Andrew Jackson Davis 1826 -1910
Andrew
Jackson Davis Biography1
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Birth: August 11, 1826 in Blooming Grove, New York, United
States
Death: January 13, 1910
Medium, channel, and one of the founders of modern
Spiritualism. He was born August 11, 1826, at Blooming Grove, Orange County,
New York. Young Davis had gifts of clairvoyance and heard voices at an early
age. On advice so obtained he pursuaded his father in 1838 to move to
Poughkeepsie, New York (Andrew would later be known as "the Poughkeepsie
Seer''). Up to age 16 he received no formal education. Apprenticed to a
shoemaker named Armstrong, he worked at the trade for two years.
In 1843 Dr. J. S. Grimes, professor of jurisprudence in
the Castleton Medical College, visited the city and delivered a series of
lectures on mesmerism. Davis attended and was tried as a subject with no
result. Later, a local tailor, William Livingston, made fresh attempts; he
threw Davis into "magnetic sleep'' and discovered that in this state the
human body became transparent to Davis's eyes, enabling him to give accurate
diagnosis of disease.
In 1844 Davis had a strange experience that was to have
an enduring effect on his life. In a state of semitrance he wandered away from
home and awoke the next morning 40 miles away in the mountains. There he
claimed to have met two venerable men--whom he later identified as the ancient
physician Galen and the Swedish seer Emanuel Swedenborg--and experienced a
state of mental illumination.
He began teaching and published a small pamphlet,
Lectures on Clairmativeness, about the mysteries of human magnetism and
electricity. He did not include this pamphlet among his later works but
explained in his Autobiography that the title was meant to be Clairlativeness.
During a professional tour he met a Dr. Lyon, a Bridgeport
musician, and the Reverend William Fishbough. Lyon was appointed his magnetizer
(i.e., mesmerist) and Fishbough his scribe. With their assistance, in November
1845 Davis began to dictate his great work, The Principles of Nature, Her
Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind. The dictation lasted for 15 months.
Lyon repeated each trance utterance, and Fishbough transcribed them. They both
insisted that except for grammatical corrections they performed no editing.
During the dictation, the sole means of livelihood for the trio was the seer's
earning power in giving medical diagnoses. When this proved insufficient the
lady whom Davis later married came to their assistance.
There were many enthusiastic witnesses to the delivery of
the dictation. Dr. George Bush, professor of Hebrew at the University of New
York, declared that he heard Davis correctly quote Hebrew. The seer's good
faith was also established by his answers to impromptu questions put to him as
tests while he was in the clairvoyant state. Bush said, "Taken as a whole
the work is a profound and elaborate discussion of the philosophy of the
universe, and for grandeur of conception, soundness of principle, clearness of
illustration, order of arrangement and encyclopaedic range of subjects, I know
no work of any single mind that will bear away from it the palm.''
It was partly due to Bush's enthusiasm that the book,
published in 1847, was received with such interest. Within a few weeks of its
appearance, however, Bush published a pamphlet, Davis' Revelations Revealed,
warning the public against being misled by the numerous errors, absurdities,
and falsities contained in Davis's work. It was clear to him, he said, that
Davis, although apparently an honest and singlehearted young man, had been made
the mouthpiece of uninstructive and deceiving spirits. This rapid change of
opinion was later explained by Frank Podmore in his book Modern Spiritualism
(1902) as stemming from the seer's attitude toward Christianity in the section
of the book on divine revelations, which Bush probably did not read in advance
and which contradicted Davis's views as expressed in his Lectures on
Clairmativeness.
The book soon went through many editions, which testified
to the appeal of the style and the remarkable qualities of this extraordinary
work. This opening passage about the Creation is an example:
"In the beginning the Univercoelum was one boundless,
undefinable, and unimaginable ocean of Liquid Fire. The most vigorous and
ambitious imagination is not capable of forming an adequate conception of the
height and depth and length and breadth thereof. There was one vast expanse of
liquid substance. It was without bounds--inconceivable--and with qualities and
essences incomprehensible. This was the original condition of Matter. It was
without forms, for it was but one Form. It had not motions, but it was an
eternity of Motion. It was without parts, for it was a Whole. Particles did not
exist, but the Whole was as one Particle. There were not suns, but it was one
Eternal Sun. It had no beginning and it was without end. It had not circles,
for it was one Infinite Circle. It had not disconnected power, but it was the
very essence of all Power. Its inconceivable magnitude and constitution were
such as not to develop forces, but Omnipotent Power.
"Matter and Power were existing as a Whole, inseparable.
The Matter contained the substance to produce all suns, all worlds, and systems
of worlds, throughout the immensity of Space. It contained the qualities to
produce all things that are existing upon each of those worlds. The Power
contained Wisdom and Goodness, Justice, Mercy and Truth. It contained the
original and essential Principle that is displayed throughout immensity of
Space, controlling worlds and systems of worlds, and producing Motion, Life,
Sensation and Intelligence, to be impartially disseminated upon their surfaces
as Ultimates.''
The first part of the book is the exposition of a
mystical philosophy, the second reviews the books of the Old Testament,
contests their infallibility, and describes Christ as a great moral reformer
but not divine. The third advances a system of socialism.
The originality of the book as a whole was never
contested. Bush, however, pointed out a strange coincidence. The revelations,
for the most part, express views similar to Emanuel Swedenborg's; the language
is in several cases "all but absolutely verbal [verbatim],'' and there is
a striking similarity to Swedenborg's book The Economy of the Animal Kingdom, a
few English copies of which had just reached the United States.
Bush used this as an argument for Davis's supernatural powers,
because it was doubtful the book could have reached him. In fact, Davis
believed he was controlled by Swedenborg while he produced the book. In his
publication Mesmer and Swedenborg (1847) Bush printed a letter from Davis
accompanying a paper written in a cave near Poughkeepsie, on June 15, 1846. The
paper accurately quoted long passages from Swedenborg's Earths in the Universe.
Bush was satisfied that Davis had never heard of the book, but it is difficult
to believe that Davis had not read it.
An apparently more serious charge could have been leveled
against Davis's The Great Harmonia (1852). There are long passages in the book
that correspond with the text of Sunderland's Pathetism (1847). But even Frank
Podmore, a noted skeptic, believed that Davis could not have copied these passages
and that the explanation lay in an extraordinary memory.
The statements concerning astronomy in the divine revelations
section of The Principles of Nature are revealing. In March 1846, when the
existence of an eighth planet was yet an astronomical supposition (the
discovery of Neptune, verifying Leverrier's calculations, did not take place
until September 1846), the book spoke of nine planets. The density of the
eighth planet as given by Davis agreed with later findings. (The ninth planet,
Pluto, was discovered in 1933.) On the other hand, Davis spoke of four
planetoids--Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta--whereas there are now believed to
be hundreds. He also said that the solar system revolves around a great center
together with all the other stars. Davis further believed Saturn to be
inhabited by a more advanced humanity than ours, Jupiter and Mars were also
inhabited, and on Venus and Mercury the development of humanity was less
advanced than on Earth. The three outer planets he declared lifeless.
His prediction of the coming of Spiritualism was often quoted:
"It is a truth that spirits commune with one another while
one is in the body and the other in the higher spheres--and this, too, when the
person in the body is unconscious of the influx, and hence cannot be convinced
of the fact; and this truth will ere long present itself in the form of a
living demonstration. And the world will hail with delight the ushering-in that
era when the interiors of men will be opened, and the spiritual communion will
be established such as is now being enjoyed by the inhabitants of Mars,
Jupiter, and Saturn.''
In his notes dated March 31, 1848, the following statement
occurs: "About daylight this morning a warm breathing passed over my face
and I heard a voice, tender and strong, saying: `Brother, the good work has
begun--behold, a living demonstration is born.' I was left wondering what could
be meant by such a message.''
The publication of The Principals of Nature made Davis famous
and he was soon surrounded by a band of enthusiasts. As their mouthpiece, on
December 4, 1847, the first issue of the Univercoelum (apparently coined from
Swedenborg's "universum coelum'') appeared. Universalist minister S. B.
Brittan became editor in chief. Assisting were a number of outstanding
contemporaries, including Fishbough, Thomas Lake Harris, W. M. Fernald, J. K.
Ingalls, Dr. Chivers, and Frances Green. The object of the publication was
"the establishment of a universal system of truth, the reform and the
reorganization of society.'' Davis contributed many articles that were later
incorporated into The Great Harmonia.
After 12 months in existence, the Univercoelum absorbed the
Christian Rationalist, a similar organ, however, its publication came to an end
in July 1849. It was succeeded by W. M. Channing's The Present Age, a largely
socialist organ to which Davis and his friends no longer contributed. They
accepted as their new mouthpiece The Spirit Messenger of Springfield,
Massachusetts, which was jointly edited by Rev. R. P. Ambler and Apollos Munn.
As Davis's friends were scattered, other periodicals were founded and his
"harmonial philosophy'' was independently carried on.
About the time the Univercoelum was founded, Davis disposed of the
services of his mesmerizer. By an effort of will he could by that time throw
himself into what he called "the superior condition.'' He also remembered
his experiences while in trance and wrote his subsequent books in his own hand.
He disclaimed dictation by the spirits and said that he could write them by a
process of inner perception. Except for seeing apparitions, he was unacquainted
with abnormal physical phenomena until 1850, when he paid a visit to Dr.
Eliakim Phelps's house in Stratford, Connecticut, which was the scene of
violent poltergeist disturbances. In the same year he published a pamphlet on
his observations, entitled The Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse.
Davis's teachings left a deep impression on his age. The Great
Harmonia passed through 40 editions. His autobiography The Magic Staff extended
only to the year 1857, but was later supplemented with a sequel, Beyond the
Valley (1885). In 1860 he started the Herald of Progress, a weekly that
absorbed the Spiritual Telegraph. In the late years of his life he had a small
bookshop in Boston. There he sold books and, having earned a degree in natural
medicine, prescribed herbal remedies for his patients.
Davis died January 13, 1910. He was an important influence in
the early development of Spiritualism, particularly in his association of
mediumistic revelations with religious principles. His concepts of after-death
spheres for departed spirits, which he named "Summerland,'' are still part
of the beliefs of many modern Spiritualists. He influenced most subsequent
Spiritualist movements, including those of Thomas Lake Harris. It even seems
possible that Edgar Allan Poe's "Eureka'' owes its inception to Davis's
Principles of Nature.
In his practice of diagnosing and treating illness in a trance
condition, Davis also anticipated the rationale of the modern seer Edgar Cayce.
Sources:
Brown, Slater. The Heyday of Spiritualism.
New York: Hawthorn Books, 1970.
Davis, Andrew J. Answers to Ever-Recurring
Questions from People: A Sequel to the Penetralia. Boston: Banner of Light
Publishing, 1862.
Beyond the Valley; A Sequel to the Magic
Staff: An Autobiography. Boston: Colby & Rich, 1885.
The Great Harmonia. New York: J. S.
Redfield, Fowler & Wells, 1853.[5
vols.]
The Magic Staff: An Autobiography of Andrew Jackson
Davis. New York, 1857.
Penetralia: Being Harmonial Answers to
Important Questions. Boston: Bela Marsh, 1858.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. The History of
Spiritualism. 2 vols. London, 1926. Reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1975.
["The Prophet of the New Revelation"]
Podmore, Frank. Modern Spiritualism. 2 vols.
London, 1902. Reprinted as Mediums of the 19th Century. 2 vols. New Hyde Park,
N.Y.: University Books, 1963.
The above writeup was reproduced by
permission from "Andrew Jackson Davis." Encyclopedia of Occultism and
Parapsychology, 5th ed. Edited by J. Gordon Melton, 2001.
1.
Taken from Spirit Writings at
http://www.spiritwritings.com/andrewjacksondavis.html