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 BF 129 1.026 S8 
 
 Stellar key to the summer land ./ .Bv.Andr 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 028 955 215 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92402895521 5 
 
STELLAR KEY 
 
 TO 
 
 THE SUMMEE LAND. 
 
 BY 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, 
 
 ATITHOB OP "NATTTBE'S DlVtNlC BBTXLATXOHB,^* "BABMOHIA," "ABABULA," 
 AlTD OTHEB VOLVMES ON THE " BABU027IAL FHILOBOPHT." 
 
 PAET I. 
 
 ILLUSTEATED WITH DIAGEAMS AND ENGEAVINGS OP CELESHAli 
 SCENERY. 
 
 FIPTB THOXISAJ^D. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 WILLIAM WHITE & COMPANY, 
 
 158 WASHINGTON STEEET. i , , 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 BANNEB or LIGHT BEANCH OrFICE, 544 BEOADWAT. 
 
 1868. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congreea in the year 186T, bj 
 ANDEEW JACKSON DATIS 
 In the Clerk's Office of the Dieirict Court of the United Ststee for the 
 DlBtrict of New Jersey. 
 
 McGeea & lI^LLKs, Btebeottfsrs, 
 IS Taadewater Street, 
 
^N Explanatory ^^ohd. 
 
 This volume is designed to 
 
 FURNISH jSciENTIFIC AND JPhILO" 
 
 soPHicAL Evidences of the Exist- 
 ence OF AN Inhabitable jSphere 
 OR^ Zone among the ISuns and 
 Planets of jSpace. These evi- 
 dences ARE INDISPENSABLE, BEING 
 ADAPTED TO ALL -WHO SEEK A SOLID, 
 RATIONAL, PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDA- 
 TION ON WHICH TO REST THEIi\ 
 HOPES OF A SUBSTANTIAL EXISTENCE 
 AFTEI\_ DEATH. 
 
 New York, 
 December iSth, 1867. 
 
CONTENTS OF PART I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Op the Natokal and Spikitoai, TJniteesbs .... 5 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Ihmoetal Mind LooKma into the Heavens . . . .11 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 Definition or Subjects undee Consideeahon . . .18 
 
 CHAPTER rv. 
 The Possibilitt of the SpmiiffAL Zonb .... 18 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Zone is Posseblb in the teet Natueb of Taoras . . 23 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Spieituaii Zone Tibwbd as a Peobabiutt . . .31 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 EVIDENCBS OF ZONB-!FOKHATIONS IN THE HEAVENS ... 37 
 
 CHAPTER THL 
 The Soientifio Cebtatntt op the SprnpraAL Zonb ... 45 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A TlETV OF THE ■WORKINO FOKOES OF THE ITNIVBESB . . 60 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PBIN<CIFIiES of TBS FOEUATION OF THE SuMMEB LANS . . 64 
 
Till COTTTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 , PAGB 
 
 DeUOSSTRATIONS op the HABMONIES OT the XTlIITEESB . .11 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 The CoNSTTrCTION OF THE SUMMEE LAND 101 
 
 CHAPTER .Zni.. 
 The Looation 07 the Summer Laki) 131 
 
 CHAPTER XIT. 
 A Philosophioal VrEW of the Summbe Lamb . . . 148 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 The SpiscrnAii Zom Amonq the Stabs 158 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 TRAYELDTCt AND SOOIETT IN THE SuMMBE LANS . . . 163 
 
 CHAPTER XVn. 
 The StniMBE Land as seen by Claibvotance . . .184 
 
 CHAPTER XTIIL " 
 SYNOrsia of the Ideas Pbesented 149 
 
A STELLAR KEY. 
 
 CHAPTEE I, 
 
 OB" THE KATUEAIi AND THE SPIEnxrAL trOTTBESES. 
 
 The discovery and announcement of that wonderful 
 and interminable relationship between the material 
 universe and the spiritual universe — a relationsliip 
 founded in the immutable laws of existence, by which 
 things visible are bound by tbe ties of fertile sympathy 
 to realms of causation invisible — could not but astonish 
 and delight the boldest poetic imagination, and excite 
 tbe opposition and ridicule of those skeptics wbo rely 
 for wbat tbey term " positive knowledge," upon tbe 
 industry and testimony of their five bodily senses. 
 
 The discovery of the law of Gravitation, notwith- 
 standing its far-stretching penetrations into the pro- 
 foundest secrets and fixed operations of the great 
 Positive Mind, was not a thousandth part as important 
 and world-lifting as was the disclosure of an inhabitable 
 and a really inhabited belt of solid spiritualized matter 
 in the heavens, adapted to the new bodies, and new 
 senses, and new necessities, of men, and women, and 
 children, who are born on this planet, and who nnfail- 
 
6 A STELLAB KET. 
 
 ingly withdraw from it through the process called 
 « Death." 
 
 Like thankful children, bending in reverential grati- 
 tude beneath the unutterable glory of the Central Sun 
 — the throne, so to speak, of the all-loving Mother and 
 omniscient Father of All — we approach the repositories 
 of ideas and essences, and ask for such facts and such 
 illustrations as can be seen and admitted by philoso- 
 phers and skeptics of the most materialistic habits of 
 thought. We seek for data in the recognized fields 
 of positive knowledge, for scientific facts and recent dis- 
 coveries in matter, which shall serve as stepping-stones 
 for the millions, whereby they can, intellectually and 
 raitionally, gain a clear vision of spheres celestial and 
 heavenly. 
 
 The world-cheering discovery of the shining belt, to 
 which I have alluded, has arrived by degrees ; coming 
 through the hazy glimmerings of man's intuitions from 
 remotest ages ; stealing with beneficent mysteriousness 
 through the hopes of mankind ; seen like the light of a 
 distant taper shining through openings in thinnest 
 clouds ; felt in the reasonings and wonderful generaliza- 
 tions of astronomers ; beheld by the entranced poet and 
 by the inspired artist as a permanent reality 'beyond the 
 starry confines; contemplated by analogical reasoners 
 as a capacious Existence — adapted to, and yearned for 
 by the immortal mind — a world swimming somewhere 
 in space, where star or planet never rolled; demon- 
 strated to the senses of spiritualists by " sounds," not 
 uncertain, like the voices of distant waters heard through 
 a landscape unknown, but distinct d^ndi positive, telling 
 of a home for you and for me in the solenm abysses of 
 
THE SPIEITtrAL miflVEKSE. ,7 
 
 space; and, lastly, looked upon by the bright eyes 
 of independent clairvoyants, who have discerned its 
 constitution, read its snbliine mysteries, disclosed the 
 grandeur of the planetary mechanism, described the 
 illustrious beings who repose there in contemplation, 
 and the thronging hosts, also, who, with human afifec- 
 tions and infinitely diversified attractions, people that 
 substantial and eternal sphere, not built with hands, in 
 the bosom of the heavens. 
 
 The relationship and sympathy between the orbs and 
 spheres of immensity — ^between this world of humanity 
 and that better world of humanity arisen — are recog- 
 nized naturally and inevitably by man's intuitions and 
 reason. It comes like a gleam of glory sent into finite 
 minds from the Central Sun ; and he is unreverential 
 to truth, not to say wicked and dogmatic, who turns 
 away from it with contempt. " Man is Immortal," is 
 the world's affirmation. "Is it otherwise possible in 
 the government of the Universe ?" asks a vmter. 
 " Shall the mafterial thing, inorganic, inert, imper- 
 cipient, move on in this wondrous perpetuity ; and 
 shall the soul which discems~it8 order and tracks its 
 career, and detects its laws and speculates on its consti- 
 tution, be swept away as nothing before it? Shall 
 unconscious matter last, while the mind, to which alone 
 its functions are subservient, which interprets its mys- 
 teries and reads them in the signature of Grod, vanish 
 like the passing wind ? Shall the knowledge and the 
 thoughts of men be handed down in endless genealogy, 
 teaching and inspiring the soul of other times ; and 
 shall the conscious creature which called them into 
 being be blotted ignominiously from creation ? Impos- 
 
8 A BTELLAB KEY. 
 
 Bible! It cannot be but that they, through the 
 medium of whose thought we now gaze at the skies, 
 witness elsewhere the excellence of their past toils, the 
 triumphs of their studious meditations. Surely the 
 Heavens which they deciphered, they behold with eyes 
 undimmed by age, and minds yet yearning, but in a 
 spirit of profounder adoration, to press forward toward 
 vaster disclosures of the infinitude of God !" 
 
 Looking far into the ages past, and making the labo- 
 rious march of man's history with regard to his acqui- 
 sition of positive knowledge, I find accurate conceptions, 
 more or less mixed with the reflections of superstition 
 and the colorings of fancy, of the realities pertain- 
 ing to a higher sphere of human existence. At 
 first it was natural for the individual mind to be nar- 
 row in its conceptions, because its views were mainly 
 derived from outward observations of the skies. But 
 now, at an era when the human race is no longer in its 
 infancy, the individual's reason can take in purer senti- 
 ments and larger conceptions, derived from discoveries 
 of those unchangeable laws and principles which sustain 
 and regulate the stupendous combinations of infinite 
 harmonies. The Intuition of past generations, like the 
 totality of the Reason of those now living, gives out 
 no conflicting testimony on the physieal possibility of 
 an inhabitable sphere or zone of spiritualized matter in 
 space, called recently the Summer Land. 
 
 It is no dream, remember, but a demonstration con- 
 summated at the lower end of Herschel's telescope, 
 that scattered through the measureless expanse of blue 
 ether, but in the very perfection of order and harmony, 
 are groups of stars and systems of suns, occupying in 
 
THE Bl'IEITUAL UNTVEESE. 9 
 
 the heavens positions which are, to the unarmed eye, 
 covered and filled with only boundless fields of nebu- 
 lae. Scientific astronomy, by its marvelous discoveries, 
 has thus expanded men's minds with respect to the fir- 
 mamental magnitudes and planetary splendors of the 
 material universe. The cosmogonies of illimitable 
 space are fast coming into popular education. It is 
 now conceded, even by anthropomorphists and other 
 unprogressive religionists, that instead of the earth 
 being at the center of God's universe, and instead of 
 the doings and omissions of its denizens being the chief 
 concern and perpetual misery of the entire Trinity, our 
 sun and its planets belong to the Milky Way not only, 
 but that the Milky Way itself is merely one communi- 
 ty -of suns and planets of an infinitude of similar sys- 
 tems and communities that float and sing the songs of 
 h armony, in the celestial atmosphere of the univercoe- 
 lum ! " Wherp are we, after all," asks an astronomer, 
 " but in the center of a sphere, whose circumference is 
 35,000 times as far from us as Sirius, and beyond whose 
 circuit boundless infinity stretches unfathomed as ever. 
 In our first conceptions, the distance of the earth from 
 the sun is a quantity almost infinite. Compare it with 
 the intervals between the fixed stars, and it becomes no 
 •quantity at all, biit only an infinitesimal. Now, when 
 the spaces between the stars are contrasted with the 
 gulfs of dark space separating firmaments, they abso- 
 lutely vanish below us. Can the whole firmamental 
 creation, in its turn, be only a comer of some mightier 
 scheme — a mere nebula itself? Probably Coleridge is 
 not in error : — ' It is not impossible that to some infi- 
 nitely superior Being the whole universe may be as one 
 1* 
 
10 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 plain — the distance between planet and planet being 
 only as the pores in a grain of sand, and the spaces 
 between system and system no greater than the inter- 
 vals between one grain and the grain adjacent !' " 
 
 The stupendous character of the truths thus far 
 unfolded by astronomy must act beneficially upon the 
 human mind. But it is my impression that the resolu- 
 tion of the nebulae of immensity into millions of suns, 
 with their attendant minor systems of inhabitable plan- 
 ets and uninhabitable satellites, asteroids, and comets, is, 
 notwithstanding its amazing, and engrossing, and over- 
 whelming vastness and sublime beauty, nothing more 
 than a look within the vestibule of the Eternal Temple ! 
 The measureless systems of stars and suns, which roll 
 and swim and eddy and waltz about in their harmonial 
 circles, shine upon landscapes more beautiful, and into 
 eyes more divine than ours ! 
 
LOOKING INTO THE HEAVENS. 11 
 
 OHAPTEE II. 
 
 IMMOETAL MBTD LOOKING INTO THE HEAVENS. 
 
 In accordance with the imperious law of attractioa — 
 a law which is as palpably felt and manifested in mind 
 as in matter — the thinking powers energetically force 
 their way through space, and find a stand-point from 
 which they can contemplate the sublimity and reality 
 of trans-mundane lands of human existence. The 
 starry heavens awaken and invite the inmost, intensest 
 love of immortality. The deep-seeing philosophical 
 faculties of man's Eeason will, not, because they can- 
 not, stop with the limitations of the five senses. The 
 principles of nature flow into the intuitions of the rev- 
 erential, free, untrammeled student. They teach him 
 to think industriously, and to march onward and 
 upward ; and if he be conscientious, a devout lover of 
 what is exactly true and exactly just, Nature will keep 
 him within the legitimate sphere of logical reasoning. 
 
 The Scottish philosopher, who found true apprecia- 
 tion after he had entered the societies of arisen human- 
 ity in 'the starry heavens, Dr. Dick, when considering 
 the possibility of a higher world of human life, says : 
 "But there are certain general and admitted principles 
 on which we may reason, and there are certain phe 
 nomena and indications of design exhibited in the struc- 
 ture of the universe, from which certain general con- 
 elusions may be deduced ; beyond such generalities I 
 
12 A STBLLAB KEY. 
 
 do not intend to proceed, nor to indulge in vain con- 
 jecture." 
 
 From the magnitude and harmonious arrangements 
 of the stellar universe, the philosopher derived conclu- 
 sions, that, on the planets in space, which circle around 
 their parent suns, other persons like ourselves really 
 could and do exist. His enlarging thoughts and figures 
 are : " If this earth, which ranks among the smaller 
 globes of our system, contains such an immense number 
 of living bodies (30,000,000,000,000), what must be the 
 number of sentient and intellectual existences in all the 
 worlds to which we have alluded ! "We are assured, on 
 certain data, that 2,019,100,000,000 worlds may exist 
 within the bounds of the visible universe ; and, although 
 no more beings should exist in each world, at an aver- 
 age, than on our globe, there would be the following 
 number of living inhabitants in these worlds, 60,573,- 
 000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ; that is, sixty quadrillions, 
 five hundred and seventy-three thousand trillions, a 
 number which transcends human conception." 
 
 " We would now ask, in the name of all that is 
 sacred," continues this, philosopher, "whether such 
 magnificent manifestations of Deity ought to be con- 
 sidered as irrelevant in the business of religion, and 
 whether they ought to be thrown completely into the 
 shade, in the discussions which take place on religious 
 topics, in the assemblies of the saints. If religion con- 
 sists in the intellectual apprehension of the perfections 
 of truth, and in the moral eflfects produced by such an 
 apprehension, shall we rest contented with a less glori- 
 ous idea of God than his works are calculated to afford ? 
 Perhaps some may be disposed to insinuate that the 
 
LOOKING INTO THE HEAVENS. 13 
 
 Tiews above stated are above the level of ordinary com- 
 prehensions, and founded too much on scientific con- 
 siderations, to be stated in detail to a common audience. 
 To any insinuations of this kind it may be replied, that 
 such illustrations as those to which we have referred 
 are more easily comprehended than many of those ab- 
 stract discussions to which they are frequently accus- 
 tomed; since they are definite and tangible, being 
 derived from those objects which strike the senses and 
 imagination," 
 
 The far-stretching powers of the human mind appear 
 grandly in the contemplations of this mountain philoso- 
 pher. How energetically did his thinking faculties 
 grasp the ftmdamental idea of an open intercourse be- 
 tween the inhabitants of the two worlds ! " Whether 
 we may ever enjoy an intimate correspondence with 
 beings belonging to other worlds, is a question which 
 will frequently obtrude itself on a contemplative mind. 
 It is evident that, in our common state, all direct inter- 
 course with other worlds is impossible. The law of 
 gravitation, which unites all the worlds in the universe 
 in one grand system, separates man from his kindred 
 spirits in other planets, and interposes an impassable 
 barrier to his excursions to distant regions, and to his 
 correspondence with other orders of intellectual beings. 
 But in the present state he is only in the vnfamcy of his 
 hdng ; he is destined to a future and eternal state of 
 existence, where the range of his faculties and his con- 
 nections with other beings will be indefinitely expand- 
 ed. ' A wide and boundless prospect lies before him,' 
 and during the revolution of interminable duration, he 
 will, doubtless, be brought into contact and correspond- 
 
14: A STELLAB KEY. 
 
 ence vdth numerous orders of kindred beings, with 
 whom he may be permitted to associate on terms of 
 equality and of enduring friendship. But should the 
 laws of the physical system, and the immense distances 
 which intervene between the several worlds, prevent 
 such associations as I have now supposed, there maybe 
 cmother economy, superior to the physical, which may 
 consist with the most extensive and intimate intercourse 
 of all rational and virtuous beings. There may be a 
 spiritual economy established in the universe, of which 
 the physical structure of creation is the basis, or plat- 
 form, or the introductory scene in which rational beings 
 are trained and prepared for being members of the 
 higher order of this celestial or intellectual economy. 
 It appears highly probable that the first introduction 
 of every rational creature into existence is on the scene 
 of & physical economy." 
 
 Thus, naturally and philosophically, the free reason 
 of man works at something approximating to the celes- 
 tial truth of an inhabitable iaelt, the Summer Land, so 
 gloriously demonstrated in this more favored age and 
 receptive country. In one place this philosopher ex- 
 claims : " Oh, could we wing our way with the swiftness 
 of a seraph, from sun to sun, and from world to world, 
 until we had surveyed all the systems visible to the 
 naked eye, which are only as a mere speck in the map 
 of the xmiverse — could we, at the same time, contem- 
 plate the glorious landscapes and scenes of grandeur 
 they exhibit— could we also mingle with the pure and 
 exalted intelligences which people those resplendent 
 abodes, and behold their humble and ardent adorations 
 of their Almighty Maker, tfieir benign and condescending 
 
LOOKING INTO THE HEAVENS. 15 
 
 deportment toward one another — * each esteeming an- 
 other better than himself ' — and all united in the bonds 
 of the pnrest affection, without one haughty or discord- 
 ant feeling — what indignation and astonishment would 
 seize us on our return to this obscure corner of creation." 
 
 Thus, dimly, but energetically and assuredly, a pro- 
 found belief in the wondrous system of the relationship 
 and sympathy between the terrestrial and celestial 
 spheres of existence, bums its way deeply into the 
 thinking powers of men's minds. A mighty and myste- 
 rious unity of plan is revealed, with boundless diversi- 
 ties and orderly perturbations, all moving onward to- 
 gether through the ever-deepening .depths of infinitude, 
 teaching the human mind reverentially to look up, 
 contemplate, and unfold in wisdom and love. 
 
 But inasmuch as it is not the object of these chapters 
 to recount the evidences of immortality, the reader is 
 referred, for a full investigation of man's efforts to 
 satisfy his mind on the subject of a future life, to the 
 Great Harmonia, "Vol. V.^ Part III., wherein both the 
 inferential and the positive evidences are revealed to 
 the thinking faculties. 
 
16 A STEIiLAE KEY, 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 DEFINmOW OT SUBJECTS TTNDEE OONSIDEEATIOIT. 
 
 To every intelligent, rational, existence-loving mind, 
 the question naturally and plainly occurs : " Is there a 
 substantial world for human beings to live in after 
 death 1" 
 
 Hope and faith give light and peace to minds of fine 
 sentiments and intuitive sensibilities. But to the hard- 
 headed and sensuous positive thinker, the light of 
 "hope" is valued as .only an ignis faPwm, and the 
 peace of " faith " as the delusive dream of weak and 
 idle minds. Beautiful as is faith, and comforting as is 
 hope, to those to whom these internal evidences of 
 immortality are sufficient, they have no weight with 
 those who look upon the universe as a mechanism 
 ddveloped by no intelligence outside of the inherent 
 principles of life and motion. It is to meet the needs of 
 this class, especially, that the evidences will be unfolded 
 and weighed under several distinct heads : — 
 
 FiEST. The Possibility of Summer Land in the 
 heavens ; 
 
 Second. Its Probability in the structure of the Uni- 
 verse ; 
 
 Third. Its Certainty, as demonstrated by the arrange- 
 ment and order of the Stars ; 
 
 FouETH. Its Formation, in the shape of a stratified 
 belt of matter ; 
 
DEFINTIOK OF BUBJKOTS. 17 
 
 Fifth. Its Constitution of materials drawn from the 
 inhabited planets; 
 
 Sixth. Its Location among the systems and constella- 
 tions in the sky. 
 
 Under the impression that, with the positive philoso- 
 phers of our day, all claJi-Toyant testimony would be 
 invalid, I am constrained, in order to prosecute the 
 design of this work, to proceed wholly from an induc- 
 tive stand-point. There is an inherent force in truth, 
 however, which carries it straight and triumphantly 
 into man's understanding, if it is so fortunate as to be 
 presented free from the cumbrous and imposing super- 
 stitions and embarrassing atheistic logic of the times. 
 The august and harmonious temple of the universe, if 
 entered by man with a reverential love of truth in hia 
 heart, is sure, thpugh slowly, to open mansion after 
 mansion, and glory after. glory, to the welcomed visitor. 
 
 All minds sincerely desirous of true knowledge, can 
 seek and find it in those harvest-fields of the celestial 
 realm, which stretch away, and are lost to the imagina- 
 tion, but not to the logical reason, beyond suns and stars 
 in the boundless blue. And it is to aid such minds in 
 their faithful searchings, that these chapters are now 
 written and submitted. 
 
18 A 8TELLAB KBT. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE POSSIBIUrT OB" THE SPEEITtrAIi ZOI^. 
 
 In this chapter it is proposed to approach the subject 
 from the outermost rim of the wheel of inductive rea- 
 soning. The subject under investigation is embodied 
 in the following affirmation : Theee is an inhabitablb 
 
 ZONE, OE A CIEOtrLAE BELT OF EEFINED AND STEATIEXEaj 
 MATTEE IN THE ^EAVBNS WHICH BECENTLr HAS BEEN 
 DENOMINATED " ThE StJMMBE LaND." 
 
 The possibility of the existence of this material belt 
 in the Stellar Universe is to be considered, in this part 
 of our work, as though there j^as no such a power as 
 " clairvoyance," and no such manifestations as " spirit- 
 ual." AH evidences, therefore, however irresistible 
 and sacred to those who believe in these realities, are, 
 in this stage of our inquiry, to ,be " ruled out," as not 
 valid to the positivists and inductive reasoners who, wo 
 are now supposing, compose the honorable assembly of 
 rigid investigators before us. 
 
 The name of " Man "~ waSj I thint, derived from 
 certain Greek roots which signify "to spring up," "to 
 look up," or to grow and rise upward. Therefore many 
 ages ago the Greeks, inspired by the genius of truth, 
 made the discovery that man is organized for progres- 
 sion, which is the " real" meaning of the word "Man.'' 
 Accordingly, if men would be true men, they must, in 
 the language of Kepler, " think the thoughts of God 
 
THE BPIEITtrAL ZONE. 19 
 
 after him." Sucli thinking, which ia the grandest attain- 
 ment of education, the most divine and ennobling con- 
 Bummation of deep and methodical reasoning, ia possible 
 only to those who think and reason in harmony with 
 the facts of Science and the fixed principles of Nature, 
 
 Superficial high-mindedness, or the positiveness of 
 ignorance and the pride of knowledge, seal the soul to 
 the influx of God's Spirit and Wisdom. A heart that 
 can love truth, as fast as the honest reason discerns it, 
 aiid a conscience that will firmly and steadily steer life's 
 barque in harmony with such feeling and such convic- 
 tion, are vast riches to their possessor. The overarching 
 heavens come very near, in their ^acioua light and 
 serene beauty, to the mind and heart that is attuned to 
 their unchangeable ways.' Brightness, penetration, 
 celerity, calmness, and comprehensiveness are some of 
 the characteristics of the Stellar Universe. " To think 
 the thoughts of God after him," would be, in astron- 
 omy, thinking in accordance with the interior forces 
 and the harmonious manifestations thereof in the visible 
 universe. Dull minds sleep behind duU senses; but 
 star-eyed persons possess minds shining full of heavenly 
 splendors. 
 
 But it is not possible, for manifold causes of a purely^, 
 extrinsic character, that all minds should come in imme- 
 diate rapport with the fundamental or primitive founts 
 of knowledge. Hence, in the words of a modem scholar: 
 " We must try to get the best of Greece and of Eome, 
 by rapid study of the genius of the languages, and by 
 grasping the wealth of the literatures ; and what we 
 have no time to get by minute study of the originals, 
 we must seek by lectures of erudite scholars, and by 
 
20 A STELLAE KET. 
 
 reading. In our want of time to seek knowledge in 
 all the old fields, it is a consolation to know that the 
 treasures of the ancient languages float down the stream 
 of time, and are lodged in the new literatures. Goethe 
 and Lessing, in Germany, were almost as much Greeks 
 as if they had lived with Pericles at Athens. Next to 
 having read all of Cicero, is to read Forsyth's Life of 
 Cicero ; or all of Epictetus, is to be familiar with Hig- 
 ginson's translation ; or all of Antoninus, is to know 
 Long's paraphrase. . . . A great change has come; 
 the world has moved forward ; the nations have come 
 closer together ; modern languages have become neces- 
 sary to the intelligent citizen for travel, trade, and 
 acquaintance with the world's affairs and thoughts. 
 
 " And then, how wonderful the rise and progress of 
 science in these last fifty years. Astronomy stood 
 almost alone as a science in the last century. Chem- 
 istry was breaking out of its chrysalis, the old Alchemy, 
 and crude thoughts of cosmogony, and of the plants and 
 animals, made a chaos of knowledge, void and formless. 
 And now think for one moment of aU these sciences 
 that have presented such various and interesting fields 
 of inquiry and thought ; each one so vastly enlarging 
 and enriching our life, and each opening a new path- 
 way to the mysterious agencies of God's creation and 
 providence." 
 
 We ask the world's thinkers and scholars to step out 
 of the old into the " new pathway " that leads to the 
 " mysterious agencies of God's creation and providence." 
 But science can know nothing of "the mysterious 
 agencies of God." What it knows, it knows ; all the 
 rest is speculation. But by speculations and calcula- 
 
THE spmrruAL zone. 21 
 
 tions based upon what science knows, a world of knowl- 
 edge has been acquired in astronomy, in chemistry, in 
 geology, &c. Why, upon the same principles of induc- 
 tive reasoning and inferential conjecture, may not 
 greater results be obtained in higher departments of the 
 universe? Astronomers, chemists, geologists, ethnolo- 
 gists, and other physicists, have .obtained some of their 
 best results by following perturbations, slight effects, 
 hints, and signs, and the world does not denounce these 
 scientists as dreamers and visionaries in the airy realms 
 of hypotheses ; on the contrary, they are justly regarded 
 and gratefully remembered as well-disciplined mathe- 
 maticians, as accurate thinkers, as men of profoundest 
 erudition, and as benefactors of mankind. 
 
 The possihUity of the existence of the stratified Zone 
 in the heavens, may be considered with reference to the 
 structures and locations of the different solar systems 
 in space. Of course a thing is often esteemed as poa- 
 sihh, which is neither certain nor even probable; in 
 faet, logically, both the improbability and the uncer- 
 tainty of a matter is implied in its " possibility." It is 
 possible that every person on earth may, within one 
 year, believe in the existence of the stratified Zone ; 
 but it is not remotely probable, and falls infinitely short 
 of a certainty. When a thing or an event does noi 
 contradict the known laws of the possible, then men 
 say, " it may be so," or, " it may exist," or, " it may 
 happen ;" but, in so saying, the improhahilities and the 
 imcertainties are understood as implied by the primary 
 admission. There is a possibility that a shower of 
 falling meteors may occur at ten o'clock this nighty or 
 that a great earthquake will sink the entire western 
 
22 A STELLAB KET. 
 
 continent day after to-morrow ; but there is no certainty 
 of it, and, judging from the usual course of nature, 
 there is not even " the most distant probability " that 
 any such earthquake will ever happen on this planet. On 
 the other hand, it is logical to say,, positively, that some 
 things and events are absolutely " impossible." Proba- . 
 bilities and certainties are — ^in such decisions and posi- 
 tive declarations of the self-evident consciousness — ^left 
 entirely out of the mind. For example, because Mount 
 Everest, of the Himalaya range, is twenty-nine thousand 
 feet high, it is not possible for evei-y other mountain in 
 the world to report an equal elevation. Nor is it pos- 
 sible for mountains to exist without valleys between 
 them, or that seas and oceans can exist without depres- 
 sions in the earth's surface lower than the arable and 
 populated lands. It is not possible for two halves to 
 be less or more than the whole. It is not possible that 
 twice five should be either nine or eleven. 
 
 And so men reason about some things and events 
 that are intrinsically and self-evidently impossible, and 
 concerning other things and events that are intrinsically 
 and self-evidently ^os«i5^ while probabilities and cer- 
 tainties are infinitely more remote from the admissions 
 of the logical intellect. 
 
THE ZONE IS POSSIBLE. 23 
 
 CHAPTER T. 
 
 THE ZONE IS POSSIBLE IN THE VEET NATUEE OF THINGS. 
 
 Looking into the sky, and carefully examining the 
 form of the planets in the stellar sphere, you remark, 
 first of all, that the shape of sun and moon and stars is 
 round. Therefore, the heavenly bodies are properly 
 called "glohes," while the word "planet" signifies to 
 stray, to wander, or " the traveler," 
 
 The Chaldeans, as well as other Oriental nations, 
 were profound students of the stars. They observed, 
 naturally enough^ just as you do, unaided by telescopes, 
 and without using astro-mathematics, the' existence of 
 bright spherical bodies, which, because they have never 
 been known to alter their grand and imposing con- 
 figurations and relative positions, are called " fixed 
 stars." These stars, according to the ancients, were 
 unalterably fixed in the firmament, or firm-built vault, 
 which, they thought, revolved upon its axis, an im- 
 measurable hollow sphere rolling diurnally around the 
 earth, which was by them supposed to be an immovable 
 flat and boundless stretch of land and water. 
 
 .The sphere of the fixed stars — each the throne of some 
 unintelligible and lawless deity or demon — ^by revolving 
 around the motionless earth, produced the effects of rising 
 and setting among all the heavenly bodies. It is not 
 strange that the sun was by the ancients supposed to be 
 the effulgent seat of the master-god, whose almighty fiat 
 
24 
 
 A STEILAE KET. 
 
 THE GEEAT CENTEAL SUN. 
 
 ,„..>«.-tfaaiiiii!ii!iiUB/»», 
 
 
 ^..^'^r^ 
 
 
 ^fi.r 
 
 
 /Mil"".,*» 
 
 SUN OF THE IXTEHIOR UNIVERSE. 
 
 The great original, ever-existing, omniscient, omnipotent, and omni- 
 present productive power — the Soul of all existences— is throned in a 
 central sphere, the circumference of which is the boundless universe, 
 and around wliicli solar, sidereal, and stellar systems revolve, in silent, 
 majestic sublimity and harmony I This power is what mankind call 
 Deity, whose attributes are love and wisdom, corresponding with the 
 principles ' of male and female, positive and negative, sustaining, and 
 creative. 
 
THE ZONE IS POSSIBLE. 25 
 
 caused all tlie marvelous movements among tlie heav- 
 enly bodies, unfolded the spangling panorama of the 
 skies, emitted thunder and lightning, wheeled the blazing 
 comet, sent meteoric or shooting stars, and filled the soli- 
 tudes of immensity with fearful catastrophes ; neither is 
 it strai^ge that the human race, in its infancy, should 
 have, out of appearance of the heavenly bodies, slowly 
 elaborated a inythological theology, an astrological sys- 
 tem of identifying the birth, life, fortunes, and misfor- 
 tunes of individuals with the wills and good or evil 
 conjunctions of conflicting divinities, supposed to inhabit 
 the different stars in the revolving sphere. 
 
 The progression of astronomical science has demon- 
 strated maqy truths, and exposed many errors, accumu- 
 lated and held sacred by the ancients. The roundness 
 of the solar bodies has been settled by science. But 
 the rotating spheres or circles of fixed stars, and the 
 imposing illusion that the heavens are in the shape of a 
 ^ault, have been perfectly removed by the hand of 
 astronomical discovery. The Ptolemaic system, which 
 admitted the notion of an indefinite number of starry 
 rings or rotating circles, has not been wholly set aside, 
 except in so far as the complete celestial mechanism is 
 concerned; for do we not read in modern astronomy 
 of the faths of the comets, of the orbits of the planets, 
 and of the track of the sun, and all the stellar family 
 from west to east, toward some more interior center or 
 system in the solemn depths of infinitudes ? Ptolemy and 
 Hipparchus of Alexandria,, during the reigns of Adrian 
 and Antonine at Rome, made astronomy a considerable 
 degree more scientific and reliable ; although the group- 
 ings and calculations of the planets were based upon the 
 
26 A BTELLAE KET. 
 
 cumbersome machinery of diversal circles, in which the 
 sun, moon, and stars were supposed to be fixed, hke so 
 many bright bodies fastened firmly to a multitude of nar- 
 row wheels of immense diameter. This supposition, how- 
 ever, was accepted and urged more by those less talented 
 men who succeeded Ptolemy, and who, without learn- 
 ing, advocated and degraded his more perfect system. 
 
 What you are now asked to observe, is, first, the 
 spherical form or roundness of the heavenly bodies; 
 and, second, the circular orbit, or wheelAike path, in 
 which they all uniformly revolve. The appearance of 
 the sun to the natural eye is that of an immense globe 
 of fire ! It is by astronomers said to contain more than 
 seven hundred times as much matter as all the planets 
 in our system ; some, by careful computaBon, declare 
 that the sun is one million and four hundred thousand 
 times greater in magnitude than the earth. And yet this 
 earth is so very large, so vast in extent, that ethnologists 
 and antiquarians are still searching for races and relics 
 in regions not explored by civilized man. 
 
 The sun is round, remember, and that it is rolling in 
 a vast circular path through the dizzy abysses of space ; 
 so also do all the planets move and roll in the same direc- 
 tion, from west to east, around the all-controlling sun ; 
 and, what is still more remarkable, in all this sublime 
 scene of starry harmony and supernal splendor, is, that 
 aU the planets perform their diurnal and annual revolu- 
 tions on nearly the same plane. 
 
 Whilst the essential characteristics of all planetary 
 motions, like the form and shape of the planets them- 
 selves, are circularity and roundness, it should be borne 
 in mind that.the cometary and meteoric bodies, which 
 
THE ZONE. IS POSSIBLE. 
 
 2T 
 
 THE SUN OF OUR SYSTEM. 
 
 %'^ i 1/ . 
 
 #^''4 
 ' ' '^^ ^ 
 
 It 
 
 V 
 
 The radiant atmosphere of our Sun pervades the whole family of 
 stars, moons, asteroids, comets, meteoric belts, and, like a fountain, 
 feeds all the streams of oosmical matter helonglng to our solar system. 
 Science speculatively teaches that the hbif oi'- the sun was once: as 
 large as the orbit of the outermost planet. » 
 
28 A BTELLAE KEY. 
 
 are nothing but the bodies of cosmical space, do not 
 strictly obey the established order and dignity of their 
 elders and progenitors. These youngsters in the family 
 of stars wander np and down, here and there, in and 
 out, now up-stairs and now below in the basement of the 
 temple — apparently acknowledging no allegiance to any 
 of the unchangeable ways of the steady-going citizens 
 of the skies — ^but run wild in all quarters of the heavens ; 
 moving in parabolas, in eccentrically extended ellipses ; 
 sometimes darting along in the direction of the sun and 
 planets ; and at other times twisting in their orbits with 
 a retrograde motion, but generally at right angles with 
 the plane of the earth's orbit, ajid never out of harmony 
 with the whole. It is, undbubtedly, a sufficient apology 
 for the conduct of these baby-bodies of space, these 
 free-going offspring of suns and planets, to remember 
 that they are yet young. They conduct themsSfVes 
 naturally, beautifully, and consistently, when their 
 juvenility is duly considered. 
 
 Some venerable and illustrious stars, like comets and 
 the smaller bodies, are irregular in their motions ; yet 
 all in perfect harmony with the stellar " niusic of the 
 spheres." These irregular motions are often backward, 
 forming a sort of epicycldidal curve, or in the line of the 
 star's orbit. But no one star or comet turns or twists 
 
 so frequently as the cut represents, which only illus- 
 trates the loops that occur ; but these looping^ and 
 slight retrograde motions are merely Jre^^Am^ spells in 
 the lungs of the great system. 
 
THE ZONE IS POSSIBLE. 29 
 
 But it is in the heart and sphere of the sun, in the 
 life of the fixed stars, and in the interior constitution 
 jof the whole stupendous stellar universe, that we are to 
 look for the inner causes and perfect principles of all 
 planetary organizationSi' '• 
 
 . ' What are those causes and principles ? What is that 
 fundamental law which is manifested so plainly in the 
 shape and revolution of these heavenly bodies ? Sup- 
 pose that the sun, which contains more than seven hun- 
 dred times as much matter as all the . planets put 
 together, should be rolled out into a broad band, like 
 a wide ribbon drawn from the spool, what do you 
 imagine would be the natural tendency of the matter ? 
 The first tendency would be to obey its centripetal 
 motion, its own self-chemical attractions, and return 
 instantly to its original globular form and condition; 
 whilst the second tendency would be, to flow out like 
 an interminable river through infinitude, in obef^ence 
 to?:its centrifugal motion, and in accordance with the 
 icircnlar revolutiott it has made, together with all t^o 
 planets, for an eternity of ages. 
 
 The sun's matter, thus drawn out into an unbroken 
 elastic luminous fluid, of the consistence of molten lead 
 or iron, would form a zone of re^lendent and vivifying 
 beauty surrounding the whole heavens, totally invisible 
 to the unaided eye, and almost too attenuated fordqljec- 
 tion by the most -powerful telescope,, and yet in that 
 rotating solar belt there would be, one million and four 
 hundred thousand times more matter than is, contained 
 in the earthls constitution V,,, ; 
 
 If this river of inter-cohesive sun-watter should; in 
 time be reduced in temperature, by passing through the 
 
30 V A STELLAE KET. 
 
 resisting interstellar atmosphere, one of two events -would 
 transpire ; either the surface of the belt would become 
 solid like the earth's surface, or the power of cohesion 
 would be lost, and the zone broken into countless sepa- 
 rate masses of nebulous matter, forming a boundless 
 iield of luminous meteors, or cometoids, and filling the 
 whole solar system with material for periodical storms 
 of chaotic cosmical vapors — ^falling within the earth's 
 atmosphere and the intervals between the planets Hke 
 a rain of fire-mist and of burning stars. Scientifically 
 speaking, the former event is not supposable, because 
 the solar matter is too gross, and drops too low in the 
 scale of gravitation, to maintain a continuous stratified 
 surface ; and hence, following the volcanic law, the dis- 
 ruption and formaition of sporadic masses, meteorites, 
 and cometary bodies in space, would be the legitimate 
 and scientific event. 
 
 But now — as to the possibiliiy ! It is not going be- 
 yond the sphere of facts, obtained by telescopic obser- 
 vation, to suppose the organization of a zone in the 
 heavens. We have seen the working of the principle 
 of globe-building, and that all planetary bodies, either 
 spherradal or perfectly round, move through the 
 heavens in circular paths. There can be no violation 
 of this law in higher conditions and finer organizations 
 of matter. Hence, is it not possiMe in the nature of 
 ■ things that a Zone of stratified substance, luminous and 
 inter-cohesive and circular, may exist ? If you can see 
 the Zone, as a possibility in the organization of the 
 universe, then you are prepared to take another step in 
 this investigation. 
 
VIEWED AS A FEOBABILITT. 31 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE SPIKrrulL ZONE VIEWED AS A PEOBABILrrT. 
 
 Ant thing that is ^prdbahle comes nearer to human 
 credence. A possibility is exceedingly remote and 
 obscure ; whilst a probability is at hand — something 
 within the mind's reach. The question of the proba- 
 bility of a Summer Land Zone in the heavens can be 
 considered with more logical success, I think, after we 
 have enlarged our thoughts and enriched our concep- 
 tions, by contemplating the wondrous symmetry and 
 arraying magnitude of our solar system. 
 
 Prof. Nichol, of the University of Glasgow, borrowed 
 from Sir John Herschel, a thought-enlarging illustra- 
 tion to this eflfect : Conceive the sun represented by a 
 globe two feet in diameter ; at eighty-two feet distance 
 put down a grain of mustard-seed, and you have the 
 size and place of the planet Meeouet, that bright 
 silvery point which is generally enveloped in the solar 
 rays ; at the distance of one hundred and forty-two feet 
 lay down a, pea, and it will be the similitude of Yenus, 
 our dazzling evening and morning star. Two hundred 
 and fifteen feet, from the central globe, place another 
 pea, only imperceptibly larger — that is Man's woeld — 
 (once the center of the Universe !) — ^the theater of our 
 terrestrial destinies — the birthplace of most of our 
 thoughts ! Maes is smaller still — a good pirt^s head 
 being his proper representative, at the distance of three 
 
THE ISLAND UNIVERSE. 
 
 
 ?^ \':^ 
 
 . 'S^ 
 
 .■*< ■* 
 
 '% 
 
 OUTLINE VIEW OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 The expression "Island Universe" was suggested Ijy 
 the immense distance of the fixed stars from our Sun and 
 Planets; giving the impression that our Solar System 
 occupies an isolated position in the boundless ocean of 
 space. See a diagram on another page. 
 
VIEWED AS A PEOBABILnT. 33 
 
 hundred and twenty-seven feet : the small planets seem 
 as the leaist possible grains of sand, about five hundred 
 feet from the sun ; Jupitee as a middle-sized orange, 
 distant about a quarter of a mile ; Satuen with his ring 
 a lesser. or a/nge, at the remoteness of two-fifths of amile ; 
 and the far TJEA:*fU8 dwindles into a cherry, moving in 
 a circle three-quarters of a mile in radius. Such is the 
 
 . system of which our puny earth was once accounted the 
 chief constituent, — a system whose real or absolute 
 dimensions are stupendous, as may be gathered from the 
 size of the Sun himself — the glorious globe around 
 which these orbs obediently circle ,' which has a diameter 
 nearly four times larger than the immense interval 
 which separates the MooSf from the Eajejth. Compare 
 this mighty" diaineterj or the space of nine hundred 
 thousand miles, with the assumed diameter of two feet ; 
 and the proportion will tell by how many times the 
 supposititious orbit of Uranus should be enlarged ! The 
 dimensions of the system surpass all effort to conceive 
 or embody them ; and yet a wider knowledge of the 
 Universe shows that they belohg only to our first' or 
 smallest order of mFnsririES. 
 
 Prof. Kirkwood, of the "Washington and Jefferson 
 College, speaking of our solar system, says : " Nbpttine • 
 is the most remote known member of the system ; its 
 distance being nearly three thousand millions of miles. 
 
 ilt is somewhat larger than Uranus ; has certainly one 
 satellite, and probably several more. Its period is 
 about one hundred and sixty-five years. A cannon- 
 ball flying at the rate of five hundred miles per hour 
 would not reach the orbit of' ISTeptune from the sun in 
 less than six hundred and eighty years. It is proper to 
 
 2* 
 
34 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 remart, however, that all representations of the solar 
 system by maps and planetariums must give an exceed-' 
 ingly erroneous view either of the magnitudes or dis- 
 tances of its various members. If the earth, for instance, 
 be denoted by a ball half an inch in diameter, the 
 diameter of the sun, according to the same scale (six- 
 teen thousand miles to the inch), will be between four 
 and .five feet; that of the earth's orbit, about one thou- 
 sand feet ; while that of I^eptune's orbit will be nearly 
 six miles. To give an accurate representation of the 
 solar system at a single view is therefore plainly imprac- 
 ticable." 
 
 The vast family of planets rotate harmoniously on 
 their own axes, each in the performance of its own indi- 
 vidual functions and duties, and they also all revolve 
 as harmoniously around the sun, thus causing the 
 regular succession of days and nights on each planet, 
 and the regular coming and going of the four beautiful 
 and indispensable seasons. But how " vai-ious are the 
 absolute durations of these important periods in the 
 different bodies !" The most brilliant imagination can 
 scarcely embrace the wonderful differences here sug- 
 gested. " How, for instance," asks an astronomer, 
 "can that contrast be pictured, which subsists between 
 the two extreme bodies of our system, TJeanus and 
 Mekcdet — the one hurrying through its restless cycle 
 of seasons in three months, and the other spending on 
 the same relative change eighty-four terrestrial years 1 
 A tree in Mercury — if such there be — would gather 
 around its pith or axis three hundred and thirty-six of 
 those well-known circular layers, in a time during 
 whiph the sluggish vegetation of Uranus would only 
 
VIEWED AS A PEOBABILITT. 35 
 
 have deposited one; and a full and burning lifetime, 
 made up of rapid sparkling joys and acute sorrows, 
 would, in so close neighborhood of the Sun, be com- 
 pressed within a space hardly adequate on earth to lead 
 youth to its meridian — ^while at that outer confine a 
 slow pulse and drowsy blood might sustain for centuries 
 a slumbering and emotionless existence ! The question 
 is further complicated if we refer to the rapid suqpes- 
 sion of day and night in the remote planets ; perhaps 
 modifying, by the activity it excites, the comparative 
 torpidity due to the length of the year. We can form 
 no notion "of the physiological consequences due to a 
 recurrence of day and night within the brief period of 
 nine or ten hours." 
 
 In another place the same author says : " "We knbw 
 that long progress is essential to our planet's destiny ; 
 and surely it is not alone amid the planetary scheme: — 
 not alone does it undergo the apparently necessary fate 
 of all beings subject to the empire of time and space. 
 Granting that every planet has a life of its own — an 
 interior and self-comprehended principle, by which it is 
 led through mighty developments, the question recurs, 
 whether there is unity or connection among these prin- 
 ciples — whether the orbs proceed and pass into new 
 forms, according* to similar or related laws — whether, 
 in short, the system has one central governing prin- 
 ciple, a common life running through the whole, 
 explaining its contrarieties, warming and animating 
 them all, as man's life circulates with his blood ? To 
 a question so bold, we cannot here give an answer. 
 Other objects must first be surveyed, especially the seat 
 of the power, which, if it exists, is necessarily the Suw. 
 
36 A STELLAB KEY. 
 
 " But is Life in all these planets ? ThrougL: all possi- 
 ble schemes, through all conditions of a globe's evolving 
 organization, is what vs^e call Life an inseparable or 
 essential concomitant ? Life, visible or invisible— ». e., 
 the sentient and intelUgent principle— nay, even,- pro- 
 gressive life, a growing and evolving Eeason — ^is doubt- 
 less an essential element of the universe ; perhaps the 
 very highest development of any imaginable energy ; 
 such Life may be diffused without limit, may assume 
 forms and be connected with bodies or centers, of which 
 man has obtained hitherto only the most confined idea ; 
 but to the fulfilling and realizing of this aim, is it 
 necessary that small, sentient, self-contained organisms 
 — ^worshiping, with few dissents, their peculiar idols 
 of the tribe, den, forum and theater — shall move over 
 the surface of each planet ? Beautiful the carpeting 
 which covers vast portions of the earth, a carpeting on 
 which sorrow often ti^ads, but chiefly joy — ^now bound- 
 ing in youth, now placid in manhood, and meditative ia 
 age — but that is not universal I I reflect on history — 
 on the fact that such life seems among the incidents, 
 the befalling things of our globe's mysterious destiny ; 
 and my mind recurs to solitudes — to its still existing 
 deserts, which even the patient camel does not enter 
 without a shudder ; to valleys with giant sides, where 
 the unsightly Oretin, and the frequent glare of idiocy, 
 speak of formations inhospitable to man.. Sovereign 
 Blanc ! Neither is thy bare forehead, which not even 
 a lichen has ever stained, an outcast from the great 
 scheme of things — nncomprehended, unwarmed by the 
 world's indwelling Soul!?' , i 
 
ETTDENOEB OF ZONE-FOEMATIONS. 37 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 ' EVIDENCES OF ZOKE-FORMAHONS IN THE HEAVENS. 
 
 In this department of the subject we are impression- 
 ally admonished to take the testimony of astronomers, 
 and of known scientists in other regions of inquiry ; so 
 that the physical or sensuous side of our " spiritual " 
 (Question may be amply represented, and all the external 
 evidences adduced, for the gratification and benefit of 
 inductive reason ers in general. In future chapters the 
 deductive or more spiritual evidences and philosophical 
 arguments will appear ; so that, from an innumerable 
 multitude of facts suggested and principles explained, 
 the certainiy of the celestial Zone may be established ; 
 or, at least, be deemed by the truly scientific a question 
 worthy of the strictest and most patient investigation. 
 The illustrious Shelley, in one of his comprehensive 
 celestial visions, saw beyond the sweep of Lord Kosse's 
 iuimense telescope : 
 
 " Earth's distant prb appears ^ 
 
 The smallest orb that twinkles in the heavens ; 
 
 Whilst round the chariot's way 
 
 Innumerable systems foiled, 
 
 And countless spheres diffused 
 , An ever- varying glory." 
 
 The probability of the Summer Land Zoue, as a 
 material reality in the Structure and sublime Economy 
 
38 A BTELLAK KEY. 
 
 of the heavens, will dawn first upon that mind which 
 rationally understands the causative principles within 
 the belt-building manifestations of cosmical matter. 
 On this ring-forming tendency of all atoms in space, 
 let us take the testimony of astronomers. 
 
 And first let us hear from an astronomical inves- 
 tigator, whose mathematical paper on the Nebular 
 Hypotheses, appeared in t£e " American Journal of 
 Science and Arts " (Yol. XXXYIII. Nov., 1864), and 
 which has been pronounced as adding something 
 " new " by several eminent astronomers. The entire 
 treatise should be consecutively read, in justice to the 
 argument and its author, but for the present purpose a 
 few extracts will suffice. 
 
 The Original Condition of Matter. — Geology, has 
 revealed the fact that it took immense ages of time to 
 form the earth, and fit it for the habitation of man. 
 The same science also points somewhat definitely to a 
 time when the earth was in a highly heated condi- 
 tion. Mathematical science, applied to the problem of 
 the earth's conformation, teaches us that the earth has 
 that form — the asperities of its surface not considered 
 — ^which it ought to have if it were in a fluid state 
 when it assumed its present form. These facts — to 
 which we might add the condition of Saturn's rings — 
 seem to teach that the earth, and in short the whole 
 /Solar System, were once in an aeriform state. An 
 additional argument in favor of this view, is derived 
 from the physical constitution of Comets. 
 
 T/ie Operations- of Heat. — Philosophers, in their 
 investigations, have arrived at this general conclusion 
 respecting the operation of heat, namely, that mechan- 
 
EVIDENCES OF ZONE-FOHMATIONS. 39 
 
 ical action develops it, and tlie greater the action the 
 greater the heat ; and that as soon as heat becomes 
 sensible, it tends to change?' the condition of bodies. 
 This, then, reduces the cause of the primitive gaseous 
 state of the stellar and planetary worlds to mechanical 
 action. A^ the mechanical action becomes less and lessj 
 the operations of heat become less and less potent. 
 
 Motions of different Bodies. — Around the different 
 centers, matter would accumulate and condense, and 
 these nuclei, so formed, would revolve around their 
 common center of gravity. As, soon as a rotary motion 
 had commenced, centrifugal forces would begin to act ; 
 and as the process of cooling continued, the attraction 
 of gravitation would have a greater control (for the 
 tendency of heat is to expand all bodies, and thus to 
 operate against the attraction of cohesion, and also of 
 gravitation in the case which we are considering), and 
 thus the mass would be condensed, and the rotatory 
 motion thereby increased. Each nucleus would itself 
 be in a condition very similar to that which at first 
 existed in the original great fluid mass. 
 
 Origin of the Spherical Zone. — A fluid mass which 
 does not rotate on an axis must ultimately become 
 spherical in form, whatever be the law of attraction. 
 But if it have a rotatory ni'otion, it can never become 
 a sphere, although it may approximate to one in form, 
 A fluid body which rotates on an axis will be swelled 
 out at the equator; that is, the particles of matter will 
 be thrown from the axis of rotation, and there will 
 consequently be a depression about the poles. 
 
 In the case of a homogeneous spheroid there are, 
 with a slow rotation, two forms of equilibrium, one of 
 
40 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 which is an oblate spheroid of sttmU ellipticity, and the 
 other is an oblate spheroid of great ellipticity. 
 
 Plane of the Zone^Formations. — The primitive solar 
 spheroid could have only approximated to a symmetrical , 
 form, and to a symmetrical disposition of its materials, 
 especially in tlie outer parts. If it were so constituted, 
 it is difficult to see how it could separate into rings of 
 much width ; but the materials being somewhat hetero- 
 geneously distributed, a ring of considerable width 
 might be thrown off, or rather abandoned. 
 
 The invariable plane of the solar system must be the 
 invariable plane of the primitive solar spheroid, and 
 that must have coincided approximately with the plane 
 of the equator. The first planetary ring abandoned 
 would have an inclination to the plane of the equator 
 nearly the same as that of the principal plane; and 
 thus the outermost- planet of the solar system should 
 move in an orbit whose inclination is nearly the same 
 as that of the principal plane of the solar system. By 
 making as exact a determination as possible, M. Les- 
 piault has found the inclination of the invariable plane 
 to be 1° 41'. The inclination of the orbit of Neptune is 
 1° 46" 69", the correspondence of these two numbers is 
 rather remarkable. 
 
 The Mcistenoe and Location of Zones. — Prof. Peirce, 
 of Harvard University, in his investigation of the pro- 
 blem of the stability of the motions of Saturn's rings, 
 arrived at the remarkable conclusion that the dynami- 
 cal equilibrium of the rings is preserved by the sustain- 
 ing effect of satellites in the very act of perturbation. 
 He then makes the remark, that the only place in the 
 Solar . System, among the primary planets, where we 
 
ETEDENCEB OF ZONE-FOEMATIOlfS. 41 
 
 could, from the above conclusions^ expect a permanent 
 ring, is just within the powerful masses of Jupiter and 
 Saturn. 
 
 A Zone Existing for Innumerbble Ages. — ^Basing 
 our reasoning on the preceding results, we are led to 
 the conclusion that under certain conditions — such as 
 probably exist within the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn ■ 
 in the Solar System — the abandoned fluid ring may 
 preserve its form for immense ages, and thus have time 
 to cool down somewhat and approximate to the condi- 
 tion of an incompressible fluid. . . . Under certain 
 conditions — such as Prof. Peirce has found to exist in 
 the System of Saturn — a ring, or rings, might remain 
 entire. 
 
 Revolutions of the Cosmical Ether. — If there exists 
 a cosmieal ether (as is at present generally admitted), in 
 order that it may remiain spread throughout universal 
 space, it is only necfessary for it to possess an elasticity 
 so great that the action oOuminous bodies is sufficient to 
 produce a mechanical actibn in it that will enable it to 
 maintain its temperature and fluid condition under all 
 circumstances. This cosmical ether being material in 
 its nature, it would necessarily partake of the motion 
 of those bodies with which it remains in contact for 
 immense ages of time. In the Solar System, the 
 motion of the ether around the sun would be in the 
 general direction of all the planets. 
 
 Harm,ony and Gorrespondence throughout the Uni- 
 verse. — ^Mr. Nasmyth, in the " Annual of Scientific 
 Discovery," for 185Y, says: Every well-trained philo- 
 sophical judgment is accustomed to observe illustrations 
 of the most sublime phenomena of creation in the most 
 
42 A STELLAU KEY. 
 
 minute and familiar operations of the Creator's laws, 
 one of the most characteristic features of which consists 
 in the absolute and wonderful integrity maintained in 
 their action, whatsoever be the range as to magnitude or 
 distance of the objects on which they operate. For 
 instance, the minute particles of dew which whiten the 
 grass-blade in eafly morn, are, in all probability, 
 molded into spheres by the identical law which gives 
 to the mighty, sun its globular form. It is remarkable 
 of physical laws, that we see them operating on every 
 kind of scale as to magnitude, with the same regularity 
 and perseverance. . . Two eddies in a stream fall 
 into a mutual revolution at the distance of a couple of 
 inches, through the same cause that makes a pair of 
 suns link in mutual revolution at the distance of mil. 
 lions of miles. There is, we might say, a sublime sim- 
 plicity in this indifference of the grand regulations to 
 the vastness or thfe minuteness of the field of their 
 operations. "We thus may learn, from the minuter 
 operations of nature, of those grand revolutions which 
 we have reason to conclude have taken place in past 
 ages of duration. 
 
 Saturn's Belts an Illustration. — ^The rings of Saturn 
 offer a living example of the primitive secondary rings. 
 They open to us, in a measure, the nature and consti- 
 tution of the primitive rings, both the primary and 
 secondary.* 
 
 Prof. Kirkwood, in his Treatise on Meteoric Astron- 
 omy, says that the most probable opinion, based on the 
 
 * These extracts from Prof. Trowbridge indicate the information and 
 speculations extant among scientiflc men on the formation and existence 
 of zones, or rings of cosmical matter. 
 
EVIDEKOES OF ZONE-FOEMATIONS. 43 
 
 researches of astronomers, is, that Saturn's rings " con- 
 sist of streams or clouds of meteoric asteroids. The 
 zodiacal light, and the zone of small planets between 
 Mars and Jupiter, appear to constitute analogous 
 primary rings. In the latter, however, a large propor- 
 tion of the primitive matter seems to have collected in 
 distinct, segregated masses." ' 
 
 The same author, speaking of the asteroidal ring 
 between Mars and Jupiter (which no man's un'aided 
 physical eyes can see), says : " The mean distances of' 
 the minor planets between Mars and Jupiter vary from 
 2.20 to 3.49. The breadth of the zone is therefore 
 20,000,000 miles greater than the distance of the earth 
 from the sun ^ greater even than the entire interval 
 between the orbits of Mercury and Mars. Moreover, 
 the perihelion distance of some members of the group 
 exceeds the apheUon distance of others by a quantity 
 equal to the whole interval between the orbits of Mars 
 and the earth." 
 
 Although the reader may never have investigated 
 either of the points developed by the astronomers ; yet 
 now, since they testify to the existence of immense 
 zones of matter, and that these zones not only continue 
 unbroken for countless ages, but revolve like the planets, 
 each on its own gravitational center or mathematical 
 axis, are you not prepared to admit both the possibility 
 and the prdbdbiUiy of a more interior reality ? This 
 scientific external testimony naturally lays a foundation 
 in the logical judgment for confidence in the existence 
 of an inner universe of far exceeding beauty and glory. 
 Although at present neither intellectually nor teles- 
 copically seen, but being not less within the domain of 
 
44 A BTELLAE KEY, 
 
 the rational faculties, yet the honest mind, it seems to 
 me, cannot but give due weight to facts and principles 
 of a more interior nature, of which these planetary 
 formations and revolutions are merely the physical 
 manifestations. 
 
THE SOIENTiriO CEETAINTT. 45 
 
 CHAPTEE Vin. 
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC CEETAINTT OF THE SPIEITUAL ZONE. 
 
 It has been asserted that Spiritualists, as a class, do 
 not read carefully and investigate thoroughly ; that 
 they are superficial, shallow-minded, and credulous, 
 believing great things upon little evidence, &c. ; but it 
 yet remains to be determined who are the real embodi- 
 ments of superficiality, shallowness, and feeble-minded 
 credulity. 
 
 In considering the certainty of the Summer Land, as 
 a stratified and inhabitable Zone in the bosom of the 
 SteHar Universe, it becomes necessary to change the 
 stand-point of the positive philosopher. He has stood 
 without the temple, contemplating the phenomenal 
 display of dynamic forces and spiritual agencies, which 
 become visible to the eyes of reason when the philoso- 
 pher explores the inner departments of the Divine 
 Administration. In these illustrious days of enlarged 
 and independeiit research, when even the great New- 
 tonian doctrine of gravitation or central attraction has 
 been weU-nigh eclipsed by the discovery of opposite 
 powers, or magnetic and electrical polarities within and 
 throughout all matter, — it becomes the true philosopher 
 to turn from the superficial and phenomenal realm of dis- 
 play, to turn from visible facts to the examination of the 
 causes and principles behind them, and then to ponder 
 well the far-reaching and fruitful lessons they legiti- 
 
4:6 A STELLAE KBT. 
 
 mately impart. Truly has it been remarked that, 
 isolated, every thing i8 a mystery. All that we know 
 depends on the connection of things one with another ; 
 and it is only by contemplating creation as a whole that 
 we can attain true conceptions of its parts. This is 
 indeed the highest exercise of the intellect, and that 
 which more than aught else tends to develop and 
 expand it. Even the dreamy eyes of Tennyson recog- 
 nized the truth, that 
 
 "Through the ages one inoreaamg purpose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the sun." 
 
 The mental condition of brightness, of calmness, of 
 impartiality, which is alone adapted to the pursuit and 
 discovery of truth, was forcibly put by Prof. Wilkin- 
 son, of London, Eng., in the introduction to onfe of his 
 admirable books : — 
 
 " Incredulity of a fact, I take it, is that widespread 
 weakness of the human mind, which is observed in 
 men who have perfected their opinions, and have no 
 room for learning any thing more. A new fact to them 
 is just one above the number that is convenient or 
 necessary for them, and had they the power of creating, 
 or of preventing creation, the inconvenient fact should 
 not have existed. Indeed, if admitted into their com- 
 pleted system, 'the little stranger' would destroy it 
 altogether, by acting as a chemical solvent of the 
 fabric I 
 
 " But tliis is not the mode of the seareher after truth ; 
 and in determining the important question which it is 
 intended to submit for. consideration, I would rather 
 forget much that I have been taught, or find it all 
 
THE 8CIBNTIFI0 CEETAINTT. 47 
 
 unsound, than I would reject one single circumBtance 
 which I know and recognize as a truth. In all the ques- 
 tions that can by possibility be mooted, whether philo- 
 sophical or otherwise, that theory is alone admissible 
 •which will explain all the attendant phenomena and 
 observed facts, and which is, moreover, consistent with 
 the nature of man, and the world of matter and of 
 mind with which he is connected. 
 
 "How true it is, that 'there are more things in 
 heaven and earth than are dreamt of in o\i.v philosophy^ 
 and yet how seldom is this great truth remembered at 
 the right , time ! Although natural facts, being based, 
 as they are, upon, and the products of Divine laws, 
 never change, how long it is before they are recognized 
 and adapted into our little self-formed systems ; and 
 with what throes and agonies have their acknowledg- 
 ments invariably been attended I How much easier to 
 say, ' Impossible !' and to reject the fact, than to have 
 to reconstruct a new theory which shall embrace it, and 
 in which it can find its home ! Disbelieve, therefore, 
 after inquiry, if you see cause, but do not begin with 
 disbelief." 
 
 What we now ask is, that you be as truly philo- 
 sophical as you have been sensuously scientific, and 
 thus honestly examine interior causes, and weigh 
 dynamic principles, just as you have observed effects,* 
 and reasoned from one set of appearances to another set 
 of appearances. The profoundly philosophic Sweden- 
 borg, whose inductive reasonings shine teffulgently 
 even through the mazes of his multitudinous spiritual 
 experiences, in his Arocma Celedia, 5084, says : " It 
 is a fallacy of sense merely natural, that there are 
 
48 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 simple substances, wMcli are monads and atoms, for 
 whatever is witHn the external sensnal, this the natural 
 man believes, that it is such a thing or nothing. It is a 
 fallacy of sense merely natural, that aU things are of 
 nature and from nature, and that indeed in purer or- 
 interior nature there is something which is not appre- 
 hended ; but if it be said, that within or above nature 
 there is the spiritual and celestial, this is rejected, and it 
 is believed that unless it be natural, it is nothing. It is 
 a fallacy of sense, that the body alone lives, and that its 
 life perishes when it dies ; the sensual does not at all 
 apprehend that the internal man is in single things of 
 the external, and that the internal man is within nature 
 in the spiritual world : hence neither does he believe, 
 because he does not apprehend, that he shall live after 
 death, unless he be again clothed with a body. Hence 
 there is a fallacy of senffe, that man can no more live 
 after death than the beasts, by reason that these also 
 have a life in many respects similar to the life of man, 
 only that man is a more perfect animal. The sensual 
 does not apprehend, that is, the man who thinks and 
 concludes from the sensual, that man is above the 
 beasts and has a superior life in this, because he can 
 think, not only concerning the causes of things, but 
 also concerning the Divine, and by faith and love be 
 conjoined with the Divine, and also receive influx 
 thence, and appropriate it to himself, so that in man, 
 because there is given a reciprocal, there is given recep- 
 tion, which is nowise the case with the beasts. It is a 
 fallacy thence, that the living principle itself with man, 
 which is called the soul, is only something ethereal, or 
 flamy, which is dissipated when man dies ; and that it 
 
THE SOIBNTIFIO OBETAINTT. 49 
 
 resides either in the heart, or in the brain, or in some 
 part thereof, and that hence it rules the body as a 
 machine ; that the internal man is in single things of 
 the external, that the eye does not see from itself but 
 from that internal man, nor the ear hear from itself but 
 from that, the sensual man does not apprehend." 
 
 3 
 
60 A BTELLAB KEX 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A VIEW OF THE WOEKLNG FOECES OF THE UOTVEESE. 
 
 AsTEONOMT began with solid Crystalline Spheres; 
 thpn the theory of Epicycles was adopted ; after which 
 Descartes introduced the Yortices ; then the discovery 
 of Gravitation arrived through Newton ; and now, with- 
 in all and above all, the world is enriched with Polari- 
 zation, by which, chemical, electrical, magnetic, and 
 even mechanical forces, are wedded by beautiful re- 
 ciprocations and most intimate relationships ; and thus 
 the whole subject of the working forces of the universe ' 
 becomes more than ever attractive and fruitful. 
 
 There are two most important discoveries in science : 
 First, the universal persistency and indestructibility' of 
 Force; and second, the interpolarity and universal 
 convertibility of Force. The first, in modem scientific 
 phraseology, is termed " the conservation of force," and 
 the last " the correlation of force " — ^teaching the divine 
 lesson that all forces, as well as all forms in the Universe, 
 are immortal sisters and brothers. 
 
 From these splendid discoveries, the illustrations of 
 which need not be given here, we obtain the stellar key 
 to the Summer Land. Force is as substantial, as real, 
 as material, as matter itself; nay, more, the materialism 
 of matter melts away and utterly disappears in the 
 spiritualism of intelligent principles ! Dr. Joule, of 
 England, has demonstrated the mechanical equivalence 
 
FORCES OF THB TTNITEESE. 51 
 
 o^heat, which, hitherto in science, has been considered 
 material, but is now seen to be only another form of 
 force. Nature's Divine Eevelations,. published long 
 before these discoveries, teach the materiality of 
 "Fire," "Heat," "Light," "Electricity," "Magnet- 
 ism," "Motion," "Life," "Sensation," "Intelligence," 
 and, highest of all, " Spirit." And for teaching s^ich 
 " materialism," the whole religious and literary world 
 was provoted to opposition and ridicule. But, accord- 
 ing to progressive law. Prof. Faraday demonstrates the 
 material immateriality, so to speak, of electricity, and 
 shows the intimate relationships and equivalence of 
 electrical and chemical forces ; and very soon after it 
 was found by Dr. Joule that " a pound weight falling 
 through 7Y2 feet, or T72 pounds falling through 1 foot, 
 and then arrested, produce sufficient heat to raise one 
 pound of water 1 degree of Fahrenheit." Thus a 
 mechanical force is demonstrated as coming from what 
 has been regarded as pure immateriality. And chemi- 
 cal and magnetic experiments, equally unquestionable, 
 have established the spirituo-materiality of those ele- 
 ments which have been solong termed " imponderables." 
 The next step must be into the realm whence forces 
 emanate ; into the very sacred presence of Intelligence, 
 Will, Thoughts, Ideas, Spmrr! And these, too, will 
 have their equivalence and conversion into electrical 
 force, into chemical force, into magnetic force, and into 
 mechanical or lowest force; for spiErr is substance; 
 and every thing is rooted and grounded in Spirit ; and 
 so those extreme idealists, who have sentimentally and 
 dogmatically abolished from the Summer Land all 
 materiality, will be convinced that " something " coulJ 
 
52 
 
 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 not have proceeded from " nothing ;" wMch discovery, 
 doubtless, will greatly relieve them from many painful 
 thoughts of possible annihilation. 
 
 Viewing the outlying and interior universes, with 
 these new discoveries for spectacles, do you not appre- 
 hend a new scale of conservative and correlative forces ? 
 How does the following scale look? Begin at the 
 bottom, with No. 1, and rise progressively, as a tree 
 grows from its roots upward ; and then, having reached 
 the topmost point of observation, let us pause and 
 meditate : 
 
 9. DEITY. 
 8. IDEAS. 
 7. PRINCIPLES. 
 6. LAWS. 
 5. ESSENCES. 
 4. ETHERS. 
 3. VAPORS. 
 2. FLUIDS. 
 
 1. SOLIDS. 
 
 eible state of motion and energy, 
 pole, and No. 1 the negative pole, 
 
 The lowest point 
 of departure. No. 1, 
 which is the plane 
 of the "Solids," is 
 the point where the 
 highest substances 
 and slowest motions 
 are most demon- 
 strated ; whilst the 
 highest point attain- 
 able. No. 7, is where 
 the lowest substance 
 is most exalted, and 
 in the highest pos- 
 No. 7 is the positive 
 of a perfect universe. 
 
FORCES OF THE TTNTVEESE. 
 
 53 
 
 * * 
 
 g' The philosophy of science, as 
 gjHaodemly stated, is, practically, 
 lzi that "matter, viewed separately 
 L from force, is nothing." In other 
 words, heat, light, electricity, mag- 
 netism, chemical effects, &c., are 
 only different modes of motion or 
 action of the same force. Different 
 motions are said to be nothing 
 but different expressions of force ; 
 transferred, in degrees of greater 
 «r less intensity, from one point to 
 another point in space. It is by 
 one popular scientific authority 
 urged that "electricity, mag- 
 netism, and chemical aflSnity are 
 correlates, and change readily into 
 each other without loss of quantity 
 of the original Force. These 
 forces," he says, " or rather this 
 force, fiince all are convertible, is 
 the source of the delusion we are 
 under with respect to matter, 
 when we say we see and feel it. 
 For what do we see ? Light, which 
 is force, photographs a minute in- 
 verted image on the bottom of the 
 eye^-on the retina, which acting 
 ^ on the brain produces conscious- 
 1 ness of an object. All that is 
 jI known to us is the mental coneep- 
 I tion — the reality of which our 
 s conceplaon is composed, is Force. 
 
51 A STELLAS KEY. 
 
 It is evident there is no matter here. But surely we 
 feel matter if we do not see it ! The sense of Feeling 
 is mere repulsion — resistance to motion. When we 
 speak of matter as subtle, or as solid, liquid, or aeriform, 
 we simply mean that it presents more or less resistance 
 to motion. ' "When the question arises,' says J. S. Mill, 
 ' whether something which affects our senses in a pecu- 
 liar way, as for instance whether Heat or Light, or 
 Electricity, is or is not matter, what seems always to 
 be meant is, does it offer any, however trifling, resist- 
 ance to motion? If it were shown that it did, this 
 would at once terminate aU doubj.' 
 
 " But when we speak of either matter or force we. 
 speak only of the external cause of our sensations and 
 idea_s, and these tell us nothing of the real nature or 
 essence of either ; why not then continue to use the 
 term matter, as heretofore ? "We answer, because the 
 more . general term force may include, and does really 
 include, both what has hitherto been called Matter and 
 Spirit also. We are told that ' Force viewed separately 
 from matter is nothing.' I ihink it more correct to say 
 that matter viewed separately from force is nothing, 
 because we know that force passes into or changes into 
 mindj as heat.into light, and we thus include both sides 
 of creation — ^Matter and Spirit. Force, in its different 
 modes of action as Light, Heat, Electricity, Galvanism, 
 Chemical Affinity, Attraction and Eepulsion, is suffi- 
 cient to produce half the phenomena around us. Life 
 and Mind, which are correlates of Force, or other modes 
 of its action, are sufficient to produce the other half. 
 There is but One simple, primordial, absolute Force, 
 with varying relations and conditions. The modes of 
 
F0E0E8 OF THE UNIVKESE. 55 
 
 Force or Effects now in existence are neither more nor 
 less -than such as have previously existed, changed only 
 in form. They have not merely acted upon each other, 
 according to the common supposition with respect to 
 matter, btjt have changed into each othee. This will 
 be found to be a very important distinction. Each 
 change is a new creation of something which in that 
 form or mode has never existed before — a new life, and 
 as it passes into another form or mode, a new death — 
 ' nothing repeats itself, because nothing can be placed 
 again in the same condition : the past is irrevocable.' 
 And may we not add, irrecoverable." 
 
 But while these philosophers are on the broad road 
 that leadieth to aforciMe annihilation of " Solids," they 
 will discover, all of a sudden, in the straight and nar- 
 row way, that the universe is essentially dual / andt;hat 
 the manifestations of force are only different forms or 
 modes of a persistent and indestructible materiality, or 
 the varying changes of an eternal substance^ which is 
 negatively, Matter, and, positively. Mind — the two 
 forms or conditions of the one unitary central Keality. 
 The universal doubleness or duality of things is a 
 demonstration of what is immutably true of the Cen- 
 tral Whole. 
 
 The conservation and correlation of Forces, as the 
 results in philosophic science are now denominated, 
 require the admission that No. 7 and No. 1 in t^e scale, 
 together with all the numbers between, are nothing but 
 different- forms or modes of a principle called " Force." 
 Whereas, in accordance with our light on this subject, 
 No. 7 comprehends and includes No. 1, as well as a!l 
 the ascending numbei's; but it is not possible thai 
 
56 
 
 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 either should become the other, except ia degree, and 
 through the unceasing processes of spiral progression. 
 
 PKINCIPLES. 
 LAWS. 
 ESSENCES. 
 ETHERS. 
 VAPORS. 
 FLUIDS. 
 SOLIDS. 
 
 GOD. 
 
 ( Expressed In 
 I pure Spirit. 
 
 Ideas. (Manifested in 
 
 Peinoipi.es. 
 
 pure BeasoOf 
 
 (Declared in 
 I. ■< form of nni- 
 ( versal Power. 
 
 Laws. 
 
 ( De 
 
 i In 
 I Fc 
 
 Demonstrated 
 the form of 
 Force. 
 
 ESSENCES, {^jj^^^'ur.'" 
 
 iCome in the 
 shape of Elec- 
 tricity, 
 
 Yavoss i Appear in Ati 
 VAFoas. ^ mospheres. 
 
 iTha nnivcrsol 
 expression Is 
 Water. 
 
 QrkT Tna f Manifested in 
 
 bOUDS. -j the Earth. 
 
 Perhaps it would appear plainer if the scale were 
 expressed as follows :-r 
 
rOEOES OF THE UDSTVEKSE. 
 
 67 
 
 CAUSES. 
 
 fi; 
 
 SPIRIT— God: 
 
 REASON— Ideas: 
 
 POWER— Principles j 
 
 The most perfect 
 conception con- 
 tains both Moth- 
 er and Father. 
 
 Both Love and 
 -Wiadom, contains 
 all impersonal 
 principles of God. 
 
 The unchangeable 
 expressions of 
 God's universal 
 Ideas. 
 
 EFPECTS. 
 
 
 FOEOE— Laws ; 
 
 MAGNETISM— ESSENOES 
 
 = 1 
 
 ELECTRICITY— Ethbes : 
 
 The special meth- 
 ods of action of 
 Ideas and Princi- 
 ples. 
 
 The vitalic utter- 
 ances of Ideas, 
 Principles, ana 
 Laws. 
 
 The universal me- 
 dium for the 
 manifestation of 
 Ideas, Principles, 
 Laws, and Essen- 
 ces. 
 
 ULTIMATES. ■§ 
 
 ATMOSPHERE- Tapoes : 
 
 'WATER— Fluids; 
 
 EARTH— Solids; 
 
 The pnrifjing la- 
 boratory through 
 which flow the 
 effects of Ideas, 
 
 :, Principles, Laws, 
 Essences, and 
 Ethers. 
 
 The viaduct for 
 the transmission 
 of the slowing 
 motions of everj 
 substance and 
 force in the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 The lowest condi- 
 tion of Substanco 
 and the slowest 
 utterance of 
 Ideas, Principles, 
 
 , Laws, Essences, 
 Ethers, Vapors, 
 and Fluids. 
 
 It may not be deemed inappropriate to present still 
 another scale and statement. The subject may possibly 
 be brought yet closer to the common understanding. 
 
 3* 
 
88 
 
 A STELLAB KEY. 
 
 We will give the genesis of the world-building descen- 
 sion of the Divine Substance, thus: — 
 
 9. GOD. 
 
 8. Ideas. 
 
 3. Vapors. 
 
 2. Fluids. 
 
 1, Principlea. 
 
 4.. Ethers. 
 
 6. Laws. 
 
 5. Essences. 
 
 1. Solids. 
 
 The plane of Solvis is reached by the continuous 
 degrees of descending action of the primordial positive 
 Powers. Although these degrees appear dissimilar and 
 discreted, or separated by impassable barriers of wholly 
 dissimilar parts of the causative Energy; yet the 
 acknowledged sovereign law of convertibility or corre- 
 lation of forces and substances, must convince the 
 rational intelligence that." discrete degrees," in the 
 absolute senee, are impossible in a universe constructed 
 upon an infinite number of inseparable affinities. 
 
 In the amazing magnitude of pur subject, so opulent 
 of variety and so fruitful in thought, the mind is con- 
 stantly liable to lose the links of the argument. The 
 vagueness of the hints about resolving all matter into 
 
FOBOES OF THE UNIVEBSE. 69 
 
 force,-is, of itself, sufficient to perplex and fatigue the 
 non-scientij&c understanding. But calmness of brain 
 will keep the thinking faculties in receptive condition. 
 
 Of God, Spinoza says : " He is the Universal Being, 
 of which all things are the manifestations." Hegel also 
 defines God as the " Being," or, perhaps, in philosophic 
 language, as the "Central Causation." Huxley says 
 that " every form is force become visible ; a form of 
 rest is a balance of forces ; a form tindergoing change is 
 the predominance of one over others." In a more reve- 
 rential temper Prof. Tyndall says : " We know no more 
 of the origin of force than of the origin of matter ; 
 where matter is, force is, for we only know" matter 
 through its forces." In his very scholarly work on 
 Heat, he grandly put the whole question thus : — 
 
 " The discoveries and generalizations of modern 
 science constitute a poem more sublime than has ever 
 yet been addressed to the imagination. The natural 
 philosopher of to-day may dwell amid conceptions which 
 beggar those of Milton. So great and grand are they, 
 that in the contemplation of them a certain force of 
 character is requisite to preserve us from bewilderment. 
 Look at the integrated energies of our world — ^the stored 
 power of our coal-fields, or winds and rivers, our fleets, 
 armies, and guns. AVliat are they ? They are all gene- 
 rated by a portion of the sun's energy, which does not 
 amount to one thousand three hundred millionth part 
 of the whole. This is the entire fraction of the sun's 
 force intercepted by the Earth, and we convert but a 
 small fraction of this fraction into mechanical energy. 
 Multiplying all our powers by millions of millions, we 
 do not reach the. sun's expenditure. And still, notwith- 
 
A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 standing this enormous drain, in tlie lapse of human 
 history we are unable to detect a diminution of his store. 
 Measured by our largest terrestrial standards, such a 
 reservoir of power is infinite ; but it is our privilege to 
 rise above these standards, and to regard the sun him- 
 self as a speck in infinite extension, a mere drop in the 
 universal sea. We analyze the space in which he is 
 immersed, and which is the vehicle of his power. "We 
 pass to other systems and other suns, each pouring forth 
 energy like our own, but still without infringements of 
 the law, which reveals immutability in the midst of 
 change, which recognizes incessant transference, conver- 
 sion, but neither final, gain nor loss. This law general- 
 izes the aphorism of Solomon, that there is nothing new 
 under the sun, by teaching us to detect everywhere, 
 under its infinite variety of appearances, the same pri- 
 meval force. To nature nothing can be added ; from 
 nature nothing can be taken away ; the sum of her 
 energies is constant, and the utmost man can do in 
 the pursuit of physical truth, or in the application of 
 physical knowledge, is to shift the constituents of the 
 never-varying total. The law of conservation rigidly 
 excludes both creation and annihilation. Waves may 
 change to ripples, and rippled to waves — magnitude may 
 be subaftituted for number, and number for magnitude — 
 asteroids may aggregate to suns, suns may resolve them- 
 selves into florae and faunae and florae and faunae melt 
 into air — the flux of power is eternally the same, it rolls 
 in music through the ages, and all terrestrial energy — 
 the manifestations of life as well as the display of pheno- 
 mena — are but modulations." 
 The application and wteight of all this scientific testi- 
 
FOEOES OF THE tTNIVEESE. 61 
 
 mony will be seen and felt when we come to " sum up 
 the evidence." A few more points must be first made 
 clear to reason. According to our scale the materialist 
 might say : " Mind, in its slowest and lowest condition, 
 is matter ; and the reverse, matter, in its loftiest form 
 of motion and highest condition; is mind." But this is 
 not our meaning ; nor is it true, in any logical sense. 
 Our philosophy is, that the universe is a two-fold unity 
 — two eternal manifestations of two substances, which, 
 at heart, are One, but eternally twain in the realms of 
 Cause and Effect. In the absence of better words, 
 these two Substances we term Matter and Mind — inter- 
 changeable, convertible, essentially identical, eternally 
 harmonious, wedded by the polarities of positive and 
 negative forces. 
 
 Kecalling our scale of nine steps in the ascending and 
 descending processes of Mind and Matter, you will 
 perceive that "Essence" is the connecting "link" 
 between the Positive and the ^Negative hemispheres, 
 thus: — 
 
 PosiTivB. Passive. NBaiTivB. 
 
 1. 2. 8. 4. ' 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 
 
 God, Ideas, Pbihoiflxs, La.w3, Essehoes, Ethsbs, Vafobs, Fluids, Solids. 
 
 The region of " Essences " is the region of " magnet- 
 isms." This, then, is the true "link" in the chain, 
 which unites the positive side or "mind" to the "nega- 
 tive" side or "matter;" but, in a finer analysis, it 
 win be found more correct to term matter and mind 
 " Spirit," with two forms of manifestation ; thus reliev- 
 
62 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 ing "matter" of the epithet, of "grossness," and 
 reclaiming " mind" from its long exilement in the awfal 
 Bolitudes of unapproachable immateriality. 
 
 Let us recapitulate, and thus ascertain the informa- 
 tion obtained : 
 
 1. The rotxmdHy of all bodies in space ; 
 
 2. The circularity of the motions of all bodies ; 
 
 3. The existence of zones in the planetary organiza- 
 tion ; 
 
 4. The harmony of relationship between the exterior 
 and interior universes ; 
 
 5. The polarity of all forms and forces in nature ; 
 
 6. The descent of Spirit to Earth, and the ascent of 
 Earth to Spirit. 
 
 7. The eternity and the v/nity of both hemispheres of 
 the univercoelum. 
 
 Now, in order to ascertain the possibility, the proba- 
 bility, and the certainty of the Summer Land Zone, we 
 must logically follow Nature's pathway from the region 
 of causes to the region of effects. Her unalterable code is 
 plainly and universally indicated, namely, — forms 
 visible are effects vihich jlow from corresponding causes 
 invisible. A man's body, for example, is the effect of 
 an interior organizing, Advifying, sustainiag, spiritual 
 individuality. It elaborated his brain, his heart, his 
 organs, his senses, and indeed all parts of his physical 
 temple ; although each part may have been modified, 
 and generally is modified and twisted more or less by 
 parental instrumentalities and circumstantial influences 
 both before and after birth. 
 
 Now apply this principle to the organization of the 
 vast Stellar Universe. What gave to matter the uni- 
 
FOEOES 01" THE UNIVEESE. 63 
 
 versal tendency to form globes? — to roll out into im-i 
 mense zones ? — ^to stratify and continue for innumerable 
 ages as revolving belts?— to move in circular paths 
 through the solitudes of immensity ? There is but one 
 answer : The spiritual universe is composed of globes, 
 of zones, and of belts, which move harmoniously in 
 wavy circles of causation through the vaster, deeper, 
 higher, more interior heavens of unimaginable in- 
 finitude. Men look through telescopes, and discern^ 
 nothing but the outermost materialized garments of 
 hidden corresponding spiritualized spheres of light, 
 ■warmth, beauty, fertility, peace, progression, and happi- 
 ness. There is just as much certainty that the Summer 
 Land exists as that your mind exists ; for it exists and 
 your mind exists upon the one eternal law of cause and 
 effect. Tour body is a demonstration of an interior 
 antecedent corresponding formative individuality ; so 
 the solar system exists, a demonstration of an interior 
 antecedent corresponding formative spiritual universe. 
 
64 ' A BTELLAB KEY. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 THE PEINCIPLE8 OF THE FOEMATION OF THE SUMMEE 
 
 LAND, 
 
 The order of tlie universe is as perfect as its varietira 
 are innumerable. The principles engaged in forming 
 worlds are incessantly engaged in decomposing them. 
 In no other way can perpetual youth be bestowed upon 
 the finer bodies and spheres of space. Atoms suf- 
 ficiently refined to ascend above the mineral compound, 
 enter into the forms of vegetable life. Yegetation, in 
 its turn, delegates its finest atoms to enter and build up 
 the animal kingdom. The most refined animal atoms 
 enter into and support human bodies. And the most 
 refined particles of human bodies, which are not 
 required to construct and support the "garment of 
 immortality," ascend to form the solids, fluids, and ethers 
 of that effulgent Zone to which all human beings are 
 incessantly hastening. Thus the eternal youthfnlness, 
 the healthful and beautiful juvemlity, of the spiritual 
 universe are established and immutably maintained. 
 And now behold the philosophical, the geometrical, the 
 musical, the harmonial grandeur and gloriousness of 
 the beautiful "Whole : — 
 
FOBMATION OF THE BUMMEE LAND. 
 
 65 
 
 GOD. 
 
 MOTHER. FATHER. 
 
 SPIRIT (j^. 
 
 POS. ( »»^^ lOTB * WISDOM— WILL— WiaDOM A LOVB. 
 
 ■Min^vft ( Tlis Fountainl iffere atoms receive ( • 
 
 wA S tbe omnipotent centriftigal impulsion ■< •/, • . . • 
 
 ^^^- (to go forth. ( • 
 
 SPIRIT J 
 PoB. 1 
 
 The Higheat Sammer Land la the Spiritual Universe. 
 
 f In this belt all matter Is a boandlesB 
 MA.TTERJ rotating ocean of Fire, Heat, Li^ht, 
 Neg. , I Electricity, and Magnetism, containing 
 I, all Forces. 
 
 SPIRIT 
 Pos. 
 
 A Celestial Inliahlted Sphere *' Nearer, my God, to Theft" 
 
 f The nnimaginable ocean of chemical 
 MATTER j substance has cut new channels in 
 Neg. 1 space ; yet all revolving like cohesive 
 1 seas, or Fire and Force. 
 
 SPIRIT 
 Poa. 
 
 A More Interior Summer Land. 
 
 •MATTER 
 
 Neg. 
 
 In this belt of cosmical matter fhe 
 vast masses of solar atoms are suf- 
 flciently cool to separate, to obey the 
 law of cohesion, and to organize 
 
 .SUDS. 
 
 L •oooooooooooooo 
 
 * t.* *•* ^* t,* *,» 
 
 o o o o o*o*o b o o o 
 
 SPIRIT 
 Pos. 
 
 A Higlier Summer Land. 
 
 MATTER 
 
 Neg. 
 
 f This is a abroad zone of Inter-cor 
 heslve cometary and meteoric nucloi, 
 containing no stratified orbs. It is per- 
 fectly illastrated by the ]^resent con- 
 
 l, dition of Saturn's rings. 
 
 ^O oooooooooooooo 00 
 ■^O OOOOOOOOOOO Q.O o o 
 
 •* ♦ *,*** i-^* • » » *;** » «' 
 
 • o*o 6 o'o o* 6.6 o*o d o b o' 
 
 SPIRIT 
 Fob. 
 
 The Summer Land, which all enter at death. 
 
 MATTER 
 
 This represents the gorgeous Gal,axy 
 visible in the heavens spanning fro^ 
 northeast to southwest, called "The 
 Milky. Way." Some ofi its sans are 
 distant more than 19,280,000,000,000 
 miles. Our sun and planets belong to 
 this belt 
 
 0,0,0000, o^ 0^00 o_^ q o_^ b 
 **^»^# ,^,*^*^ .*;.*.** *® 
 
 00000 o'oo o'o* o'o o" 
 
 ;Ssun*'-Jf- <£."=' .* == rV °0 
 . Earth * *^* ^ , J^ .-^ • 
 
 .* * o'o'o'o o'o b 00' 
 
66 A STELLAS KEY. 
 
 The Spiritual Spheres have been recently termed 
 Summer Lands, and there are, counting man's earthly 
 existence \he first sphere of spirit life, in all dx spheres 
 in the ascending flight toward Deity, who Alls the 
 Seventh Sphere, and is infinitely greater than millions 
 of such univercoelums as man can conceive. 
 
 Observe this universal and unerring Imv of the Super- 
 nal Administration : The Central Positive Vowev repels 
 the physical, and at the same moment attracts the 
 spiritual; therefore the circulation of matter is from 
 the center outward, whilst spirit travels from the out- 
 side toward the center. These two reciprocal processes, 
 or opposite currents, are incessantly flowing. The 
 inconceivable oceans of world-building materials expand 
 and swell, and pour outwardly from the eternally flow- 
 ing and inexhaustible Fountain at the center ; at the 
 same time the innumerable multitudes of individualized 
 spiritual and angelic men, women, and children, from 
 off all the human-bearing planets in space, 
 are progressively and irresistibly marching 
 inwardly toward the great positive attractive 
 Center, and constantly approaching nearer 
 and nearer the eternal sun-sphere of Father 
 and Mother ! 
 
 The formation of the different Summer 
 Lands can be seen in the principles which 
 unrolled like an infinite scroll the suns and 
 stars of the serene firmament. Whence 
 comes the power, asks Prof. Tyndall, -on 
 the part of the molecules, to compel the 
 solar energy to take determinate forms ? Water may be 
 raised from the sea-level to a high elevation, and then 
 
FORMATION OF THE SUMMER LAND. 67 
 
 permitted to descend. In descending it may be made 
 to assume various forms — to fall in cascades, to spirt in 
 fountains, to boil in eddies, or to flow tranquilly along a 
 uniform bed. It may, moreover, be caused to set com- 
 plex macMnery in motion, to turn miUstones, throw 
 shuttles, work saws and hammers, and drive piles. But 
 every form of power here indicated would be derived 
 from, the original power expended in raising the water to 
 the height from which it fell. There is no energy gene- 
 rated by the machinery; the work performed by the 
 water in descending is merely the parceling out and 
 distribution of the work expended in raising it. In 
 precisely this sense is all the energy of plants and 
 animals the parceling out and distribution of a power 
 originally exerted by the sun. In the case of the 
 water, the source of the power consists in the forcible 
 separation of a quantity of the liquid from the- lowest 
 level of the earth's surface, and its elevation to a higher 
 position, the power thus expended being returned by 
 the water in its descent. 
 
 In the case of vital phenomena, the source of power 
 consists in the forcible separation of the atoms of chemi- 
 cal compounds by the sun — of the carbon and hydrogen, 
 for example, of the carbonic acid and water diffused 
 throughout the atmosphere, from the oxygen with which 
 they are combined. This separation is effected in the 
 leaves of plants by solar energy. The constituents of 
 the carbonic acid and water are there torn asunder in 
 spite of their mutual attraction^ the carbon and hydro- 
 gen are stored up in the wood, and the oxygen is set 
 free in the air. When the wood is burned the oxygen 
 recombines with the carbon, and the heat then given 
 
68 A BTELLAE KEY. 
 
 out is of the precise amount drawn from the sun to 
 effect the previous "reduction" of the carbonic acid. 
 The reunion of the carbon with the oxygen is similar 
 to the reunion of onr falling water with the earth from 
 which it had been separated. We name the one action 
 " gravity " and the other " chemical affinity ; " but these 
 different names must not mislead us regarding the 
 qualitative identity of the two forces. They are both 
 attraction, and, to the intellect, the falling of carbon 
 atoms against oxygen atoms is not more difficult of con- 
 ception than the falling of water to the earth. 
 
 It is generally supposed that our earth once belonged 
 to the sun, from which it was detached in a molten 
 condition. Hence arises the question, " Did that incan- 
 descent world contain latent within itself the elements 
 of life ?" Or, supposing a planet carved from our present 
 Bun, and set spinning around him at the distance of our 
 earth, would one of the consequences of its refrigeration 
 be the development of organic forms ? Structural forces 
 certainly lie latent in the molten mass, whether or not 
 those forces reach to the extent of forming a plant or an 
 animal. All the marvels of crystalline force, aU those 
 wonderful branching frost-ferns which cover our win- 
 dow-panes on a winter morning — the exquisite molecu- 
 lar architecture which is now known to belong to the 
 ice of our frozen lakes — all this 'constructiveness' lies 
 latent in an amorphous drop of water, and comes into 
 play when the water, is sufficiently cooled. And who 
 will set limits to the possible play of molecular forces in 
 the cooling of a planet ? 
 
 Thus the teaching of science is, that the world-con- 
 structing forces are "latent in the mass,' and that the 
 
FOEMATIOir OF THE SUMMEE LAKD. 69 
 
 formation of a dew-drop is not less wonderful tlian the 
 formation of an inhabitable world. The formation of 
 spiritualized material belts is a proceeding in the uni- 
 verse as natural and rational as the formation of the 
 primordial rings out of which all the planets, satellites, 
 and lesser bodies were subsequently developed. 
 
 But will not the Spiritual Zones be broken up and 
 distributed through space by counter attractions ? The 
 spiritual belts cannot be drawn asunder by an exterior 
 and superior attraction; for they are, as we shall here- 
 after show, constituted of ultimate or final particles, 
 which entertain only very remote aflSnities for the par- 
 ticles and constituents of other bodies in space. 
 
 But the question may arise, " "Why is not the Summer 
 Land round-, like a globe, rather than in the shape of a 
 vast Zone or stratified belt ?" 
 
 Geometry gives the true answer to this question. 
 This exact and deathless science brings" to light the 
 figures, or the forms and shapes, possible to and revealed 
 by material bodies. By geometrical principles, all the 
 varieties and possibilities of figures in crystalline and 
 other bodies can be fully comprehended and deter- 
 mined. 
 
 The fundamental law of Nature, in every department 
 of her organization, seems to be this : The beginning 
 and the ending — ^the Alpha and the Omega — are in 
 perfect and complete correspondence. The two ex- 
 tremes meet, facing one another, and thus they embrace ; 
 each seeing his own perfect image and perfect likeness in 
 the other ! The representation and correspondence — the 
 exactness of similitude in outline and in all the details 
 — are marvelous in their mathematical and geometrical 
 
70 A STELLAB KET. 
 
 perfections. Thus, in very truth, " extremes meet "— 
 primate and ultimate — acorn buried in the ground re 
 appearing in acorn on the topmost bough of the oak — & 
 truth exemplified in every growth-circle of vegetable, 
 animal, and human life; and in the repetitions of 
 national history no less than in the incessant recurrence 
 of public crises, and in the periodicities of individual 
 experience. 
 
 Apply this law to the primordial structure of the stellar 
 universe. What was the^s^ figure, what the primM-y 
 form, in which matter appeared ? Was it originally 
 globular i That is, Were the first world-building forms 
 round, like immense balls, or were they spheroidal 
 belts of cosmical matter? Let ns take testimony of 
 Prof. Kirkwood. He adopts the nebular hypothesis 
 as the most rational explanation of things, and so de- 
 clares that the " sun was an exceedingly difi'used, ro- 
 tating nebula, of spherical or spheroidal form, extending 
 beyond the orbit of the most distant planet ; the planets 
 as yet having no separate existence. This immense 
 sphere of vapor, in consequence of the radiation of heat 
 and the continual action of gravity, became gradually 
 more dense, which condensation was necessarily attended 
 by an increased angular velocity of rotation. At length 
 a point w>is thus reached where the centrifugal force of 
 the equatorial parts was equal to the central attraction. 
 The condensation of the interior meanwhile continuing, 
 the equatorial zone was detached, but necessarily con- 
 tinued to revolve around the central mass with the 
 same velocity that it had at the epoch of its separation. 
 If perfectly vm,iform throughout its entire oircum • 
 ference, it would continue its motion in an unbroken 
 
rOEMATION OP THE SUMMBE LASD. 71 
 
 ring, Uke that of Saturn; if not, it would probably 
 collect into several masses, having orbits nearly iden- 
 tical. These masses should assume a spheroidal form, 
 with a rotary motion in the direction of that of their 
 revolution, because their inferior particles have a less 
 real velocity than the superior; they have therefore 
 constituted so many planets in a state of vapor. But 
 if one of them-was sufficiently powerful to unite succes- 
 sively by its attraction all the others about its center, 
 the ring of vapors would be changed into one spheroidal 
 mass, circulating about the sun, with a motion of rotar 
 tion in the same direction with that of revolution," 
 
 TUE PiilMAL rOBM. 
 
 The testimony of popular astronomical science there- 
 fore is : The primary figure was spheroidal. The oval 
 form, consequently, is the beginning form of matter — its 
 genesis and its exodus also. ' The original oval or ellip- 
 sis is not elongated, remember, is not drawn oat, but, 
 instead, is shorteried, so as to produce an almost 
 geometrically perfect circle, yet always inclined to 
 the elliptic. The globe-form, which is the perfectly 
 round or sphere-form, is not possible in a body which 
 constantly and rapidly revolves in one direction. The 
 earth, consequently, is bulged at the equator and cor- 
 respondingly flattened at the poles. So of all the 
 planets, satellites, and minor bodies ot space. The law 
 
72 A BTELLAB KEY. 
 
 of infallible geometry is : The dimaotrio form of 
 matter is spheroidal. The broad belt of the Summer 
 Land is the highest form of spiritualized atoms — the 
 ultimate and divinest figure — ^the final shape of all 
 perfectly attenuated and exalted cosmical matter. 
 
 Take, for a further illustration, the scale of sounds in 
 the exact science of music. Between the first or lowest 
 note and the eighth or highest note, we find all the 
 possible intermediate sounds. But the eighth note and 
 the first note are essentially the same; or, in other 
 words, the last sound is a perfect reiteration or repro- 
 duction of the first sound ; and it is also the basis oi an- 
 other and a higher, but exactly similar scale, adapted to 
 the measurement of higher sounds ; and so onward and 
 upward, progressively, like the steps in a flight of stairs, 
 until you attain to as high a sound as can be developed 
 by the human voice. This harmonial law of progres- 
 sive reproduction — the first becoming last, and the last 
 first — will answer the question concerning the zone- 
 shape of the Summer Land. 
 
 Unsearchable and incomprehensible as this law of 
 correspondence may appear at first- sight, yet nothing 
 can be more easily read when your senses, intelligence, 
 and wisdom unite for work, and seriously devote them- 
 selves to the examination. By no other law can man 
 perfectly acquire knowledge of those harmonial ties by 
 which all and each of the pieces and parts of the uni- 
 verse are fastened together. Poets, in moments of 
 intuitive exaltation, feel more than the common intelli- 
 gei ce can grasp : — 
 
 " Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a part 
 Of me and of my soul, as I of them 7 
 
rOEMATION OF THE SUMMER LAND. 73 
 
 Is not the love of these deep in my heart 
 "With a pure passion.?" 
 
 In fnusic, which we have taken for an illustration, 
 how exactly mathematical in all its parts, from which 
 flow innumerable spiritualizing qualities, efiects, and 
 enchantments. All art-music is suggested by, derived 
 from, and unerringly governed by nature — the source 
 of all melody and harmony. The term " discord " in 
 music does not mean confusion and antagonism. Dis- 
 cord, accord, and modulation form the august trinity. 
 The accord of contrasted sounds — the mathematical 
 combination and the unitary development of individual 
 discordant notes — ^unfolds perfect harmony ! 
 
 External music reaches the spirit-ear through the wave- 
 Tindulations of the invisible ether of space. A sound 
 is increased in proportion to the number of vibrations 
 per second ; thus, " the lowest note of a 7-octave piano 
 is made by 32 vibrations per second, the highest by 
 7.680, while each intermediate note has its fixed num- 
 ber." The pitch of a note is ascertained, and the num- 
 ber of its vibrations per second determined by its posi- 
 tion on the five parallel lines termed " the staff." And 
 it is another beautiful miracle (surprise ?) in music, that 
 the deepest natural note, which can- only be reached by 
 man's voice, is E, below the line of the second staff, 
 and the Jiighest natural note, which can only be sounded 
 by a woman's voice, is designated E, above the first 
 staff. There is in this beautiful adaptation a progression 
 of voices just three Tnasculines and three feminines ; 
 man represents and develops the "base," the "bari- 
 tone," and the "tenor," whilst woman unfolds the 
 three higher refinements, a greater number of sound 
 4 
 
74. A STEIXAE KEY. 
 
 waves per second, in the " contralto " and " soprano," 
 the highest notes of which only woman's voice can 
 reach. Byron speaks of — 
 
 " The soul and source of music, which makes known 
 Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm 
 Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, 
 
 Blending all things with beauty ; 'twould disarm 
 The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm." 
 
 It is a wonderful demonstration of the inherent 
 genius of man's mind, that in a concert of music a good 
 ear can attend to the different parts of the music sepa- 
 rately, or to all at once ! " In the latter case," says the 
 metaphysician. Sir William Hamilton, " the mind is 
 constantly varying its attention from one part to the 
 other ; the rapidity of its operations giving no percep- 
 tible interval of time." What are the facts in this 
 example ? In a musical concert we have a multitude 
 of different instruments and voices, emitting at once an 
 infinity of different sounds. These all reach the ear at 
 the same indivisible moment in which they perish, and, 
 consequently, if heard at all — much more if their 
 mutual relation or harmony be perceived — they must 
 be all heard simultaneously. This is evident. For if 
 the mind can attend to each minimum of sound only 
 successively, it consequently requires a minimum of 
 time in which it is exclusively occupied with each mini- 
 mum of sound. Now in this minimum of time there 
 coexist with it, and with it perish, many minima of 
 sound which, ex hypoihesi, are not perceived, are not 
 heard, as not altended to. In a concert, therefore, on 
 this doctrine, a small number of sounds only could be 
 
FORMATION OF THE SFMMEE LAIO). 75 
 
 perceived, and above this petty maximnm all sounds 
 would be to the ear as zero. But what is the fact ? 
 No concert, however numerous its instruments, has yet 
 been found to have reached, far less to have surpassed, 
 the capacity of the cciind and its organ. How perfectly 
 true it is that — 
 
 'Nature sounds the music of the spirit; 
 
 Sweetly to her -worshiper she sings, 
 All the glow, the grace she doth inherit, 
 
 Eound her trusting child she fondly flings." 
 
 According to the reproductive law, a broad, efful- 
 gent, rotating belt or zone is the first fi^gure or form 
 revealefl in the geometrical music scale of world-build- 
 ing in the Stellar Universe ; so also is it the highest and 
 last figure or form of which matter, in its most exalted 
 condition of ethereal and essential refinement, is capable 
 of assuming ; and thus, consequently and logically, we 
 actually find organized and revolving all the ascend- 
 ing succession of Spheres in the constitution of the uni- 
 vercoelum ! 
 
 And what is most remarkable and memorable is, 
 that the seven ascending scales of Spiritual Zones, with 
 their intervals of suns and planets, were discerned and^ 
 described by the author, just as they were seen before 
 he lived, and as they have been frequently perceived 
 and pictured by others since his first accoimt was pub- 
 lished. And each seer was separate from and independ- 
 ent of the other not only, but the positive existence and 
 identical structure of the Spheres were discovered and 
 described by each without any external knowledge or 
 hint of the sublime geometrical law ; which law, you 
 
76 A STELLAE KBT, 
 
 now perceive, is at once an infallible explanation and 
 an incontrovertible demonstration, that the physical 
 nniverse is spheroidal in shape, that it is composed of 
 a progressive series of successively ascending circles 
 of suns and planets, and that it is nothing but the 
 covering, the material garment, the organized hody of 
 that more interior and spiritual universe which was 
 " not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
 
HAEMONIES OF THE TOITEESE. 77 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 DEMONSTRATIONS OF THE HAEMONIES OF THE UNTVEESE. 
 
 The Harmonial PMloBophy of the universe would 
 receive vast aid from the demonstrations of m^ithemati- 
 cal and geometrical science, but this is not the place to 
 introduce such elahorate calculations and convincing 
 measurements as are impatient to take the stand as 
 positive witnesses. We hope that minds gifted with 
 mathematical and geometrical knowledge will feel 
 moved , to enter upon this enchanting inquiry. 
 Science gives definite conceptions of the order and 
 wisdom of the universe. Pythagoras, Plato, Euclid, 
 ApoUonius, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Kepler,. Newton — 
 all great men in the science of Geometry, and therefore 
 all were great believers in the order and unchangeable 
 goodness of the infinite system. 
 
 Most minds, however, find satisfaction in analogical 
 reasoning, in contrasts, in correspondSntial and sym- 
 bolical forms of thought, and in this manner perceive 
 the glory and application of great principles. For 
 such, more intuitive idealists, who do not like the rigid 
 exactness of geometrical " fluxions," " conic sections," 
 " differential calculus," &c., I am impressed to adopt 
 and present a variety of scales which are not less truth- 
 ful than mathematics, while they are far more effective 
 with the great mass of minds. 
 
Y8 
 
 A BTELLAE KEY. 
 
 snainvx. 
 
 IDEAS. 
 
 PRINCIPLES. 
 
 LAWS. 
 
 ESSENCES. 
 
 ETHERS, VAPORS, FLUIDS, SOLIDS. 
 
HAEMONIBS 01" THE UNIVEB8E. 79 
 
 The _four primal forms of motion and matter are 
 expressed at the foundation in Ethers, Vapors, Fluids, 
 Solids. The modern discovery of science, \h.a,\, pola/rity 
 is inseparable from the various conditions of matter, 
 serves our purpose from every possible point of obser- 
 vation. The simplicity of the last scale will seem more 
 profound from a more elaborate presentation. The two 
 columns of " Positives " and " !N'egatives " may assist 
 your mind to a still clearer conception of Nature's 
 infinite interlacings of harmony. 
 
 The term " Earth," in our scales, is employed in the 
 general sense, and not with reference merely to the 
 planet on which we live. Earth is earth, as much on 
 Juno as on Venus ; earth is earth, as much on Vesta 
 and the Moon as on Neptune, and the term is applicable 
 to all the more remote bodies in our solar community. 
 
 The word, therefore, is used to signify that state of 
 matter, anywhere in the universOj which is known as 
 the coldest in temperature and the lowest in the degree 
 of atomic motion. Truly has it been said, that the hol- 
 low ball on which we live contains within itself the 
 elements of its own destruction. Within the outer 
 crust — the cool temperature of which supports animal 
 and vegetable life, and solidifies the stone, coal and 
 metallic ores so important, to our well-being — ^there 
 exists a mass of fluid igneous matter. Some of this 
 matter occasionally escapes through the mouth of a 
 volcano, or makes its presence felt by an earthquake ; 
 but neither the earthquake nor the volcano is necessary 
 to prove that fire exists in the earth. At the depth of 
 2,480 yards, water boils; lead melts at the depth of 
 3,400 yards. There is red heat at the depth of seven 
 
80 
 
 A STELIiAE KEY. 
 
 Positive. 
 
 Nksativk. 
 
 Explanation. 
 
 - H«T3 
 
 9 C4 
 
 _S 3 
 
 'The fountain Source of 
 all Laws, Forces, Princi- 
 ples, Ideas, is universally 
 called leg- 
 
 aoD. 
 
 SPIRIT. 
 
 The universality of motion, 
 heat, light, life, sensation, 
 order, beaaty,intelligence, 
 love, will, wisdom, re- 
 veal |^~ 
 
 IDEAS. 
 
 REASON. 
 
 iThe uniformity and uni- 
 \ versality of these laws of 
 I cause and effect nnfolc 
 1 the higher revelations of 
 f mind, called ||3g" 
 
 PBJNCIPLES. 
 
 POWER. 
 
 The first manifestation of 
 Mind is Motion ;Hh6 ef- 
 fect of Force; and the 
 modes of the actions of 
 this Motion are termed fiy 
 
 LAWS. 
 
 EOKCE. 
 
 Ether-atoms are atoms in 
 the highest possible de- 
 gree of motion, consti- 
 tuting an infinitely rare 
 medium, chemical, dy- 
 namic, elastic, and all- 
 pervading, called 1^" 
 
 ESSENCES. 
 
 MAGNETISM.' 
 
 The vapor-atoms ascend ou^ 
 degree higher in the scale 
 and expand throughout 
 all space with an in- 
 crease of motion, and are 
 termed f^f 
 
 ETHERS. 
 
 ELEOTRIOITT. 
 
 The fluid-atoms receive an 
 increase motion with an 
 increase of temperature, 
 cohesion is overcome, and 
 they expand into the con- 
 dition known as ^^ 
 
 VAPORS. 
 
 ATMOSPHERE. 
 
 The solidity and cohesion 
 of the same atoms dis- 
 appear when they are 
 visited by a given quan- 
 tity of motion ; heat is 
 developed, and those be- 
 come 1^" 
 
 FLUIDS. 
 
 WATER, 
 
 Atoms, when slowest in 
 motion and coldest in 
 temperature, drop into a 
 compact body, for which 
 the general term is ^~ 
 
 SOLIDS. 
 
 EARTH. 
 
HAKMONIEB OF THE UNIVEESE. 81 
 
 miles, and if we adopt the temperature as calculated by 
 Morveau's corrected scale of Wedgewortli's pyrometer, 
 we find that the earth is fluid at the depth of one 
 hundred mUes. 
 
 Beautiful heavenly harmony is displayed in all the 
 realms of being. Luminous fountains flow full of 
 eternal ideas, rolling the universe in harmonious 
 ^lendors. The templed perfections of God shine 
 throughout the mountains of Truth. 
 
 Great souls are filled with love, 
 
 Great brows arc calm ; 
 Serene within their might, they soar above 
 
 The whirlwind and the storm. 
 
 In words the Godly man is mute — 
 
 In deeds he lives— 
 Wouldst know the tree ? examine well the fruit I 
 
 The flower ? the scent it gives 1 
 
 Great thoughts iire still as stars, 
 
 Great thoughts are high ; 
 They grasp the soul where 'neath the prison bars - 
 
 It languidly doth he. 
 
 They bring it forth on wings 
 
 Sublime and grand 1 
 Where in the night of deeply-hidden things 
 
 It joyfully doth expand. 
 
 Like sentinels they stand, 
 
 A.nd softly keep 
 Their silent watches, where a ruthless band 
 
 Of lurking errors creep. 
 
 like pearls of starry light 
 
 That burn and glow. 
 They pierce the shadowy vail, and o'er the night 
 
 Their mystic splendors throw. 
 4* 
 
82 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 Great truths I ah, yea, more grand, 
 
 More light and high. 
 Than hopes that thrill the wires throughout the land I 
 
 Than stars that gem the sky I 
 
 Great truths I ah, yes, more fair, 
 
 Sublime and deep, 
 Than burning thoughts that tremble on the airl 
 
 Than the mysteries of sleep 1 
 
 From nature's Soul they spring 
 
 To joy and light, 
 And on imagination's quivering wing 
 
 They take their onward flight. 
 
 In beauty's garb they rise, 
 
 All fresh as morn, 
 And on their pinions, spread for sunlit skies, 
 
 Our souls are gladly borne. 
 
 With myriad wrongs they wage 
 
 An endless war ; 
 And shed their luster o'er each passing age, 
 
 Like Morning's golden star. 
 
 Great truths I they come from God I 
 
 In heaven have birth ; 
 They spring to life from each prophetic word 
 
 That thrills the earth f 
 
 The correspondence between Mind and Matter, and 
 the beautiful progressions in the scale of colors, with 
 their many and diversified polarizations, is as perfect and 
 self-evident as any sum in mathematics. Commence 
 at the bottom of the scale, " Red," and ascend to the 
 climax in that color, " White," which is the garment of 
 omniscient Jehovah, and the emblem among human 
 angels of purity, fidelity, and truth. " Light," in this 
 
HAEMONIES OP THE UNIVEESE. 
 
 83 
 
 *. p»**"*U 
 
 LIGHT. 
 
 8. Negative. 
 
 1. Negative. 
 
 6. Negative. 
 
 5. Negative. 
 
 4. Negative. 
 
 3. Negative. 
 
 WHITE. 
 
 VIOLET. 
 
 INDIGO. 
 
 BLUE. 
 
 GEEEN. 
 
 YELLOW. 
 
 ORANGE. 
 
 Positive. 
 
 Positive. 
 
 Positive. 
 
 Positive. 
 
 Pomtive. 
 
 Positive. 
 
 "2. Negative. 
 
 Positive. 
 
 EED. 
 
 1. Negative. 
 
 Positive. 
 
84: 
 
 A STELLAS KEY, 
 
 musical scale of colors, occupies tlie throne of God in 
 the other scale, and in each you find the 3-6-9 points 
 in geometrical ratio, or the 3 times 3, by which the 
 ■whole system is demonstrated to be correlated parts of 
 one harmonious manifestation of infinite wisdom and 
 love. 
 
 Who can with inMfference behold all this sublime 
 harmony ? The child of Natxire is overwhelmed with 
 wonder and happiness. The spirit of God enters your 
 understanding, ascends the throne of your reason, and 
 declares the whole gospel of philosophical truth. Look 
 at the scale of colors from another point of observation, 
 by which we learn of the wondrous activities of the 
 principles of Light. 
 
 SCALE OF THE SBVEM 
 OOLOKS. 
 
 Wave lengths 
 
 in 10 mU- 
 
 lionths of an 
 
 inch. 
 
 Number of vm- 
 
 dulations per 
 
 inch. 
 
 Nvmler of un- 
 dulations per 
 second in 
 SiUions. 
 
 1. BED 
 
 2. OEANQB 
 
 266 
 240 
 227 
 211 
 196 
 185 
 16t 
 
 37.640 
 41.610 
 44.000 
 47.460 
 51.110 
 54.070 
 59.750 
 
 458 
 506 
 
 3. YELLOW 
 
 53S 
 
 4. GBEEN ^. . 
 
 5. BLUE 
 
 • 577 
 623 
 
 6. INDIGO 
 
 658 
 
 1. VIOLET 
 
 727 
 
 
 
 In the previous scale it was found that " Essences," 
 which are eliminated and revealed in the forms of force 
 called " magnetism," is the middle principle — ^the link 
 
HAEMONIES OF THE TTNIVEESB. 85 
 
 connecting tlie sphere of Mind with the sphere of 
 Matter. 
 
 Positive. Passive. Negative. 
 
 White. Tiolet. Indigo. Green. Yellow. Orange. Bed. 
 
 (7.) (6.) (5.) (4.) (3.) (2.) (1.) 
 
 The same law of correspondence appears in the natu- 
 ral classification and polarization of colors ; showing 
 that " Green " is the connecting link between the three 
 majors and the three minors. Eemember that, in all 
 the scales we introduce, the^«^ is the lowest and most 
 inferior ; and our true meaning is never seen unless the 
 ascent is intellectually made from the bottom, up ; or 
 from the figure " 1," to the highest in the scale, just as 
 you naturally walk up a flight of stairs, or as a tree 
 grows upward from its germ-genesis in the soil below. 
 
 It is not generally known that Swedenborg antici- 
 pated iGoethe's Theory of Colors.* In the Arcana, 
 § 1042, he writes : " In order to the existence of color, 
 there must needs be some substance darkish and 
 brightish, or black and white, on which, when the rays 
 of light from the sun fall, according to the various 
 temperature of the dark and bright, or black and white, 
 from the modification of the influent rays of light, there 
 exist colors, some of which take more or less from the 
 darkish and black, some more or less from the brightish 
 and white, and iience arises their diversity." 
 
 * Persona have objected to, and treated as simple and childish, the 
 introduction of colors in the form of badges and emblems, in the " Chil- 
 dren's Progressive Lyoeum,'' on the supposition that there is no interioi 
 educational significance in colors. Let such minds ask Grod why colors 
 exist 1 
 
86 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 The positive " white," ' and the negative, "black," 
 was apprehended by Swedenborg as the natural basis, 
 in the intervals of which, as between the first and eighth 
 no|e in music, all the varieties and tints of colors ap- 
 pear. In like manner, and upon the same principle of 
 unerring correspondence, we affirm that in the interval 
 between "Earth," negative, and " Spirit," ^osi^w;*, all 
 the diversified wonders of Matter and Mind are un- 
 folded. 
 
 An expositor of Swedenborg's philosophy of the phe- 
 nomenal universe — which seem to exist without and to 
 press up against our bodily senses — thus, as a kind 
 of synopsis,^ states the grand idealism of his revered 
 master : — 
 
 " What we call Nature, meaning by that term the 
 universe of existence, mineral, vegetable, and animal, 
 which seems to us infinite in point of space and eternal 
 in point of time, is yet in itself, or absolutely, void both 
 of infinity and eternity; the former appearance being 
 only a sensible product and correspondence of a relation 
 which the universal heart of man is under to the Divine 
 Love, and the latter, a product and correspondence of 
 the relation which the universe of the human mind is 
 Tinder to the Divine Wisdom. Thus Nature is not in the 
 least what it sensibly purports to be, namely, absolute 
 and independent ; but, on the contrary, is at every 
 moment, both in whole and in part, a pure phenomenon 
 or effect of spiritual causes as deep, as contrasted, and 
 yet as united, as God's infinite love and man's unfathom- 
 able want. In short, Swedenborg describes Nature as 
 a perpetual outcome or product in the sphere of semso 
 of an inward supersensuous marriage which is forever 
 
HAEMONIES OF THE TTNIVEBSE, 87 
 
 growing and forever adjusting itself between Creator 
 and creature, between God's infinite and essential 
 bounty and our infinite and essential necessity." 
 
 In this statement we regret tbat Swedenborg, or 
 rather his intelligent pupil, employs the term "Nature'-' 
 as synonymous with Earth or Matter. If this beautiful 
 and indispensable word was used in the sense of that 
 which expresses the eternal order and perfect beauty of 
 tie infinite Father and Mother, and in its place " Mat- 
 ter" be written, then we could most perfectly accept 
 the philosophy as unquestionably true, because, in its 
 essential points, it is exactly what we have been urging 
 throughout these pages. 
 
 The positive and negative manifestations of color can 
 be more clearly explained by a scale of what are called 
 "complementary colors." These contrasts are the 
 results of careful observation, analysis, and experitnen- 
 tation. 
 
 The sublime harmonies of the universe appear more 
 and more as we extend our researches into the penetra- 
 lium of causative principles. For example, man's five 
 senses are organized progressively — each finer and 
 higher than the other — corresponding with mathe- 
 matical exactness to the five ascending degrees of 
 matter. 
 
 Solid matter must be raised by expansion to ih.G fluid 
 condition before his tongue can taste it; solid matter 
 must become va^pw before his nose can smell it ; solid 
 matter must become eiher before his ears can hear itj 
 solid matter must become " essence " before his eyes can 
 see it ; but solid matter and man's body can meet, and 
 sensation is elicited by resistance. The eyes do not see 
 
88 
 
 A STELLAB KEY. 
 
 the ethereal waves of sound ; the ears do not perceive 
 the magneUo undulations of light ; the olfactory nerves 
 do not realize the /m^? condition of solids; neither does 
 the tongue taste the vapors (the atmosphere and odors) 
 which so readily record their presence upon the sense 
 of smeU. 
 
 complementaet paets oe divisions of light. 
 Positive. Neoatitb. 
 
 
 
 "WHITE. 
 
 BLACK. 
 
 
 
 Violet. 
 
 Yellow-Green. 
 
 4' 
 
 
 Indigo. 
 
 Orange-TeUow. 
 
 S 
 
 
 Blue. 
 
 Orange-Bed. 
 
 Intenned 
 or transi 
 
 ate J 
 lional. " 
 
 Green. 
 
 Reddish-Violet. 
 
 
 
 TeUow. 
 
 Indigo-Blue. 
 
 \' 
 
 
 Orange. 
 
 Azure-Blue. 
 
 " 
 
 
 Bed. 
 
 Bluish- Green. 
 
 The essences and ethers and vapors and fluids of 
 matter report themselves each to the appropriate sense. 
 
HABMONIES OF THE UNIVEESE. 89 
 
 In Matter as in Mind, we behold the unutterable har- 
 monies of unerring Ideas, Principles, and Laws. The 
 remarkable adjustments and adaptations of matter in 
 its five conditions to man's five senses, must be obvious 
 to every reflecting mind. Indeed, without such pro- 
 gressive ascensions and reciprocating polarizations of 
 matter, man's reason and spirit could never arrive at 
 any definite consciousness that there is a phenomenal 
 world lying about him. The following scale of corre- 
 spondences may bring these beautiful adaptations clearly 
 into your understanding : — 
 
 FlTI 8KK8E3. FiTB FUNCTIONS. FlTE CADSB9. TlVE Col^IIITIOItS. 
 
 5. Eyes Seeing Essences Magnetism. 
 
 4. Ears Hearing Ethers" Electricity. 
 
 3. Nose Smelling Tapors Atmosphere. 
 
 2. Tongue Tasting Fluids Water. 
 
 1. Body Peeling Solids Earth. 
 
 There is a yet more comprehensive generalization. 
 See how beautifully harmonious ! Thus absolute Spirit 
 is God ; in man, the miniature effect df the infinite 
 cause comes out in. Existence and Individuality. In 
 the infinite. Ideas are the conscious principles of pure 
 Eeason ; in man, the finite effects ultimated and blos- 
 somed out, are Intuition and Intelligence. The foun- 
 tain of causation, as it harmoniously flows outward and 
 downward into human rivers of individualized life, may 
 be tabulated thus : — 
 
 DIVINITY. HITMANITT. 
 
 Fathee. Mothee. Man. ■Woman. 
 
 God is pvre Spieit ultimated in Existence and- Indiyidttalitt. 
 
 Ideas a/re divine Beason Tnamifssted as Intellect and Intuition. 
 Peinoiples are pure Powee known at motioru Cekteifusal and Centeipetal, 
 FoKOEB became Laws eospressed aa Will amd Pboditotioh. 
 
90 A STBLLAB KEY. 
 
 The principles of universal relationsliips reward 
 richly all who study and comprehend them. Unless you 
 do study them, you will not be convinced that the Spir- 
 itual Zone rests scientifically andphilosophically upon the 
 natural and indestructible order of the universe. You 
 Tnust study, or, at least, you ought to study, think, and 
 reason, until yon come to perceive and comprehend 
 these grand progressive truths, namely : That the Solid 
 world was once Fluid ; that fluid was once Vapor; that 
 vapor was once Ether; that ether was once Essence; 
 that essence is the highest material connecting link for 
 the operation of positive spiritual Laws ; that these 
 natural inherent laws constitute a negative medium for 
 the manifestation of invisible celestial positive Force ; 
 that this force is the negative side of a yet more posi- 
 tive expression called Power ; that this last potential 
 demonstration is animated by interior intelligence and 
 more positive energies termed Principles ; that these im- 
 mutable principles of the universe are external methods 
 of positive, and still more interior. Ideas ; that ideas are 
 the self-thinking, inter-intelligent^ purely-spiritual attri- 
 butes and properties of the Divine Positive Mind. 
 
 And you should study and contemplate these grand 
 truths until you perceive, as by the awakening and 
 opening of your interior senses, that, from the innume- 
 rable multitude of stars down " to the lulled lake and 
 mountain coast," all is concentered in a life of inter- 
 laced affinities and reciprocated relationships, "where 
 not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, but hath a part of 
 being." Yes, you should think upon these inexhausti- 
 ble glories until deep thoughts make you "silent," 
 until you grow "breathless" with the immensity of 
 
HAEMONIES OF THE UNIVEESB. 91 
 
 higLi and holy feeling ; yea, until in your open sonl " ali 
 heaven and earth are still," while the life of your spirit 
 blends its eyerlasting destiny with the eternally rolling 
 splendors and indestructible unities of Truth. 
 
 But you must not "dream." For cold, exact 
 Science, like the moon of truth — of which Philosophy 
 is both sun and stars — walks over the earth and across 
 the skies, heartlessly ; but he is armed with clean- 
 cutting instruments of analysis and observation ; and 
 so it will not avail you to turn away from Science be- 
 cause its ways are fatiguing, and idly bask your reason 
 in the more congenial sunshine of generalization, below 
 the silent spheres. 
 
 " Under the influence of passion," says Prof. Hamil- 
 ton, the metaphysician, "men seek honor, but not 
 truth. They do not cultivate what is most valuable in 
 reality, but ■^vhat is most valuable in opinion. They 
 disdain, perhaps, what can be easily accomplished, and 
 apply themselves to the obscure and recondite ; but as 
 the vulgar and easy is the foundation on which the rare 
 and arduous is built, they fail even in attaining the 
 object of their ambition, and remain with only a farrago 
 of confused and ill-assorted notions. In all its phases, 
 self-love is an enemy to philosophical progress ; and the 
 history of philosophy is filled with the illusions of 
 which it has been the source. On the one side it has 
 led men to close their eyes against the most evident 
 truths which were not in harmony with their adopted 
 opinions. It is said there was not a physician in 
 Europe, above the age of forty, who would admit 
 Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood. 
 On the other hand, it is iinely observed by Bacon, that 
 
92 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 ' the eye of the human intellect is not dry, but receives 
 a suffusion from the will and the affections,' so that it 
 may almost be said to engender any science it pleases. 
 Let men throw off their old prejudices, and come with 
 hearts willing to receive knowledge, and understandings 
 open to conviction. Unless ' ye become as little chil- 
 dren, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.' Such 
 is true religion ; such, also, is true philosophy. Phil- 
 osophy requires an emancipation from the yoke of 
 foreigil. authority, a renunciation of all blind adhesion 
 to the opinions of our age and country, and a purifica- 
 tion of the intellect from all assumptive beliefs. Unless 
 we can cast off the prejudices of the man, and become 
 as children, docile and unperverted, we need never hope 
 to enter the temple of philosophy. It is the neglect 
 of this primary condition which has mainly occasioned 
 men to wander from the unity of truth, and caused the 
 endless variety of religious and philosophical sects." 
 
 The unity of truth, the correlation of inherent ideas, 
 the harmonious correspondence and fixed relationships 
 of things, constitute the central charm of all intellectual 
 effort and research. It is both consoling and exalting 
 to know, for example, that the mattek of the living 
 organizations of the univeVse is identical (that is, the 
 satne in essence as that) with which the inorganic 
 forms of the world are constituted. This truth brings all 
 things together. And it is indispensable to our philoso- 
 phy of the Summer Land. It shows that the forces in 
 your organs are the same as the forces — gravitational, 
 chemical, mechanical, electrical, spiritual. With Prof 
 Huxley, you logically come to the broad conclusion that 
 " not only as to living matter itself, but as to the forces 
 
HAEM0OTB8 OF THE UNIVEKSE. 93 
 
 that matter exerts, there is a close relationship between 
 the organic and the inorganic world — the difference be- 
 tween them arising from the diverse combination and 
 disposition of identical forcesj and not from anj 
 primary diversity, as far as we can see." 
 
 In examining the relations subsisting between man's 
 senses, we find that the universe may be conceived as 
 "a polygon of a thousand or a hundred thousand sides 
 or facets — and each of these sides or facets may be con- 
 ceived as representing one special mode of existence." 
 Now, of these thousand sides or modes all may be 
 equally essential, but three or four only may be turned 
 toward us, or be analogous to our organs. One side or 
 facet of the universe, as holding a relation to the organ 
 of sight, is the mode of luminous or visible existence ; 
 another, as proportional to the organ of hearing, is the 
 mode of sonorous or audible existence ; and so on. But 
 if every eye to see, if every ear to hear, were annihilated, 
 the modes of existence to which these organs now stand 
 in relation — that which could be seen, that which could 
 be heard — would still remain ; and if the intelligences, 
 reduced to the three senses of touch, smell, and taste, 
 were then to assert the impossibility of any modes of 
 being except those to which these three senses were 
 analogous, the procedure would not be more unwar- 
 ranted, than if we now ventured to deny the possible 
 reality of other modes of material existence than those 
 to the perception of which our five senses are accom- 
 modated." 
 
 In this volume we must fortify our positions, relative 
 to the substantiality of the Summer Land, by laying a 
 broad foundation in the principles and facts of science. 
 
94 A 8TELLAE KET. 
 
 Hence my impressions carry me directly into the con- 
 current testimony of living philosopliers and scientific 
 men. If I were to present exclusively my own interior 
 perceptions, and leave unnoticed all tlie important cor- 
 roborations of positive science, tlie world would discard 
 tlie wtole as mere "speculation." 
 
 Hence now I refer^ you to a physiological authority : 
 " All things which are in the brain of man are arrauged 
 into series, and, as it were, into fascicles; and into 
 series within series, thus into fascicles. That such an 
 arrangement has place, is evident from the arrange- 
 ment of all things in the body, where fibers appear 
 arranged into fascicles, and little glands into collections 
 of glands, and this in the body throughout ; stiU more 
 perfectly in the purer parts which are not discernible 
 by the naked eye ; this fasciculation is principally pre- 
 sented to view m the brain, in the two substances 
 there, one of which is called cortical, and the other 
 medullary ; the case is not unlike in the purer principles, 
 and at length in the most pure, where the forms which 
 receive them are the very forms of life ; that forms or 
 substances are recipients of life, may be manifest from 
 the singular things which appear in the living; also 
 that recipient forms or substances are arranged in a 
 manner the most suitable for influx of life ; without the 
 reception of life in substances, which are forms, there 
 would not be given any living thing in the natural 
 world, nor in the spiritual world ; series of the most 
 pure stamina, like fascicles, are what constitute those 
 
 forms As the External acts or is acted 
 
 upon, so the Internals also act or are acted upon, for 
 there is a perpetual confasciculation of the whole. For 
 
HASMONIES OF THE mOVEESE. 95 
 
 example, take in the body some common covering, as 
 the pleura, which is the common covering of the breast, 
 of of the heart and lungs, and examine it with an ana- 
 tomical eye, or, if you have jiot made this your par- 
 ticular study, consult anatomists, and they will tell you 
 that this common covering, by various circumvolutions, 
 and afterward by exsertions or derivations from itself, 
 finer and finer, enters into the inmost substance of tlie 
 lungs, even to the smallest bronchial ramifications, and 
 into the follicles themselves, which are the beginnings 
 of the lungs : Not to mention its progression afterward 
 by the trachea. to the larynx toward the tongue ; from 
 which it is evident that there is a perpetual connection 
 of the Outmost with the Inmost, wherefore as the Out- 
 most acts or is acted upon, so also the Interiors from 
 the Inmost or Intimates act or are acted upon." 
 
 Physiologists, as a class, are not seers of the spiritual 
 within the natural. They observe organs, study functions, 
 trace the nerve- connections throughout the economy, 
 but seldom go deeper. • But those who do probe below 
 the apparent, who explore the interior mansions of the 
 temple, find exactly what is embodied in the foregoing 
 testimony. As the chemist finds elements vrithin ele- 
 ments, as meteorologists find atmospheres within atmo- 
 spheres, as geologists find strata within strata, as 
 botanists find lea'f within leaf and flower within flower, 
 so physiologists find organs within organs, aiid inde- 
 scribably finer determinations of vital power within the 
 familiar forces of the human body. There is, too, 
 everywhere manifested a law from the infinite magazine 
 of principles, called the " centripetal force," whereby 
 every thing is cohesively and affectionately clasped to 
 
96 A STELLAB KET. 
 
 the central Heart. And every thing would forever play 
 and roll around the all-loving centripetal affectionB of 
 the spiritual universe, were it not for the inherent prin- 
 ciple of Justice, the mother of all distributions and the 
 father of all equilibriums, whereby every thing is taken 
 in the giant arms of omnipotent "centrifugal force," 
 and is by that masculine force sent abroad through the 
 illimitable immensities, and commanded to "take, 
 plenty of out-door exercise, eat all they can honestly 
 get, rest when weary, and earn their own living." And 
 80 the laws and the essences go from the warm home of 
 centripetal attraction, become acquainted, and con- 
 jugate together, so that, like Adam and Eve, they may 
 multiply and replenish the universe. On this middle 
 ground, in the meeting and mating and prolification of 
 laws and essences, we behold the marriage of Mind with 
 Matter, and can, if we will, trace out the generations 
 which proceed from them — in the diversified forms and 
 forces of the world without. 
 
 " Laws " are the most descended modification of the 
 central Mind ; whilst " essences " are the most ascended, 
 form and condition of Matter ; and their marriage is 
 followed by the instantaneous vivification of substance 
 and the universal manifestation of forces, principles, 
 and ideas. But this marriage ceremony is occurring 
 every moment ; it eternally exists, as .much behind as 
 future ; and yet, owing to the limitations of thought, 
 man must "begin" his reasonings and "end" with' 
 conclusions — -the process being true and strictly logical, 
 also, so far as it refers scientifically to one cycle of 
 development in the universal whole. 
 
 By the marriage of Laws with Essences, we obtain. 
 
HAEMONIKS OF THE UNIVEESB!. 97 
 
 on the one side, all the successive condescensions and 
 condensations of Matter, and, on the other side, all the 
 evolutions and manifestations of Mind. Conditions of 
 Matter, once called " imponderable substances," float 
 out of existence, leaving behind only vibrations or 
 "agitations" of the one unchangeable reality termed 
 .Matter. The translator of Eeichenbach's Odic-Mag- 
 neUo Letters, concerning his experiments in Odic-forces, 
 has not failed to observe how perfectly that earnest 
 philosopher's radiant demonstrations coincide with 
 the deductions of inductive science. He recognizes 
 the conceded maxim that there is no more nor no less 
 matter now than there was fifty thousand years ago ; 
 there is no more and no less force. "Wave your 
 hand," says Grove ; " the motion has apparently 
 ceased, but it is taken up by the air, from the air by 
 the walls of the room, and so by direct and re-acting 
 waves continually communicated, but never destroyed. 
 Let us suppose that two balls rolling toward each 
 other strike; the motion appears to be lost, but it 
 changes to heat and electricity; to heat if the balls be 
 homogeneous, and electricity if heterogeneous. If the 
 balls be greased so that they will glance from each other, 
 they will lose little motion and create little heat, precisely 
 in proportion to the loss of one force is the development 
 of others. And the motion or friction of the electrical 
 machine develops electricity, electricity produces mag- 
 netism, light, heat, and motion, and influences chemical 
 affinity, as is seen in the composition and decomposition 
 of compound substances. Heat produces motion, and 
 our thermometers are constructed to measure heat by 
 the expansion or motion which it causes in certain sub- 
 1 
 
98 A STELLAE KET. 
 
 stances. Heat also develops electricity. An evidence 
 of this may be obtained by heating bars of bismuth 
 and antimony, the ends of which are in contact. Unite 
 the other ends by an iron wire, and an electric current 
 will pass over it and heat the wire. The relationship 
 of light to heat is very near, and they closely resemble 
 each other in their phenomena. Both are radiated in 
 direct lines, reflected, refracted, doubly refracted, and 
 polarized. Heat also influences chemical affinity. 
 
 " Light influences chemical action, which latter devel- 
 ops electricity, and that, magnetism, heat, and motion. 
 A coil of wire, attached to a dagju^eotype plate, 
 becomes electric when the plate is exposed to the light. 
 Pieces of cloth, of different colors, sink with different 
 speed into snow, showing that the light, when absorbed 
 by black cloths, changes into heat, aijd therefore these 
 cloths sink more rapidly into the snofi. 
 
 " As electricity, moving round an iron bar, develops 
 magnetism, so revolting ma,gnets develop -electricity, 
 and we have magneto-electricity as well as electro- 
 magnetism. Since electricity causes light, heat- 
 motion, and chemical affinity, magnetism may be con- 
 sidered to cause them. Magnets directly cause and 
 resist motion; and whenever iron is magnetized or 
 demagnetized, heat is developed. 
 
 " Chemism, the power which causes chemical action, 
 by means of chemical affinity, causes motion, electri- 
 city, heat, and light. All these effects are seen in the 
 chemical process of burning ; one of our strongest 
 sources of electricity is in chemical action ; and in the* 
 Voltaic-pile and Galvanic battery, the amount of elec- 
 tricity evolved is in exact proportion to the amount 
 
HAEM0NIE8 OF THE UNIVEESE. 99 
 
 of chemical action ; in tlie same way as the heat and 
 electricity caused by friction are in exact proportion to 
 the amount of the friction and to the loss of mechanical 
 force. It is believed that the vital foi ces are also con- 
 nected with the physical forces of inanimate nature. 
 ^11 the substances found in the animal are also found 
 in the mineral kingdom. And light and heat are 
 necessary conditions to animation." 
 
100 
 
 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 
 
THE OONSXrrUTIOlil OF THE SUMMEE LAND. 101 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 THE CONSTITUTIOlir OF THE STJKMEE-LAOT). 
 
 Thus far we have cautiously walked in the fact- 
 lighted path of inductive science. We are, neverthe- 
 less, in search of that attractive Spiritual Zone — which 
 blends, astronomically and mathematically, the finite 
 with the infinite — to which the human heart and the cul- 
 tured mind instinctively aspire. We are intellectually 
 searching for that higher Land which, accepting the 
 testimony of seers, rolls embosomed in the Stellar Uni- 
 verse. In looking through the boundless blue for our 
 eternal home, we behold, as by necessity, the holy orbs 
 and sun-built constellation of the ethereal realm. 
 
 "Te stars 1 which are the poetry of heaven, 
 
 If in your bright leaves we would read the fate 
 Of men and empires — 'tis to be forgiven ; 
 * * * For ye are 
 
 A beauty and a mystery, and create 
 
 In us suoli love and reverence from afar 
 That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a Btar." 
 
 Chemistry has many living exponents, and they all 
 agree that the sixty-four or eighty-two " simple ele- 
 ments," by entering' into different atomic arrangements, 
 and by combining in differeiit proportions, originate all 
 the known " compounds " and organizations in nature. 
 
 It is according to iny perceptions, however, that 
 chemists, when better informed, will resign their now 
 
102 A STELLAB KET. 
 
 popular theory of " Simples." The number and names 
 of the " primates " are increased each succeeding year 
 by the discovery of several new elements. An ele- 
 ment, in the chemical schools, is understood to be that 
 which cannot be further analyzed or changed in its 
 nature. Gold, for example, can be vaporized so finely 
 as to become invisible; butwhen detected, accumulated, 
 and assayed, each grain of it is exactly and perfectly 
 what it was at first. There is no intrinsic difference 
 between the finest grain and the largest mass, and thus 
 gold is called an " element." 
 
 But the magnificent simplicities of Nature, like the 
 central unities of Truth, when they are detected and 
 correctly assayed, will put an everlasting extinguisher 
 upon aU these false " lights " in the temple of chemical 
 science. It will be found that the solids of the world 
 came from ethers and essences. The atmospheres con- 
 tain in solution aU the world. (In this work I do not 
 use the terms " fluids " and "vapors " in any ordinary 
 limited sense.) It is certain to a demonstration that 
 essences are the magnetical condition of matter. The 
 different electricities exist in the sphere below, among 
 the "vapors;" as the atmospheres, and the so-called 
 gases, exist in the " fluids " of earth and space. It is 
 necessary to understand this, before your judgment can 
 take in the conception of a stratified spiritual Zone, 
 because the celestial existence is constituted of the 
 ultimate atoms of visible matter. And it is, therefore, 
 of the highest moment, scientifically considered, that the 
 essence-origin of palpable solid matter be perfectly com- 
 prehended. For if it be clearly seen that the earth was 
 once impalpable ethgr or essence, and if the established 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE BUMMEE LAND, 103 
 
 world-forming laws and processes of space be remem- 
 bered, as we have carefully explained them in ear- 
 lier chapters, then it will be logically easy to under- 
 stand the formation and constitution of the Summer 
 Land. 
 
 The ethereal condition, or, rather, the ess&nc^origm 
 of visible ritatter, therefore, is the question first to be 
 considered. ®n this point, then, we must take testi- 
 mony accumulated by the world's chemical researches. 
 An English writer. Ml of positivism and skepticism, 
 first asks a question and then answers, thus : — 
 
 " What is man ? (and this term equally applies chemi- 
 cally to the whole organic world.) Man is a condensation 
 of gases and vapors, every one of which are floating 
 round us in the atmosphere. Out of his total weight 
 of 154 lbs., we have in the man — oxygen. 111 lbs., and 
 he is inhaling it every instant ; hydrogen, 15 lbs., a gas 
 we burn ; carbon, a gas, when combined with oxygen ; 
 nitrogen, part of the air we breathe ; phosphorus, which 
 is aU around us in every plant and animal, which we 
 eat at every meal ; calcium, liquid in water ; sodium, 
 liquid with chlorine ; and other metals in very small 
 quantities, all susceptible of liquidity. Man is not con- 
 scious of it, any more than he is conscious that when he 
 is eating roast-beef, he is eating nitrogen, phosphorus, 
 calcium, sulphur, potassium, and iron; few even are 
 conscious that, in taking salt, they are eating chlorine. 
 Man is continually giving out these vapors, which are 
 in fact a part of himself ; he is conscious only of one 
 thing, and that is, that if they escape a little too fast, 
 he feels cold. The quantity of these vapors is im- 
 mense. The runaway negro leaves his track distin- 
 
104 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 guishable by the blood-hound for 100 miles— we scarcely 
 •perceive it, but if a dog has lost his master, he knows 
 if his master has been in any room he goes into ; such 
 is the absolutely distinctive difference of the emanations 
 from each individual. These emanations are as positively 
 material, as the individual himself is material — as mate- 
 rial as, if you scent a large room with one drop of otto 
 of roses, every particle by which you perceive the scent 
 is as material as the whole drop itself was. Now these 
 emanations correspond exactly with Baron Eeichen- 
 bach's description, in his conclusions of Odyle, p. 210, 
 namely : — 
 
 A peculiar force, distinct from all known forces, is 
 different from magnetism. 
 
 Bodies possessing it do not assume any particular 
 direction from the earth's magnetism. 
 
 In animals, at least in man, the whole left side is in 
 odylic opposition to the right. The force appears con- 
 centrated on poles in the extremities; the hands and 
 fingers, in both feet, stronger in the hands than in the 
 feet. 
 
 The odylic force is conducted to distances yef un- 
 ascertained by all solid and liquid bodies; not only 
 metals, but glass, resin, silk, water, dry wood, paper, 
 cotton cloth, woolen cloth, &c. 
 
 Bodies may be charged with odyle, or odyle may 
 be transferred from one body to another. In stricter 
 language, a body in which free odyle is developed can 
 excite in another body a similar odylic state. 
 
 This charging, or transference, is effected by con- 
 tact. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SUMMEE LAND. 105 
 
 The charging requires a certain time, and is not 
 accomplished under several minutes. 
 
 The odylic light of amorphous bodies is a kind of 
 feeble external and internal glow, somewhat similar to 
 phosphorescence. This glow is surrounded by a delicate 
 luminous vail, in the form of a fine downy flame. 
 
 Human beings are thus luminous over nearly the 
 whole surface, but especially the hands, over the palm 
 of the hand, the points of the fingers, the eyes, certain 
 parts of the head, the pit of the stomach, the toes, &c. 
 
 Flaming emanations stream forth from all the points 
 of the fingers, of relatively great intensity, and in the 
 line of the length of the fingers. 
 
 All these flames may be moved by currents of air ; 
 and where they meet with solid bodies, they bend round 
 them, just as ordinary flame ' does. The odylic flame 
 has therefore an obviously material (ponderable ?) char- 
 acter. 
 
 In the animal economy, night, sleep, and hunger 
 depress and diminish the odylic influence. Taking 
 food, daylight, and the active waking state, increase 
 and intensify it. In sleep the seat of odylic activity is 
 transferred to other parts of the nervous system. 
 
 A photographic picture is the electric effect of light 
 — ^the action of electricity on metals. But man is a 
 compound of the very materials used in photography, 
 only in solution. Tou have sodium, a white metal; 
 cal'cium, a white metal; iodine, chlorine, and parti- 
 cularly phosphorus, and you have a continued internal 
 spring of electricity. It is curious also that any excess 
 or diminution of phosphorus in the brain affects the 
 sense and imagination. 
 
106 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 "In a work I have before me," says this- author, "it 
 is stated that the analysis of the brain of man and 
 animals gives the following proportions of phosphorus : — 
 
 In animals of the lower order 1 per cent. 
 
 In- imbeciles (men) • li " 
 
 In men of sound intellectual powers 2 to 2 J " 
 
 In men where a degree of eccentricity prevailed 3 " 
 
 Complete insanity .' 4 to 4J " 
 
 Phosphorus is a substance in a great measure composed 
 of light. I wish you first to reflect on the intimate 
 connection of the light with thought, so that the state 
 of the intellectual faculties seems to be regulated by it; 
 and next, that these varying quantities are only the 
 result of the different power of the absorbents of dif- 
 ferent individuals. 
 
 "In Mons. Boinet's work on lodotherapia, we find that 
 Mons. Chaton states that the absence- of iodine in the 
 air, in certain countries, is the cause of the degradation 
 of the human species. Further — the researches and 
 observations of Messrs. Boussing3,ult, Gauge, Cantu, 
 and a number of scientific men, prove that in those 
 geographical, geological, and chemical situations where 
 iodine is deficient, cretinism or imbecility abounds. 
 This points strongly to iodine as having properties re- 
 lated to intellect — and salt, in which the metal sodium 
 is but the vehicle for chlorine, what would the world 
 be without it ? The most noticeable facts in the case 
 are — the large quantity of phosphorus in every human 
 body — If lb. ; the fact that we imbibe phosphorus in 
 each bit of animal and vegetable food we eat; that the 
 ■lower the animal kingdom is in intellect or instinct, the 
 
THE OONSTmmOIT OF THE SUMMEB I^AHSD. . 107 
 
 lesB phosphorus their bodies contain; and that the 
 odylic emanations and intelligent manifestations are 
 generally and most probably always accompanied by 
 phosphorus ; and that chlorine, which we are always . 
 eattQg in salt, being a sister element to iodine, is full 
 as likely as iodine to have a part in the development of 
 intellect." 
 
 The materialism of this testimony does no injury to 
 the purpose in view, namely, to adduce scientific facts 
 to establish the essence-origin of matter. Innumerable 
 atomic emanations arise and continually ascend from the 
 bodies of persons composing the human family ; not less 
 than 800,000,000 tons per annum ; atoms that float out 
 into space in the rivers of ether, and enter into the 
 constitution of the Summer Land. This process has 
 been long known to seers. But the world's people 
 want " facts " of the schools for the foundation of their 
 faith in the future. " Life, in its proper, generic sense," 
 says Grindon, in his volume on the Varieties and Phe- 
 nomena of. Life, '" is the name of the sustaining prin- 
 ciple by which every thing out of the Creator subsists, 
 whether worlds, metals, minerals, trees, animals, man- 
 kind, angels, or devils, together with all thought and 
 feeling. Nothing is absolutely lifeless, though many 
 things are relatively so ; and it is simply a conventional 
 restriction of the term, which makes life signify no more 
 than the vital energy of an organized material body, 
 
 '•' Has not this inorganic nature sympathies and an- 
 tipathies in those mysterious elective affinities of the 
 molecules of matter which chemistry investigates ? Has 
 it not the powerful attractions of bodies to each other, 
 which govern the motions of the stars scattered in the 
 
108 A STELLAB KEY. 
 
 immensity of space, and keep them in an admirable 
 harmony ? Do we not see, and always with a secret 
 astonishment, the magnetic needle agitated at the ap- 
 proach of a particle of iron, and leaping under the fire 
 of the Northern Light ? Place any material body what- 
 ever by the side of another, do they not immediately 
 enter into relations of interchange, of molecular attrac- 
 tion, of electricity, of magnetism? In the inorganic 
 part of matter, as in the organic, all is acting, all is 
 promoting change, all is itself undergoing transforma- 
 tion. And thus, though this life of the globe, this 
 physiology of our planet, is not the life of the tree or 
 the bird, is it not also a life ? Assuredly it is. We 
 cannot refuse so to call those lively actions and reactions, 
 that perpetual play of the forces of matter, of which we 
 are every day the witnesses. . . . 
 
 " Thus, that the soul is no ' wiU-o'-th'-wisp in the 
 swamps of the cerebrum,' but an -mtemal man, a body 
 within a body ; ' a life,' as Aretseus says of the womb, 
 ' within a life ;' in the material body as God is in the 
 universe, everywhere and nowhere ; everywhere for the 
 enlightened intellect, nowhere for the physical view; 
 no more in the brain than in the toes, but the spiritual 
 ' double ' of the entire fabric. All the organs of the 
 material body have soul in them, and serve the soul, 
 each one according to its capacity; yet is the soul 
 itself independent of them all, because made of another 
 substance 
 
 " Spiritual substances are none the less real because 
 out of the reach of chemistry or edgetools, or because 
 they are inappreciable by the organs of sense. Indeed 
 it is only the grosser expressions of matter whicji can 
 
THE CONSTITDTION OK THE STJMMEE LAND. 109 
 
 be SO treated, and -whicli tlie senses can apprehend. 
 Heat and electricity are as tnily material a;s flint and 
 granite, yet man can neither cut, nor weigh, nor measure 
 them ; while the most familiar and abundant expression 
 of all, the air which we breathe, can neither be seen 
 nor felt till put in motion. As for invisibility, which 
 to the vulgar is proof of non-existence, no warning is so 
 incessantly addressed to lis, from every department ot 
 creation, as not to commit the mistake of disbelieving, 
 simply because we cannot see. Each class of substances 
 is real in relation to the world it belongs to ; material 
 substances in the material world ; spiritual substances 
 in the spiritual world ; and each kind has to be judged 
 of according to its place of abode." 
 
 The testimony of science is stronger and stronger in 
 favor of the essence-origin of all forms and conditions of 
 matter ; and how much more satisfactory to the ex- 
 ternalist, to the sensuous thinker, that this testimony 
 proceeds from recognized literary and scientific author- 
 ity. The venerable philosopher. Dr. Ashburner, of 
 England, gives most important evidence that matter can 
 be " dissolved " and " attenuated " teyond the influence 
 of " attraction." The unparticled atomic constitution 
 of the Summer Land, therefor^, is an acknowledged 
 possibility. That philosopher and scientist says : " It 
 is idle to, discuss the various characteristics of the forms 
 of the objects surrounding us. Those who have the 
 necessary faculties are quite aware that all the objects 
 in nature are resolvable into certain forms known as 
 solid, liquid, and gaseous or aeriform. We have, on a 
 previous occasion, illustrated a portion of our present 
 subject by selecting the lightest substance known as 
 
110 A STELLAE KET. 
 
 material, hydrogen gas, in orSer to express onr meaning 
 of infinitely attenuated matter, when a repulsive force 
 operates to keep its particles asunder so as to prevent 
 its combining with any other form of matter. The 
 force of repulsion, then, obliges hydrogen to remain in 
 a state of negative polarity; for unless its particles can 
 be approximated, it cannot alter its state or its con- 
 ditions. Nor can any matter without the intervention 
 of force, for all matter is known to be inert or passive. 
 If man be operating on matter, in any course of experi- 
 ments, it would be idle to say that he was not exerting 
 his will to fashion those experiments. It has been 
 shewn that the wiU of man is a force, attractive or re- 
 pulsive, according to circumstances. [See his Essays 
 in the fourth volume of the Zoist.'] Man can cause 
 matter to be dissolved. It can be dissolved as a salt in 
 water, which is itself a form of matter, capable of ex- 
 pansion and attenuation in the form of vapor or gas. 
 But in order to effect this change in water, the in- 
 troduction of a repulsive force is necessary. Under 
 all circumstances, matter is subject to force. Cannot 
 force dissolve matter ? What do we mean by electro- 
 metallurgy? Does not, in this case, electricity dissolve 
 metal ? In the formation of vapor in the atmosphere, 
 does not force dissolve water? Is not all attenuation 
 of matter more or less a sQlution in force ? 
 
 " This idea, expanded, takes us on to that of infinite 
 space. We can suppose all matter to be so far atten- 
 ated as to /orm universal ether / to be dissolved by force 
 in infinite space ; resolved into such minute particles, 
 as to be no longer subject to attraction." 
 
 In this place it is of the fiirst importance to read a 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SUMMEE IAUD/ 111 
 
 communication that appeared in tlie London (England) 
 Spiritual Magazine concerning the essences and ethers 
 and emanations which science has discovered as be- 
 longing to and proceeding from physical bodies. The 
 correspondent, after alluding appreciatively to the letters 
 of Mr. Euskin, says : — 
 
 " It is to one of his. physical illustrations that we wish 
 to draw our reader's attention. It is one of the demon- 
 strations of spiritual clairvoyance that each of us ia 
 surrounded by a spiritual sphere or emanation ; which 
 is sometimes even seen in colors, or in light, and is 
 more often absolutely felt, even through our dulled and 
 deadened sensibilities. Nothing, indeed, is more likely 
 to be true, or can be more profusely illustrated by our 
 experience, than the impression by thoughts or by pre- 
 monitions on meeting persons of our acquaintance, or 
 in many of the circumstances of our daily lives, and 
 intercourse with one another; but, like most that is 
 spiritual, and appertaining to the soul and its faculties, 
 it is received with ridicule or neglect. We look forward, 
 however, to a future day when it will be a key-stone in 
 the-arch. of spiritual knowledge. 
 
 " The discovery of the spectrum analysis, which now 
 plays so important a part in physical science, and is 
 being jjrosecnted in so many quarters of physics, is now 
 helping us, by demonstrating similar spheres and ema- 
 nations in natural substances. This also has long ago 
 been described and insisted on by Spiritualists, but 
 their testimony has been disregarded. A very interest- 
 ing description is given of the recent discoveries or 
 rather re-discoveries on the physical plane, made through 
 a friopd of Mr. Euskin, and which he thus narrates : — 
 
112 A STELLAE KET. 
 
 " 'Yesterday afternoon I called on Mr. H. 0. Sorby, 
 to see some of the results of an inquiry he has been 
 following aU last year, into the nature of the coloring 
 matter of leaves and flowers. You most probably have 
 heard (at all events, may with little' trouble hear) of the 
 marvelous power which chemical analysis has receiTed 
 in recent discoveries respecting the laws of light. My 
 friend showed me the rainbow of the rose, and the rain- 
 bow of the violet, and the rainbow of the hyacinth, and 
 the rainbow of forest leaves being bom, and the rain- 
 , bow of forest leaves dying. And, last, he showed me 
 ' the rainbow of blood. It was but the three-hundredth 
 part of a grain, dissolved in a drop of water ; and it 
 cast its measured bars, forever recognizable now to 
 human sight, on the chord of the seven colors. And no 
 drop of that red rain can now be shed, so small as that 
 the stain of it cannot be known, and the voice of it 
 heard out of the ground.' 
 
 " Shall there be," he inquires, " a rainbow or sphere 
 around the rose, or around a drop of blood, and no 
 emanation from the soul, with all its God-given powers, 
 and its undying loves, and heavenward aspirations? 
 The natural is but the analogue of the spiritual; and 
 poetry is true, though science, till now, has failed to 
 see it." 
 
 The reader will, possibly, find that the deepest truths 
 are vailed in obscurity. Many of our plainest principles 
 form a kind of mysterivm, magnum — ^immensely in- 
 comprehensible — arising in part, perhaps wholly, from 
 the inadequacy of language to convey clear pictures 
 and iniages of Ideas to the mind. Indeed, it must for- 
 ever remain difficult to impart to the mind of another a 
 perfectly crystalline conception and knowledge of things 
 spiritual. The faithful, truthful logical thinker knows 
 
THE CONSTrrUTION OF THE STIMMEE LAND. 113 
 
 that the visible world is but a vail, a material garment, 
 transparent to the spirit's eyes, hiding from physical 
 vision the formative powers which are eternal. The 
 material constitution and substantialness of the Summer 
 Land become a " matter of fact " to that mind which 
 is structurally endowed and unfolded by culture to dis- 
 cern the harmonious essences that perpetually build up 
 the temple of the universe, and/ which can 
 
 " look through natutal forms, 
 
 Ajid feel the throbbing arteries of Law 
 In every pulse of Nature and of Man." 
 
 Thus far, in this section of our subject, I have led the 
 reader through the fields of*" scientific facts." And to 
 this method, for a time longer, I am constrained to 
 adhere ; because the materialized millions of America 
 demand, even from me, the plain evidences of intellectual 
 and passionless science. 
 
 Before us now, therefore^ is the labor of establishing 
 in your mind two grand truths : namely, first, that the 
 so-called " solid " matter of the imiverse is continually 
 rising to its ultimate condition (which is the reproduc- 
 tion of its primitive condition), but in a far higher circle 
 of refinement, called " essences ;" and, second, that from 
 the human organization, especially, these " essences " 
 are continually emanating and sweeping off into space, 
 being the highest emanations of refined matter from any 
 globe, because the human body is the highest organism, 
 and is pre-eminently one of " God's mills " for prepar- 
 ing atoms to enter into the formation of the velvety 
 soils in the successive Summer Lands of immensity. 
 
 The first time I clairvoyantly saw the "second 
 
114: A STELLAE KEY, 
 
 sphere " — i. e. the nearest Summer Land, lining this part 
 of the stellar universe — ^it seemed only as a small sec- 
 tion of a continuous white zone among the stars. The 
 little diagram gives a hint of its first appearance in 
 space. 
 
 Let the reader imagin e my amazement and delight, suc- 
 ceeded by an tmutterahle awe, arising from the unpre- 
 paredness of my intellect for such a disclosure. Although 
 I have since seen a million times more vast and wonder- 
 ful things, concerning the spiritual and celestial uni- 
 verses, yet the mere recalling of that first impression 
 and perception, which occurred almost a quarter of a 
 century ago, thrills my mind through and through. 
 The universe is ablaze every moment with these myriad- 
 gated spheres of beauty and glory. The infinite-master 
 Powers of the Univercoelum, and the plastic Essences 
 and animated Ethers of the highest regions of Matter, 
 and the grand white Light of the innermost empyrean, 
 are all beautifully and philosophically disclosed to that 
 mind which is intelligently and worthily open to the 
 perception and comprehension of God's choicest truths. 
 The vast panorama of the Universe, in its epical 
 grandeur and lyrical harmonies, should be pictured 
 as true and pure as frost-flowers upon your reason. 
 The intellect of that man who beholds these lofty 
 truths is supremely blest. Henceforth he should hold 
 his — 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE BTJMMEB LAND. 115 
 
 " — gift in reveretiGe. And he should mold his life 
 In beauty's perfect fashion, holding on 
 Columbus-like through floods of thought unknown, 
 Till tropic archipelagoes of song, 
 Till virgin continents of stately verso, 
 And undiscovered worlds of harmony 
 Eepay the bold adventure." 
 
 Such a philosoplier, standing armed to tlie teetli witli 
 the facts of positive science, would be constrained to 
 testify that when " we look on a beautiful landscape,-we 
 see mountains, trees, rivers, real and substantial as 
 regards the material universe; nevertheless, only as 
 images, forms originally existingj in a world which we 
 do not see, and from which they are derived . . forms 
 which are as real as the material — yea, infinitely more 
 so, since the material is local and temporary, whereas 
 the spiritual is unlimited and imperishable. Nothing 
 exists except by reason of the spiritual world ; whatever 
 pertains to the material is purely and simply effect." 
 
 According to my most careful examinations of the 
 physical structure of the Summer Land, the fertile 
 soils, and the lovely groves and vines and flowers which 
 infinitely diversify the landscape, are constituted of 
 pwrtides that were onoe^m human iodies ! But the 
 world-rearing principles, by which those particles were 
 attracted from the human emanations of all the inhab- 
 ited planets in the solar belt called the Milky "Way, are 
 from the spiritual universe. These human emanations, 
 like the lights and flames of crystals and magnets, flow 
 forth unceasingly, in millions of tons daily, into the 
 soils of the celestial lands. 
 
 Perhaps it may fortify your judgment to read Eeich- 
 enbach's testimony. His experiments with " sensitives," 
 
116 A STELLA^ KEY. 
 
 as he terms the neurological mediums of Germany^ 
 demonstrate that " every flower, fruit, and tree emits 
 into nature the best portion of its being — ^its essence." 
 But who has seen the aromal essence of a flower? 
 Who has beheld the essential form, thus given off into 
 the universe 'i* 
 
 According to the Teutonic philosopher, the odic light 
 is more beautiful from the horseshoe magnet, set up- 
 right, with both poles pointing toward the heavens. 
 " I have," he writes in one of his letters, " a nine- 
 leaved horseshoe magnet, with a power of raising a 
 hundred pounds; and all sensitive persons can see a 
 fine light streaming out of each pole — ^that is, two lights 
 side by side, which do not attract, nor influence, nor 
 extinguish each otlier — as do the magnetic forces of 
 opposing poles — but steadily stream up high, side by 
 side, and form a light-column, as large as a man, and 
 composed of innumerable light-sparkles in constant mo- 
 tion^the column being described as impressively beau- 
 tiful by all who have seen it. It rises perpendicularly to 
 the ceiling, and there casts a light upon a space ahout 
 twelve feet in diameter. If the magnet is kept long in 
 this position before the sensitive person, the whole ceil- 
 ing becomes gradually visible. Such a magnet upon a 
 table throws a light upon it, so that every thing on its 
 surface can be seen for a yard in each direction from the 
 magnet. A hand interposed between the flame and the 
 table casts a perceptible shadow. , If you hold a piece 
 of board, a pane of window-glass, a plate of tin, or any 
 
 * These emanations have been seen by many clairvoyants. For the 
 "huthor's perception of them, read a chapter in " The Seer " (Harmonia, 
 vol. IIL) ; also see a chapter in " The Magic Staff." 
 
THK CONSTITUTIOIT OF THE BXIMMEK LAOT). 117 
 
 - Bimilar body horizontally into the flame, the latter will 
 bend under it and rise up at the sides, just as the flame 
 of a fire would under the same circumstances. If a 
 draft of air blow upon th% magnet, or if it be moved, 
 the flame bends to one side, as the flame of a candle 
 would. The light can be collected in a focus by a 
 burning-glass, like the rays of ordinary light. The 
 phenomenon is thus shown to be a material one, and 
 has many qualities in common with ordinary flame. If 
 two of these odic flames be made to cross each other, 
 there is no perceptible attraction or repulsion, but they 
 mutually pierce each other, and pursue their respective 
 courses undisturbed. If one be stronger than the other 
 — ^if its sparkles of light have a stronger headway — it 
 divides the weaker flame, which splits, passes over the 
 sides of the stronger one, and meets on the other side, 
 just as it does if a stick be held in it. And as sensitive 
 persons saw the crystals penetrated by a fine glow, so' 
 also they see the steel magnet translucent with a 
 white light ; and electro-magnets have the same 
 appearance." 
 
 That all the universe of matter is pervaded by an 
 invisible essence, is to be the grandest discovery of 
 chemical science. Cornelius Agrippa, in his great 
 works on Occult Philosophy, recognized the existence 
 of this sympathetic and antipathetic essence between 
 and throughout all things. This essence is not a mere 
 motion of matter in a high state of attenuation ; it is, 
 in fact, a substantial form of matter itself; and we find 
 that the Summer Land derived its constitution from the 
 atoms composing this inter-stellar and inter-planetary 
 etherealized ocean of materials. 
 
118 A STELI.AE KEY. 
 
 Now the laws that govern nature go on, as I have 
 many times urged, with a steady and unchangeable 
 progression. They are not at any time retarded or 
 accelerated. Nothing can "prevent the natural results 
 of these laws. They are established by one great 
 positive power and mind; and equaled and balanced 
 by a negative or ultimate equilibrium. Hence their 
 continued and united forces, by the influence of ^which 
 all things are actuated, governed, and developed, 
 pass on in a steady progression. Every particle of 
 matter possesses the same power which governs the 
 whole of the universe, and in each particle you see a 
 representation and evidence of those divine laws. 
 Thus, in the stone you may see the properties of the 
 soil ; in the soil, the properties of the plant ; in the 
 plant, the properties of an animal ; in the animal you 
 see man— and in Man you cannot see, but you can fed 
 the immortal principle. 
 
 The testimony of years ago is as fresh and momentous 
 now as then. I am eqnally desirous of enforcing that 
 great sfpi/ritmal and eternal truth which it is necessary 
 for man to know and appreciate before he can compre- 
 hend the idea of the Summer Land ; -and that is, that all 
 'manifest svhstomces^forms^ compositions — indeed, that 
 ALL THusras VISIBLE are expressions of an interior produo- 
 tive cause, which is the spiritual essence / that the Mineral 
 Kingdom is an expression of Motion, the V^etable an 
 expression of Life, the Animal an expression of Sensa- 
 tion, and that Man is an expression oi Intelligence ; that 
 the planets in our solar system are a perfect expression 
 of the Sun, from which they sprang ; that the various 
 combined bodies and planetary systems in the Universe 
 
THE OONBTTTUTION OF THE SDMMEE LAND. 119 
 
 are a perfect expression of the Great Sun of the IJniver- 
 coelum ; that the Great Sun is the perfect expression of 
 the Spieitual Sun within it; and that the Spiritual 
 Sun is a perfect expression of the Divine Mind, Love, 
 or Essence. The Spiritual Sun is thus the Center and 
 Cause of all material things. It is a diverging or radi- 
 ating Sphere or Atmo^here of the Great Eternal Cause. 
 It is an aroma — a garment and a perfect radiation of 
 the more interior Essencej the Divine, Creative Soul. 
 
 Some conception of the Stellar Universe {i. e., the 
 universe of suns and planets) may be obtained from a 
 synoptical sketch of astronomic discoveries. Prof. 
 Meigs reports M. Arago's lecture to this effect : — ^We 
 count in the iN^orthem Hemisphere 4,400 stars visible 
 to the nalked eye. And for the purpose of counting we 
 proceed in this way : through a narrow slit, : corre- 
 sponding with the meridian of the place of observation, 
 we look attentively and note the stars gradually as 
 they "appear. The following approximate calculation 
 will give an inferior limit to the number of stars visible 
 with the powerful instruments of which we have the 
 use. 
 
 Observation has demonstrated that the number of 
 the stars of the second magnitude is triple that of 
 those of ^Q first magnitude; that those of the third 
 magnitude is triple that of those of the second magni- 
 tude. In a, word, that in general to obtain the number 
 of stars of any given magnitude, we must multiply by 
 three the number of stars of a preceding magnitude. 
 
 Let us, then, admit this law to the 14th magnitude — 
 to stars which the most powerful instruments render 
 visible ; as the number of stars of the first magnitude is 
 
120 A- STELLAR KEY. 
 
 eighteen, then the number of stars visible by the naked 
 eye and with telescopes as far as the 14th magnitude 
 will be about twenty-nine millions^ and if to these 
 twenty-nine millions we add those of the 13th and 14th 
 magnitudes, &g., we obtain the number of forty-three 
 millions of stars. 
 
 Herschel, in that part of the heavens occupied by the 
 knee of Orion, in a band of fifteen degrees long by two 
 degrees wide, has distinctly counted Jfty thousand 
 stars. And as the band is only the three hundred and 
 seventy-sixth part of the celestial vault, the entire sur- 
 face of the heavens must contain 98,755,000 visible with 
 the telescope. And as we must remark, in a great 
 many regions of the heavens the stars are much closer 
 together, and that with our telescopes we only reach the 
 least distant celestia;l spaces and the stars least remote, 
 we must recognize the fact that the first estimate of 
 their numbers is infinitely far from the truth ; and that, 
 admitting one visible star in each square minute, we 
 must liave a number of distinct stars amounting to one 
 hundred and forty-eight millions five hundred and 
 seven thousand two hundred stars, and yet remain 
 much below the truth. There are then one hundred 
 and forty -eight millions of stars, and our sun is one of 
 them only. The mass of our earth is but the three 
 hundred and fifty-five millionth part of that one sun ; 
 and we are but an atom in relation to our earth. The 
 place we occupy is then infinitely small, and we more 
 than injmiteh/ little. 
 
 Comparative Intensities of the Light of Stars of 
 DIFFERENT MAGNiTni>E8. — There is in science a great 
 and much to be regretted blank ; photometry, or the 
 
THE coNS'rmmoN of the summee land. 121 
 
 art of measuring the various intensities of light, is still 
 in its infancy ; we have hardly taken the first step. 
 
 The division of the stars by the order of their magni- 
 tude was made by the astronomers of antiquity in an 
 arbitrary manner and without any pretension to exact- 
 ness, and this vagueness is continued in our modern 
 charts. Those which are accredited now present a 
 total table of eighteen stars of the first magnitude for 
 the two hemispheres. , Why eighteen, and not nineteen 
 or twenty ? 
 
 The stars of the first magnitude are far from having 
 all the same intensity. The sixth order composed 
 among the ancients the last visible to the naked eye ; 
 and in our day those of the seventh magnitude consti- 
 tute the demarcation between the stars visible to the 
 naked eye and the telescopic stars. 
 
 "We may aiBrm that there are certainly stars in the 
 firmament whose distance from the earth is 344: and 
 even 900 times greater than that of the stars visible to 
 the naked eye. See what conclusion this leads us to ! 
 |t is admitted that light, with the velocity of 77,000 
 leagues a second, takes three years to reach us from the 
 nearest star. And there are stars three htmdred and 
 forty-four and even nine hundred times more remote. 
 Then there are stars whose light does not reach us until 
 after two thousand seven hundred years — an infinity in 
 distance as it is in numbers. 
 
 Staes of Vaeiablb Intensity of Light. — ^Eratosthe- 
 nes, in the year 275 before Christ, says of the stars in 
 the constellation of the Scorpion : " They are preceded by 
 the most beautiful of all the northern gems." At this 
 time this is less brilliant than the southern, and, above 
 
 6 
 
122 A STELLAS KEY. 
 
 all, than Arcturus. Then there have been changes 
 since the time of Eratosthenes. 
 
 When Newton pronounced the sublime words, uni- 
 versal attraction, there was an outcry at its novelty ; it 
 was a neologism ; it had occult qualities, &c. Now the 
 words fill the world, of which they are its greatest 
 reality. 
 
 DiAMETEES OF THE Staes. — Great diversity of opinion 
 exists on this point. K we should take for their discs 
 such as they appear to the naked eye, certain stars 
 would be nine thousand millions of leagues in diameter 
 — equal to twenty-seven thousand times greater diame- 
 ter than the sun— and the most moderate calculations 
 would be one thousand seven hundred millions. Her- 
 echel's last calculation was that Arcturus had a diame- 
 ter of nearly four millions of leagues (twelve millions of 
 miles). If the apparent diameter of two seconds and a 
 half, assigned by Herschel to the Goat, was real, the 
 mass of that star must be more than fourteen million 
 times greater than that of our sun. But there is no 
 certainty in this, nor any thing to question that our sun 
 is a star. 
 
 The sublime idea that the Creator hath made all 
 with number, weight, and measure, is followed by 
 Plato, who called it the geometry of the heavens. 
 Halley, the friend of Newton, believed that all the 
 stars were of the same magnitude — that of our sun — 
 and that difference of distance only caused the apparent 
 difference of size. 
 
 NuMBEE OF Stabs. — The number visible by means of 
 a telescope of twenty feet focal distance may be more 
 than five hundred millions. 
 
THE OONSTrrUTIOlT OF THE BUMMEK LAMD. 123 
 
 Distance of the Stabs of some ^^ebul^. — We have 
 supposed that the nebula of which we form part is not 
 the largest of the three thousand nebulae known to 
 astronomers. Is it not very natural? Is it not as a 
 million to one that it is so ? When, therefore, on this 
 hypothesis, and the facts stated by Herschel, that there 
 are, at a medium, in the direction of our nebul8e,-five 
 hundred stars, that many nebulae subtend an angle of 
 ten minutes, and the very natural hypothesis that the 
 distance between two consecutive stars among the five 
 hundred is the distance of the earth from the nearest, 
 star, we must arrive at the conclusion that there are 
 planets so distant from us that light, moving at the 
 velocity of more than seventy-seven thousand leagues 
 in a second of time, would take more than a million of 
 years to reach us ! These few words are enough to 
 prove, as it seems to me, that we must admit our 
 imaginations overwhelmed at the infinite number and 
 distances in question. 
 
 The existence and essential constitution of the 
 Summer Land must cease to excite skepticism in that, 
 intellect which contemplates the glory, the stupendous 
 immensity, and the musical harmony of the stellar 
 system. It is a grand demonstration and affirmation 
 of science that light travels about 213,000 miles, in a 
 second ! From the moon it takes five quarters of a 
 second to come to us ; from the s,un, eight minutes ; 
 from Uranus, more than five hours ; „ from the nearest 
 fixed stars, three years ; from^ a star of the seventh 
 magnitude, 180 years ;^ from one of the twelfth magni- 
 tude, 4,000 years ; and from those yet more distant orbs, 
 seen only through the best telescopes — ^Lord Eosse's, for 
 
124 A STELLAE KET. 
 
 instance — the light requires many tens of thousands of 
 years to reach our planet, n 
 
 Consequently, when we look at any of these bodies 
 we do not see it as it is at present, hut as it was at some 
 former time more or less remote. We see the moon as 
 it was some five quarters of a second ago ; Jupiter, as it 
 was fifty-two minutes ago ; the nearest of the fixed stars, 
 as it was three years ago ; one of the twelfth magoitude, 
 as it was 4,000 years ago ; and so on. 
 
 New stars may have existed for thousands of years, 
 comparatively near the confines of our solar system, 
 which have not yet become visible to us ; and others 
 which still shine in our firmament may have passed out 
 of existence before the time fixed for Noah's fiood. 
 
 These facts and conclusions are acknowledged and 
 acted upon by astronomers. They are true, independ- 
 ently of any theory of optics; since it matters not 
 whether light is a body that actually travels, or a mere 
 electrical phenomejion or a " motion " of force, as some 
 would liave it. It is sufficient to know that it takes a 
 complete second before a luminous body, 213,000 miles 
 distant, becomes visible to us, and a proportionably 
 longer interval in case of bodies farther on. 
 
 It is strange, however, that no one has hitherto 
 thought of reversing this problem ; for it follows as a 
 matter of course from what has been said already, that 
 an observer in the moon, looking toward the earth, 
 does not see it as it iS at the moment of observation, but 
 as it was five quarters of a second before. An observer 
 from the sun sees it as it was eight minutes before. 
 From Uranus, the time between the reality and the per- 
 ception by the eye is more than two hours. From the 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE 8TJMMEK LAND. 125 
 
 nearest fixed stars, the interval is three years. " An in- 
 habitant of a star of the twelfth magnitude, if we 
 imagine him with unlimited power of vision, contem- 
 plating the earth, sees it as it was 4,000 years ago ; 
 when Memphis was founded, and patriarch Abraham 
 wandered upon its surface. Possibly, in some star still 
 farther removed from us,- an observer, equally gifted, 
 would at this very moment have obtained a view of 
 the earth 6,000 years ago, the creation of mankind^ and 
 further back to the primeval chaos ; and so on to the 
 remotest bounds of the habitable universe." 
 
 The following cut illustrates the appearance of the 
 Summer Land in relation to the southern branch of 
 the Milky Way : — 
 
 Thus astronomical science verges on the spiritual 
 universe — yea, almost walks into "the house not made 
 with hands "—whenever it goes abroad through the 
 upper spheres searching for truth. Eeasoning with the 
 senses, to the unknown from what is visible, science is 
 compelled substantially to say : " That the planets are 
 inhabited by living animals, we have as positive evidence 
 as we have that quadrupeds or even insects inhabit the 
 yet unexplored islands of this earth ; but whether they 
 are inhabited by men or similar immortal beings is at 
 present beyond the reach of human research. It is 
 
126 A STELLAB KEY. 
 
 ascertained that these orbs, like our own, roll in regu- 
 lated periods round the sun ; that they have nights and 
 days, successions of seasons ; that they are provided with 
 atmosphere supporting clouds and agitated by winds, 
 and that thus, also, their climates and seasons are mo- 
 dified by evaporation, and that showers refresh their 
 surfaces. 
 
 " For we know that wherever the existence of 
 clouds is made manifest, there water must exist ; there 
 evaporation must go on ; there electricity, with its 
 train of phenomena, must reign ; there rains must fall ; 
 there hail and snow descend. 
 
 " Notwithstanding the dense atmosphere and thick 
 clouds with which Yenus and Mercury are constantly 
 enveloped, the telescope has exhibited to us great 
 irregularities on their surfaces, and thus proved the ex- 
 istence of mountains and valleys. But it is upon the 
 planet Mars, which approaches nearest to the earth, 
 that the greatest advances have been made in this de- 
 partment of inquiry. Under favorable circumstances 
 its disc is seen to be mapped out by varied outline, some 
 portions being less reflective than land. 
 
 "Baer and Maedler, two Prussian astronomers, have 
 devoted many years' labor to the examination of Mars; 
 and the result has put us in possession of a map of the 
 geography of that planet almost as exact and weU-de- 
 fined as that which we possess of our own. In fact, the 
 geographical outlines of land and water have, been made 
 apparent upon it. But a still more extraordinary fact 
 in relation to this planet remains to be considered. 
 Among the shaded markings which have been noted by 
 the telescope upon its disc, a remarkable region of 
 
THE CONSTITDTION OF THE SUMMEE LAND. 127 
 
 brilliant white light, standing out in boldest relief, has 
 been observed surrounding the visible pole. This 
 highly illuminated spot is to be seen most plainly when 
 it emerges from the long night of the winter season ; 
 but when it has passed slowly beneath the heat of the 
 solar beams it is found to have gradually contracted its 
 dimensions ; and at last, before it has plunged into light 
 on the opposite side, to have entirely disappeared. But 
 the opposite pole, then coming into similar relations, is 
 found to be furnished with a like luminous spot, which 
 in its turn dissolves as it becomes heated by the summer 
 sun. 
 
 " Now these facts prove to us incontestably, that the 
 very geographical regions of Mars are fac-similes of our 
 own. In its long polar vsdnters, the snows accumulate 
 in the desolation of its high northern and southern lati- 
 tudes, until they become visible to us in consequence of 
 their reflective properties ; and these are slowly melted 
 as the sun's rays gather power in the advancing season, 
 xxutil they cease to be appreciable to terrestrial eyes." 
 
 And yet over aU, and through all, as much in the un- 
 numbered littlenesses of the microscopic seas as in the 
 boundlessness of the telescopic immensities, is the sweet 
 consciousness of our never-ending life— the enshrined 
 glory of our immortality. How impressively the poet 
 Dana has set this feeling to the music of utterances : — > 
 
 "0 listen, man? 
 A voice within us speaks that startling word, 
 ' Man 1 thou shalt never die 1' Celestial voices 
 Hymn it unto our souls ; according harps 
 By angel fingers touched, when the mild stars 
 Of morning sang together, sound forth still 
 The song of our groat immortality. 
 
128 A STELLAE KET. 
 
 Thick clustering orbs, and this our fair domain, 
 Tlie tall dark mountains and the deep-toned seas, 
 Join in this solemn universal song. 
 listen, ye, our spirits 1 drink it in 
 From all this air 1 'Tis in the gentle moonlight ; 
 'Tis floating midst Day's setting glories ; Night, 
 Wrapt in her sable robe, with silent step. 
 Comes to our bed, and breathes it in our ears. 
 Night and the Dawn, bright Day and thoughtful Eve ■ 
 All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse, 
 As one vast mystic instrument, are touched 
 By an unseen living hand, and conscious chords 
 Quiver with joy in this great jubilee. 
 
 The dying hear it, and as sounds of earth 
 
 Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls 
 To mingle in this heavenly harmony." 
 
 M-j present perceptions and understanding of the 
 atom-essence constitution of the Summer Land, and of 
 humanity's delicate spiritual relationships thereto, revive 
 beautiful memories of impressions imparted years ago. 
 And while observing the powerful movements of all 
 things contained in the teiTestrial and celestial spheres, 
 there cannot but be a conception of Divine Wisdom 
 legitimately accompanying the former conclusion. The 
 innumerable centers of the stellar system; the many 
 suns, with their accompanying orbs, planets, and satel- 
 lites ; the perfect precision of the general movements 
 of all these bodies ; their regular and connected adjust- 
 ment and unity ; the distributive harmony and equili- 
 brium of forces and motions which they constantly dis- 
 play — are all manifestations of grandeur, beauty, and 
 order unspeakable. The regular inclination of orbits 
 and axes, and the definite distances of globes from each 
 other ; their constant sameness of motion and the uni- 
 
THE OONSTITtmON OF THE SUMMEE LAND. 129 
 
 form direction wHch all take ; the apparent sympathy 
 and reciprocation of the spheres and atmospheres of the 
 innumerable and apparently independent bodies; the 
 united and constant action which each of these manifests 
 — all conspire to force upon the mind the irresistible 
 impression that the great and united movements of the 
 Universe are all being performed according to a most 
 inconceivably perfect adjustment of mathematical and 
 mechanical laws, and that all things are guided, in the 
 very motions of their inherent life and activity, by the 
 essence of Omnipotent "Wisdom 1 Their formation 
 and procreation ; their particles and constituent parts 
 manifest, in their order and arrangement, the perfection 
 of pure Wisdom and Intelligence — while their numerical 
 extent, and diverse modes of development, infinitely 
 transcend the highest powers of human calculation and 
 demonstration. No process of analogical reasoning or 
 of mathematical calculation has reached that point of 
 perfection by which may be demonstrated and calcu- 
 lated the exact distances at which these spheres revolvej 
 the immensity of space which they occupy, and the 
 harmony of the whole ! . 
 
 All things are divine, both in the material and spirit- 
 ual Universe; and all become celestial. So every 
 created spirit is invited by the progressive law of the 
 Father to its home ; and when it enters, and becomes 
 sensible of the loveliness and purity thereof, it glorifies 
 the^Father, not in prayer, but by thought and deed for- 
 ever and ever. Each one, then, is an undying child of 
 tbe Eternal One, who is the Father of all ; and no one 
 is so low but that it is the highest of some still lower, 
 and no one is so high but that it is the lowest of some 
 
 6* 
 
130 A STELLAE KET. 
 
 yet undeveloped. One spirit cannot say unto another, 
 " I need thee not ;" for each one is the sustainer of 
 another, and the mutual dependence constitutes the 
 harmony and wisdom of all things. 
 
THE LOCATION OF THE StTMMEK LAUD. 131 
 
 CHAPTEE XIJL 
 
 THE LOCATIOir OF THE SUMMEE LAND. 
 
 Undee this head a world of sublime realities press 
 for immediate expression. For twenty years the clair- 
 voyant perception and interior contemplation of the 
 objective existence of the celestial world have been a 
 source of unutterable joy. But I am admonished now, 
 as I have been from the beginning of this Key, to sup- 
 ply, as far as possible, the testimony of different think- 
 ers, seers, and speculators ; so that, in the succeeding 
 chapters of Part II. of this work, some clear and defi- 
 nite information may be both sought and imparted. 
 The author's views, many of them, have already been 
 published, but hot with that scientific preciseness which 
 may hereafter be demanded by close reasoners and the 
 public generally. Now to the testimony. 
 
 In this place, and first of all, we introduce the 
 evidence of a little boy, who, on his dying bed, and 
 with his last breath, beheld and briefly described the 
 Summer Land: The little child was dying. His 
 weary limbs were racked with pain no more. The 
 flush was fading from his thin cheeks, and the fever 
 that for many days had been drying up his blood, was 
 now cooling rapidly under the touch of the icy hand 
 that was upon him. 
 
 There were sounds of bitter but suppressed grief in 
 that dim chamber, for the dying little one was very 
 
132 
 
 A STELLAE KET. 
 
 
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 2 IS 
 
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 Wo 
 
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THE LOCATION OF THE STTMMEE LAOT). 133 
 
 dear to many hearts. They knew that he was depart- 
 ing, and the thought was hard to bear ; but they tried 
 to command their feelings, that they might not disturb 
 the last moments of their darling. 
 
 The father and mother, and the kind physician, stood 
 beside dear Eddy's bed, and watched his heavy breath- 
 ing. He had been silent for some time, and appeared 
 to sleep. They thought it might be thus that he would 
 pass away, but suddenly his mild blue eyes opened wide 
 and clear, and a beautiful smile broke over his features. 
 He looked upward and forward at first, and then, turn- 
 ing his eyes upon his mother's face, said, in a sweet 
 voice : 
 
 " Mother, what is the name of that beautiful country 
 that I see away beyond the mountains — the high moun- 
 tains ?" 
 
 "I can see nothing, my child," said the mother; 
 " there are no mountains in sight of our home." 
 
 " Look there, dear mother," said the child, pointing 
 upward ; " yonder are the mountains. Can you not 
 see them nowf" he asked, in tones of the greatest 
 astonishment, as his mother shook her head. 
 
 "They are so near me now — so large and high, and 
 behind them the country looks so beautiful, and .the 
 people are so happy — there are no sick children there. 
 Papa, can you not see behind the mountains ? Tell me 
 the name of that land !" 
 
 The parents glanced at each other, and with united 
 voice, replied : 
 
 " The Land you see is heaven, is it not, my child ?" 
 
 " Yes, it is heaven. I thought that must be its name. 
 Oh, let me go — ^but how shall I cross those mountains ? 
 
134 A STELLAE KET. 
 
 Father, will you not carry me, for they call me from the 
 other side, and I must go." 
 
 There was not a dry eye in that chamber, and upon 
 every heart fell a solemn awe, as if the curtain which 
 concealed its mysteries Was about to be withdrawn. 
 
 " My son," said the father, " will you stay with us a 
 little while longer? Toa shall cross the mountains 
 soon, but in stronger arms than mine. Wait, stay with 
 your mother a little longer ; see how she weeps at the 
 thought of losing you !" 
 
 " Oh, mother ! oh, father ! do not cry, but come with 
 me, and cross the mountains — oh, come !" and thus he 
 entreated, with a strength and earnestness which 
 astonished all. 
 
 The chamber was filled with wondering and awe- 
 stricken friends. At length he turned to his mother, 
 with a face beaming with rapturous delight, and, 
 stretching out his little arms to her for one last 
 embrace, he cried: " Good-by, mother, I am going; 
 but don't you be afraid — the st/rong man -has come to 
 carry Tne over the mountains .'" 
 
 This impressive testimony is based upon the fre- 
 quently demonstrated fact that the spiritual existence is 
 revealed, with all its higher and most beautiful forms 
 of beauty, to the refined and exalted sensibilities of old 
 and young at the solemn moment of death. This 
 proves also, that the divine law of growth and of spirit- 
 perception is as operative in the least as in the greatest 
 minds. Mind has been called " immaterial ;" but it is 
 as much material as any thing else. All things are really 
 the same thing. Matter and soul, though said to be 
 so different, actually consist of the same principle, 
 
THE LOCATION OF THE StTltMEE LAOT). 135 
 
 though in different degrees of development. Soul is a 
 more attenuated form of matter ; this accounts for the 
 imperceptibility of the soul by the physical eye. The 
 eye can only discern things in the same sphere with 
 itself, and those below. Hence the physical eye can 
 only see physical things; while the spiritual eye 
 can behold both spiritual and physical things. The 
 physical eye is imperfect — the spiritual, perfect. 
 Tbe spiritual body is composied of matter which is 
 refined and sublimated by the law of spiritual attrac- 
 tion. 
 
 In his reasonable and admirable volume — the 
 "Arcana of I^ature" — Hudson Tuttle affirms, with 
 the force and assurance of an independent seer, that the 
 realm of spirit-existence is as real, as tangible, and as 
 consistent with human nature aind natural laws, as is 
 the globe on which we at present. reside. " The second 
 sphere," he affirms, " is a daguerreotype of earth. The 
 refined matter which ascends is prone to assume- the 
 forms from which it was liberated on earth. The 
 scenery is identical, but more beautiful and ethereal. 
 Trees, fruits and flowers, are not individualized ; that 
 is, their emanations do not ascend to the spheres in an 
 identified form, but their particles are more prone to 
 assume such forms than any other. Thus the particles 
 which exist in any particular flower in the spirit-world, 
 have never existed in that plane before, but have 
 ascended from a countless number of the same kind. 
 The description of the splendid scenery we reserve for 
 a future chapter. One thing only remains for us to 
 elucidate. We speak of dwellings — of artificial things 
 —as existing in the spirit- world. Are they created by 
 
136 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 our simply desiring them? So, many spirits hare 
 falsely taught. It is true, our desires create them ; but 
 we employ means, just as man does, to accomplish our 
 wishes. W-e are not miniatxire gods, capable of creating 
 a palace by a wish. The marvelous powers of Aladdin's 
 lamp are denied us. This is true of the lowest and the 
 highest spirits, and in this respect none are superior to 
 man." 
 
 There are, in the testimony of seers and spirits, the 
 imperfections and discrepancies that are natural to the 
 human mind in all degrees and spheres of progressive 
 life. The fixed laws of truth, as appreciated by the 
 philosophical reason, eventually explain and settle all 
 doubts. Head all sides, prove all things, and hold fast 
 to that which is rational and good. In this connection 
 the affirmations of another writer* are required : — 
 
 " While every orb inhabited by human races through- 
 out the immensities of space presents, when viewed 
 from celestial appearance, during its first great human 
 epoch or day, an undivided heavenly sphere, encom- 
 passing it without rent or seam, there is visible to the 
 spiritual left of the planet earth the likeness of a 
 divided spheroid, and beyond this two others. These are 
 called, in heavenly language, the lower earths of spirits. 
 Also, to spiritual appearance, are visible their opposite 
 semicircles, three in number, and they are called the 
 upper earths of spirits. The three hemispheres of the 
 lower spiritual earth of the planet are composed of 
 natural, intellectual, and moral disorders; and upon 
 
 *S6e "Arcana of Ohriatianity," by Eev. T. L. Harris, p. 150, Sec. 
 265, 266, d seq. 
 
THE LOCATION OF THE SUMMEE LAITD. 137 
 
 their surfaces all such of its inhabitants as have left the 
 natural form, in inmost repugnance to Divine good and 
 truth, by the voluntary acceptance of evil as their good, 
 become confirmed in the inversion of the Divine law, 
 and divested of such apparent vestiges of good and truth 
 as cohere, on leaving earth, to their minds, 
 
 " The three semicircles which are opposite appear in 
 spiritual representations as three immense, extended 
 spaces, the one beyond the other, inhabited temporarily 
 by such inhabitants of earth as, through willingness to 
 become purified of all' evils, are gradually putting off 
 the remains of evils acquired in the world, and passing 
 into the fullness of regeneration, which, when attained, 
 qualifies them to become angel*. It must be under- 
 stood that this view is an accommodation to the present 
 condition of the human mind, and faEs far short of the 
 stupendous reality. In this same accommodated view 
 we behold beyond the outermost and nethermost of the 
 spheres of the lower earth the real hells pf the planet, 
 which are extended on three planes corresponding to 
 the inversions of the natural, spiritual, and celestial 
 degrees in man — three infernal abodes." 
 
 The .arrangement of the three heavens and the three 
 leUs, above and below the primary and ultimate 
 •egiolis of the earth, the writer further explains thus : 
 
138 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 B. — Heavens of the Planet. 
 
 D. — Superior region of the Upper Earth of Spirits. V 
 
 C. — Intermediate region of the Upper Earth of Spirits. C 
 
 B. — Ultimate region of the Upper Earth of Spirits. B 
 
 O— Natural Earth. Earth. 
 
 F. — ^Primary region of the Lower Earth of Spirits. 
 
 6. — Intermediate region of the Lower Earth of Spirits. ^ 
 
 H. — ^Final region of the Lower Earth of Spirits. 
 
 I.— Hells of the Planet. 
 
 Without comment we pass on to take testimony from 
 the record of a distinguished medium ;* although, be- 
 fore introducing the dialogue, we are constrained to 
 remark that the Spirit communicating seems not to 
 
 * Through whom Judge Edmonds received a large variety of com- 
 munications. 
 
THE LOCATION OF THE SUMMEE LAIH). 
 
 139 
 
 have inTestigated for himBelf, and thus does not really 
 know, what he gives to the inquirer. The first is a 
 Skeptic ; the second the Spirit communicating. 
 
 Skeptic.— If you are ahle to learn the abstruse things 
 you state, I see no difficulty in your learning any thing 
 that a spirit may know— you might gather the most 
 sublime truths of the eternal world. 
 
 SprEn.— True, if I could converse with those who 
 know those sublime truths. [Here, very candidly, the 
 Spirit confesses a lack of knowledge.] 
 
 SEP,_And why can you not « If they can tell you 
 one thing they can another. 
 
 Sp.— Yes ; just as easy as a man who is six feet high 
 can be seven. The spirits I talk with are persons of 
 good education, and they can tell me facts in astronomy 
 or in any of the sciences, as easily as they could answer 
 me the most trifling question. My spirit friends are 
 generally those whom I knew on earth. I seek only 
 for such things as any well-educated spirit could tell 
 me, facts concerning spirit-life. As to the sublime 
 truths you speak of, they are continually given to mor- 
 tals in the ordinary mode of inspiration ; for there. is 
 no mortal that is not occasionally inspired. The great 
 truths are ever dawning upon us — and rarely, as T 
 think, does a truth come to the world of spirits that is 
 not immediately conveyed to earth by thousands who 
 wish to inspire their cherished friends. The one great 
 truth that spirits have to tell us is, that they are often 
 with us and do communicate with mankind, although 
 the recipients of their inspiration are imconscious that 
 they are inspired. Nine out of ten of all the inven- 
 tions of earth have been brought to it from a more 
 
140 A BTELLAE KEY. 
 
 advanced world. The inventors have supposed the 
 ideas their own, and plumed themselves accordingly, 
 while they were merely receiving them from their 
 invisible friends. 
 
 Sb^. — I do not understand — according to your doc- 
 trine that spirits are like mortals, only more progressive 
 — ^how the spirits were able to make inventions, if they 
 could not while on earth. 
 
 Sp. — Doubtless they are inspired, as we are. They 
 often tell me that they speak as they are impressed or 
 inspired to speak. Many of them claim to be impres- 
 sible mediums, and to he able at any time to hold com- 
 munication: with the Lythylli. 
 
 Sep. — ^And what are the Lythylli ? 
 
 Sp. — Spirits of the next estate. Spirits who have 
 terminated their career in the spirit-worlds, and gone to 
 a system of worlds in, the next degree of sublimation- 
 worlds as much more refined as their bodies are when 
 they have become Lythylli, — as spirits call those above 
 them. They are those who have departed that life, 
 and returned to converse with those they left behind. 
 
 Sep. — And those Lythylli doubtless talk with beings 
 in a condition above them. 
 
 Sp. — Of course, and so on, up to God. Many a 
 thought uttered on earth is freshly brought from the 
 highest source of inspiration. 
 
 Sep. — ^Tou will admit then that the books of the Old 
 Testament may have been inspired by God. 
 
 Sp. — I have always claimed that they were inspired. 
 It was not the Creator that spoke directly to man. The 
 truths and the commandments which start at the foun- 
 tain of wisdom do not always arrive at earth in their 
 
THE LOCATION OF THE RirMMBE LAND. 141 
 
 original purity. And yet as a rule the truth comes to 
 us as fast as we can receive it,, and as pure as we can 
 bear it. There is not one mind in a million that is 
 capable of receiving truth in its purity. It requires a 
 very high development of aU the faculti,ie8 to open the 
 mind to its cofaprehension. 
 
 Sep. — I should like hereafter to discuss this matter 
 further, but now I am chiefly interested in /the later 
 questions that have been before us. I am interested in 
 your system of asl/ronomy. If there were a possibility 
 of demonstration or proof, how we might extend the,, 
 science ! As a spirit man might visit tjie stars person- 
 ally, instead of peeping at them through telescopes. 
 
 Sp. — ^Yes, a few of them, but the great majority of . 
 them are as far beyond a spirit's reach as they are from 
 ours. Eemember that a spirit, placed upon a globe 
 which is :100,00(),000,000 miles from us, looks' upon a 
 sky almost identical with ours. The only difference is 
 probably the substitution of the planets of; the spirit- 
 systems for those of ours. The fixed starg are the same 
 to them as they are to us, being eijtirely too distant to 
 change their relative position. Perhaps obsei^aliicmS) 
 made on earth and upon a spirit-world 100,000,000,000 
 miles distant would by the parallax determine the dis- 
 tance of many qf the star§. ,But we ,well know there 
 are millioii,s of stars that could not be surveyed from 
 so narrow a base. 
 
 Sep.— Cannot spirits visit the fixed stars ?; , ; 
 
 Sp. — Some of them are near enough to be visited; 
 Sirius, for example. 
 
 ,^KP.— What is. the difficulty? can they not move witi 
 the swiftness of thought? 
 
142 A BTEL1.AS, KEY, 
 
 Sp,— Doubtless they can, througli a yacuTiin such as 
 the stellar spaces. The difficulty is to think fast enough. 
 A spirit of strong will and great power can move 
 through space' with great rapidity. His will-force is 
 the motire power, and there is nothing to resist his 
 progress. He can go in a second of time a distance quite 
 incomprehensible to himself, and yet before he reaches 
 the fixed stars some time will have been consumed. 
 
 Sep. — You spoke of talking with a spirit who had 
 'tisited Sirius. Did he tell you any thing of it? 
 
 Sp. — ^Tes. It is larger than our sun by a third. It 
 has a more extensive system of planets than we have. 
 The people inhabiting them did not seem to him any 
 more progressed than the people of earth, and he was 
 not so much pleased with the races he saw as he was 
 with our own Hellenic race. Only by visiting many 
 worlds can we become liberalized. A spirit only can be 
 truly cosmopolitan. This astronomer, who had with {i 
 company of others visited Sirius, learned that the ma- 
 chinery of that system of worlds was like ours. It had 
 its accompanying solar system for the residence of spirits, 
 and the successive systems for the Lythylli. It was one 
 of the many systems that with ours wbeel round a 
 great and distant center, forming together one of the 
 many congeries of systems that revolve in almost 
 eternal years round a still greater center, which with 
 all the masses of worlds created roll round the central 
 orb of the universe. 
 
 Sep. — This is a fine picture. I can imagine myself 
 located in space, and looking upon the worlds which 
 like motes in the sunbeam fill the universe of God. 
 
 Sp. — ^If you were able to take in at a glance the 
 
THE LOCATIOir OF THE STTMMEE LAND. 143 
 
 ■whole creation, you would certainly find its movements 
 beautiful. Suppose the suns with their planets to form 
 a disc. Suppose the systems of spirit' worlds many in 
 number to lie parallel to the grosser solar systems upon 
 which human beings originate. These discs move 
 through space in a platoon, side by side. They do not 
 adivanee. in a line perpendicular to their discs, but par* 
 allel to them. All spheres having a common origin 
 must revolve in the same general direction. The rota- 
 tion upon their axes is also governed by an invisible law, 
 for there was no chance^work in the 'great arrangements 
 of the heavens. In nO other way than this edgewise 
 movement dould the systems move so safely and so well. 
 ■'Sep. — ^Tellme something of the manner in which 
 spirits go and corfle between earth and the spirit- world. 
 
 Sp. — Let us premise, that when a spirit of earth sets 
 his foot upon the globe destined for his second life he 
 finds hinlself standing upon solid ground. He waits 
 ujjon it as he would have walked' upon earth, and he 
 ^oon forgets the change of his condition. T^he world 
 he" walks on is as solid' to him as this earth was to him 
 \vhen he was here. There ape rocks and trees, water 
 £tnd earth, fruits and floWerS around him as there were 
 oh earth, an'd" he must have' a good memory indeed if 
 he do not soon cease to think of his new abode otherwise 
 than to feel how much happier he is. He walks upon 
 the ground, and he steps with as firm a tread as ever he 
 did, and' he weighs as much. * " 
 
 Sib.-^How is it when he! leaves earth for his home ? 
 
 Sp. — It requires little effort. He rises into' the atmo- 
 sphere about as high as the clouds above them, when 
 the sky is not clear, until he can see his direction. He 
 
144 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 then provides for the sustenance of his lungs, and darts 
 off toward the sun of his sj'stem, which is always clearly 
 visible, like a very large star, shining with a soft light 
 easily recognized as from a spirit's sun. In a few seconds 
 after starting that sun, expands upon his view and the 
 planets of the system become visible. He sees the 
 globe which is his d^tination, and directs his course^to 
 it. Its southern hemisphere is toward him as he 
 approaches from earth, and as he nears it he turns to 
 that part of it. 
 
 Sep. — ^You say the spirit-^sun is visible from here. 
 Where -in the heavens is it situated ? 
 
 Sp.^ — It is within the constellation Ursa Major (called 
 sometimes Dipper), near the pole-star. The two stars 
 at the outer end of the cup are called the pointers, be- 
 cause they indicate the direction in which to find the 
 pole-star : the spirit-sun is seen over the open cup of the ^ 
 Dipper, about one-third of the apparent distance from' 
 the line of the Ctip that the pointers are apart, and 
 rather nearer to the handle end of the cup- than the 
 outer end.' A line from otir sun to that star would, 1 
 think, be found to be the" true North. Possibly the 
 vibratory change in the magnetic pole of our earth ' 
 would be accounted for Ijy the revolutions round the 
 spirit-sun of the larger planets of that system. Possibly 
 the magnetic pole of thee&rth would be at the axis but 
 for the vast accumulations of the metals in the locality 
 of the magnetic pole. • If these matters were all under- 
 stood, ail the pheiiomena of earth-taaghetism would be 
 cleat- to us. 
 
 Skp. — Thldre mnst be parts of our earth where spirits 
 canhot so' easily see their sun. - < ,. ., ' 
 
 Sp. — Yes, in the southern hemisphere. The earth 
 
THE LOOATIOIT OF THE SUMMEK LAUD. l45 
 
 would then be between. He would have to go off the 
 semi-diameter of the earth to see it, if he started from 
 the South pole. 
 
 Sep. — I have understood you to say that the world 
 upon which spirits from earth generally reside is not so 
 large as this. 
 
 Sp.— Yes, Juno is six thousand five hundred miles in 
 diameter. Its moon is two thousand miles in diameter 
 and one hundred and eighty thousadd miles distant from 
 Jimo. "To the inhabitants of earth is apportioned the 
 planet Juno, to the inhabitants of our moon is appor- 
 tioned the satellite of Juno, to the inhabitants of Yenus 
 and Mercury is given Iris, the first planet from the sun. 
 
 Skp. — You spoke of the inhabitants of the moon. I 
 thought there was no atmosphere there, and that, there- 
 fore, no life could exist there ? • 
 
 Sp. — The side turned from us is inhabited. The side 
 turned toward us has no visible atmosphere, no water, 
 and no life. 
 
 Sep. — How can that be ? 
 
 Sp.^-The center of gravity of the moon is seven mUes 
 out of the center of the mass. That throws one side 
 out fourteen miles, and making an equivalent of ■ a 
 mountain of that height. Although the atmosphere in 
 the moon , may reach thirty or forty miles, yet at the 
 height of fourteen miles it would be insufficient to sus- 
 tain life, and it would moreover be intensely cold. The 
 side thus projecting is attracted toward the earthy and 
 thhs we never see but one side. On the other side, 
 however, there are soil, atmosphere, water, and vegeta 
 ble and animal Hfe, as on this earth. 
 
 Sep. — ^I feel continually a disposition to ask you how 
 1 
 
14:6 A STELLAB KEY. 
 
 you know these matters, sucli as the condition of the 
 other side of the moon, which has never been seen by 
 'mortal eye, but you will reply that spirits have told, you 
 so. This I cannot realize, for my friends do not come 
 back from heaven to instruct me. I wish, without paus- 
 ing to controvert your statements, to hear aU that you . 
 have to say about the astronomy of the spirit^trorld,! 
 Tou have, I suppose, learned the exact distance of 
 heaven from earth ? 
 
 Sp. — ^I think I have been correctly informed. I must 
 depend on the statements made to me, and wait till the 
 multitude of statements shall be received as, proof. The 
 distance of the spirit-world from this solar system is 
 stated to be 103,000,000,000. The size of their sun is 
 1,204,088 miles. Its appareut size to an observer on 
 earth is about the same as "that of our planet Venus. 
 
 Sep. — The greatest difiSculty I find in all your theory 
 is learning to think of the invisible and intangible sub- 
 stance of a spirit's body as a real solid thing. It seems 
 nearer to nonentity. 
 
 Sp. — We cannot easily comprehend a condition of 
 matter which we have never had opportunity to examine. 
 As we cannot see it nor feel it, it is natural to ignore its 
 existence. Many a time in the period of your life have 
 comets swept across the heavens. You have distinctly, 
 seen them with the naked eye. One which you saw 
 was 50,000 miles in diameter, and of so rare a substance 
 that a staT of the sixth magnitude was seen through its 
 center. Now as the lightest cloud will hide such a star, 
 it proves that the density of that little fleck of doud 
 was more in that small space than in the 5,000 miles 
 depth of the mass of the comet. Indeed, it is not un- 
 
THE LOCATION OF THE SUMMEE LAND. 14:7 
 
 reasonable to suppose that a room fall of gas or smoky 
 iair would, out in space, expand to the dimensions of 
 that comet, and he visible at the distance of a hundred 
 millions of miles. You can and do comprehend all 
 that, because the matter in question is gross matter, 
 though exceedingly rare. If it were sublimated matter, 
 however dense, the light of the sun would not reflect 
 from it, and therefore you would ignore its existence 
 because it required the eyes of philosophy to see it. 
 Eemember that matter, though sublimated, is still 
 matter, and is subject to all the natural laws, just as 
 absolutely as the infinitesimal quantity of matter in the 
 rarer comets, which forms itself into a sphere and travels 
 through space like a solid planet. Nature does not ex- 
 cuse any particle of matter from obedience. If there be 
 but one particle of matter to make a world, that particle 
 must obey the law. 
 
 Skp. — ^I am inclined to believe with you that all 
 matter in the universe, whether gross or refined, is 
 subject to the natural laws : I can, therefore, though 
 with difficulty, comprehend that the globes wherever 
 reside the spirits of the departed, may be real substantial 
 matter. I begin to see that it must be so, that spirit must 
 have a solid world to live on, as we have, else the con- 
 ditions necessary to their happiness could not be found. 
 
 Sp. — I am gratified that you have surmounted the old 
 prejudices so common, I might almost say universal, in the 
 world. Assuredly not one in a thousand ever thinks or 
 reasons upon the nature of a future life. Men muse and 
 dream about it, but the result of all is a few fantastic 
 glittering palaces built in the clouds, so very frail and 
 unsubstantial that they vanish like a spirit at the first 
 breath of common sense. 
 
148 A STELLAB KET. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW OF THE StTMMEE LAITD. 
 
 An inspired discourse on tliis theme comes to ns with 
 a number of cogent passages.* The speaker is moved 
 to consider the question of elementary spirit and elemen- 
 tary matter, and to adduce arguments in favor of the 
 hypothesis that the original and primordial substance 
 was spirit. Some writers, he proceeds to say, make a 
 distinction between matter and spirit — ^between the ele- 
 mental particles of the two substances. Now, one of 
 two things is certain : If the two substances, matter and 
 spirit, were primordial and distinct entities, then neither 
 ifl infinite, but finite — ^limited and bounded. That is to 
 say, the elements of matter are limited, and therefore 
 do not pervade the universe. But they do occupy points 
 of space. I^ow, it is a mathematical axiom that two 
 substances cannot occupy the same point of space at the 
 same time. But these writers tell us that spiritual sub- 
 stance, so-called, fills another portion of the universe. 
 Now, no mind can suppose that a particle of spiritual 
 substance, which is real, can occapy the same point of 
 space that matter occupies. What follows? Why, 
 that spirit itself is not infinite. Thus we have presented, 
 not a universe, but a dual-verse of living matter on one 
 
 * The extracts in this chapter are from a Lecture bjthe inspired Si J. 
 Finney, delivered in New York, March 27, 1864. 
 
A PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW OF THE StTMMKE LAND. 149 
 
 side and living spirit on tlie other^ Can matter be in- 
 spired by spirit, if the two are radically distinct and 
 both finite? Where is our infinity? It is only two 
 finites. "Where is the divine intelligence ? Where is 
 God ? Where is religion ? Where is our immortality ? 
 It is a logical impossibility. The truth is this : Man is 
 immortal only because he is the incarnation of the 
 Divine substance, and since that is infinite, he cannot 
 any more be dissolved than the universe can be. 
 
 On this subject of elementary matter and spirit^ let 
 me quote the words of an, immortal : — * 
 
 " The spiritual body is a substance ; and yet it is not 
 what you term ' matter.' Spirit bears the same relation 
 to earthy matter that light sustains to the element qf 
 water — the same as the form to the ground whicli 
 enlivens it. The spiritual body is ' matter ' spiritual- 
 ized ; as the flower is the earth refined." 
 
 Observe the phraseology : " The spiritual body ip 
 matter spiritualized." Now I am' going to analyze this 
 statement, and see if it will stand the test of investiga- 
 tion. 
 
 The Harmonial Philosophy does not teach us that the 
 words of an immortal are absolute authority on theo- 
 retical or philosophical questions. We tafee them like 
 any other authority, and we put questions to spirit 
 personages as though they were here on earth. If the 
 spirit-body is matter (in the ordinary significatioii ojf 
 the term) ■ " spiritualized," then what follows ? Why, 
 that what you call matter is spirit materializg^, 
 Action and reactioa are equal and correlative in the 
 
 * See a voluine "by the Author, entitled " The Present Age and Inner 
 
 Life."jp,:124. ,-■ .y-. -_ .■.'-■ .^-.1.-- .^ - -. ^r-o ..- 
 
150 A STELLAS KEY. 
 
 dynamics of the tmiverse. Tlie sun's auric waves 
 break into zones and the zones into planets, and from 
 the planets come satellites. Mark the recent develop- 
 ments of science — how they sustain the Harmonial 
 Philosophy, Twenty years ago "Nature's Divine 
 Kevelations" announced: "In the beginning the 
 Univerccelum was one boundless, undefinable, and 
 unimaginable ocean of liquid fire." What are the late 
 revelations of science ? That the motions of the planets 
 are the mechanical equivalent of the heat exhausted 
 from the sun ; that four hundred and fifty-three four 
 hundred and fifty-fourths of this gravitating tendency 
 has already been wasted as heat. Only one four 
 hundred and fifty-fourth of the original heat of the 
 whole solar system remains to us as gravity. Yet 
 if this one four hundred and fifty-fourth were converted 
 into heat, it would raise the temperature of a mass of 
 water, equal to the sun and planets in weight, twenty- 
 eight milUons of degrees centigrade. The heat of the 
 lime light is two thousand degrees centigrade; think 
 of a temperature equal to two million d^rees centigrade 
 ■ — if you can. The gravitation of worlds is the result 
 of the heat lost. If our entire system were pure carbon, 
 its combustion would generate only one three thousand 
 five hundredths pf twenty-eight million degrees centi- 
 grade. So the mechanical motion of the heavens is 
 always flie complement of the heat lost. Therefore the 
 present state of the universe is the result of con- 
 densation. 
 
 Science is proving that the now solid worlds were 
 once in such a fine, ethereal state, that.no external 
 senses that man possesses could have revealed their ele- 
 
A PPIILOSOPHICAL VIKW OF THE SUMMER LAUD. 151 
 
 mental existence to him. Body had not appeared. It 
 came at last, by cooling and condensation — or by 
 _" materialization." 
 
 Conversely — take water, raise its temperature till it 
 becomes steam : Can you see it ? Oufr of that steam 
 unfold electricity ; out of that, magnetism ; and so on, 
 one substance after another, until you reach the limits 
 of external science — where will you stop? Nowhere 
 this side of the original state of what you call " matter," 
 which state is an infinite remove from " body," and can 
 be called by no other name but spirit [essence?]. 
 
 Now, what is "matter?" I answer. It is a word 
 which ought to be applied not to the original substra- 
 tum of things, but only to ih<b form or 'body of things. 
 It is a misuse of the word to apply it to the primordial 
 and eternal elements of the universe. It is a word 
 derived from the action of the senses upSn the j^Tie- 
 nomena of body only. It, therefore, relates only to 
 body. But what is body ? Gross material ? No. 
 Heat a granite rock in your retort ; analyze it ; what 
 do you get ? Gases. Put any thing through a chemi- 
 cal analysis, and what do you get ! Not body, but a 
 gaseous substance. And the more critically and 
 thoroughly you carry your analysis, the less do you see 
 of what you call " matter." Ygur granite rock is so 
 changed that, instead of having gravitation, it ascends 
 and escapes outward into the universe. Its specific 
 gravity is changed into specific levity. The significa- 
 tion, therefore, which you attach to "piatter," is 
 unphilosophical. It is a word derived from the expe- 
 rience of the senses. Original elements are eternal, and 
 cannot, therefore, be seen by the senses, for they are 
 
152 A BTELLAE KEY. 
 
 limited by space and time. And how can faculties 
 limited under space and time reveal the existence 
 of* elements which know neither space nor time ? 
 Chronological fanctions are correlated only with chro- 
 nological phenomena. Only Pure Reason can Ttdow 
 Pv/re Being; for Pure Reason alone is consciousness of 
 Pure Being. Pure Intelligence is Pure Being hnow- 
 ing itself Sensation knows only phenomena. It is, 
 therefore, only in pure intelUgtence, or spirit, that being 
 is known. Body is the phenomenon miscalled " mat- 
 ter." The word " matter," therefore, derived, as it is, 
 only from the action of the senses, means only phe- 
 nomena. Pure intelligence is, therefore, the only 
 primordial stuff of things — the one eternal substance at 
 the basis of all bodies. And this I call pure spirit. 
 And by inductive science this pure spirit can never be 
 reached, for it is an infinite distance (in time) removed 
 from the phenomena of mere body. Eternity alone 
 could suffice to complete the empiricle prd'cess back- 
 ward and" inward to this great center of the Cosmos. 
 But man is pure spirit in his inmost, and hence purd 
 bieing is revealed directly, at once, in consciousness 
 itself. 
 
 ^ But let Us go a step further. Science is proving by 
 induction that these external material fbrm^ are only 
 d;^p^arances' of tine, ethereal, everlasting essences. 
 The "material" world is only spirit materialized, 
 condensed, and made up into forms under light and 
 shadow. It is nothing but the image of the infinite 
 perfection. It is not spirit that you see and tdudh with 
 your fingers ; it is the body, the shadow, the form. I 
 grant you it is real to your senses, but real what ? 
 
A PHILOSOPHIOAii VIEW OF THE SUMMER LAITD. 153 
 
 Answer : Eeal phenomena. Hence you see the view I 
 take tha,t the only substance in the universe, in the first 
 instance, must be Spirit. "Whatever it may become 
 afterwards, in appearance, in phenomenon, in manifes- 
 tation, whether it be in the solar atmosphere breaking 
 off into waves and circles of aims, one after the other,, 
 from the great vortex of the tJnivercoelum, or the sys- 
 tems'of planetary worlds derivedfrom the great central 
 source, or the vegetation and the animal life that exists 
 on those planets, it is all one original stuff emanating 
 from the great Central Sun, through ever-expanding 
 circles* toward the circumference. But action and 
 reaction are equal, and if these material worlds are 
 spirit materialized, then the spirit-spheres are body 
 spiritUaliized. We cannot haye a spiritualizing of 
 upward process ttetil we have a materializing or down^ 
 ward process. These are complements of each other. 
 One is attained by the translation of heat into the 
 laiechanical motions of the heavens, while the attain- 
 ment of spiritual development, or the spirit-spheres, is 
 but regaining the heat so lost. And you will find, as 
 you rise through the sphere of immortal life, that you 
 are departing from mere mechanics — that, as you 
 approach nearer and nearfer the impersonal God— the 
 Divine Intelligence — ^you flee farther and farther from 
 the limited and. bounded; that the shadows of these 
 material bodies are disajipearing, while the reascending 
 energies of this one only substance are unfolding spirit. 
 The Spirit-world is developed by a reverse comple- 
 mentary action of the " materializing" process. The 
 spiritualizing process must repeat on a higher scale, in 
 reverse order, the cycles of the career of world build- 
 1* i'-' 
 
164 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 ing, because action and reaction are equal. These 
 worlds come out of the solar atmosphere,' being con- 
 densed from vast solar rings. Science confirms this 
 view ; every step of its progress brings us more and 
 more near to this great general truth. Now what fol- 
 lows ? That the spirit-sphere which emanates from this 
 grosser " material " sphere, and constitutes the second 
 sphere, or Summer Land, must be created by a process 
 exactly the reverse of that by which the earth and other 
 planets are produced. 
 
 Science teaches us that the whole solar system was 
 once filled with solar, ether, and was itself a portion of 
 a vast zone of some far-off stellar center, and that the 
 process of world-formation was by the breaking up of 
 these zones of solar atgiosphere into planetary bodies. 
 What, then, must be the spiritual process, but a re- 
 smelting, a disintegration of the elements, and a rolling 
 of them back, through successive stages, toward the 
 great Central Sun of the universe again, but in a higher 
 plane ? You must have a process of building the- spirit- 
 sphere exactly the reverse of that of building these 
 planetary worlds. And .when you realize this law of 
 analogy, you will see how vast must be that second 
 sphere — ^the Summer Land. ■■* 
 
 Now, in regard to this subject, I consider that some 
 minds have fallen into a most illogical mistake in loca- 
 ting the Summer Land. Although "one writer admits 
 fully the principlo^hat spirit emanations from the earth 
 ascend and form another sphere, yet he locates the 
 spirit-zone immediately around the earth's equator, and 
 makes it only sixty degrees wide. Now two millions 
 of human beings pass to the Spirit-world from this 
 
A PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW OF THE SUMMEE LAND. 1S5 
 
 earth every year, making for every century two hun- 
 dred millions. Geology is teaching us that man has 
 inhabited this planet at least one hundred thousand 
 years. Stretch your eyes, down the future for one hun- 
 dred thousand more. Consider two hundred thousand 
 years as the probable life of the world. Then consider 
 the increase of population for one hundred thousand 
 years to come, and say if you can that such a sphere is 
 adequate for the teeming millions of this earth. Can 
 you find suificient space for that number of beings in a 
 zone sixty degrees wide around the equator, at the dis- 
 tance of the moon ? Such a limited spirit-sphere finds 
 no response in reason. 
 
 There.is another objection to this limited view of the 
 Summer Land. It makes the highest sphere of the 
 Spirit-world reach just beyond the moon. Now, 
 though the moon is , not yet inhabited, the time may 
 come-when it will be, and a spirit-sphere evolved from 
 that satellite. What will be the consequence? The 
 two. spheres of the earth and the moon will run into one 
 another,; creating utter confusion in spiritual geography- 
 Bat this conception of the dimensions of the Sum- 
 mer Land is far too contracted. Look out upon this 
 boundless universe of God, How^ many peopled worlds 
 'are swinging through the vast ocean of immensity ! 
 Shall there be no unitive "Worldiwhei-e all these peoples 
 associate ? . Are we to be confined to this little speck 
 of earth, this mote of shadow in the everlasting sun- 
 beam? Why has God given me my social nature,; if I 
 am not to feel the waves of affection that, float from the 
 immortal Societies arisen from other worlds? Aijd what 
 room havel for impgiortal associations on such, a Kttle 
 
156 A BTELLAE KET. 
 
 spiritual: sphere as that which is supposed to environ 
 this planet ? No, no ; give me a sphere vast enough^ t;o 
 infold all the relations of the innumerable worlds of 
 the universe — a space commensurate with the grandeur 
 and glory and vastness of that universe — a universal 
 Summer Land. 
 
 But further, against this limited notion, the Spirit- 
 world is made up of the aggregate emanations, in zonal 
 forms, of all the teeming planets of pne great circle of 
 suns, each one of which contributes its quota of spirit- 
 ualized elements. As you approach a flower-garden, 
 you first discover it by your senses. Tou cannot see 
 the emanations of its life. I have seen the flaming 
 aura of these forms in Nature. A handful even of dead 
 earth has its emanations, because it is undergoing a pro- 
 cess of change and translation. So with all the forms 
 of earth; the elements rise, and they can never entirely 
 come back again* Some of the grosser constituents 
 may settle near tjie earth, and become reorganized, but 
 the entire elements never return. The earth, as it re- 
 volves through space, bec^e more dense; its inner 
 life is flowing from it ; where does it go ? Out into 
 space, like an aura. The currents of these material 
 elements flow flrst toward the north, where, by process 
 of refinement, getting ejiminated, they rise into the 
 higher atmosphere and flow southward. You may see 
 these emanations, by means of spirit-vision, sweeping 
 toward the south pole, surging toward the spiritual 
 zone, moving upward i;ito the vast magnificent ocean 
 of the spirit-sphere, and thus forming a vast zonal circle 
 Qalled the Summer Land. Jt is a step toward the Di- 
 vine' Center, a translation from the condition of cold. 
 
A PHILOSOPHIOAl VIEW OF THE 6UMMEE LAND. 157 
 
 gross matter. It is a process of eliminating what you 
 call "matter" into spirit, unfolding its powers and 
 qualities, and making it real, substantial, perfect, and 
 beautiful. Hence the relation between the Spirit- 
 world and this earth, or other earths, that are peopled 
 or unpeopled, must be first an elemental relation. We 
 talk about the Tastness and magnificence of our Missis-, 
 sippi Eiver. Dq yon suppose there are no rivers of 
 finer and more ethereal waters in the Spirit-world ? 
 Tears ago angels told me : " Could you open your 
 spirit-eyes, you would see vast rivers of magnetic or 
 spiritual life rolling from the planets toward the spirit- 
 home in the univei;se — ^flowing from these solid worids 
 to make up the elements of the spheres." On the 
 bosoms of these rivers the elementary particles of re- 
 fined organisms ascend. But man alone as a person- 
 ality ascends. Why ? Because he alone is a microcosm. 
 The other forms contribute elements ; man contributes 
 his personality. This world is joined to the other by 
 positive and negative laws, just as the magnetic current 
 between .the two poles of. a battery connects the tWo 
 ends, and each is indispensable to the other in the 
 grand process of change and of cosmical spirit-eleva- 
 tion. 
 
158 A BTELLAE KEY. 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 THE . SPEBmiAL ZONES AMONG THE STARS, 
 
 A CLAiEvoTANT lookiiig into space from the earth sees 
 a great number of shining belts in different direcfions. 
 These nebulous rings in the sky, which diminish and 
 increase, symmetrically, as they recede from and 
 approach to their respective aphelions and perihelions, 
 mislead clairvoyants, mediums, and even many spirits, 
 with respect to the location and dimensions of the 
 different spirit-worlds. The cause of conflicting testi- 
 mony is thus disclosed. The first year or more of my 
 . own observations I was frequently mistaken on these 
 identical points. The judgment improves in the state 
 of clairvoyance the same as under any other educatiomJ. 
 stimulation. 
 
 Almost every star or globe, like the earth, has one or 
 more meteoric belts revolving around the planet's 
 body, and in appearance similar to the rings of Saturn. 
 They are variable in magnitude, in brightness, and 
 apparently in the order or periodicity of their revolu- 
 tion. (In a future volume these grand heavenly won- 
 ders will be treated at length.) The general principle 
 is, that the planets double their distances as they recede 
 from the sun. Between the orbits of Earth and Mars 
 there is a space of. about 50,000,000 miles in width, and 
 between Mars and Jupiter's orbit there is an interval 
 of " airy nothing " not less than 319,000,000 of miles 
 
THE SPrEITUAL ZONES AMON& THE STAKS. 159 
 
 broad. In this . space we observe a yast bright belt of 
 apparently continuous solid matter, which, upon closer 
 examination, is revealed as a river of small stars flow- 
 ing, or revolving like numerous other rings, around the 
 positive sun of our system. This splendid panorama 
 of stellar beauties !]^ formerly supposed might be the 
 " Second Sphere." But further growth in clairvoyance 
 sharpened the discriminating faculties, and thus the 
 circle of asteroids in that portion of the heavens became 
 clearly understood. There are about 31,400,000 miles 
 of space between the orbits of Venus and Mercury. In 
 this interval, also, as between Mercury and the Sun, I 
 perceive rivers vf cometary hodies — looking like the 
 gorgeous rings of Saturn, only far more loaded with 
 the red flames of fire, and a kind of blazing ether, from 
 which a vast white reflection is sometimes spread 
 through the whole southern hemisphere of the heavens. 
 Some seers have supposed (and myself among them) 
 that one of these broad continuous asteroidal rings was 
 the real spirit-world belonging to our earth. More 
 accurate information, however, conveys new ideas of 
 magnitudes and relations ; and the flrst Summer Land 
 is found to be revolving near the grand orbit of the 
 Milky "Way. 
 
 There is something to be learned from the law of 
 gravitation— the weight #nd the lightness of bodies — 
 by which law the logical and ndathematical reason can 
 approximately locate the Solid Spiritual Zone in space. 
 The philosophy of the schools [see Comstock and other 
 authors] teaches that the force of gravity is greatest at 
 the surface of the earth, and decreases both upward 
 and downward but in difierent degrees. It decreases 
 
2,000 
 3^000 
 
 1( u 
 
 4,000 
 8,000 
 
 II • If 
 
 12,000 
 
 ti ti 
 
 160 A STELLAK KEY. 
 
 above the surface as tlie square of the distance from the 
 center increases. From the surface to the center it de- 
 creases, simply as the distance increases. That is, 
 gravity at the surface of the earth (which is about 
 4,000 miles from the center) is four times more power- 
 fill than it would be at double tl^t distance, or 8,000 
 miles from the center. According to the principles just 
 stated, a body which at the surface of the earth weighs 
 a pound, at the center of the earth will weigh nothing. 
 
 1,000 miles from the center it will weigh J of a pound, 
 
 " " " i of a pound, 
 
 " " 1 of a pound; - ' 
 " " " 1 pound, 
 
 It a '* i 
 
 " " . " fc' and so oa 
 
 The force of gravity is absolutely greatest at the 
 center of the earth ; but at that point it is exerted in 
 all directions, and consequently a body at that point 
 would remain stationary, because there is no superior 
 attraction for it to obey. 
 
 Conversely, ascending into the atmosphere, the higher 
 the rarer, and yet, as " the force of gravity is absolutely 
 greatest at the center," so at the highest point of our at- 
 mosphere a new density exists from which, as a basis, a 
 new action of the law is developed. Popular science 
 presented the atmospheric scale thus : — 
 
 Altitude In Miles. Density. 
 
 •. . 1 
 
 1 i 
 
 14 iV 
 
 21 if 
 
 28 5U 
 
 35 Tlfa 
 
 -.Vl ' ' "nrnTSTTB 
 
 12^ uaatdioafl 
 
 f lOOAoOOAdOtAff 
 
 etc etc : , 
 
THE SPIEITUAL ZONES AMONG THE STABS. 161 
 
 From this table it will be seen, says Prof. Kirkwood, 
 that at the height of 35 miles the air is one thousand 
 times rarer than at the surface of the earth ; and that, 
 supposing the same rate of decrease to continue, at the 
 height of 140 miles the rarity would be one trillion times 
 greater. The atmosphere, however, is not unlimited. 
 When it becomes so rare that the force of repulsion be- 
 tween its particles is counterbalanced by the earth's 
 attraction, no further expansion is possible. To deter- 
 mine the altitude of its superior surface is a problem at 
 once difficult and interesting. 
 
 Science has recognized the probability of what to the 
 clairvoyants has been long well known, that the inter- 
 planetary spaces are filled with a refined and elastic 
 ether, through which all planets revolve, and by which 
 a perfectly electrical and magnetic sympathy is estab- 
 lished between all inhabited planets and the Summer 
 Land. 
 
 The plane of the orbit of the Summer Land appears 
 to be at an angle of 20° with that of the sun. [The 
 volume on " Astronomy," which I hope to reach some 
 time not far future, will contain these facts more in de- 
 tail.] The sidew;ise appearance of the Spiritual Zone, 
 and also its appearance as a stratified belt, are indicated 
 in the illustrations already presented. The remarks of 
 Humboldt, in his Oo.srnos, voL 1, p. 126, concerning the 
 solar light are here in order : Those who have lived for 
 maiiy years in the zone of palms, must retain a pleasant 
 impression of the mild radiance with which the Zodi- 
 acal Light, shooting pyramidally upward, illumines a 
 part of the uniform length of tropical nights. I have 
 seen it shine with an intensity of light equal to the 
 
163 A STELLAIt KEY. 
 
 Milky Way in Sagittarius, and that not only in the 
 rare and dry atmosphere of the summits of the AndeSj 
 at an elevation of from thirteen to fifteen thousand 
 feet, but even on the boundless grassy plains, the Llanso 
 of Yenezuela, and on the sea-shore, beneath the ever 
 clear sky of Cumana. 
 
 In another place this author brings out something 
 equally important : " Great as is the obscurity which still 
 envelops the material cause of the Zodiacal Light, still, 
 however, with the mathematical certainty that the 
 solar atmosphere cannot reach beyond nine-twentieths 
 of the distance of Mercury — the opinion supported by 
 Laplace, Schubert, Arago, Poisson, and Biot, according 
 to which the Zodiacal Light radiates from a vapory 
 flattened ring, freely revolving in space between the 
 orbits of Venus and Mars, appears, in the very -deficient 
 state of observation, to be the most satisfactory • . . . 
 No telescope has yet indicated any sidereal character in 
 the vaporous, rotating, and flattened ring of the Zodi- 
 acal Light. Whether the particles of which this ring 
 consists, and which, according to some, are conceived 
 to rotate upon themselves, in obedience to dynamic con- 
 ditions, and, according to others, merely to revolve 
 around the sun, are illumined or self-luminous, like 
 many kinds of terrestrial vapors, is a question as yet un- 
 decided." 
 
 Leaving upon the reader's mind these few suggestive 
 words from a scientific authority, I pass on to consider 
 other branches of this beautiful tree of stellar truth. 
 
TKATELING XSB SOOIETr US THE SUMMEB LAUD. 163 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 TEAVEIilNa AND SOCIETY IN THE SUMMER LAND. 
 
 The human Will, having by constitution and relation 
 a "power" which is higher than organic "force," can 
 overcome the force of material gravity, and attain a 
 buoyancy in accordance with the refinements and tides 
 of the ethereal rivers of space, and thus the individual 
 may rise bodily, and float like a person bathing and 
 floating in a beautiful stream ii^ sumrflier-time. The 
 spirit-body, reraember, floats on the bosom of these 
 flowing celestial streams. Upon the celestial current 
 the spirit moves with the speed of light. Individuals so 
 borne along testify that they experience or realize wo 
 motion, tinless they approach and glide past an orb or 
 other body in space. One celestial traveler said that 
 he was conscious of nloving or floating at the rate of 
 what seemed to be not more than a mile an hour ; 
 another said that she was not conscious of any motion 
 at all ; and yet it was asserted that both were " flying 
 thtough space million^ of miles an hour, three times 
 farther than from here to the sun, inside of one hundred 
 and twenty-flve minutes !" A voyage on the celestial 
 seas may be accomplished quicker than a telegraph- 
 operator could record the fact for the daily press. 
 
 Birds, you know, ride beautifully through the atmo- 
 sphere J sometimes without so mnch as moving their 
 wings. Certain winged ones can keep themselves 
 
164 A STELLAB KEY, 
 
 moying through the air by means of the momentum 
 accumulated by the previous use of their strong electri- 
 cal wings. You observe that these peculiar birds work 
 their wings vigorously and rapidly before they suspend 
 their motions, and commit themselves with such beau- 
 tiful confidence to the buoyancy and integrity of the 
 viewless air. This fact in outward creation illustrates 
 the principle of traveling by spirit will-power. Birds 
 of loftiest flight work upon and frictionize the air on 
 the same principle as the glass cylinder in " a magnetic 
 machine " works against the silken cushions. Accord- 
 ing to my investigation, birds develop themselves into 
 Leyden-jars. All birds, by the motions of their wings 
 in the act of flying, fill their bodies and very bones with 
 essential electricity. Their feathers are non-conductors, 
 and thus the electricity or essence which they collect is 
 not easily exhausted. Birds cannot easily bring their 
 forces and wills to bear against a strong current of air, 
 but they accomplish the whole feat of aerial navigation 
 sufficiently to illustrate the principle of post-mortem 
 traveling on these celestial currents. Birds of flight 
 bring the electrical principle of the atmosphere into the 
 finest tissues and air-chambers of their hollow bones. 
 Ornithologists find that the bones of birds are suppHed 
 with nothing substantial to the eye. Some suppose 
 they are filled with air ; yes, just as a Leyden-jar is filled 
 with electricity. Through the spreading and vibrations 
 of their wings they develop electricity and discharge it, 
 as the electric eel discharges the subtile current withoi|t 
 communicating any shock to itself. These birds, unless 
 they have untrammeled opportunities to expand and 
 vibrate their wings, and thus to ascend and fly,' have no 
 
TEATELING AND SOOIBTT IN THE BUMMEE LAND. 165 
 
 buoyancy. Like ieavy domestic fowls, if you clip one 
 of their wings, or in any way accustom th,em to the foot- 
 exercises of a yard-life, they seem to lose the" power of 
 working up the magnetic forces, whereby they gather 
 the more external electric or buoyant principle. 
 Domestic birds do not lose this power, but they lose the 
 habit of flying, and therefore h9,ve no more buoyancy 
 than any wingless bodies^ of similar weigM. It is pos- 
 sible for earth's present inhabitants to realize what I am 
 now stating — the ability, not bodily lo fly through, the 
 air exactly as birds do by means of wings, but in 
 harmony with the buoyant electric principle, and bj a 
 wise employment of this sovereign " power " which is 
 implanted in spirit, with which all, may measurably 
 conquer circumstances. By this "power," -mankind, 
 preserving each his own, peculiar life and individuality, 
 in harmony with those invariable celestial river-tides, or 
 currents, will be enabled after death to travel from the 
 Summer Land to different departments of the heavens 
 so filled with orbs, and to visit what would seem to be 
 immeasurable localities and interminable avenues with 
 more ease, naturalness, and infinitely more pleasure, 
 than you can now travel from your home to foreign 
 places on this globe. 
 
 Again, this power of the spirit's will is marvelous in 
 a chemical point of view. Do you suppose that, the 
 good Father has made mankind to live no more than 
 "three-score and ten years," and that then the whole 
 life and temple of each one will be utterly destroyed? 
 No ! man is built to live an hundred years. But the 
 finest piece of mechanism possible to conceive is this 
 Bpiritual constitution of man. "Will it cease to be of 
 
166 A STELLAE KET. 
 
 service ? It has been urged many times that this worJd 
 is but the rudimental existence. Do you not see that 
 these crude and unsatisfactory adaptations-— these undis- 
 ciplined and ungovemed elements of character — are 
 only in their elementary state ? Mankind require 
 germination and development from the inmost. The 
 love of art, like art itself in this world, is but prophetic. 
 If a man's spirit yearns to paint the Madonna so that 
 "she would seem to others' eyes to be a loving, breathing, 
 'palpitating lady of heaven, and yet but a work of art 
 on insensate canvas, is this yearning not a prophecy to 
 his own love-laden soul that the intense aspirations 
 '^which the good Father implanted shall find ultimate 
 gratification ? In a word, is it not plainly saying to the 
 spirit that, by means of that " power " whidi shall be 
 iinfolded from within, he will develop as perfect a 
 "form" as he had conceived as possible on the canvas, 
 and, indeed, infinitely more holy, loving, breathing, 
 adorable, and heavenly? 
 
 Spiritual investigators in America have had a great 
 iriany demonstrations of this form-making power of 
 Spirit within the last ten years. The illustrations have 
 been furnished by many spirits of great intelligence, of 
 power over the chemical affinities of the air. Persons 
 who have taken no interest in either Science or Art, 
 will not be able soon " after death" to do these almost 
 magical or miraculous things with imponderable prin- 
 ciples. It is said that a great many inhabitants in the 
 Summer Land know nothing about what wondrous 
 changes can be accomplished in the air by the will. I 
 have a good mother who, although she has been there 
 a full score of years, does not yet form a clear concep- 
 
tbavelhsg and society iir the summeh land, 167 
 
 tion of how — that is, on what principle in matter and 
 mind— these "manifestations" occur, some of which 
 she herself has occasionally, made by the senses of per- 
 sons still on earth. She, an affectionate and reverential 
 spirit, does not apply her mind to study the method. 
 For her it is enough to know that it can he done, and 
 that, like breathing, it is productive of happiness. Is 
 not this natural to some minds? How many think, 
 when on a steamboat, of the prodigious force of the 
 concealed engine? Much less do' persons think of the 
 days and years of agony and poverty and discourage- 
 ments which the successive inventors of that hidden 
 steam-machine experienced before they brought it to its 
 present degree of perfection. Men do not often think 
 of these things — of method ; they only look at uUimates 
 and resrdts. 
 
 So with myriads who now reside in the Summer 
 Land. They take particular interest in what is possi- 
 ble, and only see results that are wrought in terrestrial 
 circles. 
 
 In the city of New York, on many different occasions, 
 most beautiful transient fioweps were chemically and 
 artistically formed out of suitable elements, the mag- 
 netic essences, which ever pervade the atmosphere. 
 These astouishing specimens of spirit workmanship were 
 presented to members of the circle. Each flower thus 
 formed was perfectly peil^Me to the -bodily senses. 
 The different colors and odors were distinct. And the 
 stems and leaves could he feU and held in the hand. 
 On one occasion a spirit-flower was placed on the man- 
 tel, according to direcjtions, and the member who did 
 it went back to the table ; then the eyes of each inves- 
 
1G8 A STELLAS KEY. 
 
 tigator were fixed upon the flower, and in the course of 
 twelve minutes the whole plant totally vanished ! 
 
 Those who liave deeply investigated are familiar 
 with this " power of will of spirit," which can be effec- 
 tually used by the wise, intelligent, and artistic. The 
 most gifted spirits have the " power," chemically, to 
 bring together magnetically essential particles that are 
 floating in the human atmosphere. Thus they con- 
 struct and inspire with transient animation some of 
 the most perfect forms of beauty. And yet the mere 
 hodily presence of peculiar temperaments in a circle, 
 will utterly prevent such a manifestation. Some per- 
 sons breathe in and use up the requisite particles in the 
 atmosphere. In most instances a certain combination 
 of imponderable principles is indispensable to such 
 manifestations. That combination is, for the most part, 
 accidental or fortuitous ; because even spirits, as a gen- 
 eral thing, are not regulated by an intellectual appre- 
 ciation of scientific combinations, Neither spirits from 
 the Summer Land nor terrestrial investigators have 
 ascertained how many of certain vital and mental tem- 
 peraments should be associated to constitute a perfectly 
 successful circle for the manifestation of palpable 
 " forms." At present, therefore, throughout the coun- 
 try, the manifestation takes the form of " social inter- 
 course." Being social, it is regulated by no intellectual 
 by-laws, or " scientific formulas," and disorder, confu- 
 sion, and contradictions are the not unfrequent conse- 
 quences. But this phase of haphazard, disorderly in- 
 tercourse is passing, and Spiritualists are adopting 
 methods that will lead to a more thorough understand- 
 ing of their high and glorious opportunities. 
 
TEATELmO AND SOCIETT IN* THE SDMMEE LAND, 169 
 
 Principles are both omnipreseufc and impersonal. 
 All the principles of the male and female Divinity are, 
 therefore, impersonally present in that very spot v?hich 
 you now occupy. For instance, you may find where 
 you now are all possible chemical principles — the elec- 
 tricities, the atmospheres, the gases, the ethers, the po- 
 larities — ^including the principles of vegetation — and 
 all the forces and particles of organic life. What is the 
 proof? The proof is, you can hreathe! Breathing is 
 a chemical transaction. Chemistiy is at the basis of 
 all respiration. Tou discharge the carbonic acid, the 
 watery vapor, and the nitrogen, while you take in and 
 appropriate the oxygen, which is brimming with elec- 
 tricity and magnetism, whereby you realize the fire and 
 the force of the vital and cerebral systems. There, too, 
 is a principle of vegetation. What is the proof? The 
 proof is, that if you were to bring suitable conditions 
 together, the process of vegetation would immediately 
 commence; I know a German chemist, who in five 
 days vivified a seed, that would not otherwise sprout in 
 less than six weeks by the ordinary course of nature. 
 He vivified it by directing upon and through it an 
 electro-magnetic current. 
 
 The vegetative principle is beautifully illustrated by 
 frostings on the window-glass on cold wintry nights. 
 Eeduce sufBciently the temperature of any room with 
 window-glass exposed to the air, and forthwith the 
 principle of vegetation will manifest itself. Next 
 morning you find beautiful pencilings of plants, vines, 
 and twigs with branches. The vegetable principle 
 gathers about itself the particles which assume the 
 forms and shapes which the principle inspires. 
 
170 A BTELLAB KET, 
 
 In like manner tlie principle of organic life is all 
 througti this world, and in every possible nook and 
 corner of it. Take a tumbler, put in it a little wheat or 
 rye flour, and then some water ; let it stand one week 
 in a warm atmosphere — would there not be evidences 
 of organic life ? How could it happen ? Would some i 
 personal God send down the formative fiat and fix up 
 that little flour and water so that it would begin to 
 squirm with life ? Thinkers know better. Through all 
 parts and particles of the immeasurable universe this 
 principle of organic life exists ; only waiting conditionSj 
 forces, and suitable opportunity for a full and complete 
 manifestation. 
 
 In this world men see the omnipresence and imper' 
 sonality of principles crudely illustrated. But when we 
 advance beyond this world^-when we become masters 
 of " circumstances," what may not be possible? When 
 we rise up into perfect proprietorship ; when our richest 
 j6wel will be self-possession ; when we shall have the 
 full enjoyment and complete knowledge of those attri- 
 butes which oftentimes cause their possessor more 
 unhappiness than gratification — when this time comes, 
 what may we not expect ? 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, the philosopher and philanthro- 
 pist, has been recently seen in the City of New York. 
 You would have pledged your solemn oath that he was 
 present ! And yet he may have been a million leagues 
 from the place of " chemical manifestation." To spirit- 
 power there is scarcely any limit. It would be difficult 
 for any spirit to " prove an alibi." This is an impor- 
 tant point for all investigators to remember. The 
 power of the spirit is the power for all to study. The 
 
TEAVELnrO AND SOCIETT IN THE STJMMEE LAND. 171 
 
 fqrce of the soul is not so important. The soul is 
 organically wedged up in the body, No matu's " soul " 
 ever goes out of his body but once ; then it . never 
 returns,, for froip. that moment the body is dead. The 
 supposition that spirits come down the shining highway 
 and enter personally the bodies of mediums, as jthough 
 mediums were automatons, is unphilosophical. Many 
 very sensible persons have affirmed that they have 
 ',' vacated " their own proper physical organizations, in 
 order to give room for certain spirits who wished to 
 enter. There never was a more complete misappre- 
 hension. Mediums have been permitted to say and do 
 a great many things, because of the assumption being 
 credited that they were not personally present in theip 
 own bodies. A multitude of Spiritualists and mediums 
 are now recovering from the effects of such mischievous 
 superstitions. 
 
 And yet the power of the will of a dweller, of th^ 
 Summer Land to make himself seen and felt at an 
 immense distance, as though he were present in the 
 organs of the medium's person, is almost inconceivable. 
 It is marvelous to the unphilosophical observer. It 
 would seem that the communicating mind was bodily 
 and directly within the circle of your presence. The 
 psychological connection between the medium-braiii 
 ai.4 the spirit's will is perfect. The characteristica and 
 habits of the spirit may be transmitted to t}ie medium 
 —that is, when the psychological control of, the brain- 
 organs and thought-faculties of the medium is complete. 
 The mediul^, for the time being, is no self-responsible 
 individual ; for the will of the communicating spirit 
 gives form, shape, gestwre, expression, and speeehr-^aH 
 
172 A STELLAK KKT. 
 
 ■wHcli, to an unprepared observer, looking at the mat- 
 ter sensuously, seems as though the controlling spirit 
 was there embodied, and that the customary proprietor 
 of the " organism " had departed for a time to some 
 other place. These possessional " appearances," in this 
 sense, are not deceptive. 
 
 Take, for example, the case of Miss , who has 
 
 surprised, delighted, and instracted the people so often 
 — floating them oS in her golden chariots of eloquence 
 throughout the infinitude of beautiful thoughts — how 
 fertile her inspired brain with appropriate illustrations, 
 and beautiful imagery, and, sometimes, with the 
 inaterial of profound discourse ! She is an instance of 
 what we call " inspiration " — an elevation of mentality 
 to a place in the sphere of thought where she, person- 
 ally, almost ceases to be, and where her higher imper- 
 sonal faculties gather themselves to the work, just as 
 your poetic talents and reasoning powers would act were 
 they promoted to a higher state of freedom, impressi- 
 bility, and action. Lifted out of the immediate conscious- 
 ness of personality, 0M< of egotism, the brain-organs and 
 impressible thought-faculties become at once conscious 
 of and familiar with the subject presented to them. In 
 this state .high mountains become " a feeling^ It is 
 the closest identification of consciousness with prin- 
 ciple. But mere "intellectual displays" are slowly 
 giving way to a superior form of inspiration. The 
 psychological power of spirit over the faculties is a 
 question exceedingly important to all investigators. 
 We must have a scientific basis for these spiritual 
 temples. Purely philosophical principles can alone 
 make these manifestations reasonable to all humanity. 
 
TBAVELING AND SOCIETY IN THE SDMMEB LAND. 173 
 
 The wondrous power of spirit to impress ita^thouglit 
 at a long distance is just as natural as is conversation. 
 Here, we do not always truly impress our thoughts. 
 There, if the affections of two persons are in sympathy 
 with each other, the converse is perfect. Those celes- 
 tial Brotherhoods — the immense communities which I 
 have elsewhere described — can impress each other's 
 thoughts through immeasurable distances. But nothing 
 of this can occur where there is no affiliation. Why 
 not ? Because of the law of attraction and repulsion. 
 If ,the attraction between distant Brotherhoods is not 
 perfect, they can form no mind-telegraphic communi- 
 cation with eadh other. 
 
 The Summer Land, more especially those portions of 
 it which are in connection with the inhabitants of earth, 
 appears to my interior eyes like a neighboring planet. 
 It is the next room in the house not made with hands. 
 But there are an infinite number of other rooms. 
 Characteristics and peculiarities of the lower territories 
 or sections may not prevail in any of the higher divi- 
 sions of the sphere. When the eyes of the seer look 
 higher, forthwith many of those thingswhichso distinctly 
 prevailed, as peculiarly adapted to the neighboring ex- 
 istence, utterly cease to exist, both out of the people and 
 the scenery, as mankind progressively rise out of 
 peculiar and special attachments, attractions, gravita- 
 tions, and relations. In that section of the other sphere 
 which lies next to us, the law of social attraction is as 
 powerfully operative as it is in. this world. It is not 
 easy to tell why, but the dwellers are gregarious. They 
 are attracted socially to remain very near each other. 
 But higher up, or, rather, away in more refined sections, 
 
174 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 the people are influenced by other interests. In fact, 
 the Indian-like gregariousness becomes distasteful to 
 those who seek and encourage the finer attractions of 
 the Summer Land. Their new and higher and largeir 
 aft'ections render their former selfish relations almost 
 antipathies. 
 
 The next sphere of human existence is only another 
 department in the great educational system of eternity. 
 There mankind have opportunities to outgrow the errors 
 and follies of this life, and thus innumerable myriads 
 become prepared for another ascension.* If a man ' 
 leaves this world in good spiritual circumstances, he 
 may possibly ascend at once to a better brotherhood, and 
 be straightway engaged in higher duties, in obedience 
 to higher sympathies and attractions. ' Those who can 
 see what is " beautifiil " are prepared to receive and 
 enjoy what otherwise they could not. While those who 
 go in darkness of spirit, who have brought upon them- 
 selves discord and misery, go there without these finer 
 attractions and advantages, and of course they become 
 subjects for the philanthropic treatment and attention 
 of others who have souls for higher sympathies and the 
 essence of a more beautiful happiness. 
 
 Individual attractions and repulsions prevail very 
 decidedly in some sections of the upper world. They 
 cannot be wholly conquered by will, though they may 
 be governed. Affinities and antipathies come from the 
 action of the temperaments of diflFerent spirits in the 
 vicinity of each other. "When you pray, therefore, be 
 
 * In confirmation of this the reader is referred to " Death and tEe 
 Aft«r Life " — ^last.chapter^ concerning 'the Isle of Akropanamede. 
 
TRAVELING AND SOOIE'IT IN THE SUMMEE LAND. 175 
 
 sure to pray for the A^^i^es^ manifestation of the king- 
 dom of heaven ; that is, for a social and national condi- 
 tion above the plane of these ungovernable attractions 
 and repulsions— for blessings above the sphere of antipa- 
 thies and unwise sympathies. 
 
 The wisest lovers there make great progress by refin- 
 ing and elevating the persons who are the objects of 
 their love. But earthly minds too often depress the 
 objects of their attraction. Is your undisguised attrac- 
 tion a manifestation of your love, or of your passion ? 
 The source of your interest is perceived and realized by 
 the object. Suppose your attraction is not reciproca- 
 ted ? Why are you so forsaken, or not accepted ? Because 
 you do not make a distinction between your love and 
 your passion for the object of interest. Thus many are 
 disap'pointed in the very place where they had supposed 
 marriage would be beautiful and friendship permanent. 
 
 There is in all this system of affection and disaffection 
 a fine spiritual chemistry and a subtile law of magn©V 
 ism. Mankind have not yet learned the difference be- 
 tween mere passional inclination and true spiritual 
 love, which attracts and ennobles its object. The 
 former — ^the attractions of passion — are all of the 
 "earth, earthy." They are not found in any of the 
 celestial brotherhoods. The wisest do not encourage in- 
 discriminate inclination ; they are swayed by neither ex- 
 ternal attractions nor disinclinations. They rise up into 
 the celestial atmosphere of pure immortal affection,. 
 It rules all their thoughts, and thus the wisest person in 
 the Summer Land is the most loving. Thus you find 
 that very distinguished persons,, both men and wojnMi, 
 when they return to visit your habitations, use great 
 
176 A BTELLAE KEY. 
 
 simplicity of escipression. They talk mostly about love 
 and sympathy among- mankind. They seek earnestly 
 to encourage people to cultivate greater fraternity and 
 unity of spirit. They bestow fine and beautiful in- 
 fluences. But those wise ones do not often discourse on 
 the great moral themes and momentous political ques- 
 tions which wholly interested them and their friends 
 before they left the earth. 
 
 Divinity, in its central life, is love. In this truth you 
 behold the source of " salvation " to yourself and to all 
 your neighbors in the wide world. The moment you 
 passionately love your object, with a selfish and jealous 
 desire to exdvde all other hearts from contact with it, 
 that moment your exclusive love becomes a chemical 
 earthly poison. Under that changeful influence, and 
 governed by nothing more wise than, vital forces and 
 their fiery impulses, you will surely be affected with 
 diseases and mental distortions which may disturb your 
 rest beyond the grave. 
 
 Mankind everywhere should work to bring the "king- 
 dom of heaven on the earth" — and not pray for it 
 merely. People associate together and the minister will 
 pray. " Thy will be done on earth " — that is, " may 
 the divine laws, and celestial principles, and heavenly 
 methods, be carried out in human society as they are in 
 the Summer Land." What does such a prayer amount 
 to ? Nothing, unless you put your affections and your 
 tvill to the work of overcoming ignorance and obtaining 
 " power " by which you can practice some portion of 
 that which you are constantly supplicating heaven to 
 help you to accomplish. 
 
 Fraternal love is at the bottom of true heavenly 
 
TKAYELING AUD 80CIETT US THE SUMMEE LAND. 177 
 
 Bociety. Let us, then, cease being swayed by these 
 lower attractions which constantly produce family feuds 
 and cause a tew persons to associate to the exclusion of 
 the rest of mankind. Selfish and jealous attractions do 
 not prevail in the best societies of the upper world. 
 They cherish, encourage, and manifest pure love. The 
 front pews in the heavenly society are not set apart for 
 the rich people and the back pews for the poor ; neither 
 do they make great distinctions in accordance with the 
 dictates of a foolish and arbitrary fashion. They who 
 have been servants are not treated as inferior members 
 of the human family. While on earth, and among so- 
 called Christians, they are treated as though they were 
 allied closely to brutes, and not human beings ; in con- . 
 sequence of which they are angered, and become thieves 
 and liars, and do not hesitate to cheat and steal when- 
 ever they can. 
 
 Nothing but a radical development in society, in 
 politics, and in reljgion, can ever induce some people to 
 think deeply, and arrive at the conception that every 
 human spirit is capable of being pure in its love for the 
 neighbor. I do not mean that you can love all per • 
 sons with the same kind and degree of love, I do not 
 mean that you will ever exist without the feeling of 
 inclination, and disinclination. That would be impossi- 
 ble. But you need not be so warped and swayed by 
 them as to be poisoned in your thoughts and afiections 
 toward those of a diflferent nation and temperament. 
 The true and noble in the Summer Land work dili- 
 gently among the members of its inferior societies to 
 bring about that state of heavenly peace and concord. 
 When the inferior societies of the other sphere are har 
 
 8* 
 
178 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 monized, -the earth-land will also be more harmonised ; 
 then all the races and peoples will begin to fed more 
 of that " prayer " which is now but a lip-Beryice, among 
 the conductors of the Churches. 
 
 The time is approaching when mmcZ will he supreme I: 
 Spirit, with the power of its will and the healing of its 
 love, is to take the ascendant. Then circumstance^ 
 will be to man like the sheaves which Joseph saw in 
 his dream, all bowing to the central sheaf ; they will 
 all bow to the master, not to the machinations of his 
 will, not to his high animal ambitions, but only to the 
 fine power of his spirit. When a man grows above 
 desiring selfish ends — ^when he arrives at that heavenly 
 point — then will all high and eternal things be his. 
 And he will also own the whole world. He owns the 
 city and the country ; the sky, the ocean, and all the 
 earth. He also becomes the proprietor of all mankind., 
 For we are all possessors of each other in the heavenly 
 or harmonial state. 
 
 Spiritualists have strength and inspiration adeq;aate 
 to the living of an entirely new life with referenee, to 
 each other not only, but also with reference to all those 
 who are not so blest — the " neighbors " who swarm in 
 the towns, villages, cities, and different countries of 
 the globe. They are morally, and intellectually able 
 to rise above all condemnation and misrepresentation, 
 and he sweet, a,nd pure, and generous, and forgiving, 
 under all circumstances. They have but to rise up into 
 this " feeling" that power in the spirit is a portion of 
 God ; that the inmost spirit only, partakes of such 
 power ; that /bree is only animal ; and that when you 
 raise your hand Ajx anger to strike another, you place 
 
TEAVELm& AOT) SOOIETT IS THE SUMMER LAND. 179 
 
 yourself on a Uvel with your misdirected opponent. 
 For the time being you are no better than he, however 
 much he may be the provoker of your anger and you 
 the innocent party. Eise out of that combative condi- 
 tion. See if you cannot be strong enough to " love 
 your enemies " in the fine Platonic sense, which is the 
 most beautiful manifestation of spirit. Manlsind can 
 never have fraternal festive occasions in this world 
 unless they attain to higher growth. The festive 
 seasons in the higher Societies of the Summer Land — 
 from 1851 — ^to 1855 were memorable to all who witnessed 
 them or took part in their celestial joys. The old 
 Greeks, Goths, Eomans, Germans, and others, forgot 
 the heart-hatreds that existed during the feudal period 
 of knight-errantry and chivalry. Many of these celes- 
 tial Brotherhoods are composed of men who fell in those 
 desperate struggles in old England — ^Normans, Saxons, 
 Scots, Picts, Eomans, Celts, French — and among them 
 are many of the old "Scottish Chiefs^" who waged 
 such persistent wars in the early days of European civ- 
 ilization. These festive periods are perfeet illustrations 
 of the Pentecostal times recorded by the writers of the 
 Kew Testament. Now I realize that correspondingly 
 joyful festive occasions are possible in this discordant 
 world of ours. It is an occasion when hundreds of 
 thousands may receive baptisms- from the inhabitants 
 of superior spheres. 
 
 One of these celestial gatherings was in ^ssion in 
 1851. The first sound in my ear was nmsie. The 
 melody thereof filled the whole heavens. It seemed 
 to fill the earth with heavenly harmony, and I became 
 a part of the scene. The landscapes all around me 
 
180 A BTELLAK KET. 
 
 seemed to throb and pulsate, and each part responded 
 to every beat of the universal music. And it seemed 
 that there were in the other vrorld all kinds of musical 
 instruments. The effect from the heavenly instrumenta- 
 tion was indescribable. But subsequently, in 1855, by 
 most careful examination and interrogations, I found 
 that no such thing as a musical instrument was ever 
 known to exist in that part of the Summer Land. But 
 the investigation disclosed the fact that the human 
 voice is a totality of sownds ! The inhabitants there 
 have such perfect acquaintance with the powers and 
 sounds of the voice, that, by combining the voices of 
 particular persons, they can imitate alt possible varieties 
 and shades of instcumental music. They accomplish 
 more than has ever entered into the heart of man to 
 conceive. The association of harmonious voices, which 
 is but crudely developed in this world, is one .of the 
 celestial realities. 
 
 These heavenly festive occasions seem to continue for 
 several of our years. To them, however, it is but a 
 short period ; to us it would seem to be very long. It 
 is a glorious Sabbath-time to them. 
 
 With them there is no account of time. An event 
 is one beat in the universal anthem of eternal harmony. 
 They terminate their festivals by dividing themselvjsa 
 up into sub-societies for the accomplishment of certain 
 missions. Some of them accept missions to other 
 Brotherhoods, not yet harmonized, in other and more 
 distant parts. Others visit those who are constantly 
 arriving from the earth, and from the planets in space. 
 Think of the soldiers that were constantly ascending 
 from the Union and Confederate Hospitals, and from 
 
TEAVELING AND SOOIETT IN THE SUMMEE LAKD. 181 
 
 the battle-fields, during the hours of warfare, and think,- 
 too, of the dying that is every moment going on in 
 earthly cities — the old and infirm, the poor and the 
 ontcast, the starving and despairing — for all these the 
 heavenly Societies are formed, and they go about their 
 philanthropic missions. It may seem strange to some 
 of you that any work of this kind should engage and 
 absorb the -heart-interests of the inhabitants of the Sum^ 
 mer Land. But are not the attractions of the best facul- 
 ties of human nature immortal 1 Is it not natural that 
 good spirits, good men and good women, should divide 
 into Societies and form themselves into Associations for 
 the furtherance of good missions ? Every member of the 
 Excursional Groups has this pojrer of Will (which I 
 have already described), by which it is possible to travel 
 with great speed through space. In this way some of 
 the guardians rescue unhappy men and women who are 
 about to shoot, or poison, or otherwise destroy them- 
 fielves. A guardian angel may save some sad, lone 
 one, who is about to drown herself in the stream. 
 Many suicidal characters are thus saved. Many are 
 not, however, because they cannot be approached. But 
 there is no instance (one of them said) throughout the 
 intricate parts of human society, where any thing of 
 this kind occurs, but some friendly and sympathizing 
 spirits are present, either to prevent the misfortune, or 
 else to soothe the sad one's darkened passage on to 
 another sphere. 
 
 So, therefore, when we each arrive in the Summer 
 Landj we shall find persons who are perfectly acquaint- 
 ed with all that we have ever done ; no matter how 
 multitudinous the floors, how thick the walls, or how 
 
182 A BTELLAB KET, 
 
 many doors were locked between us and the world — 
 just the same to angel-eyes as though there were no 
 walls, no floors, no doors, no locks — just as though all 
 dwelling-houses were transparent crystal palaces, in- 
 stead of these thick boards and hard stones. Angels' 
 eyes are clairvoyant, and they can see as clearly through 
 the substances of space as you can see objects before yon. 
 This truth will exert an influence on minds that cannot 
 be reached by principles. 
 
 Now take the moral import and apply it all through 
 society. You will not forget that there are many 
 heavenly eyes constantly watching your footsteps. 
 However faithless, however worthless, however fleet 
 you may travel on earth, you cannot get away from 
 them. Neither can you escape from yourself! Go 
 steal a gold watch or a treasure, be Yalse and deceive 
 others, if you choose ; you will never be able to getaway 
 from yourself; nor can you hide away from those 
 " guardians " who love you, who know whatever you 
 do, and who are always seeking to save, and cherish, 
 and make you better. Carry this memory with yon 
 through life. It is not the gospel of " fear." But it is 
 the doctrine of truth, which puts a strange and myste- 
 rious check on the play of ungoverned appetites and 
 passions. All intuitive souls naturally believe that the 
 over-arching heavens are " full of eyes," It was this 
 conviction which inspired the following very appropri- 
 ate lines : — 
 
 Ah me I the solemn thought that man 
 , Is compassed by such eyes as these I 
 
 That every action from its birth 
 A purer nature sees 1 
 
TEAVELma AND SOCIETY IN THE SUMMEE LAND. 183 
 
 Perchance they mark not acta alone ; 
 
 It may be thoughts lie open, too : 
 Each sin committed and conceived, 
 
 The sinless angels view. 
 
 Ah I what a sight for holy eyes, 
 
 The open heart of sinful man 1 
 What is their pity, what their ^ief. 
 
 When such a sight they scaul 
 
 They see the good^ whose head is crowned 
 
 With praise from every human lip, 
 Full of aU frailty when disguise 
 
 From his weak heart they strip. 
 
 They mark how selfishness defiles 
 The love which men esteem most pure: 
 
 They mark how oft the virtue slips 
 We blindly hold most sure. 
 
 Well might we shudder at the gaze 
 That sees what lies most deep within, 
 
 If angels loved, like men, to mark 
 The weakness and the sin. 
 
 They love to succor and to heal; 
 
 In woe they soothe, in guilt reprove : 
 It is for kindly offices 
 
 They leave their home above. 
 
184 A STBLLAB KEY. 
 
 CHAPTER XVn. 
 
 THE STniMEE LAND AS BEEN BY CLAEKVOTANOE. 
 
 I NOW behold the, forms of earth and the bodies of 
 ipen, including my own, in a light and with a degree 
 of perception never before presented. I discover that I 
 can only see the forms by judging what and where they 
 are, by the light of the spirit : for the outer body is 
 beyond my perception, and I only see well-constituted 
 and living spirits. By possessing this perception, I am 
 enabled to commune with all the possessions of this 
 Sphere, and now behold the extended fields and living 
 habitations of this elevated existence. 
 
 There are to be obsefved three specific degrees of 
 form and development: the young and unmatured; 
 the advanced stages of these up to the mediatorial 
 degree of manhood ; and the highest of them all, which 
 is the perfect form and most highly developed of all the 
 spirits there existing. 
 
 I perceive that whenever an infant dies on any of 
 the earths, the undeveloped body of its spirit becomes 
 deposited in this Sphere, and is fiilly unfolded in intel- 
 lect, and highly enlightened concerning all of its own 
 existence and prior situation. The infant that has had 
 life and dies in infancy, is, I perceive, in this Sphere, 
 
 NoTB. — It maybe a source of Instruction and satisfaction to those who 
 haye not yet examined works on the Spiritual Philosophy, to read a 
 few eitracts from " Nature's Divine Revelations," pp. 647, ci sej. 
 
THE SUMMER LAND AS' SEEN BT OLAIEVOTANCE, 185 
 
 fully developed and perfected. So it is witli all unin- 
 formed spirits who escape the body on any earth ; for 
 each is here educated in the truths and beauties of the 
 whole existence. So it is also with the intelligent and 
 highly cultivated ; for they are here more advanced, 
 and occupy a position more elevated and refined. 
 
 Moreover, I discover three distinct societies or associ- 
 ations of men and females, each occupying a position 
 determined by their degree of cultivation, sympathy for 
 one another, and power of approaching each other's 
 sphere of knowledge and attainment.. And what is 
 well to relate is, that each society is encompassed by a 
 peculiar sphere or atmosphere, which is an exhalation 
 from the specific quality of their interior or spiritual 
 characters. Every spirit has a peculiar sphere of its 
 pwn, and also a general one in which it can with 
 pleasure exist.' And spirits know and associate with 
 each other according to the quality of the sphere which 
 is exhaled from their interiors. They associate only 
 as spheres are agreeable, and as they are capable of 
 approaching eaich other with pleasure. 
 
 So it is also with mankind on earth. They dwell in 
 each other's society only as they can coalesce, and 
 approach each other with pleasure. So also are exist- 
 ing on earth the three specific degrees of development, 
 which are youtllj manhood, and mature age. But they 
 are in a rudimental condition, and not situated in order 
 as they are in the Second Sphere. 
 
 I perceive that spirits approach other according to 
 the relative degrees of brilliancy which surrounds and 
 encompasses their forms. Thus association is deter- 
 mined and made perfect by the law of congeniality and 
 
J86 A STELLAK KEY. 
 
 affinity, or affection. They have an affection for one 
 another in proportion to the similarity in the degrees of 
 love and purity to vrhich they have attained. Thus 
 are the three states or societies established. 
 
 In the first society are an immense number of infant 
 and uncultivated epirits, which are in various degrees 
 of advancement and cultivation, according as such have 
 proceeded from the earth. In the second group or 
 society are those who have become highly instructed in 
 the principles and truths of the Divine Mind. And 
 into this society all who die on earth with minds 
 properly unfolded are immersed, because here they can 
 associate agreeably. In the third society I. discover 
 spirits of the most enlightened character. The most of 
 them proceed from the planets Jupiter and Saturn^ and 
 also from planets in other solar systems. This society 
 is so highly illuminated with wisdom that it is almost 
 impossible for the spirits of the lower societies to 
 approach it. If they make an effort to enter their 
 midst, this is immediately overcome by the strong 
 repulsion arising from the non-affinity existing between 
 them and their respective spheres. 
 
 The atmosphere that flows from and encompasses 
 and protects the first society, is of a mingled and rather 
 nnilluminated appearance. Its brilliancy is rather 
 faint ill comparison to that of thdie above it. It 
 appears gloomy, dark, and rather uncongenial, because 
 it is an emanation from uncultivated intellects. Yet 
 there is a purity — an exceeding purity among them, 
 viewed comparatively with that existing on earth. 
 
 The second society is enveloped with an atmosphere 
 of far more congenial variegations, presenting a re- 
 
STHE SUMMER LAND AS SEI^Jf BY CLAIEVOTANCE. 187 
 
 splendent brilliancy which ii;,dicate8 purity and ele- 
 vation. It appears like the mingling of many colors, 
 such as are not known on earth. And these are all so 
 perfectly conjoined, and are blended together in such 
 harmony, that the whole aroma is of itself a represen- 
 tation of purity and refinement. Yet it is a sphere 
 emanating from the whole body of the society, indi- 
 cating the wisdom of the spirits composing it. Their 
 wisdom consists in a knowledge of truths and prin- 
 ciples concerning material and rudimental things ; and 
 in them "they are highly enlightened. And the incon- 
 ceivable variety of colors surrounding them arises from 
 their dissimilar stages of intellectual advancement. 
 Tet thdy are all in the same. plane of wisdom, and 
 thus form one society, enveloped by this beautiful and 
 refined atmosphere. , 
 
 The third society is also clothed with an aerial gar- 
 ment, which is a perfect representation of the character 
 and perfection of their interiors. I behold in it all 
 colors, and a variety of reflections proceeding from the 
 subordinate societies ; and these reflections render their 
 spiritual emanation so very beautiful that language is 
 inadequate to describe it. 
 
 Those of the first society ard in the plane of natural 
 thought ; that is, they are just emerging from the 
 instructions and* impressions of earth, into the wisdom 
 of the higher societies. 
 
 The second society is in the plane or sphere of causes; 
 that is, they are just emerging from a superior knowl- 
 edge o£ visible effects presented on earth, to a percep- 
 tion of the interior causes of them : and their wisdom 
 extends to the lowest and first cause of all material 
 
188 A 6TELLAE KEY. 
 
 things. Therefore thgjr have a knowledge of all 
 interior causes, es8ences,j and their modes of external 
 manifestation : but they are not in the possession of 
 superior wisdom concerning the iises for which causes 
 and effects were instituted. 
 
 The third society is in the plane of effects; and 
 tliose composing it have a perception of aU ultimate 
 design, and of the universal adaptation of things to 
 each other. Their minds are exceedingly luminous. 
 With their powers of penetration, the externals of 
 things are laid open, and they perceive only the char- 
 acter and quality of the interior. Their vision extends 
 to every recess of their own habitation, and their 
 knowledge comprehends all subordinate material exist- 
 ences. They have a most unlimited presentation of all 
 created things below their elevated position ; and their 
 wisdom is light, and love, and brilliancy, and even 
 ecstasy, to a degree that transcends description. With 
 their unfolded spiritual powers they behold the vast 
 landscapes of the spirit-home, too extensive to be com- 
 prehended by men on earth, and too beautiful to be 
 appreciated or enjoyed by them. 
 
 The third society are not only in a state of emerge- 
 ment from the plane of causes to that of effects, but 
 also from their sphere to the third world of human 
 existence. ~ 
 
 And what is well to relate is, that notwithstanding 
 the dissimilitude that exists between the three societies, 
 there is a perfect unity among them, and a mutual 
 dependence one upon another ; and there is a continual 
 aspiring affection that gyrates from the infant intellect 
 to the high and superior wisdom of the third society. 
 
THE S0MMEB LAND AS SEEN BT OLAIEVOTANOE. 189 
 
 There is a unity of action, an agreeableness of situation, 
 and a propriety of position, -whicli cause them all to 
 live one for another, like a brotherhood. 
 
 And, moreover, it is profitable to remark that each 
 society or group is well situated, well conditioned, and 
 well cultivated, in reference to the specific state which 
 each is compelled to sustain. The situations are per- 
 fect in proportion to the degree of wisdom and refine- 
 ment to which each has attained. The lowest appears 
 inferior in comparison to the higher and ■ superior ; 
 though even the first, to man on earth, would appear to 
 be a high state of perfection. By the varieties of con- 
 dition and development, the societies are made perfect. 
 They are thus aa one brotherhood, joined by mutual 
 afiections and actions, and perpetuated in goodness by 
 the benign and gentle influences that proceed from the 
 highest society to the lower ones, and from these to it 
 again. 
 
 The societies in the Second Sphere are very much to 
 be admired, because of the perfect harmony which per- 
 vades them, and the perfect melody and concert of 
 rudimental and perfected knowledge which they mani- 
 fest. In a corresponding manner does there exist a 
 concert of action, a unity of feeling, and a universal 
 love, one for another. 
 
 The inhabitants do not converse vocally, but immerse 
 their thoughts into one another by radiating them upon 
 the countenance. And I perceive that thought enters 
 the spirit by a process of Ireathmg, or rather it is intro- 
 duced by influx, according to the desires of those con- 
 versing. They percpive thought by and through the 
 eyes, inasmuch as these, like the general countenance, 
 
190 ' A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 are an index to the quality and workings of the interior. 
 They seemingly hea/r each other converse ; but that is 
 owing to a previous knowledge of sound by which 
 words are distinguished and their meaning appre- 
 hended. 
 
 They perceive things without them by their sense of 
 vision / but they are conscious that it is the reflecHon 
 which they perceive, and not the subsianoe^ Therefore, 
 they exercise judgment concerning all they perceive — 
 not judging from sensuous observation, but &om the 
 character of the substance observed. 
 
 I also discover that spirits in this Sphere approach 
 and associate with each other according to the mutual 
 afiBnity subsisting between them, even as do the inhabi- 
 tants of earth ; but the difference is in the mode of 
 associating. Men on earth associate with one another 
 by the guidance of their gross and rudimental senses, as 
 these are productive of inclination and desire. Instead 
 of this, men associate in this higher Sphere by a 
 knowledge of each other's inherent purity, and the state 
 of each other's affections. ' 
 
 Moreover, I perceive that the former experience of 
 every person, both male and female, is treasured up in 
 the memory, from which they can extract representa- 
 tions of that which they previously knew or experi- 
 enced. Every thing appears indelibly impressed upon 
 the memory, and is mirrored forth with a vividness in 
 proportion to the strength of the impression. There- 
 fore, whatever thought enters the human mind on 
 earth, becomes a resident in the memory, and is here 
 brought forth with the appearapce of newness that 
 makes it both interesting and instructive. Those things 
 
THE StTMMEE LAND AS SEEN BT CLArBVOTANOB. 191 
 
 experienced which are disagreeable to the memory arc 
 deposited in its depths and concealed from the view of 
 any other being, by the prevalence of those events and 
 experiences which it pleases the mind to remember, 
 and which the mind takes delight in contemplating. 
 Hence it is proper for all men on earth to do and think 
 only that which pleases them most (according to wis- 
 dom), and which they would most earnestly desire to 
 remember; and not to do those things, or encourage 
 those thoughts, which are opposed to the superior 
 delights of the mind. If this cannot be done in the 
 present social and mental condition of the world, then 
 it is proper to change those conditions, so that even this 
 great good and pleasure may be obtained. 
 
 "When spirits conversing appeal - to each other's 
 memory, the memory mirrors forth a perfect represen- 
 tation of the thing remembered, which is perceived and 
 understood by the conversing spirit. I behold beauti- 
 ful representations in the memory of those in the higher 
 societies. These representations are of the most exqui- 
 site character, because they proceed from the memory 
 of highly enlightened intellects ; and they are therefore 
 delightful, inviting, and instructive. 
 
 I perceive that every thing in this Sphere is created 
 and manifested only by and through the exercise and 
 direction of wisdom. Hence the perfect order and 
 uniformity that subsist, and the inexpressible happiness 
 that flows as a consequence from such exquisite har- 
 mony and unity of action. Every thing is appreciated 
 as a blessing conferred upon them by the light and life 
 of Divine Love, and the order and form of Divine 
 Wisdom. 
 
192 A STELLAE KET. 
 
 It is pleasing to bfehold these heavenly societies ; for 
 I see them at this moment existing in the most perfect 
 degree of brotherly love, and joined inseparably to- 
 gether by constant ascending and descending affections. 
 How very clear and bright are their countenances and 
 expressions ! They are unblemished by artificiality, i 
 and unspotted by rudimental and gross intrusions — ^for 
 they are above and superior to these, and highly de- 
 veloped. The first society is indeed low, in compari- 
 son to the highest ; but the variety and the degrees 
 nevertheless form of the whole a complete brotherhood. 
 The diversity consists in the different degrees of de- 
 velopment ; and the lowest cannot approach the high- 
 est, because of the dissimilarity of quality and spheres. 
 But the lowest crntains and involves the highest, while 
 the latter, in return, comprehends and pervades the 
 whole Sphere, manifesting a grace and beauty beyond 
 the power of language to describe. And there exists 
 almost an infinite variety- of dispositions, of loves,* of 
 affections, and of wisdom, among them ; yet each modi- 
 fication of previous conditions of mind is only an as- 
 cending degree of refinement toward perfection. 
 
 The whole is beautiful — surpassingly beautiful and 
 sublime ! for there exists that continual emanation of 
 love and wisdom from societies and individual forms, 
 displaying a brilliancy of illumination beyond any light 
 or color on earth. It is even so very bright and beauti- 
 ful, that those in the lower societies who approach are 
 almost thrown into ectasies of delight. They become 
 prostrated, and apparently fall on their faces, because 
 of the beauty and brilliancy of the aroma that encom- 
 passes the superior societies of the spirit-home. 
 
THE StJMMEH LAND AS SEEN BT CLAIBVOTASTOE. 193 
 
 Thus it is that all preserve an order in their lives 
 and situations ; and thus it is that their approach to 
 each other is graduated according to the unfolding 
 of the spiritual senses and faculties to the external. 
 They represent the circular and spiral forms; for 
 there eadsts among them a uniform and also an as- 
 cending movement. And one is continually unfold- 
 ibg the possessions of another, even as from the germ 
 are unfolded the body and the flower. And even as 
 the flower perpetuates the species of the plant, so does 
 the superior society pervade the lower ones, and is con- 
 stantly introducing them intp its own vast possessions ; 
 and thus all go onward to a still higher Sphere of spirit- 
 ual and intellectual elevation. 
 
 9 
 
194 A STELLAS KEY. 
 
 CHAPTEK XVin, 
 
 6TN0PSIS OF THE IDEAS PEE8ENTED. 
 
 Coleridge's intellect must have been endowed with 
 insight, for no poet ever more forcibly pictured the 
 great truth of primordial developments : — 
 
 " Contemplant Spirits ^ ye that hover o'er 
 With untired gaze the immeasurable fount 
 BbuUient with creative Deity I 
 And ye of plastic power, that interfused 
 Boll through the grosser and material mass 
 In organizing surge I Holies of God I" 
 
 The first goings forth or out-births from the great 
 celestial Center are essential oceans of matter. These, 
 after due elaboration or gestation, give birth to suns — 
 and become cognizable to the outward senses of man. 
 These suns become centers, or mothers, from which 
 earths are born, with all the elements of matter, and 
 each minutest particle infused with the vivifying, 
 vitalizing spirit of the parent Formator. The Essences 
 of heat or fire — electricity, etherium, magnetism — are 
 all the natural or outward manifestations of the pro- 
 ductive energy, the vitalizing Cause of all existences. 
 It pervades all substances, and animates all forms. 
 
 The order of progression of solid matter is from the 
 lower to the higher, from the crude to the refined, from 
 the simple to the complicated, from the imperfect to the 
 
BYlfOPSIS OF THE IDEAS PEK8ENTED. 195 
 
 perfect — ^but in distinct degrees or congeries. That is, 
 the lower must first be developed, to elaborate the 
 materials and prepare the way for the higher. Thus, 
 after the sun gave birth to the earth — and the same of 
 all other planets — by the action of the vitality within 
 the particles of matter, and its constant emanation in 
 the form of heat, light, electricity, &c. — ^first from the 
 great Central sphere to the sun, and thence to the 
 earth, acting upon the granite and other rocks, with 
 the atmosphere, the water, and other compound and 
 simple elements — ^new compounds were formed, possess- 
 ing the vital principle in sufiicient quantities to give 
 definite forms, as crystallization, organization, motion, 
 life, sensation, intelligence — the last being the highest 
 or ultimate attribute of production on our earth, and 
 possessed or reached to perfection only by man. 
 
 A glance at the progress of matter in the production 
 of our earth audits inhabitants, will serve as an illus- 
 tration of the same process and progress of worlds in 
 the vast expanse of the, universe, that are perpetually 
 and incessantly being brought into existence, and ulti- 
 mating the grand object of the whole — ^namely, to 
 develop and perfect individualized, self-conscious, ever- 
 existing, immortal spirits, that shall be in the " image 
 and likeness " of the Central Cause, and dwell forever 
 in the Summer Spheres of space. 
 
 I now recapitulate the process of the earth's origin. 
 Within the circumference of the sun, elementary par- 
 ticles of matter gather around a nucleus, which con- 
 tinues to aggregate and increase in dimension and 
 variety of parts, in its perpetual and endless revolutions 
 and evolutions, gradually advancing toward the outer 
 
196 A 8TELLAB KEY. 
 
 Btirface of this fiery orb, as it increases in complexity 
 and density, until it approaches the extreme yerge of 
 the sun ; when, by the impetus or centrifugal force it 
 has attained, from its more compact structure and con- 
 sequent increase of specific gravity, it breaks loose from 
 its parent and flies off at a tangent into illimitable 
 space. If a ball of lead and another of cotton of the 
 same size be tied each to a string, and whirled violently 
 around until the strings break, the lead ball will fly off 
 in almost a straight line, for a long distance, before it 
 makes a curve toward the earth ; while the cotton ball 
 will perform a graceful curve from the moment it 
 breaks loose, and soon falls to the ground. The experi- 
 ment wiU illustrate the movements of a planet, when, 
 first thrown off from the sun (being much more dense) ; 
 or, in other words, it will account for the eccentric 
 movement of comets, which, in fact, are new-bom and 
 baby earths or planets. The extreme tenuity, fluidity, 
 and rarefaction of its particles, and its consequent 
 feeble cohesive attraction, and its irregular orbital 
 and axillary movements, give the new earth elongated, 
 attenuated, and many various forms, as presented to the 
 beholder on another planet. Sometimes it happens 
 that the caudal extremity gets so " long drawn out," 
 and so far from the center of gravity^the proper 
 polarity or axis not being yet fully established — that a 
 part o^ parts become detached or broken off. The 
 detached parts become meteoric bodies, or else " satel- 
 lites," which continue to revolve around and within the 
 orbit of the new earth. Our earth has one belt of these 
 meteoric^a/'flw^fo*. Other planets several. 
 In the lapse of ages, the attractive and repulsive, or 
 
SYNOPSIS OF THE IDEAS PEESENTBD. 197 
 
 the centripetal and centrifugal forces become equalized, 
 the particles of matter have formed more intimate asso- 
 ciations, the outer surfaces have locked up a large por- 
 tion of the free caloric within the embrace of their own 
 substance, and have consequently condensed and har- 
 dened — a globular form has succeeded the oblate 
 sphere, with its spinal extremity, and a regular orbit ia 
 defined and maintained. Oxygen and nitrogen have 
 united in the proper proportions to form the atmo- 
 sphere ; oxygen and hydrogen have combined to form 
 water; oxygen and silicon have entered into an ada- 
 mantine embrace to form quartz rock ; oxygen and car- 
 bon have formed a tripartite union with calcium, pro- 
 ducing immense beds of carboniferous lime-stone. 
 Numerous other combinations of oxygen with gases, 
 metals, and other elements — and these again combining 
 with other simple or compound substances, have brought 
 out of this vast amorphous mass of elementary materi- 
 als, as they existed in an intensely heated and rarefied 
 state, when first thrown off from the sun, new, and 
 more solid, and more permanent forms. 
 
 In all this beautiful, harmonious, and ever-progres- 
 sive plan of productive aiffinities, oxygen plays a very 
 conspicuous part, as a positive, energizing, vitalizing 
 principle, electricity. Galvanism, and magnetism being 
 different developments of the same principle. It 
 appears to have grasped and to have held fast within 
 its embrace the very germs of vitality. Phosphorus is 
 another form of its tangible developmeiit, not yet 
 understood by chemists or physiologists. No living 
 plant or animal can exist without it. It is always 
 found in the seeds and germinal principles^ and in the 
 
198 A STELLAE KEY, 
 
 substances of the brain and nerves, but in no other part 
 of vegetables or animals, as entering into an organic 
 compound. 
 
 In the course of time, when " the waters had sub- 
 sided," the heat and light emanating continually from 
 the sun — ^upon the waters of the seas, and in rain, and 
 mist, and dew — acted upon the surfaces of the granite 
 and other rocks, abrading, decomposing, and uniting 
 with their elements to produce other new compounds 
 of a more refined and perfect nature. Thus, large beds 
 of gelatinous matter were formed in shallow pools 
 beneath the water level, and a slimy coating upon the 
 surfaces of the rocks above the water. [See Great 
 Sarmonia, vol. 5, Part III.] Thus soil was first 
 formed — a preparation, elaboration, and combination 
 of material, susceptible of developing vegetable life, 
 marine and terrestrial. The first vegetable forms 
 springing from these slimy rocks were simple, and not 
 defined in their structure, betag lichens, or cryptoga- 
 mous plants, about seventy per cent, of whose substance 
 is gelatin. 
 
 As one forcible evidence of the fact of vegetables first 
 originating from the elements of the rock on which they 
 germinate, and from the heat, light, atmosphere, and 
 moisture, is, that each rock of different chemical com- 
 position, when exposed to these influences, wiU produce 
 a moss peculiar to itself, and the same rock, in any 
 latitude where it can grow, will always produce a plant 
 of the same species, and each plant in its turn, of the 
 thousands, of classes, orders, genera, species, and varie- 
 ties now in existence, will invariably produce an ani- 
 malcule, or insect, peculiar to itself. These are facts 
 
SYNOPSIS OF THE IDBA8 PEESENTED.- 199 
 
 that have been abundantly substantiated by the most 
 scientific naturaBsts of the age. 
 
 The first forms of vegetation were brought into 
 being, and perfected in their kind — elaborating from 
 their own substance a germ or nucleus of vitality with 
 the impress of its own individuality, inclosed within a 
 receptacle capable of preserving and sustaining it, tiU 
 the favorable action of the elements (in heat, light, 
 moisture, and the soil) could bring forth from each 
 germ or seed " an image and likeness " of its parent — 
 the organized substance or body of the originalplant, 
 having performed the ultimate object of its existence, 
 dies, and the elements of which it is composed mingle 
 with the thin eoU on the surface of the rocks, adding 
 to its substance, increasing its complexity, and refi- 
 ning its particles ; so, that, with the return of the vernal 
 equinox, and the genial rays of the sun, not only 
 the seeds of the old lichen unfold and expand into the 
 same species, but a new and more complicated plant, 
 with distinct and marked differences (perhaps a fern), 
 makes its appearance, and rears its graceful stem, and 
 spreads its glossy foliage above the lowly moss. 
 
 Thus the ever-present and ever-active principle of 
 vitality and creative Energy, acting and reacting upon 
 the materials of our globe, started the kingdoms of 
 Nature, which have and will ever continue to progress 
 — from the simple to the more complicated vegetable 
 forms : animalculae, infusia, radiata, moUusca, verte- 
 brata, and Man as the Ultimate. The lowest and 
 imperfect first, and the more complex and perfect after, 
 in regular progression, but in distinct degrees. Each 
 new type being dependent upon all that preceded it for 
 
200 A 8TELLAB KEY. 
 
 its existence, but yet distinct and diflferent from its pre- 
 decessors. 
 
 Thus it requires certain conditions, proportions, and 
 oombinations of elementary inorganic substances to 
 produce a vegetable — and vegetable growth is dependent 
 entirely upon elementary regimen — while animals can- 
 not be produced or sustained in their existence' by 
 inorganic or elementary matter. The organic com- 
 pounds of the blood, muscular fiber, gelatin, skin, hair, 
 nails, or horns, &c., are all formed in exact constituents 
 or proportions from the elementary particles that enter 
 into their composition from the vegetable. The vegeta- 
 ble kingdom must, therefore, have existed hefore the 
 animal — ^the vegetable realm being the Btepping-ston,e, 
 or connecting-link, between the elementary or mineral 
 kingdom and the animal. Hence, if the vegetable 
 kingdom should by any cause be blotted out from the 
 face of the earth, the animal would soon be annihilated. 
 
 Each type of the endless variety of inorganic and 
 organized substances is but a link in the great chain 
 of cause and effect, and each type or species is so marked 
 and distinct as easily to be distinguished, and each 
 variety and unity of the human species is so indelibly 
 stamped with its own perfected individuality as to be 
 recognized from the myriads of the same species. 
 
 Thus fixed, unvarying, and universal laws of the 
 Father govern and regalate all his universe. Through- 
 out all the ramifications of the spiritual, physical, and 
 celestial, eternal unity, order, and harmony reigns — con- 
 ception, development, progression, and perfection mark 
 all things, and all point with irresistible force of reason 
 and demonstration to the immortality of the Spirit. 
 
SYNOPSIS OF THE IDBAS PEESENTED. 201 
 
 In taking this philosophical view of the plan and 
 progress of Nature and the works of God, how grand, 
 how sublime, how comprehensive, how rational and 
 satisfactory — to the independent-thinking and inquiring 
 mind, who wishes to " have a reason for the faith that 
 is within him " — ^how perfectly are the love and wisdom 
 and justice of the Father and Mother conjugated and 
 displayed ! And how real, conclusive, and overwhelm- 
 ing the evidence — appealing directly to the sense?, the 
 intellect, and the affections— of the self-conscious, 
 immortal existence and progressive happiness of the 
 " ^irit" that is within us 1 The human race being the 
 last and highest development of earth, and mind the 
 only organism poBsessing reason and intelligence that 
 examines and investigates all that is beneath and around 
 itself, and that has a conscidusness of the future — 
 endeavoring to raise or draw aside the thin, semi- 
 transparent vail that hangs suspended between the 
 physical and spiritual existence — analogy, " reasoning 
 from what we know," points directly not only to the 
 probability, but to the absolute certainty and necessity 
 of a future existences called the Summer Land. 
 
 All organic forms below man not only produce their 
 like, but the substance of their material forms mingle 
 with previously formed compotmds, to produce a new 
 and distinct type superior to itself. But the human 
 type has no superior development, and there is no retro- 
 gression in the. works of Nature. Each new unfolding 
 is superior to the preceding. Man, then, is destined 
 for other and higher Spheres. In those Spheres, or 
 new states of existence, man's spirit must. present not 
 only an " image and likeness " of Nature and God, but 
 
 9* 
 
202 A STELLAE KEY. 
 
 a consciousness of identity and individual selfhood. 
 I'eeling and knowing this, he should so live while in 
 this rudimentary and preparatory state of existence, 
 that all his physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual 
 structure, formation, growth, and maturity, be fiilly 
 developed, cultivated, and perfected ; bo that when the 
 " mortal puts on immortality," and seeks " a home in 
 the heavens," it can expand into a celestial life, without 
 spot or blemish to mar its beauty or impede its progress 
 in bliss and glory eternal. 
 
 1SS END. 
 
JUST PUB LI SHED. 
 
 A VOICE FROM THE INNER LIFE-A NEW WORK, 
 
 BT 
 
 Andeew Jackson Davis : 
 
 EH'TITLI! B 
 OR, 
 
 THU DIVINJE GVE8I. 
 
 CONfAIIflNa 
 
 A NE"W COLLECTION OF GOSPELS. 
 
 , BT ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, 
 Avilior of several volumes on the " Sarmonial Philosophy." 
 
 This volume Is, to some extent, a continuation of the author's auto- 
 biography, entitled, "The Magio Staff." But, cliiefly, it contains a 
 faithful record of experiences which, it is believed, are far more represen- 
 toMve than exceptional. The exceptions occur' in that private realm 
 where the individual differs, as eadi has an undoubted constitutional 
 right to differ, from every other. 
 
 A new collection of living Grospels, revised and corrected, and com- 
 pared with the originals, is presented to the world, viz. : St. Bishis, St. 
 Menu, St. Confucius, StSiamer, St. Syrus, St. Gabriel, St. John, St. 
 Pneuma, St. James, St. Gerrit, St. Theodore, St. Ootavius, St. Samuel, 
 St. Eliza, St. Emma, St. Ralph, St. Asaph, St. Mary, St. Selden, 
 St. Lotta. 
 
 EDITORIAL NOTICES OP ABABULA. 
 
 " It is written with a sincere purpose ; the sentiments are pnre and elevated ; it 1b 
 attractive in spirit, if not always in the letter. To thousands of readers these works of 
 Andrew Jackson Bavis bring comfort and enlightenment, and for any earnest book 
 that aims to emancipate thought, and help men to right living, we have only wel- 
 come and good will." — Boston Conrnimmoealth. 
 
 *^ We rather like Mr. Davis's writings, when we can understand them ; and have 
 no great fault to find with them, when we don't, for he Incorporates with his mysti- 
 cism a kind and liberal feeling, which shows goodness of heart. ***••♦ 
 
 ******* jiij 1 jj^^ Collection of Gospels,' by such modern saints as 
 St Theodore. St. Ralph, and St Gerrit (meaning Theodore Parker, Ralph W. Emerson, 
 and Q-errit Smith), are instructivereading, and indicate progress in that department of 
 literature," — In/vestigdtor. 
 
 " The Term ' Arabula ' designates the true light of the world, universal in Its na- 
 ture, and beneficent in its infiuence; which has been manifested alike in the philo- 
 sophical, moral, and spiritual teachings of Persians, Indians, Chinese, Jews, Greeks, 
 Romans, and Christians. * * * * The history of the author's intercourse with 
 this Ineffable principle is related in the present volume, ovei: which floats the hazy 
 shimmer of poetry that usually embellishes the revelations of Spiritualism." — Jfew 
 York Triinme, 
 
 Price $1.50. Postage 20o. For sale by the Publishers, 
 
 WILLIAM WHITE & CO, 158 WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON, 
 
 md by WARREN CHASE, at our Branch Bookstore, 644 BROADWAY, N. T. 
 
THE LATEST ^V O R K 
 
 JUST ISSUED, AMD FOE SAM! AT THE 
 
 Banner of Light Office, Boston, and at our Branch Office, 
 544 Broadway, New York, 
 
 MEMORAIfDA 
 
 OF 
 
 PERSONS, PLACES, AND EYENTS. 
 
 EUBBAdNQ- 
 
 AUTHENTIC FACTS, VISIONS, 
 
 IMPRESSIONS, DISCOVERIES 
 
 Magnetism, Clairvoyance, Spiritnalism. 
 
 Also 
 
 QUOTATIONS FROM THE OPPOSITION. 
 
 BY 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. 
 WITH Att ATPESOtX, 
 
 Containing Zscliokke's great Etory of Hortensla, 
 
 Tividly portraying the uride difference betiveen 
 
 the ordinary state and that of Clairvoyance. 
 
 Price $1.50. Postage 20 Cents, 
 
 WM. WHITE &, CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 168 WASHINGTON STEBET, BOSTON. 
 
LIST OP "THE WORKS OF 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, 
 
 IN THE ORDER OF THEIR PUBUCATIOK. 
 
 Prtce. Post 
 
 NatUEB'S DiTOIE EEVi'LATIONS $3.60 60 
 
 A Chart. (In Sheets) 1.00 
 
 PHiLosoPHr OP Special Providences 0.20 
 
 Great Harmouia. Vol. I. — The Physician 1.50 20 
 
 Uebat Haemonia.. Vol. II. — The Teacher 1.50 20 
 
 Pbilosopht op Spieitdal Ibtbeoooesb. Paper, 60 cts. 
 
 Cloth 1.00 16 
 
 Great Harmonia. Vol. III.— The Seer 1.50 20 
 
 Approaching Crisis 0.75 08 
 
 Haemonial Man. Paper, 40 cts. Cloth 0.75 12 
 
 Present Aoe, and Inner Life .".... 2.00 24 
 
 Peee Thoughts Concerning Religion 0.20 
 
 Great Harmonla. Vol. IV.— Reformer 1.50 20 
 
 The Penetralla 1.75 24 
 
 Magic Staff. An Autobiography 1.75 24 
 
 History and Philosophy of Evil. Paper, 40 cts. CJoth. . . 0.75 12 
 
 Great Harmonia. Vol. V.— The Thinker. 1.50 20 
 
 HAEBiNaEE OF Health. ". 1.50 20 
 
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 MoENiso Lectuebs I.t5 20 
 
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 Complete works of A. J. Davis, comprising twenty volumes, seventeen 
 cloth, three in paper. Nature's Divine Revelations, 30tb edition, just 
 out. 5 vols.. Great Harmonia, each complete — Physidcm, Teacher, Seer, 
 Mtformer and Thmker. Magic Staff, an Autobiography of the Author. 
 Penetralia; Harbinger of Health, Answers to Ever-Recurring Ques- 
 tions, Morning Lectures (20 discourses), History and Philosophy of Evil, 
 Philosophy of Spirit Intercourse, Philosophy of Special Providences, 
 Harmonial Man, Free Thoughts Concerning Religion, Present Age and 
 Inner Life, Approaching Crisis, Death and After Life, Children's Pro- 
 gressive lijrcenm Manual, Arabula or Divine Guest, Stellar Key to the 
 Summer Land — ^full set, $26, sent by mail or express as soon as ordered; 
 
 WILLIAM WHITE & CO., 
 
 IBS 'WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS., 
 B44 BROADWAY, NEW TCfRK. 
 
Banner of Light: 
 
 A Journal of Romance, Literature, and General hitelligence j i 
 an Exponent of the Spiritual Pliilosophy of the Nineteenth 
 Century. 
 
 AT No. 158 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 
 BRANCH OFFICE, 544 BROADWAY N^W YORK. 
 
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 AIDED BT A LABGE COBFS OF THS ABLBBT WSITXBa. 
 
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 Subscribers are informed that twenty-six numbers of the Banneb 
 compose a volume. Thus we publish iwo volumes a year. 
 
 AsvEBTiSEMENTS inserted at twenty cents per line for the first, and 
 fifteen cents per line for each subsequent insertion. 
 
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 marked " private " on the. envelope. 
 
 All Business Letters must be addressed : 
 
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THE CHILDREN'S 
 
 Progressive Lyceum. 
 
 A MANUAL, 
 
 "With direoiions for the Organization and Management of Sunday-Schools, 
 adapted to the Bodies and Minds of the Toung, and containing Rules, 
 Methods, Exercises, Marches, Lessons, Questions and Answers, Invoca- 
 tions, Silver-Chain Becitations, Hymns and Songs. 
 
 Original and Selected. 
 
 By ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. 
 
 "A pebblo in the streamlet scant 
 
 Has changed the course of many a river; 
 A dew-drop on the baby plant 
 Has warped the giant oak forever." 
 
 ■ The Lyceum externally is a work of art — its emblems all hearing 
 a beautiful meaning — every color having its own divine signiflcanoe — 
 every badge telling the story of its group, and every group indicating 
 one step higher in progress. The pretty picturesque targets all point 
 to the top of the mountain, " Liberty " farthest up the ascent, with the 
 white badge fluttering wing-like upward, and beckoning to the little 
 ones at the "Fountain" to gather up their ribbons (red, like the heart- 
 glow of childhood), and follow to that pearly gate, where the angels 
 ^ wait to let them in. Eeligion is natural — this is one of its most natural 
 expressions, leading to harmony, love, and happiness. 
 
 " Suffer little children to come unto me," said the gentle Nazarene, 
 " for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Is it strange thou that one 
 lovely constellation of pure little ones should attract to us the holiest 
 and most divine influences? If any doubt that this Lyceum movement 
 is an mspiralion, let them stand among the Groups a single day ; let them 
 feel the holy influences that fall in showers from the higher spheres, 
 the uprisings of the soul, as involuntarily it answers to the call from its 
 true home, the inspirations that fall upon the heart like angel breath- 
 ings, thrilling each string with melody, and filling the whole being with 
 a yearning for God and Heaven. 
 
 Price, per copy, 80 cents, and 8 cents postage if sent by mail ; and 
 for 100 copies, $63.00. 
 
 Address the Publisher, 
 
 No. 14 BROMFIBLD BT., BOSTON. 
 
NEW PAPER FOR CHILDREIi. 
 
 nr TT E 
 
 LYCEUM BANNER. 
 
 PUBLISHED TWICE A MONTH, 
 
 MES. L. H. KIMBALL. 
 Edited by iMrs. JI. F. Isl. Brown. 
 
 It is an ocTAYO, printed on good paper, and embellished with fine electrotype 
 illnstrfltiona. 
 
 Some of onr best wrlterfi are engi^ed as regular contribntora. 
 
 'We teach no hnman creeds ; Nature is onr law-giver ; to deal jnstly our religion. 
 
 The children want Amnsement, History, Bomance, MoBJo— they want Moral, 
 Mental, and Physical Cultwe. We hope to aid them In ^heir search for these 
 treasures. 
 
 And at the Fourth National Convention of Spiritualists, held at Cleveland, Ohio, 
 September 8d, 4th, 6tli, and 6th, 1867, it was 
 
 ^^ReaoVoed, That this Convention recognize the permanency and force of early 
 religious Impressions, and the importance of keeping the minds of our children and 
 youth untrammeled by theological tenets, and that we do earnestly recommend to the 
 Spiritualists of America the institntion known as the Children's Irogressive Lyceum, 
 and ask them to snstain it by their sympathy and means until the development of oar 
 philosophy shall enable us to secure a more efficient means of education." 
 
 At the same Convention, the following preamble and resolutions were adopted: 
 
 *' Whereas^ The Lyceum Interests are of such vast importance i^ the work of. 
 progress; and 
 
 " Wnereaat An interchange of views with regard to the management and various 
 exercises connected with this great educational movement; therefore, 
 
 '•''Jieeolved, That the Convention recommend the establishment of a Lyceum 
 Statistical Bureau, for the purpose of interchanging thoughts relative to this work, 
 and that we recommend the 
 
 "LYCEUM BANNER AS THE ORGAN OF TEAT BUREAU." 
 
 TEEMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 One Copv, one year, ^ a(2v(77icd ;'. $1.00 
 
 Ten Copies, to one address 9.00 
 
 Twenty-five Copies, " : -. 22.50 
 
 Fifty Copies, « 45.00 
 
 One hundred Copies, " 9C.00 
 
 Address, 
 
 Mrs. LOU H. KIMBALL, 
 
 P. 0. Drawer 5956, Ohicago, 111, 
 
DEPOT FOR LYCEUM EQUIPMENTS. 
 E. WATERS & SONS, 
 
 No. 303 River Street, Troy, N. Y. 
 
 A OHILDEEITS PEOGEESSIVE LYCEUM, when fully organized, In acoordanoa 
 with the recently developed system, requires the following equipinenta : — 
 
 TWELVE TARGETS, with title and nnmber of group, and age of the members, 
 beantlfuUy printed on each side, with iiweVoe small »ilh Jlags (10x15) for each 
 target below the staff, mounted, ready for use. Each target corresponds in color 
 to the color of the badges worn by the members of the group. These targets are 
 firmly fixed in staffs five feet and four inches long, with a joint in the^center; a 
 brad in the lower end to fasten In the fioor, and worsted galloon strings to tie the 
 staff to the top of a chair or settee in the hall. We put in the strings so that 
 they may be fastened to the staffs at the proper height (For instructions, sig- 
 nifications, &c., see the "Manual.") 
 
 TWELVE DOZEN PEINTEb COTTON FLAGS, Stars and Stripes, of three 
 different sizes, to suit different ages of the children. The smallest flags on red 
 staffs, three feet long ; the next size on blue staffs, three feet six Inches long ; 
 the largest on black walnut — stained — ^four feet long, carried by the higher 
 groups. 
 
 TWELVE SILK FLAGS (20x30), for Leaders. These beautiful flags are fastened 
 on black walnut staffs, four feet nine inches long. The Leaders should carry 
 handsomely mounted banners to distinguish them when marching. 
 
 ONE LARGE SILK FLAG (86xW), for the Guardian of the groups, on a staff six 
 feet long, surmounted with an appropriate ornament. 
 
 TWELVE BADGES, appropriate for principal officers and their assistants, arranged 
 in a strong paper box, properly labeled. 
 
 TWELVE DOZEN SILK BADGES, in durable labeled boxes, for leaders and 
 members of the groups, in different colors, and differently ornamented. (For 
 methods, meaning, &c., see the *^ Manual.") 
 
 OONDUCTOE'B BATON, black walnut stained, handsomely mounted with gilt 
 ornaments. 
 
 TICKETS OF MEMBERSHIP, handsomely printed In two colors, one ticket for 
 each member. 
 
 A LTCEUM MANUAL (the abi^dged edition), for each officer, leader, and member, 
 so that all may participate in the beautiful Songs, Hymns, Silver-Chain Recita- 
 tions, &C. 
 
 A G0ARDI.4ir8 JOURNAL, properly ruled and ckssified according to groups, and 
 wen bound. 
 
 GROUP BOOKS, for Leaders, one dozen in different colors, and properly mled. 
 
 REWARDS OP MERIT, of several varieties, furnished at short notice. 
 
 BOOKS OF MS. MUSIC, for all the songs In Manual. 
 
 A BANNER CHEST, vrith tray for badges and manuals, is inSispensable— five feet 
 and two inches long and eighteen in^es square, inside measure ; with lid to open 
 back and level, supported by slides, to serve as a table on which to arrange the 
 flags. This chest is famished with a good lock and two or three keys— one for 
 Conductor and one for each of the Guards. 
 
 And finally, A LIBEAET of valuable and entertaining books, fi'ee from sectarian- 
 Ism, adapted to children and yonng people generally. (The residents of every 
 community have books appropriate to such a library, which they will doubtless 
 freely contribute, if kindly invited to do so.) 
 
 Eg" The undersigned will be happy to respond by letter and circular to ques- 
 tions relative to the organization and government of these attractive schools. 
 
 B^ The foregoing list of equipments (whole or in part), with the exception 
 
 of books for the library, may be obtained at the most reasonable prices, by addressmg^ 
 
 E. AVA-TEiaS &, SONS, 
 
 803 Biver St., Troy, 2f. T. 
 
JPBOSPECTUS 
 
 der 
 
 von dem amerikanischen Seher und Verkiindiger der 
 " Harmonischen Philosophie" 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON DAYIS 
 
 in der 
 
 Beihenfolge ihrer Teroffentllchung in NoTd-Amerika eischienenen und 
 mit Antorisatioa ifares Yer&ssers 
 
 einee TheilB von 
 
 dexa im. Jalire 185S verstorlseneix 
 
 Frasidenten der Eaiserlich Leopoldinisch-Carolimschen Akodemie der 
 Naturforscher zu Breslau, 
 
 |rflllfss0r if. %Matt (^Mx\t)i "^m linn iswW, 
 
 and andem Thells von 
 dessen HVIitar'beiter uzid Herausge'ber 
 
 Gregor Constantin Wittig, 
 
 aus dem Englischen in's Deutsche iibersetzten Werke. 
 
 These Tolumes, as fast as translated into the German langflage, will be 
 forwarded to America, and can be obtained at the offices of 
 
 WILLIAM WMITE & CO., 
 
 158 ■WASHINGTON STEEET, BOSTON, MASS., OE, 
 544 BROADWAY, NEW TOEK. 
 
 THE XLARMONIA, 4th vol., " THE BEFOBMEB." 
 
 ALSO 
 
 THE MAGIC STAFF, an Autobiography. 
 Price of each, $2.15. Postage, 32 cts.