Ten Spiritual Commandments

These were printed in the first Lyceum Manual published in 1887 and were delivered via trance by Emma Hardinge Britten.

Ten Spiritual Commandments

1 Thou shalt search for truth in every department of being: Test, prove, and try if what thou deemest truth is truth, and then accept it as the word of God.

2 Thou shalt continue the search for truth all thy life: And never cease to test, prove, and try all that thou deemest to be truth.

3 Thou shalt search by every attainable means for the laws that underlie all life and being: Thou shalt strive to comprehend these laws, live in harmony with them, and make them the laws of thine own life, thy rule and guide in all thine actions.

4 Thou shalt not follow the example of any man or set of men: Nor obey any teaching or accept of any theory as thy rule of life that is not in strict accordance with thy highest sense of right.

5 Thou shalt remember that a wrong done to the least of thy fellow creatures is a wrong done to all: And thou shalt never commit a wrong wilfully and consciously to any of thy fellow-men, nor connive at wrong done by others without striving to prevent or protesting against it.

6 Thou shalt acknowledge all men’s rights to do, think, or speak, to be exactly equal to thine own: And all rights whatsoever that thou dost demand thou shalt ever accord to others.

7 Thou shalt not hold thyself bound to love, or associate with those that are distasteful or repulsive to thee: But thou shalt be held bound to treat such objects of dislike with gentleness, courtesy, and justice, and never suffer thine antipathies to make thee ungentle or unjust to any living creature.

8 Thou shalt ever regard the rights, interests, and welfare of the many as superior to those of the one or the few:And in cases where thy welfare, or that of thy friend, is to be balanced against that of society, thou shalt sacrifice thyself, or friend, to the welfare of the many.

9 Thou shalt be obedient to the laws of the land in which thou dost reside: In all things which do not conflict with thy highest sense of right.

10 Thy first and last duty upon earth, and all through thy life, shall be to seek for the principles of right, and to live them out to the utmost of thy power: And whatever creed, precept, or example conflicts with those principles, thou shalt shun and reject, ever remembering that the laws of right are - in morals, JUSTICE; in science, HARMONY; in religion, THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD, THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN, the immortality of the human soul, and compensation and retribution for the good or evil done on earth.

References

https://archive.org/stream/lyceummanualcomp00brit/lyceummanualcomp00brit_djvu.txt

http://www.spiritualismlink.com/t131-the-seven-principles-a-discussion-on-their-creation