As in the natural world the traveller in the desert beholds the mirage of some city which is hundreds of miles distant, suddenly arising upon the sandy waste, so, in the spirit world, the spectrum form is projected, and events which are to take place are made visible before their actual occurrence.  But, as in the natural world spectrum forms occur only under certain atmospheric conditions, so in the spirit world it is the conjunction of circumstances and the blending of magnetic currents that make it possible for coming events to be revealed upon the level plane which is set apart for this purpose in the summer land.

Man at the present day is so constituted that a revealment to him of coming events in detail would be injurious; and experience proves that such disclosures, when made to him in dreams or otherwise, are profitless, as he always fails to foil the evil of which he is forewarned.

History and biography show that individuals have time and again, been admonished by their assiduous friends of evils or calamities that were to befall them, yet the admonition, though timely given, seldom enabled them to avoid their fate.  Men have been warned of murderous assaults, but they have not evaded them; premonitions have been given of falling buildings, and these have fallen, involving in their destruction the loss of the individual’s life at the precise date which his dream foreshadowed.

The time will come in the far future when man will understand prophecy as a science.  There are few persons living at the present day, who, looking back upon their past history, would conscientiously wish it had been all revealed to them at the outset of their career.

The withered, faded beauty, at the dawn of her life of youthful triumph could not have endured a vision of the haggard unfortunate wretch which she would represent in the course of a few years.

These remarks apply more especially to the so-called civilized state of society at the present day.

The semi-barbarous nations, so termed, are in closer sympathy with nature.  Life and death, prosperity and adversity, are to them as natural effects as the sunshine and rain of the terrestrial globe.

Their equanimity, their perfect repose upon the bosom of nature, causes them to see more clearly into the future than do civilized nations.  There is a spirit of prophecy which does not comprehend the detail, and only takes cognizance of the grand events of life.

This prophetic condition is attainable by every being in a certain state of exaltation.

The poet, the painter, the statesman, the preacher, can alike in moments of ecstasy ascend this mount of inspiration, and foretell the advancement of the world in relation to art, science, and spiritual development.  But the oracle, the sybil of the East can penetrate a height beyond and above this mount, and can perceive the detail of an individual life in its minutest events.