revelation of spirits; for these noble essences in heaven bear a friendly regard unto their fellow natures on earth."
Apparitions, pp. 3-4. R cv. Bourchier Wrey Savile, London, 1880.
5. Ambition plays a prominent part in the traditions, it will be noticed. It is said that these angels were ambitious for earthly power and exacted libations and sacrifices; and also that they were the beings whom the heathen ignorantly supposed to be gods.
But if the reader will recall what I have said about the misleadings in spirit manifestations when the psychic starts from a false premise, he will understand how possible it is that we have to deal here with subjective illusions, and not objective realities; and that the lower estimate in which these angelic visitors came to be held was due entirely to the failure of psychics to keep the laws of correct moral living or common sense and his weaknesses and vanities and superstitions will be played upon ad libitum. As for the giant offspring said to have resulted from these unions offspring which in the male line became evil-doers, and finally demons on the astral plane if the reader will consider that necessity to which I have referred for correct living and clear thinking on both sides of the abyss of death, if the bridge of communication is to hold, he will see that if these "giants" continued to influence the world from the astral plane they could not be evil demons, but must be beneficent helpers of mankind. But there is, I think, grave doubt as to whether such offspring ever resulted from these unions between angels and earthly women, as the reader will see when I come to speak of the occult laws governing such unions. Nevertheless, there is something to be said on both sides, and we should do well to reserve our judgment until all the evidence is before us.
We have seen that Commodianus says that these giants are the gods to whom the heathen ignorantly prayed. Justin Martyr, mindful of certain similarities between the stories told of those same heathen gods and the Scriptural account of Jesus, advances the theory that the demons had some imperfect perception of the coming Messiah, gleaned from
