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Christianity should be regarded as the greatest effort attempted by the invisible world to communicate
ostensibly with our humanity. According to Fred Myers, it is the first authentic message from the Beyond. The
pagan religions were, to be sure, rich with occult phenomena of all kinds and in facts of divination. But the
appearance of the materialized Christ after death constitutes the most powerful manifestation to which man has
given testimony; it was the signal of an entry of spirits upon the world’s stage. We are witnessing today a new
advent of the invisible world into history. Isolated manifestations from the Beyond now indicate a tendency to
become frequent and universal. A way is being established between the two worlds, which at first was a mere
bridle path, then a narrow road, but which enlarges and widens and promises to become a large, sure route.
Christianity has for its point of departure phenomena similar to that, which in our day constitute the proofs in
the domain of psychical research: facts revealed through the influence and actions of a spiritual country of
souls. Through these facts, and only through them, do we behold a pathway opening into infinity, and hope is
born in anguished hearts, and humanity is reconciled with death.
The religions have opposed a barrier against violent passions and the barbarity of iron ages, and they
have engraved clearly on the conscience of man the idea of morality.
The aesthetic part of religion has produced beautiful works in all domains of art, and aided largely in
the revelation of art and beauty through the centuries. Greek art created marvels, Christian art attained
sublimity in the Gothic cathedrals which lift themselves like bibles of stone under the heavens, with their
proud sculptured towers, their imposing naves, which multiply the vibrations of the organ and the sacred
chants, their lofty arches, from which floods of light ripple down on frescoes and statues, and then rest there as
if exhausted.
The fault of religion is not an aesthetic fault; it is the fault of logic. Religion is shut by the churches in
walls of dogmas, and compelled to stand in rigid forms. Movement is the law of life, and the Church renders
thought immobile, instead of inspiring it to flight.
It is the nature of man to exhaust all forms of an idea, and to carry it to extremes before allowing it to
take its normal course of evolution. Every religious truth affirmed by an innovator is weakened and altered by
its followers, who are almost always incapable of maintaining the height to which the master rose. The
doctrine becomes, therefore, abused and distorted, and little by little creates counter-currents of skepticism and
negation. Faith is succeeded by incredulity; materialism gets in its work, and only when materialism has
shown its utter powerlessness in creating social order does the rebirth of idealism become possible. From the
dawn of Christianity there have been divers currents of thought. Opposing ideas have crowded against one
another in the bed of the newborn religion. Schisms and conflicts succeeded, in the midst of which the thought
of Christ has been veiled with obscurity. True Christianity is the law of love and of liberty. The churches have
it one of fear and dogmatism. From that has come the gradual weaning of ‘thinkers’ from the churches, and the
weakening of religious feeling in many lands. And the inevitable result has been discord and discontent in the
human family. Out of this discontent has come a crisis; in spite of all appearances of the death of faith, faith is
not dead, but is being transformed and renewed. The doubt of today prepares the path for the conviction of
tomorrow. An intelligent faith will govern the future and permeate all races. Humanity, still young and divided
by the necessities of territory, climate, and distance, has nevertheless commenced to think for itself. Above the
antagonism of politics and religions, groups of intellectual minds are formed; men pursued by the same
problems, agonized by the same cares, inspired by the same invisible world, labor at a common work, and
arrive at the same conclusions. Little by little the elements of psychical research are producing a universal faith
all over the world. Numberless testimonials indicate the trend of human thought toward this glorious end. A
higher spirituality is already here; religion is now the scientific effort of humanity to communicate with the
spirit eternal and divine. Sir Oliver Lodge, the famous scientist of the University of Birmingham, and
Maxwell, Attorney General in the Court of Appeals, Paris, both have declared the coming of a new religion of
freedom and spirituality.
In the measure that thought ripens, missionaries of all orders awaken religious ideals in the breast of
humanity. We are now witnessing one of these revivals, grander and more profound than any which have
preceded. This new religious movement has not only men for interpreters, it has inspiring spirits, invisible
helpers of space, who exercise their powers on all the surface on the globe and in all domains of thought at one
time. Everywhere this new spirituality appears, and naturally the question arises, ‘What is this new power? Is it
science or religion?’
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