home | what's new | other sites | contact | about

Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

Andrew Jackson Davis

Return to Afterlife main-page

• read Davis' astonishing biographical info here

Allow me to offer a survey of quotations from Andrew Jackson Davis. One of his best books - free to read on the internet - is "The Great Harmonia." Part of the book centers upon the eternal romantic Twin-Soul marriage, and I shall present excerpts relating to that subject.

Davis' lectures on the spiritual marriage rocked the establishment-world of pre-Civil War days. Society's institutions sought to control marriage by demeaning the women within it, and Davis' teachings were found to be very threatening to the status-quo. 

Prelude: historical-setting of the writings of Andrew Jackson Davis

In June of 1858, at Rutland, Vermont – only weeks before the Lincoln-Douglas Debates – a notable group of thinkers met to discuss various aspects of social reform. Some within the group called themselves “Friends Of Human Progress.”

Many of them were abolitionists; some worked for prison and asylum reform; among them were the first advocates of women’s rights and humane treatment of children. And most of them were Spiritualists; and some were psychic-mediums, those who claimed to receive messages from the other side.

The Rutland Convention attendees, these “Friends Of Human Progress,” with their agenda of human rights and personal freedoms, offended establishment vested-interests.

Slave-owners vilified them: “You will destroy the economy with your pious moralism!” The Spiritualists objected to the abusive treatment not only of slaves but prisoners, too. The Rutland group's humanitarian view was met with: “Where will be the deterrent to evil if you have your way? You are soft on crime and a threat to all civilized people!”

Profiting by a long history of subjugating women, male-dominated authority structures, such as institutional Big Religion, resisted any attempt to reform marriage. Women were the virtual chattel-possessions of their husbands, without property and voting rights, or little standing in court: “God made man the head of the wife, just as Christ rules the church. The husband’s word is meant to be law! Silly women need men to protect them, or they will end up in trouble with Satan, just like Eve!”

And many, too, in their ignorance and religious superstition, were afraid of messages from other-worldly sources; and some churches were simply afraid of the competition: “These voices you hear are demons! Who gives you the right to speak directly to God without a priest or minister? Satan is deceiving you!”

As such, those of the Rutland Convention had many enemies. Many in 1858, attempting to minimize the Convention's influence, referred to this gathering as the “Lunatic Fringe Convention.”

The Free Lovers

The Rutland speakers addressed many topics of social reform; but, the rights of women, “the miserably married,” trapped not only in loveless unions but without legal standing in society, occupied most of the agenda – “one of the earliest public debates on the marriage relation.”

The materialistic press called the convention participants “Free Lovers.” Meant to be a pejorative term, this label distorted the philosophical position of the Rutland group. But for a tiny minority element, they were not advocating the abolition of marriage in favor of libertinism, “free love” on demand. Far from it, many of the speakers, church leaders of their day, called for a more authentic, high-minded view of marriage; for marriage as nexus between “spiritual affinities,” Twin Souls, and not merely as domestic civil contract, legalizing fleeting animal urges. The “Friends Of Human Progress,” however, found themselves frivolously attacked and misrepresented.

• Editor's note: The Rutland group was called "Free Lovers" because their demand for the spiritual marriage was marginalized and distorted. Enemies claimed, "You want to break up marriages. You want to de-stabilize all society. If a wife isn't happy with a husband, you want to say, 'Go and find your true mate.' That's 'free love,' which is a threat to the marriage institution and a well-ordered society."

Why this information is worth a brief mention

One of the Rutland speakers was already famous for his spiritual writings on authentic marriage – Andrew Jackson Davis.

I think it is no accident that the "Free Lovers," the Friends of Human Progress, the early social reformers, were also involved in the Spiritualist movement. They had received messages from Spirit Guides who were very desirous of reforming society and furthering personal freedoms on all levels - and this encouragement toward liberty naturally led the Spiritualists to oppose slavery on the plantations and slavery in marriage.

The Spiritualists at Rutland saw institutional religion as an enemy of authentic marriage, oppressing the people with legalisms designed to control and intimidate the masses. They viewed the orthodoxy of Big Religion as one more slave master, one more despot, to be overthrown in this materialistic world.

The Free Lovers had put their lives on the line, had faced hostile crowds – not for beliefs, but what they had come to know. You can feel a certain grit, a tenacious sense of knowing, in their writings. I suggest you keep this in mind as you review "The Great Harmonia."

It was in those tense and volatile pre-Civil War times that they spoke out on the true romantic love and its spiritual implications: a clarion call to authentic marriage.

• CLICK HERE for the eloquence and discernment of Henry C. Wright, another Rutland speaker, a fierce advocate of personal liberties, not to exclude those enjoyed within the spiritual marriage.

The following excerpts are from "The Great Harmonia"

Fantastic conceptions of everlasting felicities, but... fleeting dreams

As you well know, the world regards Love as a passion; a manifestation peculiar to romantic youth. Youth, with its ripening and heated blood, is considered the season of love … “Mystery" is the alleged cause of its rapturous and fiery developments. Ignorance and inexperience conspire to kindle the youthful imagination - and all desires, born of such parents, are well nigh unlimited. Hope, faith, eternal devotion, fantastic conceptions of everlasting felicities, glow like altar fires upon the youthful brain. The history of this phase of love is a record of fleeting dreams and groundless expectations - springing from ... the conjugal principle [that is, a desire to be with another].

• Editor’s note: The word conjugal derives from the Latin conjugalis; from conjunx, wife or husband, a spouse; from conjungere, to unite; a descriptive term for the relationship between married persons. A conjugal family is the same as a nuclear family, composed of married parents and their children. Conjugal relatives (in-laws) trace their relations through the marriage of their respective blood relatives. Mortimer Adler defines conjugal love as the friendship of spouses; as such, conjugal love does not necessarily denote a passionate relationship. Swedenborg (according to Dr. Young Oon Kim) defines conjugal love more robustly as "the highest kind of relationship because it expands the innermost things of both mind and body … Husband and wife experience the joy of mutual sharing, and delights exceed all others. Thus, genuine conjugal love is an image of heaven." The essential idea of conjugal love is that of union. It is the love that seeks togetherness. The typical John-and-Marys of the world ally themselves to promote togetherness, for many underlying reasons; not all of them a reflection of high-mindedness. Hardly one case of John-and-Mary conjugal love of this world will survive the next.

After only a fortnight, is eternity over already?

Such persons [moved my ephemeral animal passion] will swear eternal constancy to the objects of their dream; but I affirm, in all soberness, that one can seldom rely upon such an eternity for more than a fortnight [two weeks]. Passion is defined, by the world, to be the love and expectation of pleasures - of delights indefinite, extravagant, inexhaustible. The extreme action causes the soul to arrogate, to itself, the plenitude of deific capacity. On her first interview with Romeo, Juliet is made to exclaim,

"My bounty is boundless as the sea;
My love as deep."

To expire, at last, in leathery wrinkles and frosted indifference!

All this is based on perishable expectations, a result of regarding love as a mere passion - of supposing it to be a fire, quenchable by the unbroken flowings of the Stream of Time. The world is injured, I perceive, by such semi-beautiful yet grovelling estimates of the soul's life. How undeveloped the thought, that the manifestation of love is confined to the season of youth - to its gossamer dreams and evanescent enthusiasm; to its merely corporeal or physiological inclinations!

This is, nevertheless, the world's sensualism. It consigns the conjugal principle to the depths of mental intoxication: a sickly and sentimental passion, kindled by physical wants, supported by beauties of the most shadowy kind, "of evanescent smiles and sighs that breathe not," to be rudely disciplined eventually by the experience and ills of life: to expire, at last, in leathery wrinkles and frosted indifference.

the immortal youthfulness of every human soul

It is my happiness to believe in the immortal youthfulness of every human soul; yea, in the immortal pleasures and elevated uses of Conjugal Love, as a Principle. Principles are eternal. The human soul will be true to the laws of its being. But I find the world opposed to, or, rather, that it is not acquainted with, the grand uses of marriage. Hence, as the world thinketh so it is; and scarcely any two get truly joined.

We hear every day of tempestuous troubles between the married; not less do we behold the physiological vices of the unmarried. Do you not see and know that something is needed? Parents, absorbing and fostering the prevailing valuations of love and marriage, cannot bequeath to their sons and daughters more exalted convictions. The latter, as a sequence, in opinion and action, follow the multitude. The common idea of "Virtue," throned in physical conditions, is too unchaste to admit of analysis. It is worthy only of some semi-civilized and voluptuous race, morally disqualified to appreciate the virginity of the soul: and still less to rely upon that divine, recuperative, indestructible virtue within it, which hath its kingdom in self-integrity and practical worship of Truth.

• Editor’s note: Davis’ “virginity of the soul” is a powerful concept. What if a true lover’s vested right to “the virginity of the soul,” relative to his/her eternal romantic mate, can never be lost? - enjoyed only by the true mate.

A history of marriage: something higher than corporeal instinct?

Perhaps you will better recognize the world as it is, regarding the question of Love, if I present a few statements from various ages and authors.

First: The Egyptians considered spiritual love and physical pleasure as synonymous gifts from the same unknown god. They never so much as imagined that the marriage element was anything higher than a corporeal instinct; common alike to the human and animal worlds, between which a science of correspondence was perceptible; the origin of which Swedenborg refers to a period when representative language was popular.

Second: Moses, and his successors in the Jewish theocracy, degraded the love-principle to a level with what after-generations term physical vices; and made laws to regulate this affection between the sexes, as if it were property - which could be bought and sold, given and withdrawn at will. Virginity of the soul was not thought of; it was all corporeal grovelling, unspiritualizing.

the "wisest" man who ever lived - and his one thousand palatial ornaments

Third: David and Solomon were polygamists. The long chain of kings and priests, under the old theocratic dispensation, suggested, by neither their words nor lives, any such love as love of the soul. It was all carnal, phenomenal, sentimental, evanescent. King Solomon's household was composed of a thousand females in the capacity of wives and palatial ornaments; but there was no practical veneration for that glorious principle of Love, which creates joy and strengthens virtue, which surely saves and sanctifies its possessor.

Fourth: Polygamy, confined to the male portion, is still considered, in all Mohammedan and slave-holding countries, as a moral right and a religious institution. Woman, consequently, is made the legal slave of man. Her heart, if but beating in a breast of physical beauty, is merchandise. It sells well in the market. The beautiful law of Love exists without a recognition. The physical reigns supreme, because the cerebellum sways the soul; the back-head is in the ascendant.

Fifth: Throughout Greece, when in its glory, an improvement in theory is visible. The superior objects of love, however, were faintly foreshadowed. You will observe that I consider marriage and parentage (of the physical body) as the lowest and most unimportant manifestation and result of conjugal love. It has an eternal mission to the soul. And, although the Grecian philosophy and theology were intrinsically voluptuous [gratifying the senses] and materialistic, yet do we see in them some recognition of, respect for, and communion with, a progressive and perfectable Love-Principle. There is much psychological purity in Grecian love. In their mythologic divinities we detect illustrations of advancement.

Cupid, for example, the god of love and son of the beautiful Venus, is represented as a little boy with wings. His eyes, though swimming in lovelight, are blindfolded; because philosophy recognizes the fact that "love is blind." But Cupid, though the imagined originator of innumerable cupidities in the world, was no bachelor. He was married to "Psyche;" which means the "Soul." And his love for her is designed to represent that all true affection tends toward the mind, not toward the body. In mythology we find, thus, the germs of great spiritual truths; the Harmonial Era most encouragingly foreshadowed.

Connubial felicity:  a plurality of wives with no unpleasant domestic result?

Sixth: The Chinese argue, with fantastic eloquence, the necessity of polygamy. Plurality of wives, they affirm, produce no unpleasant domestic results. The Chinese novelist, when he wishes to present his male characters in a high state of connubial felicity, usually gives them two wives of opposite temperaments, devotedly attached to each other, and both uniformly obedient to the husband. Here is no conception of soul-marriage; it is all external, arbitrary, temporary, degrading. Love down the blue Ganges laughing glides, Upon a Lotus leaf.

Seventh: Lycurgus considered love as synonymous with physical attraction; peculiar to the blood-heated young and beneficial to the middle aged. He accordingly legislated upon its manifestations; and sought to control the Spartans in the bestowment of their affections.

Eighth: It is said, in poetic moods, that marriages are sometimes begun in Heaven. But ofttimes, in their ultimations and in the purposes to which they are put on earth, methinks they terminate uncomfortably near the opposite Kingdom.

Ninth: The whole world, acting necessarily from its undeveloped semi-spiritual convictions, "loveth downward, and not up;" beginning with the soul, and ending with the body; born in novelty and infatuation, and dying in satiety and disgust. How grievous that the soul should be earthward-bound, and taught to look down for its best and most delicate joys!

Shakespeare describes the Lover as—

'Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow."

The same author, ever-faithful to nature in transcribing her outward states and most obvious emotions, makes Romeo describe the love-principle as a childish and changeful whim of youth:

"Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs;
Being urg'd, a fire sparkling in lover's eyes:
Being vex'd, a sea nourished with lover's tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet."

showering contempt upon the marriage element

Tenth: Religious enthusiasts, of all ages and creeds, have made a merit of abstaining from marriage. Origen is an example. Certain early Christians regarded conjugal love as inconsistent with high moral attainment. To be married was to be corrupted with impure motives; the broad road to compound selfishness. In Judea, in Persia, in Egypt, in Greece, in Rome, lived persons who showered contempt upon the marriage element.

The mania of distrusting Nature - of crucifying the conjugal element and crushing its aspirations as the breathings of Satan - has been kept alive by cynical saints for many centuries. The opinions of the disciples of early Christianity, as derived from the primitive founders and expounders of the system, may be seen in the following:

Big Religion explains marriage to us

"I am the Rt. Rev. Dr. All Right," said he with much emphasis; "I have studied the scriptures; I have expounded them; I have declared them all-sufficient for man; I have devoted long years to an examination of the prophecies; I have written a book to prove that the strait gate signifies the church, and the narrow way means the path which the chosen shepherd marks out for his flock."

"There is a voice within me," replied the young man, "in validating and denying all you affirm, regarding the road to the Eternal City."

Again the aged face was suffused with anger at the youth's denial of his authority. "That voice within thee, young man, is the whispering of Satan."

Crucify the voice of the inward nature!

At this the youth experienced a shock throughout his being. He had not heard before the inward voice so severely assaulted and defamed. He inquired of the aged man, whether he had not heard the inward voice of his own being remonstrating against the authority of antiquity? The learned man acknowledged that he had in his youth listened to the voice of Intuition, and would have been led astray by it, had not a friendly pastor of the village-church warned him in time against allowing his reason to work on divine themes. He had learned, he said, in early youth, to crucify the voices of his inward nature - he had bowed early to the altar of outward arbitrary authority - and had walked in the path marked out by his forefathers, fearing that none other could lead to Eternal life.

He had not journeyed far when he beheld another host of people marching in a crooked path winding away to the right. The leader, on seeing the youth, screamed to the top of his voice: "Young man! Come this way - that road is the way to death - that is the way of mere Nature. Come, be baptized and purified of all the crimes of Adam and his mate."

Still, obeying the inward voice, the youth pursued his onward and upward way. And as he journeyed on, his mind grew happier and more confident. The trees seemed to speak volumes - he saw "sermons in stones and good in everything." He mused with his thoughts. While thinking of the Eternal City, a voice in the air said to him: "Be just, and fear not;" and another said: "Blessed are they that seek righteousness, for they shall find it;" another added … “Blessed are the pure in motive, for they shall see God." And, as the invisible spirits pronounced these words in his ear, he grew more strong and more certain; for his inward voice at the conclusion of each sentence, responded, "Amen and amen."

All creation had accompanied him on the way: that trees, flowers, birds, animals, with one accord, lent their combined influences and significations toward the elevation and gratification of his soul. While these enjoyments and elevations grew upon him as he moved forward, he could see how [these] grew more and more out of sympathy and union with the laws and harmonies of Nature.

• Editor's note: Concerning this segment, I see great similarity with Gibran's man who spoke with Mistress Rose. The trees and birds, all of nature, called out to him, an appeal to natural Love. See this in The Beloved.

After the youth had recounted all, one of the blessed inhabitants opened his mouth and said:

Faithful to the inward Light

"Well done. Thou hast been faithful to the inward light - the Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. All paths lead to this City finally, and no pilgrims, though they wander far from truth, are ever lost. All evil is ultimately overruled for good. But thou hast followed Nature; therefore thou hast remained in harmony with Nature's laws; and therefore thy life has been true to Nature's God.

The world sees not the unspeakable meaning of this sentence: 'Strait is the way, and narrow is the gate, which leadeth to the true life of the soul, and few there be that find it.' So few there are who follow Nature, that thou didst pursue thy pathway without fellowship of thy earthly brethren.

narrow gate, without fellowship

Editor's note: Andrew Jackson Davis warns of the "narrow gate" that leads to life; few be that enter it. Those who live courageously by following the truth wherever it leads, as Davis points out, “will walk a pathway without fellowship of thy earthly brethren.” The cults have long employed the weapon of excommunication, shunning, and ostracization - a forced separation from friends, workmates, and family - toward anyone who disagrees with the hive mentality. This putting away occurs not just in religion but in dysfunctional families, corporations, academia, politics, and other power-seeking groups. They’re afraid of contrary opinion which might disembowel and expose shallow teachings. And so they’ll get rid of you for spreading "misinformation"; and you, as a truth seeker, will be censored and required to make your way through this world “without fellowship of thy earthly brethren.” But, be assured, a day of reckoning is but one missed heartbeat away.

The sects throw open and travel the 'broadway' that leadeth to the destruction of the soul's happiness, integrity, and spontaneity - yet, so true is the universe, that all will find the right path at last."

From this Eternal City - which signifies Spiritual Love, Wisdom, and Liberty - let the gospel go forth unto all people: that the “narrow way” is personal harmony, and the "strait gate" is pure reason.

• Editor’s note: What a sad state of affairs in our world! - that the role of orthodox religion has devolved to an attempt to convince us not to follow our own inner guidance, as if God could not, or would not, speak to us directly. What is the meaning, or the necessity, of the Spirit if he will not?

When the “Will of God is done on Earth as it is in Heaven,” then shall we behold … the everlasting Marriage of Love with Wisdom; the nuptial … harmonization of Heart and Head...

there can be no true, holy, conjugal Love between the merely legally married

Yes, these effects of unnatural matrimonial relations look us in the face in every community. No true, holy, conjugal Love between the legally married! …

attractions proportional to destiny

[The author speaks of] that law of Charles Fourier, "Attractions proportional to destiny;" or, that the existence of intense spiritual desires is a foreshadowing of ultimate satisfaction to come...

stamping the seal of spirituality on the soul of the child

There is a more true marriage between the sexes … which the feminine element, actuated by that deep Love which only the truly married can understand, will share equally in the process of stamping the seal of Spiritual Beauty and Divinity on the body and soul of the child. To children thus conceived, thus elaborated, thus enfolded into Life, we hopefully look for the foundation and establishment of the Great Harmonial Era of the future in this world.

• Editor’s note: There may be no greater blessing to bestow upon a child than the knowledge that he or she was (1) deeply desired and sought for as an expression of the parents’ love, and, while acknowledging this, (2) that the parents’ love for each other, their mutual joy, is the primary integrating force of the family, and not that of child-worship.

principles of the true marriage: the soul emancipated from all conventions

In the [True] Marriage … I find much that elevates the soul … Souls are to be freed from merely legal ties; emancipated from all conventionalisms; and the divine Law of Attraction is henceforth to rule the human soul. Here the true woman can meet the true man; and the marriage of the twain is sanctioned, or not, by the law of spiritual affinity. The leading, positive positions assumed are:

That all marriage, not based upon an inherent … spiritual attraction, is null and void. God joins by Love, not by Law. Legal unions, without Love, are immoral.

That the Love-Marriage is eternal; nothing can separate the truly married; they are one throughout eternal spheres.

That the two, thus associated, cannot experience separate conjugal attraction; that no other Love can be admitted between them.

That should a man or a woman, after entering into the relation of husband and wife, become convinced by various means that each does not embody the other's Ideal, then they are not truly married; they are divorced; and both have a natural right to seek further for the embodiment of the heart's ideal associate.

That human legislation may not forbid them to marry again; that, in truth, men have no right to control arbitrarily the soul's deepest, purest wants: the rights and elevations of true marriage.

How shall humankind find eternal mates?

[True] Marriage is the actual blending of two distinct souls, attracted to each other by a power over which neither has control, so long as they remain within the sphere of each other's attractive force. . . As they did not will themselves into this relation, they cannot will themselves out of it.

Therefore, the relative conditions of the two souls, under which the union was formed, (remaining the same) the union itself must remain.

But may not these conditions [of love] be changed? … It follows, then, [if two fall out of love] that these parties were not truly married … the two [must] separate, in order to find their ideal companions … If either wishes separation, there is no [true marriage]. Where there is true marriage, universal experience testifies that it longs for an endless perpetuity; and the very existence of this desire demonstrates to me the fact, that nature designed the union to be perpetual. The want is natural, and Nature creates no want for which she does not create a supply…

Legalized marriages may seem perfectly right to undeveloped minds. Or, the supposed truly united may discover something repugnant in each other, after living together thirty or forty years. If this repugnance amounts to repulsion, then they are no longer truly married…

We agree that the true marriage is the union of mutual love, which no human law has the right to regulate or control. We assert the supreme right of woman over her own person, and especially over the function of maternity … we do not find in our observation or experience, that every … love is eternal, or exclusive of other loves. We do not believe in an indissoluble monogamy, as the invariable law of our race; nor that the production of offspring is the sole object of the ultimatum of love…

If a true love is, in its nature, eternal, then all the loves that end were false; if true love is exclusive, there can be but one true… If [a husband] feels any [substantial] attraction for any other woman, that proves, not only that he is no longer [her] husband, but that he never was… the very fact [of substantial attraction to another] proves that they do not belong to each other … a new love seems to set aside the old, but really proves that the old did not exist.

Such are the absurdities of people who adopt theories instead of observing facts…

The universality of the principle of Attraction demonstrates the universality of the principle of Marriage. You will recall foregone conclusions. Wherever Life is, there is Attraction; and wherever Attraction is, there is Marriage. Life and attraction are omnipresent; therefore marriage is omnipresent. Yet attraction and marriage, although inseparably, are not identical. Attraction is the cause; marriage is the effect. It was a favorite saying with Fourier, that "the attractions are proportioned to the destinies." It is with profound serenity that we look through the worlds of life, and behold the manifestations of this principle. The conjugal harmonies of Nature are perfect; beyond eulogy, as their sublimity is beyond delineation.

Among Christians the theory prevails that Marriage is an arbitrary institution...

• Editor’s note: “Arbitrary” means this: The Christian tradition, led by Big Religion, has ignored natural law in terms of specific attraction. It has long preached that any two, willing or not - whomever the priest or minister bring together in a marriage - are magically bound in the courts of heaven! This is gross error and fantasy! a doctrine designed to give power over the people to the Church.

I would open, to your vision, the universality of the [natural] Marriage principle: for the marriage tendencies, and its states, are everywhere manifested [in nature]. If a definition be desirable, I would say that marriage is the union of the essences of two atoms. One seeks another; or both seek and both find; for attraction is proportioned to destiny. Two atoms, floating in the sunbeam, are attracted from opposite sides of the globe. The tide of electrical affinities wafts them closer and closer together. If you listen, you may hear a song of questions,

Who and what gave me the wish to woo thee?
Who made me burn thy very breath to drink?

My life in thine to sink!
Why from its self doth thus my soul depart?
Is it because its native home thou art?
Or were we [affinities] in the days of yore
Twin-bound both souls, and, in the links we bore,

Sigh to be bound once more?

The conjugations of the myriad planets, with their suns, are perfect. Life and light, sea and sky, love and wisdom, God and the universe: how united all these in conjugal affinities! Marriage is not an arbitrary relation. All Nature is a conjugium. There is no isolated life. One form exists for and within another; and the method is matrimonial… Nothing lives or dies to itself. There is a universal Attraction, and a uniform dependence; and there is, also, a universal [natural] Marriage, and a consequent genesis or generation.

It will be an Harmonial Era, indeed, when men leave the desolations of existing creeds (which are but the barren sands of mythology) and cultivate a profound love for universal Nature. We need to transfer our respect from artificial institutions to natural principles…

[Marriage] is a union of the essence of one male with one female - or an attraction of two individualized souls; the particles of whose vitality interblend and interpermeate each with and through the other… marriage is coextensive with life and organization…

The marriage principle runs beyond the limitations of human history. It runs deeper than the sea, wider than household associations, and higher than the stars…

Romantic love, the spirit of God in Humankind

[Romantic] Love must be disentangled from the webwork of Ignorance. It must be upraised, and worshipped as the spirit of God in Man!

There are already great natures enough to commence the work; not to do battle with the menials of error, but to proclaim and practise a principle - giving the world what America gave the nations - an immortal Declaration of Independence!

• Editor’s note: A strange reference to the Declaration – but many egoic institutions of this world seek to regulate marriage and impose their private definitions of morality. Why? As usual, it's about power and control. Those who control the process wield much power over people - this opportunity for despotic rule is not lost upon Dear Leaders.

Popular conceptions of the uses of marriage seldom go deeper than housekeeping; nor higher than the injunction, "multiply and replenish the earth."

Popular marriages are civil contracts; a very delicate method of forming a housekeeping and children-getting copartnership; to continue so long as the two have a tangible corporeal existence. The responsibilities are heavy, and yet nearly every person is willing to assume them, and a thousand times more weighty duties, if only duly rewarded with unweariable affection. This is far more true of woman than of man…

Purposes of the True Marriage

Marriage has three fundamental uses; all the minor benefits are embraced by these:

First, to develop individual power and unity:

Second, to aid individual elevation and perfection:

Third, to perpetuate and harmonize the race...

True marriage is a relation far more divine than any and every other. It is internal, sacred, spiritual, eternal. It not only lies at the basis of the life of all joy … but stands in the vestibule of all virtue and all heaven.

I do not exaggerate. From the cerebral throne of spiritual love, I speak to you only of Nature's declarations. Outward marriage and outward parentage, although every way important to mankind's development and progressive harmonization, are after all but secondary to the Mission which marriage is adequate to perform in the soul. The truly married are not only the happiest persons in the world, but they are, also, better able to advance toward higher and still higher attainments.

The mission of marriage is more to the soul than to the body; even more to the development of the soul than to either. No woman is happy out of the marriage relation; the same is true of man. I speak now of true marriage…

Transient And Permanent Marriage. It has been made fully to appear, I think, that marriage is a natural manifestation of the law of Attraction. But it must now be shown, that all the minor marriages are temporary, yet not less beneficial to the progressive development of mankind. There are two hemispheres of conjugal relations. One is Blood-love; the other, Spirit-love; or, we may say, one is force, the other, attraction.

As in external nature we find the most imperfect on the lowest plane, even so, in our interior relations, are there progressive marriages; the lowest being on the first basis of conjugal attraction…

I find seven different forms…

The Seven Levels Of Marriage

7. The Harmonial.

6. The Celestial.

5. The Spiritual.

4. The Religious.

3. The Intellectual.

2. The Circumstantial.

1. The Sexual.

Of these forms of marriage there is but one, the seventh, that is absolutely permanent…

First: "The sexual marriage" is the lowest form of attraction between human beings. I have described the basis and objects of this attraction; and find no bettor term for them than "extremism." The sexual marriage is altogether transient. The motive which actuates to such marriage is physical, finite, perishable. Swedenborg has described it under the title of "scortatory [lewd, prostituting] love," which " incessantly seeks victims, seizes them without pity, seduces them without remorse, devours them without horror, and abandons their living remains with disgust." This love is the "lust" which Jesus and Paul preached against…

All marriage founded upon this attraction, is brutish, selfish, fictitious, inconstant. Yet four tenths of all civilized unions — so far as the masculine motive is concerned—are begun exclusively in libidinous inclination. Such love is quickly inverted; it soon rejects the object of its gratification. It …  identifies promiscuous intercourse with "freedom of the affections." Nature is positive that libertinism can never bless and liberate conjugal love: which love should dominate the subordinate impulses, and form a union eternal with wisdom. Sin can never marry. Sin may cohabit with sin, and reproduce its own likeness; but there can be no marriage between two scortatory [lewd, prostituting] attractions, because there is nothing healing and healthy in them.

Second: "The circumstantial marriage" is also transient, because it is founded on external considerations. The attractions of fraternal, are frequently mistaken for conjugal love, and so it happens sometimes that "friends" marry, and live tolerably contented and happy. Yet, in certain moments, when the soul goes up into the spiritual towers of contemplation and emotion, then a feeling of dissatisfaction comes on, bringing with it a voice whispering promises of deeper and higher love relations. But it is a fortunate fact, perhaps, that the soul is saved frequently from realizing too powerfully its false marriage, by descending from the lofty domain of thought and feeling to the common streets and plains of common experience. It is a better thing to marry through deep friendship than from sexual attraction; although, in either relation, the development of the soul is arrested, and the children generally defective in spiritual organization.

Circumstantial marriage is the prevailing marriage of this age - a result of the wrongs of woman, of the defects of man, and of a false social construction in general. Men and women marry to obtain wealth and the liberties of a home; they marry for external considerations both physical and social; but the grand marriage principle is overlooked, and the consequences are everywhere visible, carved unmistakably on children and society.

Third: "The intellectual marriage" is the union of two, through intellectual appreciation. Certain temperaments and mental structures can be attracted to the opposite sex only through the Knowledge department. Such, love through the intellect … never fully satisfies the soul. Intellectual admiration is no true conjugal attraction; yet hundreds, in civil society, are only thus married. The consequence is, that such persons respect each other, and, through the fraternal attraction, tolerate each other in all the rights and liberties of marriage. But they are as the marriage of two solar rays; all light, but no warmth. It was this relation, as realized by Napoleon, that put away Josephine for another far below her mental excellence.

This marriage, of the love through the intellect, is essentially the doctrine of Plato. It is the science of love, not love itself… Intellectual marriage is practical Platonism… [In such marriages] Do you love me? means, do you see the same truth? If you do, we are happy with the same happiness: but [when] one of us passes into the perception of new truth, we are divorced, and no tension in nature can hold us to each other. Such is the fate of intellectual conjugation; not necessarily, however, but probably, in the course of progression… I term this marriage chaste, but unloving; in itself, civil and respectful, but unfavorable to individual harmony…

Fourth: "The religious marriage" is a union of duty. Many conscientious men and women have been false to God, in Nature, by obeying religious theories of marriage. They marry without love, because they [feel it is expected, the right thing to do]… But it will at once be seen, that marriage, without true conjugal attraction, is nothing less than legal prostitution: an offence to the great principles of integrity, which sustain and regulate the universe, without obedience to which man cannot be good, wise, and happy.

• Editor’s note: This reminds us of Gibran’s “sinful marriage" in "The Beloved"; of those bound by civil and religious law, but strangers in heart – the “sinful marriage” sins against the soul, the heart, and natural law - with the true "holy matrimony" enjoyed only by those who follow their internal guidance systems.

What manner of children are they that come from the barren deserts of duty? Are they the issues of love? Or, shall we ask, "Are they not the sons of sin"? If God is Love, then only love-children are God's; and the offspring of religious marriage are, as we frequently see them, extremely unhappy and melancholy persons…

Fifth: "The Spiritual Marriage" is the first which promises permanency and progression… Every soul is born married; that is, each has a counterpart.

• Editor’s note: Every soul is born married, in that, each was created, so to speak, with a particular other in the "soul nursery." It is this one person, and no other, to whom one is married…

The spiritual marriage is the highest human relation. It is based on mental, not corporeal, attraction; it comes of mental fitness; and brings to the soul—Home, Harmony, Rest. The spiritually married are not necessarily eternally married; it is but a higher expression of an eternal Principle. Yet it is easy for the thus conjoined, so to live for each other's development… And it is equally easy for the spiritually united to separate, without repulsion; never again to meet, save as friends…

Sixth: "The Celestial Marriage" is the conjugation of Love with Wisdom. It is superior to the spiritual union; because it is something more than affinity or harmony of attraction. Harmony is not the test or seal of eternal marriage, but is evidence, rather, that the two may attain an inseparable unity. Therefore, I estimate "harmony," in spiritual union, as the written promise of Nature's God, that by means of mutual culture and reciprocal advancement, the permanent marriage is possible between spirit lovers.

the secret likeness, the same nature

Love is said to be the emblem of eternity. It confounds all notions of time; effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end; we fancy that we have always loved the object of our affection; so difficult is it to imagine how we could have lived without it. Sometimes, of the spiritually married, it may be said, that their tastes are not the same; their opinions rarely accord; their outward inclinations seldom entwine each through the other; yet, in the centre of each soul dwell kindred mysteries, drawn from the one divine source; a secret likeness, so to speak, which attests the same nature, however differently modified by external circumstances…

Exalted souls intuitively realize the possibility of securing permanent marriages. I have said that "spiritual marriage" is the highest human relation. It is so: for it is the vestibule from which the soul gazes upon the boundless possibilities of the future… The spiritually-married are the true representatives of principle. They have overswept the isolated selfishness of housekeeping; shut their souls against the beguilements of custom, and not less against "what will people say"…

Seventh: "The Harmonial Marriage," as heretofore affirmed, is the absolutely permanent union. The word "Harmonial," means enough to include all the preceding forms of development, and crowns them all with heavenly significance. The "spiritual marriage" is based on harmony of attractions between two souls, which does not necessarily imply unchangeable union; the "celestial marriage," in addition, is the harmony of love with wisdom, which does not imply their indissoluble unity; but "harmonial marriage" is not only a harmony between outward attractions, and is not only a harmony between love and wisdom, but is a blending of the two souls so absolutely, that no extrinsic influence can dominate over, or in any manner vitiate, the internal attraction! …

No man can truly love, methinks, except through a true wife; and a woman cannot love, save through a true husband. Each is a messiah to the other. To love, is to work for the physical and spiritual development of the one we love; and so one may help the other forever… This pre-eminence, of the married to the unmarried, is natural as a flower is superior to its germ.

The tests of true love: how to know if you've found your eternal Twin

Internal Evidences of True Marriage. Although the science of marriage is beautifully and practically adequate to the reformation of our world, yet it is not to be supposed that many will study it, or be influenced so much by the head in forming conjugal alliances as by the soul's more susceptible inclinations — whose fount is the heart.

Therefore, to provide a way for those who wish to be guided by a less external method, we present a few certain indications that two central temperaments have met; and may harmonize on and yet on, until, by their united progressions, they seize upon one life, one immortality, one heaven!

First: that each finds rest in the other - a settled satisfaction, based in the character of the soul; not influenced by external considerations, nor by personal attractiveness. The handsomest physical is sometimes the garment of a deformed and ill-favored mind. You should ask your heart of its attractions, and listen to their testimony, when your vision is closed upon all externals.

Second: that your attractions toward the soul you unselfishly love, exactly harmonize with your Intuitions or reason principle.

If your judgment's verdict does not coincide with the verdict of your attractions, then hesitate; for there is something wrong! Perhaps the judgment may itself be at fault— wait and see the truth. Wisdom can see only. If Love will but look through Wisdom's eyes, and, looking, sanctions your attractions, you are then certain of a spiritual marriage.

the most perfect internal evidence

Third: that the Ideal of each is answered in the other; and continues as the two advance in years and experience, acquiring thereby different ideals, and more enlarged. If each personifies to the other, upon a long, intimate acquaintance, the ideal of conjugal love: this is the most perfect internal evidence.

• Editor’s note: He will judge her to be the standard, the ideal, the most beautiful and wonderful woman in the world. She, to him, will define the very essence of womanhood.

Fourth: that by detaching your attractions from all the world, and renouncing all your interests in merely outward advantages, you feel irresistibly drawn to the soul of your beloved. Are you, as a woman, attached to him without a thought of self? Would you live in joy or in sorrow for his sake? Are you, as a man, attached to her without a thought of sexuality? Would you work for her inward development in all things? If so, you are married; if not, you are divorced.

• Editor’s note: Would you want her still at age 92? of incoherent mind and fragile frame, lying vegetable-like in a nursing home? -

THE PHILOSOPHY OF TRUE MARRIAGE.

The principles of matrimonial association are universal and eternal… As I have elsewhere said, Love is a female, and Wisdom is a male …

Every individual, abstractly considered, is an embodiment and representation of Love and Wisdom. The elements of the human soul are organized into an image of Love or Life, and the attributes of intelligence are unfolded into an image of Wisdom, or Guardian Power. Therefore every human soul is constructed upon male and female principles; the male is positive, and the female is negative.

But each and every individual, considered relatively, is not Love and Wisdom alone and complete within himself or herself, but is only one of these principles, and hence experiences an affinity for its apparently opposite or dissimilar self. It is when, and only when, an individual realizes its dependence upon another individual, that sensations of loneliness, dissatisfaction, discontent, and incompleteness unfold themselves in the spirit. Congenial association is now loudly and imperatively demanded by the isolated and seeking heart. Heart calls to heart. The female is alone without her true companion; and the male is alone without the female; the female is seeking for its Wisdom principle; and the male is seeking for its principle of Love.

• Editor's note: We speak here of primary proclivity and "default setting"; the male also is love and the female is also wise, but each knows its sphere of dominant virtue.

There is no happiness separate from true conjugal association. One spirit cannot resist the attraction to another spirit; it is simply Wisdom searching for Love, or Love for Wisdom. It is not strange that the heart seeks its true associate; because when we comprehend and realize the truth that the Deity, his universe, and the human soul, are constructed and subsisting upon the principle of male and female — positive and negative — or Love and Wisdom, it is easy and natural to understand the attraction which the dependent Soul feels toward its true companion. It is Soul seeking for Soul, Life for Life, Love for Wisdom, Spirit for Happiness. Yes, it is when the soul realizes its relation to, or dependence upon others, and especially its particular dependence on one, that it begins to seek for itself.

Conjugal-Love must be responded to by Conjugal-Love; else the Spirit will be unhappy. The properly unfolded female character is an embodiment of Love; and the male character, when properly unfolded, is an embodiment of Wisdom. The female, being Love, possesses within her soul the immortal springs of beauty and loveliness; but if she is, by means of uncontrollable circumstances and legal enactments, associated with a companion whose powers and attributes are not sufficiently great and noble, or kind and generous, to extract from her sentiments of continual respect and admiration, then will she most certainly manifest uneasiness and generate discord.

It is depressing to scan the multitude of marriages which have resulted from no higher causes than the infatuations of passion and evanescent personal charms, of popularity, of individual position, the superficial accomplishments of education, the advantages of wealth and convenience, or from the so frequent coercion or incitement of accidental outer circumstances.

In the world, everywhere are visible these superficial and ephemeral marriages ... worldly legalized attachments ... which not only distract and deform, but arrest the development of beauty and happiness in, the thus enslaved Soul.

True marriages are natural, inevitable, harmonious and eternal! By the assistance of interior perception and comprehension, I was enabled to ascertain the glorious and consoling truth that every spirit is born married! When I gaze upon an infant, a youth, a lonely individual, the voice of intuition and true philosophy say - "that infant, that youth, that lonely individual, has some where an eternal companion!" Therefore I perceive and understand that a meeting, and, in the present state of society, a legal recognition of such companions are an outward expression of true marriage.

And yet, no ceremony, no promise, no written or legalized agreement, can unite that which is internally and eternally joined; nor can these solemnities unite that which is internally and eternally separated. If two are legally married, and if this outer expression of unity has no other primary cause than the fascinations of feature, the advantages of position or wealth, or the accident of circumstances, then is the female unconsciously living with another Spirit's companion; and so also is the male living in perpetual violation of the law of Conjugal Association; and consequently both are rendered dissatisfied and unhappy.

the best evidence that two are not eternally married

The best evidence that two individuals are not naturally and eternally married, is that, by dwelling together, they generate discord, discontent, disrespect, and unhappiness; and the best evidence that two are internally and eternally married, is that, by dwelling together, they generate harmony, respect, admiration, and contentment.

The laws of Nature, or God's laws, are superior to human enactments and jurisprudential proceedings; yet, until mankind are more refined and acquainted with the laws of mind and matter, we must submit to human legislation, and human laws must be permitted and obeyed; but herein is a great, and, at present, necessary evil which all should strive to understand and overcome; that human laws may be made no other than Divine; and then, notwithstanding the misapprehensions and local transgressions of them which might sometimes occur, there would not exist one-tenth of the discord, licentiousness, and unhappiness that now mar the face of humanity...

There is but one only and true marriage! and it is highly possible that the unfortunate individual who may have had several companions on earth, has not yet met with the real sharer and associate of the spirit's eternal joys and peregrinations [travels].

That Spirit which is still seeking and praying for congenial companionship, should rest perfectly assured that it has somewhere a mate, somewhere an eternal associate. Life will not always be incomplete. Let the seeker remember this; and, being already in principle joined to some true and faithful one, let the heart be glad and let it realize, by means of anticipation, the final meeting, which, if circumstances and earnest desire do not consummate it on earth, will be inevitably developed, perfected, and confirmed in the higher country.

And those who are unfortunately situated in their worldly-legalized marriage relations - they should, also, rest in the sublime and unfailing assurance of eternal principles, that a due separation is in the future, and that a due meeting will be the issue of an introduction into the Spirit-home.

Perhaps the true companion has already gone before; if this be so, it is altogether probable that the spirit remaining here will feel drawn toward the higher world, when searching for its companion. There is a holiness in this natural and true marriage - which is a consequence of our being, an inevitable result, of our own existence, that, when once conceived of by the heart and understanding, must make every spirit on earth rejoice; and insure purity and faithfulness in that soul which would live for the one whom God hath given, and "keep itself unspotted from the world."

Where the true union is enjoyed, there cannot exist the slightest cause of jealousy, of coldness, of estrangement, of disrespect, or alienation; for perfect and entire confidence wreathes every thought which the one entertaineth of the other; and by a commingling of their mutual love, the truly joined—the God-made One—can consume every unfriendly and discordant impulse which might arise in their undeveloped bosom.

The Love-principle, or the female, is the actuating, the prompting, the life-giving portion of the eternal Oneness; and the Wisdom-principle, or the male, is the governing, the guiding, and harmonizing portion; and thus the two are One in essence and organization.

unspeakably lonely vs. mere iceberg

Love, or the female, with her immortal and impetuous springs of life, beauty, and animation, is, if unguided and unassociated with Wisdom, unspeakably lonely, and very liable to misdirection; on the other hand, Wisdom, or the male, with his immortal attribute of harmony and government, is, if unassociated with, and deprived of, the life-giving elements of Love, a mere iceberg, a mere isolated oak, cold and unbeautiful.

But these reflections are more properly connected with the consideration of the mission and influence of the male and female principle, or the sexes.

The reader should be impressed with the conviction that the Law of Association, which moves alike the universe and the human soul, will determine and proclaim who is his, or her, true companion.

No clergyman, no testimony, no legalized contract, or record in Church or State, can determine upon the proper conjugal associate, nor develop the everlasting affection which the spirit demands. The evidence is within. Search yourselves. If ye are truthfully married, then will ye have mutual or parallel attractions, corresponding desires, and similar constitutional tendencies; and where the one goes, the other will go; and on earth, as in the higher spheres of existence, ye will have one home, one purpose, one destiny, one God, and one religion.

Where a union is perfect, there is no conflict; when Wisdom decides, Love will respond. If a wife loves her companion, she will involuntarily keep his commandments, which to her are wisdom's ways; and if a husband loves his companion, he will treat her not as an inferior, not as a superior, not as one incapable of exercising reason; but he will honor and protect, and guide, and develop her indestructible sensibilities, and be to her a haven of rest.

praying for the holy and protecting love that will not change

Every heart prays and pines for that holy and protecting love which will not change, however varying may be the vicissitudes of human life, but which strengthens ever, in sickness and in health, in youth and in maturity, in prosperity and in adversity, and which, while it strengthens, fails not to represent those noble and beautiful qualities of the soul which distinguish the sexes and characterize the stronger Man, and gentler Woman; and this distinction must be marked and perpetual in order to experience the blessings contingent upon the existence of perpetual love and honor, one toward the other.

a continually unfolding love for one another

The true marriage is first Natural, then Spiritual, then Celestial, in its progressive growth. And the eternally conjoined have an unfailing evidence of their destiny by experiencing a continually unfolding love for one another, which grows stronger and stronger as they pursue life's path and near the Spirit-Home. But here let it be impressed, that with some on the earth, misunderstandings may occur, and, by their fearful and invidious influence, even the truly married may be moved to separate on the way, until they arrive where misunderstandings cannot exist.

• Editor’s note: This is why Twins must first “make their music pure” before coming together, or they will hurt each other, as misunderstandings can keep them apart for a long while. 

These misapprehensions may proceed from the dissimilarity of individual education, or from habit and acquired superficial desires; but from whatever outer cause they may arise, search ye within; and, if ye are conscious of entertaining a living and growing affection for the offending spirit, strive to extinguish all differences and unfriendliness instantaneously by a mutual flash of that love which is immortal.

the inwrought adaptation: you are just like me

The human Soul is capable of inconceivable expansion; its sensibilities are pure and almost immeasurable. The female Spirit feels a boundless, undiminishable love; the male is conscious of a high and insurmountable wisdom; and these embodied principles irresistibly seek and implore the presence of one another. To every individual, its counterpart - the one most loved - is the purest, the greatest, and the most beautiful, of all human beings; others may be beautiful and attractive, and may possess in reality many more accomplishments; but to the lover, the one beloved is the most beautiful; because there is felt an inwrought adaptation of desire to desire, impulse to impulse, organization to organization, Soul to Soul!

• Editor's note: Twin Souls are not two "yellow pencils, all in a row"; each asserts his or her own opinions; but, as the mystics are quick to point out, these sacred two share a secret likeness, a hidden similarity, at the core of being, an "inwrought adaptation," which, soul to soul, cries, "you are just like me."

This philosophy of marriage is that which angels know [as corroborating the scripture] —the only true marriage, which originated with the Divine Mind… These principles of matrimonial association are, to the spiritually enlightened, altogether self-evident [needs no explaning as they feel the reality deep within], chaste, and exalting; and it seems almost like "an act of supererogation [to do more than duty requires]," to venture the addition of a single thought with reference to the daily application of these principles to mankind. Nevertheless, upon reflection, a practical application of these truths is greatly to be desired, and a few suggestions concerning it are here deemed wisdom.

In the first place: a female, in seeking her congenial associate, should, particularly and especially, desire a companion with social, moral, and intellectual qualifications adequate to the position of friend, counselor, protector, lover, and governor. Her affections should not be purchased with gold and glittering ornaments; she should not fix her thoughts upon personal beauty, and her affections upon rich possessions, that fade away in the "trial hour;" but let the purity and permanency of mind - the fullness and congeniality of soul - be the foundation of her attachment, and she will never repent the "hour of marriage," as too many are compelled to do after having yielded themselves up to some external fascination or excitement, and thus secured to themselves a rudimental life-time of sadness and misery.

And it is very wrong to enter upon the marriage state early in life. This is a sad error of American women. The joy, beauty and perfections of the female character are naturally developed in maturer years; but, owing to the general encouragements to precocious development and the unchaste and improper marriages which result from such encouragements, the female is usually depressed, perplexed, and loaded with maternal cares, at a period when youth should be allowed its full and perfect development.

the "unpardonable" sin against the holy spirit of authentic romantic love

Meanwhile, the male should seek the female with the most pure and unselfish motives - the principle of an internal affinity should alone actuate him in his desires for a conjugal companion. There is no security, no probability of happiness, separate from [this] principle. The indwelling consciousness of right, in every mind, cannot be violated with impunity. Insensibility may be induced with opiates or alcohol, and the dictates of conscience may be silenced with a succession of physical excitements; but when the body will no longer yield to opiates or diversion, then comes the "tug of war" in the soul. The slightest impression of wrong doing comes boldly up before the imperial court of conscience, every unholy thought is a prisoner before the reason, and thus every man experiences the legitimate consequences of his sin against the Holy Spirit [of true romantic love], which cannot be forgiven by any person or principle, but only outlived by a righteous life.

• Editor’s note: Davis here makes allusion to the scripture concerning the unpardonable “sin against the Holy Spirit - against the Purified Consciousness, that is, against one's own better counsel; an ignoring of the warning signals while submitting to animal passion; the internal "tug of war in the soul." This reference to "sin against the Holy Spirit" means that people realize, on a deeper level, that a materialistically-based marriage is contrary to sacred destiny, a life out of harmony with Nature, Heaven, and God's plan - legally authenticated church-state nuptial documents, notwithstanding. If he or she marries another against whom the deeper soul-energies protest, there will be ample time to think about one's waywardness and self-inflicted pain. This misdeed of "marrying in haste and repenting at leisure" will not be cavalierly "forgiven," dispatched with perfunctory prayer or magic hand-sign, but must be "outlived."

First: Woman builds the foundation-walls of society … she needs to be informed that True Marriage consists in, and is developed, not by flattery, passion, personal charms, age, wealth, education or perpetual deception, but that a true union, a true oneness of Soul, is developed by an internal affinity, by the interior and eternal Law of Association; she needs to be informed that the consequences of True Marriage are of everlasting duration...

I come now to consider Woman in her second sphere of action, in the Family Sphere. According to the organization and education of the female spirit will be the home she presents to her husband and children… The female presence there, is the Spirit of his life - the central spring of his joys and intellectual actions - and, without her, Man is unrefined, wanting in gentleness and majesty. She displays a grace and ease in the several departments of her vocation, and breathes forth from her boundless love an atmosphere, to inhale which, is purity, refinement and happiness. She manifests her heart in her works; and its gentle and varied pulsations are felt throughout the veins and arteries of her household. Harmony in the family regulations develops harmony in each Individual; because action and re-action are the inevitable results of life and animation. Home is a reality; and the reality has developed the word which is wreathed with affections, potentialized by internal attractions - the sweet word Home, which is next to Mother, on every tongue, and in every heart.

Woman is a spirit of Love - she is a Revelation of refinement, of grace, and of beauty. She possesses the power of rendering the local habitation of her husband and children a representation of paradise, and of illustrating to the world a beautiful Heaven upon earth...

Editor’s note: Consider again how the popular press, controlled by society’s monied interests, utterly misrepresented the “Free Lovers.” This sort of propaganda should be expected any time a reformer attempts to “overturn the money tables in the temple.” We see this kind of slanted and lying reporting everywhere today, against those who stand up for personal freedoms, but are vilified as kooks and dangerous.