...Having a power which is higher than organic force, the human will can overcome material gravity, and thus the spirit-body may rise and float with the speed of light upon ethereal rivers of space. A voyage on the celestial seas may be accomplished quicker than a telegraph operator could record the fact for the daily press...."

Andrew Jackson Davis (1826 – 1910) was an American Spiritualist, born in Blooming Grove, New York. In 1917,his bookHarmonial Philosophy" was published posthumously.

In 1843 he heard lectures in Poughkeepsie on animal magnetism, as the phenomena of hypnotism was then termed, and found that he had remarkable clairvoyant powers. In the following year he had, he said, spiritual messages telling him of his life work. He eventually became known asthe Poughkeepsie Seer". For the next three years (1844–1847) he practised magnetic healing with much success; and in 1847 he published The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind, which in 1845 he had dictated while in a trance to his scribe, William Fishbough. He lectured with little success and returned to writing (or dictating ) books, publishing about 30 in all. Daviss complete library is now housed within the Edgar Cayce Library. Davis coined the termlaw of attraction".

The origin ofHarmonial Philosophy" is as remarkable as its contents, and its contents as remarkable as its origin. It will perhaps be in the recollection of some of our readers, that a work by the same author was published under the title of Principles of Nature," which was represented as containing lectures, or utterances, which he gave forth, from time to time, while in the clairvoyant state, before a number of intelligent and trustworthy individuals. Upon any hypothesis, however, the work was a phenomenon, meriting the attention of inquiring and scientific minds. Since that time, his psychological peculiarities have become even more remarkable.

The present work, therefore, does not profess to be produced, like the former, from the reported utterances of the clairvoyant, but from the calm reflections and carefully preserved notes of the student. It is intended to take a cyclopaedic range through the realms of knowledge, the author being impressed to search (as far as his abilities will permit) the natural, spiritual, and celestial departments of Gods universal Temple, and to reveal and suggest the proper application of such general truths as mans physical and spiritual organization requires in this his rudimental state of existence."

From the following brief statement of the impressions left upon our minds by the perusal of this volume, the reader will perceive a close resemblance between the Harmonial Philosophy and those of Spinoza and Swedenborg.—God is represented as the source and soul of the universe, giving birth to it, and dwelling in it (like the idea giving birth to, and dwelling in, the word), and, together with it, constituting the Cosmos, as the soul, together with the body, constitutes Man. Spirit and matter are merely relative terms. God is spirit in this relative sense. In a similar sense, the soul of man is regarded as spirit. Both God and the soul are organized substances, developing their own likenesses in those material embodiments in which they enelothe themselves, and which they pervade as power, though locally concentrated as intelligence—thereby possessing personality and consciousness. The universe, therefore, is an emanation, and all creation is a development. From the relation which the material or outward man bears to the spiritual or inward man, and which the material world sustains to the spiritual world, their respective functions and destinies are indicated. A scientific basis is laid for the hope of immortality, which thence becomes an object of knowledge, rather than of faith.