Strange Visitors | Page 5

his downfall, had instigated and accomplished his assassination, and when he appeared in their midst, the simple, unaffected, uncrafty man that he was, a revulsion of feeling immediately took place.
The liberal party in the spirit world, friends to humanity and progress, could have prevented his removal had they wished; but not desiring to do so, they prepared his mind by dreams and visions for what was about to take place.
For a short time in the spirit world he held the position of Pacificator and chief ruler over that portion of the American, spirit world represented by the North and South.
But after averting this peril, which would have involved the States in anarchy and war such as they had not yet experienced, he retired to private life.
Another instance, proving that the inhabitants of the spirit world, like their great prototype, the Creator, do not look at immediate distress, but at the advantages that may accrue therefrom, presents itself in my removal from the sphere in which I had probably worked out all that would be useful to humanity.
Like a _charg�� d'affaires_ called back to Washington because he can fill a better post, so I, through the solicitations of relatives and fellow-citizens who have preceded me to this new world, was called here for the purpose of editing a journal and assisting in ameliorating the condition of the inhabitants of the Southern States, and also to use my influence in the Congress and Senate at Washington toward producing a better comprehension of their needs.
I have one thing to say to my brother journalist, Horace Greeley, and that is that the Utopian ideas which have for so many years formed the principal topic of his radical sheet are here put in operation.
Each one seems desirous of cooperating with his neighbor, and people of like tastes and feelings associate together and live in vast communities or cities. They do not settle down to one routine, as they do with you. The cost of travelling depending chiefly on the will and energy of the individual, the inhabitants are ever in motion, ever ready for a change, if wisdom or pleasure should dictate it. The condition of the common people is vastly improved, and America has been the chief agent in placing the lower classes in a condition which adapts them to a higher spiritualized life. I say lower classes, because under the system of monarchical governments, the peasants and laborers of Europe have been kept in a state of besotted ignorance, developing chiefly in the animal propensities, and not fitting themselves for the higher enjoyments of the spirit life.
Finding that the spirit world was likely to be overrun by this class of ignorant and superstitions people, its wise rulers have instigated the legislators of the United States to provide means for the education and development of these lower classes of society.
It is only by assimilating with those of a higher intellectual development that the ignorant become enlightened, and America, in throwing down all barriers to political and social advancement, has been the chief instrument of lifting the great mass of humanity to a position of power in the spirit world; still there are crowds of beings, ignorant and superstitious, who enter the spirit world, and their intellects can only be unfolded by the labor and guidance of some master mind.
I was surprised to find that physical labor here, as on earth, was one of the chief means employed to assist in mental growth; and I found swarms of English, Irish, and German people happily at work, cultivating the land and erecting houses for themselves and others, and assisting in the great machinery of life, which here, as in the other world, revolves its constant round.
I had nearly forgotten to mention that since leaving your world I returned on one occasion to attend a _s��ance_, as it is termed, for physical manifestations, and had the pleasure of seeing how our chemists combine from the elements the semblance of the human form. I had been interested when on earth in an experiment recently made by scientific men, whereby, through a peculiar combination of metals, a flame is caused to assume the shapes of flowers, leaves, fishes, and reptiles, apparently developed from the air, and I discovered an intelligent solution of the remarkable experiment in the manifestations I witnessed at this _s��ance_.
It appears that every particle in nature throws off a gaseous emanation, partaking of its particular shape. These gaseous particles are not discernible with the material eye, excepting when by chance they coalesce, and then a phosphorescent light ensues, which renders them apparent.
A similar effect to this is seen in electricity, which lies latent and viewless till by a sudden coalescing of its parts it manifests itself in zigzag lines and flashes of light which illuminate the