This you do know, that all mundane laws seem to be set aside; that the law of gravitation attracting bodies toward the earth; that the law by which the pressure of the atmosphere affects organic substance; that the cohesive properties of matter, and every individual property which matter is supposed to possess, pass away under the presence of this superior force. An intervening power sweeps in, clear, distinct, individualized, swaying the minds and senses of man by its wonderful presence, and peforming upon bodies and minds of human beings the miracle of revelation.
What I mean by revelation is knowledge derived from a priori sources; revelation that is born of the spirit, that dots not require the usual attributes and processes of intellectual study to arrive at it. And nothing more distinctly proves revelation and the supernatural character of all such manifestations than Modern Spiritualism.
Here let me analyze these words. Spiritualists are averse, as a rule, to the use of the word supernatural. For my own part, having knowledge of the nature of words, I choose that word to express everything that comes under the category of the manifestations of ancient or modern spiritualism. It is supernatural; it neither comes in with the tides nor goes out with them; it does not come in Spring, nor in Summer, nor Winter especially; it is not affected by the change of season or the changes of earthly atmosphere. It comes in heat and in cold, when it is rainy or when it is dry, in low altitudes or in high altitudes; it comes in consonance with the super-force of the universe, which is the power of will.
And if mediums are affected by surrounding atmosphere, by heat and cold, by joy and sorrow which intervenes, then it takes them out of their own condition, and forms for itself an atmosphere to produce its own manifestations. This is Spiritualism - is supernatural.
The natural laws of the universe are subject to routine and certainly unintelligent in the way of direct, conscious methods, but governed by certain fixed laws; and Spiritualism is as separate from natural law as the engineer is from his engine. This is what I mean.
There are many who object to the word miracle. For my own part I wish to restore that word to its legitimate use; to the vocabulary of Modern Spiritualism. Anything is a miracle which is the working of a wonder independently of the usual laws of nature. Every process of the mind, human affection, human hatred, human will, is a miracle. That which is the result of an organic process, the beating of the heart, the circulation of the blood, the endosmose and exos-mose action of the fluids of the body - these are natural.
But the miraculous part is, that thought intervenes, and every effect of mind upon matter is a miracle.
The same is true with that which comes in consonance with spiritual laws and processes of Materia Medica. The methods of physical surgery may or may not be in accordance with natural laws. They are certainly in accordance with very physical and, sometimes, very bungling laws. But thai particular super-science which, by the power of will, sets at naught the usual surgical methods; straightens the deformed limb, gives sight to the eye, hearing to the ear,as countless numbers of cases in the past attest, and as there are millions of living witnesses to testify to-day - that is the working of a miracle; that is the intervention of the power of the spirit, restoring and adjusting the physical form instead of theappli-caation of any external remedies. It is not by any physical process that this is wrought, but by a process that begins inversely with the physical, and restores the body as Love dm-.
Have you ever witnessed or seen recorded in medical books, how an invalid, confined to her couch for years, by the return of an absent friend, a great tide of joy flooding through all the being has restored that which medical skill in vain has tried to restore? That was a spiritual wonder; that was a miracle - -a miracle of joy.
Have you ever heard or known or experienced a case of love, where after long doubting or long waiting the loved object was restored, and instantly the miracle of health is wrought upon the invalid or the sufferer? That is a miracle.
By the same process, when death is robbed of its terror, and human life of its depression; when your loved ones bridge over the space between you and the world of spirits, and your physical maladies sink into insignificance before the light of the soul, healing by the laying on of hands or by the power of will from the spirit world will no longer be rare, but of constant occurrence. Miracles will be wrought daily, and an inverse process of life will be poured upon the world by this wonderful power of volition.
More than this: That which is rare, unusual and difficult to-day, in the coming time will become the ordinary and accepted method of life. Spirit communion will be no longer difficult nor beset with the doubts that intervene between you now.
Spirits are not doubtful, but mortals. Spirits do not live in the senses now, but in the spirit; and when your natures have become so accurately taught that, as you have accus-tomed yourself to railways, to telegraph messages, and the condition and processes of science in your daily life, so death will no longer be an inseparable barrier, and the daily interchange of thought between the two worlds, which some experience now - which thousands do - will then become the possession of hundreds of thousands; the great flood-tide of miracles will be turned upon the world, and those forces that now lie waiting to your hand - wonderful, potent, all-powerful - will be yours. Then indeed disease will be the exception, not the rule. Then indeed suffering will be the exception; all human misery be turned aside by the great wonder of that knowledge that will enable you to vanquish the physical pain that you now yield to, and will enable your spirit friends to vanquish in you the darkness that prohibits their light from entering.
I am speaking prophetically, but it is the prophecy of an actual fact already in existence somewhere. You only wait for its revelation as you wait for the revolution of planets, for the changes of the sun that bring many summers, or for any other fixed and accomplished power that is waiting for the growth and unfoldment of the world.
Meanwhile accept such ministrations as come to you, even in your imperfect and shadowed existence, as the heralders of that grander light, that loftier and diviner ministration that shall one day triumphantly take its place beside you in the world, and miracles will be the order of each day, and supernatural existence will be the native atmosphere of the soul.

Kindly re-produced with permission from the publishers of :
The Nature Of Spiritual Existence, And Spiritual Gifts, Given Through The Mediumship Of Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond by G.H.Hawes
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