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DECEPTION INFREQUENT OVER THERE.

and for this reason we shall be known there as we really are. The desire to deceive will cling to the hypocritical soul. All his sensual longings, all his malicious desires will show themselves without disguise, and he will shrink in affright from the lighter regions, and in shame from the presence of better spirits. He will remain in dark places, and seek the company of licentious and malicious spirits like himself, until in the course of ages, it may be, he and they will come to realize their sonship to Infinite Purity, and exert the whole strength of their inner being to cast off these self-imposed fetters of the soul.

Having answered the question, "What is the spirit body?" we take up the second one, "Of what is it made?" The question is a natural one, for scientists have told us to our satisfaction of what elements the fleshly body is composed. It having been asserted that the spirit body is not life, that it is a form, and material, we desire to know the name and the nature of this matter of which it is undoubtedly composed.

Of course we in thought clearly distinguish matter from soul. Matter is the form by which real soul is brought into expression. Matter is, as Plato called it, only the shadow of eternally existing realities. To our thinking, even the spirit world is but a shadow of the soul itself. He who has begun to be truly spiritual by recognizing his own soul existence apart from the body, and by making it dominate the body, has no difficulty in conceding the secondary nature of all matter. But to be wholly freed from form, "the undying playmate of the gods," as Schiller called her, is beyond our present conception of the scope of a finite being. What life or

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soul may be, when separated from all form, we may ponder and seek to grasp, but it flees from our power of conception. We shall in the following chapter answer the question, “Of what is the psychic body composed ?"

"Dead! who is dead? No one dies. The covering changes; is laid aside, rots, but the man lives. Love cannot die, hate cannot die. The power which thinks, like the power which feels, never dies. There is no death, only change and progress through all his dominions. Why will you, foolish ones of earth, try to believe and reason among yourselves, that the change of condition is the ceasing to be ? "

KEHEBAR, through SIDNEY DEAN.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

Soul expresses itself through matter. It also acts on matter, moves it, makes it into new forms, which some have erroneously called creation, and through the forces employed by it is ever bringing out new forms, thus making the "unending genesis" of nature. Soul is not matter, of course. Neither is it the forces by which it acts on matter. These forces are as truly a manifestation of soul itself as are the material forms which are brought through them into objective existence, in either the physical planet, or in its far vaster spirit world. Forces are the highway along which soul passes into material expression. Force, per se, is inherent in soul, but the forces of nature, in terrestrial or spiritual existence, are the means by which the soul brings anything whatever into material form, keeps it in existence, and at last disintegrates it.

We call these forces by different names: electricity, magnetism, heat, light, celestial radiation, vibration, and so on, according to our scientific standpoint. What these are, or rather what we may be enabled to accomplish by their application, mankind is but just beginning to learn. As the vortexan theory of world-building will be everywhere accepted, making objects seek the center of the earth, not by its own gravitation, but by the force of the vortex in which they whirl, which thus

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made the earth,—so perhaps celestial radiation may be the earth name for something which will include in its vast round electricity, magnetism, heat, light, and every conceivable expression of force; and will finally bring the spirit world of the planet within the sensible sphere of those yet dwelling on the earth.

While admitting that the finer forces of nature, which have attracted so much attention during the century that is now drawing near its end, may all be distinct expressions of the one mighty radiating force, as separate stars make the gems of Orion, and that the near future may make this manifest, yet we will try to give some notion of what the spirit body consists, according to a comprehension so badly, so grossly limited by the environments of sense.

That fine, ethereal covering of the soul, more refined than that now visible to the physical organ of sight, and yet resembling it so really that "we shall know each other there," what is it in texture, in material? Dare we say that it is made of magnetism, as many say, and as is even reported to be said by disembodied spirits, whom curious, eager mortals ply with questions regarding life conditions in the spirit world, when they can get an opportunity of doing so? But those that give this answer add, "This is the best we can tell you. You connot understand till you come where we are.” One spirit, known while on the earth-plane as Martin B. Anderson, President of Rochester University, a man of capacious mind, wide culture, and benign nature, has gone so far as to say from his present altitude, "The Holy Spirit is nothing but pure unadulterated magnetism." Substituting for "magnetism" the expression

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COMPOSITION OF THE SPIRIT BODY.

"magnetized atoms," we will say that the well developed spirit-body of a progressive soul is composed of magnetized ultimate atoms. As an ultimate atom is beyond physical comprehension, this conception of the composition of a spirit-body may well suit our present apprehension of it.

This portion of the book is designed to give practical instruction how the aspirant may develop his spirit-body here by making it more magnetic, rather than to scientifically explain why certain processes will produce a certain result, yet, we will pursue this preliminary field of inquiry a little farther. We will ask what magnetism is, how it differs from electricity, and what the reason is that disembodied spirits can impress our brain more readily when we are in a magnetic condition.

The natural forces, as motion, magnetism, heat and light are all the same thing, and are atomic in character. Soul is back of an ultimate atom. This is the conception of God, according to modern spiritual science. We are not atheists. The conception of God advances with the developing reason of man. Many think that infinite soul and the infinite cosmic ether of ultimate atoms are co-eternal. While it were folly for a finite being to fancy that intelligence less than infinite can settle that matter, we reiterate our previous statement, "Soul is back of even an ultimate atom." It is "ultimate" merely in a physical sense.

The great natural forces readily pass into each other. We may say in general of the two specially concerned here, that electricity resembles a force, while magnetism resembles a condition. When the positive and negative kinds of electricity in a body are equal, they neutralize