I was asked a question which provoked this explanation of the book, The Second Comforter: Conversing With the Lord Through the Veil:
The book was written to cause the reader internal reflection. There really isn’t a “punch line” in the book. My testimony is essentially incidental; merely affirming that the principles taught in the book are true.
I worry that reading only the testimony, divorced from the explanation of how someone moves along in personal progress to the point they receive that personal witness, will make it just another “feel good” read. The book is a manual. It isn’t designed to make people feel good. It is designed to get them to do something.
I worry that whenever people read of others’ spiritual experiences they assume that because they have read about such things they are somehow “included” or “worthy” and that they are linked to God as a result. The book is designed to awaken people to their own lack of an existing link: then to cause them to resolve to establish that link for themselves.
So I think taking only the testimony alone contradicts the whole purpose for which it was written. The testimony was merely a brief, nine word ratification of the book’s teachings. The focus was, and is, on receiving an audience with Christ. The book is a manual for the reader to do that for themselves. The reader, not the author, is the focus of the book. Indeed, with only brief exceptions, my personal presence intrudes into the book to highlight how to do something wrong. Then the book explains how to get it right.