harm can result from it. On the contrary, the popular sort, originating in the orient long centuries ago, and now revived in these latter days, can but be injurious to the last degree, because it consists in the usurpation of the living by the UNKNOWN! There is a better way—a safer road, a thornless route—by means of which to reach all the knowledge, and far more besides, which is sought to be obtained by the other practice. That surer means does not consist in an abandonment of self, or stultification of the moral sense and will, nor in Mesmerism, or the use of hashish—the pestilent thing—nor in the employment of any unhealthful means, but in an increase and strengthening of will, and consciousness, and moral purpose; not in a loss of consciousness or responsibility, but in an intensification and growth thereof. This better sort of spiritualism is based upon the heart and soul; not, like the other sort, upon the nerves and body. This better sort protects the sphere from the attacks, amatory and cerebral, to which the acolytes of the other kind are subjected. If people went direct to God for enlightenment, instead of to Spirits, who so frequently deceive, there would be much less, in fact no evil at all, resulting from the intercourse over the bridges of Time and Eternity; and, by firmly relying on Him whose very existence thousands of the inhabitants of the Middle State deny and scout the bare idea of, people would not only be able to preserve their odylic spheres intact, but would be protected from the diabolic influence and machinations of the harpies who infest the Threshold, and frequently deliver long and sounding platitudes from the lips of shut-eyed members of the two sexes; for they are not
