Shalam Colony - Oahspe

In the 1870s, John Newbrough made earnest efforts to improve his ability to receive spirit communications. He believed that he must purify himself physically and spiritually, so he further simplified his vegetarian diet, bathed twice daily, and rose every morning before dawn to meditate. Newbrough then says that he was instructed by spirits to purchase a typewriter, which he described as "a new invention that writes like the keys of a piano." He tried to learn to use the machine but had only "indifferent success."

However, at the beginning of the year 1881, Newbrough sat at the typewriter and, with lines of light resting on him, his hands began to fly over the keys. He typed every morning in this manner for fifty weeks. He was instructed not to read what had been written but just to turn the pages down as they were finished. At the end of this time he was told to have the pages published, and to call the book Oahspe.

Oahspe means "earth," "sky," and "spirit" in the language of the sunken continent of Pan. Oahspe is a book of some 900 pages. According to the title page it is "A New Bible in the Words of Jehovih and His Angel Embassadors. A Sacred History of the Dominions of the Higher and Lower Heavens on the Earth for the Past Twenty-Four Thousand Years." Like the Christian Bible, Oahspe is arranged in books, chapters and verses. One of the books is called, "Book of Jehovih's Kingdom on Earth which containeth within it The Book of Shalam, all of which is ante-script."

An editor's note explains the word ante-script: "We understand by this term, and also by the book itself, that what is set forth as being in the past, has not yet occurred. In such respect it is a picture of the future, as will be demonstrated in actual practice."

A full-text version of Oahspe, with images, is available online.