Oahspe

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