"I unhappily lived in a day when it had been largely embraced. Had I lived in the day when it was conceived and promulgated, or approximately near it and been possessed of the physical, mental and spiritual organization with which I was favored in earth life, I would have undoubtedly earnestly combated it. But in my time it had grown into prominence and general acceptance among Christian sects, including the Lutheran, to which I adhered before my spiritual illumination; and hence while my spiritual mediumistic unfoldment, mental adaptabilities and capabilities would not allow me to accept the literal teaching of purblind theology on the subject, I was disqualified from perceiving and promulgating the real truth. I endeavored, however, to do what the theologians have never attempted, namely, to assign reasons for the existence of heavens and hells in justification and defense of the Lord. The groundlessness of my philosophy and the impotency of my reasoning I was unable to understand until the lapse of years after my entrance into the spiritual world, and then only by slow and discreet degrees. Step by step only did I receive the influx of spiritual light and truth, opening my eyes to the truth and impressing my soul with the consciousness of the errors and falsities of my teachings when on the earth embodied. "In the spiritual world we are not allowed to perceive truth except by degrees and interior growth, and only as we are enabled to outgrow and disown error. Our errors, whether of acts and deeds committed, duties omitted, or false theories, either taught or believed by us when in the form, follow us to the spiritual world and cling to us with a perfectly amazing and persistent tenacity, and this constitutes hell and it exists nowhere else." June 22, 1882: "In my philosophy of correspondences there was much truth, with here and there a shade of error. It was argumentative, speculative, and characterized by analogous reasoning, but not sufficiently intuitive to reach the full height of spiritual induction. But whatever errors may have crept into this department of my writings, they have been comparatively harmless.