Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/21

 the spiritual world, and enjoys a sensible perception of its people and objects.

We know very well how this claim is commonly regarded by those who have never examined the seer's disclosures with sufficient thoroughness to enable them to form an intelligent opinion of his pneumatology. They look upon his alleged open intercourse with spirits, as not only improbable, unreasonable and unsusceptible of proof, but as evidencing a want of mental balance—as, indeed, a species of monomania. Many who do not believe him a willful impostor, and who are ready to admit (for popular opinion is beginning to lean this way) that he saw truth on many subjects quite in advance of his age, treat with contempt and derision his claim to open intercourse with angels and spirits; as if such visions as he has recorded were to be reckoned among things highly improbable if not impossible, and the record itself to be accepted as evidence of mental derangement.

This is the attitude of nearly every one in reference to the great Swede's alleged intercourse with the denizens of the other world, before he has given much thought to the subject, or has examined the evidence by which his claim is supported. It was substantially the writer's own attitude before he had made himself familiar with the general character of the seer's disclos-