SWEDENBORG AND DEMONSPIRITISTS.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3761, 17 January 1881, Page 2

SWEDENBORG AND DEMONSPIRITISTS.

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.)

Sir,—ln reference to Mr Wood's letter in your issue of the 10th instant, he says: "1 hold that Swedenborg and Demon-Spiritists are one," which may lead those of your readers into a great error who do not know what Swedenborg's teachings are. It is quite evident that Mr Wood does not know anything about Swedenborg and his teachings. He does not even know how to spell his name. For the information of your readers—Mr Wood included—l beg to state that there is no connection whatever between them. I have been a reader of Swedeaborg's writings for more than 30 years, and I can positively say I have never found anything to favour modern Spiritualism, but, on the contrary, he says it is exceedingly dangerous to seek to hive communication with spirits,—l am, &c, E. Stevens.

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Sib, —la reply to "Truth-Seeker's" letters in the'Star-I feel there is a difficulty in understanding what they mean from what they say with regard to the resurrec tion ; no two individuals appear to have the same view of it. If they really mean that the body that is put into the grave, now rises again, or any part of it becomes immortal, then we are agreed; but- if they believe the common notion that the body that is put into the grave rises again, then we disagree. Hour correspondent says I cannot get away from the old notion that man has a soul and a body. I do not want to get away from this, for' it is true. Besting upon the strongest evidence, I have no wish to become a materialist, to only believe in the body or outward form. If it is not a fact that spirit exists, then we have no facts. It is the spirit that produces the body or outw&rd form, the same as the life of the tree produces the tree, and not the tree the life; it is the unseen that produces the seen ; it is the invisible universe that produces the external world. Nothing is more foolish than to imagine that death can produce life; we might as well say nothing can produce something, and yet this is the very principle which he fathers upon Saint Paul, where he is made to say, "That which thou sawest is not quickened, except it die." I do not believe Saint Paul ever said such a foolish thing, and if he did it" is not true. It is well known to all materialists that if seed die or rot it never does spring up ; it must always conlinue alive to produce life, for death cannot produce life. Then again your correspondent is wrong when he says that the motion of the brain is the mind. He ought to know there is no motion without it is caused, and the brain cannot cease its own motion. Motion is con. sidered one of the strongest arguments to prove the existence of an intelligent force that we call God, for there is not any matter that moves itself, and that which .moves the brain is something, and that something is mind or soul. Again, that statement that the soul has never been discovered is not true ; it has been discovered in the same way as all the subtle forces have been discovered, such as electricity^ galvanism, magnetism, gravitation, and vegetable life ; none of these things have been seen, and yet we cannot doubt their existence; we know it, not from seeing or handlings them, but by the effects pro-, duced. We prove mind or spirit force in the same way. We see the power-of the mind manifested every gay ; it is capable of making use of all the other forces, therefore it must be the strongest, being able to make servants of all the others, and yet we are Lold. that this force or spirit is nothing, only the body or matter. We all see a vast difference between a dead man and a living one, yet that which makes the difference (according to materialism) is nothing. Although we cannot see anything leave the body at death, yet that which made the man is gone. That which could think and love is gone, but not annihilated; it still exists with lore and wisdom more powerful than ever— Spiritualists are haying positive proof of this every day. Your correspondent says we are the same persons from childhood to old age. It is this truth that takes away his foundation; for if we only had a body and not a soul, then it would not be true that we are the same, for he acknowledges that we are not the same for two hours together, therefore as far as the body is concerned we are not the same in old age as in youth, but according to my theory that man has a spirit as well as a body, that spirit is the same identical through life and for ever, which goes to prove mind as wellas matter ', soul as well as body.—l am* &c, J. Hobn. ,