Preface.

I Have been asked by many persons to explain how these three Lectures have been given to me, and I will do so as briefly as possible. They are communicated by a spirit taking possession of a human medium. The face of that human being is transfigured for the time being, and the magnetic light plays about her head. Not a word is spoken by the spirit during the time I am writing. The ideas are communicated magnetically, by the laying of the spirit's hand upon my own head; my own brain and hand being passive instruments as it were. When I commence a lecture I do not know what the subject will be, and when I have finished one sentence, I am ignorant as to the nature and construction of the next; but all is consecutive and coherent, without a correction or erasure. Sometimes I stop short in the middle of a sentence, and then I look for a few seconds at the eyes of the spirit; when the current of ideas and words immediately resumes its spontaneous flow. I have laid my watch upon the table and timed myself, and have found that I write in about one-third of the time which I should occupy in composing a lecture of my own. These phenomena have occurred in the presence of a dozen people, each of whom writes also under the spiritual influence. After I have finished, the spirit enters into conversation with me upon the topics arising out of the lecture; explaining that the magnetic fire communicated through him is identical in its nature and influence with the tongues of fire seen by the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost, and that the work of the spirits on earth—acting through human agencies—is to bring mankind back to a knowledge of the One True God; to rescue them from the thraldom of theological superstition and debasing priestcraft; and to prepare for the ingathering of our own branch of the human race—which they describe as the Fourth of the Seven Churches.