Oahspe, the product of automatic writing by a 19th century dentist
named John Ballou Newbrough, is a hallucinogenic reworking of cosmology
and ancient history.
Written in a pseudo-archaic style, the narrative is told from
two viewpoints: that of heaven and earth.
For a large part of the book there are parallel
texts from each point of view
on the top and bottom of the page (hence the page
numbers 'a' and 'b').
There are many moving, lucid passages, dealing with ethical and
spiritual topics; however these must be sought out.
For a large part, Oahspe remains a sealed book.
It uses a private vocabulary which is only partially explained;
and describes events of mysterious significance.
There are hundreds of pages about the
deeds of a vast array of Gods and Goddesses who roam the universe
in enormous vessels.
OED take note: Newbrough was possibly the
first to use the word 'Star-ship'.
There are tales of ancient prophets
(such as Zoroaster, Jesus, Confucius, Moses, etc.)
which have practically no basis in any known mythology or history.
The illustrations
are remarkable in that they presage surrealism
by several decades;
maps and views of an incomprehensible internal landscape.
This etext of Oahspe has been brought into conformance with the contents
of the third edition of 1912.
--J.B. Hare
See The Origin of Oahspe "Issued for the Confraternity of Faithists by the Kosmon Press" [date unknown]
The text of a very rare short pamphlet about Oahspe which was written by the Faithist organization. The text was scanned by Joe Hirst and donated to sacred-texts.