Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

92 COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD*441. Evil or misdirected spirits find their affinities in the second sphere,where the lowest and most undeveloped are associated together, and remainfor indefinite periods, but with all the moral depravity and darkness withwhich they are enveloped, through the benign influence exerted over theirperceptive and rational faculties, by higher intelligences, each begins tofeel, sooner or later, the low and degraded position he occupies;moreover,finding new means of progress, and new sources of contemplation as wellas delight, and his capacity of making perpetual advancement in knowledge,his intellectual faculties become gradually expanded, and his moral powersincreased. Hence the grovelling propensities of his nature yielding to thedictates of reason, his grosser passions subside, causing him to aspire tohigher associations and circumstances, which in turn beget new wants,thoughts, and feelings.442. We have no sectarian or ecclesiastical feuda; no metaphysicaldogmas;nor are we troubled with those insatiable cravings and inordinateambitions, so often manifested by mortals; nor have we any taxation forreligion, the voluntary contributions of intellectual and moral minds beingits meet support.443. Our religious teachers belong to that class of persons who werenoted, during their probation on earth, for their philanthropy and deedsof moral bravery; those who, regardless of the scoffs and sneers of thetime-serving multitude, dared to promulgate and defend the doctrinesof '^ civil and religious liberty.^^ These practical reformers and savioursof the race, instead of worrying their hearers, as is the custom with manyon earth, with horrible denunciations and awful threats of eternal vengeancefor their misdoing, admonish and exhort them to higher and nobler aimsand aspirations ; to the study of Deity as manifested in his stupendousworks.444. They urge upon them, too, the necessity of their co-operation inthe reformation and advancement of their more degraded brethren, by instructingthem in the divine principles of love, wisdom, and benevolence.They instruct them in thesoul-inspiring and elevating doctrine of iniiversaland eternal progression, and in the sublime truth that evil is not anindestructible and positive principle ^ hut a negative condition, a meretemporary circumstance of their existence; and, furthermore, that sufferingfor sin is not a revengeful and malevolent infliction of God, hut anecessary and invariahle sequence of violated laic.445. They teach them also that, according to the divine moral economy,there isno such thing as pardon for sins committed—no immediate mercy—no possible escape from the natural results of crime, no matter whereor by whom committed ; no healing of a diseased moral constitution byany outward appliances, or ceremonial absurdities; and finally, that theonly way whereby to escape sin and its consequences, is by progressingabove and beyond it.