Robert Dale Owen Writes about His Book on the Phenomena of Spiritualism and Says He Never Heard of Divine Love

February 11, 1919
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, Robert Dale Owen.

Let me say just a word, for I am interested in your work and in the phenomena of spiritualism. I have been with you as you read the book, which attempts to show the truth of spiritual manifestations, and the instances mentioned of spirits showing themselves in the garb of humans are true. I was then an investigator of the question and had only the knowledge, which I received from my own observation and, hence, was an outsider, as it were, of these spiritual phenomena. I mean that I was not one of the gifted ones of earth, who can have the power of receiving or communicating with spirits by reason of the fact that they possess the power of seeing or feeling or hearing the presence of spirits. I was not so gifted.

I am now an investigator of things spiritual, but not of the possibility of communicating with the spirit world, for this I know to be a fact, and beyond all question, and men who doubt the fact are in the condition of those who will not learn, because they do not believe in the first principles of the phenomena and are willing to let their prejudices or their indifference lead them away from the truth.

The phenomena, which I have portrayed in my book, are very simple and of the lower order of spiritual phenomena, and yet men will not believe because they fail to approach the subject with open minds and desire to learn the truth even though the search for the same leads them along lines of investigation that are so foreign to the course of study that they are pursuing in their various vocations. Of all the bigoted and hardheaded investigators of truth, the preachers are the most difficult to teach the truth of spiritualism, and their periscope is one that enables them to see only in a straight line that has been laid down to them for ages and holds them in its iron grasp.

I would like to come to you sometime and write you a long description of the spirit world and its phenomena, although it may not surprise you very much, considering what you have had revealed to you.

Well, you have asked me some questions, which I cannot answer in one breath. But I am in the Third Sphere, where many spirits are pursuing their studies of things which pertain to the laws of the spirit world, as well as to the laws of the earth.

I have not heard of the Divine Love, except as we call all love divine, and it must be so, for it leads us to the spheres where those who are sinless and in harmony with the Father reside. I am a true believer in the things of God and in the redemption of all mankind, sooner or later. My intellect is only part of my existence in the spirit world, and above and greater than that is the love that causes me to become in harmony with the laws of God, and at-one with him. These are the answers to your questions, and I should like to write you at length upon the truths of what I have so briefly stated. I know that you are very busy in receiving communications from the spirit world and have little time for communications from strangers, yet I should like to write at least one letter in reference to my condition and knowledge of things as I have found them.

I say what is true, for I have never heard of the Divine Love in the sense that you have spoken of. I have never talked with spirits who claim to have this Love, and to be better than are the spirits who are progressing in the love which they have, and as to immortality, I only know that death merely sets the soul of the mortal free and enables it to enter onto its progress towards the higher spheres, where truth and goodness are.

Let me wait a moment in my astonishment, for I see more spirits who seem to be of a different order of spirit from me, and are brighter and more beautiful, and are willing to tell me of the Divine Love, for they all claim to know it. But I do not understand and I am sure that if they are possessed of this Love, it is only another form of belief. I am all confused and cannot think for the moment. I will come again. I must go. Good night,

Robert Dale Owen