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BEYOND

by

HENRY SEWARD HUBBARD

Boston
Arena Publishing Company
Copley Square
1896

Copyrighted, 1896,
by
Henry Seward Hubbard.

All Rights Reserved.

Arena Press.

BEYOND

  TO
  LOVERS OF THE TRUTH,
  WHATEVER
  LAND MAY CLAIM THEM FOR ITS OWN,
  TO THE
  EARNEST MEN AND WOMEN
  OF MY TIME,
  THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY
  DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

A word of explanation in reference to my title may be appropriately
given here. By Beyond, I mean what is sometimes called the unseen world,
but which might better be called the immaterial world, since that which
distinguishes it from the world proper is not merely that it is
invisible, but that it cannot be made visible to mortal eyes.

However, I have not assumed to treat of all that the word might be made
to cover, but have confined myself mostly to that territory, with the
entrance to it, which may be said to adjoin the earth, and which
therefore is more immediately interesting and important to be acquainted
with, and have addressed myself especially to those who seem to be
constitutionally unable to perceive the reality of this other world,
although willing and anxious to be convinced.

If there is any one thing more than another which I hope to convey, it
is that the truths which pertain to the superior life do not conflict
with common sense, however they may rise beyond the perfect grasp of
that power of the mind.

                                                   HENRY SEWARD HUBBARD.

INTRODUCTION.

TO MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS,

Greeting.

I had known for some time that I had a book to write, but not exactly
how I was going to set about it, when there fell under my notice the
following appeal, whose unique and touching eloquence, I venture to say,
is without a parallel in our literature.

"There have always been those, and now they are more numerous than ever,
who maintain that the dead do return.

"Far be it from me to dogmatically negative the assertions of honest,
earnest men engaged in the study of a subject so awful, so reverent, so
solemn, where the student stands with a foot on each side of the
boundary-line between two worlds.

"We know a little of the hither, can we know aught of the thither
world?" 'How pure in heart, how sound in head, with what affections
bold,' should be the explorer on a voyage so sublime! Never from 'peak
of Darien' did the flag of exploration fly over the opening up of a
realm so mighty.

"How stale and trite the fleet of a Magellan to the adventurous soul who
would circumnavigate the archipelagoes of the dead!"

"How commonplace Pizarro to him who would launch forth on that black and
trackless Pacific across the expanse of which has ever lain the dread
and the hope of our race!"

"They know little who are robed in university gowns. What know they who
are robed in shrouds? We gather but little from the platform; what can
we learn from the grave? The wisdom of the press is foolishness. Is
there no voice from the sepulchre? It is we, not you, who are in
darkness, O ye dead! The splendor of the iris of eternity has flashed on
your plane of vision; but our heavy eyelids droop in the shadow of the
nimbus of time.

"Can you tell us naught? Can we never know your secret till, in the
dust, we lay down our bones with yours?"

"We are here in the care, the poverty, the sin, and, above all, in the
darkness. Oh, if ye can, have mercy on us; shed a ray from your
shekinah-light athwart the darkness of our desolation. We are trodden
down by our brothers among the living. Help us, our fathers from the
dead."[A]

How profoundly these words moved me cannot easily be told, for my entire
life, up to this point, seems to have been made up of the various stages
of a preparation enabling me to respond to just such an appeal as this,
echoed, as I know full well it is, from the hearts of thousands of my
fellow-beings. Yet one who should enter the rose-embowered cottage by
the sea where I sit writing, would never dream that I guard treasures of
knowledge gathered in the hidden realm that lies beyond the sense.

For years have passed, and lonely life has changed to family life, and
there have been times when I have felt almost at home again within the
confines of the purely earthly realm of thoughts and things. Not quite,
however, for that would be impossible. And now, shall I branch out in a
tale of strange adventure? Shall I seek to convey to my readers what led
to those experiences which have so isolated me in thought? Shall I
describe their outward aspect, the channel through which they were
received, as for instance, a dream, a trance, a vision, or _other ways
less known_?

To do so might amuse or entertain, but that is not my object. Besides, I
understand thoroughly that in these modern days it is the truth, and not
the truth-teller, that is wanted. If a man has anything to say, let him
say it, and if it bear the stamp of truth, if it will stand the test of
analysis the most severe, it will be accepted. If not, he may show a
ticket of his travels beyond the moon, but that will not avail him.

All that I ask of my readers is that they will permit me to write of
that realm which is so hidden from mortals that many of them deny its
very existence, as though I knew all about it. Whether I do or not, no
mere statement, in the absence of other evidence, could in the least
decide.

                                                             THE AUTHOR.

BEYOND.

CHAPTER I.

In the world of thought to-day, few things are more significant than the
extent to which the religious dogmas of the past are being questioned,
analyzed, and, in general, made to give account of themselves.

People are discovering that it is lawful to use the mind as a crucible,
and to submit any and all statements, irrespective of their age, to the
electric current of modern fearlessness of thought, before accepting
them as truth.

Scientific formulas, many of them, fare little better, and are made to
yield up the kernel of fact they contain, stripped of the husk of
theory in which it has long been buried.

For the living truth is demanded such value as we obtain in our own
life-experiences, if possible; and whenever this can be obtained without
paying the price it costs us in life, of pain, or loss, or a mortgaged
future, then, indeed, the demand becomes imperious.

And this has become especially true of late years in regard to things
occult. Formerly the boundaries of the earth-life marked the limit of
thought and aspiration, and those who seemed to have the widest
experience within those bounds were often the loudest in proclaiming
their utter failure to find any lasting satisfaction in all that life
could give. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, was echoed and re-echoed
until the gloomy thought spread like a cloud over the sky, chilling all
noble effort, and blighting the aspirations of the young and hopeful.
But a brighter day has dawned. These boundaries, which formerly seemed
like walls impenetrable, have grown thin and shadowy, and it is
astonishing to note how people everywhere are asking, as with open mind,
Is this future life we have heard of so long, an actual fact? If so,
what is the nature of it? What are its relations to present facts? and
how may I obtain a common-sense view of it? Just what are its relations
to me, and what are mine to a future life? Where can I obtain clear
light on the subject?

This condition of things brings it to pass that a peculiar
responsibility rests upon one, like the writer, to whom has been given
extraordinary facilities for acquiring the knowledge now so greatly in
demand. To relate what those facilities were, how or why given, and what
price in the currency of the hidden realm was paid for so much of its
treasures as was brought away, might interest the curious, as I have
suggested, but it would not materially affect the value of what is to be
given. That must stand or fall by its intrinsic worth, not by the
circumstances associated with its acquirement.

It may be imparted, however, that this knowledge was obtained at a
period separated from the present by an interval of fourteen years, that
so momentous were the personal experiences associated therewith, that
the few weeks during which they occurred, together with those
immediately preceding and following, seem to constitute, as it were, a
separate existence, whose length, if it were to be measured by such
events as leave their indelible impress on the soul, far exceeds the
entire remainder of my life.

That I have kept this knowledge locked up so long has been due to
various causes beyond my control, and I am more than glad that I am at
last able to put on record some fragments of it, at least, whose value I
do not underestimate, although very rarely in the history of the world
has it been given out in this way.

CHAPTER II.

Perhaps I cannot open my subject in any better way than by giving a few
reasons why a knowledge of The Beyond has remained a sealed book for
centuries.

My first reason will not be a very satisfactory one, because I cannot
now enter into it as fully as I could wish; but it belongs first, and
cannot be omitted. A knowledge of The Beyond has remained hidden from
men, first, because those intelligences who were capable of imparting it
have refrained from doing so. Some of these intelligences were actuated
by selfish motives. They could more easily control those whom they hoped
to enslave, by keeping them ignorant. Others have remained silent out
of respect for an edict proceeding from a far height at a time when all
men were believers in a future state, and so many of them were absorbed
in speculating upon it, and holding communications with the departed,
that the earth was neglected, and in danger of going to waste. Hence the
edict, which was promulgated through the kings who were able themselves
to see the need of it.

Another very important reason why this knowledge has remained hidden, is
because to embody it in a language appropriate to it, and, at the same
time, avoid obscurity, is exceedingly difficult.

Why? Because it belongs to a different world, a world which has no
nearer relation to this one than thoughts have to things. To illustrate
what I mean by this, suppose you should wake up some night and find
yourself in silent darkness and unable to move a muscle. Suppose you
could not even feel the bed under you, being conscious only of being
supported in a horizontal position. So long as these avenues of sense
remained closed, the world of things would not exist to you, and you
could not say, of your own knowledge, that it continued to exist for
anyone else.

While the situation would be a startling one without doubt, I am going
to assume that you would have a sufficient degree of self-control to
keep your mental balance. This would be the easier as you discovered
that your mental vision was as clear as ever, and that your real self,
which is back of all your senses, had received no shock or injury. You
would naturally wish to know just what had happened, and it would be apt
to disturb you somewhat to find that your reasoning powers failed to
respond when you called upon them to solve the problem, as naturally
they would, since the brain, with which they do their work, would share
the inaction of the body. Now, if the world of things had thus vanished,
what could remain? In the first place, memory. You would be able to call
up the pictures of the past, and live over again in your mind any scene
there depicted. But you would not be confined to living in the past.
Although unable to see or to hear, you would be able to assume the
mental attitude either of looking or listening, and as you sought to
penetrate the gloom of your surroundings, you would be conscious of
lifting eyelids which perhaps had never been raised before, and the
mystic light of another world would dawn upon you. Shadowy forms of
graceful outline would be seen, at first dimly, then with greater
clearness. You would not mistake them for mortals, and, having no
acquaintance with other-world intelligences, you might take them for
moving pictures, destitute of any kind of life.

Presently you would become aware that connected thoughts were passing
through your mind, without conscious volition on your part, and assuming
the attitude of a listener you would discover that the inner world of
sound was opening to you. The subject treated of might not relate to you
personally, but you would hail with delight the opportunity to prove
yourself in communication with other minds.

Presently some sentiment is expressed which you do not approve, and you
put forth an impulse of will-power in protest. Instantly comes a
thought-message directly to you. Who has arrested my current of thought?
The meaning of this is at once apparent. You are like a telegraph
operator who has been listening to a passing message, containing a
false statement, and has stopped it. You might now withdraw your protest
and allow the message to pass as something which did not concern you, or
you might assert your individuality and reply to the sharp question by
saying, "Because I allow nothing to pass through my mind which I do not
approve." If you adopted the first course, you might be let off with a
curse, and told to mind your own business hereafter; but if you should
manifest the temerity indicated by the second, a thundering "What?"
might fall upon your new sense, and you would discover that you had a
fight on your hands. It may be supposed that you would mentally assume
an upright position, which in that world corresponds to the act of
rising here, and brace yourself for the contest. But it is not necessary
to carry the illustration any farther at this time. I merely wished to
show how _thoughts_ may take the place of _things_ in the mind's arena
when, for any reason, things are shut out.

A third reason why a knowledge of The Beyond is not more generally
disseminated, is that false ideas in regard to death are so predominant
that it has become a habit with the great majority to dismiss from the
mind all thoughts having, or that are supposed to have, any possible
connection with it, and therefore the avenue of approach to the minds of
such is kept closed by themselves.

It may be asked why the solitary student is not able to attain to a
satisfactory solution of the great problem, although seeking it with
utmost earnestness. And I answer, first, because he probably seeks for
it in the same way that he would seek for earth-knowledge, which is an
error; and, secondly, because those who would otherwise gladly give it
to him are able to read his motives, and finding them purely selfish,
they turn away and leave him, while those spirits who have occult
knowledge to _sell_, demand pay in a coin which the student is seldom
willing to give, namely, a certain degree of control over him.

CHAPTER III.

Mathematicians have frequently discussed the possibility of what is
called a fourth dimension.

They have shown by clear reasoning that if we could suppose a person to
be acquainted only with objects of two dimensions, that is, plane
surfaces, the possibility of a third would be as difficult to comprehend
as now are the speculations on a possible fourth. For instance, it would
be as mysterious an operation to transfer anything from one point to
another without moving it along the surface that lay between, as is now
the manipulation of solid objects, like the passage of matter through
matter, by the masters of occult science.

This fine example of reasoning from the known to the unknown may be
compared to Leverrier's researches in one respect, and that the most
important one, namely, that the looked-for fact in all verity awaits
discovery, and that the scientist who shall first boldly declare that
the objective world about us, which seems to occupy and does occupy all
of space that we can reach by ordinary means of thought, is merely a
veil which hides a world just as real, and having just as real relations
to us, as the first is supposed to monopolize, and which, in its
essential nature, is independent of space, and its concomitant,
time,--whoever, I say, shall first boldly declare this, will fairly win
a crown of laurel.

When I say that this world has real relations to us, I do not mean us as
mere aggregations of matter in a highly organized form; I mean us, the
creatures of hope and fear, of joy and depression, gay at heart or
careworn with responsibility; us to whom friendship, love, and purity
are realities and not mere names, and who cherish the firm belief that
loyalty to our ideals and devotion to truth are immortal in their
nature, and that it may be possible that we ourselves may yet become as
impassive to the assaults of time.

Shall I say us, also, the creatures of doubt and despair, whose sky is
hopelessly clouded, and to whom anything resembling happiness has become
only a memory? The world of which I speak has the same direct relations
to us all.

The idea is a common one that this invisible world is to be sought, if
at all, among the imponderable gases, that if it have objectivity, as it
is supposed it must have, the nature of it will resemble these forms of
matter; and that by traveling out in thought, so to speak, along this
line, we shall presently arrive at a sufficiently accurate concept of
what these invisible realities are like.

It is this delusion, that the unseen is by so much the unreal, instead
of the contrary, that I hope to do something to destroy.

Let me give an example of occult power of a scientific sort, as
exercised by free spirits.

One wishes to speak to a friend. What does he do? He simply speaks the
name of that friend in his mind. Immediately, and without further effort
on his part, there appears before his mental vision a clear outline
representation of the form of that friend, ready to answer with perfect
distinctness any question that may be asked of him. It is telephone
communication without apparatus, and with the appearance of the friend.
Were the two in close sympathy, perhaps engaged in the same kind of
spiritual labor, so that the question would be of a kind not unexpected,
the rapidity of action common to spirits would make it possible to ask
the question and receive the answer in an infinitesimal fraction of a
second.

I have called this occult power of a scientific sort. By this I mean to
indicate, what is sometimes forgotten, that The Beyond has its science
as well as religion, and that it is only because its science has been a
sealed book so long and the corruption of revealed religion has been so
great, that, as a result, the acceptance of occult science itself as
truth is called, by some, _religion_, although removed from it as by
infinity. It is true, however, that the devotee to occult science who
shall persistently declare its genuineness in the face of opposition,
scorn, or even persecution, is on the road to illumination, and he may
himself become a gateway between physical life and death, through which
may pass and repass the message, the tone, or even the phantom form
which testifies of a world beyond the grave. To such a one, his belief
becomes a sure and certain knowledge of a scientific fact, as verified
by sympathetic experience times without number; and the time is not far
distant when these attainments will receive the same recognition, as
belonging to the domain of reality, as those of physical science now
do.

CHAPTER IV.

Science, as such, is a knowledge of physical facts. Religion, as such,
is an apprehension of spiritual truths.

The work of the scientist is to separate facts from delusions, and then
to arrange and classify his knowledge. The work of the religionist is to
separate truth from error, to make it effectual in practice, and give it
to the world.

In their essence, science and religion are neither enemies nor friends.
They are not necessarily associates, but their respective domains are
included in the domain of thought, and thought is an attribute of the
ego. The ego in us, then, is in touch with both religion and science:
with science, primarily, through this material body, which, surcharged
with vital magnetism, moves at its will; and with religion through that
inner conscious self which so avoids expression through matter, that it
may remain contentedly under lock for more than half a lifetime, and
which, even when released, may need a special impulse to induce it to
express itself in words.

The religious nature in man is, in fact, so hidden that it seems at
times impossible to draw it out in any manifestation whatever, which
fact causes many to deny its existence altogether; and there is to-day a
widely prevalent doctrine, world-wide I might say among scholars, that
all the facts observable which could possibly be grouped under the head
of religion may readily be distributed among mere physical phenomena on
the one hand, and scientific or intellectual on the other.

The skepticism in regard to the verbal authority of the sacred writings
is intimately associated with the same doctrine, as is shown by the way
the errors and the truth of the Bible are made to seem one, and the
whole is rejected as error.

It is taught, in effect, that all which goes by the name of religion is
unworthy the serious attention of the thoughtful, that it had its origin
in the barbarous stage of our development as a race, and ought to be
laid aside as a garment outgrown. The days of this particular form of
unbelief are numbered.

Why? Because it is to be demonstrated that religion is something more
than moonlight vaporings of the credulous, something other than the
simple faith of children; that religion is not only a spiritual reality,
but that it has a body of its own.

In order that the meaning of this statement may not be mistaken, let it
be remembered that some of the most powerful forms of matter,
electricity, for example, are entirely invisible.

Therefore, when I say that religion has a body of its own, it is not
necessary to go delving for anything. That body itself may be
undiscoverable by any sense save feeling. Have you ever been in the
presence of a man who could fairly be said to _embody_ religion? Of
those who manifest its spirit so pure and unselfish, there are
comparatively few in the world, but of those who, to that spirit, add a
full manly or womanly strength, the number is brought so low that
multitudes of people may perhaps never have come in contact with any.
Such as these bear about with them a consciousness of power so great as
to utterly destroy every kind of fear save one, the fear of doing wrong.
The name of Savonarola will occur to many of my readers.

It ought not to be necessary to add that I am using the word religion in
a different sense from that attaching to it in such a phrase as the
World's Parliament of Religions.

If I should say, There are many sciences, yet science is one, I should
expect to be fairly well understood.

I would make the parallel declaration, There are many religions, but
religion is one.

CHAPTER V.

Is there any common ground on which science and religion meet? There is.
They meet in modern Spiritualism.

But because modern Spiritualism consists of a body of facts and theories
on the one hand, and a countless number of soul-stirring experiences on
the other, it follows that it takes a great many different people to
fairly represent modern Spiritualism.

Some have devoted themselves to it exclusively on the religious side,
others as exclusively on the scientific side. According to the bent of
their nature, and with an equal degree of courage, the earnest, devoted
students of science, on the one hand, and those of religion, on the
other, are approaching from opposite poles this forbidden ground.

Disregarding the warnings of the older religious teachers, that evil,
and only evil, haunts the grewsome place, one wing of the army of
truth-seekers is making the discovery that if all the manifestations of
modern spiritualism are to be attributed to one source, and that an evil
one, then never was a house so divided against itself before. They are
prepared to show that some of its most astonishing phenomena begin and
end in good to all who witness them, and they declare that only a
culpable misuse of the powers of the mind would lead to any other
inference than that these good results come originally from good
sources, and are therefore worthy of that reverence which of right
belongs to the good, wherever it appears.

The other wing of the army of truth-seekers also contains its heroes.
Have you not told us, they say to the great scientists who have laid
down the principles on which investigations of all kinds should be
conducted, that science claims the world for its field, and especially
the world of phenomena?

Why, then, do so many of our captains and colonels, who should represent
the thought of the higher officers, so persistently endeavor to prevent
us from obtaining for ourselves the store of facts upon which, we are
told, the theories of spiritualism are based?

Is it possible for us to have intelligent opinions even, to say nothing
of carefully-drawn conclusions on this matter, without following the
usual course, so strenuously insisted on in all other branches of
scientific research, that of personally observing the phenomena for
ourselves? And so when they get no answer to this, or no answer which
satisfies those who love the truth for its own sake, they proceed,
these scientific explorers, and with caution enter the unknown country,
avoiding, as far as possible, that portion which they recognize as
especially occupied by the other division of truth-seekers before
described.

And they find no lack of material upon which to exercise the keenest
faculties of their minds, while their interest becomes so great that
they are soon ready to exclaim, Why was I kept away from here so long?

All indications, say they, favor the idea that in this direction rather
than in any other is to be sought the solution of that profoundest of
mysteries, the problem of life, and, with faces aglow with interest,
they pursue their explorations, always ready, however, to declare that
they have not changed their course, they are still in the pursuit of
science and have not the slightest idea of joining hands with
religionists on any pretext whatever.

All of which goes to show that the realm of the occult may be
conveniently divided into two grand divisions, one of which may be
called occult science, and the other occult religion; and that part of
both which has been recently brought to view is the domain known as
modern Spiritualism, where, as I have said, science and religion meet. I
wish it could be said that scientists, as such, and religious teachers,
as such, have also not only met, but shaken hands across the narrow line
which still divides them even here, on this which I have called a common
ground.

But it is to be feared that there is all too little thought of any
possible terms of peace between the opposing forces.

Let us hope that out from the cloudy mysteries of the debatable land
itself may come the gleam of a star whose brightness shall illumine all
who lift their eyes, and whose pure, sweet influence shall change foes
to friends, as heart shall answer heart beneath its shining.

CHAPTER VI.

There are many, however, who have an invincible repugnance to this
method of research, and I would here say for the benefit of such, that
while I am on friendly terms with spiritualists generally, I am not
indebted to them for what I have to give. My observations of the
phenomena of spiritualism, although wide and varied, have all been made
since I came to know, independently, that there are intelligences above
man, and that there is a world distinctly different from this, where
they have their home.

Spiritualistic phenomena, as observed through mediums, have, in a
general way, confirmed what I knew in regard to the other world, but I
find many of the prevalent ideas which are supposably based on these
phenomena to be erroneous in the extreme. For instance, it is taught as
a doctrine that there is no death, and those who teach it point
triumphantly to the demonstrations of the survival of those whose mortal
part has been laid in the grave, not realizing that in so doing they
prove themselves to be still in bondage to the old error, that death and
annihilation are one and the same, and that consequently whoever has
escaped the one, must necessarily have escaped the other.

To prove that a man who has severed his connection with the mortal state
has not suffered annihilation, proves nothing whatever as to his
acquaintance with death.

Even the passing from one world to the other, which is commonly
associated with death, is not the same thing, for many possess the
power of so passing while still tenants of the clay.

If death, then, is not annihilation, nor the mere passing from one kind
of life into another, what is it? It is the severing of the magnetic
bonds which unite the body of the individual to the body of the race as
a whole.

We do not often consider what an important element in our lives are
these magnetic currents which link us to our fellows.

Silent and invisible as they are, they hold us with a tremendous power.
What our friends, our neighbors, our relatives think us capable of
doing, that we can do with comparative ease; but anything out of the
common, calling for the exercise of ability which they do not suppose us
to possess--how nearly impossible it is for us to do it, however
conscious we may be of the inherent power!

As a part of the race we are bound to it by magnetic currents so long as
our mortal life continues, and the cutting off of these currents by
death may be to our consciousness the greatest misfortune or the
greatest happiness we have ever known.

Now I am not preaching, I am simply stating that which I know to be
true. I know it in the same way that I know anything wherein experience
shuts out even the shadow of a doubt.

To speak of the misfortune of death: suppose you were a clock which for
twenty-five years had been a part of the world's life, keeping good time
and always on duty. Then suppose you were suddenly laid away in the dark
and dusty attic of a warehouse until some estate should be settled that
would require an indefinite number of years.

The comparison is not perfect. The clock is not only mostly automatic,
as we are, but entirely so. That in our nature which is essentially
free is not even touched by death, but the bodily activities and
associations may be our only field of action, and these are cut off
absolutely, while memory recalls every event of the life that is
finished, and especially every decision which has had the slightest
influence upon our destiny. The positive element in us which has found
constant vent in physical action is rendered helpless by the complete
paralysis of all the motor nerves. We cannot even think, for this
requires some movement of the brain. A consciousness of being left
behind while the world travels on, a feeling that this experience had
not been foreseen in the least, nor in any way provided against, spite
of warnings which now seem to echo and re-echo through the
darkness--these are what is left us in place of the sunlight, the
breezes of evening, the voices of children, the light of the stars.

But death may be release, it may be happiness, it may be ecstasy beyond
the power of words to tell. We may have cast the long look ahead in
time. We may have decided that since bodily life is limited at best, it
shall not be first in our regards: its appetites, its demands, shall not
take precedence above those calls which find their answer in the depths
of being, calls to rise out of the mire of reckless self-indulgence, and
clothe ourselves in the garb of a true manhood and womanhood, taking for
our model those who count not their life dear unto them, but reach out
for eternal values.

The pathway is not wide, and they who pursue it may find themselves at
close of life (I am not speaking especially of old age) almost alone.
The energies of the spirit have grown by constant exercise, and the
soul has grown strong, imparting its vibrations to the body, which has
so responded that, one after another, the magnetic links which have held
it to the slower progress of the race have snapped asunder. We are far
ahead, and the spirit longs for purer air than it can find on earth. We
have anticipated all the pains of death. We have endured them in our
struggle for the mastery of ourselves. Death now but sets the seal upon
our victory, gives us the freedom we have earned, ushers us into the
society for which we have prepared ourselves, crowns us heirs of
immortality.

Now, whether death shall be this happiness or that misery, in either
case it will be remembered as a great fact of consciousness, the
greatest ever known, and the doctrine that there is no death will never
be able to find lodgment in the minds of those who have experienced it.

CHAPTER VII.

It may be worth our while to inquire how this extremely modern doctrine
came into being, and if we can solve the problem, it may reflect light
upon the genesis of other doctrines very much older and equally
erroneous.

There is something so startling, so unexpected, in the phrase, "There is
no death," that we are quite safe in assuming that it did not originate
in the mind of a mortal. In fact, one would be obliged first to disown
his mortality before he could utter it with any consciousness of
speaking the truth. If, then, the words have come from the Beyond, it
would appear that some super-mundane intelligence has been promulgating
error. But let us not be too hasty. Let us remember that in our
grandfather's time the great majority of people looked upon death as the
termination of existence. It was an impenetrable darkness. Those who
claimed to know anything different were so few, and their evidence was
so mysterious, as to have a scarcely perceptible effect on this portion
of our race. Death had come to mean annihilation, and when the
age-long dictum, shutting the two worlds apart, was removed, those
spirit-teachers who were commissioned to scatter the darkness were
obliged to use expedients. Laying aside their own understanding of the
word death, and taking up the erroneous meaning attached to it by those
whom they wished to reach, they sent out this incisive denial, There is
no death. The paraphrase would be, There is no such death as you believe
in, which was the truth, and had the effect of truth upon the minds of
those who heard it, lifting them out of the darkness, flashing upon
them, light. The word was a medicine of wonderful effect, but it was not
intended as a food, and spiritualists of to-day who make it a part of
their daily diet are most seriously injured thereby. Who that has ever
attended the average séance but can recall the careless trifling, the
insensate levity, of many while waiting for the hour. By their conduct
they seem to say, What is death more than a mere journey to another
country? Or a séance, what is it more than a telephone office? Most
startling will be the event to such as these.

CHAPTER VIII.

But it is time that we took a comprehensive view of this outer world
which lies beyond the domain of sense.

What is the most striking difference between that world and this one? I
answer, the world we are now living in is a material world, which to
understand most thoroughly we must acquire a knowledge of the properties
of matter. This we begin to do in earliest childhood by the use of our
senses, and this we continue to do, to a greater or less extent, as long
as we live, calling into play the reason, highest sense of all, as soon
as it is developed; and by the use of this, the royal sense, with the
others as its servitors, we may arrive at a very thorough comprehension
of the world of matter, so far as its relation to our needs is
concerned.

On the other hand, the world that lies before us is, above all else, an
immaterial world, using the phrase to denote an almost entire absence of
matter, but not in the least to indicate any absence of reality. No, for
this future life is a reality more positive in its character than the
foundations of the pyramids, and its manifestations, being neither more
nor less than the manifestations of living beings, can only be
understood when that fact is kept in mind. They do not lend themselves
to the inspection of the curious, these denizens of another life, but
when conditions favor, they take hold of human instrumentalities and
wield them with a power and skill that defy all resistance for the time,
and leave on all who are present an ineffaceable mark.

It may be objected that this statement is incapable of proof, that, of
all who have crossed the line between life and death, none have returned
to bring positive evidence of the existence of such an unknown country,
inhabited in such a way. The contrary is asserted, and while facts do
not need the bolster of argument, whoever is in possession of a fact can
present arguments relating thereto tending to throw light upon it. It is
asserted by those who claim to know, of whom the writer is one, that an
inhabited domain is in immediate touch with the earth, although not
discoverable by any of the scientific instruments of investigation, such
as the telescope, the microscope, or the spectroscope, nor yet by the
surgeon's scalpel.

The camera, however, which may be called an instrument of record, has,
at certain times, produced evidence which has excited a vast amount of
argument pro and con.

This will not now be entered into, but attention is called to a very
important consideration bearing upon the whole subject.

CHAPTER IX.

I hold in my hand a lens. This lens, in its shape, resembles a certain
other lens through which I look in examining it. It was, indeed, modeled
after the other, which is a part of my organ of vision. I place the
glass lens in a microscope, and a hitherto unknown world is revealed to
me. It was there before, but I could not see it. Do I see it now _with
the lens_? It is evident that the lens is merely an aid to vision, since
the lens in my eye is also necessary to convey the picture to my mind.

But now another question: Do I see with the lens which is a part of my
eye? Is not that also merely an aid to vision? Let us consider. Since I
have two eyes, I may lose one of them without losing the power to see.
If I am so unfortunate as to lose one, then, if the eye is not merely an
aid to vision, but part of the vision itself, it would naturally follow
that I should see only half as well as before; but this, very evidently,
is not true.

I can read as well as ever. For the examination of anything on a flat
surface, one eye is as good as two.

Notice, also, that the lens of the eye and the glass lens are not only
alike in shape and transparency, but that both are composed of material
substances that can be analyzed, and that both are used to acquire
knowledge of such substances and the relations existing between them.
The glass lens is merely a supplement to the lens of the eye. It is one
step further removed from the vision, but even the lens of the eye
itself is not the seeing power. That lies back of all.

Take now the ear-trumpet, a contrivance to concentrate sound to a given
point. It is intended as an aid to hearing, but it is not inseparably
associated with the power to hear. A person with normal senses does very
well without it. How about the ear itself?

Does that constitute a part of the hearing power of a man? If it does,
what is the necessity of the auditory nerve? If the hearing and the ear
were one and the same, there would be no need of this connecting link
with the brain. The external and the internal ear, like the ear-trumpet,
are purely material, and by means of them we are able to cognize those
material emanations called sound.

I speak of sound as a material emanation, because whatever sound comes
to us through the ear comes from some material source. The ear, being
material, is adapted to convey such emanations to the brain, through
which the mind becomes conscious of their existence.

The sense of touch, also, is exclusively adapted to the acquainting of
its owner with still another aspect of things material. Hardness,
softness, smoothness, roughness, heat, cold, and other attributes of
matter become known through this sense, and it may be considered a rule
without exception that when the sense of touch is excited, some material
object is responsible. The same thing is true of the senses of smell and
taste, but as their field of action is comparatively limited, I will
allow the first three named to represent the whole number.

The organs of sight, hearing, and touch, then, are the three principal
avenues through which we obtain knowledge of matter, they themselves,
however highly organized, being also material.

Now, I have said that there is an inhabited domain in immediate touch
with the earth, although not discoverable by any of the scientific
instruments of investigation. Sight, hearing, and touch do not sustain
this, and declare such a domain non-existent. If we bear in mind that
these organs deal with matter only, it may be freely admitted that they
speak the truth. The world whose existence we are asserting is an
immaterial world, and although it be immaterial, it can be shown that it
has, nevertheless, a claim upon our profound attention.

Certainly, after what has been shown, it ought not to lose in interest
on that account. _For, if our bodily senses are, by their very
constitution, unable to bring us any reports save such as pertain to
matter, their silence in regard to the world we speak of counts for
nothing._

But it may be said that all entities are material. This is a specious
plea, but the generalization is too broad. Let us test it in a familiar
way. Benjamin Franklin was one of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence, and attached his name to the immortal document in a clear
and legible manner. All this has to do with matter. Even the emotions
which he may be supposed to have experienced while affixing his name,
although not in themselves material, had a material effect upon his
frame.

I say that those emotions were not in themselves material. I might take
my stand here, but prefer to go one step further, and put a question:
What were those emotions? and then add, This question is not in itself
material.

It might be made a subject of thought. An essay might be written upon
it, which would be esteemed good, bad, or indifferent, according as the
author rightly apprehended the character of the man.

The question may never have been put into language before, but it is now
a real entity, and our mental powers, acting freely, will have no
trouble in so regarding it. It will be seen that, while it may become
associated with things material, may be written so as to be seen, spoken
so as to be heard, or even stamped to reach the apprehension of the
blind, these material associations are no essential part of the
question, since it might arise in the mind without any such aid, and be
examined there without calling into play any one of the bodily senses,
or any combination of them.

It may be said that this is an idle question, unworthy to take an
important place in an argument, but it cannot be said that it is a
foolish question; and it may well stand as a representative of other
questions, questions which might have been substituted; questions which
have arisen in many minds at the same time, and the answering of which
has involved the overthrow of kingdoms, thereby demonstrating, if
necessary, the reality of their existence.

CHAPTER X.

In order to make progress in the search for wisdom, it is necessary that
we should bind ourselves to follow where truth may lead.

We cannot maintain our name as followers of the truth, if, whenever her
footsteps turn in some particular direction, we refuse to follow, or if,
whenever the path leads in the direction in which we have predetermined
not to travel, we begin to cast aspersions on the sincerity of our
leader.

All who would attain the freedom which large possessions give, must
learn sometimes to lay aside prejudice of every kind, and follow
according to the general law which bids us proceed until some real
obstacle presents itself, or some real danger confronts us.

My illustration has led us to the point where it appears that we are
able to say, Realities are not always material in their nature. In other
words, materiality and reality are not inseparably associated. They may
be separately considered, and dealt with as though not related. The
question, What were Franklin's emotions when signing the Declaration of
Independence? is a real question. In the world of mind it has a reason
for existence, and because the world of mind is associated with the
world of matter, and, in some ways at least, takes precedence, that
which is real in its domain may be asserted as real in the presence and
by use of some of the appliances of the latter.

The converse of the truth, that realities may be devoid of materiality,
may be given here as an aid to the understanding.

_Material_ things are not always _real_ in their nature. The scenery of
the stage, the portrait in oil, effigies in wax are familiar
illustrations, and it will be observed that none of these are intended
to deceive. They are merely examples of material things used in an
unreal way.

In looking at them, we may, by the powers of mind which we possess,
endow them with a temporary reality, which will aid in producing mental
results, or we may refuse to so endow them, in which case they remain
barren of effect upon us. I have given examples of things real but not
material, and of things material but not real. Take another example of
the first of these: The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
rests upon a basis that is not material. It rests upon an idea. If the
idea that cruelty to animals is harmful, not only to them, but to those
who inflict it upon them, could be at some future time disproved, then
we should expect that the society would disappear. At present it is
sufficient to say that the society has a _real_ foundation which is in
no danger of being destroyed.

CHAPTER XI.

It will readily be seen that to take firmly the position that realities
may be devoid of materiality involves a great deal, and those who
endeavor to prevent this thought from taking root in any particular mind
are apt to hold up before him examples of the immaterial which are not
real. Most dreams are of this nature. Their confused outlines make
temporary impressions on the memory and are then forgotten. But we have
not to do with such as these. We recognize that real things may be
material, such as certain houses, lands, or mountains, and that unreal
things may be immaterial, like passing dreams just spoken of; but the
immaterial which is none the less real is what we bring into view. And
if we are ready to admit, or to go further and declare, that reality and
materiality are not necessarily conjoined, we are then ready to give a
fair hearing to the statement that a real but immaterial world,
inhabited by real but immaterial beings, is in closest relations with
our own.

These real but immaterial beings, because they _are_ real and
intelligent, are possessed of the primal attributes of all intelligent
beings: they have memory, feeling, emotion, will.

In power they differ widely from each other, and in their essential
character there are as many shades of difference as with mortals.

Let us speak first of their power. This is mostly exercised in their own
field, that of the immaterial, yet to suppose that it is any the less
real in its effects upon our lives is to forget how small a part our
senses directly play in influencing our motives. The end and object of
our efforts may be to obtain the means to gratify our senses or those of
our friends, but the process through which we are obliged to work is so
complicated, it involves the play of so many forces, it brings us into
relations with so many people, each with his own plans and purposes,
that we are continually making decisions based upon what we consider as
probable, rather than certain, results. This is the opportunity of the
spirits, and we often discover that all our efforts have simply tended
to the advancement of others, while we are left in the lurch. The man
who keeps his temper under such circumstances may be favored by the
receipt of a thought-message. It enters his mind as ideas do, with a
flash, and if he is wise he will carefully elaborate it into words. I
have been working for myself only, bending everything as far as
possible to my own enrichment. Others have been doing the same. What
right have I to complain if they have done with me, by their superior
power and foresight, what I have tried to do with them? None at all.

Morally we are on the same level. Let this misfortune be a lesson to me.
Henceforth I will at least make an effort to do as I would be done by.

As he makes this resolution, a warm glow suddenly pervades his being. He
feels at once lighter and stronger, and then perhaps he does a little
thinking for himself. "If I believed in angels, I should say that they
were near, and touched me then; I never felt anything like it." Little
does he suspect the truth, that the whole idea which he so carefully
elaborated in his mind had been flashed into it from without by an
angel-friend, and that when it had borne its natural fruit in a good
resolution, it became possible for the same friend to convey to him a
touch of her own delight.

It may be objected that illustrations like these prove nothing as to the
source of the experience; that to deny that invisible intelligences so
play upon men is as rational, or more so, as to say they do. But we are
not limited to such comparatively indefinite evidence. For nearly fifty
years it has been permitted, or commanded, or both, that these invisible
beings should demonstrate the reality of continued existence, and they
have been doing so in a great variety of ways. For particulars,
reference is made to the periodical literature devoted to the subject,
and to the scores of books which have been written upon it.

It is not my purpose, however, to enter into this field of evidence
with any approach to minutiæ, for it was not here that I acquired the
ability to say, The occult world is a real, inhabited domain. I know
whereof I speak.

CHAPTER XII.

In searching for truth in the fields of thought, we often run counter to
our own prejudices, and almost unconsciously call a halt. There are some
whose self-conceit is so great that they invariably do so the moment
that any of their prejudices is in the slightest danger of a shock. But
it is rather to the seeker who has in part divested himself from this
hampering load, which he had perhaps inherited like a humor of the
blood, that I now speak.

What is to be done? How proceed in such a case? The remedy is simple.
Whenever you are dealing with abstract ideas, and find one that is
refractory, either in itself for want of further analysis, or because of
some special weakness of yours which incapacitates you from subduing
it, never give it up; if you do, you will find yourself under it like a
toad under a stone for an indefinite length of time. No, the right thing
to do is to pass at once from the abstract to the concrete, and find in
material things the counterpart of the truth under examination, and then
proceed. The effect is often wonderful.

To illustrate. Suppose you are examining the abstract idea of the
expediency of doing right. You may have some particular case in mind,
probably will have, if the decision is to count for anything in your
life. You may call to mind the famous saying, It is better to be right,
than to be president. You will recognize the principle involved in this,
but is it of universal application? you may inquire. Is there not some
way by which I can take the free-and-easy course and yet incur no
penalty? A great many people appear to be able to, why should not I?
This is the point where you need to transfer the case from the abstract
to the concrete form, and ask yourself, Suppose I were mixing chemicals
according to a certain formula to produce a certain compound, and
suppose one of the ingredients were wanting. Should I go ahead and trust
to luck, and expect to get the compound just the same as though I
followed the directions? Surely not. What would the science of chemistry
amount to if such a thing were possible? How could anything new be
discovered if the governing principles could not be depended on, or, in
other words, if like causes did not _always_ produce like effects, and
unlike causes, unlike effects?

The most intrepid explorer in the scientific field might well despair of
the prospect in such a case. But this is chemistry, and the laws of
conduct are not so rigid, you may say. That is just where you miss the
path. Until you attain to a belief in the unity pervading all things,
from the lowest to the highest, this unity differing in outward
appearance or manifestation only, and not in essential character, you
will find no peace nor rest. The laws of conduct less rigid than the
laws of chemistry? Say, rather, infinitely more so. For the higher the
plane of action, the less likelihood is there of any superior force
interposing to divert the current of events from its natural course; and
the laws of conduct, remember, pertain to the life of the soul, which
makes them higher than the laws of chemistry by two removes, for the
laws of health relating to the physical body come in between.

But the laws of conduct are not well understood, you say. That, indeed,
is true. We have only a few keys opening into this realm of the soul,
and most people are content to take public opinion as a sufficient guide
rather than to take the trouble to explore for themselves.

But it is the plane just below this, that of bodily life and death,
which we are attempting more especially to elucidate. There seems to be
no systematic teaching in regard to this that is worthy of the name of
science.

The problem of life itself, what it is as a force differing from other
forces, how to deduce from the manifestations of vitality what vitality
is, remains unsolved. And why so? For a very simple reason. Because
those who attempt the problem are unwilling or unable to conform to the
conditions which they recognize as necessary in all other departments of
scientific research. They do not study life _objectively_. They may
think they do. They may think that to study life in other men or in
animals is a truly objective method, but this is a fallacy.

The theory that life needs to be studied from an outside standpoint in
order to be comprehended, is all right, but the man who uses his own
life-force in studying that of other men or animals is not outside the
subject of his thought at all. The active currents of his own being
continually intervene to obscure the processes of thought and render his
conclusions valueless.

It may be true that no other method which can be called objective is
immediately apparent, but it does not follow that there is no other; and
if we simply enlarge our ideas of what is possible, we shall find the
true method to be just what we ought rationally to expect, and that is
this: The student who wishes to solve this problem, either for his own
satisfaction or for the enlightenment of others, must eliminate from
the problem the one disturbing element, _his personal life-force_.

CHAPTER XIII.

Does it seem absurd to say that, in order to study life, a man must die?
For that is what this method amounts to in the last analysis.

Now, I beg of you not to be unnecessarily alarmed. I have said nothing
about burial. If death were only another name for annihilation, then
death and burial would be inseparably associated, no doubt. But suppose
it should be true that it is an error to associate the thought of
annihilation with any man, is it not clear that whoever permits that
error to have any place in his mind is sure to give a meaning to the
word death which does not belong to it? Is it not evident that the
thought of death in that case must borrow blackness and mystery of a
kind that does not pertain to it? Most surely. But let it be said again,
that death is a reality; it is not a fiction, nor a mere seeming. A man
cannot possess bodily life and at the same time be dead. The two
conditions are incompatible. Otherwise there would be no advantage to be
gained toward the study of life by experiencing its opposite.

Shall I try to tell you, from the standpoint of experience, what death
is? Perhaps it will be best to tell you first what it is not. It is not
a snuffing-out like a candle, unless we could suppose one where the
spark should remain quietly alive until the candle was relighted.

It is not a going to sleep, unless we assume it possible for the
dream-life to be woven on to the daytime consciousness at both ends
without a break, so that the dreamer, however strange may have been his
dreams, and whatever the testimony of others may be, is able to say,
with conscious truthfulness, I have not slept at all.

Death includes, without question, an entire suspension of bodily
sensations and activities. The consciousness of _being_, however,
remains, and with it, as a necessary consequence, the consciousness of
being alive, however shut in by the enclosing walls of a senseless
frame.

What is to follow does not occur to the mind. A peace that is absolute
belongs to a death that is clean. Appetite of every kind is dead with
the body. Desire is not; resignation takes its place. What is this
resignation like? It includes a consciousness of a more potent yet
kindly will, and contentment with the result of the action of that will.

The Giver has resumed His gift, the gift of life, for the benefit of him
who has parted with it. The resulting peace is permeated with
gratitude, not different in kind, although different in manifestation,
from that which the little child expresses in every motion of his happy
little body, when he seems to say continuously, I am glad to be alive.
The man is glad to be dead.

Do you think it impossible that such an experience could come to any one
who should afterwards recover life to describe it? Very likely. But stop
for a moment and consider. When a man dies, the result may be said to
manifest in a twofold way. First: To the man himself, who is, to say the
the least, cut off from his customary outward activities. Second: To the
world at large, where the word is passed around, Such a one is dead; and
one acquaintance after another, as he hears the news, turns to a certain
part of his mental organism and marks it down in black where it is not
likely to be forgotten. Henceforth he will send out toward that friend,
now become a name or memory, a different kind of mental current.

But wait: the word comes, Not dead after all--a false report.
Immediately the operation is reversed. The black marks are rubbed out,
the little switch is re-turned, and the friends all agree, to save
troublesome thought, that the man who was supposed to be dead was not
really so, and the old question asked by Job, If a man die, shall he
live again? is prevented once more from obtruding itself.

CHAPTER XIV.

My aim is to make this book practical, that is, to clothe its thought in
such garb as to render it available for use, not to scholars merely, but
to all thoughtful minds.

I shall endeavor in this chapter to gather up a few missing links in my
train of thought, and afterwards endeavor to give you a glimpse of the
Beyond. The question I seem called upon to answer is, How can a man be
alive and dead at the same time? and in order to answer it, it will be
necessary to analyze the thought called death, and separate it into its
various parts.

The man is dead, says local report, and the consciousness of society
undergoes that natural change in regard to the man which I have
described.

His name becomes associated with things that were, but no longer are.
Even those who theoretically believe that the man continues to live
either in happiness or misery, have, most of them, so little confidence
in the theory which they have subscribed to, that they never dream of
putting forth a mental current based on the theory. To all intents and
purposes, society consigns the average man to annihilation, with a
half-careless "Poor fellow, so he's gone. We'll see no more of him.
Well, no time to weep, seeing as he didn't leave me anything. What new
device for entrapping the elusive dollar shall I conjure up to-day?"

I am dead, says the man himself as the shadows which have been gathering
upon his senses culminate in a rayless silence, and every thought of
motion becomes a recollection, a mere theory of fancy, that will not
even approach the dominion of the will.

Death, as a state of consciousness, is a thing entirely new to him, but
he cannot reason on the subject. To reason is to live, to set the brain
in motion, to perform mental operations; this is no longer possible.

What shall this state be compared to? It is like that of one isolated in
a secret cell of his own house, the key turned on him from the outside,
every avenue of communication cut off, dead to the world and all that it
contains. If a total loss of appetite can be associated with the state,
it might continue for an indefinite period; and if the power of
thought-transference comes in, a new kind of life has been begun.

But science says that no man is really dead who still retains his
consciousness, by which statement science belies its name. Calling
itself knowledge, it spreads abroad its own ignorance. How many a
post-mortem has been held in the hope of finding the secret chamber
wherein that part of man which cannot die has gone to rest! How often
the sweet peace of death has become a conscious madness, by this means,
God only knows. Gentlemen, desist.

To find a chamber whose occupant is invisible debars you forever from
obtaining the proof that you have found it. But perhaps it is not the
soul itself that is the object of this search, but rather some special
physical representative that might be found still quivering with life
and so betray its master. All folly.

The soul when uncontaminated informs the whole outward body. It has its
pains and illnesses, more or less affecting the outer form, yet all
unrecognized in materia medica, and when its mortal brother is struck
with death, bends all its energies to make escape, lest it, too, take on
mortality. Failing in its effort to make a doorway for its exit, it
suffers for awhile through sympathy, till the final moment sets it free
from pain within its small dark house, no longer small, because made
clear, transparent, by the touch of death, when the dying has been
brave. No trace of foreign matter may remain to start a dissolution, in
which case the soul preserves the body from decay without more trouble
than a little watchful care.

Sight, hearing, touch, through vibratory currents reach round the world
and even touch the clouds; the body has become, in fact, a mansion
perfectly adapted to the needs of its proprietor, who finds a new world
open to his delighted consciousness, and thanks God fervently for his
perfect victory over death, as well as for his comfort and protection
within the white, still walls which form, in fact, the first
abiding-place of the spirit.

With this still form as passive aid, the soul, with little pain, is able
to make the mental transition which its change of circumstance requires.
No longer concerned directly with any thought based on material needs or
material changes, it finds itself in touch with the moral causes which
underlie these changes; and because moral force is most familiarly
manifest in and through people, these, and their relations to itself,
fill all the mental horizon.

In this new field of perception, nothing impresses more than the
enormous differences in spiritual rank and attainment existing among
mortals who, judged by tape-line and scale, stood fairly equal, and whom
human law necessarily places on a plane of perfect equality, or
perhaps, through its deference to wealth, makes unequal in the wrong
way.

The thoroughness with which past illusions are stripped away from the
mind tends to leave the spirit fairly aghast at its previous blindness.

Frequently forgetting that the motor nerves of the physical form are no
longer responsive to its touch, it starts to rise, that it may go and
tell the world of these wonders just discovered, but finds itself in the
firm and quiet grasp of death, a touch that seems to speak and say:

"Never mind; that is all right. You forget you are not free. Lie still
and learn your lesson."

"But shall I not return?"

"Possibly, but the mortal life is no concern of yours at present. You
are dead."

All this as in a flash, for words do not belong to this state, ideas
rather, the spiritual essences of thought that seem to need no time
whatever to make their mark upon the mind.

To some of these the mind is so receptive that they sink at once to the
very core of being, while others are held upon the surface.

This last communication, You are dead, is sure to be so held. It seems
such an evident conclusion to respond, If I am dead, there is no death
but this seems such a contradiction to life's long lesson, namely, that
amidst a wilderness of uncertainties, death is the one thing certain.
And then the recollection of the shrinking of the soul at thought of
death, how to account for that, if there were no reality behind
appearances so countless?

This in another flash of ideation that leaves a sense of mystery as of a
problem not worked out, and which may not be while death as a condition
rests upon the form. I say, may not be, but would not be understood to
mean that the hindrance is mechanical in this case. A pure soul, even in
death, has certain reserve forces which can be put in action if the need
is great enough, but the consciousness of being in a friend's control,
especially when that control is apparently absolute, will tend to check
all restless impulse in this region of the dark, till now all
unexplored.

CHAPTER XV.

But if the soul might not take up and solve the problem for want of time
and space, we at this writing are not so limited.

First, let us state it clearly. If death does not mean a loss of
consciousness necessarily, what is its distinguishing feature as
compared with life? And what, if anything, is there in it to dread? The
confusion of mind so general on these topics can be accounted for in a
very simple manner.

The body has its life and its death, and the soul has its life and its
death, and we have but two words to describe the four conditions. This
makes it so nearly impossible to generalize on the subject and at the
same time maintain clearness.

For while the student of natural history attributes life and death to
the body alone, and the idealist goes to the other extreme and makes
life and death purely subjective--attributes of mind, not matter--the
philosopher who would have his mind open on both sides, not only to
those thoughts which enter unheralded, but also to those which seem to
have their origin in physical vibrations and enter the sensorium through
the body,--the philosopher, I say, finds it necessary to discriminate
carefully in the use of these words, life and death, and to make it
clear which is meant, the body or the soul, whenever he attributes
either condition to man.

I have said the two words cover four conditions. What are they? In the
first the body is alive, and the soul is alive. Beautiful condition of
ingenuous youth! In the second, the body is alive, and the soul dead.
The man who by a course of persistent indulgence in all manner of crime
and sensuality has stifled the voice of conscience, and finally reached
the point where he is ready to say, "Evil, be thou my good," attains to
a form of quiet.

The soul dies, and its decaying powers are absorbed by the body, which
becomes henceforth an embodied poison, most dangerous and even deadly to
the contact of the sensitive.

The third condition is that of the soul first described, in which the
body has either temporarily or permanently parted with its life, while
the soul remains intact. Still a part of the world's seething life,
because action and reaction of the powerful causative soul-currents
continue with such a soul, the interment of the body will decide whether
the temporary physical death shall become permanent or not. In those
exceptional cases where the body is preserved from the paroxysms of a
blind grief which, when they include contact, tend to snap the last
thread of vitality, or, still more important, from the embalmer's
ignorant knife, which slays unnumbered thousands--when the body is
preserved from both these dangers by a previous isolation, great
possibilities are in store.

A forty-days' fast in the wilderness was the experience of one such
soul, after which he was able to say of his bodily life, No man taketh
it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down,
and I have power to take it again.

For his bodily life was restored to him, and death of the body had no
more terrors to the man who had attained superhuman powers.

The fourth and last case, that where the death of the body follows that
of the soul, will not be enlarged on.

There are such cases, but such can receive no lessons from a printed
page. The language of events alone can reach them, and even when the
soul is not dead, but rather entombed in the body, and rendered torpid
for want of air to breathe, the effect is the same, so far as reaching
them is concerned; the death of the body wakens such imprisoned spirits,
only to plunge them into an untold agony of despair as they discover
that life, with all its opportunities, has been worse than wasted, and a
bare existence alone remains, minus friends, minus hope, minus resource
of any kind even to conceal the abject poverty which is seen to be the
direct result of wilful and persistent wrongdoing all the way to the
bitter end.

If we can suppose that such a soul, at this twelfth hour, under the
tremendous pressure of this awakening, should suddenly resolve to
accept the situation, and to brace every nerve to endure the horrors of
the event without complaint, while it would not be possible to say
_when_ there would be any change for the better for such a one, the
reason would be because time is not to such a soul; while it still
remains true that mercy is as truly an attribute of infinite power, as
justice must always be.

If, on the other hand, we suppose that such a soul breaks out into rage
at the discovery of its loss, hurling anathemas at the author of its
being, it will thereby plunge itself into darker depths, parting with
one after another of its faculties, until final extinction of the
individuality closes the scene.

I have now shown the four conditions which our dual constitution in
relation to life and death makes possible. Some enlarging on these
topics, which concern us all, may not be unprofitable. We all enter
life in the first described condition, with body and soul both alive,
the body visible and tangible, the soul more or less so, according as
its environments since conception have favored its growth.

Comparatively few of us ever reach the second condition I have
described, in which the body remains alive while the soul is utterly
dead. The protests of this, which is called the immortal part of us,
because the death of the body in itself does not impair its vigor,
usually prevent so great a calamity from occurring.

Some kind of a compromise is entered into, by which the soul is allowed
a certain amount of freedom, on condition that the body shall remain
undisturbed in its favorite pleasures. Sometimes one day in the week is
selected, in which the soul is permitted to rule.

Sometimes a single department of life's activities is placed under its
charge, and to meet the man on the favored day, or to have dealings with
him in this favored department, gives you a very exalted idea of the
individual. Sometimes in his business relations a man will be found
conscientious in the extreme, while in his family he acts the tyrant and
the brute. Sometimes his family almost worship him, while thousands
speak his name with detestation. In either case the body, not the soul,
the outer and visible, not the inner invisible self, is the leading
factor in the man, and the court of last resort.

The man is still in slavery to the mortal; he has no knowledge of any
life except the earth-life; the faith-knowledge which he might have,
were his soul given its freedom and permitted to use its higher powers,
is shut out by the disorder of his condition, wherein a servant in
rank, the body, rules over the prince entitled to the throne.

This is the prevailing condition of the human family to-day, the
difference between most people in this respect being merely one of
degree, some giving the prince more, and some less of freedom. A few
millions at most have given the nominal power into his hands, retaining
the real for bodily uses. To curry favor with these, tens of millions
profess to have done the same. In thousands only is the soul truly
regnant, and these are widely scattered, and more or less hidden, lest
they be driven out of life.

CHAPTER XVI.

When I say that I have been outside and have returned, I speak the
truth, and yet my words seem to express an untruth. It is because, as I
have said before, that other kind of existence is so different from this
that it uses a different language to express even a simple idea, a
language which the kind we know as figurative most nearly resembles,
although that is far enough from being the same. I should therefore use
figurative language to embody what I have to say in regard to that other
life, if literary considerations were alone to be regarded; but my aim
is to benefit, and I decline to use a form of speech which has been so
often sold as merchandise that many people no longer believe there is
any truth attached to it. I use instead the plain, everyday speech, and
say without qualification that I have been away, that I am acquainted
with the conditions that follow after death, that I lean on no man's
theories, not even on those which I might make, if I were given to
theorizing, which I am not. No, I rest on facts, plain, cold facts,
which are none the less so because they are registered in the mind of
one man instead of many; facts of consciousness not to be gainsaid,
although, in order to express them so as to make them most useful here,
it is necessary to translate them into a language so far from the
original, that only those who keep the fact of the translation in mind
can hope to receive the truth in something like its purity.

I am well aware that I can scarcely hope to convince my reader that it
could be possible under any circumstances for one to enter the kingdom
of the dead, to take on the powers and conditions belonging to that
realm, to become a component part of that world of mystery to the extent
of dismissing all care in regard to the possibility of return, and even
to transmit such a thought-message as this. The responsibility for my
being out of place rests upon you all; I was compelled to undergo the
pain of the passage at your will; and now that you repent and ask me to
return, I will take my time and think about it. I am well housed in a
good body on this side. I do not know that I would go back if I could.

That, after all this, and after a succession of spiritual events which,
measured by their effect on one's consciousness, should correspond to a
period of centuries on earth, one should actually make his way back and
take up again the broken threads of his earthly life, and weave them
into something resembling an orderly design once more,--to convince my
readers of the possibility of this is so nearly impossible that I shall
not seriously attempt it, although it is true.

It will be said that even though I suppose that this is actually true of
myself, it does not follow that I am not suffering from an
hallucination.

It will be argued very naturally that in so far as I am now a tangible,
actual human being, just so far is it impossible that I should ever have
been actually dead; and as to becoming habituated to the kind of life
which may remain after the body loses its animation, for any one now
living to make such a claim is the height of absurdity.

Any one who shall take this stand will need to be reminded that bodily
consciousness is one thing, and soul-consciousness another, and that
there may be _spiritual_ existence beyond that. Comparatively few
mortals have not at some time in their lives awakened at least
momentarily to soul-consciousness, and can remember, if they care to
try, how suddenly and completely the bodily consciousness retired into
the background at its coming.

Thousands can testify that this soul-consciousness in them so dominates
that of the body as to render bodily pains powerless to disturb the
regnant soul.

These may be able to understand that in the world toward which they
hasten, another advance will become possible, wherein the
soul-consciousness shall become subordinate to the higher life of the
spirit.

To make this a little clearer let me say that what you are now conscious
of as your soul, the sensitive inner nature, that feels a slight as
though it were a blow, that spurs the organism to years of anxious toil
in the hope of gaining independence, that scorns to beg, yet in the hour
of danger sometimes feels to pray--this inner self is to be your body
when death shall come to break the tie that holds you captive in the
dust. Every consideration to which your soul is now sensitive shall
become, as it were, the laws of nature then. You will suddenly discover
that ill-will, for instance, is a current actually tangible, as much so
as an electric current was to your physical body. You will learn
experimentally that kindliness of spirit, good-will, and gratitude are
equally tangible to your new and finer senses. You will perceive that a
generous spirit diffuses light, and a selfish one dwells in his own
darkness, and this kind of light and darkness you will be astonished to
discover has taken the place of what you formerly knew by those names.
You will soon perceive that a deceiving spirit knows how to wear a
false light as he pretends to a genuine interest in your welfare, and
that a truly friendly one will sometimes hide his light, if thereby he
can obtain advantage for your benefit.

If your life has been little more than a revolution around yourself,
measuring everything by its relation to your personal advantage as you
saw it, you will be surprised to find how small and dark a space will
bound your being; and it may be a long time before you cease to dwell
upon the memories of the world left behind, or cease to hope that in
some way you can return to make a better use of its opportunities. And
when you shall fairly come to understand that you have been living in
the generous air and sunshine of the spirit of God, and that, instead of
seeking to imitate Him by making your life a blessing to those less
favored than yourself, you have employed your brief span in the effort
to appropriate to your private use everything that could be lawfully
seized on, you will wonder why the certainty that earth-life is limited
had not impressed you more; and when you perceive, through the
soul-consciousness which has taken the place of the bodily, that you
have no data whatever upon which to base even a surmise as to how long
your new kind of life is to continue, such measureless despair may fall
upon you as shall even make tears impossible.

CHAPTER XVII.

On the other hand, if anywhere along your life-journey you have
scattered any seeds of kindness, they will every one of them bear fruit
in the Beyond.

From the moment when you perceive and acknowledge to yourself that you
are not in every way fitted to enter the courts of heaven and become
associated with those to whom selfish thoughts have become simply
memories, you are likely to have experiences tending to refine and
purify your nature. No longer active in the outward, you must bear what
influences come upon you from without as best you may. An infant in the
cradle is not more helpless than the great majority of those who enter
the Beyond; and the invisible nurse that may have you in charge will
not ask you what kind of medicine is most agreeable, but will administer
what is best for you.

Picture to your mind, if possible, what it would be like to lie
physically helpless, with your outward consciousness telling you that
you no longer appear as a man, or as a woman, but only as an infant to
any eyes able to see you, while at the same time your mental vision is
perfectly clear and takes in all your past life in every aspect of its
relation to other lives, and especially in its relations to the great
all-pervading life which seems now to be somehow lost out of all
possible reach.

Suppose that while those reactions called pain and pleasure are more
vitally potent than ever, because of a vastly heightened sensitiveness,
mental as well as physical exertion has become impossible, a succession
of states of consciousness taking their place; and then suppose a
master hand, with all the resources of mesmerism at his command, should
begin playing upon your organism, proving to you by every touch that not
a line of all your past history but is an open book to him, and his only
aim is to bring you to a willingness to confess your weaknesses
and follies, your neglect of duties, as well as your open
transgressions--one thing at least would surely result: you would
discover, and never forget, that spiritual things are not less, but
immensely _more_ real than any physical entities with which you ever
came in contact.

It is such a great mistake to suppose that because you have nothing in
your experience corresponding to such a condition as that which I have
just described, therefore you never will have.

What kind of reasoning can be weaker than this? Have you not two kinds
of consciousness, one of the world and all it contains, and one of
personal existence in its various relations? Do you not perceive that
your body, vitally active as it is, and swayed by every thought you send
out, belongs properly to the first of these fields of consciousness,
while that which makes up your character--your preferences, your
predilections, your faults, your foibles, your beliefs, and your
prejudices--belongs to the second?

Can you not see that a suspension of the outward consciousness, in other
words, a suspension of your power to sense the material world through
your material senses, has no necessary connection with any suspension of
your inner consciousness by which you might be able to say, I cannot
move; I cannot see, hear, or feel anything, but I am still a white man,
ready to swear by the flag and by my right to my personal liberty, and
if any one takes the trouble to hunt me out he will find me the same man
I always was?

Hundreds of thousands thus lie in their graves, thankful if they know
its location, and waiting as only the dead can for the time of their
deliverance.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Accept another glimpse of the Beyond. One of the most distinctive
characteristics of this country or state of being is activity of mind.
Let me explain why I say country or state of being. It is either the one
or the other to the consciousness according to the point of view. Looked
at externally, it is seen to be a new environment, a different kind of
life; but when its atmosphere becomes yours, the effect upon your mental
organism will be so great that you will rightly regard it as a state of
being to which earth-life bears the relation of a pre-natal one. This
comparison, however, has one defect, for while we of the earth have no
conscious memory of our pre-natal life, they of the Beyond recall every
leading event of earth-life as clearly as though no time had intervened.

The change of state brings on the mental activity spoken of, the effect
of which on the material side manifests as heat or magnetism, or both.

The lifting off of the weight of dead matter causes a feeling of
buoyancy, and the vibrations of the particles of the gaseous body may be
so great that it will seem to expand until one seems everywhere present
over a vast territory in the same way that we are now present in all
parts of our physical bodies.

The first event of prime importance to you will be the demonstrating and
establishing of your spiritual rank. Just where do you belong? In the
society of what people, or what class of people, are you content? Does
any accusation lie against you? If so, what have you to say in regard to
it?

Are there any special credits that you claim which seem never to have
been acknowledged? Is there anything you wish to confess? To what
concealment do you claim a right?

The answering of these questions may be a very simple matter, or may
involve the welfare of nations. While the friends left behind will
contribute their quota of evidence, those with whom you have been
associated who have preceded you to the unknown country will be the most
actively interested in your case. You will find some waiting for your
testimony on some point involving their own status, and when you come to
speak of the matter you may have to struggle against a tumult of voices
before you succeed in testifying. Where questions of fact are involved,
of sufficient importance to justify it, most wonderful agencies can be
set in motion to determine them correctly in the region of the Beyond.

That precise point in the ether where the event occurred, and which has
long since been left behind by the passage of the solar system through
space, can be visited and made to yield up its record as by kinetograph;
or the surroundings may be reproduced as on a stage, and the one who
persists in falsifying is suddenly placed there and told to act his part
again according to his own story. He will find it very difficult to play
a false part in the presence of those who know the truth.

It may be noted that this picture of a soul on trial is quite different
from that given before, where it is held as the prisoner of death; but
it is only necessary to bear in mind that events may succeed each other
even in a country where time is not, and that such succession marks the
stages of one's growth.

If any of your faculties are in a dull or torpid state because the
circumstances of your life have been such that they never have been
given a field of action, the invisible actors of the Beyond who may have
you in charge will know how to awaken, stimulate, and call these
faculties into an active state before the final decision is rendered, to
the end that no injustice may be done you on their account. Should the
verdict of the lower court be such that you are not willing to abide by
it, you may take an appeal to a higher court.

At the last you may even appeal from the judgment of angels altogether,
and demand a trial by the great Spirit of the universe, but you will not
do this recklessly when you know that it involves a trial by ordeal, or
a contest of sheer will-power, sustained by conscious innocence alone,
with planetary forces.

Not brief nor trifling is a contest such as this; not once in a
thousand years does such a thing occur; but the fact that the way to it
is always open in the Beyond proves with what infinite tenderness the
individual is guarded against injustice.

But it is impossible that I should know of what I am speaking, some
reader says. I grant you that it seems so, but would discussion settle
it? Is it not time the door was opened? Is there no need?

CHAPTER XIX.

An illustration of the difficulty of generalizing when speaking of
matters on the spirit-side just now occurs to me.

Suppose that you as a mortal were permitted to witness a combat between
a soul on its way upward and a foul spirit seeking to gain control. The
spirit may be able to take on any form it pleases, and approaches in the
guise of a friend. But the soul receives a warning touch and speaks out
sharply: "Stand; keep your distance. Who are you? and what do you want?"
With every smooth and crafty method of tone and word the spirit seeks to
convince that he is what he claims to be, a friend, and entitled to
approach. The soul, with its senses sharpened by fear, uses every
effort to discern the character of the stranger, weighs and analyzes
instantly every expression of the wily foe, and before the answer is
completed, decides positively and prepares to strike. The spirit
perceives the motion and shifts his footing in time to escape the
blow--a thought-impulse, weighted to kill. Does the spirit respond in
anger? Oh, no; his object is not to injure, but to gain control, so he
remonstrates, with pretended grief, that one whom he loves should so
mistake him. But the soul is not to be deceived, and gathers up its
strength for another blow. The spirit pours out a perfect stream of
flattering words, intended to lull his intended victim into a momentary
lack of vigilance, and ventures a little nearer, hoping to touch the
aura and disappear from view, only to become manifest as an invisible
power within the soul, an active agent in undermining its powers until
the opportunity shall present to seize the very throne itself and revel
in the possessions of its victim.

But the soul is cautious, and in virtue strong, and so, conscious of
invisible protection, suddenly fixes the demon with his eye, and before
he can escape launches at him a bolt that leaves him helpless and
writhing, dead as a spirit can be. "I killed him," says the exulting
soul, as it passes on its way.

You would be apt to say, "He did not kill him at all; he only disabled
him."

Now, while it is true that what I have described corresponds in
appearance to what we should here call disablement merely, its full
meaning cannot be understood without entering the consciousness of the
spirit who was struck down.

To such a one activity, or the ability to act, constitutes life;
inactivity, or the inability to act, constitutes death, not death as we
know it, but a living death, in which the fierce vibrations of a life
that knows no end, being confined as though by a broken wheel in its
carriage,--being confined, I say, to the gaseous envelope, the
propulsion of which has absorbed half its fire, soon heats the envelope
to a torturing degree.

Illustrating in another way, the evil spirit, being disabled from
continuing his customary activity, is forced to reflect, to look back
over his course, and face the evils he has done. Horrors take hold of
him. The most poignant dread of being overtaken by those whom he has
despoiled of all that made life dear, until in despair they have
committed suicide, and started out to find their tormentor, takes hold
of the miserable wreck, who has not even the consolation of looking
forward to some certain end to his sufferings, because neither time nor
the last sleep are known in the region of the dead.

Is this experience, do you think, any less to be dreaded by a selfish
spirit than is death by a mortal who is consciously not ready? It is
therefore properly called death in the language of the spirit, made up,
as that language is, of ideas only.

But in calling it death on the earth-plane we are using a word that has
a much different meaning here.

When we say, "The man is dead," a funeral, or at least a burial is
suggested. Not so there.

In this we have an example of the difficulty of conveying information in
regard to the conditions of the Beyond, without using words that are
liable to be misunderstood.

Only those who have attained to the ability to converse in the light,
eye to eye, without words, are entirely free from these obstructions to
mental intercourse.

CHAPTER XX.

Astronomy teaches us that our earth, together with the other members of
the solar system, is traveling through space, at the rate of eight miles
per second, around a distant center, in an orbit requiring many
thousands of years to complete.

We learn from this that we are constantly changing our place in the
universe, and are entering new etherean fields, not only every year, but
every day and hour. Since we are unconscious of this motion, it may seem
to have no vital relation to us, yet, by a knowledge of the fact, we may
gain an insight into the wonderful resources of this great machine for
recording events.

Every thought and feeling of which we are conscious makes its mark, not
only upon our bodies, both the outer and the inner, but also upon the
ether through which we are passing. I am alluding not to the words in
which we clothe or perhaps conceal our thoughts or feelings when
communicating with one another, but to the thought-current itself at the
point of origin.

This would be the same in the minds of all men of equal intelligence,
without regard to nationality; and those beings who are able to read the
marks left by these currents would find them written in unmistakable
characters, and of a size proportionate to our rate of travel, on the
fair ethereal page.

In one respect we are at an enormous disadvantage in our relations,
conscious or unconscious, with the denizens of the Beyond.

Our thought-motions compared with theirs are like an ox-team to a
locomotive. It is a fact, and there is no use in quarreling with it. On
the other hand, through our association with matter we are able, without
permanent injury, to bear oppressions of the spirit which would be death
itself to them; and those among them who would take delight in insulting
us are deterred from doing so by our insensibility to the stinging
thought-current. We ourselves would not insult a post for being one.

These oppressions of spirit, or depressions, as we blindly call them,
are a part of the system by and through which we are made to manifest
what manner of person we are; and our blindness as to the real meaning
of the life we have come into possession of, our persistent mistaking it
for an end, instead of a means to an end, brings it to pass that the
tests we undergo as to our fitness for this or that position in the
real though hidden life that awaits us all, are real and genuine tests,
which they could not be, to their full extent, if we clearly understood
at the time just what was being done. Every thoughtful man and woman
looking back over life can discern how this or that decision has been a
turning-point leading on to unexpected success or paving the way to
disaster or defeat. When the test is complete, some inkling of its
meaning often dawns upon us, and we resolve to be on guard next time,
and then perhaps we start off on some rainbow chase, only to discover
that we are the prey of delusion once more. Then, perhaps, we get angry
and curse the whole machine as the product of some stupid blunderer,
thereby avoiding the confession of any mental obliquity on our own part.

Not all of the delusions of mortality are of a kind that lead to such a
result. Some have been imposed upon us by our risen brothers of the
other sphere, and have held sway over our minds, as they did over our
fathers' minds, and over their fathers' before them, none of us living
long enough on the mortal side, or obtaining sufficiently clear
independent light, to enable us to become free. The shaking off of the
fetters of this mental bondage is a special characteristic of our own
day; and those who have listened to the torrents of eloquence poured
from the lips of the young mediums upon this subject, know that this
work, the necessity for which, as I have indicated, is largely due to
other-world intelligences, is now being forwarded from the same quarter
with tremendous power. Verily, there must have been a revolution in the
heavens, or this would not be. And such, indeed, is the case. The
tremendous power of an organized hierarchy under the controlling
influence of a single mind so prominently in evidence here, is without
a counterpart on the other side to-day, although the sins against
humanity which have been charged against the priesthood of past ages
should more properly be laid at the door of their invisible inspirers,
then in the height of that power which is no longer theirs. To-day the
enemies of racial progress are to be sought for on earth, where the
intoxicating dreams of power without responsibility have found lodgment
and worked their corrupting influence in the minds of not a few of our
brothers, who seem to forget that they are still members of the race
they are seeking to enslave, and that their responsibility for misusing
the power entrusted to them will be accounted all the greater in
consequence.

CHAPTER XXI.

The range of subjects coming within the scope of my title is so great
that I cannot undertake an exhaustive treatment of any within reasonable
limits, but I hope to supply a few keys by the use of which reverent
minds of any and every school of thought may be able to enter upon
successful explorations.

The amount of evidence necessary to convince a sincere inquirer that
this earth-life, important as it is, is but the threshold of existence,
is not very great, but it must needs be adapted to the individual mind.

To obtain this evidence is worth more to any man or woman than any other
purely mental acquirement can be.

For it is a mental acquisition, the possession of which is related to,
and has a natural influence over, every other we can call our own. Yet
it has not, in itself, any transforming effect upon the life and
character.

When such a result follows, other influences share in the work. He who
has lost friends that were a part of his life, the mother whose children
have fainted away into the world of mystery, the philosopher who has
given the strength of his years to the search for truth, are all
profoundly affected by the discovery; while those in whom the affections
are less strongly developed, or whose mental powers give them no
adequate perception of the profound and far-reaching relations of this
great truth, may hold it as lightly as they do their dreams, and receive
from it no more benefit than they do from them.

Whoever is capable of analyzing a thought or the expression of a
thought, can find evidence of the world beyond strewn along his path on
every hand.

All figurative expressions are merely unconscious devices to give to
thought somewhat of the objective reality it possesses to dwellers in
the Beyond. For instance:

"There are names which carry with them something of a charm. We have but
to say 'Athens,' and all the great deeds of antiquity break upon our
hearts like a sudden gleam of sunshine; 'Florence,' and the magnificence
and passionate agitation of Italy's prime send forth their fragrance
towards us like blossom-laden boughs, from whose dusky shadows we catch
whispers of the beautiful tongue."

Is it doubted that the Athens of which the author speaks will be found
embodied in forms real and tangible in that other world which takes to
itself all that attains to immortality in this one?

Why do authors speak of a _cold_ greeting, of _walls_ of reserve,
_rivers_ of kindness, or the _sunshine_ of love?

They may not be able fully to explain, but expressions like these point
to features of the landscape in that world where the inner becomes the
outer and takes on those garments of reality which belong to it by
right.

The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen
are eternal, and when we have broken connection with our temporal
bodies, or attained a true and perfect control over them, we may enter
into this knowledge, to find it truly a heavenly inheritance.

But it is not alone through figurative and poetic language that we may
discover evidence of the existence of an immaterial world.

The broad fields of philosophy and literary criticism receive their
light, their water, and their air, outside the world of sense almost
entirely. Scarce anything in these domains has any causative relation
with the world of matter.

For instance, take this passage from one of the magazines:

"But what does the work of higher criticism really mean? It means,
briefly, as applied to the Old Testament, the revision of certain
traditions concerning the structure, the date, the authorship of the
books--traditions which had their origin in the fanciful and uncritical
circles of Judaism just before, or soon after, the Christian era."[B]

A careful analysis of the meaning of this will show that it begins and
ends in the domain of abstract thought. To use a figurative expression,
it does not touch the ground anywhere. If our bodies and their needs, if
the earth and its products which minister to those needs, if, in brief,
the material universe really comprised the _all that is_, such a thought
as is contained in the passage quoted could never have come into being.
For it has no practical relation to things as such.

Yet there is nothing especially obscure about it. It was written for men
and women of ordinary intelligence, who are supposed to take an interest
not merely in sacred truths, which, indeed, are not dealt with in the
article from which I quote, but the structural forms containing those
truths.

All of which, rightly interpreted, points to another phase of existence,
which is either near to or far from us according to the stage of our
development, a phase which may become measurably real to us even before
we enter fully upon it, and which has the strongest possible claims upon
our attention.

CHAPTER XXII.

There is no more fruitful source of error to the student of occult
philosophy than the assumption which he continually makes, that the race
and the individual may be treated as one when their relations to a
higher power are being considered.

It appears that the study of the laws of chemistry may be partly
responsible for this. A molecule of any substance, having in itself all
the properties of that substance, may be reasoned upon and regarded as
though it were, as it is, an epitome of the mass. In the same way it is
assumed that man, the individual, is an epitome of the race, and that,
in endeavoring to obtain a philosophical view of him, we may pass in
review before the mind what we know of the race, and what we know of the
individual in a general way, without drawing any line of distinction
between what is true of the one and what is true of the other.

Now, while this mental process may have a certain value when both are
considered externally, those who attempt to solve the deeper problems of
the race or the man, by means of it, are sure to fall into error.

It is not borne in mind that our race is scarcely conscious of itself as
a unit, and if it were, it would in the present state of knowledge
regard itself as alone in the universe, flying through space on a
revolving globe with enormous velocity, along an unknown orbit. There
may be other inhabited worlds peopled by other races of beings, but as a
race we do not know this to be true; and only a dim perception of the
survival of a few of its own members that have lived their little lives
and passed away since time began, relieves the sense of isolation with
which the race looks out into the surrounding darkness.

The student of history contemplates the rise and fall of nations and
traces the causes which have led to their overthrow. He observes the
same influences at work to-day as in the olden time, and when the
premonition of like disasters comes home to him, he is ready to exclaim,
"There is no hope! There is no God!" And in so speaking he gives
utterance to the soul of our race, which is still groping in the
darkness for light and a place of rest.

How much of this is true of man as an individual? Very little,
comparatively, as we shall see. In the first place, as individuals, we
are conscious of companionship. We look around us and out over the world
and see great numbers of our fellows whose life and surroundings are
comparable with our own. Such differences as we perceive in each other
only give evidence that our fellow-beings are real, not simply
reflections of ourselves; are objective entities, not elusive shadows.
And by as much as we are conscious of an individuality apart from that
of our race, by so much may we hope to separate the thread of our
destiny from the tangled mass. Examples of such a separation are to be
found among the great names of the earth; and a study of their lives
will teach us how best to shape our own. It will also teach us that
race-life and individual life are not necessarily the same, that the
individual may absorb light for which the race is not yet ready, and set
his standards of thought and action far beyond what is yet possible to
the race as a whole.

If, now, we form our conceptions of the character of the power
overruling us, by an exclusive study of those events which affect great
numbers, we are liable to serious error. If the sound of thunders
intended for the ear of the race be concentrated so as to fall upon our
individual hearing, they will certainly deafen us completely.

On the other hand, those whose narrower vision sees only the play of
events as they affect the lives of individuals are also liable to error
in forming their estimate of the character of the overruling power.

Here tragedy visible and invisible plays its part, and sometimes
injustice in the extreme appears to triumph. There is no possibility of
avoiding error in judgment from this point of view, without constantly
bearing in mind at least three things: first, that outward disaster is
sometimes an inevitable result of long-hidden crime; second, that to the
innocent, death is a release from prison, a promotion from a lower to a
higher sphere of action, and that those who are able to look beyond the
instruments used to break their fetters, to the kindness that sets them
free, can mount on the wings of delight to a diviner air; and third,
that the dwarfing of the faculties of a soul during the short space of
earth-life will turn out to be a far less serious matter to the soul
than to the one responsible for it.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The question may be asked, Wherein lies the difference between man the
unit, and the race which is an aggregation of these units? What
philosophical difference is possible? In answer, I would say that while
the individual and the race alike possess body and soul, the individual
at times manifests a power of becoming greater in every respect than the
influence of heredity or surroundings can at all account for. Such
individuals tell us of some powerful influence descending upon them, as
it were, from a higher sphere, and to this they attribute the changes in
their life and powers which make all their friends to marvel. No such
stimulating and transforming influence has ever manifested itself on so
broad a scale as to affect our entire race at once, and we must conclude
that the time has not come for such an event. As a race, our eyes are
not lifted above the earth. We care little about our origin, and still
less about our destiny. The love of war and bloodshed, delight in the
flowing bowl and all its attendant revelry, are still characteristic of
our race, and the heavy clouds that are gathering in our sky are not yet
black enough with impending evil to arrest us in our downward course.

Ah! well for us it is that we are not to be left alone to rush headlong
to destruction in our blind folly. Terrible as are the forces we have
invoked against ourselves, those which shall save us from death by all
manner of intoxication are infinitely greater.

The wasting fever of war undoubtedly must come, such war as the world
has never seen before, but when the coveted excitement, changed to agony
untold, is at last over, when our physical forces are entirely
exhausted, the loving Parent whose outstretched hand we have always
refused, will show a pitying face. A draught of infinite peace will be
imparted to our spirit, and we shall rise in newness of life to enjoy
the forgotten delights of obedient childhood, and make this old world
over into one entirely new.

CHAPTER XXIV.

I had not thought to touch this strain when I began to write of the
Beyond, but some things almost write themselves, and I have not
forgotten the closing words of the appeal with which this book opens.
"We are trodden down by our brothers among the living. Help us, our
fathers from the dead."

Ah! if the wire which carries this petition outward can bear the
strength of the return current, it may possibly convey such tidings as
words are not able to express, for is it not true that the sweetest
strains are cradled within a silence which speaks more profoundly to the
soul than does the music to the ear? Let us hearken.

"Do you wish to know what stands in the way of our coming to the rescue?
Nothing but your unbelief in the possibility of our coming. Thank God
that unbelief is growing weak. Could you know what exhausting labor is
ours in our efforts to reach you, you would pray rather for light to
enable you to do your part. Believe, oh, believe that we have not
forgotten. In agony of spirit we are striving to awaken you from
slumber, to instil into your minds the supreme truth, that no good thing
that can be named is impossible of occurrence. You are ready to believe
it for the material, why not accept it in the spiritual?

"Religious liberty is your priceless privilege. Can you possibly gain it
by setting foot on religion itself? Be sane. Learn to discriminate.
Throw away the chaff, but keep the wheat. Death is a magician, not a
murderer. The pain all comes beforehand. The passage itself is not
painful. Death merely turns the key in a door you never saw before, and
you step out into such a freedom as you never dreamed of. 'Be thou
faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life,' suggests a
great truth. Try to get hold of it. No man, and no body of men, no
spirit, nor any combination of them, can prevent you from making your
life a success. There are prizes to be won. Why not try for them?

"But you say you are trying. Sword in hand, you are battling for the
right. Yes, we know, and sometimes you are wounded, and help seems never
to come. Hold fast. We are building a road.

"It is already finished, and the cars are on the track. You shall not
die of wounds like these. Help is near. Your prayer is heard. We knew
it would be. From the heights beyond the heights has come the order,
'Descend in power. Earth's children are ready to receive you.' And we
are not few nor weak. Our phalanx moves in a light which nothing can
withstand. Believe it, and stand upon your feet. We are already here."

CHAPTER XXV.

There is another grand division of my subject, but the difficulty of
presenting it through the medium of written language is even greater
than that already dealt with, and only a slight attempt will now be
made. Not only do thoughts take the place of timings in the Beyond, but
_emotions take the place of forces_. By emotions in this connection I
mean those currents of energy which have their rise in, and are more or
less under the control of individualized intelligence, as love and hate,
joy and sorrow, hope and fear, happiness and distress; and by forces I
mean those which are sometimes called blind forces, such as attraction
in its various forms, heat, electric vibration, and the like. As these
last pertain especially to matter, we should expect them to retire into
the background in a world where mind-realities, or facts of
consciousness, absolutely dominate. And so they do. And here may be a
good place to indicate what part matter really plays in this immaterial
world. Let me call attention to the world of art. Let us recall its
great names, and the masterpieces which have given them fame, the
wonderful poems, the paintings, the sculpture, and the musical creations
that will never die, and then pause and consider how slight are the
demands made by this wonder-world on the lower world of matter. The poet
and the musician call for writing materials, the sculptor needs some
clay and a few modeling tools, the painter some pigments and brushes,
and a bit of canvas. With these slight aids the noble conceptions of
genius are materialized for the delight of future generations.

Take another illustration. When a ship goes out of the harbor, it is to
be assumed that she takes her anchor with her, and carefully guards it
against possible loss.

It is likewise true that within the scope of the great and splendid
activities of a free spirit, a material anchor is somewhere safely cared
for, yet such an anchor has no more prominent relation to the activities
of the spirit than the anchor of a ship has to the ship's power to cross
the sea. If we could think of a ship with nothing else to do but to lie
around the harbor, the relative importance of the anchor would increase
very much; and if it had no anchor of its own, it might attempt to tie
up to some other vessel that had one. And so with earth-bound spirits
whose testimony is sometimes quoted to the effect that spirit-life is
as dependent on matter as any other. Most of them are blissfully
ignorant of their own poverty, and move about the earth, that is to say
in the lower or earthly strata of thoughts and feelings, because they
have no desires above them.

They remember this life as a lost heaven, and are continually bemoaning
that loss in secret, while their activities take the form of influencing
mortals to this or that kind of sensual indulgence, which they wish to
share through sympathy. Every impulse and desire is bent upon a possible
recovery of the earth-life, and they are so ignorant of, and indifferent
to, any higher form of life, that it remains without existence to them.

I would not say they are insensible to the enlargement of their powers
consequent upon their release from the confinement of an earthly body.
They could not be. Their discovery that death does not destroy the
inner consciousness was a great surprise to them, but the novelty of the
discovery soon wore away. What seemed so strange at first, became a
truism, a simple scientific fact, previously unknown, and unable in
itself to supply any stimulus to their higher powers.

It is evident that the testimony of these upon the subject is worthless,
while those who have battled for and won the prize of recognition in a
higher sphere give abundant evidence of their freedom from the bondage
of matter, and the desires that have material things for their object.

Resuming my subject, not only matter, but those forces which are
inseparably associated with it, retire into the background, nay, almost
disappear, in the Beyond. Emotions take their place.

The atmosphere, or that which corresponds to what we know by the term,
seems charged with some powerful element, resembling electricity in its
effects, but differing from it in that it seems to be sensitive to
thought, and to be capable of responding to it with dynamic force. A
shock from this element is in every respect as real to the consciousness
as an electric shock is to us. It comes from without and expends its
force upon the gaseous body. Being sensitive to thought, it does not
impress one as being capricious in its nature, but as though acting
according to some law which it is of the highest importance to discover,
if possible.

With the perceptive and intuitional faculties wrought up to the highest
state of activity, it is presently discovered that it is not thought in
the abstract, but thought surcharged with feeling or with devotion to a
principle, some cherished sentiment of the soul, which has the power to
excite this hitherto unknown element; and gradually it dawns on the mind
that this element corresponds to public opinion on earth, that it
emanates from the inhabitants of that part of the spirit-realm, and that
if your mind does not happen to be in accord with theirs, you must
either get away or do battle for your life. By life, I mean your power
and freedom of expression, the very breath of the spirit, what a
printing-press is to a newspaper, cut off from which, the paper is dead.

Manifestations of emotion, both in kind and degree, depend upon two
things, our spiritual state or condition, and the nature of our
surroundings. Passing over the first of these, it is evident that
earth-surroundings greatly limit the expression of emotion; and when we
observe the effect of a powerful current of this kind upon the physical
tissues of the body, weakening and consuming them as by a flame, we see
that the length of our stay here is involved in our ability to control
our emotions.

Not so in the Beyond, where our stay is without assignable limits, and
where the pent-up emotions of a lifetime at last find vent, and pour
themselves out as by flood-gates to the sea.

And it is here that music plays its part in that wonder-world. For as
ideas have each their appropriate form, so every emotion has a musical
strain peculiar to it.

And who can describe the healing power of music under a master's hand?
Reading the mind and soul as an open book, and informing every tone with
the vibrations of a perfect sympathy born of knowledge, he administers
to the soul whose life has been a tragedy long-drawn-out, such throbbing
waves of strength and consolation, himself remaining hidden, as seem to
issue from the very stars, and drown the memory of that age-long pain in
an ocean of oblivion.

Ah! believe me, it is another world, where the powers of this one do not
rule.

CHAPTER XXVI.

And yet, as I have indicated, it is possible to live so far below one's
moral and spiritual possibilities, that the loss of life will seem the
loss of heaven, and the men of power on earth whom one has envied will
come to seem very gods, worthy of being worshipped. Such a delusion as
this is in part due to the absence of a common time-element.

Duration is measured only by the succession of various states of
consciousness, and these change so rapidly under the influence of the
vibratory intensity of the new life, that the events of a day lengthen
it out until it seems like a year upon earth; and day and night being
one in the Beyond, so far as activity is concerned, although they differ
somewhat in magnetic conditions, when one of these year-long days is
past, the spirit, glancing across into earth-life, at some money king,
with thirty years of active life before him, can scarcely avoid endowing
him with a kind of immortality, and may devote the fiery energies of the
soul to building up the fortunes of such a one, with no higher object
than that of keeping the mental balance and avoiding reflection.

This necessity for keeping the balance supplies motive for a great deal
that is done by spirits in the lower strata of life in the Beyond. It is
not, strictly speaking, mental balance, but organic, affecting the whole
being. A spirit possessed of any conscious individuality whatever must
generate a certain interior force to maintain it. This keeps his body in
a state of equilibrium between the inner and outer pressure, and the
body of a spirit is naturally as valuable to him as ours is to us. It
protects him against currents of thought and emotion that are not
adapted to his needs, and when evenly balanced he is able to put forth
effective will-power along the plane of his development and below.

Any one who has not learned what soul-action is will have it to learn
soon after the exchange of worlds. No other form of activity is possible
there. No spirit strikes another with his hand, nor presents him with a
visible token of wealth, yet battles are fought and presents given. As a
suggestion: when you say to your friend, "Good-bye and good-luck to
you," you are making him a spiritual present, although you may not be
aware of it.

Whenever you launch a curse, if only in thought, you strike a blow,
against which conscious rectitude is an actual armor, and the only one.

The very slightest impulse of ill-will directed toward any one is an
action of the soul that may do real harm, and certainly makes a record.

These statements will commend themselves as true to most of my readers,
many of whom, however, would not be able to explain why they are so sure
of what they have learned from no teacher, and cannot recall from the
pages of experience. Let me suggest.

From six to nine hours' sleep is an essential part of our daily lives.
We suppose ourselves to actually sleep, not only in body but in mind and
soul as well. Perhaps some who have very little mind and even less
spirit, do sleep when their body sleeps, but there are very large
numbers of people who, the moment the brain becomes quiescent, enter at
once on the most active part of their daily existence.

This is especially true of such as during their waking hours have
attained some knowledge of spiritual values, and have taken their stand
on this or that platform of principles, religious, moral, or even
political, and who would be ready to contend in argument, or even, if
necessary, take up arms, in defense of their positions; in other words,
who have a conscious location in some field of thought or fortress of
belief.

The extent to which we influence others, or are influenced by them,
during our sleeping hours, very few realize, because unable to recall,
when waking, the experiences of the night just passed; but be sure that
no reform can ever make much progress until the agitation for it becomes
sufficiently powerful to link the day to the night, and engage the
activities of partially freed spirits while their bodily consciousness
is lost in slumber.

It is here that lessons are learned and impressions made, the recalling
of the results of which may surprise us as to the extent, and puzzle us
as to the origin, of our knowledge.

Readers of Emerson will find this a key to some of his mysterious yet
delightful sayings.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Those who have never entered into any kind of associate life where they
might learn to think and act for others as well as for themselves, will
have a particularly hard time on the other side.

For no one can go through life without becoming responsible for
innumerable acts, even if he does nothing more than make room for
himself, and defend his own footing; and if he persists in living for
himself, it follows that his motives will never rise above the care of
himself, and, possibly, of those who contribute to his comfort.

If such a man, by speculation or otherwise, becomes able to surround
himself with the tokens of wealth, there will not be wanting those who
will bow low to him; and when he is called out of life, with perhaps no
particularly heavy weight on his conscience, he will strut into another
world carrying with him a very large sense of his own importance.

Now, there is no need to enlarge upon the emotions he will arouse, the
intense though secret hilarity with which he will be taken in hand, and
the endless variety of hazing operations to which he will be subjected;
but he will be sure to make the unexpected discovery that death is a
lost friend, long before the last spark of self-conceit is extinguished
within him.

It is scarcely possible to convey an idea of how small a part individual
egotism is allowed to play in the world beyond.

In this world our race, as a race, is under protection. We are all more
or less conscious of this in our own person.

Even the most stolid, when suddenly reduced to the extremity of
distress, find themselves calling upon God, almost without conscious
volition.

If it were not so, if this protection were withdrawn, our race would
shortly cease to be.

In the spirit-world, or in that part of it which adjoins this,
figuratively speaking, which we enter as individuals, this sense of a
general protection disappears. We find we are to stand or fall on our
own individual record. We cannot lose ourselves in the mass. There is no
mass. Time and space no longer exist for us. They are gone with the
bodily senses and mathematical reasoning to which they were a prime
necessity.

Sight, hearing, and touch of the soul have awakened, however, and how to
use these new senses whose field of action is so immensely greater than
the senses we have parted with, engages our attention.

Their first reports are so different from anything we have known that we
discredit them entirely, are sure we must be dreaming, and put forth
strong efforts to wake up. Failing in this, we look about us and
endeavor to get our bearings.

Although time and space have left us, eternity and infinity have taken
their place, and a feeling of awe steals over us at the realization, a
feeling that extends in part to ourselves as we discover a certain
element within us which now for the first time recognizes its home.

Then, in a flash, we perceive as never before, the essential narrowness
of the limits of earth-life, and our mental vision shows us that
whatever may have raised that phase of existence above the merely
sensual or animal, had its home in the Beyond, and was only a visitor on
earth.

We find ourselves ushered into the domain of causes, and a thousand
perplexities of memory disappear in a magical way, as we become sensible
of the tremendous force of the activities at work in this heretofore
hidden realm.

A spirit sometimes finds himself as if on a stage, and the pressure of a
powerful will bids him to act out his own character. He consents, for
why should he not? Scene follows scene; men and women from every walk of
life, those whom he has known, and those of whom he has read, appear and
act their part; kings and courtiers come and go, prophets and peasants,
soldiers and merchants; and he finds some link connecting him with them
all. Perhaps a plot is formed to destroy his reputation; thread by
thread the web is wound about him. How shall he get free? Is it not all
a dream? But he is made to feel that he must not insist upon knowing.
Something like an electric shock answers his thought, and bids him to
consider his surroundings real, whether they are or not, and forbids him
to think of such a thing as applying a test. And, indeed, there is small
leisure for anything of that kind. He finds himself obliged to put forth
energies he never dreamed of possessing, to keep from going distracted.
The stage widens until it becomes the floor of a world. The audience
swells to millions. He reaches out for their sympathy, but they do not
respond. They do not pretend to know whether he is a true man or a
scoundrel. If he cries, "I am true," they answer, "Prove it." What can I
do to prove it? But they turn away unconcerned, while another strand of
falsehood is thrown around him and he is brought to his knees, where he
is made the target for scorn and contempt, which come like arrows to
pierce his form. In the depth of his despair, he sends out a piercing
cry to the spheres above him for help.

Just then he discovers that he is clothed in armor, with a good sword at
his side. He did not know it before, he could not possibly say how or