The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1267]
I have been lately lecturing on “American Poetry” and have drawn profuse tears from large and intellectual audiences by the recital of your “Heavenly Vision” — which I can never weary of repeating.
You mistake me in supposing I dislike the transcendentalists — it is only the pretenders and sophists among them. My own faith is indeed my own. You will find it, somewhat detailed, in a forthcoming number of the “Columbian Magazine”, published here. I have written for it an article headed “Mesmeric Revelation,” which see. It may be out in the August or September number.
I disagree with you in what you say of man’s advance towards perfection. Man is now only more active, not wiser, nor more happy, than he was 6000 years ago. To say that we are better than ou[r] progenitors, is to make the foregone age[s] only the rudiment of the pre[se]nt & future; whereas each individual man is the rudiment of a future material (notspiritual) being. It were to suppose God unjust to suppose those who have died before us possessed of less advantage than ourselves.
There is no such thing as spirituality. God is material. All things are material; yet the matter of God has all the qualities which we attribute to spirit: thus the difference is scarcely more than of words. There is a matter without particles — of no atomic composition: this is God. It permeates and impels all things, and thus is all things in itself. Its agitation is the thought of God, and creates. Man and other beings (inhabitants of stars) are portions of this unparticled matter, individualized by being incorporated in the ordinary or particled matter. — Thus they exist rudimentally. Death is the painful metamorphosis. The worm becomes the butterfly — but the butterfly is still material — of a matter, however, which cannot be recognized by our rudimental organs. But for the necessity of the rudimental life, there would have been no stars — no worlds — nothing which we term material. These spots are the residences of the rudimental things. At death, these, taking a n[e]w form, of a n[o]vel matter, pass every where, and act all things, by mere volition, and are cognizant of all secrets but the one — the nature of the volition of God — of the agitation of the unparticled matter.
Write upon receipt of this — and do not affront me by paying postage or speaking of these trivialities at all. There is nothing which gives me more sincere pleasure than the receipt of your letters.
Your friend most sincere[l]y.
E A Poe.
Thomas H. Chivers to Edgar Allan Poe — August 6, 1844
Oaky Grove, Ga., Aug. 6th, 1844.
My Dear Friend, — I have just received your beautiful, friendly, abstruse, and transcendental letter of July the 10th, in answer to mine of June the 15th, and I am truly delighted with its contents. I should like very much to see your article entitled “Mesmeric Revelation.” Will you be so. good as to forward the Number of the “Columbian Magazine “ on to me containing it? If you will, I will do ten times as much for you.
You say that you disagree with me in what I say of “man’s advance towards perfection.” You also say that “each individual Man is the rudiment of a future material (not spiritual) being. “ I do not mean that the foregone Ages were the rudiment of the Present and the Future in regard to creation; but only in regard to knowledge. I contend that each individual Man is not only the rudiment of a future material, but spiritual,being. His future material and spiritual being is the consummation of the perfection of the rudimental material and spiritual being of the Past and Present. The rudimental Man is perennial in the immortality of the soul, which carries along with it the