Oahspe (Newbrough)

Oahspe is the scripture of Faithism, asserted to have been mediumistically received by John Ballou Newbrough via automatic typing on his typewriter.

How Oahspe Was Written (Newbrough, 1883)

 * Some two years ago, Oahspe was mechanically written through my hands by some other intelligence than my own. Many Spiritualists are acquainted with this automatic movement of the hands, independent of one's own volition. There are thousands and thousands of persons who have this quality. It can also be educated, or rather, the susceptibility to external power can be increased. In my own case I discovered, many years ago, in sitting in circles to obtain spiritual manifestations, that my hands could not lie on the table without flying off into these "tantrums." Often they would write messages, left or right, backward or forward; nor could I control them any other way than by withdrawing from the table. Sometimes the power thus baffled would attack my tongue, or my eyes, or my ears, and I talked and saw and heard differently from my normal state. Then I went to work in earnest to investigate spiritual. ism, and I investigated over 200 mediums, traveling hundreds and hundreds of miles for this purpose. Often I took them to my own house and experimented with them to my heart's content. I found that nearly all of them were subject to this in voluntary movement of the hands, or to entrancement. They told me it was angels controlling them. In course of time, about ten or fifteen years, I began to believe in spiritualism. But I was not satisfied with the communications; I was craving for the light of heaven. I did not desire communications from friends or relatives, or information about earthly things; I wished to learn something about the spirit world; what the angels did, how they travelled, and the general plan of the universe. So after a while I took it into my head that wise and exalted angels would commune better with us if we purified ourselves physically and spiritually. Then I gave up eating flesh and fish, milk and butter, and took to rising before day, bathing twice a day, and occupying a small room alone, where I sat every morning half an hour before sunrise, recounting daily to my Creator my shortcomings in governing myself in thought and deed. In six years training I reduced myself from two hundred and fifty pounds down to one hundred and eighty; my rheumatism was all gone, and I had no more head aches. I became limber and sprightly. A new lease of life came to me. Then a new condition of control came upon my hands; instead of the angels holding my hands as formerly they held their hands over my head (and they were clothed with sufficient materiality for me to see them,) and a light fell upon my own hands as they lay on the table. In the meantime I had attained to hear audible angel voices near me. I was directed to get a typewriter, which writes by keys like a piano. This I did, and I applied myself industriously to learn it, but with only indifferent success. For two years more the angels propounded to me questions relative to heaven and earth, which no mortal could answer very intelligently. I always look back on these two years as an enigma. Perhaps it was to show me that man is but an ignoramus at best; perhaps I was waiting for constitutional growth to be good. Well, one morning the light struck both hands on the back and they went for the typewriter, for some fifteen minutes, very vigorously. I was told not to read what was printed, and I had worked myself into such a religious fear of losing this new power that I obeyed reverently. The next morning before sunrise, the same power came and wrote (or printed rather) again. Again I laid the matter away very religiously, saying little about it to anybody. One morning I accidentally (seemed accidental to me) looked out of the window and beheld the line of light that rested on my hands extending heavenward like a telegraph wire toward the sky. Over my head were three pairs of hands, fully materialized; behind me stood another angel with her hand on my shoulders. My looking did not disturb the scene; my hands kept right on, printing &mdash; printing. For fifty weeks this continued every morning, half an hour or so before sunrise, and then it ceased, and I was told to read and publish the book Oahspe. The peculiar drawings in Oahspe were made with pencil in the same way. A few of the drawings I was told to copy from other books such as Saturn, the Egyptian ceremonies, etc. Now during all the while I have pursued my avocation (dentistry), nor has this matter nor my diet (vegetables, fruit, and farinaceous food), detracted any from my health or strength, although I have continued this discipline for upward of ten or more years. I am firmly convinced that there are numberless persons who might attain to marvelous development if they would thus train themselves. A strict integrity to one's highest light is essential to development. Self-abnegation and purity should be the motto and discipline of every one capable of angel communion. New York, January 21, 1883.