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Title: Letters from a living dead man
Author: David Patterson Hatch
Contributor: Elsa Barker
Release date: September 10, 2025 [eBook #76854]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: E. P. Dutton & co, 1914
Credits: Peter Becker, Laura Natal and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN ***
LETTERS FROM A
LIVING DEAD MAN
_BY ELSA BARKER_
WAR LETTERS FROM THE
LIVING DEAD MAN
LAST LETTERS FROM THE
LIVING DEAD MAN
SONGS OF A VAGROM ANGEL
LETTERS
FROM A
LIVING DEAD MAN
WRITTEN DOWN
BY
ELSA BARKER
_WITH AN INTRODUCTION_
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
COPYRIGHT, 1914,
BY MITCHELL KENNERLEY
COPYRIGHT, 1920,
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
_All Rights Reserved_
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
LETTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 5
I. THE RETURN 15
II. TELL NO MAN 16
III. GUARDING THE DOOR 18
IV. A CLOUD ON THE MIRROR 19
V. THE PROMISE OF THINGS UNTOLD 21
VI. THE WAND OF WILL 22
VII. A LIGHT BEHIND THE VEIL 24
VIII. THE IRON GRIP OF MATTER 26
IX. WHERE SOULS GO UP AND DOWN 28
X. A RENDEZVOUS IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 30
XI. THE BOY--LIONEL 35
XII. THE PATTERN WORLD 40
XIII. FORMS REAL AND UNREAL 44
XIV. A FOLIO OF PARACELSUS 47
XV. A ROMAN TOGA 51
XVI. A THING TO BE FORGOTTEN 56
XVII. THE SECOND WIFE OVER THERE 64
XVIII. INDIVIDUAL HELLS 70
XIX. A LITTLE HOME IN HEAVEN 71
XX. THE MAN WHO FOUND GOD 78
XXI. THE LEISURE OF THE SOUL 84
XXII. THE SERPENT OF ETERNITY 90
XXIII. A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENDANT 97
XXIV. FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE 101
XXV. A SHADOWLESS WORLD 104
XXVI. CIRCLES IN THE SAND 109
XXVII. THE MAGIC RING 115
XXVIII. EXCEPT YE BE AS LITTLE CHILDREN 121
XXIX. AN UNEXPECTED WARNING 126
XXX. THE SYLPH AND THE MAGICIAN 131
XXXI. A PROBLEM IN CELESTIAL MATHEMATICS 139
XXXII. A CHANGE OF FOCUS 147
XXXIII. FIVE RESOLUTIONS 153
XXXIV. THE PASSING OF LIONEL 158
XXXV. THE BEAUTIFUL BEING 167
XXXVI. THE HOLLOW SPHERE 173
XXXVII. AN EMPTY CHINA CUP 179
XXXVIII. WHERE TIME IS NOT 187
XXXIX. THE DOCTRINE OF DEATH 195
XL. THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY 205
XLI. THE DARLING OF THE UNSEEN 210
XLII. A VICTIM OF THE NON-EXISTENT 219
XLIII. A CLOUD OF WITNESSES 228
XLIV. THE KINGDOM WITHIN 235
XLV. THE GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE 237
XLVI. HEIRS OF HERMES 241
XLVII. ONLY A SONG 247
XLVIII. INVISIBLE GIFTS AT YULETIDE 250
XLIX. THE GREATER DREAMLAND 258
L. A SERMON AND A PROMISE 265
LI. THE APRIL OF THE WORLD 273
LII. A HAPPY WIDOWER 276
LIII. THE ARCHIVES OF THE SOUL 284
LIV. A FORMULA FOR MASTERSHIP 288
INTRODUCTION
ONE night last year in Paris I was strongly impelled to take up a
pencil and write, though what I was to write about I had no idea.
Yielding to the impulse, my hand was seized as if from the outside,
and a remarkable message of a personal nature came, followed by the
signature “X.”
The purport of the message was clear, but the signature puzzled me.
The following day I showed this writing to a friend, asking her if she
had any idea who “X” was.
“Why,” she replied, “don’t you know that that is what we always call
Mr. ----?”
I did not know.
Now, Mr. ---- was six thousand miles from Paris, and, as we supposed,
in the land of the living. But a day or two later a letter came to me
from America, stating that Mr. ---- had died in the western part of
the United States, a few days before I received in Paris the automatic
message signed “X.”
So far as I know, I was the first person in Europe to be informed of
his death, and I immediately called on my friend to tell her that “X”
had passed out. She did not seem surprised, and told me that she had
felt certain of it some days before, when I had shown her the “X”
letter, though she had not said so at the time.
Naturally I was impressed by this extraordinary incident.
“X” was not a spiritualist. I am not myself, and never have been, a
spiritualist, and, so far as I can remember, only two other supposedly
disembodied entities had ever before written automatically through my
hand. This had happened when I was in the presence of a mediumistic
person; but the messages were brief, and I had not attached any great
importance to the phenomena.
In childhood I had several times put my hand upon a planchette with
the hand of another person, and the planchette had written the usual
trivialities. On one occasion, some months before the first “X” letter,
I had put my hand upon a planchette with the hand of a non-professional
medium, and the prophecy of a fire in my house during a certain month
in the following year was written, supposedly by a dead friend, which
prophecy was literally verified, though the fire was not caused by my
hand, nor was it in my own apartment.
A few times, years before, I had been persuaded by friends to go with
them to professional séances, and had seen so-called materialisations.
I had also seen independently a few appearances which I could not
account for on any other hypothesis than that of apparitions of the
dead.
But to the whole subject of communication between the two worlds I felt
an unusual degree of indifference. Spiritualism had always left me
quite cold, and I had not even read the ordinary standard works on the
subject.
Nevertheless, I had for a number of years almost daily seen “hypnagogic
visions,” often of a startlingly prophetic character; and the
explanation of them later given by “X” may be the true explanation.
Soon after my receipt of the letter from America stating that Mr. ----
was dead, I was sitting in the evening with the friend who had told me
who “X” was, and she asked me if I would not let him write again--if he
could.
I consented, more to please my friend than from any personal interest,
and the message beginning, “I am here, make no mistake,” came through
my hand. It came with breaks and pauses between the sentences, with
large and badly formed letters, but quite automatically, as in the
first instance. The force used on this occasion was such that my right
hand and arm were lame the following day.
Several letters signed “X” were automatically written during the next
few weeks; but, instead of becoming enthusiastic, I developed a strong
disinclination for this manner of writing, and was only persuaded to
continue it through the arguments of my friend that if “X” really
wished to communicate with the world, I was highly privileged in being
able to help him.
“X” was not an ordinary person. He was a well-known lawyer nearly
seventy years of age, a profound student of philosophy, a writer of
books, a man whose pure ideals and enthusiasms were an inspiration to
everyone who knew him. His home was far from mine, and I had seen him
only at long intervals. So far as I remember, we had never discussed
the question of postmortem consciousness.
Gradually, as I conquered my strong prejudice against automatic
writing, I became interested in the things which “X” told me about
the life beyond the grave. I had read practically nothing on the
subject, not even the popular _Letters from Julia_, so I had no
preconceived ideas.
The messages continued to come. After a while there was no more
lameness of the hand and arm, and the form of the writing became less
irregular, though it was never very legible.
For a time the letters were written in the presence of my friend; then
“X” began to come always when I was alone. He wrote either in Paris or
in London, as I went back and forth between those two cities. Sometimes
he would come several times a week; again, nearly a month would elapse
without my feeling his presence. I never called him, nor did I think
much about him between his visits. During most of the time my pen and
my thoughts were occupied with other matters.
Only in one instance before the writing began had I any idea as to what
the letter would contain. One night as I took up the pencil I knew what
“X” was going to write about; but, though I remember the incident, I
have forgotten to which message it referred.
While writing these letters I was generally in a state of
semi-consciousness, so that, until I read the message over afterwards,
I had only a vague idea of what it contained. In a few instances I was
so near unconsciousness that as I laid down the pencil I had not the
remotest idea of what I had written; but this did not often happen.
When it was first suggested that these letters should be published
with an introduction by me, I did not take very enthusiastically to
the idea. Being the author of several books, more or less well known,
I had my little vanity as to the stability of my literary reputation.
I did not wish to be known as an eccentric, a “freak.” But I consented
to write an introduction stating that the letters were automatically
written in my presence, which would have been the truth, though not all
the truth. This satisfied my friend; but as time went on, it did not
satisfy me. It seemed not quite sincere.
I argued the matter out with myself. If, I said, I publish these
letters without a personal introduction, they will be taken for a
work of fiction, of imagination, and the remarkable statements they
contain will thus lose all their force as convincing arguments for the
truth of a hereafter. If I write an introduction stating that they
came by supposedly automatic writing in my presence, the question
will naturally arise as to whose hand they came through, and I shall
be forced to evasion. But if I frankly acknowledge that they came
through my own hand, and state the facts exactly as they are only two
hypotheses will be open: first, that they are genuine communications
from the disembodied entity; second, that they are lucubrations of my
own subconscious mind. But this latter hypothesis does not explain the
first letter signed “X,” which came before I knew that my friend was
dead; does not explain it unless it be assumed that the subconscious
mind of each person knows everything. In which case, why should my
subconscious mind set out upon a long and laborious deception of me, on
a premise which had _not been suggested to it_ by my own objective
mind, or that of any other person?
That anyone would accuse me of deliberate deceit and romancing in so
serious a matter did not then and does not now seem likely, my fancy
having other and legitimate outlets in poetry and fiction.
The letters were probably two-thirds written before this question was
finally settled; and I decided that if I published the letters at all,
I should publish them with a frank introduction, stating the exact
circumstances of their reception by me.
The actual writing covered a period of more than eleven months. Then
came the question of editing. What should I leave out? What should I
include? I determined to leave out nothing except personal references
to “X’s” private affairs, to mine, and to those of his friends. I have
not added anything. Occasionally, when “X’s” literary style was clumsy,
I have reconstructed a sentence or cut out a repetition; but I have
taken far less liberty than I used, as an editor, to take with ordinary
manuscripts submitted to me for correction.
Sometimes “X” is very colloquial, sometimes he uses legal phraseology,
or American slang. Often he jumps from one subject to another, as one
does in friendly correspondence, going back to his original subject
without a connecting phrase.
He has made a few statements relative to the future life which are
directly contrary to the opinions which I have always held. These
statements remain as they were written. Many of his philosophical
propositions were quite new to me. Sometimes I did not see their
profundity until months afterwards.
I have no apology to offer for the publication of these letters. They
are probably an interesting document, whatever their source may be, and
I give them to the world with no more fear than when I gave my hand to
“X” in the writing of them.
If anyone asks the question, what do I myself think as to whether these
letters are genuine communications from the invisible world, I should
answer that I believe they are. In the personal and suppressed portions
reference was often made to past events and to possessions of which
I had no knowledge, and these references were verified. This leaves
untouched the favourite telepathic theory of the psychologists. But if
these letters were telepathed to me, by whom were they telepathed? Not
by my friend who was present at the writing of many of them, for their
contents were as much a surprise to her as to me.
I wish, however, to state that I make no scientific claims about this
book, for science demands tests and proofs. Save for the first letter
signed “X” before I knew that Mr. ---- was dead, or knew who “X” was,
the book was not written under “test conditions,” as the psychologists
understand the term. As evidence of a soul’s survival after bodily
death, it must be accepted or rejected by each individual according
to his or her temperament, experience, and inner conviction as to the
truth of its contents.
In the absence of “X” and without some other entity on the invisible
side of Nature in whom I had a like degree of confidence, I could
not produce another document of this kind. Against indiscriminate
mediumship I have still a strong and ineradicable prejudice, for I
recognise its dangers both of obsession and deception. But for my faith
in “X” and the faith of my Paris friend in me, this book could never
have been. Doubt of the invisible author or of the visible medium would
probably have paralysed both, for the purposes of this writing.
The effect of these letters on me personally has been to remove
entirely any fear of death which I may ever have had, to strengthen my
belief in immortality, to make the life beyond the grave as real and
vital as the life here in the sunshine. If they can give even to one
other person the sense of exultant immortality which they have given to
me, I shall feel repaid for my labour.
To those who may feel inclined to blame me for publishing such a book I
can only say that I have always tried to give my best to the world, and
perhaps these letters are one of the best things that I have to give.
ELSA BARKER.
LONDON, 1913.
LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN
LETTER I
THE RETURN
I AM here, make no mistake.
It was I who spoke before, and I now speak again.
I have had a wonderful experience. Much that I had forgotten I can now
remember. What has happened was for the best; it was inevitable.
I can see you, though not very distinctly.
I found almost no darkness. The light here is wonderful, far more
wonderful than the sunlight of the South.
No, I cannot yet see my way very well around Paris; everything is
different. It is probably by reason of your own vitality that I am able
to see you at this moment.
LETTER II
TELL NO MAN
I AM opposite to you now in actual space; that is, I am directly in
front of you, resting on something which is probably a couch or divan.
It is easier to come to you after dark.
I remembered on going out that you might be able to let me speak
through your hand.
I am already stronger. It is nothing to fear--this change of condition.
I cannot tell you yet how long I was silent. It did not seem long.
It was I who signed “X.” The Teacher helped me to make the connexion.
You had better tell no one for a while, except ----, that I have come,
as I do not want any obstructions to my coming when and where I will.
Lend me your hand sometimes; I will not misuse it.
I am going to stay out here until I am ready to come back with power.
Watch for me, but not yet.
Things seem easier to me now than they have seemed for a long time. I
carry less weight. I could have held on longer in the body, but it did
not seem worth the effort.
I have seen the Teacher. He is near. His attitude to me is very
comforting.
But I would like to go now. Good night.
LETTER III
GUARDING THE DOOR
YOU need to take certain precautions to protect yourself against those
who press round me.
You have only to lay a spell upon yourself night and morning. Nothing
can get through that wall--nothing which you forbid your soul to
entertain.
Do not let any of your energy be sucked out of you by these larvæ of
the astral world. No, they cannot annoy me, for I am now used to the
idea of them. You have absolutely nothing to fear, if you protect
yourself.
LETTER IV
A CLOUD ON THE MIRROR
(_After a sentence had been half written, the writing suddenly
stopped, and was continued later._)
WHEN you respond to my call, wipe clean your mind as a child wipes
its slate when ready for a new maxim or example by its teacher. Your
lightest personal thought or fancy may be as a cloud upon a mirror,
blurring the reflection.
You can receive letters by this means, provided your mind does not
begin to work independently, to question in the midst of the writing.
I was not stopped this time, as before, by beings gathering round;
but by your own curiosity as to the end of an unusual sentence. You
suddenly became positive instead of negative, as if the receiving
instrument in a telegraph office should begin to send a message of its
own.
I have learned here the reason for many psychic things which formerly
puzzled me, and I am determined if possible to protect you from the
danger of cross-currents in this work.
There was one night when I called and you would not let me in. Was that
kind?
But I am not reproaching you. I shall come again and again, until my
work is done.
I will come to you in a dream before long, and will show you many
things.
LETTER V
THE PROMISE OF THINGS UNTOLD
AFTER a time I will share with you certain knowledge that I have gained
since coming out. I see the past now as through an open window. I see
the road by which I have come, and can map out the road by which I mean
to go.
Everything seems easy now. I could do twice as much work as I do--I
feel so strong.
As yet I have not settled down anywhere, but am moving about as the
fancy takes me; that is what I always dreamed of doing while in the
body, and never could make possible.
Do not fear death; but stay on earth as long as you can.
Notwithstanding the companionship I have here, I sometimes regret my
failure in holding on to the world. But regrets have less weight on
this side--like our bodies.
Everything is well with me.
I will tell you things that have never been told.
LETTER VI
THE WAND OF WILL
NOT yet do you grasp the full mystery of _will_. It can make of
you anything you choose, within the limit of your unit energy, for
everything is either active or potential in the unit of force which is
man.
The difference between a painter and a musician, or between a poet and
a novelist, is not a difference of qualities in the entity itself; for
each unit contains everything _except quantity_, and thus has the
possibilities of development along any line chosen by its will. The
choice may have been made ages ago. It takes a long time, often many
lives, to evolve an art or a faculty for one particular kind of work in
preference to all others. Concentration is the secret of power, here as
elsewhere.
As to the use of will-power in your present everyday problems, there
are two ways of using the will. One may concentrate upon a definite
plan, and bring it into effect or not according to the amount of force
at one’s disposal; or one may will that the best and highest and
wisest plan possible shall be demonstrated by the subconscious forces
in the self and in other selves. The latter is a commanding of all
environment for a special purpose, instead of commanding, or attempting
to command, a fragment of it.
In this communion between the outer and inner worlds, you in the outer
world are apt to think that we in ours know everything. You expect us
to prophesy like fortune-tellers, and to keep you informed of what is
passing on the other side of the globe. Sometimes we can; generally we
cannot.
After a while I may be able to enter your mind as a Master does, and
to know all the antecedent thoughts and plans in it; but now I cannot
always do so.
For instance, one night I looked everywhere for ---- and could not find
him. Perhaps it is necessary for you to think strongly of us, to make
the way easiest.
I am learning all the time. The Teacher is very active in helping me.
When I am absolutely certain of my hold upon your hand, I shall have
much to say about the life out here.
LETTER VII
A LIGHT BEHIND THE VEIL
MAKE an opening for me sometimes in the veil of dense matter that shuts
you from my eyes. I see you often as a spot of vivid light, and that is
probably when your soul is active with feeling or your mind keen with
thought.
I can read your thoughts occasionally, but not always. Often I try to
draw near, and cannot find you. You could not always find me, perhaps,
should you come out here.
Sometimes I am all alone: sometimes I am with others.
Strange, but I seem to myself to have quite a substantial body now,
though at first my arms and legs seemed sprawling in all directions.
As a rule, I do not walk about as formerly, nor do I fly exactly, for
I have never had wings; but I manage to get over space with incredible
rapidity. Sometimes, though, I walk.
Now, I want you to do me a favour. You know what a difficult job I
often had to keep things going, yet I kept them going. Don’t you get
discouraged about the material wherewithal for your work. Work right
ahead, as if the supply were there, and it will be there. You can
demonstrate it in one way or another. Do not feel weak or uncertain,
for when you do you drag me back to earth by force of sympathy. It is
as bad as grieving for the dead.
LETTER VIII
THE IRON GRIP OF MATTER
TO a man dwelling in the “invisible” there comes a sudden memory of
earth.
“Oh!” he says. “The world is going on without me. What am I missing?”
It seems almost an impertinence on the part of the world to go on
without him. He becomes agitated. He is sure that he is behind the
times, left out, left over.
He looks about him, and sees only the tranquil fields of the fourth
dimension. Oh, for the iron grip of matter once more! To hold something
in taut hands!
Perhaps the mood passes, but one day it returns with redoubled force.
He must get out of the tenuous environment into the forcibly resistant
world of dense matter. But how?
Ah, he remembers! All action comes from memory. It would be a reckless
experiment had he not done it before.
He closes his eyes, reversing himself in the invisible. He is drawn to
human life, to human beings in the intense vibration of union. There
is sympathy here--perhaps the sympathy of past experience with the
souls of those whom he now contacts, perhaps only sympathy of mood or
imagination. Be that as it may, he lets go his hold upon freedom and
triumphantly loses himself in the lives of human beings.
After a time he awakes, to look with bewildered eyes upon green fields
and the round, solid faces of men and women. Sometimes he weeps, and
wishes himself back. If he becomes discouraged, he may return--only to
begin the weary quest of matter all over again.
If he is strong and stubborn, he remains and grows into a man. He may
even persuade himself that the former life in tenuous substance was
only a dream, for in dream he returns to it, and the dream haunts him
and spoils his enjoyment of matter.
After years enough he grows weary of the material struggle: his energy
is exhausted. He sinks back into the arms of the unseen, and men say
again with bated breath that he is dead.
But he is not dead. He has only returned whence he came.
LETTER IX
WHERE SOULS GO UP AND DOWN
MY friend, there is nothing to fear in death. It is no harder than a
trip to a foreign country--the first trip--to one who has grown oldish
and settled in the habits of his own more or less narrow corner of the
world.
When a man comes out here, the strangers whom he meets seem no more
strange than the foreign peoples seem to one who first goes among them.
He does not always understand them; there, again, his experience is
like a sojourn in a foreign country. Then, after a while, he begins to
make friendly advances and to smile with the eyes. The question, “Where
are you from?” meets with a similar response to that on earth. One is
from California, another is from Boston, another is from London. This
is when we meet on the highroads of travel; for there are lanes of
travel over here, where the souls go up and down as on the earth. Such
a road is generally the most direct line between two great centres;
but it is never on the line of a railway. There would be too much
noise. We can hear sounds made on the earth. There is a certain shock
to the etheric ear which carries the vibration of sound to us.
Sometimes one settles down for a long time in one place. I visited an
old home in the State of Maine, where a man on this side of life had
been stopping for I do not know how many years; he told me that the
children had grown to be men and women, and that a colt to which he
became attached when he first came out had grown into a horse and had
died of old age.
There are sluggards and dull people here, as with you. There are also
brilliant and magnetic people, whose very presence is rejuvenating.
It seems almost absurd to say that we wear clothes, the same as you do;
but we do not seem to need so many. I have not seen any trunks; but
then I have been here only a short time.
Heat and cold do not matter much to me now, though I remember at first
being rather uncomfortable by reason of the cold. But that is past.
LETTER X
A RENDEZVOUS IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION
YOU can do so much for me by lending me your hand occasionally, that I
wonder why you shrink from it.
This philosophy will go on being taught in the world and all over the
world. Only a few, perhaps, will reach the deeps of it in this life;
but a seed sown to-day may bear fruit long hence. Somewhere I have read
that grains of wheat which had been buried with mummies for two or
three thousand years had sprouted when placed in good soil in our own
day. It is so with a philosophic seed.
It has been said that he is a fool who works for philosophy instead of
making philosophy work for him; but a man cannot give to the world even
a little of a true philosophy without reaping sevenfold himself, and
you know the Biblical quotation which ends, “and in the world to come
eternal life.” To get, one must give. That is the Law.
I can tell you many things about the life out here which may be of
use to others when they make the great change. Almost everyone brings
memory over with him. The men and women I have met and communed with
have had more or less vivid recollection of their earth life--that is,
most of them.
I met one man who refused to speak of the earth, and was always talking
about “going on.” I reminded him that if he went on far enough he would
come back to the place from which he started.
You have been curious, perhaps, as to what we eat and drink, if
anything. We certainly are nourished, and we seem to absorb much water.
You also should drink plenty of water. It feeds the astral body. I do
not think that a very dry body would ever have enough astral vitality
to lend a hand to a soul on this plane of life, as you are doing now.
There is much moisture in our bodies over here. Perhaps that is one
reason why contact with a so-called spirit sometimes gives warm-blooded
persons a sense of cold, and they shiver.
It is something of an effort on my part also to write like this, but it
seems to be worth while.
I come to the place where I feel that you are. I can see you better
than most others. Then I reverse; that is, instead of going in, as I
used to do, I go out with great force and in your direction. I take
possession of you by a strong propulsive effort.
Sometimes the writing has stopped suddenly in the midst of a sentence.
That was when I was not properly focussed. You may have noticed when
reversing and shutting away the outside world, that a sudden noise, or
maybe a wandering thought, would bring you right out again. It is so
here.
Now, about this element in which we live. It undoubtedly has a place
in space, for it is all around the earth. Yes, every tree visible has
its invisible counterpart. When you, before sleep, come out consciously
into this world,[1] you see things that exist, or have existed, in
the material world also. You cannot see anything in this world which
has not a physical counterpart in the other. There are, of course,
thought-pictures, imaginary pictures; but to see imaginatively is
not to see on the astral plane--not by any means. The things you see
before going to sleep have real existence, and by changing your rate of
vibration you come out into this world--or rather you go back into it,
for you have to go in, in order to come out.
Imagination has great power. If you make a picture in the mind, the
vibrations of the body may adjust to it if the will is directed that
way, as in thoughts of health or sickness.
It might be well as an experiment, when you want to come out here, to
choose a certain symbol and hold it before your eyes. I do not say that
it would help to change the vibration, but it might.
I wonder if you could see me if just before falling asleep you should
come out here with that thought and that desire dominant in your mind?
I am strong to-day, because I have been long with one who is stronger;
and if you want to make the experiment of trying to find me this night,
I may be able to help you better than at another time.
There is so much to say, and I can seldom talk with you. If you were
differently situated and quite free from other things, I could perhaps
come often. I am learning much that I should like to give you.
For instance, I think I can show you how to come out here at will, as
the Masters do constantly.
At first I took only your arm to write with, but now I get a better
hold of the psychic organisation. I saw that I was not working in the
best way, that there was a waste somewhere, so I asked the Teacher for
instruction in the matter. By this new method you will not feel so
tired afterwards, nor shall I.
I am going now, and will try to meet you in a few minutes. If the
experiment should fail, do not be discouraged; but try again some other
time. You will know me all right, if you do see me.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: This undoubtedly refers to my “hypnagogic”
visions.--ED.]
LETTER XI
THE BOY--LIONEL
YOU will be interested to know that there are people out here, as on
the earth, who devote themselves to the welfare of others.
There is even a large organisation of souls who call themselves a
League. Their special work is to take hold of those who have just
come out, helping them to find themselves and to adjust to the new
conditions. There are both men and women in this League. They have done
good service. They work on a little--I do not want to say higher plane
than the Salvation Army, but rather a more intellectual plane. They
help both children and adults.
It is interesting about the children. I have not had time yet to
observe all these things for myself; but one of the League workers
tells me that it is easier for children to adjust themselves to the
changed life than it is for grown persons. Very old people are inclined
to sleep a good deal, while children come out with great energy, and
bring with them the same curiosity that they had in earth life. There
are no violent changes. The little ones grow up, it is said, about as
gradually and imperceptibly as they would have grown on earth. The
tendency is to fulfil the normal rhythm, though there are instances
where the soul goes back very soon, with little rest. That would be a
soul with great curiosity and strong desires.
There are horrors out here--far worse than the horrors on earth. The
decay from vice and intemperance is much worse here than there. I have
seen faces and forms that were really frightful, faces that seemed to
be half-decayed and falling in pieces. These are the hopeless cases,
which even the League of workers I spoke about leave to their fate. It
is uncertain what the fate of such people will be; whether they will
reincarnate or not in this cycle, I do not know.
The children are so charming! One young boy is with me often; he calls
me Father, and seems to enjoy my society. He would be, I should think,
about thirteen years old, and he has been out here some time. He could
not tell me just how long; but I will ask him if he remembers the year,
the calendar year, in which he came out.
It is not true that we cannot keep our thoughts to ourselves if we are
careful to do so. We can guard our secrets, if we know how. That is
done by suggestion, or laying a spell. It is, though, much easier here
than on earth to read the minds of others.
We seem to communicate with one another in about the same way that
you do; but I find, as time goes by, that I converse more and more by
powerful and projected thought than by the moving of the lips. At first
I always opened my mouth when I had anything to say; it is easier now
not to do so, though I sometimes do it still by force of habit. When
a man has recently come out he does not understand another unless he
really speaks; that is, I suppose, before he has learned that he also
can talk without using much breath.
But I was telling you about the boy. He is all interest in regard to
certain things I have told him about the earth,--especially aeroplanes,
which were not yet very practicable when he came out. He wants to go
back and fly in an aeroplane. I tell him that he can fly here without
one, but that does not seem to be the same thing to him. He wants to
get his fingers on machinery.
I advise him not to be in any hurry about going back. The curious thing
about it is that he can remember other and former lives of his on
earth. Many out here have no more memory of their former lives, before
the last one, than they had while in the body. This is not a place
where everyone knows everything--far from it. Most souls are nearly as
blind as they were in life.
The boy was an inventor in a prior incarnation, and he came out this
time by an accident, he says. He should stay here a little longer, I
think, to get a stronger rhythm for a return. That is only my idea. I
am so interested in the boy that I should like to keep him, and perhaps
that influences my judgment somewhat.
You see, we are still human.
You asked me some questions, did you not? Will you speak them aloud? I
can hear.
Yes, I feel considerably younger than I have felt for a long time, and
I am well. At first I felt about as I did in my illness, with times
of depression and times of freedom from depression; but now I am all
right. My body does not give me much trouble.
I believe that old people grow younger here until they reach their
prime again, and that then they may hold that for a long time.
You see, I have not become all-wise. I have been able to pick up a
good deal of knowledge which I had forgotten; but about all the details
of this life I still have much to learn.
Your curiosity will help me to study conditions and to make inquiries,
which otherwise I might not have made for a long time, if ever. Most
people do not seem to learn much out here, except that naturally they
learn the best and easiest way of getting on, as in earth life.
Yes, there are schools here where any who wish for instruction can
receive it--if they are fit. But there are only a few _great_
teachers. The average college professor is not a being of supreme
wisdom, whether here or there.
LETTER XII
THE PATTERN WORLD
THERE is something I want to qualify in what I said the other day, that
there is nothing out here which has not existed on the earth. Since
then I have learned that that statement is not exactly true. There are
strata here. This I have learned recently. I still believe that in
the lowest stratum next the earth all or nearly all that exists has
existed on earth in dense matter. Go a little farther up, a little
farther away--how far I cannot say by actual measurement; but the other
night in exploring I got into the world of patterns, the paradigms--if
that is the word--of things which _are to be_ on earth. I saw
forms of things which, so far as I know, have not existed on your
planet--inventions, for example. I saw wings that man could adjust to
himself. I saw also new forms of flying-machines. I saw model cities,
and towers with strange wing-like projections on them, of which I
could not imagine the use. The progress of mechanical invention is
evidently only begun.
Another time I will go on, farther up in that world of pattern forms,
and see if I can learn what lies beyond it.
Bear this in mind: I merely tell you stories, as an earthly traveller
would tell, of the things I see. Sometimes my interpretation of them
may be wrong.
When I was in the place which we will call the pattern world, I saw
almost nobody there--only an occasional lone voyager like myself. I
naturally infer from this that but few of those who leave the earth go
up there at all. I think from what I have seen, and from conversations
I have had with men and women souls, that most of them do not get very
far from the earth, even out here.
It is strange, but many persons seem to be in the regular orthodox
heaven, singing in white robes, with crowns on their heads and with
harps in their hands. There is a region which outsiders call “the
heaven country.”
There is also, they tell me, a fiery hell, with at least the smell
of brimstone; but so far I have not been there. Some day when I feel
strong I will look in, and if it is not too depressing I will go
farther--if they will let me.
For the present I am looking about here and there, and I have not
studied carefully any place as yet.
I took the boy, whose name by the way is Lionel, out with me yesterday.
Perhaps we ought to say last night, for your day is our night when we
are on your side of this great hollow sphere. You and the solid earth
are in the centre of our sphere.
I took the boy out with me for what you would call a walk.
First we went to the old quarter of Paris, where I used to live in a
former life; but Lionel could not see anything, and when I pointed
out certain buildings to him he asked me quite sincerely if I were
dreaming. I must have some faculty which is not generally developed
among my fellow citizens in the astral country. So when the boy found
that Paris was only a figment of my imagination--he used to live in
Boston--I took him to see heaven. He remarked:
“Why, this must be the place my grandmother used to tell me about. But
where is God?”
That I could not tell him; but, on looking again, we saw that nearly
everybody was gazing in one direction. We also gazed with the others,
and saw a great light, like a sun, only it was softer and less dazzling
than the material sun.
“That,” I said to the boy, “is what they see who see God.”
And now I have something strange to tell you; for, as we gazed at that
light, slowly there took form between us and it the figure which we are
accustomed to see represented as that of the Christ. He smiled at the
people and stretched out His hands to them.
Then the scene changed, and He had on His left arm a lamb; and then
again He stood as if transfigured upon a mountain; then He spoke and
taught them. We could hear His voice. And then He vanished from our
sight.
LETTER XIII
FORMS REAL AND UNREAL
WHEN I first came out here I was so interested in what I saw
that I did not question much as to the manner of the seeing. But
lately--especially since writing the last letter or two--I have begun
to notice a difference between objects that at a superficial glance
seem to be of much the same substance. For example, I can sometimes
see a difference between those things which have existed on earth
unquestionably, such as the forms of men and women, and other things
which, while visualised and seemingly palpable, may be, and probably
are, but thought-creations.
This idea came to me while looking on at the dramas of the heaven
country, and it was forced upon me with greater power while making
other and recent explorations in that which I have called the pattern
world.
Later I may be able to distinguish at a glance between these two
classes of seeming objects. For example, if I encounter here a
being, or what seems a being, and if I am told that it is some
famous character in fiction, such as Jean Valjean in Hugo’s _Les
Misérables_, I shall have reason to believe that I have seen a
thought-form of sufficient vitality to stand alone, as a quasi-entity
in this world of tenuous matter. So far I have not encountered any such
characters.
Of course, unless I were able to hold converse with a being, a form, or
saw others do so, I could not positively state that it had an essential
existence. Hereafter I shall often put things to the test in this
way. If I can talk to a seeming entity, and if it can answer me, I am
justified in considering it as a reality. A character in fiction, or
any other mental creation, however vivid as a picture, would have no
soul, no unit of force, no real self. Whatever comes to me merely as a
picture I shall try to submit to this test.
If I see a peculiar form of tree or animal, and can touch and feel
it,--for the senses here are quite as acute as those of earth,--I know
that it exists in the subtle matter of this plane.
I believe that all the beings whom I have seen here are real; but if I
can find one that is not,--a being which I cannot feel when I touch it
and which cannot respond to my questions,--I shall have a datum for my
hypothesis that thought-forms of beings, as well as things, may have
sufficient cohesion to seem real.
It is undoubtedly true that there is no spirit without substance, no
substance without spirit, latent or expressed; but a painting of a man
may seem at a distance to be a man.
Can there exist deliberate thought-creations here, deliberate and
purposive creations? I believe so. Such a thought-form would probably
have to be very intense in order to persist.
It seems to me that I had better settle this question to my own
satisfaction before talking any more about it.
LETTER XIV
A FOLIO OF PARACELSUS
THE other day I asked my Teacher to show me the archives in which
those who had lived out here had recorded their observations, if such
existed. He said:
“You were a great reader of books when you were on the earth. Come.”
We entered a vast building like a library, and I caught my breath in
wonder. It was not the architecture of the building which struck me,
but the quantities of books and records. There must have been millions
of them.
I asked the Teacher if all the books were here. He smiled and said:
“Are there not enough? You can make your choice.”
I asked if the volumes were arranged by subjects.
“There is an arrangement,” he answered. “What do you want?”
I said that I should like to see the books in which were written the
accounts of explorations which other men had made in this (to me) still
slightly known country.
He smiled again, and took from a shelf a thick volume. It was printed
in large black type.[2]
“Who wrote this book?” I asked.
“There is a signature,” he replied.
I looked at the end and saw the signature: it was that used by
Paracelsus.
“When did he write this?”
“Soon after he came out. It was written between his Paracelsus life and
his next one on earth.”
The book which I had opened was a treatise on spirits, human, angelic,
and elemental. It began with the definition of a human spirit as a
spirit which had had the experience of life in human form; and it
defined an elemental spirit as a spirit of more or less developed
self-consciousness which had not yet had that experience.
Then the author defined an angel as a spirit of a high order which had
not had, and probably would not have in future, such experience in
matter.
He went on to state that angelic spirits were divided into two sharply
defined groups, the celestial and the infernal, the former being
those angels who worked towards harmony with the laws of God, the
latter being those angels who worked against that harmony. But he said
that both these orders of angels were necessary, each to the other’s
existence; that if all were good the universe would cease to be; that
good itself would cease to be through the failure of its opposite--evil.
He said that in the archives of the angelic regions there were cases
on record where a good angel had become bad or a bad angel had become
good, but that such cases were of rare occurrence.
He then went on to warn his fellow souls who should be sojourning in
that realm in which he then wrote, and in which I knew myself also to
be, against holding communion with evil spirits. He declared that in
the subtler forms of life there were more temptations than in the earth
life; that he himself had often been assailed by malignant angels who
had urged him to join forces with them, and that their arguments were
sometimes extremely plausible.
He said that while living on earth he had often had conversations with
spirits both good and bad; but that while on earth he had never, so
far as he knew, held converse with an angel of a malignant nature.
He advised his readers that there was one way to determine whether
a being of the subtler world was an angel or merely a human or an
elemental spirit, and that was by the greater brilliancy of the light
which surrounded an angel. He said that both good and bad angels were
extremely brilliant; but that there was a difference between them,
perceptible at the first glance at their faces; that the eyes of the
celestial angels were aflame with love and intellect, while the eyes of
the infernal angels were very unpleasant to encounter.
He said that it would be possible for an infernal angel to disguise
himself to a mortal, so that he might be mistaken for an angel of
light; but that it was practically impossible for an angel to disguise
his real nature from those souls who were living in their subtle bodies.
I will perhaps say more on this subject another night. I must rest now.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: I hope no one will expect me to answer the question why
should such a book appear to be printed in large black type. I have no
more idea than has the reader.--ED.]
LETTER XV
A ROMAN TOGA
ONE thing which makes this country so interesting to me is its lack of
conventionality. No two persons are dressed in the same way--or no, I
do not mean that exactly, but many are so eccentrically dressed that
their appearance gives variety to the whole.
My own clothes are, as a rule, similar to those I wore on earth,
though I have as an experiment, when dwelling in thought on one of my
long-past lives, put on the garments of the period.
It is easy to get the clothes one wants here. I do not know how I
became possessed of the garments which I wore on coming out; but when
I began to take notice of such things, I found myself dressed about as
usual. I am not yet sure whether I brought my clothes with me.
There are many people here in costumes of the ancient days. I do not
infer from this fact that they have been here all those ages. I think
they wear such clothes because they like them.
As a rule, most persons stay near the place where they lived on earth;
but I have been a wanderer from the first. I go rapidly from one
country to another. One night (or day with you) I may take my rest in
America; the next night I may rest in Paris. I have spent hours of
repose on the divan in your sitting-room, and you did not know that I
was there. I doubt, though, if I could stay for hours in your house
when I was myself awake without your sensing my presence.
Do not think, however, from what I have just said, that it is necessary
for me to rest on the solid matter of your world. Not at all. We can
rest on the tenuous substance of our own world.
One day, when I had been here only a short time, I saw a woman dressed
in a Greek costume, and asked her where she got her clothes. She
replied that she had made them. I asked her how, and she said:
“Why, first I made a pattern in my mind, and then the thing became a
garment.”
“Did you take every stitch?”
“Not as I should have done on earth.”
I looked closer and saw that the whole garment seemed to be in one
piece, and that it was caught on the shoulders by jewelled pins. I
asked where she got the jewelled pins, and she said that a friend had
given them to her. Then I asked where the friend had got them. She told
me that she did not know, but that she would ask him. Soon after that
she left me, and I have not seen her since, so the question is still
unanswered.
I began to experiment to see if I also could make things. It was then
that I conceived the idea of wearing a Roman toga, but for the life of
me I could not remember what a Roman toga looked like.
When next I met the Teacher I told him of my wish to wear a toga of my
own making, and he carefully showed me how to create garments such as I
desired: To fix the pattern and shape clearly in my mind, to visualise
it, and then by power to desire to draw the subtle matter of the
thought-world round the pattern, so as actually to form the garment.
“Then,” I said, “the matter of the thought-world, as you call it, is
not the same kind of matter as that of my body, for instance?”
“In the last analysis,” he answered, “there is only one kind of matter
in both worlds; but there is a great difference in vibration and
tenuity.”
Now the thought-substance of which our garments are formed seems to be
an extremely tenuous form of matter, while our bodies seem to be pretty
solid. We do not feel at all like transparent angels sitting on damp
clouds. Were it not for the quickness with which I get over space, I
should think sometimes that my body was as solid as ever.
I can often see you, and to me _you_ seem tenuous. It is all,
I suppose, the old question of adjusting to environment. At first I
could not do it, and had some trouble in learning to adjust the amount
of energy necessary for each particular action. So little energy is
required here to move myself about that at first when I started to go a
short distance--say, a few yards--I would find myself a mile away. But
I am now pretty well adjusted.
I must be storing up energy here for a good hard life when I return
to the earth again. The hardest work I do now is to come and write
through your hand, but you offer less and less resistance as time
goes on. In the beginning it took all my strength; now it takes only
a comparatively small effort. Yet I could not do it long at a time
without using your own vitality, and that I will not do.
You may have noticed that you are no longer fatigued after the
writing, though you used to be at first.
But I was speaking of the lack of conventionality out here. Souls hail
each other when they want to, without much ceremony. I have seen a few
old women who were afraid to talk to a stranger, but probably they had
not been here long and the earth habits still clung to them.
Do not think, however, that society here is too free and easy. It is
not that, but men and women do not seem to be so afraid of each other
as they were on earth.
LETTER XVI
A THING TO BE FORGOTTEN
I WANT to say a word to those who are about to die. I want to beg them
to forget their bodies as soon as possible after the change which they
call death.
Oh, the terrible curiosity to go back and look upon that _thing_
which we once believed to be ourselves! The thought comes to us now and
then so powerfully that it acts in a way against our will and draws us
back to _it_. With some it is a morbid obsession, and many cannot
get free from it while there remains a shred of flesh on the bones
which they once leaned upon.
Tell them to forget it altogether, to force the thought away, to go out
into the other life free. Looking back upon the past is sometimes good,
but not upon this relic of the past.
It is so easy to look into the coffin, because the body which we wear
now is itself a light in a dark place, and it can penetrate grosser
matter. I have been back myself a few times, but am determined to
go back no more. Yet some day the thought may come to me again with
compelling insistence to see how _it_ is getting on.
I do not want to shock or pain you--only to warn you. It is sad to see
the sight which inevitably meets one in the grave. That may be the
reason why many souls who have not been here long are so melancholy.
They return again and again to the place which they should not visit.
You know that out here if we think intently of a place we are apt to
find ourselves there. The body which we use is so light that it can
follow thought almost without effort. Tell them not to do it.
One day while walking down an avenue of trees--for we have trees
here--I met a tall woman in a long black garment. She was weeping--for
we have tears here also. I asked her why she wept, and she turned to me
eyes of unutterable sadness.
“I have been back to _it_,” she said.
My heart ached for her, because I knew how she felt. The shock of the
first visit is repeated each time, as the thing one sees is less and
less what we like to think of ourselves as being.
Often I remember that tall woman in black, walking down the avenue of
trees and weeping. It is partly curiosity that draws one back, partly
magnetic attraction; but it can do no good. It is better to forget it.
I have sometimes longed, from sheer scientific interest, to ask my
boy Lionel if he had been back to his body; but I have not asked him
for fear of putting the idea into his mind. He has such a restless
curiosity. Perhaps those who go out as children have less of that
morbid instinct than we have.
If we could only remember in life that the form which we call ourselves
is not our real immortal self at all, we would not give it such an
exaggerated importance, though we would nevertheless take needful care
of it.
As a rule, those who say that they have been long here do not seem old.
I asked the Teacher why, and he said that after a time an old person
forgets that he is old, that the tendency is to grow young in thought
and therefore young in appearance, that the body tends to take the form
which we hold of it in our minds, that the law of rhythm works here as
elsewhere.
Children grow up out here, and they may even go on to a sort of old age
if that is the expectation of the mind; but the tendency is to keep
the prime, to go forward or back towards the best period, and then to
hold that until the irresistible attraction of the earth asserts itself
again.
Most of the men and women here do not know that they have lived many
times in flesh. They remember their latest life more or less vividly,
but all before that seems like a dream. One should always keep the
memory of the past as clear as possible. It helps one to construct the
future.
Those people who think of their departed friends as being all-wise, how
disappointed they would be if they could know that the life on this
side is only an extension of the life on earth! If the thoughts and
desires there have been only for material pleasures, the thoughts and
desires here are likely to be the same. I have met veritable saints
since coming out; but they have been men and women who held in earth
life the saintly ideal, and who now are free to live it.
Life can be so free here! There is none of that machinery of living
which makes people on earth such slaves. In our world a man is held
only by his thoughts. If they are free, he is free.
Few, though, are of my philosophic spirit. There are more saints here
than philosophers, as the highest ideal of most persons, when intensely
active, has been towards the religious rather than the philosophic
life.
I think the happiest people I have met on this side have been the
painters. Our matter is so light and subtle, and so easily handled,
that it falls readily into the forms of the imagination. There are
beautiful pictures here. Some of our artists try to impress their
pictures upon the mental eyes of the artists of earth, and they often
succeed in doing so.
There is joy in the heart of one of our real artists when a fellow
craftsman on your side catches an idea from him and puts it into
execution. He may not always be able to see clearly how well the second
man works out the idea, for it requires a special gift or a special
training to _see_ from one form of matter into the other; but the
inspiring spirit catches the thought in the inspired one’s mind, and
knows that a conception of his own is being executed upon the earth.
With poets it is the same. There are lovely lyrics composed out here
and impressed upon the receptive minds of earthly poets. A poet told me
that it was easier to do that with a short lyric than with an epic or a
drama, where a long-continued effort was necessary.
It is much the same with musicians. Whenever you go to a concert where
beautiful music is being played, there is probably all round you a
crowd of music-loving spirits, drinking in the harmonies. Music on
earth is much enjoyed on this side. It can be heard. But no sensitive
spirit likes to go near a place where bad strumming is going on. We
prefer the music of stringed instruments. Of all earthly things,
sound reaches most directly into this plane of life. Tell that to the
musicians.
If they could only hear our music! I did not understand music on earth,
but now my ears are becoming adjusted. It seems sometimes as if you
must hear our music over there, as we hear yours.
You may have wondered how I spend my time and where I go. There is a
lovely spot in the country which I never tire of visiting. It is on
the side of a mountain, not far from my own city. There is a little
road winding round a hill, and just above the road is a hut, a roofed
enclosure with the lower side open. Sometimes I stay there for hours
and listen to the rippling of the brook which runs beside the road.
The tall slender trees have become like brothers to me. At first I
cannot see the material trees very clearly; but I go into the little
hut which is made of fresh clean boards with a sweet smell, and I lie
down on the shelf or bunk along the wall; then I close my eyes and
by an effort--or no, it is not what I would call an effort, but by a
sort of drifting--I can see the beautiful place. But you must know that
this is in the night time there, and I see it by the light of myself.
That is why we travel in the dark part of the twenty-four hours, for in
the bright sunlight we cannot see at all. Our light is put out by the
cruder light of the sun.
One night I took the boy Lionel there with me, leaving him in the hut
while I went a little distance away. Looking back, I saw the whole hut
illuminated by a lovely radiance--the radiance of Lionel himself. The
little building, which has a peaked roof, looked like a pearl lighted
from within. It was a beautiful experience.
I then went to Lionel and told him to go in his turn a little distance
away, while I took his place in the hut. I was curious to know if he
would see the same phenomenon when I lay there, if I could shed such a
light through dense matter--the boards of the building. When I called
him to me afterwards and asked if he had seen anything strange, he said:
“What a wonderful man you are, Father! How did you make that hut seem
to be on fire?”
Then I knew that he had seen the same thing I had seen.
But I am tired now and can write no more. Good night, and may you have
pleasant dreams.
LETTER XVII
THE SECOND WIFE OVER THERE
I AM often called upon here to decide matters for others. Many people
call me simply “the Judge”; but we bear, as a rule, the name that we
last bore on earth.
Men and women come to me to settle all sorts of questions for them,
questions of ethics, questions of expediency, even quarrels. Did
you suppose that no one quarrelled here? Many do. There are even
long-standing feuds among them.
The holders of different opinions on religion are often hot in their
arguments. Coming here with the same beliefs they had on earth, and
being able to visualise their ideals and actually to experience the
things they are expecting, two men who hold opposite creeds forcibly
are each more intolerant than ever before. Each is certain that he
is right and that the other is wrong. This stubbornness of belief is
strongest with those who have been here only a short time. After a
while they fall into a larger tolerance, living their own lives more
and more, and enjoying the world of proofs and realisations which each
soul builds for itself.
But I want to give you an illustration of the sort of questions on
which I am asked to pass judgment.
There are two women here who in life were both married to one man,
though not at the same time. The first woman died, then the man married
again, and soon--not more than a year or two after--the man and his
second wife both came out. The first wife considers herself the man’s
only wife, and she follows him about everywhere. She says that he
promised to meet her in heaven. He is more inclined to the second wife,
though he still feels affection for Wife No. 1. He is rather impatient
at what he calls her unreasonableness. He told me one day that he would
gladly give them both up, if he could be left in peace to carry out
certain studies in which he is interested. These were among the people
I met soon after I began to be strong myself here--it was not so very
long ago; and the man has sought my society so much that the women, in
order to be near him, have come along too.
One day they all three came to me and propounded their question--or,
rather, Wife No. 1 propounded it. She said:
“This man is my husband. Should not, therefore, this other woman go far
away and leave him altogether to me?”
I asked Wife No. 2 what she had to say. Her answer was that she would
be all alone here but for her husband, and that as she had had him
last, he now belonged more to her than to the other.
In a flash the memory came to me of those Sadducees who propounded
a similar question to Christ, and I quoted His answer as nearly as
I could remember it: that “when they shall rise from the dead, they
neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which
are in heaven.”
My answer was as much a staggerer for them as their question had been
for me, and they went away to think about it.
When they were gone I began myself to ponder the question. I had
already observed that, whether or not all here are as the angels in
heaven, there does seem to be a good deal of mating and rejoining of
former mates. The sex distinction is as real here as on the earth,
though, of course, its expression is not exactly the same. I asked
myself a good many questions which perhaps would never have occurred
to me but for the troubles of this interesting triad, and I thought of
the man I had somewhere read about, who said that he never knew his own
opinion of anything until he tried to express it to somebody.
After a while the three came to me again and said that they had been
talking things over, perhaps after the manner of angels in heaven; for
Wife No. 1 told me that she had decided to “let” her husband spend a
part of his time with the other woman, if he wanted to.
Now, the man had a sweetheart, a girl sweetheart, before he had either
of his wives. The girl is out here somewhere, and the man often has a
strong desire to try to find her. What opportunity he will now have
to do so, I cannot say. The situation is rather depressing for the
poor fellow. It is bad enough to have one person who insists on every
minute of your society, without having two. And I think his case is not
unusual. Perhaps the only way in which he can get free from his two
insistent companions is by going back to the earth.
There is a way, however, by which he could secure solitude; but he does
not know of it. A man who knows how can isolate himself here as well as
he could on earth; he can build round himself a wall which only the
eyes of a great initiate can pierce. I have not told this secret to my
friend; but perhaps I shall some day, if it seems necessary for his
development that he have a little solitude. At present it seems to me
that he will learn more from adjusting to this double claim and trying
to find the truth that lies in it. Perhaps he may learn that really,
essentially, fundamentally, he does not “belong” to either of these
women. The souls out here seem to belong to themselves, and after the
first few years they get to love liberty so much that they are ready to
yield a little of their claim upon others.
This is a great place in which to grow, if one really wants to grow;
though few persons take advantage of its possibilities. Most are
content to assimilate the experiences they had on earth. It would
be depressing to one who did not realise that will is free, to see
how souls let slip their opportunities here, even as they did on the
moon-guarded planet.
There are teachers here who stand ready to help anyone who wishes their
help in making real and deep studies in the mysteries of life--the life
here, the life there, and in the remote past.
If a man understands that his recent sojourn on earth was merely the
latest of a long series of lives, and if he concentrates his mind
towards recovering the memories of the distant past, he can recover
them. Some persons may think that the mere dropping of the veil of
matter should free the soul from all obscuration; but, as on earth so
out here, “things are not thus and so because they ought to be, but
because they are.”
We draw to ourselves the experiences which we are ready for and which
we demand, and most souls do not demand enough here, any more than they
did in life. Tell them to demand more, and the demand will be answered.
LETTER XVIII
INDIVIDUAL HELLS
SOME time ago I told you of my intention to visit hell; but when I
began investigations on that line there proved to be many hells.
Each man who is not content with the orthodox hell of fire and
brimstone builds one out of mind-stuff suited to his imaginative need.
I believe that men place themselves in hell, that no God puts them
there. I began looking for a hell of fire and brimstone, and found it.
Dante must have seen the same things I saw.
But there are other and individual hells----
(_The writing suddenly stopped, for no apparent reason, and was not
continued that night._)
LETTER XIX
A LITTLE HOME IN HEAVEN
I HAVE met a very interesting man since last I wrote to you. He is a
lover who for ten years waited here for his love to come to him.
They said on earth that he was dead, and they urged her to love
another; but she could not forget him, for every night he met her soul
in dreams, every night she came out to him here, and sometimes she
could recall on waking all that he had said to her in sleep. She had
told him that she would not delay long in the sunshine world, but would
come out to him in the self-lighted world.
Only a little while ago she came. He had been long getting ready for
her coming, and had built in the substance of this world the little
home he had planned to build for her in the outer world.
He told me how one night when she came to him in dream, she said that
she would rejoin him on the morrow, never to leave him again. He was
startled, and would almost have stayed her; because he had died a
sudden and painful death, and he dreaded pain for her. Always he had
watched over her, warning her of danger; but this time he felt, after
the first shock of the message was over, that she was really coming.
And he was very happy.
He had found no other love out here; for when one leaves the earth
full of a great affection, and when the earthly loved one does not
forget, the tie can hold for many years unweakened. You on the earth
have forgotten so much of what you learned here that you do not realise
how your thought of us can make us happy, do not realise how your
forgetfulness of us can throw us back entirely upon ourselves.
Often those who go farthest here, who really grow in spirituality, are
those whose loves have forgotten them on earth; but it is sad to be
forgotten, nevertheless.
It is a bitter power you make possible to us when you thus throw us
back upon ourselves; and not all souls are strong enough or aspiring
enough to make use of the lonely impetus that might help them to scale
the ladder of spiritual knowledge.
But to return to my lovers. All that day he remained near her. He would
not rest; for, as I have told you, we generally rest a little when
the sun shines on the earth. All that day he remained near her. He
could not see her body, for the rays of sunlight were too strong for
him. But, after hours of waiting, suddenly he felt a hand in his, and
though she was invisible to him, yet he knew that she was _here_.
And he spoke to her, using such words as he would have used on earth.
She did not seem to understand. He spoke again, and still she did not
answer; but he knew from the pressure of her hand that she realised
his presence. So hand in hand they stood there in the darkness of the
sunlight, the man able to speak because of his long experience in this
world of subtle sounds, the woman speechless and bewildered, but still
clinging to his hand.
When the sunshine went away he was able to see her face, and her eyes
were wide and frightened; but still she seemed held to the room in
which lay the body which had been she. It was summer, and the windows
were open. He sought to draw her away into the perfumed night which to
them was day; but she held his hand and would not let him go.
At last he drew her away a short distance and spoke to her again. Now
she heard and answered him.
“Beloved,” she said, “which is I? For I see myself--I feel
myself--back there also. I seem to be in two places. Which I is really
I?”
He comforted her with loving words. He was still afraid to caress her,
for the touch of souls is very keen, and he feared lest she should go
back into the form which seemed to be so near them, and thus be lost to
him again. But though she had often come to him in dreams, it had not
been so vividly as this time, and he felt that she had really passed
through the great change.
She still clung to his hand, yet seemed afraid to go out with him--out
and away from _it_. He stayed there with her all that night and
all the next day, when the darkening sun came again, and again he could
not see her.
Once the well-meaning friends of his beloved disturbed her body, doing
those sacred offices which seem so necessary to the living, but which
may sorely disturb the dead.
He stayed with her the second night and all the second day. He could
hear the sobs of her grieving parents, though they could not see
either him or their daughter; but on the second night the little dog
of his love came into the room where _it_ lay, the room in which
their two souls still stood, and the little dog saw them and whined
piteously. The man could hear it, and she also could hear it.
And now she could hear him more plainly when he spoke to her.
“Where will they take _it_?” she asked him.
He recalled the time when he had been held spellbound near his own
lifeless form, over which his loved one had shed bitter tears. And he
asked her if it would not be better to come away altogether; but she
could not, or thought she could not.
On the third day he knew from the agitation of his love that they
were placing her body in the coffin. After a while he felt, though he
could not see, that many other persons were in the room, and he heard
mournful music. Music can reach from one world to another, can be heard
far more plainly than human voices, which generally cannot be heard at
all except by the trained listener.
By and by his love was sorely agitated, and he also, through sympathy
with her; and they felt themselves going slowly--oh, so slowly!--along.
And he said to her:
“Do not be grieved. They are taking _it_ to the burial; but you
are safe with me.” He knew that she was much troubled.
It is not for nothing that over the house of death there always hangs
a strange hush, not to be explained by the mere losing of the loved
one. Those who remain behind feel, though they cannot see, the soul of
the one who has gone out. Their souls are full of sympathy for him in
his bewilderment.
The change need not be painful if one would only remember that it has
been passed through before; but one so easily forgets. We sometimes
call the earth the Valley of Forgetfulness.
During the days and weeks that followed this lover remained with
his loved one, ever trying to draw her away from the earth and from
_it_, which had for her, as for so many, a fearsome fascination.
It is said that the souls of those who have lived long on earth more
easily detach themselves; but this woman was still young, only about
thirty; and even with the help of her lover it was a little time before
she could get free.
But one day (or night, as you would say) he showed her the home which
he had built for her, and it was literally a mansion in the sky. She
entered with him, and it became their home.
Sometimes he leaves her for a little while, or she leaves him; for
the joy of being together is heightened here, as on the earth, by an
occasional separation; but not until she was content and accustomed to
the new life did he leave her at all.
During the first days the habit of earthly hunger often held her, and
he tried to appease it by giving her the softer substance which we know
here. Gradually she became weaned altogether from the earth and the
habits of the earth, only going back occasionally in a dream to her
father and mother.
Do not disregard your dreams about the dead. They always mean
something. They do not always mean what the dream would seem to
signify; for the door between the two worlds is very narrow, and
thoughts are often shaken out of place in passing through. But dreams
about the dead mean something. We can reach you in that way.
I came to you in a dream the other night, standing behind and outside
the gate of a walled garden in which you were enclosed. I smiled and
beckoned you to come out to me; but I did not wish you to come out to
stay. I only meant that you should come out in spirit; for if you come
out occasionally it is easier for me to go into your world.
Good night.
LETTER XX
THE MAN WHO FOUND GOD
THERE seems to be no way in which I can better teach you about
this life, so strange to you, than by telling my experiences and
conversations with men and women here.
I said one night not long ago that I had met more saints than
philosophers, and I want to tell you now about a man who seems to be a
genuine saint. Yes, there are little saints and great saints, as there
are little and great sinners.
One day I was walking on a mountain top. I say “walking,” for it seemed
about the same, though it takes but little energy to walk here.
On the mountain top I saw a man standing alone. He was looking out and
far away, but I could not see what he was looking at. He was abstracted
and communing with himself, or with some presence of which I was
unaware.
I waited for some time. At last, drawing a long breath--for we breathe
here--he turned his eyes to me and said, with a kind smile:
“Can I do anything for you, brother?”
I was embarrassed for a moment, feeling that I might have intruded upon
some sweet communion.
“If I am not too bold in asking,” I said, “would you tell me what you
were thinking as you stood there looking into space?”
I was conscious of my presumption; but being so determined to learn
what can be known, if sometimes I am too bold in making inquiries, I
feel that my very earnestness may win for me the forgiveness of those I
question.
This man had a beautiful beardless face and young-looking eyes; but his
garments were the ordinary garments of one who thinks little or nothing
of his appearance. That very unconsciousness of the outer form may
sometimes give it a peculiar majesty.
He looked at me in silence for a moment; then he said:
“I was trying to draw near to God.”
“And what is God?” I asked; “and where is God?”
He smiled. I never saw a smile like his, as he answered:
“God is everywhere. God _is_.”
“What is He?” I persisted; and again he repeated, but with a different
emphasis:
“_God_ is.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“God _is_, _God_ is,” he said.
I do not know how his meaning was conveyed to me, perhaps by sympathy;
but it suddenly flashed into my mind that when he said, “God
_is_,” he expressed the completest realisation of God which is
possible to the spirit; and when he said, “_God_ is,” he meant me
to understand that there was no being, nothing that is, except God.
There must have been in my face a reflection of what I felt, for the
saint then said to me:
“Do you not also know that He _is_, and that all that is, is He?”
“I am beginning to feel what you mean,” I answered, “though I doubtless
feel but a little of it.”
He smiled, and made no reply; but my mind was full of questions.
“When you were on earth,” I said, “did you think much about God?”
“Always. I thought of little else. I sought Him everywhere, but seemed
only at times to get flashes of consciousness as to what He really
was. Sometimes when praying, for I prayed much, there would come to me
suddenly the question, ‘To what are you praying?’ And I would answer
aloud, ‘To God, to God!’ But though I prayed to Him every day for
years, only occasionally did I get a flash of that true consciousness
of God. Finally, one day when I was alone in the woods, there came the
great revelation. It came not in any form of words, but rather in a
wordless and formless wonder, too vast for the limitation of thought.
I fell upon the ground and must have lost consciousness, for after a
while--how long a time I do not know--I awoke, and got up and looked
about me. Then gradually I remembered the experience which had been too
big for me while I was feeling it.
“I could put into the form of words the realisation which had been too
much for my mortality to bear, and the words I used to myself were,
‘All that is, is God.’ It seemed very simple, yet it was far from
simple. ‘All that is, is God.’ That must include me and all my fellow
beings, human and animal; even the trees and the birds and the rivers
must be a part of God, if God were all that is.
“From that moment life assumed a new meaning for me. I could not see a
human face without remembering the revelation--that that human being I
saw was a part of God. When my dog looked at me, I said to him aloud,
‘You are a part of God.’ When I stood beside a river and listened to
the sound of its waters, I said to myself, ‘I am listening to the voice
of God.’ When a fellow being was angry with me, I asked myself, ‘In
what way have I offended God?’ When one spoke lovingly to me, I said,
‘God is loving me now,’ and the realisation nearly took my breath away.
Life became unbelievably beautiful.
“Therefore I had been so absorbed in God, in trying to find God, that I
had not given much thought to my fellow beings, and had even neglected
those nearest me; but from that day I began to mingle with my human
brethren. I found that as more and more I sought God in them, more
and more God responded to me through them. And life became still more
wonderful.
“Sometimes I tried to tell others what I felt, but they did not always
understand me. It was thus I began to realise that God had purposely,
for some reason of His own, covered Himself with veils. Was it that He
might have the pleasure of tearing them away? If so, I would help Him
all I could. So I tried to make other men grasp the knowledge of God
which I myself had attained. For years I taught men. At first I wanted
to teach everybody; but I soon came to see that that was impossible,
and so I selected a few who called themselves my disciples. They did
not always tell the world that they were my disciples, because I asked
them not to do so. But I urged each of them to give to someone as much
as possible of the knowledge that I had given to him. And so I think
that many have come to feel a little of the wonder which was revealed
to me that day alone in the woods, when I awoke to the knowledge that
God _is_, _God_ is.”
Then the saint turned and left me, with all my questions unanswered. I
wanted to ask him when and how he had left the earth, and what work he
was doing out here--but he was gone!
Perhaps I shall see him again some day. But whether I do or not, he has
given me something which I in turn give to you, as he himself desired
to give it to the world.
That is all for to-night.
LETTER XXI
THE LEISURE OF THE SOUL
ONE of the joys of being here is the leisure for dreaming and for
getting acquainted with oneself.
Of course there is plenty to do; but though I intend to go back to the
world in a few years, I feel that there is time to get acquainted with
myself. I tried to do that on earth, more or less; but here there are
fewer demands on me. The mere labour of dressing and undressing is
lighter, and I do not have to earn my living now, nor anybody else’s.
You, too, could take time to loaf, if you thought you could. You can do
practically anything you think you can do.
I purpose, for instance, in a few years not only to pick up a general
knowledge of the conditions of this four-dimensional world, but to go
back over my other lives and assimilate what I learned in them. I want
to make a synthesis of the complete experiences of my ego up to this
date, and to judge from that synthesis what I can do in the future
with least resistance. I believe, but am not quite sure, that I can
bring back much of this knowledge with me when I am born again.
I shall try to tell you--or some of you--when and about where to look
for me again. Oh, don’t be startled! It will not be for some time yet.
An early date would necessitate hurry, and I do not wish to hurry.
I could probably force the coming back, but that would be unwise,
for I should then come back with less power than I want. Action and
reaction being opposite and equal, and the unit, or ego, being able
to generate only so much energy in a given time, it is better for me
to rest in this condition of light matter until I have accumulated
energy enough to come back with power. I shall not do, however, as many
souls do; they stay out here until they are as tired of this world as
they formerly were tired of the earth, and then are driven back half
unconsciously by the irresistible force of the tide of rhythm. I want
to guide that rhythm.
Since I have been here one man whom I know has gone back to the earth.
He was about ready to go when I first found him. The strange part of it
was that he himself did not understand his condition. He complained of
being tired of things and of wanting to rest much. That was probably
a natural instinct for rest, in preparation for the supreme effort of
opening the doors of matter again. It is easy to come out here, but it
requires some effort to go _from_ this world into yours.
I know where that soul is now, for the Teacher told me. I had spoken
to the Teacher about him, but he already knew of his existence. It was
rather strange, for the man was one in whom I should have fancied that
the Teacher would have taken little interest. But one never knows.
Perhaps in his next life he may really begin to study the philosophy
which _they_ teach.
But I was speaking of the larger leisure out here. I wish you could
arrange your life so as to have a little more leisure. I do not want
you to be lazy, but the passive conditions of the mind are quite as
valuable as the active conditions. It is when you are passive that
we can reach you. When your mind and body are always occupied, it is
difficult to impress you with any message of the soul. Find a little
more time each day for doing nothing at all. It is good to do nothing
sometimes; then the semi-conscious parts of your mind can work. They
can remind you that there is an inner life; for the inner life that
is “capable” to you on earth is really the point of contact with the
world in which we live.
I have said that the two worlds touch, and they touch through the
inner. You go in to come out. It is a paradox, and paradoxes conceal
great truths. Contradictions are not truths, but a paradox is not a
contradiction.
There is a great difference in the length of time that people stay
out here. You talk of being homesick. There are souls here who are
homesick for the earth. They sometimes go back almost at once, which
is generally a mistake. Unless one is young and still has a store of
unused energy saved over from the last life, in going back to the earth
too soon one lacks the force of a strong rebound.
It is strange to see a man here as homesick for the earth as certain
poets and dreamers on earth are homesick for the inner life.
This use of the terms “outer” and “inner” may seem confusing; but
you must remember that while you go _in_ to come to us, we go
_out_ to come to you. In our normal state here we are living
almost a subjective life. We become more and more objective as we touch
your world. You become more and more subjective as you touch our world.
If you only knew it, you could come to us at almost any time for a
brief visit--I mean, by going deep enough into yourself.
If you want to try the experiment and will not be afraid, I can take
you out here without your quite losing consciousness in your body--I
mean without your being in deep sleep. You can call me when you want
to make a trial. If I do not come at once, do not be discouraged. Of
course at the moment I might be doing something else; but in that case
I will come at another time.
There is no hurry. That is what I want to impress upon you. What you do
not do this year you can perhaps do next year; but if you are always
rushing after things, you can accomplish little in this particular
work. Eternity is long enough for the full development of the ego of
man. Eternity seems to have been designed for that end. That was a
sound statement which was given at one time: “The object of life is
life.” I have realised that more fully since I had an opportunity to
study eternity from a new angle. This is a very good angle from which
to view both time and eternity. I see now what I did not see before,
that I myself have never wasted any time. Even my failures were a
valuable part of my experience. We lose to gain again. We go in and out
of power sometimes as we go in and out of life, to learn what is there
and outside. In this, as in all things, the object of life is life.
Do not hurry. A man may grow gradually into power and knowledge, or he
may take them by force. Will is free. But the gradual growth has a less
powerful reaction.
LETTER XXII
THE SERPENT OF ETERNITY
I WANT to talk to you to-night about eternity. Until I came out, I
never had a grasp on that problem. I thought only in terms of months
and years and centuries; now I see the full sweep of the circle. The
comings out and the goings into matter are no more than the systole
and the diastole of the ego-heart; and, speaking from the standpoint
of eternity, they are relatively as brief. To you a lifetime is a long
time. It used to seem so to me, but it does not seem so now.
People are always saying, “If I had my life to live over, I would do
so and so.” Now, no man has any particular life to live over, any more
than the heart can go back and beat over again the beat of the second
previous; but every man has his next life to prepare for. Suppose you
have made a botch of your existence. Most men have, viewed from the
standpoint of their highest ideal; but every man who can think must
have assimilated some experience which he can carry over with him.
He may not, on coming out into the sunlight of another life on earth,
be able to remember the details of his former experience, though some
men can recall them by a sufficient training and a fixed will; but the
tendencies of any given life, the unexplained impulses and desires, are
in nearly all cases brought over.
You should get away from the mental habit of regarding your present
life as the only one, get rid of the idea that the life you expect to
lead on this side, after your death, is to be an endless existence in
one state. You could no more endure such an endless existence in the
subtle matter of the inner world than you could endure to live forever
in the gross matter in which you are now encased. You would weary of
it. You could not support it.
Do get this idea of rhythm into your brain. All beings are subject
to the law of rhythm, even the gods,--though in a greater way than
ourselves, with longer periods of flux and reflux.
I did not want to leave the earth, I fought against it until the
last; but now I see that my coming out was inevitable because of the
conditions. Had I begun earlier I might have provisioned my craft for a
longer cruise; but when the coal and water had run out I had to make
port.
It is possible to provision even a small life-craft for a longer voyage
than the allotted threescore years and ten; but one must economise the
coal and not waste the water. There are some who will understand that
water is the fluid of life.
Many persons resent the idea that the life after death is not eternal,
a never-ending progression in spiritual realms; though few who so
object have much of an idea what they mean when they talk of spiritual
realms.
Life everlasting is possible to all souls--yes; but it is not possible
to go on forever in one direction. Evolution is a curve. Eternity is
a circle, a serpent that swallows its own tail. Until you are willing
to go in and out of dense matter, you will never learn to transcend
matter. There are those who can stay in or out at will, and, relatively
speaking, as long as they choose; but they are never those who shrink
from either form of life.
I used to shrink from what I called death. There are those on this side
who shrink from what _they_ call death. Do you know what they call
death? It is rebirth into the world. Yes, even so.
There are many here who are as ignorant of rhythm as most people are
on your side. I have met men and women who did not even know that they
would go back to the earth again, who talked of the “great change” as
the men of earth talk of dying, and of all that lay beyond as “unproved
and unprovable.” It would be tragic if it were not so absurd.
When I knew that I had to die I determined to carry with me memory,
philosophy, and reason.
Now I want to say something which will perhaps surprise you. There is a
man who wrote a book called _The Law of Psychic Phenomena_ and in
that book he said certain things of those two parts of the mind which
he called the subjective and the objective. He said that the subjective
mind was incapable of inductive reasoning, that the subjective mind
would accept any premise given it by the objective mind, and would
reason from that premise with matchless logic; but that it could not go
behind the premise, that it could not reason backwards.
Now, remember that in this form of matter where I am men are living
principally a subjective life, as men on earth live principally an
objective life. These people here, being in the subjective, reason
from the premises already given them during their objective or earth
existence. That is why most of those who last lived in the so-called
Western lands, where the idea of rhythm or rebirth is unpopular, came
out here with the fixed idea that they would not go back into earth
life. Hence most of them still reason from that premise.
Do you not understand that what you believe you are going to be out
here is largely determinative of what you will be. Those who do not
believe in rebirth cannot forever escape the rhythm of rebirth; but
they hold to their belief until the tide of rhythm sweeps them along
with it and forces them into gross matter again, into which they go
quite unprepared, carrying with them almost no memory of their life out
here. They carried out here the memory of the earth life because they
expected so to carry it.
Many Orientals who have always believed in rebirth remember their
former lives, because they expected to remember them.
Yes, when I realised that I had to leave the earth I laid a spell
upon myself. I determined to remember through both the going out and
the subsequent coming in. Of course I cannot swear now to remember
everything when I come into heavy matter again; but I am determined to
do so if possible; and I shall succeed to some extent if I do not get
the wrong mother. I intend to take great care on that point, and to
choose a mother who is familiar with the idea of rebirth. If possible,
I want to choose a mother who actually knew me in my last life as ----,
and who, if I shall announce in childhood that I am that same ---- whom
she knew when a young girl, will not chide me and drive me back into
myself with her doubts.
I believe that many children carry over into earth life memories of
their lives out here, but that those memories are afterwards lost by
reason of the suggestion constantly given to children that they are
newly created, “fresh from the hand of God,” etc., etc.
Eternity is indeed long, and there are more things on earth and heaven
than are dreamed of in the philosophy of the average teacher of
children.
If you could only get hold of the idea of immortal life and _cling to
it_! If you could realise yourself as being without beginning and
without end, then you might commence to do things worth while. It is a
wonderful consciousness that consciousness of eternity. Small troubles
seem indeed small to him who thinks of himself in the terms of a
million years. You may make the figure a billion, or whatever you like,
but the idea is the same. No man can grasp the idea of a million years,
or a million dollars, or a million of anything; the figure is merely a
symbol for a great quantity, whether it be years or gold pieces. The
idea cannot be fixed; there will always be something that escapes. No
millionaire knows exactly what he is worth at any given time; for there
is always interest to be counted, and the value is a shifting one.
It is so with immortality. Do not think of yourself as having lived
a million years, or a trillion years, but as truly immortal, without
beginning or end. The man who knows himself to be rich is richer than
the man who says that he has a certain amount of money, be the amount
large or small. So rest in the consciousness of eternity and work in
the consciousness of eternity.
That is all for to-night.
LETTER XXIII
A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENDANT
TELL the friend who is so anxious lest I do you harm by writing with
your hand that that matter was thoroughly threshed out on this side
between the Teacher and me before it began to take form on your side.
Ordinary mediumship, where the organism of a more or less unhealthy
person on earth is opened indiscriminately for the entrance and
obsession of any passing spirit, good or evil, is a very different
proposition from this. Here I, who was your friend in the world, having
passed beyond, reach back to instruct you from my greater knowledge on
this side.
I am not making any opening in your nervous system through which
irresponsible and evil forces can enter and take possession of you.
In fact, if any spirit, good or bad, should make such an attempt, he
would have to reckon with me, and I am not powerless. I know now, have
both remembered and been taught, secrets by which I can protect you
from what is generally known as mediumship. Furthermore, I advise
you never, even at the urgent prayer of those whose loved ones have
gone out--_never_ to lend yourself to them. The wanderers in the
so-called invisible world have no right to come and demand entrance
through your organism, merely because it is so constituted that they
could enter, any more than a street crowd would have the right to
force its way into your home, merely because its members were curious,
hungry, or cold. Do not allow it. Permission was once given, yes; but
the case was exceptional and was not based on the personal desire or
curiosity of anybody--not even yourself. I doubt if permission will
ever be granted again.
Many things have changed since I began to write with you. At first I
used your hand and arm from the outside--sometimes, as you remember,
with such force as to make them lame the next day. Then, grown more
familiar with the means at my disposal, I tried another method, and you
noticed a change in the character of the writing. It began clumsily,
with large and badly formed characters, gradually becoming clearer as
my control of the instrument I was using was better established.
Now, for the last few times I have used still another and a third
method. I enter your mind, putting myself in absolute telepathic
rapport with your mind, impressing upon your mind itself the things I
wish to say. In order to write in this way, you have to make yourself
utterly passive, stilling all individual thought and yielding yourself
to my thought; but that is no more than you do every day in reading a
fascinating book. You give your mind to the author who leads you along,
rapt and passive, by means of the printed page.
These experiments in perfecting a way of communication have been very
interesting to me.
Tell your friend that I am not a child, nor a reckless experimentalist.
Not only in my last life on earth but in many former lives I have been
a student of the higher science, giving myself absolutely to truth and
to the quest of truth. I have never wantonly used any human being to
his or her detriment, and I certainly shall not begin with you, my true
friend and student.
Nor shall I interfere in any way with your life, or with your studies
and work. The idea is nonsensical. While I walked the world on two feet
I was never considered a dangerous man. I have not changed my character
merely by changing my clothes and putting on a lighter suit.
I have certain things to say to the world. At present you are the only
person who can act as amanuensis for me. This is neither my fault
nor yours. The question before us is not whether I want the letters
written, or even whether you want to write them, but whether they will
be beneficial to the world. I think they will. You think they may be.
B---- thinks that they are not only immensely valuable, but unique.
So-and-so and So-and-so have doubts and fears. I cannot help that, nor
can you.
Bless their hearts! Why should they be so anxious to bolt the doors
behind me? I shall certainly not try to run their affairs for them from
this side. They are equal to their job, or they would not be able to
hold it. But this is quite a different job which I have given myself,
and you have kindly consented to help me.
You may not get much reward for your labour, save the shake of the
wiseacres’ heads and their superior smiles, and the suggestion of the
more scientifically inclined that I am your own “subconscious mind.” I
shall not be offended by that hypothesis, nor need you.
Of course you are not worried, for if you were I could not write. Your
mind has to be placid as a lake on a windless night in order for me to
write at all.
Give my love to them.
LETTER XXIV
FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE
I HAVE been doing many things of late. You could never imagine where I
went the other day--to the great funeral of the Emperor of Japan. You
could not go from Paris to Japan and return in so short a time, could
you? But I did.
An hour before starting I did not even know that the Emperor of Japan
was dead. The Teacher sought me out and invited me to go with him. He
said that something would occur there which I ought to see.
His prophecy was verified. I saw a soul, a great soul, go out as a
suicide. It was sad and terrible.
But as I write this the Teacher comes and stands beside me; he advises
me to say no more on that subject.
One sees horrible things out here, as well as beautiful things. I can
only say with regard to suicide, that if men knew what awaits those
who go out by their own hand, they would remain with the evil that
they know. I am sorry I cannot tell you more about this, for it would
interest you. The testimony of an eye-witness is always more convincing
than the mere repetition of theories.
The appearance of the Teacher with his advice has put out of my mind
for the moment the desire to write. But I will come again.
_Later._
I have been able to do what you so much desired--to find the boy who
came out accidentally by drowning.
As you looked at his photograph, I saw it through your eyes, and
carried away the memory of the face. I found him wandering about, quite
bewildered. When I spoke to him of you and said that you had asked me
to help him, he seemed surprised.
I was able to give him a little aid, though he has a friend here--an
old man who is nearer to him than I could ever be. He will gradually
adjust himself to the new conditions.
You had better not try to speak with him. He is on a different path,
and is being looked after, for he has friends. The little help I was
able to give was in the nature of information. He needed diversion
from a too-pressing thought, and I suggested one or two ways of passing
time which are both agreeable and instructive.
You wonder at the expression “passing time”? But time exists out here.
Wherever there is sequence, there is time. There may come a “time”
when all things will exist simultaneously, past, present and--shall we
say future? But so long as past, present and future are more or less
distinct, so long time is. It is nothing but the principle of sequence.
Did you fancy it was anything else?
Interiorly, that is, deep within the self, one may find a silent place
where all things _seem_ to exist in unison; but as soon as the
soul even there attempts to examine things separately, then sequence
begins.
The union with the All is another matter. That is, or seems to be,
timeless; but as soon as one attempts to unite with or to be conscious
of things, time is manifest.
LETTER XXV
A SHADOWLESS WORLD
I HAD been here some time before I noticed one of the most marked
peculiarities of this world.
One night as I was passing slowly along, I saw a group of persons
approaching me. It was very light where they were, because there were
so many of them. Suddenly, as I saw this light, a thought came to my
mind, a saying from one of the Hermetic books: “Where the light is
strongest, there are the shadows deepest.” But on looking at these men
and women, I saw that _they cast no shadows_.
I hailed the nearest man--you must remember that this was soon after
I came out, and when I was still more ignorant than I am now--and I
called his attention to this peculiar phenomenon of a shadowless yet
brilliantly lighted world. He smiled at my surprise, and said:
“You have not been here long, have you?”
“No.”
“Then you are not aware that we light our own place? The substance of
which our bodies are composed is radiant. How could our forms cast
shadows, when light radiates from them in all directions?”
“And in the sunlight?” I asked.
“Oh,” he answered, “you know that in the sunlight we cannot be seen
at all! The light of the sun is coarse and crude, and it puts out the
light of the spirits.”
Does it seem strange to you that at this moment I can feel the warmth
of that wood fire by which you sit? There is a magic in burning wood.
The combustion of coal has quite a different effect upon the psychic
atmosphere. If one who had always been blind to visions and insensible
to the finer feelings and premonitions of the invisible world would try
meditating before a blazing wood fire for an hour or two every day or
night, his eyes and other subtler senses might be opened to things of
which he had theretofore never even dreamed.
Those Orientals who worship their God with fire are wise and full of
visions. The light of burning wax has also a magical effect, though
different from that of a wood fire. Sit sometimes in the evening with
no light but that of a solitary candle, and see what visions will come
from the “Void.”
I have not told you anything for a long time about the boy Lionel. He
is now much interested in the idea of choosing a family of engineers
in which to be born again. The thought is one to which he is always
returning.
“Why are you in such a hurry to leave me?” I asked him, the first time
he mentioned the subject.
“But I do not feel as if I should be leaving you altogether,” he
replied. “I could come out to you in dreams.”
“Not at first,” I told him. “You would be prisoned and blind and deaf
for a long time, and you might not be able to come out to me here until
after I had also gone back again to the earth.”
“Then why not come along with me?” he asked. “Say, Father, why
shouldn’t we be born as twins?”
The idea was so absurd that I laughed heartily; but Lionel could not
see where the joke came in.
“There are such things as twins,” he said, seriously. “I knew a pair of
twin brothers when I lived in Boston.”
But, when I return to earth, it is no part of my plan to be anybody’s
twin; so I tell Lionel that if he wants to enjoy my society for a time
he will have to stay quietly where he is.
“But why can’t we go back together?” he still asks, “and be cousins or
neighbours, at least?”
“Perhaps we can,” I tell him, “if you do not spoil everything by an
unseemly haste.”
It is strange about this boy. Out in this world there is boundless
opportunity to work in subtle matter, opportunity to invent and
experiment; yet he wants to get his hands on iron and steel. Strange!
Some night I will try to bring the boy to pay you a visit, so that you
can see him--I mean just before you fall asleep. Those are the true
visions. The ones which come in sleep are apt to be confused by the
jarring of the matter through which you pass in waking. Do not forget
the boy. I have already told him how I come and write with your hand,
and he is much interested.
“Why couldn’t I operate a telegraph in that way?” he asked me; but I
advised him not to try it. He might interrupt some terrestrial message
which had been sent and paid for.
Occasionally I take him with me up to the pattern world. He has a
little model of his own there with which he amuses himself while I
am examining other things. It is the model of a wheel, and he sets
it going by the electricity of his fingers. No, it is not made of
steel--not as you know steel. Why, what you call steel is too heavy! It
would fall through this world so fast that it would not even leave a
rent behind it.
You must understand that the two worlds are composed of matter not only
moving at a different rate of vibration, but charged with a different
magnetism. It is said that two solid objects cannot occupy the same
space at the same time; but that law does not apply to two objects--one
of them belonging to your world and the other to ours. As water can be
hot and wet at the same time, so a square foot of space can contain a
square foot of earthly matter and a square foot of etheric matter.
No, do not quibble about terms. You have no terms for the kind of
matter that we use here, because you do not know anything about it.
Lionel and his electric wheel would both be invisible to you if they
were set down on the hearthrug before you at this moment. Even the
magic of that wood fire would not make them visible--at least, not in
the daylight.
Some evening--but we will speak of that at another time. I must go now.
LETTER XXVI
CIRCLES IN THE SAND
I AM just beginning to enjoy the romance of life out here. I must
always have had the romantic temperament; but only since changing my
place have I had time and opportunity to give rein to it. On earth
there was always too much to be done, too many duties, too many demands
on me. Here I am free.
You have no idea of the meaning of freedom unless you can remember when
you were out here last, and I doubt if you can remember that yet.
When I say “romance” I mean the charm of existence, the magic touch
which turns the grey face of life to rose colour. You know what I mean.
It is wonderful to have leisure to dream and to realise one’s dream,
for here the realisation goes with the dream. Everything is so real,
imagination is so potent, and the power to link things is so great--so
almost unlimited!
The dreamers here are really not idle, for our dreaming is a kind of
building; and even if it were not, we have a right to do about as we
please. We have earned our vacation. The labour will come again. We
shall reclothe ourselves in gross matter and take on its burdens.
Why, it takes more energy on earth to put one heavy foot before another
heavy foot, and to propel the hundred or two-hundred pound body a mile,
than it takes here to go around the world! That will give you an idea
of the quantity of surplus energy that we have for enjoying ourselves
and for dream-building.
Perhaps on earth you work too much--more than is really necessary. The
mass of needless things that you accumulate round you, the artificial
wants that you create, the break-neck pace of your lives to provide
all these things, seem to us absurd and rather pitiful. Your political
economy is mere child’s play, your governments are cumbrous machines
for doing the unnecessary, most of your work is useless, and your lives
would be nearly futile if you did not suffer so much that your souls
learn, though unwillingly, that most of their strivings are vain.
How I used to sweat and groan in the early days to make my little
circle in the sand! And now I see that if I had taken more time to
think, I might have recovered something of my past knowledge, gained
in other lives; and though I still had felt obliged to draw my circle
in the sand, I might have done it with less difficulty and in half the
time.
Here, if I choose, I can spend hours in watching the changing colours
of a cloud. Or, better still, I can lie on my back and remember. It
is wonderful to remember, to let the mind go back year after year,
life after life, century after century, back and back till one finds
oneself--a turtle! But one can also look ahead, forward and forward,
life after life, century after century, æon after æon, till one finds
oneself an archangel. The looking back is memory; the looking forward
is creation. Of course we create our own future. Who else could do
it? We are influenced and moved and shifted and helped or retarded by
others; but it is we ourselves who forge the chains every time. We tie
knots that we shall have to untie, often with labour and perplexity.
In going back over my past lives I realise the why and the wherefore
of my last one. It was, in a way, the least satisfactory of many
lives--save one; but now I see its purpose, and that I laid the plans
for it when I was last out here. I even arranged to go back to earth
at a definite time, in order to be with certain friends who met me
there.
But I have turned the corner now, and have begun the upward march
again. Already I am laying the lines for my next coming, though there
is no hurry. Bless you! I am not going back until I have had my fill of
the freedom and enjoyment of this existence here.
Also I have much studying to do. I want to review what I learned in
those hitherto forgotten but now remembered lives.
Do you recall how, when you went to school, you had occasionally to
review the lessons of the preceding weeks or months? That custom is
based on a sound principle. I am now having my review lessons. By and
by, before I return to the world, I shall review these reviews, fixing
by will the memories which I specially wish to carry over with me. It
would be practically impossible to carry over intact the great panorama
of experience which now unrolls itself before the eyes of my memory;
but there are several fundamental things, philosophical principles and
illustrations, which I must not forget. Also I want to take with me the
knowledge of certain formulæ and the habit of certain practices which
you would probably call occult; by means of which, when I am mature
again in my new body, I can call into memory this very pageant of
experience which now rolls before me whenever I will it.
No, I am not going to tell you about your own past. You must, and can,
recover it for yourself. So can anyone who knows the difference between
memory and imagination. Yes, the difference is subtle, but as real as
the difference between yesterday and to-morrow.
I do not want you to be in any hurry about coming out here to stay.
Remain where you are just as long as possible. Much that we do on this
side you can do almost as well while still in the body. Of course you
have to use more energy, but that is what energy is for--to use. Even
when we store it, we store it for future use. Do not forget that.
One reason why I rest much now and dream and amuse myself is because I
want to store as much energy as possible, to come back with power.
It is well that you have taken my advice to idle a little and to get
acquainted with your own soul. There are surprises in store for the
person who will deliberately set out on the quest of his soul. The soul
is not a will-o’-the-wisp; it is a beacon light to steer by and avoid
the rocks of materialism and forgetfulness.
I have had much joy in going back over my Greek incarnations. What
concentration they had--those Greeks! They knew much. The waters of
Lethe, for instance,--what a conception!--brought from this side by
masterly memory.
If man would even try to remember, if he would only take time to
consider all that he has been, there would be more hope of what he may
become! Why, do you know that man may become a god--or that which,
compared with ordinary humanity, has all the magnitude and grandeur of
a god? “Ye are gods,” was not said in a merely figurative sense.
I have met the Master from Galilee, and have held communion with Him.
There was a man--and a god! The world has need of Him now.
LETTER XXVII
THE MAGIC RING
IT would be hard for you to understand, merely by my telling you, the
difference between your life and ours. Begin with the difference in
substance, not only the substance of our bodies, but the substance of
natural objects which surround us.
Do you start at the term “natural objects” as applied to the things of
this world? You did not fancy, did you, that we had escaped Nature? No
one escapes Nature--not even God. Nature _is_.
Imagine that you had spent sixty or seventy years in a heavy earthly
body, a body which insisted on growing fat, and would get stiff-jointed
and rheumatic, even going on strike occasionally to the extent of
laying you up in bed for repairs of a more or less clumsy sort. Then
fancy yourself suddenly exchanging this heavy body for a light and
elastic form. Can you imagine it? I confess that it would have been
difficult for me, even a year or two ago.
Clothed in this form, which is sufficiently radiant to light its own
place when its light is not put out by the cruder light of the sun,
fancy yourself moving from place to place, from person to person, from
idea to idea. As time goes on even the habit of demanding nourishment
gradually wears off. We are no longer bothered by hunger and thirst;
though I, for instance, still stay myself occasionally with a little
nourishment, an infinitesimal amount compared with the beefsteak
dinners which I used to eat.
And we are no longer harassed by the thousand-and-one petty duties of
the earth. Out here we have more confidence in moods. Engagements are
seldom made--that is, binding engagements. As a rule, though there
are exceptions, desire is mutual. I want to see and commune with a
friend at the same time when he feels a desire for my society, and we
naturally drift together. The companionships here are very beautiful;
but the solitudes are also full of charm.
Since the first two or three months I have not been lonesome. At first
I felt like a fish out of water, of course. Nearly everyone does;
though there are exceptions in the case of very spiritual people who
have no earthly ties or ambitions. I had so fought the idea of “dying,”
that my new state seemed at first to be the proof of my failure, and
I used to wander about under the impression that I was going to waste
much valuable time which could have been used to better advantage in
the storm and stress of earthly living.
Of course the Teacher came to me; but he was too wise to carry me on
his back even from the first. He reminded me of a few principles, which
he left me to apply; and gradually, as I got hold of the applications,
I got hold of myself. Then also gradually the beauty and wonder of the
new condition began to dawn on me, and I saw that instead of wasting
time I was really gaining tremendous experience which could be utilised
later.
I have talked with many people here, people of all stages of
intellectual and moral growth, and I am sorry to say that the person
who has a clear idea of the significance of life and its possibilities
for development is about as rare here as on the earth. As I have said
before, a man does not suddenly become all-wise by changing the texture
of his body.
The vain man of earth is likely to be vain here, though in his next
life the very law of reaction--if he has overdone vanity--may send him
back as a modest or even bashful person, for a while at least, until
the reaction has spent itself. In coming out a man brings his character
and characteristics with him.
I have often been sorry for men who in life had been slaves of the
business routine. Many of them cannot get away from it for a long time;
and instead of enjoying themselves here, they go back and forth to
and from the scenes of their old labours, working over and over some
problem in tactics or finance until they are almost as weary as when
they “died.”
As you know, there are teachers here. Few of them are of the stature of
my own Teacher; but there are many who make it their pleasure to help
the souls of the newly arrived. They never leave a newcomer entirely
to his own resources. Help is always offered, though it is not always
accepted. In that case it will be offered again and again, for those
who give themselves to others do so without hope of reward or even
acknowledgment.
If I had set out to write a scientific treatise of the life on this
side, I should have begun in quite a different way from this. In the
first place, I should have postponed the labour about ten years, until
all my facts were pigeon-holed and docketed; then I should have begun
at the beginning and dictated a book so dull that you would have fallen
asleep over it, and I should have had to nudge you from time to time to
pick up the pencil fallen from your somnolent hand.
Instead, I began to write soon after coming out, and these letters are
really the letters of a traveller in a strange country. They record
his impressions, often his mistakes, sometimes perhaps his provincial
prejudices; but at least they are not a rehash of what somebody else
has said.
I like your keeping my photograph on your mantel as you do; it helps me
to come. There is a great power in a photograph.
I have been drawing pictures for you lately on the canvas of dreams, to
show you the futility and vanity of certain things. Did you not know
that we could do that? The power of the so-called dead to influence the
living is immense, provided that the tie of sympathy has been made. I
have taught you how to protect yourself against influences which you do
not want, so do not be afraid. I will always stand guard to the extent
of warning you if there is any danger of attack from this side. Already
I have drawn a magic ring around you which only the most advanced
and powerful spirits could pass, even if they desired--that is, the
Teachers and I drew it together. You are doing our work just now, and
have a right to our protection. That the labourer is worthy of his hire
is an axiom of both worlds.
Only you yourself could now let down the bars for the inrush of
evil and irresponsible spiritual intelligences, and if you should
inadvertently let down the bars we should rush to put them up again. We
have some authority out here. Yes, even so soon I can say that. Are you
surprised?
LETTER XXVIII
EXCEPT YE BE AS LITTLE CHILDREN
I ONCE heard a man refer to this world as the play world, “for,” said
he, “we are all children here, and we create the environment that we
desire.” As a child at play can turn a chair into a tower or a prancing
steed, so we in this world can make real for the moment whatever we
imagine.
Has it never filled you with amazement, that absolute vividness of the
imagination of children? A child says unblushingly and with conviction,
“That rug is a garden, that plank in the floor is a river, that chair
is a castle, and I am a king.”
Why does he say these things? How _can_ he say these things?
Because--and here is the point--he still subconsciously remembers the
life out here which he so lately left. He has carried over with him
into the life of earth something of his lost freedom and power of
imagination.
That does not mean that all things in this world are imaginary--far
from it. Objects here, objects existing in tenuous matter, are as real
and comparatively substantial as with you; but there is the possibility
of creation here, creation in a form of matter even more subtle
still--thought-substance.
If you create something on earth in solid matter, you create it first
in thought-substance; but there is this difference between your
creation and ours: until you have moulded solid matter around your
thought-pattern you do not believe that the thought-pattern really
exists save in your own fancy.
We out here can see the thought-creations of others if we and they will
it so.
We can also--and I tell you this for your comfort--we can also see your
thought-creations, and by adding the strength of our will to yours we
can help you to realise them in substantial form.
Sometimes we build here bit by bit, in the four-dimensional world,
especially when we wish to leave a thing for others to see and enjoy,
when we wish a thing to survive for a long time. But a thought-form is
visible to all highly developed spirits.
Of course you understand that not all spirits are highly developed.
In fact very few are far progressed; but the dullest man out here
has something which most of you have lost--the faith in his own
thought-creations.
Now, the power which makes creation possible is not lost to a soul when
it takes on solid matter again. But the power is gradually overcome and
the imagination is discouraged by the incredulity of mature men and
women, who say constantly to the child: “That is only play; that is not
really so; that is only imagination.”
If you print these letters, I wish you would insert here fragments from
that wonderful poem of Wordsworth, “Intimations of Immortality from
Recollections of Early Childhood.”
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.”
There is almost no limit to the possibilities of the imagination; but
to get the full power of it, one must trust one’s imagination. If you
say to yourself constantly, as the mother says to the child, “But this
is only play; this is not real,” you never can make real the things you
have created in thought.
The imagination itself is like a child and must be encouraged and
believed in, or it cannot develop and do its perfect work.
It is really fortunate for some of you that I am out here. I can do
more for you here than there, because I have even greater faith in my
imagination than I had before.
The man who called this the play world has been trying all sorts of
experiments with the power in himself. I have not his permission to
tell the stories he tells me, but they would surprise you. For one
thing, he helped his wife, after his so-called death, to carry out
a joint plan of theirs which had seemed impossible to them before
because of their lack of real faith. It was for the erection of a
certain kind of house.
But do not fancy that most people here are trying to build houses
on earth. Far from it. Most of my fellow-citizens are willing to
work where they are, and to let the earth alone. Of course there are
“dreamers” like me, who are not satisfied with one world, and who like
to have their fingers in both; but they are rather rare, as poets are
rare on earth. To most men the world they happen to be in is sufficient
for the time being.
There is a certain fancy of mine, however, which it will amuse me to
help realise on earth. You may not know that I am doing it, but I
shall know. I would not, “for the world,” as you say, disturb anybody
by even the thought that I am fussing around in affairs which now are
theirs. But if, unseen and unfelt, I can help with the power of my
self-confident imagination, there will be no harm done, and I shall
have demonstrated something.
LETTER XXIX
AN UNEXPECTED WARNING
I SHOULD be very sorry if the reading of these letters of mine should
cause foolish and unthinking people to go spirit-hunting, inviting into
their human sphere the irresponsible and often lying elemental spirits.
Tell them not to do it.
My coming in this way through your hand is quite another matter. I
could not do it if I had not been instructed in the scientific method
of procedure, and I also could not do it if you should constantly
interrupt me by side-thoughts of your own, and by questions relevant
or irrelevant. It is because you are perfectly passive and not even
curious, letting me use your hand as on earth I would have used the
hand of my stenographer, that I am able to write long and connected
sentences.
Most spirit communications, even when genuine, have little value, for
the reason that they are nearly always coloured by the mind of the
person through whom they pass.
You are right in reading nothing on the subject while these messages
are coming, and in thinking nothing about this plane of life where I
am. Thus you avoid preconceived ideas, which would interrupt the flow
of _my_ ideas.
You know, perhaps, that while on earth I investigated spiritualism,
as I investigated many things of an occult nature, looking always for
the truth that was behind them; but I was convinced then, and I am now
more than ever convinced, that, except for the scientific demonstration
that _such things can be_--which, of course, has value as a
demonstration only,--most spirit-hunting is not only a waste of time,
but an absolute detriment to those who engage in it.
This may sound strange coming from a so-called “spirit,” one who is
actually at this time in communication with the world. If that is so,
I cannot help it. If I seem inconsistent, then I seem so; that is all.
But I wish to go on record as discouraging irresponsible mediumship.
If a person sitting for mediumship could be sure that at the other
end of the psychic line there was an entity who had something sincere
and important to say, and who really could use him or her to say it
through, it would be another matter; but this world out here is full of
vagrants, even as the earth. As this world is peopled largely from your
world, it is inevitable that we have the same kind of beings that you
have. They have not changed much in passing through the doors of death.
Would you advise any delicate and sensitive woman to sit down in the
centre of Hyde Park, and invite the passing crowds to come and speak
through her, or touch her, or mingle their magnetism with hers? You
shudder. You would shudder more had you seen some of the things which I
have seen.
Then, too, there is another class of beings here, the kind which we
used to hear the Theosophists call elementals. Now, there has been a
lot of nonsense written about elementals; but take this for a fact:
there are units of energy, units of consciousness, which correspond
pretty closely to what the Theosophists understand by elementals. These
entities are not, as a rule, very highly developed; but as the stage
of earth life is the stage to which they aspire, and as it is the next
inevitable stage in their evolution, they are drawn to it powerfully.
So do not be too sure that the entity which raps on your table or your
cupboard is the spirit of your deceased grandfather. It may be merely a
blind and very _desirous_ entity, an eager consciousness, trying
to use you to hasten its own evolution, trying to get into you or
through you, so as to enjoy the earth and the coarser vibrations of the
earth.
It may not be able to harm you, but, on the other hand, it may do you
a great deal of harm. You had better discourage such attempts to break
through the veil which separates you from them; for the veil is thinner
than you think, and though you cannot see through it, you can feel
through it.
Having said this, my duty in the matter is discharged; and the next
time I come I can tell you a story, maybe, instead of giving you a
lecture.
I really feel like an astral Scheherazade; but I fear you would tire
of me before a thousand-and-one nights were past. A thousand-and-one
nights! Before that time I shall have gone on. No, I do not mean “died”
again into another world beyond; but when I get through telling you
what I desire you to know about my life here, I want to investigate
other stars, if it shall be permitted.
I am like a young man who has lately inherited a fortune and has at
last unlimited means and opportunity for travel. Though he might
stay around home a few months, getting matters in shape and becoming
adjusted to his new freedom of movement, yet the time would come when
he would want to try his wings. I hope that is not a mixed metaphor; if
so, you can edit me. I shall not feel hurt.
LETTER XXX
THE SYLPH AND THE MAGICIAN
IF your eyes could pierce the veil of matter, and you could see what
goes on in the tenuous world around and above that city of Paris, you
would gasp with wonder. I have spent much time in Paris lately. Shall I
tell you some of the strange things I have seen?
In a street on the left bank of the river, called the _rue de
Vaugirard_, there lives a man of middle age and sedentary habits who
is a sort of magician. He is constantly attended and served by one of
the elemental spirits known as sylphs. This sylph he calls Meriline. I
do not know from what language he got the name, for he seems to speak
several, and to know Hebrew. I have seen this Meriline coming and going
to and from his apartment. No, it would not be right for me to tell you
where it is. The man could be identified, though the sylph would elude
the census-taker.
Meriline does not make his bed or cook his broth, for which humble
service he has a char-woman; but the sylph runs errands and discovers
things for him. He is a collector of old books and manuscripts, and
many of his treasures have been located by Meriline in the stalls
which lie along the banks of the Seine, and also in more pretentious
bookshops.
This man is not a devil-worshipper. He is only a harmless enthusiast,
fond of occult things, and striving to pierce the veil which shuts the
elemental world from his eyes. A little less brandy and wine, and he
_might_ be able to see clearly, for he is a true student. But he
is fond of the flesh, and it preys upon the spirit.
One day I encountered Meriline going upon one of his errands, and I
introduced myself by signalling with my hands and calling my name. This
attracted the attention of the sprite, who came and stood beside me.
“Where are you going?” I asked; and she nodded towards the other side
of the river.
The thought came to me that perhaps I ought not to question this
servant of the good magician as to her master’s business, so I
hesitated. She also hesitated; then she said:
“But he is interested in the spirits of men.”
This made the matter simpler, and I asked:
“You do his errands?”
“Yes, always.”
“Why do you do his errands?”
“Because I love to serve him.”
“And why do you love to serve him?”
“Because I belong to him.”
“I thought every soul belonged to itself.”
“But I am not a soul!”
“Then what are you?”
“A sylph.”
“Do you ever expect to be a soul?”
“Oh, yes! He has promised that I shall be, if I serve him faithfully.”
“But how can he make you to be a soul?”
“I don’t know; but he will.”
“How do you know that he will?”
“Because I trust him.”
“What makes you trust him?”
“Because he trusts me.”
“And you always tell him the truth?”
“Always.”
“Who taught you what truth is?”
“He did.”
“How?”
This seemed to puzzle the being before me, and I feared she would go
away; so I detained her by saying, quickly:
“I do not want to worry you with questions which you cannot answer.
Tell me how you first came into his service.”
“Ought I?”
“So you have a conscience?”
“Yes, he taught me to have.”
“But you say that he is interested in the spirits of men.”
“Yes, and I also know good spirits from bad ones.”
“Did he teach you that?”
“No.”
“How did you learn?”
“I always knew.”
“Then you have lived a long time?”
“Oh, yes!”
“And when do you expect to have, or to become a soul?”
“When he comes out here, into this world where we are.”
This staggered me by its daring. Had the good magician been deceiving
his sylph, or did he really believe what he promised?
“What did he say about it?” I asked.
“That if I would serve him now, he would serve me later.”
“And how is he going to do it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Suppose you ask him?”
“I never ask questions. I answer them.”
“For instance, what sort of questions?”
“I tell him where such and such a person is, and what he or she is
doing.”
“Can you tell him what these people are thinking?”
“Not often--or not always. Sometimes I can.”
“How can you tell?”
“By the feel of them. If I am warm in their presence, I know they are
friendly to him; if I am cold, I know they are his enemies. If I feel
nothing at all, then I know that they are not thinking of him, or are
indifferent.”
“And your errand this evening?”
“To see a lady.”
“And you are not jealous?”
“What is ‘jealous’?”
“You are not displeased that he should interest himself in ladies?”
“Why should I be?”
This was a question I could not answer, not knowing the nature of
sylphs. She surprised me a little, for I had supposed that all female
things were jealous. But, fearing again that she might leave me, I
hurried to question her further.
“How did you make his acquaintance?” I asked.
“He called me.”
“How?”
“By the incantation.”
“What incantation?”
“The call of the sylphs.”
“Oh,” I said, “he called the sylphs and you came!”
“Yes, of course. I liked him for his kindness, and I made him see me.”
“How did you manage it?”
“I dazzled his eyes until he closed them, and then he could see me.”
“Can he always see you now?”
“No, but he knows I am there.”
“He can see you sometimes still?”
“Yes, often.”
“And when he saw you first?”
“He was delighted, and called me loving names, and made me promises.”
“The promise of a soul--that first time?”
“Yes.”
“Then you had wanted to have a soul?”
“Oh, yes!”
“But why?”
“Many of us want to be men. We love men--that is, most of us do.”
“Why do you love men?”
“It is our nature.”
“But not the nature of all of you?”
“There are malignant spirits of the air.”
“And what will you do when you have a soul?”
“I will take a body, and live on earth.”
“And leave your friend whom you now serve?”
“Oh, no! It is to be with him that I specially want a body.”
“Then will he come back to the earth with you?”
“He says so.”
This again staggered me. I was becoming interested in this magician; he
had a daring imagination.
Could a spirit of the air develop into a human soul? I asked myself.
Was the man self-deceived? Or, again, was he deceiving his lovely
messenger?
I thought a little too long this time, for when I turned again to speak
to my strange companion, she had left me. I tried to follow, but could
not find her; and if she returned soon, it must have been by some other
road. Though I looked in all directions, she was invisible to me.
Now, the question will arise in your mind: In what language did I talk
with this aerial servant of a French magician? I seemed to speak in
my own tongue, and she seemed to respond in the same. How is that? I
cannot say, unless we really used the subtle language of thought itself.
You may often, on meeting with a person whose language you do not
speak, feel an interchange of ideas, by the look of the eyes, by the
expression of the face, by gestures. Now imagine that, intensified a
hundredfold. Might it not extend to the simple questions and answers
which I exchanged with the sylph? I do not say that it would, but I
think it might; for, as I said before, I seemed to speak and she seemed
to reply in my own language.
What strange experiences one has out here! I rather dread to go back
into the world, where it will be so dull for me for a long time. Can I
exchange this freedom and vivid life for a long period of somnolence,
afterwards to suck a bottle and learn the multiplication table and
Greek and Latin verbs? I suppose I must--but not yet.
Good night.
LETTER XXXI
A PROBLEM IN CELESTIAL MATHEMATICS
BY the vividness with which you feel my presence at times, you can
judge of the intensity of the life that I am living. I am no pallid
spook, dripping with grave-dew. I am real, and quite as wholesome--or
so it seems to me--as when I walked the earth in a more or less
unhealthy body. The ghastly spectres, when they return, do not talk as
I talk. Ask those who have seen and heard them.
It is well that you have kept yourself comparatively free of
communications “from the other world.”
It would have been amazing had you been afraid of me. But there are
those who would be, if they should sense my presence as you sense it.
One night I knocked at the door of a friend’s chamber, half expecting
a welcome. He jumped out of bed in alarm, then jumped back again, and
pulled the blanket over his head. He was really afraid that it might be
I! So, as I did not wish to be responsible for a case of heart failure,
or for a shock of hair which, like that in the old song, “turned white
in a single night,” I went quietly away. Doubtless he persuaded himself
next day that there were mice in the wainscoting.
Had you been afraid of me, though, I should have been ashamed of you;
for you know better. Most persons do not.
It is a real pleasure for me to come back and talk with you sometimes.
“There are no friends like the old friends,” and the society of sylphs
and spirits would never quite satisfy me if all those whom I had known
and loved should turn their backs on me.
Speaking of sylphs, I met the Teacher last night, and asked him if that
French magician I told you about could really make good his promise
to his aerial companion, and help her to acquire the kind of soul
essential to incarnation on earth as a woman. His answer was, “No.”
Of course I asked him why, and he answered that the elemental
creatures, or units of force inhabiting the elements, as we use that
term, could not, during this life cycle, step out of their element
into the human.
“Can they ever do so?” I asked.
“I do not know,” he replied; “but I believe that all the less evolved
units around the earth are working in the direction of man; that the
human is a stage of development which they will all reach some day, but
not in this life cycle.”
I asked the Teacher if he knew the magician in question, and he
answered that he had known him for a thousand years, that long ago, in
a former life, the Paris magician had placed his feet upon the path
which leads to power; but that he had been side-tracked by the desire
for selfish pleasures, and that he might wander a long time before he
found his way back to real and philosophical truth.
“Is he to be blamed or pitied?” I asked.
“Pity cuts no figure in the problem,” the Teacher replied. “A man seeks
what he desires.”
After the Teacher went away I began asking myself questions. What was
_I_ seeking, and what did I desire? The answer came quickly:
“Knowledge.” A year ago I might have answered “Power,” but knowledge is
the forerunner of power. If I get true knowledge, I shall have power
enough.
It is because I want to give to you, and possibly to others, a few
scraps of knowledge which might be inaccessible to you by any other
means, that I am coming back, and coming back, time after time, to talk
with you.
The greatest bit of knowledge that I have to offer you is this: that by
the exercise of will a man can retain his objective consciousness after
death. Many persons out here sink into a sort of subjective bliss which
makes them indifferent as to what is going on upon the earth or in the
heavens. I could do so myself, easily.
As I believe I have said before, while man on earth has both subjective
and objective consciousness, but functions mostly in the objective,
out here he has still subjective and objective consciousness, but the
tendency is towards the subjective.
At almost any time, on composing yourself and looking in, you can fall
into a state of subjective bliss which is similar to that enjoyed by
souls on this side of the dividing line called death. In fact, it is by
such subconscious experience that man has learned nearly all he knows
regarding the etheric world. When the storms and passions of the body
are stilled, man can catch a glimpse of his own interior life, and
that interior life is the life of this fourth-dimensional plane. Please
do not accuse me of contradicting myself or of being obscure; I have
said that the objective consciousness is as possible with us as the
subjective is with you, but that the tendency is merely the other way.
You may remember a pair of lovers about whom I wrote you a few weeks
ago. He had been out here some time, and had waited for her, and helped
her over the uncertain marsh-lands which lie between the two states of
existence.
I saw these lovers again the other day, but they were not at all
excited by my appearance. On the contrary, I fancy that I put them out
somewhat by awakening them, by calling them back from the state of
subjective bliss into which they have sunk since being together at last.
While he waited for her all those years, he kept himself awake by
expectation; while still on earth she was always thinking of him out
here, and so the polarity was sustained. Now they have each other; they
are in “the little home” which he built for her with so much pleasure
out of the tenuous materials of this tenuous world; they see each
other’s faces whether they look out or in; they are content; they
have nothing more to attain (or so they tell each other), and they
consequently sink back into the arms of subjective bliss.
Now this state of bliss, of rumination, they have a right to enjoy. No
one can take it from them. They have earned it by activity in the world
and elsewhere, it is theirs by rhythmic justice. They will enjoy it,
I fancy, for a long time, living over the past experiences which they
have had together and apart. Then some day one or the other of them
will become surfeited with too much sweetness; the muscles of his (or
her) soul will stretch for want of exercise; he (or she) will give a
spiritual yawn, and by the law of reaction, pass out--not to return.
Where will he (or she) go, you ask? Why, back to the earth, of course!
Let us imagine him (or her) awaking from that subjective state of bliss
which is known to them as attainment, and going for a short promenade
in blessed and wholesome solitude. Then, with a sort of morning
alertness in the heart and the eye, he (or she) draws near to a pair
of earthly lovers. Suddenly the call of matter, the eager, terrible
call of blood and warmth, of activity raised to the _n_th power,
catches the half-awakened soul on the ethereal side of matter, and----
He has again entered the world of material formation. He is sunk and
hidden in the flesh of earth. He awaits birth. He will come out with
great force, by reason of his former rest. He might even become a
“captain of industry,” if he is a strong unit. But I began by saying
“he or she.” Let me change the figure. The man would be almost certain
to awake first, by reason of his positive polarity.
Now, in drawing this imaginary picture of my lovers, I am not making
a dogma of the way in which all souls return to earth. I am merely
guessing how these two will return (for she would probably follow him
speedily when she awoke and found herself alone). And the reason why
I fancy they will return in that way is because they are indulging
themselves in too much subjective bliss.
When will they go back? I cannot say. Perhaps next year, perhaps in a
hundred years. Not knowing the numerical value of their unit of force,
I cannot guess how much subjective bliss they can endure without a
violent reaction.
I am sure that you are wondering if some day I shall myself sink into
that state of bliss which I have described. Perhaps. I should enjoy
it--but not for long, and not yet. However, I have no sweetheart out
here to enjoy it with me.
LETTER XXXII
A CHANGE OF FOCUS
WITH the guidance of the Teacher, during the last few weeks I have been
going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it. You smile
at the veiled reference. But have not certain friends of yours actually
feared me, as if I were the devil of the Book of Job?
Now, to be serious, I have been visiting those lands and cities
where in former lives I lived and worked among men. One of the many
advantages of travel is that it helps a man to remember his former
existences. There is certainly a magic in places.
I have been in Egypt, in India, in Persia, in Spain, in Italy; I have
been in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Turkey, and many other
lands. The Dardanelles were not closed to me recently, when by reason
of the war you could not have passed through. There are advantages
to almost every condition, even my present one; for the law of
compensation holds good.
In certain lives of the past I was a wide traveller.
Now you may wonder how it is that I pass easily from this world to
yours, seeing into both. But you must remember that your world and mine
occupy about the same space; that the plane of the earth’s surface is
one of the lower and more material planes of our world, using the word
“plane” as you would use the word “layer.”
As I have said before, there are also places accessible to us which lie
at some distance above the earth’s surface. “Mansions in the skies” are
more than figurative.
I have only slightly to change my focus at any time, to find myself
in your world. That I cannot be seen there with the naked eye is no
proof that I am not there. Without that change of focus, which is done
through an action of will and by knowing the method, I might even be
occupying the same space as something in your world and not know it.
Note well this point, for it is only half of something which I have
to say. The other half is, that you also may at any time be--so far
as space is concerned--in the immediate neighbourhood of interesting
things in our world, and not know that you are there.
But if you focus to this world you are more or less conscious of
it. So when I, knowing how, focus to your world, I am there in
consciousness and can enjoy the varied sights of many cities, the
changing aspects of many lands.
When I first came out I could not see my way about the earth very well,
but now I can see better.
No, I am not going to give you a formula to give to other people by
which you or they could change focus at will and enter into relation
with this world, because such knowledge at the present stage of human
progress would do more harm than good. I merely state the fact, and
leave the application for those who have the curiosity and the ability
to demonstrate it.
My object in writing these letters is primarily to convince a few
persons--to strengthen their certainty in the fact of immortality, or
the survival of the soul after the bodily change which is called death.
Many think they believe who are not certain whether they believe or
not. If I can make my presence as a living and vital entity felt in
these letters, it will have the effect of strengthening the belief of
certain persons in the doctrine of immortality.
This is a materialistic age. A large percentage of men and women have
no real interest in the life beyond the grave. But they will all have
to come out here sooner or later, and perhaps a few will find the
change easier, the journey less formidable, by reason of what I shall
have taught them. Is it not worth while? Is it not worth a little
effort on your part as well as on mine?
Any person approaching the great change who shall seriously study
these letters and lay their principles to heart, and who shall will to
remember them after passing out, need not fear anything.
We all fail in much that we undertake, but I hope I shall not fail
in this. Do not you fail on your side. I could not do this work
without you, nor could you do it without me. That is in answer to the
supposition that I am your subconscious mind.
I have been in Constantinople and have stood in the very room where I
once had a remarkable experience, hundreds of years ago. I have seen
the walls, I have touched them, I have read the etheric records of
their history, and my own history in connection therewith.
I have walked the rose-gardens of Persia and have smelled the
flowers--the grandchildren, hundreds of times removed, of those roses
whose fragrance was an ecstasy to me when, watching with the bulbul, I
paced there in another form and with intentions different to mine now.
It was the perfume of the roses which made me remember.
In Greece also I have lived over the old days. Before their
degeneration began, what a race they were! I think that concentration
was the secret of their power. The ether around that peninsula is
written over with their exploits, in daring thought as well as daring
action. The old etheric records are so vivid that they shine through
the later writings; for you must know that what are called astral
records lie layer against layer everywhere. We read one layer instead
of another, either by affinity or by will. It is no more strange than
that a man may go among the millions of volumes in the British Museum
and select the one he wants. The most marvellous things are always
simple of explanation if one has the key to unlock their secret.
There has been much nonsense written about vibration, but nevertheless
truth lies thereabouts. Where there is so much smoke there must be fire.
In India I have met with yogis in meditation. Do you know why their
peculiar way of breathing produces psychic results? No, you do not.
Now let me tell you: By holding the breath long a certain--shall I say
poison?--is produced in the body, which poison, acting on the psychic
nature, changes the vibration. That is all. Volumes have been written
about yoga, but have any of them said that? The untrained healthy
lungs, in the ordinary operation, get rid of this poison by processes
well known to physiologists,--that is, in the natural man, adjusted to
and working contentedly on the material plane. But in order for a man
still living on the material plane to become adjusted to the psychic
world, a change of vibration is necessary. This change of vibration may
be produced by a slight overdose of the above-mentioned poison. Is it
dangerous? Yes, to the ignorant. To those who are learned in its use it
is no more dangerous than most of the drugs in the pharmacopœia.
Another time I will tell you about other secrets which I have
discovered going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it.
LETTER XXXIII
FIVE RESOLUTIONS
I HAVE stood at night on the roof of an Oriental palace and watched the
stars. You who can see into the invisible world by changing your focus,
can easily understand how I, by a reverse process, can see into the
world of dense matter. Yes, it is the same thing, only turned the other
way.
I stood on the roof of an Oriental palace and watched the stars. No
mortal was near me. Looking down upon the sleeping city, I have seen
the cloud of souls which kept watch above it, have seen the messengers
coming and going. Once or twice a wan, half-frightened face appeared
among the cloud of spirits, and I knew that down below in the city
someone had died.
But I had seen so many spirits since coming out here that I was more
interested in watching the stars. I used to love them, and I love
them still. Some day, if it is permitted, I hope to know more about
them. But I shall not leave the neighbourhood of the earth until these
letters are finished. From the distance of the planet Jupiter I might
not be able to write at all. It is true that one can come and go,
almost with the quickness of thought; but something tells me that it
is better to postpone for a time my more extensive travelling. Perhaps
when I get out there I shall not want to come back for a long time.
It means much to me this correspondence with earth. During my illness
I used to wonder if I could come back sometimes, but I never imagined
anything like this. I would not have supposed it possible to find any
well-balanced and responsible person with daring enough to join me in
the experiment.
I could not have written through the hand of a person of untrained mind
unless he or she had been fully hypnotised. I could not have written
through the hand of the average intellectual person, because such
persons cannot make themselves sufficiently passive.
Be at peace. You are not a spirit medium, using the word as it is
commonly used, signifying a passive instrument, an æolian harp, set in
an aperture between the two worlds and played upon by any wind that
blows.
Except as illustrating the fact that it can be done, there is no great
object in my telling you of the things I have seen in your world since
coming to this other one. The next time you look out into this plane of
life and see the wonderful landscapes and the people, remember that it
is in a similar way that I look back into your plane of existence. It
is interesting to live in two worlds, going back and forth at will. But
when I go into yours it is only as a visitor, and I shall never attempt
to take a hand in its government. There is such a rigorous custom-house
on the frontier between the two worlds that the traveller back and
forth cannot afford to carry anything with him--not even a prejudice.
If you should come out here with a determination to see only certain
things, you might give a wrong value to what you would see. Many have
come out here at death with that mental attitude, and so have learned
little or nothing. It is the traveller with the open mind who makes
discoveries.
I brought over with me only a few resolutions:
To preserve my identity;
To hold my memory of earth life, and to carry back the memory of this
life when I should return to the world;
To see the great Teachers;
To recover the memories of my past incarnations;
To lay the necessary foundations for a great earth life when I should
go back next time.
That sounds simple, does it not? Already I have done much besides;
but if I had not borne these points in mind I might have accomplished
little.
The only really sad thing about death is that the average man learns
so little from it. Only my realisation of the fact that the chain of
earth lives is relatively endless could keep me from regret that most
persons make so little progress in each life. But I comfort myself with
the assurance that there is no hurry; that the pearls in the chain of
existence, though small, are all in their inevitable places, and that
the chain is a circle, the symbol of eternity.
And it seems to me, with my still finite view, that most men on this
side waste their lives even as they do on your side. That shows how far
I am yet from the ideal knowledge.
Viewed from the stars, whence I hope some day to view them, all these
flat stretches in the landscape of life may be softened by distance,
and the whole picture may take on a perspective of beauty which I had
not dreamed of while I myself was but a speck upon the canvas.
LETTER XXXIV
THE PASSING OF LIONEL
I HAVE lost my boy Lionel. He has gone--I started to say the way of all
flesh; but I must revise the figure and say the way of all spirits,
sooner or later, and that way is back to the earth.
One day not long ago I found him absorbed in thought in our favourite
resting-place, the little hut beside a stream at the foot of a wooded
hill, which I told you about in one of my former letters.
I waited for a time until the boy opened his eyes and looked at me.
“Father,” he said, “my favourite teacher is going to be married
to-morrow.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Why, I have been listening!” he answered. “Every little while I go
back and pay her a visit, though she does not know I am there. I have
been aware that there was something in the wind.”
“Why?”
“Because she has been so shining; there is a light around her which was
not there before.”
“What caused the light, Lionel?”
“Well, I suppose she is what they call _in love_.”
“You are a phenomenally wise child,” I said.
He looked at me with his large, honest eyes.
“I am not really a child at all,” he answered. “I am as old as the
hills, as you, or as anybody. Have you not told me that we are all
immortal, without end or beginning?”
“Yes, but go on, tell me about your teacher.”
“She is in love with the big brother of one of my playfellows. I used
to know him when I was a little boy. He let me use his magnet, and
taught me kite-flying, and showed me how machinery went. He is an
engineer.”
“Oh!” I said. “In this case, of course, you are glad that your
favourite teacher is going to marry him.”
Lionel’s eyes were larger than ever as he said:
“I shall be sorry to leave you, Father; but it is a chance I cannot
afford to miss.”
“What!”
“It is my opportunity to go back. I’ve been watching for it a long
time.”
“But are you ready?”
“What is it to be ready? I _want_ to go.”
“And leave me?”
“I shall find you again. And--Oh, Father!--when you come back I shall
be older than you.” This idea seemed to delight him.
I was still human enough to be sorry that the boy was going of his own
free will; but as will _is_ free, I would not make any effort to
detain him. Though young in that form, which had not yet had time to
grow up in the tenuous world since he came out as a child, yet he was
old in thought.
“Yes,” I said, “perhaps you can help me along when I also shall be a
child again.”
“You see,” he went on, “with a father like Victor I shall learn all I
want to know about machinery--that is, all that he can teach me; but
when I am grown I shall find out for myself many things which he does
not know. You remember the little machine I have been working with, up
in the pattern world?”
“Yes.”
“When I am back on the earth I shall make it a reality. Why, it
actually runs now with the electricity from my fingers!”
“But will it, when you have fixed it in material form, in steel, or
whatever it is to be made of?”
“Yes, of course it will. It is my invention. I shall be a famous man.”
“But supposing that somebody else finds it first?”
“I don’t think anybody will.”
“Shall I help you to lay a spell around the pattern, so that no one can
touch it?”
“Could you do that, Father?”
“I think so.”
“Then let us go up there at once,” he said, “and do it immediately. I
may have to leave this world in a day or two.”
I could not help smiling at the boy’s desire to hurry. Doubtless he
would be present at that wedding, and I should see little or nothing of
him afterwards.
We went up to the pattern world, and with his assistance I drew a
circle around the little machine--a spell which, I think, will protect
it until he is ready to make his claim.
Oh inspiration! Oh invention! Genius! Little do the men of earth know
the meaning of those words. Perhaps the poet’s famous poem was sung
before his birth; perhaps the engineer’s invention lay in the pattern
world, protected by his spell, while he grew to manhood and advanced in
science and made ready to claim it for his own, his prior and spiritual
creation. Perhaps, when two men discover or invent the same thing at
about the same time, one has succeeded in appropriating the design
which the other left behind him when he came back to earth. Sometimes,
perhaps, both have taken from the invisible the creation of a third
man, who still awaits rebirth.
Lionel babbled on to me about the life to come, and of what a charming
mother Miss ---- would be. She had always been good to him.
“Perhaps,” I said, “many of us who return almost immediately, as you
hope to do, seek out those who have been good to us in a former life.”
“There is another point,” Lionel said. “Miss ---- is a friend of my own
mother, the one I left a few years ago. It will be so good to have her
hold my hand again.”
“Do you think she will recognise you?” I asked.
“Who knows? She believes in rebirth.”
“How can you say that? You were so little when you came out!”
“I was seven years old, and already she had told me that we live many
lives on earth.”
“Bless the souls who first brought that belief to the Western world!”
I exclaimed. “And now, my boy, is there anything that I can do for you
after you leave me?”
“Yes, of course; you can watch over my new mother, and warn her if any
danger threatens her or me.”
“Then make me acquainted with her now.”
We went out into the material world, the boy and I. Already I have told
you how we go.
He took me to a little house in one of the suburbs of Boston. We
entered a room--it was then about eleven o’clock at night upon that
part of the earth,--and I saw a fair young woman kneeling beside her
bed, praying to God that He would bless the union of the morrow which
was to give her to the man she loved.
Lionel went close to her and threw his arms about her neck.
She started, as if she actually felt the contact, and sprang to her
feet.
“Miss ----, Miss ----, don’t you know me?” he cried; but while I could
hear him, she evidently could not, though she looked about her in a
half-frightened way.
Then, supposing that the touch and the presence she had felt were
imaginary, she again fell upon her knees and went on with her
interrupted prayer.
“Come away,” I said to the boy; and we left her there with her dreams
and her devotions.
That was the last I saw of Lionel. He bade me good-bye, saying:
“I shall stay near her for a few days. Perhaps I shall go back and
forth, from her to you; but if I do not return, I will meet you again
in a few years.”
“Yes,” I said, “it is affinity and desire which draw souls together,
either on earth or in the other world.”
When next I met the Teacher I told him about Lionel, and asked him if
he thought the boy could come out to me now and then, after his life
on earth had begun, as an unborn entity in the shelter of his mother’s
form.
“Probably not,” he replied. “If he were an adept soul, he might do
that; but with a soul of even high development, lacking real adeptship,
it would be impossible.”
“Yet,” I said, “men living on earth do come out here in dreams.”
“Yes, but when the soul enters matter, preparing for rebirth, it enters
potentiality, if we may use the term, and all its strength is needed
in the herculean effort to form the new body and adjust to it. After
birth, when the eyes are opened, and the lungs are expanded to the
air, the task is easier, and there may be left enough unused energy to
bridge the gulf.
“But,” he went on, “those who are soon to be mothers are often vaguely
conscious of the souls they harbour. Even when they do not grasp the
full significance of the miracle that is being performed through them,
they have strange dreams and visions, which are mostly glimpses into
the past incarnations of the unborn child. They see dream countries
where the entity within has dwelt in the past; they feel desires which
they cannot explain--reflected desires which are merely the latent
yearnings of the unborn one; they experience groundless fears which are
its former dreads and terrors. The mother who nourishes a truly great
soul, during this period of formation may herself grow spiritually
beyond her own unaided possibility; while the mother of an unborn
criminal often develops strange perversities, quite unlike her normal
state of mind.
“If a woman were sufficiently intelligent and informed, she could judge
from her own feelings and ideas what sort of soul was to be her child
some day, and prepare to guide it accordingly. More knowledge is
needed, here as elsewhere.”
So, as in all my experiences, I learned something through the passing
out of Lionel.
LETTER XXXV
THE BEAUTIFUL BEING
YES, I have seen angels, if by angels you mean spiritual beings who
have never dwelt as men upon the earth.
As a man is to a rock, so is an angel to a man in vividness of life. If
we ever experienced that state of etheric joy, we have lost it through
long association with matter. Can we ever regain it? Perhaps. The event
is in our hand.
Shall I tell you of one whom I call the Beautiful Being? If it has a
name in heaven, I have not heard it. Is the Beautiful Being man or
woman? Sometimes it seems to be one, sometimes the other. There is a
mystery here which I cannot fathom.
One night I seemed to be reclining upon a moonbeam, which means that
the poet which dwells in all men was awake in me. I seemed to be
reclining upon a moonbeam, and ecstasy filled my heart. For the moment
I had escaped the clutches of Time, and was living in that etheric
quietude which is merely the activity of rapture raised to the last
degree. I must have been enjoying a foretaste of that paradoxical state
which the wise ones of the East call Nirvana.
I was vividly conscious of the moonbeam and of myself, and _in_
myself seemed to be everything else in the universe. It was the nearest
I ever came to a realisation of that supreme declaration, “_I am_.”
The past and the future seemed equally present in the moment. Had a
voice whispered that it was yesterday, I should have acquiesced in the
assertion; had I been told that it was a million years hence, I should
have been also assentive. But whether it was really yesterday or a
million years hence mattered not in the least. Perhaps the Beautiful
Being only comes to those for whom the moment and eternity are one. I
heard a voice say:
“Brother, it is I.”
There was no question in my mind as to who had spoken. “It is I” can
only be uttered in such a voice by one whose individuality is so vast
as to be almost universal, one who has dipped in the ocean of the All,
yet who knows the minute by reason of its own inclusiveness.
Standing before me was the Beautiful Being, radiant in its own light.
Had it been less lovely I might have gasped with wonder; but the very
perfection of its form and presence diffused an atmosphere of calm. I
marvelled not, because the state of my consciousness _was_ marvel.
I was lifted so far above the commonplace that I had no standard by
which to measure the experience of that moment.
Imagine youth immortalised, the fleeting made eternal. Imagine the
bloom of a child’s face and the eyes of the ages of knowledge. Imagine
the brilliancy of a thousand lives concentrated in those eyes, and the
smile upon the lips of a love so pure that it asks no answering love
from those it smiles upon.
But the language of earth cannot describe the unearthly, nor could
the understanding of man grasp in a moment those joys which the
Beautiful Being revealed to me in that hour of supreme life. For the
possibilities of existence have been widened for me, the meanings
of the soul have deepened. Those who behold the Beautiful Being are
never the same again as they were before. They may forget for a time,
and lose in the business of living the magic of that presence; but
whenever they do remember, they are caught up again on the wings of
the former rapture.
It may happen to one who is living upon the earth; it may happen to one
in the spaces between the stars; but the experience must be the same
when it comes to all; for only to one in the state in which _it_
dwells could the Beautiful Being reveal itself at all.
A SONG OF THE BEAUTIFUL BEING
When you hear a rustling in the air, listen again: there
may be something there.
When you feel a warmth mysterious and lovely in the
heart, there may be something there, something
sent to you from a warm and lovely source.
When a joy unknown fills your being, and your soul
goes out, out ... toward some loved mystery, you
know not where, know that the mystery itself is
reaching toward you with warm and loving, though
invisible, arms.
We who live in the invisible are not invisible to each
other.
There are tender colours here and exquisite forms, and
the eye gloats on beauty never seen upon the earth.
Oh, the joy of simple life to be, and to sing in your soul
all day as the bird sings to its mate!
For you are singing to your mate whenever your soul
sings.
Did you fancy it was only the spring-time that thrilled
you and moved you to listen to the rustling of
wings?
The spring-time of the heart is all time, and the autumn
may never come.
Listen! When the lark sings, he sings to you. When
the waters sing, they sing to you.
And as your heart rejoices, there is always another heart
somewhere that responds; and the soul of the listening
heavens grows glad with the mother joy.
I am glad to be here, I am glad to be there. There is
beauty wherever I go.
Can you guess the reason, children of earth?
Come out and play with me in the daisy fields of space.
I will wait for you at the corner where the four
winds meet.
You will not lose your way, if you follow the gleam at
the end of the garden of hope.
There is music also beyond the roar of the earth as it
swishes through space:
There is music in keys unknown to the duller ears of
the earth, and harmonies whose chords are souls
attuned to each other.
Listen.... Do you hear them?
Oh, the ears are made for hearing, and the eyes are
made for seeing, and the heart is made for loving!
The hours go by and leave no mark, and the years are
as sylphs that dance on the air and leave no footprints,
and the centuries march solemn and slow.
But we smile, for joy is also in the solemn tread of the
centuries.
Joy, joy everywhere. It is for you and for me, and for
you as much as for me.
Will you meet me out where the four winds meet?
LETTER XXXVI
THE HOLLOW SPHERE
SOME time ago I started to write to you about certain visits which I
had made to the infernal regions; but I was called away, and the letter
was not finished. To-night I will take up the story again.
You must know that there are many hells, and they are mostly of our own
making. That is one of those platitudes which are based upon fact.
Desiring one day to see the particular kind of hell to which a drunkard
would be likely to go, I sought that part of the hollow sphere around
the world which corresponds to one of those countries where drunkenness
is most common. Souls, when they come out, usually remain in the
neighbourhood where they have lived, unless there is some strong reason
to the contrary.
I had no difficulty in finding a hell full of drunkards. What do you
fancy they were doing? Repenting their sins? Not at all. They were
hovering around those places on earth where the fumes of alcohol, and
the heavier fumes of those who over-indulge in alcohol, made sickening
the atmosphere. It is no wonder that sensitive people dislike the
neighbourhood of drinking saloons.
You would draw back with disgust and refuse to write for me should I
tell you all that I saw. One or two instances will suffice.
I placed myself in a sympathetic and neutral state, so that I could see
into both worlds.
A young man with restless eyes and a troubled face entered one of
those “gin palaces” in which gilding and highly polished imitation
mahogany tend to impress the miserable wayfarer with the idea that he
is enjoying the luxury of the “kingdoms of this world.” The young man’s
clothes were threadbare, and his shoes had seen much wear. A stubble
of beard was on his chin, for the price of a shave is the price of a
drink, and a man takes that which he desires most--when he can get it.
He was leaning on the bar, drinking a glass of some soul-destroying
compound. And close to him, taller than he and bending over him, with
its repulsive, bloated, ghastly face pressed close to his, as if to
smell his whisky-tainted breath, was one of the most horrible astral
beings which I have seen in this world since I came out. The hands of
the creature (and I use that word to suggest its vitality)--the hands
of the creature were clutching the young man’s form, one long and
naked arm was around his shoulders, the other around his hips. It was
literally sucking the liquor-soaked life of its victim, absorbing him,
using him, in the successful attempt to enjoy vicariously the passion
which death had intensified.
But was that a creature in hell? you ask. Yes, for I could look into
its mind and see its sufferings. For ever (the words “for ever” may be
used of that which seems endless) this entity was doomed to crave and
crave and never to be satisfied.
There was in it just enough left of the mind which had made it
man--just enough to catch a fitful glimpse now and then of the
horror of its own state. It had no desire to escape, but the very
consciousness of the impossibility of escape was an added torment. And
dread was in the eyes of the thing--dread of the future into which it
could not look, but which it felt waiting to drag it into that state of
even greater suffering than its present, when the astral particles of
its form, unable longer to hold together because of the absence of the
unifying soul, would begin to rend and tear what was left of the mind
and astral nerves--rending and tearing asunder, in terror and pain,
that shape whose end was at hand.
For only the soul endures, and that which the soul deserts must perish
and disintegrate.
And the young man who leaned on the bar in that gilded palace of gin
was filled with a nameless horror and sought to leave the place; but
the arms of the thing that was now his master clutched him tighter
and tighter, the sodden, vaporous cheek was pressed closer to his,
the desire of the vampire creature aroused an answering desire in its
victim, and the young man demanded another glass.
Verily, earth and hell are neighbouring states, and the frontier has
never been charted.
I have seen hells of lust and hells of hatred; hells of
untruthfulness, where every object which the wretched dweller tried
to grasp turned into something else which was a denial of the thing
desired, where truth was mocked eternally and nothing was real, but
everything--changing and uncertain as untruthfulness--became its own
antithesis.
I have seen the anguished faces of those not yet resigned to lies, have
seen their frantic efforts to clutch reality, which melted in their
grasp. For the habit of untruthfulness, when carried into this world
of shifting shapes, surrounds the untruthful person with ever-changing
images which mock him and elude.
Would he see the faces of his loved ones? The promise is given, and
as the faces appear they turn into grinning furies. Would he grasp in
memory the prizes of ambition? They are shown to be but disgrace in
another form, and pride becomes weak shame. Would he clasp the hand of
friendship? The hand is extended--but in its clutch is a knife which
pierces the vitals of the liar without destroying him, and the futile
attempt begins again, over and over, until the uneasy conscience is
exhausted.
Beware of deathbed repentance and its after-harvest of morbid memories.
It is better to go into eternity with one’s karmic burdens bravely
carried upon the back, rather than to slink through the back door of
hell in the stockinged-feet of a sorry cowardice.
If you have sinned, accept the fact with courage and resolve to sin no
more; but he who dwells upon his sins in his last hour will live them
over and over again in the state beyond the tomb.
Every act is followed by its inevitable reaction; every cause is
accompanied by its own effect, which nothing--save the powerful
dynamics of Will itself--can modify; and when Will modifies the effect
of an antecedent cause, it is always by setting up a counteracting
and more powerful cause than the first--a cause so strong that the
other is irresistibly carried along with it, as a great flood can
sweep a trickling stream of water from an open hose-pipe, carrying the
hose-pipe cause and its trickling effect along with the rushing torrent
of its own flood.
If you recognise the fact that you have sinned, set up good actions
more powerful than your sins, and reap the reward for those.
There is much more to be said about hells, but this is enough for
to-night. At another time I may return to the subject.
LETTER XXXVII
AN EMPTY CHINA CUP
IT is no wonder that children, no matter how old and experienced their
souls, have to be retaught in each life the relative values of all
things according to the artificial standards of the world; for out here
those values lose their meaning.
That a soul had houses, lands, and honours among men does not increase
his value in our eyes. We cannot hope to profit by his discarded
riches. The soul in the “hereafter” builds its own house, and the
materials thereof are free as air. If I use the house which another has
built, I miss the enjoyment of creating my own.
There is nothing worth stealing out here, so no one trembles for fear
of burglars in the night. Even bores can be escaped by retiring to the
very centre of oneself, for a bore is himself too self-centred ever to
pierce to the centre of anyone else.
On earth you value titles, inherited or acquired; here a man’s name is
not of much importance even to himself, and a visiting-card would be
lost through the cracks in the floor of heaven. No footman angel would
ever deliver it to his Lord and Master.
One day I met a lady recently arrived. She had not been here long
enough to have lost her assurance of superiority over ordinary men
and angels. That morning I had on my best Roman toga, for I had been
reliving the past; and the lady, mistaking me for Cæsar or some other
ancient aristocrat, asked me to direct her to a place where gentlewomen
congregated.
I was forced to admit that I did not know of any such resort; but as
the visitor seemed lonely and bewildered, I invited her to rest beside
me for a time and to question me if she wished.
“I have been here several months,” I said, “and have gained
considerable experience.”
It was plain to see that she was puzzled by my remark. She glanced at
my classical garment, and I could feel her thinking that there was
something incongruous between it and my assertion that I had been here
only a few months.
“Perhaps you are an actor,” she said.
“We are all actors here,” I replied.
This seemed to puzzle her more than ever, and she said that she did
not understand. Poor lady! I felt sorry for her, and I tried my best to
explain to her the conditions under which we live.
“You must know in the first place,” I said, “that this is the land of
realised ideals. Now a man who has always desired to be a king can
play the part up here if he wishes to, and no one will laugh at him;
for each spirit has some favourite dream which he acts out to his own
satisfaction.
“We have, madam,” I continued, “reacquired the tolerance and the
courtesy of children who never ridicule one another’s play.”
“Is heaven merely a play-room?” she asked, in a shocked tone.
“Not at all,” I answered; “but you are not in heaven.”
Her look of apprehension caused me immediately to add:
“Nor are you in hell, either. What was your religion upon the earth?”
“Why, I professed the usual religion of my country and station; but I
never gave it much thought.”
“Perhaps the idea of purgatory is not unfamiliar to you.”
“I am not a papist,” she said, with some warmth.
“Nevertheless, a papist in your position would conceive himself to be
in purgatory.”
“I am certainly not happy,” she admitted, “because everything is so
strange.”
“Have you no friends here?” I inquired.
“I must have many acquaintances,” she said; “but I never cared for
intimate friendships. I used to entertain a good deal; my husband’s
political position demanded it.”
“Perhaps there is someone on this side to whom you were specially kind
at some time or other, someone whose grief you helped to bear, whose
poverty you eased.”
“I patronised our organised charities.”
“I fear that sort of help is too impersonal to be remembered here. Have
you no children?”
“No.”
“No brothers or sisters on this side?”
“I quarrelled with my only brother for marrying beneath him.”
“But surely,” I said, “you must have had a mother. Was she not waiting
for you when you came over?”
“No.”
This surprised me, for I had been told that all mother spirits who
have not gone back to the world know by a peculiar thrill when a child
to which they have given birth is about to be reborn into the spiritual
world--a sort of sympathetic after-pain, the final and sweetest reward
of motherhood.
“Then she must have reincarnated,” I said.
“Do you hold to that pagan belief?” the lady inquired, with just a
touch of superiority. “I thought that only queer people, Theosophists
and such, believed in reincarnation.”
“I was always queer,” I admitted. “But you know, of course, dear madam,
that about three-quarters of the earth’s inhabitants are familiar with
that theory in some form or other.”
We continued our talk for a little time, and meanwhile I was puzzling
my heart as to what I could do to help this poor lonely woman, for
whom no one was waiting. I passed in mental review this and that
ministering angel of my acquaintance, and wondered which of them would
be considered most correct from the conventional earthly point of view.
The noblest of them was usually at the side of some newly arrived
unfortunate woman--to use a euphemism of that polite society which my
latest _protégée_ had frequented. The others were here, there, and
everywhere, but generally with those souls who needed them most; while
the need of my present companion was more real than urgent. If Lionel
had been here, he might have entertained her for a while.
I wished that I had cultivated the acquaintance of some of those ladies
who crochet and gossip in this world as they crocheted and gossiped in
yours. Do not be shocked. Did you fancy that a lifelong habit could
be laid aside in a moment? As women on earth dream often of their
knitting, so they do here. It is as easy to knit in this world as it is
to dream in yours.
Understand that the world in which I now live is no more essentially
sacred than is the world in which you live, nor is it any more
mysterious to those who dwell in it. To the serious soul all conditions
are sacred--except those that are profane, and both are found out here
as well as on the earth.
But to return to the lonely woman. I was still wondering what I should
do with her when, looking up, I saw the Teacher approaching. He had
with him another woman, as like the first as one empty china cup is
like another empty china cup. Then he and I went away and left the two
together.
“I did not know,” I said to the Teacher, “that you troubled yourself
with any souls but those of considerable development.”
He smiled:
“It was your perplexity which I came to relieve, not that of those poor
ladies.”
Then he began to talk to me about relative values.
“In a sense,” he said, “one soul is as much worth helping as another;
in a deeper sense, perhaps it is not. Do not think that I am
indifferent to the sufferings of the weakest ones because I give my
time and attention to the strong. Like the ministering angels, I go
where I am most needed. Only the strong ones can learn what I have
to teach. The weak ones are the charges of the Messiahs and their
followers. But, nevertheless, between us and the Messiahs there is
brotherhood and there is mutual understanding. Each works in his own
field. The Messiahs help the many; we help the few. Their reward in
love is greater than ours; but we do not work for reward any more than
they do. Each follows the law of his being.
“To be loved by all men a teacher must be known to all men, and we
reveal ourselves only to a few chosen ones. Why do we not go the way of
the Messiahs? Because the balance must be maintained. For every great
worker in the sight of men there is another worker out of sight. Which
kind of teacher is of greater value? The question is out of order. The
North and the South are interdependent, and there are two poles to
every magnet.”
LETTER XXXVIII
WHERE TIME IS NOT
I THINK you now understand from what I have said that not all the souls
who have passed the airy frontier are either in heaven or hell. Few
reach an extreme, and most live out their allotted period here as they
lived out their allotted period on earth, without realising either the
possibilities or the significance of their condition.
Wisdom is a tree of slow growth; the rings around its trunk are earthly
lives, and the grooves between are the periods between the lives.
Who grieves that an acorn is slow in becoming an oak? It is equally
unphilosophical to feel that the truth which I have endeavoured to make
you understand--the truth of the soul’s great leisure--is necessarily
sad. If a man were to become an archangel in a few years’ time, he
would suffer terribly from growing-pains. The Law is implacable, but it
often seems to be kind.
Nevertheless there are many souls in heaven, and there are many
heavens, of which I have seen a few.
But do not fancy that most people go from place to place and from
state to state as I do. The things which I describe to you are not
exceptional; but that one man should be able to see and describe so
many things is exceptional indeed. I owe it largely to the Teacher.
Without his guidance I could not have acquired so rich an experience.
Yes, there are many heavens. Last night I felt the yearning for beauty
which sometimes came to me on earth. One of the strangest phenomena
of this ethereal world is the tremendous attraction by sympathy--the
attraction of events, I mean. Desire a thing intensely enough, and you
are on the way to it. A body of a feather’s weight moves swiftly when
propelled by a free will.
I felt a yearning for beauty, which is a synonym for heaven. Did I
really move from my place, or did heaven come to me? I cannot say,
_space means so little here_. For every vale without there is a
vale within. We desire a place, and we are there. Perhaps the Teacher
could give you a scientific explanation of this, but I cannot at the
moment. And then, I want to tell you about that heaven where I was last
night. It was so beautiful that the charm of it is over me still.
I saw a double row of dark-topped trees, like cypresses, and at the end
of this long avenue down which I passed was a softly diffused light.
Somewhere I have read of a heaven lighted by a thousand suns, but my
heaven was not like that. The light as I approached it was softer than
moonlight, though clearer. Perhaps the light of the sun would shine as
softly if seen through many veils of alabaster. Yet this light seemed
to come from nowhere. It simply was.
As I approached I saw two beings walking towards me, hand in hand.
There was such a look of happiness on their faces as one never sees on
the faces of earth. Only a spirit unconscious of time could look like
that.
I should say that these two were man and woman, save that they seemed
so different from what you understand by man and woman. They did not
even look at each other as they walked; the touch of the hand seemed to
make them so much one, that the realisation of the eye could have added
nothing to their content. Like the light which came from nowhere, they
simply were.
A little farther on I saw a group of bright-robed children dancing
among flowers. Hand in hand in a ring they danced, and their garments,
which were like the petals of flowers, moved with the rhythm of their
dancing limbs. A great joy filled my heart. They, too, were unconscious
of time, and might have been dancing there from eternity, for all I
knew. But whether their gladness was of the moment or of the ages had
no significance for me or for them. Like the light, and like the lovers
who had passed me hand in hand, they were, and that was enough.
I had left the avenue of cypresses and stood in a wide plain, encircled
by a forest of blossoming trees. The odours of spring were on the
air, and birds sang. In the centre of the plain a great circular
fountain played with the waters, tossing them in the air, whence they
descended in feathery spray. An atmosphere of inexpressible charm was
over everything. Here and there in this circular flower-scented heaven
walked angelic beings, many or most of whom must some time have been
human. Two by two they walked, or in groups, smiling to themselves or
at one another.
On earth you often use the word “peace”; but compared with the peace
of that place the greatest peace of earth is only turmoil. I realised
that I was in one of the fairest heavens, but that I was alone there.
No sooner had this thought of solitude found lodgment in my heart than
I saw standing before me the Beautiful Being about whom I wrote you a
little time ago. It smiled, and said to me:
“He who is sadly conscious of his solitude is no longer in heaven. So I
have come to hold you here yet a little while.”
“Is this the particular heaven where you dwell?” I asked.
“Oh, I dwell nowhere and everywhere,” the Beautiful Being answered. “I
am one of the voluntary wanderers, who find the charm of home in every
heavenly or earthly place.”
“So you sometimes visit earth?”
“Yes, even the remotest hells I go to, but I never stay there long. My
purpose is to know all things, and yet to remain unattached.”
“And do you love the earth?”
“The earth is one of my playgrounds. I sing to the children of earth
sometimes; and when I sing to the poets, they believe that their muse
is with them. Here is a song which I sang one night to a soul which
dwells among men:
“My sister, I am often with you when you realise it not.
For me a poet soul is a well of water in whose deeps I
can see myself reflected.
I live in a glamour of light and colour, which you mortal
poets vainly try to express in magic words.
I am in the sunset and in the star; I watched the moon
grow old and you grow young.
In childhood you sought for me in the swiftly moving
cloud; in maturity you fancied you had caught me
in the gleam of a lover’s eye; but I am the eluder
of men.
I beckon and I fly, and the touch of my feet does not
press down the heads of the blossoming daisies.
You can find me and lose me again, for mortal cannot
hold me.
I am nearest to those who seek beauty--whether in
thought or in form; I fly from those who seek to imprison me.
You can come each day to the region where I dwell.
Sometimes you will meet me, sometimes not; for my will
is the wind’s will, and I answer no beckoning finger:
But when I beckon, the souls come flying from the four
corners of heaven.
Your soul comes flying, too; for you are one of those I
have called by the spell of my magic.
I have use for you, and you have meaning for me; I like
to see your soul in its hours of dream and ecstasy.
Whenever one of my own dreams a dream of Paradise,
the light grows brighter for me, to whom all things
are bright.
Oh, forget not the charm of the moment, forget not the
lure of the mood!
For the mood is wiser than all the magi of earth, and
the treasures of the moment are richer and rarer
than the hoarded wealth of the ages.
The moment is real, while the age is only a delusion, a
memory, and a shadow.
Be sure that each moment is all, and the moment is more
than time.
Time carries an hour-glass, and his step is slow; his hair
is white with the rime of years, and his scythe is
dull with unwearied mowing;
But he never yet has caught the moment in its flight.
He has grown old in casting nets for it.
Ah, the magic of life and of the endless combination of
living things!
I was young when the sun was formed, and I shall be
young when the moon falls dead in the arms of her
daughter the earth.
Will you not be young with me? The dust is as nothing:
the soul is all.
Like a crescent moon on the surface of a lake of water
is the moment of love’s awakening;
Like a faded flower in the lap of the tired world is the
moment of love’s death.
But there is love and Love, and the love of the light for
its radiance is the love of souls for each other.
There is no death where the inner light shines, irradiating
the fields of the within--the beyond--the unattainable
attainment.
You know where to find me.”
LETTER XXXIX
THE DOCTRINE OF DEATH
MANY times during the months in which I have been here have I seen men
and women lying in a state of unconsciousness more profound than the
deepest sleep, their faces expressionless and uninteresting. At first,
before I understood the nature of their sleep, I tried as an experiment
to awaken one or two of them, and was not successful. In certain cases
where my curiosity was aroused, I have returned later, day after day,
and found them still lying in the same lethargy.
“Why,” I asked myself, “should any man sleep like that--a sleep so deep
that neither the spoken word nor the physical touch could arouse him?”
One day when the Teacher was with me we passed one of those unconscious
men whom I had seen before, had watched, and had striven unsuccessfully
to arouse.
“Who are these people who sleep like that?” I asked the Teacher; and he
replied:
“They are those who in their earth life denied the immortality of the
soul after death.”
“How terrible!” I said. “And will they never awaken?”
“Yes, perhaps centuries, perhaps ages hence, when the irresistible law
of rhythm shall draw them out of their sleep into incarnation. For the
law of rebirth is one with the law of rhythm.”
“Would it not be possible to awaken one of them, this man, for
instance?”
“You have attempted it, have you not?” the Teacher inquired, with a
keen look into my face.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“And you failed?”
“Yes.”
We looked at each other for a moment, then I said:
“Perhaps you, with your greater power and knowledge, could succeed
where I have failed.”
He made no answer. His silence fired my interest still farther, and I
said eagerly:
“Will you not try? Will you not awaken this man?”
“You know not what you ask,” he replied.
“But tell me this,” I demanded: “could you awaken him?”
“Perhaps. But in order to counteract the law which holds him in sleep,
the law of the spell he laid upon his own soul when he went out of life
demanding unconsciousness and annihilation--in order to counteract that
law, I should have to put in operation a law still stronger.”
“And that is?” I asked.
“Will,” he answered, “the potency of will.”
“Could you?”
“As I said before--perhaps.”
“And will you?”
“Again I say that you know not what you ask.”
“Will you please explain?” I persisted, “for indeed this seems to me to
be one of the most marvellous things which I have seen.”
The face of the Teacher was very grave, as he answered:
“What good has this man done in the past that I should place myself
between him and the law of cause and effect which he has wilfully set
in operation?”
“I do not know his past,” I said.
“Then,” the Teacher demanded, “will you tell me your reason for asking
me to do this thing?”
“My reason?”
“Yes. Is it pity for this man’s unfortunate condition, or is it
scientific curiosity on your part?”
I should gladly have been able to say that it was pity for the man’s
sad state which moved me so; but one does not juggle with truth or with
motives when speaking to such a Teacher, so I admitted that it was
scientific curiosity.
“In that case,” he said, “I am justified in using him as a
demonstration of the power of the trained will.”
“It will not harm him, will it?”
“On the contrary. And though he may suffer shock, it will probably be
the means of so impressing his mind that never again, even in future
lives on earth, can he believe himself, or teach others to believe,
that death ends everything. As far as he is concerned, he does not
deserve that I should waste upon him so great an amount of energy as
will be necessary to arouse him from this sleep, this spell which he
laid upon himself ages ago. But if I awaken him, it will be for your
sake, ‘that you may believe.’”
I wish I could describe the scene which took place, so that you could
see it with the eyes of your imagination. There lay the man at our
feet, his face colourless and expressionless, and above him towered the
splendid form of the Teacher, his face beautiful with power, his eyes
brilliant with thought.
“Can you not see,” asked the Teacher, “a faint light surrounding this
seemingly lifeless figure?”
“Yes, but the light is very faint indeed.”
“Nevertheless,” said the Teacher, “that light is far less faint than is
this weak soul’s hold upon the eternal truth. But where you see only a
pale light around the recumbent form, I see in that light many pictures
of the soul’s past. I see that he not only denied the immortality of
the soul’s consciousness, but that he taught his doctrine of death to
other men and made them even as himself. Truly he does not deserve that
I should try to awaken him!”
“Yet you will do it?”
“Yes, I will do it.”
I regret that I am not permitted to tell you by what form of words and
by what acts my Teacher succeeded, after a mighty effort, in arousing
that man from his self-imposed imitation of annihilation. I realised
as never before--not only the personal power of the Teacher, but the
irresistible power of a trained and directed will.
I thought of that scene recorded in the New Testament, where Jesus said
to the dead man in the tomb, “Lazarus, come forth!”
“The soul of man is immortal,” declared the Teacher, looking fixedly
into the shrinking eyes of the awakened man and holding them by his
will.
“The soul of man is immortal,” he repeated. Then in a tone of command:
“Stand up!”
The man struggled to his feet. Though his body was light as a feather,
as are all our bodies here, I could see that his slumbering energy was
still almost too dormant to permit of that really slight exertion.
“You live,” declared the Teacher. “You have passed through death, and
you live. Do not dare to deny that you live. You cannot deny it.”
“But I do not believe----” began the man, his stubborn materialism
still challenging the truth of his own existence, his memory surviving
the ordeal through which he had passed. This last surprised me more
than anything else. But after a moment’s stupefaction I understood that
it was the power of the Teacher’s mental picture of the astral records
round this soul which had forced those memories to awaken.
“Sit down between us two,” said the Teacher to the newly aroused man,
“and let us reason together. You thought yourself a great reasoner,
did you not, when you walked the earth as So-and-so?”
“I did.”
“You see that you were mistaken in your reasoning,” the Teacher went
on, “for you certainly passed through death, and you are now alive.”
“But where am I?” He looked about him in a bewildered way. “Where am I,
and who are you?”
“You are in eternity,” replied the Teacher, “where you always have been
and always will be.”
“And you?”
“I am one who knows the workings of the Law.”
“What law?”
“The law of rhythm, which drives the soul into and out of gross matter,
as it drives the tides of the ocean into flood and ebb, and the
consciousness of man into sleeping and waking.”
“And it was you who awakened me? Are you, then, this law of rhythm?”
The Teacher smiled.
“I am not the law,” he said, “but I am bound by it, even as you, save
as I am temporarily able to transcend it by my will--again, even as
you.”
I caught my breath at the profundity of this simple answer, but the
man seemed not to observe its significance. Even as he! Why, this man
by his misdirected will had been able temporarily to transcend the
law of immortality, even as the Teacher by his wisely directed will
transcended the mortal in himself! My soul sang within me at this
glimpse of the godlike possibilities of the human mind.
“How long have I been asleep?” demanded the man.
“In what year did you die?” the Teacher asked.
“In the year 1817.”
“And the present year is known, according to the Christian calendar,
as the year 1912. You have lain in a death-like sleep for ninety-five
years.”
“And was it really you who awakened me?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Because it suited my good pleasure,” was the Teacher’s rather stern
reply. “It was not because you deserved to be awakened.”
“And how long would I have slept if you had not aroused me?”
“I cannot say. Probably until those who had started even with you
had left you far behind on the road of evolving life. Perhaps for
centuries, perhaps for ages.”
“You have taken a responsibility upon yourself,” said the man.
“You do not need to remind me of that,” replied the Teacher. “I weighed
in my own mind the full responsibility and decided to assume it for a
purpose of my own. For will is free.”
“Yet you overpowered my will.”
“I did; but by my own more potent will, more potent because wisely
directed and backed by a greater energy.”
“And what are you going to do with me?”
“I am going to assume the responsibility of your training.”
“My training?”
“Yes.”
“And you will make things easy for me?”
“On the contrary, I shall make things very hard for you; but you cannot
escape my teaching.”
“Shall you instruct me personally?”
“Personally in the sense that I shall place you under the instruction
of an advanced pupil of my own.”
“Who? This man here?” He pointed to me.
“No. He is better occupied. I will take you to your teacher presently.”
“And what will he show me?”
“The panorama of immortality. And when you have learned the lesson so
that you can never forget nor escape it, you will have to go back to
the earth and teach it to others; you will have to convert as many men
to the truth of immortality as you have in the past deluded and misled
by your false doctrines of materialism and death.”
“And what if I refuse? You have said that will is free.”
“_Do_ you refuse?”
“No, but what if I had?”
“Then, instead of growing and developing under the law of action and
reaction, which in the East they call karma, you would have been its
victim.”
“I do not understand you.”
“He is indeed a wise man,” said the Teacher, “who understands the law
of karma, which is also the law of cause and effect. But come. I will
now take you to your new instructor.”
Then, leaving me alone, the Teacher and his charge disappeared in the
grey distance.
I remained there a long time, pondering what I had seen and heard.
LETTER XL
THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY
I AM about to say something which may shock certain persons; but those
who are too fond of their own ideas, without being willing to grant
others their ideas in turn, should not seek to open the jealously
guarded doors which separate the land of the so-called living from the
land of the certainly not dead.
This is the statement which I have to make: that there are many gods,
and that the One God is the sum-total of all of them. All gods exist
in God. Do what you like with that statement, dear world, for truth is
more vital than anybody’s dream, even yours or mine.
Have I seen God? I have seen Him who has been called the Son of God,
and you may remember that He said that whoever had seen the Son had
seen the Father.
But what of the other gods? you ask; for there are many in the world’s
pantheons. Well, the realities exist out here.
What! you say again, can man create the gods of his imagination and
give them a place in the invisible? No. They existed here first, and
man became aware of them long ago through his own psychic and spiritual
perception of them. Man did not create them, and the materialists who
say that he did know little of the laws of being. Man, primitive man,
perceived them through his own spiritual affinities with and nearness
to them.
When you have read folk-tales of this god and that, you have perhaps
spoken patronisingly of the old myth-makers and thanked your lucky
stars that you lived in a more enlightened age. But those old
story-tellers were the really enlightened ones, for they saw into the
other world and recorded what they saw.
Many of the world’s favourite gods are said to have lived upon the
earth as men. They have so lived. Does that idea startle you?
How does a man become a god, and how does a god become a man? Have you
ever wondered? A man becomes a god by developing god-consciousness,
which is not the same as developing his own thought _about_ God.
During recent years you have heard and read much of so-called Masters,
men of superhuman attainments, who have forgone the small pleasures and
recognitions of the world in order to achieve something greater.
Man’s ideas of the gods change as the gods themselves change, for
“everything is becoming,” as Heraclitus said about twenty-four
centuries ago. Did you fancy that the gods stood still, and that only
you progressed? In that case you might some day outstrip your god, and
fall to worshipping yourself, having nothing to look up to as superior.
Accompanied by the Teacher, I have stood face to face with some of the
older gods. Had I come out here with a superior contempt for all gods
save my own, I should hardly have been granted that privilege; for
the gods are as exclusive as they are inclusive, and they only reveal
themselves to those who can see them as they are.
Does this open the door to polytheism, pantheism, or other dreaded
_isms_? An _ism_ is only a word. Facts are. The day is past
when men were burned at the stake for having had a vision of the wrong
god. But even now I would hesitate to tell all that I have learned
about the gods, though I can tell you much.
Take, for instance, the god whom the Romans called Neptune. Did you
fancy that he was only a poetic creation of the old myth-makers? He
was something more than that. He was supposed to rule the ocean.
Now, what could be more orderly and inevitable than that the work of
controlling the elements and the floods should be assumed by, and the
work parcelled out among those able to perform it? We hear much of the
laws of Nature. Who enforces them? The term “natural law” is in every
man’s mouth, but the Law has executors in heaven as on earth.
I have been told that there are also planetary beings, planetary gods,
though I have never had the honour of conscious communion with one of
them. If a planetary being is so far beyond the daring of my approach,
how should I comport myself in approaching the God of gods?
O paradoxical mind of man, which stands in awe and trembling before the
servant, yet approaches the master without fear!
I have been told that the guardian spirit of this planet Earth evolved
himself into a god of tremendous power and responsibility in bygone
cycles of existence. To him who has ever used a microscope the idea
need not be appalling. The infinitely small and the infinitely great
are the tail and the head of the Eternal Serpent.
Who do you fancy will be the gods of the future cycles of existence?
Will they not be those who in this cycle of planetary life have raised
themselves above the mortal? Will they not be the strongest and most
sublime among the present spirits of men? Even the gods must have their
resting period, and those in office now would doubtless wish to be
supplanted.
To those men who are ambitious for growth, the doors of development are
always open.
LETTER XLI
THE DARLING OF THE UNSEEN
I HAVE written you before of one whom I call the Beautiful Being, one
whose province seems to be the universe, whose chosen companions are
all men and angelkind, whose play-things are days and ages.
For some reason, the Beautiful Being has lately been so gracious as to
take an interest in my efforts to acquire knowledge, and has shown me
many things which otherwise I should never have seen.
When a tour of the planet is personally conducted by an angel, the
traveller is specially favoured. Letters of introduction to the great
and powerful of earth are nothing compared with this introduction, for
by its means I see into the souls of all beings, and my visits to their
houses are not limited to the drawing-rooms. The Beautiful Being has
access everywhere.
Did you ever fancy when you had had a lovely dream that maybe an angel
had kissed you in your sleep? I have seen such things.
Oh, do not be afraid of giving rein to your imagination! It is the
wonderful things which are really true; the commonplace things are
nearly all false. When a great thought lifts you by the hair, do not
cling hold of the solid earth. Let go. He whom an inspiration seizes
might even--if he dared to trust his vision--behold the Beautiful
Being face to face, as I have. When flying through the air one’s
sight is keen. If one goes fast and high enough, one may behold the
inconceivable.
The other night I was meditating on a flower-seed, for there is
nothing so small that it may not contain a world. I was meditating on
a flower-seed, and amusing myself by tracing its history, generation
by generation, back to the dawn of time. I smile as I use that figure,
“the dawn of time,” for time has had so many dawns and so many sunsets,
and still it is unwearied.
I had traced the genealogy of the seed back to the time when the
cave-man forgot his fighting in the strangely disturbing pleasure of
smelling the fragrance of its parent flower, when I heard a low musical
laugh in my left ear, and something as light as a butterfly’s wing
brushed my cheek on that side.
I turned to look, and, quick as a flash, I heard the laughter in the
other ear, while another butterfly touch came on my right cheek. Then
something like a veil was blown across my eyes, and a clear voice said:
“Guess who it is!”
I was all a-thrill with the pleasure of this divine play, and I
answered:
“Perhaps you are the fairy that makes blind children dream of daisy
fields.”
“However did you know me?” laughed the Beautiful Being, unwinding the
veil from my eyes. “I am indeed that fairy. But you must have been
peeping through cracks in the door when I touched the eyes of the blind
babies.”
“I am always peeping through cracks in the door of the earth people’s
chamber,” I replied.
The Beautiful Being laughed again:
“Will you come and have another peep with me this evening?”
“With pleasure.”
“You could not do it with pain if I were by,” was the response.
And we started then and there upon the strangest evening’s round which
I have ever made.
We began by going to the house of a friend of mine and standing quietly
in the room where he and his family were at supper. No one saw us but
the cat, which began a loud purring and stretched itself with joy at
our presence. Had I gone there alone, the cat might have been afraid of
me; but who--even a cat--could fear the Beautiful Being?
Suddenly one of the children--the youngest one--looked up from his
supper of bread and milk, and said:
“Father, why does milk taste good?”
“I really do not know,” admitted the author of his being, “perhaps
because the cow enjoyed giving it.”
“That father might have been a poet,” the Beautiful Being said to me;
but no one overheard the remark.
One of the other children complained of feeling sleepy, and put his
head down on the edge of the table. The mother started to arouse him,
but the Beautiful Being fluttered a mystifying veil before her eyes,
and she could not do it.
“Let him sleep if he wants to,” she said. “I will put him to bed by and
by.”
I could see in the brain of the child that he was dreaming already,
and I knew that the Beautiful Being was weaving a fairy-tale on the web
of his mind. After only a moment he started up, wide awake.
“I dreamed,” he said, “that----[the writer of these letters] was
standing over there and smiling at me as he used to smile, and with him
was an angel. I never saw an angel before.”
“Come away,” whispered the Beautiful Being to me. “From dreaming
children nothing can be hidden.”
We then paid a visit to the future mother of my boy Lionel. Oh, mystery
of maternity! The eyes of the Beautiful Being were like stars as we
gazed upon this other flower-seed, whose genealogy goes even beyond the
days of the cave-man--aye, back to the time of the fire-mist and the
sons of the morning stars.
“Come away!” said the Beautiful Being again. “To brides who dream
of motherhood much also is revealed, and for this evening we remain
unknown.”
We passed along the margin of a river which divides a busy town.
Suddenly from a house by the river-bank we heard the tinkle of a guitar
and a woman’s sweet voice singing:
“When other lips and other hearts
Their tale of love shall tell, ...
Then you’ll remember--you’ll remember me.”
The Beautiful Being touched my hand and whispered:
“The life that is so sweet to these mortals is a book of enchantment
for me.”
“Yet you have never tasted human life yourself?”
“On the contrary, I taste it every day; but I only taste it--and pass
on. Should I consume it, I might not be able to pass on.”
“But do you never long so to consume it?”
“Oh, but the thrill is in the taste! Digestion is a more or less
tiresome process.”
“I fear you are a divine wanton,” I said, affectionately.
“Be careful,” answered the Beautiful Being. “He who fears anything will
lose me in the fog of his own fears.”
“You irresistible one!” I cried. “Who are you? _What_ are you?”
“Did you not say yourself a little while ago that I was the fairy who
made blind babies dream of daisy fields?”
“I love you,” I said, “with an incomprehensible love.”
“All love is incomprehensible,” the Beautiful Being answered. “But
come, brother, let us climb the hill of vision. When you are out of
breath, if you catch at my flying veil I will wait till you are rested.”
Strange things we saw that night. I should weary you if I told you all
of them.
We stood on the crater of an active volcano and watched the dance of
the fire-spirits. Did you fancy that salamanders were only seen by
unabstemious poets? They are as real--to themselves and to those who
see them--as are the omnibus-drivers in the streets of London.
The real and the unreal! If I were writing an essay now, instead of the
narrative of a traveller in a strange country, I should have much to
say on the subject of the real and the unreal.
The Beautiful Being has changed my ideas about the whole universe.
I wonder if, when I come back to the earth again, I shall remember
all the marvels I have seen. Perhaps, like most people, I shall have
forgotten the details of my life before birth, and shall bring with me
only vague yearnings after the inexpressible, and the deep unalterable
conviction that there are more things in earth and heaven than are
dreamed of in the philosophy of the world’s people. Perhaps if I almost
remember, but not quite, I shall be a poet in my next life. Worse
things might happen to me.
What an adventure it is, this launching of one’s barque upon the sea of
rebirth!
But by my digressions one would say that I was in my second childhood.
So I am--my second childhood in the so-called invisible.
When, on my voyage that night with the Beautiful Being, I had feasted
my eyes upon beauty until they were weary, my companion led me to
scenes on the earth which, had I beheld them alone, would have made me
very sad. But no one can be sad when the Beautiful Being is near. That
is the charm of that marvellous entity: to be in its presence is to
taste the joys of immortal life.
We looked on at a midnight revel in what you on earth would call “a
haunt of vice.” Was I shocked and horrified? Not at all. I watched the
antics of those human animalculæ as a scientist might watch the motions
of the smaller living creatures in a drop of water. It seemed to me
that I saw it all from the viewpoint of the stars. I started to say
from the viewpoint of God, to whom small and great are the same; but
perhaps the stellar simile is the truer one, for how can we judge of
what God sees--unless we mean the god in us?
You who read what I have written, perhaps when you come out here you
will have many surprises. The small things may seem larger and the
large things smaller, and everything may take its proper place in the
infinite plan, of which even your troubles and perplexities are parts,
inevitable and beautiful.
That idea came to me as I wandered from heaven to earth, from beauty to
ugliness, with my angelic companion.
I wish I could explain the influence of the Beautiful Being. It is
unlike anything else in the universe. It is elusive as a moonbeam,
yet more sympathetic than a mother. It is daintier than a rose, yet
it looks upon ugly things with a smile. It is purer than the breath
of the sea, yet it seems to have no horror of impurity. It is artless
as a child, yet wiser than the ancient gods, a marvel of paradoxes, a
celestial vagabond, the darling of the unseen.
LETTER XLII
A VICTIM OF THE NON-EXISTENT
THE other day I met an acquaintance, a woman whom I had known for a
number of years, and who came out about the time I did.
Old acquaintances when they meet here greet each other about as they
did on earth. Though we are, as a rule, less conventional than you,
still we cling more or less to our former habits.
I asked Mrs. ---- how she was enjoying herself, and she said that she
was not having a very pleasant time. She found that everybody was
interested in something else, and did not want to talk with her.
This was the first time I had met with such a complaint, and I was
struck by its peculiarity. I asked her to what cause she attributed
this unsociability, and she replied that she did not know the cause,
that it had puzzled her.
“What do you talk to them about?” I asked.
“Why, I tell them my troubles, as one friend tells another; but they do
not seem to be interested. How selfish people are!”
Poor soul! She did not realise here, any more than she had on earth,
that our troubles are not interesting to anybody but ourselves.
“Suppose,” I said, “that you unburden yourself to me. Tell me your
troubles. I will promise not to run away.”
“Why, I hardly know where to begin!” she answered. “I have found so
many unpleasant things.”
“What, for instance?”
“Why, horrid people. I remember that when I lived in ---- I sometimes
told myself that in the other world I would not be bothered with
boarding-house landladies and their careless hired girls; but they are
just as bad here--even worse.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you live in a boarding-house here?”
“Where should I live? You know that I am not rich.”
Of all the astonishing things I had heard in this land of changes, this
was the most astonishing. A boarding-house in the “invisible” world!
Surely, I told myself, my observations had been limited. Here was a new
discovery.
“Is the table good in your boarding-house?” I asked.
“No, it is worse than at the last one.”
“Are the meals scanty?”
“Yes, scanty and bad, especially the coffee.”
“Will you tell me,” I said, my wonder growing, “if you really eat three
meals a day here, as you used to do on earth?”
“How strangely you talk!” she answered, in a sharp tone. “I don’t find
very much difference between this place and the earth, as you call it,
except that I am more uncomfortable here, because everything is so
flighty and uncertain.”
“Yes, go on.”
“I never know in the morning who will be sitting next me in the
evening. They come and go.”
“And what do you eat?”
“The same old things--meat and potatoes, and pies and puddings.”
“And you still eat these things?”
“Why, yes; don’t you?”
I hardly knew how to reply. Had I told her what my life here really
was, she would no more have understood than she would have understood
two years ago, when we lived in the same city on earth, had I told her
then what my real mental life was. So I said:
“I have not much appetite.”
She looked at me as if she distrusted me in some way, though why I
could not say.
“Are you still interested in philosophy?” she asked.
“Yes. Perhaps that is why I don’t get hungry very often.”
“You were always a strange man.”
“I suppose so. But tell me, Mrs. ----, do you never feel a desire to
leave all this behind?”
“To leave all what behind?”
“Why, boarding-houses and uncongenial people, and meat and potatoes,
and pies and puddings, and the shadows of material things in general.”
“What do you mean by ‘the _shadows_ of material things’?”
“I mean that these viands and pastries, which you eat and do not enjoy,
are not real. They have no real existence.”
“Why!” she exclaimed, “have you become a Christian Scientist?”
At this I laughed heartily. Was one who denied the reality of astral
food in the astral world a Christian Scientist, because the Christian
Scientists denied the reality of material food in the material world?
The analogy tickled my fancy.
“Let me convert you to Christian Science, then,” I said.
“No, sir!” was her sharp response. “You never succeeded in convincing
me that there was any truth in your various fads and philosophies. And
now you tell me that the food I eat is not real.”
I puzzled for a moment, trying to find a way by which the actual facts
of her condition could be brought home to the mind of this poor woman.
Finally I hit upon the right track.
“Do you realise,” I said, “that you are only dreaming?”
“What!” she snapped at me.
“Yes, you are dreaming. All this is a dream--these boarding-houses,
_et cetera_.”
“If that is so, perhaps you would like to wake me up.”
“I certainly should. But you will have to awaken yourself, I fancy.
Tell me, what were your ideas about the future life, before you came
out here?”
“What do you mean by _out here_?”
“Why, before you died!”
“But, man, I am not dead!”
“Of course you are not dead. Nobody is dead. But you certainly
understand that you have changed your condition.”
“Yes, I have noticed a change, and a change for the worse.”
“Don’t you remember your last illness?”
“Yes.”
“And that you passed out?”
“Yes, if you call it that.”
“You know that you have left your body?”
She looked down at her form, which appeared as usual, even to its rusty
black dress rather out of date.
“But I still have my body,” she said.
“Then you have not missed the other one?”
“No.”
“And you don’t know where it is?”
My amazement was growing deeper and deeper. Here was a phenomenon I had
not met before.
“I suppose,” she said, “that they must have buried my body, if you say
I left it; but this one is just the same to me.”
“Has it always seemed the same?” I asked, remembering my own
experiences when I first came out, my difficulty in adjusting the
amount of energy I used to the lightness of my new body.
“Now you mention it,” she said, “I do recall having some trouble a
year or two ago. I was quite confused for a long time. I think I must
have been delirious.”
“Yes, doubtless you were,” I answered. “But tell me, Mrs. ----, have
you no desire to visit heaven?”
“Why, I always supposed that I should visit heaven when I died; but, as
you see, I am not dead.”
“Still,” I said, “I can take you to heaven now, perhaps, if you would
like to go.”
“Are you joking?”
“Not at all. Will you come?”
“Are you certain that I can go there without dying?”
“But I assure you _there are no dead_.”
As we went slowly along, for I thought it best not to hurry her too
swiftly from one condition to another, I drew a word-picture of
the place we were about to visit--the orthodox Christian heaven. I
described the happy and loving people who stood in the presence of
their Saviour, in the soft radiance from the central Light.
“Perhaps,” I said, “some dwellers in that country see the face of God
Himself, as they expected to see it when they were on earth; as for
myself, I saw only the Light, and afterwards the figure of the Christ.”
“I have often wished to see Christ,” said my companion in an awe-struck
voice. “Do you think that I can really see Him?”
“I think so, if you believe strongly that you will.”
“And what were they doing in heaven when you were there?” she asked.
“They were worshipping God, and they were happy.”
“I want to be happy,” she said; “I have never been very happy.”
“The great thing in heaven,” I advised, “is to love all the others.
That is what makes them happy. If they loved the face of God only, it
would not be quite heaven; for the joy of God is the joy of union.”
Thus, by subtle stages, I led her mind away from astral boarding-houses
to the ideas of the orthodox spiritual world, which was probably the
only spiritual world which she could understand.
I spoke of the music--yes, church music, if you like to call it that.
I created in her wandering and chaotic mind a fixed desire for sabbath
joys and sabbath peace, and the communion of friends in heaven. But for
this gradual preparation she could not have adjusted herself to the
conditions of that world.
When we stood in the presence of those who worship God with song and
praise, she seemed caught up on a wave of enthusiasm, to feel that at
last she had come home.
I wanted to take leave of her in such a way that she would not come out
again to look for me; so I held out my hand in the old way and said
good-bye, promising to come again and visit her there, and advising her
to stay where she was. I think she will. Heaven has a strong hold on
those who yield themselves to its beauty.
LETTER XLIII
A CLOUD OF WITNESSES
ARE you surprised to learn that there is even a greater difference
between the beings in this world than between the people of earth? That
is inevitable, for this is a freer world than yours.
I should fail in my duty if I did not tell you something of the evil
beings out here; perhaps no one else will ever tell you, and the
knowledge is necessary to self-protection.
First I want to say that there is a strong sympathy between the spirits
in this world and the spirits in your world. Yes, they are both
spirits, the difference being mainly a difference in garments, one
wearing flesh and the other wearing a subtler but none the less real
body.
Now the good spirits, which may be “the spirits of just men made
perfect,” or those who merely aspire to perfection, are powerfully
drawn to those fellow-spirits on earth whose ideals are in harmony
with their own. The magnetic attraction which exists between human
beings is weak compared with that which is possible between beings
embodied and beings disembodied. As opposites attract, the very
difference in matter is a drawing force. The female is not more
attractive to the male than the being of flesh is attractive to the
being in the astral. The two do not usually understand each other,
neither do man and woman. But the influence is felt, and beings out
here understand its source better than you do, because they generally
carry with them the memory of your world, while you have lost the
memory of theirs.
At no time is the sympathetic power between men and spirits so strong
as when men are labouring under some intense emotion, be it love or
hate, or anger, or any other excitement. For then the fiery element in
man is most active, and spirits are attracted by fire.
(_Here the writing suddenly stopped, the influence passed, to return
after a few minutes._)
You wonder why I went away? It was in order to draw a wide protective
circle around us both, for what I have to say to you is something
which certain spirits would wish me to leave unsaid.
To continue. When man is excited, exalted, or in any way intensified
in his emotional life, the spirits draw near to him. That is how
conception is possible; that is the secret of inspiration; that is why
anger grows with what it feeds upon.
And this last is the point which I want to drive home to your
consciousness. When you lose your temper you lose a great deal, among
other things _the control of yourself_, and it is barely possible
that another entity may momentarily assume control of you.
This subjective world, as I have called it, is full of hateful spirits.
They love to stir up strife, both here and on earth. They enjoy
the excitement of anger in others, they are thrilled by the poison
of hatred; as certain men revel in morphine, so they revel in all
inharmonious passion.
Do you see the point and the danger? A small seed of anger in your
heart they feed and inflame by the hatred in their own. It is not
necessarily hatred of you as an individual, often they have no personal
interest in you; but for the purpose of gratifying their evil passion
they will attach themselves to you temporarily. Other illustrations
are not far to seek.
A man who has the habit of anger, even of fault-finding, is certain to
be surrounded by evil spirits. I have seen a score of them around a
man, thrilling him with their own malignant magnetism, stirring him up
again when by reaction he would have cooled down.
Sometimes the impersonal interest in mere strife becomes personal; an
angry spirit here may find that by attaching himself to a certain man
he is sure to get every day a thrill or thrills of angry excitement,
as his victim continually loses his temper and storms and rages. This
is one of the most terrible misfortunes which can happen to anybody.
Carried to its ultimate, it may become obsession, and end in insanity.
The same law applies to other unlovely passions, those of lust and
avarice. Beware of lust, beware of all sex attraction into which no
spiritual or heart element enters. I have seen things that I would not
wish to record, either through your hand or any other.
Let us take instead a case of avarice. I have seen a miser counting
over his gold, have seen the terrible eyes of the spirits which enjoyed
the gold through him. For gold has a peculiar influence as a metal,
apart from its purchasing power or the associations attached to it.
Certain spirits love gold, even as the miser loves it, and with the
same acquisitive, astringent passion. As it is one of the heaviest of
metals, so its power is a condensed and condensing power.
I do not mean by this that you should beware of gold. Get all you can
use, for it is useful; but do not gloat over it. One does not attract
the avaricious spirits merely by owning the symbols of wealth--houses
and lands and stocks and bonds, or even a moderate amount of coin; but
I advise you not to hoard coins to gloat over.
There are certain jewels, however, whose possession will aid you, for
they attract the spirits of power. But you will probably choose your
jewels by reason of your affinity with them, and may choose wisely.
Now that I have done my duty by warning you against the passions and
the passionate spirits of which you should beware, I can go on to speak
of other feelings and of other spiritual associates of man.
You have met persons who seemed to radiate sunshine, whose very
presence in a room made you happier. Have you asked yourself why? The
true answer would be that by their lovely disposition they attracted
round them a “cloud of witnesses” as to the joy and the beauty of life.
I have myself often basked in the warm rays of a certain loving heart
I know upon the earth. I have heard spirits say to one another as they
crowded round that person, “It is good to be here.” Do you think that
any evil thing could happen to him? A score of loving and sympathetic
spirits would strive to give him warning should any evil threaten.
Then, too, a joyous heart attracts joyous events.
Simplicity, also, and sweet humility, are very attractive to gentle
disembodied souls. “Except ye be as little children, ye cannot enter
in.”
Have you not often seen a child enjoying himself with unseen
playfellows? You would call them imaginary playfellows. Perhaps they
were, perhaps they were not imaginary. To imagine may be to create, or
it may be to attract things already created.
I have seen the Beautiful Being itself, more than once, hovering in
ecstasy above an earthly creature who was happy.
A song of joy, when it comes from a thrilling heart, may attract a host
of invisible beings who enjoy it with the singer; for, as I have told
you, sound carries from one world to another.
Never weep--unless you must, to restore lost equilibrium. The weeping
spirits, however, are rather harmless because they are weak. Sometimes
a storm of tears, when it is past, clears the soul’s atmosphere; but
while the weeping is in progress, the atmosphere is thick with weeping
spirits. One could almost hear the drip of their tears through the veil
of ether--if the sobbing earthly one did not make so much noise with
his grief.
“Laugh and the world laughs with you,” may be true enough; but when you
weep, you do _not_ weep alone.
LETTER XLIV
THE KINGDOM WITHIN
THERE is one obscure point which I want to make clear, even though I
may be accused of “mysticism” by those to whom mysticism means only
obscurity.
I have said that the life of man is both subjective and objective,
but principally objective; and that the life of “spirits” dwelling
in subtle matter is both subjective and objective, but principally
subjective.
Yet I have spoken of going alone or with others to heaven, as a place.
I want to explain this. You remember the saying, “The kingdom of heaven
is within you,” that is, subjective. Also, “Where two or three are
gathered together in My name, there will I be in the midst of them.”
Now, those places in this subtle realm which I have called the
Christian heavens are places where two or three, or two or three
thousand, as the case may be, are gathered together in His name, to
enjoy the _kingdom of heaven within them_.
The aggregation of souls is objective--that is, the souls exist in time
and space; the heaven which they enjoy is subjective, though they may
all see the same thing at the same time, as, for instance, the vision
of Him whom they adore as Redeemer.
That is as clear as I can make it.
LETTER XLV
THE GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE
ONE day I met a man in doublet and hose, who announced to me that he
was Shakespeare. Now I have become accustomed to such announcements,
and they do not surprise me as they did six or eight months ago. (Yes,
I still keep account of your months, for a purpose of my own.)
I asked this man what proof he could adduce of his extraordinary claim,
and he answered that it needed no proof.
“That will not go down with me,” I said, “for I am an old lawyer.”
Thereupon he laughed, and asked:
“Why did you not join in the game?”
I am telling you this rather senseless story, because it illustrates an
interesting point in regard to our life here.
In a former letter I wrote about my meeting with a newly arrived lady,
who, finding me dressed in a Roman toga, thought that I might be
Cæsar; and that I told her we were all actors here. I meant that, like
children, we “dress up” when we want to impress our own imagination, or
to relive some scene in the past.
This playing of a part is usually quite innocent, though sometimes
the very ease with which it is done brings with it the temptation to
deception, especially in dealings with the earth people.
You see the point I wish to make. The “lying spirits,” of which the
frequenters of séance rooms so often make complaint, are these astral
actors, who may even come to take a certain pride in the cleverness of
their art.
Be not too sure that the spirit who claims to be your deceased
grandfather is that estimable old man himself. He may be merely an
actor playing a part, for his own entertainment and yours.
How is one to tell, you ask? One cannot always tell. I should
say, however, that the surest test of all would be the deep and
_unemotional_ conviction that the veritable entity was in one’s
presence. There is an instinct in the human heart which will never
deceive us, if we without fear or bias will yield ourselves to its
decision. How often in worldly matters have we all acted against this
inner monitor, and been deceived and led astray!
If you have an instinctive feeling that a certain invisible--or
even visible--entity is not what it claims to be, it is better to
discontinue the conference. If it is the real person, and if he has
anything vital to say, he will come again and again; for the so-called
dead are often very desirous to communicate with the living.
As a rule, though, the play-acting over here is innocent of intent to
deceive. Most men desire occasionally to be something which they are
not. The poor man who, for one evening, dresses himself in his best
clothes and squanders a week’s salary in playing the millionaire is
moved by the same impulse which inspired the man in my story to assert
that he was Shakespeare. The woman who always dresses beyond her means
is playing the same little game with herself and with the world.
All children know the game. They will tell you in a convinced tone that
they are Napoleon Bonaparte, or George Washington, and they feel hurt
if you scoff.
Perhaps my friend with the Shakespearean aspiration was an amateur
dramatist when he was on earth. Had he been a professional dramatist,
he would probably have stated his real name, more or less unknown, and
followed it by the declaration that he was the well-known So-and-so.
There is much pride out here in the accomplishments of the earth-life,
especially among those who have recently come out. This lessens with
time, and after one has been long here one’s interests are likely to be
more general.
Men and women do not cease to be human merely by crossing the
frontier of what you call the invisible world. In fact, the human
characteristics are often exaggerated, because the restraints are
fewer. There are no penalties inflicted by the community for the
personating of one man by another. It is not taken seriously, for to
the clearer sight of this world the disguise is too transparent.
LETTER XLVI
HEIRS OF HERMES
THERE is much sound sense and not a little nonsense talked about Adepts
and Masters, who live and work on the astral plane. Now I am myself
living, and sometimes working, on the so-called astral plane, and what
I say about the plane is the result of experience and not of theory.
I have met Adepts--yes, Masters here. One of them especially has taught
me much, and has guided my footsteps from the first.
Do not fear to believe in Masters. Masters are men raised to the
highest power; and whether they are embodied or disembodied, they work
on this plane of life. A Master can go in and out at will.
No, I am not going to tell the world how they do it. Some who are
not Masters might try the experiment, and not be able to go back
again. Knowledge is power; but there are certain powers which may be
dangerous if put in practice without a corresponding degree of wisdom.
All human beings have in them the potentiality of mastership. That
ought to be an encouragement to men and women who aspire to an
intensity of life beyond that of the ordinary. But the attainment of
mastership is a steady and generally a slow growth.
My Teacher here is a Master.
There are teachers here who are not Masters, as there are teachers on
earth who have not the rank of professor; but he who is willing to
teach what he knows is on the right road.
I do not mind saying that my Teacher approves of my trying to tell the
world something about the life which follows the change that is called
death. If he disapproved, I should bow to his superior wisdom.
No, it does not matter what his name is. I have referred to him
simply as my Teacher, and have told you many things which he has
said and done. Many other things I have not told you, for I can only
come occasionally now. After a time I shall probably cease to come
altogether. Not that I shall have lost interest in you; but it seems
to be the plan that I shall get farther away from the world, to learn
things which necessitate for their comprehension a certain loosening
of the earthly tie. Later I may return again, for the second time; but
I make no promises. I will come if I can, and if it seems wise to come,
and if you are in a mood to let me.
I do not believe that I shall come through anybody else--at least, not
to write letters like this. I should probably have to put such another
person through the same training process that I put you through, and
few--even of those who were my friends and associates--would trust me
to that extent. So, even after I am gone, do not shut the door too
tight, in case I should want to come again, for I might have something
immensely important to say. But on the other hand, please refrain from
calling me; because if you should call me you might draw me away from
important work or study somewhere else. I do not say for certain that
you could, but it is possible; and when I leave the neighbourhood of
the earth of my own accord, I do not wish to be drawn back until I am
ready to return.
A person still upon the earth may call so intensely to a friend who has
passed far away from the earth’s atmosphere, that that soul will come
back too soon in response to the eager cry.
Do not forget the dead, unless they are strong enough to be happy
without your remembrance; but do not lean too heavily upon them.
The Masters, of whom I spoke a little while ago, can remain near or far
away, as they will; they can respond or not respond: but the ordinary
soul is very sensitive to the call of those it loved on earth.
I have seen a mother respond eagerly to the tearful prayer of a child,
and yet unable to make the lonely one realise her presence. Sometimes
the mothers are very sad because they cannot make their presence felt.
One time I saw my Teacher by his power help a mother to make herself
seen and heard by a daughter who was in great trouble. The heart of my
Teacher is very soft to the sufferings of the world; and though he says
that he is not one of the Christs, yet he often seems to work as Christ
works. At other times he is all mind. He illustrates the saying about
the thrice-greatest Hermes Trismegistus--great in body, great in mind,
great in heart.
I wish I could tell you more about my Teacher, but he does not wish to
be too well known on earth. He works for the work’s sake, and not for
reward or praise.
He is very fond of children, and one day when I was sitting unseen in
the house of a friend of mine on earth, and the little son of the house
fell down and hurt himself and wept bitterly, my great Teacher, whom
I have seen command literally “legions of angels,” bent down in his
tenuous form, which he was then wearing, and soothed and comforted the
child.
When I asked him about it afterwards, he said that he remembered many
childhoods of his own, in other lands, and that he could still feel in
memory the sting of physical pain and the shock of a physical fall.
He told me that children suffer more than their elders realise, that
the bewilderment felt in gradually adjusting to a new and frail and
growing body is often the cause of intense suffering.
He said that the constant crying of some small babies is caused by
their half-discouragement at the herculean task before them--the task
of moulding a body through which their spirit can work.
He told me a story of one of his former incarnations, before he became
a Master, and what a hard struggle he had to build a body. He could
remember even the smallest details of that far-away life. One day
his mother punished him for something which he had not really done,
and when he denied the supposed wrongful act, she chided him for
untruthfulness, not realising--good woman though she was--the essential
truth of the soul to whom she had given form. He told me that from
that childish impression, centuries ago, he could date his real battle
against injustice, which had helped to develop him as a friend and
teacher of mankind.
Then he went on to speak of the importance of our recovering the memory
of other lives, in order that we may see the roads by which our souls
have come.
As a rule, the great teachers are reticent about their own past,
and they only refer to it when some point in their experience can
be used to illustrate a principle, and thus help another to grasp
the principle. It encourages a groping soul to know that one who has
attained a great height has been through the same trials that now
perplex him.
LETTER XLVII
ONLY A SONG
WILL you listen to another song, or chant, or whatever you choose to
call it, of that amazing angel whom we know as the Beautiful Being?
Why do you fear to question me? I am the great answerer
of questions;
Though my answers are often symbols, yet words themselves
are only symbols.
I have not visited you for a season, for when I am
around, you can think of nothing else, and it is well
that you should think of those who have trodden
the path you are treading.
You can pattern your ways on those of others, you can
hardly pattern your ways on mine.
I am a light in the darkness--my name you do not need
to know;
A name is a limitation, and I refuse to be limited.
In the ancient days of the angels, I refused to enter the
forms of my own creation, except to play with
them.
There is a hint for you, if you like hints.
He who is held by his own creations becomes a slave.
That is one of the differences between me and men.
What earthly father can escape his children? What
earthly mother wishes to?
But I! I can make a rose to bloom--then leave it for
another to enjoy.
My joy was in the making. It would be dull for me to
stay with a rose until its petals fell.
The artist who can forget his past creations may create
greater and greater things.
The joy is in the doing, not in the holding fast to that
which is done.
Oh, the magic of letting go! It is the magic of the gods.
There are races of men to whom I have revealed myself.
They worship me.
You need not worship me, for I do not require worship.
That would be to limit myself to my own creations, if I
needed anything from the souls I have touched with
my beauty.
Oh, the magic of letting go!
The magic of holding on?
Yes, there is a magic in holding on to a thing until it
is finished and perfect;
But when a thing is finished, whether it be a poem, a
love, or a child, let it go.
In that way you are free again and may begin another.
It is the secret of eternal youth.
Never look back with regret; look back only to learn
what is behind you.
Look forward always; it is only when a man ceases to
look forward to things that he begins to grow old.
He settles down.
I have said to live in the moment; that is the same thing
seen from another side.
The present and the future are playfellows; we do not
play when we study the past.
I am the great playfellow of men.
LETTER XLVIII
INVISIBLE GIFTS AT YULETIDE
IT is not yet too late to wish you a merry Christmas.
How do I know that it is Christmas Day? Because I have been looking
in at houses which I used to frequent, and have seen trees laden with
tinsel and gifts. Do you wonder that I could see them? If so, you
forget that we light our own place. When we know how to look, we can
see behind the veil.
This is my first Christmas Day on this side. I cannot send you a
material gift which you could wear or hang up in your room; but I can
send you the good wishes of the season.
The mothers who have left young children behind them in the world know
well when Christmas is approaching. Sometimes they bring invisible
gifts, which they have fashioned by their power of imagination and love
out of the tenuous matter of this world. A certain grandmother all
last evening, Christmas Eve, was scattering flowers around her dear
ones. Their fragrance must have penetrated the atmosphere of the earth.
Did you ever smell suddenly a sweet perfume which you could not account
for? If so, perhaps some one who loved you was scattering invisible
flowers. Love is stronger than death.
Another whom you know will go out before long. Strengthen her with your
faith.
The practice of keeping Christmas is a good one, if you do not forget
the real meaning of the day. To some it means the birth into the world
of the spirit of humility and love; but while love and humility had
visited the world before the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth, yet never
before nor since have they come with greater power than they came to
Judæa. Whether the stable in Bethlehem was a physical reality or a
symbol, makes no difference.
I have been to the heavens of Christ, and know their beauty. “In My
Father’s house are many mansions.”
A traveller like me who wishes to go to some particular heaven must
first feel in himself what those souls feel who enjoy that heaven;
then he can enter and commune with them. He could never go as a mere
sight-seer. That is why, as a rule, I have avoided the hells; but the
heavens I often visit.
And I have been in purgatory, the purgatory of the Roman Catholics. Do
not scoff at those who have masses said for the repose of the souls of
the departed. The souls are often conscious of such thoughtfulness.
They hear the music, and they _may_ smell the incense; most of
all, they feel the power of the thought directed to them. Purgatory is
real, in the sense of being a real experience. If you want to call it a
dream, you may; but dreams are sometimes terribly real.
Even those who do not believe in purgatory sometimes wander awhile in
sadness, until they have adjusted themselves to the new conditions
under which they live. Should one tell them that they were in
purgatory, they might deny the existence of such a state; but they
would readily admit their discomfort.
The surest way to escape that painful period of transition is to go
into the hereafter with a full faith in immortality, a full faith in
the power of the soul to create its own conditions.
Last night, after visiting various places upon the earth, I went to
one of the highest Christian heavens. Perhaps I could not have gone so
easily at any other time; for my heart was full of love for all men
and my mind was full of the Christ _idea_.
Often have I seen Him who is called the Saviour of men, and last night
I saw Him in all His beauty. He, too, came down to the world for a time.
I wonder if I can make you understand? The love of Christ is always
present in the world, because there are always hearts that keep it
alight. If the idea of Christ as a redeemer should ever grow faint in
the world, He would probably go back there and relight the flame in
human hearts; but whatever the writers of statistics may say, that idea
was never more real than at present. It may have been more talked about.
The world is not in so bad a way as some people think. Be not surprised
if there should be a strong renaissance of the spiritual idea. All
things have their rhythms.
Last night I stood in a great church where hundreds of Christians knelt
in adoration of Jesus. I have stood in churches on Christmas Eve when
on earth as a man among men; but I saw things last night which I had
never seen before. Surely where two or three are gathered together in
the name of any prophet, there he is in the midst of them, if not
always in his spiritual body, at least in the fragrance of his sympathy.
The angels in the Christian heavens know when Christmas is being
celebrated on earth.
Jesus of Nazareth is a reality. As a spiritual body, as Jesus who dwelt
in Galilee, He exists in space and time; as the Christ, the paradigm
of the spiritual man, He exists in the hearts of all men and women who
awaken that idea in themselves. He is a light which is reflected in
many pools.
I wrote the other day about Adepts and Masters. Jesus is a type of the
greatest Master. He is revered in all the heavens. He grasped the Law
and dared to live it, to exemplify it. And when He said, “The Father
and I are one,” He pointed the way by which other men may realise
mastership in themselves.
Humanity on its long road has evolved many Masters. Who then shall dare
to question that humanity has justified itself? If one demands to know
what purpose there is in life, tell him that it is this very evolution
of the Master out of the man. Eternity is long. The goal is ahead for
each unit of sufficient strength, and those who cannot lead can serve.
This thought came home to me with special force last night. I am not
so bold as to say that every unit in the great mass is strong enough,
has energy enough, to evolve individual mastership; but there is no
unit so weak that it may not have some part, however small, in the
great work of evolving Masters out of men. It is sweet to serve. They
too have their reward.
The great mistake made by most minds in wrestling with the problem of
evolution is in not grasping the fact that eternity is eternity, that
to be immortal is to have no beginning or end. There is time enough in
which to develop, if not in this life cycle, then in another which will
follow; for rhythm is sure.
If I could only make you grasp the idea of immortality as I see it! I
did not fully understand it until I came out here and began to pick up
the threads of my own past. My reason told me that I was immortal, but
I did not know what immortality meant. I wonder if you do?
I know an angel who has done more, perhaps, than many prophets have
done to keep that idea alight in the world. Until I met the one whom
we know as the Beautiful Being I had not revelled in the triumph of
immortality. There is one who plays with immortality as a child plays
with marbles.
When the Beautiful Being says, “I am,” you know that you are, too. When
the Beautiful Being says, “I pluck the centuries as a child pulls the
petals of a daisy, and I throw away the seed-bearing heart to grow more
century-bearing daisies,” you feel--but words are weak to express what
the Beautiful Being’s joy in endless life can make one feel.
You forget the thing of flesh and bones which you used to call yourself
when this sliver of conscious immortality exults in its own existence.
When the Beautiful Being takes you for a walk in what it calls the
“clover meadows of the sky,” you are quite sure that you are one of the
co-heirs of the whole eternal estate.
The Beautiful Being knows well the Christ of the Christians. I
think the Beautiful Being knows all the great Masters, embodied or
disembodied. They all taught immortality in some form or other, if only
in essence.
The Beautiful Being went with me last night to the highest heaven of
the Christians. Should I tell you all that I saw, you might be in too
great a hurry to go out there and view it for yourself, and you must
not leave the earth for a long time yet. You must realise immortality
while still in the flesh, and make others realise it.
I have told you about the minor heavens, where merely good people
go; but the passionately devout lovers of God reach heights of
contemplation and ecstasy which the words of the world’s languages were
not designed to describe. With the Beautiful Being at my side I felt
those ecstasies last night, while you were locked in sleep.
Where shall I be next Christmas Eve? I shall be somewhere in the
universe; for we could not get out of the universe if we should try.
The universe could not get on without us; it would be incomplete. Take
that thought with you into the happy New Year.
LETTER XLIX
THE GREATER DREAMLAND
I HAVE not been to see you for some time, for I have been trying an
experiment.
Since coming to this country I have so often seen men and women lying
in a state of subjective enjoyment, of dream, if I may use the word,
that I have long wanted to spend a few days alone with my interior
self, in that same state. My reason for hesitating was that I feared to
dream too long, and thus to lose valuable time--both yours and mine.
But when I expressed to the Teacher one day my desire to visit the
greater dreamland lying within my own brain, also my fear that I might
be slow in waking, he promised that he would come and wake me in
exactly seven days of earthly time if I had not already aroused myself.
“For,” he said, “you can set an alarm-clock in your own brain, which
can always be relied upon.”
This I knew from old experience; but I had feared that the psychic
sleep might be deeper than the ordinary earthly sleep, and that the
alarm-clock might not go off at the appointed time.
I have heard much comment, so doubtless have you, on the fact that
spirits, when they return to communicate with their friends, say, as
a rule, so little about their celestial life. The reason is, I fancy,
that they despair of making themselves understood should they attempt
to describe their existence, which is so different from that of earth.
Now, most souls, when they have been out some time, fall into that
state of reverie, or dream, which I had so long desired to experience
for myself. Some souls awake at intervals, and show an occasional
interest in the things and people of the earth; but if the sleep is
deep, and if the soul is willing or desirous to leave the things of
the earth behind, the subconscious state may last uninterruptedly
for years, or even centuries. But a soul that could stay asleep for
centuries would probably be one that was living according to long
rhythm, the normal rhythm of humanity.
So, when I went into the deep sleep, I went into it with a spell upon
myself not to remain too long.
Oh, it was wonderful, that dream-country in my own self! The
Theosophists would perhaps say that I had taken a rest in the bliss
of devachan. No matter what one calls it. It was an experience worth
remembering.
I closed my eyes and went in--in--deeper than thought, where the
restless waves of life are still, and the soul is face to face with
itself and with all the wonders of its own past. There is nothing but
loveliness in that sleep. If one can bring back the dreams, as I did,
the sojourn there is an adventure beyond comparison.
I went in to enjoy, and I enjoyed. I found there the simulacrum of
everyone whom I had ever loved. They smiled at me, and I understood the
mystery of them, and why we had been drawn together.
I refound, too, my old dreams of ambition, and enjoyed the fruit of
all my labour on earth. It is a rosy world, that inner world of the
soul, and the heart’s desire is always found there. No wonder that the
strenuous life of earth is oftener than not a pain and a travail, for
the dream-life which follows is so beautiful that the balance must be
preserved.
Rest! On earth you know not the meaning of the word. I rested only
seven days; but so refreshed was I that, had I not other worlds to
conquer, I should almost have had the courage to return to earth.
Do not neglect rest--you who still live the toilsome life in the
sunshine. For every added hour of true rest your working capacity is
increased. Have no fear. You are not wasting time when you lie down and
dream. As I have said before, eternity is long. There is room for rest
in the wayside inns which dot the path which the cycles tread.
If you want to take a long and devachanic rest--why, take it. Take
it even on earth, if it seems desirable. Do not be always grubbing,
even at literature. Go out and play with the squirrels, or lie by the
fire and dream with the household cat. The cat that enjoys the drowsy
fireside also enjoys catching mice when the mood is on her. She cannot
be always hunting, neither can you.
Just take a dip in devachan some day, and see how refreshed you will be
when you come out. Perhaps I am misusing that word “devachan,” for I
was never very deeply learned in the lore of Theosophy.
I have even heard nirvana described as a state of intense motion, so
rapid that it seems motionless, like a spinning-top, or the wing of a
humming-bird. But nirvana is not for all men--not yet.
I have hinted at the wonders of my seven days of blissful rest, but I
have not described them. How can I? A great poet once declared that
there was no thought or feeling which could not be expressed in words.
Perhaps he has changed his mind by this time, after being out here some
sixty years.
As I went to rest, I commanded my soul to bring back every dream. Of
course I cannot say whether some may not have escaped, any more than
you can say on waking that you have or have not forgotten the deeper
experiences of the night. But when I came back into the normal life of
this plane that is called astral, I felt like an explorer who returns
from a strange journey with wonder-tales to tell. Only I did not tell
them. To whom should I relate those dreams and visions? I would not be
a bore, even to “disembodied” associates. Had Lionel been here, I might
have entertained him many an hour with my stories; but he is lost to me
for the present.
And, by the way, he seems to have taken little or no devachanic
rest. Is that because he was so young on coming out that he had not
exhausted the normal rhythm? Probably. Had he remained out here and
grown up, perhaps he also would have sought the deeper interior world.
But I will not speculate, for this is a record of experiences, not of
speculations. You can speculate as well as I, if you think it worth
while.
I found in my own dreamland a fair, fair face. No, I am not going to
tell you about that; it is my little secret. Of course I found many
faces, but one was lovelier than all the others, and it was not the
face of the Beautiful Being, either. The Beautiful Being I meet when I
am wide awake. I did not encounter her as an actual presence in sleep,
only the simulacrum of her. In the deeper dreamland we see only what is
in our brains. _Things_ do not exist there, only the memories of
things and the imagination of them.
Imagination creates in this world, as in yours: it actually moulds the
tenuous substance; but in the greater dreamland I do not think that we
mould in substance. It is a world of light and shadow pictures, too
subtle to be described.
Even before this experience I had gone into the memories of my own
past; but I had not revelled in them, had not indulged myself to the
extent of conjuring with light and shade. But, oh! what’s the use?
There are no words to describe it. Can you describe the perfume of a
rose, as you once said yourself? Can you tell how a kiss feels? Could
you even describe the emotion of fear so that one who had not felt it,
by former experience in this life or some other, would know what you
meant? No more can I describe the process of spiritual dreaming.
Revel to your heart’s content in fancy, in memory, while you are still
in the body, and yet I think that you will have only the shadow of
a shadow of what I experienced in those seven days, the reflection
of a reflection of the real dream. The reflection of a reflection! I
like that phrase. It suggests a clear picture, though not a direct
impression. Try dreaming, then, even on earth, and maybe you will get
a reflection of a reflection of the pictured joys of the spiritual
dreamland.
LETTER L
A SERMON AND A PROMISE
AS I have been coming to you every few days for several months, and
have told stories for your amusement, may I come now and preach a
sermon? I promise it shall not be long.
You live in a land where church spires pierce the blue of heaven,
looking from the viewpoint of the clouds like the uplifted spears of
an invading army--which in intent they are; so surely you have the
habit of listening to sermons. The average sermon is made up mostly of
advice, and mine will not differ from others in that particular. I wish
to advise you, and as many other persons as you can make listen to my
advice.
You will grant that, for one who offers counsel, I have had unusual
opportunities for fitting myself to give it. In order to help
you to live, I would show you the point of view of a serious and
thoughtful--however imperfect--observer of the after effects of causes
set in motion by dwellers upon the earth. It has been said that cause
and effect are opposite and equal. Very good. Now I want to draw your
attention to certain illustrations of that axiom which have come to my
mind during the last few months. If I repeat one or two things which I
have already said, that is no serious matter. You may have forgotten
them, or missed their application to the business of preparing for the
future life on this side of the gulf of death. That is a moss-grown
figure of speech, “the gulf of death”; but I am writing a sermon, not a
poem, and well-worn tropes are expected from the pulpit.
The preachers remind you every few Sundays that you have got to die
some day. Do you realise it? Does your consciousness take in the fact
that at any moment--to-morrow or fifty years hence--you may suddenly
find yourself _outside_ that body whose cohesive force you have
become accustomed to; that you may find yourself, either alone or
accompanied, in a very tenuous and light and at first not easily
manageable body, with no certain power of communicating with those
friends and relations whom you may see in the very room with you?
You have not realised it? Then get it through your consciousness.
Grasp it with both hemispheres of your brain. Clutch it with the talons
of your mind. _You are going to die._
Oh, do not be alarmed! I do not mean you personally, nor that you, or
any particular person, will die to-morrow, or next year; but die you
must some day; and if you remind yourself of it occasionally, it will
lessen the shock of the actual happening when it comes.
Do not brood over the thought of death. God forbid that you should read
such a morbid meaning into my blunt words! But be prepared. You insure
your life for so much money that your family may be provided for; but
you do nothing to insure your own future peace of mind regarding your
own self.
Remember this always: however minute are the instructions you leave
for the management of your affairs after death, should you be able to
look back to the earth you will find that someone has mismanaged them.
So expect just that, take it as a matter of course, and learn to say,
“What difference does it make?” Learn to feel that the past _is_
past, that the future alone has possibilities for you, and that the
sooner you leave other persons to manage your discarded earthly affairs
the better it will be for your own tranquillity. Be prepared to _let
go_. That is the first point I wish to make.
Do not go out into the new life with only one eye open to the celestial
planes, and the other inverted towards the images of earth. You will
not get far if you do. Let go. Get away from the world just as soon as
you can.
This may sound to some people like heartless advice, for there is no
doubt that a wise spirit, looking down from the higher sphere, can, by
his subtly instilled telepathic suggestions, influence for good the men
and women of the earth. But there are always thousands of those who
are eager to do that. The heavens above your head now are literally
swarming with souls who long to take a hand in the business of earth,
souls who cannot let go, who find the habit of managing other people’s
affairs a fascinating habit, as enthralling as that of tobacco, or
opium. Again, do not call me heartless. I am blunt of speech, but I
love you, men of earth. If I hurt you, it is for your good.
Now comes another and a most interesting point. Forget, if you can, the
sins you have committed in the flesh. You cannot escape the effects of
those causes; but you can avoid strengthening the tie with sin, you can
avoid going back to earth self-hypnotised with the idea that you are a
sinner.
Do not brood over sin. It is true that you can exhaust the impulse to
sin by dwelling on it until your soul is disgusted; but that is a slow
and an unpleasant process. The short-cut of forgetfulness is better.
Now I want to express an idea very difficult to express, for the reason
that it will be quite new to most of you. It is this: The power of the
creative imagination is stronger in men wearing their earthly bodies
than it is in men (spirits) who have laid off their bodies. Not that
most persons know how to use that power: they do not; the point I wish
to make is that they _can_ use it. A solid body is a resistive
base, a powerful lever, from which the will can project those things
conjured by the imagination. That is, I believe, the real reason why
Masters retain their physical bodies. The trained mind, robed in the
tenuous matter of our world, is stronger than the untrained mind robed
in dense matter; but the Masters still robed in flesh can command a
legion of angels.[3]
This is by way of preface to the assertion that as you on earth picture
your future life to be, so it will be, limited always by the power with
which you back your will, and by the possibility of subtle matter to
take the mould you give it, and that possibility is almost unlimited.
Will to progress after death, and you will progress; will to learn, and
you will learn; will to return to the earth after a time to take up a
special work, and you will return and take up that work.
Karma is an iron law, yes; but you are the creator of karma.
Above all things, do not expect--which is to demand--unconsciousness
and annihilation. You cannot annihilate the unit of force which you
are, but you can by self-suggestion put it to sleep for ages. Go out
of life with the determination to retain consciousness, and you will
retain it.
When the time comes for you to enter that rest which a certain school
of thought has called devachan, you will enter it; but that time will
not be immediately after you go out.
On finally reaching that state you will, as a matter of course, relive
in dream your former earthly life and assimilate its experiences; but
by that time you will have got rid of the desire personally to take
part, as a spirit, in the lives of those you have left behind.
Do not, while still on earth, invoke the spirits of the dead. They may
be busy elsewhere, and you may be strong enough to call them away from
their own business to attend to yours unwillingly.
You who write for me, I want to thank you for never calling me. You
let me come always at my own time, and let me say what I wish to say
without confusing my thought by either questions or comments.
You of the earth who are still upon the earth may find your departed
friends when you come out here, if they have not already put on another
body. Meantime, let them perform the work of the state in which they
are.
You who write for me will remember that the first time I came you did
not even know that I had left the earth. I found you in a passive
mood, and wrote a message signed by a symbol whose special meaning was
unknown to you, but which I knew would be immediately recognised by
those in whom you were likely to confide. That was a most fortunate
beginning, for it gave you confidence in the genuineness of my
communications.
But I said that I would write only a sermon to-night, so I will now
pronounce the blessing and depart. I shall return, however. This is not
the last meeting of the season.
_Later._
One word more before I go to my other work.
If you had urgently called me during that week which I spent in
rest, you might have had the power to cut short a most interesting
and valuable experience. So the final word, after the benediction of
this sermon, is: Do not be too egotistically insistent, even with the
so-called dead.
If your need is great, the souls who love you may feel it and come to
you of their own accord. This is often illustrated in the earth life,
among those whose psychic pores are open.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: He has said that they build freely in that world through
the creative imagination; but we must remember how tenuous and easily
handled is the matter which they use.--ED.]
LETTER LI
THE APRIL OF THE WORLD
HAVING told you last week that you must die, according to the jargon of
the earth, I now want to assure you that you can never really die at
all; that you are as immortal as the angels, as immortal as God Himself.
No, that is not a contradiction.
I have spoken before of immortality: it was always a favourite theme of
mine; but since my association with the Beautiful Being it has become
for me an exultant consciousness.
The Beautiful Being lives in eternity, as we fancy that we live in
time. Will you write down here another of that angel’s chants?
When you see me in the green trees and in the green
light under trees, know that you are near to me:
When you hear my voice in the silence, know that I
speak for you.
The immortal loves to speak to the immortal in the mortal,
and there is joy in calling to the joy which
dozes in the heart of a soul of earth.
When joy is awake, the soul is awake.
You look for God in the forms of men and
women, and sometimes you find Him there;
But you look for me in your own soul; the
deeper the gaze, the fairer the vision.
Yes, I am in Nature, and I am in you, when you look for
me there;
For Nature is dual, and the half you carry within you.
All things are one and dual--even I, and that is why
you may find me.
Oh, the charm of being free, to wander at will round
the earth and heaven, and through the souls of
men!
I am lighter than the thistle-down, but more enduring
than the stars:
The permanent is impalpable, and only the impalpable
endures.
The road is not long which leads to the castle of dreams;
the far-away is nearer than next-door, but only the
dreamer finds it.
When labour is light, the pay is sure; when the days
are hard, their reward is tardy.
Be glad, and I will repay you.
I would write my name on the leaves of your heart, but
only the angels can read the writing.
Who bears my unknown name on the petals of his heart
is accepted among the angels for the flower he is;
his perfume reaches heaven.
There is pollen in the heart, child of earth, and it fructifies
the flowers of faith;
There is faith in the soul, child of time, and it bears
the seeds of all things.
The seasons come and the seasons go, but the spring-time
is eternal.
I can find that in you which was lost in the April of the
world.
LETTER LII
A HAPPY WIDOWER
I MET a charming woman the other night, quite different from anyone
else I have met heretofore. She was no less a woman because she weighed
perhaps a milligramme instead of one hundred and thirty pounds.
I was passing along a quiet road, and saw her standing by a fountain.
Who had created the fountain? I cannot say. There are sculptors in this
world who mould for the love of the work more beautiful fountains than
your sculptors mould for money. The joy of the workman in his work!
Why, that _is_ heaven, is it not?
I saw a beautiful woman standing by a fountain; and as I love beauty,
whether in fountains or in women, I paused to regard both.
The lovelier of the two looked up and laughed.
“I was wishing for someone to talk to,” she said. “What a wonderful
world this is!”
“I am glad you find it so,” I answered. “I also do not agree with the
old woman who declared that heaven was a much overrated place.”
“You don’t remember me, do you?” she asked.
“No. Have we met before?”
“We have. And, of course, you could remember me, if you should try.”
Then I recalled who she was. We had met some years before on one of my
journeys to New York, and I had talked with her about the mysteries of
life and death, of will and destiny.
“I have tested many of the things you told me,” she went on, “and I
have found them true.”
“What things, for instance?”
“First and most important, that man may create his own environment.”
“You can easily demonstrate that here,” I said. “But how long have you
been in this world?”
“Only a few months.”
“And how did you come out?”
“I died of too much joy.”
“That was a pleasant death and an unusual one,” I said, smiling. “How
did it happen?”
“The doctor said that I died of heart-failure. For years I had wanted a
certain thing, and when it came to me suddenly, the realisation was too
much for me.”
“And then?”
“Why, I suddenly realised that I had let slip the body through which I
might have enjoyed this thing I had attained.”
“And then?”
“I remembered that I was not my body, that I was my consciousness; and
as long as that was intact, I was intact. So I went right on enjoying
the attainment.”
“Without a regret?”
“Yes.”
“You are indeed a philosopher,” I said. “And though I do not want to
force your confidence, yet I would be much interested to know your
story.”
“It would seem absurd to some people,” she answered, “and even to me it
seems strange sometimes. But I had always wanted money, a great deal of
money. One day a certain person died, leaving me a fortune. It was that
joy which was too strong for me.”
“And how do you enjoy the fortune here?”
“In several ways. My husband and I had planned a beautiful house--if we
should ever have the money. We had planned to travel, too, and to see
the interesting places of the world. We also had two or three friends
who loved to create beauty in the arts, and who were hampered in their
work by lack of means. Now, my husband, being my sole heir, came into
the fortune immediately I passed out. So I enjoy everything with him
and through him just the same as if I were actually in the flesh.”
“And he knows that you are present?”
“Yes. We had each promised not to desert the other in life or death. I
have kept my word, and he knows that I have kept it.”
“And where is he now?”
“Travelling.”
“Alone?”
“Except for me.”
“In what place is he?”
“In Egypt at this time.”
I drew nearer.
“Can you show him to me?” I asked.
“Yes, I think so. Come along.”
It is needless to say that I did not require a second invitation.
We found the man--a handsome fellow about thirty years of age--sitting
alone in a luxurious bedroom in Cairo. It seems to be my destiny to
have strange experiences in Cairo!
The young man was reading as we entered the room; but he looked up
at once, for he felt that _she_ was there. I do not think he
perceived me.
“My darling,” he said, aloud, “I have seen the Pyramids!”
She placed her hand upon his forehead, and he closed his eyes, the
better to see her.
Then his hand moved to the table, he opened his eyes again, and took up
paper and pencil. I saw her guide his hand, which wrote:
“I have brought a friend with me. Can you see him?”
“No.”
The man spoke aloud, she communicating through the pencil in his hand
and by his interior perception of her.
“Then never mind,” she wrote; “he is not an egotist. I only wanted him
to see you. I have told him how happy I am--and now he sees why.”
“This journey of mine is an unalloyed delight,” the man said.
“That is because I am with you,” she replied.
“Were you with me at the Pyramids to-day?”
“Yes, though I cannot see very well in the sunshine. I have been there,
however, and have seen them by moonlight. But where are you going from
here?”
“Where do you want me to go?”
“Up the Nile, to Assouan.”
“I will go. When shall I start?”
“The day after to-morrow. And now _au revoir_, my love. I will
return by and by.”
A moment later we were outside--she and I--in the soft starlight of an
Egyptian evening.
“Did I not tell you the truth?” she demanded, with a little laugh of
triumph.
“But have you no desire to go on in the spiritual world?” I asked.
“Is there anything more spiritual than love?” she asked in return. “Is
not love the fulfilling of the Law?”
“But,” I said, “I recently wrote a letter to the men and women of the
earth, advising those who should come out here to get away from the
earth as soon as possible.”
“Lovers like me will not take your advice,” she answered, with a smile.
“And tell me now: Is it not better for Henry to enjoy my society in the
long evenings--is it not better for him to be happy than to grieve for
me?”
“But at first? Was he not inconsolable at your going out?”
“Yes, until I came to him. He was sitting one night in deep dejection,
and I reached for his hand, and wrote with it: ‘I am here, speak to
me.’ ‘My Love!’ he cried, his face alight, ‘are you really there?’
‘Yes, I am here, and I shall come to you every day until you come out
to me,’ I answered, through the pencil.
“He had never known that he was what you call a ‘writing medium.’ He
would never have been but for my presence in a form of matter different
from his own.
“Come now, my friend,” she added, “would you really advise me not to
visit Harry any more?”
“There are said to be exceptions to all rules,” I answered. “At this
moment you seem to me to be one of those exceptions.”
“And will you add a postscript to your recent letter to the world?”
“If I can,” I said, “I will tell your story. My readers can draw their
own conclusions.”
“Thank you,” was her answer.
“But,” I added, “when Henry comes out here in his turn, you two
together should go away from the world.”
“Have _you_ been away from the world then?”
“To some extent. I am only stopping here now until a certain work is
finished.”
“And then where are you going?”
“To visit other planets.”
“Henry and I will do that, too, when he comes out.”
Now, my friend, I tell you this story for whatever it is worth. There
are cases like hers, where an earthly tie is all-compelling. But in the
case of most persons I stand by my original assertion and my original
advice.
LETTER LIII
THE ARCHIVES OF THE SOUL
I HAVE spoken of a determination to visit other planets when my work of
writing these letters is ended; but I must not neglect to say that I
consider such journeys to and fro in the universe of far less spiritual
value than those other journeys which I have made and shall make into
the deep places of my own self. Travelling in actual space and time
is important to a man, that he may gain knowledge of other lands and
peoples, see the differences between these peoples and himself, and
learn the causes thereof; yet quiet meditation is even a greater factor
in growth. If a man whose spiritual perceptions are open can do but one
of these two things, it would be better for him to sit in a cabin in
the backwoods and seek in his own soul for the secrets which it guards,
than to travel without such self-examination to the ends of the earth.
Get acquainted with your own soul. Know why you do this or that, why
you feel this or that. Sit quietly when in doubt about any matter, and
let the truth rise from the deeps of yourself. Examine your motives
always. Do not say, “I ought to do this act for such and such a reason;
therefore I do it for that reason.” Such argument is self-deception.
If you do a kind act, ask yourself why. Perhaps you can find even in a
kind action a hidden motive of self-seeking. If you should find such a
motive, do not deny it to yourself. Acknowledge it to yourself, though
you need not advertise it on the walls of your dwelling. Such a secret
understanding will give you a greater sympathy and comprehension in
judging the motives of others.
Strive always for the ideal; but do not label every emotion as an ideal
emotion if it is not really that. Speak the truth to yourself. Until
you can dare to do that you will make little progress in the quest of
your own soul.
Between earth lives is a good time to meditate, but one should form the
habit of meditation while in the flesh. Habits formed in the flesh have
a tendency to continue after the flesh is laid aside. That is a reason
why one should keep as free as possible from physical habits.
If my charming acquaintance who comes every night to her husband to
write love messages through his hand would spend the greater part of
her time in acquiring knowledge of this new world, so that she could
enlighten him, then might their communion be an unmixed good; but I
fear it is not so. Therefore I shall look for her again, and give her
some fatherly advice. She has a quick and receptive mind, and I think
she will listen to me. He would be interested in her experiences, if
for no other reason than because they are hers. Yes, I shall have to
find her again.
I have made wonderful discoveries in the archives of my own soul.
There I have found the memories of all my past, back to a time almost
unbelievably distant. In seeing how the causes set up in one life have
produced their effects in another life, I have learned more than I
shall learn on my coming tour of the planets.
Everything exists in the soul; all knowledge is there. Grasp that
idea if you can. The infallible part of us is the hidden part, and it
is for us to bring it to light. Do you understand now why I advise
the disembodied to break away from the distractions and the dazzling
mirages of the earthly life? Only in the stillness of detachment can
the soul yield up her secrets. It is not that I am indifferent to
earthly loves; on the contrary, I love more deeply than ever all those
whom I loved on earth; but I realise that if I can love them wisely
instead of unwisely, it will be better both for them and for me.
Yet the call of the earth is loud sometimes, and my heart answers from
this side of the veil.
LETTER LIV
A FORMULA FOR MASTERSHIP
MY friend, I am going to leave you for a while--perhaps for a long time.
It seems to me that my immediate work with the earth is done. I want
still further to lighten my load, to soar out upon the waves of
ether--far--far--and to forget, in the thrill of exploration, that I
shall some day have to make my way painfully back to the world through
the narrow straits of birth.
I am going out with the Beautiful Being on a voyage of discovery. My
companion has taken this journey before, and can show me the way to
many wonders.
There is a sadness in bidding you good-bye. Do you remember the last
time you saw me in my old body? We neither of us thought that afternoon
that we should next meet in a foreign country, and under conditions so
strange that half the world will doubt that we have ever met again at
all, and the other half will wonder if indeed we have really met.
Tell me, was I ever more real to you than I am this evening? While
sitting with me in the days of the past, did you ever know less of what
I should say a moment afterwards than you know now? Rack your brain
as you will, you cannot tell what I am going to talk about. That will
prove to _you_, at least, that I am as real as ever.
I want to leave a few messages. Tell.... And tell.... And some day tell
my boy to live a brave and clean life. He will be watched over. Tell
him that if sometimes he feels the interior guidance, not to be afraid
to trust it. Tell him to look within for light.
For the present, I have not much more to say to the world at large. But
I want you to publish these letters, leaving out only the very personal
paragraphs.
Yes, I may not see you again for a long time. Do not be sad. When I am
gone, perhaps another will come.
Do not close the door too tight; but guard well the door, and let
no one enter who has not the signs and passwords. You will not be
deceived; I have trained you to that end.
I cannot write much to-night, for there is a sadness in leaving the
earth. But I am--or shall be--all a-thrill with the interest of the
coming voyage. Think of it! I shall see far-away planets and meet
their inhabitants. Shall I find the “square-faced men”? Perhaps so.
In Jupiter, they say, there is a race of beings wonderful to behold. I
shall see them. Will they be fairer than our own Beautiful Being, who
loves the little earth and usually stays near it, because there are
such struggles here?
The joy of the struggle! That is the keynote of immortality, the
keynote of power. Let this be my final message to the world. Tell them
to enjoy their struggles, to thrill at the endless possibilities of
combination and creation, to live in the moment while preparing for
long hence, and not to exaggerate the importance of momentary failures
and disappointments.
When they come out here and get their lives in perspective, they will
see that most of their causes of anxiety were trivial, and that all the
lights and shadows were necessary to the picture.
I had my lights and shadows, too, but I regret nothing. The Master
enjoys difficulties as a swimmer enjoys the resistance of the water.
If I could make you realise the power that comes from facing the
struggle--not only bravely, as all the platitudinous bores will tell
you, but facing it with enjoyment. Why, any healthy boy enjoys a
fight. His blood beats fast, his nerves tingle; but he who keeps his
head cool is likely to come out on top.
Life is a fight. You are in matter to conquer it--lest it conquer you.
There is nothing in this universe stronger than the will of man when it
is directed by a powerful unit of force. Whatever your strength, make
the most of it in the battle of life.
Remember that your opponents are not other men, but conditions. If you
fight men, they will fight you back; but if you fight conditions, they,
being unintelligent, will yield to you with just enough resistance to
keep your muscles in good order.
And do not forget the law of rhythm--that is at the back of everything.
Count on rhythm; it never has failed yet, and it never will. Watch for
the high tides of yourself and flow up with them; when the inevitable
low tides come, either rest or meditate. You cannot escape rhythm. You
transcend it by working with it.
You can even turn and grow young, for time also has its tides; and
there are many ripples in the long sea-swell of life.
I feel that I am leaving much unsaid. But I shall meet you again some
day.
=TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES=
Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced
quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and
otherwise left unbalanced.
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
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