{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_76854/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_76854","id":"gutenberg_76854","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76854","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Spirit writings","Spiritualism"],"text":"LETTERS FROM A\n LIVING DEAD MAN\n\n\n\n\n _BY ELSA BARKER_\n\n\n WAR LETTERS FROM THE\n LIVING DEAD MAN\n\n LAST LETTERS FROM THE\n LIVING DEAD MAN\n\n SONGS OF A VAGROM ANGEL\n\n\n\n\n LETTERS\n FROM A\n LIVING DEAD MAN\n\n\n WRITTEN DOWN\n BY\n ELSA BARKER\n\n\n _WITH AN INTRODUCTION_\n\n\n\n\n NEW YORK\n E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY\n 681 FIFTH AVENUE\n\n\n\n\n COPYRIGHT, 1914,\n BY MITCHELL KENNERLEY\n\n COPYRIGHT, 1920,\n BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY\n\n _All Rights Reserved_\n\n\n Printed in the United States of America\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nLETTER PAGE\n\n INTRODUCTION 5\n\n I. THE RETURN 15\n\n II. TELL NO MAN 16\n\n III. GUARDING THE DOOR 18\n\n IV. A CLOUD ON THE MIRROR 19\n\n V. THE PROMISE OF THINGS UNTOLD 21\n\n VI. THE WAND OF WILL 22\n\n VII. A LIGHT BEHIND THE VEIL 24\n\n VIII. THE IRON GRIP OF MATTER 26\n\n IX. WHERE SOULS GO UP AND DOWN 28\n\n X. A RENDEZVOUS IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 30\n\n XI. THE BOY--LIONEL 35\n\n XII. THE PATTERN WORLD 40\n\n XIII. FORMS REAL AND UNREAL 44\n\n XIV. A FOLIO OF PARACELSUS 47\n\n XV. A ROMAN TOGA 51\n\n XVI. A THING TO BE FORGOTTEN 56\n\n XVII. THE SECOND WIFE OVER THERE 64\n\n XVIII. INDIVIDUAL HELLS 70\n\n XIX. A LITTLE HOME IN HEAVEN 71\n\n XX. THE MAN WHO FOUND GOD 78\n\n XXI. THE LEISURE OF THE SOUL 84\n\n XXII. THE SERPENT OF ETERNITY 90\n\n XXIII. A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENDANT 97\n\n XXIV. FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE 101\n\n XXV. A SHADOWLESS WORLD 104\n\n XXVI. CIRCLES IN THE SAND 109\n\n XXVII. THE MAGIC RING 115\n\n XXVIII. EXCEPT YE BE AS LITTLE CHILDREN 121\n\n XXIX. AN UNEXPECTED WARNING 126\n\n XXX. THE SYLPH AND THE MAGICIAN 131\n\n XXXI. A PROBLEM IN CELESTIAL MATHEMATICS 139\n\n XXXII. A CHANGE OF FOCUS 147\n\n XXXIII. FIVE RESOLUTIONS 153\n\n XXXIV. THE PASSING OF LIONEL 158\n\n XXXV. THE BEAUTIFUL BEING 167\n\n XXXVI. THE HOLLOW SPHERE 173\n\n XXXVII. AN EMPTY CHINA CUP 179\n\n XXXVIII. WHERE TIME IS NOT 187\n\n XXXIX. THE DOCTRINE OF DEATH 195\n\n XL. THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY 205\n\n XLI. THE DARLING OF THE UNSEEN 210\n\n XLII. A VICTIM OF THE NON-EXISTENT 219\n\n XLIII. A CLOUD OF WITNESSES 228\n\n XLIV. THE KINGDOM WITHIN 235\n\n XLV. THE GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE 237\n\n XLVI. HEIRS OF HERMES 241\n\n XLVII. ONLY A SONG 247\n\n XLVIII. INVISIBLE GIFTS AT YULETIDE 250\n\n XLIX. THE GREATER DREAMLAND 258\n\n L. A SERMON AND A PROMISE 265\n\n LI. THE APRIL OF THE WORLD 273\n\n LII. A HAPPY WIDOWER 276\n\n LIII. THE ARCHIVES OF THE SOUL 284\n\n LIV. A FORMULA FOR MASTERSHIP 288\n\n\n\n\n INTRODUCTION\n\n\nONE night last year in Paris I was strongly impelled to take up a\npencil and write, though what I was to write about I had no idea.\nYielding to the impulse, my hand was seized as if from the outside,\nand a remarkable message of a personal nature came, followed by the\nsignature \u201cX.\u201d\n\nThe purport of the message was clear, but the signature puzzled me.\n\nThe following day I showed this writing to a friend, asking her if she\nhad any idea who \u201cX\u201d was.\n\n\u201cWhy,\u201d she replied, \u201cdon\u2019t you know that that is what we always call\nMr. ----?\u201d\n\nI did not know.\n\nNow, Mr. ---- was six thousand miles from Paris, and, as we supposed,\nin the land of the living. But a day or two later a letter came to me\nfrom America, stating that Mr. ---- had died in the western part of\nthe United States, a few days before I received in Paris the automatic\nmessage signed \u201cX.\u201d\n\nSo far as I know, I was the first person in Europe to be informed of\nhis death, and I immediately called on my friend to tell her that \u201cX\u201d\nhad passed out. She did not seem surprised, and told me that she had\nfelt certain of it some days before, when I had shown her the \u201cX\u201d\nletter, though she had not said so at the time.\n\nNaturally I was impressed by this extraordinary incident.\n\n\u201cX\u201d was not a spiritualist. I am not myself, and never have been, a\nspiritualist, and, so far as I can remember, only two other supposedly\ndisembodied entities had ever before written automatically through my\nhand. This had happened when I was in the presence of a mediumistic\nperson; but the messages were brief, and I had not attached any great\nimportance to the phenomena.\n\nIn childhood I had several times put my hand upon a planchette with\nthe hand of another person, and the planchette had written the usual\ntrivialities. On one occasion, some months before the first \u201cX\u201d letter,\nI had put my hand upon a planchette with the hand of a non-professional\nmedium, and the prophecy of a fire in my house during a certain month\nin the following year was written, supposedly by a dead friend, which\nprophecy was literally verified, though the fire was not caused by my\nhand, nor was it in my own apartment.\n\nA few times, years before, I had been persuaded by friends to go with\nthem to professional s\u00e9ances, and had seen so-called materialisations.\nI had also seen independently a few appearances which I could not\naccount for on any other hypothesis than that of apparitions of the\ndead.\n\nBut to the whole subject of communication between the two worlds I felt\nan unusual degree of indifference. Spiritualism had always left me\nquite cold, and I had not even read the ordinary standard works on the\nsubject.\n\nNevertheless, I had for a number of years almost daily seen \u201chypnagogic\nvisions,\u201d often of a startlingly prophetic character; and the\nexplanation of them later given by \u201cX\u201d may be the true explanation.\n\nSoon after my receipt of the letter from America stating that Mr. ----\nwas dead, I was sitting in the evening with the friend who had told me\nwho \u201cX\u201d was, and she asked me if I would not let him write again--if he\ncould.\n\nI consented, more to please my friend than from any personal interest,\nand the message beginning, \u201cI am here, make no mistake,\u201d came through\nmy hand. It came with breaks and pauses between the sentences, with\nlarge and badly formed letters, but quite automatically, as in the\nfirst instance. The force used on this occasion was such that my right\nhand and arm were lame the following day.\n\nSeveral letters signed \u201cX\u201d were automatically written during the next\nfew weeks; but, instead of becoming enthusiastic, I developed a strong\ndisinclination for this manner of writing, and was only persuaded to\ncontinue it through the arguments of my friend that if \u201cX\u201d really\nwished to communicate with the world, I was highly privileged in being\nable to help him.\n\n\u201cX\u201d was not an ordinary person. He was a well-known lawyer nearly\nseventy years of age, a profound student of philosophy, a writer of\nbooks, a man whose pure ideals and enthusiasms were an inspiration to\neveryone who knew him. His home was far from mine, and I had seen him\nonly at long intervals. So far as I remember, we had never discussed\nthe question of postmortem consciousness.\n\nGradually, as I conquered my strong prejudice against automatic\nwriting, I became interested in the things which \u201cX\u201d told me about\nthe life beyond the grave. I had read practically nothing on the\nsubject, not even the popular _Letters from Julia_, so I had no\npreconceived ideas.\n\nThe messages continued to come. After a while there was no more\nlameness of the hand and arm, and the form of the writing became less\nirregular, though it was never very legible.\n\nFor a time the letters were written in the presence of my friend; then\n\u201cX\u201d began to come always when I was alone. He wrote either in Paris or\nin London, as I went back and forth between those two cities. Sometimes\nhe would come several times a week; again, nearly a month would elapse\nwithout my feeling his presence. I never called him, nor did I think\nmuch about him between his visits. During most of the time my pen and\nmy thoughts were occupied with other matters.\n\nOnly in one instance before the writing began had I any idea as to what\nthe letter would contain. One night as I took up the pencil I knew what\n\u201cX\u201d was going to write about; but, though I remember the incident, I\nhave forgotten to which message it referred.\n\nWhile writing these letters I was generally in a state of\nsemi-consciousness, so that, until I read the message over afterwards,\nI had only a vague idea of what it contained. In a few instances I was\nso near unconsciousness that as I laid down the pencil I had not the\nremotest idea of what I had written; but this did not often happen.\n\nWhen it was first suggested that these letters should be published\nwith an introduction by me, I did not take very enthusiastically to\nthe idea. Being the author of several books, more or less well known,\nI had my little vanity as to the stability of my literary reputation.\nI did not wish to be known as an eccentric, a \u201cfreak.\u201d But I consented\nto write an introduction stating that the letters were automatically\nwritten in my presence, which would have been the truth, though not all\nthe truth. This satisfied my friend; but as time went on, it did not\nsatisfy me. It seemed not quite sincere.\n\nI argued the matter out with myself. If, I said, I publish these\nletters without a personal introduction, they will be taken for a\nwork of fiction, of imagination, and the remarkable statements they\ncontain will thus lose all their force as convincing arguments for the\ntruth of a hereafter. If I write an introduction stating that they\ncame by supposedly automatic writing in my presence, the question\nwill naturally arise as to whose hand they came through, and I shall\nbe forced to evasion. But if I frankly acknowledge that they came\nthrough my own hand, and state the facts exactly as they are only two\nhypotheses will be open: first, that they are genuine communications\nfrom the disembodied entity; second, that they are lucubrations of my\nown subconscious mind. But this latter hypothesis does not explain the\nfirst letter signed \u201cX,\u201d which came before I knew that my friend was\ndead; does not explain it unless it be assumed that the subconscious\nmind of each person knows everything. In which case, why should my\nsubconscious mind set out upon a long and laborious deception of me, on\na premise which had _not been suggested to it_ by my own objective\nmind, or that of any other person?\n\nThat anyone would accuse me of deliberate deceit and romancing in so\nserious a matter did not then and does not now seem likely, my fancy\nhaving other and legitimate outlets in poetry and fiction.\n\nThe letters were probably two-thirds written before this question was\nfinally settled; and I decided that if I published the letters at all,\nI should publish them with a frank introduction, stating the exact\ncircumstances of their reception by me.\n\nThe actual writing covered a period of more than eleven months. Then\ncame the question of editing. What should I leave out? What should I\ninclude? I determined to leave out nothing except personal references\nto \u201cX\u2019s\u201d private affairs, to mine, and to those of his friends. I have\nnot added anything. Occasionally, when \u201cX\u2019s\u201d literary style was clumsy,\nI have reconstructed a sentence or cut out a repetition; but I have\ntaken far less liberty than I used, as an editor, to take with ordinary\nmanuscripts submitted to me for correction.\n\nSometimes \u201cX\u201d is very colloquial, sometimes he uses legal phraseology,\nor American slang. Often he jumps from one subject to another, as one\ndoes in friendly correspondence, going back to his original subject\nwithout a connecting phrase.\n\nHe has made a few statements relative to the future life which are\ndirectly contrary to the opinions which I have always held. These\nstatements remain as they were written. Many of his philosophical\npropositions were quite new to me. Sometimes I did not see their\nprofundity until months afterwards.\n\nI have no apology to offer for the publication of these letters. They\nare probably an interesting document, whatever their source may be, and\nI give them to the world with no more fear than when I gave my hand to\n\u201cX\u201d in the writing of them.\n\nIf anyone asks the question, what do I myself think as to whether these\nletters are genuine communications from the invisible world, I should\nanswer that I believe they are. In the personal and suppressed portions\nreference was often made to past events and to possessions of which\nI had no knowledge, and these references were verified. This leaves\nuntouched the favourite telepathic theory of the psychologists. But if\nthese letters were telepathed to me, by whom were they telepathed? Not\nby my friend who was present at the writing of many of them, for their\ncontents were as much a surprise to her as to me.\n\nI wish, however, to state that I make no scientific claims about this\nbook, for science demands tests and proofs. Save for the first letter\nsigned \u201cX\u201d before I knew that Mr. ---- was dead, or knew who \u201cX\u201d was,\nthe book was not written under \u201ctest conditions,\u201d as the psychologists\nunderstand the term. As evidence of a soul\u2019s survival after bodily\ndeath, it must be accepted or rejected by each individual according\nto his or her temperament, experience, and inner conviction as to the\ntruth of its contents.\n\nIn the absence of \u201cX\u201d and without some other entity on the invisible\nside of Nature in whom I had a like degree of confidence, I could\nnot produce another document of this kind. Against indiscriminate\nmediumship I have still a strong and ineradicable prejudice, for I\nrecognise its dangers both of obsession and deception. But for my faith\nin \u201cX\u201d and the faith of my Paris friend in me, this book could never\nhave been. Doubt of the invisible author or of the visible medium would\nprobably have paralysed both, for the purposes of this writing.\n\nThe effect of these letters on me personally has been to remove\nentirely any fear of death which I may ever have had, to strengthen my\nbelief in immortality, to make the life beyond the grave as real and\nvital as the life here in the sunshine. If they can give even to one\nother person the sense of exultant immortality which they have given to\nme, I shall feel repaid for my labour.\n\nTo those who may feel inclined to blame me for publishing such a book I\ncan only say that I have always tried to give my best to the world, and\nperhaps these letters are one of the best things that I have to give.\n\n ELSA BARKER.\n\nLONDON, 1913.\n\n\n\n\n LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN\n\n\n\n\n LETTER I\n\n THE RETURN\n\n\nI AM here, make no mistake.\n\nIt was I who spoke before, and I now speak again.\n\nI have had a wonderful experience. Much that I had forgotten I can now\nremember. What has happened was for the best; it was inevitable.\n\nI can see you, though not very distinctly.\n\nI found almost no darkness. The light here is wonderful, far more\nwonderful than the sunlight of the South.\n\nNo, I cannot yet see my way very well around Paris; everything is\ndifferent. It is probably by reason of your own vitality that I am able\nto see you at this moment.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER II\n\n TELL NO MAN\n\n\nI AM opposite to you now in actual space; that is, I am directly in\nfront of you, resting on something which is probably a couch or divan.\n\nIt is easier to come to you after dark.\n\nI remembered on going out that you might be able to let me speak\nthrough your hand.\n\nI am already stronger. It is nothing to fear--this change of condition.\n\nI cannot tell you yet how long I was silent. It did not seem long.\n\nIt was I who signed \u201cX.\u201d The Teacher helped me to make the connexion.\n\nYou had better tell no one for a while, except ----, that I have come,\nas I do not want any obstructions to my coming when and where I will.\nLend me your hand sometimes; I will not misuse it.\n\nI am going to stay out here until I am ready to come back with power.\nWatch for me, but not yet.\n\nThings seem easier to me now than they have seemed for a long time. I\ncarry less weight. I could have held on longer in the body, but it did\nnot seem worth the effort.\n\nI have seen the Teacher. He is near. His attitude to me is very\ncomforting.\n\nBut I would like to go now. Good night.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER III\n\n GUARDING THE DOOR\n\n\nYOU need to take certain precautions to protect yourself against those\nwho press round me.\n\nYou have only to lay a spell upon yourself night and morning. Nothing\ncan get through that wall--nothing which you forbid your soul to\nentertain.\n\nDo not let any of your energy be sucked out of you by these larv\u00e6 of\nthe astral world. No, they cannot annoy me, for I am now used to the\nidea of them. You have absolutely nothing to fear, if you protect\nyourself.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER IV\n\n A CLOUD ON THE MIRROR\n\n(_After a sentence had been half written, the writing suddenly\nstopped, and was continued later._)\n\n\nWHEN you respond to my call, wipe clean your mind as a child wipes\nits slate when ready for a new maxim or example by its teacher. Your\nlightest personal thought or fancy may be as a cloud upon a mirror,\nblurring the reflection.\n\nYou can receive letters by this means, provided your mind does not\nbegin to work independently, to question in the midst of the writing.\n\nI was not stopped this time, as before, by beings gathering round;\nbut by your own curiosity as to the end of an unusual sentence. You\nsuddenly became positive instead of negative, as if the receiving\ninstrument in a telegraph office should begin to send a message of its\nown.\n\nI have learned here the reason for many psychic things which formerly\npuzzled me, and I am determined if possible to protect you from the\ndanger of cross-currents in this work.\n\n\nThere was one night when I called and you would not let me in. Was that\nkind?\n\nBut I am not reproaching you. I shall come again and again, until my\nwork is done.\n\nI will come to you in a dream before long, and will show you many\nthings.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER V\n\n THE PROMISE OF THINGS UNTOLD\n\n\nAFTER a time I will share with you certain knowledge that I have gained\nsince coming out. I see the past now as through an open window. I see\nthe road by which I have come, and can map out the road by which I mean\nto go.\n\nEverything seems easy now. I could do twice as much work as I do--I\nfeel so strong.\n\nAs yet I have not settled down anywhere, but am moving about as the\nfancy takes me; that is what I always dreamed of doing while in the\nbody, and never could make possible.\n\nDo not fear death; but stay on earth as long as you can.\nNotwithstanding the companionship I have here, I sometimes regret my\nfailure in holding on to the world. But regrets have less weight on\nthis side--like our bodies.\n\nEverything is well with me.\n\nI will tell you things that have never been told.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER VI\n\n THE WAND OF WILL\n\n\nNOT yet do you grasp the full mystery of _will_. It can make of\nyou anything you choose, within the limit of your unit energy, for\neverything is either active or potential in the unit of force which is\nman.\n\nThe difference between a painter and a musician, or between a poet and\na novelist, is not a difference of qualities in the entity itself; for\neach unit contains everything _except quantity_, and thus has the\npossibilities of development along any line chosen by its will. The\nchoice may have been made ages ago. It takes a long time, often many\nlives, to evolve an art or a faculty for one particular kind of work in\npreference to all others. Concentration is the secret of power, here as\nelsewhere.\n\nAs to the use of will-power in your present everyday problems, there\nare two ways of using the will. One may concentrate upon a definite\nplan, and bring it into effect or not according to the amount of force\nat one\u2019s disposal; or one may will that the best and highest and\nwisest plan possible shall be demonstrated by the subconscious forces\nin the self and in other selves. The latter is a commanding of all\nenvironment for a special purpose, instead of commanding, or attempting\nto command, a fragment of it.\n\n\nIn this communion between the outer and inner worlds, you in the outer\nworld are apt to think that we in ours know everything. You expect us\nto prophesy like fortune-tellers, and to keep you informed of what is\npassing on the other side of the globe. Sometimes we can; generally we\ncannot.\n\nAfter a while I may be able to enter your mind as a Master does, and\nto know all the antecedent thoughts and plans in it; but now I cannot\nalways do so.\n\nFor instance, one night I looked everywhere for ---- and could not find\nhim. Perhaps it is necessary for you to think strongly of us, to make\nthe way easiest.\n\nI am learning all the time. The Teacher is very active in helping me.\n\nWhen I am absolutely certain of my hold upon your hand, I shall have\nmuch to say about the life out here.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER VII\n\n A LIGHT BEHIND THE VEIL\n\n\nMAKE an opening for me sometimes in the veil of dense matter that shuts\nyou from my eyes. I see you often as a spot of vivid light, and that is\nprobably when your soul is active with feeling or your mind keen with\nthought.\n\nI can read your thoughts occasionally, but not always. Often I try to\ndraw near, and cannot find you. You could not always find me, perhaps,\nshould you come out here.\n\nSometimes I am all alone: sometimes I am with others.\n\nStrange, but I seem to myself to have quite a substantial body now,\nthough at first my arms and legs seemed sprawling in all directions.\n\nAs a rule, I do not walk about as formerly, nor do I fly exactly, for\nI have never had wings; but I manage to get over space with incredible\nrapidity. Sometimes, though, I walk.\n\nNow, I want you to do me a favour. You know what a difficult job I\noften had to keep things going, yet I kept them going. Don\u2019t you get\ndiscouraged about the material wherewithal for your work. Work right\nahead, as if the supply were there, and it will be there. You can\ndemonstrate it in one way or another. Do not feel weak or uncertain,\nfor when you do you drag me back to earth by force of sympathy. It is\nas bad as grieving for the dead.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER VIII\n\n THE IRON GRIP OF MATTER\n\n\nTO a man dwelling in the \u201cinvisible\u201d there comes a sudden memory of\nearth.\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d he says. \u201cThe world is going on without me. What am I missing?\u201d\n\nIt seems almost an impertinence on the part of the world to go on\nwithout him. He becomes agitated. He is sure that he is behind the\ntimes, left out, left over.\n\nHe looks about him, and sees only the tranquil fields of the fourth\ndimension. Oh, for the iron grip of matter once more! To hold something\nin taut hands!\n\nPerhaps the mood passes, but one day it returns with redoubled force.\nHe must get out of the tenuous environment into the forcibly resistant\nworld of dense matter. But how?\n\nAh, he remembers! All action comes from memory. It would be a reckless\nexperiment had he not done it before.\n\nHe closes his eyes, reversing himself in the invisible. He is drawn to\nhuman life, to human beings in the intense vibration of union. There\nis sympathy here--perhaps the sympathy of past experience with the\nsouls of those whom he now contacts, perhaps only sympathy of mood or\nimagination. Be that as it may, he lets go his hold upon freedom and\ntriumphantly loses himself in the lives of human beings.\n\nAfter a time he awakes, to look with bewildered eyes upon green fields\nand the round, solid faces of men and women. Sometimes he weeps, and\nwishes himself back. If he becomes discouraged, he may return--only to\nbegin the weary quest of matter all over again.\n\nIf he is strong and stubborn, he remains and grows into a man. He may\neven persuade himself that the former life in tenuous substance was\nonly a dream, for in dream he returns to it, and the dream haunts him\nand spoils his enjoyment of matter.\n\nAfter years enough he grows weary of the material struggle: his energy\nis exhausted. He sinks back into the arms of the unseen, and men say\nagain with bated breath that he is dead.\n\nBut he is not dead. He has only returned whence he came.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER IX\n\n WHERE SOULS GO UP AND DOWN\n\n\nMY friend, there is nothing to fear in death. It is no harder than a\ntrip to a foreign country--the first trip--to one who has grown oldish\nand settled in the habits of his own more or less narrow corner of the\nworld.\n\nWhen a man comes out here, the strangers whom he meets seem no more\nstrange than the foreign peoples seem to one who first goes among them.\nHe does not always understand them; there, again, his experience is\nlike a sojourn in a foreign country. Then, after a while, he begins to\nmake friendly advances and to smile with the eyes. The question, \u201cWhere\nare you from?\u201d meets with a similar response to that on earth. One is\nfrom California, another is from Boston, another is from London. This\nis when we meet on the highroads of travel; for there are lanes of\ntravel over here, where the souls go up and down as on the earth. Such\na road is generally the most direct line between two great centres;\nbut it is never on the line of a railway. There would be too much\nnoise. We can hear sounds made on the earth. There is a certain shock\nto the etheric ear which carries the vibration of sound to us.\n\nSometimes one settles down for a long time in one place. I visited an\nold home in the State of Maine, where a man on this side of life had\nbeen stopping for I do not know how many years; he told me that the\nchildren had grown to be men and women, and that a colt to which he\nbecame attached when he first came out had grown into a horse and had\ndied of old age.\n\nThere are sluggards and dull people here, as with you. There are also\nbrilliant and magnetic people, whose very presence is rejuvenating.\n\nIt seems almost absurd to say that we wear clothes, the same as you do;\nbut we do not seem to need so many. I have not seen any trunks; but\nthen I have been here only a short time.\n\nHeat and cold do not matter much to me now, though I remember at first\nbeing rather uncomfortable by reason of the cold. But that is past.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER X\n\n A RENDEZVOUS IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION\n\n\nYOU can do so much for me by lending me your hand occasionally, that I\nwonder why you shrink from it.\n\nThis philosophy will go on being taught in the world and all over the\nworld. Only a few, perhaps, will reach the deeps of it in this life;\nbut a seed sown to-day may bear fruit long hence. Somewhere I have read\nthat grains of wheat which had been buried with mummies for two or\nthree thousand years had sprouted when placed in good soil in our own\nday. It is so with a philosophic seed.\n\nIt has been said that he is a fool who works for philosophy instead of\nmaking philosophy work for him; but a man cannot give to the world even\na little of a true philosophy without reaping sevenfold himself, and\nyou know the Biblical quotation which ends, \u201cand in the world to come\neternal life.\u201d To get, one must give. That is the Law.\n\nI can tell you many things about the life out here which may be of\nuse to others when they make the great change. Almost everyone brings\nmemory over with him. The men and women I have met and communed with\nhave had more or less vivid recollection of their earth life--that is,\nmost of them.\n\nI met one man who refused to speak of the earth, and was always talking\nabout \u201cgoing on.\u201d I reminded him that if he went on far enough he would\ncome back to the place from which he started.\n\nYou have been curious, perhaps, as to what we eat and drink, if\nanything. We certainly are nourished, and we seem to absorb much water.\nYou also should drink plenty of water. It feeds the astral body. I do\nnot think that a very dry body would ever have enough astral vitality\nto lend a hand to a soul on this plane of life, as you are doing now.\nThere is much moisture in our bodies over here. Perhaps that is one\nreason why contact with a so-called spirit sometimes gives warm-blooded\npersons a sense of cold, and they shiver.\n\nIt is something of an effort on my part also to write like this, but it\nseems to be worth while.\n\nI come to the place where I feel that you are. I can see you better\nthan most others. Then I reverse; that is, instead of going in, as I\nused to do, I go out with great force and in your direction. I take\npossession of you by a strong propulsive effort.\n\nSometimes the writing has stopped suddenly in the midst of a sentence.\nThat was when I was not properly focussed. You may have noticed when\nreversing and shutting away the outside world, that a sudden noise, or\nmaybe a wandering thought, would bring you right out again. It is so\nhere.\n\nNow, about this element in which we live. It undoubtedly has a place\nin space, for it is all around the earth. Yes, every tree visible has\nits invisible counterpart. When you, before sleep, come out consciously\ninto this world,[1] you see things that exist, or have existed, in\nthe material world also. You cannot see anything in this world which\nhas not a physical counterpart in the other. There are, of course,\nthought-pictures, imaginary pictures; but to see imaginatively is\nnot to see on the astral plane--not by any means. The things you see\nbefore going to sleep have real existence, and by changing your rate of\nvibration you come out into this world--or rather you go back into it,\nfor you have to go in, in order to come out.\n\nImagination has great power. If you make a picture in the mind, the\nvibrations of the body may adjust to it if the will is directed that\nway, as in thoughts of health or sickness.\n\nIt might be well as an experiment, when you want to come out here, to\nchoose a certain symbol and hold it before your eyes. I do not say that\nit would help to change the vibration, but it might.\n\nI wonder if you could see me if just before falling asleep you should\ncome out here with that thought and that desire dominant in your mind?\n\nI am strong to-day, because I have been long with one who is stronger;\nand if you want to make the experiment of trying to find me this night,\nI may be able to help you better than at another time.\n\nThere is so much to say, and I can seldom talk with you. If you were\ndifferently situated and quite free from other things, I could perhaps\ncome often. I am learning much that I should like to give you.\n\nFor instance, I think I can show you how to come out here at will, as\nthe Masters do constantly.\n\nAt first I took only your arm to write with, but now I get a better\nhold of the psychic organisation. I saw that I was not working in the\nbest way, that there was a waste somewhere, so I asked the Teacher for\ninstruction in the matter. By this new method you will not feel so\ntired afterwards, nor shall I.\n\nI am going now, and will try to meet you in a few minutes. If the\nexperiment should fail, do not be discouraged; but try again some other\ntime. You will know me all right, if you do see me.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: This undoubtedly refers to my \u201chypnagogic\u201d\nvisions.--ED.]\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XI\n\n THE BOY--LIONEL\n\n\nYOU will be interested to know that there are people out here, as on\nthe earth, who devote themselves to the welfare of others.\n\nThere is even a large organisation of souls who call themselves a\nLeague. Their special work is to take hold of those who have just\ncome out, helping them to find themselves and to adjust to the new\nconditions. There are both men and women in this League. They have done\ngood service. They work on a little--I do not want to say higher plane\nthan the Salvation Army, but rather a more intellectual plane. They\nhelp both children and adults.\n\nIt is interesting about the children. I have not had time yet to\nobserve all these things for myself; but one of the League workers\ntells me that it is easier for children to adjust themselves to the\nchanged life than it is for grown persons. Very old people are inclined\nto sleep a good deal, while children come out with great energy, and\nbring with them the same curiosity that they had in earth life. There\nare no violent changes. The little ones grow up, it is said, about as\ngradually and imperceptibly as they would have grown on earth. The\ntendency is to fulfil the normal rhythm, though there are instances\nwhere the soul goes back very soon, with little rest. That would be a\nsoul with great curiosity and strong desires.\n\nThere are horrors out here--far worse than the horrors on earth. The\ndecay from vice and intemperance is much worse here than there. I have\nseen faces and forms that were really frightful, faces that seemed to\nbe half-decayed and falling in pieces. These are the hopeless cases,\nwhich even the League of workers I spoke about leave to their fate. It\nis uncertain what the fate of such people will be; whether they will\nreincarnate or not in this cycle, I do not know.\n\nThe children are so charming! One young boy is with me often; he calls\nme Father, and seems to enjoy my society. He would be, I should think,\nabout thirteen years old, and he has been out here some time. He could\nnot tell me just how long; but I will ask him if he remembers the year,\nthe calendar year, in which he came out.\n\nIt is not true that we cannot keep our thoughts to ourselves if we are\ncareful to do so. We can guard our secrets, if we know how. That is\ndone by suggestion, or laying a spell. It is, though, much easier here\nthan on earth to read the minds of others.\n\nWe seem to communicate with one another in about the same way that\nyou do; but I find, as time goes by, that I converse more and more by\npowerful and projected thought than by the moving of the lips. At first\nI always opened my mouth when I had anything to say; it is easier now\nnot to do so, though I sometimes do it still by force of habit. When\na man has recently come out he does not understand another unless he\nreally speaks; that is, I suppose, before he has learned that he also\ncan talk without using much breath.\n\nBut I was telling you about the boy. He is all interest in regard to\ncertain things I have told him about the earth,--especially aeroplanes,\nwhich were not yet very practicable when he came out. He wants to go\nback and fly in an aeroplane. I tell him that he can fly here without\none, but that does not seem to be the same thing to him. He wants to\nget his fingers on machinery.\n\nI advise him not to be in any hurry about going back. The curious thing\nabout it is that he can remember other and former lives of his on\nearth. Many out here have no more memory of their former lives, before\nthe last one, than they had while in the body. This is not a place\nwhere everyone knows everything--far from it. Most souls are nearly as\nblind as they were in life.\n\nThe boy was an inventor in a prior incarnation, and he came out this\ntime by an accident, he says. He should stay here a little longer, I\nthink, to get a stronger rhythm for a return. That is only my idea. I\nam so interested in the boy that I should like to keep him, and perhaps\nthat influences my judgment somewhat.\n\nYou see, we are still human.\n\nYou asked me some questions, did you not? Will you speak them aloud? I\ncan hear.\n\n\nYes, I feel considerably younger than I have felt for a long time, and\nI am well. At first I felt about as I did in my illness, with times\nof depression and times of freedom from depression; but now I am all\nright. My body does not give me much trouble.\n\nI believe that old people grow younger here until they reach their\nprime again, and that then they may hold that for a long time.\n\nYou see, I have not become all-wise. I have been able to pick up a\ngood deal of knowledge which I had forgotten; but about all the details\nof this life I still have much to learn.\n\nYour curiosity will help me to study conditions and to make inquiries,\nwhich otherwise I might not have made for a long time, if ever. Most\npeople do not seem to learn much out here, except that naturally they\nlearn the best and easiest way of getting on, as in earth life.\n\nYes, there are schools here where any who wish for instruction can\nreceive it--if they are fit. But there are only a few _great_\nteachers. The average college professor is not a being of supreme\nwisdom, whether here or there.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XII\n\n THE PATTERN WORLD\n\n\nTHERE is something I want to qualify in what I said the other day, that\nthere is nothing out here which has not existed on the earth. Since\nthen I have learned that that statement is not exactly true. There are\nstrata here. This I have learned recently. I still believe that in\nthe lowest stratum next the earth all or nearly all that exists has\nexisted on earth in dense matter. Go a little farther up, a little\nfarther away--how far I cannot say by actual measurement; but the other\nnight in exploring I got into the world of patterns, the paradigms--if\nthat is the word--of things which _are to be_ on earth. I saw\nforms of things which, so far as I know, have not existed on your\nplanet--inventions, for example. I saw wings that man could adjust to\nhimself. I saw also new forms of flying-machines. I saw model cities,\nand towers with strange wing-like projections on them, of which I\ncould not imagine the use. The progress of mechanical invention is\nevidently only begun.\n\nAnother time I will go on, farther up in that world of pattern forms,\nand see if I can learn what lies beyond it.\n\nBear this in mind: I merely tell you stories, as an earthly traveller\nwould tell, of the things I see. Sometimes my interpretation of them\nmay be wrong.\n\nWhen I was in the place which we will call the pattern world, I saw\nalmost nobody there--only an occasional lone voyager like myself. I\nnaturally infer from this that but few of those who leave the earth go\nup there at all. I think from what I have seen, and from conversations\nI have had with men and women souls, that most of them do not get very\nfar from the earth, even out here.\n\nIt is strange, but many persons seem to be in the regular orthodox\nheaven, singing in white robes, with crowns on their heads and with\nharps in their hands. There is a region which outsiders call \u201cthe\nheaven country.\u201d\n\nThere is also, they tell me, a fiery hell, with at least the smell\nof brimstone; but so far I have not been there. Some day when I feel\nstrong I will look in, and if it is not too depressing I will go\nfarther--if they will let me.\n\nFor the present I am looking about here and there, and I have not\nstudied carefully any place as yet.\n\nI took the boy, whose name by the way is Lionel, out with me yesterday.\nPerhaps we ought to say last night, for your day is our night when we\nare on your side of this great hollow sphere. You and the solid earth\nare in the centre of our sphere.\n\nI took the boy out with me for what you would call a walk.\n\nFirst we went to the old quarter of Paris, where I used to live in a\nformer life; but Lionel could not see anything, and when I pointed\nout certain buildings to him he asked me quite sincerely if I were\ndreaming. I must have some faculty which is not generally developed\namong my fellow citizens in the astral country. So when the boy found\nthat Paris was only a figment of my imagination--he used to live in\nBoston--I took him to see heaven. He remarked:\n\n\u201cWhy, this must be the place my grandmother used to tell me about. But\nwhere is God?\u201d\n\nThat I could not tell him; but, on looking again, we saw that nearly\neverybody was gazing in one direction. We also gazed with the others,\nand saw a great light, like a sun, only it was softer and less dazzling\nthan the material sun.\n\n\u201cThat,\u201d I said to the boy, \u201cis what they see who see God.\u201d\n\nAnd now I have something strange to tell you; for, as we gazed at that\nlight, slowly there took form between us and it the figure which we are\naccustomed to see represented as that of the Christ. He smiled at the\npeople and stretched out His hands to them.\n\nThen the scene changed, and He had on His left arm a lamb; and then\nagain He stood as if transfigured upon a mountain; then He spoke and\ntaught them. We could hear His voice. And then He vanished from our\nsight.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XIII\n\n FORMS REAL AND UNREAL\n\n\nWHEN I first came out here I was so interested in what I saw\nthat I did not question much as to the manner of the seeing. But\nlately--especially since writing the last letter or two--I have begun\nto notice a difference between objects that at a superficial glance\nseem to be of much the same substance. For example, I can sometimes\nsee a difference between those things which have existed on earth\nunquestionably, such as the forms of men and women, and other things\nwhich, while visualised and seemingly palpable, may be, and probably\nare, but thought-creations.\n\nThis idea came to me while looking on at the dramas of the heaven\ncountry, and it was forced upon me with greater power while making\nother and recent explorations in that which I have called the pattern\nworld.\n\nLater I may be able to distinguish at a glance between these two\nclasses of seeming objects. For example, if I encounter here a\nbeing, or what seems a being, and if I am told that it is some\nfamous character in fiction, such as Jean Valjean in Hugo\u2019s _Les\nMis\u00e9rables_, I shall have reason to believe that I have seen a\nthought-form of sufficient vitality to stand alone, as a quasi-entity\nin this world of tenuous matter. So far I have not encountered any such\ncharacters.\n\nOf course, unless I were able to hold converse with a being, a form, or\nsaw others do so, I could not positively state that it had an essential\nexistence. Hereafter I shall often put things to the test in this\nway. If I can talk to a seeming entity, and if it can answer me, I am\njustified in considering it as a reality. A character in fiction, or\nany other mental creation, however vivid as a picture, would have no\nsoul, no unit of force, no real self. Whatever comes to me merely as a\npicture I shall try to submit to this test.\n\nIf I see a peculiar form of tree or animal, and can touch and feel\nit,--for the senses here are quite as acute as those of earth,--I know\nthat it exists in the subtle matter of this plane.\n\nI believe that all the beings whom I have seen here are real; but if I\ncan find one that is not,--a being which I cannot feel when I touch it\nand which cannot respond to my questions,--I shall have a datum for my\nhypothesis that thought-forms of beings, as well as things, may have\nsufficient cohesion to seem real.\n\nIt is undoubtedly true that there is no spirit without substance, no\nsubstance without spirit, latent or expressed; but a painting of a man\nmay seem at a distance to be a man.\n\nCan there exist deliberate thought-creations here, deliberate and\npurposive creations? I believe so. Such a thought-form would probably\nhave to be very intense in order to persist.\n\nIt seems to me that I had better settle this question to my own\nsatisfaction before talking any more about it.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XIV\n\n A FOLIO OF PARACELSUS\n\n\nTHE other day I asked my Teacher to show me the archives in which\nthose who had lived out here had recorded their observations, if such\nexisted. He said:\n\n\u201cYou were a great reader of books when you were on the earth. Come.\u201d\n\nWe entered a vast building like a library, and I caught my breath in\nwonder. It was not the architecture of the building which struck me,\nbut the quantities of books and records. There must have been millions\nof them.\n\nI asked the Teacher if all the books were here. He smiled and said:\n\n\u201cAre there not enough? You can make your choice.\u201d\n\nI asked if the volumes were arranged by subjects.\n\n\u201cThere is an arrangement,\u201d he answered. \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d\n\nI said that I should like to see the books in which were written the\naccounts of explorations which other men had made in this (to me) still\nslightly known country.\n\nHe smiled again, and took from a shelf a thick volume. It was printed\nin large black type.[2]\n\n\n\u201cWho wrote this book?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cThere is a signature,\u201d he replied.\n\nI looked at the end and saw the signature: it was that used by\nParacelsus.\n\n\u201cWhen did he write this?\u201d\n\n\u201cSoon after he came out. It was written between his Paracelsus life and\nhis next one on earth.\u201d\n\nThe book which I had opened was a treatise on spirits, human, angelic,\nand elemental. It began with the definition of a human spirit as a\nspirit which had had the experience of life in human form; and it\ndefined an elemental spirit as a spirit of more or less developed\nself-consciousness which had not yet had that experience.\n\nThen the author defined an angel as a spirit of a high order which had\nnot had, and probably would not have in future, such experience in\nmatter.\n\nHe went on to state that angelic spirits were divided into two sharply\ndefined groups, the celestial and the infernal, the former being\nthose angels who worked towards harmony with the laws of God, the\nlatter being those angels who worked against that harmony. But he said\nthat both these orders of angels were necessary, each to the other\u2019s\nexistence; that if all were good the universe would cease to be; that\ngood itself would cease to be through the failure of its opposite--evil.\n\nHe said that in the archives of the angelic regions there were cases\non record where a good angel had become bad or a bad angel had become\ngood, but that such cases were of rare occurrence.\n\nHe then went on to warn his fellow souls who should be sojourning in\nthat realm in which he then wrote, and in which I knew myself also to\nbe, against holding communion with evil spirits. He declared that in\nthe subtler forms of life there were more temptations than in the earth\nlife; that he himself had often been assailed by malignant angels who\nhad urged him to join forces with them, and that their arguments were\nsometimes extremely plausible.\n\nHe said that while living on earth he had often had conversations with\nspirits both good and bad; but that while on earth he had never, so\nfar as he knew, held converse with an angel of a malignant nature.\n\nHe advised his readers that there was one way to determine whether\na being of the subtler world was an angel or merely a human or an\nelemental spirit, and that was by the greater brilliancy of the light\nwhich surrounded an angel. He said that both good and bad angels were\nextremely brilliant; but that there was a difference between them,\nperceptible at the first glance at their faces; that the eyes of the\ncelestial angels were aflame with love and intellect, while the eyes of\nthe infernal angels were very unpleasant to encounter.\n\nHe said that it would be possible for an infernal angel to disguise\nhimself to a mortal, so that he might be mistaken for an angel of\nlight; but that it was practically impossible for an angel to disguise\nhis real nature from those souls who were living in their subtle bodies.\n\nI will perhaps say more on this subject another night. I must rest now.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 2: I hope no one will expect me to answer the question why\nshould such a book appear to be printed in large black type. I have no\nmore idea than has the reader.--ED.]\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XV\n\n A ROMAN TOGA\n\n\nONE thing which makes this country so interesting to me is its lack of\nconventionality. No two persons are dressed in the same way--or no, I\ndo not mean that exactly, but many are so eccentrically dressed that\ntheir appearance gives variety to the whole.\n\nMy own clothes are, as a rule, similar to those I wore on earth,\nthough I have as an experiment, when dwelling in thought on one of my\nlong-past lives, put on the garments of the period.\n\nIt is easy to get the clothes one wants here. I do not know how I\nbecame possessed of the garments which I wore on coming out; but when\nI began to take notice of such things, I found myself dressed about as\nusual. I am not yet sure whether I brought my clothes with me.\n\nThere are many people here in costumes of the ancient days. I do not\ninfer from this fact that they have been here all those ages. I think\nthey wear such clothes because they like them.\n\nAs a rule, most persons stay near the place where they lived on earth;\nbut I have been a wanderer from the first. I go rapidly from one\ncountry to another. One night (or day with you) I may take my rest in\nAmerica; the next night I may rest in Paris. I have spent hours of\nrepose on the divan in your sitting-room, and you did not know that I\nwas there. I doubt, though, if I could stay for hours in your house\nwhen I was myself awake without your sensing my presence.\n\nDo not think, however, from what I have just said, that it is necessary\nfor me to rest on the solid matter of your world. Not at all. We can\nrest on the tenuous substance of our own world.\n\nOne day, when I had been here only a short time, I saw a woman dressed\nin a Greek costume, and asked her where she got her clothes. She\nreplied that she had made them. I asked her how, and she said:\n\n\u201cWhy, first I made a pattern in my mind, and then the thing became a\ngarment.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you take every stitch?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot as I should have done on earth.\u201d\n\nI looked closer and saw that the whole garment seemed to be in one\npiece, and that it was caught on the shoulders by jewelled pins. I\nasked where she got the jewelled pins, and she said that a friend had\ngiven them to her. Then I asked where the friend had got them. She told\nme that she did not know, but that she would ask him. Soon after that\nshe left me, and I have not seen her since, so the question is still\nunanswered.\n\nI began to experiment to see if I also could make things. It was then\nthat I conceived the idea of wearing a Roman toga, but for the life of\nme I could not remember what a Roman toga looked like.\n\nWhen next I met the Teacher I told him of my wish to wear a toga of my\nown making, and he carefully showed me how to create garments such as I\ndesired: To fix the pattern and shape clearly in my mind, to visualise\nit, and then by power to desire to draw the subtle matter of the\nthought-world round the pattern, so as actually to form the garment.\n\n\u201cThen,\u201d I said, \u201cthe matter of the thought-world, as you call it, is\nnot the same kind of matter as that of my body, for instance?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the last analysis,\u201d he answered, \u201cthere is only one kind of matter\nin both worlds; but there is a great difference in vibration and\ntenuity.\u201d\n\nNow the thought-substance of which our garments are formed seems to be\nan extremely tenuous form of matter, while our bodies seem to be pretty\nsolid. We do not feel at all like transparent angels sitting on damp\nclouds. Were it not for the quickness with which I get over space, I\nshould think sometimes that my body was as solid as ever.\n\nI can often see you, and to me _you_ seem tenuous. It is all,\nI suppose, the old question of adjusting to environment. At first I\ncould not do it, and had some trouble in learning to adjust the amount\nof energy necessary for each particular action. So little energy is\nrequired here to move myself about that at first when I started to go a\nshort distance--say, a few yards--I would find myself a mile away. But\nI am now pretty well adjusted.\n\nI must be storing up energy here for a good hard life when I return\nto the earth again. The hardest work I do now is to come and write\nthrough your hand, but you offer less and less resistance as time\ngoes on. In the beginning it took all my strength; now it takes only\na comparatively small effort. Yet I could not do it long at a time\nwithout using your own vitality, and that I will not do.\n\nYou may have noticed that you are no longer fatigued after the\nwriting, though you used to be at first.\n\n\nBut I was speaking of the lack of conventionality out here. Souls hail\neach other when they want to, without much ceremony. I have seen a few\nold women who were afraid to talk to a stranger, but probably they had\nnot been here long and the earth habits still clung to them.\n\nDo not think, however, that society here is too free and easy. It is\nnot that, but men and women do not seem to be so afraid of each other\nas they were on earth.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XVI\n\n A THING TO BE FORGOTTEN\n\n\nI WANT to say a word to those who are about to die. I want to beg them\nto forget their bodies as soon as possible after the change which they\ncall death.\n\nOh, the terrible curiosity to go back and look upon that _thing_\nwhich we once believed to be ourselves! The thought comes to us now and\nthen so powerfully that it acts in a way against our will and draws us\nback to _it_. With some it is a morbid obsession, and many cannot\nget free from it while there remains a shred of flesh on the bones\nwhich they once leaned upon.\n\nTell them to forget it altogether, to force the thought away, to go out\ninto the other life free. Looking back upon the past is sometimes good,\nbut not upon this relic of the past.\n\nIt is so easy to look into the coffin, because the body which we wear\nnow is itself a light in a dark place, and it can penetrate grosser\nmatter. I have been back myself a few times, but am determined to\ngo back no more. Yet some day the thought may come to me again with\ncompelling insistence to see how _it_ is getting on.\n\nI do not want to shock or pain you--only to warn you. It is sad to see\nthe sight which inevitably meets one in the grave. That may be the\nreason why many souls who have not been here long are so melancholy.\nThey return again and again to the place which they should not visit.\n\nYou know that out here if we think intently of a place we are apt to\nfind ourselves there. The body which we use is so light that it can\nfollow thought almost without effort. Tell them not to do it.\n\nOne day while walking down an avenue of trees--for we have trees\nhere--I met a tall woman in a long black garment. She was weeping--for\nwe have tears here also. I asked her why she wept, and she turned to me\neyes of unutterable sadness.\n\n\u201cI have been back to _it_,\u201d she said.\n\nMy heart ached for her, because I knew how she felt. The shock of the\nfirst visit is repeated each time, as the thing one sees is less and\nless what we like to think of ourselves as being.\n\nOften I remember that tall woman in black, walking down the avenue of\ntrees and weeping. It is partly curiosity that draws one back, partly\nmagnetic attraction; but it can do no good. It is better to forget it.\n\nI have sometimes longed, from sheer scientific interest, to ask my\nboy Lionel if he had been back to his body; but I have not asked him\nfor fear of putting the idea into his mind. He has such a restless\ncuriosity. Perhaps those who go out as children have less of that\nmorbid instinct than we have.\n\nIf we could only remember in life that the form which we call ourselves\nis not our real immortal self at all, we would not give it such an\nexaggerated importance, though we would nevertheless take needful care\nof it.\n\nAs a rule, those who say that they have been long here do not seem old.\nI asked the Teacher why, and he said that after a time an old person\nforgets that he is old, that the tendency is to grow young in thought\nand therefore young in appearance, that the body tends to take the form\nwhich we hold of it in our minds, that the law of rhythm works here as\nelsewhere.\n\nChildren grow up out here, and they may even go on to a sort of old age\nif that is the expectation of the mind; but the tendency is to keep\nthe prime, to go forward or back towards the best period, and then to\nhold that until the irresistible attraction of the earth asserts itself\nagain.\n\nMost of the men and women here do not know that they have lived many\ntimes in flesh. They remember their latest life more or less vividly,\nbut all before that seems like a dream. One should always keep the\nmemory of the past as clear as possible. It helps one to construct the\nfuture.\n\nThose people who think of their departed friends as being all-wise, how\ndisappointed they would be if they could know that the life on this\nside is only an extension of the life on earth! If the thoughts and\ndesires there have been only for material pleasures, the thoughts and\ndesires here are likely to be the same. I have met veritable saints\nsince coming out; but they have been men and women who held in earth\nlife the saintly ideal, and who now are free to live it.\n\nLife can be so free here! There is none of that machinery of living\nwhich makes people on earth such slaves. In our world a man is held\nonly by his thoughts. If they are free, he is free.\n\nFew, though, are of my philosophic spirit. There are more saints here\nthan philosophers, as the highest ideal of most persons, when intensely\nactive, has been towards the religious rather than the philosophic\nlife.\n\nI think the happiest people I have met on this side have been the\npainters. Our matter is so light and subtle, and so easily handled,\nthat it falls readily into the forms of the imagination. There are\nbeautiful pictures here. Some of our artists try to impress their\npictures upon the mental eyes of the artists of earth, and they often\nsucceed in doing so.\n\nThere is joy in the heart of one of our real artists when a fellow\ncraftsman on your side catches an idea from him and puts it into\nexecution. He may not always be able to see clearly how well the second\nman works out the idea, for it requires a special gift or a special\ntraining to _see_ from one form of matter into the other; but the\ninspiring spirit catches the thought in the inspired one\u2019s mind, and\nknows that a conception of his own is being executed upon the earth.\n\nWith poets it is the same. There are lovely lyrics composed out here\nand impressed upon the receptive minds of earthly poets. A poet told me\nthat it was easier to do that with a short lyric than with an epic or a\ndrama, where a long-continued effort was necessary.\n\nIt is much the same with musicians. Whenever you go to a concert where\nbeautiful music is being played, there is probably all round you a\ncrowd of music-loving spirits, drinking in the harmonies. Music on\nearth is much enjoyed on this side. It can be heard. But no sensitive\nspirit likes to go near a place where bad strumming is going on. We\nprefer the music of stringed instruments. Of all earthly things,\nsound reaches most directly into this plane of life. Tell that to the\nmusicians.\n\nIf they could only hear our music! I did not understand music on earth,\nbut now my ears are becoming adjusted. It seems sometimes as if you\nmust hear our music over there, as we hear yours.\n\n\nYou may have wondered how I spend my time and where I go. There is a\nlovely spot in the country which I never tire of visiting. It is on\nthe side of a mountain, not far from my own city. There is a little\nroad winding round a hill, and just above the road is a hut, a roofed\nenclosure with the lower side open. Sometimes I stay there for hours\nand listen to the rippling of the brook which runs beside the road.\nThe tall slender trees have become like brothers to me. At first I\ncannot see the material trees very clearly; but I go into the little\nhut which is made of fresh clean boards with a sweet smell, and I lie\ndown on the shelf or bunk along the wall; then I close my eyes and\nby an effort--or no, it is not what I would call an effort, but by a\nsort of drifting--I can see the beautiful place. But you must know that\nthis is in the night time there, and I see it by the light of myself.\nThat is why we travel in the dark part of the twenty-four hours, for in\nthe bright sunlight we cannot see at all. Our light is put out by the\ncruder light of the sun.\n\nOne night I took the boy Lionel there with me, leaving him in the hut\nwhile I went a little distance away. Looking back, I saw the whole hut\nilluminated by a lovely radiance--the radiance of Lionel himself. The\nlittle building, which has a peaked roof, looked like a pearl lighted\nfrom within. It was a beautiful experience.\n\nI then went to Lionel and told him to go in his turn a little distance\naway, while I took his place in the hut. I was curious to know if he\nwould see the same phenomenon when I lay there, if I could shed such a\nlight through dense matter--the boards of the building. When I called\nhim to me afterwards and asked if he had seen anything strange, he said:\n\n\u201cWhat a wonderful man you are, Father! How did you make that hut seem\nto be on fire?\u201d\n\nThen I knew that he had seen the same thing I had seen.\n\nBut I am tired now and can write no more. Good night, and may you have\npleasant dreams.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XVII\n\n THE SECOND WIFE OVER THERE\n\n\nI AM often called upon here to decide matters for others. Many people\ncall me simply \u201cthe Judge\u201d; but we bear, as a rule, the name that we\nlast bore on earth.\n\nMen and women come to me to settle all sorts of questions for them,\nquestions of ethics, questions of expediency, even quarrels. Did\nyou suppose that no one quarrelled here? Many do. There are even\nlong-standing feuds among them.\n\nThe holders of different opinions on religion are often hot in their\narguments. Coming here with the same beliefs they had on earth, and\nbeing able to visualise their ideals and actually to experience the\nthings they are expecting, two men who hold opposite creeds forcibly\nare each more intolerant than ever before. Each is certain that he\nis right and that the other is wrong. This stubbornness of belief is\nstrongest with those who have been here only a short time. After a\nwhile they fall into a larger tolerance, living their own lives more\nand more, and enjoying the world of proofs and realisations which each\nsoul builds for itself.\n\nBut I want to give you an illustration of the sort of questions on\nwhich I am asked to pass judgment.\n\nThere are two women here who in life were both married to one man,\nthough not at the same time. The first woman died, then the man married\nagain, and soon--not more than a year or two after--the man and his\nsecond wife both came out. The first wife considers herself the man\u2019s\nonly wife, and she follows him about everywhere. She says that he\npromised to meet her in heaven. He is more inclined to the second wife,\nthough he still feels affection for Wife No. 1. He is rather impatient\nat what he calls her unreasonableness. He told me one day that he would\ngladly give them both up, if he could be left in peace to carry out\ncertain studies in which he is interested. These were among the people\nI met soon after I began to be strong myself here--it was not so very\nlong ago; and the man has sought my society so much that the women, in\norder to be near him, have come along too.\n\nOne day they all three came to me and propounded their question--or,\nrather, Wife No. 1 propounded it. She said:\n\n\u201cThis man is my husband. Should not, therefore, this other woman go far\naway and leave him altogether to me?\u201d\n\nI asked Wife No. 2 what she had to say. Her answer was that she would\nbe all alone here but for her husband, and that as she had had him\nlast, he now belonged more to her than to the other.\n\nIn a flash the memory came to me of those Sadducees who propounded\na similar question to Christ, and I quoted His answer as nearly as\nI could remember it: that \u201cwhen they shall rise from the dead, they\nneither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which\nare in heaven.\u201d\n\nMy answer was as much a staggerer for them as their question had been\nfor me, and they went away to think about it.\n\nWhen they were gone I began myself to ponder the question. I had\nalready observed that, whether or not all here are as the angels in\nheaven, there does seem to be a good deal of mating and rejoining of\nformer mates. The sex distinction is as real here as on the earth,\nthough, of course, its expression is not exactly the same. I asked\nmyself a good many questions which perhaps would never have occurred\nto me but for the troubles of this interesting triad, and I thought of\nthe man I had somewhere read about, who said that he never knew his own\nopinion of anything until he tried to express it to somebody.\n\nAfter a while the three came to me again and said that they had been\ntalking things over, perhaps after the manner of angels in heaven; for\nWife No. 1 told me that she had decided to \u201clet\u201d her husband spend a\npart of his time with the other woman, if he wanted to.\n\nNow, the man had a sweetheart, a girl sweetheart, before he had either\nof his wives. The girl is out here somewhere, and the man often has a\nstrong desire to try to find her. What opportunity he will now have\nto do so, I cannot say. The situation is rather depressing for the\npoor fellow. It is bad enough to have one person who insists on every\nminute of your society, without having two. And I think his case is not\nunusual. Perhaps the only way in which he can get free from his two\ninsistent companions is by going back to the earth.\n\nThere is a way, however, by which he could secure solitude; but he does\nnot know of it. A man who knows how can isolate himself here as well as\nhe could on earth; he can build round himself a wall which only the\neyes of a great initiate can pierce. I have not told this secret to my\nfriend; but perhaps I shall some day, if it seems necessary for his\ndevelopment that he have a little solitude. At present it seems to me\nthat he will learn more from adjusting to this double claim and trying\nto find the truth that lies in it. Perhaps he may learn that really,\nessentially, fundamentally, he does not \u201cbelong\u201d to either of these\nwomen. The souls out here seem to belong to themselves, and after the\nfirst few years they get to love liberty so much that they are ready to\nyield a little of their claim upon others.\n\nThis is a great place in which to grow, if one really wants to grow;\nthough few persons take advantage of its possibilities. Most are\ncontent to assimilate the experiences they had on earth. It would\nbe depressing to one who did not realise that will is free, to see\nhow souls let slip their opportunities here, even as they did on the\nmoon-guarded planet.\n\nThere are teachers here who stand ready to help anyone who wishes their\nhelp in making real and deep studies in the mysteries of life--the life\nhere, the life there, and in the remote past.\n\nIf a man understands that his recent sojourn on earth was merely the\nlatest of a long series of lives, and if he concentrates his mind\ntowards recovering the memories of the distant past, he can recover\nthem. Some persons may think that the mere dropping of the veil of\nmatter should free the soul from all obscuration; but, as on earth so\nout here, \u201cthings are not thus and so because they ought to be, but\nbecause they are.\u201d\n\nWe draw to ourselves the experiences which we are ready for and which\nwe demand, and most souls do not demand enough here, any more than they\ndid in life. Tell them to demand more, and the demand will be answered.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XVIII\n\n INDIVIDUAL HELLS\n\n\nSOME time ago I told you of my intention to visit hell; but when I\nbegan investigations on that line there proved to be many hells.\n\nEach man who is not content with the orthodox hell of fire and\nbrimstone builds one out of mind-stuff suited to his imaginative need.\n\nI believe that men place themselves in hell, that no God puts them\nthere. I began looking for a hell of fire and brimstone, and found it.\nDante must have seen the same things I saw.\n\nBut there are other and individual hells----\n\n (_The writing suddenly stopped, for no apparent reason, and was not\n continued that night._)\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XIX\n\n A LITTLE HOME IN HEAVEN\n\n\nI HAVE met a very interesting man since last I wrote to you. He is a\nlover who for ten years waited here for his love to come to him.\n\nThey said on earth that he was dead, and they urged her to love\nanother; but she could not forget him, for every night he met her soul\nin dreams, every night she came out to him here, and sometimes she\ncould recall on waking all that he had said to her in sleep. She had\ntold him that she would not delay long in the sunshine world, but would\ncome out to him in the self-lighted world.\n\nOnly a little while ago she came. He had been long getting ready for\nher coming, and had built in the substance of this world the little\nhome he had planned to build for her in the outer world.\n\nHe told me how one night when she came to him in dream, she said that\nshe would rejoin him on the morrow, never to leave him again. He was\nstartled, and would almost have stayed her; because he had died a\nsudden and painful death, and he dreaded pain for her. Always he had\nwatched over her, warning her of danger; but this time he felt, after\nthe first shock of the message was over, that she was really coming.\nAnd he was very happy.\n\nHe had found no other love out here; for when one leaves the earth\nfull of a great affection, and when the earthly loved one does not\nforget, the tie can hold for many years unweakened. You on the earth\nhave forgotten so much of what you learned here that you do not realise\nhow your thought of us can make us happy, do not realise how your\nforgetfulness of us can throw us back entirely upon ourselves.\n\nOften those who go farthest here, who really grow in spirituality, are\nthose whose loves have forgotten them on earth; but it is sad to be\nforgotten, nevertheless.\n\nIt is a bitter power you make possible to us when you thus throw us\nback upon ourselves; and not all souls are strong enough or aspiring\nenough to make use of the lonely impetus that might help them to scale\nthe ladder of spiritual knowledge.\n\nBut to return to my lovers. All that day he remained near her. He would\nnot rest; for, as I have told you, we generally rest a little when\nthe sun shines on the earth. All that day he remained near her. He\ncould not see her body, for the rays of sunlight were too strong for\nhim. But, after hours of waiting, suddenly he felt a hand in his, and\nthough she was invisible to him, yet he knew that she was _here_.\nAnd he spoke to her, using such words as he would have used on earth.\nShe did not seem to understand. He spoke again, and still she did not\nanswer; but he knew from the pressure of her hand that she realised\nhis presence. So hand in hand they stood there in the darkness of the\nsunlight, the man able to speak because of his long experience in this\nworld of subtle sounds, the woman speechless and bewildered, but still\nclinging to his hand.\n\nWhen the sunshine went away he was able to see her face, and her eyes\nwere wide and frightened; but still she seemed held to the room in\nwhich lay the body which had been she. It was summer, and the windows\nwere open. He sought to draw her away into the perfumed night which to\nthem was day; but she held his hand and would not let him go.\n\nAt last he drew her away a short distance and spoke to her again. Now\nshe heard and answered him.\n\n\u201cBeloved,\u201d she said, \u201cwhich is I? For I see myself--I feel\nmyself--back there also. I seem to be in two places. Which I is really\nI?\u201d\n\nHe comforted her with loving words. He was still afraid to caress her,\nfor the touch of souls is very keen, and he feared lest she should go\nback into the form which seemed to be so near them, and thus be lost to\nhim again. But though she had often come to him in dreams, it had not\nbeen so vividly as this time, and he felt that she had really passed\nthrough the great change.\n\nShe still clung to his hand, yet seemed afraid to go out with him--out\nand away from _it_. He stayed there with her all that night and\nall the next day, when the darkening sun came again, and again he could\nnot see her.\n\nOnce the well-meaning friends of his beloved disturbed her body, doing\nthose sacred offices which seem so necessary to the living, but which\nmay sorely disturb the dead.\n\nHe stayed with her the second night and all the second day. He could\nhear the sobs of her grieving parents, though they could not see\neither him or their daughter; but on the second night the little dog\nof his love came into the room where _it_ lay, the room in which\ntheir two souls still stood, and the little dog saw them and whined\npiteously. The man could hear it, and she also could hear it.\n\nAnd now she could hear him more plainly when he spoke to her.\n\n\u201cWhere will they take _it_?\u201d she asked him.\n\nHe recalled the time when he had been held spellbound near his own\nlifeless form, over which his loved one had shed bitter tears. And he\nasked her if it would not be better to come away altogether; but she\ncould not, or thought she could not.\n\nOn the third day he knew from the agitation of his love that they\nwere placing her body in the coffin. After a while he felt, though he\ncould not see, that many other persons were in the room, and he heard\nmournful music. Music can reach from one world to another, can be heard\nfar more plainly than human voices, which generally cannot be heard at\nall except by the trained listener.\n\nBy and by his love was sorely agitated, and he also, through sympathy\nwith her; and they felt themselves going slowly--oh, so slowly!--along.\nAnd he said to her:\n\n\u201cDo not be grieved. They are taking _it_ to the burial; but you\nare safe with me.\u201d He knew that she was much troubled.\n\nIt is not for nothing that over the house of death there always hangs\na strange hush, not to be explained by the mere losing of the loved\none. Those who remain behind feel, though they cannot see, the soul of\nthe one who has gone out. Their souls are full of sympathy for him in\nhis bewilderment.\n\nThe change need not be painful if one would only remember that it has\nbeen passed through before; but one so easily forgets. We sometimes\ncall the earth the Valley of Forgetfulness.\n\nDuring the days and weeks that followed this lover remained with\nhis loved one, ever trying to draw her away from the earth and from\n_it_, which had for her, as for so many, a fearsome fascination.\n\nIt is said that the souls of those who have lived long on earth more\neasily detach themselves; but this woman was still young, only about\nthirty; and even with the help of her lover it was a little time before\nshe could get free.\n\nBut one day (or night, as you would say) he showed her the home which\nhe had built for her, and it was literally a mansion in the sky. She\nentered with him, and it became their home.\n\nSometimes he leaves her for a little while, or she leaves him; for\nthe joy of being together is heightened here, as on the earth, by an\noccasional separation; but not until she was content and accustomed to\nthe new life did he leave her at all.\n\nDuring the first days the habit of earthly hunger often held her, and\nhe tried to appease it by giving her the softer substance which we know\nhere. Gradually she became weaned altogether from the earth and the\nhabits of the earth, only going back occasionally in a dream to her\nfather and mother.\n\nDo not disregard your dreams about the dead. They always mean\nsomething. They do not always mean what the dream would seem to\nsignify; for the door between the two worlds is very narrow, and\nthoughts are often shaken out of place in passing through. But dreams\nabout the dead mean something. We can reach you in that way.\n\nI came to you in a dream the other night, standing behind and outside\nthe gate of a walled garden in which you were enclosed. I smiled and\nbeckoned you to come out to me; but I did not wish you to come out to\nstay. I only meant that you should come out in spirit; for if you come\nout occasionally it is easier for me to go into your world.\n\nGood night.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XX\n\n THE MAN WHO FOUND GOD\n\n\nTHERE seems to be no way in which I can better teach you about\nthis life, so strange to you, than by telling my experiences and\nconversations with men and women here.\n\nI said one night not long ago that I had met more saints than\nphilosophers, and I want to tell you now about a man who seems to be a\ngenuine saint. Yes, there are little saints and great saints, as there\nare little and great sinners.\n\nOne day I was walking on a mountain top. I say \u201cwalking,\u201d for it seemed\nabout the same, though it takes but little energy to walk here.\n\nOn the mountain top I saw a man standing alone. He was looking out and\nfar away, but I could not see what he was looking at. He was abstracted\nand communing with himself, or with some presence of which I was\nunaware.\n\nI waited for some time. At last, drawing a long breath--for we breathe\nhere--he turned his eyes to me and said, with a kind smile:\n\n\u201cCan I do anything for you, brother?\u201d\n\nI was embarrassed for a moment, feeling that I might have intruded upon\nsome sweet communion.\n\n\u201cIf I am not too bold in asking,\u201d I said, \u201cwould you tell me what you\nwere thinking as you stood there looking into space?\u201d\n\nI was conscious of my presumption; but being so determined to learn\nwhat can be known, if sometimes I am too bold in making inquiries, I\nfeel that my very earnestness may win for me the forgiveness of those I\nquestion.\n\nThis man had a beautiful beardless face and young-looking eyes; but his\ngarments were the ordinary garments of one who thinks little or nothing\nof his appearance. That very unconsciousness of the outer form may\nsometimes give it a peculiar majesty.\n\nHe looked at me in silence for a moment; then he said:\n\n\u201cI was trying to draw near to God.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what is God?\u201d I asked; \u201cand where is God?\u201d\n\nHe smiled. I never saw a smile like his, as he answered:\n\n\u201cGod is everywhere. God _is_.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is He?\u201d I persisted; and again he repeated, but with a different\nemphasis:\n\n\u201c_God_ is.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cGod _is_, _God_ is,\u201d he said.\n\nI do not know how his meaning was conveyed to me, perhaps by sympathy;\nbut it suddenly flashed into my mind that when he said, \u201cGod\n_is_,\u201d he expressed the completest realisation of God which is\npossible to the spirit; and when he said, \u201c_God_ is,\u201d he meant me\nto understand that there was no being, nothing that is, except God.\n\nThere must have been in my face a reflection of what I felt, for the\nsaint then said to me:\n\n\u201cDo you not also know that He _is_, and that all that is, is He?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am beginning to feel what you mean,\u201d I answered, \u201cthough I doubtless\nfeel but a little of it.\u201d\n\nHe smiled, and made no reply; but my mind was full of questions.\n\n\u201cWhen you were on earth,\u201d I said, \u201cdid you think much about God?\u201d\n\n\u201cAlways. I thought of little else. I sought Him everywhere, but seemed\nonly at times to get flashes of consciousness as to what He really\nwas. Sometimes when praying, for I prayed much, there would come to me\nsuddenly the question, \u2018To what are you praying?\u2019 And I would answer\naloud, \u2018To God, to God!\u2019 But though I prayed to Him every day for\nyears, only occasionally did I get a flash of that true consciousness\nof God. Finally, one day when I was alone in the woods, there came the\ngreat revelation. It came not in any form of words, but rather in a\nwordless and formless wonder, too vast for the limitation of thought.\nI fell upon the ground and must have lost consciousness, for after a\nwhile--how long a time I do not know--I awoke, and got up and looked\nabout me. Then gradually I remembered the experience which had been too\nbig for me while I was feeling it.\n\n\u201cI could put into the form of words the realisation which had been too\nmuch for my mortality to bear, and the words I used to myself were,\n\u2018All that is, is God.\u2019 It seemed very simple, yet it was far from\nsimple. \u2018All that is, is God.\u2019 That must include me and all my fellow\nbeings, human and animal; even the trees and the birds and the rivers\nmust be a part of God, if God were all that is.\n\n\u201cFrom that moment life assumed a new meaning for me. I could not see a\nhuman face without remembering the revelation--that that human being I\nsaw was a part of God. When my dog looked at me, I said to him aloud,\n\u2018You are a part of God.\u2019 When I stood beside a river and listened to\nthe sound of its waters, I said to myself, \u2018I am listening to the voice\nof God.\u2019 When a fellow being was angry with me, I asked myself, \u2018In\nwhat way have I offended God?\u2019 When one spoke lovingly to me, I said,\n\u2018God is loving me now,\u2019 and the realisation nearly took my breath away.\nLife became unbelievably beautiful.\n\n\u201cTherefore I had been so absorbed in God, in trying to find God, that I\nhad not given much thought to my fellow beings, and had even neglected\nthose nearest me; but from that day I began to mingle with my human\nbrethren. I found that as more and more I sought God in them, more\nand more God responded to me through them. And life became still more\nwonderful.\n\n\u201cSometimes I tried to tell others what I felt, but they did not always\nunderstand me. It was thus I began to realise that God had purposely,\nfor some reason of His own, covered Himself with veils. Was it that He\nmight have the pleasure of tearing them away? If so, I would help Him\nall I could. So I tried to make other men grasp the knowledge of God\nwhich I myself had attained. For years I taught men. At first I wanted\nto teach everybody; but I soon came to see that that was impossible,\nand so I selected a few who called themselves my disciples. They did\nnot always tell the world that they were my disciples, because I asked\nthem not to do so. But I urged each of them to give to someone as much\nas possible of the knowledge that I had given to him. And so I think\nthat many have come to feel a little of the wonder which was revealed\nto me that day alone in the woods, when I awoke to the knowledge that\nGod _is_, _God_ is.\u201d\n\nThen the saint turned and left me, with all my questions unanswered. I\nwanted to ask him when and how he had left the earth, and what work he\nwas doing out here--but he was gone!\n\nPerhaps I shall see him again some day. But whether I do or not, he has\ngiven me something which I in turn give to you, as he himself desired\nto give it to the world.\n\nThat is all for to-night.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXI\n\n THE LEISURE OF THE SOUL\n\n\nONE of the joys of being here is the leisure for dreaming and for\ngetting acquainted with oneself.\n\nOf course there is plenty to do; but though I intend to go back to the\nworld in a few years, I feel that there is time to get acquainted with\nmyself. I tried to do that on earth, more or less; but here there are\nfewer demands on me. The mere labour of dressing and undressing is\nlighter, and I do not have to earn my living now, nor anybody else\u2019s.\n\nYou, too, could take time to loaf, if you thought you could. You can do\npractically anything you think you can do.\n\nI purpose, for instance, in a few years not only to pick up a general\nknowledge of the conditions of this four-dimensional world, but to go\nback over my other lives and assimilate what I learned in them. I want\nto make a synthesis of the complete experiences of my ego up to this\ndate, and to judge from that synthesis what I can do in the future\nwith least resistance. I believe, but am not quite sure, that I can\nbring back much of this knowledge with me when I am born again.\n\nI shall try to tell you--or some of you--when and about where to look\nfor me again. Oh, don\u2019t be startled! It will not be for some time yet.\nAn early date would necessitate hurry, and I do not wish to hurry.\nI could probably force the coming back, but that would be unwise,\nfor I should then come back with less power than I want. Action and\nreaction being opposite and equal, and the unit, or ego, being able\nto generate only so much energy in a given time, it is better for me\nto rest in this condition of light matter until I have accumulated\nenergy enough to come back with power. I shall not do, however, as many\nsouls do; they stay out here until they are as tired of this world as\nthey formerly were tired of the earth, and then are driven back half\nunconsciously by the irresistible force of the tide of rhythm. I want\nto guide that rhythm.\n\nSince I have been here one man whom I know has gone back to the earth.\nHe was about ready to go when I first found him. The strange part of it\nwas that he himself did not understand his condition. He complained of\nbeing tired of things and of wanting to rest much. That was probably\na natural instinct for rest, in preparation for the supreme effort of\nopening the doors of matter again. It is easy to come out here, but it\nrequires some effort to go _from_ this world into yours.\n\nI know where that soul is now, for the Teacher told me. I had spoken\nto the Teacher about him, but he already knew of his existence. It was\nrather strange, for the man was one in whom I should have fancied that\nthe Teacher would have taken little interest. But one never knows.\nPerhaps in his next life he may really begin to study the philosophy\nwhich _they_ teach.\n\nBut I was speaking of the larger leisure out here. I wish you could\narrange your life so as to have a little more leisure. I do not want\nyou to be lazy, but the passive conditions of the mind are quite as\nvaluable as the active conditions. It is when you are passive that\nwe can reach you. When your mind and body are always occupied, it is\ndifficult to impress you with any message of the soul. Find a little\nmore time each day for doing nothing at all. It is good to do nothing\nsometimes; then the semi-conscious parts of your mind can work. They\ncan remind you that there is an inner life; for the inner life that\nis \u201ccapable\u201d to you on earth is really the point of contact with the\nworld in which we live.\n\nI have said that the two worlds touch, and they touch through the\ninner. You go in to come out. It is a paradox, and paradoxes conceal\ngreat truths. Contradictions are not truths, but a paradox is not a\ncontradiction.\n\nThere is a great difference in the length of time that people stay\nout here. You talk of being homesick. There are souls here who are\nhomesick for the earth. They sometimes go back almost at once, which\nis generally a mistake. Unless one is young and still has a store of\nunused energy saved over from the last life, in going back to the earth\ntoo soon one lacks the force of a strong rebound.\n\nIt is strange to see a man here as homesick for the earth as certain\npoets and dreamers on earth are homesick for the inner life.\n\nThis use of the terms \u201couter\u201d and \u201cinner\u201d may seem confusing; but\nyou must remember that while you go _in_ to come to us, we go\n_out_ to come to you. In our normal state here we are living\nalmost a subjective life. We become more and more objective as we touch\nyour world. You become more and more subjective as you touch our world.\nIf you only knew it, you could come to us at almost any time for a\nbrief visit--I mean, by going deep enough into yourself.\n\nIf you want to try the experiment and will not be afraid, I can take\nyou out here without your quite losing consciousness in your body--I\nmean without your being in deep sleep. You can call me when you want\nto make a trial. If I do not come at once, do not be discouraged. Of\ncourse at the moment I might be doing something else; but in that case\nI will come at another time.\n\nThere is no hurry. That is what I want to impress upon you. What you do\nnot do this year you can perhaps do next year; but if you are always\nrushing after things, you can accomplish little in this particular\nwork. Eternity is long enough for the full development of the ego of\nman. Eternity seems to have been designed for that end. That was a\nsound statement which was given at one time: \u201cThe object of life is\nlife.\u201d I have realised that more fully since I had an opportunity to\nstudy eternity from a new angle. This is a very good angle from which\nto view both time and eternity. I see now what I did not see before,\nthat I myself have never wasted any time. Even my failures were a\nvaluable part of my experience. We lose to gain again. We go in and out\nof power sometimes as we go in and out of life, to learn what is there\nand outside. In this, as in all things, the object of life is life.\n\nDo not hurry. A man may grow gradually into power and knowledge, or he\nmay take them by force. Will is free. But the gradual growth has a less\npowerful reaction.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXII\n\n THE SERPENT OF ETERNITY\n\n\nI WANT to talk to you to-night about eternity. Until I came out, I\nnever had a grasp on that problem. I thought only in terms of months\nand years and centuries; now I see the full sweep of the circle. The\ncomings out and the goings into matter are no more than the systole\nand the diastole of the ego-heart; and, speaking from the standpoint\nof eternity, they are relatively as brief. To you a lifetime is a long\ntime. It used to seem so to me, but it does not seem so now.\n\nPeople are always saying, \u201cIf I had my life to live over, I would do\nso and so.\u201d Now, no man has any particular life to live over, any more\nthan the heart can go back and beat over again the beat of the second\nprevious; but every man has his next life to prepare for. Suppose you\nhave made a botch of your existence. Most men have, viewed from the\nstandpoint of their highest ideal; but every man who can think must\nhave assimilated some experience which he can carry over with him.\nHe may not, on coming out into the sunlight of another life on earth,\nbe able to remember the details of his former experience, though some\nmen can recall them by a sufficient training and a fixed will; but the\ntendencies of any given life, the unexplained impulses and desires, are\nin nearly all cases brought over.\n\nYou should get away from the mental habit of regarding your present\nlife as the only one, get rid of the idea that the life you expect to\nlead on this side, after your death, is to be an endless existence in\none state. You could no more endure such an endless existence in the\nsubtle matter of the inner world than you could endure to live forever\nin the gross matter in which you are now encased. You would weary of\nit. You could not support it.\n\nDo get this idea of rhythm into your brain. All beings are subject\nto the law of rhythm, even the gods,--though in a greater way than\nourselves, with longer periods of flux and reflux.\n\nI did not want to leave the earth, I fought against it until the\nlast; but now I see that my coming out was inevitable because of the\nconditions. Had I begun earlier I might have provisioned my craft for a\nlonger cruise; but when the coal and water had run out I had to make\nport.\n\nIt is possible to provision even a small life-craft for a longer voyage\nthan the allotted threescore years and ten; but one must economise the\ncoal and not waste the water. There are some who will understand that\nwater is the fluid of life.\n\nMany persons resent the idea that the life after death is not eternal,\na never-ending progression in spiritual realms; though few who so\nobject have much of an idea what they mean when they talk of spiritual\nrealms.\n\nLife everlasting is possible to all souls--yes; but it is not possible\nto go on forever in one direction. Evolution is a curve. Eternity is\na circle, a serpent that swallows its own tail. Until you are willing\nto go in and out of dense matter, you will never learn to transcend\nmatter. There are those who can stay in or out at will, and, relatively\nspeaking, as long as they choose; but they are never those who shrink\nfrom either form of life.\n\nI used to shrink from what I called death. There are those on this side\nwho shrink from what _they_ call death. Do you know what they call\ndeath? It is rebirth into the world. Yes, even so.\n\nThere are many here who are as ignorant of rhythm as most people are\non your side. I have met men and women who did not even know that they\nwould go back to the earth again, who talked of the \u201cgreat change\u201d as\nthe men of earth talk of dying, and of all that lay beyond as \u201cunproved\nand unprovable.\u201d It would be tragic if it were not so absurd.\n\nWhen I knew that I had to die I determined to carry with me memory,\nphilosophy, and reason.\n\nNow I want to say something which will perhaps surprise you. There is a\nman who wrote a book called _The Law of Psychic Phenomena_ and in\nthat book he said certain things of those two parts of the mind which\nhe called the subjective and the objective. He said that the subjective\nmind was incapable of inductive reasoning, that the subjective mind\nwould accept any premise given it by the objective mind, and would\nreason from that premise with matchless logic; but that it could not go\nbehind the premise, that it could not reason backwards.\n\nNow, remember that in this form of matter where I am men are living\nprincipally a subjective life, as men on earth live principally an\nobjective life. These people here, being in the subjective, reason\nfrom the premises already given them during their objective or earth\nexistence. That is why most of those who last lived in the so-called\nWestern lands, where the idea of rhythm or rebirth is unpopular, came\nout here with the fixed idea that they would not go back into earth\nlife. Hence most of them still reason from that premise.\n\nDo you not understand that what you believe you are going to be out\nhere is largely determinative of what you will be. Those who do not\nbelieve in rebirth cannot forever escape the rhythm of rebirth; but\nthey hold to their belief until the tide of rhythm sweeps them along\nwith it and forces them into gross matter again, into which they go\nquite unprepared, carrying with them almost no memory of their life out\nhere. They carried out here the memory of the earth life because they\nexpected so to carry it.\n\nMany Orientals who have always believed in rebirth remember their\nformer lives, because they expected to remember them.\n\nYes, when I realised that I had to leave the earth I laid a spell\nupon myself. I determined to remember through both the going out and\nthe subsequent coming in. Of course I cannot swear now to remember\neverything when I come into heavy matter again; but I am determined to\ndo so if possible; and I shall succeed to some extent if I do not get\nthe wrong mother. I intend to take great care on that point, and to\nchoose a mother who is familiar with the idea of rebirth. If possible,\nI want to choose a mother who actually knew me in my last life as ----,\nand who, if I shall announce in childhood that I am that same ---- whom\nshe knew when a young girl, will not chide me and drive me back into\nmyself with her doubts.\n\nI believe that many children carry over into earth life memories of\ntheir lives out here, but that those memories are afterwards lost by\nreason of the suggestion constantly given to children that they are\nnewly created, \u201cfresh from the hand of God,\u201d etc., etc.\n\nEternity is indeed long, and there are more things on earth and heaven\nthan are dreamed of in the philosophy of the average teacher of\nchildren.\n\nIf you could only get hold of the idea of immortal life and _cling to\nit_! If you could realise yourself as being without beginning and\nwithout end, then you might commence to do things worth while. It is a\nwonderful consciousness that consciousness of eternity. Small troubles\nseem indeed small to him who thinks of himself in the terms of a\nmillion years. You may make the figure a billion, or whatever you like,\nbut the idea is the same. No man can grasp the idea of a million years,\nor a million dollars, or a million of anything; the figure is merely a\nsymbol for a great quantity, whether it be years or gold pieces. The\nidea cannot be fixed; there will always be something that escapes. No\nmillionaire knows exactly what he is worth at any given time; for there\nis always interest to be counted, and the value is a shifting one.\nIt is so with immortality. Do not think of yourself as having lived\na million years, or a trillion years, but as truly immortal, without\nbeginning or end. The man who knows himself to be rich is richer than\nthe man who says that he has a certain amount of money, be the amount\nlarge or small. So rest in the consciousness of eternity and work in\nthe consciousness of eternity.\n\nThat is all for to-night.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXIII\n\n A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENDANT\n\n\nTELL the friend who is so anxious lest I do you harm by writing with\nyour hand that that matter was thoroughly threshed out on this side\nbetween the Teacher and me before it began to take form on your side.\n\nOrdinary mediumship, where the organism of a more or less unhealthy\nperson on earth is opened indiscriminately for the entrance and\nobsession of any passing spirit, good or evil, is a very different\nproposition from this. Here I, who was your friend in the world, having\npassed beyond, reach back to instruct you from my greater knowledge on\nthis side.\n\nI am not making any opening in your nervous system through which\nirresponsible and evil forces can enter and take possession of you.\nIn fact, if any spirit, good or bad, should make such an attempt, he\nwould have to reckon with me, and I am not powerless. I know now, have\nboth remembered and been taught, secrets by which I can protect you\nfrom what is generally known as mediumship. Furthermore, I advise\nyou never, even at the urgent prayer of those whose loved ones have\ngone out--_never_ to lend yourself to them. The wanderers in the\nso-called invisible world have no right to come and demand entrance\nthrough your organism, merely because it is so constituted that they\ncould enter, any more than a street crowd would have the right to\nforce its way into your home, merely because its members were curious,\nhungry, or cold. Do not allow it. Permission was once given, yes; but\nthe case was exceptional and was not based on the personal desire or\ncuriosity of anybody--not even yourself. I doubt if permission will\never be granted again.\n\nMany things have changed since I began to write with you. At first I\nused your hand and arm from the outside--sometimes, as you remember,\nwith such force as to make them lame the next day. Then, grown more\nfamiliar with the means at my disposal, I tried another method, and you\nnoticed a change in the character of the writing. It began clumsily,\nwith large and badly formed characters, gradually becoming clearer as\nmy control of the instrument I was using was better established.\n\nNow, for the last few times I have used still another and a third\nmethod. I enter your mind, putting myself in absolute telepathic\nrapport with your mind, impressing upon your mind itself the things I\nwish to say. In order to write in this way, you have to make yourself\nutterly passive, stilling all individual thought and yielding yourself\nto my thought; but that is no more than you do every day in reading a\nfascinating book. You give your mind to the author who leads you along,\nrapt and passive, by means of the printed page.\n\nThese experiments in perfecting a way of communication have been very\ninteresting to me.\n\nTell your friend that I am not a child, nor a reckless experimentalist.\nNot only in my last life on earth but in many former lives I have been\na student of the higher science, giving myself absolutely to truth and\nto the quest of truth. I have never wantonly used any human being to\nhis or her detriment, and I certainly shall not begin with you, my true\nfriend and student.\n\nNor shall I interfere in any way with your life, or with your studies\nand work. The idea is nonsensical. While I walked the world on two feet\nI was never considered a dangerous man. I have not changed my character\nmerely by changing my clothes and putting on a lighter suit.\n\nI have certain things to say to the world. At present you are the only\nperson who can act as amanuensis for me. This is neither my fault\nnor yours. The question before us is not whether I want the letters\nwritten, or even whether you want to write them, but whether they will\nbe beneficial to the world. I think they will. You think they may be.\nB---- thinks that they are not only immensely valuable, but unique.\nSo-and-so and So-and-so have doubts and fears. I cannot help that, nor\ncan you.\n\nBless their hearts! Why should they be so anxious to bolt the doors\nbehind me? I shall certainly not try to run their affairs for them from\nthis side. They are equal to their job, or they would not be able to\nhold it. But this is quite a different job which I have given myself,\nand you have kindly consented to help me.\n\nYou may not get much reward for your labour, save the shake of the\nwiseacres\u2019 heads and their superior smiles, and the suggestion of the\nmore scientifically inclined that I am your own \u201csubconscious mind.\u201d I\nshall not be offended by that hypothesis, nor need you.\n\nOf course you are not worried, for if you were I could not write. Your\nmind has to be placid as a lake on a windless night in order for me to\nwrite at all.\n\nGive my love to them.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXIV\n\n FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE\n\n\nI HAVE been doing many things of late. You could never imagine where I\nwent the other day--to the great funeral of the Emperor of Japan. You\ncould not go from Paris to Japan and return in so short a time, could\nyou? But I did.\n\nAn hour before starting I did not even know that the Emperor of Japan\nwas dead. The Teacher sought me out and invited me to go with him. He\nsaid that something would occur there which I ought to see.\n\nHis prophecy was verified. I saw a soul, a great soul, go out as a\nsuicide. It was sad and terrible.\n\nBut as I write this the Teacher comes and stands beside me; he advises\nme to say no more on that subject.\n\n\nOne sees horrible things out here, as well as beautiful things. I can\nonly say with regard to suicide, that if men knew what awaits those\nwho go out by their own hand, they would remain with the evil that\nthey know. I am sorry I cannot tell you more about this, for it would\ninterest you. The testimony of an eye-witness is always more convincing\nthan the mere repetition of theories.\n\nThe appearance of the Teacher with his advice has put out of my mind\nfor the moment the desire to write. But I will come again.\n\n\n _Later._\n\nI have been able to do what you so much desired--to find the boy who\ncame out accidentally by drowning.\n\nAs you looked at his photograph, I saw it through your eyes, and\ncarried away the memory of the face. I found him wandering about, quite\nbewildered. When I spoke to him of you and said that you had asked me\nto help him, he seemed surprised.\n\nI was able to give him a little aid, though he has a friend here--an\nold man who is nearer to him than I could ever be. He will gradually\nadjust himself to the new conditions.\n\nYou had better not try to speak with him. He is on a different path,\nand is being looked after, for he has friends. The little help I was\nable to give was in the nature of information. He needed diversion\nfrom a too-pressing thought, and I suggested one or two ways of passing\ntime which are both agreeable and instructive.\n\nYou wonder at the expression \u201cpassing time\u201d? But time exists out here.\nWherever there is sequence, there is time. There may come a \u201ctime\u201d\nwhen all things will exist simultaneously, past, present and--shall we\nsay future? But so long as past, present and future are more or less\ndistinct, so long time is. It is nothing but the principle of sequence.\nDid you fancy it was anything else?\n\nInteriorly, that is, deep within the self, one may find a silent place\nwhere all things _seem_ to exist in unison; but as soon as the\nsoul even there attempts to examine things separately, then sequence\nbegins.\n\nThe union with the All is another matter. That is, or seems to be,\ntimeless; but as soon as one attempts to unite with or to be conscious\nof things, time is manifest.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXV\n\n A SHADOWLESS WORLD\n\n\nI HAD been here some time before I noticed one of the most marked\npeculiarities of this world.\n\nOne night as I was passing slowly along, I saw a group of persons\napproaching me. It was very light where they were, because there were\nso many of them. Suddenly, as I saw this light, a thought came to my\nmind, a saying from one of the Hermetic books: \u201cWhere the light is\nstrongest, there are the shadows deepest.\u201d But on looking at these men\nand women, I saw that _they cast no shadows_.\n\nI hailed the nearest man--you must remember that this was soon after\nI came out, and when I was still more ignorant than I am now--and I\ncalled his attention to this peculiar phenomenon of a shadowless yet\nbrilliantly lighted world. He smiled at my surprise, and said:\n\n\u201cYou have not been here long, have you?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen you are not aware that we light our own place? The substance of\nwhich our bodies are composed is radiant. How could our forms cast\nshadows, when light radiates from them in all directions?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd in the sunlight?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d he answered, \u201cyou know that in the sunlight we cannot be seen\nat all! The light of the sun is coarse and crude, and it puts out the\nlight of the spirits.\u201d\n\n\nDoes it seem strange to you that at this moment I can feel the warmth\nof that wood fire by which you sit? There is a magic in burning wood.\nThe combustion of coal has quite a different effect upon the psychic\natmosphere. If one who had always been blind to visions and insensible\nto the finer feelings and premonitions of the invisible world would try\nmeditating before a blazing wood fire for an hour or two every day or\nnight, his eyes and other subtler senses might be opened to things of\nwhich he had theretofore never even dreamed.\n\nThose Orientals who worship their God with fire are wise and full of\nvisions. The light of burning wax has also a magical effect, though\ndifferent from that of a wood fire. Sit sometimes in the evening with\nno light but that of a solitary candle, and see what visions will come\nfrom the \u201cVoid.\u201d\n\n\nI have not told you anything for a long time about the boy Lionel. He\nis now much interested in the idea of choosing a family of engineers\nin which to be born again. The thought is one to which he is always\nreturning.\n\n\u201cWhy are you in such a hurry to leave me?\u201d I asked him, the first time\nhe mentioned the subject.\n\n\u201cBut I do not feel as if I should be leaving you altogether,\u201d he\nreplied. \u201cI could come out to you in dreams.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot at first,\u201d I told him. \u201cYou would be prisoned and blind and deaf\nfor a long time, and you might not be able to come out to me here until\nafter I had also gone back again to the earth.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen why not come along with me?\u201d he asked. \u201cSay, Father, why\nshouldn\u2019t we be born as twins?\u201d\n\nThe idea was so absurd that I laughed heartily; but Lionel could not\nsee where the joke came in.\n\n\u201cThere are such things as twins,\u201d he said, seriously. \u201cI knew a pair of\ntwin brothers when I lived in Boston.\u201d\n\nBut, when I return to earth, it is no part of my plan to be anybody\u2019s\ntwin; so I tell Lionel that if he wants to enjoy my society for a time\nhe will have to stay quietly where he is.\n\n\u201cBut why can\u2019t we go back together?\u201d he still asks, \u201cand be cousins or\nneighbours, at least?\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps we can,\u201d I tell him, \u201cif you do not spoil everything by an\nunseemly haste.\u201d\n\nIt is strange about this boy. Out in this world there is boundless\nopportunity to work in subtle matter, opportunity to invent and\nexperiment; yet he wants to get his hands on iron and steel. Strange!\n\nSome night I will try to bring the boy to pay you a visit, so that you\ncan see him--I mean just before you fall asleep. Those are the true\nvisions. The ones which come in sleep are apt to be confused by the\njarring of the matter through which you pass in waking. Do not forget\nthe boy. I have already told him how I come and write with your hand,\nand he is much interested.\n\n\u201cWhy couldn\u2019t I operate a telegraph in that way?\u201d he asked me; but I\nadvised him not to try it. He might interrupt some terrestrial message\nwhich had been sent and paid for.\n\nOccasionally I take him with me up to the pattern world. He has a\nlittle model of his own there with which he amuses himself while I\nam examining other things. It is the model of a wheel, and he sets\nit going by the electricity of his fingers. No, it is not made of\nsteel--not as you know steel. Why, what you call steel is too heavy! It\nwould fall through this world so fast that it would not even leave a\nrent behind it.\n\nYou must understand that the two worlds are composed of matter not only\nmoving at a different rate of vibration, but charged with a different\nmagnetism. It is said that two solid objects cannot occupy the same\nspace at the same time; but that law does not apply to two objects--one\nof them belonging to your world and the other to ours. As water can be\nhot and wet at the same time, so a square foot of space can contain a\nsquare foot of earthly matter and a square foot of etheric matter.\n\nNo, do not quibble about terms. You have no terms for the kind of\nmatter that we use here, because you do not know anything about it.\nLionel and his electric wheel would both be invisible to you if they\nwere set down on the hearthrug before you at this moment. Even the\nmagic of that wood fire would not make them visible--at least, not in\nthe daylight.\n\nSome evening--but we will speak of that at another time. I must go now.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXVI\n\n CIRCLES IN THE SAND\n\n\nI AM just beginning to enjoy the romance of life out here. I must\nalways have had the romantic temperament; but only since changing my\nplace have I had time and opportunity to give rein to it. On earth\nthere was always too much to be done, too many duties, too many demands\non me. Here I am free.\n\nYou have no idea of the meaning of freedom unless you can remember when\nyou were out here last, and I doubt if you can remember that yet.\n\nWhen I say \u201cromance\u201d I mean the charm of existence, the magic touch\nwhich turns the grey face of life to rose colour. You know what I mean.\n\nIt is wonderful to have leisure to dream and to realise one\u2019s dream,\nfor here the realisation goes with the dream. Everything is so real,\nimagination is so potent, and the power to link things is so great--so\nalmost unlimited!\n\nThe dreamers here are really not idle, for our dreaming is a kind of\nbuilding; and even if it were not, we have a right to do about as we\nplease. We have earned our vacation. The labour will come again. We\nshall reclothe ourselves in gross matter and take on its burdens.\n\nWhy, it takes more energy on earth to put one heavy foot before another\nheavy foot, and to propel the hundred or two-hundred pound body a mile,\nthan it takes here to go around the world! That will give you an idea\nof the quantity of surplus energy that we have for enjoying ourselves\nand for dream-building.\n\nPerhaps on earth you work too much--more than is really necessary. The\nmass of needless things that you accumulate round you, the artificial\nwants that you create, the break-neck pace of your lives to provide\nall these things, seem to us absurd and rather pitiful. Your political\neconomy is mere child\u2019s play, your governments are cumbrous machines\nfor doing the unnecessary, most of your work is useless, and your lives\nwould be nearly futile if you did not suffer so much that your souls\nlearn, though unwillingly, that most of their strivings are vain.\n\nHow I used to sweat and groan in the early days to make my little\ncircle in the sand! And now I see that if I had taken more time to\nthink, I might have recovered something of my past knowledge, gained\nin other lives; and though I still had felt obliged to draw my circle\nin the sand, I might have done it with less difficulty and in half the\ntime.\n\nHere, if I choose, I can spend hours in watching the changing colours\nof a cloud. Or, better still, I can lie on my back and remember. It\nis wonderful to remember, to let the mind go back year after year,\nlife after life, century after century, back and back till one finds\noneself--a turtle! But one can also look ahead, forward and forward,\nlife after life, century after century, \u00e6on after \u00e6on, till one finds\noneself an archangel. The looking back is memory; the looking forward\nis creation. Of course we create our own future. Who else could do\nit? We are influenced and moved and shifted and helped or retarded by\nothers; but it is we ourselves who forge the chains every time. We tie\nknots that we shall have to untie, often with labour and perplexity.\n\nIn going back over my past lives I realise the why and the wherefore\nof my last one. It was, in a way, the least satisfactory of many\nlives--save one; but now I see its purpose, and that I laid the plans\nfor it when I was last out here. I even arranged to go back to earth\nat a definite time, in order to be with certain friends who met me\nthere.\n\nBut I have turned the corner now, and have begun the upward march\nagain. Already I am laying the lines for my next coming, though there\nis no hurry. Bless you! I am not going back until I have had my fill of\nthe freedom and enjoyment of this existence here.\n\nAlso I have much studying to do. I want to review what I learned in\nthose hitherto forgotten but now remembered lives.\n\nDo you recall how, when you went to school, you had occasionally to\nreview the lessons of the preceding weeks or months? That custom is\nbased on a sound principle. I am now having my review lessons. By and\nby, before I return to the world, I shall review these reviews, fixing\nby will the memories which I specially wish to carry over with me. It\nwould be practically impossible to carry over intact the great panorama\nof experience which now unrolls itself before the eyes of my memory;\nbut there are several fundamental things, philosophical principles and\nillustrations, which I must not forget. Also I want to take with me the\nknowledge of certain formul\u00e6 and the habit of certain practices which\nyou would probably call occult; by means of which, when I am mature\nagain in my new body, I can call into memory this very pageant of\nexperience which now rolls before me whenever I will it.\n\nNo, I am not going to tell you about your own past. You must, and can,\nrecover it for yourself. So can anyone who knows the difference between\nmemory and imagination. Yes, the difference is subtle, but as real as\nthe difference between yesterday and to-morrow.\n\nI do not want you to be in any hurry about coming out here to stay.\nRemain where you are just as long as possible. Much that we do on this\nside you can do almost as well while still in the body. Of course you\nhave to use more energy, but that is what energy is for--to use. Even\nwhen we store it, we store it for future use. Do not forget that.\n\nOne reason why I rest much now and dream and amuse myself is because I\nwant to store as much energy as possible, to come back with power.\n\nIt is well that you have taken my advice to idle a little and to get\nacquainted with your own soul. There are surprises in store for the\nperson who will deliberately set out on the quest of his soul. The soul\nis not a will-o\u2019-the-wisp; it is a beacon light to steer by and avoid\nthe rocks of materialism and forgetfulness.\n\nI have had much joy in going back over my Greek incarnations. What\nconcentration they had--those Greeks! They knew much. The waters of\nLethe, for instance,--what a conception!--brought from this side by\nmasterly memory.\n\nIf man would even try to remember, if he would only take time to\nconsider all that he has been, there would be more hope of what he may\nbecome! Why, do you know that man may become a god--or that which,\ncompared with ordinary humanity, has all the magnitude and grandeur of\na god? \u201cYe are gods,\u201d was not said in a merely figurative sense.\n\nI have met the Master from Galilee, and have held communion with Him.\nThere was a man--and a god! The world has need of Him now.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXVII\n\n THE MAGIC RING\n\n\nIT would be hard for you to understand, merely by my telling you, the\ndifference between your life and ours. Begin with the difference in\nsubstance, not only the substance of our bodies, but the substance of\nnatural objects which surround us.\n\nDo you start at the term \u201cnatural objects\u201d as applied to the things of\nthis world? You did not fancy, did you, that we had escaped Nature? No\none escapes Nature--not even God. Nature _is_.\n\nImagine that you had spent sixty or seventy years in a heavy earthly\nbody, a body which insisted on growing fat, and would get stiff-jointed\nand rheumatic, even going on strike occasionally to the extent of\nlaying you up in bed for repairs of a more or less clumsy sort. Then\nfancy yourself suddenly exchanging this heavy body for a light and\nelastic form. Can you imagine it? I confess that it would have been\ndifficult for me, even a year or two ago.\n\nClothed in this form, which is sufficiently radiant to light its own\nplace when its light is not put out by the cruder light of the sun,\nfancy yourself moving from place to place, from person to person, from\nidea to idea. As time goes on even the habit of demanding nourishment\ngradually wears off. We are no longer bothered by hunger and thirst;\nthough I, for instance, still stay myself occasionally with a little\nnourishment, an infinitesimal amount compared with the beefsteak\ndinners which I used to eat.\n\nAnd we are no longer harassed by the thousand-and-one petty duties of\nthe earth. Out here we have more confidence in moods. Engagements are\nseldom made--that is, binding engagements. As a rule, though there\nare exceptions, desire is mutual. I want to see and commune with a\nfriend at the same time when he feels a desire for my society, and we\nnaturally drift together. The companionships here are very beautiful;\nbut the solitudes are also full of charm.\n\nSince the first two or three months I have not been lonesome. At first\nI felt like a fish out of water, of course. Nearly everyone does;\nthough there are exceptions in the case of very spiritual people who\nhave no earthly ties or ambitions. I had so fought the idea of \u201cdying,\u201d\nthat my new state seemed at first to be the proof of my failure, and\nI used to wander about under the impression that I was going to waste\nmuch valuable time which could have been used to better advantage in\nthe storm and stress of earthly living.\n\nOf course the Teacher came to me; but he was too wise to carry me on\nhis back even from the first. He reminded me of a few principles, which\nhe left me to apply; and gradually, as I got hold of the applications,\nI got hold of myself. Then also gradually the beauty and wonder of the\nnew condition began to dawn on me, and I saw that instead of wasting\ntime I was really gaining tremendous experience which could be utilised\nlater.\n\nI have talked with many people here, people of all stages of\nintellectual and moral growth, and I am sorry to say that the person\nwho has a clear idea of the significance of life and its possibilities\nfor development is about as rare here as on the earth. As I have said\nbefore, a man does not suddenly become all-wise by changing the texture\nof his body.\n\nThe vain man of earth is likely to be vain here, though in his next\nlife the very law of reaction--if he has overdone vanity--may send him\nback as a modest or even bashful person, for a while at least, until\nthe reaction has spent itself. In coming out a man brings his character\nand characteristics with him.\n\nI have often been sorry for men who in life had been slaves of the\nbusiness routine. Many of them cannot get away from it for a long time;\nand instead of enjoying themselves here, they go back and forth to\nand from the scenes of their old labours, working over and over some\nproblem in tactics or finance until they are almost as weary as when\nthey \u201cdied.\u201d\n\nAs you know, there are teachers here. Few of them are of the stature of\nmy own Teacher; but there are many who make it their pleasure to help\nthe souls of the newly arrived. They never leave a newcomer entirely\nto his own resources. Help is always offered, though it is not always\naccepted. In that case it will be offered again and again, for those\nwho give themselves to others do so without hope of reward or even\nacknowledgment.\n\n\nIf I had set out to write a scientific treatise of the life on this\nside, I should have begun in quite a different way from this. In the\nfirst place, I should have postponed the labour about ten years, until\nall my facts were pigeon-holed and docketed; then I should have begun\nat the beginning and dictated a book so dull that you would have fallen\nasleep over it, and I should have had to nudge you from time to time to\npick up the pencil fallen from your somnolent hand.\n\nInstead, I began to write soon after coming out, and these letters are\nreally the letters of a traveller in a strange country. They record\nhis impressions, often his mistakes, sometimes perhaps his provincial\nprejudices; but at least they are not a rehash of what somebody else\nhas said.\n\n\nI like your keeping my photograph on your mantel as you do; it helps me\nto come. There is a great power in a photograph.\n\nI have been drawing pictures for you lately on the canvas of dreams, to\nshow you the futility and vanity of certain things. Did you not know\nthat we could do that? The power of the so-called dead to influence the\nliving is immense, provided that the tie of sympathy has been made. I\nhave taught you how to protect yourself against influences which you do\nnot want, so do not be afraid. I will always stand guard to the extent\nof warning you if there is any danger of attack from this side. Already\nI have drawn a magic ring around you which only the most advanced\nand powerful spirits could pass, even if they desired--that is, the\nTeachers and I drew it together. You are doing our work just now, and\nhave a right to our protection. That the labourer is worthy of his hire\nis an axiom of both worlds.\n\nOnly you yourself could now let down the bars for the inrush of\nevil and irresponsible spiritual intelligences, and if you should\ninadvertently let down the bars we should rush to put them up again. We\nhave some authority out here. Yes, even so soon I can say that. Are you\nsurprised?\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXVIII\n\n EXCEPT YE BE AS LITTLE CHILDREN\n\n\nI ONCE heard a man refer to this world as the play world, \u201cfor,\u201d said\nhe, \u201cwe are all children here, and we create the environment that we\ndesire.\u201d As a child at play can turn a chair into a tower or a prancing\nsteed, so we in this world can make real for the moment whatever we\nimagine.\n\nHas it never filled you with amazement, that absolute vividness of the\nimagination of children? A child says unblushingly and with conviction,\n\u201cThat rug is a garden, that plank in the floor is a river, that chair\nis a castle, and I am a king.\u201d\n\nWhy does he say these things? How _can_ he say these things?\nBecause--and here is the point--he still subconsciously remembers the\nlife out here which he so lately left. He has carried over with him\ninto the life of earth something of his lost freedom and power of\nimagination.\n\nThat does not mean that all things in this world are imaginary--far\nfrom it. Objects here, objects existing in tenuous matter, are as real\nand comparatively substantial as with you; but there is the possibility\nof creation here, creation in a form of matter even more subtle\nstill--thought-substance.\n\nIf you create something on earth in solid matter, you create it first\nin thought-substance; but there is this difference between your\ncreation and ours: until you have moulded solid matter around your\nthought-pattern you do not believe that the thought-pattern really\nexists save in your own fancy.\n\nWe out here can see the thought-creations of others if we and they will\nit so.\n\nWe can also--and I tell you this for your comfort--we can also see your\nthought-creations, and by adding the strength of our will to yours we\ncan help you to realise them in substantial form.\n\nSometimes we build here bit by bit, in the four-dimensional world,\nespecially when we wish to leave a thing for others to see and enjoy,\nwhen we wish a thing to survive for a long time. But a thought-form is\nvisible to all highly developed spirits.\n\nOf course you understand that not all spirits are highly developed.\nIn fact very few are far progressed; but the dullest man out here\nhas something which most of you have lost--the faith in his own\nthought-creations.\n\nNow, the power which makes creation possible is not lost to a soul when\nit takes on solid matter again. But the power is gradually overcome and\nthe imagination is discouraged by the incredulity of mature men and\nwomen, who say constantly to the child: \u201cThat is only play; that is not\nreally so; that is only imagination.\u201d\n\nIf you print these letters, I wish you would insert here fragments from\nthat wonderful poem of Wordsworth, \u201cIntimations of Immortality from\nRecollections of Early Childhood.\u201d\n\n \u201cOur birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;\n The Soul that rises with us, our life\u2019s Star,\n Hath had elsewhere its setting,\n And cometh from afar:\n Not in entire forgetfulness,\n And not in utter nakedness,\n But trailing clouds of glory do we come\n From God, who is our home:\n Heaven lies about us in our infancy!\n\n Shades of the prison-house begin to close\n Upon the growing Boy,\n But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,\n He sees it in his joy;\n The Youth, who daily farther from the east\n Must travel, still is Nature\u2019s Priest,\n And by the vision splendid\n Is on his way attended;\n At length the Man perceives it die away,\n And fade into the light of common day.\u201d\n\nThere is almost no limit to the possibilities of the imagination; but\nto get the full power of it, one must trust one\u2019s imagination. If you\nsay to yourself constantly, as the mother says to the child, \u201cBut this\nis only play; this is not real,\u201d you never can make real the things you\nhave created in thought.\n\nThe imagination itself is like a child and must be encouraged and\nbelieved in, or it cannot develop and do its perfect work.\n\nIt is really fortunate for some of you that I am out here. I can do\nmore for you here than there, because I have even greater faith in my\nimagination than I had before.\n\nThe man who called this the play world has been trying all sorts of\nexperiments with the power in himself. I have not his permission to\ntell the stories he tells me, but they would surprise you. For one\nthing, he helped his wife, after his so-called death, to carry out\na joint plan of theirs which had seemed impossible to them before\nbecause of their lack of real faith. It was for the erection of a\ncertain kind of house.\n\nBut do not fancy that most people here are trying to build houses\non earth. Far from it. Most of my fellow-citizens are willing to\nwork where they are, and to let the earth alone. Of course there are\n\u201cdreamers\u201d like me, who are not satisfied with one world, and who like\nto have their fingers in both; but they are rather rare, as poets are\nrare on earth. To most men the world they happen to be in is sufficient\nfor the time being.\n\nThere is a certain fancy of mine, however, which it will amuse me to\nhelp realise on earth. You may not know that I am doing it, but I\nshall know. I would not, \u201cfor the world,\u201d as you say, disturb anybody\nby even the thought that I am fussing around in affairs which now are\ntheirs. But if, unseen and unfelt, I can help with the power of my\nself-confident imagination, there will be no harm done, and I shall\nhave demonstrated something.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXIX\n\n AN UNEXPECTED WARNING\n\n\nI SHOULD be very sorry if the reading of these letters of mine should\ncause foolish and unthinking people to go spirit-hunting, inviting into\ntheir human sphere the irresponsible and often lying elemental spirits.\nTell them not to do it.\n\nMy coming in this way through your hand is quite another matter. I\ncould not do it if I had not been instructed in the scientific method\nof procedure, and I also could not do it if you should constantly\ninterrupt me by side-thoughts of your own, and by questions relevant\nor irrelevant. It is because you are perfectly passive and not even\ncurious, letting me use your hand as on earth I would have used the\nhand of my stenographer, that I am able to write long and connected\nsentences.\n\nMost spirit communications, even when genuine, have little value, for\nthe reason that they are nearly always coloured by the mind of the\nperson through whom they pass.\n\nYou are right in reading nothing on the subject while these messages\nare coming, and in thinking nothing about this plane of life where I\nam. Thus you avoid preconceived ideas, which would interrupt the flow\nof _my_ ideas.\n\nYou know, perhaps, that while on earth I investigated spiritualism,\nas I investigated many things of an occult nature, looking always for\nthe truth that was behind them; but I was convinced then, and I am now\nmore than ever convinced, that, except for the scientific demonstration\nthat _such things can be_--which, of course, has value as a\ndemonstration only,--most spirit-hunting is not only a waste of time,\nbut an absolute detriment to those who engage in it.\n\nThis may sound strange coming from a so-called \u201cspirit,\u201d one who is\nactually at this time in communication with the world. If that is so,\nI cannot help it. If I seem inconsistent, then I seem so; that is all.\nBut I wish to go on record as discouraging irresponsible mediumship.\n\nIf a person sitting for mediumship could be sure that at the other\nend of the psychic line there was an entity who had something sincere\nand important to say, and who really could use him or her to say it\nthrough, it would be another matter; but this world out here is full of\nvagrants, even as the earth. As this world is peopled largely from your\nworld, it is inevitable that we have the same kind of beings that you\nhave. They have not changed much in passing through the doors of death.\n\nWould you advise any delicate and sensitive woman to sit down in the\ncentre of Hyde Park, and invite the passing crowds to come and speak\nthrough her, or touch her, or mingle their magnetism with hers? You\nshudder. You would shudder more had you seen some of the things which I\nhave seen.\n\nThen, too, there is another class of beings here, the kind which we\nused to hear the Theosophists call elementals. Now, there has been a\nlot of nonsense written about elementals; but take this for a fact:\nthere are units of energy, units of consciousness, which correspond\npretty closely to what the Theosophists understand by elementals. These\nentities are not, as a rule, very highly developed; but as the stage\nof earth life is the stage to which they aspire, and as it is the next\ninevitable stage in their evolution, they are drawn to it powerfully.\n\nSo do not be too sure that the entity which raps on your table or your\ncupboard is the spirit of your deceased grandfather. It may be merely a\nblind and very _desirous_ entity, an eager consciousness, trying\nto use you to hasten its own evolution, trying to get into you or\nthrough you, so as to enjoy the earth and the coarser vibrations of the\nearth.\n\nIt may not be able to harm you, but, on the other hand, it may do you\na great deal of harm. You had better discourage such attempts to break\nthrough the veil which separates you from them; for the veil is thinner\nthan you think, and though you cannot see through it, you can feel\nthrough it.\n\nHaving said this, my duty in the matter is discharged; and the next\ntime I come I can tell you a story, maybe, instead of giving you a\nlecture.\n\nI really feel like an astral Scheherazade; but I fear you would tire\nof me before a thousand-and-one nights were past. A thousand-and-one\nnights! Before that time I shall have gone on. No, I do not mean \u201cdied\u201d\nagain into another world beyond; but when I get through telling you\nwhat I desire you to know about my life here, I want to investigate\nother stars, if it shall be permitted.\n\nI am like a young man who has lately inherited a fortune and has at\nlast unlimited means and opportunity for travel. Though he might\nstay around home a few months, getting matters in shape and becoming\nadjusted to his new freedom of movement, yet the time would come when\nhe would want to try his wings. I hope that is not a mixed metaphor; if\nso, you can edit me. I shall not feel hurt.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXX\n\n THE SYLPH AND THE MAGICIAN\n\n\nIF your eyes could pierce the veil of matter, and you could see what\ngoes on in the tenuous world around and above that city of Paris, you\nwould gasp with wonder. I have spent much time in Paris lately. Shall I\ntell you some of the strange things I have seen?\n\nIn a street on the left bank of the river, called the _rue de\nVaugirard_, there lives a man of middle age and sedentary habits who\nis a sort of magician. He is constantly attended and served by one of\nthe elemental spirits known as sylphs. This sylph he calls Meriline. I\ndo not know from what language he got the name, for he seems to speak\nseveral, and to know Hebrew. I have seen this Meriline coming and going\nto and from his apartment. No, it would not be right for me to tell you\nwhere it is. The man could be identified, though the sylph would elude\nthe census-taker.\n\nMeriline does not make his bed or cook his broth, for which humble\nservice he has a char-woman; but the sylph runs errands and discovers\nthings for him. He is a collector of old books and manuscripts, and\nmany of his treasures have been located by Meriline in the stalls\nwhich lie along the banks of the Seine, and also in more pretentious\nbookshops.\n\nThis man is not a devil-worshipper. He is only a harmless enthusiast,\nfond of occult things, and striving to pierce the veil which shuts the\nelemental world from his eyes. A little less brandy and wine, and he\n_might_ be able to see clearly, for he is a true student. But he\nis fond of the flesh, and it preys upon the spirit.\n\nOne day I encountered Meriline going upon one of his errands, and I\nintroduced myself by signalling with my hands and calling my name. This\nattracted the attention of the sprite, who came and stood beside me.\n\n\u201cWhere are you going?\u201d I asked; and she nodded towards the other side\nof the river.\n\nThe thought came to me that perhaps I ought not to question this\nservant of the good magician as to her master\u2019s business, so I\nhesitated. She also hesitated; then she said:\n\n\u201cBut he is interested in the spirits of men.\u201d\n\nThis made the matter simpler, and I asked:\n\n\u201cYou do his errands?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, always.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy do you do his errands?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I love to serve him.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd why do you love to serve him?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I belong to him.\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought every soul belonged to itself.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I am not a soul!\u201d\n\n\u201cThen what are you?\u201d\n\n\u201cA sylph.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you ever expect to be a soul?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes! He has promised that I shall be, if I serve him faithfully.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut how can he make you to be a soul?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know; but he will.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow do you know that he will?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I trust him.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat makes you trust him?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause he trusts me.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you always tell him the truth?\u201d\n\n\u201cAlways.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho taught you what truth is?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe did.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow?\u201d\n\nThis seemed to puzzle the being before me, and I feared she would go\naway; so I detained her by saying, quickly:\n\n\u201cI do not want to worry you with questions which you cannot answer.\nTell me how you first came into his service.\u201d\n\n\u201cOught I?\u201d\n\n\u201cSo you have a conscience?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, he taught me to have.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you say that he is interested in the spirits of men.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, and I also know good spirits from bad ones.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid he teach you that?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow did you learn?\u201d\n\n\u201cI always knew.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen you have lived a long time?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd when do you expect to have, or to become a soul?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen he comes out here, into this world where we are.\u201d\n\nThis staggered me by its daring. Had the good magician been deceiving\nhis sylph, or did he really believe what he promised?\n\n\u201cWhat did he say about it?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cThat if I would serve him now, he would serve me later.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd how is he going to do it?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d\n\n\u201cSuppose you ask him?\u201d\n\n\u201cI never ask questions. I answer them.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor instance, what sort of questions?\u201d\n\n\u201cI tell him where such and such a person is, and what he or she is\ndoing.\u201d\n\n\u201cCan you tell him what these people are thinking?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot often--or not always. Sometimes I can.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow can you tell?\u201d\n\n\u201cBy the feel of them. If I am warm in their presence, I know they are\nfriendly to him; if I am cold, I know they are his enemies. If I feel\nnothing at all, then I know that they are not thinking of him, or are\nindifferent.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd your errand this evening?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo see a lady.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you are not jealous?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is \u2018jealous\u2019?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are not displeased that he should interest himself in ladies?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy should I be?\u201d\n\nThis was a question I could not answer, not knowing the nature of\nsylphs. She surprised me a little, for I had supposed that all female\nthings were jealous. But, fearing again that she might leave me, I\nhurried to question her further.\n\n\u201cHow did you make his acquaintance?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cHe called me.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow?\u201d\n\n\u201cBy the incantation.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat incantation?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe call of the sylphs.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d I said, \u201che called the sylphs and you came!\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, of course. I liked him for his kindness, and I made him see me.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow did you manage it?\u201d\n\n\u201cI dazzled his eyes until he closed them, and then he could see me.\u201d\n\n\u201cCan he always see you now?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, but he knows I am there.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe can see you sometimes still?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, often.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd when he saw you first?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe was delighted, and called me loving names, and made me promises.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe promise of a soul--that first time?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen you had wanted to have a soul?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes!\u201d\n\n\u201cBut why?\u201d\n\n\u201cMany of us want to be men. We love men--that is, most of us do.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy do you love men?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is our nature.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut not the nature of all of you?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere are malignant spirits of the air.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what will you do when you have a soul?\u201d\n\n\u201cI will take a body, and live on earth.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd leave your friend whom you now serve?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, no! It is to be with him that I specially want a body.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen will he come back to the earth with you?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe says so.\u201d\n\nThis again staggered me. I was becoming interested in this magician; he\nhad a daring imagination.\n\nCould a spirit of the air develop into a human soul? I asked myself.\nWas the man self-deceived? Or, again, was he deceiving his lovely\nmessenger?\n\nI thought a little too long this time, for when I turned again to speak\nto my strange companion, she had left me. I tried to follow, but could\nnot find her; and if she returned soon, it must have been by some other\nroad. Though I looked in all directions, she was invisible to me.\n\nNow, the question will arise in your mind: In what language did I talk\nwith this aerial servant of a French magician? I seemed to speak in\nmy own tongue, and she seemed to respond in the same. How is that? I\ncannot say, unless we really used the subtle language of thought itself.\n\nYou may often, on meeting with a person whose language you do not\nspeak, feel an interchange of ideas, by the look of the eyes, by the\nexpression of the face, by gestures. Now imagine that, intensified a\nhundredfold. Might it not extend to the simple questions and answers\nwhich I exchanged with the sylph? I do not say that it would, but I\nthink it might; for, as I said before, I seemed to speak and she seemed\nto reply in my own language.\n\nWhat strange experiences one has out here! I rather dread to go back\ninto the world, where it will be so dull for me for a long time. Can I\nexchange this freedom and vivid life for a long period of somnolence,\nafterwards to suck a bottle and learn the multiplication table and\nGreek and Latin verbs? I suppose I must--but not yet.\n\nGood night.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXXI\n\n A PROBLEM IN CELESTIAL MATHEMATICS\n\n\nBY the vividness with which you feel my presence at times, you can\njudge of the intensity of the life that I am living. I am no pallid\nspook, dripping with grave-dew. I am real, and quite as wholesome--or\nso it seems to me--as when I walked the earth in a more or less\nunhealthy body. The ghastly spectres, when they return, do not talk as\nI talk. Ask those who have seen and heard them.\n\nIt is well that you have kept yourself comparatively free of\ncommunications \u201cfrom the other world.\u201d\n\nIt would have been amazing had you been afraid of me. But there are\nthose who would be, if they should sense my presence as you sense it.\n\nOne night I knocked at the door of a friend\u2019s chamber, half expecting\na welcome. He jumped out of bed in alarm, then jumped back again, and\npulled the blanket over his head. He was really afraid that it might be\nI! So, as I did not wish to be responsible for a case of heart failure,\nor for a shock of hair which, like that in the old song, \u201cturned white\nin a single night,\u201d I went quietly away. Doubtless he persuaded himself\nnext day that there were mice in the wainscoting.\n\nHad you been afraid of me, though, I should have been ashamed of you;\nfor you know better. Most persons do not.\n\nIt is a real pleasure for me to come back and talk with you sometimes.\n\u201cThere are no friends like the old friends,\u201d and the society of sylphs\nand spirits would never quite satisfy me if all those whom I had known\nand loved should turn their backs on me.\n\nSpeaking of sylphs, I met the Teacher last night, and asked him if that\nFrench magician I told you about could really make good his promise\nto his aerial companion, and help her to acquire the kind of soul\nessential to incarnation on earth as a woman. His answer was, \u201cNo.\u201d\n\nOf course I asked him why, and he answered that the elemental\ncreatures, or units of force inhabiting the elements, as we use that\nterm, could not, during this life cycle, step out of their element\ninto the human.\n\n\u201cCan they ever do so?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cI do not know,\u201d he replied; \u201cbut I believe that all the less evolved\nunits around the earth are working in the direction of man; that the\nhuman is a stage of development which they will all reach some day, but\nnot in this life cycle.\u201d\n\nI asked the Teacher if he knew the magician in question, and he\nanswered that he had known him for a thousand years, that long ago, in\na former life, the Paris magician had placed his feet upon the path\nwhich leads to power; but that he had been side-tracked by the desire\nfor selfish pleasures, and that he might wander a long time before he\nfound his way back to real and philosophical truth.\n\n\u201cIs he to be blamed or pitied?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cPity cuts no figure in the problem,\u201d the Teacher replied. \u201cA man seeks\nwhat he desires.\u201d\n\nAfter the Teacher went away I began asking myself questions. What was\n_I_ seeking, and what did I desire? The answer came quickly:\n\u201cKnowledge.\u201d A year ago I might have answered \u201cPower,\u201d but knowledge is\nthe forerunner of power. If I get true knowledge, I shall have power\nenough.\n\nIt is because I want to give to you, and possibly to others, a few\nscraps of knowledge which might be inaccessible to you by any other\nmeans, that I am coming back, and coming back, time after time, to talk\nwith you.\n\nThe greatest bit of knowledge that I have to offer you is this: that by\nthe exercise of will a man can retain his objective consciousness after\ndeath. Many persons out here sink into a sort of subjective bliss which\nmakes them indifferent as to what is going on upon the earth or in the\nheavens. I could do so myself, easily.\n\nAs I believe I have said before, while man on earth has both subjective\nand objective consciousness, but functions mostly in the objective,\nout here he has still subjective and objective consciousness, but the\ntendency is towards the subjective.\n\nAt almost any time, on composing yourself and looking in, you can fall\ninto a state of subjective bliss which is similar to that enjoyed by\nsouls on this side of the dividing line called death. In fact, it is by\nsuch subconscious experience that man has learned nearly all he knows\nregarding the etheric world. When the storms and passions of the body\nare stilled, man can catch a glimpse of his own interior life, and\nthat interior life is the life of this fourth-dimensional plane. Please\ndo not accuse me of contradicting myself or of being obscure; I have\nsaid that the objective consciousness is as possible with us as the\nsubjective is with you, but that the tendency is merely the other way.\n\n\nYou may remember a pair of lovers about whom I wrote you a few weeks\nago. He had been out here some time, and had waited for her, and helped\nher over the uncertain marsh-lands which lie between the two states of\nexistence.\n\nI saw these lovers again the other day, but they were not at all\nexcited by my appearance. On the contrary, I fancy that I put them out\nsomewhat by awakening them, by calling them back from the state of\nsubjective bliss into which they have sunk since being together at last.\n\nWhile he waited for her all those years, he kept himself awake by\nexpectation; while still on earth she was always thinking of him out\nhere, and so the polarity was sustained. Now they have each other; they\nare in \u201cthe little home\u201d which he built for her with so much pleasure\nout of the tenuous materials of this tenuous world; they see each\nother\u2019s faces whether they look out or in; they are content; they\nhave nothing more to attain (or so they tell each other), and they\nconsequently sink back into the arms of subjective bliss.\n\nNow this state of bliss, of rumination, they have a right to enjoy. No\none can take it from them. They have earned it by activity in the world\nand elsewhere, it is theirs by rhythmic justice. They will enjoy it,\nI fancy, for a long time, living over the past experiences which they\nhave had together and apart. Then some day one or the other of them\nwill become surfeited with too much sweetness; the muscles of his (or\nher) soul will stretch for want of exercise; he (or she) will give a\nspiritual yawn, and by the law of reaction, pass out--not to return.\n\nWhere will he (or she) go, you ask? Why, back to the earth, of course!\n\nLet us imagine him (or her) awaking from that subjective state of bliss\nwhich is known to them as attainment, and going for a short promenade\nin blessed and wholesome solitude. Then, with a sort of morning\nalertness in the heart and the eye, he (or she) draws near to a pair\nof earthly lovers. Suddenly the call of matter, the eager, terrible\ncall of blood and warmth, of activity raised to the _n_th power,\ncatches the half-awakened soul on the ethereal side of matter, and----\n\nHe has again entered the world of material formation. He is sunk and\nhidden in the flesh of earth. He awaits birth. He will come out with\ngreat force, by reason of his former rest. He might even become a\n\u201ccaptain of industry,\u201d if he is a strong unit. But I began by saying\n\u201che or she.\u201d Let me change the figure. The man would be almost certain\nto awake first, by reason of his positive polarity.\n\nNow, in drawing this imaginary picture of my lovers, I am not making\na dogma of the way in which all souls return to earth. I am merely\nguessing how these two will return (for she would probably follow him\nspeedily when she awoke and found herself alone). And the reason why\nI fancy they will return in that way is because they are indulging\nthemselves in too much subjective bliss.\n\nWhen will they go back? I cannot say. Perhaps next year, perhaps in a\nhundred years. Not knowing the numerical value of their unit of force,\nI cannot guess how much subjective bliss they can endure without a\nviolent reaction.\n\nI am sure that you are wondering if some day I shall myself sink into\nthat state of bliss which I have described. Perhaps. I should enjoy\nit--but not for long, and not yet. However, I have no sweetheart out\nhere to enjoy it with me.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXXII\n\n A CHANGE OF FOCUS\n\n\nWITH the guidance of the Teacher, during the last few weeks I have been\ngoing to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it. You smile\nat the veiled reference. But have not certain friends of yours actually\nfeared me, as if I were the devil of the Book of Job?\n\nNow, to be serious, I have been visiting those lands and cities\nwhere in former lives I lived and worked among men. One of the many\nadvantages of travel is that it helps a man to remember his former\nexistences. There is certainly a magic in places.\n\nI have been in Egypt, in India, in Persia, in Spain, in Italy; I have\nbeen in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Turkey, and many other\nlands. The Dardanelles were not closed to me recently, when by reason\nof the war you could not have passed through. There are advantages\nto almost every condition, even my present one; for the law of\ncompensation holds good.\n\nIn certain lives of the past I was a wide traveller.\n\nNow you may wonder how it is that I pass easily from this world to\nyours, seeing into both. But you must remember that your world and mine\noccupy about the same space; that the plane of the earth\u2019s surface is\none of the lower and more material planes of our world, using the word\n\u201cplane\u201d as you would use the word \u201clayer.\u201d\n\nAs I have said before, there are also places accessible to us which lie\nat some distance above the earth\u2019s surface. \u201cMansions in the skies\u201d are\nmore than figurative.\n\nI have only slightly to change my focus at any time, to find myself\nin your world. That I cannot be seen there with the naked eye is no\nproof that I am not there. Without that change of focus, which is done\nthrough an action of will and by knowing the method, I might even be\noccupying the same space as something in your world and not know it.\nNote well this point, for it is only half of something which I have\nto say. The other half is, that you also may at any time be--so far\nas space is concerned--in the immediate neighbourhood of interesting\nthings in our world, and not know that you are there.\n\nBut if you focus to this world you are more or less conscious of\nit. So when I, knowing how, focus to your world, I am there in\nconsciousness and can enjoy the varied sights of many cities, the\nchanging aspects of many lands.\n\nWhen I first came out I could not see my way about the earth very well,\nbut now I can see better.\n\nNo, I am not going to give you a formula to give to other people by\nwhich you or they could change focus at will and enter into relation\nwith this world, because such knowledge at the present stage of human\nprogress would do more harm than good. I merely state the fact, and\nleave the application for those who have the curiosity and the ability\nto demonstrate it.\n\nMy object in writing these letters is primarily to convince a few\npersons--to strengthen their certainty in the fact of immortality, or\nthe survival of the soul after the bodily change which is called death.\nMany think they believe who are not certain whether they believe or\nnot. If I can make my presence as a living and vital entity felt in\nthese letters, it will have the effect of strengthening the belief of\ncertain persons in the doctrine of immortality.\n\nThis is a materialistic age. A large percentage of men and women have\nno real interest in the life beyond the grave. But they will all have\nto come out here sooner or later, and perhaps a few will find the\nchange easier, the journey less formidable, by reason of what I shall\nhave taught them. Is it not worth while? Is it not worth a little\neffort on your part as well as on mine?\n\nAny person approaching the great change who shall seriously study\nthese letters and lay their principles to heart, and who shall will to\nremember them after passing out, need not fear anything.\n\nWe all fail in much that we undertake, but I hope I shall not fail\nin this. Do not you fail on your side. I could not do this work\nwithout you, nor could you do it without me. That is in answer to the\nsupposition that I am your subconscious mind.\n\n\nI have been in Constantinople and have stood in the very room where I\nonce had a remarkable experience, hundreds of years ago. I have seen\nthe walls, I have touched them, I have read the etheric records of\ntheir history, and my own history in connection therewith.\n\nI have walked the rose-gardens of Persia and have smelled the\nflowers--the grandchildren, hundreds of times removed, of those roses\nwhose fragrance was an ecstasy to me when, watching with the bulbul, I\npaced there in another form and with intentions different to mine now.\nIt was the perfume of the roses which made me remember.\n\nIn Greece also I have lived over the old days. Before their\ndegeneration began, what a race they were! I think that concentration\nwas the secret of their power. The ether around that peninsula is\nwritten over with their exploits, in daring thought as well as daring\naction. The old etheric records are so vivid that they shine through\nthe later writings; for you must know that what are called astral\nrecords lie layer against layer everywhere. We read one layer instead\nof another, either by affinity or by will. It is no more strange than\nthat a man may go among the millions of volumes in the British Museum\nand select the one he wants. The most marvellous things are always\nsimple of explanation if one has the key to unlock their secret.\n\nThere has been much nonsense written about vibration, but nevertheless\ntruth lies thereabouts. Where there is so much smoke there must be fire.\n\nIn India I have met with yogis in meditation. Do you know why their\npeculiar way of breathing produces psychic results? No, you do not.\nNow let me tell you: By holding the breath long a certain--shall I say\npoison?--is produced in the body, which poison, acting on the psychic\nnature, changes the vibration. That is all. Volumes have been written\nabout yoga, but have any of them said that? The untrained healthy\nlungs, in the ordinary operation, get rid of this poison by processes\nwell known to physiologists,--that is, in the natural man, adjusted to\nand working contentedly on the material plane. But in order for a man\nstill living on the material plane to become adjusted to the psychic\nworld, a change of vibration is necessary. This change of vibration may\nbe produced by a slight overdose of the above-mentioned poison. Is it\ndangerous? Yes, to the ignorant. To those who are learned in its use it\nis no more dangerous than most of the drugs in the pharmacop\u0153ia.\n\nAnother time I will tell you about other secrets which I have\ndiscovered going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXXIII\n\n FIVE RESOLUTIONS\n\n\nI HAVE stood at night on the roof of an Oriental palace and watched the\nstars. You who can see into the invisible world by changing your focus,\ncan easily understand how I, by a reverse process, can see into the\nworld of dense matter. Yes, it is the same thing, only turned the other\nway.\n\nI stood on the roof of an Oriental palace and watched the stars. No\nmortal was near me. Looking down upon the sleeping city, I have seen\nthe cloud of souls which kept watch above it, have seen the messengers\ncoming and going. Once or twice a wan, half-frightened face appeared\namong the cloud of spirits, and I knew that down below in the city\nsomeone had died.\n\nBut I had seen so many spirits since coming out here that I was more\ninterested in watching the stars. I used to love them, and I love\nthem still. Some day, if it is permitted, I hope to know more about\nthem. But I shall not leave the neighbourhood of the earth until these\nletters are finished. From the distance of the planet Jupiter I might\nnot be able to write at all. It is true that one can come and go,\nalmost with the quickness of thought; but something tells me that it\nis better to postpone for a time my more extensive travelling. Perhaps\nwhen I get out there I shall not want to come back for a long time.\n\nIt means much to me this correspondence with earth. During my illness\nI used to wonder if I could come back sometimes, but I never imagined\nanything like this. I would not have supposed it possible to find any\nwell-balanced and responsible person with daring enough to join me in\nthe experiment.\n\nI could not have written through the hand of a person of untrained mind\nunless he or she had been fully hypnotised. I could not have written\nthrough the hand of the average intellectual person, because such\npersons cannot make themselves sufficiently passive.\n\nBe at peace. You are not a spirit medium, using the word as it is\ncommonly used, signifying a passive instrument, an \u00e6olian harp, set in\nan aperture between the two worlds and played upon by any wind that\nblows.\n\nExcept as illustrating the fact that it can be done, there is no great\nobject in my telling you of the things I have seen in your world since\ncoming to this other one. The next time you look out into this plane of\nlife and see the wonderful landscapes and the people, remember that it\nis in a similar way that I look back into your plane of existence. It\nis interesting to live in two worlds, going back and forth at will. But\nwhen I go into yours it is only as a visitor, and I shall never attempt\nto take a hand in its government. There is such a rigorous custom-house\non the frontier between the two worlds that the traveller back and\nforth cannot afford to carry anything with him--not even a prejudice.\n\nIf you should come out here with a determination to see only certain\nthings, you might give a wrong value to what you would see. Many have\ncome out here at death with that mental attitude, and so have learned\nlittle or nothing. It is the traveller with the open mind who makes\ndiscoveries.\n\nI brought over with me only a few resolutions:\n\nTo preserve my identity;\n\nTo hold my memory of earth life, and to carry back the memory of this\nlife when I should return to the world;\n\nTo see the great Teachers;\n\nTo recover the memories of my past incarnations;\n\nTo lay the necessary foundations for a great earth life when I should\ngo back next time.\n\nThat sounds simple, does it not? Already I have done much besides;\nbut if I had not borne these points in mind I might have accomplished\nlittle.\n\nThe only really sad thing about death is that the average man learns\nso little from it. Only my realisation of the fact that the chain of\nearth lives is relatively endless could keep me from regret that most\npersons make so little progress in each life. But I comfort myself with\nthe assurance that there is no hurry; that the pearls in the chain of\nexistence, though small, are all in their inevitable places, and that\nthe chain is a circle, the symbol of eternity.\n\nAnd it seems to me, with my still finite view, that most men on this\nside waste their lives even as they do on your side. That shows how far\nI am yet from the ideal knowledge.\n\nViewed from the stars, whence I hope some day to view them, all these\nflat stretches in the landscape of life may be softened by distance,\nand the whole picture may take on a perspective of beauty which I had\nnot dreamed of while I myself was but a speck upon the canvas.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXXIV\n\n THE PASSING OF LIONEL\n\n\nI HAVE lost my boy Lionel. He has gone--I started to say the way of all\nflesh; but I must revise the figure and say the way of all spirits,\nsooner or later, and that way is back to the earth.\n\nOne day not long ago I found him absorbed in thought in our favourite\nresting-place, the little hut beside a stream at the foot of a wooded\nhill, which I told you about in one of my former letters.\n\nI waited for a time until the boy opened his eyes and looked at me.\n\n\u201cFather,\u201d he said, \u201cmy favourite teacher is going to be married\nto-morrow.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow do you know?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cWhy, I have been listening!\u201d he answered. \u201cEvery little while I go\nback and pay her a visit, though she does not know I am there. I have\nbeen aware that there was something in the wind.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause she has been so shining; there is a light around her which was\nnot there before.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat caused the light, Lionel?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I suppose she is what they call _in love_.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are a phenomenally wise child,\u201d I said.\n\nHe looked at me with his large, honest eyes.\n\n\u201cI am not really a child at all,\u201d he answered. \u201cI am as old as the\nhills, as you, or as anybody. Have you not told me that we are all\nimmortal, without end or beginning?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, but go on, tell me about your teacher.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe is in love with the big brother of one of my playfellows. I used\nto know him when I was a little boy. He let me use his magnet, and\ntaught me kite-flying, and showed me how machinery went. He is an\nengineer.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d I said. \u201cIn this case, of course, you are glad that your\nfavourite teacher is going to marry him.\u201d\n\nLionel\u2019s eyes were larger than ever as he said:\n\n\u201cI shall be sorry to leave you, Father; but it is a chance I cannot\nafford to miss.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat!\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is my opportunity to go back. I\u2019ve been watching for it a long\ntime.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut are you ready?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is it to be ready? I _want_ to go.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd leave me?\u201d\n\n\u201cI shall find you again. And--Oh, Father!--when you come back I shall\nbe older than you.\u201d This idea seemed to delight him.\n\nI was still human enough to be sorry that the boy was going of his own\nfree will; but as will _is_ free, I would not make any effort to\ndetain him. Though young in that form, which had not yet had time to\ngrow up in the tenuous world since he came out as a child, yet he was\nold in thought.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d I said, \u201cperhaps you can help me along when I also shall be a\nchild again.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou see,\u201d he went on, \u201cwith a father like Victor I shall learn all I\nwant to know about machinery--that is, all that he can teach me; but\nwhen I am grown I shall find out for myself many things which he does\nnot know. You remember the little machine I have been working with, up\nin the pattern world?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen I am back on the earth I shall make it a reality. Why, it\nactually runs now with the electricity from my fingers!\u201d\n\n\u201cBut will it, when you have fixed it in material form, in steel, or\nwhatever it is to be made of?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, of course it will. It is my invention. I shall be a famous man.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut supposing that somebody else finds it first?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t think anybody will.\u201d\n\n\u201cShall I help you to lay a spell around the pattern, so that no one can\ntouch it?\u201d\n\n\u201cCould you do that, Father?\u201d\n\n\u201cI think so.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen let us go up there at once,\u201d he said, \u201cand do it immediately. I\nmay have to leave this world in a day or two.\u201d\n\nI could not help smiling at the boy\u2019s desire to hurry. Doubtless he\nwould be present at that wedding, and I should see little or nothing of\nhim afterwards.\n\nWe went up to the pattern world, and with his assistance I drew a\ncircle around the little machine--a spell which, I think, will protect\nit until he is ready to make his claim.\n\nOh inspiration! Oh invention! Genius! Little do the men of earth know\nthe meaning of those words. Perhaps the poet\u2019s famous poem was sung\nbefore his birth; perhaps the engineer\u2019s invention lay in the pattern\nworld, protected by his spell, while he grew to manhood and advanced in\nscience and made ready to claim it for his own, his prior and spiritual\ncreation. Perhaps, when two men discover or invent the same thing at\nabout the same time, one has succeeded in appropriating the design\nwhich the other left behind him when he came back to earth. Sometimes,\nperhaps, both have taken from the invisible the creation of a third\nman, who still awaits rebirth.\n\nLionel babbled on to me about the life to come, and of what a charming\nmother Miss ---- would be. She had always been good to him.\n\n\u201cPerhaps,\u201d I said, \u201cmany of us who return almost immediately, as you\nhope to do, seek out those who have been good to us in a former life.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is another point,\u201d Lionel said. \u201cMiss ---- is a friend of my own\nmother, the one I left a few years ago. It will be so good to have her\nhold my hand again.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you think she will recognise you?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cWho knows? She believes in rebirth.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow can you say that? You were so little when you came out!\u201d\n\n\u201cI was seven years old, and already she had told me that we live many\nlives on earth.\u201d\n\n\u201cBless the souls who first brought that belief to the Western world!\u201d\nI exclaimed. \u201cAnd now, my boy, is there anything that I can do for you\nafter you leave me?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, of course; you can watch over my new mother, and warn her if any\ndanger threatens her or me.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen make me acquainted with her now.\u201d\n\nWe went out into the material world, the boy and I. Already I have told\nyou how we go.\n\nHe took me to a little house in one of the suburbs of Boston. We\nentered a room--it was then about eleven o\u2019clock at night upon that\npart of the earth,--and I saw a fair young woman kneeling beside her\nbed, praying to God that He would bless the union of the morrow which\nwas to give her to the man she loved.\n\nLionel went close to her and threw his arms about her neck.\n\nShe started, as if she actually felt the contact, and sprang to her\nfeet.\n\n\u201cMiss ----, Miss ----, don\u2019t you know me?\u201d he cried; but while I could\nhear him, she evidently could not, though she looked about her in a\nhalf-frightened way.\n\nThen, supposing that the touch and the presence she had felt were\nimaginary, she again fell upon her knees and went on with her\ninterrupted prayer.\n\n\u201cCome away,\u201d I said to the boy; and we left her there with her dreams\nand her devotions.\n\nThat was the last I saw of Lionel. He bade me good-bye, saying:\n\n\u201cI shall stay near her for a few days. Perhaps I shall go back and\nforth, from her to you; but if I do not return, I will meet you again\nin a few years.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d I said, \u201cit is affinity and desire which draw souls together,\neither on earth or in the other world.\u201d\n\n\nWhen next I met the Teacher I told him about Lionel, and asked him if\nhe thought the boy could come out to me now and then, after his life\non earth had begun, as an unborn entity in the shelter of his mother\u2019s\nform.\n\n\u201cProbably not,\u201d he replied. \u201cIf he were an adept soul, he might do\nthat; but with a soul of even high development, lacking real adeptship,\nit would be impossible.\u201d\n\n\u201cYet,\u201d I said, \u201cmen living on earth do come out here in dreams.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, but when the soul enters matter, preparing for rebirth, it enters\npotentiality, if we may use the term, and all its strength is needed\nin the herculean effort to form the new body and adjust to it. After\nbirth, when the eyes are opened, and the lungs are expanded to the\nair, the task is easier, and there may be left enough unused energy to\nbridge the gulf.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d he went on, \u201cthose who are soon to be mothers are often vaguely\nconscious of the souls they harbour. Even when they do not grasp the\nfull significance of the miracle that is being performed through them,\nthey have strange dreams and visions, which are mostly glimpses into\nthe past incarnations of the unborn child. They see dream countries\nwhere the entity within has dwelt in the past; they feel desires which\nthey cannot explain--reflected desires which are merely the latent\nyearnings of the unborn one; they experience groundless fears which are\nits former dreads and terrors. The mother who nourishes a truly great\nsoul, during this period of formation may herself grow spiritually\nbeyond her own unaided possibility; while the mother of an unborn\ncriminal often develops strange perversities, quite unlike her normal\nstate of mind.\n\n\u201cIf a woman were sufficiently intelligent and informed, she could judge\nfrom her own feelings and ideas what sort of soul was to be her child\nsome day, and prepare to guide it accordingly. More knowledge is\nneeded, here as elsewhere.\u201d\n\n\nSo, as in all my experiences, I learned something through the passing\nout of Lionel.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXXV\n\n THE BEAUTIFUL BEING\n\n\nYES, I have seen angels, if by angels you mean spiritual beings who\nhave never dwelt as men upon the earth.\n\nAs a man is to a rock, so is an angel to a man in vividness of life. If\nwe ever experienced that state of etheric joy, we have lost it through\nlong association with matter. Can we ever regain it? Perhaps. The event\nis in our hand.\n\nShall I tell you of one whom I call the Beautiful Being? If it has a\nname in heaven, I have not heard it. Is the Beautiful Being man or\nwoman? Sometimes it seems to be one, sometimes the other. There is a\nmystery here which I cannot fathom.\n\nOne night I seemed to be reclining upon a moonbeam, which means that\nthe poet which dwells in all men was awake in me. I seemed to be\nreclining upon a moonbeam, and ecstasy filled my heart. For the moment\nI had escaped the clutches of Time, and was living in that etheric\nquietude which is merely the activity of rapture raised to the last\ndegree. I must have been enjoying a foretaste of that paradoxical state\nwhich the wise ones of the East call Nirvana.\n\nI was vividly conscious of the moonbeam and of myself, and _in_\nmyself seemed to be everything else in the universe. It was the nearest\nI ever came to a realisation of that supreme declaration, \u201c_I am_.\u201d\n\nThe past and the future seemed equally present in the moment. Had a\nvoice whispered that it was yesterday, I should have acquiesced in the\nassertion; had I been told that it was a million years hence, I should\nhave been also assentive. But whether it was really yesterday or a\nmillion years hence mattered not in the least. Perhaps the Beautiful\nBeing only comes to those for whom the moment and eternity are one. I\nheard a voice say:\n\n\u201cBrother, it is I.\u201d\n\nThere was no question in my mind as to who had spoken. \u201cIt is I\u201d can\nonly be uttered in such a voice by one whose individuality is so vast\nas to be almost universal, one who has dipped in the ocean of the All,\nyet who knows the minute by reason of its own inclusiveness.\n\nStanding before me was the Beautiful Being, radiant in its own light.\nHad it been less lovely I might have gasped with wonder; but the very\nperfection of its form and presence diffused an atmosphere of calm. I\nmarvelled not, because the state of my consciousness _was_ marvel.\nI was lifted so far above the commonplace that I had no standard by\nwhich to measure the experience of that moment.\n\nImagine youth immortalised, the fleeting made eternal. Imagine the\nbloom of a child\u2019s face and the eyes of the ages of knowledge. Imagine\nthe brilliancy of a thousand lives concentrated in those eyes, and the\nsmile upon the lips of a love so pure that it asks no answering love\nfrom those it smiles upon.\n\nBut the language of earth cannot describe the unearthly, nor could\nthe understanding of man grasp in a moment those joys which the\nBeautiful Being revealed to me in that hour of supreme life. For the\npossibilities of existence have been widened for me, the meanings\nof the soul have deepened. Those who behold the Beautiful Being are\nnever the same again as they were before. They may forget for a time,\nand lose in the business of living the magic of that presence; but\nwhenever they do remember, they are caught up again on the wings of\nthe former rapture.\n\nIt may happen to one who is living upon the earth; it may happen to one\nin the spaces between the stars; but the experience must be the same\nwhen it comes to all; for only to one in the state in which _it_\ndwells could the Beautiful Being reveal itself at all.\n\n\nA SONG OF THE BEAUTIFUL BEING\n\n When you hear a rustling in the air, listen again: there\n may be something there.\n\n When you feel a warmth mysterious and lovely in the\n heart, there may be something there, something\n sent to you from a warm and lovely source.\n\n When a joy unknown fills your being, and your soul\n goes out, out ... toward some loved mystery, you\n know not where, know that the mystery itself is\n reaching toward you with warm and loving, though\n invisible, arms.\n\n We who live in the invisible are not invisible to each\n other.\n\n There are tender colours here and exquisite forms, and\n the eye gloats on beauty never seen upon the earth.\n\n Oh, the joy of simple life to be, and to sing in your soul\n all day as the bird sings to its mate!\n\n For you are singing to your mate whenever your soul\n sings.\n\n Did you fancy it was only the spring-time that thrilled\n you and moved you to listen to the rustling of\n wings?\n\n The spring-time of the heart is all time, and the autumn\n may never come.\n\n Listen! When the lark sings, he sings to you. When\n the waters sing, they sing to you.\n\n And as your heart rejoices, there is always another heart\n somewhere that responds; and the soul of the listening\n heavens grows glad with the mother joy.\n\n I am glad to be here, I am glad to be there. There is\n beauty wherever I go.\n\n Can you guess the reason, children of earth?\n\n Come out and play with me in the daisy fields of space.\n I will wait for you at the corner where the four\n winds meet.\n\n You will not lose your way, if you follow the gleam at\n the end of the garden of hope.\n\n There is music also beyond the roar of the earth as it\n swishes through space:\n\n There is music in keys unknown to the duller ears of\n the earth, and harmonies whose chords are souls\n attuned to each other.\n\n Listen.... Do you hear them?\n\n Oh, the ears are made for hearing, and the eyes are\n made for seeing, and the heart is made for loving!\n\n The hours go by and leave no mark, and the years are\n as sylphs that dance on the air and leave no footprints,\n and the centuries march solemn and slow.\n\n But we smile, for joy is also in the solemn tread of the\n centuries.\n\n Joy, joy everywhere. It is for you and for me, and for\n you as much as for me.\n\n Will you meet me out where the four winds meet?\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXXVI\n\n THE HOLLOW SPHERE\n\n\nSOME time ago I started to write to you about certain visits which I\nhad made to the infernal regions; but I was called away, and the letter\nwas not finished. To-night I will take up the story again.\n\nYou must know that there are many hells, and they are mostly of our own\nmaking. That is one of those platitudes which are based upon fact.\n\nDesiring one day to see the particular kind of hell to which a drunkard\nwould be likely to go, I sought that part of the hollow sphere around\nthe world which corresponds to one of those countries where drunkenness\nis most common. Souls, when they come out, usually remain in the\nneighbourhood where they have lived, unless there is some strong reason\nto the contrary.\n\nI had no difficulty in finding a hell full of drunkards. What do you\nfancy they were doing? Repenting their sins? Not at all. They were\nhovering around those places on earth where the fumes of alcohol, and\nthe heavier fumes of those who over-indulge in alcohol, made sickening\nthe atmosphere. It is no wonder that sensitive people dislike the\nneighbourhood of drinking saloons.\n\nYou would draw back with disgust and refuse to write for me should I\ntell you all that I saw. One or two instances will suffice.\n\nI placed myself in a sympathetic and neutral state, so that I could see\ninto both worlds.\n\nA young man with restless eyes and a troubled face entered one of\nthose \u201cgin palaces\u201d in which gilding and highly polished imitation\nmahogany tend to impress the miserable wayfarer with the idea that he\nis enjoying the luxury of the \u201ckingdoms of this world.\u201d The young man\u2019s\nclothes were threadbare, and his shoes had seen much wear. A stubble\nof beard was on his chin, for the price of a shave is the price of a\ndrink, and a man takes that which he desires most--when he can get it.\n\nHe was leaning on the bar, drinking a glass of some soul-destroying\ncompound. And close to him, taller than he and bending over him, with\nits repulsive, bloated, ghastly face pressed close to his, as if to\nsmell his whisky-tainted breath, was one of the most horrible astral\nbeings which I have seen in this world since I came out. The hands of\nthe creature (and I use that word to suggest its vitality)--the hands\nof the creature were clutching the young man\u2019s form, one long and\nnaked arm was around his shoulders, the other around his hips. It was\nliterally sucking the liquor-soaked life of its victim, absorbing him,\nusing him, in the successful attempt to enjoy vicariously the passion\nwhich death had intensified.\n\nBut was that a creature in hell? you ask. Yes, for I could look into\nits mind and see its sufferings. For ever (the words \u201cfor ever\u201d may be\nused of that which seems endless) this entity was doomed to crave and\ncrave and never to be satisfied.\n\nThere was in it just enough left of the mind which had made it\nman--just enough to catch a fitful glimpse now and then of the\nhorror of its own state. It had no desire to escape, but the very\nconsciousness of the impossibility of escape was an added torment. And\ndread was in the eyes of the thing--dread of the future into which it\ncould not look, but which it felt waiting to drag it into that state of\neven greater suffering than its present, when the astral particles of\nits form, unable longer to hold together because of the absence of the\nunifying soul, would begin to rend and tear what was left of the mind\nand astral nerves--rending and tearing asunder, in terror and pain,\nthat shape whose end was at hand.\n\nFor only the soul endures, and that which the soul deserts must perish\nand disintegrate.\n\nAnd the young man who leaned on the bar in that gilded palace of gin\nwas filled with a nameless horror and sought to leave the place; but\nthe arms of the thing that was now his master clutched him tighter\nand tighter, the sodden, vaporous cheek was pressed closer to his,\nthe desire of the vampire creature aroused an answering desire in its\nvictim, and the young man demanded another glass.\n\nVerily, earth and hell are neighbouring states, and the frontier has\nnever been charted.\n\nI have seen hells of lust and hells of hatred; hells of\nuntruthfulness, where every object which the wretched dweller tried\nto grasp turned into something else which was a denial of the thing\ndesired, where truth was mocked eternally and nothing was real, but\neverything--changing and uncertain as untruthfulness--became its own\nantithesis.\n\nI have seen the anguished faces of those not yet resigned to lies, have\nseen their frantic efforts to clutch reality, which melted in their\ngrasp. For the habit of untruthfulness, when carried into this world\nof shifting shapes, surrounds the untruthful person with ever-changing\nimages which mock him and elude.\n\nWould he see the faces of his loved ones? The promise is given, and\nas the faces appear they turn into grinning furies. Would he grasp in\nmemory the prizes of ambition? They are shown to be but disgrace in\nanother form, and pride becomes weak shame. Would he clasp the hand of\nfriendship? The hand is extended--but in its clutch is a knife which\npierces the vitals of the liar without destroying him, and the futile\nattempt begins again, over and over, until the uneasy conscience is\nexhausted.\n\nBeware of deathbed repentance and its after-harvest of morbid memories.\nIt is better to go into eternity with one\u2019s karmic burdens bravely\ncarried upon the back, rather than to slink through the back door of\nhell in the stockinged-feet of a sorry cowardice.\n\nIf you have sinned, accept the fact with courage and resolve to sin no\nmore; but he who dwells upon his sins in his last hour will live them\nover and over again in the state beyond the tomb.\n\nEvery act is followed by its inevitable reaction; every cause is\naccompanied by its own effect, which nothing--save the powerful\ndynamics of Will itself--can modify; and when Will modifies the effect\nof an antecedent cause, it is always by setting up a counteracting\nand more powerful cause than the first--a cause so strong that the\nother is irresistibly carried along with it, as a great flood can\nsweep a trickling stream of water from an open hose-pipe, carrying the\nhose-pipe cause and its trickling effect along with the rushing torrent\nof its own flood.\n\nIf you recognise the fact that you have sinned, set up good actions\nmore powerful than your sins, and reap the reward for those.\n\nThere is much more to be said about hells, but this is enough for\nto-night. At another time I may return to the subject.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXXVII\n\n AN EMPTY CHINA CUP\n\n\nIT is no wonder that children, no matter how old and experienced their\nsouls, have to be retaught in each life the relative values of all\nthings according to the artificial standards of the world; for out here\nthose values lose their meaning.\n\nThat a soul had houses, lands, and honours among men does not increase\nhis value in our eyes. We cannot hope to profit by his discarded\nriches. The soul in the \u201chereafter\u201d builds its own house, and the\nmaterials thereof are free as air. If I use the house which another has\nbuilt, I miss the enjoyment of creating my own.\n\nThere is nothing worth stealing out here, so no one trembles for fear\nof burglars in the night. Even bores can be escaped by retiring to the\nvery centre of oneself, for a bore is himself too self-centred ever to\npierce to the centre of anyone else.\n\nOn earth you value titles, inherited or acquired; here a man\u2019s name is\nnot of much importance even to himself, and a visiting-card would be\nlost through the cracks in the floor of heaven. No footman angel would\never deliver it to his Lord and Master.\n\nOne day I met a lady recently arrived. She had not been here long\nenough to have lost her assurance of superiority over ordinary men\nand angels. That morning I had on my best Roman toga, for I had been\nreliving the past; and the lady, mistaking me for C\u00e6sar or some other\nancient aristocrat, asked me to direct her to a place where gentlewomen\ncongregated.\n\nI was forced to admit that I did not know of any such resort; but as\nthe visitor seemed lonely and bewildered, I invited her to rest beside\nme for a time and to question me if she wished.\n\n\u201cI have been here several months,\u201d I said, \u201cand have gained\nconsiderable experience.\u201d\n\nIt was plain to see that she was puzzled by my remark. She glanced at\nmy classical garment, and I could feel her thinking that there was\nsomething incongruous between it and my assertion that I had been here\nonly a few months.\n\n\u201cPerhaps you are an actor,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cWe are all actors here,\u201d I replied.\n\nThis seemed to puzzle her more than ever, and she said that she did\nnot understand. Poor lady! I felt sorry for her, and I tried my best to\nexplain to her the conditions under which we live.\n\n\u201cYou must know in the first place,\u201d I said, \u201cthat this is the land of\nrealised ideals. Now a man who has always desired to be a king can\nplay the part up here if he wishes to, and no one will laugh at him;\nfor each spirit has some favourite dream which he acts out to his own\nsatisfaction.\n\n\u201cWe have, madam,\u201d I continued, \u201creacquired the tolerance and the\ncourtesy of children who never ridicule one another\u2019s play.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs heaven merely a play-room?\u201d she asked, in a shocked tone.\n\n\u201cNot at all,\u201d I answered; \u201cbut you are not in heaven.\u201d\n\nHer look of apprehension caused me immediately to add:\n\n\u201cNor are you in hell, either. What was your religion upon the earth?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, I professed the usual religion of my country and station; but I\nnever gave it much thought.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps the idea of purgatory is not unfamiliar to you.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am not a papist,\u201d she said, with some warmth.\n\n\u201cNevertheless, a papist in your position would conceive himself to be\nin purgatory.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am certainly not happy,\u201d she admitted, \u201cbecause everything is so\nstrange.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave you no friends here?\u201d I inquired.\n\n\u201cI must have many acquaintances,\u201d she said; \u201cbut I never cared for\nintimate friendships. I used to entertain a good deal; my husband\u2019s\npolitical position demanded it.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps there is someone on this side to whom you were specially kind\nat some time or other, someone whose grief you helped to bear, whose\npoverty you eased.\u201d\n\n\u201cI patronised our organised charities.\u201d\n\n\u201cI fear that sort of help is too impersonal to be remembered here. Have\nyou no children?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo brothers or sisters on this side?\u201d\n\n\u201cI quarrelled with my only brother for marrying beneath him.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut surely,\u201d I said, \u201cyou must have had a mother. Was she not waiting\nfor you when you came over?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\nThis surprised me, for I had been told that all mother spirits who\nhave not gone back to the world know by a peculiar thrill when a child\nto which they have given birth is about to be reborn into the spiritual\nworld--a sort of sympathetic after-pain, the final and sweetest reward\nof motherhood.\n\n\u201cThen she must have reincarnated,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cDo you hold to that pagan belief?\u201d the lady inquired, with just a\ntouch of superiority. \u201cI thought that only queer people, Theosophists\nand such, believed in reincarnation.\u201d\n\n\u201cI was always queer,\u201d I admitted. \u201cBut you know, of course, dear madam,\nthat about three-quarters of the earth\u2019s inhabitants are familiar with\nthat theory in some form or other.\u201d\n\nWe continued our talk for a little time, and meanwhile I was puzzling\nmy heart as to what I could do to help this poor lonely woman, for\nwhom no one was waiting. I passed in mental review this and that\nministering angel of my acquaintance, and wondered which of them would\nbe considered most correct from the conventional earthly point of view.\nThe noblest of them was usually at the side of some newly arrived\nunfortunate woman--to use a euphemism of that polite society which my\nlatest _prot\u00e9g\u00e9e_ had frequented. The others were here, there, and\neverywhere, but generally with those souls who needed them most; while\nthe need of my present companion was more real than urgent. If Lionel\nhad been here, he might have entertained her for a while.\n\nI wished that I had cultivated the acquaintance of some of those ladies\nwho crochet and gossip in this world as they crocheted and gossiped in\nyours. Do not be shocked. Did you fancy that a lifelong habit could\nbe laid aside in a moment? As women on earth dream often of their\nknitting, so they do here. It is as easy to knit in this world as it is\nto dream in yours.\n\nUnderstand that the world in which I now live is no more essentially\nsacred than is the world in which you live, nor is it any more\nmysterious to those who dwell in it. To the serious soul all conditions\nare sacred--except those that are profane, and both are found out here\nas well as on the earth.\n\nBut to return to the lonely woman. I was still wondering what I should\ndo with her when, looking up, I saw the Teacher approaching. He had\nwith him another woman, as like the first as one empty china cup is\nlike another empty china cup. Then he and I went away and left the two\ntogether.\n\n\u201cI did not know,\u201d I said to the Teacher, \u201cthat you troubled yourself\nwith any souls but those of considerable development.\u201d\n\nHe smiled:\n\n\u201cIt was your perplexity which I came to relieve, not that of those poor\nladies.\u201d\n\nThen he began to talk to me about relative values.\n\n\u201cIn a sense,\u201d he said, \u201cone soul is as much worth helping as another;\nin a deeper sense, perhaps it is not. Do not think that I am\nindifferent to the sufferings of the weakest ones because I give my\ntime and attention to the strong. Like the ministering angels, I go\nwhere I am most needed. Only the strong ones can learn what I have\nto teach. The weak ones are the charges of the Messiahs and their\nfollowers. But, nevertheless, between us and the Messiahs there is\nbrotherhood and there is mutual understanding. Each works in his own\nfield. The Messiahs help the many; we help the few. Their reward in\nlove is greater than ours; but we do not work for reward any more than\nthey do. Each follows the law of his being.\n\n\u201cTo be loved by all men a teacher must be known to all men, and we\nreveal ourselves only to a few chosen ones. Why do we not go the way of\nthe Messiahs? Because the balance must be maintained. For every great\nworker in the sight of men there is another worker out of sight. Which\nkind of teacher is of greater value? The question is out of order. The\nNorth and the South are interdependent, and there are two poles to\nevery magnet.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXXVIII\n\n WHERE TIME IS NOT\n\n\nI THINK you now understand from what I have said that not all the souls\nwho have passed the airy frontier are either in heaven or hell. Few\nreach an extreme, and most live out their allotted period here as they\nlived out their allotted period on earth, without realising either the\npossibilities or the significance of their condition.\n\nWisdom is a tree of slow growth; the rings around its trunk are earthly\nlives, and the grooves between are the periods between the lives.\nWho grieves that an acorn is slow in becoming an oak? It is equally\nunphilosophical to feel that the truth which I have endeavoured to make\nyou understand--the truth of the soul\u2019s great leisure--is necessarily\nsad. If a man were to become an archangel in a few years\u2019 time, he\nwould suffer terribly from growing-pains. The Law is implacable, but it\noften seems to be kind.\n\nNevertheless there are many souls in heaven, and there are many\nheavens, of which I have seen a few.\n\nBut do not fancy that most people go from place to place and from\nstate to state as I do. The things which I describe to you are not\nexceptional; but that one man should be able to see and describe so\nmany things is exceptional indeed. I owe it largely to the Teacher.\nWithout his guidance I could not have acquired so rich an experience.\n\nYes, there are many heavens. Last night I felt the yearning for beauty\nwhich sometimes came to me on earth. One of the strangest phenomena\nof this ethereal world is the tremendous attraction by sympathy--the\nattraction of events, I mean. Desire a thing intensely enough, and you\nare on the way to it. A body of a feather\u2019s weight moves swiftly when\npropelled by a free will.\n\nI felt a yearning for beauty, which is a synonym for heaven. Did I\nreally move from my place, or did heaven come to me? I cannot say,\n_space means so little here_. For every vale without there is a\nvale within. We desire a place, and we are there. Perhaps the Teacher\ncould give you a scientific explanation of this, but I cannot at the\nmoment. And then, I want to tell you about that heaven where I was last\nnight. It was so beautiful that the charm of it is over me still.\n\nI saw a double row of dark-topped trees, like cypresses, and at the end\nof this long avenue down which I passed was a softly diffused light.\nSomewhere I have read of a heaven lighted by a thousand suns, but my\nheaven was not like that. The light as I approached it was softer than\nmoonlight, though clearer. Perhaps the light of the sun would shine as\nsoftly if seen through many veils of alabaster. Yet this light seemed\nto come from nowhere. It simply was.\n\nAs I approached I saw two beings walking towards me, hand in hand.\nThere was such a look of happiness on their faces as one never sees on\nthe faces of earth. Only a spirit unconscious of time could look like\nthat.\n\nI should say that these two were man and woman, save that they seemed\nso different from what you understand by man and woman. They did not\neven look at each other as they walked; the touch of the hand seemed to\nmake them so much one, that the realisation of the eye could have added\nnothing to their content. Like the light which came from nowhere, they\nsimply were.\n\nA little farther on I saw a group of bright-robed children dancing\namong flowers. Hand in hand in a ring they danced, and their garments,\nwhich were like the petals of flowers, moved with the rhythm of their\ndancing limbs. A great joy filled my heart. They, too, were unconscious\nof time, and might have been dancing there from eternity, for all I\nknew. But whether their gladness was of the moment or of the ages had\nno significance for me or for them. Like the light, and like the lovers\nwho had passed me hand in hand, they were, and that was enough.\n\nI had left the avenue of cypresses and stood in a wide plain, encircled\nby a forest of blossoming trees. The odours of spring were on the\nair, and birds sang. In the centre of the plain a great circular\nfountain played with the waters, tossing them in the air, whence they\ndescended in feathery spray. An atmosphere of inexpressible charm was\nover everything. Here and there in this circular flower-scented heaven\nwalked angelic beings, many or most of whom must some time have been\nhuman. Two by two they walked, or in groups, smiling to themselves or\nat one another.\n\nOn earth you often use the word \u201cpeace\u201d; but compared with the peace\nof that place the greatest peace of earth is only turmoil. I realised\nthat I was in one of the fairest heavens, but that I was alone there.\n\nNo sooner had this thought of solitude found lodgment in my heart than\nI saw standing before me the Beautiful Being about whom I wrote you a\nlittle time ago. It smiled, and said to me:\n\n\u201cHe who is sadly conscious of his solitude is no longer in heaven. So I\nhave come to hold you here yet a little while.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs this the particular heaven where you dwell?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cOh, I dwell nowhere and everywhere,\u201d the Beautiful Being answered. \u201cI\nam one of the voluntary wanderers, who find the charm of home in every\nheavenly or earthly place.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo you sometimes visit earth?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, even the remotest hells I go to, but I never stay there long. My\npurpose is to know all things, and yet to remain unattached.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd do you love the earth?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe earth is one of my playgrounds. I sing to the children of earth\nsometimes; and when I sing to the poets, they believe that their muse\nis with them. Here is a song which I sang one night to a soul which\ndwells among men:\n\n \u201cMy sister, I am often with you when you realise it not.\n\n For me a poet soul is a well of water in whose deeps I\n can see myself reflected.\n\n I live in a glamour of light and colour, which you mortal\n poets vainly try to express in magic words.\n\n I am in the sunset and in the star; I watched the moon\n grow old and you grow young.\n\n In childhood you sought for me in the swiftly moving\n cloud; in maturity you fancied you had caught me\n in the gleam of a lover\u2019s eye; but I am the eluder\n of men.\n\n I beckon and I fly, and the touch of my feet does not\n press down the heads of the blossoming daisies.\n\n You can find me and lose me again, for mortal cannot\n hold me.\n\n I am nearest to those who seek beauty--whether in\n thought or in form; I fly from those who seek to imprison me.\n\n You can come each day to the region where I dwell.\n\n Sometimes you will meet me, sometimes not; for my will\n is the wind\u2019s will, and I answer no beckoning finger:\n\n But when I beckon, the souls come flying from the four\n corners of heaven.\n\n Your soul comes flying, too; for you are one of those I\n have called by the spell of my magic.\n\n I have use for you, and you have meaning for me; I like\n to see your soul in its hours of dream and ecstasy.\n\n Whenever one of my own dreams a dream of Paradise,\n the light grows brighter for me, to whom all things\n are bright.\n\n Oh, forget not the charm of the moment, forget not the\n lure of the mood!\n\n For the mood is wiser than all the magi of earth, and\n the treasures of the moment are richer and rarer\n than the hoarded wealth of the ages.\n\n The moment is real, while the age is only a delusion, a\n memory, and a shadow.\n\n Be sure that each moment is all, and the moment is more\n than time.\n\n Time carries an hour-glass, and his step is slow; his hair\n is white with the rime of years, and his scythe is\n dull with unwearied mowing;\n\n But he never yet has caught the moment in its flight.\n He has grown old in casting nets for it.\n\n Ah, the magic of life and of the endless combination of\n living things!\n\n I was young when the sun was formed, and I shall be\n young when the moon falls dead in the arms of her\n daughter the earth.\n\n Will you not be young with me? The dust is as nothing:\n the soul is all.\n\n Like a crescent moon on the surface of a lake of water\n is the moment of love\u2019s awakening;\n\n Like a faded flower in the lap of the tired world is the\n moment of love\u2019s death.\n\n But there is love and Love, and the love of the light for\n its radiance is the love of souls for each other.\n\n There is no death where the inner light shines, irradiating\n the fields of the within--the beyond--the unattainable\n attainment.\n\n You know where to find me.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXXIX\n\n THE DOCTRINE OF DEATH\n\n\nMANY times during the months in which I have been here have I seen men\nand women lying in a state of unconsciousness more profound than the\ndeepest sleep, their faces expressionless and uninteresting. At first,\nbefore I understood the nature of their sleep, I tried as an experiment\nto awaken one or two of them, and was not successful. In certain cases\nwhere my curiosity was aroused, I have returned later, day after day,\nand found them still lying in the same lethargy.\n\n\u201cWhy,\u201d I asked myself, \u201cshould any man sleep like that--a sleep so deep\nthat neither the spoken word nor the physical touch could arouse him?\u201d\n\nOne day when the Teacher was with me we passed one of those unconscious\nmen whom I had seen before, had watched, and had striven unsuccessfully\nto arouse.\n\n\u201cWho are these people who sleep like that?\u201d I asked the Teacher; and he\nreplied:\n\n\u201cThey are those who in their earth life denied the immortality of the\nsoul after death.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow terrible!\u201d I said. \u201cAnd will they never awaken?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, perhaps centuries, perhaps ages hence, when the irresistible law\nof rhythm shall draw them out of their sleep into incarnation. For the\nlaw of rebirth is one with the law of rhythm.\u201d\n\n\u201cWould it not be possible to awaken one of them, this man, for\ninstance?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have attempted it, have you not?\u201d the Teacher inquired, with a\nkeen look into my face.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d I admitted.\n\n\u201cAnd you failed?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\nWe looked at each other for a moment, then I said:\n\n\u201cPerhaps you, with your greater power and knowledge, could succeed\nwhere I have failed.\u201d\n\nHe made no answer. His silence fired my interest still farther, and I\nsaid eagerly:\n\n\u201cWill you not try? Will you not awaken this man?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou know not what you ask,\u201d he replied.\n\n\u201cBut tell me this,\u201d I demanded: \u201ccould you awaken him?\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps. But in order to counteract the law which holds him in sleep,\nthe law of the spell he laid upon his own soul when he went out of life\ndemanding unconsciousness and annihilation--in order to counteract that\nlaw, I should have to put in operation a law still stronger.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd that is?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cWill,\u201d he answered, \u201cthe potency of will.\u201d\n\n\u201cCould you?\u201d\n\n\u201cAs I said before--perhaps.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd will you?\u201d\n\n\u201cAgain I say that you know not what you ask.\u201d\n\n\u201cWill you please explain?\u201d I persisted, \u201cfor indeed this seems to me to\nbe one of the most marvellous things which I have seen.\u201d\n\nThe face of the Teacher was very grave, as he answered:\n\n\u201cWhat good has this man done in the past that I should place myself\nbetween him and the law of cause and effect which he has wilfully set\nin operation?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not know his past,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cThen,\u201d the Teacher demanded, \u201cwill you tell me your reason for asking\nme to do this thing?\u201d\n\n\u201cMy reason?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes. Is it pity for this man\u2019s unfortunate condition, or is it\nscientific curiosity on your part?\u201d\n\nI should gladly have been able to say that it was pity for the man\u2019s\nsad state which moved me so; but one does not juggle with truth or with\nmotives when speaking to such a Teacher, so I admitted that it was\nscientific curiosity.\n\n\u201cIn that case,\u201d he said, \u201cI am justified in using him as a\ndemonstration of the power of the trained will.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt will not harm him, will it?\u201d\n\n\u201cOn the contrary. And though he may suffer shock, it will probably be\nthe means of so impressing his mind that never again, even in future\nlives on earth, can he believe himself, or teach others to believe,\nthat death ends everything. As far as he is concerned, he does not\ndeserve that I should waste upon him so great an amount of energy as\nwill be necessary to arouse him from this sleep, this spell which he\nlaid upon himself ages ago. But if I awaken him, it will be for your\nsake, \u2018that you may believe.\u2019\u201d\n\nI wish I could describe the scene which took place, so that you could\nsee it with the eyes of your imagination. There lay the man at our\nfeet, his face colourless and expressionless, and above him towered the\nsplendid form of the Teacher, his face beautiful with power, his eyes\nbrilliant with thought.\n\n\u201cCan you not see,\u201d asked the Teacher, \u201ca faint light surrounding this\nseemingly lifeless figure?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, but the light is very faint indeed.\u201d\n\n\u201cNevertheless,\u201d said the Teacher, \u201cthat light is far less faint than is\nthis weak soul\u2019s hold upon the eternal truth. But where you see only a\npale light around the recumbent form, I see in that light many pictures\nof the soul\u2019s past. I see that he not only denied the immortality of\nthe soul\u2019s consciousness, but that he taught his doctrine of death to\nother men and made them even as himself. Truly he does not deserve that\nI should try to awaken him!\u201d\n\n\u201cYet you will do it?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I will do it.\u201d\n\nI regret that I am not permitted to tell you by what form of words and\nby what acts my Teacher succeeded, after a mighty effort, in arousing\nthat man from his self-imposed imitation of annihilation. I realised\nas never before--not only the personal power of the Teacher, but the\nirresistible power of a trained and directed will.\n\nI thought of that scene recorded in the New Testament, where Jesus said\nto the dead man in the tomb, \u201cLazarus, come forth!\u201d\n\n\u201cThe soul of man is immortal,\u201d declared the Teacher, looking fixedly\ninto the shrinking eyes of the awakened man and holding them by his\nwill.\n\n\u201cThe soul of man is immortal,\u201d he repeated. Then in a tone of command:\n\n\u201cStand up!\u201d\n\nThe man struggled to his feet. Though his body was light as a feather,\nas are all our bodies here, I could see that his slumbering energy was\nstill almost too dormant to permit of that really slight exertion.\n\n\u201cYou live,\u201d declared the Teacher. \u201cYou have passed through death, and\nyou live. Do not dare to deny that you live. You cannot deny it.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I do not believe----\u201d began the man, his stubborn materialism\nstill challenging the truth of his own existence, his memory surviving\nthe ordeal through which he had passed. This last surprised me more\nthan anything else. But after a moment\u2019s stupefaction I understood that\nit was the power of the Teacher\u2019s mental picture of the astral records\nround this soul which had forced those memories to awaken.\n\n\u201cSit down between us two,\u201d said the Teacher to the newly aroused man,\n\u201cand let us reason together. You thought yourself a great reasoner,\ndid you not, when you walked the earth as So-and-so?\u201d\n\n\u201cI did.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou see that you were mistaken in your reasoning,\u201d the Teacher went\non, \u201cfor you certainly passed through death, and you are now alive.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut where am I?\u201d He looked about him in a bewildered way. \u201cWhere am I,\nand who are you?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are in eternity,\u201d replied the Teacher, \u201cwhere you always have been\nand always will be.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am one who knows the workings of the Law.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat law?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe law of rhythm, which drives the soul into and out of gross matter,\nas it drives the tides of the ocean into flood and ebb, and the\nconsciousness of man into sleeping and waking.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd it was you who awakened me? Are you, then, this law of rhythm?\u201d\n\nThe Teacher smiled.\n\n\u201cI am not the law,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I am bound by it, even as you, save\nas I am temporarily able to transcend it by my will--again, even as\nyou.\u201d\n\nI caught my breath at the profundity of this simple answer, but the\nman seemed not to observe its significance. Even as he! Why, this man\nby his misdirected will had been able temporarily to transcend the\nlaw of immortality, even as the Teacher by his wisely directed will\ntranscended the mortal in himself! My soul sang within me at this\nglimpse of the godlike possibilities of the human mind.\n\n\u201cHow long have I been asleep?\u201d demanded the man.\n\n\u201cIn what year did you die?\u201d the Teacher asked.\n\n\u201cIn the year 1817.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd the present year is known, according to the Christian calendar,\nas the year 1912. You have lain in a death-like sleep for ninety-five\nyears.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd was it really you who awakened me?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy did you do it?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause it suited my good pleasure,\u201d was the Teacher\u2019s rather stern\nreply. \u201cIt was not because you deserved to be awakened.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd how long would I have slept if you had not aroused me?\u201d\n\n\u201cI cannot say. Probably until those who had started even with you\nhad left you far behind on the road of evolving life. Perhaps for\ncenturies, perhaps for ages.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have taken a responsibility upon yourself,\u201d said the man.\n\n\u201cYou do not need to remind me of that,\u201d replied the Teacher. \u201cI weighed\nin my own mind the full responsibility and decided to assume it for a\npurpose of my own. For will is free.\u201d\n\n\u201cYet you overpowered my will.\u201d\n\n\u201cI did; but by my own more potent will, more potent because wisely\ndirected and backed by a greater energy.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what are you going to do with me?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am going to assume the responsibility of your training.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy training?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you will make things easy for me?\u201d\n\n\u201cOn the contrary, I shall make things very hard for you; but you cannot\nescape my teaching.\u201d\n\n\u201cShall you instruct me personally?\u201d\n\n\u201cPersonally in the sense that I shall place you under the instruction\nof an advanced pupil of my own.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho? This man here?\u201d He pointed to me.\n\n\u201cNo. He is better occupied. I will take you to your teacher presently.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what will he show me?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe panorama of immortality. And when you have learned the lesson so\nthat you can never forget nor escape it, you will have to go back to\nthe earth and teach it to others; you will have to convert as many men\nto the truth of immortality as you have in the past deluded and misled\nby your false doctrines of materialism and death.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what if I refuse? You have said that will is free.\u201d\n\n\u201c_Do_ you refuse?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, but what if I had?\u201d\n\n\u201cThen, instead of growing and developing under the law of action and\nreaction, which in the East they call karma, you would have been its\nvictim.\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not understand you.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe is indeed a wise man,\u201d said the Teacher, \u201cwho understands the law\nof karma, which is also the law of cause and effect. But come. I will\nnow take you to your new instructor.\u201d\n\nThen, leaving me alone, the Teacher and his charge disappeared in the\ngrey distance.\n\nI remained there a long time, pondering what I had seen and heard.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XL\n\n THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY\n\n\nI AM about to say something which may shock certain persons; but those\nwho are too fond of their own ideas, without being willing to grant\nothers their ideas in turn, should not seek to open the jealously\nguarded doors which separate the land of the so-called living from the\nland of the certainly not dead.\n\nThis is the statement which I have to make: that there are many gods,\nand that the One God is the sum-total of all of them. All gods exist\nin God. Do what you like with that statement, dear world, for truth is\nmore vital than anybody\u2019s dream, even yours or mine.\n\nHave I seen God? I have seen Him who has been called the Son of God,\nand you may remember that He said that whoever had seen the Son had\nseen the Father.\n\nBut what of the other gods? you ask; for there are many in the world\u2019s\npantheons. Well, the realities exist out here.\n\nWhat! you say again, can man create the gods of his imagination and\ngive them a place in the invisible? No. They existed here first, and\nman became aware of them long ago through his own psychic and spiritual\nperception of them. Man did not create them, and the materialists who\nsay that he did know little of the laws of being. Man, primitive man,\nperceived them through his own spiritual affinities with and nearness\nto them.\n\nWhen you have read folk-tales of this god and that, you have perhaps\nspoken patronisingly of the old myth-makers and thanked your lucky\nstars that you lived in a more enlightened age. But those old\nstory-tellers were the really enlightened ones, for they saw into the\nother world and recorded what they saw.\n\nMany of the world\u2019s favourite gods are said to have lived upon the\nearth as men. They have so lived. Does that idea startle you?\n\nHow does a man become a god, and how does a god become a man? Have you\never wondered? A man becomes a god by developing god-consciousness,\nwhich is not the same as developing his own thought _about_ God.\nDuring recent years you have heard and read much of so-called Masters,\nmen of superhuman attainments, who have forgone the small pleasures and\nrecognitions of the world in order to achieve something greater.\n\nMan\u2019s ideas of the gods change as the gods themselves change, for\n\u201ceverything is becoming,\u201d as Heraclitus said about twenty-four\ncenturies ago. Did you fancy that the gods stood still, and that only\nyou progressed? In that case you might some day outstrip your god, and\nfall to worshipping yourself, having nothing to look up to as superior.\n\nAccompanied by the Teacher, I have stood face to face with some of the\nolder gods. Had I come out here with a superior contempt for all gods\nsave my own, I should hardly have been granted that privilege; for\nthe gods are as exclusive as they are inclusive, and they only reveal\nthemselves to those who can see them as they are.\n\nDoes this open the door to polytheism, pantheism, or other dreaded\n_isms_? An _ism_ is only a word. Facts are. The day is past\nwhen men were burned at the stake for having had a vision of the wrong\ngod. But even now I would hesitate to tell all that I have learned\nabout the gods, though I can tell you much.\n\nTake, for instance, the god whom the Romans called Neptune. Did you\nfancy that he was only a poetic creation of the old myth-makers? He\nwas something more than that. He was supposed to rule the ocean.\nNow, what could be more orderly and inevitable than that the work of\ncontrolling the elements and the floods should be assumed by, and the\nwork parcelled out among those able to perform it? We hear much of the\nlaws of Nature. Who enforces them? The term \u201cnatural law\u201d is in every\nman\u2019s mouth, but the Law has executors in heaven as on earth.\n\nI have been told that there are also planetary beings, planetary gods,\nthough I have never had the honour of conscious communion with one of\nthem. If a planetary being is so far beyond the daring of my approach,\nhow should I comport myself in approaching the God of gods?\n\nO paradoxical mind of man, which stands in awe and trembling before the\nservant, yet approaches the master without fear!\n\nI have been told that the guardian spirit of this planet Earth evolved\nhimself into a god of tremendous power and responsibility in bygone\ncycles of existence. To him who has ever used a microscope the idea\nneed not be appalling. The infinitely small and the infinitely great\nare the tail and the head of the Eternal Serpent.\n\nWho do you fancy will be the gods of the future cycles of existence?\nWill they not be those who in this cycle of planetary life have raised\nthemselves above the mortal? Will they not be the strongest and most\nsublime among the present spirits of men? Even the gods must have their\nresting period, and those in office now would doubtless wish to be\nsupplanted.\n\nTo those men who are ambitious for growth, the doors of development are\nalways open.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XLI\n\n THE DARLING OF THE UNSEEN\n\n\nI HAVE written you before of one whom I call the Beautiful Being, one\nwhose province seems to be the universe, whose chosen companions are\nall men and angelkind, whose play-things are days and ages.\n\nFor some reason, the Beautiful Being has lately been so gracious as to\ntake an interest in my efforts to acquire knowledge, and has shown me\nmany things which otherwise I should never have seen.\n\nWhen a tour of the planet is personally conducted by an angel, the\ntraveller is specially favoured. Letters of introduction to the great\nand powerful of earth are nothing compared with this introduction, for\nby its means I see into the souls of all beings, and my visits to their\nhouses are not limited to the drawing-rooms. The Beautiful Being has\naccess everywhere.\n\nDid you ever fancy when you had had a lovely dream that maybe an angel\nhad kissed you in your sleep? I have seen such things.\n\nOh, do not be afraid of giving rein to your imagination! It is the\nwonderful things which are really true; the commonplace things are\nnearly all false. When a great thought lifts you by the hair, do not\ncling hold of the solid earth. Let go. He whom an inspiration seizes\nmight even--if he dared to trust his vision--behold the Beautiful\nBeing face to face, as I have. When flying through the air one\u2019s\nsight is keen. If one goes fast and high enough, one may behold the\ninconceivable.\n\nThe other night I was meditating on a flower-seed, for there is\nnothing so small that it may not contain a world. I was meditating on\na flower-seed, and amusing myself by tracing its history, generation\nby generation, back to the dawn of time. I smile as I use that figure,\n\u201cthe dawn of time,\u201d for time has had so many dawns and so many sunsets,\nand still it is unwearied.\n\nI had traced the genealogy of the seed back to the time when the\ncave-man forgot his fighting in the strangely disturbing pleasure of\nsmelling the fragrance of its parent flower, when I heard a low musical\nlaugh in my left ear, and something as light as a butterfly\u2019s wing\nbrushed my cheek on that side.\n\nI turned to look, and, quick as a flash, I heard the laughter in the\nother ear, while another butterfly touch came on my right cheek. Then\nsomething like a veil was blown across my eyes, and a clear voice said:\n\n\u201cGuess who it is!\u201d\n\nI was all a-thrill with the pleasure of this divine play, and I\nanswered:\n\n\u201cPerhaps you are the fairy that makes blind children dream of daisy\nfields.\u201d\n\n\u201cHowever did you know me?\u201d laughed the Beautiful Being, unwinding the\nveil from my eyes. \u201cI am indeed that fairy. But you must have been\npeeping through cracks in the door when I touched the eyes of the blind\nbabies.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am always peeping through cracks in the door of the earth people\u2019s\nchamber,\u201d I replied.\n\nThe Beautiful Being laughed again:\n\n\u201cWill you come and have another peep with me this evening?\u201d\n\n\u201cWith pleasure.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou could not do it with pain if I were by,\u201d was the response.\n\nAnd we started then and there upon the strangest evening\u2019s round which\nI have ever made.\n\nWe began by going to the house of a friend of mine and standing quietly\nin the room where he and his family were at supper. No one saw us but\nthe cat, which began a loud purring and stretched itself with joy at\nour presence. Had I gone there alone, the cat might have been afraid of\nme; but who--even a cat--could fear the Beautiful Being?\n\nSuddenly one of the children--the youngest one--looked up from his\nsupper of bread and milk, and said:\n\n\u201cFather, why does milk taste good?\u201d\n\n\u201cI really do not know,\u201d admitted the author of his being, \u201cperhaps\nbecause the cow enjoyed giving it.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat father might have been a poet,\u201d the Beautiful Being said to me;\nbut no one overheard the remark.\n\nOne of the other children complained of feeling sleepy, and put his\nhead down on the edge of the table. The mother started to arouse him,\nbut the Beautiful Being fluttered a mystifying veil before her eyes,\nand she could not do it.\n\n\u201cLet him sleep if he wants to,\u201d she said. \u201cI will put him to bed by and\nby.\u201d\n\nI could see in the brain of the child that he was dreaming already,\nand I knew that the Beautiful Being was weaving a fairy-tale on the web\nof his mind. After only a moment he started up, wide awake.\n\n\u201cI dreamed,\u201d he said, \u201cthat----[the writer of these letters] was\nstanding over there and smiling at me as he used to smile, and with him\nwas an angel. I never saw an angel before.\u201d\n\n\u201cCome away,\u201d whispered the Beautiful Being to me. \u201cFrom dreaming\nchildren nothing can be hidden.\u201d\n\nWe then paid a visit to the future mother of my boy Lionel. Oh, mystery\nof maternity! The eyes of the Beautiful Being were like stars as we\ngazed upon this other flower-seed, whose genealogy goes even beyond the\ndays of the cave-man--aye, back to the time of the fire-mist and the\nsons of the morning stars.\n\n\u201cCome away!\u201d said the Beautiful Being again. \u201cTo brides who dream\nof motherhood much also is revealed, and for this evening we remain\nunknown.\u201d\n\nWe passed along the margin of a river which divides a busy town.\nSuddenly from a house by the river-bank we heard the tinkle of a guitar\nand a woman\u2019s sweet voice singing:\n\n \u201cWhen other lips and other hearts\n Their tale of love shall tell, ...\n Then you\u2019ll remember--you\u2019ll remember me.\u201d\n\nThe Beautiful Being touched my hand and whispered:\n\n\u201cThe life that is so sweet to these mortals is a book of enchantment\nfor me.\u201d\n\n\u201cYet you have never tasted human life yourself?\u201d\n\n\u201cOn the contrary, I taste it every day; but I only taste it--and pass\non. Should I consume it, I might not be able to pass on.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut do you never long so to consume it?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, but the thrill is in the taste! Digestion is a more or less\ntiresome process.\u201d\n\n\u201cI fear you are a divine wanton,\u201d I said, affectionately.\n\n\u201cBe careful,\u201d answered the Beautiful Being. \u201cHe who fears anything will\nlose me in the fog of his own fears.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou irresistible one!\u201d I cried. \u201cWho are you? _What_ are you?\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you not say yourself a little while ago that I was the fairy who\nmade blind babies dream of daisy fields?\u201d\n\n\u201cI love you,\u201d I said, \u201cwith an incomprehensible love.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll love is incomprehensible,\u201d the Beautiful Being answered. \u201cBut\ncome, brother, let us climb the hill of vision. When you are out of\nbreath, if you catch at my flying veil I will wait till you are rested.\u201d\n\nStrange things we saw that night. I should weary you if I told you all\nof them.\n\nWe stood on the crater of an active volcano and watched the dance of\nthe fire-spirits. Did you fancy that salamanders were only seen by\nunabstemious poets? They are as real--to themselves and to those who\nsee them--as are the omnibus-drivers in the streets of London.\n\nThe real and the unreal! If I were writing an essay now, instead of the\nnarrative of a traveller in a strange country, I should have much to\nsay on the subject of the real and the unreal.\n\nThe Beautiful Being has changed my ideas about the whole universe.\nI wonder if, when I come back to the earth again, I shall remember\nall the marvels I have seen. Perhaps, like most people, I shall have\nforgotten the details of my life before birth, and shall bring with me\nonly vague yearnings after the inexpressible, and the deep unalterable\nconviction that there are more things in earth and heaven than are\ndreamed of in the philosophy of the world\u2019s people. Perhaps if I almost\nremember, but not quite, I shall be a poet in my next life. Worse\nthings might happen to me.\n\nWhat an adventure it is, this launching of one\u2019s barque upon the sea of\nrebirth!\n\nBut by my digressions one would say that I was in my second childhood.\nSo I am--my second childhood in the so-called invisible.\n\nWhen, on my voyage that night with the Beautiful Being, I had feasted\nmy eyes upon beauty until they were weary, my companion led me to\nscenes on the earth which, had I beheld them alone, would have made me\nvery sad. But no one can be sad when the Beautiful Being is near. That\nis the charm of that marvellous entity: to be in its presence is to\ntaste the joys of immortal life.\n\nWe looked on at a midnight revel in what you on earth would call \u201ca\nhaunt of vice.\u201d Was I shocked and horrified? Not at all. I watched the\nantics of those human animalcul\u00e6 as a scientist might watch the motions\nof the smaller living creatures in a drop of water. It seemed to me\nthat I saw it all from the viewpoint of the stars. I started to say\nfrom the viewpoint of God, to whom small and great are the same; but\nperhaps the stellar simile is the truer one, for how can we judge of\nwhat God sees--unless we mean the god in us?\n\nYou who read what I have written, perhaps when you come out here you\nwill have many surprises. The small things may seem larger and the\nlarge things smaller, and everything may take its proper place in the\ninfinite plan, of which even your troubles and perplexities are parts,\ninevitable and beautiful.\n\nThat idea came to me as I wandered from heaven to earth, from beauty to\nugliness, with my angelic companion.\n\nI wish I could explain the influence of the Beautiful Being. It is\nunlike anything else in the universe. It is elusive as a moonbeam,\nyet more sympathetic than a mother. It is daintier than a rose, yet\nit looks upon ugly things with a smile. It is purer than the breath\nof the sea, yet it seems to have no horror of impurity. It is artless\nas a child, yet wiser than the ancient gods, a marvel of paradoxes, a\ncelestial vagabond, the darling of the unseen.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XLII\n\n A VICTIM OF THE NON-EXISTENT\n\n\nTHE other day I met an acquaintance, a woman whom I had known for a\nnumber of years, and who came out about the time I did.\n\nOld acquaintances when they meet here greet each other about as they\ndid on earth. Though we are, as a rule, less conventional than you,\nstill we cling more or less to our former habits.\n\nI asked Mrs. ---- how she was enjoying herself, and she said that she\nwas not having a very pleasant time. She found that everybody was\ninterested in something else, and did not want to talk with her.\n\nThis was the first time I had met with such a complaint, and I was\nstruck by its peculiarity. I asked her to what cause she attributed\nthis unsociability, and she replied that she did not know the cause,\nthat it had puzzled her.\n\n\u201cWhat do you talk to them about?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cWhy, I tell them my troubles, as one friend tells another; but they do\nnot seem to be interested. How selfish people are!\u201d\n\nPoor soul! She did not realise here, any more than she had on earth,\nthat our troubles are not interesting to anybody but ourselves.\n\n\u201cSuppose,\u201d I said, \u201cthat you unburden yourself to me. Tell me your\ntroubles. I will promise not to run away.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, I hardly know where to begin!\u201d she answered. \u201cI have found so\nmany unpleasant things.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat, for instance?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, horrid people. I remember that when I lived in ---- I sometimes\ntold myself that in the other world I would not be bothered with\nboarding-house landladies and their careless hired girls; but they are\njust as bad here--even worse.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you mean to tell me that you live in a boarding-house here?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere should I live? You know that I am not rich.\u201d\n\nOf all the astonishing things I had heard in this land of changes, this\nwas the most astonishing. A boarding-house in the \u201cinvisible\u201d world!\nSurely, I told myself, my observations had been limited. Here was a new\ndiscovery.\n\n\u201cIs the table good in your boarding-house?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cNo, it is worse than at the last one.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre the meals scanty?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, scanty and bad, especially the coffee.\u201d\n\n\u201cWill you tell me,\u201d I said, my wonder growing, \u201cif you really eat three\nmeals a day here, as you used to do on earth?\u201d\n\n\u201cHow strangely you talk!\u201d she answered, in a sharp tone. \u201cI don\u2019t find\nvery much difference between this place and the earth, as you call it,\nexcept that I am more uncomfortable here, because everything is so\nflighty and uncertain.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, go on.\u201d\n\n\u201cI never know in the morning who will be sitting next me in the\nevening. They come and go.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what do you eat?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe same old things--meat and potatoes, and pies and puddings.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you still eat these things?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, yes; don\u2019t you?\u201d\n\nI hardly knew how to reply. Had I told her what my life here really\nwas, she would no more have understood than she would have understood\ntwo years ago, when we lived in the same city on earth, had I told her\nthen what my real mental life was. So I said:\n\n\u201cI have not much appetite.\u201d\n\nShe looked at me as if she distrusted me in some way, though why I\ncould not say.\n\n\u201cAre you still interested in philosophy?\u201d she asked.\n\n\u201cYes. Perhaps that is why I don\u2019t get hungry very often.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou were always a strange man.\u201d\n\n\u201cI suppose so. But tell me, Mrs. ----, do you never feel a desire to\nleave all this behind?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo leave all what behind?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, boarding-houses and uncongenial people, and meat and potatoes,\nand pies and puddings, and the shadows of material things in general.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you mean by \u2018the _shadows_ of material things\u2019?\u201d\n\n\u201cI mean that these viands and pastries, which you eat and do not enjoy,\nare not real. They have no real existence.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy!\u201d she exclaimed, \u201chave you become a Christian Scientist?\u201d\n\nAt this I laughed heartily. Was one who denied the reality of astral\nfood in the astral world a Christian Scientist, because the Christian\nScientists denied the reality of material food in the material world?\nThe analogy tickled my fancy.\n\n\u201cLet me convert you to Christian Science, then,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cNo, sir!\u201d was her sharp response. \u201cYou never succeeded in convincing\nme that there was any truth in your various fads and philosophies. And\nnow you tell me that the food I eat is not real.\u201d\n\nI puzzled for a moment, trying to find a way by which the actual facts\nof her condition could be brought home to the mind of this poor woman.\nFinally I hit upon the right track.\n\n\u201cDo you realise,\u201d I said, \u201cthat you are only dreaming?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat!\u201d she snapped at me.\n\n\u201cYes, you are dreaming. All this is a dream--these boarding-houses,\n_et cetera_.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf that is so, perhaps you would like to wake me up.\u201d\n\n\u201cI certainly should. But you will have to awaken yourself, I fancy.\nTell me, what were your ideas about the future life, before you came\nout here?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you mean by _out here_?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, before you died!\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, man, I am not dead!\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course you are not dead. Nobody is dead. But you certainly\nunderstand that you have changed your condition.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I have noticed a change, and a change for the worse.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t you remember your last illness?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd that you passed out?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, if you call it that.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou know that you have left your body?\u201d\n\nShe looked down at her form, which appeared as usual, even to its rusty\nblack dress rather out of date.\n\n\u201cBut I still have my body,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cThen you have not missed the other one?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you don\u2019t know where it is?\u201d\n\nMy amazement was growing deeper and deeper. Here was a phenomenon I had\nnot met before.\n\n\u201cI suppose,\u201d she said, \u201cthat they must have buried my body, if you say\nI left it; but this one is just the same to me.\u201d\n\n\u201cHas it always seemed the same?\u201d I asked, remembering my own\nexperiences when I first came out, my difficulty in adjusting the\namount of energy I used to the lightness of my new body.\n\n\u201cNow you mention it,\u201d she said, \u201cI do recall having some trouble a\nyear or two ago. I was quite confused for a long time. I think I must\nhave been delirious.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, doubtless you were,\u201d I answered. \u201cBut tell me, Mrs. ----, have\nyou no desire to visit heaven?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, I always supposed that I should visit heaven when I died; but, as\nyou see, I am not dead.\u201d\n\n\u201cStill,\u201d I said, \u201cI can take you to heaven now, perhaps, if you would\nlike to go.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre you joking?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot at all. Will you come?\u201d\n\n\u201cAre you certain that I can go there without dying?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I assure you _there are no dead_.\u201d\n\nAs we went slowly along, for I thought it best not to hurry her too\nswiftly from one condition to another, I drew a word-picture of\nthe place we were about to visit--the orthodox Christian heaven. I\ndescribed the happy and loving people who stood in the presence of\ntheir Saviour, in the soft radiance from the central Light.\n\n\u201cPerhaps,\u201d I said, \u201csome dwellers in that country see the face of God\nHimself, as they expected to see it when they were on earth; as for\nmyself, I saw only the Light, and afterwards the figure of the Christ.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have often wished to see Christ,\u201d said my companion in an awe-struck\nvoice. \u201cDo you think that I can really see Him?\u201d\n\n\u201cI think so, if you believe strongly that you will.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what were they doing in heaven when you were there?\u201d she asked.\n\n\u201cThey were worshipping God, and they were happy.\u201d\n\n\u201cI want to be happy,\u201d she said; \u201cI have never been very happy.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe great thing in heaven,\u201d I advised, \u201cis to love all the others.\nThat is what makes them happy. If they loved the face of God only, it\nwould not be quite heaven; for the joy of God is the joy of union.\u201d\n\nThus, by subtle stages, I led her mind away from astral boarding-houses\nto the ideas of the orthodox spiritual world, which was probably the\nonly spiritual world which she could understand.\n\nI spoke of the music--yes, church music, if you like to call it that.\nI created in her wandering and chaotic mind a fixed desire for sabbath\njoys and sabbath peace, and the communion of friends in heaven. But for\nthis gradual preparation she could not have adjusted herself to the\nconditions of that world.\n\nWhen we stood in the presence of those who worship God with song and\npraise, she seemed caught up on a wave of enthusiasm, to feel that at\nlast she had come home.\n\nI wanted to take leave of her in such a way that she would not come out\nagain to look for me; so I held out my hand in the old way and said\ngood-bye, promising to come again and visit her there, and advising her\nto stay where she was. I think she will. Heaven has a strong hold on\nthose who yield themselves to its beauty.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XLIII\n\n A CLOUD OF WITNESSES\n\n\nARE you surprised to learn that there is even a greater difference\nbetween the beings in this world than between the people of earth? That\nis inevitable, for this is a freer world than yours.\n\nI should fail in my duty if I did not tell you something of the evil\nbeings out here; perhaps no one else will ever tell you, and the\nknowledge is necessary to self-protection.\n\nFirst I want to say that there is a strong sympathy between the spirits\nin this world and the spirits in your world. Yes, they are both\nspirits, the difference being mainly a difference in garments, one\nwearing flesh and the other wearing a subtler but none the less real\nbody.\n\nNow the good spirits, which may be \u201cthe spirits of just men made\nperfect,\u201d or those who merely aspire to perfection, are powerfully\ndrawn to those fellow-spirits on earth whose ideals are in harmony\nwith their own. The magnetic attraction which exists between human\nbeings is weak compared with that which is possible between beings\nembodied and beings disembodied. As opposites attract, the very\ndifference in matter is a drawing force. The female is not more\nattractive to the male than the being of flesh is attractive to the\nbeing in the astral. The two do not usually understand each other,\nneither do man and woman. But the influence is felt, and beings out\nhere understand its source better than you do, because they generally\ncarry with them the memory of your world, while you have lost the\nmemory of theirs.\n\nAt no time is the sympathetic power between men and spirits so strong\nas when men are labouring under some intense emotion, be it love or\nhate, or anger, or any other excitement. For then the fiery element in\nman is most active, and spirits are attracted by fire.\n\n (_Here the writing suddenly stopped, the influence passed, to return\n after a few minutes._)\n\nYou wonder why I went away? It was in order to draw a wide protective\ncircle around us both, for what I have to say to you is something\nwhich certain spirits would wish me to leave unsaid.\n\nTo continue. When man is excited, exalted, or in any way intensified\nin his emotional life, the spirits draw near to him. That is how\nconception is possible; that is the secret of inspiration; that is why\nanger grows with what it feeds upon.\n\nAnd this last is the point which I want to drive home to your\nconsciousness. When you lose your temper you lose a great deal, among\nother things _the control of yourself_, and it is barely possible\nthat another entity may momentarily assume control of you.\n\nThis subjective world, as I have called it, is full of hateful spirits.\nThey love to stir up strife, both here and on earth. They enjoy\nthe excitement of anger in others, they are thrilled by the poison\nof hatred; as certain men revel in morphine, so they revel in all\ninharmonious passion.\n\nDo you see the point and the danger? A small seed of anger in your\nheart they feed and inflame by the hatred in their own. It is not\nnecessarily hatred of you as an individual, often they have no personal\ninterest in you; but for the purpose of gratifying their evil passion\nthey will attach themselves to you temporarily. Other illustrations\nare not far to seek.\n\nA man who has the habit of anger, even of fault-finding, is certain to\nbe surrounded by evil spirits. I have seen a score of them around a\nman, thrilling him with their own malignant magnetism, stirring him up\nagain when by reaction he would have cooled down.\n\nSometimes the impersonal interest in mere strife becomes personal; an\nangry spirit here may find that by attaching himself to a certain man\nhe is sure to get every day a thrill or thrills of angry excitement,\nas his victim continually loses his temper and storms and rages. This\nis one of the most terrible misfortunes which can happen to anybody.\nCarried to its ultimate, it may become obsession, and end in insanity.\n\nThe same law applies to other unlovely passions, those of lust and\navarice. Beware of lust, beware of all sex attraction into which no\nspiritual or heart element enters. I have seen things that I would not\nwish to record, either through your hand or any other.\n\nLet us take instead a case of avarice. I have seen a miser counting\nover his gold, have seen the terrible eyes of the spirits which enjoyed\nthe gold through him. For gold has a peculiar influence as a metal,\napart from its purchasing power or the associations attached to it.\nCertain spirits love gold, even as the miser loves it, and with the\nsame acquisitive, astringent passion. As it is one of the heaviest of\nmetals, so its power is a condensed and condensing power.\n\nI do not mean by this that you should beware of gold. Get all you can\nuse, for it is useful; but do not gloat over it. One does not attract\nthe avaricious spirits merely by owning the symbols of wealth--houses\nand lands and stocks and bonds, or even a moderate amount of coin; but\nI advise you not to hoard coins to gloat over.\n\nThere are certain jewels, however, whose possession will aid you, for\nthey attract the spirits of power. But you will probably choose your\njewels by reason of your affinity with them, and may choose wisely.\n\nNow that I have done my duty by warning you against the passions and\nthe passionate spirits of which you should beware, I can go on to speak\nof other feelings and of other spiritual associates of man.\n\nYou have met persons who seemed to radiate sunshine, whose very\npresence in a room made you happier. Have you asked yourself why? The\ntrue answer would be that by their lovely disposition they attracted\nround them a \u201ccloud of witnesses\u201d as to the joy and the beauty of life.\n\nI have myself often basked in the warm rays of a certain loving heart\nI know upon the earth. I have heard spirits say to one another as they\ncrowded round that person, \u201cIt is good to be here.\u201d Do you think that\nany evil thing could happen to him? A score of loving and sympathetic\nspirits would strive to give him warning should any evil threaten.\n\nThen, too, a joyous heart attracts joyous events.\n\nSimplicity, also, and sweet humility, are very attractive to gentle\ndisembodied souls. \u201cExcept ye be as little children, ye cannot enter\nin.\u201d\n\nHave you not often seen a child enjoying himself with unseen\nplayfellows? You would call them imaginary playfellows. Perhaps they\nwere, perhaps they were not imaginary. To imagine may be to create, or\nit may be to attract things already created.\n\nI have seen the Beautiful Being itself, more than once, hovering in\necstasy above an earthly creature who was happy.\n\nA song of joy, when it comes from a thrilling heart, may attract a host\nof invisible beings who enjoy it with the singer; for, as I have told\nyou, sound carries from one world to another.\n\nNever weep--unless you must, to restore lost equilibrium. The weeping\nspirits, however, are rather harmless because they are weak. Sometimes\na storm of tears, when it is past, clears the soul\u2019s atmosphere; but\nwhile the weeping is in progress, the atmosphere is thick with weeping\nspirits. One could almost hear the drip of their tears through the veil\nof ether--if the sobbing earthly one did not make so much noise with\nhis grief.\n\n\u201cLaugh and the world laughs with you,\u201d may be true enough; but when you\nweep, you do _not_ weep alone.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XLIV\n\n THE KINGDOM WITHIN\n\n\nTHERE is one obscure point which I want to make clear, even though I\nmay be accused of \u201cmysticism\u201d by those to whom mysticism means only\nobscurity.\n\nI have said that the life of man is both subjective and objective,\nbut principally objective; and that the life of \u201cspirits\u201d dwelling\nin subtle matter is both subjective and objective, but principally\nsubjective.\n\nYet I have spoken of going alone or with others to heaven, as a place.\nI want to explain this. You remember the saying, \u201cThe kingdom of heaven\nis within you,\u201d that is, subjective. Also, \u201cWhere two or three are\ngathered together in My name, there will I be in the midst of them.\u201d\n\nNow, those places in this subtle realm which I have called the\nChristian heavens are places where two or three, or two or three\nthousand, as the case may be, are gathered together in His name, to\nenjoy the _kingdom of heaven within them_.\n\nThe aggregation of souls is objective--that is, the souls exist in time\nand space; the heaven which they enjoy is subjective, though they may\nall see the same thing at the same time, as, for instance, the vision\nof Him whom they adore as Redeemer.\n\nThat is as clear as I can make it.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XLV\n\n THE GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE\n\n\nONE day I met a man in doublet and hose, who announced to me that he\nwas Shakespeare. Now I have become accustomed to such announcements,\nand they do not surprise me as they did six or eight months ago. (Yes,\nI still keep account of your months, for a purpose of my own.)\n\nI asked this man what proof he could adduce of his extraordinary claim,\nand he answered that it needed no proof.\n\n\u201cThat will not go down with me,\u201d I said, \u201cfor I am an old lawyer.\u201d\n\nThereupon he laughed, and asked:\n\n\u201cWhy did you not join in the game?\u201d\n\nI am telling you this rather senseless story, because it illustrates an\ninteresting point in regard to our life here.\n\nIn a former letter I wrote about my meeting with a newly arrived lady,\nwho, finding me dressed in a Roman toga, thought that I might be\nC\u00e6sar; and that I told her we were all actors here. I meant that, like\nchildren, we \u201cdress up\u201d when we want to impress our own imagination, or\nto relive some scene in the past.\n\nThis playing of a part is usually quite innocent, though sometimes\nthe very ease with which it is done brings with it the temptation to\ndeception, especially in dealings with the earth people.\n\nYou see the point I wish to make. The \u201clying spirits,\u201d of which the\nfrequenters of s\u00e9ance rooms so often make complaint, are these astral\nactors, who may even come to take a certain pride in the cleverness of\ntheir art.\n\nBe not too sure that the spirit who claims to be your deceased\ngrandfather is that estimable old man himself. He may be merely an\nactor playing a part, for his own entertainment and yours.\n\nHow is one to tell, you ask? One cannot always tell. I should\nsay, however, that the surest test of all would be the deep and\n_unemotional_ conviction that the veritable entity was in one\u2019s\npresence. There is an instinct in the human heart which will never\ndeceive us, if we without fear or bias will yield ourselves to its\ndecision. How often in worldly matters have we all acted against this\ninner monitor, and been deceived and led astray!\n\nIf you have an instinctive feeling that a certain invisible--or\neven visible--entity is not what it claims to be, it is better to\ndiscontinue the conference. If it is the real person, and if he has\nanything vital to say, he will come again and again; for the so-called\ndead are often very desirous to communicate with the living.\n\nAs a rule, though, the play-acting over here is innocent of intent to\ndeceive. Most men desire occasionally to be something which they are\nnot. The poor man who, for one evening, dresses himself in his best\nclothes and squanders a week\u2019s salary in playing the millionaire is\nmoved by the same impulse which inspired the man in my story to assert\nthat he was Shakespeare. The woman who always dresses beyond her means\nis playing the same little game with herself and with the world.\n\nAll children know the game. They will tell you in a convinced tone that\nthey are Napoleon Bonaparte, or George Washington, and they feel hurt\nif you scoff.\n\nPerhaps my friend with the Shakespearean aspiration was an amateur\ndramatist when he was on earth. Had he been a professional dramatist,\nhe would probably have stated his real name, more or less unknown, and\nfollowed it by the declaration that he was the well-known So-and-so.\n\nThere is much pride out here in the accomplishments of the earth-life,\nespecially among those who have recently come out. This lessens with\ntime, and after one has been long here one\u2019s interests are likely to be\nmore general.\n\nMen and women do not cease to be human merely by crossing the\nfrontier of what you call the invisible world. In fact, the human\ncharacteristics are often exaggerated, because the restraints are\nfewer. There are no penalties inflicted by the community for the\npersonating of one man by another. It is not taken seriously, for to\nthe clearer sight of this world the disguise is too transparent.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XLVI\n\n HEIRS OF HERMES\n\n\nTHERE is much sound sense and not a little nonsense talked about Adepts\nand Masters, who live and work on the astral plane. Now I am myself\nliving, and sometimes working, on the so-called astral plane, and what\nI say about the plane is the result of experience and not of theory.\n\nI have met Adepts--yes, Masters here. One of them especially has taught\nme much, and has guided my footsteps from the first.\n\nDo not fear to believe in Masters. Masters are men raised to the\nhighest power; and whether they are embodied or disembodied, they work\non this plane of life. A Master can go in and out at will.\n\nNo, I am not going to tell the world how they do it. Some who are\nnot Masters might try the experiment, and not be able to go back\nagain. Knowledge is power; but there are certain powers which may be\ndangerous if put in practice without a corresponding degree of wisdom.\n\nAll human beings have in them the potentiality of mastership. That\nought to be an encouragement to men and women who aspire to an\nintensity of life beyond that of the ordinary. But the attainment of\nmastership is a steady and generally a slow growth.\n\nMy Teacher here is a Master.\n\nThere are teachers here who are not Masters, as there are teachers on\nearth who have not the rank of professor; but he who is willing to\nteach what he knows is on the right road.\n\nI do not mind saying that my Teacher approves of my trying to tell the\nworld something about the life which follows the change that is called\ndeath. If he disapproved, I should bow to his superior wisdom.\n\nNo, it does not matter what his name is. I have referred to him\nsimply as my Teacher, and have told you many things which he has\nsaid and done. Many other things I have not told you, for I can only\ncome occasionally now. After a time I shall probably cease to come\naltogether. Not that I shall have lost interest in you; but it seems\nto be the plan that I shall get farther away from the world, to learn\nthings which necessitate for their comprehension a certain loosening\nof the earthly tie. Later I may return again, for the second time; but\nI make no promises. I will come if I can, and if it seems wise to come,\nand if you are in a mood to let me.\n\nI do not believe that I shall come through anybody else--at least, not\nto write letters like this. I should probably have to put such another\nperson through the same training process that I put you through, and\nfew--even of those who were my friends and associates--would trust me\nto that extent. So, even after I am gone, do not shut the door too\ntight, in case I should want to come again, for I might have something\nimmensely important to say. But on the other hand, please refrain from\ncalling me; because if you should call me you might draw me away from\nimportant work or study somewhere else. I do not say for certain that\nyou could, but it is possible; and when I leave the neighbourhood of\nthe earth of my own accord, I do not wish to be drawn back until I am\nready to return.\n\nA person still upon the earth may call so intensely to a friend who has\npassed far away from the earth\u2019s atmosphere, that that soul will come\nback too soon in response to the eager cry.\n\nDo not forget the dead, unless they are strong enough to be happy\nwithout your remembrance; but do not lean too heavily upon them.\n\nThe Masters, of whom I spoke a little while ago, can remain near or far\naway, as they will; they can respond or not respond: but the ordinary\nsoul is very sensitive to the call of those it loved on earth.\n\nI have seen a mother respond eagerly to the tearful prayer of a child,\nand yet unable to make the lonely one realise her presence. Sometimes\nthe mothers are very sad because they cannot make their presence felt.\n\nOne time I saw my Teacher by his power help a mother to make herself\nseen and heard by a daughter who was in great trouble. The heart of my\nTeacher is very soft to the sufferings of the world; and though he says\nthat he is not one of the Christs, yet he often seems to work as Christ\nworks. At other times he is all mind. He illustrates the saying about\nthe thrice-greatest Hermes Trismegistus--great in body, great in mind,\ngreat in heart.\n\nI wish I could tell you more about my Teacher, but he does not wish to\nbe too well known on earth. He works for the work\u2019s sake, and not for\nreward or praise.\n\nHe is very fond of children, and one day when I was sitting unseen in\nthe house of a friend of mine on earth, and the little son of the house\nfell down and hurt himself and wept bitterly, my great Teacher, whom\nI have seen command literally \u201clegions of angels,\u201d bent down in his\ntenuous form, which he was then wearing, and soothed and comforted the\nchild.\n\nWhen I asked him about it afterwards, he said that he remembered many\nchildhoods of his own, in other lands, and that he could still feel in\nmemory the sting of physical pain and the shock of a physical fall.\n\nHe told me that children suffer more than their elders realise, that\nthe bewilderment felt in gradually adjusting to a new and frail and\ngrowing body is often the cause of intense suffering.\n\nHe said that the constant crying of some small babies is caused by\ntheir half-discouragement at the herculean task before them--the task\nof moulding a body through which their spirit can work.\n\nHe told me a story of one of his former incarnations, before he became\na Master, and what a hard struggle he had to build a body. He could\nremember even the smallest details of that far-away life. One day\nhis mother punished him for something which he had not really done,\nand when he denied the supposed wrongful act, she chided him for\nuntruthfulness, not realising--good woman though she was--the essential\ntruth of the soul to whom she had given form. He told me that from\nthat childish impression, centuries ago, he could date his real battle\nagainst injustice, which had helped to develop him as a friend and\nteacher of mankind.\n\nThen he went on to speak of the importance of our recovering the memory\nof other lives, in order that we may see the roads by which our souls\nhave come.\n\nAs a rule, the great teachers are reticent about their own past,\nand they only refer to it when some point in their experience can\nbe used to illustrate a principle, and thus help another to grasp\nthe principle. It encourages a groping soul to know that one who has\nattained a great height has been through the same trials that now\nperplex him.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XLVII\n\n ONLY A SONG\n\n\nWILL you listen to another song, or chant, or whatever you choose to\ncall it, of that amazing angel whom we know as the Beautiful Being?\n\n Why do you fear to question me? I am the great answerer\n of questions;\n\n Though my answers are often symbols, yet words themselves\n are only symbols.\n\n I have not visited you for a season, for when I am\n around, you can think of nothing else, and it is well\n that you should think of those who have trodden\n the path you are treading.\n\n You can pattern your ways on those of others, you can\n hardly pattern your ways on mine.\n\n I am a light in the darkness--my name you do not need\n to know;\n\n A name is a limitation, and I refuse to be limited.\n\n In the ancient days of the angels, I refused to enter the\n forms of my own creation, except to play with\n them.\n\n There is a hint for you, if you like hints.\n\n He who is held by his own creations becomes a slave.\n That is one of the differences between me and men.\n\n What earthly father can escape his children? What\n earthly mother wishes to?\n\n But I! I can make a rose to bloom--then leave it for\n another to enjoy.\n\n My joy was in the making. It would be dull for me to\n stay with a rose until its petals fell.\n\n The artist who can forget his past creations may create\n greater and greater things.\n\n The joy is in the doing, not in the holding fast to that\n which is done.\n\n Oh, the magic of letting go! It is the magic of the gods.\n\n There are races of men to whom I have revealed myself.\n They worship me.\n\n You need not worship me, for I do not require worship.\n\n That would be to limit myself to my own creations, if I\n needed anything from the souls I have touched with\n my beauty.\n\n Oh, the magic of letting go!\n\n The magic of holding on?\n\n Yes, there is a magic in holding on to a thing until it\n is finished and perfect;\n\n But when a thing is finished, whether it be a poem, a\n love, or a child, let it go.\n\n In that way you are free again and may begin another.\n It is the secret of eternal youth.\n\n Never look back with regret; look back only to learn\n what is behind you.\n\n Look forward always; it is only when a man ceases to\n look forward to things that he begins to grow old.\n He settles down.\n\n I have said to live in the moment; that is the same thing\n seen from another side.\n\n The present and the future are playfellows; we do not\n play when we study the past.\n\n I am the great playfellow of men.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XLVIII\n\n INVISIBLE GIFTS AT YULETIDE\n\n\nIT is not yet too late to wish you a merry Christmas.\n\nHow do I know that it is Christmas Day? Because I have been looking\nin at houses which I used to frequent, and have seen trees laden with\ntinsel and gifts. Do you wonder that I could see them? If so, you\nforget that we light our own place. When we know how to look, we can\nsee behind the veil.\n\nThis is my first Christmas Day on this side. I cannot send you a\nmaterial gift which you could wear or hang up in your room; but I can\nsend you the good wishes of the season.\n\nThe mothers who have left young children behind them in the world know\nwell when Christmas is approaching. Sometimes they bring invisible\ngifts, which they have fashioned by their power of imagination and love\nout of the tenuous matter of this world. A certain grandmother all\nlast evening, Christmas Eve, was scattering flowers around her dear\nones. Their fragrance must have penetrated the atmosphere of the earth.\n\nDid you ever smell suddenly a sweet perfume which you could not account\nfor? If so, perhaps some one who loved you was scattering invisible\nflowers. Love is stronger than death.\n\nAnother whom you know will go out before long. Strengthen her with your\nfaith.\n\nThe practice of keeping Christmas is a good one, if you do not forget\nthe real meaning of the day. To some it means the birth into the world\nof the spirit of humility and love; but while love and humility had\nvisited the world before the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth, yet never\nbefore nor since have they come with greater power than they came to\nJud\u00e6a. Whether the stable in Bethlehem was a physical reality or a\nsymbol, makes no difference.\n\nI have been to the heavens of Christ, and know their beauty. \u201cIn My\nFather\u2019s house are many mansions.\u201d\n\nA traveller like me who wishes to go to some particular heaven must\nfirst feel in himself what those souls feel who enjoy that heaven;\nthen he can enter and commune with them. He could never go as a mere\nsight-seer. That is why, as a rule, I have avoided the hells; but the\nheavens I often visit.\n\nAnd I have been in purgatory, the purgatory of the Roman Catholics. Do\nnot scoff at those who have masses said for the repose of the souls of\nthe departed. The souls are often conscious of such thoughtfulness.\nThey hear the music, and they _may_ smell the incense; most of\nall, they feel the power of the thought directed to them. Purgatory is\nreal, in the sense of being a real experience. If you want to call it a\ndream, you may; but dreams are sometimes terribly real.\n\nEven those who do not believe in purgatory sometimes wander awhile in\nsadness, until they have adjusted themselves to the new conditions\nunder which they live. Should one tell them that they were in\npurgatory, they might deny the existence of such a state; but they\nwould readily admit their discomfort.\n\nThe surest way to escape that painful period of transition is to go\ninto the hereafter with a full faith in immortality, a full faith in\nthe power of the soul to create its own conditions.\n\nLast night, after visiting various places upon the earth, I went to\none of the highest Christian heavens. Perhaps I could not have gone so\neasily at any other time; for my heart was full of love for all men\nand my mind was full of the Christ _idea_.\n\nOften have I seen Him who is called the Saviour of men, and last night\nI saw Him in all His beauty. He, too, came down to the world for a time.\n\nI wonder if I can make you understand? The love of Christ is always\npresent in the world, because there are always hearts that keep it\nalight. If the idea of Christ as a redeemer should ever grow faint in\nthe world, He would probably go back there and relight the flame in\nhuman hearts; but whatever the writers of statistics may say, that idea\nwas never more real than at present. It may have been more talked about.\n\nThe world is not in so bad a way as some people think. Be not surprised\nif there should be a strong renaissance of the spiritual idea. All\nthings have their rhythms.\n\nLast night I stood in a great church where hundreds of Christians knelt\nin adoration of Jesus. I have stood in churches on Christmas Eve when\non earth as a man among men; but I saw things last night which I had\nnever seen before. Surely where two or three are gathered together in\nthe name of any prophet, there he is in the midst of them, if not\nalways in his spiritual body, at least in the fragrance of his sympathy.\n\nThe angels in the Christian heavens know when Christmas is being\ncelebrated on earth.\n\nJesus of Nazareth is a reality. As a spiritual body, as Jesus who dwelt\nin Galilee, He exists in space and time; as the Christ, the paradigm\nof the spiritual man, He exists in the hearts of all men and women who\nawaken that idea in themselves. He is a light which is reflected in\nmany pools.\n\nI wrote the other day about Adepts and Masters. Jesus is a type of the\ngreatest Master. He is revered in all the heavens. He grasped the Law\nand dared to live it, to exemplify it. And when He said, \u201cThe Father\nand I are one,\u201d He pointed the way by which other men may realise\nmastership in themselves.\n\nHumanity on its long road has evolved many Masters. Who then shall dare\nto question that humanity has justified itself? If one demands to know\nwhat purpose there is in life, tell him that it is this very evolution\nof the Master out of the man. Eternity is long. The goal is ahead for\neach unit of sufficient strength, and those who cannot lead can serve.\n\nThis thought came home to me with special force last night. I am not\nso bold as to say that every unit in the great mass is strong enough,\nhas energy enough, to evolve individual mastership; but there is no\nunit so weak that it may not have some part, however small, in the\ngreat work of evolving Masters out of men. It is sweet to serve. They\ntoo have their reward.\n\nThe great mistake made by most minds in wrestling with the problem of\nevolution is in not grasping the fact that eternity is eternity, that\nto be immortal is to have no beginning or end. There is time enough in\nwhich to develop, if not in this life cycle, then in another which will\nfollow; for rhythm is sure.\n\nIf I could only make you grasp the idea of immortality as I see it! I\ndid not fully understand it until I came out here and began to pick up\nthe threads of my own past. My reason told me that I was immortal, but\nI did not know what immortality meant. I wonder if you do?\n\nI know an angel who has done more, perhaps, than many prophets have\ndone to keep that idea alight in the world. Until I met the one whom\nwe know as the Beautiful Being I had not revelled in the triumph of\nimmortality. There is one who plays with immortality as a child plays\nwith marbles.\n\nWhen the Beautiful Being says, \u201cI am,\u201d you know that you are, too. When\nthe Beautiful Being says, \u201cI pluck the centuries as a child pulls the\npetals of a daisy, and I throw away the seed-bearing heart to grow more\ncentury-bearing daisies,\u201d you feel--but words are weak to express what\nthe Beautiful Being\u2019s joy in endless life can make one feel.\n\nYou forget the thing of flesh and bones which you used to call yourself\nwhen this sliver of conscious immortality exults in its own existence.\n\nWhen the Beautiful Being takes you for a walk in what it calls the\n\u201cclover meadows of the sky,\u201d you are quite sure that you are one of the\nco-heirs of the whole eternal estate.\n\nThe Beautiful Being knows well the Christ of the Christians. I\nthink the Beautiful Being knows all the great Masters, embodied or\ndisembodied. They all taught immortality in some form or other, if only\nin essence.\n\nThe Beautiful Being went with me last night to the highest heaven of\nthe Christians. Should I tell you all that I saw, you might be in too\ngreat a hurry to go out there and view it for yourself, and you must\nnot leave the earth for a long time yet. You must realise immortality\nwhile still in the flesh, and make others realise it.\n\nI have told you about the minor heavens, where merely good people\ngo; but the passionately devout lovers of God reach heights of\ncontemplation and ecstasy which the words of the world\u2019s languages were\nnot designed to describe. With the Beautiful Being at my side I felt\nthose ecstasies last night, while you were locked in sleep.\n\nWhere shall I be next Christmas Eve? I shall be somewhere in the\nuniverse; for we could not get out of the universe if we should try.\nThe universe could not get on without us; it would be incomplete. Take\nthat thought with you into the happy New Year.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XLIX\n\n THE GREATER DREAMLAND\n\n\nI HAVE not been to see you for some time, for I have been trying an\nexperiment.\n\nSince coming to this country I have so often seen men and women lying\nin a state of subjective enjoyment, of dream, if I may use the word,\nthat I have long wanted to spend a few days alone with my interior\nself, in that same state. My reason for hesitating was that I feared to\ndream too long, and thus to lose valuable time--both yours and mine.\n\nBut when I expressed to the Teacher one day my desire to visit the\ngreater dreamland lying within my own brain, also my fear that I might\nbe slow in waking, he promised that he would come and wake me in\nexactly seven days of earthly time if I had not already aroused myself.\n\n\u201cFor,\u201d he said, \u201cyou can set an alarm-clock in your own brain, which\ncan always be relied upon.\u201d\n\nThis I knew from old experience; but I had feared that the psychic\nsleep might be deeper than the ordinary earthly sleep, and that the\nalarm-clock might not go off at the appointed time.\n\nI have heard much comment, so doubtless have you, on the fact that\nspirits, when they return to communicate with their friends, say, as\na rule, so little about their celestial life. The reason is, I fancy,\nthat they despair of making themselves understood should they attempt\nto describe their existence, which is so different from that of earth.\n\nNow, most souls, when they have been out some time, fall into that\nstate of reverie, or dream, which I had so long desired to experience\nfor myself. Some souls awake at intervals, and show an occasional\ninterest in the things and people of the earth; but if the sleep is\ndeep, and if the soul is willing or desirous to leave the things of\nthe earth behind, the subconscious state may last uninterruptedly\nfor years, or even centuries. But a soul that could stay asleep for\ncenturies would probably be one that was living according to long\nrhythm, the normal rhythm of humanity.\n\nSo, when I went into the deep sleep, I went into it with a spell upon\nmyself not to remain too long.\n\nOh, it was wonderful, that dream-country in my own self! The\nTheosophists would perhaps say that I had taken a rest in the bliss\nof devachan. No matter what one calls it. It was an experience worth\nremembering.\n\nI closed my eyes and went in--in--deeper than thought, where the\nrestless waves of life are still, and the soul is face to face with\nitself and with all the wonders of its own past. There is nothing but\nloveliness in that sleep. If one can bring back the dreams, as I did,\nthe sojourn there is an adventure beyond comparison.\n\nI went in to enjoy, and I enjoyed. I found there the simulacrum of\neveryone whom I had ever loved. They smiled at me, and I understood the\nmystery of them, and why we had been drawn together.\n\nI refound, too, my old dreams of ambition, and enjoyed the fruit of\nall my labour on earth. It is a rosy world, that inner world of the\nsoul, and the heart\u2019s desire is always found there. No wonder that the\nstrenuous life of earth is oftener than not a pain and a travail, for\nthe dream-life which follows is so beautiful that the balance must be\npreserved.\n\nRest! On earth you know not the meaning of the word. I rested only\nseven days; but so refreshed was I that, had I not other worlds to\nconquer, I should almost have had the courage to return to earth.\n\nDo not neglect rest--you who still live the toilsome life in the\nsunshine. For every added hour of true rest your working capacity is\nincreased. Have no fear. You are not wasting time when you lie down and\ndream. As I have said before, eternity is long. There is room for rest\nin the wayside inns which dot the path which the cycles tread.\n\nIf you want to take a long and devachanic rest--why, take it. Take\nit even on earth, if it seems desirable. Do not be always grubbing,\neven at literature. Go out and play with the squirrels, or lie by the\nfire and dream with the household cat. The cat that enjoys the drowsy\nfireside also enjoys catching mice when the mood is on her. She cannot\nbe always hunting, neither can you.\n\nJust take a dip in devachan some day, and see how refreshed you will be\nwhen you come out. Perhaps I am misusing that word \u201cdevachan,\u201d for I\nwas never very deeply learned in the lore of Theosophy.\n\nI have even heard nirvana described as a state of intense motion, so\nrapid that it seems motionless, like a spinning-top, or the wing of a\nhumming-bird. But nirvana is not for all men--not yet.\n\nI have hinted at the wonders of my seven days of blissful rest, but I\nhave not described them. How can I? A great poet once declared that\nthere was no thought or feeling which could not be expressed in words.\nPerhaps he has changed his mind by this time, after being out here some\nsixty years.\n\nAs I went to rest, I commanded my soul to bring back every dream. Of\ncourse I cannot say whether some may not have escaped, any more than\nyou can say on waking that you have or have not forgotten the deeper\nexperiences of the night. But when I came back into the normal life of\nthis plane that is called astral, I felt like an explorer who returns\nfrom a strange journey with wonder-tales to tell. Only I did not tell\nthem. To whom should I relate those dreams and visions? I would not be\na bore, even to \u201cdisembodied\u201d associates. Had Lionel been here, I might\nhave entertained him many an hour with my stories; but he is lost to me\nfor the present.\n\nAnd, by the way, he seems to have taken little or no devachanic\nrest. Is that because he was so young on coming out that he had not\nexhausted the normal rhythm? Probably. Had he remained out here and\ngrown up, perhaps he also would have sought the deeper interior world.\nBut I will not speculate, for this is a record of experiences, not of\nspeculations. You can speculate as well as I, if you think it worth\nwhile.\n\nI found in my own dreamland a fair, fair face. No, I am not going to\ntell you about that; it is my little secret. Of course I found many\nfaces, but one was lovelier than all the others, and it was not the\nface of the Beautiful Being, either. The Beautiful Being I meet when I\nam wide awake. I did not encounter her as an actual presence in sleep,\nonly the simulacrum of her. In the deeper dreamland we see only what is\nin our brains. _Things_ do not exist there, only the memories of\nthings and the imagination of them.\n\nImagination creates in this world, as in yours: it actually moulds the\ntenuous substance; but in the greater dreamland I do not think that we\nmould in substance. It is a world of light and shadow pictures, too\nsubtle to be described.\n\nEven before this experience I had gone into the memories of my own\npast; but I had not revelled in them, had not indulged myself to the\nextent of conjuring with light and shade. But, oh! what\u2019s the use?\nThere are no words to describe it. Can you describe the perfume of a\nrose, as you once said yourself? Can you tell how a kiss feels? Could\nyou even describe the emotion of fear so that one who had not felt it,\nby former experience in this life or some other, would know what you\nmeant? No more can I describe the process of spiritual dreaming.\n\nRevel to your heart\u2019s content in fancy, in memory, while you are still\nin the body, and yet I think that you will have only the shadow of\na shadow of what I experienced in those seven days, the reflection\nof a reflection of the real dream. The reflection of a reflection! I\nlike that phrase. It suggests a clear picture, though not a direct\nimpression. Try dreaming, then, even on earth, and maybe you will get\na reflection of a reflection of the pictured joys of the spiritual\ndreamland.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER L\n\n A SERMON AND A PROMISE\n\n\nAS I have been coming to you every few days for several months, and\nhave told stories for your amusement, may I come now and preach a\nsermon? I promise it shall not be long.\n\nYou live in a land where church spires pierce the blue of heaven,\nlooking from the viewpoint of the clouds like the uplifted spears of\nan invading army--which in intent they are; so surely you have the\nhabit of listening to sermons. The average sermon is made up mostly of\nadvice, and mine will not differ from others in that particular. I wish\nto advise you, and as many other persons as you can make listen to my\nadvice.\n\nYou will grant that, for one who offers counsel, I have had unusual\nopportunities for fitting myself to give it. In order to help\nyou to live, I would show you the point of view of a serious and\nthoughtful--however imperfect--observer of the after effects of causes\nset in motion by dwellers upon the earth. It has been said that cause\nand effect are opposite and equal. Very good. Now I want to draw your\nattention to certain illustrations of that axiom which have come to my\nmind during the last few months. If I repeat one or two things which I\nhave already said, that is no serious matter. You may have forgotten\nthem, or missed their application to the business of preparing for the\nfuture life on this side of the gulf of death. That is a moss-grown\nfigure of speech, \u201cthe gulf of death\u201d; but I am writing a sermon, not a\npoem, and well-worn tropes are expected from the pulpit.\n\nThe preachers remind you every few Sundays that you have got to die\nsome day. Do you realise it? Does your consciousness take in the fact\nthat at any moment--to-morrow or fifty years hence--you may suddenly\nfind yourself _outside_ that body whose cohesive force you have\nbecome accustomed to; that you may find yourself, either alone or\naccompanied, in a very tenuous and light and at first not easily\nmanageable body, with no certain power of communicating with those\nfriends and relations whom you may see in the very room with you?\n\nYou have not realised it? Then get it through your consciousness.\nGrasp it with both hemispheres of your brain. Clutch it with the talons\nof your mind. _You are going to die._\n\nOh, do not be alarmed! I do not mean you personally, nor that you, or\nany particular person, will die to-morrow, or next year; but die you\nmust some day; and if you remind yourself of it occasionally, it will\nlessen the shock of the actual happening when it comes.\n\nDo not brood over the thought of death. God forbid that you should read\nsuch a morbid meaning into my blunt words! But be prepared. You insure\nyour life for so much money that your family may be provided for; but\nyou do nothing to insure your own future peace of mind regarding your\nown self.\n\nRemember this always: however minute are the instructions you leave\nfor the management of your affairs after death, should you be able to\nlook back to the earth you will find that someone has mismanaged them.\nSo expect just that, take it as a matter of course, and learn to say,\n\u201cWhat difference does it make?\u201d Learn to feel that the past _is_\npast, that the future alone has possibilities for you, and that the\nsooner you leave other persons to manage your discarded earthly affairs\nthe better it will be for your own tranquillity. Be prepared to _let\ngo_. That is the first point I wish to make.\n\nDo not go out into the new life with only one eye open to the celestial\nplanes, and the other inverted towards the images of earth. You will\nnot get far if you do. Let go. Get away from the world just as soon as\nyou can.\n\nThis may sound to some people like heartless advice, for there is no\ndoubt that a wise spirit, looking down from the higher sphere, can, by\nhis subtly instilled telepathic suggestions, influence for good the men\nand women of the earth. But there are always thousands of those who\nare eager to do that. The heavens above your head now are literally\nswarming with souls who long to take a hand in the business of earth,\nsouls who cannot let go, who find the habit of managing other people\u2019s\naffairs a fascinating habit, as enthralling as that of tobacco, or\nopium. Again, do not call me heartless. I am blunt of speech, but I\nlove you, men of earth. If I hurt you, it is for your good.\n\nNow comes another and a most interesting point. Forget, if you can, the\nsins you have committed in the flesh. You cannot escape the effects of\nthose causes; but you can avoid strengthening the tie with sin, you can\navoid going back to earth self-hypnotised with the idea that you are a\nsinner.\n\nDo not brood over sin. It is true that you can exhaust the impulse to\nsin by dwelling on it until your soul is disgusted; but that is a slow\nand an unpleasant process. The short-cut of forgetfulness is better.\n\nNow I want to express an idea very difficult to express, for the reason\nthat it will be quite new to most of you. It is this: The power of the\ncreative imagination is stronger in men wearing their earthly bodies\nthan it is in men (spirits) who have laid off their bodies. Not that\nmost persons know how to use that power: they do not; the point I wish\nto make is that they _can_ use it. A solid body is a resistive\nbase, a powerful lever, from which the will can project those things\nconjured by the imagination. That is, I believe, the real reason why\nMasters retain their physical bodies. The trained mind, robed in the\ntenuous matter of our world, is stronger than the untrained mind robed\nin dense matter; but the Masters still robed in flesh can command a\nlegion of angels.[3]\n\nThis is by way of preface to the assertion that as you on earth picture\nyour future life to be, so it will be, limited always by the power with\nwhich you back your will, and by the possibility of subtle matter to\ntake the mould you give it, and that possibility is almost unlimited.\n\nWill to progress after death, and you will progress; will to learn, and\nyou will learn; will to return to the earth after a time to take up a\nspecial work, and you will return and take up that work.\n\nKarma is an iron law, yes; but you are the creator of karma.\n\nAbove all things, do not expect--which is to demand--unconsciousness\nand annihilation. You cannot annihilate the unit of force which you\nare, but you can by self-suggestion put it to sleep for ages. Go out\nof life with the determination to retain consciousness, and you will\nretain it.\n\nWhen the time comes for you to enter that rest which a certain school\nof thought has called devachan, you will enter it; but that time will\nnot be immediately after you go out.\n\nOn finally reaching that state you will, as a matter of course, relive\nin dream your former earthly life and assimilate its experiences; but\nby that time you will have got rid of the desire personally to take\npart, as a spirit, in the lives of those you have left behind.\n\nDo not, while still on earth, invoke the spirits of the dead. They may\nbe busy elsewhere, and you may be strong enough to call them away from\ntheir own business to attend to yours unwillingly.\n\nYou who write for me, I want to thank you for never calling me. You\nlet me come always at my own time, and let me say what I wish to say\nwithout confusing my thought by either questions or comments.\n\nYou of the earth who are still upon the earth may find your departed\nfriends when you come out here, if they have not already put on another\nbody. Meantime, let them perform the work of the state in which they\nare.\n\nYou who write for me will remember that the first time I came you did\nnot even know that I had left the earth. I found you in a passive\nmood, and wrote a message signed by a symbol whose special meaning was\nunknown to you, but which I knew would be immediately recognised by\nthose in whom you were likely to confide. That was a most fortunate\nbeginning, for it gave you confidence in the genuineness of my\ncommunications.\n\nBut I said that I would write only a sermon to-night, so I will now\npronounce the blessing and depart. I shall return, however. This is not\nthe last meeting of the season.\n\n\n _Later._\n\nOne word more before I go to my other work.\n\nIf you had urgently called me during that week which I spent in\nrest, you might have had the power to cut short a most interesting\nand valuable experience. So the final word, after the benediction of\nthis sermon, is: Do not be too egotistically insistent, even with the\nso-called dead.\n\nIf your need is great, the souls who love you may feel it and come to\nyou of their own accord. This is often illustrated in the earth life,\namong those whose psychic pores are open.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 3: He has said that they build freely in that world through\nthe creative imagination; but we must remember how tenuous and easily\nhandled is the matter which they use.--ED.]\n\n\n\n\n LETTER LI\n\n THE APRIL OF THE WORLD\n\n\nHAVING told you last week that you must die, according to the jargon of\nthe earth, I now want to assure you that you can never really die at\nall; that you are as immortal as the angels, as immortal as God Himself.\n\nNo, that is not a contradiction.\n\nI have spoken before of immortality: it was always a favourite theme of\nmine; but since my association with the Beautiful Being it has become\nfor me an exultant consciousness.\n\nThe Beautiful Being lives in eternity, as we fancy that we live in\ntime. Will you write down here another of that angel\u2019s chants?\n\n When you see me in the green trees and in the green\n light under trees, know that you are near to me:\n\n When you hear my voice in the silence, know that I\n speak for you.\n\n The immortal loves to speak to the immortal in the mortal,\n and there is joy in calling to the joy which\n dozes in the heart of a soul of earth.\n\n When joy is awake, the soul is awake.\n\n You look for God in the forms of men and\n women, and sometimes you find Him there;\n\n But you look for me in your own soul; the\n deeper the gaze, the fairer the vision.\n\n Yes, I am in Nature, and I am in you, when you look for\n me there;\n\n For Nature is dual, and the half you carry within you.\n\n All things are one and dual--even I, and that is why\n you may find me.\n\n Oh, the charm of being free, to wander at will round\n the earth and heaven, and through the souls of\n men!\n\n I am lighter than the thistle-down, but more enduring\n than the stars:\n\n The permanent is impalpable, and only the impalpable\n endures.\n\n The road is not long which leads to the castle of dreams;\n the far-away is nearer than next-door, but only the\n dreamer finds it.\n\n When labour is light, the pay is sure; when the days\n are hard, their reward is tardy.\n\n Be glad, and I will repay you.\n\n I would write my name on the leaves of your heart, but\n only the angels can read the writing.\n\n Who bears my unknown name on the petals of his heart\n is accepted among the angels for the flower he is;\n his perfume reaches heaven.\n\n There is pollen in the heart, child of earth, and it fructifies\n the flowers of faith;\n\n There is faith in the soul, child of time, and it bears\n the seeds of all things.\n\n The seasons come and the seasons go, but the spring-time\n is eternal.\n\n I can find that in you which was lost in the April of the\n world.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER LII\n\n A HAPPY WIDOWER\n\n\nI MET a charming woman the other night, quite different from anyone\nelse I have met heretofore. She was no less a woman because she weighed\nperhaps a milligramme instead of one hundred and thirty pounds.\n\nI was passing along a quiet road, and saw her standing by a fountain.\nWho had created the fountain? I cannot say. There are sculptors in this\nworld who mould for the love of the work more beautiful fountains than\nyour sculptors mould for money. The joy of the workman in his work!\nWhy, that _is_ heaven, is it not?\n\nI saw a beautiful woman standing by a fountain; and as I love beauty,\nwhether in fountains or in women, I paused to regard both.\n\nThe lovelier of the two looked up and laughed.\n\n\u201cI was wishing for someone to talk to,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat a wonderful\nworld this is!\u201d\n\n\u201cI am glad you find it so,\u201d I answered. \u201cI also do not agree with the\nold woman who declared that heaven was a much overrated place.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou don\u2019t remember me, do you?\u201d she asked.\n\n\u201cNo. Have we met before?\u201d\n\n\u201cWe have. And, of course, you could remember me, if you should try.\u201d\n\nThen I recalled who she was. We had met some years before on one of my\njourneys to New York, and I had talked with her about the mysteries of\nlife and death, of will and destiny.\n\n\u201cI have tested many of the things you told me,\u201d she went on, \u201cand I\nhave found them true.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat things, for instance?\u201d\n\n\u201cFirst and most important, that man may create his own environment.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou can easily demonstrate that here,\u201d I said. \u201cBut how long have you\nbeen in this world?\u201d\n\n\u201cOnly a few months.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd how did you come out?\u201d\n\n\u201cI died of too much joy.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat was a pleasant death and an unusual one,\u201d I said, smiling. \u201cHow\ndid it happen?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe doctor said that I died of heart-failure. For years I had wanted a\ncertain thing, and when it came to me suddenly, the realisation was too\nmuch for me.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd then?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, I suddenly realised that I had let slip the body through which I\nmight have enjoyed this thing I had attained.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd then?\u201d\n\n\u201cI remembered that I was not my body, that I was my consciousness; and\nas long as that was intact, I was intact. So I went right on enjoying\nthe attainment.\u201d\n\n\u201cWithout a regret?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are indeed a philosopher,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd though I do not want to\nforce your confidence, yet I would be much interested to know your\nstory.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt would seem absurd to some people,\u201d she answered, \u201cand even to me it\nseems strange sometimes. But I had always wanted money, a great deal of\nmoney. One day a certain person died, leaving me a fortune. It was that\njoy which was too strong for me.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd how do you enjoy the fortune here?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn several ways. My husband and I had planned a beautiful house--if we\nshould ever have the money. We had planned to travel, too, and to see\nthe interesting places of the world. We also had two or three friends\nwho loved to create beauty in the arts, and who were hampered in their\nwork by lack of means. Now, my husband, being my sole heir, came into\nthe fortune immediately I passed out. So I enjoy everything with him\nand through him just the same as if I were actually in the flesh.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd he knows that you are present?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes. We had each promised not to desert the other in life or death. I\nhave kept my word, and he knows that I have kept it.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd where is he now?\u201d\n\n\u201cTravelling.\u201d\n\n\u201cAlone?\u201d\n\n\u201cExcept for me.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn what place is he?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn Egypt at this time.\u201d\n\nI drew nearer.\n\n\u201cCan you show him to me?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cYes, I think so. Come along.\u201d\n\nIt is needless to say that I did not require a second invitation.\n\nWe found the man--a handsome fellow about thirty years of age--sitting\nalone in a luxurious bedroom in Cairo. It seems to be my destiny to\nhave strange experiences in Cairo!\n\nThe young man was reading as we entered the room; but he looked up\nat once, for he felt that _she_ was there. I do not think he\nperceived me.\n\n\u201cMy darling,\u201d he said, aloud, \u201cI have seen the Pyramids!\u201d\n\nShe placed her hand upon his forehead, and he closed his eyes, the\nbetter to see her.\n\nThen his hand moved to the table, he opened his eyes again, and took up\npaper and pencil. I saw her guide his hand, which wrote:\n\n\u201cI have brought a friend with me. Can you see him?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\nThe man spoke aloud, she communicating through the pencil in his hand\nand by his interior perception of her.\n\n\u201cThen never mind,\u201d she wrote; \u201che is not an egotist. I only wanted him\nto see you. I have told him how happy I am--and now he sees why.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis journey of mine is an unalloyed delight,\u201d the man said.\n\n\u201cThat is because I am with you,\u201d she replied.\n\n\u201cWere you with me at the Pyramids to-day?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, though I cannot see very well in the sunshine. I have been there,\nhowever, and have seen them by moonlight. But where are you going from\nhere?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere do you want me to go?\u201d\n\n\u201cUp the Nile, to Assouan.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will go. When shall I start?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe day after to-morrow. And now _au revoir_, my love. I will\nreturn by and by.\u201d\n\nA moment later we were outside--she and I--in the soft starlight of an\nEgyptian evening.\n\n\u201cDid I not tell you the truth?\u201d she demanded, with a little laugh of\ntriumph.\n\n\u201cBut have you no desire to go on in the spiritual world?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cIs there anything more spiritual than love?\u201d she asked in return. \u201cIs\nnot love the fulfilling of the Law?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d I said, \u201cI recently wrote a letter to the men and women of the\nearth, advising those who should come out here to get away from the\nearth as soon as possible.\u201d\n\n\u201cLovers like me will not take your advice,\u201d she answered, with a smile.\n\u201cAnd tell me now: Is it not better for Henry to enjoy my society in the\nlong evenings--is it not better for him to be happy than to grieve for\nme?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut at first? Was he not inconsolable at your going out?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, until I came to him. He was sitting one night in deep dejection,\nand I reached for his hand, and wrote with it: \u2018I am here, speak to\nme.\u2019 \u2018My Love!\u2019 he cried, his face alight, \u2018are you really there?\u2019\n\u2018Yes, I am here, and I shall come to you every day until you come out\nto me,\u2019 I answered, through the pencil.\n\n\u201cHe had never known that he was what you call a \u2018writing medium.\u2019 He\nwould never have been but for my presence in a form of matter different\nfrom his own.\n\n\u201cCome now, my friend,\u201d she added, \u201cwould you really advise me not to\nvisit Harry any more?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere are said to be exceptions to all rules,\u201d I answered. \u201cAt this\nmoment you seem to me to be one of those exceptions.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd will you add a postscript to your recent letter to the world?\u201d\n\n\u201cIf I can,\u201d I said, \u201cI will tell your story. My readers can draw their\nown conclusions.\u201d\n\n\u201cThank you,\u201d was her answer.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d I added, \u201cwhen Henry comes out here in his turn, you two\ntogether should go away from the world.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave _you_ been away from the world then?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo some extent. I am only stopping here now until a certain work is\nfinished.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd then where are you going?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo visit other planets.\u201d\n\n\u201cHenry and I will do that, too, when he comes out.\u201d\n\nNow, my friend, I tell you this story for whatever it is worth. There\nare cases like hers, where an earthly tie is all-compelling. But in the\ncase of most persons I stand by my original assertion and my original\nadvice.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER LIII\n\n THE ARCHIVES OF THE SOUL\n\n\nI HAVE spoken of a determination to visit other planets when my work of\nwriting these letters is ended; but I must not neglect to say that I\nconsider such journeys to and fro in the universe of far less spiritual\nvalue than those other journeys which I have made and shall make into\nthe deep places of my own self. Travelling in actual space and time\nis important to a man, that he may gain knowledge of other lands and\npeoples, see the differences between these peoples and himself, and\nlearn the causes thereof; yet quiet meditation is even a greater factor\nin growth. If a man whose spiritual perceptions are open can do but one\nof these two things, it would be better for him to sit in a cabin in\nthe backwoods and seek in his own soul for the secrets which it guards,\nthan to travel without such self-examination to the ends of the earth.\n\nGet acquainted with your own soul. Know why you do this or that, why\nyou feel this or that. Sit quietly when in doubt about any matter, and\nlet the truth rise from the deeps of yourself. Examine your motives\nalways. Do not say, \u201cI ought to do this act for such and such a reason;\ntherefore I do it for that reason.\u201d Such argument is self-deception.\nIf you do a kind act, ask yourself why. Perhaps you can find even in a\nkind action a hidden motive of self-seeking. If you should find such a\nmotive, do not deny it to yourself. Acknowledge it to yourself, though\nyou need not advertise it on the walls of your dwelling. Such a secret\nunderstanding will give you a greater sympathy and comprehension in\njudging the motives of others.\n\nStrive always for the ideal; but do not label every emotion as an ideal\nemotion if it is not really that. Speak the truth to yourself. Until\nyou can dare to do that you will make little progress in the quest of\nyour own soul.\n\nBetween earth lives is a good time to meditate, but one should form the\nhabit of meditation while in the flesh. Habits formed in the flesh have\na tendency to continue after the flesh is laid aside. That is a reason\nwhy one should keep as free as possible from physical habits.\n\nIf my charming acquaintance who comes every night to her husband to\nwrite love messages through his hand would spend the greater part of\nher time in acquiring knowledge of this new world, so that she could\nenlighten him, then might their communion be an unmixed good; but I\nfear it is not so. Therefore I shall look for her again, and give her\nsome fatherly advice. She has a quick and receptive mind, and I think\nshe will listen to me. He would be interested in her experiences, if\nfor no other reason than because they are hers. Yes, I shall have to\nfind her again.\n\nI have made wonderful discoveries in the archives of my own soul.\nThere I have found the memories of all my past, back to a time almost\nunbelievably distant. In seeing how the causes set up in one life have\nproduced their effects in another life, I have learned more than I\nshall learn on my coming tour of the planets.\n\nEverything exists in the soul; all knowledge is there. Grasp that\nidea if you can. The infallible part of us is the hidden part, and it\nis for us to bring it to light. Do you understand now why I advise\nthe disembodied to break away from the distractions and the dazzling\nmirages of the earthly life? Only in the stillness of detachment can\nthe soul yield up her secrets. It is not that I am indifferent to\nearthly loves; on the contrary, I love more deeply than ever all those\nwhom I loved on earth; but I realise that if I can love them wisely\ninstead of unwisely, it will be better both for them and for me.\n\nYet the call of the earth is loud sometimes, and my heart answers from\nthis side of the veil.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER LIV\n\n A FORMULA FOR MASTERSHIP\n\n\nMY friend, I am going to leave you for a while--perhaps for a long time.\n\nIt seems to me that my immediate work with the earth is done. I want\nstill further to lighten my load, to soar out upon the waves of\nether--far--far--and to forget, in the thrill of exploration, that I\nshall some day have to make my way painfully back to the world through\nthe narrow straits of birth.\n\nI am going out with the Beautiful Being on a voyage of discovery. My\ncompanion has taken this journey before, and can show me the way to\nmany wonders.\n\nThere is a sadness in bidding you good-bye. Do you remember the last\ntime you saw me in my old body? We neither of us thought that afternoon\nthat we should next meet in a foreign country, and under conditions so\nstrange that half the world will doubt that we have ever met again at\nall, and the other half will wonder if indeed we have really met.\n\nTell me, was I ever more real to you than I am this evening? While\nsitting with me in the days of the past, did you ever know less of what\nI should say a moment afterwards than you know now? Rack your brain\nas you will, you cannot tell what I am going to talk about. That will\nprove to _you_, at least, that I am as real as ever.\n\nI want to leave a few messages. Tell.... And tell.... And some day tell\nmy boy to live a brave and clean life. He will be watched over. Tell\nhim that if sometimes he feels the interior guidance, not to be afraid\nto trust it. Tell him to look within for light.\n\nFor the present, I have not much more to say to the world at large. But\nI want you to publish these letters, leaving out only the very personal\nparagraphs.\n\nYes, I may not see you again for a long time. Do not be sad. When I am\ngone, perhaps another will come.\n\nDo not close the door too tight; but guard well the door, and let\nno one enter who has not the signs and passwords. You will not be\ndeceived; I have trained you to that end.\n\nI cannot write much to-night, for there is a sadness in leaving the\nearth. But I am--or shall be--all a-thrill with the interest of the\ncoming voyage. Think of it! I shall see far-away planets and meet\ntheir inhabitants. Shall I find the \u201csquare-faced men\u201d? Perhaps so.\n\nIn Jupiter, they say, there is a race of beings wonderful to behold. I\nshall see them. Will they be fairer than our own Beautiful Being, who\nloves the little earth and usually stays near it, because there are\nsuch struggles here?\n\nThe joy of the struggle! That is the keynote of immortality, the\nkeynote of power. Let this be my final message to the world. Tell them\nto enjoy their struggles, to thrill at the endless possibilities of\ncombination and creation, to live in the moment while preparing for\nlong hence, and not to exaggerate the importance of momentary failures\nand disappointments.\n\nWhen they come out here and get their lives in perspective, they will\nsee that most of their causes of anxiety were trivial, and that all the\nlights and shadows were necessary to the picture.\n\nI had my lights and shadows, too, but I regret nothing. The Master\nenjoys difficulties as a swimmer enjoys the resistance of the water.\n\nIf I could make you realise the power that comes from facing the\nstruggle--not only bravely, as all the platitudinous bores will tell\nyou, but facing it with enjoyment. Why, any healthy boy enjoys a\nfight. His blood beats fast, his nerves tingle; but he who keeps his\nhead cool is likely to come out on top.\n\nLife is a fight. You are in matter to conquer it--lest it conquer you.\n\nThere is nothing in this universe stronger than the will of man when it\nis directed by a powerful unit of force. Whatever your strength, make\nthe most of it in the battle of life.\n\nRemember that your opponents are not other men, but conditions. If you\nfight men, they will fight you back; but if you fight conditions, they,\nbeing unintelligent, will yield to you with just enough resistance to\nkeep your muscles in good order.\n\nAnd do not forget the law of rhythm--that is at the back of everything.\nCount on rhythm; it never has failed yet, and it never will. Watch for\nthe high tides of yourself and flow up with them; when the inevitable\nlow tides come, either rest or meditate. You cannot escape rhythm. You\ntranscend it by working with it.\n\nYou can even turn and grow young, for time also has its tides; and\nthere are many ripples in the long sea-swell of life.\n\nI feel that I am leaving much unsaid. But I shall meet you again some\nday.\n\n\n\n\n =TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES=\n\nSimple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced\nquotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and\notherwise left unbalanced.\n\nPunctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a\npredominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they\nwere not changed.","title":"Letters from a living dead man","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":54512}