connected with its mother, goes on growing
and unfolding itself, till in its first birth it
passes into the mother's own sphere of life,
and as man, after his birth, while connected
with the earth, goes on growing and unfold^
ing himself, till in death he shall pass into
the earth's own sphere of life, so the spirits
of the third stage, being connected with the
sun, will go on unfolding themselves, till on
the fourth stage they shall pass into the
sun's life. In this way man, having gone
through his round of the three stages of
earth-life, is to begin a new round in a
higher world — another celestial body — so
that the highest stage of his earth-life is like
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122 ON LIFE AFTER DEATH.
an embryo-state for the lowest stage of that
higher-world life. And so the earth may be
compared to an egg, from which the sun
breeds spirits, that they may rise to the sun
on wings of light.
In their stage of sun-life the spirits, by
means of light and gravitation, will see and
feel through space, and commune with plan-
ets and suns, as far as light and gravitation
reach. Their common light-sense will en-
able the sun's inhabitants to survey at a
glance the varieties of life and motion in all
the planets as clearly as we now survey our
nearest surroundings; and so, though bom
on one individual planet out of the many,
we shall know them all without having to
pass a lifetime on each of them. The spirits
who, while living on several planets, re-
mained strangers to each other, will meet on
the sun, in the same sphere of life, whence
each of them may look back upon the scene
of his own former life as well as on the
scenes of evolution of all the rest. And in
a succeeding stage the spirits of the indi-
vidual sun will be bom into the vast ocean
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APPENDIX. 123
of suns, which knows of no bounds but
boundlessness. And in a still higher stage
they will reach the eternal source of space
and time, itself independent of space and
time — and finally even they will outgrow
all space and time, being received into God's
everlasting glory.
Chapter IX (conclusion). Therefore be
ye of good courage in your outlook beyond
the grave; do not heed the sayings of ig-
norance, proclaiming that in death, when
man's body is given back to the dust of the
earth, his spirit shall lose itself in the abso-
lute. Of a truth, man shall return to the
absolute, though not after his first death,
but after his last, and not like the raindrop
that is swallowed up in the ocean from
which it originally came, but like the butter-
fly that leaves its caterpillar's skin behind,
to move about freely and joyfully in its pure
parental element. The last death of man,
or of any spirit, is indeed an addition, of a
new individual and independent element
evolved in and through its various stages of
life, to the great Principle of all existence.
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124 ON LIFE AFTER DEATH.
undetermined in the beginning of creation,
but destined to be determined and evolved by
this very additicm. The absolute is not a
grave-yard for decaying corpses; it is the
birth-place of the children of God that have
grown into angels, who are as eyes and ears
and hands to God, whereby he governs all
the lower spheres, down to this present
world of ours.
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AUTHOR'S POSTSCRIPT TO FIRST
EDITION.
THE idea worked out in this little book,
that the spirits of the dead continue
to exist as individuals in the living,
was first suggested to me through a conver-
sation with my friend Professor Billroth,*
then living in Leipzig, now in Halle. The
idea appealing to a series of kindred thoughts
lying ready in my own mind, and engender-
ing new ones, finally assumed the present
shape, enlarged by a kind of spontaneous
*Joliann Gustav Friedrich Billroth, bom 1808 at
Lubeck, died 1836 at Halle, where in 1834 he had
been appointed professor of theology. He must not
be confused with Theodore Billroth, the famous
anatomist. Prof. Billroth's chief work, here alluded
to (but, as it seems, undeservedly neglected in our
days), was published after his death by Prof. Erd*
mann, of Halle: Vorlesungen uher Religionsphiloso-
phie: Leipzig, 1837.
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126 ON LIFE AFTER DEATH.
evolution into the idea of a higher life of
spirits in God. In the meantime the orig-
inator's own way of thinking has taken a
different direction from ours, in the philos-
ophy of religion in general, and especially
in the doctrine of immortality, so that he
seems for the most part, if not entirely, to
have abandoned the fundamental idea.
Nevertheless, I have felt obliged to mention
him as its originator, though I may no longer
speak of him as its advocate. As far as I
know he will expound his own views on the
subject in a philosophical work shortly to
appear.
Written at Gastein,
August, 1835.
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INDEX.
Absolute not a grave-yard, 124.
iEstheticSy Introduction to, la
After-life, Description of, 4I-M3-
Angels, Anatomy of, 12; Belief in, 17.
Apparitions, IQ3.
Art, Germ for a new phase of, 64.
Billroth, J. G. R, 125.
Birth, 31.
Blessed or unblessed existence, 2a
Blessed the man, 62.
Body, Celestial, 121.
Body-spirit, Infant has, 34.
Bodies of the three stages, 87.
Brain, a world of emotions, 93 ; and lute, 73 ; Mental
acts accompanied by vibrations of, 73; Without
brain after death, 92.
Biichner, F. K. C. L., 7.
Butterfly, Man like a, 123.
Caterpillar, Man like a, 123.
Celestial body, 121.
127
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128 INDEX.
Child alive a moment cannot die, 75.
Christ, Church of, 23; in the Lord's Supper, 65;
Christ liveth, 39; son of God, 22; the mediator,
18; to be worshiped with God, 71; United in,
24; United with, in the hereafter, 67.
Christ's body, the Church, 40; life not supernat-
ural, 22f.
Christianity, 21.
Church, The, Christ's body, 40; of Christ, 23^
Churches and scoffers, 64.
Circle of influences, 75.
Circles, Intersecting wave, 89; of waves, 37I
Qairvoyance, 47, loi.
Color-star, 46.
Commandments of God, 24.
Communion of Spirits, 79, 80.
Conscious energy, 94; Conscious in death, 75.
Consciousness, Continuation of, 20; not reabsorbed
in universal, 98; set free by death, 59; Threshold
of, 90, 99; Transition of, 20; Union of, en-
hanced by death, 66; Universal, 97; wanders,
99, 100.
Continuation of life, 96.
Darwin, Charles, 25.
Dead geniuses and saints, mediators, 70.
Dead, The, and living. Meeting of, 58; how they
arise, 63; Image of, in memory, 102; in your
mind, 61; Influence of, 53; made happy or
miserable, 62; Real manifestations of the, 103;
Shrine for great, 70 ; Spirits of the, 37 ; Thoughts
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INDEX. 129
of the, not gone, 37; within us, 60; Worship of
the, 7a
Death, 31 ; a climacteric disease, 42 ; a new day, 76 ;
a second birth, 32; After death, liberty, 81;
Conscious in, 75; Consciousness set free by, 59;
enhancing union of consciousness, 66; First and
last, 123; In the moment of, 36; Man will learn
after, 85.
Desert island, Man on, 74.
Divine germ in the third stage, 30; Divine life, 91;
Divine perception, 116; Divine spirit all-con-
scious, 17.
Earth; a common body, 120; an embryo-state, 122;
an enormous eye, 84; an individuality, 16, 93;
a system, 15; and mankind, 16; bound spirits,
104; like an egg, 122; -spirit, I7ff; the body of
the spirits of the third stage, 121.
Earthly eyes. Use of, 115.
Earthly visicxi, 84, 113.
Egg, Earth like an, 122.
Embryo-state, The Earth an, 122.
Eucharist, Christ in the, 65.
Evolution, 26.
Eye; an entrance, 116; Earth an enormous, 84.
Eyes, Use of earthly, 115.
Fechner, Gustav Theodor ; Dates of Birth and Death,
8; on spritism, 29; Pseudon3rm of, ii; Works:
Elements of Psychophysics, 9; Introduction to
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I30 INDEX.
Esthetics, 10 ; Four Paradoxes, ii; Anatomy of
Angels, 12; Stapelia Mixta, 12; Zend Avesta,
I3> I5> 21, 26; Summum Bonum, 13; Nanna or
the Soul-Life of Plants, 14; Professor Schleiden
and the Moon, 25; On the Soul Question, 25;
The Three Motives and Arguments of Belief,
25; Some Ideas on the Creation and Evolution
of Organisms, 26; The Daylight-View versus the
Night- View, 26.
Fechner's Law, 7.
Fellowship with great spirits, ^,
Future life one of reminisc^ces, 18.
O
Ghosts, 103.
God, Belief in, 2iff; Christ to be worshiped with,
71; In Him we live, 108; lives in everything,
110; Our life part of God's life, 108.
God's Commandments, 24; ubiquity, 91.
Goethe, J. W. v., 38, 39.
Good, Increasing power of, 43.
Grave, Outlook beyond the, 123.
Grave-yard, Absolute not a, 124.
H
Hallucinations, IQ3.
Heaven, Hopes of, 83.
Heavenly things, 15.
Hell, 41, 52.
Herbart, J. R, 10.
Hereafter; How to arrive at facts of, 106; Justice
in the, 24; Senses too narrow for, 78; Spirits of
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INDEX. 131
the, 109; Spirits united in the, 69; United in
the, 66; United with Christ in the, ^.
Illumination, State of, yy.
Infant has body-spirit, 34.
Interpenetration, 114; of spirits, 105.
Intersecting wave circles, 89.
Isolated man, Mind of an, 75.
J
Justice, 63; in the hereafter, 24; of the universe, 41.
Larger body. Our, loi.
Life, part of God's life, 108.
Light-sense, 122.
Living and dead, Meeting of, 58.
Lcmging gratified, 84.
Lute and brain, 73.
Luther, M., 39.
Means and ends, 45.
Mediator, Christ a> 70-
Mediators, Dead geniuses and saints are, 70.
Mental acts accompanied by vibrations of the
brain, 73.
Mind of man, 46.
Mises, Dr. (Pseudonym of Fechner), il, 12, 13.
Moleschott, Jacob, 7.
Mother looking for child, 6a
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132 INDEX,
N
Name to be kept unsullied, 63.
Nanna, or the Soul-Life of Plants, 14.
Napoleon, 38, 39.
O
Od, 27.
p
Paradoxes, Four, Footnote, 11.
Perceptions; Present Life one of, 18; and remi-
niscences, 19.
Phantasms, 103.
Placenta, Footnote, 35.
Plants, The Soul-Life of, 14.
Present life one of perceptions, 18.
Present stage like a seed, 120.
Presentiments, loi.
Psychophysics, 117; Elements of, 9.
Psychophysical emanations, 114.
Punishment and Reward, 24, 25, 41, 43, 62.
Reichenbach, Baron, 27.
Reminiscences; Future Life one of, 18; and percep-
tions, 19.
Resurrection of man, 23.
Reward and punishment, 24, 25, 41, 43, 62.
S
Scheibner, 27.
Schiller, F. v., 39-
Schleiden, M. J., 25.
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IKDEX. 133
Scoffers and churches, 64.
Seed, Present stage like a, 120.
Self unimpaired, Man's, 78.
Sense organs dispensed with, 82.
Senses; too narrow for hereafter, 78; Windows
of, 81.
Shrine for great dead, 70.
Sight, A new kind of, 84.
Slade, Henry, 27.
Sleep and Waking, 95.
Soul, Symbol of the, 47.
Spheres intersect, 88.
Spirit tried here, 44.
Spirits ; cannot conceal their thoughts, 79 ; Close Fel-
lowship with the great, &;\ Communion of, 79,
80; continue as individuals, 125; engender
thoughts within us, 48; entering into us, 47;
Harmony of, 55; Higher, 55; Immediate inter-
course of, 32; in God, 126; Kindred, 51, 54;
of the hereafter, 109; of the third stage, 87; see
each other, 105; Strife between, 49, 50, 55;
try to make use of us, 48; united in the here-
after, 69.
Spiritism, 27, 28; Fechner on, 29.
Spiritual; body, 36; movements, 55; world like a
tree, 69.
Stages of life. See s. v. Three stages of life.
Stapelia Mixta, 12.
Stork to carry babies, No, 83.
Strife between spirits, 49, 50, 55.
Summum Bonum, 13.
Superstition, Danger of, 105.
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134 INDEX.
Symbol of the soul, 47.
T
Telepathy (not mentioned, but probably implied),
32, 59. 79.
Thoughts of the dead not gone, 37.
Three Stages of Life, 3of, asf, 121; Bodies of, 87;
First Stage, 31; Second (present) stage, like a
seed, 120; Third Stage, 54,119; Spirits of, 87* 121.
Threshold of consciousness, 90^ 99.
Tree of spirits, 69.
U
Union of consciousness enhanced by death, 66.
United in the hereafter, 66.
Universe, alive, 14.
V
Vibrations, Footnote, 74; of brain. Mental acts ac-
companied by, 73.
Vision, 112, 113, 114.
W
Wadsworth, Maria C, 7.
Waking and sleep, 95.
Weber, W., 27.
Woe to the man, 62.
Wren on eagle's back, 91.
Wundt, Wilhelm, 10^ 27.
Zend-Avesta, 13, I5» 21, 26.
Zollner, Professor, 27.
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