Andrew Jackson Davis was born in Blooming Grove, New York. He received little education and apprenticed to a shoemaker as a young man for two years before attending a lecture on Animal Magnetism given by Dr. J.S. Grimes in Poughkeepsie.

Inspired by the lecture, Davis tried the hypnotic technique, but didn’t have any success until a local tailor, William Livingston, threw him into a trance. In the trance state, Davis reached a higher plane of consciousness where he could understand the laws of the universe. He diagnosed and prescribed cures for individuals and explained spiritual and metaphysical phenomena.

Even though he only received five months schooling and claimed to have read only a handful of books, he dictated a book in 1846 entitled, Principles of Nature. It was published a year later when he was only 21. He eventually published over 30 books. His Spiritual Declaration of Independence, written in 1851, states that Spiritualists should “discover, and decry, and remove every conceivable barrier and obstruction, which in any manner whatsoever, may serve to derange, impede, or arrest the progressive development of peace on earth and good will to all men.”

Davis reviewed the society of the middle-late 1800s and said he needed to state his declarations about humanity for several reasons that still apply today:

  1. Present day society encourages animosities which perpetuate poverty, crime and misery. It restricts natural rights and leaves us unprotected from monopolies, monarchies, and illness.
  2. Criminals are not reformed. Instead of being helped with hospitable treatment, criminals are incarcerated and treated brutally.
  3. Society takes joyful, confiding children and turns them into sad and suspicious adults, which in turn perpetuates unhappiness.
  4. Society develops many forms of evil including cupidity, envy, malice, duplicity, and hypocrisy.
  5. The antagonistic and conflicting structure of competing businesses “deranges natural and legitimate faculties of the human mind,” leading to strife, wars and selfishness.
  6. The perpetual war between business owners and workers deforms the human consciousness and smothers the inner spiritual voice. Worldly interests take a primary position in life, and helping others is forgotten.
  7. Lawyers encourage lengthy litigation with the purpose of demoralizing rather than helping the individual.
  8. The duty of the doctor is to create general health and happiness, but many strenuously oppose medical reform.
  9. The clergy promote ignorance and do not want their followers to decide upon religious topics for themselves.

He then stated that those interested spiritual development must affirm that they are free of existing forms of theology and institutions. He said, “We declare ourselves free and independent of these systems, we repeat, because they restrain us in our investigations, and set up many and various barriers to our development: and we declare ourselves free of them, also, because they do not cover our wants, nor respond to the imperative necessities of our outer and inner being.”

He added that:

  1. Our Book is Nature
  2. Our Master is Reason
  3. Our Law is Love to Man
  4. Our religion is Justice
  5. Our Light is Truth
  6. Our Structure is Association
  7. Our Path is Progression
  8. Our Works are Development
  9. Our Heaven is Harmony
  10. Our God is the Universal Father