The Text - Section 18
The Scientific Man
BU 22:27, LC 9:179
I will try to define what I mean by the scientific man or a man outside of matter.
To do this I must assume myself in relation to mind as God stands to all creation.
The natural man is only an idea made by God's wisdom, like a shadow. After this
shadow goes through a certain change, like any other matter, it is then in a state
to be a medium of a higher power than itself. God sends an identity of his
wisdom to take control of the medium and carry out his own design and bring
man to a knowledge of the father. This identity that he sends is science or the
son of God.
It is very difficult to illustrate to a person what you may know for the want of
wisdom in the person you address. Like this: You cannot make a child
understand what you say till it arrives at a certain state of mind. Every person is a
child in what they cannot understand. So to illustrate, I must use a strong figure
so you can get at my meaning. For if you do not do the thing God does, then you
cannot be the son of God unless you do His will. Christ was called the Son of
God. Now why was He called the Son of God? Because He did the will of His
father that sent him. Now to be a son of God, you must do His will, and His will is
to subject your errors to the truth so that you can know that you are born of God.
Now I will suppose God, when He spoke man into existence, knew that man was
His own idea, and if He made him, then nations were all of God, not of the idea.
Now call these nations a chemical change that was going on for a certain time,
for a certain effect till man became of age, or that men became ready to be
governed by a higher principle than matter. Now science is wisdom put into
practice. So science is the son of God or Wisdom. Now science being the son of
Wisdom it is a part of Wisdom. Now give this science an identity with a
knowledge of its father and then you have a son, ready to take possession of
man or matter, when matter becomes purified or a chemical change takes place,
so it can be governed by an independent power.
Now for proof of what I have said. I know that I can create an idea of some kind
of animal and make it appear to have life, but the life is in myself or my own
knowledge of this wisdom. Now suppose I give the created animal to another. He
sees it and sees that it has life and moves. He knows it has life. Now to him it has
life, but to me it is nothing but an idea of my own make. His wisdom keeps life in
the animal just according to his belief.
Now suppose I teach that person how to create the animal so that he can create
one himself, then I impart my own wisdom to the matter or idea man till a son or
scientific identity arises, and this son is equal to his father so far as he acts
according to scientific wisdom.
And to show that he is equal to his father is to do the things his father does; thus
he is the master of the matter or idea man. This son or science is not seen by the
natural man, so the natural man thinks his life is in this belief. Now to come to the
knowledge of this is the new birth. You may ask what benefit all this wisdom is to
man if man lives right along without any change. It is of vast importance to man.
Suppose man had no idea of progression, then [unfinished]
1863
To the Reader
BU 48:18, LC 9:182
In introducing this work to the reader, my motive is to correct the false ideas that
are in the world or man's mind in regard to his health and happiness. I take the
ground which the wisest men who have written have made the basis of their
reasoning. They have searched into the hidden mysteries of the mind to find
what it is and in their researches, they have found themselves at last in despair
and some have ended their lives by their own' hand. Others have been made
insane, all because they could not solve this one idea, mind, for the word mind is
applied to all the intelligence of man and embraces soul and life. My object has
been ever since I commenced investigation to see if it was possible to find out
how far the wisest philosophies had penetrated the dark recesses of this
unknown science.
One of my first objects was to ascertain what mind is, for if the mind dies with the
body, then all the fuss and trouble of living and using our minds to be of
importance hereafter would be of no value. So I made it my first object of inquiry.
Of course I took for my basis the old scriptures and found that the mind was
ourselves and at death there was the end of man. Then I found a soul spoken of,
but when I looked for that, I could not find that any person had ever seen it or
heard it. So I went back to the heathen philosophers. I found they were in the
same dilemma in regard to the soul as they were to the mind, and both according
to their own philosophy ended at death. For death was admitted by both
Christians and Pagans to the soul and body; for how often do you hear this
passage quoted by professors of religion: Fear not those that can kill the body,
etc., but rather fear those that can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Now then, if the soul can be destroyed, I came to the conclusion that Paul did. If
there was not anything based on a more solid foundation than the opinions of
certain men, then I for one would not believe anything. So at one sweep I
discarded the Bible and all sorts of religion as the invention of man and came to
the conclusion that man like a clock was made to run about so long, more or
less, and then run down. As I never could find anything of man independent of
the machine, I, of course, like the rest of mankind, by my belief took it for granted
that when the machine ran down, it had finished its work and must be laid away.
Yet, there was a sort of nervous restlessness in my mind that if there were not a
first cause why should he not have some one to keep these machines running. I
knew that I could make a clock and if I sold it to another, I put him in possession
of wisdom enough to keep it wound up even if he could not repair it when it got
out of order. But as I never saw anyone that seemed to repair man when he got
out of order, but rather increase his misery, I came to the conclusion that Job did
when he said, "Mine eyes hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood
it. What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior unto you: surely I
would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God; but ye are forgers
of lies, ye are all physicians of no value. O that ye would altogether hold your
peace! and it should be your wisdom." Job 13: 1-5.
I had come to the same conclusion with the wisdom of man in regard to man's
happiness: that all his wisdom only went to make man more miserable. So I
launched my barque out into the ocean of thought trying to baffle the winds and
waves of the wisdom of this world till death should settle up all my accounts. A
disbeliever in everything as far as a future existence went, I lived a stranger in a
strange land, till the waters of public opinion were stirred in regard to mesmerism.
I floated around, not moored to any person's opinion in regard to creeds or
religion but still a believer in the medical science; for I never employed a quack
nor took a particle of quack medicine in my life, neither had my family. So I was
clear from that sin, as it was called.
When mesmerism first started, I, of course, being independent of all prejudices,
went to see some experiments. I shall never forget seeing a boy thrown into a
state perfectly unconscious to all surrounding objects, cold, lifeless and still, at
the mercy of the operator. Here was the first rock that my barque struck. This
gave me a sort of shiver and a cold chill passed over my whole frame. Twelve
minutes before I had seen him walk on the platform, now cold and insensible to
pain and yet under the control of another. This set me to thinking and being very
fond of investigating every new phenomenon, I tried the experiment and
succeeded in getting a person under my control. This was called mesmerism, but
being ignorant upon the so-called science, I commenced to read upon the
subject to inform myself. I obtained the best works at the time and read them to
find out what it was.
I learned that it was electricity, etc.; so all my experiments went to prove it was
governed by the laws of electricity. When it rained, I could not produce any
experiment. This was according to my belief and my belief was based on some
one's opinion that knew just as much as I did. They had more experiments but no
more wisdom, for I found after a while that the more I thought I knew, the less I
really knew. For at one time when it rained as hard as it could pour, I being
ignorant of it had some of the best experiments I ever had in all my practice. So I
came to this conclusion in regard to mesmerism: that man had begun to
philosophize before he understood anything about the subject he was trying to
teach others. So I put my barque out to sea again, determined not to run onto the
rock of the "science of mesmerism," for I had found that all this wisdom was of
man and they called it wisdom of a science, not understood. So I found that it
was knowledge, not wisdom. Then I made up my mind that if there was anything
in mesmerism, I would know it but I would not be led by man's opinion. So I
became an infidel to their religion or opinions, not in the phenomenon.
I found a young lad some fifteen years of age that I put into a mesmeric state and
when with him I found that all I had learned, I had to relinquish, for it was the
effect of my own ignorance. Among the things I had to lighten my craft of was
phrenology. This is one of the humbugs of the day. I shall show that there is no
foundation in truth for it. You can judge after reading my experiments. Lightening
my craft, I made sail for what was uppermost in my mind, to see whether there
was any wisdom outside of what we call man. My first experiment was made
before I knew what I wanted to prove. For when I put my subject to sleep, after
trying a few experiments, I thought I would leave; instantly the boy jumped up,
went to the table and brought my hat. This was unexpected, but it was just what I
wanted to know, if he could read my thoughts. At first I was all aback, but after
recovering myself, I said to myself, If you will replace my hat on the table, I will
stop a little longer. Without saying a word, he sprang up, took my hat and
returned it to the table. Here was another fact I had gotten, not an opinion but a
truth.
1863
What I Impart to My Patients
BU 90:30, LC 6:167
The question is often asked me do you impart anything to your patients when you
talk? I answer, I do and I will try and make you understand how. To do this I must
give you an illustration in language applied to something that you wish to know
and which gives you trouble. The trouble is the disease, and the phenomenon is
the effect.
To make you understand I will illustrate. Suppose you are purchasing goods and
in your hurry you lose your wallet containing all your money. You do not miss it
until you go to pay your bills and then you find that you have lost your cash. Now
the shock excites your system or mind, just according to the amount you are
disturbed. Now you become excited and very nervous. This is accompanied with
a feverish state of mind or body, for the body is only the reflection of the state of
the mind. At last you let your trouble be known to some person and you begin to
look for the money. You cannot find it and borrow the money to pay the person
assisting you. This adds to the trouble and at last you take to your bed and send
for a physician. He feels your pulse, says your head is affected and orders your
head shaved and a blister applied. This only aggravates the nervous excitement.
So you keep on until you finally give up and dismiss all the doctors and come to
the conclusion that your money is gone and you must make the best of it. The
next day you feel more reconciled, and your doctor calls as a friend, finds you
better and says the medicine you took had a good effect on you.
Now the question arises who gave the medicine? Not the doctor, but wisdom
took possession of the man and he began to reason, and this contains
something, but not all, so he sends for me. I know nothing of his trouble but I
have found a pocketbook containing $10,000 and am going to advertise it. At the
sight of the pocketbook he starts and says that is mine. The shock changes the
mind and the cure is made. Now who imparted the cure? The $10,000 I gave
him?
So this is the way I cure. The person has lost something that he cannot find or
has got into some trouble that he cannot get rid of. Now he wants something to
satisfy his desires, and whatever that is, it is the same as the money, and the one
that can impart it gives to him the remedy. Suppose a person receives a shock
from falling into a river in the winter. This produces a shock and he returns home
excited like a cold. This produces a cough. Now as there are many ghosts in the
form of disease, he feels some of them may get hold of him. So he goes to a
doctor and lays his case before him. The doctor says you are very liable to have
consumption. Now of course you are troubled, and are all the time like the man
who was looking for his lost money. So he enquires of every person what is good
for a cough or if they can tell where his money is. So every person gives his
opinion, and there is just as much in one opinion as there is in another. Both are
husk and contain no food. At last in despair he gives it up and now I am sent for.
Now I will show how I really give the sick person something he needs.
I first tell him what he is afraid of by telling him how he is affected. Here is
something he cannot get from the doctor. This makes him feel more comfortable,
and then I go on to show him how he has been living on husks or opinions about
an idea that never had an existence, only in the superstition of the people. Now
as the patient is full of these opinions, I have to give him something in the form of
truth that will dissolve the error and satisfy the patient. Now the something that
satisfies the patient is the substance, like the money, for the money contained no
value in itself but was a representation of value. So health and happiness is what
every man wants. So the substance is the representative. The wisdom that I
impart to him by my words, filled with the substance that he longed for was to him
like the money, and his soul was satisfied. Now if I had no more wisdom about
his troubles than he had, my substance would have been like chaff or opinion,
containing no food. Here is the difference; it is my own wisdom that is superior to
his. As in every case of trouble, opinions never impart any wisdom, and science
never imparts opinion but truth.
So the scientific man, in whatever he does, imparts to the world some substance,
while the man of opinion never imparts anything but what must be destroyed.
One reasons from the basis of statics and the other, from dynamics. These two
principles are seen in chess and checkers. You will see two persons playing a
game. Here they show power: One that can play both sides while the poor player
cannot play either. Now take two poor players; they really believe they show as
much science as the very best players and they will look as long and make as
great calculations as they think is the very best, when they show no kind of
sagacity or science. While the other has both set before him and he is at a loss to
know how to move at first until he finds his strength or wisdom of his opponent
and then he feels his superiority. Then he moves with confidence.
1863
What Is Death?
BU 50:19, LC 9:282
[orig. untitled]
What is death? It is a belief. For if it is a fact, there can be no evidence of its
coming to life. A person is alive or he is dead. He can't be both, although we hear
of the living telling how they died and what they went through. Now if a person
can tell all it is said they can, it is proof that they are not dead. Now first settle
what a man is of himself after he is dead. According to the spiritualists' mode of
reasoning, he cannot be a spirit for they say he is the same person, wears the
same clothes and is flesh and blood. Now Jesus says flesh and blood cannot
enter heaven, so accordingly these spirits, as they are called, cannot be flesh
and blood; if they are, they cannot be spirits, for the same author says spirits
have not flesh and bones. Jesus would not allow that he was a spirit but that he
had flesh and bones as he had before he was crucified. So he either told a
falsehood or his dead body rose, and if that rose, he did give people to believe a
lie, for he said as touching the dead, God is not the God of the dead but the
living. He also said, They that rise from the dead, not that they rise, etc. Now all
this seems like a contradiction. So it is, if you take the Christian's explanation.
But if you will take Jesus' explanation, it is clear, for he never had any idea of
death as the Christians say he had; his ideas were at variance with all the world.
He never taught any other world as was believed by the religious Jews. He made
man up of ideas.
To make a man like Jesus' ideas, you must take a child. The child according to
his ideas was a blank so the child's existence was not dependent on itself nor a
belief nor an opinion. It was a living fact, a child with an identity susceptible of
progression. Now as the child's growth of body depended on food, so the growth
of its intelligence depended on wisdom or opinions. As the child began to learn,
its identity became attached to its knowledge. Now its knowledge embraced flesh
and blood and memory and all the senses and everything it learned. Now to lose
its memory of what it was would be to destroy its life for its life was a part of itself
but its wisdom can create all that it knows. Knowledge is a created element but
wisdom is infinite and eternal. It is God, and every person is a God just as far as
he is wisdom. To know this is life, for this wisdom will teach man that wisdom is
from everlasting to everlasting. Here is the trouble. The knowledge of man is
finite and must be forgotten and destroyed, but wisdom not being matter cannot
be destroyed.
Now man is a living principle of God, like mathematics. Mathematics is wisdom
reduced to practice. The effects of mathematics must be destroyed while the
wisdom remains. For instance, take a steam engine. All the principles must exist
when the engine is torn to pieces. Now man reasons as though the engine were
the living principle and when that is destroyed, the principle or identity of
mathematics is dead; but if we stop to think, we shall see the folly of this. Now
every machine and every mathematical calculation that has ever been reduced to
practice existed before it was formed. Now the wisdom was as separate from
each other as the results are. For instance, see the art of printing all over the
world. See the amount or identities or wisdom acting upon matter, each having
its own identity of wisdom as well as of matter. See the varieties of all sorts of
wisdom.
Now suppose that every printing office in the natural world should be destroyed
at one blow. Is there any life of printing in existence? The ignorant would say all
is dead, but every identity of the printing world would know that this is not so.
Each has its own identity. So with man; his body is a machine shop or scientific
world carried on by the wisdom of God in the identity of man. Each identity claims
its own self. The matter is the fruits of its development. If it does not develop
itself, it does not make itself any the less out of existence but it is like the idiot; it
is behind the times. It exists, it must exist, and the destruction of the matter does
not destroy the principle called man. Now to me I know I live in the principle, and
the principle is like all other principles capable of progression; and as I believe in
that, I know that the natural man is ignorant of himself as the child is of any
science. Science to the natural man has no identity of wisdom. It does not
embrace the properties of thought and reason. Yet everyone knows that
everything that has form must have its first start in the First Cause.
Now just raise yourself from the earthly man and wander on the globe and look
around and see if you are not with all your faculties, having an identity of your
own, leaving the spot but not your identity. This is to the world death, but to
wisdom, science and progression. Now what proof is there of what I have said, if
proof was wanted to establish the foregoing? Volumes could be written to
establish this one fact: that a person sitting in his chair or lying on the bed in a
state of unconsciousness to the natural world can be at a distance conversing
with persons explaining what was going on. Now the objection is that the person
is alive for he comes back. If the body is destroyed, then there is no evidence
that what I say is true. This false mode of reasoning arises from our ignorance of
what man is. When we find that man, like his God, cannot be seen by the natural
eye but is like a principle put in practice, then we shall see just how learned or
wise we are. What we see has as much to do with the man as the engine of a
steamboat lying at a wharf in Portland with the intelligence of the maker in New
York. How many people ever saw Franklin, the father of electricity? Yet he exists
as much as he did one hundred years ago. Franklin is the name of that wisdom
reduced to practice through a medium of flesh and blood, and a body of galvanic
batteries. His wisdom was as much in his experiments as in his body and more
so, for his body was not the machine to exhibit his wisdom. So he had to create
new bodies to illustrate his truth. Now to suppose this truth existed in his
batteries or body is to deny the existence of any wisdom outside of man.
1863
My Conversion
BU 125:1, LC 7:23
The experience of my conversion from disease to health and the subsequent
change from belief in the medical faculty to entire disbelief in it, and to the
knowledge of the truth on which I base my theory.
Can a theory be found, capable of practice, which can separate truth from error?
I undertake to say that there is a method of reasoning which, being understood,
can separate one from the other. Men never dispute about a fact that can be
demonstrated by scientific reasoning. Controversies arise from some idea that
has been turned into a false direction, leading to false reasoning. The basis of my
reasoning is this point; that whatever is true to a person, if he cannot prove it, is
not necessarily true to another. Therefore, because a person says a thing is no
reason that what he says is true. The greatest evil that follows taking an opinion
for a truth is disease. Let medical and religious opinions which produce so vast
an amount of misery be tested by the rule I have laid down, and it will be seen
how much they are founded in truth. For twenty years I have been testing them
and I have failed to find one single principle of truth in either. This is not from any
prejudice against the medical faculty, for when I began to investigate the mind I
was entirely on that side. I was prejudiced in favor of the medical faculty; for I
never employed any one outside of the regular faculty, nor took the least particle
of quack medicine.
Some thirty years ago I was very sick and was considered fast wasting away with
consumption. At that time I became so low that it was with difficulty that I could
walk about. I was all the while under the allopathic practice, and I had taken so
much calomel that my system was said to be poisoned with it; and I lost many of
my teeth from that effect. My symptoms were those of any consumptive; and I
had been told that my liver was affected and my kidneys were diseased and that
my lungs were nearly consumed. I believed all this, from the fact that I had all the
symptoms, and could not resist the opinions of the physician while having the
proof with me. In this state I was compelled to abandon my business and, losing
all hope, I gave up to die, not that I thought the medical faculty had no wisdom
but that my case was one that could not be cured.
Having an acquaintance who cured himself by riding horseback, I thought I would
try riding in a carriage as I was too weak to ride horseback. My horse was
contrary and once, when about two miles from home, he stopped at the foot of a
long hill and would not start except as I went by his side. So I was obliged to run
nearly the whole distance. Having reached the top of the hill, I got into the
carriage and, as I was very much exhausted, I concluded to sit there the balance
of the day if the horse did not start. Like all sickly and nervous people, I could not
remain easy in that place and, seeing a man ploughing, I waited till he had
ploughed around a three-acre lot and got within sound of my voice, when I asked
him to start my horse. He did so, and at the time I was so weak I could scarcely
lift my whip. But excitement took possession of my senses, and I drove the horse
as fast as he could go, up hill and down, till I reached home and, when I got into
the stable, I felt as strong as I ever did. From that time I continued to improve, not
knowing, however, that the excitement was the cause, but thinking it was
something else. When I commenced to mesmerize, I was not well according to
medical science; but in my researches I found a remedy for my disease. Here
was where I first discovered that mind was matter and capable of being changed,
also that diseases being a deranged state of the mind, the cause I found to exist
in our belief. The evidence of this theory I found in myself; for, like all others, I
had believed in medicine. Disease, its power over life and its curability are all
embraced in our belief. Some believe in various remedies, and others believe
that the spirits of the dead prescribe. I have no confidence in the virtue of either. I
know that cures have been made in these ways. I do not deny them, but the
principle on which they are done is the question to solve. For disease can be
cured, with or without medicine, on but one principle. I have said I believed in the
old practice and its medicines, the effects of which I had within myself; for,
knowing no other way to account for the phenomena, I took it for granted that
they were the result of the medicine.
With this mass of evidence staring me in the face, how could I doubt the old
practice? Yet, in spite of all my prejudices, I had to yield to a stronger evidence
than man's opinion and discard the whole theory of medicine as a humbug
practiced by a class of men, some honest, some ignorant, some conceited, some
selfish and all thinking that the world must be ruled by their opinions.
Now for my particular experience. I had pains in the back which the doctors said
were caused by my kidneys, which were partially consumed. I also was told that I
had ulcers on my lungs. Under this belief, I was miserable enough to be of no
account in the world. This was the state I was in when I commenced to
mesmerize. On one occasion, when I had my subject asleep, he described the
pains I felt in my back (I had never dared to ask him to examine me, for I felt sure
that my kidneys were nearly gone) and he placed his hand on the spot where I
felt the pain. He then told me that my kidneys were in a very bad state, that one
was half-consumed, and a piece three inches long had separated from it and was
only connected by a slender thread. This was what I believed to be true, for it
agreed with what the doctors had told me, and with what I had suffered; for I had
not been free from pain for years. My common sense told me that no medicine
would ever cure this trouble, and therefore I must suffer till death relieved me, but
I asked him if there was any remedy. He replied, Yes, I can put the piece on so it
will grow and you will get well. At this I was completely astonished and knew not
what to think. He immediately placed his hands upon me and said he united the
pieces so they would grow. The next day he said they had grown together, and
from that day I never have experienced the least pain from them.
Now what is the secret of the cure? I had not the least doubt but that I was as he
had described and if he had said, as I expected that he would, that nothing could
be done, I should have died in a year or so. But when he said he could cure me
in the way he proposed, I began to think: and I discovered that I had been
deceived into a belief that made me sick. The absurdity of his remedies made me
doubt the fact that my kidneys were affected, for he said in two days they were
as well as ever. If he saw the first condition, he also saw the last, for in both
cases he said he could see. I concluded that in the first instance that he read my
thoughts, and when he said he could cure me, he drew on his own mind, and his
ideas were so absurd that the disease vanished by the absurdity of the cure. This
was the first stumbling-block I found in the medical science. I soon ventured to let
him examine me further, and in every case he would describe my feelings but
would vary the amount of disease; and his explanation and remedies always
convinced me that I had no such disease and that my troubles were of my own
make.
At this time I frequently visited the sick with Lucius, by invitation of the attending
physician, and the boy examined the patient and told facts that would astonish
everybody, and yet every one of them was believed. For instance, he told a
person, affected as I had been, only worse, that his lungs looked like a
honeycomb and his liver was covered with ulcers. He then prescribed some
simple herb tea, and the patient recovered and the doctor believed the medicine
cured him. But I believed that the doctor made the disease, and his faith in the
boy made a change in the mind and the cure followed. Instead of gaining
confidence in the doctors, I was forced to the conclusion that their science was a
humbug. Man is made of truth and belief; and, if he is deceived into a belief that
he has or is liable to have a disease, the belief is catching and the effect goes
with it. I have given the experience of my emancipation from this belief and
confidence in the doctors so that it may open the eyes of those who stand where
I was. I have risen from this belief and I return to warn my brethren, lest when
they are disturbed, they shall get into this place of torment prepared by the
medical faculty. Having suffered myself, I cannot take the advantage of my
fellow-men by introducing a new mode of curing disease and prescribing
medicine. My theory exposes the hypocrisy of those who undertake to care for
the lives of others. They make ten diseases to one cure, thus bringing a surplus
of misery into the world and shutting out a healthy state of society. They have a
monopoly of the business and no theory that lessens disease can compete with
them. When I cure, there is one disease the less, but not so when others cure,
for the supply of sickness shows that there is more disease on hand than there
ever was. Therefore, the labor for health is sure, but the manufactory of disease
is greater. The newspapers teem with advertisements of remedies, showing that
the supply of disease increases. My theory teaches man to manufacture health,
and when people go into this business, disease will diminish, and those who
furnish disease and death will be few and scarce.
January 1863
The Body of Jesus and the Body of Christ
BU 29:10, LC 9:9
Did Jesus intend to convey to the world that he was God? I answer he did not
and I also contend that his whole teaching went to destroy the idea that he
(Jesus) was Christ, but he labored to convince the people that the Christ was the
truth which he, Jesus, spake and that this truth is from God and not of man.
Jesus embodied it in an intelligence called Christ, embracing all the attributes of
man, and being a revelation of a higher wisdom than had before appeared on the
earth. This Christ was what prompted Jesus and when the Jews crucified the
man Jesus, the Christ rose from the world's belief or body and disappeared in the
clouds of their opinions. They laid the body of Jesus in the sepulcher but the
chief priests said that the disciples stole the body of Christ or truth. The body of
Jesus and the body of Christ were two, one visible to the natural man and the
other the spiritual or scientific man clothed with a garment of truth which was
stolen and parted among them. What the body of Christ was has never been
explained to the satisfaction of the Christian world. Jesus spoke of a body of
flesh and blood which the people should eat, etc., which plainly referred to the
Christ although the people and his disciples could not understand his meaning.
Every discovery of truth is a Christ, having a spiritual and a natural body. For
instance, the magnetic telegraph, when discovered, had a spiritual body of truth
not visible to the natural man, but when it was demonstrated to man it spoke into
the natural world a material body with all the elements of a working telegraph.
Every discovery founded in truth has its Christ, but when founded in error, it has
its false Christ. Every man who has the true Christ or Science feeds the multitude
with its body and those who understand or drink its blood live on it; its body is
their life. Jesus possessed the Christ which could free the people and to him it
was meat and drink, and to all who ate and drank it was eternal life. Therefore he
called it his body, as Morse might call the telegraph his body or idea. All truth
being of God, Jesus called it his father, and says, "I, (this truth) and the father are
one." In speaking of this truth Jesus gives it an identity. Sometimes he calls it
himself, Christ, and sometimes he speaks of himself as Jesus. In John 14:1, it
says, "Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me."
These are not the words of Jesus but of Christ or truth. "In my Father's house are
many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place
for you." These are also the words of truth and I hold that they mean as follows.
While this truth was with them in their understanding, they would rejoice in it, but
in teaching them what they did not understand, it went away to prepare a place
for them, so that the truth could explain how they had wandered away from it,
through their errors and he (truth) would lead them back to their right senses.
Therefore, Christ or this Truth is a living substance and has an identity as much
as God, for it is a part of God as much as a child is a part of its parents. The
prophets spoke of it, but not as a being of intelligence separate from man. Moses
believed that God himself spoke through him and sometimes that he talked with
God. Jesus believed the same. But the difference between them was this. The
bread or spiritual food of Moses belonged to this life and did not teach
immortality. Moses believed in God as much as Jesus did, but his God had
nothing to do with man after death. He taught nothing beyond death. His teaching
was spiritual and was so understood by the people. Paul in 1st Cor. 10, says,
"Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our
fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were baptized
unto Moses in the cloud and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink
the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them,
and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for
they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to
the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted."
This cloud and sea were symbols of their superstitions and beliefs. The spiritual
food was Moses' truth; his arguments quenched their thirst for knowledge. The
rock was his truth or Christ, but that threw no light on to another state of life but
was confined to the cloud that followed them. Although his food and drink was
spiritual and was all confined to this world, yet Moses saw the promised land or
had a vague idea of progression, but he never taught it, so the people ate his
food and died. Jesus showed the difference between Moses and himself as men.
Moses believed that God governed man by certain laws and regulations, that he
rewarded the good and punished the bad and that he was the expounder of
God's wisdom.
Jesus as a man understood all that Moses believed and knew that his wisdom or
spiritual food was all confined to man's natural life, and if men lived up to the
letter of that belief, they would die, for Moses never taught anything after death.
But Jesus' food came from a higher wisdom which made man an immortal
progressive intelligence. This truth he called his Father and he prayed to it to
guide him. When guided by this great truth, he was God or the son of God.
Therefore when he (the truth) spoke, it was God. He calls it the bread of life and
tells how it differed from Moses' bread or manna, for he says, John 6:48, "I am
that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead."
He meant that this truth which he taught is the bread of life, for it taught no
continuation of man's existence; therefore all who believed in it died and there
was an end to them. His wisdom was the bread of life or this doctrine of an
eternal progression and being superior to the belief of Moses, it assured that the
wisdom of Moses was not the end of man. In the words of Christ, "This is the
bread which came down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die,"
which being interpreted means, that if man understands it (the bread of life), he
will live when Moses' belief would call him dead. "I am the living bread which
came down from heaven: (Moses' was not this kind of bread); if any man eat of
this bread, he shall live forever."
Here is the difference between the doctrine of Jesus and that of Moses. The
latter did not contain eternal life. Jesus' did. One lived to die, the other died to
live. If a man died to Moses' belief, he lived in Christ. "And the bread that I will
give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world." Jesus believed in the
perfect identity of man with all his attributes of mind and matter just as he stood
before his disciples. The disciples and the people could not understand such a
belief. So the Jews strove among them saying, "How can this man give us his
flesh to eat?" They could not even compare in their understanding the reality of
Christ's truth to the reality of Jesus' flesh and blood, and as he affirmed that his
words of truth were his body and his spiritual food, they could not understand
such purely spiritual doctrine. He tried to teach them that the body which they
saw was nothing of itself and existed only as a shadow of the truth of Christ,
which Christ was meat and drink and all that made up man. Jesus replied to the
Jews in this way. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son
of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my
flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and
drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him."
This truth spoken through Jesus proved a hard saying to many of the disciples.
Feeling that they did not understand him, he tried to explain by a figure. "What
and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit
that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they
are spirit, and they are life." From that time many of his disciples went back and
walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will you also go
away? All these words are perfectly intelligible to me, but at the time they were
spoken, the people made the man Jesus responsible for them and they accused
him of assuming to be greater than Moses, who was their guide, and also of
making himself equal with God. In the same way at the present day, the priests
assume to be oracles of the wisdom pertaining to spiritual things and the people
admit their words as being truth from God. Therefore if any man doubt their
explanation, he must be crucified or stoned because he makes himself equal to
them, or as they say, "compares himself to Christ."
The Pharisees hearing that Jesus opposed forms and ceremonies found fault
and asked him, "Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the
elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?" This was an old tradition from the
laws of Moses enjoined on the people by the priests as a commandment of God.
Jesus answered, "Full well ye reject the commandments of God, that ye may
keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honor thy father and thy mother; and
whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death; but ye say, If a man shall
say to his father or mother, `It is Corban, that is to say a gift, by whatsoever thou
mightest be profited by me." By the words Father and Mother is meant this truth
which the people worshipped. Jesus then upbraided them for making the word of
God of no effect through your tradition, thus really acting the part of hypocrites.
For in the beginning he says, "Ye hypocrites, well hath Esaias prophesied of you,
as it is written: This people honoreth me with their lips but their heart is far from
me. Howbeit: in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men." This is a condemnation of the Mosaic priesthood, for it
contained no life. It was idolatry, embodying no spirit or principle.
January 1863
Aristocracy and Democracy
BU 112:1, LC 7:93
There are two opposite principles in society named Aristocracy and Democracy,
but this is not all. The former always dictates and seeks to govern the latter which
being ignorant cannot rule. By means of hypocrisy, it governs the masses, but it
is not the only governing agent. Another element opposed to it also acts upon the
minds of men. Science dictates to no man but proves all things, while the religion
of science embraces all things. Neither of these contains that love of power and
deceit which distinguish the two I have named. Priests govern the people through
hypocrisy, but science requires not even a belief to establish itself and when it is
understood its fruits are universal freedom and charity. Since it works out
freedom, science is unpopular, for that, united with democracy, forms a perfect
system of slavery. Disease is another combination of the same elements. The
leaders of the medical schools, through the hypocrisy of their profession, deceive
the people into submission to their opinions, while the democracy forge the
fetters which are to bind them to disease. Science which would destroy this
bondage is looked upon as blasphemy when it dares oppose the faculty, and
religion has no place in the medical science.
Likewise in the church, the religion of Jesus which is Science is never heard, for
it would drive aristocracy out of the pulpit and scatter seeds of freedom among
the people. Nevertheless, the religion of Christ is shown in the progess of
Christian Science, while the religion of society decays in proportions as liberal
principles are developed. Man's religion labors to keep Science down in all
churches North and South by suppressing free discussion, for aristocracy will not
hear anything tending to freedom. It wishes to govern democracy as it always
has done by arbitrary power, for the masses are always in slavery either black or
white. African slavery is recognized by state laws and these are endangered by
striking at the constitution; therefore aristocracy opposes any discussion of
slavery in politics, while democracy dutifully opposes any discussion of the same
in the pulpit. This affects the white slaves at the North. So nothing was so
tenderly handled before the war as slavery. There was no freedom of speech
allowed unless it be in favor of the extension of slavery. This was white slavery
and the opinions of democracy ruled. All men are more or less democratic for
they are not wise enough to govern themselves and rush into aristocracy from
fear. A man who denies all law and vindicates unrestrained freedom must
depend on some arbitrary power.
Slavery is to elevate democracy but aristocracy aims to keep it in subjection. It is
easy to distinguish them. One appeals to the people in their own element of
prejudice and passion and tries to convince them that the other party seeks to
enslave them. Science tries to open their eyes; it shows them how their masters
are binding them, but this requires reason and they will not listen to it. So they
continue to bind themselves with their own burden till they can't help themselves;
then, kneeling down, they kiss the hand that oppresses them. Democracy will not
apply as a name for liberty; it is counterfeit and deceives many. Throw away all
doctrines that deceive or enslave man and democracy will break from its leaders
and come forth in the field of science and religion.
February 1863
Misery Contains Knowledge
BU 112:3, LC 7:125
[orig. untitled]
The world has never admitted that misery contained knowledge; nevertheless to
the science I am developing, it is as intelligent as any outside expression. Misery
is the language of a person who is in trouble and whose trouble comes from the
deranged state of the mind. To explain, I have said that every material form from
the mineral to the animal kingdom throws off an odor. To me the odor contains
no intelligence that I can perceive, though to itself, it may have a language. So
every idea of man contains an odor, which is a language that man has learned
and taught to others without the use of words. To a person never having heard
the term heart disease, it contains no wisdom any more than any strange sound,
but both may contain an essence which I can detect. The word orange contains
taste and smell, etc., but no intelligence; the term heart disease contains all the
feelings and symptoms of a person affected and also the danger of sudden
death. To one who never heard of the heart disease, the word would produce a
slight sensation, like the odor of something unpleasant; but to one knowing the
disease, the odor contains knowledge and it poisons the mind till a being is
created after the knowledge of the world. Wisdom detects the difference between
the odor of an orange and of heart disease, and the latter affects him, who is in
the belief; but if he does not believe, he is not in the knowledge and the
sensation produced is like any unexplained sensation. The odor of disease is the
belief and that is man's knowledge. Some odors are catching according to the
belief. A story that the man in the moon would throw a stone down upon your
house and kill you would not be catching to a mature person, but it would be
believed by a child and the misery that follows would be the poison of the lie.
Children are liable to such a belief, but as they grow older, they learn better.
Make man acquainted with the odors that affect him and no bad effects would
follow, while if he remains ignorant, every odor affects him as his knowledge may
direct. Each sensation which his knowledge cannot account for is attributed to
some mysterious agency from another world. The truth is, man is continually
affected by odors coming from things seen and believed, for a belief is as much a
reality as a tree. Caspar Hauser was made sick by the odor of a rose. I am easily
affected by the odors of disease. When I am n the room with a number of
persons and one of them thinks he has the heart disease, I perceive it as easily
as I perceive the odor of in apple. It does not always contain knowledge, for to
one ignorant of its language, it is not intelligent. If a child who does not
understand is told he has the heart disease, no intelligence is conveyed but a
sensation is simply produced. We are continually affected by the opinions of the
world, and this theory is to make man wiser than opinions and wise enough to
understand odors.
February 1863
New England
BU 122:1, LC 7:39
We are sometimes told that our puritan ancestors were distinguished from other
men by one characteristic, viz: a tenacious adherence to a particular religious
faith, and that in other respects they were like the society in which they lived.
Persecuted on account of religion, they left comfortable homes and faced the
dangers of the sea and planted their colony on the barren shores of the new
world in order to enjoy, unmolested, the right of worship.
Now if I understand the true feelings of the people, they were men and women
who partook of the principle of freedom, for the sake not of monopolizing but of
extending it and teaching others to enjoy it. Jealous, therefore, of any social
corrupting influence that might lead their flock astray, like Moses they established
laws and penalties such as in their judgment would promote the general good.
Religion was their peculiar feeling, perfectly simple and easily borne by them; but
not knowing that it contained error, yet enforcing it as true, they made it
obnoxious to the masses. But opposition awakened their higher faculties, and
men and women came forth uniting in themselves these strong elements of
character, viz: great intellectual energy, and what gives it protection and
efficiency, a corresponding degree of physical strength. These are the
characteristics of New England.
As drones always work their way into society, they appeared among this people
and affected their intellectual development for being acted upon by the higher
element. They, in their intelligence, began to invent and their inventions were
counterfeits of those of the higher class because they had no sympathy.
Inventiveness is never easy when there is a chance for improvement, but drones
having no more respect than savages for improvement appreciated only the
worldly advantage derived from them. Gain being the first law of their nature,
their eyes were open to the least chance of obtaining the reward of labor without
the toil. This desire for wealth became uppermost in the New England mind. But
riches are not confined to dollars and cents; there is a purer one and one more
difficult to attain.
Wisdom requires the highest development of man, and this the inventive
element, when directed to the pursuit of wisdom, produces. Acting upon the
natural man, it seeks every opportunity for improvement, while drones are
striving to obtain money without intellectual effort. Ambition and love of gain are
the two opposite traits of the New England character. They cannot be found in
latitudes where the soil requires little or no labor to support populations. The
inhabitants of such countries, finding no incentive to ambition or incentive to
labor, are indolent and stupid.
If California should lose her gold, the state of society would rapidly improve. For
when hard times come to New England, brains will labor and invent, and then
thrift and prosperity would ensue. Again let the South become poor; it would at
once produce a class of people, industrious and enterprising, who would devote
themselves to agriculture and the arts and sciences. New England habits must
drive out indolence and establish its own principles of free labor and education all
over the country and cause science and industry to be everywhere appreciated.
The natural man, who is only a grade above the brute, is proud, overbearing and
fond of power. Below him is another class of mind represented in the masses,
inferior, because like mortar, it must be molded by some outside influence.
Out of this proceed again the natural man and every evil thing. But when it is
refined enough to receive the seeds of wisdom, then New England intelligence
enters the field and makes war with the children of this kingdom. This state of
things is illustrated in the parable where Jesus says, And they shall come from
the East and from the West and from the North and from the South and shall sit
down in the kingdom of God. So science shall come into the kingdom of truth.
Southern ignorance shall be cast out and a new state of society shall appear.
No community can be thrifty and intelligent except on the basis of labor. In New
England every faculty was early brought into action to make money and originate
ideas. Every kind of useful implement was invented, manufactured and sold by
them to the parties in exchange for land. Opposition served only as a stimulant to
their inventive minds. Their wares as well as their ideas were circulated all over
the country, and New England itself became a sort of pedlar's cart.
What then is New England? I answer, That portion of the human race that
discovers truth, establishes science and cultivates the arts. And also that part of
mankind which are skilled in low cunning and craft. The two extremes of moral
condition, the subtle act of the serpent and the lofty power of genius meet in the
New England character, being the outgrowth, one of the progressive and the
other of the brutal elements of man. The latter causes a man to try and gain
money without the honest labor of his brain or hands. In such men the highest
motive of life is a selfish desire for power and to this end all their energies are
directed. They want money, but instead of acquiring it by honest toil or ingenious
inventions, they forge lies and appealing to the envy and jealousy of the ignorant
try to turn them against all improvement. On the other hand, he, who partakes of
the progressive element, brings the fruit of his brains into the market and
supports his idle brethren who are too proud to work. A genuine Yankee of the
first quality, whether school teacher or professional man, brings his articles into
the market and advertises his business. His customers are the indolent and the
ambitious. Such are Southerners who, assuming the strut of the turkey and the
air of the peacock, live on the degradation of the race. Like bloodhounds they are
always ready to spring at their master's bidding. Fed on prejudice they oppose
every measure that demands energy of thought. Their leaders, although
preaching the doctrine of equality, really stand to their followers as master to
slave and find it for their interest to oppose the ambition of superior minds.
Led by sympathy, the early settlers chose localities adapted respectively to
develop their peculiar traits. An indolent man in New England and a smart man in
a slave community are equally out of place. Ambition and pride underlie these
opposite characters and pervade society. The puritan Yankee is opposed in
every principle to the Southerner and to the Northern man with Southern
principles. The puritan principles of liberty and improvement will penetrate every
part of the globe and will always be found battling with indolence and slavery.
Although not acceptable at the South, it will one day establish itself on the ruins
of slavery. It is indestructible and it would exist if the New England States should
be blotted from the face of the earth. It cannot, like matter, be dissolved, for it is
God in man. It will reign till slavery is under its foot. Slavery has its God and its
religion, but they are in profession only, while the God of New England is in the
life of his people. Slavery has its worship, but its worshippers are narrow and
overbearing, demanding revenge, while the worship of the lovers of freedom is
seen in their works.
February 1863
The Analysis of Ideas by a Lecturer
BU 118:1, LC 7:76
[orig. untitled]
A lecturer when he analyzes ideas is in a different atmosphere from the masses,
and those who are led by public opinion instead of truth see no force in his
reasoning. This is why public speakers are always lauded to the skies by one
class of persons and cried down by another who cannot find anything worthy of
praise in what they say. He who sees and comprehends spiritual ideas in
illustrating them to the ignorant can readily find natural ones to match them. But if
the minds of men are settled on an opinion in regard to a certain idea, then his
illustrations of the truth by changing their minds will destroy their opinions.
Hence, they, not seeing the basis of his reasoning, would misrepresent him.
When a lecturer resolves the two ideas North and South into their spiritual
elements, he gives a different picture of our national affairs from one who is
bound by his opinions. He says that the North means freedom in every
department of civil and national life: free press, free speech, free thought, free
schools and free labor, while the South contains the opposite elements of
slavery, oppression and ignorance. Also he says that so long as man and nations
are in error, they must continue to change till their redemption from sin and
ignorance is worked out and they arrive at truth.
Truth and error are identified in the powers which act upon man. They are always
at variance and set men to fighting. And they can never exist in the same place
or mingle any more than light and darkness, for one is the destruction of the
other. Truth is from God and Science is its embodiment. Its attribute is freedom
and the discussion of unsolved problems. Error is an offshoot from matter and
consequently it must perish. Its representative is slavery and its effect is to keep
man in darkness and suppress all discussion. These two principles under
different names are in every person and keep up a continual warfare to get
possession of the individual and have charge of his actions. When reason is
under the control of error, man gets up false issues and tries to deceive himself
as to the real facts, but when guided by truth, he reasons from principle whose
demonstration destroys error. A child seeing no sense in science is opposed to it
and if left to himself would become indolent and brutal in intellect, but spurred up
by truth, shakes off the earthly element and rises into a higher order of
intelligence. Under the light of wisdom, man necessarily develops himself, and as
truth and error cannot live in the same mind at peace, when the man of truth has
fought and conquered the ignorant man, he finds his freedom or his separation
from the man of error. But each has its respective ideas that continue the battle
on a lower scale. For instance, science, annoyed at the idleness of ignorance,
sees that its contentment is a stumbling block to wisdom, so it sends an idea into
the domain of ignorance which stirs up discontent. And parties spring up and
array themselves against the truth; like individuals, they are of mixed motives and
show their position towards the truth by their acts. Error being a step higher than
ignorance rouses it into action and then seeks to enslave it.
Science is the friend of ignorance but being spiritual cannot be seen, so it has to
act through error on ignorance. Error seeing that it works for another power than
itself is jealous and seeks to deceive ignorance, that it may still hold it in
bondage. So it misrepresents the arguments of science and by incorrect version
renders them absurd. Then science goes off and seeks a home in a far country
where it can develop itself. This led our pilgrim fathers to cross the ocean and
settle in the wilderness in a climate where no idle or ignorant people would follow
to molest them in their right of worship. Thus New England was settled by those
stern followers of science who sacrificed all ease and pleasure for the truth, while
the indolent and aristocratic preferred a milder climate and more fertile soil where
they could rule without so much labor. Therefore in our country these ideas
separated and took different localities. Those who loved power settled south,
while those who were industrious, ingenious and enterprising and cared not for
power remained North.
So the land was divided and the division was spiritual and it could be seen on the
corresponding dissensions of men. Ignorance not knowing the cause tries to
smother or subdue the evil. And by its measures of encroachments and
conciliation stirs up hatred, for while freedom and slavery are the real
combatants, men cannot stay their passions till the battle is over and one is
victorious. The hatred is not towards those for whom it is felt. It is the stern and
resolute opposition of freedom against tyranny that stirs up the evil of slavery in
men's minds and rouses feelings of patriotism and hatred of wrong in others.
Every one capable of reasoning stands somewhere between science and
ignorance on all disputed questions. He either inclines towards freedom or
slavery, and when they are at war, he will find himself forced to fight on the side
where he belongs. In working out universal freedom, science has never revealed
its identity, for it has no party or locality and is only known as a missionary. But it
dwells in every heart and rules the destinies of nations. Its power is felt by both
parties alike in an individual and a nation and controversies spring up in regard to
its character. That which is fighting for error maintains itself by keeping truth out
of sight or in a mystery and taking the whole field itself.
This splits the party and men come forward who will not agree to such extremes
of error. They learn from wisdom that the principle of wisdom carried out to its
extent will free man from mental, moral and human slavery. And likewise that
slavery unresisted in power would subject man to every kind of servitude.
Science will work out the principle of freedom and error, that of slavery. Error
being a disease, its death is science. So to save its life, it tries to cripple science,
and in the struggle, it destroys itself. Controversy is its destruction and to prevent
that, it galls the masses by arbitrary measures and they complain. This starts
another party who try to gain the ascendancy, making a political war. Science
standing to the world as a friend, each party quotes it as authority from God. One
quotes largely from the Bible that slavery is a divine institution. Another party
seeing that progress is the order of the day opposes this as an error handed
down from the dark ages. One believes that the masses are not fit to govern
themselves; the other pretends to believe that the people are intelligent enough
for self-government.
The rock on which they split is democracy, that being the mortar to hold the ideas
together and build up the party. Each class wants to lead it. One tries to get
control of the masses by appealing to their passions and love of domineering.
The other attempts a more intelligent plan and tries to reason with them. Each
party is composed of three elements and these form a trinity: Aristocracy, a love
of power; Hypocrisy, inventing false issues and Democracy, the masses. These
are the principles of one. The other stands up for the administration putting down
the rebellion and freedom to all mankind. Science is an unknown power in the
matter and acts silently on the leaders. Neither of the parties at the present time
appeals to the true idea at issue. Yet, it is working itself into light and will bring
about the destruction of slavery. One party at the South honestly believes that
slavery is a divine institution and there are many such at the North. But the North
being more under the element of truth, it is more enlightened and thus the minds
are divided. Whenever the true issue is revealed and admitted, then the slavery
party will go down; but until it is understood in all its length and breadth, the party
will be popular. All those minds ranging from the brute to the higher intellect will
show their grade in talking. No man of narrow mind can appreciate freedom. He
may admit it, but he cannot understand it, so he is as easily led into error as
truth.
It is the same with disease. When ignorance is roused to action, it is confined in
error which being disease struggles to keep ignorance in bondage. So when
science, the friend of ignorance, attacks error, ignorance is frightened and not
seeing science, it is deceived and compelled into submission and slavery by
error. In this way, the priests retain their power over the people, the doctors over
the sick and demagogues over the masses. Science is still small voice that says
to error, Thus far shall thou go and no further.
I have given the trinity of error in politics. I will now give it in disease: God, the
father, the maker of arbitrary laws whose punishment is disease; the ignorance of
man, the medium between the law and mankind; and the medical science which
explains the other two. This is the trinity of superstition. I will give that of wisdom:
Wisdom, Man and Christ or Science. Man being matter must pass through the
wilderness of superstition or slavery to arrive at true wisdom or the father, for the
worshippers of the true God are not in medical colleges nor in an aristocracy of
wealth but in a heart free from man's opinions. To rebel against the God of man's
opinions is to erect the kingdom of heaven in the temple of man's mind and write
on it, To the living God or Science. To him shall every knee bow and every
tongue confess that the only true religion of liberty is Science. In every civilized
society, liberty and slavery divide society. In all barbarous nations, slavery is
uppermost and their religion corresponds with their intelligence. It is the same in
our country. Science and religion are not the same, they are considered separate
and apart in character. Religion is cultivated by men of aristocratic principles and
hypocritical motives and modified as men become religious. The former govern
the world, but in the end the scientific man will reign. Whenever the intelligence
of the masses can be approached by the scientific reasoning, then democracy
will crumble to dust in respect to an idea that the people wish to investigate.
Take, for instance, religion; now it contains the same trinity that runs through all
error. But let people become so enlightened that they will worship science as
their God instead of man's opinion about God, then religion would prove by its
works whether it be of science or opinion. Ignorance is the natural growth of
matter. Out of ignorance comes error and science is the wisdom that will destroy
both and put matter in a state of cultivation to become the medium of science.
When the identity of science is acknowledged as much as that of matter, then it
will be seen that every man is like an uncultivated wilderness inhabited by rude
ideas which, like wild beasts, live on each other till a higher intelligence comes
among them, subdues their savage ideas and introduces those of arts and
sciences. Whenever these two classes of ideas come in contact with each other,
a war commences which is kept up till the brutal party is subdued. The natural
man having acknowledged that science has an identity outside of matter, working
in man or matter preparing him for a higher capacity than the intellect of the
brute, looks upon it as its teacher whose object is his own development.
The great error that stands in the way of this truth is this. Wisdom is not matter. It
governs the brutes and all living things, but matter reasons as though itself was
intelligent. Ideas governed by science and error are the material of man. One set
are matter and are like building materials; the other set are spiritual and are not
visible, but they dwell in the temple of the material ideas and exercise an unseen
influence on matter, which matter attributes to its own intelligence. This false
reasoning makes one world, science the other. The scientific man knows that the
man of opinion is not a developed man though he is a step higher than the brute
and his intellect ranges from the brute to the man of wisdom. Because they are
all of God, we place them on the same platform. This is a mistake, for if it was so,
then there would be no chance for improvement. If we class intellect as children
without regard to age or color and let the standard of development be wisdom,
then we should see old people very young in wisdom and young ones old.
Principles are the foundation of the scientific man. He is not in matter but dwells
in wisdom, while to the man of matter, he is like a man who once was and now is
not. This error arises from the fact that man places his wisdom in matter and
cannot see either intelligence or matter outside of himself. Therefore, his wisdom
is in his light and his light is in his body. If his body is full of darkness, he cannot
see any light but the false one of darkness. If however, his body is of science, he
is full of light. And looking upon his body, he sees it as a thing or idea like any
other idea that can be changed and destroyed, and he is not affected by what the
world calls destruction of the body. This is the wisdom of Christ which Jesus
professed; therefore, he, like other scientific men, was to the world a mystery.
March 1863
Illustrations of Immortality
BU 29:5, LC 9:4
A river has its bed into which little streams flow to supply it. So man has an
intellect which is sustained by various streams from the fountain of wisdom. The
banks take the name of the river as a man's name is affixed to his bodily form,
but both man and river existed before they were named. The river has its
Christian name given by man and its surname which comes from its father. For
instance, the Penobscot and Kennebec rivers were so named by man but both
existed as rivers before their discovery. So with man. His wisdom exists and
when it is discovered it is named, and the name is of man. The water of the river
is like the mind; both are continually changing and finally they wear out the body
or earth. The river empties itself into the earth ready to be drawn out to replenish
it as the mind seeks the heights of wisdom that it may draw others to it. Suppose
every particle of water to have an identity of intelligence. Its continual motion
does not destroy its identity. It is water like in the stream, the lake, the river and
the sea; and when it is taken into the earth to nourish and replenish it, it is still
water. So man's intellect has its identity whether in one condition or another, and
the body is to the intellect what the banks of the river are to the water, an identity
to signify that water can be condensed into a form.
Wisdom outside of matter is not recognized, but when it is reduced so that its
effect can be seen, it is acknowledged, though not separated from matter. The
banks are generally admitted to be the river, and when there is not water in the
bed, it is dead. Now the water is as much alive and retains its identity as ever,
but man's name is destroyed. In the same way, God in man is not recognized
except in the body, and when man sees the wisdom depart, to him man is dead.
Intellect, like water, is always flowing and cutting new channels, and each new
channel is like the birth of a child. It receives a name but retains that of its father.
Take the "cut-off" at Vicksburg on the Mississippi. That is like a child who has a
name called the "cut-off" or something else, yet with the water it is the same. The
difference is in man and not in the water. That, into whatever channel it may flow,
has its identity as water. So the wisdom of man is wisdom and his identity is as
much in existence as the water that enters into the Atlantic is part of all the
moving waters on the globe. It is plain that if each particle of water could speak, it
would answer my question concerning the Kennebec or Mississippi or any waters
on the face of the globe. It is the same with the intellect of man. My wisdom is in
existence as far as I am known, as truly as I am in Portland; and if I was
questioned in any quarter of the world where I am known, I, this wisdom, would
answer through a medium, although the name that man gives me might not know
it.
As the wisdom which constitutes an individual was in existence before it became
embodied, so all rivers existed before they were attached to a bed. Let a river
have its identity as water as well as its name; then it will be seen that when the
name ceases to exist, its identity as water still remains. But man in his reasoning
gives life to his own name, and when his idea is destroyed, the life is dead. For
instance, if the water of Moosehead Lake should be turned away from the
Kennebec Valley, the inhabitants would say that the river had dried up or had
died and they would look upon the banks and valley as a thing that once had life
but which was now dead. Yet the water might say with the man who knew the
facts that there had been no change in the water, that the destruction or death of
the river was an opinion of the people, for the water in its identity as a river and
as water was entirely distinct from the valley and banks. Man puts wisdom in the
matter and not in the principle. So when the matter is destroyed, the principle is
dead. Man's wisdom is not of God. God's wisdom is not in matter but outside of it
and through it, as the identity of water is distinct from a particular valley. It may
be said that this is what all men believe, but actions show that our wisdom is
placed in the natural man or matter by our very ignorance. Man has no idea of
wisdom identified with anything but his own belief. But if God or Wisdom is the
First Cause, everything that is seen is in a representation of Wisdom developed
into form. Therefore all identities of man and beasts may exist with the Father, as
all the appurtenances of war exist with the government. The contractor of a
branch of the war department has all the articles in his wisdom and they are born
into the world as fast as they are needed. When one is seen, the world says it is
in existence, but it existed before and wisdom brought it to man to name. Thus
everything exists with God and man names it; but wisdom has already given it a
name which man does not recognize and by that name it will always exist and
know itself. Water is water and man may recognize it by a name of river or lake,
etc. or may contend that it has dried up; it nevertheless exists in a principle of
God's wisdom.
I will try to separate the wisdom of God from that of man. My body sits and writes
and all that can be seen is myself and it is my opinion. But the wisdom that
governs my opinion that knows what I say as a man is not an opinion. Wisdom
has an identity and opinion also. Now what is an identity? Is it in the object that
we see or in the wisdom that sees it? There cannot be an identity without
intelligence; therefore, man's identity is not in what we see but in the wisdom that
cannot be seen and only shows itself through a medium.
Every manufactured article is a symbol of wisdom, but in his reasoning man puts
the wisdom in the matter instead of in the cause. Look beyond the body for the
created being which is a prior intelligence.
May 1863
Being in Two Places at Once
BU 44:37, LC 9:274
[orig. untitled]
What proof has Dr. Quimby that a person can be in two places at the same time
and be aware of the fact? I suppose that no one will deny that a mesmeric
clairvoyant can be away from his body and describe things not known to his
natural senses, as it is called. Although the clairvoyant is to himself in but one
place at the same time, yet the company believes he is in two, for facts show that
he is with them, and at the same time he is in another place. Now if this is
admitted, I will state another fact, viz; that they can all ask questions of persons
at a distance and the persons are not aware of the fact through their senses. This
is so clearly shown that I suppose that no one will deny it. This goes to prove that
every person has two identities: one called the natural senses and the other the
real man or God or Wisdom. Now the real man is not matter nor spirit but wisdom
acting on matter. This is the man that always will exist and is conscious of his
own existence, although to the natural man he is, if admitted at all, a spirit. This
error by the Christian world causes all the false theories about another world.
This was what Jesus tried to prove and would have proved it, if they had left the
natural man Jesus in the tomb. Then the man called Christ, when he showed
himself to his disciples, would have been the proof to them, for they thought he
was a spirit. But when he said, Hath a spirit flesh and bones as ye see me have,
then they believed that the man Jesus had risen. So when they found the body
gone, what other conclusion could they come to but that, if they believed
anything at all.
But there were some who knew better and this got up a controversy among the
believers for Paul says, "If Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how
say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?" So you see in
those days, thirty or forty years after the crucifixion, there was a difference of
opinion among the people. Now if the body of Jesus had been left in the tomb,
this controversy would never have come up, for Jesus never believed or tried to
prove that their idea Jesus should rise, but that this Christ or Wisdom would take
to itself a body to prove to them that man lives when the world calls him dead,
and a knowledge of this is the other world. Now you may ask why I undertake to
tell what Jesus meant to convey. Paul undertook to explain this mystery, and all
the clergy in the country, and why should I not have the same liberty? Paul says
after going on to explain to the people, "Last of all he was seen of me also, as of
one born out of due time." Now it seems to those who believe that Jesus rose,
that Paul was talking about the man Jesus, but not to me. He was trying to show
that there was a difference.
Now to show what was meant by Jesus and Paul, I will give you my own
experience of this same Christ or Wisdom that Paul speaks of, and to prove it, I
must refer to the sick as Jesus did, for he never proved anything to the well, from
the fact that a well person wants no sympathy, but the sick are among strangers
and have fallen among thieves and have been robbed of their substance. Jesus
often compares the priests or doctors to thieves and robbers, not that he meant
to say that they would steal a man's pocketbook, but they would rob him in
another way by making him listen to lies, knowing that by this way they would rob
him according to law. So it is now; the laws are made more for this set of robbers
than any set of men.
Look at the medical faculty of the army. See their influence. All outsiders are shut
out. No matter what are the cries of the sick, you are told you must be attended
to by the regulars. It is so with the priests but the truth is working out a revolution
in the minds of the people and the white slaves as well as the black will be free
from those slaveholders. This rebellion, before it is over, will open the eyes of
northern Christians and show that the profession of religion is all a deception to
gall the masses, as is the profession of the South towards the Union. Christ is not
known in either. It is the working of the natural man to develop a truth higher than
slavery of blacks or whites. Each is in bondage and to those Jesus preached and
put his preaching into practice. So his preaching went to condemn all the popular
theology of his day, showing that it was as wrong as slavery and wars, for it
bound those that were free like Paul and others, but the slave he never meddled
with.
He told them, like servants, to obey their masters but to those that were borne
down by the priests or doctors, he said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke (or theory) upon you and
learn of me." Now how did he lighten their burdens but by removing their sins or
error by explaining their feelings. And to do this, it was necessary to take upon
himself their feelings or sins. So he says he took our sins that he might lead us to
God or truth. Now the explanation was his cure; then they were liable to fall back
or be sick, from the fact that they were not aware of the mode in which it was
done. So to them it was a mystery or a power. I do the same, I sit down and
when their feelings become condensed into a form, the life is in the form and this
life is the real person. This person is not known through the natural man, only
through the natural medium, but I see the two. There is but one real man. The
other is the shadow. Every person knows that language is the expression of
thought and is an act of the will. Man or a child learns to produce certain noises
called language, but if the idea is not in the sound, if ever so perfect, it conveys
no meaning. Therefore language contains no sounds to the natural man. The
natural man is the echo of the true man. Now when the true life of man is
disturbed by a disturbance of his spiritual matter, it takes a form just according to
its feelings and its feelings are itself. So to destroy its feelings is to destroy the
life of the error or disease.
Now if language is itself like the odor of a rose, it tells you the state of its health
by its odor. So it is with all animal or vegetable substances. This is all the
language it has. Now to learn and analyze all the variety of sensation, so as to
know a person's feelings by the language that makes no sound in the world like
language, is not a very easy task. This is what all the pagan philosophers tried to
reduce to a science, but in all their investigations, they had one stumbling block.
That was to prove it to others. Their philosophy was true in theory but it required
someone to reduce it to a science. This was never done. To them they knew it
was true. So their whole aim was to reduce man's life and happiness to a simple
truth or science so that he might keep clear from the errors man was liable to fall
into. So in fact, their wisdom consisted in the fact that the greatest good ws the
greatest happiness. So every act that brought pleasure was good, not that it was
right or wrong, for right and wrong are arbitrary. But analyzed every act to see
the effect, believing the answer was in the act. So to do an act, thinking that the
opposite result might take place, was not in their philosophy. But every act must
bring its reward sooner or later. It is like forcing a ball from a gun at any distance
on a horizontal line. The ball will fall just as fast as though it had no lateral
pressure.
Any thought that affects us contains the happiness and misery and may be
calculated on as well as the force of a ball. Science is to reduce every act of our
lives to a science so that man can get the most happiness out of the least labor.
Science reduces manual labor by introducing mechanics. So wisdom saves a
great deal of misery by seeing the causes and effects of our acts. So as we learn
wisdom we shun misery, for misery is the fruit of error and happiness the effect of
ignorance or science. Thus wisdom analyzes every idea and it finds man's
misery arises from some fear of some belief that contains some opinion of man.
All religious opinions are false and cannot stand the test of investigation. Science
is God's religion and opinion is man's religion. So God shall reign till man's
religion is put down. Then comes the end of superstition and then comes the
religion of science and God. This measures out to every man just according to
his wisdom. So to be a God-like man is to be a scientific man, not a man of
opinions. When man makes his highest motives his greatest pleasure, then he
will make his happiness the greatest treasure of his life. This is true religion, not
the religion of any one man, nor does it belong to anyone, but it is the outpouring
of every living being. It is called sympathy. But sympathy is language and when a
person can attach his senses or wisdom to this sympathy, then he will act in
harmony with himself. But when his senses are attached to opinions, then he is
at the mercy of everyone's opinion, like a man tossed about by every breeze of
opinion.
I was attending a child with what the doctors called neuralgia. The pain, as he
said, was so great that he resorted to morphine to make the child sleep. This
opinion of the doctors had an effect on the mother and of course the doctor
carried the mother from the child. This of course made the child nervous and
called insane.
June 9, 1863
On the Circulation of the Blood I
LC 9:197
A great fault in the medical faculty is that they admit certain opinions in regard to
the circulation of the blood, as how the air affects it and how the food is carried in
it to all parts of the system, etc., all of which is nothing but opinions which cannot
stand the test of science. According to them, the blood is composed of certain
gases combined together and which are of themselves pure. Therefore to affirm
that the blood gets impure is to affirm what is false. It is true it may be loaded
with impurities, but the blood or gases are not and cannot be made impure. Now
where do these impurities come from? It is supposed from the food. This cannot
be the case for some children are born with these impurities, as they are called,
who had never eaten anything. That is accounted for by saying the parents eat
food and the children are affected by it. If there was not a more sensible way of
accounting for it, that theory would answer very well, but I shall try to show that
there is a better and more reasonable method.
In all theories of the circulation of the blood, there is not one word said of any
intelligence or influence outside of the blood itself, or of man. He is regarded as
though he came into existence without a cause, and was then governed by laws
that are not admitted as having the least intelligence, and yet the doctors explain
what makes strength, etc. They assert that some food has certain chemical
qualities which make strength in man, while other kinds of food weaken him. The
intelligence is all in what they have admitted contains none. For instance, we say
the air makes us feel strong. Where now is the strength, in the air or something
else? We also say the same in regard to the blood, though I am not aware that
the blood contains any strength of itself. The same can be said of the muscles,
thus placing the power in the muscles. All our intelligence is therefore in some
organ that the surgeon can hold in his hand, while he discourses at large upon it
as though the organ contained the intelligence and power he was talking of. But
never does he hint about an outside universal wisdom. This false theory places
us in the dark in regard to wisdom and lets opinions rule the destinies of man. I
shall endeavor to show that man as we see him is not the real or true man, but
merely the shadow.
The medical faculty informs us of all the gases, etc., of which man is composed,
yet I never heard of these gases being endowed with the least atom of
intelligence. Their theory represents man as a being having wisdom, yet at the
same time it deprives him of any by denying that there is any wisdom in the
materials of which he is composed, and still calling the materials all there is of
him and then giving him a wisdom superior to the brute. Here they virtually admit
that nothing can produce something, that is wisdom. In all the theory of the
circulation of the blood, there is not one word said of anything which makes man
except his food, etc. Now if you will follow my reasoning, you will see a different
construction put upon the circulation of the blood from that of the medical faculty.
All ideas contain a substance as much as the food we eat, and these very ideas
are what make us sick. They enter the system and help to make up the body
which is itself merely an idea. According to my belief, ideas are imparted to the
child before it is born who thus has to suffer for the sins or beliefs of its parents.
Not that this was the design of the first cause, but man has wandered away from
truth, has invented lies and deceived himself by false ideas till his body has
become as corrupt as his ideas that feed it.
All of this the medical faculty pass over as though it has nothing to do with man.
The blood is the medium and not the material required to produce strength. The
babe has blood but no strength. The man can be so far intoxicated that he has
no strength, yet he has blood. The criminal when he hears his death sentence
pronounced often loses his strength, yet he has blood. A sick person raising a
teaspoon of blood from his lungs, as he supposes, will lose all his strength, while
the same person when well may lose half a pint of blood from his nose in a fight;
yet if he comes off conqueror, he never minds it in the least. Strength must be in
something besides the blood. The same rule will apply to the food, as some
persons who eat the heartiest are by no means the strongest. Hearty persons
often lie down after eating to rest themselves, being weaker than before eating. It
is the same with drink. Persons drink strong liquor to give strength which is
absurd, as the weak man will drink one glass of spirits and feel strong while the
strong man after drinking one or two glasses will become so intoxicated as to
lose all his strength. A glass of water will give a man strength, but is the strength
in the water? No, for I have seen sick persons who dare not drink water and a
small quantity will take away all their strength. A person complaining of weakness
in the knees will be advised by the doctor to apply strengthening plasters,
liniments, etc. All these things are believed by the masses and medical faculty,
while I look upon them all as deceptions. The strength is not in the remedies but
in the belief in them, as the weakness is not in the knees but in the belief.
Strength is outside of medicine, food or drink. Really, what is that which we call
strength? It is something outside of the thing acting. For instance, in a lever, the
strength must be outside the lever. Just so with the muscles, or they must have
something to act on them or they could not act. What this something is, we wish
to ascertain. The child must have some intelligence to guide it before it is capable
of taking care of itself. If strength is in the food or in anything visible to the natural
eye, we could then find the First Cause. But strength is not in what is called
matter but it is the effect of something that exists outside of matter. It is wisdom
or a consciousness of itself. This wisdom or consciousness is the First Cause of
all things. Its identity is itself. It is that principle by which every act is weighed. It
gives the specific or relative difference of all matter or acts. It is a body of itself
which answers man's every inquiry. It is the source of man's wisdom and man is
as one ray of light from the great fountain of light. Darkness is matter and as light
or wisdom enters the darkness, it receives its life from the fountain of light till it
has grown to a state where it assumes its own identity. Then it stands to the
fountain as the child to the parent.
The child receives his strength or will through his mother till he is acted upon by
the wisdom of the world, when he assumes a false character and embraces the
ideas or opinions of the world instead of wisdom. So his growth is of error and
the belief of the world. He becomes as it were a double being and is treated as
such, yet considered as but one. A false theory takes possession of the light, and
false lights spring up and opinions take the place of science. All the philosophy in
regard to the circulation of the blood only tends to mislead man and causes him
to embrace errors that he otherwise would not, such as sickness, etc. I shall
shortly give the medical faculty's theory of the circulation and then give my own
and show that neither has any reference to the real scientific man of wisdom.
Their method is not intelligently understood as they do not embrace any wisdom
in their explanation of the circulation of the blood but make man a mere machine
and a poor one at that, whose machinery runs of its own accord and is under no
direction whatever. At the time of the discovery of the circulation of the blood by
Harvey, man was far behind the philosophers of our day in regard to the science
of hydraulics which was then in its infancy. Of course his explanation was derived
from his knowledge of hydraulics, but later discoveries have shown the
absurdities of his opinions. The circulation must either be caused by man's own
knowledge or by an overruling wisdom which can do all things. If by the latter it
must be a perfect scientific system and entirely independent of the aid of man's
knowledge.
I will now give the theory of the medical faculty which will show that they do not
attribute any wisdom to the circulation either of man or God but make man a
mere machine like a pump and breathing upon the principle of a pair of bellows.
Their theory is as follows.
"From the right ventricle of the heart the dark blood is thrown into the pulmonary
artery and its branches carry it to both lungs. In the capillary vessels the blood
comes in contact with the air and it becomes red and vitalized. Thence it is
returned to the left auricle of the heart by the veins. Thence passes into the left
auricle. A forcible contraction of this sends it forward into the aorta. Its branches
distribute it to all parts of the body. The arteries terminate in the capillaries. Here
the blood loses its redness and goes back to the right auricle by the vena cava
descendens and the vena cava ascendens. The tricuspid valves prevent the
reflow of the blood from the right ventricle to the right auricle. The semilunar
valves prevent the blood from pressing back from the pulmonary artery to the
right ventricle. The mitral valves prevent its being forced back from the left
ventricle to the left auricle. The semilunar valves prevent the backward flow from
the aorta to the left ventricle."
This is the explanation of the circulation and not one word is said of any
intelligence; therefore it is fair to presume the author understood the power to
come from the heart. This cannot be. So far no man can make a machine upon
that principle and have it operate well. He tells us of the valves that prevent the
reflow of blood to the heart. According to the description it could not reflow if it
wished as it is thrown to the extremities and then the power is lost.
I will now give my ideas. I commence at the brain and shall show that man is a
perfect machine and so constructed that he is acted upon by a wisdom superior
to the blood, and the circulation can go on just as well though the man be asleep
and ignorant of the fact. There is a wisdom that keeps the machine in running
order and which is not disturbed by false impressions or stumbling blocks. These
stumbling blocks the medical faculty do not name, but I shall speak of them in the
course of my remarks.
I will now give the modus operandi of the circulation as I understand it. I shall not
give the name of the valves and auricles as I do not wish to lead the reader into
the dark by using Latin phrases which he cannot understand. But I shall try and
carry him along merely showing him the method where the blood takes its rise,
where it flows, and how it returns, etc.
The oxygen in the air is imparted to the blood by passing in at the nose where it
is received by the capillary vessels and conveyed into small veins and thence
into larger ones, and is carried with the blood through them to the upper right
chamber of the heart. The heart is divided into two parts which we will call the
right and left side and each side is divided into two chambers, the upper and
lower. The upper right chamber receives the blood from all parts of the system,
from the upper portion of the body through two large veins which unite in one,
called the jugular. The lower portions of the body are supplied with small veins
which collect the blood and all the impurities which become mixed with it, and
empty it into larger ones, which convey it to the upper right side of the heart
where it is mixed with that from the upper portions of the body.
The food, after passing into the stomach and undergoing certain changes which I
will not describe, becomes what is called chyle and is taken to a reservoir in the
lower part of the body called the thoracic duct. The chyle is then carried by the
thoracic duct and emptied into the jugular vein where it is mixed with the blood
and also taken to the upper right chamber of the heart. This chamber has now
reserved the chyle, oxygen, blood and impurities from all parts of the system.
The oxygen heating the blood causes it to expand which opens a valve and lets
the blood pass into the lower right chamber. As the valve only opens downward
the blood cannot return. It then passes through a large vein which branches off
and is carried to both lobes of the lungs where the impurities from the blood are
deposited and carried off through the windpipe and out of the mouth in the form
of carbonic acid gas.
The blood now being free from all impurities is conveyed to the upper left
chamber of the heart and then forced into the lower left chamber which acts as a
reservoir and holds the blood till it is taken by the aorta and carried to all parts of
the system, depositing the necessary quantity to form flesh and receiving fresh
supplies of impurities till what remains is carried by the small veins again to the
heart to undergo a similar process and be cleansed of its impurities with the new
blood which is all the time being manufactured.
I now propose to introduce the agent who although invisible to the natural man
yet governs his destinies. I will take the child before it is born. No one will deny
but what there must be a circulation of the blood, but the lungs are not needed as
there are no impurities to deposit or carried off. The mother supplies the food or
intelligence from herself and they contribute to form the machine and get the cars
or child ready to receive the freight or ideas of the world. According to my theory
intelligence is not one of the elements of mind, but mind is the medium of
intelligence. As wisdom speaks mind into existence, its identity is a process of
progression. And as wisdom acts through the parent, the child receives its life
from the parent as the fruit from the tree till it becomes ripe when its seeds will
produce trees which will bear fruit after its kind.
The life of the child is its mother and its body is nourished by the same spiritual
or material food of which its mother partakes. But when it is born, its mother
ceases to supply its wants by nature or ideas. For now the child receives its food
from its mother's breast. This requires a new combination of motions to carry the
food to the whole system. Therefore to start the machine, there must be a power.
The nose is so constructed that the air can penetrate into it till it comes in contact
with the fluids of the head or capillary vessels. Here heat is produced by the
oxygen coming in contact with the hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon and this heat is
the power that sets the machine in motion.
Now the blood loads up with oxygen and winds its way along through the small
veins forced on by the heat in the brain like the steam from a boiler. It then enters
larger veins and is still pressed on till it meets the food or chyle, where all is
emptied into the upper right chamber of the heart which is called the right auricle.
The food, which has undergone certain chemical changes, assumes a milky
appearance called chyle and is sucked up by the little capillary vessels and
carried by the thoracic duct to the jugular where, as I have said, it meets the
blood and is emptied into the right auricle.
Now the air is all the time supplying oxygen to the blood through the nose and
mouth. And the brain acts like a boiler; the oxygen, the fuel; and the hydrogen,
nitrogen and carbon, the steam or blood. This constant heat which is kept up in
the brain is all the time pressing the blood into the right auricle. The blood is
prevented from passing down the thoracic duct by a contraction of the upper end
which acts as a valve which can only be opened upward by the chyle pressing up
through the duct to empty into the jugular. At the end of every vein or artery and
everywhere that you find a valve or contraction, there is an air cell and it is there
we get the power which keeps continually forcing on the blood. The heat
pressing the blood into the right auricle causes it to expand and this is called the
pulsation. When it expands, it opens a valve and the air in the cells forces the
blood into the right ventricle or lower right chamber.
The blood which is in the right ventricle is now forced out into a large vein by the
pressure from above and carried into both lobes of the lungs by two branches of
this vein, where it comes in contact with another air cell which separates the
gases and impurities from the blood and forces the blood now freed from all
impurities into the left auricle or upper left chamber, while the gases escape out
of the windpipe or chimney.
As the blood from the lungs is being continually forced into the left auricle, it
forces the blood already there into the left ventricle or lower left chamber and
there it is still forced on into the aorta and sent to all parts of the body. When it
reaches the extremities, it meets with little air cells there which give it a turn and
force it back through other little veins. And it is there sucked up by the little
capillary vessels which are continually at work, and it is then conveyed to the
jugular which is the great thoroughfare for the blood from the brain and upper
portions of the body and also for the chyle that is brought through the thoracic
duct. This is the proper course of the blood as it circulates through the body.
I now propose to speak of that invisible wisdom which sees and guides all the
foregoing changes. According to my theory, mind is something which I call
matter. Our belief is also matter. But the world calls both intelligence. If I believe
what I say is true, I make it so to myself whether I wish it to be so or not. For
instance, if a mother believes in scrofula, her belief is carried to her child and
deposited just where it is directed before the child is born. Now after it is born
and becomes old enough to receive ideas from others, it feeds upon them till its
mind becomes so much diseased that its body is a mass of corruption or false
ideas. Now as it is being fed by the world's ideas, it loses the food its mother
supplied before its birth and it becomes like a domesticated animal.
All animals receive impressions from an invisible something. But man being of a
higher development is acted upon by two principles: one of wisdom and science
and the other of mind and matter. Science is to correct every false direction and
point out the true one, and wisdom runs through every act of our lives and
through mind or matter. Wisdom is like the nerves of sensation. All these nerves
that are mentioned are merely representatives of the scientific man.
To suppose that food is thrown into the stomach and there left to be governed by
chance is like supposing that after the coal is thrown into the steamboat furnace
it creates steam in the boiler which propels the boat to the place of destination
without the aid of any intelligence outside of the engine. Yet we are told that the
food enters the stomach where the gases eat or dissolve it and from thence it
passes into another reservoir where it receives the addition of a substance called
gall. It then enters the small intestines in which there are multitudes of small
mouths ready to suck it up and convey it to a fountain that receives it, and then it
is sent in a conductor to a large vein which carries it to the heart.
Now here is as perfect a system of regulation as ever governed a railroad, where
goods are received at one place and transported to another. And it is as absurd
for a person to lecture or write of the circulation, without associating intelligence
with it, as to give a lecture on the subject of the railroads out of New York and
convey to his hearers the idea that the locomotive starts off with a train of cars
and lands and receives freight at the different stations without any intelligence
outside of the engine.
Man is like a nation. He is governed by laws but is subject to a higher principle
that, unlike laws, cannot be changed. This principle is science, the child of
wisdom. The natural laws of a nation are the invention of man. Now science and
the laws of man, like the veins and arteries, run side by side, and like the nerves
of sensation, one set belongs to the laws of matter and the other to the science
of wisdom. The office of the former is to be dishonest and carry out selfish acts,
while that of the latter is to keep beside it and hold it accountable for its acts.
Thus the two go together. One is wisdom or the guardian spirit who sees every
act of the natural man, approving or condemning them as is proper. The other is
opinions or evil spirits who act without science, doing as they choose and
perfectly indifferent to the principles of science.
The guardian spirit or agent is the invisible man and is called by various names
but is harmless, as all principles are. Yet it cannot be annihilated, but the medium
matter may be dissolved and destroyed. As I have said before, man is like a
nation and governed by his own laws.
Now the great first cause, Wisdom, holds his government responsible for its acts,
and it furnished agents to take cognizance of their doings. Every idea is like an
individual, clothed with some responsibility. For instance, if I wish to do a certain
act, the wish or idea star