Levi McKeen Arnold
Levi McKeen Arnold (L.M. Arnold) (b. February 12, 1813 Poughkeepsie, New York - d. September 27, 1864 Poughkeepsie, New York) was a successful businessman (a foundry manager) and banker in New York who claimed to have received revelations from Jesus Christ beginning in the Spring of 1851, first published in 1852 in a book entitled "History of the Origin of All Things". The text of "History of the Origin" seemingly endorses modern spiritualism of the type popularized beginning in 1848 upon publication of the claims of the Fox sisters, but cautions against indiscriminate access to other realms. A  sketchy biography of Arnold is included in an archived version of the website thehistoryofallthings.com. Arnold's work is endorsed in a similar work published in 1908 by Archie Johnson Inger. Likewise, Arnold's text commends the work of Rev. Charles C. Hammond, who published a collection of spiritualist articles "Light from the Spirit World" in Rochester, New York in 1852. (An apparent companion volume published at the same time is "Light From the Spirit World: The Pilgrimage of Thomas Paine, and others, to the Seventh Circle in the Spirit World".) Arnold's text states that the New Jerusalem began to  alight on planet Earth on July 4, 1776, and predicts that religious freedom would be 'extinguished' in Europe after 1851, but would find refuge in the United States. Arnold's parents were Benjamin Arnold and Helen Maria McKeen, and he married Susan Robinson in 1844. A descendant of his, Benjamin L. Arnold published a photograph of L.M. Arnold's gravestone online in March 2008.