Mr. Tiffany has judiciously failed to cater to the tastes of those who but magnify Kings to conceive of Gods. He has presented the Deity, or the consideration of the Deity, to the minds of his audience, in such a manner as to call forth the highest feelings of the soul for the comprehension of the highest truth. The condition of the Spirit in the Spirit-world, as portrayed by him, is freed from the melo-dramatic condition in which it has been painted by the fashionable and various theologians of the day. The character of those Spirits is shown to be in accordance with the great law of God—Progression. While we freely admit the usefulness and beauty of many works written on abstract phases of Spiritualism, we can not but perceive a want of continuity in their didactic character; and from the point where the mind admits a future state of existence to the supposed character of that existence and the proper preparation of the Spirit while in the form for entering upon such a condition, we can not but observe that no work preceding these Lectures by Mr. Tiffany has met the demand. A careful reading of these Lectures, we are confident, will elevate and instruct every Spiritualist. It will enable him to review his intuitions, and to find their true value. It will chasten his confidence in communications which are not self-evident as truths, and improve his power to comprehend these truths. We ask the reader to peruse the following pages no more rapidly than he can clearly comprehend them. Every proposition is worthy his best thought and highest power of study; and if he follows them with the same pure aspiration that seems to imbue their author, he will rise from their consideration a wiser and a better man. PHENIX. THE ASTRAL WORLD HIGHER OCCULT POWERS CHAPTER I. ON THE DETERMINATION OF TRUTH. In commencing the investigation of Spiritualism, it becomes necessary in the outset that we find some point from which to start, or to commence our examination; for, in the inquiry after truth, we must find some standard by which we can determine truth—for unless we have that to which we can appeal to determine infallibly what is truth, however much we may investigate, we shall always be uncertain as to the accuracy of our conclusions. Man, as a conscious being, endowed with the faculty of perceiving being and existence, and also being susceptible to the influence of that which he perceives, himself becomes the center of all his investigations in the universe; and if there is any standard by which to try truth, he must find that standard within his own consciousness. Outside of man’s consciousness there is no standard to him of truth.