In his isolation, however, his active mind tended to become more and more possessed by certain ideas, with which everything he read and heard was brought into relation. While still at Florence he had (possibly under the influence of Mrs. Browning) become greatly interested in the teachings of Swedenborg and the phenomena of spiritualism which seemed to him a natural development of Swedenborg's theories. At first he was apt to speak rather lightly of spirit revelations. In 1852 he wrote to Alfred: "Powers the sculptor here, who is a Swedenborgian, says he once had a vision of two interwoven angels upon a ground of celestial azure clearly revealed to him by supernatural light after he had put out his candle and was lying awake in bed, and believes that these are only the beginning of wonders; the spirits themselves announce the dawn of a new time and the coming of the Millennium, and he firmly believes that all we now do by costly material processes will in the returning Golden Age of the world be accomplished for us by ministering spirits. 'Thou shalt see the angels of heaven ascending and descending on the Son of man.' I go with him as far as to believe that these are spiritual revelations, but I confess I cannot accompany him in his belief in their beneficent intentions. God speaks to the heart of man by His Spirit, not thro' table legs; the miracles of Christ were of inestimable worth, but these unfortunate ghosts either drivel like schoolgirls or bounce out at once into the most shameful falsehoods, and by their actual presence, pretending to be in their final state, they seem to have for their object, tho' they carefully avoid touching on those subjects, to undermine in the hearts of Christians the spiritual doctrines of the Resurrection of the spiritual body and of the judgment to come. And the more effectually to unsettle the old Theology, the cant of these spirits is that God is a God of Love, Love, Love, continually repeated _ad nauseam_. So He is, but 'My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor My ways your ways,' 'He scourgeth every son that He receiveth,' 'He loveth those whom He chasteneth,' 'it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,' 'the pitiful God trieth the hearts and the reins.' But these spirits, by for ever harping upon the Love of God in their insipid language, seem to me to be anxious to persuade us that He is a 'fine old country gentleman with large estate,' or something of that kind, seated in a deeply-cushioned armchair, and patting the heads of His rebellious children when they come whimpering to Him, yielding to anything in the shape of intercession, and, rather than that St. Joseph or any other saint should be offended, ready to admit a brigand into Heaven. So that I thoroughly distrust your spirits and expect no virtue will come out of them.