Glimpses Of The Next State.Pdf - Spiritualists' National Union

258Tom: I think he had very bad luck sometimes inspiring, because sometimes he made hisprophets say and do terrible things; if people did those things now, they would be put in the lockup.Take your wise man Solomon, for instance. I tell you the Bible was made by man and priests,and they are the ones who have kept it alive; they have kept on piling and piling the ignorance andsuperstition until they have got such a big fire that it smoulders and smoulders and smoulders, andit will be a long time before truth can quench it; but truth will quench it, because truth and rightwill prevail.S.: Don’t you believe in the New Testament?Tom: Just about as much as I believe in the Old. I found out it was all a humbug. I thinkwhen a person dies and enters spirit life, as I have, and finds things entirely different from what istaught in the Bible, that proves explicitly that there is a mistake.S.: It seems very strange if you have died and still be talking in the way you are.Tom: In order for me to talk to you and have you understand me, I have to control theorganism of this young man.S.: Yes, I have heard of such things. I have heard of pretended mediums.Tom: Then they must all be pretended in the Bible, because don’t you know that manChrist is supposed to have said—I don’t know whether he said it or not, because I wasn’t there, buthe is reported to have said— that “young men shall dream dreams and see visions and speak indifferent tongues”? What did he mean by that if it wasn’t control?S.: He meant that it was the spirit of God upon them. You know the day of Pentecostthere were tongues of fire rested upon them.Tom: I should think it would have burned their tongues. I wouldn’t want tongues of fire torest on me. Now you want to use your reason—use sense. Say, George, who is Nellie?S.: Nellie who?Tom: Your little Nellie.S.: She was my little Nellie?Tom: She is here. Oh ! she’s a lovely little girl, isn’t she, and she loves her papa. Do youthink she is saved or lost? Now let me tell you, George, according to your belief this child would belost because you neglected to have her baptised. Now you can’t believe in a God that would destroya little innocent child like that because certain forms made and conceived in the brain of man werenot complied with?S.: Oh no, we think that baptism is a command, and it should be obeyed.Tom: Would you like to see me, George?S.: I see you.Tom: Oh no, not when I am controlling the young man; you can’t see me now.S.: I understand you now.Tom: Now you look at the young man, and you will see me.S.: Yes, I will look. That is very strange, indeed!Mrs. F.: I see something that looks like a white vapour, and then it takes the form of a man.That is the spirit that controls the organism of this young man; he is in spirit life.S.: Well, I am real interested. Does he often come and control the young man?Mrs. F.: Only when we sit in this way he does, to help those poor souls who have gone tospirit life and do not know they have made the change called death.S.: It seems very strange. I can’t understand it.Mrs. F.: You will after a time, because that is what you have been brought here for, tounderstand your condition.Tom: Don’t you think that is very strange, that people can leave their bodies and not beaware of it?S.: It seems very strange.Tom: I have seen a good many that way.S.: Does the young man know that you control him?Tom: Oh, yes.S.: You don’t control him’ all the time, do you?Tom: Oh, no.