He then spoke of temperance in its widest sense, as being that which
contributed to health of the whole being, body and soul alike. He
said, "We should breakfast on sunrise and sup on sunset." And he read
passages from Pythagoras, recommending music as a diet. "Pythagoras
composed melodies for the night and morning, to purify the brain. He
forbade his disciples the using of flesh meats, or drinks which heated
and disturbed the brain, or hindered the music of dreams."
At this point of the conversation, Miss Bremer and Mr. Benzon, the
Swedish consul, came in, and there was a slight pause.
Mr. Alcott then resumed the subject, and read Emerson's Bacchus,
to which he gave new significance. When he had finished, he said,
"This is the wine we want." He then spoke of the subject proposed
for the evening's conversation, which was Enthusiasm, defining it as
"an abandonment to the instincts. The seer," he said, "was one in
whom memory predominated, and many of his visions were recollections
rather of a former than revelations of a future state." This state of
clairvoyance he named "thought a-bed, or philosophy recumbent"; and
in this view he spoke of "Swedenborg, who was an enthusiast in the
latter sense, and revealed remarkable things." He quoted a passage from
Swedenborg's diary, wherein he speaks of his being created with the
power of breathing inwardly, suspending his outward breathing, and in
this way conversed with angels and spirits.
Miss Bremer asked Mr. Alcott "if he called Swedenborg an enthusiast."
Mr. Alcott said, "Swedenborg was in such fine relations with nature and
spirit, that many things seemed revealed to him beyond the apprehension
of ordinary men. He was a seer rather of supernatural than of spiritual
things; a preternaturalist, rather than spiritualist. He had wonderful
insights into nature, also, which science was almost every day
confirming."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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