GHOSTS o/^Ae BIBLE 
 
 {The Lmb Gref Messmg^) 
 
 BY 
 
 Converse E. Nickerson 
 
Class. 
 
 Book 
 
 CopiglitlS? 
 
 COPmiGlfT DEPOSIT. 
 
GHOSTS of the BIBLE 
 
ELYSIAN FIELDS 
 
 Converse E. Nickerson 
 
 O come with me to Elysian fields, 
 To Elysian fields of sleep, — 
 
 When the tired mortal body yields 
 To the dream-shades that round it 
 creep. 
 
 We'll lift so softly the curtain veil, 
 We'll touch the hands beyond, 
 
 As out of the earthly moonlight pale 
 We enter the light new dawned. 
 
 There are smiles of joy in that happy 
 place, 
 There are radiant beams of light; 
 And we shall see many a longed-for 
 face 
 Long passed from our mortal sight. 
 
 How free from the tears and the dust 
 of earth 
 Are they of this spirit land; 
 How conscious are they of their God- 
 given worth 
 And their duties, Heaven-planned! 
 
 They see with a foresight never 
 known 
 
 To us, in this vale of tears; 
 Their spirits never feel sad or lone, 
 
 And they know no weight of years. 
 
 Oh come with me to Elysian fields. 
 Just over the brink of Breath, 
 
 Where the law of Love her power 
 wields. 
 And ever there is no Death. 
 
GHOSTS of the BIBLE 
 
 BY 
 
 Converse E. 
 
 'Prove all things and hold fast 
 that which is good." — Paul 
 
 This little volume is dedicated 
 
 to all sincere seekers 
 
 after truth. 
 
 Published by 
 
 Converse E. Nickerson 
 
 433 Ferry St., Everett, Mass. 
 

 Copyright, 1922 
 
 By Converse E. Nickerson 
 
 433 Ferry St., Everett, Mass. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 A. W. LANDER, NEWPORT, 
 
 ME 
 
 SEP^y 
 
 
 (0,aA683103 
 
 
 ■^* \ 
 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Ghosthood or Immortality - 15 
 
 II Spirit Communication - - 29 
 
 III Jehovah, The Spedtre Chieftain 45 
 
 IV Ghost Councilors - * - 62 
 
 V The Return of Samuel - - 76 
 
 VI Ghosts of Daniel - - - 96 
 
 VII The Man of Nazareth - - 105 
 
 VIII Ghosts of Adts - ' '133 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 I have endeavored to set forth in the 
 following pages a clear statement of the 
 important findings concerning Bible im- 
 mortality. To the careful student of 
 truth, many things in this little volume 
 will be joyfully received. The superfFicial 
 reader, who neglects to give his serious 
 thought to these things, will derive little 
 else but casual interest and amusement 
 from my efforts. 
 
 Students of the Bible will find many 
 startling and new, though nevertheless 
 natural, interpretations of time worn 
 passages herein. I hope, however, that, 
 
Foreword 13 
 
 in the light of modern science and psychic 
 revelation, my findings will be considered 
 without even a glimmering prejudice. 
 
 We are all treading the mortal path that 
 leads to Our Father's spiritual kingdom; 
 therefore let us walk with eyes of search- 
 ing observation that no opportunity of 
 learning truths escape us in our pilgrimage 
 of soul enlightenment. 
 
 God's universal truths are open and 
 •plain to the mind that is unprejudiced by 
 usages and beliefs of the past. Creeds are 
 but the stepping stones to greater spiritual 
 knowledge and in their nature must give 
 place to newer S3/stems of thought as age 
 succeeds age and man treads onward un- 
 der the light of freedom and sincerity. 
 
1 4 Foreword 
 
 That this little book may lift sorrowing 
 hearts that are awed by the contemplation 
 of Death, is the heart prayer of one who 
 serves in the ranks of Truth. 
 1 am, 
 
 Sincerely your friend. 
 Converse E. Nickerson 
 
 Pittsfield. Maine. June, 1922 
 
GHOSTS of the BIBLE 
 
 CHAPTER 1 
 
 Qliosthood or Immortality 
 
 *'And as for my soul, what can it do 
 
 to that. 
 Being a thing immortal as itself V^ 
 
 Shakespeare's ''HamW 
 
 Do you believe in ghosts ? 
 
 Our grandmothers, not so long ago, 
 used to tell us hair-raising tales about 
 weird and unnatural beings that were sup- 
 posed to haunt the cemeteries and old 
 deserted castles of the countryside. The 
 
16 Ghosthood or Iminortality 
 
 seriousness with which these tales were 
 related at every hearth-stone, showed with 
 what earnestness they were believed. 
 That visions and strange sounds were 
 prevalently witnessed, is beyond a think- 
 er's doubt. 
 
 Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, records 
 Dr. Johnson to have written the follow- 
 ing: 
 
 " That the dead are seen no more 1 
 will not undertake to maintain, against 
 the concurrent and unvaried testimony 
 of all ages, and of all nations. There is 
 no people, rude or learned, among 
 whom apparitions of the dead are not 
 related and believed. This opinion, 
 which prevails as far as human nature 
 is diffused, could become universal only 
 by its truth; those that never heard of 
 one- another, would not have agreed in 
 
Ghosthood or Immortality 17 
 
 a tale which nothing but experience can 
 make credible. That it is doubted by 
 single cavillers, can very little weaken 
 the general evidence; and some who 
 deny it with their tongues, confess it 
 by their fears/ '' 
 
 Notice that the learned Doctor em- 
 phasizes the fact that these tales are be- 
 lieved 'as far as human nature is diffused' 
 and that they 'could become universal only 
 by their truth!' 
 
 Boswell also states that a certain one, 
 Colonel Oglethrope, recounted an instance 
 of this sort, regarding the premonition of 
 the death of an army officer. A man 
 named Prendergast (the officer in ques- 
 tion) was psychically warned that he 
 would die on a certain day. This prophecy 
 was filled to the letter. The ghostly in- 
 formant is claimed to have been the spirit 
 
18 Ghosthood or Immortality 
 
 of a Sir John Friend. The truth of this 
 happening was vouched for by the Colonel 
 in the presence of Alexander Pope, the 
 noted poet, who came to enquire after its 
 authenticity. 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith tells us in all sin- 
 cerity that his brother, the Rev. Goldsmith, 
 once saw a ghost. My mother has often 
 told me of several unusual appearances 
 of persons passed through death. That 
 these appearances were strictly as she re- 
 counted them I have absolutely no doubt! 
 When the disciples of Jesus beheld him 
 walking on the water they concluded that 
 they had seen a spirit and were afraid. 
 49 But when they saw him walk- 
 ing upon the sea, they supposed it had 
 been a spirit, and cried out. Mark: 7. 
 So we see from this that it was con- 
 
Ghosthood or Immortality 19 
 
 sidered a possible and probable experience 
 to see an apparition. 
 
 What is a ghost? 
 
 In the 27th of Matthew we read: 
 5o Jesus, when he had cried again 
 
 with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. 
 
 In Genesis, 25th chapter, we also read: 
 8 Then Abraham gave up the ghost, 
 
 and died in a good old age. 
 
 Again in the same chapter: 
 
 17 Ishmael gave up the ghost and 
 
 died, and was gathered to his people. 
 
 The word ''ghost" is of Persian origin 
 and signifies guest. The Greek word for 
 ghost is "pneuma", meaning spirit. To 
 give up a thing presupposes the posses- 
 sion of it: for a body to give up a spirit 
 implies that the body had a spirit in it. In 
 the book of Job Elihu tells us: 
 
 8 There is a spirit in man and the 
 
20 Ghosthood or Immortality 
 
 inspiration of the Almighty giveth him 
 
 understanding. Job 32. 
 
 In the 10th chapter of this book, Job 
 proclaims: 
 
 1 1 Thou hast clothed me with skin 
 
 and flesh and hast fenced me with bones 
 
 and sinues. 
 
 This points directly to a personal entity 
 living in the human body. Socrates, when 
 asked by Citro in what manner he wished 
 to be buried after death, replied: 
 
 ''As you please, if I do not slip from 
 
 you.'^ 
 
 Turning to his friends again he further 
 said: 
 
 ''He confounds me with my corpse. 
 
 He thinks Socrates is the body which 
 
 will presently lay motionless in death." 
 
 Jesus pointedly told Nicodemus, John 
 
Ghosthood or Immortality 21 
 
 3, that one must leave the body before 
 obtaining life in the spirit: 
 
 5 Except a man be born of water 
 (flesh) and Spirit (God) he cannot 
 enter into the kingdom of God (spirit.) 
 
 6 That which is born of flesh is 
 flesh and that which is born of Spirit is 
 spirit. 
 
 Apes look like men and are men in 
 ph3^sical construction but only flesh, as 
 compared with the spirit of God-like intel- 
 ligence, or soul power. 
 
 Paul, in discussing the same subject, 
 announces in 1st Corinthians, l5th chap- 
 ter: 
 
 37 That which thou so west (the 
 physical dead body) thou so west not 
 that body that shall be, it may chance 
 of wheat, or of some other grain. 
 Cemeteries yield nothing but dust, 
 
22 Ghosthood or Immortality 
 
 which in its turn by nature may give forth 
 of grain, flowers, or whatsoever dust may 
 yield. Still discoursing on this interesting 
 subject, Paul goes on to say: 
 
 44 It is sown a natural body; it is 
 raised a spiritual body. There is a 
 natural body and there is a spiritual 
 body. 
 
 50 Now this I say, brethren, that 
 flesh and blood cannot inherit the king- 
 dom of God. 
 
 Also in the 5th chapter of 2nd Corin- 
 thians Paul affirms: 
 
 1 For we know that if our earthly 
 house of this tabernacle were dissolved, 
 we have a building of God (spirit) 
 not made v/ith hands, eternal in the 
 heavens. 
 
 2 For in this (earth body) we 
 
Ghosthood or Immortality 23 
 
 groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed 
 upon from heaven. 
 
 4 that mortality might be 
 
 swallowed up with life. 
 
 5 Now He that hath wrought us for 
 the selfsame thing is God, who also hath 
 given us the earnest of the Spirit. 
 
 6 Therefore we are always con- 
 fident, knowing that, whilst we are at 
 home in the body, we are absent from 
 the Lord. (Jesus was then in spirit 
 life.) 
 
 7 We are confident, I say, and 
 willing rather to be absent from the 
 body, and to be present with the Lord. 
 Thus Paul tells us plainly that our 
 
 physical bodies hold us chained to earth 
 and matter, so keeping us from being 
 present with those who have passed 
 through death. He reminds us that the 
 
24 Ghosthood or Immortality 
 
 mortal of us mixes with the rest of earth 
 at the change of death, and that therefore 
 this mortal is of no further use or con- 
 sequence after death when the spirit has 
 left it. 
 
 In Acts, the 7th chapter, it is evident 
 that Stephen sees the spirit of Jesus. His 
 persecutors, as they stoned him to death, 
 mocked him as they tauntingly cried : 
 59 Lord Jesus received my spirit. 
 
 What does Science say of the independ- 
 ent life of the spirit of man ? 
 
 Firstly, that matter is indestructible. 
 That the tiniest atom contains life peculiar 
 to its nature. That its nature gives birth 
 to the constant change of form which we 
 mistake for death. 
 
 That death to the physical is simply a 
 disorganization of the system of physical 
 man. 
 
Ghosthood or Immortality 25 
 
 Secondly, Physical Science establishes 
 the startling fact that the entire physical 
 organism renews itself every seven years ! 
 That means that the brain of the physical 
 body, commonly called the mind, is 
 changed newly every once in that period 
 of time, or oftener. The mind is usually 
 believed to be native with the brain, its 
 organ of function and epcpression; but 
 this finding of Physical Science demon- 
 strates to the contrary and proves that the 
 mind is unchangeable through all the 
 stress and storm of physical change ! 
 
 We retain the same qualities and 
 peculiarities of individual mind through 
 all the several ages of physical man; baby- 
 hood, childhood, boyhood, manhood, — on 
 to old age, — all persist in displaying the 
 personal entity within until physical dis- 
 solution rings down the curtain of death. 
 
26 Ghosthood or Immortality 
 
 Twin children may posses in appear- 
 ance the same physical elements of mortal 
 estate; texture and complection, height 
 and health, may be identical to the sense 
 of sight. Yet the flash of the eye, the man- 
 ner of the speech, and many other such 
 positive emanations of personality, pro- 
 claim that the spirit in the one body vastly 
 differs from that in the other. 
 
 Death leaves both physical structures 
 the same in quality, — ^the spirit person- 
 ality — has escaped the tenament of clay! 
 It was the spirit of that entity that thought 
 through the brain; looked forth through 
 those eyes; dwelt in that temple of clay! 
 
 In seventy-seven years of earth life we 
 use and cast off ten or more physical 
 coverings, is it reasonable to suppose 
 then, that the final covering which death 
 disorganizes should in any greater manner 
 
Ghosthood or Immortality 27 
 
 harm the spirit than did the removal of the 
 previous ones? 
 
 Shakespeare expresses this truth when 
 he says: 
 
 'This vesture of decay which doth 
 
 close us in/' 
 
 Again in Hamlet: 
 
 ''When we have shuffled off this 
 
 mortal coil." 
 
 Mortal existence is never considered to 
 depend on any other basis than that of 
 science. Why, then, should we consider 
 a future life of immortality to rest on any 
 basis which leaves science out? 
 
 The state of spiritual happiness, here 
 and hereafter, is conditional and depends 
 upon the omission or observance of spirit- 
 ual laws. Goodness or evil are relative 
 states of spirit consciousness. The terms. 
 
28 Ghosthood or Immortality 
 
 ''angel" and ' 'devil' ' express the states of 
 spirits subject to these conditions. 
 
 God, in His infinite wisdom and love, 
 placed us here in flesh and surrounded us 
 with kindred and convenience. As life in 
 the physical can only separate us from one 
 another by changing states of conscious- 
 ness, so also will life after death just as 
 surely hold us close in the ties of com- 
 munion, separating only according to the 
 laws of spirit states of consciousness. 
 The poet, Whittier, sings: 
 Alas for him 
 
 Who, hopeless, la^^s his dead away. 
 Who hath not learned in hours of 
 
 faith. 
 This truth to flesh and sense un- 
 known. 
 That Life is ever lord of Death 
 And Love can never lose its own! 
 (Snowbound). 
 
CHAPTER II ; 
 
 Spirit Communication 
 
 The law of vibration is the law of the 
 universe; all created things have their in- 
 dividual rates of vibration: earth, air, and 
 sea contain their peculiar systems of 
 vibration. Color is vibration, sound is 
 vibration, feeling is vibration. 
 
 All the five senses of man depend on 
 the law of vibration for their expression 
 and recognition. All things sensed by the 
 five senses depend on the sense of feeling, 
 — or touch: it is the waves of light (vi- 
 bration) which, striking, upon the optic 
 
30 Spirit Communication 
 
 nerves of the eye, are translated by that 
 organ into sight. Sound is in like manner 
 registered through the drums of the ears 
 upon the conscious spirit. Taste and smell 
 also come within the operation of this 
 general sense of touch. 
 
 Man communicates to man by these five 
 senses, and by others not usually classified. 
 
 'Language' is the term we use for sound 
 but it is also applicable as denominating 
 all other manifestations whereby com- 
 munication is effected; therefore we use 
 and understand many languages. The 
 language of sight and touch are as potent 
 and real to the conscious spirit as the 
 language of sound! 
 
 Every day we experience instances of 
 this: 
 
 The motion of the head, the eye, the 
 hand, or the body, often convey, as cer- 
 
Spirit Communication 31 
 
 tainly as the uttered word, definite com- 
 munication. 
 
 Nearly every child knows the language' 
 of flowers, of music, or of temperment,— 
 unspoken languages, and yet in common 
 use as much as French or English. Most 
 of us understand kitty's 'language' as she 
 talks to her baby kittens: when she purs 
 we know that she is contented and happy: 
 when she cries in louder tones we under- 
 stand that she asks for something to be 
 done; when she cries out in pain we under- 
 stand; so it is with our recognition of all 
 domestic animals and their 'language'. 
 
 On the wings of language comes 
 thought. Back of thought is the conscious 
 spirit, or personality. Back of the con- 
 scious spirit is God. 
 
 As I have pointed out, we communicat- 
 
32 Spirit Communication 
 
 and receive communications by and 
 through the law of vibration. 
 
 Wireless is an instance of this in the 
 grosser material planes; electricity furnish- 
 ing the motive power. Wireless is the 
 natural method of all spirit communica- 
 tion, whether in the body or out of the 
 body. 
 
 To-day man thinks it not at all sur- 
 prising to know that the human voice may 
 be perfectly transmitted across three thou- 
 sand miles of space by the wireless system. 
 It is even being proved practicable to send 
 a photograph likeness by wireless! 
 
 The natural ear and throat of man ac- 
 complish wireless communication like the 
 first instance, and the eye of man is thor- 
 oughly illustrative of wireles photography. 
 Electric vibratory power is used by the 
 system of material wireless, while spirit 
 
spirit Communication 33 
 
 vibratory power conducts and completes 
 the system of natural wireless in the field 
 of the physical senses. 
 
 1 affirm that spirit communication in the 
 body is but the material example and 
 manifestation of the same out of the body. 
 Therefore, life and communication after 
 death is as natural and convenient as life 
 and communication here on the physical 
 plane. 
 
 That being true, then there is no incon- 
 sistency about the act of communication 
 between spirit and mortal. The only 
 requisite being an instrumentality sen- 
 sitive enough to catch spirit vibrations 
 coming from a finer material plane than 
 that of the physical. 
 
 The common law of vibration demon- 
 strates its purpose of existence by record- 
 ing itself. To be more explicit: the regis- 
 
34 Spirit Communication 
 
 tration of sight by the eye gives reason for 
 the vibrations of light and color. Thus 
 we know that they exist for a purpose. 
 Spirit personality is manifesting constant- 
 ly through all the avenues of physical 
 expression; therefore we know that spirit 
 personality is a fact. 
 
 It is consistent to expect the continued 
 existence of spirit personality after the dis- 
 solution of the physical; it is also consist- 
 ent to expect the spirit to have been 
 provided by the Creator with facilities for 
 communication with spirits still holding 
 their habitation in flesh. 
 
 Clairvoyance is the name given to the 
 faculty of the visual perception of objects 
 not perceived by the physical eye. That 
 such a visual faculty is fact and not fancy 
 is evidenced in the following account of 
 tests mnde by certain physicians in South 
 
Spirit Communication 35 
 
 America: (These facts were published in 
 an editorial column of The Etude, 
 Presser's music magazine of Philadelphia, 
 February 1921 issue. 
 
 'Chromacousia is the phenomenon of 
 hearing colors, or rather seeing colors 
 when certain music is heard. Years back 
 enthusiasts implied that certain phases of 
 music suggested certain colors, and called 
 to mind the fact that the vibration rates 
 of colors bear a peculiar relation to the 
 vibration rates of the musical scale under 
 certain conditions. Now the Medical 
 Summary, a recognized authority, in a 
 recent issue reports the cases of blind 
 men who, upon hearing certain kinds of 
 music, always see colors. The El Siglo 
 Medico reports the facts as follow: 
 
 " The patient at first attached no im- 
 portance to the phenomenon. Fifteen 
 
36 Spirit Communication 
 
 years before he had become totally blind 
 from disease of the optic nerves and from 
 the very onset of his blindness he noted 
 that certain sounds produced visual ef- 
 fects. For example, the first bars of 
 Gounod's Ave Maria called forth a color 
 hard to define, — a sort of mixture of violet 
 and rose. On certain occasions he beheld 
 an emerald green on hearing the violin. 
 
 " 'Commenting on this case, Ribon 
 states that chromacousia is seen in Colom- 
 bia under exceptional circumstances. He 
 himself knows of a subject who sees blue 
 under the influence of certain musical airs 
 of v/hich he does not know the names. 
 The color seen by the blind correspondent 
 on hearing Gounod's air is doubtless light 
 violet, for that is the shade, along with 
 blue, which Gounod's music usually pro- 
 
Spirit Corranunication 37 
 
 duces in the subject predisposed to 
 chromacousia. 
 
 " The author has written on the 
 psycho-optic and psycho-auditive centers, 
 and in this study had already published the 
 fact that the music of this composer 
 aroused a sense of either violet or tur- 
 quoise blue. There is no doubt that a 
 concerted eifort by ophthalmologists, 
 otologists, psychiatrists, etc., would bring 
 to light many facts in connection with 
 chromacousia, a phenomenon not usually 
 associated with blindness and perhaps in 
 the latter case having a somewhat different 
 mo+ivation.' " — El Siglo Medico.' 
 
 This is distinctly a case of objective 
 clairvovance. It must be obvious to the 
 reader that if one who has no use what- 
 ever of his optic nerves is able to dis- 
 tins:uish the diiference between colors, he 
 
38 Spirit Communication 
 
 must be in possession ofs ome faculty of 
 sight not of the common five senses. The 
 above tests proclaim such a faculty to be 
 a fact. The writer is of the decided opinion 
 that this faculty considered and the 
 psychic faculty of a clairvoyance are one 
 and the same. 
 
 In this instance we find color and sound 
 affecting each other. The vibrations of 
 color are subjective to those of sound; 
 dullness of color is consistent with low 
 tones in sound. Sometimes we call bright 
 colors 'loud colors". Density is also 
 directly associated with color; grosser 
 materials usually are dark in color. 
 
 Comparing physical bodies, we find 
 that the artistic or cultivated soul 
 possesses, usually, a phyical body of finer 
 texture than one less cultivated. 
 
 We say one is refined when he evinces 
 
Spirit Communication 39 
 
 signs of soul enlightenment. The grosser 
 races of physical humanity are deeper 
 toned in color than those races who seem 
 by nature to be refined. 
 
 Clairaudience is the name given to the 
 spirit faculty of sound perception. To 
 hear a sound presupposes its existence. 
 Psychics who possess the faculty of clair- 
 audience have demonstrated its truth be- 
 yond a reasonable doubt. Upon the 
 wings of this faculty have come the voices 
 of souls long since passed from the 
 confines of earth. 
 
 Clairsientience is the name applied to 
 the faculty of sensing the presence of 
 personality minus a physical body. 
 
 For the psychic faculty of smell we 
 have as yet no name. Many a spirit com- 
 munication has been identically proved 
 upon the added testimony of this faculty. 
 
40 Spirit Communication 
 
 For instance, a psychic records that a cer- 
 tain spirit brings the perfume of roses or 
 the odor of gasoHne; the facts of the 
 circumstance of identity being that the 
 spirit, when in the physical, was ardently 
 fond of such flowers and had passed from 
 the earth body because of fire caused by 
 the explosion of gasoline; this would at 
 once make certaiu the identity of the spiri 
 communicating, providing, of course, that 
 all the rest of the communication was con- 
 sistent with such a personality in the 
 knowledge of the person receiving the 
 communication. 
 
 Often, in the folds of dreamland, has 
 come the manifestation of these psychic 
 faculties; the dreamer, upon awaking, re- 
 membered positively the dream experience 
 of smelling and tasting very vividly con- 
 cerning the things drempt of. 
 
Spirit Communication 41 
 
 If psychic faculties are in the possession 
 of the spirit man in the physical, may 
 we not have full reason to believe that the 
 spirit man, out of a physical body, still 
 possesses them? The common faculties 
 of the physical man are, as we enter into 
 acquaintance with them, as strange to the 
 casual matter-of-fact mind as any spirit 
 faculties yet revealed. 
 
 The spirit in the physical body has no 
 means of communication except by and 
 through the laws of vibration; this we 
 find to be natural and systematic with the 
 Accepted laws of being. The spirit with- 
 out a physical body is also without means 
 of communication except by and through 
 the laws of vibration. 
 
 When the psychic faculties of a medium 
 record a face, or a voice, or a touch, the 
 very peculiar facts of the personality 
 
42 Spirit Communication 
 
 causing those psychic vibrations will posi- 
 tively identify that personality. The theory 
 of "imagination/' which so often is 
 advanced in the eflfort to evade the true 
 facts of psychic communication, is un- 
 sound and of unreliable use. The imagin- 
 ation is incapable of giving pictures of 
 things totally unknown to it. If one has 
 never seen a dog, one cannot possibly de- 
 scribe such a creature; to accurately 
 describe the manners, voice, apparel, cir- 
 cumstances, etc., of a spirit personality 
 never before known to the psychic, 
 necessitates something of more positive 
 power and reliability than imagination! 
 
 1 do not wish to unnecessarily belittle 
 the importance of the lower forms of 
 physical psychic phenomena, such as 
 table-tipping, trumpet-voice, and dark 
 cabinet forms of this phase of spirit 
 
spirit Communication 43 
 
 manifestation, yet the higher avenues 
 of spirit communication are altogether to 
 be desired. So much of the base counter- 
 feit has been perpetrated in the name 
 of the genuine, that too much pru- 
 dence and care cannot be exercised in 
 guarding against these dangerous avenues 
 of communication. 
 
 The wise Creator has provided every 
 natural avenue and facility for com- 
 munication, physically and psychically. 
 A conscious semi-trance mediumship is to 
 be preferred rather than one requiring the 
 giving over of the medium's conscious 
 personality. 
 
 Concentration and a sincere faith in 
 one's ability will develop natural psychic 
 oifts. Any other method of development 
 :*s, in the writer's estimation, forced and 
 unnatural Psychic power should be en- 
 
44 Spirit Communication 
 
 couraged to grow through removing the 
 obsticales in its path, not by pushing its 
 growth up through all the mental and 
 material rubbish of the physical garden. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ]ehovahy The Spedre Chieftain 
 
 ''Truth is a thing immortal and perpetual, 
 and it gives to us a beauty that fades not 
 away in time, nor does it take away the 
 freedom of speech which proceeds from jus- 
 tice; but it gives to us the knowledge of what 
 is just and lawful, separating from them 
 the unjust and refuting them.''"' 
 
 —EPICTETUS. 
 
 There is running through the Old 
 Testament, the history of a grave and 
 haughty character. Sometimes he is 
 called by the name of ''Lord God 
 Jehovah'' and at other times, erroneously, 
 
46 Jehovah, The Spedire Chieftain 
 
 by the name of ''Lord God Almighty/' 
 This chapter is for the express purpose of 
 finding out all we can about him. If he is 
 the ''Eternal God", "the Father of all 
 mercies," "the giver of every good and 
 perfect gift," and "the maker of heaven 
 and earth and all things therein," and not 
 the spectral leader of only the Jewish 
 people, it is our duty to know all about it. 
 
 Truth has a two-edged sword and cuts 
 equally on both sides; Superstition and 
 Ignorance cannot withstand the unrelent- 
 ing stroke of her keen blade. Those who 
 worship at the shrine of Custom, loudly 
 acclaiming Awe and padded Grandeur 
 have nothing substantial to which to fly 
 for protection when Truth wields her 
 golden sword! 
 
 This is an age of revelation when hidden 
 things are brought forth from the musty 
 
Jehovah, 1 he Spectre Chieftain 47 
 
 chambers of timidity and aired in the light 
 of certainty and reason. Thrones of auto- 
 crats tumble as the hearts and minds of 
 the people apply the tests of justice and 
 truth to the former things of clay. 
 
 Religions and beliefs are passing under 
 the rod of the searching hand of Truth. 
 Liberality has set her seal of disapproval 
 upon the hard usages of ecclesiastical 
 dogma, as thousands come out into the 
 sunshine of enlightenment to worship the 
 true and the living God. The robes of 
 Creed and Formality are being laid aside 
 for garments of fresher and more lasting 
 quality, while souls, reading afresh the 
 Word of God, as the hand of His wisdom 
 has lettered it in all the earth and skies, sea 
 and air, send forth their praise and ador- 
 ation in the incense of prayer to the King 
 of kings and Lord of lords, whose 
 
48 Jehovah, The Spedire Chieftain 
 
 dominion is from Everlasting to Everlast- 
 ing! 
 
 Paul declares to the Athenians that God 
 is the spirit creator of all things: (Acts 17) 
 
 24 God that made the world, and 
 all things therein, seeing that He is Lord 
 of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in 
 temples made with hands; 
 
 25 Neither is worshipped with 
 men's hands, as though He needed any 
 thing, seeing He giveth to all life, and 
 breath, and all things; 
 
 26 And hath made of one blood all 
 nations of men, for to dwell on all the 
 face of the earth. 
 
 From this we get a wide and compre- 
 hensive view of God. PauFs description 
 of the God of the universe places every 
 nation on an equal footing with the Jews 
 in the sight of Our Heavenly Father. 
 
Jehovah, The Spedtre Chieftain 49 
 
 All nations and peoples have had their 
 bibles: the histories of God's manifestation 
 to man. The Indians based their knowl- 
 edge and history on the legends of their 
 ancestors; tradition shaped and moulded 
 the wonderful story of their people. 
 Characters of crude design became the 
 medium through which these legends were 
 preserved. Thus all nations have tran- 
 scribed their thoughts of God. 
 
 The Jews preserved in their history the 
 dealings of spirit communication concern- 
 ing their race. God is the true source of 
 all life; but the personality of a ruling 
 national spirit force by the name of 
 Jehovah has mingled so with the manifes- 
 tations of Divine power, together with the 
 conceit of the Jewish people in claiming 
 themselves to be the chosen people of the 
 
50 Jehovah, The Spectre Chieftain 
 
 most high God, that their history is muc: 
 
 distorted. 
 
 We first become acquainted with the 
 
 name of the spirit leader of the Jews in 
 
 the 6th chapter of the book of Exodus: 
 3 And I appeared unto Abraham, 
 unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name 
 of God Almighty; but by my name 
 Jehovah was I not known to them. 
 
 6 Wherefore say unto the children 
 of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring 
 you out from under the burdens of the 
 Egyptians, and I will rid you out of 
 their bondage, and I will redeem you 
 with a stretched out arm, and with great 
 judgments; 
 
 7 And I will take you to me for a 
 people, and I will be to you a God: and 
 ye shall know that I am the Lord your 
 
Jehovah, The Spectre Chieftain 51 
 
 God, which bringeth you out from 
 
 under the burdens of the Egyptians. 
 
 This Jehovah had mercy on the Jews 
 in their bondage and adopted them as his 
 people but of the Egyptians he had no 
 concern. Paul says that all nations are of 
 one blood; then, consequently, the 
 Egyptians were brothers of the Jews in the 
 sight of God. This Jehovah recognizes 
 no paternal obligations toward the Egyp- 
 tians! 
 
 He sought only to care for the Jews 
 and to make them a separate people unto 
 himself. The 2nd chapter of Romans 
 asserts that: 
 
 11 There is no respect of persons 
 
 with God. 
 
 The book of Psalms affirms that God 
 is Omnipresent: (Psalm 139) 
 
52 Jehovah, The Spedxe Chieftain 
 
 7 Whither shall I flee from thy 
 presence ? 
 
 8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou 
 art there: if I make my bed in hell (the 
 grave), behold, thou art there. 
 
 9 If 1 take the wings of the morn- 
 ing, and dwell in the uttermost parts of 
 the sea, 
 
 10 Even there shall thy hand lead 
 me, and thy right hand shall hold me. 
 Not so with Jehovah: 
 
 The book of Judges tells us in the 1st 
 chapter that: 
 
 19 The Lord (Jehovah) was with 
 Judah and he drove out the inhabitants 
 of the mountain, but could not drive out 
 the inhabitants of the valley, because 
 they had chariots of iron. 
 Matthew records that: 
 
Jehovah, The Spedtre Chieftain 53 
 
 26 With God all things are possible. 
 
 (19th chapter.) 
 
 Mosses Hull, the noted scholar and 
 student of Hebrew tradition, declares 
 Jehovah to be the ''god of the mountain.'' 
 The name 'Jehovah' is, in truth, taken 
 from the Egyptian language and comes 
 expressly from the word Yah-weh. The 
 former syllable meaning Chief, God, or 
 Judge, and the latter syllable representing 
 mountain or hill. Jabez Sunderland, the 
 Unitarian scholar, bears out this opinion 
 in his book on the history of the Bible. 
 
 From the foregoing, it is evident that 
 this spirit leader was of the Egyptians. His 
 power was confined to conditions peculiar 
 to those under which spirit manifestation 
 is produced. Mount Horeb was particular- 
 Iv a favorite place for his manifestation; 
 Mount Sinai and other conditional places 
 
54 Jehovah, The Spectre Chieftain 
 
 were his exclusive camping grounds for 
 spirit visitation. 
 
 Now John tells us in the 1st chapter of 
 his book, that God cannot be seen: 
 
 18 No man hath seen God at any 
 
 time. 
 
 Again in the 5th chapter he records 
 Jesus as corroborating the statement: 
 37 The Father which hath sent me, 
 
 hath borne witness of me. Ye have 
 
 neither heard his voice at any time, nor 
 
 seen his shape. 
 
 The writer of 1st Timothy asserts in the 
 6th chapter: 
 
 16 Whom (God) no man hath 
 
 seen, nor can see: to whom be honor 
 
 and power everlasting. 
 
 This Jehovah was seen and his voice 
 was heard, as the following verses from 
 Fxodus, the 33rd chapter testify: 
 
Jehovah, The Spedtre Chieftain 55 
 
 1 1 The Lord spake unto Moses face 
 to face, as a man speaketh unto his 
 friend. 
 In the 24th chapter of Exodus we read: 
 
 9 Then went up Moses and Aaron, 
 Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the 
 elders of Israel; 
 
 10 And they saw the God of Israel: 
 and there was under his feet as it were a 
 paved work of a sapphire stone, and as 
 it were the body of heaven in his clear- 
 ness. 
 
 11 And upon the nobles of the 
 children of Israel he laid not his hand: 
 also they saw God, (Jehovah) and did 
 eat and drink. 
 
 The 1 8th verse of this chapter tells us 
 that Moses visited with Jehovah in the 
 mountain for forty days and forty nights. 
 Perhaps the strangest of all the visitations 
 
56 Jehovah, The Spectre Chieftain 
 
 of Jehovah to the leaders of Israel was the 
 one recorded in the 4th chapter of Exodus, 
 when he sought to do away with Moses 
 altogether: 
 
 24 And it came to pass, by the way 
 in the inn, that the Lord met him, and 
 sought to kill him. 
 
 1 would consider it blaspheme to accuse 
 God Almighty of falsehood and theft; 
 Jehovah is, from the following account, 
 guilty of both: (Exodus, 3rd chapter) 
 
 18 Ye shall say unto the king of 
 Egypt, The Lord God of the Hebrews 
 hath met with us: and now let us go 
 three days' journey into the wilderness, 
 that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our 
 God. 
 
 21 When ye go, ye shall not go 
 empty; 
 
 22 But everv woman shall borrow 
 
Jehovah, The Specftre Chieftain 57 
 
 of her neighbor, and of her that 
 sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, 
 and jewels of gold, and raiment: and 
 ye shall put them upon your sons, and 
 upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil 
 the Egyptians. 
 
 This is damaging evidence against 
 Jehovah. A partial, and a personal, god 
 would naturally do everything to protect 
 his people, even to the point of unjustb' 
 treating all opposing forces; but that the 
 g-sat over-ruling power of omnipresence 
 should be guilty of such petty crimes is 
 past consistent belief. 
 
 The episode in the 22nd chapter of 1st 
 Kings places Jehovah in the light of a 
 murderer: 
 
 19 I saw the Lord sitting on his 
 throne, and all the hosts of heaven 
 
58 Jehovah, The Spedtre Chieftain 
 
 standing by him, on his right hand and 
 on his left. 
 
 20 And the Lord said, Who shall 
 persuade Ahab that he may go up and 
 fall at Ramoth-gilead ? And one said on 
 this manner, and another said on that 
 manner. 
 
 21 And there came forth a spirit 
 and stood before the Lord, and said, I 
 will persuade him. 
 
 22 And the Lord said unto him, 
 Wherewith? And he said I will go 
 forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the 
 mouth of all his prophets. And he said, 
 Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail 
 also : go forth and do so. 
 
 35 And the battle increased that 
 day; and the king was stayed up in his 
 chariot against the Syrians, and died at 
 even. 
 
Jehovah, The Spednre Chieftain 59 
 
 The whole story of Jehovah's shameful 
 plan to do away with Ahab is set forth in 
 this 22nd chapter of 1st Kings. Micaiah, 
 the Samarian psychic, let loose the secret 
 and told Ahab everything of the disgrace- 
 ful plans of Jehovah. It seems that Ahab 
 had, through his wife's dishonest con- 
 triving, procured a vineyard from his 
 neighbor Naboth. Jehovah was displeased 
 and sought to work his revenge by putting 
 Ahab out of the way. 
 
 Thou shalt not kill; yet Ahab was 
 
 murdered. 
 
 That the supreme God should stoop to 
 the cowardly act of unjustly m.urdering 
 one of his oflfspring is unthinkable. 
 
 Certainly not under the rulership of 
 such a monarch as Jehovah could we feel 
 with the poet who wrote: 
 
 He that dwelleth in the secret place 
 
60 Jehovah, The Spedire Chieftain 
 
 of the Most High, shall abide under the 
 
 shadow of the Almighty. 
 
 1 win say of God, He is my refuge, 
 
 and my fortress: my God; in him will 1 
 
 trust. 
 
 The reader will naturally enquire as to 
 what the Jews told of truth concerning the 
 Most High God. The book of Psalms is 
 the old hymnbook of the Jews. In it are 
 gathered together the hynms of worship, 
 praise, exultation, and thanksgiving. 
 When they won the victory over an enemy 
 they sang hymns of exhultation; when 
 they were moved in spirit to contemplate 
 the everlasting Creator, whom they could 
 not see or talk with, they sang hymns of 
 praise; their hymns of worship are divided 
 between their blind and slavelike adoration 
 for Jehovah and their soul consciousness 
 of an over-ruling power existent in all 
 
Jehovah, The Spedire Chieftain 61 
 
 created things. Thus we have a mixture 
 of praise, to two gods and a mixture of a 
 code of righteousness and justice with a 
 code of slaughter and revenge. 
 The true spiritual code is: 
 The Fatherhood of God, 
 The Motherhood of Love, 
 The Familyhood of Life, 
 The Angelhood of Man. 
 'There is none good but one; that is 
 God.^^ Matt. 19:17 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Qhost Councilors 
 
 Of the early history of the Jews, as it is 
 recorded in the opening five books of the 
 Old Testament, professors of language 
 and history pronounce it to have been 
 adapted from the traditions of many 
 generations; to have come partly through 
 Babylonian channels and partly through 
 traditions handed down by captive Jews. 
 Of these books the Rev. Jabez Sunderland 
 says: 
 
 'The traditions of the Hebrew people 
 
Ghost Councilors 63 
 
 from the very earliest times — times far 
 earlier than Moses — are gathered here: 
 idyllic tales of Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob; accounts of the creation and of 
 the first fortunes of the human race, 
 possibly learned from the Babylonians 
 during Exile; stories, one quarter his- 
 toric and three quarters legendary," 
 In the eighteenth chapter of Genesis we 
 find a remarkable instance of ghost visita- 
 tion; while Abraham was sitting in the 
 door of his tent: 
 
 2 He lift up his eyes and looked, 
 and lo, three men stood by him: and 
 when he saw them, he ran to meet them 
 from the tent door, and bowed himself 
 toward the ground. 
 
 The three men were invited by Abra- 
 ham to dine with him and his wife Sarah. 
 They did so, and, during the meal, told 
 
64 Ghost Councilors 
 
 Abraham that Sarah should bare him a 
 son. The margin of the text pronounces 
 these visitors to be ''angels," therefore 
 they are not understood to be fleshly be- 
 ings. The text reads a bit tangled, for we 
 do not find the three men addressed as 
 three beings but as *'My Lord." When they 
 speak to Abraham they seem to become 
 Jehovah speaking and the form of address 
 is given as from a single person. 
 
 All heavenly messages that were de- 
 livered to the early Jews are considered 
 by them as coming from their God, 
 Jehovah; this explains the tangled con- 
 dition of the text. 
 
 In the nineteenth chapter of Genesis we 
 meet two more spirit personages: 
 
 1 And there came two angels to 
 
 Sodom at even. 
 
 They have a warning for Lot to the 
 
Ghost Councilors 65 
 
 effect that the cities Sodom and Gomorrah, 
 are to be destroyed. We have an account 
 here of their coming but not any of their 
 leaving Lot, unless the verse which reads: 
 23 The sun was risen upon the 
 
 earth when Lot entered into Zoar 
 means that daylight made them invisible 
 to mortal eyes. They came at eventide and 
 they are mentioned no more after the sun 
 has risen. 
 
 Abraham's wife, Sarah, was not the 
 the best of women, for she hated and made 
 fun of Hagar, the unnatural wife of 
 Abraham, and of Hagar's child, Ishmael. 
 Sarah was jealous of the child and forced 
 Abraham to make it and its mother out- 
 casts. When Hagar and Ishmael have 
 been driven out to die on the desert, an 
 angel comes to them and shows them the 
 way to comfort and safety. 
 
66 Ghost Councilors 
 
 17 And the angel of God (Je- 
 hovah) called to Hagar out of heaven 
 (spirit world). (Twenty-first chapter 
 of Gen.) 
 
 Abraham was so reliant upon Jehovah's 
 wisdom, and so unmerciful in his own 
 ignorance and superstition, that he took 
 Isaac, his son, and was about to murder 
 him: 
 
 (Genesis, the twenty-second chapter), 
 
 10 And Abraham stretched forth 
 his hand and took the knife to slay his 
 son. 
 
 1 1 And the angel of the Lord (Je- 
 hovah) called out of heaven 
 
 12 And said Lay not thine hand 
 upon the lad. 
 
 This strange and wicked action was 
 brought about, so the Jewish tradition in- 
 forms us. to test Abraham's faith in 
 
Ghost Councilors 67 
 
 Jehovah. If Jehovah had been the God 
 of the Universe he would have known all 
 about Abraham's faith without any of this 
 shameful procedure. 
 
 The next important ghosts of Genesis 
 appear in the twenty-eighth chapter: 
 
 12 And he (Jacob) dreamed, and 
 
 . behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and 
 
 the top of it reached to heaven: and 
 
 behold, the angels of God (Jehovah) 
 
 ascending and descending on it. 
 
 That Jacob might have seen angels in 
 
 a dream I do not doubt; but that the 
 
 ladder reached to heaven I do not believe. 
 
 Sleep is a fertile condition in which to 
 
 witness psychic manifestation. The angels 
 
 in this instance are recorded as ascending 
 
 from the earth up the ladder; then 
 
 descending down again to earth. This is 
 
 illustrative of the spirit of man, first 
 
68 Ghost Councilors 
 
 ascending from the earth body, then com- 
 ing back to appear unto those in earth 
 bodies. 
 
 In the thirty-second chapter of Genesis 
 we meet with another ghost: 
 
 24 And Jacob was left alone; and 
 there wrestled a man with him until the 
 breaking of the day. 
 
 26 And he (the angel) said, Let me 
 go, for the day breaketh. 
 As in the case of the spirit messengers 
 to Lot, we have no account of when this 
 spirit messenger left Jacob. We do find, 
 however, that this ghost dislikes to be 
 wrestled with after daylight has come. 
 In the third chapter of Exodus we read: 
 2 And the angel of the Lord ap- 
 peared unto him in a flame of fire, out 
 of the midst of a bush, and, behold the 
 
Ghost Councilors 69 
 
 bush burned with fire, and the bush was 
 
 not consumed. 
 
 This is the account of Moses' first meet- 
 ing with Jehovah. In all logic the fire was 
 not of the ordinary kind else had the bush 
 been burned. I am fully consistent with 
 the laws of nature when I place the inter- 
 pretation of this incident on the side of 
 Moses' clairvoyance, and say that because 
 of his power he was able to see a spirit 
 manifetation. To say that the bush really 
 burned and that it was a material sight 
 entails a contrary and inconsistent theory 
 of explanation. 
 
 I will forbear to recite of the unjust 
 plagues Jehovah inflicted upon the in- 
 nocents of the Egyptians. That black 
 page of Jewish history, if indeed it be 
 history, I will leave for him who delighteth 
 in the marvelous might of an angry god. 
 
70 Ghost Councilors 
 
 We will pass over the huge battle 
 ground until we come to the book of 
 Joshua. Joshua is called by Moses Hull 
 ''one of the most blood-thirsty books ever 
 translated into the English language/' I 
 believe him. I pause within its pages only 
 long enough to mention a ghost which 
 appeared to Joshua, recounted in the fifth 
 chapter of that book: 
 
 13 And it came to pass when 
 Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted 
 up his eyes and looked, and, behold 
 there stood a man over against him with 
 his sword drawn in his hand: and 
 Joshua went unto him and said unto 
 him, Art thou for us or for our adver- 
 saries? 
 
 14 And he said. Nay, but as captain 
 of the host of the Lord am I now come. 
 I would think, as would any reasoner, 
 
Ghost Councilors 71 
 
 that if the captain of the host of Jehovah 
 was a spirit, then the host itself were 
 spirits. Indeed they were and they 
 promised to do big psychic things to help 
 Joshua and his people. 
 
 In the sixth chapter of Judges we find 
 another record of a ghost adviser: 
 
 1 1 And there came an angel of the 
 
 Lord, and sat under an oak which was 
 
 in Ophrah. 
 
 We learn in this chapter that Gideon 
 was threshing wheat by a winepress when 
 this spirit appeared unto him. He is told 
 that he shall be the leader of his people to 
 free them from the hand of the Midianites. 
 The angel, or spirit, produces some re- 
 markable phenomena to prove that he is 
 a powerful spirit: 
 
 21 Then the angel of the Lord put 
 
 forth the end of the staff that was in his 
 
72 Ghost Councilors 
 
 hand, and touched the flesh and the un- 
 leavened cakes; and there rose up fire 
 out of the rock and consumed the flesh 
 and the unleavened cakes. Then the 
 angel of the Lord departed out of his 
 sight. 
 
 22 And when Gideon perceived 
 that he was an angel of the Lord, 
 Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God ! for be- 
 cause I have seen an angel of the Lord 
 face to face. 
 
 Notice that in this case the phenomena 
 is of a more material nature than was the 
 view Moses had of the angel in the bush. 
 In this case the fire burned the articles of 
 material food which Gideon placed on the 
 rock. Gideon was naturally frightened at 
 seeing a ghost. Our grand-parents always 
 believed that the seeing of a spirit meant 
 
Ghost Councilors 73 
 
 the warning of death. Sometimes that Is 
 true, but not In every case. 
 
 Later Gideon tests the angel's power 
 and Intelligence with a fleece of wool by 
 laying it on the ground with the request 
 that it be wet with dew and the ground 
 around it be dry, as a sign that he could 
 rely on the leadership of the spirit. This 
 was granted and even reversed in manner 
 and granted again, so that Gideon was 
 assured that he would have reliable help. 
 
 I might add to these strange incidents, 
 as a reminder that ghost leaders have ap- 
 peared whenever a great crisis confronted 
 a nation, the story of Joan of Arc. You 
 remember that French history has lettered 
 the name of this young woman in more 
 ineffaceable characters than even those 
 leaders of Jewish history, for she is more 
 
74 Ghost Councilors 
 
 recent, and therefore her history is more 
 authentic. 
 
 Napoleon said of her ''She is the only 
 general who never lost a battle. Her 
 testimony of her power was that a voice 
 spoke to her and entreated her to "save 
 her people, France." She accordingly 
 went to the king and threw herself at his 
 feet, begging him to place armour upon 
 her and set her at the head of his armies. 
 The king, though at first thinking her 
 crazy, determined to test out her proph- 
 ecies and see if truth were on her side. 
 She, untrained in military leadership, led 
 France to victory after victory until all 
 Europe gasped in astonishment! 
 
 Finally, because of her psychic success, 
 the superstitious people condemned her 
 for a witch and burned her to the stake. 
 
 Ghost councilors have ever kept the 
 
GKost Councilors 75 
 
 destinies of men and nations in their grasp, 
 sometimes to lead aright, and sometimes 
 to blast into material oblivion. 
 
 Paul tells us that we each have a 
 guardian angel; Socrates told the court at 
 Athens that he had such an advising spirit; 
 Jesus testified that he could command 
 legions of angels for his protection. 
 
i\ 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The Return of Samuel 
 
 The book of 1st Samuel is perhaps the 
 most interesting volume of Hebrew his- 
 tory. As an account of psychic manifes- 
 tation, I believe it is the most interesting 
 and also the most valuable of the Old 
 Testament books. The chief character of 
 this book is Samuel, the most outstanding 
 psychic of Hebrew lore! 
 
 Samuel was bound over to the priest- 
 hood of the Temple (Jehovah's seance 
 room) before he was born. Hannah, his 
 mother, was an ardent worshipper of 
 
The Return of Samuel 77 
 
 Jehovah; she did not wish a son for the 
 glory and honor of his sonship and man- 
 hood, for she begged only to have her 
 Jewish and selfish pride of becoming a 
 mother satisfied: (Chapter one) 
 
 1 1 And she vowed a vow, and said, 
 
 O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look 
 
 upon the affliction of thine handmaid, 
 
 but will give unto thine handmaid a 
 
 man child, then I will give him unto the 
 
 Lord all the days of his life. 
 
 If it be true that the thoughts and desires 
 
 of a mother can influence the character of 
 
 an unborn child, then indeed was Samuel 
 
 marked for the shameful and tyrannical 
 
 career that made him the most dreadful 
 
 leader of his day! 
 
 When Samuel was born he was alm^ost 
 imm.ediately given over to Eli, the Priest 
 of the Temple. 
 
78 The Return of Samuel 
 
 Jehovah, then and there, singled out 
 Samuel for his own and, through a psychic 
 of the community, sent a message to Eli 
 telling him so: 
 
 35 And I will raise me up a faithful 
 
 priest, that shall do according to that 
 
 which is in mine heart, and in my mind. 
 
 One night, as Samuel was reclining on 
 his couch, he heard a spirit voice calling to 
 him. Mistaking his psychic hearing for 
 his physical hearing, he ran to Eli to know 
 if it were Eli that had called him. Eli 
 answered no. Three times this voice called 
 until finally, under instruction from Eli, 
 Samuel answered it. The voice was that 
 of Jehovah who wanted to transmit, 
 through the young medium, a message to 
 Eli. 
 
 From this Samuel's fame as a psychic 
 went far until all Israel, ''from Dan to 
 
The Return of Samuel 79 
 
 Beersheba", knew that Samuel was 
 established to be a prophet of Jehovah. 
 
 Samuel judged the people of Israel 
 nearly all his life. As long as they 
 triumphed over their enemies they were 
 satisfied. Finally, when Samuel placed 
 his two sons over the people, and those 
 two sons went to their own heads and 
 worshipped not Jehovah but ran the 
 government to suit themselves, the super- 
 stitious people demanded of Samuel a king 
 like the other nations around them. 
 
 About this time a man of Benjamin 
 named Saul went out to hunt after his 
 father's strayed livestock. Failing to find 
 them, he counseled with his servant that 
 they return home to his father's house. - 
 
 The servant suggested that they go to 
 the city that was nearby and consult a 
 medium: (Chapter nine) 
 
80 The Return of Samuel 
 
 6 And he said unto him, Behold 
 
 now, there is in this city a man of God 
 
 (Jehovah) and all that he sayeth most 
 
 surely cometh to pass: now let us go 
 
 thither; preadventure he can show us 
 
 our way that we should go. 
 
 Saul didn't like the idea of begging, so 
 
 he objected to the servant's plan to consult 
 
 a medium because they had nothing to 
 
 bring this ''man of God" as a present in 
 
 payment for his services to them. The 
 
 servant then said: 
 
 8 Behold I have here at hand the 
 fourth part of a shekel of silver; that 
 will I give to the man of God to tell us 
 our way. 
 
 This is the first instance on record 
 where a medium was paid for his psychic 
 services. In some places to-day, in the 
 world of Christian and Bible civilization, 
 
The Return of Samuel 81 
 
 psychics are held strictly under the laws 
 of the land and taxed grieviously for using 
 their ''gifts of the spirit." 
 
 9 (Beforetime in Israel, when a 
 man went to enquire of God, thus he 
 spake: Come let us go to the seer: for 
 he that is now called a prophet was be- 
 foretime called a seer.) 
 In my dictionary "seer'' means a 
 fortune-teller, or one who prophesys. That 
 such a thing is a spiritual gift, I need only 
 point my reader to Paul's statements, to 
 carry my point: (Twelfth chapter of 1st 
 Corinthians) 
 
 1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, 
 brethren, I would not have you igno- 
 rant. 
 
 4 Now there are diversities of gifts, 
 but the same Spirit. (The universal 
 God.) 
 
82 The Return of Samuel 
 
 7 But the manifestation of the 
 Spirit is given to every man to profit 
 withal 
 
 10 To another the working of 
 miracles; to another prophecy; to an- 
 other discerning of spirits. 
 When they reached Samuel's house he 
 came out in the way to meet them. He 
 had hardly spoken two words before he 
 informed them of what they came for 
 and that the lost property was found. 
 
 If this is not a regular instance of 
 mediumship, then there is no heat in the 
 sun! 
 
 Samuel then decided to make Saul king 
 over the people and thus settle their un- 
 rest. 
 
 When Saul became king he placed him- 
 self under the dictatorship of Jehovah. But 
 Saul was of different stuff than was 
 
i he Return cf Samuel 83 
 
 Samuel, and he used his own reason and 
 personal sway sometimes, to the exclusion 
 of Jehovah's cunning. Too, Saul's heart 
 was kinder than were the hearts of 
 Samuel and Jehovah: when Jehovah 
 sought to utterly destroy the Amalekites, 
 Saul spared some of their possessions and 
 their king. 
 
 The story is well set forth in the 
 fifteenth chapter of this book, to the shame 
 and disgrace of the Jewish spirit leader, 
 Jehovah. 
 
 Jehovah hated the Amalekites because 
 the founder of their race, Amalek, had 
 abused Israel, (Jacob) many years before. 
 (See Exodus 17:8,14) 
 
 For this insult Jehovah ordered Samuel 
 to send Saul with many armed warriors 
 to visit vengeance upon the remaining 
 
84 The Return of Samuel 
 
 (helpless and innocent) men, women, and 
 children, and even the dumb animals ! 
 
 When Saul spared the king and some of 
 the grain and live-stock, Jehovah, the 
 obstinate, and Samuel his willing tool, 
 pounced upon Saul. Samuel says to Saul 
 in this fifteenth chapter: 
 
 22 Hath the Lord (Jehovah) as 
 
 great delight in burnt oflferings and 
 
 sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the 
 
 Lord? 
 
 Which was the greater sin? I would 
 say it were far more righteous to abstain 
 from slaughter (even to the extent of one 
 being) than to obey the will of an angry 
 spirit murderer. This statement may seem 
 harsh to the reader, but the reading of 
 that fifteenth chapter will be much more 
 shockin.o-. Jehovah never seems to rest 
 
The Return of Samuel 85 
 
 unless he is visiting horrible vengeance 
 upon those who offend him. 
 
 To utterly carry out Jehovah's wishes, 
 33 Samuel hewed Agag to pieces 
 
 before the Lord in Gilgal. 
 despite old Agag's trembling pleading to 
 be spared: 
 
 32 Surely the bitterness of death 
 
 is past. 
 
 From this can we believe that Jehovah 
 is the author of the Ten Commandments 
 which contain the command: 
 THOU SHALT NOT KILL? 
 
 Would it be consistent to pray unto 
 such a personality the following prayer: 
 'Torgive us our trespasses as we for- 
 
 ,dve those that trespass against us?" 
 
 From the day of this quarrel, we are 
 told that Saul saw Samuel no more in the 
 flesh. 
 
86 The Return of Samuel 
 
 Saul and David were at sword's points 
 about all their earthly lives. Once when 
 Saul was supposed to be ill, David was 
 called in to play the harp before him; the 
 music of the harp was believed to bring 
 soothing and healing on its tones especial- 
 ly, as in the case of Saul's indisposition, 
 v/hen the nerves were out of order; when 
 David began playing, we read in the nine- 
 teenth chapter of 1st Samuel, 
 
 9 The evil spirit from the Lord was 
 upon Saul, as he sat in his house with 
 his javelin in his hand: and David 
 played with his hand. 
 
 10 And Saul sought to smite David 
 even to the wall with the javelin; but he 
 slipped away out of Saul's presence, 
 and he smote the javelin into the wall: 
 and David fled, and escaped that night. 
 The story goes on to declare of the 
 
The Return of Samuel 87 
 
 relentless pursuit Saul made of David; all 
 because Saul was jealous that David 
 should regard Jonathan more than Saul. 
 ( Jonathan was Saul's son. ) It seems very 
 strange to my mind, that if Jehovah was 
 God, why he allowed his three special 
 leaders to bicker and quarrell, even to the 
 extent of seeking to slay one another. To 
 further push the inconsistency of conclud- 
 ing Jehovah to be the Almighty God, from 
 everlasting to everlasting, let me modestly 
 enquire how it was that the Universal God 
 could not allow rebellion in heaven yet 
 Jehovah permitted and encouraged all the 
 fighting Saul and David and Samuel 
 wished to indulge in? To be truthful, 
 these last three named gentlemen were 
 only aping their spirit master, which must 
 have pleased him. "Immitation is the 
 sincerest flattery!'' 
 
88 The Return of Samuel 
 
 The twenty-eighth chapter of this noted 
 book records the death and spirit return of 
 the psychic Samuel. 
 
 3 Now Samuel was dead, and all 
 
 Israel had lamented him, and buried him 
 
 in Ramah, even his own city. 
 
 There is no doubt, from this, that the 
 physical body of Samuel was dead. When 
 fellow mortals go so far as to become 
 hopeless to the point of lamentation, and 
 bury their dead, we may be certain that 
 death has transpired. If you are in doubt, 
 gentle reader, as to what part of Samuel 
 was dead, re-read the first chapter of this 
 book. 
 
 Samuel had been the fatherly adviser of 
 Saul, as well as the master military mind 
 of Saul's le,5:ions. When the Philistines 
 made fierce war a.ofainst Saul's armies, 
 after Samuel's death, Saul naturally 
 
The Return of Samuel 89 
 
 longed for a consultation with the departed 
 spirit of Samuel: 
 
 6 And when Saul inquired of the 
 Lord, (Jehovah) the Lord answered 
 him not, neither by dreams, nor by 
 Urim, nor by prophets. 
 
 7 Then said Saul unto his servants. 
 Seek me out a woman that hath a 
 familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and 
 inquire of her. And his servants said 
 to him, Behold, there is a woman that 
 hath a familiar spirit at Endor. 
 
 8 And Saul disguised himself, and 
 put on other raiment, and he went, and 
 two men with him, and they came to 
 the woman by night: and he said, 1 
 pray thee, divine unto me by the 
 familiar spirit, and bring me him up 
 whom I shall name unto thee. 
 
 Saul undoubtediv visited the woman of 
 
90 The Return of Samuel 
 
 Endor because he believed she was 
 possessed of psychic power and could put 
 him in touch with the spirit of Samuel. 
 The woman, of her own normal physical 
 power, could not pierce Saul's disguise; 
 but when her familiar spirit (her spirit 
 guide) took possession she knew that king 
 Saul was before her: 
 
 12 And when the woman saw 
 Samuel, she cried with a loud voice: 
 and the woman spake to Saul, saying, 
 Why hast thou deceived me, for thou 
 art Saul. 
 
 Notice in the fourteenth verse that she 
 describes Samuel as being ''an old man" 
 and ''covered with a mantle.'' This was 
 a characteristic description of Samuel, for 
 when he last parted with Saul in the flesh, 
 he tore his mantle. (See chapter fifteen.) 
 Samuel declares to Saul that he is still 
 
The Return of Samuel 91 
 
 his enemy; that Jehovah has refused Saul 
 any help and has ''rent the kingdom out of 
 his hand and given it to David," 
 
 All this because Saul did not ''utterly 
 destroy" the Amalekites and their stores. 
 This looks like hatred and double 
 vengeance on the part of Jehovah: 
 
 19 Moreover, the Lord will also 
 
 deliver Israel with thee into the hand of 
 
 the Philistines: and tomorrow shalt 
 
 thou and thy sons be with me. 
 
 Not only would Jehovah quarrel with 
 
 Saul but he would punnish innocent Jews 
 
 for what he held Saul accountable. This 
 
 is justice gone astray and mercy flown 
 
 afar! 
 
 In the thirty-first chapter we read: 
 
 8 And it came to pass on the mor- 
 row, when the Philistines came to strip 
 
92 The Return of Samuel 
 
 the slain, that they found Saul and his 
 three sons fallen in mount Gilboa. 
 The spirit of Samuel knew what it was 
 talking about when it said "Tomorrow 
 shalt thou and thy sons be with me/' 
 
 The good woman of Endor has been 
 spitefully used in about every Christian 
 pulpit in the land. Ministers, who should 
 have had better discernment and more 
 charity, have labeled her ''a witch" and 
 "an agent of the devil!'' These defensive 
 facts from this twenty-eighth chapter 
 should have been the refuge of the repu- 
 tation of the poor woman of Endor, had 
 not malignancy and ignorance swayed the 
 minds of the clergy: 
 
 2 1 And the woman came unto Saul, 
 and saw that he was sore troubled, and 
 said unto him, Behold, thine handmaid 
 hath obeyed thy voice, and I have put 
 
The Return of Samuel 93 
 
 my life in my hand, and have hearkened 
 unto thy words which thou spakest unto 
 me. 
 
 22 Now therefore, I pray thee, 
 hearken thou also unto the voice of 
 thine handmaid, and let me set a morsel 
 of bread before thee; and eat that thou 
 mayest have strength when thou goest 
 on thy way. 
 
 24 And the woman had a fat calf in 
 the house, and she hasted, and killed it, 
 and took flour, and kneaded it, and did 
 bake unleavened bread thereof: 
 
 25 And she brought it before Saul, 
 and before his servants; and they did 
 eat. Then they rose up, and went away 
 that night. 
 
 'TOVE YOUR ENEMIES!'' 
 Saul was her enemy and yet the woman 
 did unto him a kind act. That is far more 
 
94 The Return of Samuel 
 
 than thoughtless preachers have done for 
 
 her since! 
 
 (Matthew, the tenth chapter): 
 
 42 And whosoever shall give to 
 drink unto one of these little ones a cup 
 of water only in the name of a disciple, 
 verily I say unto you, he shall in no 
 wise lose his reward. 
 Matthew, the fifth chapter: 
 
 44 But I say unto you. Love your 
 enemies, bless them that curse you, do 
 good to them that hate you, and pray 
 for them which despitefully use you, 
 and persecute you; 
 
 45 That ye may be the children of 
 your Father which is in heaven; for he 
 maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on 
 the good, and sendeth rain on the just 
 and the unjust. 
 
 Jesus is therefore my authority for 
 
The Return of Samuel 95 
 
 pronouncing the woman of Endor to have 
 been better than were Jehovah, Samuel 
 and Saul! 
 
; CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Qhosts of Daniel 
 
 Nearly every one is acquainted with the 
 history of Daniel, the Hebrew seer. The 
 story of DaniePs visit to the den of lions 
 is as familiar to the minds of children as 
 is the story of Santa Claus. Theology has, 
 however, made the blind mistake of be- 
 lieving Daniel to have been under the 
 control of Jehovah, the spirit leader of the 
 Jews. I cannot find any evidence in the 
 book of Daniel to support such a theory. 
 
 Daniel paid tribute and respect to the 
 God of heaven, for in the second chapter 
 of this book we find that: 
 
The Ghosts of Daniel 97 
 
 19 Then Daniel blessed the God of 
 
 heaven. 
 
 This points decidedly to Daniel's belief 
 in a higher spirit power than that of 
 Jehovah; the ''God of heaven" is to be 
 considered the God of earth also; or as 
 Paul states it "The maker of heaven and 
 earth and all things therein/' Daniel's 
 confessed source of power and wisdom is 
 even the same with that of Jesus: "Our 
 Father who art in heaven.'' 
 
 When Nebuchadnezzar demanded of 
 
 his wise men to explain his dream, they 
 
 could not; they protested truthfully that: 
 
 11 It is a rare thing that the king 
 
 requireth: and there is none other that 
 
 can show it before the king, except the 
 
 e"ods, whose dwelling is not with flesh. 
 
 Daniel's power as a psychic obtained 
 him an exalted political position in the 
 
98 The Ghosts of Daniel 
 
 king's realm. His three companions, 
 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, per- 
 haps also for their psychic abilities, were 
 elevated to places of power and rulership. 
 This angered the politicians of Babylon 
 and they sought to bring them into dis- 
 favor with the king. Knowing that these 
 four Hebrews worshipped the God of 
 heaven and not the gods of the Baby- 
 lonians, the crafty politicians led the king 
 to make a decree that at a signal of the 
 playing of an orchestra all those within the 
 sound of it should bow down and worship 
 a golden image. Those who disobeyed 
 were to be thrown into a fiery furnace. 
 
 When the time for worship came 
 Daniel's three friends were caught praying 
 to their God of heaven. Accordingly, the 
 informers gave the news to the king. 
 Chapter three relates: 
 
The Ghosts of Daniel 99 
 
 20 And he commanded the most 
 mighty men that were in his army to 
 bind Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego; 
 and to cast them into the fiery furnace. 
 Then a strange thing happened: there 
 was seen a fourth figure with the three 
 captives. The king cried out in astonish- 
 ment: 
 
 2.5 Lo I see four men loose, walk- 
 ing in the midst of the fire, and they 
 have no hurt; the form of the fourth is 
 like the Son of God. 
 Dear reader, how do you account for 
 this fourth person, if you doubt that 
 spirits manifest to those of flesh? The 
 universal God cannot be seen by man; 
 this v/as not God but a personality which 
 only the definition of ''conscious entity" 
 can appropriately describe! 
 
100 The Ghosts of Daniel 
 
 The next important ghost of this book 
 is recorded in its fifth chapter: 
 
 5 In the same hour came forth 
 fingers of a man's hand and wrote over 
 against the candlestick upon the plaster 
 of the wall of the king's palace; and the 
 king saw the part of the hand which 
 wrote. 
 
 Here is undoubtedly a case of the 
 materialization of a spirit hand; whose 
 hand it was history has not explained; 
 possibly it belonged to some member of 
 the king's family or to some other Baby- 
 lonian interested in the earthly affairs of 
 Belshazzar's kingdom. Daniel was called 
 to make known the interpretation of the 
 writing left by the hand; he tells the king 
 that the hand has appeared by reason of 
 the power of the God of Heaven: 
 
 23 The God in whose hand thv 
 
The Ghosts of Daniel 101 
 
 breath is, and whose are all thy ways, 
 
 hast thou not glorified; 
 
 24 Then was the part of the hand 
 
 sent from him; (by reason of His 
 
 power) and this writing was written. 
 
 Daniel went on to explain that it was a 
 message to proclaim the downfall of the 
 Babylonian kingdom: 
 
 30 In that night was Belshazzar the 
 king of the Chaldeans slain. 
 
 3 1 And Darius the Median took the 
 kingdom. 
 
 Daniel found favor with Darius and 
 came near to being chief governor of the 
 whole realm; this was prevented by the 
 envious politicians who laid immediate 
 •plans for Daniel's condemnation in the 
 eves of the king. They led the king to 
 make a decree that none should petition 
 any god for the space of thirty days; 
 
102 The Ghosts of Daniel 
 
 failure to obey this decree should result 
 in the offender being thrown into a den of 
 lions. They accordingly caught Daniel 
 praying to his spirit power; the king, under 
 the persuasion of these political ministers, 
 ordered that Daniel be- thrown into the den 
 of lions. 
 
 The king was sorry that he must do 
 such a thing, for he greatly favored Daniel 
 and had found him to be honest and 
 likable in all respects. He had much faith 
 that Daniel's spirit forces would deliver 
 him, and he tells Daniel so as he leaves the 
 den. 
 
 The sixth chapter, in telling the story, 
 gives the account of the king's sorrow: 
 1 8 Then the king went to his palace 
 and passed the night fasting: neither 
 were instruments of music brought be- 
 fore him; and his sleep went from him. 
 
The Ghosts of Daniel 103 
 
 19 Then the king arose very early 
 in the worning and went in haste unto 
 to the den of lions. 
 
 Daniel called to the king from the 
 midst of the den: 
 
 21 Then said Daniel unto the king, 
 O king, live forever. (Did Daniel be- 
 lieve in immortality?) 
 
 22 My God hath sent his angel, and 
 hath shut the lions' mouths and they have 
 not hurt me. 
 
 Daniel here declares that a spirit visited 
 him in the den and protected him. We 
 know well the power some lion trainers 
 have over their ferocious charges. Psychol- 
 ogists declare that such power is of a 
 psychic nature and that all men do not 
 possess it. The spirit of man being the 
 knower, it follows that it is the power of 
 the spirit within the successful lion trainer 
 
104 The Ghosts of Daniel 
 
 that can work such a seeming miracle. I 
 do not say by this that the angel Daniel 
 tells of was formerly a lion trainer, but I 
 do say that he was possessed of this power. 
 Else why could not Daniel have had as 
 much power over the lions as an ordinary 
 lion trainer? 
 
 The accounts of these ghosts are plain 
 and decided; we have no need of recourse 
 to strained text interpretations to learn 
 that spirit visitors were with Daniel and 
 his friends. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 The simple story of the master teacher 
 of spiritual ethics comes to us from the lips 
 of tradition. We can get no thoroughly 
 authentic details of his birth or life because 
 of the fact that nothing concerning him 
 was written down until nearly a century 
 after his crucifiction. 
 
 Matthew is said to have written a book 
 called the Logia, which contained most of 
 the great sayings of Jesus; this, un- 
 fortunately, is not the book in the Four 
 Gospels which ¥/e now have. 
 
106 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 Mark is evidently the oldest of the 
 gospels; at least, most of the Bible authori- 
 ties pronounce it so. The writer of Mark 
 declares nothing touching upon a miracu- 
 lous birth but begins his history with an 
 account of the evangelist, John; of his 
 preaching baptism and repentance. After 
 introducing John, Mark goes on to relate 
 of the first meeting between John and 
 Jesus, and of the baptizing of Jesus at the 
 hands of John. 
 
 We find only two of the Four Gospels 
 giving any story of a miraculous birth. 
 Jesus ,in all his ministry, never mentioned 
 such an event. The strangest account of 
 an unnatural birth is the one of the birth 
 of John, given in the first chapter of Luke: 
 
 We read that Gabriel came down to 
 Zacharias, the father of John, and fore- 
 told of John's birth. 
 
The Man of Nazareth 107 
 
 7 And they had no child, because 
 
 that Ehzabeth was barren, and they 
 
 both were now well stricken in years. 
 
 Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a young 
 
 woman and not barren, so it was less of a 
 
 miracle that she should give birth to a 
 
 child than that her friend Elizabeth should 
 
 do so. 
 
 As to his name being called Jesus for a 
 special and a divine purpose, as is stated in 
 the first chapter of Matthew, in Joseph's 
 dream, I find no evidence of fact to war- 
 rant such a declaration: 
 
 21 And she shall bring forth a son, 
 
 and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for 
 
 he shall save his people from their sins. 
 
 1 cannot reconcile such a statement 
 
 vv^ith the following facts: 
 
 The name 'Uesus" was a common name 
 with the Jews; it is the Greek form for 
 
108 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 ''Joshua.'' It is frequent in the Apocryphal 
 writings, the most noted of which is Jesus, 
 the son of Sirach, native of Jerusalem. 
 The companion of Paul at Rome was 
 named Jesus: 
 
 Colossians, 2nd chapter: 
 
 11 And Jesus, which is called 
 
 Justus. 
 
 If Jesus of Nazareth was named so be- 
 cause he would ''save his people from 
 their sins," v/hy did Sirach's son also re- 
 ceive the name? Or, why was Paul's 
 friend also named "Jesus?" 
 
 To save a man from his sin is to save 
 him from the consequences of his sin; 
 God's laws are so just that the sinner reaps 
 his own harvest from sowing his own seed. 
 This is upheld by the writer of Galatians, 
 who declares in the sixth chapter of that 
 book: 
 
The Man of Nazareth 109 
 
 7 Be not deceived; God is not 
 
 mocked : for whatsoever a man soweth, 
 
 that shall he also reap. 
 
 Then, from this we learn that Jesus 
 could not ''save his people from their 
 sins!'' 
 
 That such a man lived and taught the 
 religious system of spiritual laws ascribed 
 to his name, is morally certain: Tacitus, 
 Pliny, and Suetonius, — three Roman 
 writers, mention Jesus the man of 
 Nazareth; Josephus, the Jewish historian, 
 also mentions him. He was born in 
 Bethlehem, a town of Palestine, six miles 
 south of Jerusalem. 
 
 Luke; second chapter records: 
 
 40 And the child grew, and waxed 
 
 strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: 
 
 and the grace of God was upon him. 
 46 And it came to pass that after 
 
no The Man of Nazareth 
 
 three days they found him in the temple, 
 sitting in the midst of the doctors, both 
 hearing them and asking them ques- 
 tions. 
 
 48 And when they (Joseph and 
 Mary) saw him they were amazed: and 
 his mother said unto him. Son, why 
 hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, 
 thy father and I have sought thee sor- 
 rowing. 
 
 Here Mary calls Joseph the father of 
 Jesus. The fifty-second verse reads: 
 
 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom 
 and stature, and in favor with God and 
 man. 
 
 We have little else of incident concern- 
 ing his early years except that his father 
 was a carpenter; doubtless Jesus worked 
 at the carpenter trade with his father. 
 Peter calls him: 
 
 I 
 
The Man of Nazareth 111 
 
 ''Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved 
 of God, among you.'' 
 With Jabez Sunderland, I heartily join 
 
 in saying: 
 
 'The real work that Jesus did was to 
 reveal God, — to reveal him more clear- 
 ly than any other great religious teacher 
 
 or prophet had ever done. Jesus as a 
 man commands the honor and homage 
 of the world. None can look upon him 
 without feeling the beauty, the great- 
 ness, the essential divineness of his life. 
 But clothe him in the garments of deity, 
 and how quickly does his greatness 
 disappear! But not only do we most 
 honor Jesus by accepting him as just 
 what he claimed to be, a brother man 
 to all of us, but I think that thus also we 
 bring him closer to our humanity, and 
 make him far more helpful to us all as 
 
112 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 an example, as a guide, as an inspirer in 
 life, than he can possibly be when 
 thought of as a deity. 
 
 'Tenderly let us love Jesus; sincerely 
 let us honor him; gladly let us sit at his 
 feet, to learn wisdom from his gracious 
 lips and his matchless life. But let us 
 not follow in the path of the ancient 
 pagan peoples and defy the man we 
 would honor, even if that man be the 
 great and incomparable Galilean. 
 Rather let us be his so true and faithful 
 disciples, that, in all worship, we shall 
 be pointed by him ever to his Father 
 and to our Father, to his God and to 
 our God!" 
 
 THE MISSION OF JESUS 
 Jesus sought to make plain, in all that 
 he did or taught, the likeness of God. He 
 claimed no other mark of attention; he 
 
The Man of Nazareth 113 
 
 made no other assertion of leadership ; he 
 recognized no other source of truth than 
 the God of all the universe. We hear him 
 declaring in John, the tenth chapter: 
 
 37 If I do not the works of my 
 Father, believe me not. 
 
 38 But if I do, though ye believe 
 not me, believe the works; that ye may 
 know, and believe, that the Father is in 
 me, and I in him. 
 
 When the man came to him seeking to 
 know a rule for spiritual perfection, he 
 called Jesus ^'Good Master'\ The 
 Nazarene corrected him for this, as 
 Matthew, the nineteenth chapter records: 
 17 And he said unto him. Why 
 callest thou me good? there is none 
 good but one, that is God; but if thou 
 wilt enter into life, keep the command- 
 ments. 
 
114 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 Jesus, as an example, showed unto all 
 men that the things he taught of could be 
 truth to every one who would apply him- 
 self to the testing of them. 
 
 John, the fourteenth chapter, records: 
 12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
 
 He that believeth on me, the works that 
 
 I do shall he do also; and greater works 
 
 than these shall he do. 
 
 His primal object was to teach men the 
 value of their souls; the care of their souls; 
 and their duty to God and to one another. 
 He taught that unrighteousness was sin- 
 ning against one's own soul and therefore 
 against God, for the soul is "made in the 
 image and the likeness of God.'' He made 
 plain the fact that a guilty conscience is 
 darkness and a state of death; that a pure 
 heart is light and abundant life. His 
 system of spiritual ethics declares that 
 
The Man of Nazareth 115 
 
 righteousness comes of practicing the 
 laws of righteousness. 
 
 Jesus had no use for a hypocrite; he 
 could tell one the instant he set eyes upon 
 him; so can we if we use our powers of 
 observation. The eyes, the stoop of the 
 head, in fact the whole face and carriage of 
 the body denote hypocrisy when a man is 
 abusing his soul by breaking the laws of 
 righteousness. Honesty proclaims itself, 
 as does dishonesty; when we are true to 
 the laws of truth in our dealings with one 
 another, the eye is steady, the voice is 
 natural, and the hand has wholesomeness 
 in its grasp. 
 
 The master of Nazareth was surrounded 
 by hypocrites. They were, for the most 
 part, those of the followers of Moses and 
 the Prophets; their haunts were the 
 synagogues; they professed to know the 
 
116 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 right and yet they unhesitatingly con- 
 demned Jesus when he confronted them 
 with the truth. He said he was a son of 
 God and they stoned him! He reproved 
 them of their inconsistent worship of 
 Moses and the Jewish customs, and they 
 were ashamed and angry! He showed 
 unto them examples of his doctrine and 
 they stubbornly remained blind to the 
 truth. 
 
 Strange to say, the hardest ones to con- 
 vince of the simple laws of God are those 
 of the established churches. It seems far 
 easier for them to accept of the regal trap- 
 pings of superstition and dogma which 
 have been handed down from the Roman 
 Catholic church, than for them to see 
 Jesus as the simple teacher that he was. 
 That he was a teacher and an example and 
 not a sacrifice, is hard for our Christian 
 
The Man of Nazareth 117 
 
 brethren to believe. And yet, sacrifice for 
 the remission of sin is embedded in Jewish 
 custom and Roman Catholic superstition. 
 
 The Jews condemned the Man of 
 Galilee because they hated his gospel of 
 truth. Jesus taught nothing about his 
 death on the cross being a remission of the 
 world's sin. This idea was given later by 
 the church of the early Christians. The 
 old idea of the Jewish church was that of 
 sacrifice for iniquity, and many an inno- 
 cent lamb and dove were slain in order that 
 Jehovah should have his peace offering. 
 It is inconsistent that a teacher of love and 
 mercy should become the bloody sacrifice 
 to a God whose law was kindness and 
 long suffering ! 
 
 The excuse is made by some of the New 
 Testament writers and by the church to- 
 dav, that eternal life can be obtained only 
 
118 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 through the shedding of Jesus' blood on 
 Calvary, in the seventh chapter of John, 
 Jesus gives this definition of eternal life: 
 
 2 As thou hast given him (Jesus) 
 power over all flesh (his body) that he 
 should give eternal life to as many as 
 thou hast given him. 
 
 3 And this is life eternal, that they 
 might know thee the only true God. 
 To know God is to have eternal life — 
 
 not to crucify Jesus. Idolatry is not dead 
 when we see it going to such great lengths! 
 Jesus did not ask worship of himself but 
 that we should know the Father through 
 his teaching. 
 
 To know God is to understand his laws; 
 to recognize his handiwork; to see his face 
 in all creation; to see him in our neighbor; 
 to show his likeness in our lives. Not in 
 temples and creeds does God exclusively 
 
The Man of Nazareth 119 
 
 exist, but in every race, in every age, and 
 in every heart. 
 
 Robert Burns was spurned by the 
 Christian church of his day; he laughed 
 at churches and the hypocrites who then 
 ran them. Yet Robert Burns knew God! 
 He got acquainted with the God of the 
 Universe at his own heart's door. In the 
 fields among the flowers and the birds did 
 Robert Burns find God! In the blush of 
 the morning, the tempest of the elements, 
 and the sweetness of a smile, Burns met 
 God! When his soul was sick with the 
 ingratitude of man and those who should 
 have extended the friendly hand of love 
 and charity, Burns, in the soothing touch 
 of real spiritual things and in his own 
 heart, found God! 
 
 Jesus taught precisely that God was 
 found in the palaces and lovely places of 
 
120 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 nature. He set no store on earthly things, 
 whether temples of clay, or codes of 
 ceremony. Plainly telling the people that 
 God was spirit and eternal; that love was 
 His sway, and that those who came under 
 the influence of the law of love could 
 know the Father, he went about doing 
 good. 
 
 Speaking of his disciples as ''his sheep'', 
 he said: (John, tenth chapter:) 
 
 1 The thief cometh not, but for to 
 
 steal, and to kill, and to destroy: 1 am 
 
 come that they might have life, and that 
 
 they might have it more abundantly. 
 
 The wicked man has life, — physical and 
 
 spirit life; yet his life is not the complete 
 
 life of a spiritually intelligent being. If 
 
 the old dogmatic and superstitious hell of 
 
 the early Christian church were a fact, the 
 
 sufferings of its captives could only be felt 
 
I 
 
 The Man of Nazareth 121 
 
 by them being alive, therefore it would be 
 necessary that everlasting life make the 
 conditions. I point out this fact to show 
 that Jesus did not mean by the above 
 passage of John, that death was the 
 opposite of being his disciple. He alludes 
 here to a spiritual life of greater under- 
 standing and greater enjoyment. Why 
 should not such a life result from the 
 teachings of such a powerful master in 
 spiritual law? 
 
 Other teachers of his day were selfishly 
 alive to their own temporal advantages, 
 but the Nazarene thought only of helping 
 men to lift themselves to higher 
 planes of spiritual understanding — for the 
 Truth's sake and without money and 
 without price; they were the thieves who 
 came to rob, to kill, and to destroy, while 
 he was the good shepard! 
 
122 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 Whosoever availeth himself of the 
 appHcation of the spiritual laws of Jesus 
 of Nazareth, may find abundant life; to 
 live life in its fullness is to obey the laws of 
 God; getting into harmony with one's self 
 is to get into fellowshiD with the God laws 
 of the universe. Paul says ''Sin is the 
 breaking of the Law." When we break 
 physical laws, we pay the penalty in pain 
 and suffering; when we break spiritual 
 laws, we pay the penalty in damning our 
 souls from the full joy of spiritual ease and 
 soul harmony. 
 
 THE CRUCIFICTION AND RESUR- 
 RECTION OF JESUS 
 
 The ministry of Jesus placed him be- 
 tween two enemy bodies of rulership: The 
 patriarchal Jews on the one side, and the 
 government of Rome on the other. The 
 
The Man of Nazareth 123 
 
 Jews hated him because he taught an 
 independent spiritual philosophy which 
 was free from national taint and selfish- 
 ness; they worshipped Moses and their 
 prophets and denied other nations the 
 privilege of their avenues of worship, 
 claiming direct favor with Jehovah 
 (ignorantly believing him to be the whole 
 of God) and they considered all other 
 nations as dirt under their feet. Jesus 
 opposed this selfish and traditional practice 
 by eating with Publicans and ''sinners;" 
 breaking Jewish customs and laws which 
 were foolish and not God-binding; reveal- 
 ing his kinship with God the Father, as 
 an example of what relation all humanity 
 existed in with God. 
 
 The Roman government recognized the 
 danger of the, socialism which Jesus 
 taup"ht- When the master said "Render 
 
124 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's 
 and unto God the things that are God's/' 
 he cut deeply into the spirit of the times. 
 His gospel of equality breathed so much of 
 freedom from unjust governorship that 
 the Roman seat of authority trembled for 
 its safety. 
 
 The counsel which Jesus gave to his 
 disciples in the fifth chapter of Matthew 
 shows plainly in what state of oppression 
 the people were in: 
 
 25 Agree with thine adversary 
 quickly, whiles thou art in the way with 
 him; lest at any time the adversary de- 
 liver thee to the judge, and the judge 
 deliver thee to the officer, and thou be 
 cast into prison. 
 
 26 Verily I say unto thee, Thou 
 shalt by no means come out thence, till 
 thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. 
 
The Man of Nazareth 125 
 
 When Jesus had finished the greater 
 part of his ministery he received a 
 message from the spirit ^\rorld that he 
 would soon come to them. The ninth 
 chapter of Luke records the spirit appear- 
 ance of two men who had left their 
 physical bodies many centuries before: 
 
 28 And it came to pass, he 
 
 took Peter and John and James, and went 
 up into a mountain to pray. 
 
 29 And as he prayed, the fashion of 
 his countenance was altered, and his 
 raiment was white and glistening. 
 
 30 And, behold, there talked with 
 him two men, which were Moses and 
 Ellas. 
 
 31 Who appeared in glory, and 
 spake of his decease which he should 
 accomplish at Jerusalem. 
 
 32 Peter and they that were with 
 
126 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 him saw his glory and the two men that 
 
 stood with him. 
 
 Many minds, that cannot grasp the 
 naturalness of spirit return, believe this 
 message from the beyond; they accept as 
 truth, the manifestation of God's power 
 when they read of it in a book, but they 
 doubt exceedingly when science pro- 
 pounds the whys and wherefores of such 
 a manifestation. 
 
 From the time of his spirit warning, 
 Jesus begins to tell his disciples that he will 
 leave them and go to his Father' kingdom. 
 He is even willing to return to Jerusalem 
 that his enemies may put him to death. 
 
 As a comfort for their grief and de- 
 spair at the loss of him, he tells them in 
 the fourteenth of John: 
 
 1 Let not your heart be troubled: 
 
 ye believe in God, believe also in me. 
 
The Man of Nazareth 127 
 
 2 In my Father's house are many 
 mansions; if it were not so 1 would have 
 told you. I go to prepare a place for 
 you. 
 
 3 And if 1 go and prepare a place 
 for you, I will come again, and receive 
 you unto myself; that where 1 am, there 
 ye may be also. 
 
 19 Yet a little while, and the world 
 seeth me no more; but ye see me: be- 
 cause I live, ye shall live also. 
 When the time came, he was taken to 
 the cruciiiction hill and forced to pay the 
 penalty for what the Jews pronounced 
 blasphemy. It is recorded in Matthew that 
 ''When Jesus had cried with a loud voice, 
 he yielded up the ghost." 
 
 That could only mean that he gave up 
 the spirit; or that the spirit was no longer 
 in the body. 
 
128 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 Many souls to-day, in the Christian 
 churches, are waiting for the second 
 coming of Jesus. If the ninth verse of 
 this chapter tells the truth, he will not 
 come again in the future and they are 
 exceedingly late in point of time, for he 
 appeared unto those to whom he promised 
 his return. 
 
 'Tet a little while, and the world seeth 
 me no more." Pilate and those who 
 crucified him, never saw his return. The 
 world refused to believe that Jesus rose 
 from the dead because they never 
 witnessed his return. Only the disciples 
 and a few others gave testimony that they 
 had seen him. 
 
 In the upper room, when the eleven 
 disciples and some of the women who 
 were converts to the new gospel, gathered 
 to hold a watch-meeting, they bolted the 
 
The Man of Nazareth 129 
 
 doors to keep out intruders and persecu- 
 tors; their expectation was that Jesus 
 would appear unto them. If they had ex- 
 pected a manifestation of the physical 
 crucified body of Jesus, do you think they 
 would have bolted the doors? 
 John, twentieth chapter: 
 
 19 Then the same day at evening, 
 
 being the first day of the week, when 
 
 the doors were shut where the disciples 
 
 were assembled for fear of the Jews, 
 
 came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and 
 
 saith unto them, Peace be unto you. 
 
 It is true, Thomas exacted the proof of 
 
 the nail-prints and the open side before he 
 
 would believe the evidence of his senses 
 
 or the testimony of the other disciples. 
 
 But Paul declares in 1st Corinthians, 
 
 fifteenth chapter: 
 
 50 Now this I say, brethren, that 
 
130 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 flesh and blood cannot inherit the king- 
 dom of God. 
 
 Jesus therefore went to his Father^s 
 kingdom a spirit, having left his crucified 
 body in earth, to mingle with the earth, as 
 is the law of physical nature. 
 
 Thomas had declared that he would 
 believe only on condition that he be shown 
 the crucifiction marks to prove that Jesus 
 v/as the spirit manifesting. Jesus knew 
 this and had the power to present to 
 Thomas a body of his earth likeness. I do 
 not offer this as an excuse to evade the 
 seeming difficulty in the narrative; I offer 
 it as the only rational and natural explan- 
 ation of the manifestation and laws of 
 spirit. 
 
 It were o-ross imperfection if Jesus re- 
 tained his worn and torn physical body in 
 his Father's kingdom; the laws of nature 
 
The Man of Nazareth 131 
 
 refuse such a sequence to physical death! 
 
 Matthew states that an angel was at the 
 tomb when Mary visited it; John states 
 that two angels were there. (See Matthew 
 28:2 also John 20:12) 
 
 Mark states that there was a young 
 man: Mark, sixteenth chapter: 
 
 5 And entering into the sepulchre, 
 
 they saw a young man sitting on the 
 
 right hand side, clothed in a long white 
 
 garment; and they were af righted. 
 
 Luke declares that there were two men: 
 Luke, twenty-fourth chapter: 
 
 4 Two men stood by them in 
 
 shining garments. 
 
 This shows plainly that ''man" and 
 ''d.ngcV^ are synonymous. 
 
 If God has seen fit to clothe spirits in 
 flesh bodies here which bear the likeness 
 that we are familiar with, — four limbs, a 
 
132 The Man of Nazareth 
 
 head, trunk, and features of face that we 
 know so well, it will surely suit His pur- 
 pose to give them bodies resembling in 
 shape those of humanity, when earth and 
 its uses are passed away. 
 
 So, I am not at all surprised to learn that 
 Mary and the disciples saw *^two men'' 
 who were spirits departed from flesh. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Qhosts of Ads 
 
 Acts places us in almost direct touch 
 with ghost visitation; Peter and Paul, 
 through the pen of some vivid writer, 
 possibly Luke, are the center of striking 
 psychic phenomena. Would my readers 
 be shocked if I should declare these two 
 evangelical leaders to have been physic 
 mediums? How else can we explain the 
 wonders which they did? Healing, 
 prophecy, clairvoyance, and the speaking 
 with strange tongues, — is there any other 
 name for these things than the one we 
 
134 Ghosts of Ad:s 
 
 know them by to-day, — ''psychic mani- 
 festation?" 
 
 The disciple John is the type of the 
 mental and spiritual psychic; in Peter and 
 Paul we have mediumship which is physi-' 
 cal as well as spiritual. They both preach 
 by inspiration; they both heal by the lay- 
 ing on of hands. Paul, like Peter is posi- 
 tive and earnest, though, unlike Peter, he 
 uses more self control, which therby the 
 better wins him objects of conversion. 
 
 One thing only made martyrs of the 
 apostles; that was their firm conviction 
 that the spirit of man survived the change 
 of death. It was this conviction which 
 converted them to preach that Jesus had 
 risen from the dead. Did not Paul speak 
 with him after the crucifiction? Had not 
 Peter been present several times when 
 Jesus manifested to the disciples. When 
 
Ghosts of Ad:s 135 
 
 one has had such experiences of spirit 
 communion he cannot find enough earn- 
 estness with which to tell the glad tidings. 
 
 When the priests of the Jewish church 
 saw the miracles of spirit power they made 
 a move to suppress the apostles and their 
 work. 
 
 In the fourth chapter of Acts we read: 
 
 1 8 And they called them, and com- 
 manded them not to speak at all nor 
 teach in the name of Jesus. 
 
 19 But Peter and John answered 
 and said unto them, Whether it be right 
 in the sight of God to hearken unto you 
 more than unto God, judge ye. 
 
 20 For we cannot but speak the 
 things which we have seen and heard. 
 Of what things did they speak, if not 
 
 of the things of the spirit world ? Their 
 teaching (as was also Jesus') told of the 
 
136 Ghosts of Arts 
 
 necessity of spiritual preparation for a life 
 to come; that death meant the transport- 
 ing of the spirit into a fleshless world. They 
 explained, as did Jesus, the important 
 things necessary for changing a sinful 
 course of life to a better one. Their 
 gospel gave a full course of practice for 
 spiritual and soul growth. The ignorance 
 of the priests made them fear and become 
 jealous of these staunch upholders of 
 God's spiritual laws. 
 
 Gamaliel, the learned lawyer, remon- 
 strates with the priests and the people, as 
 the fifth chapter sets forth: 
 
 38 And now I say unto you, Re- 
 frain from these men, and let them 
 alone; for if this counsel or this work 
 be of men, it will come to naught: 
 
 39 But if it be of God, ye cannot 
 
Ghosts of Ad:s 137 
 
 overthrow it; lest haply ye be found 
 
 even to fight against God. 
 
 The first ghost we meet with in this part 
 of our journey, is recorded in this chap- 
 ter: 
 
 19 The angel of the Lord (a mess- 
 enger from Jesus) by night opened the 
 prison doors, and brought them forth, 
 and said: 
 
 20 Go, stand and speak in the 
 temple to the people all the words of 
 this life. 
 
 This is precisely the same thing Sir 
 Arthur Conan Doyle and hundreds of 
 others are doing to-day. They have been 
 commissioned by those in the spirit world 
 to tell the people here all the "things of 
 this life." Such bearers of spiritual testi- 
 mony have even been cast out of the 
 church pulpits, to the shame and disgrace 
 
138 Ghosts of Adts 
 
 of Christian communities. (1 should have 
 said ''so-called Christian" for real Chris- 
 tians do not belittle the sincere findings of 
 truth seeking souls.) 
 
 Jesus manifested when he could, and 
 when he could not be sent a messenger. 
 In either case it was spirit manifestation, 
 or, to be plain, spirit-return ! 
 
 I pointed out in 1st Samuel the text 
 which proved the woman of Endor to have 
 been under the guidance of a spirit; now, 
 concerning the apostle Stephen I find the 
 same circumstance: 
 
 Chapter six says: 
 
 8 And Stephen, full of faith and 
 
 power, did great wonders and miracles 
 
 among the people. 
 
 10 And they were not able to resist 
 
 the wisdom and the spirit by which he 
 
 spake. 
 
Ghosts of Ad:s 139 
 
 The Old Testament is translated from 
 the Hebrew language; the New Testament 
 comes to us from the Greek. When God, 
 or Jesus, is alluded to in the New Testa- 
 ment we find the word ''spirit" spelled 
 with a capital S; in this case we have the 
 word simply "spirit.'' I consider this to 
 mean a separate entity beside the spirit of 
 Stephen himself. 
 
 15 And all that sat in the council, 
 
 looking steadfastly on him, saw his 
 
 face as it had been the face of an angel 
 
 (spirit). 
 
 This testifies to a condition of semi- 
 trance which is decidedly influenced by 
 spirit contact. While I am on this section 
 of the subject let me not forget to remind 
 my reader of a passage in the seventh 
 chapter, concerning the apostles' healing 
 and other miracles: 
 
140 
 
 Ghosts of Ad:s 
 
 7 For unclean spirits, crying with 
 
 loud voice, came out of many that were 
 
 possessed with them. 
 
 Mary Magdalene is reported to have 
 
 been freed from seven evil spirits. If 
 
 ghosts are, (as 1 have set forth) spirits who 
 
 once lived in flesh bodies, then there are 
 
 good, bad, and indiflferent kinds of them. 
 
 In the eighth chapter of this book of 
 Acts, we find that Philip is visited by either 
 Jesus, or the messenger of Jesus: 
 
 26 And the angel of the Lord spake 
 unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go to- 
 ward the south. 
 
 Philip obeyed the command and, when 
 he arrived at a certain place, met a man 
 in a carriage who wished to know about 
 the gospel the apostles were preaching. 
 Philip baptized the man and then was 
 
Ghosts of Adts 141 
 
 caught away, or made invisible to the 
 physical senses. 
 
 This is a powerful example of spirit 
 power. When instances of like happening 
 take place to-day, people make fun of 
 them; but when they are reported in 
 Scripture, faith is at its height and they 
 are believed ! 1 do not wish to be under- 
 stood as not believing the phenomena of 
 this incident; the laws of spirit power are 
 natural laws of God; if they happened 
 then they are possible to-day! If you 
 doubt it, you must also doubt these in- 
 stances of spirit manifestation recorded in 
 your Bible. 
 
 I will pass over the manifestation of the 
 spirit of Jesus unto Paul, as recorded in 
 the ninth chapter of Acts. It is so well 
 known that it needs no direct attention 
 from my pen; suffice to say that it is a 
 
142 
 
 Ghosts of Adts 
 
 positive instance of spirit-return. 
 
 The tenth chapter contains an account 
 of one of the most striking ghost mani- 
 festations in the book of Acts. Peter is 
 here shown a vision to teach him that God 
 loves a Gentile as well as a Jew; after this 
 clairvoyant vision, the spirit informs him 
 that there are men at his door with a mess- 
 age: 
 
 19 While Peter thought upon the 
 vision, the Spirit said unto him. Behold 
 three men seek thee. 
 
 20 Arise therefore, and get thee 
 down, and go with them, doubting noth- 
 ing: for I have sent them. 
 
 When Peter arrived with the three men 
 to where their master, Cornelius, lived, he 
 asked Cornelius to explain how this spirit 
 message came about and why he had been 
 sent for. Cornelius gives the following 
 
Ghosts of Adts 143 
 
 account of his psychic experience with a 
 ghost: 
 
 30 And Cornelius said, Four days 
 ago I was fasting until this hour; and at 
 the ninth hour I prayed in my house; 
 and, behold a man stood by me in 
 bright clothing, 
 
 31 And said, Cornelius thy prayer 
 is heard and thine alms are had in re- 
 membrance in the sight of God. 
 
 32 Send therefore to Joppa, and call 
 
 thither Simon, whose surname is Peter; 
 
 he is lodge in the house of one Simon 
 
 a tanner, by the sea-side; who, when he 
 
 Cometh, shall speak unto thee. 
 
 Notice, that while the text reads "Spirit" 
 
 yet in no other place does it read that this 
 
 visitor from spirit realms is Jesus. The 
 
 translators, naturally, made it to read with 
 
 a capital in this instance. That it was a 
 
144 Ghosts of Acts 
 
 spirit who did not give his name is evident 
 from the verses containing the descriptions 
 of his appearance. I mention this to bring 
 clearly before the mind of the reader that 
 this was an ordinary spirit messenger and 
 not one, such as the Christ spirit or the 
 spirit of Jesus, who might be supposed to 
 have special power to communicate with 
 mortals. 
 
 The objection may be raised that it was 
 Jesus, from the text in the eleventh chap- 
 ter, where Peter answers "Not so Lord.'' 
 Peter gives no sign in these verses, or in 
 any others that he recognizes the voice or 
 the angel to be that of Jesus. The term 
 ''Lord" is also used by Paul in his seance 
 with the spirit of Jesus; Paul says ''Who 
 art thou. Lord?" In both these instances 
 the term "Lord" is the regular Jewish one 
 of "Master" and does not signify any 
 
Ghosts of Ad:s 145 
 
 particular person. Paul did not know the 
 spirit to be that of Jesus, else he would 
 not have asked ''Who art thou?'' when he 
 used the term ''Lord." Peter uses the 
 same phrase because he perceived the 
 spirit to be one in authority; not that he 
 thought it was Jesus. Cornelius, the 
 Italian, uses the same term for the same 
 reason Paul and Peter use it. 
 
 A strange psychic entrancement is given 
 an account of in the twelfth chapter: 
 
 (Peter is in prison, in the hands of king 
 Herod) 
 
 7 And behold, the angel of the 
 Lord, (Jesus' messenger) came upon 
 him, and a light shined in the prison; 
 and he smote Peter on the side, and 
 raised him up, saying arise up quickly. 
 And his chains fell off from his hands. 
 
 8 And the angel said unto him. Gird 
 
146 Ghosts of Ad:s 
 
 thyself, and bind on thy sandals; and 
 so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast 
 thy garment about thee and follow me. 
 9 And he went out, and followed 
 him; and wist not that it was true which 
 was done by the angel but thought he 
 saw a vision. 
 
 If this is not a case of spirit control and 
 entrancement, where is there any other 
 rational explanation ? Surely some psychic 
 power had Peter in its grasp; when the 
 psychic events were finished and he found 
 himself alone it all seemed to him like a 
 dream and he had difficulty in reconciling 
 the experience to his physical faculties. 
 Many times we are visited in sleep with 
 the presence of some loved one from the 
 spirit world ; during that moment it is very 
 ^eal, but when we awake and once mo-- 
 tread the vales of flesh, it becomes like 
 
Ghosts of Ac5ts 147 
 
 Peter's experience seemed to him, — like a 
 dream and we ''wist not that it is true but 
 think we see a vision.'' Bible students 
 usually skip this unique psychic experi- 
 ence of Peter's for the very natural reason 
 that they cannot explain it. 
 
 In the fourteenth chapter, Paul again 
 exhorts the people to believe in the living 
 God and His power: 
 
 1 5 We also are men of like passions 
 with you, and preach unto you that ye 
 should turn from these vanities unto the 
 living God, which made heaven, and 
 earth, and the sea, and all things that 
 are therein. 
 
 Once more, let me remind my reader 
 that all psychic powers come from this 
 God,— (the God of the Universe). All 
 laws of science are His; all mani- 
 festation of spirit, either in flesh or out- 
 
148 Ghosts of Adls 
 
 side of it, belongs to Him and is under His 
 wisdom and power. No other source of 
 power is in the world and no personal 
 devil can control any corner of His mighty 
 worlds ! However much the gospels may 
 be mixed with Jewish customs and be- 
 liefs, — even in Paul's preaching, — there is 
 still the remaining truth that God is 
 greater than all customs or beliefs; His 
 science scatters all superstition and His 
 unceasing finger writes through every age 
 and people the unchangeable letter of His 
 law. 
 
 We find in the sixteenth chapter of Acts 
 an account of the visitation of a ghost unto 
 Paul: 
 
 9 And a vision appeared to Paul in 
 the night; There stood a man of 
 Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, 
 Come over into Macedonia, and help us. 
 
Ghosts of Adts 149 
 
 Who this spirt was, is not given; I can- 
 not but believe that it was a spirit and 
 that he appeared through Paul's power of 
 spirit sight. Since the manifestation took 
 place in the night we may safely presume 
 that Paul was physically asleep. If that be 
 true, then this is an instance like unto 
 those psychic experiences of to-day in 
 which we walk and talk with loved ones 
 during the hours of the night when the 
 physical body is asleep. 
 
 We find in this chapter that a certain 
 damsel followed Paul and that she was 
 possessed of a spirit guide who prophesied 
 through her, much to the financial gain of 
 those who held her as their slave : 
 
 1 7 The same followed Paul and us, 
 and cried, saying. These men are the 
 servants of the most high God, which 
 show us the way of salvation. 
 
150 Ghosts of A(fts 
 
 18 And this did she many days. 
 
 But Paul, being grieved, turned and said 
 
 to the spirit, 1 command thee in the 
 
 name of Jesus Christ, to come out of 
 
 her. And he came out the same hour. 
 
 Paul knew that the spirit troubled the 
 
 maiden and that she was therefore 
 
 obsessed. Knowing also that she could be 
 
 her natural self, and that she should be, he 
 
 forced the spirit to leave control of her. 
 
 Spirit control is not necessarily a bad 
 
 thing; but to become a slave to one entity 
 
 is to deny oneself the privilege of soul 
 
 freedom which is essential to spiritual 
 
 progression. I believe in spirit guides, — 
 
 teachers, helpers, and companions, — but 
 
 I do not believe in spirit dictators! 
 
 The fact that many people do not under- 
 stand spirit communication is no warrant 
 for its impossibility. I find that after Paul 
 
Ghosts of Adts 151 
 
 had forcefully shown to the people the 
 power of his mediumship as a psychic in 
 the hands of spirits, many doubted and 
 were hardened in their faithlessness: 
 (Nineteenth chapter) 
 
 6 And when Paul had laid his hands 
 upon them, the Holy Ghost (power of 
 psychic mediumship) came upon them 
 and they spake with tongues and 
 prophesied. 
 
 9 But when divers were hardened, 
 and believed not, but spake evil of that 
 way before the multitude, he departed 
 from them. 
 
 Some of them tried to imitate Paul in 
 casting out evil spirits; they recited the 
 formula used by the apostles and called 
 upon the spirits to leave those bodies they 
 were unjustly controlling. The spirits 
 knew that these persons were not 
 
152 
 
 Ghosts of Adts 
 
 possessed of psychic power and that they 
 could not drive them out: 
 
 15 And the evil spirit answered and 
 said, Jesus 1 know, and Paul I know; 
 but who are ye? 
 
 16 And the man in whom the evil 
 spirit was, leaped on them, and over- 
 came them, and prevailed against them, 
 so that they fled out of that house naked 
 and wounded. 
 
 Many minds wonder if indeed the dead 
 are brought back to life. I doubt it. Jesus 
 said once of Lazarus ''He sleepeth." Paul 
 (in this chapter) revives the man who fell 
 down from the window while Paul was 
 preaching: 
 
 10 And Paul went down, and fell 
 
 on him, and embracing him, said. 
 
 Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in 
 
 him. 
 
Ghosts of Ad:s 153 
 
 When once the spirit has completely left 
 the physical there is no return of it to that 
 body. The case is usually one of suspend- 
 ed consciousness, trance condition, but 
 never that of physical death. 
 
 In the twentieth chapter Paul foretells 
 his trial and the fact that he shall no more 
 walk in the flesh with those of a certain 
 city for the time for him to lay aside his 
 physical ministry is near at hand: 
 
 25 And now, behold, I know that 
 ye all, among whom I have gone preach- 
 ing the kingdom of God, shall see my 
 face (physical form) no more. 
 In the twenty-first chapter there are two 
 who foretell of Paul's arrest and persecu- 
 tion at Jerusalem: 
 
 4 And finding disciples, we tarried 
 there seven days: who said to Paul 
 
154 Ghosts of Ad:s 
 
 through the Spirit, that he should not 
 
 go up to Jerusalem. 
 
 In Caesarea a man held Paul's girdle and 
 from its magnetism which aided his 
 psychic faculties, he foretold Paul's trouble 
 with the Jews at Jerusalem: 
 
 1 1 And when he was come unto us, 
 
 he took Paul's girdle, and bound his 
 
 own hands and feet, and said. Thus 
 
 saith the Holy Ghost, so shall the Jews 
 . at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth 
 
 this girdle, and shall deliver him unto 
 
 the hands of the Gentiles. 
 
 Shortly afterwards Paul is taken prison- 
 er at Jerusalem and tried for preaching the 
 truths of a spiritual world and immortality 
 of the soul The same charge was made 
 against Jesus of Nazareth. It is still made 
 against honest minded men and women 
 who, to-dav. deliver faithfully the things 
 
Ghosts of Ad:s 155 
 
 of spirit from those spirit messengers who 
 command us to ''tell the people all the 
 things of this life.'' 
 
 Paul defended himself as best he could 
 by telling his judges how the spirit of 
 Jesus had manifested to him; this only 
 enraged them, for they understood nothing 
 at all about spirit manifestation and so 
 believed nothing. Paul appealed unto 
 Caesar and after the fashion of the law, 
 was granted to appear before that august- 
 personage. It was necessary to travel to 
 him by sea and therefore the ship journey 
 are entered upon. 
 
 On the way the ship becomes strayed 
 from her course and storms and tempests 
 beset her so that the crew grow fearful lest 
 they all be lost. The twenty-seventh 
 chapter records the voyage and tells of a 
 ghost message given to Paul to assure the 
 
156 Ghosts of Adts 
 
 crew, that they should all safely land from 
 the ship: 
 
 22 And now I exhort you to be of 
 good cheer; for there shall be no loss 
 of any man's life among you, but of the 
 ship. 
 
 23 For there stood by me this night 
 the angel of God, whose I am and whom 
 I serve, 
 
 24 Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou 
 must be brought before Caesar; and lo, 
 God hath given thee all them that sail 
 with thee. 
 
 25 Wherefore, sirs, be of good 
 cheer; for I believe God, that it shall 
 be even as it was told me. 
 
 This is precisely what takes place. When 
 Paul arrives at Rome he is allowed to go 
 free and is given permission to speak to 
 
Ghosts of Adts 157 
 
 the people the things of spiritual truth, 
 even as the angel promised him. 
 
 Now I have reached the end of my book 
 on the ghosts of the Bible. May the reader 
 be earnest in his consideration of these 
 things; may he seek to reason more deeply 
 into these manifestations of God's power 
 in the lives of mankind. The things re- 
 counted in the Bible are, in so far as they 
 are consistently true, examples of what is 
 possible to-day. I have not claimed any- 
 thing for the power of spirit that is not 
 endorsed and illustrated in the Scriptures. 
 
 Angels, — spirits,— are but the visitors 
 to this world who once themselves lived 
 in it and walked side by side with one an- 
 other and us, as we do to-day. Some day 
 we shall be the ghosts of the future and 
 in our turn re-visit ''the glimpses of the 
 moon," — the earth, walking and com- 
 
158 Ghosts of Adts 
 
 municating with those who are here; try- 
 ing to impress upon their dense physical 
 organism that we exist and that we come 
 to help and assist in the great problems of 
 their day and age. This is God's decree and 
 His law surrounds, upholds, and governs 
 it. The laws of Nature (God's law of 
 earth) are but the stage settings whereby 
 spirit acts in the eternal drama of the soul. 
 
Nature^s Sermon 
 
 By Converse E. Nickerson 
 
 From the heights there comes the message 
 Singing boldly, ringing truly, 
 
 Telling earth the welcome tidings 
 
 That the dead are no more dead! 
 
 Hills and vales give cheerful echoes, 
 Brooklets sweetly flowing neatly 
 
 Show the truth of life unending: 
 
 That the dead are no more dead. 
 
 Flowers take the joy of telling: 
 
 *Tis their duty that their beauty 
 
 Show God's kindness and His loving,'- 
 Lo the dead are no more dead. 
 
 The great heart of man proclaims it; 
 
 Ever trying, never sighing. 
 As he climbs the earthen pathway 
 
 Up to where there are no dead. 
 
THE WAY HOME 
 
 By Converse E. Nickerson m 
 
 Smiles and flowers strew my way, 
 
 Joy and sunshine they will bring 
 If I cherish well each day 
 
 Calm of spirit, thoughts that sing. 
 Love emotions bring in tune 
 
 All that in confusion lies; 
 We can have the warmth ot June 
 
 Just by loving friendship ties. 
 Birds, when joyful, always sing. 
 
 Care-free as the winds they ride,— 
 Music blesses everything 
 
 When in peace our souls abide. 
 Bring no flowers to the grave 
 
 If that soul loved not the thrill 
 Of the sunshine and the wave, 
 
 Or the joy of bird and rill. 
 God's one message to the soul 
 
 Rings sincerely in the heart. 
 Wake then, as around thee roll 
 
 Strains of Nature's sublime art. 
 Seek to know the beauty there. 
 
 Learn the sweetness of that tune 
 Deep in Nature, ever fair. 
 
 Claim it ere it pass too soon. 
 Harmony and peace are thine, 
 
 If thow knowest whilst thou roam 
 That the flame of love will shine 
 
 Up to God to light thee home! 
 
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