Spiritualism & Psychical Research
The Spiritualists' Reader
Spirit writings;Spiritualism
The
Spiritualists’ Reader
A Collection of Spirit Messages
from many sources, specially
prepared for Short Readings
Compiled by
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Author of
“The New Revelation,” ‘The Vital Message,”
“The Evidence for Spirit Photography,” &c.
1924
“TWO WORLDS" PUBLISHING CO. LTD.,
18 CORPORATION STREET,
MANCHESTER.
PREFACE.
It has seemed incongruous to many Spirit-
ualists that in our services we make so little use
of the glorious communications from the other
side. We have a literature which is unapproached
by that of any other religion or philosophy in the
world, and we do not take adequate advantage
of it. It has been my pleasant task, therefore,
to make a series of extracts from some of my
favourite spiritual books in the hope that they
may be useful to those who have to conduct
services and who have not the time or opportunity
to make a selection for themselves.
I have not arranged the quotations under
their separate headings in a large way, but each
bears its own description, and by consulting the
index a reader who wishes to treat any particular
phase of our knowledge can easily find his material.
Such a reading should, in my opinion, form an
integral part of every Spiritualist -gathering, so
that our people may be accustomed to hearing
the wisdom and the beauty of the utterances
from beyond.
It is very essential, however, that it should
be well read, and good reading is a rare accomplish-
ment. If the officiating minister has not got it
he should find some one in his congregation who
has, and he should confide the task to him. Many
good earnest clergymen ruin their own efforts
by the unnatural voice which they adopt, which
is enough to spoil by its artificiality the effect of
the most beautiful passages. Simplicity and
audibility are the two essentials for good reading.
In dealing with spirit utterances we do not,
of course, ascribe infallibility to them, especially
when they deal with matters of speculation.
Spirits are finite like ourselves, and the higher
will often intervene to correct the views of the
lower. At the same time, though the contents
of this book are merely like a few heads of grain
picked from a vast field in order to show the
richness of the harvest, the reader cannot fail to
be struck by the high level of the messages and by
their remarkable agreement in essentials, although
they are drawn from so many sources.
We can never expect absolute unanimity.
People have their own point of view there as here.
A narrow man is not instantly converted to breadth
of view by the fact of death. On such debated
subjects as reincarnation or the Godhead of
Christ there is as sharp a division there as here.
Human death is only one forward step in the
illimitable march of the spirit, and it is still faced
by a horizon which shrouds many mysteries. We
must train our own spirits to be tolerant and
charitable, realising that many of the woes of
mankind, and much of the religious confusion
have been caused by those who attempted to define
that which was beyond human comprehension.
Whether Christ was a man-like God or a God-like
a or whether there are three persons or one
n God, is a mere matter of speculation which has
naib vital in it. It is probable that the world
would have been none the worse had such questions
never been raised. On the other hand, it is
essential that we should strive for the spirit of
the Sermon on the Mount, and that we should
remember the words of Micah, “What doth the
Lord require of thee but to do justly, love mercy,
and walk humbly with thy God >?”
_ In dealing with occasional discrepancies in
spirit utterances we have also to remember that
from the misery of the lowest purgatorial spheres
to the glories of the seventh heaven, there is a
long ladder of evolution, and_that every rung o
it is different from the last. The nearer the earth
the more material the condition, and the experience
of a lower spirit is naturally very different from
that of a high one. If earth experiences were
given by a Hinilso. peasant and by an Oxford
Professor they would read very differently, and
yet each would represent a truth.
I pray, then, that this little book may carry
out that for which it was designed, and I give my
thanks (and my apologies) to the many mediums
whose messages I have purloin
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
CROWBOROUGH,
October, 1923.
“The Cage is buried, but the bird is free, and
sings above the grave.”
Spirit MEssAceE.
SPIRITUAL PHYSICIANS.
““What do physicians find to do there? ”
“Plenty and plenty. Those who come over
mentally unbalanced, those needing kind and wise
treatment to bring them out of sin or out of
selfishness, and those who are projected into this
world by accident or suicide or other sudden ways,
all need spiritual physicians. The remedial
agencies here are mental and spiritual instead of
material ; but physicians, if of the right stamp,
soon learn to adapt their treatment to such cases.”
“What happens to the mind that has been
unbalanced here?”
“We have many specialists who take charge
of these. Many are the result of disease or old
age, but those are easily cured. For spirit does
not require any grey matter or brain cells for
intelligence.”
“Sometimes a snap in the brain or in the
arteries, and they come to us very quickly. In
such cases it is without knowledge that they have
assed out of the body. That is a condition that
Pas to be watched and cared for here, else they
remain very long in the dream state and do not
premtens. I have watched many cases on earth
ut never knew what happened on this side until
I came here. Physicians have work to do here.
And their labour on earth, and their study of
abnormal conditions there, help them here to
heal the spirit that is beclouded by the physical ;
or, rather, the impressions made by the physical
while it had power over them.”—Spirit World
and Spirit Life.
12 THE SpiRITUALISTS’ READER
HEAVEN.
I now saw that it was not impossible to pass
from plains to mountain heights, and that powers
of vision and conceptions of sacred harmonies
surrounding me were in exact relation to my
spiritual perception and capacity of receptivity,
now being more perfectly unfolded through new
experiences.
I also saw that labours brought no fatigue.
My eyes, heretofore unaccustomed to such
brilliancy of light, acquired larger capacity to
relate to all changes of conditions.
Upon the journey which I now entered |
passed through different altitudes, in all of which
there seemed to be so many kaleidoscopic changes
that at first I could not fully comprehend my
surroundings. My robe changed its texture, and
in each transformation I received new poetical
and harmonial suggestions of eternal love and
wisdom, each more entrancing than the other,
in-breathed, absorbed, and assimilated through
atmospheric and spiritual influences, leading me
away from the low and grovelling conditions in
which I had but recently seen so many, out into
the glorious light and liberty of the Divine Being,
infinitely superior to the limitations of material
states.
From certain altitudes I beheld, at great
distances, cities and villages, with their multitudes
of busy and conglomerate populations—many
architectural curiosities, crystal streams flowing
from mountain peaks, rearing their lofty heads
into space, from which wave vibrations were
received, each one signifying to me the spiritual
and intellectual fact that 1 should and could pass
into closer relations with the great masters and
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 13
adepts, upon whom wondrous powers over
elements had been conferred.
The vibrations, which | then began to study,
conveyed interior meanings to all who had learned
to translate them wisely. By them a universal
language could be understood through all space.—
A Celestial Message.
WAR.
Your wars and your wholesale murderings
are even more fearful. You settle your differences
with your neighbours, who should be your friends,
by arraying against each other masses of spirits—
we see not the body; we care only for the spirit
temporarily clothed with those human atoms—
and those spirits you excite to full pitch of rage
and fury, and so you launch them, rudely severed
from earth-bodies, into spirit life. You inflame
their passions and give them full vent. Vengeful,
debased, cruel, earthbound spirits throng around
your -earth-sphere, and incite the debased who are
still in the body to deeds of cruelty and lust and
sin. And this for the satisfying of ambition, for
a passing fancy, for an idle princely whim.—
Spirit Teachings.
CHRIST’S POSITION.
We were speaking of the Bible one evening,
and Mary said :—
“The essential parts of the Bible are the
ethical teachings and the sacred example of the
Christ. The earth needed Christ, and he came.
The earth still needs him, and his influence is
still here. But many are deaf and blind to this
14 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
influence, and because this is so, war still desolates
the earth and selfishness and crime sometimes blot
out the law of unselfishness and love that he gave
his life to teach.”
We asked if Christ was near to those on that
; plane.
“Christ is exalted to the heavens above, but
he is as the elder brother and the guide of us all
on this plane. As you advance in knowledge of
this life we can tell you more of its mystery and
loveliness.”
“How can we advance?”
“Conquer doubt; build up hope; believe
in the infinite love.”
“The cruelties of this world and the sufferings
of the innocent make it hard sometimes to believe
that the world is ruled by infinite love.”
“Believe in God’s mercy through it all. The
suffering of the innocent is more than made up to
them here.
“The pure in heart have a vision of a purified
world where kindness and justice shall reign.
They are the hope of the world, and through them
we must reach those whose thoughts are all for
self and for selfish interests.
“The hope for the future lies in the philosophy
that Christ brought to earth and which here is
our rule of life. Christ was the apostle of love and
patience, and he desired to deliver the world
from evil through the power of love. But evil
held sway by reason of its long continuance and
growth, and was too strong, as it has many times
since been too strong, to be overcome by spiritual
ower. But the time is coming when the Christ
love will prevail, and wisdom and love together
shall rule the world.”—Spirit World and Spirit
Life.
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 15
CHRISTIANITY.
Man has gradually built around the teachings
of Jesus a wall of deduction and speculation and
material comment similar to that with which the
Pharisee had surrounded the Mosaic law. The
tendency has increasingly been to do this in
proportion as man tg st sight of the spiritual
world. And so it has come to pass that we find
hard, cold materialism deduced from teachings
which were intended to breathe spirituality, and
to do away with sensuous ritual.
It is our task to do for Christianity what
Jesus did for Judaism. We would take the old
forms and spiritualise their meaning, and infuse
into them new life. Resurrection rather than
abolition is what we desire. We say again that
we do not abolish one jot or one tittle of the teaching
which the Christ gave to the world. We do but
wipe away man’s material glosses, and show you
the hidden spiritual meaning which he has missed.
We strive to raise you in your daily life more and
more from the dominion of the body, and to show
you more of the mystic symbolism with which
spirit life is permeated.—Spirit Teachings.
MARRIAGE.
You wish to know something of the future
life of those who have been happily married on
earth. We must divide them into two classes :
those who have been truly mated, and those who
have not been so, but have been married to partners
with whom they have been fairly happy, but not
completely so. As regards those who have not
been happy enough to come under either of the
16 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
above classes, we can only say they have lived a
life against Nature's laws, and have to suffer the
natural penalty. All men must ultimately meet
their true mates, whether in this life or the next ;
just as certainly as all men must be sooner or later
saved. This may take centuries of time to accom-
plish, according as they have lived when in the
flesh. An unhappy life in the flesh tends to retard
their happiness in the future ; hence those who do
not come under the foregoing categories are simply
delayed in their happiness, like all other trans-
gressors. Those who have been true to their
companions, and have gained their love, have, of
course, nothing to repent of in the next life. If
the two partners then find that they were not
conjugally as happy as they would like to have
been, their relationship in the next world will
simply be that of friends, and they may each meet
their true companions there and be happy. Mar-
riage, in fact, does continue in heaven, theologians
notwithstanding ; ; and only those who have been
truly mated here can conceive how impossible it
would be for a heavenly society to exist without
the continued existence and capacity for enjoying
the highest love, next to that of God. Of course,
those who have not known true love on earth can
be excused for not being able to reconcile their
notion of heaven with the continued existence of
earthly marriages.— Spirit Teachings.
PROGRESS IN THE NEXT LIFE.
“There are many problems at present hidden
even from the higher planes. Study and dis-
covery are among the delights here. There is
an infinite amount of undiscovered science still
before us. We follow the thought of others, and
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 17
advance step by step, inch by inch, and are held
in wonder and awe at the dim visions before us
of the powers and forces yet to be used. We are
children yet in the infinite knowledge, and we of
mortal birth move along in smaller circles than
the spirits of other planes or universes. But can
you conceive a little of the joy of acquiring the
knowledge that leads us into such limitless wonders !
Knowledge is growth, and growth is happiness ;
and all avenues of thought lead upward to infinite
wisdom, justice and love.”
“We are individuals, but we belong to a
great scheme of higher consciousness toatl which
we are all tending. That is the real joy of this
life; that it is evolutionary onward and upward
to infinite results of which we yet have no complete
conception; only dimly perceiving the ultimate
joy, wisdom and affection.”
We spoke once of the delights they had men-
tioned on their plane, and expressed our wonder
by remarking that it seemed too good to leave for
another.
“You will not be obliged to change until
you wish to do so. But neither do you need to
dread the higher spheres. As a child you would
robably have dreaded the high school, though
licen you longed for it. And that is the way it
is here. Progress is natural, following the develop-
ment of the mind.”
“Many prefer to stay here. We find abundant
opportunities for service. We are attracted to
the planet we came from and prefer to stay near
it for a time. All go on some time, but the time
of the change is indefinite and is decided by each
individual a r himself—at least after a certain
degree of advancement is made.” —Spirit World.
B
18 Tue SpiriTuAuists’ READER
FUTURE OF SPIRITUALISM.
“There are prophecies of a wonderful wave of
spiritualisation—that someone will arise to save us
from the evils of materialism and selfishness into
eh we seem drifting. Is there any truth in
this >”
“The world moves slowly and no miracle is
likely to happen. But if you will just study the
past and go back far enough, you will see that
the tendency is always upward. But whether
the tendency can be measured by years or by
centuries, is something which we do not know.
The optimists will believe the change will come
soon; but the pessimists believe it will be long
delayed if it come at all. We can watch and
help as best we can, and then wait; and that is
what the world will have to do. Our teachers do
not tell us of any coming marvel. Just patient
effort, and working for the good at all times, is
what we are taught as our part of it.”—Spirit
World.
SPIRIT AND MATTER.
This was all from the professor, but to my
surprise, William James appeared, saying that he
would like to add his testimony to what had been
said of impressions of spirit life.
“Spirit is one thing,” he wrote, “matter
another. Do not expect to measure both in the
same way. Your professor friend is trying to
make your earth language convey a little more
clearly the impression of the life here. We are
puzzled how to get over to earth life the beauty
and harmony of this one. Where all are tuned
to the same vibrations there can be no discordant
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 19
notes. You are musically in tune with the great
composers, and you will know what I mean when
I say that to be in tune with the heavenly vibrations
means a harmony undreamed on earth. It means
a readjustment of the earth-born faculties. It
means that the follies of earth thought are replaced
by the wisdom of this sphere. It means that the
wisdom of earth thought is merged in heavenly
knowledge. It means that the transient loves of
earth are replaced by loves and friendships so fine
as to bear no resemblance to the fleeting ties of
earth.
“Have I added anything to the clearness of
the description >?”
This was all at this time, but in closing |
would like to add one more word from Professor
James, who came a few evenings later with this :—
“T have a word to say to earth people, if I can
get it through as I wish. It is that the earth is
] of mystery; every plant that grows, every
wave of the ocean, every star that shines, has its
own hidden mystery. Life, the life of the spirit,
s God’s mystery, and God's blessing, and_ its
vichest blessings are here in the unseen.
then, turn away from this greatest and best of all
mysteries? Why not come into closer touch
with this incomparably great and unseen life > ”
al of Professor William James, from Spirit
or
CAUTIONS.
Like attracts like, and the silly curious inquirer
who asks from no desire for information, but only
to gratify a whim or an idle curiosity, or to entangle
us in our talk, is answered, if at all, by a spirit
like to himself.— Spirit Teachings.
20 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
I should be very sorry if the reading of these
letters of mine should cause foolish and unthinking
eople to go spirit-hunting, inviting into their
soba sphere the irresponsible and often lying
ene spirits. Tell them not to do it.
uld you advise any delicate and sensitive
woman oe sit down in the centre of Hyde Park,
and invite the passing crowds to come and speak
through her, or touch her, or mingle their magnet-
ism with hers? You shudder. You would
shudder more had you seen some of the things
which I have seen.
Do not be too sure that the entity which raps
on your table or your cupboard is the spirit of
your deceased grandfather. It may be merely
a blind and very desirous entity, an eager conscious-
ness, trying to use you to hasten its own evolution,
trying to get into you or through you, so as to
enjoy the earth and the coarser vibrations of the
earth.
It may not be able to harm you; but on the
other hand, it may do you a great deal of harm.
You had better discourage such attempts to break
through the veil, for it is thinner than you think,
and though you cannot see, you can feel through
it.—Letters from Living Dead Man.
JESUS.
Those who have given you the only record
you have of the life of Jesus have insisted too much
on His persecution by learned ignorance, and too
little on the moral dignity of His life amongst
those who lived with Him. They had not access
to the original recipients of His teaching, and
borrowed at tenth hand stories that were rife.
It is as though centuries hence men should compile
THE SpIRITUALISTS’ READER 21
a history of these days from the current stories of
Society. It is important to mark this.—Spirit
Teachings.
REINCARNATION.
“With regard to reincarnation, it is a large and
complicated subject. I can only tell you in this,
as in all things, what I have myself experienced,
or heard from higher spirits, and believe to be
true. And so I think it is incorrect to state that
all must come back to a material life on earth.
When anyone has entered into any spiritual
knowledge during the mortal life, they are never
reincarnated, except by their own special desire.
If they are undeveloped and animal in the earth
life, they frequently return there in spirit form,
as earth-bound spirits. Often they receive
through the teaching of mortals their first desire
for a better life. It is not necessary to pass
repeatedly through the earth life in order to pro-
gress. I will not say no one has ever reincarnated,
but I have never yet met anyone who has.”
“Do you, then, hold the doctrine of reincarna-
tion?”
“Not as an absolute law under which all spirits
must pass, but I do believe that in the experiences
of many spirits reincarnation is a law of their
progression. Each spirit or soul born into
planetary life has spiritual guardians who, from the
celestial spheres, superintend its welfare, and
educate the soul by such means as seem best to
them in their wisdom. These spiritual guardians,
or, as some term them, angels, differ in their
methods and their school of thought, for there
is no sameness anywhere, I am taught, and
no absolute path upon which all must walk alike.
Each school of thought which has its counterpart,
22 Tue SprIrRITUALISTS’ READER
its dim imperfect reflection on earth, has the
perfected system of the school and its highest
teachers in the celestial spheres.” —Speaking Across
the Border Line.
RELIGION.
We attach little importance to individual
belief : that is altered soon enough by extended
knowledge. The creed which has been fought over
with angry vehemence during the years of an earth
lifetime is surrendered by the enfranchised spirit
without a murmur. The fancies of a lifetime on
earth are dissipated like a cloud by the sunlight
of the spheres. We care little for a creed, so it be
honestly held and humbly professed; but we
care much for acts. We ask not what has such a
one believed, but what has he done> For we know
that by deeds, habits, tempers, characters are
formed, and the condition of spirit is decided.
These characters and habits, too, we know are
only to be changed after long and laborious pro-
cesses ; and so it is to acts rather than words, to
deeds rather than profession, that we look.
The religion which we teach is one of acts and
habits, not of words and fitful faith. We teach
religion of body and religion of soul; a religion
pure, progressive and true; one that aims at no
finality, but leads its votary higher and higher
throughout the ages, until the dross of earth is
purged away, the spiritual nature is refined and
sublimated, and the perfected spirit—perfected
through suffering and toil and experience—is
presented in glorified purity before the very foot-
stool of its God. In this religion you will find no
place for sloth and carelessness. The note of
spirit-teaching is earnestness and zeal. In it you
will find no shirking of the consequences of acts.
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 23
Such shirking is impossible. Sin carries with it
its own punishment. Nor will you find a con-
venient substitute on Whose shoulders you may
bind the burdens which you have prepared.
Your own back must bear them, and your own
spirit groan under their weight. Neither will you
find encouragement to live a life of animal sen-
suality and brutish selfishness, in the hope that
an orthodox belief will hide your debased life, and
that faith will throw a veil over impurity. You will
find the creed taught by us is that acts and habits
are of more moment than creeds and faith; and
you will discover that that flimsy veil is rent aside
with stern hand, leaving the foul life laid bare,
and the poor spirit naked and open to the eye of all
who gaze upon it. Nor will you find any hope
that after all you may get a cheap reprieve—that
God is merciful and will not be severe to mark
your sins. Those human imaginings pale in the
light of truth. You will gain mercy when you
have deserved it ; or rather repentance and amend-
ment, purity and sincerity, truth and progress
will bring their own reward. You will not then
borire either mercy or pity.
This is the religion of body and spirit which
we proclaim. It is of God, and the days draw
nigh when man shall know it.—Spirit Teachings.
ORIGIN OF EVIL.
“Can you tell us the origin of evil?”
“That is not for us to know at present. The
origin is so far away in an unknown past that only
the Creator of us all can rightly tell of its origin
and use. But we know that all things work towards
a final greater good, and that is sufficient for us
at present.
24 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
“Is the percentage of good people any greater
now than a hundred years ago?”
“The percentage is far greater than formerly.
But the quiet lives of the good, with their unseen
and unselfish service, do not get to the knowledge
of the public as do the riotous actions of the evil-
minded ones.”
“Is the world growing better?”
“The good are growing better; the evil are
growing more evil still.”
ORTHODOXY.
Think! You say to us that we are not of
God because our ideas of Him made known to you
are not compatible with some notions which you
have EN § from certain of the books in your
sacred records. Tell us which is the God with
Whom we are at variance in our ideal. Is it the
God Who walked in human form with Adam,
and is fabled to have wreaked direful vengeance on
the ignorant creatures who are said to have com-
mitted what you now see to be a very venial fault >
Or is it the God Who commanded his faithful
friend to sacrifice to Him the only child of his love
as an acceptable offering? Or is it the God Who
reigned over Israel as an earthly monarch, and
Whose care was feigned to be devoted to the
enunciation of sanitary laws, or to the construction
of a tabernacle, Who went forth with the armies of
Israel to battle, and issued blood-thirsty laws and
regulations for the extirpation of innocent and
unoffending peoples? Or is it, perchance, the
God Who enabled His servant Joshua to arrest
the course of the universe and to paralyse the solar
system, in order that the Israelites might revel a
few hours more in gore and carnage? Or is it
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 2
rather with the God Who was feigned to be so
angry with His chosen people because they wished
for a visible monarch, that He visited upon them
an elaborate revenge extending over many hundreds
of years? Or with which of the Gods of the
prophets are we at variance? with Isaiah's God,
or with Ezekiel’s? or with the lugubrious Deity
that Jeremiah’s morbid mind imagined? or with
David's Divinity, half father, half tyrant, cruel and
yielding by turns, always inconsistent and irra-
tional > or with Joel’s? or with John’s; or with
Paul’s Calvinistic conception, imagined and painted
with horrid phantasies of predestination and hell
and election and a dreamy listless heaven >—
Spirit Teachings.
UNDEVELOPED SPIRITS.
“T am not trying for marvels or wonders,
but I do want to try to give a plain, simple state-
ment of the life here that may lead some anxious
fearing soul into more faith and happiness. I wish
I could save them from looking forward with fear
into the dark unknown. Will you try and take
what you can, and | will try and write what I can,
of comforting thought to all those who are really
trying to live the right life on earth, and desiring a
new inspiration for the future.
“Many come so very ignorant, and come into
such a long sleep and unconscious period, which
we are sure is unnecessary, for they have not
believed the truth of active spiritual development
here. So they lose time, and lose the power at
first of realising the life and all it means. Tell
all who come in the circle of your influence that
they are making their future now, and can almost
26 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
control this future condition, if they will only
seek the truth and abide in it while still on earth.
“T do not often preach, but feel like a sermon
to-night. For the souls that come to this side
come in such multitudes that they can scarcely be
counted, yet only here and there are the spiritually
developed ones, the ones who can enter into this
life with joy, and commence the development of
spiritual power at once. The pity of it gets hold
of us here, now and then, and we feel like trying to.
bombard the earth with spirit bombs ;—some-
thing to make the people think, something to
force them away from their material thoughts,
pleasures and plans.
“We are obliged to begin our work with them
as we would begin with children, and not even in
that way when they first come. They sink into a
state that is hard to be described. “They are not
even ready to think. Brain and sense and heart
and soul have so long been educated wrongly that
silence and unconsciousness are the only remedies
at first. Then there comes a confused awakening,
with all their human habits of thought and all
their evil selfishness predominant. What can be
done, then, except to put strong forces in control
that they at least may be kept from harming others.
You cannot conceive of this work, I am sure;
but it is very real here.”
INSPIRATION.
Very few of the high thoughts expressed in
earth’s literature were begotten by man himself.
They are the result of his conjunction, unknown to
himself, with the higher nature of his guardian
angel. Man originates practically nothing. He
simply exercises a divine power of choice, and
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 27
anyone may perceive this for himself by looking
carefully into his own nature. On every matter
two thoughts or opinions are offered him—one
evil, one good. He merely adopts what he prefers,
but on that preference hangs life or death. In the
same way, when any special message is needed for
Earth, or any other similar star, thoughts expressing
the message are brought into the man’s conscious-
ness, and he delivers them in the natural language
of the earth, firmly believing them to be his own.—
Behind the Veil.
EVIL,
The joys of that life had been for a long time
so wonderfully portrayed that we began to wonder
if the malicious ones of earth were to be allowed
to enter into equal happiness. One evening this
thought was answered, even before it was expressed
in words.
“You are thinking,” the pencil wrote, “‘that
we have not emphasised sufficiently the conse-
quences of an evil life; that we have not warned
the selfish and the malicious ones, and have allowed
this life to seem too easy of achievement ; and we
wish to say, every time and all the time, that
character is of the first importance. As a man
lives on earth, so will he appear on this side.
Slipping out of the mortal body does not always
mean entrance into perfect happiness. Justice,
purity, unselfishness and kindness of heart are the
passports to the heavenly life. If these are lacking
they must be acquired, and sometimes the effect
of mortal sin makes this acquirement very difficult,
and often the time is long and unhappiness great,
before the evil is eliminated from the soul. We
cannot make this too strong or the caution too.
serious !
28 THE SPpIRITUALISTS’ READER
“Selfishness appears to us here as the founda-
tion of all sin. It appears to be the root of all
evil, and is insidious in its destruction of character. °
Selfishness may be only superficial or it may be
‘deeply ingrained in the individual. The first
may be overcome when true knowledge takes the
place of vanity and superficiality; the second
is the foundation of so much evil that it is most
debasing in effect, and most difficult to overcome.
It masquerades often in fine dress, for many
strive for beauty selfishly; make music and art
a matter of personal pride; or adorn themselves
with exquisite textures and priceless gems; and
forget the deeper meaning of spiritual loveliness.
‘The selfish use of wealth and power; lack of
sympathy for the poor or suffering; pride; _self-
esteem — all these, and many other manifesta-
tions of self love, are working towards spiritual
atrophy.”
‘How about those who take their own lives
to get rid of the evils of this existence >”
“When a human life is broken by the owner
-of that life, there is a long period of unconsciousness
before any reconstruction can take place. Years
may elapse before they are ready to begin any
advancement. The suicide takes his own way
instead of God’s way ; and the result is, to paralyse
the finer spiritual qualities and prevent entrance
into the joy of this life for a long time.”’
“Will the world ever come into true
‘Christianity >”
“It will come eventually. Every individual
has the power to bring that blessed time a little
nearer. The work goes on from here as well as
there, and all are needed; for the strife between
‘good and evil grows daily more vicious on the side
of evil and needs daily reinforcements on the side
of good.”
THe SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 29°
“You believe that final victory will be with
the good >”
“T know it will. But there must be greater
power both here and there. We see the evil ;
but not in the hopeless way you see it, for we see
also the remedy.” —Spirit World.
INTELLECT AND SPIRIT.
There are individuals who have probed the
depths and scaled the heights of intellectual
development ; they dwell amongst the cold peaks
of scientific attainment. They have stored their
minds with a huge mass of information regarding
the facts of existence, not recognising the truth
that knowledge is useless until you use it; and
unless knowledge is used to sweeten life, it is of
little value to humanity. Such individuals are
often unapproachable to their fellows here, and
when they reach the spirit world they find them-
selves in solitude, their natures are stunted and
cold; the love-tides do not flow freely, their
human sympathies and affections have been frozen,
and very often a little child leads them into happier
conditions in the social spheres, where love warms
the spirit into freer ae rounder life.—Death’s
Chiefest Surprise (E. W. Wallis).
POWERS OF THE SPIRIT.
re One evening my grandfather came, and Mary
said :—
“He is very bright and happy looking, and
if you could see his perfect form and youthful
appearance, you would not be calling him grand--
father.”
30 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
1 spoke of his stooping shoulders when on
earth, and Mary came back with this :—
“Must I repeat, that no physical imperfection
appears in the spirit form? He is not surprised
that you remember his bent figure, but thinks he
will be able to surprise you when you come.
A young soldier of whom we had known, had
been blown to atoms by a shell. We asked if
that would interfere with the spirit’s entrance
into that life.
“The body does not imprison the spirit ;
neither can the spirit be injured. The soul of the
young soldier would arrive here as perfectly as if
borne on angel wings.
“Then spirit is not subject to accidents >?”
“Spirit is superior to all conditions. I could
meet lightning without sensation, or ride on the
wings of a tornado, or drop into the greatest heat,
or move among polar snows, and all sensations
would be pleasant. Spirit is the controlling power.
I do not quite know how to express it, but spirit
is above and beyond any conflict of the elements,
or any material conditions. In our movement
through the ether we have no sense of obstruction,
and we pass easily through matter that you consider
solid. We are infinitely finer than any material
known on earth.”
“Could you descend into the earth?”
“It is through spirit that the treasures of the
earth have been found. It is through spiritual
impressions on the mind of man that he has been
sent to seeking and using the hidden riches which
are there for the finding.”
Speaking of the higher planes, we are told :—
“Life on the higher planes is more ethereal
than here, and all conditions are more ethereal.
Coming to this plane from a higher one is a little
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 31
like descending from an altitude where the air is
light to a lowland where the air is dense. Like
a life accustomed to the rarefied air of mountain
tops, descending into deep pits of the earth,
where the air is too heavy for them to breathe.” —
Spirit World.
THE ATONEMENT.
The atonement was the expression through
Christ of the love of the Father even unto death,
for every human soul. It enabled us to draw
nearer to the Father than was possible before
Christ died. But this is a great mystery which
you cannot fully understand. By assuming the
human form, Christ gave the crowning dignity to
humanity, and so caused an at-one-ment between
us and God. Now, that this at-one-ment is
accomplished by Christ, the Holy Spirit can take
complete possession of the heart, and by filling it
with the Divine Presence gradually purify it from
sin. It was to bring us into this soul union that
Christ lived and died.
But Christ’s death does not remove the effects
of sin from any human being. Direct, deliberate
sin has far-reaching consequences, stretching even
into eternity, and the evil must be undone and the
soul make restitution itself for the evil done in the
body.
It is the doctrine of the substitution of Christ,
the Sinless One, to satisfy the laws the sinner has
broken, that has done so much evil. It has lulled
the wicked into a false security. The first thing
they find when they come here is the record of
their life, and every man goes to the place he has
made for himself, according as that life has been.
Absolute, impartial justice is meted out to every
32 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
man, of every clime and every race. However
feeble have been the glimmerings of goodness and
truth, here they are fostered and strengthened till
they burn brightly for God. The ignorant are
instructed, the weary are soothed, and the broken-
ato are comforted.—Speaking Across the Border
ne.
CELESTIAL MUSIC.
““Have you any conception of what the music
of this life may be? Do you ever wonder what it is
like? It is caused by vibrations, but produced in
the ether by speech of this life. And the study of
this force is the most careful and perhaps the most
difficult of all. The power depends upon the
speed ; the speed depends upon the spirit. For
the worker must learn to ne and use the force
in accordance with law. Nothing is guess work ;
nothing happens by chance. All is orderly. All
can be acquired by study.
“You say this is not definite. Could you
describe an unseen and unknown property to one
entirely ignorant of that property? To attempt
a comparison, Mary has asked if you could describe
the fragrance of a rose. How about the flavour
of a fruit to one who had never known the taste ?
You can say sweet or sour or bitter, but these
convey no meaning to one who has never tasted
sweet or sour or bitter. So, you see, we can only
give the crudest examples of the effects of certain
powers, because we cannot explain the finer
meaning.
“T can say, then, that vibration is our power.
We study its properties and its uses. We learn to
control. And when we have finally become capable
THE SpirRITUALISTS’ READER 33
of using it we become workers with infinite resources
2?
and power at our command.
Then Mary added :—
“This teacher was one who was a scientist on
earth, and would have used scientific terms if
could have impressed them on your mind. But as
you could not take them he tried to give you more
general ideas.” —Spirit World.
A MEETING IN HEAVEN.
And now, my ward and friend, let me show
you a scene which will point what I have written.
On a hill-side green and golden, and with the
perfume of many flowers hovering round like music
kissed by colour, there is an old gabled house with
many turrets and windows like those which first in
England were filled with glass. It stands amid trees
and lawns, and down in the hollow is a large lake,
by the shores of which birds of many colours, and
very beautiful, disport themselves. This is not a
scene of your sphere but one on this side of the veil.
It were of little profit that-1 argue to show the
reasonableness of such things being here. It is so;
and that men should doubt that all that is good and
beautiful on earth is here with beauty enhanced and
loveliness made more lovely is, on our part, a matter
of wonder quite as great.
On one of the towers there stands a woman.
She is clad in the colour of her order, and that colour
is not one you know on earth. I would describe it as
golden purple ; but that will, I fear, convey little to
you. She looks out towards the horizon, far away
across the lake, where low-lying hills are touched
by the light beyond. She is fair to look upon. Her
figure is more perfect and more beautiful than that
c
34 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
of any woman on earth, and her face more lovely.
Her radiant eyes are of a lovely violet hue, and on
her brow a silver star shines and sparkles as it
answers to her thoughts within. This is the jewel
of her order. And if beauty were wanted to make
her beauty more complete, it may be seen in just a
tinge of wistfulness which but as to the peace and
joy of her countenance. This is the Lady of the
House, where live a large number of maidens who
are in her charge to do her will and go forth on
what mission she desires from time to time. For
the House is very spacious.
Now, if you study her face you will see at once
that she is there expectant ; and presently a light
springs up and flashes from her eyes those beautiful
violet rays; and from her lips issues a message ;
you know this by reason of the flash of light, blue
and pink and crimson, which darts forth from
between them and seems to take wing far too quickly
for you to follow it across the lake.
Then a boat is seen coming quickly from the
right between the trees which grow on its borders ;
the oars flash and sparkle, and the spray around
the gilded prow is like small spheres of golden glass
mingled with emeralds and rubies as it falls behind.
The boat comes to the landing-place, and a
brilliantly robed throng leap on to the marble steps
which lead them up to the green lawn above. One
is not so quick, however. His face is suffused with
joy, but he seems also to be full of wonder, and his
eyes are not quite used to the quality of the light
which bathes all things in a soft shimmering
radiance.
Then, from the great entrance, and down
towards the party, comes the Lady of the House,
and pauses at a short distance from the party.
The new-comer looks on her as she stands there,
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 35
and utter perplexity is in his gaze, rapt and intent-
Then at last she addresses him, and in homely
words this _shining saint of God welcomes her
husband: “Well, James, now you have come to
me, at last, dear, at last!’
But he hesitates. The voice is hers, but
different. Moreover, she died an old woman
with grey hair, and an invalid. And now she
stands before him, a lovely woman, not young
nor old, but of perfect grace and beauty of eternal
youth,
‘And I have watched you, dear, and been so
near you all the time. And that is past and over
now, and your loneliness is gone for ever. For now
we are together once again, and this is God’s
Summer land, where you and | will never grow
old again, and where our boys and Nellie will come
when they have finished what is theirs to do in the
earth life.”
Thus she talks, that he may get his bearings ;
and this he does at last, and suddenly he bursts.
into tears of joy, for it comes to him that this indeed
is his wife and sweetheart, and love overcomes his
awe. He moves forward with his left hand over his
eyes, just glancing up now and then, and when he
is near she approaches him quickly, draws him into
her arms and kisses him, and then, throwing one
arm about his neck, takes his hand in hers and leads.
him up the steps, with slow and gentle dignity,
into the House she has prepared for him.
Yes, that house is the heavenly counterpart of
their home in Dorset where they lived all their
married life, until she passed hence, and where he
had remained to mourn her absence.
This, my ward, I have set down by way of
pointing, with homely incident, the fact that the
treasures of heaven are not mere words of sentiment,
36 Tue SpiriTuALists’ READER
but solid and real, and, if you will not press the
word, material. Houses and friends and pastures
and all things dear and beautiful that you have
on earth are here. Only here they are of more
sublime beauty, even as the people of these realms
are of a beauty not of earth.
Those two had lived a good life as country
squire and wife, both simple and God-fearing, and
kindly to the poor and the rich alike. These
have their reward here ; and that reward is often
unexpected i in its nature, as it was to him.
This meeting | myself witnessed, for I was
one of those who brought him on his way to the
House, being then of that sphere where this took
place.
What sphere was it, please ?
The Sixth, And now, friend, I will close, and
‘would I might show you now some of these beauties
which are in store for the simple-hearted, who do
what they can of love and seek the righteousness of
God to please Him, rather than the high places
among men! These shall shine as the stars and
as the sun, and all around them shall take on more
loveliness by reason of their presence near. It is
written so, and it is true.—Vale Owen.
PSYCHIC CONNECTIONS.
All around you are divers chains, or what look
like chains, fine and small. They are in truth the
electric “cords” attaching you to myriads of other
minds. They are the vibratory ‘‘cords’”—by means
of which so much is conveyed to you of both good
and ill. The whole atmosphere around you is
electric. The ether is full of varied colours.
‘Could you but see them you would almost believe
that you were already out beyond matter.
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 37
The fine, tiny “cords” of which we speak are
the same all over the universe, connecting every-
one and everything. It is difficult clearly to
express their full meaning in language you would
at present understand—but this we can tell you.
Jars or frets affect certain “cords” especially, and
tighten or, as it were, make such loose. This
does not happen without some corresponding effect
on the body physical. Therefore, from all stand-
points, the more calmly you hold yourself, firm,
cultivating poise of mind, the better for you all
round.
When we speak of “‘cords’’ it is not those
“cords” as you on earth would speak. We use
the term merely in order to illustrate and help
you to picture in some degree what we mean.
Actually these ‘‘cords’’ are electricity of the very
finest, most tenuous type and style. They radiate
everywhere and more especially amongst those
een whom great harmony and a similar habit
of mind exists. This is what you often hear called
“telepathic” ; as one mind signals or thinks along
a certain line, that signal or thought will at once
be caught by any and all who are similarly inclined
electrically. It vibrates right along until it reaches
the mind—the sense mind of those in sympathy
with it. It is a species of telegraphy which, when
carried almost to perfection, as in a few rare cases,
will serve instead of any outward means of com-
munication between such people. This unceasing
flow of power ever radiating and vibrating in the
ether around people is liable to jerks, according
as they have or have not control of their mind
and thoughts. If you could see the beauty all
around you, the colours, the electricity, the
rapidity of vibrations, you would scarcely be able
to bear it, lover as you are of colour and beauty in
all ways. But it 1s, we believe, interesting and
38 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
useful to know that these beauties exist, and that
just as in proportion your thoughts are of sympathy,
thanksgiving | and upliftment—so around you do
these “cords” persist and increase.
Round many a soul all is dull and dead-
looking, because these people never lift their
thoughts beyond matter.—Teachings of Love.
REST HALLS OF HEAVEN.
We can only convey our experiences approxi-
mately. To describe conditions here in words is
quite impossible. Please remember this. My
brother helped me into one of these Rest Halls.
Confusion at once dropped away from me. Never
shall I forget my happiness. I sat in the alcove
of a splendid domed hall. The plashing of a
fountain reached my tired being and soothed me.
The fountain “played” music, colour, harmony,
bliss. All discordances vanished and | was at
peace. My brother sat near me. He could not
stay long, but promised to return. I wanted to
find you at once to tell you | had found peace, but
it is only now that I could do so. On earth the
study of crystal formations was a great hobby of
mine. To my intense delight I discovered that
this splendid hall was constructed according to the
law of crystal formations. I spent hours in
examining various parts of it. I shall spend hours
and days and weeks there. I can continue my
studies and make endless discoveries. What
happiness! When I have regained a state of
poise, my brother says I may help him in his work
outside. I am in no hurry for this.
You evidently know nothing about crystals. |
cannot impress your mind with the wonders of this
place. What a pity! This place is so different
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 39
from any earthly edifice that I fear it is useless to
attempt description. As it is, people will say I am
romancing. Or else they will say that you, my
faithful scribe, have let your imagination run away
with you.—Private Dowding.
POWER OF THOUGHT.
If you create something on earth in solid
matter, you create it first in thought-substance ;
but there is this difference between your creation
and ours: until you have moulded solid matter
around your thought-pattern you do not believe
that the thought-pattern really exists save in your
own fancy.
We out here can see the thought-creations of
others if we and they will it so.
We can also—and I tell you this for your
comfort—we can also see your thought-creations,
and by adding the strength of our will to yours we
can help you to realise them in substantial form.
Imagination creates in this world, as in yours ;
it actually moulds the tenuous substance.—Letters
from a Living Dead Man.
POWER OF THOUGHT.
You want to know how we on this side “con-
struct objects for our use.” When you create a
material object it is first designed by the mind,
then fashioned by the hands. In this condition it
remains till the ravages of time destroy it. Then
chemical changes are set up, and nature uses the
atoms once more in her laboratory.
With us the process is different. The spirit
constructs a shought-form, clothing it with spiritual
40 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
tangibility. This tangibility is etherealisation, and
the spirit operator wills it into any form he desires.
hen it has served his purpose, he then absorbs it
back into himself. It can be dispelled by thought,
as well as produced by thought. It is in this way
that we show ourselves to mortals. We reproduce
the very garments we wore on earth, with many
re to ensure recognition —Across the Border
ine.
INSPIRATION.
Nearly all forms of beautiful thought which
are expressed, either in the writing of prose or
poetry, or in painting, sculpture or music, have
been inspired by some spirit-artist or musician, in
wayes of thought to a receptive mind on the earth
plane. Probably many so inspired have no idea
that the thoughts are not entirely their own, and
would resent a suggestion of invisible help. But
they are helped, nevertheless, by those on this side,
and sometimes one will admit that the words came
he knew not how, or that the picture was painted
in an ecstasy, when he could neither eat nor drink
till the inspiration ceased. And thus are produced
the masterpieces of a man’s life. Now it is just
as your spirit is enabled to rise, consciously or
unconsciously, into communion with those lofty
beings of this higher life, that great things can be
said or done on the earth plane. It is the divine
essence of knowledge and beauty, filtering down to
the inhabitants of earth, in such measure as they
are capable of receiving it. When the inspiration
comes, it depends entirely on the mentality of the
one who receives it, what form it will take. It
may express itself in music, painting or verse, but in
all cases the inspiration comes through silent waves
THE SpIRITUALISTS’ READER 4!
of thought, flowing over the soul of man. The
more receptive and spiritually developed the
nature, the finer the result of the inspiring spirit.
I want to add a few lines to Sunday’s letter. It
is possible that, from what I then wrote you, some
might think that spirit help would turn men into
automata. That they would be reciting the
thoughts of spirits rather than giving their own
ideas. This is not so. No spirit can impress a
material nature, and no one can be helped against
his will.—Across the Border Line.
SELF REVELATION.
Not only is the past life laid bare to himself,
but it is patent also to all his friends, for the
spirit shows in his person the sort of life he has led
in the past, and he cannot change the appearance of
the picture until he has obliterated the recollection
of all that was evil by making restitution to those
he has wronged and obtaining the forgiveness of
those he has injured.
You must understand that the memory apper-
tains to the spirit, and not to the body ; and it is one
of the few qualities of mind that the materialist has
been puzzled to account for, because, though every
particle of the matter of which the brain is composed
may change, there remains indelibly impressed on
the mind the recollection of the past experience of
the individual from the days of his childhood. If,
however, these impressions had belonged to the
matter of the brain, they would have been swept
away long since in the course of the perpetual
changes that are going on in the organism of the
human body.—Life Beyond the Grave.
42 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
EFFECT OF OUR ACTIONS.
Is it nothing that we teach you that each act
in this, the seed-time of your life, will bear its own
fruit; that the results of conscious and deliberate
sin must be remedied in sorrow and shame at the
cost of painful toil in far distant ages; that the
erring spirit must gather up the tneled thread and
unravel the evil of which it was long ages ago the
perpetrator ?
Is it nothing that we tell you that words and
deeds are as the pebble thrown into the stream
which causes an ever-widening ripple, ceaselessly
enlarging in its effects ; and that for such influence
you are accountable; that every word, every act,
1s of incalculable import in its results and influence ;
that the good which your influence produces is to
you a source of gratification hereafter, while of the
ill you must view the baneful effects in agony and
remorse ?
Is it nothing that we tell you that reward and
punishment are not delayed till a far-off day faintly
imagined, after a period of torpor, almost of death,
but are instant, immediate, supervening upon sin by
the action of an invariable law, and acting cease-
lessly until the cause which produced it is removed ?
Is this no incentive to a life of sanctity and
holiness? Which, say you, is the more potent
incentive to a holy life of progress: that ereed
which we have indicated, or that which teaches that
a man may live as seems to him good, may wrong
his neighbours, insult his God, and debase his own
spirit, may break all laws divine and human, may
e loathsome in his moral nature, a blot on the
name of man, and then, by a fanatical cry, by a
fancied faith, by a momentary operation of the
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 43
mind, may be fitted to enter into a dreamy heaven,
where his sole joy is to be that which his nature
would view with distaste, but which, now that the
magic change has been effected, is to become the
congenial occupation of eternity? Which faith
will move the degraded most? To tell him that
for each sin, discovered or undiscovered by his
fellow, he will have to repent ; that each must be
remedied, not by another, but by himself; and
that no happiness is possible for him till he grows
a purer, better, truer man? Or, to tell him that,
do what he will, heaven is open to the vilest repro-
bate, and that a dying cry, when fainting nature is
wrung with agony, can magically change his
spirit, and send it, after a distant judgment, pure
and good, into the immediate presence of his
God ?—Spirit Teachings.
SPIRIT SENSES.
“The five earthly ones are all so increased and
multiplied by their varied powers, that they might
well be called additional ones. Then we have
perceptions not dependent upon sight, hearing,
touch or taste. These belong to spirit intuitions.”
“I suppose you hardly have need of the sense
of taste?”
“Not as you know it. Although there are
many things that appeal to us almost like that
sense. We have fruits and flowers and many
other things, that appeal to both taste and smell.
But we do not gain them through material organs
as you do.”
We asked about other sensations.
““We have sensations analagous to the mortal
ones, though only in a spiritual sense. We do
44 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
not need to clasp the hand to show our friendship.
There is no need of kisses or other expressions of
affection. We have the spiritualised form of them
which is higher and finer.”
“Do you use language there?”
“We can speak if we wish; and oratory,
poetry and lessons are given in word language.
But in ordinary intercourse ideas flash from mind
to mind without need of words. We speak with
spirit organs, aS we use other spirit powers ;
but this you can hardly understand as yet.’
“Can you read the written words here, or do
you get them through our minds ?
“T read mostly through the mind; I have not
learned the other way yet. Others can read
written words, but I have not progressed so far.
_.“If there were a picture in this room that
neither of us knew or saw, could you tell what
it was?”
“T doubt it, unless it was the likeness of some-
one I knew and loved, and I am not sure even of
that. We see your soul or spirit selves, and do
not discern the physical very clearly except as a
shadow of the soul. It is like seemg your true
self through a veil; the material flesh is the veil.
A picture does not have the inner spirit. It is
only an impression of a material body, and that
is hard for us to see. Some can see perfectly all
material things, but my own power is at present
limited.”"—Spirit World.
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 45
DIFFICULTY OF EXPRESSION.
The difficulty of expression was again men-
tioned when we read one evening the beautiful
sonnet that is attributed to the spirit of F. W. H.
Myers :—
A Sonnet.
To all who wait, blindfolded by the flesh,
Upon the stammered promise that we give,
angling ourselves in the material mesh
A moment, while we tell you that we live.
Greeting, and reassurance ; never doubt
That the slow tidings of our joyful state,
So hardly given, so haltingly made out,
Are but the creaking hinges of the gate.
Beyond, the garden lies ; and as we turn,
Wond’ring how much you hear, how much you
guess,
Once more the roses of glad service burn
With hues of loving thought and thankfulness :
ik more we move among them, strong and
ree,
Marvelling yet in our felicity.
“The poem is true. If only you could see
our difficulty of expression you would be patient
with misunderstandings. We are not so in touch
with material language and thought as to be able
to express the marvels of this life by material
words or imagery. We are of different conditions
and different expression, yet we try to become
material for the moment, that we may help you
to understand ;_ but often the language fails, and
we are confused by lack of right words.” —Spirit
World.
46 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
THE JUDGMENT.
While we waited in expectation of what we
were to see, a soft strain of music floated towards
us as though borne upon some passing breeze.
This grew stronger, fuller, more distinct, till a
solemn majestic measure like the march of an
army fell upon our ears.
Then the curtains glided apart and showed us:
a huge mirror of black cd apart marble. And
then the music changed to another measure, still
solemn, still grand, but with somewhat of dis-
cordance in its tones. It wavered, too, and
became uneven in the measure of its time, as
though halting with uncertain step, stumbling and
hesitating.
Then the air around us darkened till we could.
scarce see each other's faces ; slowly the light faded,
and at last all we could see was the black polished
surface of the gigantic mirror, and in it I saw
reflected the figures of two of the members of our
expedition. They moved and spoke and the
scenery around them grew distinct and such as |
had seen in the Inferno we had left. The weird
music stirred my soul to its inmost core, and
looking upon the drama being enacted before my
eyes I forgot where I was—I forgot everything—
and seemed to be wandering once more in the
dark depths of Hell.
Picture melted into picture, till we had been
shown the varied experiences of each of our band,
from the lowest member to our leader himself—the
last scene showing the whole company assembled
upon the hill listening to the farewell discourse of
our commander. And like the chorus in a Greek
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 47
Tragedy, the wild music seemed to accompany and
explain it all, varying with every variation in the
dramas, now ‘sad and sorrowful, now full of repose
or triumph. . . At last as the final scene was
enacted it sank into a soft plaintive air of most
exquisite sweetness, and died away note by note.
As it ceased, the darkness vanished, the curtain
glided over the black mirror and we all turned
with a sigh of relief and thankfulness to congratulate
each other that our wanderings in that dark land
were past.
I asked my father how this effect had been ©
produced, was it an illusion, or what ?
““My son,” he answered, ‘“‘what you have seen
is an application of scientific knowledge, nothing
more. The mirror has been so prepared that it
received and reflects the images thrown upon it from
a series of sheets of thin metal, or rather what is
the spiritual counterpart of earthly metal. These
sheets of metal have been so highly sensitised that
they are able to receive and retain these pictures
somewhat in the fashion a phonograph (such as
you saw in earth life) receives and retains the
sound waves.
“When you were wandering in those dark
spheres, you were put in magnetic communication
with this instrument and the adventures of each
were transferred to one of these sensitive sheets,
while the emotions of every one of you caused
the sound waves in the spheres of music an
literature to vibrate in corresponding tones of
sympathy.
“You belong to the spheres of Art, Music and
Literature, and therefore you are able to see and
feel and understand the vibrations of those spheres.
In the spirit world all emotions, speeches or events
reproduce themselves in objective forms and
48 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
become for those in harmony with them either
pictures, melodies or spoken narratives. The
spirit world is created by the thoughts and actions
of the soul, and therefore every act or thought
forms its spiritually material counterpart. In this
sphere you will find many things not yet known to
men on earth, many curious inventions which
will in time be transmitted to earth and clothed
there in material form.”"—A Wanderer in the
Spirit Lands.
CHARACTER.
The worth of character, which you sometimes
ignore and never rightly recognise, must be seen
as we see it here, to be appreciated. We have
wonderful surprises here. We see men as they are.
Not, of course, all men always. But when the
wrappings are off we see the nature of the soul, and
the factor that decides is the character. I know
this sounds like a commonplace. But it does not
seem a commonplace when it is applied as we see it
applied here. No. You can hardly, by any
stretch of imagination, realise what a change it is to
live in a place where the only test is character,
where property, station and work do not count—
no, nor religious profession. The idea, which
you so often have in the world, that the words
which you say with your lips have magic influence
on your hearts, must be seen in all its hollow
absurdity to be understood.—Letters from Julia.
GROWTH OF CHILDREN.
The child grows up naturally here as it would
upon earth; but if, as is frequently the case when
one or another of their beloved ones come here, they
expect and desire to see once again the little one
Tue SpiriTuALists’ READER 49
they loved and lost, as they say, then that child is
permitted, by power of thought, to show itself as
of old to its mother or father. Just as in a reverse
case one who came here old and wrinkled, as seems
to earthly eyes, would, for purposes of recognition
alone, appear again the ,same—although as we
state there is no ‘old age”’ out here.
The children chiefly dwell in their own special
domain, almost a little world of their own, where
places of learning, religion and love abound, as
well as the beauteous gardens and playing grounds
of Paradise the fair. There are endless methods of
teaching, learning and happiness evolved for the
spiritual advancement of the children. We need
not tell you that the Master Himself, Who so loved
the little ones, is constantly present there, too.
Another point of interest and comfort, friend, is,
that the children are never allowed to forget or
lose their love for their earthly parents. Often
and often they are brought to meet them in the
appointed meeting-place where many separated
souls are re-united—during the hours of sleep—
Teachings of Love.
THE FUTURE OF THE SCEPTIC.
“He seems to question everything, and doubts
even the spiritual life. He knows, of course, that
he has passed away from earth, but is busy explain-
ing that and many other things, with a philosophy
of his own. He has a bright brain and we wish to
turn it to the truth, and lead him into the real
life here. That is wey I asked you to send him a
message. He does not know you are communicat-
ing. We believe that if he can find himself—that
is, realise that he is a spirit and living a spint life
already—that he will begin to study and grow.
D
50 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
The next day the pencil wrote :—
“After talking with you yesterday, I turned,
and with the quickness of thought, was far away ;
so far that it would have taken you days to accom-
plish the journey. We went to see the one to
whom we wish you to speak, and we have brought
him to our circle to talk to you. He does not
believe it can be done. Can you convince him?
Will you speak to him?”
Sis. said :—
“Well, Frank Chase, are you really here to
talk to me again after all these years?”
Mary said: “He does not believe it As you.
Call to his mind someone he used to know.”
Sis complied by asking: “Do you remember
going to o New York to see a young lady >?”
“Will you tell him how she looked ? ”
Sis gave a short description of the young
lady, and Mary said: “Will you keep on? He is
impressed.”
Sis asked if he remembered this young lady
coming to where he lived.
“Keep right on. He is interested.”
After further talk we were told: “He knows
now it is you, and is overjoyed to know it is possible
to talk with and hear from earth, which he has
never done before.”
After some further conversation Mary said :
“He is so surprised that he can hardly credit it at
all. Yet he knows that only you could tell him
some of these things. We will bring him again
soon ; it is a good beginning. He is startled, and
can hardly believe; but will probably wish to
investigate, as that 1 is his turn of mind, and that
is what we wish.”
We asked if they could explain how he had
been getting along all these years without learning
more.
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 51
“Try to think of yourself in a dream, a long
dream, and everything happening in ways that are
strange, yet you do not wonder about it. Your
dream accepts the things as true. That is as near
as I can describe his situation. When he first
came he was met by his father and sister, but they
failed to reach his reasoning mind and he has
wandered on in this condition through all these
years.”
At another time he came of his own accord to
Mary, wishing to talk. After a short conversation
Sis asked if in all that time he had been there he
had heard of the many wonderful inventions that
had appeared here in the meantime. He had not,
and wished to know about them. First was the
telegraph. Yes, he remembered that. But the
telephone was new, and the wireless, and automo-
biles. Then we went on to tell of the great war,.
and the immense ships that carried our soldiers,
and the terrible guns, and the liquid fire. He had:
heard a little of the war, but did not believe it
possible to do such things.
“What are the good things of earth?" he
asked.
This came near being a “poser,” but Sis spoke
of the Red Cross work, the hospitals, the aid to the
starving, etc. Mary said:
““He thinks the world must be in a terrible:
condition with so much science producing evil
things. Tell him of the great vessel that was sunk.
by the Germans. Tell him about the ship that
was sunk by an iceberg.”
We talked some time, and after some remark
of Sis’s he said: “What am I going to hear from
you next! No one else could have told me the
things you have. I did not know it could be done.”
Mary added : “He is dazed with the thought,
but he will take it to think over as he did the last:
52 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
time. You are certain of getting hold of him, and
we must keep it up.’
“This is startling, Mary! How can such
things be?”
“Will you believe that each one makes his
own life, each one has the chance and must develop
accordingly? Frank Chase’s condition was
caused by too much doubt, too much unbelief in a
spirit life. He would not believe he was in a
heavenly sphere, and would not admit that he
needed help; but argued himself into a strange
and persistent unbelief, until the desire for any-
thing different almost disappeared.”
The next time he came Mary wrote for him
as follows : —
“T am here. Your teacher will write for
me. I have been so unbelieving that I could get
nothing of course ; and so I had no proof of
the connections between the two worlds. But
what you have said convinced me and I am study-
lig now so that I too can get in touch with mortal
ives.
Mary added: “There have been years, he
says, when he believed he was on some plane above
the earth, but did not understand that this plane
might be the beginning of heavenly life for him.
It is hard to make you understand, and he says
now it is hard for him to understand; and it
seems to him more like a long, long dream than
anything else he can compare it to. He is learning
fast, and is far happier than before, and pursues
his ‘studies eagerly.’
is was an amazing experience for us. We
had read something of such things, but it was all
so strange we had passed it by. But this brought
the truth to our realisation with much force.
It seems these unfortunate spirits can fre-
quently be helped from this side quicker than
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 53
from there, if they can reach someone whom they
knew. But they eventually find the way out of the
fog in some manner, in any case; though as we
were told, it may be years and years. Such spirits
have not necessarily led evil lives while here.
More often this spiritual handicap is the result
of too strong belief in some superstition, some
creed, or some philosophy on earth; a case of
being certain that one way is right and all others
wrong. Such beliefs and philosophies continue
with them more or less strongly on the other side,
just as superstitions sometimes cling to one here
in spite of all the evidence there may be to show
they are without foundation—Spirit World.
WORK IN SPIRIT WORLD.
It is very difficult to tell you about work in the
spirit world. It is allotted to each one his por-
tion, according to how he has progressed. If a soul
as come direct from earth, or any material world,
he must then be taught all he has neglected in the
former existence, in order to make his character
grow to perfection. As he has made those on earth
suffer, so he himself suffers. If he has a great
talent, that he brings to perfection here; for if
you have beautiful music, or any other talent, we
have them here much more. Music is one of the
great moving forces of our world; but although
arts and talents are carried to their fullest, it is the
great work of all souls to perfect themselves for
the Eternal Life.
There are great schools to teach the spirit
children. Besides learning all about the universe
and other worlds, about their kingdoms under God’s
tule, they are taught lessons of unselfishness and
truth and honour. Those who have learned first as
54 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
spirit-children, if they should come into your world,
make the finer characters.
hose who have spent all their material exist-
ence in merely physical labours, have to learn every-
thing when they come here. Work is a wonderful
life, and those who become teachers of souls learn
so much themselves. Literary souls become great
orators, and speak and teach in eloquent language.
There are books, but of quite a different kind from
yours. One who has studied your earth-laws
would go into the spirit-school as a teacher of
justice. A soldier, when he himself has learned
the lessons of Truth and Honour, will guide and
help souls in any sphere or world, to fight for the
right faith in God.—Thought Lectures.
AFTER VICTORY.
What I want to say is that in the most crushing
defeat of the enemy lies no true victory; that the
great, the glorious, the transcendent victory will
in the successful application of Christian
principles to the business of the world; and that
application will lead to life, not death—to up-
building, not destruction. Remember that the
redemption of humanity implies the return to
the Father’s fold of men irrespective of race or
religion.
bless you, my dear, faithful friend !—
Philemon, Letters from the Other Side.
WHAT IS LIFE?
“What is life? We do not know! I/¢ is!
It is like the answer we have to give in regard to the
Supreme Deity: J¢ is! That is all we know.
God is life, and life is the gift of God. What this
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 55
most subtle, most unseeable, most elusive——
No, we cannot discover it. It simply is! That
is all. Some philosophers and scientists may think
they know, but they do not. It is the riddle of
the universe, and only the Creator of the universe
holds the secret in his soul.”
“All life is of spirit origin though manifesting
itself in such manifold and even grotesque forms.
The wide diversity comes from the material
envelope, and in what Darwin called adaptation to
environment. Spirit is indestructible, not subject
to disease or death. But the earthly form in which
for a time it manifests itself may be subject to all
the accidents and disease of mortal existence.
“T do not know all universes, nor all the ways
of life in them; but I think all immortal spirits
are always first in human form, and subject to
material conditions, and come out of these condi-
tions according to the laws of spiritual evolution.
Life here is still progressing to higher forms, and
will finally reach a perfection as yet undreamed
even by us of the lower planes.” —Spirit World.
DYING.
Remember that you are a spirit—just as much
a spirit now as you will be when you come here,
but you have that spirit encased while on earth in
an outer covering called the body. This is a
protection to the spirit while you are undergoing
your probation on the earth-plane ; and when you
ave finished with it your spirit form will rise out of
that body of ‘cans component parts, an exact
facsimile of it.
Perhaps it may interest some if I describe the
process (of how the spirit leaves the body). First,
the spirit form, which is unconscious at the time,
56 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
commences to rise from the top of the head, through
the aperture which is never completely closed from
birth to so-called death, and slowly ascends head
first, and in a perpendicular position, until the
whole form stands, as it were, on the earthly body.
Then those spirits who are there to receive the
spirit body hold out their arms and support it,
until the cord, which is attached to the spirit feet
and thence down to the material head, has passed.
This cord is usually about a quarter of a yard
long, and until it has passed the spirit is not free.
During its passing there is often a spasmodic
movement in the body, and what is termed a
death rattle, but in almost every case the breath
has actually left the body before this occurs. The
nal spasm is caused by the cord passing through
the body preparatory to its final separation. This
can be seen by clairvoyants who may watch a
death scene.
After the spirit is free it is taken by loving
friends to a place of rest—it may be by relatives, or
it may not—but always by those who are most
suitable to help it at that time. In some cases
the spirit sleeps for a week or more.—Spirit
Teachings.
VISIONS.
Q. Are the appearances of Christ and the
Saints, reported to have been seen by the faithful,
projected by the minds of the latter, or are they
real appearances ?
It is very difficult to give an answer that
covers all the cases. In all instances the vision
is occasioned by some real wave of loving interest
on the part of some spiritual being. A slum-child
recovering consciousness in an accident ward,
Tue SPiRITUALISTS’ READER 57
seeing a beautiful lady bending over her, may
imagine it is the Queen. This is one extreme.
There are other cases where I should judge the
experience to be an actual one, to emanate from
the Being personified. You will notice one thing :
the percipient, as a rule, clothes, fashions the
visions along some lines of convention. Where
this is not done—which is rare—what I have said
does not so much apply. Bernadotte saw a
representation of the Blessed Virgin, who sent her
an answering thrill in response to her ardent faith.
“According to thy faith be it unto thee,” holds
good, despite certain elements of error and super-
stition.—God bless us, one and all !—Philemon,
Letters from the Other Side.
LIFE IN THE BEYOND.
When a man dies he has to learn everything
anew. He is like a child in regard to many things
that we are acquainted with, and has to be instructed
in the most ordinary subjects. For instance, he
learns an entirely new means of locomotion;
he finds that he requires no food, and cannot
understand how he is to live or what he is to do.
He may want to go to bed, but he finds that he is
never tired, and it is never dark—there being no day
or night in the spirit world—which, of course,
puzzles him exceedingly. Again, he wonders
where his friends are, for he very often does not
realise that he is dead at all.—Life Beyond the
Grave.
The body you now wear, and the trees and
rivers and other things of material substance, which
you call real, are not so enduring, nor so real, as
their counterparts in these spheres. For here is
58 . ‘Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
found the energy which comes to your systems, and
is as the electric dynamo to the single lamp as to its
power and intensity.
When, therefore, men think of us as of whiffs of
smoke, and of our environment as drifting shadows,
let them pause and ask if there is any sound reason
on which to base their view. Nay, there is no
reason in it whatsoever, but, on the contrary, it is
foolishness, and unworthy of thinking beings.—
Vale Owen.
AIM OF THE MOVEMENT.
We have before us one sole aim, and that alone
has brought us to your earth. You know our
mission. In days when faith has grown cold, and
belief in God and immortality is waning to a close,
we come to demonstrate to man that he is immortal,
by virtue of the possession of that soul which is a
spark struck off from Deity itself. We wish to
teach him of the errors of the past, to show him the
life that leads to progress, to point him to the future
of development and growth.—Spirit Teachings.
POOR AND RICH.
You lead two lives at the same time; : and a
man may make a name and a reputation in both
worlds at once, or in one only ; for it often happens
—indeed, it is most commonly the case—that men
whom we think the most of are least thought of by
you. Many a poor man is a power in the spirit
world, and will have a name awaiting him, when he
enters spirit life, which kings might envy.—Life
Beyond the Grave.
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 59
SPIRIT AND MATTER.
The existence of this spiritual counterpart
of earthly objects seems to you an extraordinary
state of things, and you cannot take it all in yet, but
when you consider it fully you will see that it is only
reasonable. Your towns are full of men and women
who have parted with their material bodies, and still
live on in the old way, scarcely knowing whether
they are alive or dead, for they see everything going
on as before ; they jostle against their friends in the
streets, and they see no difference in them excepting
that those who are still in the body seem—as we told
you before—like deaf, dumb and blind people, who
pass them by, and take no notice of them. Of
course, all who pass away from your world do not
lead this kind at life, or there would not be room
in your towns to hold the millions who would in
course of time become crowded together. As it is,
these unfortunate beings are sadly too numerous.
It is a painful sight to see the wretches who crowd
together in their old haunts in your cities and in
the country, too; for generations of people will
sometimes live on and on in the same house, never
thinking of the possibility of there being any higher
life, but simply vegetating, as, in fact, thousands
do amongst you now.
You appear to us like a double man. We see
the physical body precisely the same as you see
yourself, only instead of being solid and material *
is transparent and shadowy to our eyes, and we see
you seated on a transparent or shadowy chair,
surrounded by shadowy papers, and equally
shadowy furniture ; in fact, you present the appear-
ance of a ghost to us. So much for the physical
body and its material surroundings. Your savants,
60 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
who imagine that there is nothing but matter, may
. perhaps be surprised to hear that there is a spiritual
duplicate or counterpart (we will call it a counter-
part) of the foregoing objects, including yourself,
and that this counterpart, though spiritual from
your point of view, and therefore invisible to your
senses, is tangible and material to our touch. The
physical body and material objects are not, however,
distinct from the spiritual counterparts, but are
inter-blended, the onan being attached to the
latter by a sort of silvery thread, which causes them
virtually to be one inseparable substance so long as
this spiritual tie is maintained. When, however,
by the death of the physical body the spiritual
counterpart becomes independent of the former, it
begins to exist alone, and so also with the furniture,
etc. When the spiritual tie is severed which
attaches your articles to their spiritual counterparts,
the latter can be displaced and moved away, and
become thenceforth, in the spirit world, separate
and distinct objects. The spiritual counterpart
being to us the most material, of course conceals,
for the time being, the material object from our
view. ‘The latter per se offers, of course, no imp
ment to our movements, being transparent %
our senses, but the spiritual object, whether con-
nected or disconnected, impedes our locomotion,
and requires to be displaced before we can pass.
us, you see, that entering your rooms we have to
come in through the door like other human beings.
We do not care to break through your walls, or
come in at the window, or through the ceiling,
though we are aware that such is reputed to be the
orthodox mode of locomotion in our world. Since
we told you the spiritual counterpart of your walls
and your doors is solid to our senses, of course we
must either open the door or break through. The
latter we can do if we like; not by physical force,
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 61
as with you, but by the exercise of will-power,
which answers the same purpose with us, where
the strongest man is he who has the most powerful
will. You do not see why we should hesitate to
adopt the first-named mode of entrance and come
in through the wall, if it suits us and can be so
easily accomplished as we suggested; but you
must understand that we do not care to injure what
does not belong to us. You can, if you like, break
through your friend’s window, but you do not do so,
for the same reason.—Life Beyond the Grave.
Having explained to you that you possess a
spiritual body, you can easily understand that
in controlling you to write, we can take hold of the
spiritual counterpart of your hand and move it
about. This does not prove how we move your
material hand. Quite so; but it shows that if the
tie between the two is strong enough, and we can
also impress your brain with the ideas we want to
write, we can induce your hand to trace out the
words on paper which are to express our ideas.
This we do by magnetism, for you could not write
for us had you not previously been magnetised also.
You present to us the appearance of a deaf,
dumb au blind man, because, though we may
address you, you cannot hear us, neither can you
see nor talk to us. You can speak to us if you like to
do so, but of course, you cannot be aware of our
resence and hence, virtually, you are dumb also.
When you are passive we can, however, talk to
you, and often we enter your brain slowly as
thoughts, and you think they are your own.—
Life Beyond the Grave.
62 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
SPIRIT LAW.
It is necessary that you should recognise that
the spirit world is a realm of law and order—not of
supernatural magic—and that character persists
after death ; that by no possible means can anyone
cut himself away from his past. An interesting case
will illustrate this. I attended the awakening of an
old man who “passed over” to our side very sud-
denly. When he awoke to consciousness he pro-
tested vehemently that he was not dead, calling us
all liars and fools. He had been cynical and con-
ceited, and believed that men were honest and
women virtuous only so long as they were not found
out. He imputed the worst intentions to all, and
having no sympathy with others he had no friends,
so that he found himself a stranger in a strange
land. He was isolated, hemmed in by his own
mental state, and could neither see nor hear the
real spiritual world, as his own conditions were his
own surroundings. — Death and the Beyond
(Wallis).
SLEEP’.
It may be asked, Does the soul body require
recurring periods of rest, similar to that which
obtains on earth ? Now, there are no arbitrary
time divisions here like night and day, accordin
to which earth occupants sleep during night an
work during day. But every soul after a period of
activity becomes tired and needs rest and recupera-
tion. This is obtained by something analogous to
slumber ; it may be partial or absolute insensibility
like sleep, but it is always dreamless. When the
soul organism requires such rest, there comes round
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 63
and about it a kind of twilight, which is an indica-
tion that rest is necessary and it also induces
slumber. There is no uniformity as to the time
or the manner of seeking this repose—each one
takes it just when he or she feels the need of it.
It is always restful and restorative and some good
people on earth will be thankful to know, that
when this need is felt, rest always ensues. Insom-
nia is unknown in this life.
SEX.
Does sex persist in this new life ?
In a modified form, Yes. The reader will
concede that the primary purpose of sex on the
material plane is to provide for the perpetuation of
the race. No such need exists here. But sex
differentiation is not only a question of the body,
it is also a matter of the soul, and although you
leave all the physical sexual differences and demands
behind you when you come across death, you still
bear in your natures sex qualities and differences,
and so here a man in his outlook remains a man,
and a woman remains a woman.
But as you grow upward towards the higher
things, there is a gradual diminution and lessening
of the sex dividing line, and the sex division which
is sharply accentuated with the new arrivals in this
life, diminishes more and more with spirit growth.
The two natures, once acutely divided, grow
towards each other, and each gradually develops
qualities peculiar to the other. Man acquires on
his upward career woman’s tenderness, and woman
attains to man’s strength.
64 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
HEALTH.
_ Is the spirit body subject to illness, disease or
accident ?
Accident? No. Organic disease? No! but
a temporary lapse of soul health which might be
described as illness, is not unknown. This takes
the form of absorbing and persistent grief for one’s
self or for others ; remorse for evil done ; unhappy
memories ; longings for the unattainable; carnal
earth desires; feelings of hatred and bitterness ;
desire for revenge; jealousies; hatred, malice
and all uncharitableness. These and similar men-
tal conditions all constitute disease of the soul, the
remedy for which in every case is to encourage
the development of the opposite quality of the
particular disease.
Do you hate? Then you will find love the
antidote. Are you unduly depressed? Take a
dose of optimism, it will put you right. Are you
self-absorbed with your own griefs>? Lend a
helping hand to another in similar straits and you
wil effect your own cure. The poet asks: “Who
can minister to a mind diseased?” The sufferer
must be his own physician; he himself and no
other possesses the remedy.
Gentle, kind and gracious souls are ever round
about such suffering ones to encourage and advise
and cheer, but in the long last, the sick one must
effect his own cure. Some such mental illnesses
as have been indicated are seemingly intractable,
and souls suffer in these little hells for long periods ;
but ultimately, in every case, they will emerge
cured. God loves them all, and “whom the Lord
loveth He chasteneth,”’ but only for his edification
and uplift. “Sorrow may endure for a night,
Tue SpiriITUALISTs’ READER 65
but joy cometh in the morning.” I trow that
Judas Ticasior the betrayer of his Master, has by
suffering washed his robes, cleansed his soul, and
is now a saint in glory.
PROCESS OF DEATH.
There are many ways of passing from your
side to ours. Of these the most general is painless
waking up, and the first sensation is one of rest, of
relief, and of peace. The dead—for I fear | must
use that misleading word—in almost all cases where
death has been unexpected, does not realise the
change that has taken place. His only idea is that
he has suddenly recovered. Physical pain drops off
ou like a garment with the body which you have
left behind, you wake up well, and your first
impression is one of delight ; just the same as when
you wake up from a bad dream and discover that it
was only a dream. So simple, so natural does this
seem, that you almost always mistake what has taken
place. I did, as you know. And I find it is a
common experience. Many refuse to believe they
are dead. It is, of course, true that they are not
dead. They have all their faculties: they see,
they hear, they move hither and thither. Everything
seems the same to them as before. Their first
realisation of the change that has taken place is a
kind of shock to them. ‘‘So this is death. Then if
so, there is no such thing as death!” For it is so
entirely different from what we imagined.
What first convinced me that something had
happened was the sight of my old body. After that
came the discovery that my nurse did not see me
nor hear me, but wept about my body as if that were
myself. This is what usually happens. The
passing soul, which retains consciousness, sees the
E
66 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
body which it had inhabited lying inert. The
snapping of consciousness between the soul and the
tenement, if | may so speak of it, is usually not felt
by the soul. With some it is different. “They feel
as if it were the slow breaking, one by one, of the
threads which connect the soul with its tenement ;
but the process is not painful, even when it is pro-
tracted. I have spoken to many on the subject, and
the majority tell me that their experience agrees
with mine. They could not even say that they
could remember the exact moment when the body
parted company with their soul. Some say that
they left the body before it ceased to breathe, others
that they lingered behind for a time after physical
life had ended. But these are exceptions. The
immense majority here say the same thing. They
were asleep ; they found themselves awake and well,
in the same place where they fell asleep, and at first
they could not realise they had died. And this is
the case even when, as in some churches, the dying
have been prepared for death by the last solemn
rites. They knew that they were going to die, but
they did not expect that dying was waking up quite
well, with all their old faculties and memories in
the same place where they fell asleep, and this
always is a source of astonishment, of bewilderment,
to them at first. Many think it is a pleasant dream
to be well, and dread waking up to the old pain and
weakness. All that I have written relates to the
immediate moment after awaking, and to the
experiences of the majority. There are many, very
many, exceptions. But, as a rule, Death is a pain-
less waking up in health, and the first emotion is
bewildered astonishment.
When the newly arrived have had many friends,
relatives, or those whom they have loved on this
side, they find them waiting for them. Especially
when they have kept thinking of or praying for them.
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 67
Forgetfulness separates here as there. But all
whose minds and hearts have been closely knit in
love with those on this side find their loved ones
waiting. And yet so great is the difference between
what is and what they expected, that even when
they are welcomed on this side by those whom they
knew to have been long “dead,” it is to them as a
dream. Bewilderment, surprise are the first sensa-
tions. When I came over, you will remember |
was at first quite alone, when I was allowed by my
experience with the nurse to discover for myself
what had happened, and then came the angel who
took me apparently a long, long way to my rela-
tions and friends.
It is in pity to His wandering, s.ruggling chil-
dren that God has in these later days opened once
more—and wider than ever before—the doors of
communion between the two worlds. He is send-
Ing out again messengers to warn man, ambassadors
to tell him of the better way, the truer path to the
happiness of a higher life, and to show him that
knowledge and that power which shall yet be of
right his inheritance. As the prophets of old spake,
so speak these messengers now, and if they speak.
with clearer voice, with less veiled metaphor, it is
because man is no longer in his infancy and n
now that he should be shown the reason and the
science upon which his beliefs and hopes must be:
founded.—A Wanderer in the Spirit Lands.
A CAUTION.
Realise that between us and you a great psychic.
gulf is fixed, putting many difficulties in the way
of communication. There is an underlying truth in
every wrongly transmitted message. ‘Treat us not.
68 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
as fraudulent, because we cannot always pierce the
darkness of your material minds. Do you always
receive your telephone messages correctly ?>—WNot
Silent—if Dead.
SPIRIT LIMITATIONS.
Neither spirits nor mortals can know every-
thing, and spirits can only give you what are the
teachings which their own particular schools of
thought and advanced teachers give as their explana-
tions. Beyond this they cannot go, for beyond this
they do not themselves know; there is no more
absolute certainty in the spirit world than on earth,
and those who assert that they have the true and
only explanation of these great mysteries are giving
you merely what they have been taught by more
advanced spirits, who, with all due deference to
them, are no more entitled to speak absolutely than
the most advanced teachers of some other school.—
A Wanderer in the Spirit Lands.
LIFE BEYOND.
““We are not thinking of birth at all. It is
always the present here. No looking forward to
old age and decrepitude of either mind or body.
The future is ours; the present is ours. How
different from the half-fear of the future, the dread
of the years that may bring hardships, the looking
forward to the silence of the grave, and the terror
of the future! Can you see?
“‘T was not happy on earth, but I feared the
end of that life, and had rather a morbid terror of
death. Will you see the difference now? Nothing
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 69
to fear, neither sickness, poverty, age nor death.
Why count the years, when each passing one will
only add to your happiness and power, and preserve
forever both youth and beauty? Good-bye to
birthdays! Greet the future with joy that will
take no cognizance of years!”
“The tie between the two worlds, or rather the
one world of the seen and the unseen, grows closer
as the years go by. I did not know much about
this life when there, but I imagined more than I
knew. The normal life here was a surprise; for
I had thought of angels with wings and harps, and
heaven as a city of golden streets. But nothing of
the kind is here. Normal progression; friends,
work, service for others—yes, happiness ; in travel,
music, books and congenial companions. It is
all normal and all true. It is worth working for
there. And all the work is simply to have high
ideals and live up to them. The golden rule is no
dead letter. Be sure of that ! ’—Spirit World.
Q. When you went away did you go to that
land you have described ?
P. I went to that realm of love and light. It
is useless to repeat my attempt at description. But
I went further. I left that pleasant and beauteous
land, for land it is in the same sense to us as spirits
as the earth is land to you incarnate beings. All
attempts at describing ultra-earth spheres and
states leave a sense of unsubstantiality and unreality,
therefore I refrain. This needs repeating, because
it is so hard for you to realise that we are the light,
you the shadow, we are the reality, you the appear-
ance. But I| did not remain long.
I speedily returned to the sphere of love and
light, for I am not yet inured to existence in the
ultra-etheric worlds.
70 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
Q. Do you dwell in communities or families ?
P. All who are in the sphere of love and light
dwell in families, communities, groups, the binding
force of which is love, love alone, sympathy,
mutual affection. There you have less one-sided-
ness than on earth. It is a world of mutual loves
and affections and pursuits. Parents and children
are reunited only if that love tie persists and friends
and relatives have no other reason for being
together but that they love to have it so. Different
kinds of love are merged in the highest form of
all—friendship, affinity in varying degrees of inten-
sity and nearness—Letters from the Other Side.
THE CHURCH.
From Archdeacon Wilberforce.
You see, here, in this borderland, we feel
much more vividly, and can be easier helped
and hurt, than when protected by the material
envelope of the body. That is why compara-
tively few return to the earth-sphere. They
would reap sorrow rather than joy. It is not
pleasant to feel that your place is so soon filled,
that you have become a “blessed memory’’ when
ou are more palpitating with life and love and
cht than ever before.
I want to say that the Church, our beloved but
very faulty, very erring Mother, can only prove
and continue to prove a ghastly failure while she
retains, unrescinded, the awful doctrine of hope-
lessness for those who pass on, outside of, or at
enmity with, her communion. To the learned we
tell the truth. To the simple, to the little children
in the faith, we still deal out the old dogmas and
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 71
so drive them to seek refuge, sometimes in very
doubtful folds of faith and practice. | must write
no more now, except to tell you that I: do come
into touch with other friends, but only partially.
Some have erected certain insuperable barriers
between themselves and the emancipated soul
by what are termed “truths,” basic truths of
Theosophy, etc. Others have much—nearly all,
in fact—to learn with regard to the world with
which they believe themselves to be in daily
communion. So they are; but much that they
believe to be imparted to them is merely, as it
were, their own mental conception mirrored forth
in their own objective consciousness. God bless
roe keep you—Philemon, Letters from the Other
ide.
OTHER WORLD LIFE.
P. There are spirits who have never been on
earth in this world. There are beings from all
parts of our solar system, but I am not aware
that there are any extra-solar-system beings
within our radius. Our learned spirits deny its
possibility, as your astronomers deny that beings
from other planets dwell upon earth. We are
none of us spirits in the sense of transcending
the stream of events you call time, and the juxta-
position of worlds and objects that men term
space.
Q. But you are not—even in your world—
all equally developed >
P. We spirits are not a democracy but a hier-
archy—an ordered grade of beings, ascending
beyond our capacity even here to follow its upward
ranges. But there is no injustice. Each occupies
72 THE SpIRITUALISTS’ READER
its position by reason of capacity and fitness.
emocracy on earth will fail unless it becomes a
brotherhood, older and younger brothers.
Q. Can you tell us about the solar systems
other than our own ?
P. I cannot go in thought outside of our
system in the sense of attempting to outline other
systems, their nature and modes; but of this I
am sure: they are like our solar system, and we
human spirits shall find ourselves at home in
any member of any solar system, because God
rules and reigns in all, and we are His offspring.—
Letters from the Other Side.
OUTER DARKNESS.
The sinfulness of sin chiefly shows itself in
the inability to see God. The punishment of sin
which is remedial is the sense of loneliness and
darkness which overwhelms the loveless souls
when they come into this world, the atmosphere
of which is eternal love. This they endure until
such time as they love. When they love, they
turn to God, and see in the darkness a ray of the
Love infinite and everlasting, in which they are
able to realise, as we do, that they live and move
and have their being.
There is much about this of which I will tell
ou later. For the present let me just say this :
There 3 is, when the loveless soul comes here, as
much care taken to welcome it as when the soul
of love arrives. But the selfish soul is blind and
dark, and shudders in the dark. The imagination,
which here is far more powerful than with you, fills
the solitude with spectres, and the sinner feels
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 73
he is encompassed by the constantly renewed
visions of his deeds. Nor is this all ; he sees those
whom he has injured, and he fears. If ever a soul
needs a Saviour and Deliverer it is when imagina-
tion and memory without love recreate all anew
the selfish acts of a loveless life.—Julia.
CLOTHES.
Please understand that the explanation now
given has to do with spirit folk who have had their
origin in civilised communities. I am not for the
moment concerned with the robing of the dead
savage, or partially civilised person, though the
underlying principle operating is identical in all
cases.
All decent folk have latent at the back of their
minds the idea that clothing is indispensable. The
consciousness of this need is woven into the very
texture of their thinking ; it is an integral part of
themselves ; they could not conceive of an existence
for themselves where garments could be altogether
dispensed with. This idea has such a governing
and determining effect upon their life and action
that without conscious effort it is sufficiently
powerful to automatically garb them on their
emergence through death. And here you have
another vivid example of the mechanical operation
of a strong and latent idea within the soul and of
its self-volition. So that when man awakes from
the sleep of death his latent sense of the proprieties
of decent life have already provided him with
suitable garments.
This, then, is the basic principle, the operation
of which clothes a man in spirit life.
74 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
The question may perhaps be asked: Has a
erson no voice in deciding the kind of clothin
be may wear? At the outset of his soititual
career he has no power whatever to interfere with
the kind of dress he wears, because it is the reflec-
tion of his own soul. If he is beautiful in his
nature and loves beautiful things and performs
kindly actions, his garments will be becoming and
beautiful. If his life has been ugly and selfish his
robes cannot be anything but sombre and unlovely.
A vain superficial woman whose life on earth was
largely occupied with her personal adornment
finds to her chagrin that here her very vanity has
clothed her with a robe that is anything but lovely.
But the good folk, the real ingrained good folk,
who come through death in their thousands, have
robes which scintillate with beauty, reflecting as
they do beautiful minds. Gracious and kindly
natures are invariably beautifully garbed. And
then there are the great and high and exalted ones,
who are “clothed with righteousness as with a
garment,” and their vesture is almost too dazzling
to look upon. Your garments change with the
state of your mind, and as you grow from strength
to strength, so do they become more lovely.
you perceive that upon awakening on the spirit
side of life you find yourself arrayed in robes self-
evolved by the mechanical processes of your own
mind, and these garments, which are compo
entirely of thought stuff, have been radiated from
and exactly reflect your own nature. Thought
texture is a wonderful fabric, and is amply sufficient
to garb the spirit body.
Now, it may be asked, is it possible for any
being to himself add to his own adornment? Yes.
One of the activities of this life is creative, and it
is possible by concentrated mental effort to add
much in the way of adornment if you so wish it.
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 75
Great souls, however, are too occupied with the
higher activities to be concerned about this;
but partially civilised peoples, little children and
bonnie lassies are taught how to create pretty
things to wear. You see, dear friends, up in the
Great Beyond there is a salutary ministry of
“little things for little minds” —toys for the bairnies,
pretty baubles for the lassies, and so on—beautiful,
is it not ?
Peoples of ancient races—Egyptian, Indian,
Chinese, Persian—who on earth attained to a
measure of civilisation and functioning now on
spiritual planes—some of which I have been
privileged to visit—not unfrequently bejewel their
already resplendent spirit garments in the way
which has been indicated. Uncivilised and savage
races, whose conception of the need of clothing is
most elementary, End when they come through
death that their limited need is self-provided, their
spiritual robes being of a correspondingly scanty
character.—Morrow of Death.
CAN THEY SEE US?
All earth-dwellers are not equally visible to
us. I can see the “scribe” clearer than I can
discern others most near and dear. The reason
is somewhat as follows :—
The physical bodies are like lanterns enclosin
“lights,” souls and spirits. Where the physica
is the best-developed part of the being—no, no,
where it is of the earth, earthy, very gross, the
light given off by the soul is dim and unpenetrating.
Such a person would be almost invisible to us
here, even were he one’s own son. I can see the
76 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
scribe more by reason of the rapid intensity of her
vibratory system than by reason of the lesser
materiality of the physical instrument. I can see
you as clearly as I see her ; but there is this differ-
ence: I cannot help seeing her, even if I did not
want, without shutting my spiritual eyes; but I
have to look for you and find you. I cannot
explain except that it is generally true, this insistent
visibility of the so-called “mediums.”
Q. Do you see me more clearly now than
when on earth ?
P. I feel rather than see your thoughts, far
more vividly than when on earth, for this reason.
I am a thought-man. You as a thought-woman
meet that thought-man, myself. Your body pre-
vents you receiving the full impact of my thought.
I have no such impediment, but receive your
thoughts in full force. Therefore I know you
better than I ever could have known you on earth.—
Letters from the Other Side.
FOOD.
The question may now be asked: Does the
Resurrection or after-death body require food to
nourish and sustain it, as is the case with the earth
ody ?
The circumstances are not parallel. Without
food the physical or earth body would decay and
perish. Pood is an absolute necessity to it, to
replace waste and renew the vital forces which are
being continually exhausted by bodily activities.
Without food the physical body dies, but the
spiritual or soul body is immune from anything
analogous to death ; yet for its health and develop-
ment it requires sustenance of a kind. You see,
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 77
it is a soul or mind body, and food for the mind is
essential to its well-bemg and growth. Were it
possible for a being in this life to absolutely
enclose himself within himself and shut out all
external influences and stimuli, such an one would
certainly languish and his spirit body become
almost atrophied. But such a possibility is almost
inconceivable. Surrounding every individual here
are healthy, informative and __ soul-expanding
influences, and just to the extent that he opens his
nature to their incoming is his spiritual body
nourished and sustained.
Perhaps you ask: How does this occur ?
What is the modus operandi? Just as you breathe
air in the earth life, so here you inbreathe all these
revivifying and beneficent influences surrounding
you to which you happen to be en rapport. In
this way soul nourishment is automatically imbibed.
you open your mentality to higher influences
and recuperative forces, they enter and your soul
body becomes reinvigorated and fortified.
By way of illustration—on earth you may read
an elevating book, listen to an instructive discourse,
or come under the spell of fine music, and as a
result your soul is largely benefited by these
uplifting influences. How do they enter your
soul? Through your sense channels, which con-
vey them to the brain, from whence they are
received into and assimilated by the mind; and
here, in a similar way, do these exterior uplifting
influences come into your nature and nourish and
stimulate your mind and make for the health of
your soul body. You do not eat great thoughts
here, they are inbreathed by souls in affinity with
them and are then mentally digested and assimilated
by the spirit body. Should you starve the mind
here you starve your body, which is constructed
78 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
of mind stuff. Now, with little children and
adults likewise who are children in spiritual things,
a semblance of eating as on earth is sometimes
desirable and may be indulged in with great
benefit. These folk—little children and children
of a larger growth—who can conceive of no satis-
factory existence without receiving food through
oi mouths, find means to gratify their imaginary
needs.
Fruits—beautiful to behold and luscious to the
taste—are in great profusion, and may, as thought
necessary, be plucked and eaten. These fruits con-
tain in concentrated form, mental and spiritual
essences. Though seemingly eaten, they are not
swallowed as is food on earth, but are dissolved in
the mouth cavity, then imbibed into the system.
But folk as they grow upward and progress onward,
ultimately perceive the puerility of the process,
and do not pursue it. How the savage and
partially civilised do in the matter of their imaginary
need for food, I am not able to say; excepting
to remark that savage peoples, as a rule, do not
eat unless they feel hungry. Civilised folk on
earth eat at stated times and probably far too
frequently. Not so is it with the savage, and as
such an one would never feel anything approxi-
mating to a hunger pang here, he doubtless wou
have no desire for food. Still, if such a desire
did manifest itself, I have no doubt whatever
that the marvellous workings of the subconscious
mind would provide him with food which his
untutored mind deemed suitable and_ sufficient.
But the savage of earth is not long a savage here,
and soon becomes quite at home in celestial climes,
and in a marvellous way adapts himself and his
doings to his wonderful new life-—Morrow of
Death.
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 79
AFFINITIES.
Q. Do you believe that every soul, whether
male or female, has its counterpart ?
P. I am inclined to believe that each soul
has its counterpart, its affinity, its complement in
some other soul. But here again there are excep-
tions in the case of certain mystics who seem to
find entire fulfilment in God Himself. But most
Dantes need a Beatrice to lead them upwards and
onwards to the sphere where the beatific vision
bursts upon their enraptured gaze. Only mediately
can most souls attain to full spiritual and celestial
maturity.
Q. But perhaps Beatrice herself longed for
an inspiring guide ?
P. Beatrice had her full joy and delight in
guiding and tending the poet’s faltering footsteps,
much as mothers teach children to walk.
Dante was as slow to recognise the actual guiding
presence of Beatrice as children are to realise
what they owe to those who nurture and cherish
them through infancy and childhood. Dante
and Beatrice are true to fact, even should neither
have ever lived as individuals on earth. They
are symbols of eternal truths.
I take this example from where I am as an
ideal. From earth I should not have thus regarded
it. I should have felt it inadequate. But here
I see that the perfect equality of two souls exactly
complementing each other would mean a kind
of stagnation, arrest, monotony, equilibrium, that
debarred one from further yearning, striving,
loving, growing towards a good ever realised, only
as a step to yet further perfection.—Letters from
the Other Side.
80 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
DEATH.
I fell into earthly oblivion, but nvakened to full
awareness in another set of surroundings. I was
a spirit, among spirits—some clear and perfectly
defined, others as it were in a fo id not then
know that I was “dead.” But r wondered at the
fog-bound friends whom I knew so well, yet could
not see. Later I discovered that the fog-bound
spirits were incarnate friends. The clearly defined
beings were the “dead,” old college friends.
““Khaki’’* and my mother were the first who made
me realise I was a spirit among spirits—I now
think I “died” twelve hours before my body
ceased to function, because I went to all the
dear ones, and could only see them as in a mist.
Directly my body ceased to function I escaped
from the earth and saw the friends of my youth,
“Khaki” and my mother; and then I knew that
the change called death had supervened. I went
to all who really loved me, not to those who just
admired or respected me; and, dear friend, the
latter were, they are, the majority. In the state
between the two worlds no mistakes are made.
The spirit follows, is drawn, by the bonds of
love—Canon Wilberforce, in Letters from the
Other Side.
*His dog
ARE MANIFESTATIONS DESIRABLE ?
In the first shock of separation almost all
desire to manifest, and seize any avenue to that
end. Later they see that it is not so tremendously
urgent, and only those who are either earth-bound
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 81
or heart-bound, through one who cannot live
without the loved presence, continue to communi-
cate. In most cases one world is more than
enough to deal with; therefore intercommunion
is a hindrance rather than a help to growth here
or with you, except in the early days of severance,
when it is a mutual service.—Letters from the
Other Side.
DESIRE FOR LIFE.
Have you ever wished to be back again in this
life? She wrote—
No, I have never for one passing moment
wished to be back in my body again
The body is such a miserable sobelints for
the spirit in which we live and move and act as
we think. No, if I might come back and live on
earth as I used to do, | would not ; it would be all
loss and no gain. There is nothing the body
could give me that I do not now enoy. Only
in an etherealised but more real way, and much
that I now enjoy I should lose by being again in
my body.
What about being parted from friends who
survive ?
That is, I admit, a deprivation to them and to
you, inasmuch as you see them lamenting their
deprivation. But it is not a real deprivation.
You are with them to help them more than when
you lived. When the departure entails material
loss, as of the father who earns the money with
which the family is supported, and the children are
hungry, are scattered, or are sent to the pore
you may think that it is hard to bear. And i
one way it is. But you can have no idea of the
F
82 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
abiding sense of the things which most impress
us here. The first is the vivid realisation of the
love of God ; the second is the exceedingly transi-
tory nature of all earthly things; and the third,
the extent to which poverty and misery minister to
the creation of character, the development of
love.—Julia.
CONDITIONS OF THE OTHER LIFE.
“Hardly. We have a system or order of
work and study, though what you call hours and
minutes are not so counted by us. The divisions
of time are not arbitrary, but I am thinking how
to tell you of the orderly way in which we work.
Perhaps if I call it (this by way of illustration) a
central office, where the plans of work are arranged
and messengers sent to us when we are needed, it
may help you a little.”
“Well, again: You have no need for food,
and so no rivalry in obtaining it; no buying or
selling, no business of any kind, no money, no
medium of exchange.”
“We are as busy as you. We exchange many
things, which might be called barter. For instance,
I study something I wish to perfect myself in, and
teach, perhaps, my very teacher in some other
branch. We exchange many things, sometimes
work, sometimes ideas, sometimes the many acts
et love dr friendliness; but all without your
medium of exchange, money. We have love
instead, or, if to those we do not know, whatever
courtesy suggests. So you see we have a busy
trading system, and enjoy it, too, and no one
becomes bankrupt.”
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 83
Sis said it was very difficult for her to realise
that there would be no desire to eat or sleep.
“You will never miss either. Instead, you
will be delighted that the sordid occupations of
life do not interfere with your progress.
“So much of life here is made up of chasing
the dollar with which to buy food aN comfort,
it would seem that many people would be com-
pletely lost over there. What will a banker do
there, for instance?”
“Will you know that his training there will
not be lost here. He may not handle money,
but there are many other ways in which that
trained accuracy will be of service.’
“Then, your travel is so different. You have
no railroads, no trains, no automobiles, no air-
planes, no steamships.”
“Wait till you come and we take you on a trip
to some far off place. The mode of travel will be
as much finer as your Cadillac is finer than a
wheelbarrow !
“Having no need of the things that money
buys, there can be with you no jealousies because
of place or position attained by material blessings.”
“They who serve most are the greatest here.
There is no computing of place or position except
by service or wisdom. Service may be of the
intelligence, or of the spiritual gifts, or the more
common activities; but the wiser the service, or
the more loving and unselfish the giving of one’s
self—these are the things that give prominence
in spirit life.”
“You have no thieves or robbers, and no need
for insurance policies.”
__ “We have the unworthy ones to guide and the
wicked ones to convert, and the time and patience
84 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
given to this work is more than any occupation on
earth would probably demand. The unworthy
ones are always with us, therefore that work is
never done.”
I said they had no colour line, therefore no
race prejudice; and Sis asked if spirits were
always white.
“Not that exactly, but spirit is not black or
red or yellow or brown. It is spirit, that is all.”
When we read this later Mary corrected it by
saying :—
“That would seem to make spirit a colourless
substance. That would be quite the opposite of
the truth. Spirit is white, in a way, because spirit
represents truth, beauty and nobility of character.
The character determines the exterior, and purity
of soul expresses itself in purity of appearance.”
“Then, as you have remarked several times,
you have no care of the house or clothing or person.
“It makes us almost weary to think of all
these things; but your list has brought to our
attention our freedom and our joys. We become
so accustomed to our blessings that we perhaps
forget a little, and it is good to be reminded.”
“But, Mary, what are the youngsters going
to do? There are no games of football, no base-
ball, no tennis, no golf, no -billiards, no card-
playing!”
“Don’t you worry. There are pleasures
beyond these, and there are delightful occupations
that take the time.”
Sis spoke of the wonders of mountain scenery
here, and asked if any such would be there.
‘What did you hear from the college professor
in regard to the desires of life here>? Were you
not to see the rugged and the grand, as well as the
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 85
quiet beauty of valley and stream? He is right,
and there will be no disappointment for you.”
“But the snowy mountain ranges here have
an attraction just because we cannot easily reach
them. Dee could there go in an instant to any-
thing she wanted to see.”
“She would not be impressed in the way you
would sense it ; but it would impress her, neverthe-
less. You can look into fathomless space here as
well as there. You can see infinite distance, and
the evidences of infinite power. And you can see
the wonderlands of strange planets.’ —Spirit
World
OUR NARROWNESS.
I cannot express to you the freedom wherewith
the Spirit of God would bless us. But we will
none of it. We measure the immeasurable with
our puny footrule. I speak for myself, and we
limit to our capacity of comprehension the truths
we can accept. It must be so, but remember
that it is so.
My love and blessing.—Philemon.
VIBRATIONS AND MUSIC.
“Do you have anything there that i is compar-
able to an orchestra or to an organ?”
“Will you put out of your mind any idea that
heavenly music is inferior to that of earth? You
do not conceive of spirit power or heavenly music.
These are things we cannot make plain to you.
But the music you love best is only the slightest
indication of that which you may—
“O, I get lost for words!”
86 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
Sis asked an old school friend who had been a
fine pianist on earth if she kept up her music there
“Not much,” was the reply, “It is all so
wonderful, I feel myself unable to learn the methods
by which it is produced.”
i “Music wasian easy accomplishment§for you
ere.
“T had the keyboard before me there and could
find the combinations easily, it is true. But here !
Oh, my dear! If you could only know the differ-
ence between earthly and celestial music !
““You are wondering how it is that I who have
been here so much longer than Mary should not
have entered into the study of music before she
did. You see, that so far as spiritual knowledge
was concerned I was a child when I| came over,
and had to begin as children do. I could not
hear sounds for a long time; spiritual deafness,
you might call it. And so I began with other
things, and grew so interested that I almost forgot
music. Then when my discovery of musical
vibrations came I wished to know how they were
roduced, and went to a teacher of the science.
ut | did not give enough time to it because
interested in other things, and so Mary got ahead
of me. The study is fascinating, as you will
learn for yourself when you come. We will
conditions you do not know. They are started
by the will of the musician in a manner you cannot
understand ; but you may know that the thought
of the composer may express itself directly without
the slow medium of writing, or even of performing.
Can you conceive the thought as a material atom,
if we may so express it, that moves outward from
its producer and goes on its way with influence
in proportion to its quality?”
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 87
“Do you have mechanical means of reproduc-
ing music, or does the author have to send it from
his mind each time ? ”
““We have spirit instruments as we have spirit
houses. How else could we get the grand total
of harmonious production? Sounds are set
vibrating on the spirit instruments according to the
conception of the artist or the performer, and the
variety of tone or subject is as varied as the thought
of the musical mind. Some prefer the quick and
joyous tones and chords ; ; others still hold earth's
memories in retrospective thought, and their
music grows pensive and perhaps pathetic ;_ while
others are filled with the desire for intricate har-
monies. But all are beautiful, each in its own way.
‘Any description of spirit instruments would
be beyond your conception. But nothing on earth
is so perfect and so beautiful in tone.
“How about the great singers who have been
so famous and so loved on earth ?
“The beauty of music and its power of expres-
sion does not depend upon the voice, and may
carry its message to the heart without song. It
may appeal to one with the same power but by
different means. We can sing if we wish, though
the exquisite effects produced by heavenly instru-
ments make the use of the voice less desired.”—
Spirit World.
CHRIST.
Q. Was Jesus Christ an Essene, i.e., of the
Freemason Initiates ?
P. He belonged to them but was not of them.
He broke away and insisted on taking the outside
world into the innermost of Truth, being aware
of the fact that none can receive beyond his native
88 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
capacity. Those who would keep wisdom from
the multitude err just to the degree in which they
fail to perceive the truth of what Christ was always
insisting upon—that the soul, or rather the spirit
of a man, must have unfolded the spiritual senses,
before it can apprehend the truths of the Spirit.
Q. Then why did Christ speak of truths
often so far ahead of their apprehension ?
P. He spoke of those inner truths to cause
their souls to yearn for them, just as the germinat-
ing seed strives to reach the light. Truth always
precedes us. We follow after, press on, forever
learning, but never able to come to the. full know-
ledge of the Truth. Where I am it is still so.
Christ not only did not give all, He did not
know all as the Logos, the incarnate Word of
God. “‘Mild he laid His Glory by.’ What
Glory? Of the sun, moon and stars? No, but
of omniscience, and as the Logos He must defer
to the Supreme Father. As undifferentiated Spirit
there are no limitations.
_Q. Can you explain more fully what I never
es understood in your teaching of the suffering
od ?
P. I taught of the suffering of God in and
through all the sins and sorrows of humanity,
especially in this fearful world-war. I exaggerated
and minimised, as | see now, from my own experi-
ence. For instance, I know all you suffer on a
given occasion; I suffer with and for you. But
I suffer not hopelessly and despairingly, because
I know the outcome. Just as, in a dream, when
the tension is greatest and the stress severest,
you remember it is only a dream and thus take
comfort, so in similar way I realise the evanescence
of the worst that can happen upon earth, and
that comforts me.—Letters from the Other Side.
Tue SpIrRITUALISTs’ READER 89
JULIA TALKS.
We then can see what were the sources of these
vague impressions, intuitions and aspirations, both
up and down. We were in the midst of these
Beings always, but we mistook them for parts of
ourselves. They are distinct, although united, for
mo one can live to himself alone. We are all
members one of another, and this is as true of
spirits as of bodies.
These evil agencies exist. That I know. We
see them; but we cannot fear them. For greater
is He that is for us than all they that are against us.
He is Love. And He is stronger than hate. The
only power the Evil Ones have is due to our fear
and lack of faith. They are powerless when we
yield to the good Guardian who is ever near us,
or when we know God, who is Love. I have not
seen much of this evil side of life, and my informa-
tion must be more or less second-hand.
When I began to move I walked as I used to
walk, and it seemed natural to do so. My Guide
walked beside me, and we saw the world as it
was with spirits moving among men. | did not
see at first which was which. They were all
living people, it seemed to me. But I saw the
spirits pass through matter and move away, as
physical bodies could not do. Then I asked my
Guide, and he said they were like myself, those who
had lived on earth and had passed on. Then I saw
that they moved sometimes as if they were still in
the body, and at other times as if they were angels
coming and going with great speed, and I remarked
upon it to my Guide. And he said, “Yes, they
can do as they please, for it is in the power of the
mind to go slow or fast.’” Then I thought if they
90 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
can! can. And I asked, not speaking, but thinking
in my mind, if this were so? And my Guide,
without my having spoken, answered and said,
“This also is possible to you.” And I said then
to him, “May we go as they go wherever we are
going?’’ And he smiled and said, “As you will,
so it will be.”” And then I had my first experi-
ence of the new freedom of locomotion. The
earth seemed to grow small beneath my feet.
We went through space at a great speed. I
did not feel the speed so much while in motion as
when we stayed and discovered how fast and how
far we had come. When we stayed it was not in
this world at all. We had left your planet and
were now speeding through space. I was hardly
conscious of movement. We went as we think.
Only the things we saw at first disappeared, and
there was nothing to check or time our flight.
We were together, my Guide and I. We went to
a place at a great distance from your earth. The
distance I cannot measure. Nor do we take
account of distance when you have only to think
to be anywhere. The stars and the worlds, of
which you see gleaming twinklings at night, are
to us as all familiar as the village-home to a
villager. We can go where we please and we do
please very often.— Julia.
TASKS IN THE BEYOND.
It should, however, be stated that in the
earlier stages of your celestial career it is unlikely
that you will engage in any definite systematic
task, for the reason that this life to you at first will
be so new, so strange, so different from anything
that you had ever thought or dreamed of, that for
a period you will be content just to investigate
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 9]
and explore and to endeavour to understand the
new life. You will meet those whom you love
and have remembered ; you will make pilgrimages
here and journeys there ; ; you will at the outset
ave so much to learn and to unlearn and to dis-
cover and to understand, that your earlier energies
will be fully occupied in these things. You will,
however—as your sojourn here lengthens—find
little and varying ministries, little services of
differing sorts, all of which will keep you happily
employed. But when ultimately you fully realise
your relationship to the new life—a spiritual being,
functioning on a spiritual plane, endowed wit
spiritual powers—you will then discover your
true bent and find joy and useful service in
following it.
Now we will commence at the beginning, and
refer to the employment of young life here, the
bairnies and little lads and_lassies. Naturally
that which would occupy their youthful energies
would be of an educational nature, so there are to
be found everywhere—for these dear little souls—
schools of a kindergarten character where they are
taught and their growing faculties trained. In
one respect these younger lives have an advantage
over those who come across death their senior in
years, because they have not so much to unlearn.
The care, training and instruction of this young
life provides delightful occupation to a very large
number of grown folk, and it is with them always
a self-imposed labour ot love, and each concen-
trates upon some particular phase in the education
of the little ones. They are all taught to develop
from infancy the thinking and reasoning faculties,
and even from babyhood self-mastery and thought
for others is a dominant note in the celestial
curriculum. Systematised play and joyous games
are necessary to the young life. Here, as on earth,
92 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
“all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,”
and the happy little youngsters in the playing
fields are indeed a sight to be seen.
O you parents of earth, you dear mother
with the aching heart, who think wistfully of the
little life that was touched by the Angel of Death
a short while since and taken from you, be assured
that your darling is in the safe keeping of Love and
Wisdom, and that the memory of a dear mother
is religiously fostered. I would here relate some-
thing which will have a message for those who are
competent to read between the lines ; it is literally
true.
Some while ago | perceived in the distance a
crowd of merry youngsters whose happy faces
were intently gazing upon something ministering
to their joy. What a lyric is there in the lilt of
a child’s laugh !
I proceeded towards the merry throng and
found their interest was absorbed in a—just think
of it—Punch and Judy show. A literal fact, if you
please. I enquired for my own edification, and
it appeared that the old showman and his wife,
who was with him, had spent a long life on earth
going around from place to place making the lads
and lassies happy wherever they went and earning
a precarious existence _by so doing. When the
old man “passed over” he was unhappy because
he had not his puppets with him. He loved the
puppets, and still more to see bright faces and
laughing eyes all around him. He was told in
due course—greatly to his surprise—that he might
have his Punch and Judy show here, but he would
have to make it himself. This he was unable to
do, although he tried repeatedly by creative
thought ; later, however, his wife joined him,
and with her help they ultimately succeeded in
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 93
creating an exact replica of the old earth show
with all its appurtenances. And now the old man
finds an intense delight in wandering through the
Elysian fields with his dear partner and his much-
loved puppets, ministering to the delight of
merry-faced youngsters.
Says my critic: Crude, puerile, impossible !
No, sir, absolutely true, beautiful in its
inception and Christ-like in its ministry, and a
stepping-stone to a higher service in the life yet
before these two choice souls.
In contemplating the after-death state it must
ever be remembered that its structure, its composi-
tion, the constituents which form it, are non-
material. It is erroneous to suppose that the
elements of which it is composed are sublimated
or rarefied matter. This is not so; if it were the
laws which have governance in the material cosmos
would be operative here also. To argue—as some
do—that there can be per se only one ultimate
kind of substance is surely to fetter Omnipotence.
Surely the Power who in the remote eons
brought out of nothing the material universe would
be competent to create another universe of a
different character, and this is the fact. Why
limit God? Earth is the synonym of matter,
heaven of spirit.—Morrow of Life.
WHAT THE AGE NEEDS.
What the age needs is time to think, time to
meditate, time to pray, time, in short, for the
Divine and Eternal. What is it that we must
need in our efforts to bring this world of ours into
touch with yours? Why have I failed with you,
comparatively > Why is the Bureau I wrote about
94 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
years ago not established? All because of one
thing, and one thing only. You have no time.
That is to say, that all the time you have you spend
on the things of this whirling transitory life. It
will not do. Your world will gain no glimpse of
the Other Side, open we the chinks never so widely,
when the whole day is spent in the desperate pur-
suit of an unceasing multitude of this world’s
affairs. No; to truly live you must make time
to think; to clear, Le some moments at least,
a silence where our voices may be heard. That
is nothing new, but the world seems to be forgetting
it more than of old. We can do nothing to establish
the connection unless, for at least some brief
season, you can say to yourself, ‘“Peace ; be still!”
We do not ask impossibilities. We do not
wish men in a newspaper office to practise the
contemplative life of the monks of the Thebiad.
But we do want even newspaper men to have at
least five minutes in every day.—Julia.
A VIEW IN HEAVEN.
Waiting for an opportunity to resume contact
with you, and quietly musing, I lifted up my eyes
and _ beheld the glorious prospect before me.
Undulating meadowland bespangled with flowers,
and stretching away into far distances were, here
and there, hill and dale; coppice and thicket ;
plantation and wood; and away on the horizon
purple hills footing a range of majestic snow-clad
mountains. This panorama, | reflected, is not
an offshoot of my own personality, likewise it is
not a semblance, but an exterior reality, tangible
and substantial, and to me as real as anything
similar to you on earth. How, then, did this
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 95
majestic sweep of countryside—which is so real—
come into existence? It is the creative work of
high angelic beings. God made man in His own
image, after His own likeness. We are all children
of the Divine Father, and as we grow in beauty
and grace, so also do we grow in power of achieve-
ment, and from the lowliest personality to the
highest Angelhood, God delegates His powers to
His creatures, just to the extent of their capacity
to use them.
THE LOWER HEAVEN.
Possibly my reader may be inclined to ask :
Do I consider myself in heaven? If that term is
intended to convey the meaning placed upon it
by orthodoxy, the answer is No! If, however,
by heaven is meant a state of harmony and peace
and soul satisfaction, then indeed I am in heaven.
If a state of joyous activity, of happy service for
others, of fine effort for the enlightenment and the
well-being of one’s fellows is heaven, then I am
there. If heaven be freedom from the carking
care and blighting sorrow of earth; if heaven be
emancipation from the fetters of the flesh; if
heaven be the gradual and progressive purification
of one’s nature and the fuller comprehension and
apprehension of things spiritual; if heaven be
that state where one becomes ever more and more
in harmony with the things of the good God,
verily I am indeed in heaven.
Should the question be asked: Have I seen
any of those majestic Bible worthies of whom we
read so much on earth? No! Have I met the
Apostles, the prophets, the martyrs, whose
memories are the priceless possession of the
Christian Church? No! These radiant souls are
96 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
farther on and higher up and in glory unspeakable.
I follow on, but at present am only qualified for
the kindergarten of the spiritual life.
Have I seen my Master, the crucified Nazarene?
O that this beatific vision had been vouchsafed
to me, as it has been to some. He is about us,
and with us and in us, though mine eyes have not
yet seen His glory, but in mystic moments I have
had a vivid sense of His nearness. O Jesu, my
Master, may I become more and more worthy
of Thy service and more and more like unto Thee !
Have I seen God? This is unthinkable.
No soul can visualise Deity in the totality of His
undreamed-of majesty and splendour, but a sense
of the presence of God is everywhere. We know
that He is. We see the evidences of His reality
all round about us, and feel them within us. The
atheist is unknown in the life spiritual. God is
very near us all, “Closer is He than breathing,
nearer than hands and feet.” We may not see
God, but we may and do sense the Eternal Presence.
Even the smallest child here has in his soul some
awareness of Deity. We are overshadowed by
His love, and in a very real sense to us “underneath
are the everlasting arms.’—Morrow of Life.
DARK SPIRITS.
Q. Is it good for spirits who describe them~
selves as beings in darkness to try to get help
from those on earth ?
P. The ideally best does not obtain in any
world with which I am acquainted practically. It
is still ahead, for which I am profoundly grateful.
It might be far better for these darkened ones to
be helped from the other side, but they often get
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 97
no help except through the incarnate, with whom
they are in closer touch than they are with the
disembodied.
This question, like all others, depends upon
circumstances. Few are fit to undertake this
work, and should not seek it of their own volition ;
but no request for prayer and help should be
refused. On the other hand, to sit deliberately
and invite that kind of visitant seems to me folly,
if not even presumption.—Letters from the Other
Side.
THE HELL OF THE MATERIAL.
Presently we came to a sort of parapet, from
which we looked down into what at first seemed
unknown and unfathomable depths, so impene-
trable was the darkness which overshadowed 1t ;
but after a time my vision became strengthened,
so that I began dimly to perceive what was before,
or rather beneath, us. I saw here and there a
figure walking about with a sort of uncertain
movement, as one might walk in a dream or in
utter darkness. Some of them stumbled, others
stretched out their hands as if to feel their way.
But far more than were walking were sitting or
crouching immovable, as though they were hewn
of stone. There was no sound of voices, there
were no shrieks, no wails, no curses. The silence
was profound and oppressive, and was only
broken by an occasional sigh or moan, as one
sometimes moans in sleep, which, low as it was,
smote on the ear with terrible distinctness.
What did it mean?
My companion divined my inward question-
ing, and replied, “These are in a spirit lethargy—
a soul sleep, whieh has bound many of them for
G
98 Tue SpiriTuALists’ READER
years, and which may bind them for years to
come. Their spiritual natures are wholly dormant,
and being taken from the material world, where
alone their energies found activity, they have
necessarily fallen into their present state. These
souls are, so to speak, yet in embryo, and have
not been born into spirit-life.”
“From what classes of mortals come these
inhabitants of this land of sleep and death?”
“Those who know nothing whatever of spiritual
life while on earth. Those in whose hearts were
no high aspirations, no sense of purity and goodness,
and who mocked at the very words. Those who
by vicious lives have murdered the spirituality
within them. Those who allowed their souls and
their intellects to be fettered by superstitions and
followed blindly the leading of others. Those
who lived wholly for self, refusing to recognise the
grander meanings and purposes of life. In the
sphere we have just left the spiritual perceptions
were not killed, only perverted or put aside.
Here they have either never been developed or else
have been so nearly destroyed that only the germ
remains. That can never perish, and will some
day, perhaps in the far future, be developed into
active life.""—Heaven Revised (Duffey).
HELPING THE DARK SOULS.
“But if they were to look upward could they
not see us? Could we not beckon to them, and
so awaken them to a knowledge of something
better than their present condition, and to a desire
to attain to it?”
“No; as their spiritual senses are dulled
their eyes are blinded to all things spiritual. They
cannot see us. They could not hear our voices.
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 99
We can only communicate with them by the means
of earthly organisms. Sometimes at the seances
held on earth one of these benighted spirits finds
his way thither, and by listening-to words uttered
through mediums for the first time becomes
conscious of the existence of a higher spiritual life.
From that hour dates his spiritual progress. But,
oh! his way is a long and weary one! If mortals
could only realise it how anxious they would be
to avoid travelling it themselves; how zealous
to help others !""—Heaven Revised (Duffey).
HOW A MOTHER FEELS IN THE BEYOND.
Philemon greets you, my friends.
Can you give me any conception of the
life and work of my beloved mother, such as you
have given of your own life ?
P. Yes, I can, in words that are but faint
symbols of the reality. Your mother rarely,
almost never, returns directly to the Borderland
realm where intercommunications take place. Not
finding a medium attuned to her as I do, that is
natural. But she is aware of everything that
affects those whom she loves, and in supreme
moments is with them, unseen but seeing, unheard
but hearing. I will not attempt to explain how
this is brought about—I could not make it clear.
She is aware of the spiritual values, the content,
as estimated in the spiritual world, of all your
earthly strivings. She would see, as a rosy glow,
fraternal affection passing from one to another of
her children, in waves; she would perceive the
ardent desire for service emanate in the form of
azure-hued clouds, deepening to an intense violet
hue. When sadness and depression oppress your
100 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
spirit, she sees these colours saddening into greyish
ues.
She dwells in a world that I call the Realm of
Roses ; roses are the only flower-form that conveys
a faint idea of its freshness, fulness, fragrance an
beauty. This sounds feeble, perhaps foolish ;
but I felt this when I was permitted to visit her, and
I always think of her there.
Q. Is she with those who were so near and
dear to her on earth ?
P. They are not all with her, but she is with
them all, whenever she so wills, or they so need.
She is very restfully busy, reposefully active.
I ‘know the bliss of such service, of such activity,
through my visits to where she is. Her work is
to the denizens of the spirit world who enter
spirit life somewhat stunted and starved, however
noble they may have been, through lack of beauty
and fragrance in their earthly surroundings. Man
a child of rich parents, reared in dreary wealt
and luxury, needs her ministrations. Many a
city man, who has really forgotten that daisies
and buttercups are as necessary to a normal
existence as silver and gold, has to undergo a
course of re-education in her world before the
angels can do anything for him. Your mother
came to me, when I was perplexed at finding
myself in a hueless, grey world, drawn thither in
the quest of a soul in sore need of help. I was
exclaiming, “How can this grey underworld form
pat of God's world? Shall I ever see colours and
; ee again?” Then I looked up to see her
scintillating with the most delicate shade of every
Eosuble colour, some of which were new to me.
e wore the most wonderful opalescent garments ;
the colours changed as she moved. She held
towards me what appeared to me as the most
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 101
marvellous flowers I had ever beheld, both hands
full—the colours were as those of living gems ;
and she said in a voice as musical as rippling waters :
“Dear friend! This is too much for you. Come
with me for a while. You will return strengthened
and better equipped for your mission.”
That sojourn in her world was my retreat. |
marvel that I have attempted to tell you, because
it is so hopeless to attempt to portray these things.
This is where I have been. I had met her
palmer or rather she me, more as the friend
remembered on earth—not before as this radiant
being with the flowers. I have brought back with
me some of that radiance, and I, by my presence
shed light and beauty and joy in "the dark and sad
spheres where my work often lies. I am so very
happy, so very glad to be of service where I am,
I could not be as happy anywhere else. I am not
a round peg in a square hole, but a nice square
peg in a first-class square hole. :
When my radiance is dimmed | shall return to
the realm of Roses and Joy, for recuperation and
refreshment.
. What memories do you keep of the
loved ones still left on earth ?
P. It is most difficult to generalise. It is an
individual idiosyncrasy. I may remember my
children’s names, but find myself utterly unable
to transmit those beloved sounds through certain
media. The memories with strong emotional
content are those which survive longest. In the
spirit world I should think of my _ beautiful
daughter, my clever daughter, not of my first or
second—not necessarily by name.—Letters from
the Other Side.
102 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
OBJECT OF THE WAR.
Q. Is the world on the whole purged by
this terrible war ?
P. Icansay this: the world is a better world,
a holier world, than when | left it. This is true.
I will give you my personal view, which may be
optimistic or short-sighted. The hour is dark
and yet darker. But the darkest hour is not
far distant. There is no need for despair, nor
even for discouragement.
The crest of the wave to me is in sight, but the
end will not come until the statesmen and politi-
cians of the world recognise that righteousness
alone exalteth a nation, and that the children of
light must emulate the children of darkness in
activity and self-sacrifice. They, the statesmen,
already see this truth dimly.
God keep and sustain you!—Philemon, in
Letters from the Other Side (Written in 1917).
IMMEDIATELY AFTER DEATH.
Then I was dead! How strange it seemed to
be dead, and yet with such superabundant life !
How mortals misapprehend the meaning of the
word. To be dead means to be alive with a
vitality earthly humanity does not know. How
long had I been dead? It seemed to be early
morning. The watchers were silent, having dozed
off to s eep in their arm-chairs. The rays of the
lamp were paling before the light of the approach-
ing day, which was heralded in the east by scarlet
banners flung across the sky. When I had fallen
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 103
asleep—into that peaceful sleep from which I had
wakened in another world—the night had been
far spent. I must have passed away at the ebb of
the tide, when day was struggling with , Sariuest,
and nature itself was at its Towet xh ebb. I ha
robably been dead twenty-four Pew I had
fallen asleep on earth; I had awakened in the
land of spirits.
The land of spirits! Strange as it may seem,
I for the first time realised this fact. My thoughts
and emotions up to this point had all been con-
nected in some way with the world and the life |
had left behind me. But where were the spirit
forms of the loved ones who had passed on etre
and whom I had expected to meet me at the gate-
way, and to welcome and guide me into the life
eternal> On the threshold of this new life I felt
no fear at my seeming isolation, but a sense of
disappointment and loneliness, and of bewilder-
ment also, stole over me. Even as these thoughts
passed through my mind the room and all it
contained seemed to dissolve before me. I found
myself upon a great plain, which gently inclined
towards a valley, through the depths of which
flowed a stream. I cannot describe the beauty
of the scene. Earth is beautiful, and its beauties
found their way to my heart ;_ but the spirit-world
is far more so. The scene seemed strangely
familiar. It was so like, and yet so unlike, an
earthly valley, where I had spent many happy
hours—perhaps the happiest of my life. It seemed,
indeed, the earthly valley glorified and spiritualised,
as who shall say that it was not? The grass was
intensely yet safely green, and starred with myriads
of daisies. When last I had beheld the earthly
valley it was still beautiful, but it had the beauty
of death that sent a chill to my heart, and over it
hung a pall of cloud which completely enshrouded
104 Tue SprirRITUALIsts’ READER
its depths. But my valley was resurrected, and
was mine evermore.
I was walking, but, strange to say, my feet
did not touch the ground. I walked along just
above the surface of the earth, just as I had done
many times in dreams—the realest dreams | ever
had. What a strange sensation it was to be freed
from the weight of the earthly body—to be released
from the physical law of the attraction of gravita-
tion! I felt that I might rise to any height to
which I aspired, yet was content for the present
to keep near the ground.
But my friends—my spirit friends—where
were they? Why was I thus so isolated in’ my
new life? I was not conscious of having uttered
a thought aloud, but as if in response to it I found
myself in the presence of two youths, whose
radiant countenances possessed more than mortal
beauty. Years ago I had laid away with an aching
heart and many bitter tears two beautiful babes,
first one and then another; and many times
thereafter I stretched out my arms with soul-felt
longing towards the unknown land whither they
had gone, as if to reach to them and bring them
back to me. But when I clasped my arms to
my breast again they were always empty. My
babes! How I had longed for them, yearned for
them! They had always been babes to me in
my memory, little tender, clinging things, finding
their whole world in mother-love. But when I
beheld these youths beside me some _ subtle
instinct revealed to me that they were my babes
now nearly grown to manhood. | felt neither
hesitation nor surprise in recognition. It was as
though I had always expected them to appear
thus to me. I only held out my arms with an
unutterably glad impulse, crying “My boys!
Mine!”
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 105.
My lost ones were in my arms, and for a
time my soul was filled with a bliss too deep for
words. At last emotions struggled into utterance.
“Our mother ! ”’ were the glad words I heard
from lips which had never learned to pronounce
them in their brief earth-lives, and then there
were eager questionings and glad responses.
e have been with you, mother,” said the
elder, “through all these years. Daily we have
visited you. We have nestled in your arms. You
never called to us that we did not come. And we
spoke to you and tried to comfort you, but you
did not always hear us; and sometimes when our
messages reached your heart you did not compre-
hend from whom they came. You have been
our mother still, our helper and our guide; and
we in turn have helped and guided you as far as
lay in our power, as we could not have done had
we remained with you on_ earth.”—Duffey’s
**Heaven Revised.”
CIRCLE OF EXPIATION.
Pity Oscar Wilde—one who in the world was.
a king of life. Bound to Ixion’s wheel of thought
I must complete for ever the circle of my experi-
ence. Long ago I wrote that there was twilight
in my cell and twilight 1 in my heart, but this is the
(last >) twilight of the soul. In eternal twilight
I move, but I know that in the world there is day
and night, seedtime and harvest and red sunset
must follow apple green dawn. Every year spring
throws her green veil over the world, and anon
the red autumn glory comes to mock the yellow
moon. Already the may is creeping like a white
mist over lane and hedgerow, and year after year
the hawthorn bears blood-red fruit after the
white death of its may. (Mrs. T. S: Why have
106 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
you come here?) To let the world know that
Oscar Wilde is not dead. His thoughts live on in
the hearts of all those who in a gross age can hear
the flute voice of beauty calling on the hills, or
mark where her white feet brush the dew from
the cowslips in the morning. Now the mere
memory of the beauty of the world is an exquisite
pain. I was always one of those for whom the
visible world existed. I worshipped at the shrine
of things seen. There was not a blood stripe on a
tulip or a curve on a shell or a tone on the sea but
had for me its meaning and its mystery and its
appeal to the imagination. Others might sip the
pale lees of the cup of thought, but for me the red
wine of life.
Pity Oscar Wilde. To think of what is going
on in the world is terrible for me. Soon the chest-
nuts will light their white candles and the foxgloves
flaunt their aa ee drooping bells. (Will you
come again?) I will come again gladly if you
will Jet me buzz on as an autumn bee might who
was tired of hunting for fresh blossoms out of
season. I am tired, too, but I like to remind
myself now and then of the fact that there are
people who regard the little globe as the whole of
what is reality.
You are the light that lets me peep again
into the world which seems so dazzling now that
the Divine Justice finds it His pleasure to keep me
in dim twilight. I lived for the beauty of visible
things. The rose-flushed anemones that star the
dark woodland ways, those loveliest tears that
Venus shed for Adonis and shed in vain were
more to me than many philosophies.
I wither here in twilight, but I_know that I
shall rise from it again to ecstasy. That thought
is given to us to help us to endure.—Oscar Wilde,
through the Mediumship of Mrs. Travers Smith.
Tue SpIRITUALISTS’ READER 107
PAIN.
Q. I meant to ask: Have you bodily pain ?
Have you, since you went over, ever experienced
what we call bodily pain, or have you done with it ?
P. Yes and No. Yes, when my body of
tenuous substance you call astral comes up against
astral currents of the lower astral levels, it suffers
and shrinks as would a tropical plant or animal in
an icy blast ; but we know how to avoid such pain,
for pain it is. But bodily pain of the kind known
on earth, hopeless and misunderstood, is a thing
of the past. Here help, instruction or avoidance
are swiftly and surely available. I wish I could
give you a less truthful—no, no, I mean a more
satisfactory answer. Your beloved mother can
enjoy bliss even to the extent of the ecstasy of the
beatific vision. She could not do this if she had
no sensitiveness, and while there is sensitiveness
of body, of mind, or spirit there is the possibility
of pain. But just as you discover anodynes on
your earth so we, too, explore and discover and
apply the results of research and discovery on our
planes.
P. I suffered from the non-loving currents
of the earth-soul when | approached the border-
land; my spiritual body suffered, but after a
very "lar experience I learned the colour rays
which permitted of approach without discomfort,
and even with pleasure, as when my thoughts
impinge on the thought-aura of the writer.
need not really suffer in my present vehicle or
body when leaving it behind—so I am told; but
I do not like to answer where I have no personal
experience. I see those who have been here the
108 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
longest appearing most vigorous, most glorious,
most luminous, so I conclude that there is nothing
really analogous to what you know as death.—
Letters from the Other Side.
THE WORST EVIL.
First of all, what you need to think of above
everything else in regard to this matter is, what
you or any one of you are doing to make the
Real World real to men. The worst evil of the
present day is not its love of money, nor its selfish-
ness. No, but its Loss of the Soul. You forget
that the Soul is the thing. And that all that
concerns the body, except so far as it affects the
Soul, is of no importance. But what you have to
realise is that men and women in this generation
have lost their souls. And this is a terrible truth.
It is not what we used to think of losing the Soul.
When I say lost 1 mean it. You have lost it as
you might lose a person in a crowd. It is severed
from you. You are immersed in matter and you
have lost your Soul. And the first, the most
pressing of all things, is to find your Soul. For
until you find it you are little better than an active
automaton, whose feverish movements have no
real significance, no lasting value. The Loss of
the Soul, that is the Malady of the Day; and to
find the Soul is the Way of Salvation.
The finding of the Soul is the first thing and
the most important thing. You will never find it
unless you give yourself time to think, time to
pray, time to realise that you have a soul. At
present, then, do you remember that? You
remember post time and you remember when you
must catch trains. But when do you remember
that you must catch your Soul? No, no! All
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 109
is rush and jump and whirl, and your Soul gets
lost, crowded out of your life. You have so many
engagements that you have no time to live the
Soul-life. That is what you have to learn. No
doubt your work is important, and duty must
be done. But what shall it profit a man if he gain
the whole world and lose his own Soul ?—Julia.
FATE OF ANIMALS.
Q. Do tell us more about the future of those
devoted animals, as, for instance, Sir Walter
Scott’s dog.
P. Their next step is to companion those
human spirits in the borderland spheres who
could not be happy lacking the faithful four-footed
friends of their earthly existence, and some lonely
waifs are made happy “in heaven”’ by being given
a four-footed pet of their very own.
Q. Can you tell jus what is the ultimate fate
of jour loved dogs ?
P. What the ultimate fate is of these “little
ones’ I cannot at present tell you. There is a
tradition, born, I verily believe, of human exclusive-
ness and arrogance, which denies the persistence
of the “‘four-footed” beyond certain spheres. Why,
I ask, should Khaki, who is one of these beloved
ones, be with us here and yet not go forward ?
I am sure those dogs who have died that others
might live, who have refused to live on after the
death of a beloved human friend, have earned,
and will receive, life, and more abundant life, in
the presence of those whom they loved with the
greatest of all loves—the love that gives all, asking
nothing in return.—Letters from the Other "Side.
110 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
REAL RELIGION.
Often what seems to you the worst things are
the best. Sometimes the apparent best are among
the worst. Motive is not se om but it is a
great deal—so much that those from whom motive
is hidden cannot judge fully. My own experi-
ence of all this was very varied, and I soon became
accustomed to disregard all the distinctions I had
made so much of when in life. Then I used to
ask if So-and-so were religious, whether he belonged
to this or that or the other church; now these
things do not interest me any more than the new
frills and facings of fashion. We don’t ask what
church. Here let me say that you may mis-
understand what I have written. It is not that I
think being religious is of no importance. It is
of all importance. What I meant was the asking
of any one of his church connection as a way of
knowing whether or not he was religious. That
is the absurdity we never practise. We never
ask about these things except so far as they stand
in the way of the real religion. We lament, and
have continually to deplore, the fact that they are
substituted for the love which is the fulfilling of
the law. The degree of love with which anyone
loves measures his religion. The degree of hatred
or indifference which paralyses love in the soul is
the test of irreligion. Love eats into selfishness
as the sun’s rays eat into the black and dark night.
That is God in life. That is what we see. Light
that shines in the darkness. Love is that light.
We don’t care for the shape of the shutters that
shut it out. Nor for the endless discussions as to
the windows that let it in. These questions are so
simply answered. The best window, what is that ?
It is the window that lets in most light. Where,
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER I
then, is the light that is the test of the window ?
And the light of life is Love, and Love is God and
God is Love ; and those who do not love are those
who sit in outer darkness, and in the valley of the
shadow of death. Sin consists in the living
without God; that is to say, without love. But
the more you think the more you see that love
that is selfish is not love, and love that injures its
object is not love but cruelty. The love that
sacrifices the permanent welfare of the loved one,
to the Stained ake gratification of the pleasure of
the moment, is not real love. All love supposes
some degree of restraint, and this is true of the
Highest as well as of men and women. Restraint
that is born of the intelligence that foresees. And
real love is the keenest-sighted of all things.—
Julia.
THE ARRIVAL OF SPIRITS.
The tide of immigration sets steadily from
your land to ours. There is no emigration back
to earth. All faces are turned towards the spirit-
world ; all feet are hastening hitherward, and all
must come at last face to face with death, and,
standing on the shores of the mystic river, must
bid an eternal farewell to earthly life, and venture
with hesitation and fear, or with courage and faith,
into the unknown and mysterious realm beyond.
These pilgrims are coming, coming, coming,
leaving behind them all that possessed material
value on earth, and bringing only—themselves.
If they have cultivated their spiritual natures and
held themselves above the level of materiality,
then they are rich indeed; but if earth and its
cares engrossed all their attention, and they had
neither time nor thought for that “better part” for
112 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
which Mary was commended, then no beggar on
earth could be poorer or more destitute than these
souls when they enter the life immortal. Nor
do intellectual enlightenment, moral regeneration
and spiritual illumination wait upon them to be
ut on like an outward garment as soon as they
ae reached the spirit sphere. These are the
true riches, which must be acquired by laborious
effort. As a man was upon earth, so does he find
himself when he first enters here. He who was
ignorant is ignorant still; he who was filthy is
filthy still; superstition still holds those spirits
in its thrall who were its victims upon earth.
It would seem to you that all must become
Spiritualists when they reach here, and the avenues
P knowledge are thrown open to them; and I
shall surprise you when I say that there are Method-
ists, Baptists, Presbyterians and Quakers here,
and all the different sects of religious beliefs, just
as among you. There are those who bow to the
supremacy of a spiritual Pope, and who yet find
auricular confession and the observance of rites
and ceremonies necessities to their religious life.
‘True, they encounter much to surprise them when
they enter here. Heaven is altogether different
from what they had pictured it; but their beliefs
and prejudices are stronger than the facts which
come under their observation (is not this also
the rule in earth life > ), and so they merely readjust
themselves, still clinging as far as possible to their
old tenets. But the time comes, sooner or later,
when they grow out of these superstitions, and
getting at first faint glimpses of the truth, these
‘glimpses become brighter and clearer as they
seek for them.
There is no more interesting study than to
‘watch the arrival of these immigrants—these
pilgrims, and to note their first impressions,
Tue SpiriTUALIsts’ READER 113
experiences, surprises and disappointments. It is
also sad to stand beside the bed of death, as it is
often our privilege and our duty to do, and witness
the terror with which theology has invested the
passing from death unto life. Is it true that the
Christian knows how to die? He may meet
death serenely if he be a man of strong character,
hopeful disposition, and with nerves not easily
shaken; but with such a character he would
meet it no less bravely were he a rejector of all
religious faiths. If he be timid and weak, given
to apprehension and shrinking from danger, not
all the consolations and hopes which religion can
afford will save him from becoming terror-stricken
when the last dread hour approaches. There is
something appalling, even to the stoutest heart, in
going out to meet the unknown, and that is what
all, save Spiritualists, must do. To them, and to
them only, is the spirit-world revealed. To them
it is given to know that they are passing from
darkness unto light ; from death unto life; from
mortality to immortality. How strange that this
glorious truth, which should be indeed the corner-
stone of existence, is rejected by so many earthly
builders !—Duffey’s ‘Heaven Revised.”
DAWN OF NEW LIFE.
Moruer !
I am here, but I can’t tell you much. Meslom
will help me. He is not very well known to me.
I never knew I could come back. I have
been asleep and lost a long time. I am just
awakening and I am all in a tremor to think I am
really alive yet and able to see you.
H
114 Tue SpiriTuAuists’ READER
I can come to you from time to time. Meslom
will help me—I can come—I am already stronger.
I went away too soon, but now I can make up for
the time | wasted.
Meslom.
L. has been obliged to stop. He is not yet
strong enough to do much, but I| brought you
together and you are to help and be a great power.
L. is not suffering—he is only just awakened.
He was brought to consciousness by his mother’s
wish to communicate.
L. is here again.
Yes, I am here, and I am so glad I am alive
again. Oh! mother darling, I am so thankful
ih so happy to be with you. I am free from
suffering. en alive, alive! and all awake to
the wonders about me. But remember I have
been asleep. Your wish to speak to me has
awakened me. I am alive !
I am not able to tell you much, but I am
filled with such a tremendous joy of life that I
cannot imagine going back.
I can come to you again and I can tell you
much. Meslom is going to teach me, and says
I can come when you and Mary arrange. I have
no choice—it is for you to say.
I am alive again and so happy, but I can’t
tell you much. pear to be in a wonderful
light and in a b sevells ous country of perfect condi-
tions—I can see———
Meslom.
L. is not able to stand a longer strain, but
the conditions are perfect. I will bring him again
but not to-day. He is a fine nature and will
develop quickly and be a great help.
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 115
February 3rd, 1917.
Meslom.
L. is here. He has been far away and cannot
stay long, but he will speak.
Here I am. I can’t tell you much yet. I
was so excited at being alive that I cannot get in
trim for calm work. Since I awoke the other
day | have been far away in a wonderful country—
it seems like the land one sometimes dreamed
and never quite found. It is perfect and filled
with light and perfume and life and movement.
I cannot explain it all now. I only know I am
enjoying it and getting strong again and all my
weakness is gone.
Do you regret your life here ?
Yes, I might have done many things which I
neglected, but I am permitted another life.
I am going to help you to enjoy this life of
mine and understand what you can before you
come, but you are really able to foresee some,
because of your innate appreciation of art and
beauty. I shall have the double happiness of
enjoying and of teaching you.
Can you see me?
Yes, and I am so glad you have found Mary
and that you are able to talk to me. You can
never know my feeling the other day, when you
awakened me from that long sleep which seemed
death, You know I caused this’ myself
because I had been persuaded that it was death
I was facing, and at the end I was so tired that I
really didn’t care. I could not struggle along any
further, but if you had not called me and found a
way to reach me I should have been obliged to
wait for long ages, because in the ordinary course
it requires a much longer time to come back to
consciousness. Help me by loving me.—Meslom.
116 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
THE ORTHODOX.
Philemon.
Q. Is there an immediate enlargement of
vision on passing over, where there is very narrow
but sincere religious conviction—among striet
Presbyterians or Roman Catholics, for instance ?
P. It all depends on the individual and his
environment on this side. Roman Catholic
families are as well shepherded with us as on earth,
and members of their families are overshadowed
by the “dead,” and deterred in many cases from
leaving the faith which was theirs, and still is a
cherished part of the new life. Hence you see a
pious or perfunctory Latin Christian would per-
eeive no shock on his entry to the new sphere of
life and thought. It would only be gradually and
by not very definite stages that he would discover
the spiritualisation of the old crudities and cruelties.
The forms were beautiful, and have changed
but little. The spirit has been renewed, and is
more in harmony with the soul's deepest convic-
tions than were the old errors.
A friendless soul, without convictions, would
not find himself i in a community of the formerly
“orthodox.” He would be welcomed by the
kindly ministering spirits, whose very presence
‘would cheer his heart and feed his soul.
Q. But is it not a shock for the pious Roman
Catholic, for example, to find that the repetition
of so many Paters and Aves does not cancel
hundreds and thousands of years in purgatory ?
P. There is no shock involved. He finds
himself in light and warmth and colour. He
concludes that his good conditions are due to that
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 117
very cause, his prayers and those of others; and
in a sense he is right. The “paid” prayers are
few in comparison with the real ones, and those
who pray “‘paid”” prayers for unknown souls often
ay truly. ‘These errors fall away gradually.
The priests tell them that the language of time
could not express the truths of eternity, and that
it applied to conditions rather than to duration
and space.
The fact that there are abodes of darkness
and despair leads them to infer that they repre-
sent the ‘hell’ of earth, and these are bad enough
in all conscience—so bad that some pious priests,
still faithful to their doctrine of the end justifying
the means, actually preach that it is a sin for
spirits to impart the truth to those left on earth
lest they, thinking it of less moment, should be
careless, and so not fearing “hell” should merit
the sojourn in the abodes of darkness and despair
to which the wicked virtually condemn themselves.
Letters from the Other Side.
PASSING OVER.
What about those you had left in tears ?
No, I did not think much during the journey
of those whom I had left behind. They were
alive and well, and they would soon come over and
be with me. The overpowering rush of new
sensations seemed to leave no room for regrets
or thoughts of the old life. Well ! you may regret
this, but I am telling you facts. You will find it
so also your first day. And I think it is good and
not evil. For otherwise it would have been
different.
When we were journeying I spoke little.
My thoughts were busy and yet I was not conscious
118 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
of even thinking, only of feeling and seeing,
drinking in at every point new impressions.
hen we seemed to be arriving at a new world I
spoke. I asked my guide, “Where is this? Is
it Heaven?”’ He replied, “Wait and see. You
will find those there who will teach you what you
want to know.”
The place was very pleasant to behold. The
air was sweet, and there was a delicious fragrance
as of flowers in June. The world—for it was a
world we were approaching—seemed not unlike
our old world, but it was different—there was
nothing to jar. The sense of restful peace and
contented love was everywhere. The place had a
placid smile of tranquil joy ; the note I remember,
the details I will not enter upon.
When I found my friends there were about
five or six of those relatives and near friends who
had been on this side for some time. My dear
little sister was the lovingest and dearest of all.
I saw before me the semblance of her childhood,
just as she was in the long years ago, when I had
parted with her it seemed for ever. But she was
only assuming the child-form to gain recognition.
After a time, when I learned more about the life
here, she revealed herself to me as we see her now,
as a spirit who is a woman grown. There is no
difficulty in our assuming whatever form we need
for the purpose of the moment. No, I do not
mean to say that I could assume permanently any
disguise ; but you can make yourself appear for
the time what you think you wish to be. For the
subtle thought is as an artist not merely in colour
or marble, but to all apparent semblance in the
actual person.—Julia.
My little sister having embraced me and
welcomed me to the sphere where the loved and
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 119
the lost are united, took me by the hand and
brought me to the friends who were close by
waiting for me. They were all very kind and
loving, and they told me many things. The
chief surprise that I found was in the fact that we
were all so very much the same. We did not
seem to have become angels or saints. For my
part I was, I fear, by no means saintly. There
was at first a certain awe that numbed me; but
as that numbing sensation wore off my old natural
self asserted itself, and I really felt shat I was as
ad been, only with a much greater sense of
power and of freedom. There was the increased
sense of vitality—doubly and trebly delightful after
my illness—and a great feeling of restful absence
of fret.
When I came to talk with my friends they
told me many things that at first startled me
They said, for instance, that I should be able to go
among all those whom I had left, and that I should
feel no sense of separation. For the spirits of
our friends are open to us on this side. Then I
said, “There is no death,” and they laughed
merrily. “Of course not,’ ’ they said, “not to us
who are ‘dead.’ Death is only a sense of depriva-
tion and separation which the so-called living
feel—an incident of limitation of ‘life.’ Death
only exists for the living, not for us.” And I
wished at once to go and see if it were so; and
immediately as I thought, I was back among those
whom I loved.
“One has so much to ask. Are the spheres
like this around ? ”
“In every way similar. It is only the change
of condition that makes the difference. Flowers
and fruits and pleasant landscapes and animals
and birds are with us as with you. Only the
120 Tue SpiriTuALists’ READER
material conditions are changed. We do not
crave for food as you; nor do we kill to live.
Matter, in your sense, is done with, and we have
no feed. 0 sustenance, save that which we can
draw in with the air we breathe. Nor are we
impeded in our movements by matter, as you are.
We move freely and by volition. I learn by
degrees, and as a new-born babe, to accustom
myself to the new conditions of my being.”
“Are things real to you?”
“Quite; and very beautiful.” —Julia.
ARRIVAL IN SPIRIT LIFE.
As soon as the spirit, whose departing hour
I thus watched, was wholly disengaged from the
tenacious physical body, I directed my attention to
the movements and emotions of the former, and
I saw her begin to breathe the most interior or
spiritual portions of the surrounding terrestrial
atmosphere. At first it seemed with difficulty
that she could breathe the new medium; but in a
few seconds she inhaled and exhaled the spiritual
elements of nature with the greatest possible ease
and delight. And now I saw that she was in the
possession of exterior and physical proportions
which were identical in every possible particular—
improved and beautified—with those proportions
which characterised her earthly organisation. That
is to say, she possesses a heart, a stomach, a liver,
lungs, etc., etc., just as her natural body did
previous to (not her, but its) death. This is a
wonderful and consoling truth! But I saw that
the improvements which were wrought upon and
in her spiritual organisation were not so particular
and thorough as to destroy or transcend her
personality; nor did they materially alter her
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 121
natural appearance or earthly characteristics. So
much like her former self was she that had her
friends beheld her (as J did), they certainly would
have exclaimed—as we often do upon the sudden
return of a long absent friend, who leaves us in
illness and returns in health—“Why, how well
you look! How improved you are!" Such was
the nature, most beautifying in their extent, of
the improvements that were wrought upon her.
I saw her continue to perform and accustom
herself to the new elements and elevating sensa-
tions which belong to the inner life. I did not
articularly notice the workings and emotions of
bee newly-awakening and fast-unfolding spirit,
except that I was careful to remark her philosophic
tranquility throughout the entire process, and her
non-participation with the different members of
her family in their unrestrained bewailing of her
departure from the earth, to unfold in Love and
Wisdom throughout eternal spheres. She under-
stood at a glance that they could only gaze upon
the cold and lifeless form which she had but just
deserted, and she readily comprehended the fact
that it was owing to a want of true knowledge upon
their parts that they thus vehemently regretted
her merely physical death.
The excessive weeping and lamentation of
friends and relatives over the external form of one
departed are mainly caused by the sensuous and
superficial mode by which the majority of mankind
view the phenomena of death. For, with but few
exceptions the race is so conditioned and educated
on the earth, not yet having grown into spiritual
perceptions, not yet progressed to where ‘‘whatso-
ever is hid shall be revealed,” realising only
through the medium of the natural senses the
nearness of the beloved, watching and comprehend-
ing only the external signs and processes of physical
122 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
dissolution, supposing this contortion to indicate
pain, and that expression to indicate anguish ;
I say, the race is so situated and educated that
death of the body al the majority of the earth’s
se guaseratadh is equivalent to an annihilation of
rsonality e the individual. But I would
comfort the superficial observer, and I can solemnly
assure the inquirer after truth that when an individ-
ual dies naturally the spirit experiences no pain ;
nor, should the material body be dissolved with
disease or crushed by the fearful avalanche, is the
individuality of the spirit deformed or in the least
degree obscured. Could you but turn your natural
gaze from the lifeless body, which can no longer
answer to your look of love, and could your spiritual
eyes be opened, you would behold—standing in
your midst—a form, the same, but more beautiful—
and living! Hence, there is great cause to rejoice
at the birth of the spirit from this world into the
Inner Sphere of Life—yea, it is far more reason-
able and appropriate to weep at the majority of
marriages which occur in this world than to
lament when man’s immortal spirit escapes from
its earthly form to live and unfold in a higher and
better country. You may clothe yourselves with
the dark habiliments of woe when you consign, at
the altar, a heart to a living grave, or when you
chain the soul to breathe in an uncongenial atmos-
phere; but robe yourselves with garments of
light to honour the spirit’s birth into a higher life !
The period required to accomplish the entire
change, which I saw, was not far ra rom two hours
and a half; but this furnishes no rule as to the
time required for every spirit to elevate and re-
organise itself above the head or the outer form.
Without changing my position of spiritual percep-
tions I continued to observe the movements of
her new-born spirit. As soon as she became
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 123
accustomed to the new elements which surrounded
her, she descended from her elevated position,
which was immediately over the body, by an effort
of the will-power, and directly passed out of the
door of the bedroom in which she had lain (in
the material form) prostrated with disease for
several weeks. It bemg in a summer month, the
doors were all open, and her egress from the house
was attended with no obstructions. I saw her
pass through the adjoining room, out of the door,
and step from the house into the atmosphere !
I was overwhelmed with delight and astonishment
when, for the first time, I realised the universal
truth, that the spiritual organisation can tread
the atmosphere which, while in the coarser earthly
form, we breathe—so ‘much more refined is man’s
spiritual condition. She walked in the atmosphere
as easily and in the same manner as we tread this
“ik and ascend ie eminence. Immediately upon
her emergement from the house she was joined by
two Piel spirits from the spiritual country, and
after tenderly recognising and communing with
each other the three in the most graceful manner
began ascending obliquely through the ethereal
envelopment of our globe. They walked so
naturally and fraternally together that I could
scarcely realise the fact that they trod the air—
they seemed to be walking upon the side of a
glorious but familiar mountain! I continued to
gaze upon them until the distance shut them from
my view; whereupon I returned to my external
and ordinary condition.
Oh, what a contrast! Instead of beholding
that beautiful and youthfully-unfolded spirit
now saw, in common with those about me, the
lifeless, cold and shrouded organism of the cater-
pillar, which the joyous butterfly 7 so recently
abandoned !—Clairvoyance of A. J. Davis.
124 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
LOVE.
You may say that there is a love which is
selfish and a love which is evil. It is true, but
that is because the love is imperfect. It is not
love when it leads to selfishness. The love which
leads a mother to engross herself with her own
children and neglect all her duties to other people
is not wrong itself. It is only because she has
not enough love for others that her love for her
children makes her selfish. The great need where-
ever love seems to make people selfish is not less
love for those whom they do love, but more love
for the others who are neglected. You never
love any one too much. It is only that we don’t
love others enough also. Perfect love all round
is the Divine ideal, and when love fails at any
point, then evil is in danger of coming in. But
even a guilty love, so far as it takes you out of
yourself, and makes you toil and pray and live
and perhaps die for the man or woman whom you
should never have loved, brings you nearer Heaven
than selfish, loveless marriage. I do not say this
is against marriage. I know you think that this is
a dangerous doctrine. All true doctrine is danger-
ous, but is not less true for its danger. There is
no doubt that much so-called love is very selfish,
and is not love at all. The love, for instance,
which leads a man to ruin a woman, and desert
her when he has gratified a temporary passion is
not love. It is not easy to distinguish it from the
deadliest hate. It is self-indulgence in its worst
shape. Now, all love is of the nature of self-
sacrifice. There are many things also to be borne
in mind. We have all not merely to think what
is the result to ourselves, but also to other persons,
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 125
some of whom may not yet be born. To love,
therefore, anyone really, truly, means that we are
putting ourselves in his place, loving him as
ourselves, that we desire for him the best, and give
up ourselves and our own pleasure in order to
secure it for him. This is true love, and wherever
you find it you find a spark of God. That is why
mothers are so much nearer God than anyone
else. They love more—that is, they are more
like God; it is they who keep the earth from
becoming a vast hell
Now, my darling, hold fast to this central
doctrine ; Love is God, God is love. The more
you love, the more you are like God. It is only
when we deeply, truly love, we find our true selves,
or that we see the Divine in the person loved.
Oh, Ellen, Ellen! if I could come back and speak
in the ears of the children of men, I think I should
wish to say nothing but this—Love! Love is the
fulfilling of the law, love is the seeing of the face
of God. Love is God, God is love. If you wish
to be with God—love! If you wish to be in
heaven—love! For heaven differs chiefly from
hell in that in heaven all love up to the full measure
of their being, and all growth in grace is growth
in love. Love! love! love! That is the first
work and the last word. There is none beside
that, for God, who is love, is all in all, the Alpha
a the Omega, the first and the last word.—
ulia
IMPRESSIONS OF ONE JUST PASSED
OVER.
- You know my head is still a little in
the clouds, as you would say, in time I shall be
able to do more practical work. The wonder and
126 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
light here are a little bewildering at first, and I
have not tried all my new powers. Where the
need is the help is at hand. There was a wonderful
thing here yesterday. 1 can only describe it to
you as a sort of service—but not like anything
with you really—and the result has been to make it
a little difficult to think of anything but the attri-
butes of God. I have never understood before
the value and wonder of a man, or the reality of
faith and hope, or what a mere shadow pain is
and how soon dispelled by the sun. ‘If it were
only possible for you to see with my eyes for only a
moment and to realise the great Kindness—but
you have to carry on where you are, and I shall be
always so near, nearer than ever before, for what
separates is matter, and | have done with that, and
so am nearer and always will be. Later, when
you are further from my death and nearer to my
life, you will feel me nearer and share in my
great joy . . . I love you all far more than
before. Death is glorious and life here a song of
triumph, no words mean what I mean.
I look back to my own death as a very wonder-
ful experience, one which I should like to repeat.
In this place of peace and understanding there is a
joyful recognition of many things which have
only been seen very dimly and intermittently
before. You do not feel you have come to a
strange place, but as if you had come home.
There is a moment, just before one understands,
when one regrets what one thinks will be a separa-
tion from the old days; it is the same kind of
grief which you feel now, but it seems impossible
to find words for the actual change which takes
place. . . . It is true that in a long death the
mind turns to losses and cannot yet comprehend
the gan . . . The fear of the dark dis-
appears with the coming of light. Nothing will
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 127
be lost; I can see ea here the various kinds of
links which bind people moet none of them
breakable by such a thing as d
Very hard work just now, ne i needed,
so I have only come to pass the time of day with
you. I am very interested in the development of
this ; you will find it will make great changes of
thought in the world, if only men of sense will
listen. . . . Think of me as always taking a
deep interest in all that concerns you, for one
forgets nothing here and yet one remembers
without any of the pain which your memories
have. Perhaps this is because you are all building
castles in the dark, and from here we can see the
result and how happy you will be in them when
they are finished. All that you value in the old
life, all real things, love, friendship, beauty,
bei mieeng 7 books, thoughts and feelings, you
will bring here with you to weave into the new
life, peng is full of beauties and joys which have
not entered into the heart of man in your state
yet. I won't say good-bye because I do not go
away, | am only turning the current into another
channel.
One of the things I have learnt in these
months is the immense power of thought. You
can see from here how people change and mould
themselves by their thoughts. . . . This war
is spiritual as well as material ; it is amazing to see
the spiritual war waged from here, the other is
pale beside it. But the forces of good are undying,
immortal.
I have a great deal to say, but I don’t think it
is the right time to say it yet.—Zhe Greater
Understanding.
I am over the Border, but I am in constant
communication with you on the earth-side. To
128 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
me this has been a means of great blessing.
cannot conceive how anyone can consider that
such communications can possibly retard growth.
Growth depends upon love and service ;_and you
limit the area of both when you put a wall of iron
between the spheres. The conception of earth
as a geographical place is very material. You
think too much in matter. You cannot realise
that to me and to all on this side you are spirit-
fogged in a little body limited and conditioned by
that fog. But the real self is spirit, not flesh-fog,
and life is ministry and sacrifice and service and
love. As, therefore, this means of communication
enables me to minister to and serve those whom |
loved, who are often sorely pressed and troubled,
you can see how absurd is the doctrine that it is a
hindrance to development.—Julia.
THE AWAKENING OF WILBERFORCE,
THROUGH STAINTON MOSES.
When my spirit awoke to consciousness of the
eternal life and its surroundings I found myself
in company with bright and blessed angels, the
ministers to me of the abounding mercy of my
God. The shock that severed me from earth
had been so sudden that at first I was not conscious
that I was in the world of spirits. But my dear
father made himself known, and convinced me
that I was indeed alive and amongst the ranks of
the shining ones. With him was my dear mother ;
and they were joined after by the pure spirit of
Keble, and philanthropic souls who delight to
gather around him aie on earth was a chie
amongst men in philanthropy and deeds of love.
By them I was conducted to the home where my
guardians rest. From them I learn that which is
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 129
requisite for me, and am taught to put aside much
that I once thought of vital moment. Ah! how
easily does the spirit put away the opinions of earth
to which it so fondly clung! Through my guar-
dians I received the request that | would put
myself into communication with you. It was
conveyed to me through your presiding spirit,
who now writes for me. I complied with joy,
and am now pleased beyond measure that I can
touch the plane where so many so dear to me still
live; though, alas! alas! I cannot reach them.
hey know not; and will not learn as yet. Since
I left the earth I have been occupied in learning my
work, and in preparing mpea for the life of
progress to which my being is now devoted.
Already, under the guidance of my guardians, |
have passed through the first sphere, where are
gathered those who are bound to earth by the
affections, or are unable to rise as yet. There I
saw some whom | had known in. the body, and
learned from them, and from others, much that
I needed to know. My work will be of a similar
sort till I reach my appointed sphere.
THE SOUL AFTER DEATH.
When the soul leaves the body it remains
exactly the same as when it was in the body; the
soul, which is the only real self, and which uses
the mind and the body as its instruments, no longer
has the use or the need of the body. But it
retains the mind, the knowledge, the experience,
the habits Ne thought, the inclinations; they
remain exactly as they were. Only it often happens
that the gradual decay of the fleshy envelope to
some extent obscures and impairs the real self
I
130 Tue SpirRITUALISTS’ READER
which is liberated by death. The most extra-
ordinary thing which came to my knowledge
when I passed over was the difference between the
apparent man and the real self.
It gave quite a new meaning to the warning,
‘Judge not,”’ for the real self is built up even more
by the use it makes of the mind than by the use it
makes of the body. There are here men who
seemed to be vile and filthy to their fellows, who
are far, far, far superior, even in purity and holiness,
to men who in life kept an outward veneer of
apparent goodness while the mind rioted in all
wantonness. It is the mind that makes character.
It is the mind that is far more active, more potent
than the body, which is but a poor instrument
at best. Hence the thoughts and intents of the
heart, the imaginations of the mind, these are the
things by which we are judged; for it is they
which make up and create as it were the real
character of the inner self, which becomes visible
after the leaving of the body.—Julia.
JULIA’S AFTER-DEATH NARRATIVE.
When you die a change takes place that differs
so much in different cases that I think I had better
begin by describing as clearly as possible what is
felt by the person who dies. In my letters I have
told you how I felt. There was no pain, no shock,
no sensation at all save that of waking up out of a
deep sleep, perfectly well. That was my experi-
ence, and it was a very happy one. It is a very
common one, but it is not universal. There are
many ways of passing from your side to ours.
f these the most general is painless waking up,
and the first sensation is one of rest, of relief, and
Tue SpirITUALIsts’ READER 131
of peace. The dead—for I fear I must use that
misleading word—in almost all cases where death
has been unexpected, does not realise the change
that has taken place. His only idea is that he has
suddenly recovered. Physical pain drops off you
like a garment with the body which you have left
behind, you wake up well, and your first impres-
sion is one of delight ; just the same as when you
wake up from a bad dream and discover that it
was only a dream. So simple, so natural does
this seem, that you almost always mistake what has
taken place. I did, as you know. And I find it
is a common experience. Many refuse to believe
they are dead. It is, of course, true’ that they
are not dead. They have all their faculties: they
see, they hear, they move hither and thither.
Everything seems the same to them as before.
Their first realisation of the change that has taken
place is a kind of shock to them. “So -this is
death. Then if so, there is no such thing as death !””
For it is so entirely different from what we imagined.
We imagine that life, our life, ends with the death
of the body. What you learn here is that the
span of life spent in the earth-body is but a small
segment of the great circle of existence. You go
on. You never stop. Sometimes you sleep, but
you always wake.
When the man dies he wakes up himself and
no other. He is still he, she, she. If a child, he
wakes up a child; if an old man, he wakes up an
old man. If it were not so you would lose your
identity and imagine that you have been incarnated
in another body.
When a new-born babe passes over, conscious-
ness has hardly begun on the earth. It is really
born into this world rather than into yours. It
has had no earth-experience, no memory of this
132 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
side. There is another class which at first at
least have no memory of their earth-life.
I told you yesterday that some, like little
children, are unconscious of any life but this.
And there are others who are unconscious for a
long time. There are some who suffer violent
deaths, who seem, as it were, stunned when they
come here, and do not recover consciousness until
the funeral rites are over, and they are forgotten
among men. The reason why men have in every
age made great to-do about funeral ceremonial is
not merely to express sorrow, it is to advertise to
the dead the change that has taken place. The
disembodied soul who wakes up to find his body
gone and life going on in the home as before, he
being consciously still present, and alive in the
midst of it, does not realise that he is dead, and
sometimes it is quite a long time before he is
aroused to his true condition. He is annoyed
that his folk do not see him nor answer him, and
he feels as if he were in a kind of bewildered
dream. There he continues until some spirit
can convince him. Of course this occurs mostly
with those who have not realised the existence of
this world, or who have imagined it so different ;
they cannot recognise the truth that they are still
in the same world after death. Death seems
denied in two ways: First, the outward visible
world has undergone no change ; ;_ and secondly,
they retain unbroken continuity of consciousness,
they are themselves, and realise their identity as
much as they do on earth after they undress at
night.—Julia.
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 133
AWAKENING IN SPIRIT LIFE.
What first convinced me that something had
happened was the sight of my old body. After
that came the discovery that my nurse did not see
me nor hear me, but wept about my body as if
that were myself. This is what usually happens.
he passing soul, which retains consciousness, sees
the body which it had inhabited lying inert. The
snapping of consciousness between the soul and the
tenement, if I may so speak of it, is usually not felt
by the soul. With some it is different. They feel
as if it were the slow breaking, one by one, of the
threads which connect the soul with its tenement ;
but the process is not painful, even when it is pro-
tracted. I have spoken to many on the subject,
and the majority tell me that their experience agrees
with mine. They could not even say that they
could remember the exact moment when the body
arted company with their soul. Some say that they
left the body before it ceased to breathe, others that
they lingered behind for a time after physical life
had ended. But these are exceptions. The im-
mense majority here say the same thing. They
were asleep ; they found themselves awake and well,
in the same place where they fell asleep, and at first
they could not realise they had died. And this is
the case even when, as in some churches, the dying
have been prepared for death by the last solemn
rites. They knew that they were going to die, but
they did not expect that dying was waking up quite
well, with all their old faculties and memories, in the
same place where they fell asleep, and this always
is a source of astonishment, of bewilderment, to
them at first. Many think it is a pleasant dream to
be well, and dread waking up to the old pain and
134 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
weakness. All that I have written relates to the
immediate moment after waking, and to the experi-
ences of the majority. There are many, very many
exceptions. But, as a rule, death is a painless wak-
ing up in health, and the first emotion is bewildered
astonishment.
When the newly arrived have had many
friends, relatives, or those whom they have loved on
this side, they find them waiting for them. Especi-
ally when they have kept thinking of or praying for
them. Forgetfulness separates here as there. But
all whose minds and hearts have been closely knit
in love with those on this side find their loved ones
waiting. And yet so great is the difference between
what is and what they expected that even when they
are welcomed on this side by those whom they knew
to have been long ‘‘dead,”’ it is to them as a dream.
Bewilderment, surprise are the first sensations.
When I came over you will remember I was at first
quite alone, when | was allowed by my experience
with the nurse to discover for myself what had
happened, and then came the angel who took me
apparently a long, long way to my relations and
friends. This is sometimes the case and sometimes
not. Sometimes even before the soul leaves the
body it hears the welcome sound of the voices
loved and lost, sees the angels and hears the music
of the spheres. But these cases are comparatively
few. Not until the body is cast off like a worn-out
garment do you begin to see, hear and understand
the new life.—Julia.
HELL IS REMEDIAL.
You may shrink from it, but it is not the less
true that sometimes the parting spirit finds itself
in outer darkness in which it sees and feels nothing
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 135
but a dread lostness, a desolation which oppresses,
and which is described as Hell. And Hell is no
fiction. And Hell awaits those who have built it
for themselves, as surely as Heaven awaits those
who have built it for themselves. No, for I must
notice your insistent question. Not a hell that is
punitive except incidentally. Believe me, the law
of the Universe which is God, is Love, and no
pain on this side or that is ever inflicted on anyone
excepting in such a way that out of that pain and
sorrow may spring joy and gladness of heart.
And Hell is a great remedial agency. You see
here the result of your life’s works, thoughts,
deeds. What you have sown you reap here. And
you must not imagine that the law is here less stern
than with you. It is not felt to be so stern because
it is more easily understood. And the people who
find themselves in Hell when they open their eyes
in the darkness find the Beneficence and the
Mercy of God even in their affliction. You do
not realise the exceeding sinfulness of sin until you
see its results. And on earth they are often hidden.
Here they are revealed. You see what you have
been doing. And the sight is often appalling.
And as those who love have before them waiting
the dear ones whom they loved, so those who
hated, or injured or neglected, they also will find
on thia side their victims, who need no whip of
torment to scourge the sinner, but only to reveal
to him, ‘ ‘See thy handiwork. This thou hast
made of me.’ —Julia.
FRIENDS FOR THE FRIENDLESS.
_ When the disembodied soul arrives here there
is often an awkward pause. The new world into
which he has entered is strange, and he is a stranger.
136 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
But the Agency which is at work here soon dis-
covers what soul is friendless and alone. The
angel who came to me was the servant of this
ency. The pause which is awkward is not
longer than is necessary for the good of the new-
comer. When he arrives he will, after this pause
time, if there is no preparation personal to himself,
be addressed by the Receiving Angel, who, as I
explained, may or may not assume wings as
credentials. If the arrival is prepared to receive
the news of his awakening there is little difficulty.
There was none in my own, and I was at once taken
to those whom I knew. None of them were very
near and dear to me, or they would have been
waiting for me. But there are millions of men and
women who arrive here to whom the discovery of
the existence of life after death is a stunning shock.
They have argued themselves into a conviction
that death ends all, and the discovery that it
begins all over again makes them often angry, and
sometimes they refuse to listen to any guidance or
counsel. They are then left to themselves to find
out by personal experience the facts (1) That they
are still living entities in the same world, althoug
on a different plane; (2) That the laws of the new
world need to be learned if they would advance to
the better life that lies before them. There are
manytowhom thelight of thenew life, whichis Love,
manifesting itself and manifested, appeals at once.
They are in their element, and rejoice exceedingly
to be at home in Heaven, at home with God Who
is Love. But those whose acrid temperament and
selfish disposition have gradually made them
loveless and utterly self-seeking, find themselves in
this world like blind men in presence of the glory
of sunrise. It is there, flooding the world with
colour and splendour, but all its radiance does not
exist for him because his optic nerve is destroyed.
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 137
The optic nerve of the soul is unselfish love;
with that one can see God, can enter Heaven.
I use the terms which use has consecrated. For
the arbitrary division, Heaven and Hell, although
pomeapeete to the truth in its crude essence,
is very far from representing things as they are.
Yet possibly it would d have been difficult to make
men realise the difference except by sharp contrasts.
Heaven shades off into Hell, Hell shades off into
Heaven, by a million imperceptible gradations.
Between the two there is no great gulf fixed, as is
suggested in the parable of Lazarus. For the
Borderland which divides the two is crossed by
innumerable paths, along which the dwellers in
Heaven are perpetually leading those who were
spirits in prison, to whom those of us who are in
the light of the Love of God are preaching.
Preaching in this sense, that of loving and making
them believe in love, and causing them to love.
As I wrote, the joy of Heaven is emptying Hell,
and I never wrote a truer word. The task is
not an easy one, but what infinite joy there is
when the darkened eye is opened, and a soul
begins to live! This world is like your world,
only the things of the spirit are visible, and the
dulling mask of matter is no longer here to obscure
the vision of the soul.
The fate of the loveless soul is a sad one.
But there is no despair. Nor do we ever regard
any one as hopeless. Many are so blind it seems
as if the eye had entirely disappeared. But we
never give up. And in the end all will come into
the Light of the Love of God. But there are
degrees of this Light. Between the grey confines
of the Borderland, between Heaven and Hell and
the radiant glories of the spheres where souls per-
fected in the Love of God and man are to be
found, there is an infinity of space. And we grow
138 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
and evolve more and more in the realising sense of
the glory that suffuses the world and all the universe
of worlds.—Julia.
FIRST EXPERIENCE IN THE BEYOND.
I have told you a little about the journey and
arrival, and I want now to tell you my first impres-
sion and a few experiences. I must begin by
saying I do not know how long after the collision
these experiences took place. It seemed to be a
continuation without any break, but I cannot be
certain that this was so.
I found myself in company with two old
friends, one of them my father. He came to be
with me to help and generally show me round.
It was like nothing else so much as merely arriving
im a foreign country and having a chum to go
around with. That was the principal sensation.
The scene from which we had so lately come was
already well relegated to the past. Having
accepted the change of death, all the horror of our
late experience had gone. It might have been
fifty years ago instead of, perhaps, only last night.
onsequently our pleasure in the new land was
not marred by grief at being parted from earth
friends. I will not say that none were unhappy,
many were; but that was because they did not
understand the nearness of the two worlds; they
did not know what was possible, but to those who
understood the possibilities, it was in a sense
the feeling, “Let us enjoy a little of this new land
before mailing our news home”; therefore there
was little grief on our arrival.
_ In writing my first experiences I am going to
give a certain amount of detail. My old sense of
TuHeE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 139
humour is still with me, I am glad to say, and I
know that what I have to say now will cause a
certain amount of amusement to those who treat
this subject lightly, but that I do not mind.
am glad they will find something to smile at—it
will make an impression on them that way, and
then when their own time comes for the change
they will recognise themselves amongst the condi-
tions of which I am going to write. Therefore,
to that kind of sceptic I just say, “It’s all right,
friend,” and ‘““You give no offence.”
My father and I, with my friend also, set out
immediately. A curious thing struck me. I was
clothed exactly as I had been, and it seemed a
little strange to me to think I had brought my
clothing with me! There’s number one, Mr.
Sceptic !
My father was also dressed as | had always
known him. Everything and everybody appeared
to be quite normal—quite as on earth. We went
out together and had refreshment at once, and,
naturally, that was followed by much discussion
about our mutual friends on both sides. I was
able to give them news and they gave me informa-
tion about our friends and also about the condi-
tions ruling in this new country.
Another thing which struck me was the
general colouring of the place; of England it
would be difficult to say what the impression of
colouring is, but | suppose it would be considered
grey-green. Here there was no uncertainty about
the impression ; it was undoubtedly a blue which
predominated. A light shade of a deep blue.
do not mean the people, trees, houses, etc., etc.,
were all BLUE; but the general impression was
that of a blue land.
140 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
I commented upon this to my father—who,
by the way, was considerably more active and
younger than he was at time of death, we looked
more like brothers. I spoke of this impression
of blue, and he explained that it was so in a sense.
There was a great predominance of blue rays in
the light, and that was why it was so wonderful a
place for mental recovery. Now some say, “How
completely foolish!’ Well, have you not on
earth certain places considered especially good
for this or that ailment? . . . Then bring
commonsense to bear, and realise that the next
step after death is only a very little one. You do
not go from indifferent manhood to perfect godli-
ness! It is not like that; it is all progress and
evolution, and as with people, so with lands.
The next world is only a complement of your
present one.
We were a quaint population in that country.
There were people of all conditions, of all colours,
all races and all sizes: all went about freely
together, but there was a great sense of caring
only for oneself, self-absorption. A bad thing on
earth, but a necessary thing here, both for the
general and individual good. There would be no
progress or recovery in this land without it. As a
result of this absorption there was a general peace
amongst these many people, and this peace would
not have been attained without this self-centredness.
No one took notice of any other. Each stood for
himself, and was almost unaware of all the others.
There were not many people whom I knew.
Most of those who came to meet me had dis-
appeared again, and I saw scarcely any I knew,
except my two companions. I was not sorry for
this. It gave me more chance of appreciating all
this new scene before me. There was the sea
THE SpiriTuALists’ READER 141
where we were, and I and my companions went
for a long walk together along the shore. It was
not like one of your seaside resorts, with promenade
and band; it was a peaceful and lovely spot.
There were some very big buildings on our right
and on our left was the sea. All was light and
bright, and again this blue atmosphere was very
marked. I do not know how far we went, but
we talked incessantly of our new conditions and
of my own folk at home and of the possibility of
letting them know how it fared with me, and I
think we must have gone a long way. If you can
imagine what your world would look like if it
‘were compressed into a place, say, the size of
England—with some of all people, all climates,
all scenery, all buildings, all animals—then you
can, perhaps, form an idea of this place I was in.
It must all sound very unreal and dreamlike, but
believe me, it was only like being in a foreign
country and nothing else, except that it was
absorbingly interesting.
I want to give you a picture of this new land
without going too deeply into the minute details.
We arrived at length at a huge building, circular
and with a great dome. Its general appearance
was of a dome only—on legs—I mean a great
dome supported on vast columns, circular and
very big. This again, in the interior, was an
amides lovely blue. It was not a fantastic
structure in any way. It was just a beautiful
building, as you have on earth—do not imagine
anything fairylike; it was not. This blue was
ain very predominant, and it gave me a feeling
a energy. I wanted immediately to write. I
would like to have been a poet at that moment,
but as it was I just wanted to express myself
with pen and ink.
142 Tue SpIRITUALIsTs’ READER
We stayed there some time and had refresh-
ment very similar, it seemed to me, to what I
had always known, only there was no flesh food.
Everything appeared quite normal there, too, and
the absence of some things which would on earth
have been present was not noticed. The curious
thing was that the meal did not seem at all a
necessity—it was there, and we all partook of it
lightly, but it was more from habit than need—
I seemed to draw much more strength and ener
out of the atmosphere itself. This | attribut
to the colour and air. It was while we were in
this place that my father explained the reason and
work of the different buildings I had noted on our
walk together.*—W. T. Stead in “The Blue
seen id
a fine voice seance some time after this book appeared I asked
Mr. Pia) if I could rely upon this account. He replied at once, “ Twenty-
five per cent. was the medium.’—A.C.D.
SOME MESSAGES FROM RAYMOND.
[The confusion of “I’’ and “You” is caused
by alternate talk of the spirit and of the spirit
control.]
Tell them I am very happy, very well and
plenty to do, and intensely interested. I did
suffer from shock at first, but I am extremely
happy now.
You do not feel so real as people do where he
is, and walls appear transparent to him now. The
great thing that made him reconciled to his new
surroundings was that things appear so solid and
substantial. The first person to meet him was
grandfather, and others then, some of whom he
had only heard about. They all appeared to be
so solid that he could scarcely believe that he had
passed over.
THE SpirRiTUALISTS’ READER 143
He lives in a house . . . and there are
trees and flowers, and the ground is solid. And if
you kneel down in the mud apparently you get
your clothes soiled. . . The night doesn’t
follow the day here as in the earth-plane. It
seems to get dark sometimes when he would wish
it to be dark, but the time in between light and
dark is not always the same.
There is something always rising from the
earth-plane, something chemical in form. As it
rises to ours it goes through various changes and
solidifies on our plane. He feels sure that it is
something given off from the earth that makes the
solid trees, flowers, etc.
I am told that I can meet anyone at any time
I want to. There is no difficulty. That is what
makes it such a jolly fine place to live in.
It is interesting . . . much more than
on the old earth-plane. 1 wish you could come
over for one day and be with me here. They
have all been over with him at night, but he
thought it very hard you could not remember.
If you did he is told the brain would scarcely bear
the burden of the double existence, and would be
unfitted for its daily duties, so the memory is
shut out.
Keep jolly, or it hurts me horribly. Truly
I know it is difficult, but you must know by now
I am so splendid.
Tell mother she has her son back with her on
Xmas Day. There will be thousands and thousands
of us back in our homes that day, but the horrid
part of it is that so many of the fellows don’t get
welcomed. Please keep a place for me.
Following on this line of thought Paul
Kennedy, a spirit friend of Raymond’s, said, “It
144 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
is revolting to hear the boys tell you how no one
speaks to them ever. It hurts me through and
through.” —*‘ Raymond.”
NOTES FROM HOME CIRCLE,
For God's sake strike at these people, these
dolts who will not believe. The world so needs
this knowledge. If I had only known this on
earth it would have so altered my life—the sun
would have shone on my grey path had I known
what lay before me.
Nothing jars over here. There are no cross-
currents. I am interested in many things, mostly
human, the progress of human development,
above all the regeneration of the earth-plane. I
am one of those who are working for the cause on
this side hand in glove with you.
Never fear, the light will be the greater for
the darkness you have passed through. It will
come very soon, as God wills it. Nothing can
stand against that. No powers of darkness can
stand for one minute against His light. All the
crowd working against it will be swept away.
Lean more on us, for our power to help is very
great.
[Where are you? ]
It is so difficult to explain to you the conditions
over here. I am where I would most wish to be,
that is, with my loved ones, where I can keep in
close touch with you all on the earth-plane.
[Have you food ? }
Not in your sense, but much nicer. Such
lovely essences and wonderful fruits and other
things besides, which you don’t have on earth.
Tue SprIrRiITUALists’ READER 145
Much awaits you which will very much
surprise you, all beautiful and high, and so sweet
and sunny. Life was a preparation for this sphere.
Without that training I could not have been able
to enter this glorious wonderful world. The
earth is where we learn our lessons, and this
world is our great reward, our true and real home
and life—the sunshine after the rain.—Editor's
Home Circle, Lady Doyle, Medium.
THE RESCUE OF A DARK SOUL.
An undeveloped spirit, Oct. 11th, 1922.
[Do you believe in God ? }
No!
[Poor fellow. I fear, then, you are in darkness
and trouble. Can we help you? ]
[A relative intervening.] He says he is coming
again to talk to you. He says you are the only
humans who have spoken kindly to him. We will
help also, but he is earth-bound, and so you can
help him best. He has not been over very long.
The light will soon shine for him also. He was a
Materialist. rs te ee
The Undeveloped Spirit: Friend, thank you
with all my heart. I will take care of the medium
and not abuse your trust.
October 12th.
[I hope you are happier.]
You have helped me already, kind sir. Please
go on helping me. You are the only one who has
since I left the earth, and I do need help badly.
[We will stand by you.]
Bless you for saying that.
[Can you hear and see ? ]
146 Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
I hear every word. I see you, too in this
beautiful home. I did not believe in a future
life. Now I know I was all wrong, and I am all at
sea in finding myself over here.
Please say anything that will help me, friend.
I am ready to listen, for my eyes are opened.
[I fear you are in the gray circles.]
Yes, it is all, all gray. That is the awful
part of it. Our surroundings are so horrible.
[We will soon have you out.]
For God's sake tell me how.
[Then you do believe in God ! ]
Oh, I do, I do! I see it for myself.
[You will soon come along now.}
Bless you for saying so. I'll try. That
would, indeed, be great. May it come soon. I'll
say it with you now. (Joined in the Lord's
Prayer.) 1 just didn’t care. But, oh, how deeply
I regret it. Your words have encouraged me more
than I can say.
[Can you tell us of yourself ? }
Not now. Please help me in my _ present
plight. My name was Peter—Peter Johnson.
My mind is open to any idea. You encourage
me so. I shall feel less lonely if I talk to you as
often as you can spare the time. Thank you with
all my heart.
[Tell us more detail.]
In good time that may come. Let me get
right first. Already it is easier. A little light
seems to glimmer in the dark.
October 19th.
Oh, I am so much better, dear, kind friends.
I am trying very hard to go uphill. I begin to
see how wrong I have been. My mind is learning
Tue SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 147
many great truths. I have seen my own dear
mother who passed over many years ago. She:
says she has waited for me.
[Did you not see her before we spoke to you ? }
No. I was in too dark a place for even her
to penetrate.
[Don’t think only of yourself. Help others.]
I have already been able to help one poor
lonely soul, and he is better, too. All thanks to
your circle. I have lost all sense of time. I
don’t know how to say how long it is since my
death.
[Who was King ? ]
Oh, George !
_ Twill tell you more later if you will only keep:
in touch with me.
[Your mother can do the rest.]
Yes, but you can help me so tremendously.
Some day I hope | may repay you for what you
have done for me.—The Editor's Home Circle,
Lady Doyle, Medium.
THE RETURN OF THE IGNORANT.
This extraordinary experience took place as
Randall has described it in “The Dead Have
Never Died.”
“The room was in absolute darkness,’ he
writes, ‘‘and suddenly the voice of one called by
the world ‘ ‘dead,’ trembling with anger, broke:
upon the stillness of the night.
‘“By what right do you premme to compel
my presence in this house?’ the voice cried.
148 THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER
““Do you understand the situation in which
you find yourself?’ I asked
**T do not, and | will not allow any man to
dictate to me,’ he replied
**You are not afraid ?’ I asked.
“Afraid! I am not afraid of God or man,
and I will not remain here.’
‘lt might be to your advantage if you would,’
I answered. ‘I did not force you to come. ; You
are as much a stranger to me as I| am to you.
***Who did force me to come?’ he asked.
***T do not know ; tell me about it.’
***As it comes to me now,’ he answered, ‘an
irresistible force seemed to urge me from a dream-
like condition. Suddenly I was awake, in your
presence, and immediately concluded that in
some manner you controlled my conduct. That
I cannot permit.’
‘Before you go,’ I said, ‘I should like to
have you know something of the work we are
doing, which may account Be your coming. . .
For many years I have been engaged in psychical
research with this psychic who sits opposite me,
trying to obtain a practical solution of the great
physical change called death.
“**What has that to do with me? I am not
dead, or am I interested in the subject,’ he
answered.
66 6X
Y/ait a moment, please. You will be
interested when I tell you that I have discovered
something of the daily life and environment of the
individual after he has ceased to be an inhabitant
of the earth-plane. . . .
“**There is no such thing as life after death,’
he said.
Tue SprirRITUALIsts’ READER 149
*“*T am going to try to explain what life is,
before I give you absolute proof of what I state.
low follow me. At the moment of conception
an Atom of the Universal Force called ““Good”’ is
clothed with substance vibrating more slowly than
the life-force which is thus clothed. The individ-
ual is as perfect at the moment as the giant oak
tree in the heart of the acorn. We cannot see the
individual or the oak tree before or after birth and
growth. Life-force vibrates so fast that it is not
visible to the physical eye, but ultimately we see
the outer covering, that substance which makes
both possible. This outer garment of the individ-
ual is composed largely of water. This physical
y of ours changes once in seven years at least,
but with such change we retain individuality,
form and feature. How is this done?’ I asked.
***T don’t know, and I don’t care,” he answered.
“Follow me a little further, please. This
entity, this life-force, this individuality, this soul,
this ‘‘us,”’ if you like, is composed of matter,
differing only in the flesh substance in its vibra-
tory condition. This accounts for its permanenc
of form, but no physical eye ever saw or ever will
see this self, this spirit form, this soul so-called,
unless possessed of psychic sight with which,
speaking generally, few are endowed. Without
it one individual can never see the spirit form of
another while an inhabitant of this earth. We are
conscious only of physical expression and sound.
Now in dissolution from accident or physical
weakness the body covering that is visible to us is
no longer fit for habitation; then the separation,
dissolution—death, so-called—occurs ; the individ-
ual, through a natural process, releases itself from
the flesh garment, and stands forth the same man
or woman as before, though invisible to the
inhabitants of earth. They see but the old flesh
150 Tue Spirituauists’ READER
body which housed the spirit. They could not,
as I have said, see the true self before, or can they
see it after dissolution, because of the intensity,
because of the rapidity of the vibration of the
etheric body, for our eyes are limited to motion
as well as to distance.’
‘% I cannot accept a word you say
about a life after death. There is no other life—
there can be none—a man dies like a dog,’ said
the visitor . . . ‘we have all seen dead people,
have seen their bodies buried, and you tell me
there are no dead.’
‘Again I said, “You fail to understand what I
have been telling you. We bury the physical
bodies, but not the spirit bodies; one is just as
material as the other. . . . Now to begin
eee you know where you are at this moment ?
ell me if you know.’
‘“*T don’t seem to know. This is not my
home; the room is strange to me; you are
strange, too. It is all unreal.’ :
‘Listen to me. This frail little woman, over
eienty years old, who sits opposite me, is the most
ed psychic in the world. More than twenty
years ago it was discovered that under favourable
psychic conditions such as prevail to-night we
could have speech with spirit people.’
“ “But I am not one of these; the suggestion
is absurd, I tell you. I am as much alive as you,
and my body i is quite as substantial as yours, he
said.
‘ “Hold up your hand as I do mine, and see if
there is any difference between the two.’
“ ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘there is a difference, I
now discover. Yours is opaque, but mine is
transparent. I can see right through my hand.
{s this hypnotic suggestion ? ’
Tue SpiriTuALists’ READER 151
“No,” I said, ‘you are facing new conditions
to-night. Do you know that we sit in intense
darkness—and cannot see you, although we hear
your voice distinctly >”’
eee
I know,’ he answered, ‘that it is not dark,
for I can see you, and if I can see you, you can
see me; but never mind that; what is the matter
with my body? I think now T have been very ill,
and one always looks as I do after a long sickness,’
he ecliee
“Speaking of illness, what do you recall
shout your last illness ? ’
““*My memory seems hazy, but it is coming
back to me. I recall lying on a bed, the physician
waiting, my. wife and children | sobbing. The
doctor said, ““He is passing now.” That did give
me a start; there were some who would like to
see me dead—but I fooled them—for I did not
die. If I had died, how could I be here?’
‘*Suppose I tell you that you have already
made that change. . . . Suppose I now prove
it to you. Is there no one in the next life with
whom you would like to talk if you could > Remem-
ber that your sickness may have ended in dissolu-
tion (death); your body is different, and you
know you find yourself in a strange city.’
““*Things have changed, but I don’t want to
see or talk to dead people.’
see
, You have been so intent on our
conversation. | think you have not looked around
—look, what do you see ?
‘““*My God! People, people, pespiet All
strangers, and all looking at me, all with bodies
like my own ; what strange hallucination is this ?
Where am 1? Where am 1?'
152 THE SpIRITUALISTS’ READER
“*You are no longer an inhabitant of this
world, but are actually living in the after-life.
Are there none you know among those you see,
who, to your knowledge, are counted among the
dead, so-called >’ I asked
“*Not one; but wait, there comes—John—
my old partner. Why does he, of all men, come?
He is dead! I helped bury him! I was his
executor. Take him and that woman and the
boy away. I won't see them, I tell you. They
are dead, all dead. They are coming to arrest
me. How can they when they are all dead?
Tell me, tell me, tell me quick!"
“**What wrong did you do?’ I asked.
‘“*Wrong? Who said I did them any wrong ?
I was faithful to the trust.’
“In answer another spirit spoke. ‘No, you
were not faithful. You stole the money entrusted
to you for my wife and child, and left them to
suffer. There never was and never can be a
secret in the world. When you kept from my
loved ones that which I left for their support and
let them die in want, I saw, and all your friends
in spirit life saw your act and the working of your
reine
**No secret in the world ?. My crime known !
the dead alive! Have I too left my physical body,
to find that there are no secrets when I| thought
to find oblivion? Am I to meet all those I have
wronged ? I cannot face the future! Darkness is
gathering! I am falling! God help me!’
“The voice faltered, struggled for further
speech, and was lost. The gross material that
c cfothed his organs of respiration, disintegrated,
and he spoke no more.
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 153
“We had participated in one of the most
remarkable experiences that it has been the privi-
e of man to have. We had talked with one
o had left the physical body, and witnessed
his 7 pais "—Randall, ““The Dead Have Never
ied.
THE NATURE OF HELL.
Hell is not a place of revolt, but of resignation
to justice, and every soul within its wide dominion
learned from experience that the love of God is
as powerfully present here as in the highest heaven.
is recognition occasions, perhaps, one of the
sharpest pangs of hell—remorse that one has so
sely sinned against such unchanging affection,
which still pities where one would look for well-
merited revenge. Here sin is brought closely
home to the sinner as a wilful and deliberate act
against what is known to be right, or an equally
criminal refusal to protect the right: and the
purpose and mission of hell is understood to be
the best that eternal love and wisdom can devise to
effect a complete redemption from sin preparatory
to the assumption of Divine sonship. The first
stage of life has been woefully misunderstood,
misdirected, misapplied ; men in their ignorance
have presumed to interpret eternal laws by the
light of so-called human justice, which may be
tampered with, and is laradly influenced by speech,
caprice, or Sather weakness of earth. Because
does not erect a tribunal in every market
place and bring each offender forward to immediate
and public chastisement it is imagined that sin is
only punished in theory, and daring trespassers.
lift their heads high and race with breathless speed
from sin to sin. In all this men only add to their
154 THE SpIRITUALISTS’ READER
condemnation. They know and admit that
natural laws are not subject to caprice! You
cannot bribe fire not to burn a child, nor hold it
responsible for doing so on the ground of the
child’s ignorance. It is the nature of fire to burn—
it is also the nature of sin to punish. No man can
play with either without paying the inseparable
penalty.
Hell is God’s house of correction, modelled
to rescue the perishing and uplift the fallen, and
so true is it to model that no soul has yet passed
the portal until he has fully and freely made the
admission, “I have sinned!”
“Not one?” I queried.
No! Such a thing would be impossible.—
The Life Elysian.
RELATIVES IN THE BEYOND.
Of course we are all together. That is the
law of love over here. Mother is so busy, always
doing kind things for those who arrive here—
strangers. Just like her dear sweet self. She is
full of fun and sunshine.
You will have many animals in your home
here—so many. Several of those who died are
in your future home. I am so happy. I play in
an orchestra, and | enjoy it so much.
[What do you do?]
Music and children, loving and mothering
and lots more. Far, far more here than in the
gray old earth. Nothing in the people round ever
jars. That makes everything happier and more
complete.
[Tell us about your surroundings.]
Tue SpirRITUALIsts’ READER 155
It is lovely. I have never seen any house on
earth to compare with it. So many flowers—a
blaze of colour, and they have such wonderful
scents, each one different and all blending so
harmoniously. Then there are gorgeous butter-
flies, not afraid of one, so that one can go close up
and see all their beauty.
[Can you see other houses ? ]
No, it would spoil the peace. Nature only
is what one wants. Every house is an oasis.
Beyond is wonderful scenery and other sweet
homes full of dear sweet people, full of laughter
and joy from the mere fact of living in such wonder-
ful surroundings. No earthly mind can conceive
the light and wonder of it all —Editor’s Home Circle,
Lady Doyle, Medium.
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MEDIUMSHIP.
All channels of communication are limited by
purpose and capacity. It might be possible under
exceptional circumstances to use the same conduit
for water, gas and electricity, but it is by no means
advisable to do so. Every surgeon has most
confidence in his own instruments. If the music
is to be perfect Kubelik must play upon his own
violin and Paderewski upon his own piano: how
much more necessary is it that the instrument of
inter-communion between the two worlds shall
be set apart and delicately attuned to the special
music it will be required to play. The great need
of those in the beyond is for cence” worthy
and willing to be used in the mission : high, noble,
self-sacrificing souls who understand t e nature
and responsibility of the work, realise that only
purity and holiness will attract corresponding
156 Tue SpiriTuauists’ READER
agencies from without, always bearing in mind
that the nearer the angel messenger using the
instrument stands to God the greater will be the
strain his presence will put upon the organism
e employs. It is a high calling, and the man or
woman who enters upon it must do so prepared to
become “a living sacrifice, well pleasing unto God.”
Such instruments are rare, but when they are found,
those into whose care they are entrusted know
well their value and will not allow them to be
wrongfully or hurtfully handled.—The Life Elysian.
THE POSTMORTEM VALUE OF
CHARACTER.
Men miss the awful emphasis Christ places on
character because they forget that speaking from
the immortal side of life death to him was simply
an incident in existence, and not an end of it—a
veil he could thrust aside, passing in and out at
will. Neither King of Terrors nor Valley of the
Shadow exists for him, but his eyes look calmly
forward into the shadowless light of the eternal
day, and he carries forward into that to-morrow
the unbalanced account of life’s to-day. It is
this thought in his teaching which should make
men pause. There are many nights and days
between the sowing and the reaping, but whatso-
ever a man soweth in the Spring he shall reap in the
Autumn. There is only one accessory death has
no power to confiscate as the soul passes forward—
character. Beliefs, dogmas, creeds and profes-
sions will all be left behind, but character will
furnish the only permissible clothing with which
it may step into immortality. Its works have
preceded or will follow on and be produced in
THE SPIRITUALISTS’ READER 157
evidence in the judgment where “except your
righteousness shall exceed that of the Scribes
and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom
of Heaven.”—‘The Life Elysian.”
DEATH DOES NOT CHANGE CHARACTER.
There is a general idea amongst mankind
that by the simple process of dying we are trans-
lated into a condition of omniscience, and solve
every problem “in the twinkling of an eye.
It was with a sense of deepest gratitude that I
discovered the fallacy of such teachings, and the
wider my experience ranges the more astounded
I am that this preposterous assumption could ever
have eee 4 or found a sanction in the minds
of intelligent human beings. Every single ques-
tion I asked, every scene I beheld, every sound
heard had its own special revelation to make, and
the rapidity with which each successive wave of
information rolled over me allowed me no time
for recovery from the grandeur of its power and
scope. Be not deceived. God ever tempers the
wind to the shorn lamb. He knows our frame and
has ordained that our soul-expansion shall proceed
under conditions best suited to our state, and which
also tend to magnify His majesty and love. Know-
ledge can only be acquired as we have power to
assimilate every successive ents of truth; it
has no force, no energy unless applied, and the
man who tries to accumulate it without the corres-
ponding necessary strength to utilise the same
would, if successful, find that he had gathered
together and built an edifice which, for lack of
support, would fall and crush him in its ruin.
This iy to wield the weight of knowledge can
only come by steady growth.— ‘Through the Mists.”
158 THE SprriTuALists’ READER
SLEEP:
Where weariness is, sleep will come, and
where the one is not to be found there is no
necessity for the other. When you have been
toiling under the weight of a heavy burden you
may lay that down, but the fatigue it has occasioned
cannot be so easily laid beside it. When a sickness
has been struggled with and subdued, the conse-
quent prostration has still to be overcome; but
if that illness prove to be the victor, and secures
the divorcement of the soul from the body, think
you some miracle is wrought to overcome the
weariness of the struggle? Everything in nature
has its season of repose! Why should you expect
to find an exception in the case of a wearied soul ?
The conflict and the battle over, does it not require
recuperation and sleep to regain its healthful
vigour? “So He giveth His beloved sleep!” and
in that sleep the boundary is passed at which
weariness is compelled to say “Adieu.”
“Do all persons sleep on entering this life > "”
Not py sacu ne Sleep divides two states of
the soul’s development, as night divides two days.
Some persons, then they reach this life, have not
attained to such a standard as to dispense with it,
and their condition remains much the same as
formerly, until they reach one of the many “rest
homes, where they pass beyond the boundary
line, and then, pen beyond the ri of weariness,
never require to s again. hers again pass
the spiritual baat before ae the gr
and so make but a temporary stay Tae (in the
‘rest home’’) while growing accustomed to the
new mattis The en they pass on to higher
homes.—'‘Through the Mists.”
STRONG'S LIMITED, Prmwrass. Is Coormaz Sr., MancussTas:
Index.
A MEETING IN HEAVEN.
AFTER VICTORY
AIM OF tm MOVEMENT
ARE MANIFESTATIONS DESIRABLE |
A VIEW IN HEAVEN . .
ARRIVAL IN SPIRIT LIFE
AWAKENING IN SPIRIT LIFE .
CHRIST'S. ee
TIANITY
THEY SEE US
CONDITIONS OF THE OTHER LIFE —
CHRIST
CIRCLE OF EXPIATION
DIFFICULTY OF EXPRESSION ..
DYING? ss, © fa wa. Ge. * abe
DEATH) 5. own. 0%
DESIRE FOR LIFE ..
DARK SPIRITS
DAWN OF NEW LIFE
DEATH DOES NOT CHANGE CHARACTER >
EVIL bidy vin Wee eet ee 8
EFFECT OF OUR ACTIONS
ae OF seinbiaiaa
ANIMALS «.
FRIENDS FOR THE FRIENDLESS
FIRST EXPERIENCE IN THE BEYOND
GROWTH OF CHILDREN
oe”
HEALTH
a THE DARK SOULS
HOW THER FEELS IN THE BEYOND
HELL As‘ REMEDIAL
INTELLECT AND Sslasietee
INSPIRATION ..
IMMEDIATELY A EATH ..
IMPRESSIONS OF ONE ONE HUST PASSED OVER
J ware
JULIA TALKS .
JULLA's AFTER-DEATH NARRATIVE. .
LIFE IN THE BEYOND
LOVE vs ae
INDEX
MARRIAGE
NOTES FROM HOME CIRCLE ae
ORIGIN OF EVIL
ORTHODOXY ..__...
OTHER WORLD LIFE
OUTER DARKNESS ..
OUR NARROWNESS ..
OBJECT OF THE WAR
PROGRESS IN THE NEXT LIFE
POWERS OF THE SPIRIT...
PSYCHIC CONNECTIONS ..
POWER OF THOUGHT ..
POOR AND RICH _..
PROCESS OF DEATH
PAIN a
PASSING OVER
REINCARNATION
RELATIVES IN THE BEYOND ..
SPIRITUAL PHYSICIANS ..
SPIRIT AND MATTER...
SELF REVELATION ..
SPIRIT SENSES
SPIRIT LAW ..
SLEEP...
SEX :
SPIRIT LIMITATIONS .
SOME MESSAGES FROM RAYMOND ©
THE ATONEMENT .. :
THE JUDGMENT
THE FUTURE OF THE SCEPTIC
THE CHURCH .
‘TASKS IN THE BEYOND .
THE WORST EVIL
THE ARRIVAL wad SPIRITS
THE ORTHODO!
“THE AWAKENING OF WILBERFORCE.
THE SOUL AFTER DEATH ae
THE RESCUE OF A DARK SOUL :.
“THE RETURN OF THE IGNORANT .
THE NATURE OF HELL .
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MEDIUMSHIP _.
CTER
“THE POSTMORTEM VALUE OF CHARA
‘UNDEVELOPED SPIRITS ..
VISIONS .
oo AND MUSIC”
WORK IN SPIRIT ical
‘WHAT IS LIFE? _..
“WHAT THE AGE NEEDS .
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SSSR™ SSassres
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Uncharted Knowledge
Wisdom From Previous Realities
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