This section is from the book "A Book Written By The Spirits Of The So-Called Dead", by Carl Gustaf Helleberg. Also available from Amazon: A Book Written by the Spirits of the So-Called Dead.
" At one period in the history of Mars the art of photography was discovered. Of course it attracted great attention and challenged admiration. It was regarded not only as wonderful but marvelous. The discoverer was almost deified, for he was thought to be endowed with something of the divine nature not discoverable in others, until the art advanced step by step, improvement on improvement, when the divinity with which the discoverer had been invested by the admiring multitudes dwindled into insignificance, and the very sensible conclusion reached that he was merely highly gifted and spiritually inspired, but altogether human still. Compare the primitive system of photography, limited as it was, to objects of immediate presence to that now existing, whereby worlds and systems of worlds are made tributary to its discoveries and achievements. Now, instead of the wonders of the art inspiring hero worship of the men engaged in its studies and who produce the wondrous results, a feeling of awe and veneration for the continually increasing wonders of the creation is inspired. The admiration is justly transferred from man to the creator and the stupendous majesty of his laws and works. On Mars photography is now and has been for a long time a favorite and delightful employment pursued by the many, for all have the advantages of it. Therefore the study, not only of their own world, but numerous others, constitutes a pleasant, instructive, and intellectually remunerative employment. Nor is this confined and limited to material worlds, but reaches out and embraces the spiritual spheres of each.
"Again, take the science of chemistry. It once only dealt with material solids, but now on Mars it has reached a higher plane or sphere, and the sublimated substances, still possessed of modified degrees of matter, likewise atmospheric and spiritual substances, come within the purview and yield obedience to its powerful processes of analysis. This is still and ever will be an instructive and profitable field for those aspiring minds of the Marsians bent on the acquisition of knowledge and the understanding of the infinitely varied and universal laws by which all nature and the universe are governed and controlled.
" May 22. On Mars the people are divided up into a very great many societies. The membership of these societies is not a matter of choice and volition. Here you have degrees of social society, and you say there are three grades—the lower, middle and upper. This is so in the deceptive seeming, but in fact you have many more, but you do not understand the subtle laws governi ng in their formation and diversity. You also have secret societies, into which you require the consent of a certain number to gain admission, while at the same time a certain other number may object. Certain arbitrary votes in number control the question of application, and by them your admission or rejection is determined. In your social society quite a different rule or policy prevails. In a certain grade or stratum true merit and worth are not considered of any moment, but wealth and pecuniary par excellence constitute the law of attraction. In other words, and what ought to burn your cheeks with shame, it matters not how morally depraved or utterly abandonee! to all real intrinsic worth of manhood or womanhood, a large supply of the world's fleeting possessions constitutes the real standard of respectability, and the sure passport into the higher walks of social life. On Mars they have long since passed beyond and above this purely human, unspiritual and unholy rule. There they are known and estimated as they really are, for they can not disguise their moral and spiritual status; it is read in the look, the walk, the thought-words, and most potently in the aura emitted, permeating and coloring the very garments worn, thereby disclosing by shades of color the moral, men-tal and spiritual degree of advancement. You have an old adage, which contains a very great truth, namely: < Birds of a feather will flock together,' ' like draws like.' Under the operation of an immutable law of attraction and repulsion the societies of Mars are formed, and this law, so utterly disregarded by embodied man on the earth, applies to and is operative in the spiritual spheres of all the innumerable worlds of the vast, illimitable universe of God. And this law of attraction and repulsion is indiscriminate and recognizes no distinction on account of wealth, social standing or prominence among men. It deals with spiritual laws and spiritual truths and spiritual things. There being different societies on Mars, formed and governed by this great and inexorable law of selection or attraction and repulsion, you see readily that their employments must of necessity and in some regards be quite different.
" May 29. We have endeavored to keep before you, at the risk of being censured for occasional reiteration and repetition, the great primary and fundamental fact that all things under the divine arrangement advance in the ascending: scale of infinite and unend-ing progression by regular and gradual series, and in equal ratio ; but you must note an important fact in this connection, namely, that all do not at the same time reach the same degree of unfoldment—some a little in advance of others, and so on. The question necessarily arises, why is this so? "We only desire to say in answer at this time that all do not start out on their career of animate being at precisely the same time or under the same conditions, nor with the same or equal antenatal advantages. This carries us back behind our mere entrance into physical life, through and by the laws of human physical procreation, into a domain as yet unexplored, except feebly, by mortal man. It seems to me if men could only perceive and understand the grand sublimity and variety of their antecedent being, they would no longer be blinded to the future greatness and glory in store for them. This subject, if you ever enter upon it, you will find prolific of vast knowledge, immense and perfectly astounding revelations. But the time has not yet arrived for them. The people on Mars, like your own, not starting out on life's eventful and momentous journey with the same or equal advantages, have necessarily attained unto different degrees of progressive unfoldment, and by reason of this are their different and somewhat differing societies formed. In the same circle, order or stratum of society on earth, the good, the bad and the indifferent associate and seem to harmoniously blend and assimilate. But this is not true in fact. The degree of perfection attained in moral and spiritual excellence does not govern in their formation, and they are therefore incongruous, unsatisfactory and transitory. On Mars two unequals in progression can not harmonize, for the law rebels, interposes insurmountable barriers, and will not allow it. Those only are associated who harmonize and resemble each other, not in the accumulations of wealth, not in stature, not in facial expressions or outward physical conformation, but those who are drawn together by a sort of soul kinship, of absolute union of soul feeling, sympathetic inclinations and aspirations, having for their basis, as of grime and first importance, an equal degree of spiritual unfoldment. Thus divided and separated, there are very many different societies or orders, each differing in development, inclinations and aspirations, they inevitably have dissimilar pursuits and employments, suited to tastes, wants and abilities, but all conspiring for the general good of all.
 
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