breath, the Word- sub stance shall delight our natural vision, 
 and in it the Word ; but this belongs to a new series. 
 
 790. '^Write,^^ signifies, seven new modes by which the 
 truths of the Divine Word will be communicated. First, the 
 substance previously spoken of, as formed to receive the text 
 of the Word on its surface, imprinted by a mode similar to the 
 printing press, with this addition, that a symbolical letter will 
 be introduced, and the Word printed in all languages, accom- 
 panied with its parallel in the new harmonic tongue, which will 
 eventually be the sole language of the nations, but which can- 
 not be spoken now, as man is unable to enunciate celestial 
 sounds. The Word will appear, in the second place, inter- 
 leaved with magnificent illustrations, pictured upon the page 
 originally, through the process mentioned before. Each church 
 will have the Word embodied in illustrative designs peculiar 
 to its own genius, in which human life, in the three Heavens 
 and the harmonic earths of the unfallen universe, will be pour- 
 
432 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. itt. 
 
 traycd witli absolute fidelity. Thirds the copies of the Holy 
 "Word made use of in the temples. This most Holy Word will 
 be inscribed on a substance resembling the blue heaven ; the 
 truths being written entirely in the representative language 
 used by angels^ and in the resplendencies of colour by which the 
 affections of truths are indicated. The unfoldings, which are 
 from the Word^ will appear with the text, comprising the most 
 majestic element in literature ; but these will be written upon 
 a substance of such quality that none but those to whom the 
 truths appertain can peruse the pages. 
 
 791. Fourth, the Woman^s Word for woman alone, as it is 
 embodied through illustrative men of the priestly type. No copy 
 of this Word will ever be permitted to be opened by man, ex- 
 cept the illustrators of it alone, and those only in their office, 
 and when, by induction, respiring in the universal series. Fifth, 
 it is inscribed in aerial folds, tissues of fine light, instantane- 
 ously embodied to that degree of sight called, elsewhere, '^ nerve 
 vision.^^ The Word wiU be written in a sixth manner, as fol- 
 lows. The new human ty^Q of air dwellers will receive it in- 
 scribed in minute hieroglyphics in the lensic organ, which ap- 
 pears in the palm of the hand. It will also be seen, from time 
 to time, in symbolical inscriptions of a hieroglyphical character 
 in the forehead. The seventh, and final manner, will be 
 through symbolical and representative human forms, mar- 
 shalled in the sky spaces. Sometimes, from the rising to the 
 going down of the sun, the whole firmament will resemble a 
 grand historical picture, setting forth the new creation ; while 
 at other times things past will appear in glorious effigies, 
 where men now behold the tinted sunset clouds ; and the sub- 
 lime destinies of the future will also, in living tableaux, come 
 forth in the triumphal pathway of the rising sun. 
 
 792. "These things saith the Amen." By ^''amen,^' in 
 this verse, is signified, the One who confirms or establishes. 
 " These things," refers to a new creation to appear in Poly- 
 nesia, concerning which the Lord permits the words which 
 foUow to be said. All terrestrial localities are preserved for 
 special ends. Every rocky island, however minute in dimen- 
 sions, will be glorified in the triumph of the new barmony, 
 through open respiring men and women. That Asiatic type 
 
SEC. 791—793.] TEE APOCALYPSE. 433 
 
 of wliicTi tlie Soutli-sea Islanders are inheritors, freed from 
 tlieii' inversions, will re-appear ; tall, beautifully proportioned, 
 golden coloured men, in stature approximating to tlie average 
 height of Europeans ; and women, whose goldenness is of a 
 paler light, whose eyes of the most liquid azure, and with hair 
 curling in floating spirals. These will be among the new-born 
 of the Church in Smyrna. 
 
 793. The open breathing men who thus appear will find 
 the islands of the South Seas demoniacal houses of the dii'est 
 sort, and swarming with ferocious cannibal spirits, clothed 
 with magnetic flesh, and insidiously attacking the constitu- 
 tions of all who approach the soil. The cannibal, by his in- 
 version, develops, more than the civilizee, a capacity in the 
 nerve-essence for clinging to the spirit when it leaves the flesh, 
 causing it to serve as a phantom body. Those islands wherein 
 cannibalism has been practised for ages as a religious rite, 
 resemble to the spiritual eye Golgothas of slaughter, where 
 demons re-enact in fantasy the terrible orgies which delighted 
 them during the natural life. They take an insane pleasure 
 in surrounding wandering spirits of the European family, 
 and in fantasy butcher and eat them, ravenously appropri- 
 ating to themselves the nerve essence, which to their eye re- 
 sembles black gore. I saw a distinguished naval officer, an 
 American, made famous by his cruelties to many of the natives 
 of Polynesia, stripped by them of his nerve spirit, which after- 
 ward he was compelled to re-appropriate after it had passed 
 through loathsome changes in their bodies. He is periodically 
 killed and eaten in this way, as to his phantom form, and his 
 crimes are such that a magnetic rapj^ort has been formed that 
 he cannot break, which enslaves him in their midst. I saw 
 the spii'it of another, an Englishman, also a naval officer 
 of distinction, and who serves them in the same capacity. 
 These demons appear in the distance as ogres ; they are at the 
 present time in a state of great commotion ; the demons from 
 an ancient Hell, eaters of human flesh, while in the body, 
 having risen in the midst of them, .armed with strange instru- 
 ments, and practising Baal worship. There are many slavers 
 hero clothed with magnetic bodies, whom the ancient Canaan- 
 ites that have risen affiliate with. The trader in men com- 
 
 E E 
 
431 ABCANA OF CHRIS TIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 monly becomes for a time a wandering demon, and is enslaved, 
 and liis magnetic body is often murdered and devom^ed by other 
 wandering demons of the special race whose offspring he has 
 bought and sold. 
 
 794. Polynesia is also visited by a most ancient white race 
 who once inhabited Greece and the islands of the Mediterranean, 
 but far anterior to Hellenic times, most ferocious and also 
 devourers of men ; they affect great suavity, being in con- 
 junction with the most ancient lost spirits of the silver age. 
 They have arisen also since modern spiritual manifestations 
 began. Wherever the ferocious rites of cannibalism have 
 been performed, and the blood of men gone down into the 
 ground, a wound is inflicted in the nerve spirit of the earth, 
 which at this place exhibits traces of it for many ages. George 
 Fox, much in rapport with the world-soul, though unconscious 
 of it, performed at times automatic actions through a dumb 
 sympathy within himself; once in particular, walking with 
 bare feet through the town of Taunton, England, crying, 
 '"^Woe to the bloody city V Christians had been martyred 
 there in old days of Pagan persecution, and the blood, crying 
 from the ground, through the wound in the nerve spirit of the 
 earth, was the prompting cause of the deed. Eed flames are 
 seen streaming from the bosom, of the soil where martyrs have 
 oflered up their lives, when the sight is Opened. Green flames 
 mark spots designated by parricides. A bloody hand of fire 
 is sometimes seen where the good have perished. But the 
 scenes of cannibal festivities in Pagan nations are marked by 
 a livid, death-white glare, exceedingly foul to look upon. To 
 purge a land requires the healing of the wound in the nerve 
 spirit of the earth. This is treated of in the significances of 
 the clause which follows. 
 
 795. By '' faithful and true witness," is denoted, the 
 universal soul which our Lord assumed that He might descend 
 into nature. [See A. of 0. 2, 1, chap. I.] The wounds in the 
 nerve spirit of the earth can hardly be counted, since, wherever 
 human blood has been shed, or men have slaughtered their 
 fellows, from the creation, a death-mark is visible in its sub- 
 stance. The nerve spirit lies within the crust of the earth as 
 the human nerve essence is distributed through the body. 
 
SEC. 794—797] THE APOOALYFSK 435 
 
 The frequent cause of tlie insanity of animals, and their 
 epileptic disorders, is the ascent, into the pastures in which 
 they feed, of some air-stream of electric breath which vents 
 through the wound ; this deranges, by sympathy, the animal 
 economy. Children who are born near these places frequently 
 are idiotic or malformed. The human mind is also, when in 
 proximity with them, more liable during sleep to obsessions 
 from evil spirits. It is not in the power of any angel, when 
 once the nervous essence of the earth has thus been pierced, 
 to restore organic harmony. The lambent and vivid appear- 
 ances which ascend through these wounds, are called sometimes 
 " the blood,^^ and sometimes '' the fire of testimony ;" they are 
 a perpetual testimonial of the madnesses produced by sin. 
 Our Lord is called, in the universal spirit which He assumed, 
 that He might descend into nature, "The faithful and true 
 witness,'^ because He testifies in the earth to its deliverance, 
 entering by means of the assumed nerve essence into the 
 nerve essence of the orb, and preparing means for its establish- 
 ment in a new harmony wherein all of the disturbances shall 
 pass away. 
 
 796. " The beginning of the creation of God,'' signifies, in 
 this verse, the new harmony, created by the assumption of the 
 human by our Lord, and His glorification ; and it also signifies, 
 our Lord in that new harmony wherein worlds and systems, 
 yet unborn, revolve in their majestic circles, and world-souls 
 and universe-souls await their inauguration in time and space, 
 and transcendent types of man await the ages of their terrestrial 
 evolution. 
 
 Chap. hi. 15. — "I know thy woeks, that thou art neither 
 
 COLD NOR hot : I WOULD THOU WERT COLD OR HOT.'' 
 
 797. In the significations of this verse are involved the 
 following principles : First, that man cannot, in his natural- 
 rational mind, either divine or advance by reasonings into the 
 first grounds of any knowledge. Second, that those in whom 
 the natural rational genius prevails, are disposed to adopt the 
 theory that poets, prophets, and inspired sages, whether 
 Christian or Heathen, Jews or Gentiles, are natural-rational 
 men Hke themselves, who attribute falsely those things to a 
 
 E E 2 
 
436 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. in. 
 
 divine afflatus which are the result of a subjective sensual 
 perception. Entertaining- in their hearts these views, however 
 concealed, they logically misinterpret Christianity as a theo- 
 logical system, and deduce from it the theory that optimism is 
 the best belief, and that a wise acquiescence in the present social 
 and religious systems, coupled with a vast latitude in private 
 thought, is on the whole the most conducive to health, pros- 
 perity, and harmony. 
 
 798. Third, the principle is involved, that the natural ra- 
 tional man is the best qualified for the enjoyment of the luxu- 
 ries of the present civilization ; regarding men as in the main 
 well-meaning creatures, tolerably certain of a prosperous fu- 
 ture life, who must not, however, be sympathised with too 
 intensely, as this will mar the happiness of which, through the 
 reason and the senses, loian is capable. This state begets at 
 once an easy indifference as to the presence and insidious 
 operations of sin, and a vague and undetermined belief that it 
 melts like a moonlight mist when its end is accomplished, and 
 ceases to disturb the serene tranquility of creation. The un- 
 obtrusive voluptuary, the self-indulgent, self- complaisant man 
 of letters, prosperous in every land in which the sectarian 
 chains are loosened, hold in a quiet manner to this view, which, 
 in their estimation, intensifies the sweet, and qualifies the 
 bitter in the cup of life. To believe good-naturedly in the 
 good, in a half sense, and yet so to conduct affairs as to derive 
 assistance from, and to secure advantages through the evil, is 
 the test of this character in its perfection. It applies to vast 
 classes of men, as they drift downward bodily to perdition, the 
 flattering unction, that the state of ideal virtue, for which others 
 strive, is unattainable, and that its pursuit argues a morbid 
 or frenzied moral state. It soothes the qualms of conscience, by 
 arguing that average character, neither so pure as to incense the 
 depraved, nor so obviously debased as to shock the sesthetic 
 religious sense, is conducive to the amplest usefulness, no less 
 than to prosperity and honour. It is condemned in these words, 
 '' I know thy works, that thou are neither cold nor hot.''^ 
 
 799. " Cold," signifies, an obvious, declarative denial of the 
 good in good, the truth in truth, the virtue in virtue. " Hot," 
 signifies, a bold and steadfast maintenance of the two great 
 
SEC. 798—800.] TSE AFOCALTPSE. 437 
 
 connected principles, absolute obedience to the Divine Spirit, 
 absolute self-surrendery for Divine ends in life. " I would 
 thou wert cold or hot/^ signifies, the desire of the Lord that 
 all those committed to this natural rationalism, who are, as to 
 their inmosts, devoting themselves greedily to diabolism, 
 should drop the mask of appearances, and cease to beguile 
 mankind by a sophistry which clothes itself for evil ends with 
 the noblest phrases in literature and the loftiest sentiments in 
 religion. Obversely, it signifies, the Divine desire that such 
 as cherish inmostly yearnings for the regenerate life, should 
 cease the self-derived effort of endeavouring to reconcile in 
 one philosophy the truth of Christ, and the heresy -of Anti- 
 christ, and to secure in political action the suffrages of the 
 virtuous and the vicious. "Neither cold nor hot," is descrip- 
 tive of the mass of professed religionists, and pictures the 
 bodily estate of Christendom. 
 
 Chap. hi. 16. — " So then, because thou art lukewarm, and 
 
 NEITHER COLD NOR HOT, I WILL SPUE TfiEE OUT OF MY 
 MOUTH." 
 
 800. Opposite to the natural -rational, as at present mani- 
 fested in man, is the celestial-natural, which our Lord set forth 
 in His Humanity. It developes a cheerful wisdom, and a 
 fruitful contentedness with the day, whether in the palace or 
 the prison ; an equal fearlessness for the morrow, whether it is 
 to dawn upon the scaffold or the coronation. It is j)ut in 
 opposition to the natural-rational, as men now possess it, be- 
 cause it brings forth in reality the good fruit which the man 
 of carnal heart thinks to possess through the other. Of all 
 states it is the most estimable, for the reason that it holds the 
 sound mind of a good Heaven in the sound body of a good 
 earth ; the health of two spheres made perfect .in union. The 
 pietist looks away from the earth ; the corporealist confines 
 his view to the earth ; the man who possesses the celestial- 
 rational quality perceives the possibility of embodying Heaven 
 in Earth, and so of filling Earth with Heaven. The states of 
 those who are weakly and sinfully natural-rational, are de- 
 scribed in the words, " lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot." 
 Their coming desolations are set forth in the phrase, " I will 
 
438 ABCANA OF CHEISTIANITT. [chap. hi. 
 
 spuo thee out of my moutli." Here follow statements con- 
 cerning these desolations^ under the head of seven judgments. 
 
 801. The Church of Rome, in which are to.be found bodies 
 of nohlcsse, and myriads of peasantry, practically committed to 
 a natural-rational theory in the conduct of life, will be visited 
 with seven plagues. A sensation of red-hot pincers, tearing 
 at the vitals, will be first. This is an organic sensation in 
 the natural body, resvdting from the cleavage which begins 
 between the artificial mind, trained in social subterfuges, and 
 the concealed inner mind. The operation of the Divine Spirit 
 makes the inmost mind determined that it will enact itself in 
 matter, and throw out its fiery passions to the surface. It 
 therefore, in violent throes, endeavours to wrest itself from 
 the suffocating embrace of its natural adjunct, which at once 
 masks its features and prevents the evolution of that within 
 them. The man who at heart is becoming a devil, will ex- 
 perience burning desires to unmask his devilhood, and declare 
 himself the fiend which he seeks to be. This desire will 
 mount to the minds of both ecclesiastics and laity, prompting 
 them to declare secret opinions now masked under a professed 
 conformity. 
 
 802. The second judgment will be a disposition to spue 
 from the mouth the emblems of the Holy Sacrament. Priests 
 will find themselves involuntarily cursing at the elevation of 
 the Host, and a madness will seize the organs of the body, 
 corresponding to an internal horror which affects the mind. 
 God will not have His passion profaned in any sect much longer. 
 
 803. Inability to maintain the vows of celibacy will be the 
 third judgment, visited especially upon ecclesiastics. If good 
 internally, desire for orderly marriage will violently wrestle 
 with, and cast down its opposite in the mind. If evil, libidi- 
 nous desires will despotically rule the frame. This is effected 
 by means of the approximation of the celestial influx in the 
 one case, which is conjugial, or the infernal influx in the 
 other case, which is adulterous. A great movement for the 
 abolition of enforced celibacy will result, and a fierce counter 
 movement, involving collisions. 
 
 804. It was said by our Lord, during His incarnation, that if 
 His disciples held their peace, the very stones would cry out ; 
 
SEC. 801—807.] THE AP0GALTP8K 439 
 
 nor did tliis involve merely a figure. The flamy spirits of 
 mineral and metal^ whicli stand embodied in 'vast catliedral 
 temples, or embodied in shrines, altars, reliquaries, and the 
 vessels of the Host, absorbing into themselves that breath 
 through the world-soul by which God spues forth the falsities 
 of ceremonial profession, will seize the shrinking mammon- 
 server and self- worshipper who profanes the holy place. Held 
 in bondage by dynamic arms of power, which work out invisibly 
 through mineral and metal, he will find relief only, as ab- 
 sorbing their spirit, he lays bare the hidden heart-things, and 
 gives voice to what is pent within himself. The frightful 
 scenes occurring in temples will exceed belief. 
 
 805. A fifth judgment will consist in the toppling down and 
 overthrowing of crosses and the images of angels and saints, 
 in places profaned by the monkish idolatry ; the good stone 
 will refuse any longer to yield itself to impostm-es. The spirits 
 of the stone, taking possession of the ultimate particles, and 
 swept in their motion by the Divine breath, will break the 
 magnificence of ages, that they whose belief is a ruin may con- 
 gregate in ruins. Before the invisible ark of God's holy city. 
 New Jerusalem, which cometh down from Heaven, the efiigies 
 in every house of seeming faith must be destroyed. The 
 Voice saith, ^^Woe, woe, woe, when the whirlwind rises and 
 the new harmony sweeps forth to winnow the threshing-floor 
 of nations \" 
 
 806. A sixth judgment will be a plague of dumbness and 
 paralysis. The ecclesiastic will go forth to celebrate the mass, 
 but the lips will refuse to pronounce the words he fain would 
 utter, the hands refuse to extend themselves to give the bless- 
 ing and the absolution. Seventh, ecclesiastics who deny that 
 this visitation is of the Lord, and blaspheme the Holy Spirit, 
 will bo afflicted with the fire-evil. Such evil passions as tliey 
 have nourished in the mind will be allowed to represent them- 
 selves in the body, and the physical system will be infested 
 with a sensation as of ants, adders, and scorpions of flame. 
 
 807. The judgment of the Greek Church will be different. 
 Having never fallen into the last excesses of Rome, it remains 
 in a better state spiritually, its sins being more of a gross cor- 
 poreal, than of a Jesuitical character. Nevertheless, it must 
 
440 ABCANA OF CRRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 be made feelingly to experience that its internal state is unac- 
 ceptable to God. These judgments will be^ first, the cold fear. 
 The sun will be unable to warm the bodies of those affected by- 
 it, and the extreme chills of the ague will bid defiance to 
 stimulants, disappearing, however, as mysteriously as they 
 come on. This will affect prelates, priests, and laity. The 
 body is made to feel the cold deadness extant within its reli- 
 gious profession. 
 
 808. Because the Lord is the Divine Sun, the source of heat, 
 which is love, to the universal heart of creation, and because 
 no man thinks of loving the Lord as the Supreme and Only 
 Good, the impartial benefactor, who receives the Greek con- 
 fession, the sun, the natural symbol of the shining presence of 
 Messiah, will absorb heat from, instead of communicating to, 
 their bodies. Tliey will complain that the sun has grown cold, 
 and that its rays stiffen them as if they were congealing to an 
 icy marble. This is because their faith in its spirit repudiates 
 the unition of the Divine Good and Truth, and separates, prac- 
 tically, the professions of Christianity from a patient, godly, 
 self-denying life. The world-soul rises by her sphere, and 
 pours a cold into them, in the movement of which the solar 
 rays are withdrawn and cease to vivify ; this being a result of 
 the conspiration between the solar world-soul and that of our 
 own orb. 
 
 809. The dancing madness will be let forth. The gyrating 
 vortices which emanate through the Hells are opposed to the 
 Holy Spirit, and when that recedes and withdraws its protec- 
 tion, men dance by a frenzy. At such times they are encom- 
 passed by whirhng bodies of fantastic wandering demons, in- 
 vested with the nerve essence, who seize the movement as it 
 rises through the Hells, and are seized by it in turn. It will 
 take hold upon young and old, male and female, clergymen and 
 laity, with periodical accessions and diminutions, till they know 
 the Lord, or are divorced from the seemings of a dead eccle- 
 siastical condition. 
 
 810. A fourth judgment to visit the Greek Church will be a 
 partial inability of the digestive system either to retain or as- 
 similate food. The orifices at the mouth of the stomach will 
 remain closed till fierce huno^er visits the frame. This also is 
 
SEC. 808—813.] TRE APOCALTFSF. 441 
 
 tlie reflex of a spiritual state in tlie natural constitution ; the 
 spiritual stomacli refusing to feed upon the doctrine of love, 
 and to nourish the celestial principle thereby, its natural coun- 
 terpart so closes itself against the ultimate organ by means of 
 which the body is maintained. This will visit men with greater 
 or less intensity according to the degree in which they have 
 internally refused to feed upon the bread of life. 
 
 811. A fifth judgment will be nerve madness. An ague in 
 the brain will first develop itself, confined alone to that jaortion 
 of the body. Then the spine, with the great ganglions will 
 grow cold, and every minute extension of the nervous system 
 tingle as at the first touches of the frost. The ice of death 
 will seem forming about the heart as a palpable covering. The 
 reaction will be nervous contortions, in which, seeming to be 
 possessed of independent lives, the hands will violently beat 
 the body, and various members of the system strive to torture 
 each other. Because the Greek Church is composed, as to its 
 spirit, of individuals in unfaith and antagonism toward each 
 other, so that member is arrayed against member, in perjury, 
 chicanery, robbery, extortion, and oppression, its general state 
 will be transmitted and re-enacted thus in the nervous systems 
 of its people, 
 
 812. Sixth; another judgment will be the madness of the 
 visual organs. Because the Greek Church in question refuses 
 to see truth, when the truth is in the opening of respiration 
 and the descent of the Holy Spirit, the falsehoods which 
 reside within the spiritual eyes, will coiTespondentially be 
 present in the natural eyes. Gold will seem dross, and dross 
 gold ; substance vacuity, and vacuity substance ; the dark 
 luminous, and the bright opaque; dust as precious stones, 
 and gems as impure matter ; doves as serpents, and serpents 
 as doves. This will continue with alternations, varieties, 
 gradual increases, and occasional cessations. It is a natm-al 
 disclosure of hidden spiritual states. 
 
 813. A seventh judgment will consist in cravings for un- 
 natural food, and shudderings at that which is healthful and 
 of Divine provision. Honey will ofi'end the taste, but a fetid 
 drug be coveted. The bodies of hawks, owls, foxes, and 
 wolves, and especially the putrid flesh of human corpses, to 
 
442 ABCANA OF CHBISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 tlie insane appetite "will seem delicacies, and summer fruits 
 occasion slmdderings, loathings, and repulsions. This is 
 because in spirit they prey upon each, other, and greedily con- 
 sume the details of obscene acts. Having nourished in the 
 spirit the appetite for garbage, it comes forth, till the body 
 takes upon itself the passions, and hankers after strange flesh. 
 
 814. The Abyssinian Church, and the general remains of the 
 the first Christian age in Africa, will be judged as follows. 
 Having sunken to nearly the last extreme of ignorance and 
 degradation, while still it persists in esteeming itself worthy 
 to be called '' the Bride the Lamb's wife ;" and having lost 
 the truths of the Word in the confusion of its miserable con- 
 ditions, seven calamities will be apparent among its members, 
 which, however, are love-chastenings of the Almighty hand. 
 Impeded respiration will be first, accompanied with a sensa- 
 tion as if suffocation were at hand. This will be because they 
 have suffocated or strangled the truths of life ; substituting 
 for them inane compliance with the ritual. The second, 
 reserved for the priests, will be inability to articulate in their 
 wi'etched ceremonials, especially when they seek to pronounce 
 our Lord's name. This is because to pronounce that name, 
 internally, requires the Holy Spirit, breathing in the celestial 
 degree of the lungs ; but their lungs, in the higher degree, are 
 only open to such am-as as flow thi'ough subterranean passages 
 in the Earth of Spirits. A third judgment will visit such of 
 them as buy and sell human beings ; they will see themselves 
 sinking to squalid bondage, degraded to the most unhappy of 
 employments, and cruelly tyrannised over by demons who arise 
 to avenge their kindred. These visions, in a sort of waking 
 panorama, will follow them by day, and they will hardly be 
 able to discriminate between the phantasmagoria by which they 
 are thus surrounded, and the objects of sense. This will be 
 accompanied, in extreme cases, by an excruciating agony, as if 
 they were being torn from companions and children, stripped 
 of possessions, driven over fierce deserts, and maltreated with 
 blows. 
 
 " 'Tis even-handed justice 
 Eeturas the ingredients of our poisoned clialice 
 To our own lips." 
 
 815. Inasmuch as in this cburch sexual disorders (prevail. 
 
SEC. 814—817.] TRE APOOALTFSK 443 
 
 and clergy and laity are sunken in tliem^ the nerve essence 
 will be visited by intolerable burnings, sometimes flasbing to 
 tbe face, till it becomes as if it were a ball of molten copper, 
 and swelling in contortions about tbe loins as if serpents of 
 huge bulk bad tbere made their den, while the feet become of 
 a dead coldness as if in the last stage before decay. It is 
 with extreme clemency that this judgment is meted out, for 
 the evils which it especially indicates are the cause of the 
 generation of fiery worms in the spiritual body which thus 
 torture it; and the visage becomes at the same time inflamed 
 to a fierce bm-ning, while the feet emit a cold putresence. The 
 judgment is caused by the transfer of existent spiritual con- 
 ditions, by correspondence, from the will and spiritual body 
 to the nerve essence which connects it with the corporeal 
 natural form. 
 
 816. Inasmuch as the oath is not regarded in this church, 
 and prevarications are almost universal habits, the fifth judg- 
 ment will be that of the fiery and swollen tongue. It will 
 commence with a slight itching in the centre, and continue 
 till the man calls out for mercy in his anguish ; while often a 
 distension of the organ will take place, so that it protrudes 
 from the mouth ; the sight of cold water will occasion an 
 aggravation of the pain. In the HeUs the sins committed by 
 means of the tongue are forced to appear in certain states as a 
 disease and madness of the organ, and water inflames and 
 aggravates ; because being the symbol of truth, its presence 
 provokes to anger and anguish the spirit of falsehood in the 
 will. Prevarications are thus punished in the second life, 
 where all liars have their portion in the fiery lake, and go down 
 finally to the second death. Tyranny over wives being prac- 
 tised also in this church, the sixth judgment will visit male 
 ofienders who are thus guilty. As conjugial oppression is the 
 result of cold from the infernals in the mind, its results will be 
 impotency, loss of memory, and sensations as if adders were 
 drawing blood from the breasts. The man thus guilty will 
 find no relief, except by repentance and the substitution of 
 unforced kindness for cruelty. 
 
 817. The seventh judgment will bo that of the Don. Every 
 man who commits evil has in himself infernal passions, in the 
 
444 ARCANA OF CHRISTIAN ITT. [chap. m. 
 
 shapes which appear on earth as ferocious beasts and reptiles. 
 These arc of the mikler sort^ the more infernal having no 
 terrestrial analogies. The man who is cast into this judgment 
 finds himself, sleeping or waking, followed by a monster whose 
 image changes according to the evil love that is uppermost. 
 It is accompanied by the haunting consciousness that some- 
 where behind him is a den where many such have their hiding 
 place. Sometimes he is appalled with the sensation as if he 
 were being hunted by a pack of wolves ; and then the rank 
 odour which announces the tiger^ wafted to the nostrils, causes 
 him to tremble with alarm lest some crouching monster should 
 spring forth suddenly and bear him away. 
 
 818. A final judgment is that of the larvEe. The eyes are 
 partially opened, and demons now become visible who retain 
 their magnetic bodies, and who prey with equal indifference 
 upon the exhalations of the living and the dead. They are 
 compelled to appear as they were, each in the semblance by 
 which he was visible while in the iiesh. The man thus visited 
 beholds them, now proffering insidious caresses from which he 
 shrinks, because they are foul with every species of decay. 
 Then he sees them, menacing with uplifted weapons, threaten- 
 ing to crush him beneath rocks, or tear him with their teeth. 
 Thus come, providentially and sensationally, the hidden things 
 of the heart, and, pantomimed within the body and reinacted 
 to its perceptions, the coming events that await those fixed 
 in obduracy, cast their shadows before. 
 
 819. The Calvinistic and its adjunct Churches will thus be 
 judged; it must be premised of this that, unlike Eome and 
 the Greek Church, it took its rise in an era pregnant with 
 noble inspirations, and that, unlike the African Church, its 
 sway has been exercised where nations have flourished under 
 influences most favourable to the benignant growths of charity. 
 This judgment applies only to such of its professed teachers 
 and followers as have used the doctrines of election and pre- 
 destination to steel the hearts of men against mercy, tolerance, 
 and truth. The doctrine that men are saved or damned by 
 irresistible fate deserves unmeasured reprobation ; because 
 through it the weak, tempted, tortured disciple is assailed by 
 demons, who infest him with the thought that such as he^ so 
 
SEC. 818—820.] TSE APOCALYPSE. 445 
 
 miserable and oppressed, must be objects of Divine disfavour. 
 The man of an insensitive conscience, on tlie other extreme, is 
 inflated by demons through self-love, to believe himself an 
 especial vessel of mercy. Its effects are seen in the impo- 
 tency of one, and the obduracy of the other. Every tenet that 
 impeaches the infinite benignity of the Supreme Spirit, cor- 
 rupts the fountains whence flow all the springs of principle to 
 action ; it is but one step from believing in a hateful God, to 
 becoming an unjust man. The fatal doctrine of the Divine 
 vindictiveness and cruelty begets a spirit alien to forbearance 
 and mercy. Sects which have followed the Calvinistic scheme 
 have been prone to consider their enemies as God's enemies, 
 setting up their own stern creed as the code which regulates 
 the chancery of Heaven. The fixed fatalist will receive this 
 judgment : A demon will rise who personates the recordino* 
 angel, showing him his name inscribed among the damned; he 
 will, in visions, remonstrate ineffectually, demanding opportu- 
 nities to prove, by virtuous motives and conduct, that the 
 Divine clemency may change his destiny without detriment to 
 the gospel scheme. He will see, in successive trances of this 
 sort, that the solid earth on which he stands is every day cir- 
 cumscribed more and more by the fiery flood, until at last, in 
 an agony, he counts the inches that remain. The fate which so 
 complacently he has assigned to others, will be brought home 
 in expectancy with all its horrors to himself. 
 
 820. Those who persecute with keen zest such as differ 
 from them in opinions, and delight to embitter their days by 
 public and private invectives, will find a judgment more severe. 
 I was shown a newspaper editor, noted for defaming and as- 
 persing his polemical opponents, who, in his private mind, en- 
 tertained no doubt that such ought to be damned without 
 mercy ; and those of like condition may see in this picture a 
 warning sent in mercy. Being partially made sensible of the 
 presence of evil genii, one held in his hand a cup filled with 
 that poison that distils through the veins of the demons who 
 on earth were nominally Chinstian men, and who cruelly hated 
 their doctrinal opponents. Every time he writes and speaks 
 words in which this hate-spirit predominates, one drop falls 
 from the finger of the demon, which he dips in the cap, and 
 
446 AliCANA OF CIIRISTIAmTY. [chap. in. 
 
 slowly penetrates through the brain, until it rests upon the 
 heart, where it is felt as a lire-worm, creeping and eating to 
 its core. The venom which is in the heart of such, in a crude 
 state, is of the same quality as that which the demon brings. 
 
 821. Men who complaisantly indulge the idea, that be- 
 cause elected they are God^s favoui-ites, and that their sins are 
 not imputed to them, while others of nobler life are doomed to 
 perdition, because, not being of the elect, their sins are im- 
 puted to them, receive this judgment-correction, when they 
 have committed a sin or a series of sins. The evils grow and 
 dwell within the mind until they become ulcers there ; a pain- 
 ful sensation then begins in the body, as if over against the 
 heart ulcerations and enlargements are taking place. Where 
 the sin has been avarice and disregard of the wants of others, 
 whom it was practicable and righteous to relieve, the bowels 
 are contracted, as if by invisible iron fingers, holding and 
 winding them till the frame is bent and doubled. The 
 habit of clutching and holding takes form before the eye in- 
 closed hands that will not open. Thus, in a great variety of 
 forms, it is demonstrated to them that the righteous God is no 
 respecter of persons, but that sins are imputed to every man 
 and visited upon him till he abhors and overcomes them. 
 
 822. Those who believe that infants and Pagans are lost, 
 the one not having exercised choice, and the other never having 
 heard Christ preached in charity and truth, receive this judg- 
 ment : the celestial principle within the will and the under- 
 standing, which they have outraged in themselves, and which 
 is infantile in form, seems like a babe in their own breasts that 
 has been damned, and is now in the torments of Hell, because 
 not predestined to salvation, while the inmost spiritual prin- 
 ciple in the mind and will> a partially embodied, ignorant 
 Pagan, seems also wringing its hands and groaning through 
 their vitals, moaning that it is " Lost, lost, lost, never having 
 had an opportunity of being saved.-'' This last will visit vast 
 bodies of divines, who preach and argue that the ignorant 
 heathen are doomed to perdition. The outrage which they 
 commit against the celestial and spiritual principle of good 
 and truth within themselves, let down sensationally, will pro- 
 duce within the body these terrible experiences. In fine, each 
 
SEC. 821—824.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 447 
 
 wlio cherislies the falsity tliat his innocent and ignorant brother 
 is cast into Hell torment, will reap a judgment upon it by 
 means of a similar principle within himself. 
 
 823. Those who fly into a fury of passion when the faith- 
 dogma is assailed, will receive as follows : the wrath which 
 they thus display in the understanding will slowly ooze into 
 the great centre of the ganglions as corrosive fire ; they will 
 feel sensationally what is the moral quality of the faith-dogma 
 in its essence, and will know themselves in cherishing it to 
 beget a condition in the soul which precipitates a moving liquid 
 fire -stream into the sensations of the bodily frame. This judg- 
 ment will follow with great rapidity. 
 
 824. Those who go forth as religious teachers, and commit 
 an offence against the principles of the Gospel, by zealously 
 and from a fixed faith attempting to convert Pagan nations to 
 the belief that fates are ever fixed before birth, or that only a 
 partial means of salvation is provided for mankind, or that 
 there is malignity in God, or that opinion is identical with 
 faith that justifies, or that those who in the light of even the 
 most obscure tradition seek to practice truth and mercy from 
 motives of love and obedience to the Great First Cause are 
 cast into hell-fire ; these, because they are begetting hatred to 
 the Gospel by mis-interpreting its principles, or nourishing a 
 ferocious dogma upon the blood of slain charity in the spirit 
 of the Word, or obscuring with bewildering clouds the strait 
 and narrow way, will thus encounter then* own judgment : 
 First, the nerve- essence will be laid open, and then converted 
 into a torture-chamber, sensationally present through the 
 whole frame. When this is efiected, the falsity they have 
 taught will seem to enter that chamber, as if it were a ravisher 
 with inflamed visage. The celestial principle in the will will 
 be observed and felt as if she were a tender virgin betrothed 
 to Heaven, whom this monster persecutes. This will be ac- 
 companied with such anguish as cannot be told, sensationally 
 aff"ecting every fibre of the frame, this being its explanation : 
 The principle of religion, which is love and clemency in the 
 will, where cruel and ferocious dogmas of this type grow to 
 facts within the understanding, is literally persecuted thus, till 
 either clemency and mercy leave the will entirely, or the mon- 
 
448 ABC AN A OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. hi. 
 
 ster is cast down. The bod}' is made sensationally to reveal 
 the spiritual tragedy which takes place within. The hardened 
 doctrinalists, who instil these things into infant minds^ and 
 enforce them upon youths in training for the ministry, will be 
 subject to the same. 
 
 825. The new age requires for its service men to whom there 
 shall be no doubt concerning obedience to the felt dictates of 
 the Lord. The waverer will fail hence. It is requisite that, 
 step by step, every octave in the organ of the mind should be 
 attuned in the obedience which the Lord exacts. " Get thee 
 out of thy kindred and thy country,'^ was the command to 
 Abraham. The apostles bravely died to Judaism with its 
 exactions ; they forsook all to follow the Master. The test of 
 obedience which the rigidly educated religionist will find ex- 
 acted of him, will be the public renunciation of every sectarian 
 and party name. He will find it impossible, if faithful to con- 
 victions, to stand connected with any sect, however broad 
 its platform or liberal its professions. The new creation is 
 sui generis. 
 
 826. The Anglican Chm-ch, with its afiiliated bodies, next 
 claims attention. When it was seen by the angels to be dere- 
 lict, they abandoned it to its fate; and now the following- 
 judgments are prepared to be poured into its bosom : Being 
 not in its priesthood a true series, either as to appointment, 
 relations, or services, the sensation of internal disorder will 
 appear. To the bishop, when he goes forth to ordain, the Voice 
 speaking in the breast will cry, " Forbear." Should he persist 
 in the attempt to confer the priestly power, his utterance will 
 be suspended. Upon priests already ordained, and also on 
 deacons, such portions of the service ordered to be read as 
 form no part of a true declaration of the gospel will affect 
 them, when uttered, with a sense of strangulation. If after 
 warnings they persist in their use, paralysis will follow. To such 
 of any degree as are not in true virtue, and who prostitute the 
 priestly function through moral unfitness, inabihty to administer 
 the Holy Sacrament will be the first manifestation of the visit- 
 ation that is to ensue. A strange horror will affect them as 
 they attempt to pronounce the formulas over the bread and 
 wine. The lungs will seem to enlarge, and then to rise ; and 
 
SEC. 825—829.] THE APOCALYPSE. 449 
 
 tlien a dumb, unearthly tongue seem striving then to cry with- 
 in the breast, ^''Unclean, unclean V Sudden death will follow 
 the refusals to obey such monitions. 
 
 827. A third judgment will befal those who exercise the 
 appointing power to livings and preferments, should this be 
 still permitted by law. When benefices fall vacant, and they 
 are about to dispose of them by gift, the knees will smite to- 
 gether, and shock after shock as from the Voltaic pile convulse 
 the nervous system. A silent horror will at the same time in- 
 vade the mind. This will be an early premonition, but God will 
 visit such as, being openly warned, attempt to continue the 
 practice, with immediate death. It will be felt by the public 
 conscience of the land that God is pouring out a condemnation 
 ujDon all who justify the mode of presentation which now 
 exists. The judgment upon such as either buy or sell advow- 
 sons for livings, whether directly or as agents for others, will 
 be a third horror, — a darkness before the vision conjoined 
 with ana^uish in the heart. Such as use their voices to neg-o- 
 tiate sales will be afilicted with a disease in the larynx ; this 
 first, and afterward, if abuses continue, with instant death. 
 
 828. The next judgment will be a pouring-out upon the 
 Book of Common Prayer, in this wise : The agony of souls in 
 torment will seize upon those who hold the compilation in as 
 sacred a reverence as they do the Word. A conviction will be 
 as a dawning light thrown into the mind, that it is a past and 
 not a present help or aid in devotion. The hands of the godly 
 will be moved, with great unanimity, when the Word is touched, 
 to clasp it to the breast ; but quietly to place the other 
 volume with objects that have been treasured, but whose work 
 is done. To those who reverently obey the Spirit, the new 
 Book of Common Prayer, containing the celestial sense of the 
 Word, in its adaptation to devotional exercises, will be given ; 
 and this the hands will be moved to receive and to place with 
 and under the Word j after which they will find in it Divine 
 blessings. 
 
 829. The ungodly in the Anglican Church, who, being 
 warned, defy the Holy Ghost and resist its infiuoncc, will be 
 infested with all the judgments poured out upon the Greek, 
 Latin^ or African churches, according to their peculiar internal 
 
 p p 
 
450 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 state, and witli a vast variety of accessions. This is because 
 each will find his latent bosom sin represented by a corres- 
 ponding grief or anguish or tumult in the bodily frame. 
 
 830. The Evangelical Protestant Church, so-called, through- 
 out Christendom, so far as distinct from the fixed Calvinism 
 stated of before, now has place. Of its judgments the follow- 
 ing must serve as an epitome. The heresy which some enter- 
 tain of Tritheism, or a belief that there are absolutely three 
 Deities, will assume the form of a three-headed, barking mon- 
 ster, subjectively present in the nervous body. Again it will 
 appear as three serpents, so intervolved that to sensuous per- 
 ception they will seem but one ; and again, as three old men 
 grown together by joints and bands of stone. Thus the image 
 of this deformity of doctrine and perversion of truth will be 
 sensationally present in the physical structure ; a load which 
 the man must carry with incredible toil, till the mind repulses 
 it in the acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ in His divine 
 humanity as the Almighty. 
 
 831. Those who believe, that, after death, those indiscrimi- 
 nately who are in a salvable condition, without any process of 
 continued regeneration, are angels, will see themselves in spirit 
 dying and waking to a continued existence, with every evil, 
 which had not been wrought out from the afi'ections of the life, 
 a living organic creature withiu the body or the breast of the 
 spiritual form; each sin being seen in its own peculiar de- 
 formity, and felt as an incubus. Belief in the immediate 
 Heaven that, in their fantasies, awaits believers, will thus 
 recede, and the true conception of the World of Spirits gra- 
 dually follow. 
 
 882. Those fixed in the heresy alluded to elsewhere, which 
 denies the sanctity and eternity of conjugial love, even in the 
 first bloom of natural nuptials, will find that when afiectionately 
 they would embrace their consorts, as by a universal motion 
 the forms will move apart and remain inclined from each other. 
 This is by strict correspondence, because, when these who 
 have been religious pass into the World of Spirits, and still 
 cherish this fantasy, it removes them, husband from wife, with 
 impassable barriers placed between. 
 
 833. Those who make use of the doctrines of justification 
 
SEC. 830—834.] THE APOCALYPSE. 451 
 
 by faith, and of imputed righteousness, to vindicate the heresy 
 that men can be saved without a justifying principle in the 
 will, of strict obedience to the Divine Love, an assimilated 
 righteousness from Christ in the bosom, will thus find judg- 
 ment manifested. The Lord will open their eyes to perceive 
 wandering demons, and the understanding to comprehend that 
 those who appear were once even as they are, strenuous assert- 
 ers of these things; and while the demons with one voice, pro- 
 ceeding from within, pronounce the most fearful impieties, and 
 thus lay bare the depth of the hell within the heart, through 
 another external voice they will be heard declaring themselves 
 to be saints and angels, having been welcomed into Heaven 
 through acceptance of these identical opinions concerning 
 imputed righteousness and justification by faith alone. Then 
 the states of the demons, by correspondence, will pass over 
 into those who receive the visitation, j)roducing this most 
 fearful result : the heart, not confirmed in the denial of the 
 Divine Spirit, will seek to repulse and put far from it the 
 demoniacal presence ; this because the states are opposed. 
 Contrariwise, the mind will eagerly rush into the embrace of 
 the demoniacal mind, because they have agreed as one in 
 consonance of idea. So the will will feel the mind locked in 
 the embrace of a demon, while the body, between the lungs 
 and the heart, will seem cleft and breaking asunder. This, with 
 especial severity, will be a judgment for divines, and others 
 who with a zeal of doctrine propagate the views in question. 
 
 834. Those who maintain that there is no internal sense in 
 the Divine Word, and who seek to limit belief to the letter, 
 will be, as a judgment, for a time reduced to feel that all their 
 own life is upon the surface of the body; while brain, heart, 
 lungs, and viscera are hollow. The sensation of beino- coloured 
 air-bubbles in the human form will afflict them, and they will, so 
 far as sensation carries them, behold all men in the like case. 
 Everything will seem to have lost its substance and to be a 
 shell or surface only. When they have turned to the Lord, 
 He will remove the judgment, and a sensation of human life 
 within the nerves, and of living joy therein, will grow upon 
 them, as they readily admit that within the pictured surface of 
 Holy Writ exists a divine body of eternal verities. 
 
 F p 2 
 
452 ARCANA OF CIIBISTIANITT. [chap. in. 
 
 835. Those wlio practise fraud, hypocrisy, or oppression in 
 life, maintaining at the same time a reverence for the dogma 
 and a ceremonial of faith, will be made monuments before the 
 world, until they repent and forsake their evils in this manner : 
 the head will be turned backward, so that, whichever way tliey 
 walk, they seem as to the countenance to proceed in the 
 opposite direction; this is symbolical of their state, gazing 
 towards Heaven, but moving towards Hell. 
 
 836. Internal respiration will be hated by pseudo-religionists, 
 who profess evangelical tenets, because it makes man-service 
 and self-service incompatible with avowed piety. It is the 
 misfortune of these doctrines, that whilst multitudes who 
 cherish them sincerely love the Lord in truth and virtue, other 
 multitudes use them as a decorous and easy cloak which covers 
 a multitude of sins. A ceaseless torrent of cant pours from 
 the lips of covetous, sycophantic, vain, and artful men, espe- 
 cially found in the trading classes. Far as the east is from the 
 west the godly profession and the ungodly practice are put 
 asunder. The most fearful profanities are committed where 
 the pious conversation, larded with Biblical phrases and inter- 
 spersed with prayers and ejaculations, meanders over the sur- 
 fixce of life, while the poison-plants of deception are rank and 
 numberless. The sword of the Spirit, sharp and piercing, will 
 be the judgment which follows. Those who seek to turn the 
 faces of co-religionists against the open respiration, which is 
 effected by the Holy Ghost, will be punished by the breath stream- 
 ing forth, first to touch, with the gentlest pressure, that highest 
 point at which the natural lungs rise to meet the spiritual. 
 It will then be felt by them as if a sharp instrument were pro- 
 bing to the depths of the organic nature ; within the nerves, at 
 first a soft, tremulous undulation will be felt, as the evening 
 summer air, yet affecting with presentiments of judgment, and 
 stirring up the soul to make its last decision. Woe to those 
 who then resist the Spirit. " He, that being often reproved 
 hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that with- 
 out remedy.''^ 
 
 837. The religious body known as Wesleyan Methodists 
 demands a statement of its own. It represents that dawn- 
 light of the new Christian age, which began to appear in the 
 
SEC. 835—838.] TEE APOCALYPSE. 453 
 
 Upper Eartli of S^^irits connected with, our globe a little over 
 a century ago. It is the vehicle for copious influx descending 
 from the New Heaven, but extremely modified through spirit- 
 ual societies in the inWsible world, which, however, are now in 
 rapid states of dissolution. It represents, more nearly than 
 any other body in the world, the system which was intro- 
 duced through the apostles, and, were closed respiration to 
 continue, would become universal. It cannot however, because, 
 eminently adapted as it is to a rude and fettered Christian 
 experience, it fails to meet and embrace that moving, recon- 
 structive harmony through which God^s New Heavens descend 
 to institute newness in the earth. Its judgment will be mild, 
 consisting first of stress laid in the Spirit on its most devout 
 teachers to sejoarate themselves from its local and general 
 conferences, standing entirely apart, amenable for their public 
 course to the Master only, and led by Him irrespective of the 
 system of the allotment of ministers from vicinity to vicinity. 
 Much power will follow these, though at first accompanied with 
 a share of extravagance and indiscrimination ; but the best 
 life of the evangelical movement will copiously diffuse itself 
 through them. The Spirit, that wrought for itself many forms 
 in primitive MetHodism, must leave, both in Great Britain and 
 America, the huge organizations which inherit its prestige. 
 
 838. The class-meeting will be visited by a judgment. Men 
 will stand up and declare insincerely the workings of the Spirit 
 in them, in stereotyped and formal phrase, and then great 
 horror will overcome them, and paralysis. The extravagance 
 of statement which now veils a meagre experience will meet 
 with a terrific rebuke, and a winnowing and sifting process 
 thus begin. The true prayer is deep and tender; it seeks 
 for itself subdued utterance, and produces devout and holy 
 quiet. The prayer meeting may become, when abused, a reli- 
 gious tap-room, where men upon their knees drink delirium 
 from infesting evil spirits. The loud, shrieking, boisterous 
 prayer, which ends for a time the holy stillness of the soul, and 
 produces sympathetically a frenzy, borders on the wild extra- 
 vagance which characterizes the madmen of the invisible 
 state. ^Vhen insincerity in life is accompanied with a habit of 
 public praying, in the midst of. rhapsodical petitions for the 
 
454 ABCANA OF CnRISTIANITY. [crap. in. 
 
 descent of tlie Holy Spirit, an answer will come that shall 
 strike with sudden fear upon all who behold it. The man will 
 rise unable to articulate. His secret evils will then flow out, 
 and a disposition to curse vent itself in oaths and impreca- 
 tions. Those who have thus pi'ofaned the rite of worship, and 
 indulged among their companions in lewd witticisms and anec- 
 dotes, will speak from the heart instead of from the artificial 
 mind. " There is nothing concealed that shall not bo made 
 known. ""^ 
 
 839. The habit of scandal, which, with all the more fervid 
 and enthusiastic of religious bodies becomes a periodical 
 delirium, favoured by the espionage which the workings of any 
 creed-system require, and which is a complete inversion of 
 the charity that thinketh no evil, will find its terrible rebuke. 
 When those who mingle the dissections of the character of the 
 absent with prayer and praise are in the height of their impure 
 love, the voice will change, and a barking madness be de- 
 veloped. Some voices for the moment will be those of the wolf 
 that feeds on human flesh, and others those of the jackal or 
 the hyena. This is because the passions in question take upon 
 themselves these forms within the spirit, and, when let forth 
 in the body, re-enact themselves in a painful symbolism. 
 Those who have taken delight in retailing scandals will be 
 followed by the odour of corrupting flesh, and the common 
 voice when singing will change, in spite of themselves, to 
 a nasal whine which indicates hypocrisy. Those who assume 
 a peculiar garb, gait, and address, which savours of a seeming 
 godliness, while inwardly they covet praise and pleasure in the 
 love of self, will strip themselves in sudden frenzies of their 
 garments of hypocrisy, till the style of costume, speech, and 
 appearance is in keeping with what is within. 
 
 840. Judgments will follow those who attempt to up-build 
 the sect by a Jesuitical policy, suppressing the freedom of 
 speech which conflicts with authorized dogma, and bringing 
 into disfavour the enlightened and the good, who aim to pro- 
 mote the ends of advanced truth and holiness. Journalists 
 will find the hand refuse to write and the voice to dictate. 
 The weapons formed against God shall not prosper. Preachers 
 who deny the Holy Ghost, and attempt to cultivate the elo- 
 
SEC. 839—842.] TRE APOGALTFSE. 455 
 
 quence of tlie natural rhetorician, inventing prayers for effect, 
 and practising from the inspirations of the stage-player, will 
 grow torpid by an inward death, which, with benumbing cold- 
 ness stifles the memory, overclouds the imagination, and makes 
 bare of charm the laboured epithet and studied posture. The 
 practised pulpit reader will see the letters of the manuscript 
 fading before the eye. The memorist will forget in the midst 
 of delivery all that was to have been uttered. It will be a ne- 
 cessity to utter what the hidden man of the heart is labour- 
 ing with, or to stand silent. The artificial pulpit orator will 
 thus come to naught, and those who suppress truth find that 
 truth is omnipotent for their suppression. 
 
 841. The revivalist of an impure sort, who produces, through 
 magnetic and magical fascinations in public, but especially 
 through an oratory whose tones are laden with infernal fire, a 
 passing excitement which is mistaken for a Divine visitation, 
 will find iron hands grasping him by the arm and leading him 
 out from his distinguished place. The Lord's Divine strength 
 will body itself forth through the Heavens, and, though un- 
 seen, with such might that iron columns shall bend before it 
 like stalks of grass, or melt as if but snowflakes. "Mouth," 
 signifies, that holy proceeding of the Lord which encompasses 
 and holds within itself the charitable of every creed. To 
 " spue out," signifies, that when the Divine judgments are 
 thus poured forth, all such as confirm themselves in coldness 
 against the love-breath of our Lord, whose manifestation is 
 the gentleness and the perfect integrity of charity, will no 
 more be encircled by the Spirit's enclosing mouth, but be cast 
 out beyond it, and their place found not any more. 
 
 Chap. hi. 17. — "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and in- 
 creased WITH GOODS, AND HAVE NEED OP NOTHING; AND 
 KNOWEST NOT THAT THOU AET WRETCHED, AND MISERABLE, 
 AND POOR, AND BLIND, AND NAKED." 
 
 NINETEENTH ILLHSTEATION. 
 
 Events transpiring in tlie World of Spirits among Eomish ecclesiastics. — 
 Their follies and insanities. 
 
 842. I saw in the third earth of the Upper World of Spirits, 
 
45G ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 connected with our orb, ;i vast series of landscapes appropriated 
 to the habitations of men from Christendom, who retain for a 
 time the peculiar mental states and mixed qualities of good 
 and evil which characterized them while in the flesh; and first 
 I entered a society of Romanists, It was a large city, in many 
 respects resembling Naples. The filth of excrements lay in 
 pools before the windows, and a noisome odour arose, except 
 when the upper airs dispelled it. The habitations were 
 crowded into labyrinthine alleys, but here and there stood 
 in open spaces huge massive edifices, some in appearance 
 recently erected, but in the main very old. A monk was 
 holding forth, under a canopy at the head of an alley, upon 
 the efficacy of relics. A travelling comedian at the corner 
 opposite was exhibiting Punchinello. Overhead were buzzards 
 and vultures, and lean, mangy curs howled among the popu- 
 lace. It was a squalid scene of filth, ignorance, and supersti- 
 tion. 
 
 843. An angel beckoned to me from an opened window; I 
 knew him to be angelic through internal perception, otherwise 
 from the plain respectability of his attire he might have been 
 mistaken for a notary. The house I entered, though clean and 
 neat, differed architecturally without in no respect from others. 
 Upon a little silver plate, set near a knob, the name ''Justice" 
 was written. I was saluted on entering by my friends Zalutha 
 and Zalathuma (see Children of Hymen) . These are angels in 
 an ultimate society of the Celestial Heaven which is called the 
 " Orb of the Incarnation.''^ The house was full of the odour 
 of balsamic plants, and the floors were of plain, white marble. 
 I was conducted into an inner apartment, but this, unlike the 
 more exterior rooms, was enriched with beautiful objects from 
 the Celestial Heaven. After we had interchanged greetings, I 
 observed that the apartment opened toward the sea, and that 
 an undulaut paradise was above it, toward the morning sun, 
 and a winding spiral ascent by means of which one could 
 ascend and be in it. 
 
 844. While beholding and delightfully conversing, a cry 
 was heard from without, and Zalutha took keys in his hand 
 and walked forth, while in the spirit I was led to accompany 
 him. A violent, angry dissension had arisen between the co- 
 
SEC. 843—845.] TRE AFOCALTPSJE. 457 
 
 median and tlie mouk ; tlie one maintaining tliat all miracles 
 wrouglit by Romish priests were simply tlie result of natural 
 magic or cliemistry, and tlio otlier calling liim a heretic. As 
 tliey saw Zalutlia, though still gesticulating violently^ both de- 
 sisted, and moving to the spot while the crowd divided somewhat 
 hurriedly, my friend cried, " This is no place for the exhibi- 
 tion of polemics, go into the places provided, if you wish to 
 discuss those matters.'' At this they both exclaimed, " We 
 will discuss j " and followed by hundreds also excited and 
 gesticulating, they turned up a better and cleaner street into 
 a square where stood a light airy structure : I noticed that 
 though a dull, dingy atmosphere enveloped the habitations, 
 this glittered as if illuminated by the young dawn. Zalutha 
 opened the doors and stood beneath the arched portals ; soon 
 the monk drew near, and through internal perception I beheld 
 him to possess a small germ of regenerative life, veiled over 
 by the superstitions of his kind. The harlequin was the better 
 man of the two, as was denoted by his fairer skin, but still a 
 sceptic as to his natural mind, with incredulity singularly 
 blended with the remains of a traditional veneration for the see 
 of Rome. The monk wore haircloth, but the harlequin his 
 comedy dress, bizarre and fantastic to an extreme. The hun- 
 dreds who followed had been Romish peasants whilst in the 
 flesh, and little better than pagans, though in heart disposed to 
 regeneration, and therefore in a salvable state, being merci- 
 fully judged, because upon earth they had enjoyed but the 
 opportunities of a servile condition. 
 
 845. Within the building were ushers with white wands, 
 and none were allowed to enter till they had prepared them- 
 selves by ablutions, of which some of them stood in extreme 
 need. The ushers were also angels of the same Heaven, but 
 present in this lower Spiritual Earth to assist in the jDrocesses 
 by means of which human spirits are divested of the inftitua- 
 tious that cleave to them for the time. A tribune to the right 
 was allotted to the priest, and one opposite to the harlequin, 
 and, according to their prepossessions for or against, the 
 hearers were arranged to the right or left in the midst of the 
 semicircle. Zalutha then spoke and said, " I am here by the 
 direction of the King to preserve order ; none will be allowed 
 
458 ABCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 to interrupt tlio discussion as it goes on, but omens will appear 
 wliicli may guide you in forming a correct decision/' 
 
 846. THe friar then commenced, and said, " I maintain four 
 propositions. First, tliat wlien the Lord Christ departed from 
 the world He committed all power in Heaven and Earth to 
 St. Peter in trust, who bequeathed it in due succession to the 
 present pope, our holy father, in whom it now stands vested;^' 
 At this a clamour began, and heads were seen rising through 
 the stone pavement, between the rostrum of the friar and the 
 seats in the quadrangle. Three demons appeared, one with 
 the fiice like that of a fox, another of a wolf, and the third of 
 a human vultui-e ; otherwise they were in the human form, and 
 clad in pontifical vestments. The friar cried, " Lo, what are 
 these ? " Then the first cried, " I am Sixtus Y. ; " another 
 that he was Innocent ; another, one of the Clements. They 
 shouted as one, " We are confirmators, and having been popes, 
 declare that, while on earth, we ruled as God's vicegerents with 
 Divine power. Since then we have been promoted higher 
 still, and the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost having abdicated, 
 we sit on their thrones judging the nations ; but chant in our 
 praise Gloria Fatri, aird lo, you with whom we are pleased, 
 shall be canonized ! " 
 
 847. The friar looked astounded at this extension of the 
 doctrine, but replied, after consideration, "I deny the propo- 
 sition you advance." Whereat the first speaker cried, " My 
 Son will answer you, after which the Holy Ghost will sanction 
 it ; but I shall damn you unless you believe their testimony.'' 
 At this Zalutha put forth his hand and touched the speaker, 
 " The king permits dissensions but no threatenings ; otherwise 
 it becomes my duty to remove you to a place of confinement." 
 The quiet dignity with which Zalutha spoke convinced the 
 people that these were old imbeciles, puSed up with their delu- 
 sion, and in their seats they began whispering to one another. 
 But the friar made bold to exclaim, " His holiness, the present 
 pope, is the legatee of the Divine authority ; the pope who 
 dies parts with it to his successor." The first then cried, " I 
 did not part with my authority ;" the second, " Nor did I ; " 
 and the third, " Mine is intact still." They shouted, " We 
 all are popes and Lord Gods ; heretics are in Hell whom we 
 
SEC. 846—849.] TRE APOCALTPSE. 459 
 
 condemned, and saints in Heaven wliom we exalted/'' At 
 tliis one of them rang a small hand-bell, and a sly, cunning 
 demon, of a most obsequious air, arose as they had, crying, 
 " What will your Lord-godship have ? '' He answered, " Bring 
 the keys/^ Then drew near, also arising, one who had been 
 a captain in the papal guard, saying, " I have brought them ; 
 these are the keys of Heaven and Hell, but the others I left 
 which open purgatory/^ A scarlet beast now made its appear- 
 ance, rising through the floor, with seven horns ; and the pope, 
 who had sent for the keys, seeing it, cried, '' Exalt me ! " at 
 which, lifted by the captain and the secretary, he was placed 
 upon the huge animal. This was the one who personated God 
 the Son. The harlequin very gravely stripped off his coloured 
 coat and fantastic head-dress, throwing them before the self- 
 inflated old man, crying, " There is no resisting such an argu- 
 ment, you are indeed the Magnum Jo vis. ^^ The demon took 
 the irony of the pantomimist for worship, and pronounced 
 these words, " Well done good and faithful servant, enter into 
 the joys of thy Lord; '^ promoting him at the same time to be 
 seventh councillor, and saying that if he did well he should 
 depose the Holy Ghost, and proceed into him, that he might 
 occupy the third throne. 
 
 848. The friar looked, wondered, and exclaimed, " It never 
 occurred to me before to question the doctrine that our holy 
 father is the Divine legate upon earth, but new light breaks 
 upon me.'" The man on the beast heard, and forgetting the 
 admonition given, shouted the words of the greater excommu- 
 nication. Zalutha at this touched him with a rod, and he 
 tumbled from the animal and was cast into the abyss, speedily 
 followed by the others. 
 
 849. The clause, "■ I am rich,^^ signifies, such fantasies enter- 
 tained by Romanists, both in the natural world and the Earth 
 of Spirits, which they enter after leaving the body. There are 
 other and deeper significations. 
 
4G0 ABCAJSTA OF CRBISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 TWENTIETH ILLUSTEATION. 
 
 Events transpiring^ in the Heaven of Scotland. — Also incidents occurring in 
 the Spiritual World to spirits of the Scottish nation. 
 
 850. There are in tlio Scotcli nation many both of the types 
 called Thyatira and Sardis ; and Scotland is preserved, through 
 the faithfulness of its people, from many of the prospective 
 calamities with which England is liable to be overtaken. This 
 people have been ridiculed as hypocritical, owing to the close 
 alliance in their minds between thrift and religion; but eco- 
 nomy and inspiration should dwell together in one house, >as 
 husband and wife, and celebrate perpetual nuptials. A cer- 
 tain fire and tenacity, which, when misled and intoxicated with 
 the inflowing of evil, develops a spirit of savage persecution, 
 in its orderly manifestation leads those under its influence 
 through the long eras of tribulation, and up the steep acclivi- 
 ties of regeneration, into that great land above the mountains ; 
 to drop the figure, leads them to the discrete degree above the 
 natural world. As the spirit of the old Covenanters, freed from 
 its narrowness and bitterness, reiippoars, it will be demonstrated 
 that even in Europe are the remains of a people capable of 
 being led through respiration into purity, and thence into 
 solidarity. The individualised national existence of North 
 Britain seems to have terminated ; the political, commercial, 
 and social fusing of the nations being complete. But there 
 never was a greater error. The peculiar, compromising spirit 
 of England, of which its hybridised national church is a fair 
 exponent, has never quite penetrated to the inmost fibre of 
 Scottish character. 
 
 851. I saw in the Scottish Heaven an open respiring man, a 
 member of the Brotherhood of the New Life, who had been 
 initiated through many sufferings into the beginnings of the 
 new creation. The air was filled with martial music, and soon 
 after the clans began to gather. These clans I discovered to be 
 little societies, all arranged in series. An ancient crown and 
 sceptre were brought forth, and a peculiar stone of a talismanic 
 nature, with a throne upon it j and when this open respiring 
 man appeared, forty chieftains advanced, and said in one voice, 
 '' Let us crown this man representatively." The worthy man 
 
SEC. 850— S53.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 4G1 
 
 drew back, and said, " Not so, not so ; I am a novice ;" but the 
 answer was, " It is an election. The first Scot in whom the 
 divine life is ultimated through the beginnings of open respira- 
 tion on earth, by an ancient ordinance must be the begiunino- of 
 the royal series here/^ Still he drew back, and another utter- 
 ance was made to this effect, that he should hold the place 
 tentatively till another of his nation of a quality more akin to 
 royalty should enter on Earth into the divine harmonies, 
 
 852. He drew back, even then, till an angel appeared who said, 
 addressing him, " My son, by means of this consecration you 
 will be enabled on earth to be much more thrifty and devoted 
 in your humble service of our God -j" whereat he fell upon his 
 face, and in a few minutes rose and said, " I want no crown 
 and no sceptre ; for I am one of those who did not struggle 
 alone into this condition ; strong arms were about me, and I 
 was lifted to the place." But the angel said again, " If you 
 resist, we will take a little boy in whom respiration has begun;" 
 and in spirit a Scottish lad appeared and was recognised, and 
 the man placed his hands upon the head of the child, and the 
 angel placed his hands upon the head of the man ; and in that 
 series they were enveloped in a resplendence. First, a crown 
 appeared upon the head of the angel, and then as it were, a 
 crystallization from it formed an open diadem on the head of 
 the man, and a halo, in which were the first formations of a 
 crown, upon the head of the boy. 
 
 853. When this had transpired, Scotch persons, in whom 
 were the beginnings of respiration, or at least in preparative 
 respiration, were brought into the circle, and robes were put 
 upon them, and the germ of a peculiar quality of fiery ardour 
 was distilled into their bosoms, to be unfolded after many days. 
 Soon after this, there wore earthquakes in the expanse of the 
 Spiritual World, and many towns and cities were swallowed 
 up, and their places supplied by open waters. The internal 
 expanses within the minds of the Scottish people will next be 
 visited in the same way. When this had taken place, another 
 change began. A broad frith appeared, separating the 
 Scotland of the World of Spirits, from the England there. 
 People began crying, " We renounce, we renounce,'' and were 
 seen by thousands with their hands uplifted, throwiug back 
 
4G2 ABCANA OF CRRISTIANITT. [chap. iti. 
 
 the emanation from England into the bosom of that isle. A 
 war then comuicncoclj and vast bodies of magnetic substance, 
 rolling with cloudy, poisonous vapours, crossed the frith, and 
 began to benumb and stupefy the inhabitants. Soon afterward 
 fortifications were seen rising, and men of a type correspond- 
 ing to those of the church called Philadelphia were visible, 
 engaged in constructing the defences according to that mode 
 by which, in future times, the new crystallized architecture is 
 to be fashioned on the terrestrial globe. A dissolution of the 
 British empire, in first principles, has thus begun. 
 
 854. Preliminary to those experiences, I was in the spirit in 
 a large city in the lowest of the Upper Earths of Spii-its, de- 
 voted to the reception of CaMnists who retain a germ of good 
 within the spirit, and are capable of becoming angelic. The 
 quarter into which I was taken was inhabited principally by the 
 Scotch, and a weird, strong race indeed they seemed to be. The 
 frost lay upon the door-stone of every dwelling, and the ice was 
 in the pools before the windows. I noticed hardy flowers 
 growing, resembling chrysanthemums ; now and then a spicy 
 breath, with the summer in it, alternated most agreeably with 
 the boreal blasts, and I perceived these to come from a great, 
 high mountain, eastward beyond waters, resting upon snow- 
 covered plains, but rising through temperate zones into a 
 tropic world. Near me the frost was everywhere, and the in- 
 habitants, as they moved to and fro, exhibited peculiar diseases, 
 the result of cold. I noticed an inscription upon a public 
 building, and internally road it, " To three-headed Janus,^'' but 
 a passer by, whom I asked to read it, said, that it was to the 
 three Gods of the Trinity, — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
 This stood in the lowest and most obscure quarter. " YeTl 
 think over much of Jesus Christ,'^ said the man to whom I had 
 spoken ; continuing in broad Scotch, which I render in our own 
 tongue, "Each person of the Trinity demands separate worship; 
 the Father for creating, the Son for atoning, and the Spirit for 
 sanctifying." One of the oldest inhabitants drew nigh, per- 
 ceiving I might be a stranger, and gravely assenting, added, 
 " You will know that God the Father is a jealous God, in 
 covenant with the elect." I replied, " Justice and mercy are 
 the habitations of His thi'one ;" whereat the ancient responded. 
 
SEC. 854—856.] TSE APOCALYFSU. 463 
 
 " Very true,, but justice required tliat all sliould be damned, 
 and mercy spared such as were to be spared." He then wiped 
 kis horn-rimmed spectacles, and asked me if I tliouglit that 
 summer was not delayed unseasonably ? 
 
 855. At this moment drew nigh, two in one, moving- in a 
 cloud of the embodied essences of flowers which diffused 
 heliotrope, jasmine, and the rose, an angel and his bride, 
 Odorus and Odoretta by name (for particulars concerning 
 whom, see Children of Hymen). "There comes,^' continued 
 the old man, " a white snow-whirlwind,^^ His teeth chattered, 
 and he shook as if with an ague ; but I opened my garment at 
 the breast, because it was warm to me, and turning a little 
 aside was involved in the perfumed an 1 tinted sphere, and so 
 wrapped away. In beds, frozen marble-hard, I saw a preacher 
 and his wife, their faces turned from each other. Odorus 
 touching them on the lips, each spoke but diversely, the voice 
 seeming to proceed from opposite quarters of the room. The 
 clergyman mistook the angel for an infernal vision, and 
 muttered, " Ye tempters depart ; ye know tbat Janet was my 
 wife in the flesh, but in the resurrection all are unmarried crea- 
 tures ; therefore she waits for the trumpet with her face to one 
 wall, and I wait with my face to the other wall ; but it's cold, 
 very cold." The lovely Odoretta, with beautiful rapture beaming 
 in her eyes, tenderly imprinted a kiss upon her consort's lips, 
 at which the good and worthy man upon his wintry couch 
 groaned, " Surely ye are uncanny." 
 
 856. Both, two in one, commenced at this moment, reading 
 from the Word, and I began singing a conjugial hymn, for the 
 truths inflowed through my lips to a lyric inspiration ; and 
 still the reading and the singing made one accord. Both 
 listened enchanted. A silver dew of melody began to fall 
 through the atmosphere. The walls of the chamber wherein 
 they lay grew luminous with Biblical inscriptions, in silver 
 letters appearing on a golden grouud ; and the worthy minis- 
 ter of the Kirk began to read them, slowly and with difiiculty, 
 through numbed lips. The angel then spake to him, saying : 
 "Let this confirm you that the vision is of tho Lord;" 
 giving to him at the same time a copy of tho Word, most 
 exquisitely tinted and embellished, so that the text seemed a 
 
4G1 ARCANA OF CHRISTIANITY. [chap. in. 
 
 scries of starry letters, resplendent witli many jewels upon a 
 landscape ground, at once ricli with summer and gay with 
 spring. He took it, and cried with astonishment : " Oh, ])ut 
 the Word is very holy V pressing it at the same moment to 
 his breast. Then opening it, he exclaimed tremulously, 
 '' Surely it is cold enough here to be a long way from the lake 
 that burns with fire and brimstone ; and yon young man could 
 never draw the Scriptures from his bosom if he came out of 
 the pit, with not so much as a page scorched by the burning." 
 
 857. " God's Word is very precious," he continued ; '' it is 
 comforting to think that ye are of the elect, young man ;" 
 adding, '''ye might liave been damned, ye know, to the adora- 
 ble justice of the Father; but the Son interposed, and they hold 
 a council, which resulted in the Young Man's coming down to 
 save us." I saw that he spoke from his former natural thought, 
 and words were given me to say, " I and my Father are one; he 
 that hath seen me," saith our Lord, '' hath seen the Father." 
 The clergyman at this responded, " Ye are wresting Scripture 
 to your own destruction. The persons in the adorable Trinity 
 are three, to will and covenant, else there could be no cove- 
 nant." At this his teeth began to chatter with cold, and a 
 stony torpor stole over his visage, while he muttered drowsily, 
 '' We saints must sleep till the last, trumpet sounds." His 
 wife meanwhile lay speechless in a soft rapture, murmuring 
 in ber beart the silent words of prayer, and began in worship 
 to revive ; for women put off the Calviuistic dogma more 
 rapidly than men, being born affections. 
 
 858. By this time the husband was in a deep torpor, and 
 th.e dear wife turned towards him, seeing, as she did so, the 
 Word which had Mien from his hands shining in jewelled 
 lustre between them. Putting forth her emaciated arm, she 
 took it, and Odorus and Odoretta began to sing in unison, as 
 they observed the act ; while a sweet cherub voice was heard, 
 calling, '' Mother, my own mother." The good old lady was 
 startled ; slow tears began to course down her venerable cheeks, 
 and the Word diffusing a mild fragrance began to warm her 
 faded frozen hands ; while the angels continued to sing a wel- 
 come to light and immortality. A lovely maiden at this mo- 
 ment appeared, in airy white. The young May is not more 
 
SEC. 857—859.] THE APOCALYPSE. 465 
 
 beautiful. Spring blossoms were twined tlirougli her abun- 
 dant golden tresses, and a dove and a niglitingale seemed 
 alternately making music within either breast. Gently ap- 
 proaching the couch on the side where the old lady lay, she 
 whispered, " Eise, mother, in our Lord^s name.^' The doctrinal 
 spell was, however, mighty on the mind, and the aged woman 
 answered, " Not till the resurrection, not till the resurrection. 
 Perhaps you will know when it is expected." " E-ise, mother, 
 in the Lord's name, rise,'' was the maiden's response. But 
 the spell continued, and again the answer came, yet more 
 softly now, " I cannot." " Then let me aid you," was the reply ; 
 and reaching out her hand, strength was imparted through 
 it, and the dear old mother sat up, while at the same time her 
 features began to change a little from their stony abstraction. 
 '' Let me aid you," still continued the bright spirit, and all in 
 white, as the corpse is attired, the mother stood stark up- 
 right, the old man moaning and muttering uneasily as if in a 
 troubled dream. 
 
 859. At this moment the eastern wall became trans- 
 picuous, and through it shone a rosy light, in which were 
 inscriptions in the Celestial language, formed as in sunbeams. 
 Gliding to the other side, the maiden now knelt, and with the 
 love-heat of the bosom sought to warm this venerable parent ; 
 and we heard him talking as if two minds were arguing against 
 each other. The most external mind whispered, " Six and 
 thirty years I preached, let the saints sleep till the resurrection." 
 The internal mind, in a soft, infantile voice responded, " Jesus 
 is our resurrection and our life, and those who are His never 
 die." The outer mind seemed to murmur a feeble protest, 
 and now more clear and silvery its inner partner cried, '' The 
 flesh that Jesus lives in, is quickened by His presence." The 
 outer mind then answered still more feebly ; and joyously, as 
 if triumphing over obstructions, the inner spoke again, " In 
 those in whom Christ lives, faith working by love should 
 triumph. Will that the mountain of torpor heaped upon the 
 body shall fall, and it shall be cast into the sea of oblivion." 
 The old man had faith, and rising as in an awful vision, cried, 
 " Begone sleep," waking at the same instant to a double con- 
 sciousness in which the two minds were at one ; seeing at the 
 
 G G 
 
4.00 ABCANA OF CHUISTIANITT. [cnAr. iir. 
 
 same moment tlie angelic spirit kneeling beside liim^ and re- 
 cognising lier as a dauglitcr. 
 
 860. We became invisible at this moment, but still gazed 
 upon the scene. The daugliter placing lier band within the 
 folds of the icy robe which bound the awakened man, drew out 
 a little, glittering, three-headed viper ; in reality, not one ser- 
 pent, but three, bodily interwoven with heads and tails apart, 
 holding them up as she did so, and saying, " Dear father, 
 what are these ? " He answered, '' Little serpents." She 
 then held them with their heads downward, and they revived, 
 hissing. She crushed them beneath her feet. He then per- 
 ceived that three connected cells had been formed within his 
 brain, in which these three lodged. Perception was given at 
 the same moment, that the three serpents were the three 
 falsities that he had cherished and preached as a doctrine of 
 three distinct Gods, not three hypostases or degrees of per- 
 sonality, but three personalities, each a separate spirit. He 
 now began to be conscious of a faint rose odour about him, 
 and kissed the dear chikVs hands, through which the perfume 
 flowed, many times. The fragrance revived him more, and 
 now she took from within the folds of his garment a viperous 
 creature, whose head was lifted in the centre of its numerous 
 coils, as if to spring. It was a lurid. basilisk. He gazed upon 
 it with astonishment, crying, that he now felt that the doc- 
 trine of the reprobation of some men from eternity, and the 
 predetermined election of others, was sliding out of his brain. 
 She crushed this also. 
 
 861. In a few moments he heard the dove and the nightin- 
 gale warbling responses in her bosom. Then she cried, '' Has 
 my dear mother done aught to you that she should be absent 
 at this waking, and do you love her still ? Before you speak, 
 let me draw forth this, which I perceive injuring you." Then, 
 as before, she drew forth a swollen asp, and, as it left his brain, 
 the idea that the Lord ever taught that conjugial relations did 
 not exist in Heaven, was painfully removed away. He laid his 
 head upon his daughter's breast and wept, but they were 
 tender, happy tears. At the bedside now appeared silver 
 cups with wine, heavenly bread, and a rose-tinted fruit ; he 
 looked upon them, and said. " I thought that the saints, until 
 
SEC. 860—864.] TRE APOCALTPSK 467 
 
 tlie resurrection of tlie flesli, were bodily inanimate, and neither 
 able to desire food or enjoy it." She answered, '' There are 
 spiritual bodies, dear father, and our Lord provides spiritual 
 food. God's Word is greater than the Assembly's Catechism." 
 His good wife had, in the mean time, been listening ; she 
 threw her arms around his neck, and, as I vanished away, they 
 were clasped as deathless lovers who had struggled upward 
 through a cold and dark abyss into a land of morning, in each 
 other's embrace. 
 
 862. "^ Thou sayest, I am rich," signifies again, the earthly 
 fantasy of some among the Calvinists that the Divine treasures 
 of the Gospel are capable of a ti^itheistic interpretation, and 
 that they are wise who believe thus. It also applies with the 
 same significance to those who believe that they possess 
 heavenly treasures, in the belief that the soul is bodiless till 
 the general resurrection, and also that there is no conjugial 
 love in Heaven, and no inmost heart-union there. 
 
 TWENTT-riEST ILLUSTEATION. 
 
 Punishment inflicted iipon the buyers, sellers, and masters of slaves in the 
 World of Spirits. — Divine chastenings there. — Regions occupied by 
 spirits who were of the Society of Friends. — ]\Iauifestations in their 
 midst. — Also a Society of Moravians. 
 
 863. Upon the lowest borders of the lowest of the upper 
 Earths of Spirits, is a flat, marshy region, sultiy, infested with 
 venomous reptiles, and subject to pei^iodical overflows. The 
 stagnant water is covered with a green slime, and amphibious 
 monsters are visible. Nevertheless it is inhabited by many 
 who on Earth esteemed themselves rich, both in the truths of 
 religion and material possessions. Those who have conjoined 
 to their avowed Christian faith on earth the doctrine that 
 God ordains the African race to be hereditary bondsmen and 
 bondswomen, and who have rigorously exercised such privileges 
 as are possessed by the owners of human property, in lands 
 where it is legalised, congregate in this and a- contiguous 
 region for a time after natural decease. 
 
 864. It is respiration that determines a permanent residence 
 
 G G 2 
 
4GS ARCANA OF CREISTIANITT. [chap. tii. 
 
 in any Society of tlio Earth of Spirits^ or of tlie Heavens ; but 
 the respiration is determined by the quality of delight which 
 the spirit is able to enjoy. When those who have, from a 
 despotic instinct and habit, fixed themselves in the idea that 
 class bondage is a Divine ordinance, after having held in their 
 hands an arbitrary power, enter the Spiritual World, though 
 a little germ of good is quickened within them, they find both 
 the social order and the Divine truths prevalent, either in the 
 Heavens or the nobler portions of the Earths of Spirits, very 
 distasteful. Treated in the various societies with a gracious 
 hospitality, they nevertheless find them uncongenial, respiring 
 the air with difficulty, until at last, led by attraction, they find 
 themselves verging towards the marshy region just described. 
 Here they are in their element, and breathe freely, declaring 
 that it is home. They generally carry into the Spiritual World 
 with them the fantasy that dea^h has not deprived them of 
 opulence, and, retaining the earth-born sentiments and pas- 
 sions, desire a plantation and negroes ; but they are woefully 
 disappointed. No one of this type is ever able, after crossing 
 the boundaries, except through angelic guidance, to retrace his 
 footsteps. Wandering about for a time, they at last see slave- 
 pens, and in the distance persons who resemble coloured over- 
 seers ; the sounds of a distant industry also salute their ears. 
 Reviving at this, they approach ; but the overseer whom they 
 meet, instead of obsequiously addressing them, sternly de- 
 mands, if they know upon whose territory they have trespassed. 
 Wlien they state that they do not, he informs them that it is 
 possessed by a powerful, wealthy, negro monarch, who holds as 
 slaves, and disposes by public sale to such as visit his domi- 
 nions, all of the white race of their quality who cross the 
 boundaries. 
 
 865. I saw an auction of white men and women. They 
 were, first, a professor of a theological school, a Presbyte- 
 rian divine,,. and a clergyman of the Episcopal persuasion. 
 Second, three statesmen; a bully, who, during his earthly 
 life, had committed a historical outrage against a statesman 
 of opposite opinions to his own; a distinguished jurist of 
 the same class ; and one who had been both an attorney 
 and a judge. In the third lot were four persons, all men, fear- 
 
SEC. 865—867.] THE APOCALYFSU. 469 
 
 fully depraved on eartli, wliose employment had been that of 
 professional negro traders. With them was another, whom I 
 judged to be in a salvable condition, from the remains within 
 him. Those in the fourth group were elderly women; one was 
 pointed out as having been exceedingly tyrannical, and guilty of 
 murder j another was the wife of a cotton planter, also noto- 
 riously cruel. These seemed prepared internally for a most 
 infernal fate. A young woman of great personal beauty, but 
 haughty, domineering, and imperious, was close at hand. 
 
 8G6. They were surrounded by guards in uniform, who 
 maintained exact discipline ; this uniform was blue faced with 
 silver, and their expression that of great firmness, tempered 
 with generosity ; they were perhaps two hundred in number. 
 A crier made proclamation that the sale was to take place, but 
 that if any of them could show that on earth they had reve- 
 renced the manhood and the womanhood of races accounted 
 servile, and, even while restraining their liberty, respected them 
 as immortals of an equal brotherhood with themselves, an escort 
 was provided to reconduct them to their own kind. Each, 
 then, by a peculiar influx, being induced to speak from the 
 dominant mental idea and sentiment, declared that, so far from it, 
 they had a divine right to possess human property, restrained 
 by the civil statutes alone. As soon as they had declared this, 
 the three clergymen were required to step forward. First upon 
 the auction block was placed the theological professor. He 
 requested leave to make a protest, and offer a justification, stat- 
 ing that he was a consistent Christian, that all negroes were 
 the descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham, and as a race 
 condemned to eternal bondage, in these words, " Cursed be 
 Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.''^ 
 A light mulatto then stepped forward and said, "I bar the 
 protest; he bought me, being by the father^s side a white 
 man.-''' It was adjudged that the sale should proceed. 
 
 867. Now appeared two classes of buyers, one ferocious in 
 their aspect, whom I recognized to be negroes from the lowest 
 Earth of Spirits, where men are being prepared in the evolution 
 of their most internal characters to become demons. The 
 other class were gentlemen of a respectable appearance, whoso 
 conduct in every respect was unexceptionable ; their manners 
 
470 AECANA OF CUIilSTIANITY. [crap. hi. 
 
 refined, tlicir speecli courteous. The two parties kept apart. 
 The biddiug- began, and as it began the mind of the professor 
 was explored, to see if he had any genuine love to God and 
 the neighbour, but he had none. His professed Christianity 
 had been a disguised heathenism, his heart hard, and the spirit 
 of his life one of rindictiveness. When this was perceived, 
 the buyers of the better class withdrew, and he was handed 
 over, being internally a demon, to a demoniacal negro in the 
 same internal spiritual condition with himself. 
 
 868. The Presbyterian divine followed him ; his plea was the 
 same ; but a mild, blue-eyed little child with golden ringlets, 
 in lisping accents, speaking from the air through which she 
 glided down, declared that he had purchased and afterward 
 inflicted a cruel wrong on her still living^ mother. This he 
 did not deny ; the explorations of his internal state then took 
 place, and it was found worse than that of the former, when, as 
 before, a negro demon purchased him. The clergyman of the 
 Episcopalian persuasion then took their place, and I thought I 
 perceived a certain mildness in his countenance. He made no 
 plea, but one present stated that he had preached to a wealthy 
 parish, and never remonstrated against their traffickings in 
 men. At first his fate hung as it seemed in almost even scales; 
 there were two contending bidders, gne a portly gentleman of 
 clerical appearance, whom his companions addressed as a 
 divine, and who evidently was of the cloth ; the other a swear- 
 ing and exceedingly sinister-visaged spunt, who stated that 
 he wished a chaplain to preach subordination to his numerous 
 force; the demon bidder, however, retired. The purchaser 
 addressed him in these words ; " I trust that as much as a 
 single seed-corn of good life is in you ; I have become a formal 
 possessor of your person as an act of kindness ; my duty will 
 be to assign such employments to you as shall instruct you 
 in what the gospel is, while at the same time they afford you 
 an opportunity to practise it." He then passed from sight. 
 
 869. The first lot being disposed of, the planting politician 
 was next brought forward. On his brow he wore a livid mark, 
 to denote a propensity to smite and slay; he evidently had been 
 a person of extreme courtesy, a gentleman by education and 
 social position. The sight of the armed force, and the spec- 
 
SEC. 868—870.] TRE APOCALYPSE. 471 
 
 tacle of tlie preceding sales had evidently cowed liim. Looking 
 about, lie cried with a most fearful curse, that there was no 
 God in the universe, else He would never permit a chivalrous 
 and refined man of honour to be sold as a slave to slaves ; but 
 he was quietly checked for blasphemy, when the sale went on. 
 He was not hopeless, and fell into the hands of the commander 
 of the forces, a powerful, determined, soldierly .person, who 
 smiled aside, and then, mentioning the name which he had 
 borne on earth, was recognised at once by his possessor; he 
 was led into the rear. 
 
 870. A tall, slightly stooping, venerable man, in whom I 
 recognised the deceased statesman, Henry Clay, now ap- 
 proached, and with an easy dignity addressed the Episcopalian 
 clergyman, congratulating him on the opportunity of present- 
 ing with his own hands an occasional cup of cold water to one 
 of the least of the disciples ; adding, that he would doubtless 
 receive instruction in the Catechism and Creed. The object 
 of the appearance of this famous orator was soon made known ; 
 he requested permission of his friends to visit certain cottages 
 occupied by individuals from the earth, whom they had pur- 
 chased for disciplinary purposes, in quest of a friend of his ; 
 adding, that ho wished them God speed in the sale, which was 
 eminently a just one. Mr. Clay shortly afterwards made his 
 appearance, bringing with him the person of whom he was in 
 search, and the two stood contemplating the sight ; the one in 
 inild complaisance, and the other half in shame, as remember- 
 ing that on Earth he had been a seller, and here sold. " How 
 benignant and how just,^^ the Western orator remarked, " is 
 the sight which here we contemplate ! What surprising 
 equity administers the requirements of justice ! What charity 
 sits above, benignantly smiling ! Here many who teach on 
 earth may be taught themselves. I thank God for this insti- 
 tution : the cure of slavery is slavery ; the man wlio lusts to 
 rivet on his fellows a degrading chain here falls into the grasp 
 of that Power which soon convinces him, if a spark of good 
 lingers in his breast, how odious was the mean passion that he 
 made his friend. I see a reputable professor whom a debased 
 negro has bought ; they will together unfold the base hate 
 which grounds itself in their most secret natures. The links 
 
472 ABCANA OF CnRISTIANITY. [cixxv. iir. 
 
 of tlie same vassalage, forged witli their own hands, chain 
 them to the same chariot wheels of the one in their society, 
 who is at once the most execrable of tyrants and abased of 
 slaves. Mark the benignant features of the charitable pur- 
 chasers, who condescend, in pity on their formerly enslaving 
 brethren of the wliiter skin, to burden themselves with such 
 unprofitable servants as they for a time must prove. What 
 humanity reigns in their affections ! I could wish that I was 
 one of them, to aid in the rescue of my own species from their 
 anti-democratic sentiments, and most anti- Christian proclivi- 
 ties : it is good to be here.'''' 
 
 871. Soon after this the sale weiit on, but its particulars I 
 omit. Suffice it to say, that those capable of being reformed 
 and saved were adjudged to the good, and those fixed in 
 wrong-doing to the evil. When the demons had receded with 
 their spoil, the white captives, whom these kind persons had 
 burdened themselves with, were conducted by their respective 
 masters to their various estates, some of which I visited. I 
 saw on one sugar planters and overseers cultivating the sugar 
 cane. On another, those who had been engaged, on a large 
 scale, in the growth of cotton, laboriously engaged in its 
 culture ; while opulent and distinguished persons, who had 
 possessed great estates for the production of rice, were follow- 
 ing that peculiar pursuit. Indolent and fashionable ladies, 
 who had once presided over splendid mansions, were engaged 
 in menial offices, such as they had in the body exacted from 
 others. The ladies whom they served were assiduous in at- 
 tempting to instruct them in the heart-truths of God^s neglected 
 Word. Punishments of a severe character there were none, 
 for either men or women ; if the males loitered, purloined, 
 used impure or profane language, or sought to maltreat each 
 other, which some at first were apt to do, as the old earth 
 evils broke forth afresh, the discipline to which they were 
 subjected seemed to consist in a difficulty of breathing which 
 fell upon them, when invariably they began to recede toward 
 the Hells, and to plunge themselves in fetid marshes ;' this 
 they call running away. No notice was taken of it when again 
 they were brought to the firm sliore, except that they were 
 gravely admonished of the sin which such consequences 
 
SEC. 871—873.] THE APOCALTPSK 473 
 
 followed. I was informed tliat it was extremely difficult to in- 
 duce liabits of self-government on many wlio liad been brouo-ht 
 up to an indolent lady life, but that with great patience and 
 assiduity their faults gradually disappeared. 
 
 872. I was present in the spirit on a certain plantation. Its 
 force consisted of about two hundred, who had been planters, 
 overseers, and agents, in the natural life. After the day^s 
 labours were at an end, a chapel was opened for services, and 
 their proprietor delivered a discourse on slavery and freedom, 
 for their edification, in which the following propositions were 
 adduced : first, that the culture of the particular product in 
 which they were engaged continually reminded them of the 
 errors, both in doctrine and practice, to which they had been 
 addicted in the body ; second, that enforced industry was neces- 
 sary, because the only cure for the self-indulgences of which 
 the habit remained ; third, that their ownership, by the good of 
 the colour which had been so much despised on Earth, was for 
 the purpose of convincing them that the living God dwelt in 
 the negro spirit ; and through it, as an instrument, led them 
 from the slavery of false persuasions and practices into the 
 true liberty of joyful and willing obedience to Himself. The 
 coloured gentleman concluded in these words, " I wish you 
 to understand, dear friends, I do not own you; I abhor the 
 doctrine that, except as a means of restraining men from evil 
 habits, and of preparing them for divine freedom, any spirit 
 has coercive rights over another. I exercise these rights 
 simply as the Father's son, who thus would serve his 
 brethren.'' 
 
 873. After this I beheld a spectacle of exceeding interest. 
 A quadi'oon gentleman introduced me to one of the most lovely 
 females I ever beheld, and said she came from a southern city. 
 Her father, no ignoble person, neglected to manumit her by 
 a provision to that efi'ect. She passed into the possession of 
 her own brother, now in Hell, and a most flagitious demon. 
 Of the forced wrongs perpetrated upon her shrinking spirit, 
 let the memory be forgotten. He sold her, knowing that he 
 trafficked in his own blood. She bleeds and pants now in mind, 
 at the bare recollection of worse than menial horrors under 
 which she died. She keeps her father, because deeply buried 
 
47 i ABC ANA OF CIIBISTIANITY. [chap. in. 
 
 in liis bosom is the smallest of seeds of life possible to spring 
 up ; but lie is the most seemingly incorrigible of men, receding 
 often toward the Hells, and plunging himself in foul morasses, 
 whence he is extricated with difficulty. She is now the sole 
 means of calling forth that little germ, and visits him, 
 though with extreme anguish to herself, in the remote cottage 
 where he lives apart. 
 
 874. I was taken after these things into a town occupied 
 by spirits, who on earth had been members of the Society of 
 Friends. It was situated in the midst of a bog on tremulous 
 ground, quaking at every step. Great apparent friendliness 
 characterized the many whom I saw, and everything indicated 
 a most peaceable external profession. "These,^^ said an 
 angel who was with me, " are the smoothest of equivocators 
 by practice." The bog. itself is over the dividing line, to the 
 left, and so nearer to the Hells than to the Heavens. One 
 accosted me with " Friend, dost thou desire to dispose of 
 aught ? If not, is there aught that I can supply thee V I 
 answered, " ^o." I perceived that he was a trading spirit and 
 intent only on gain. Another informed me, as by some com- 
 pulsion working in him, that he had just negotiated a marriage 
 between his daughter and the son of the richest friend in that 
 vicinity. Another, that he had discovered a method by which 
 to induce commercial panics, so that, mortgages being then 
 foreclosed^ vast possessions might be accumulated at little 
 outlay. But the peculiarity of all was, that, except when 
 speaking under internal compulsion, language was a thing so 
 flexible in their hands, as to serve as the agent of universal 
 double dealing and trickery. A sad falling-off of the primitive 
 inspirations under which the Society of Friends took its rise ! 
 
 875. That nature is the only God, and that the secret soul 
 may be inspired from nature, I found their secret faith. Some 
 spoke reverentially of our Lord, as the elder brother, and a 
 medium for nature in times gone by. They soon grow weary 
 of their bog and its insecure foundations ; beginning to put 
 forth in action visibly the secret lusts that characterized them 
 in life : some are possessed by swearing devils ; others become 
 
SEC. 874— S77.] THE APOCALTFSE. 475 
 
 pugilistic; andj wlien the nature begins to be set free^ it 
 avenges itself by gross improprieties for the conventional habits 
 induced on it in our world. The god whom they worship 
 now is gain^ and this with a zest that is truly frightful. Rob- 
 beries are frequent among them^ because in its essence the 
 love of gain in an unregenerate man is a desire to appropriate 
 the goods of others. They overreach each other by buying 
 and sellings but very soon the impoverished ones begin to 
 purloin, retaking by force what was filched from them by art. 
 I saw their meeting-house^ plainly furnished, but a winding 
 way led from it into Hell. The Word was not in it. There 
 was a yearly meeting held, but it broke up in great confusion, 
 as the ripened lusts of the elders burst forth during the 
 gathering. 
 
 876. After this, and with similar pain to myself, I visited a 
 Moravian settlement, but they were backsliders from the pure 
 fraternal practices of the early United Brethren. Their pro- 
 fession is a seeming, belied by the secret infidelity of the 
 corrupt heart. These illustrations are adduced as containing 
 further descriptions of the internal state of individuals in Chris- 
 tian sects and countries, opalent on Earth, both socially and 
 doctrinally, but whose wealth is a fiction in the sight of God. 
 
 877. "Increased with goods," signifies, a class who pride 
 themselves upon having a nobler morale than their fellow-men, 
 but who covet entirely the wealth and station of the world, and 
 seek, through exquisite propriety in social life, and punctilious 
 attention to the highest business requirements, to outvie in 
 splendour and dignity the Dorias, the Medicis, and other mer- 
 chant princes. It applies with especial force to the opulent 
 Pharisees, distinguished by allegiance to doctrinal creeds. 
 
 TWEN"TT-SECOND ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 Interview with a wandering spirit, an American Calvinist.— His fantasies 
 concerning riches, imputed righteousness, and an immediate Heaven. — 
 Also an American divine of the same persuasion. — His bewilderment, 
 disappointment, and tribulation.— Tlio l^ing of Naples in the Spiritual 
 
476 ARCANA OF CnRTSTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 World. — His terrible condition. — The first duke and duchess of Marl- 
 borough. — Their deplorable state. — Catherine de Medici and other 
 demons. 
 
 878. I saw a wandering spirit of the milder sort^ haunting 
 retired places in a great city, where lie had acquired immense 
 estates through commerce ; one who had been foremost in many- 
 sectarian institutions. His money was still his secret anxiety. 
 I met him carrying, as to its appearance, a heavy bag of coin, 
 which he hugged near his heart as mothers do their infants. 
 I asked him what he was doing with it, and he replied, 
 " Carrying it to Heaven, having slipped out of the body, but, 
 thank God, with my estate •/' showing me at the same time 
 what seemed to him coupons, title deeds, and various securi- 
 ties. Thereat I felt moved to say, " The earth is the Lord^s 
 and the fulness thereof; and no man can be a full Christian 
 and have any other desire than that the Lord should do with 
 His own according to His perfect will.'^ The merchant replied 
 that he did not thus interpret the Holy Scriptures ; that the 
 apostle sent back the slave Onesimus to Philemon, thereby 
 recognizing that one might lawfully owu another with no 
 detriment to faith or hindrance to salvation. More he added 
 about my doctrine being revolutionary, and then asked me if 
 I was not an abolitionist ; when I ajiswered, that I would to 
 God his cupidity might be abolished. He informed me after- 
 ward, that his funeral eulogies had been very consoling, and 
 that he did not know how good he had been, and what an 
 exemplar to others, to the full extent, until he listened to some 
 who were reading his obituaries. As the conversation was 
 going on, a puff of air swept away at once the weighty 
 magnetic mass, which he supposed to be his beloved gold, 
 while the paper securities became smoke ; he saw it, and at 
 the same time sighed deeply, when a hyj)ocritical demon 
 appeared at his left hand, robed as an angel, and pronouncing 
 the words, " Welcome, servant of the Lord, I am sent to con- 
 duct you to His presence/^ At this a glorious man and true 
 angel stood at his right hand, and one said to me, " Ask him to 
 discriminate. ■'' 
 
 879. I said, " My brother, may I ask which of these is from 
 the Lord, the one at your right hand, or the other at the 
 
SEC. 878—879.] TRE APOCALYFSH. 477 
 
 left?^' He answered, '^ Both are.'" I saidj ^'Tliat cannot be, for 
 tliey stand in attitudes of fixed hostility, the angel being sent 
 to counteract some sorcery of the fiend.^^ He drew out of his 
 pocket the Presbyterian confession of faith, and gravely began 
 to catechise the fiend, who responded to all its articles, adding 
 that he delighted to find that in these days, when so many 
 were running after new-fangled heresies, the Lord still had 
 a people and a seed. What, the demon added, he had espe- 
 cially delighted in, was the brother's sound remark about the 
 case of Onesimus. It was put into my heart to ask him if 
 he loved the Lord Jesus Christ. He answered, " Blessed be 
 His name, I do.'' "Yes," responded the demon, "he does. 
 Souls in glory prove that, whom his contributions to the spread 
 of the gospel have rescued from eternal perdition ; I soon de- 
 sign to show him several whom instrumentally he has saved 
 from the adversary." Smiling complacently, the wandering 
 spirit thus flattered was inclining toward the fiend, when the 
 angel cried, "Hold, and be instructed." Tmming to the demon 
 in a mild, firm voice, he said, " Speak under compulsion, and 
 no longer feign to be what you are not." Writhing, as if im- 
 paled, the evil one answered slowly, one by one pronouncing 
 the words, " I am a lost spirit of the Hell of those who delight 
 in making the Gospel odious." "Answer truly," continued the 
 angel, "to what end have you sought this man ?" " To obsess 
 him," was the reply, " and make use of the nerve spirit ^vith 
 which he is clad, as a means of ready access to men and 
 women in the flesh." " Do you love him ?" the angel asked; 
 " I hate him," answered the fiend. " Can your hate ever 
 become love ?" said the angel. "Never," was the demon's 
 response. The wandering spirit now saw, to his surprise, that 
 the mimic angel was rapidly becoming visibly a human monster. 
 The angel then addressed him with, " Come, dear friend, you 
 are now in a world where the secrets of all hearts must be 
 brought to judgment." "I plead the imputed righteousness of 
 my Saviour," was the answer; to which the angel said, "If any 
 hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His. Come where 
 your evils of life will be explored, and the inmost germ of good 
 within you, if such remains^ be called forth to strength and 
 victory." 
 
478 ABCANA OF GHEISTIANITY. [chap. hi. 
 
 880. At tliis rude outrag'c on clierisTied convictions, tlio 
 spirit drew back with, "AVliat, is there no immediate Heaven?'^ 
 The answer was, " When you are prepared for Heaven you 
 will enter it, not before ; but avarice must be conquered, and 
 pride. See, there is the path, there are none to hinder you : 
 walk in it ! " At this opened a splendid vista ; paradisiacal 
 shrubs and trees on either side diffused delicious frag-rance, and 
 the song of birds was heard commingled with the flow of cool 
 waters. " Let me go to Heaven, let me go to Heaven," cried 
 the spirit. But now once again the vanished simulation of his 
 golden treasure appeared ; he essayed to lift it, but it became 
 so heavy that he was unable, and remained anchored to it, as 
 a ship is secured by a cable. In a great city this occurred ; 
 multitudes passed by gay with the adornments of fashion, 
 decorously to observe the semblances of worship in the temples 
 of their respective creeds ; but one, not the least of their 
 numbei', anchored to the very semblance of his wealth, felt their 
 very breath as they passed him with smiling unconcern. Such 
 things may be seen in cities, wherever the fantasy of an imme- 
 diate Heaven for men, in whom perchance regeneration is 
 begun as the smallest of seeds, is put forth as a dogma of the 
 churches. 
 
 881. This was one of a class who are called in their fantasy 
 '' in need of nothing." A divine of the same persuasion, only 
 deceased within the last few months, also a wandering spirit, 
 met me, clothed in rags, an emaciated object, at the very door 
 of the magnificent edifice in which while in the body his 
 ministrations of the gospel had pleased a highly placed, opulent 
 congregation ; and he heard them, as they passed and re-passed, 
 declaring that the pastor who had gone was enjoying the 
 beatitudes. He turned to me, and said, " I am very poor ; the 
 worms of the grave are in my body, but my soul is torn as 
 if with burning pincers; I can find no Heaven; it is cold; 
 where am I, and what is this ? " His eyes were opened at this 
 instant to behold an angel, hitherto invisible, and the loving 
 friend said, calling him by name, " The thing you mocked is 
 come upon you." '' Oh," said the spirit, " that I could return 
 into that pulpit once more : I would unfold a tale." The solemn 
 answer was, " Though you were to return, such is the state, 
 
SEC. 880—882.] TRE APOCALTPSE. 479 
 
 that through j^our ministrations is induced, that not one 
 would give credence, but would call it an illusion/^ Self-con- 
 demned, he hung his head till the angel mildly spoke, "Let the 
 past suffice to have wrought the will of the Gentiles. Are you 
 willing to begin as a learner, since you are now convinced of 
 the ignorance in which you taught ? " He bowed his head ; 
 then the angel led him away, divesting him first of the mag- 
 netic body through which he had clung to the former scenes. 
 He is one to whom the words apply, " And knowest not that 
 thou art wi'etched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and 
 naked.^^ 
 
 882. " Miserable ^^ has other significations; one only is 
 advanced. In a hut, like a cabin of some most squalid savage, 
 squatting upon his haunches, with long elf locks hanging about 
 the shoulders, and with a tattered mantle rudely wraiaped about 
 him, sat one known on Earth as king of Naples. He was 
 gnawing a bone. " This,^^ said an angel, " is but the surface of 
 the man^s condition ; look within.''' Opposite to him in the hut 
 was a creature, whom I could only describe as being a woman to 
 the waist, and below a glittering serpent. Her voice was honey 
 for outward sweetness, but perdition as to its essence. She sang 
 to him an Italian canzonette, at which he threw his arms around 
 her neck with horrible endearments. Then she called him 
 "fool " and "dupe," and gave him over to six paramours, who 
 came forth from a lui'id, subterranean den, when his whole 
 body began to revolve as if it were broken on a wheel. The ex- 
 planation of the scene is this. The secret harpy who inspired 
 his deeds and led him, by his own consent, to outrages on the 
 liberties of man, being the only person who could fully be 
 conjoined with him, they were drawn together after the decease 
 of his body. He entered the Spiritual World, at first, with all 
 the Bourbon pride, nursed by the habits of terrestrial kingship ; 
 but gradually casting this off, the squalid, toad-like demon, 
 his real self, revealed its ghastly presence ; when, loathing in 
 the fierceness of disgust, the harlot threw him away to her 
 former lovers. He is at the present time most rapidly sinking 
 into Hell. 
 
480 ABCAN-A OF CIIRISTIANITT. [chap. hi. 
 
 883. I met in tlic lowest Earth of Spirits a suicide distin- 
 guislied for crimes against freedom, during a most eminent 
 diplomatic career on Earth. With him, but below him, be- 
 cause they are fixed in demonhood, two appeared, whom history 
 records as John Churchill, the first duke of Marlborough, and 
 Sarah Jennings his wife. I do not think it is possible for the 
 most graphic artist to embody the battle horrors in which the 
 renowned captain tosses from blood-dream to blood-dream, 
 while the lust of gold is in him like a fathomless raging fire. 
 He is bm'ued out in the most fertile resources of a once great 
 mind, and resembles subjectively a half-hollow volcano, which 
 his wife as a possessing demon enters, moving him forth to 
 execute the diabolisms which she plans. They are lost so 
 utterly that it is beyond imagination. Here honours and great 
 fortunes are seen to linger in the memories of their former 
 possessors but to enhance the horrors of their state. God^s 
 judgments are slow but just. These represent a class of 
 spirits called '^poor." 
 
 884. I saw a pool of fermenting slime, and in it a human- 
 headed eel, utterly eyeless, the sockets themselves having dis- 
 appeared, and a blank surface only remaining in their place. I 
 recognised, by the Lord's gift, that I here beheld that sagacious 
 and subtle intellect who superintended the system of espionage 
 which served the ends of the great monarch of an aggressive 
 continental nation, at the beginning of the present century. 
 I afterward saw him more in the likeness of a man, though a 
 man-demon, in company with harlots. He was one of those 
 here called "blind.'' But the worst sight follows. A woman 
 known in history as Catherine de Medicis, but who is lost, 
 flung herself up naked from the midst of a cloud of whirling 
 vapour, followed by a train of others, while upon the surfaces 
 of their bodies, picture after picture, the deeds committed in 
 the flesh were visible upon a ground of white death. The evil 
 passions nourished in the bosom, of a grey, ghastly white, flew 
 forth, hoarsely screaming and gyrating above their heads, but 
 soon returning to inhabit their vitals. 
 
 885. Lord Jesus, Thou faithful and true Witness, by Thy 
 
SEC. 883—888.] TEE APOCALYPSE. 481 
 
 inward voice confirm we beseecli Thee Thy own truth to those 
 who shall read these pages with intent to profit thereby, with 
 knowledge unto godliness in true holiness, and so unto eternal 
 life. Amen. 
 
 Chap. hi. 18. — '^I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in 
 
 THE FIRE, THAT THOU MAYEST BE RICH ; AND WHITE RAIMENT, 
 THAT THOU MAYEST BE CLOTHED, AND THAT THE SHAME OP 
 THY NAKEDNESS DO NOT APPEAR j AND ANOINT THINE EYES 
 WITH EYE-SALVE, THAT THOU MAYEST SEE.''' 
 
 886. When the man of the type specified in the Laodicean 
 Church has entered into the new state which follows the de- 
 struction and removal of the body of the nerve-essence and 
 natural soul, the breathing divides itself, and there is one con- 
 scious respiration through the right lung, and separate from 
 it a conscious respiration through the left lung, while at the 
 same time the vision becomes divided, so that the sight, by 
 separate processes, mirrors celestial and spiritual things. Then 
 the man sits through the respirations of the left lung with 
 spiritual angels, and through the respirations of the right lung 
 with celestial angels, and is at once, by his states, in both 
 •Heavens. "Gold tried in the fire," denotes this new condition. 
 
 887. "I counsel,^^ signifies, divine knowledges then first 
 made known from the Lord. ''^To buy,-*^ signifies, that now 
 the new man begins to have commerce with the harmonic men 
 of various earths with whom he is in connection, through the 
 world-souls, imparting to them the infinitesimal organic forms 
 within his own new nerve spirit, which serves as the grand de- 
 pository of the embodied products of the will and the under- 
 standing; receiving in return treasures ultimated through 
 them, before unknown. 
 
 888. " Of me," signifies, that this commerce is entirely of 
 the Lord. It is thus that equilibrium is kept up between the 
 universal earths. The communion becomes very sweet; the 
 pillar-men upon the diSerent orbs move in one harmony of 
 divided but inflowing breaths, and those who are least in the 
 series are strengthened in the unanimity of all. The signifi- 
 cancy of " gold tried in the fire," is, that no substance is trans- 
 mitted from one nerve-essence to another, until it is of the 
 
 H H 
 
4S2 ARCANA OF CRBISTIANITT. [chap. hi. 
 
 quality of perfect purity. This will supercede, in time, tlie 
 poisonous circulations which now connect individuals in whom 
 the chain of magnetic sympathy exists. The signification of 
 " white garments " is a sixth province, (for particulars of which 
 see A. of C. 1, I. 651), which begins to be extended in the 
 aromal spaces occupied by the man. The infinitesimal forms 
 of the afiections heretofore nourished within the breast be- 
 come, in their coherent unity, larger forms, representing the 
 new types of paradisiacal animate and floral, as also mineral 
 structures. It is beautiful to behold, with aromal visiou, the 
 undulating atmosphere in which he moves; for the graces seem 
 to have crowned, and the seasons to have invested him. No 
 art on earth has pictured such magnificence. "That thou 
 mayest be clothed," signifies, that he is now invested with the 
 outer degree of those organized entities, which first become the 
 possession of the angel upon his initiation into the Heavens. 
 (see A. of C. 1, I. 621). "That the shame of thy nakedness 
 do not appear," signifies, that henceforth the denuded state, 
 which is the consequence of the fall, with all its shames and 
 mortifications, passes away. "^ And anoint thine eyes with eye- 
 salve,''^ signifies, breathing, opened through the series of micro- 
 scopic lungs, in and through which the functions of the visual 
 orbs are carried on. The man is now conscious of the balms 
 and odoui'S of the Divine Spirit, distilling through the crystal- 
 line humour, and the precious fragrances flow down his cheeks, 
 imparting bloom, and distil themselves in aromas, from the 
 beard to the garments, while the fragrances of Heaven include 
 the sentient frame. " That thou mayest see," signifies, sight 
 opened in the new visual respiration. What this sight is will 
 be seen elsewhere. 
 
 Chap. hi. 19. — "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten : 
 
 BE ZEALOUS THEREPOKE, AND REPENT." 
 
 889. This is an address to the whole world, exhorting 
 Christian and Gentile nations, when the judgments that attend 
 the utter ruin of subversive civilization begin to fall, to profit 
 by the omens in the breast, many of which are specified 
 throughout the volume. "As many as I love," signifies, all 
 mankind. " Rebuke and chasten," signifies, outpourings and 
 
SEC. 889—890.] THE AFOCALYPSU. 483 
 
 visitations. " Be zealous therefore/' signifies^ tliat indif- 
 ferency must cease, and all lukewarmness and conformity to 
 the subversive modes of life. '' Repent/' signifies, the dark 
 horror, as follows : Men will be conscious, by sensation, of 
 harpies in the left side; creatures with beaks like ravens 
 which they strike into the lower portion of the lungs in that 
 region. In the night, they will feel the foul birds feeding on 
 them during sleep, and flying into their secret places within 
 the brain at the approach of morning. Intermittingly they 
 will feed during the day, causing exquisite torture as their 
 beaks seem puncturing the flesh and blood of the nervous 
 essence. The thoughts of distrust in the Divine Providence, 
 which prompt men, even after they have nobly entered on the 
 new career, to give the Lord but a part of their devotion, zeal, 
 and assiduity, working with the left hand for self even after the 
 right seeks to do His bidding, are formed into these harpies, 
 and they wheel in dark flights to lacerate the open lung-fields, 
 which they enter through the nervous essence. So long as these 
 exist, the anguish of regeneration must at intervals be fearful. 
 890. Sins of temper also cause another brood, but these are 
 white, and called death vultm-es, because they prey upon the 
 exquisite, sensitive substance of the love-growths which have 
 become incorporated into the love-plane. When God opens 
 the eyes of the man, who is becoming new, to gaze into the 
 provinces of his sentient being, connected with the ultimate 
 rational degree, the dark horror in which these brood and 
 dwell rushes out upon him like a mephitic cloud. The 
 demons who infest that degree of the mind behold it and cry, 
 alarmed, that their judgment begins ; but first they endeavour 
 to prevent the opening of the degree wherein the horrors 
 dwell. Many men are lulled into an artificial happiness, and 
 even believe themselves experimentally advanced in religious 
 things, who, at the first vague sensations of the foul broods 
 within the darkness of the natural-rational mind, are tempted 
 to despair. All who fear to trust implicitly the Divine Pro- 
 vidence, in the uses of a great, true life, whatever be their 
 zeal or occasional l)oldness for the right and true, are fed 
 upon by harpies of this quality, sometimes numbering tens of 
 thousands ; for, as the spirit, which is so vast, exists within 
 
484 ABOANA OF CHBISTIANITT. [chap. iti. 
 
 tlie body wliich is so limited^ thus myriads of liuge entities 
 of tlie spirit may bo boi'ii, and dwell within the mind in any 
 of its degrees. 
 
 891. " Repent," signifies further, the deep and most genuine 
 abasement before God ; and the death-grapple with the falsities 
 in the natural-rational principle, and the evil conjoined to it 
 from the will ; during its continuance the man is wrought upon, 
 as never before, to see that two masters cannot be served, nor 
 two opposite paths at the same time trodden ; that if he will 
 live to God, he must die to the subversive antichrist in all its 
 sophistries and plausibilities ; but that if he will live to the 
 false antichrist, then he must die to God. There are great 
 combats involved at this point, and herculean powers are 
 evolved from the Lord into the ultimate -rational degree of the 
 mind, where the battle rages. They are followed, if the new 
 harmony is successful, by peace for ever ; so great is it, that 
 the man triumphs when impaled upon the bayonet, trodden 
 beneath the hoofs of the charger, or burned at the stake with 
 slow fire. This is the Omega of that Christian fight whose 
 Alpha is the submission of the spirit, in the first hour of the 
 regeneration, to the Lord. This is the passage of the ship from 
 the storm-tossed ocean to the still and land-locked bay, where 
 the glassy waters reflect the hills of .Paradise, and the Sun of 
 righteousness gilds the summits with everlasting light. There 
 are crises during which the sensations of agony growing out 
 of the combat are hard to be borne. There are reHefs afforded, 
 during which the joy of Heaven is felt as a soft, infantile pulse, 
 and a delicious repose. But after it, the terrible strife begins 
 again, till, in the entire redemption of the natural -rational plane, 
 the work, which began in the quickening of the highest celestial, 
 is finished. 
 
 Chap. hi. 20. — " Behold, I stand at the door, and knock : 
 
 IP ANY MAN HEAR MY VOICE, AND OPEN THE DOOR, I WILL COME 
 IN TO HIM, AND WILL SUP WITH HIM, AND HE WITH ME." 
 
 892. "Behold," signifies, seven degrees of perception, 
 which are communicated after the renewal of the nerve essences. 
 But of this it is not in order now to speak. " I stand at the 
 door," signifies, our Lord's open presence as the Divine Man 
 
SEC. 891—893.] THE APOCALYFSK 485 
 
 of Heavens and Universes. ^'And knock/^ signifies, that 
 through open respiration He impulses His own divine desire, 
 to be admitted into the home of the soul as its most beloved 
 friend. " If any man hear my voice/' signifies, seven new 
 modes by means of which His divine thought is now audible. 
 " And open the door," signifies, seven new modes by which 
 the man hears and feels his Lord^s solicitations, and may be 
 in communion with Him. '' I will come in to him," signifies, 
 that the pillar-man is from time to time made an angel of the 
 covenant in the new creation; that is, that his Heavenly Father 
 is absolutely in him and through him, giving forth a dreadful 
 power to bind sph-its from zone to zone and of all nations. 
 " And will sup with him," signifies, that when the pillar-man 
 is thus visited, our Divine Lord, whose joy is in the uplifting 
 of souls to Himself that He may indraw them into the bliss of 
 His Divine Presence, translates the servant to be with Him in 
 the possession of incommunicable beatitudes. It also signifies 
 a mode of journejdng, in which, wrapped away in the moving 
 breath of the fire-pillar, the spirit is led forth in celestial 
 pilgrimages. "And he with me," signifies, that he is con- 
 scious in these journeyings that he is in the Lord and the Lord 
 in him, and that, whithersoever he moves, the pUlar breath of 
 the Divine Spirit moves; during which time so great are the 
 raptures of respiration that he seems to breathe from the very 
 kisses of the Divine mouth. " He brought me to the ban- 
 queting house, and His banner over me was love." 
 
 Chap, hi. 21. — "To him that overcometh will I grant to 
 
 SIT with me in my throne, even as I ALSO OVERCAMBj 
 AND AM SET DOWN WITH MY FaTHER IN HiS THRONE." 
 
 893. " To him that overcometh," signifies, the new man in 
 his ascensions, which are as follows : He is caught up into the 
 pillar of the Divine breath, as to his spirit, and in it moves, that 
 he may behold the path traversed by Messiah God, in His Infi- 
 nite Glorification. " Will I grant to sit with me," signifies, 
 that he successively is enabled to enjoy, in a finite, representa- 
 tive manner, the very joy that was in the human universal 
 essence of the Lord, up to the point immediately preceding that 
 in which full glorification was consummated. " In my throne," 
 
48G ABCANA OF CnRISTIANITT. [chap. hi. 
 
 signifies tlie moving liarmony in which the Divine Humanity 
 now proceeds to estabhsh the new creation^ in which are repre- 
 sentative thrones or pivotal centres of power and honour and 
 glory and strength and dominion, given to each new man accord- 
 ing to his degree and quality. "Even as I also overcame/' sig- 
 nifies, that the path traversed to dominion involves the death of 
 the first natural soul, natural mind, and in all its principles the 
 natural body, and also the death of the first nerve essence and 
 all the motives that were first therein. " And am set down with 
 my Father," signifies, that the universal anima coeli, or heaven- 
 soul, and anima miincU, or earth-soul, which our Lord assumed 
 in His incarnation, were progressively involved in, and cauo-ht 
 up into the infinite soul-germ, through which He as the Word 
 became flesh, and were so glorified. It also signifies, that the 
 new celestial body, and eventually, through the spirits of its 
 primates and its ultimates, the quickened natural body, in 
 translation will ascend into, through, and beyond the world- 
 soul of the planet into their representative place in the fixed 
 eternity of the new divine creation. 
 
 Chap. hi. 22. — "He that hath an eae, let him hear what 
 THE Spirit saith unto the Chukches.^' 
 894. In this verse closes the beloved disciple's magnificent 
 vision of the first new humanity succeeding the old. "He that 
 hath an ear,'' signifies, that composite respiration being given 
 to the seven types of the new man, reconstituted through 
 pivotal centres into a universal form of peace, righteousness, 
 and brotherly love ; the whole as one will, for the first time, 
 begin to hear simultaneously, with an absolute precision, the 
 voice of the God of the whole earth, going forth in the har- 
 monies of light, and in the melodies of day. The night will be 
 vocal. Now also the new night-blooming flowers, that glisten 
 with prismatic lustre, and illuminate the landscape, will diver- 
 sify the carpet of the world. In that responsive movement in 
 which the Seasons trip with hymeneal feet, bearing their seven 
 lamps before the Bridegroom, the night-loving races will 
 begin to appear on earth, as in the spaces of the planet Melo- 
 dia. (See A. of C. I. 1, 535-537.) The day-loving races of 
 that exquisite orb will also move, responsive to the breath and 
 
SEC. 894.] THE APOCALYPSE. 487 
 
 rapture of the morning ; and day and niglit, tkrough liuman 
 voices of linked union, worsliip God. " Let him hear,^' signi- 
 fies, the new rapture which dwells within the new auditory 
 nerve, where every sound of the Divine breath is imparted as 
 a joy, and all love felt as joy, and all truth known in joy, and 
 all being called joy. " What the Spirit saith," signifies, the 
 joy-voice of Deity, of which man knows nothing in his present 
 state. " Unto the Chm'ches," signifies, that all regenerate 
 mankind in the new harmony shall, in that new joy -voice, hold 
 communion with their Lord and their God. 
 
 When this is won, then all is won ; 
 
 God is our sea and shore, 
 Our air and firmament and sun, 
 
 Our all for evermore. 
 
 Untouched we see the worlds depart. 
 
 The ages rise and fall ; 
 Sphered in the One Eternal Heart 
 
 That formed and loveth all. 
 
 END OP riEST VOLUME. 
 
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