Dealings with the Dead/Part 1/Cynthia: The Soul-World
Cynthia: The Soul-World.
I purpose to say nothing whatever concerning my life as a denizen of the outside world—of my existence or career while clothed with the garments of mortality. It is of my death that first I wish to speak, and of what took place thereafter—of where and how I found myself as soon as the icy hand of Death had touched my heart, and frozen up my vitals. While with my friends, from whom the change separated me, I was, so far as frail mortals in my condition of bodily health can be, quite happy and contented—contented to endure, with all possible patience, that for which there was no medicament, no remedy; and, all things considered, satisfied I lived, and in the self-same spirit died. Died? No; I am not dead!—bodies change; souls can never die. Why? For the reason that God, who, like human beings, is intelligent and immortal, can Himself be never blotted out of being. He is Mind, Memory, Love, and Will, not one of which can ever perish; and these being the attributes of man likewise, it follows that, so long as He exists, we must also.
In the year 1854, being ill of consumption, the person, an account of whose experience is given in these pages, although long previously somewhat familiar with, began to take an especial interest in the great subject of an hereafter, as revealed by what purported to be the spirits of departed men and women; and then, for the first time, as Death's cold presence sensibly approached me afar off, and the sense of going began to quicken in my being, I commenced seriously to speculate concerning immortality, and to pay greater heed to the alleged revelations from the mysterious Beyond.
Bye-and-bye, consumption so wasted me, that I grew tired; and finally, a mist came before my eyes, and shut out the fields, the forests, and the faces of my friends,—my friends—none dearer than whom, were ever clasped to affection's warm heart. * * * * And so I slept,—but woke again from out of that strange, deep sleep, called Death. The awakening was very strange!—was such as I had never even imagined to be possible.
"Where am I?" was asked by myself of that very self. Not mine, but a lower, sweeter, more musical voice, soft and dulcet as the tinkle of a love bell, answered me from out a veil of rosy light, that hung between me, and, whatever was beyond. "In the Divine City of freed souls,—the land of Immortal, but not Eternal rest." * * * * I felt, and knew that I was—dead!
As the sense of these words struck upon, my soul where this voice came from, seemed very strange to me, for this reason amongst others: I had, to a certain extent, familiarized myself with Physics, and knew that sounds were supposed to be the result of certain aerial vibrations. Now, supposing this theory to be correct, it struck me, that I, a disembodied soul, ought not to be competent to discern sounds, for there was neither tympanum to receive, auditory nerves to conduct, nor external ear, to collect these waves of sound.
It seemed to me, that one of the two prevalent theories must be false; either sound is not material, or that the Spirit of a human being is;—for I had not the shadow of a doubt, but that I was really, and forever, an inhabitant of the soul-world. If sounds are material, how was it possible for me to hear them, being a Spirit? If a Spirit is but a refined form of matter, then the notion of its eternal durability, is a false one, and there must come a period when it too, like the body, must dissolve away. These things troubled me. I had passed to death, not as a sluggard, and careless of what might await me, but with every faculty keenly awake. Nor do I suppose five minutes elapsed after I emerged from my body, ere I was perfectly alive to all that surrounded me.
I distinctly saw certain familiar things, and recognized them; but there was not any difficulty in comprehending the rationale of this; for I perceived that solar light was not the only source of illumination the earth possessed. Indeed, there is no such thing as darkness. The life of all things is light, and although sun, moon, and stars should hide behind an impenetrable veil, yet the things of earth would still be visible to the sight of the soul.
There are two other sources of light; first, the electrical emanations from every material object illumine them, and whatever may be near; and second, the air itself, which fleshly lungs inhale, is but the outer garb of a finer and magnetic sea, which not only encircles the earth, but stretches away in all directions to the outer limits of creation; and in this, all things are radiant, all things visible.
These observation? were quickly made; and in an instant thereafter, I turned toward the fleecy veil previously observed, and saw the figure of an old, gray-haired man emerge therefrom, leading by the hand, a sweet and lovely girl apparently about ten years old. The gleesome smile on that angel's face, the look of bland benevolence on the features of the man, surpassed aught of the kind that I had ever seen before. Both of them approached, and greeted me. I could not return the salutation, because the strangeness and utter novelty, not only of my new situation, but of my sensations, were such that it was impossible to act as in other moments, I feel certain I should have been prompted to. The man spoke, and called me "daughter." The tones were precisely those I had formerly heard; and two things surprised me: First, their serene and liquid melody,—so very different from those one would naturally expect to hear from one of his appearance; and second, that very appearance itself: for both the man and child were clothed after the manner and fashion of the earth.
This was a matter of astonishment, for I had supposed that the clothing of the Spirit was vastly different from that of the body. Evidently, the old man read my mind, and understood the cause of my perplexity. Drawing near to where I stood, he touched my forehead with his finger, and said, "Be clear, my child, be clear."
As if that touch were magic, there came an instantaneous change over me; it was as if I thought to the point I wished, and that with perfect clarity. Things, which a moment before were wrapped in the folds of mystery, now became transparent as the plainest I could wish.
As a matter of course, I took notice of the friends I had just left behind me—yes, behind me, in what was now in very truth a far-off world:—even though not ten yards intervened between myself and the dear ones, who now mourned me; yet in presence of the fact that I have very momentous revelations to make,—revelations that will startle the world,—I cannot now stop to relate my emotions, my Borrows or my joys, for I felt that at last I was in the realm of pure knowledge; and now feel that this precious opportunity must be improved, to other ends than a mere recital of my emotions and sympathies however acute and tender they may have been.
The communication between the soul-world and earth is far more difficult and rare than I had believed, or than thousands believe to-day. Much, I learned, that passes among men for spiritual manifestation, really has no such origin, while many things, attributed to an origin purely mundane, are really the work of intelligent beings, beyond the misty veil.
Long previous to my final illness, I had held many interesting conversations with my friends, concerning the higher life and worlds, and particularly with the one by whose aid I am now enabled to make these disclosures; and I had made a solemn compact, to the effect, that if it were possible to return subsequent to death, I would do so, and, reveal such mysteries as I might be enabled or permitted to. This resolution grew out of the fact, that not one of the theories, regarding the post mortem existence of human kind, which I had ever heard or read, gave me the satisfaction that my soul desired. I suspected that many of the current notions regarding the lands beyond the curtain, were, to say the least, largely tinctured with the mind of the individuals through whose lips the oracular utterances came; consequently I became, to a degree, suspicious of all modern eolism and eolists, because I feared their inspirations had not so high and deep a source as they claimed, and is claimed for them.
My mind, in this respect, is still unchanged. The first lesson that flashed in upon me, after the mysterious clarification of soul to which allusion has been made, was this: People on earth spend a great deal of time in acquiring lessons which have to be unlearned, upon their entrance on the upper life;—must be unlearned, ere they can advance far in the acquisition of the rare treasures of knowledge, to be found only by the true seeker, even in that mighty realm which constitutes the soul-world.
God has placed all true human joys, there, as well as on the earth, upon high shelves, whence they cannot be taken by proxy;—they must be reached for by those who would have them; and the more precious the joy, the higher the shelf;—the more valuable the volume, the greater effort is required to obtain the perusal thereof. This is the first great law.
Now, in collecting what purported to be scraps of knowledge, from the realm of spiritual existence, I found on my entry there, that I had laid up quite a store of falsities in the magazines of my soul:—laid up great heaps of what I supposed were the gold and diamonds of supernal truth; but which, no sooner had I entered the portals of the vast temple of Eternity, than I found to be the most useless rubbish; and nearly all my treasures proved to be the merest paste and tinsel. The first thing, therefore, which the soul desirous of attaining real proficiency in knowledge, has to do, is to unlearn its follies as quick as possible.
This process is called by a term signifying vastation, or throwing off. Some do this at once and with ease; others linger a long time in error, and only attain the great end through great trial and perseverance, just as persons on earth. My desire was ever to, and for the truth; hence the process, to me was one of comparative ease. The ideas which I had imbibed, and given my heart to, concerning matters spiritual, were the same that are still current amongst those who accept that which is known as modern Spiritualism. Succinctly stated, they were these: first, The spirit of a human being is the product of the physical body; the human being is a triplicate, composed of soul, or the thinking principle, the body, and an intermediate link, called spirit; possessing all the organs of, and shaped like the body, and which serves to connect this last with the soul, while on earth, and being its eternal casket after death. The soul, spirit and body are called into being at one time, and that upon the earth.
The spiritual body, like the physical, is subject both to waste and want, for which ample and due provision has by God been made. It has thirst, hunger, and amatory love, all of which have their appropriate gratifications in the Spirit-world. This spiritual world itself is on the surface of a zone surrounding the earth, at a distance of one hundred miles, more or less; above this zone, is another and another, to the number of twelve; each zone is a 'Sphere' and its inhabitants are divided off into classes, degrees, societies and circles. All the zones are diversified with real and absolute rivers, trees, mountains, lakes, landscapes, cities, and so on, just as is the material globe; and all these things are fixtures. Such, in brief, are the general ideas on the subject entertained by the people; and such as I had believed and conceived to be true. But when I came to pass through the change, and to realize the new condition, I ascertained that so far from being founded in reality, they were simply—nonsense!
According to the foregoing, which is confessedly the most popular conception of the realms beyond, and of its inhabitants, that world is scarcely better than the one that mortals occupy. These notions totally ignore Spirit; for, according to them, Spirit is nothing more than matter in an exceedingly refined, or rather, sublimated, condition; whereas Spirit is no such thing. True, it animates material things, but itself is not material. It is above, beyond, and discreted from it. Like the asymptotes of an arc, it forever approaches, but never actually contacts matter. The same general theory accords mankind an origin here in space and time merely, and at best predicates but sempiternity, or a future endless duration for him; whereas, if soul begins to be at all on the plane of earth and matter, it must have but a very ill-grounded assurance of an endless race. No, this is not correct; for Soul, like God, is from forever in the past, to forever in the distance; and so far from originating on the earth, it has for myriads of æons sped its career through God's infinite Silence Halls, and now merges, whether for the first time or not, is needless to inquire at this point, into the vocal Harmonead. In the life of earth, the soul awakes from its pre-state into one as different as can well be thought of; and at death, it experiences another waking, quite as startling, but infinitely more grand.
The first lesson, then, that I learned was, that with a great deal of philosophy, I had but very little knowledge; and instead of finding the Soul-world analagous to the earth-world, in, fact I found them vastly different, and possessing no one thing in common, so far as the surroundings o£ the spiritual entrant was concerned.
All that has been said required several minutes to describe, but not ten seconds to experience.
Hooked toward the old man and the child, marvelling, as before observed, that they wore clothing after the manner of the earth-kin, and bore the appearance of extreme youth and extreme age. "Is it possible that years affect souls? Do we grow old, as well as need garments in the other world?" These queries suggested themselves, and while present in my mind, the old man came to my right side, and took me by my left hand, while the little girl, Nellie,—I subsequently learned she had been called by the dear ones left behind her, took my right hand; and both said, "Come, Cynthia, they await you: let us go to meet them."
I now made three important discoveries: First, that I was yet in the room, where my breath had been resigned: that I was clothed in precisely such a dress as I had usually worn; and third, that so far as I could judge, I actually trod upon, and walked over a stratum of air, just such air as I had been used to breathe, albeit that was not possible any longer, for the reason that it was all too heavy for the respiratory apparatus of that which now constituted my body, or at least the vehicle of myself—the thinking, acting, living me. My method of locomotion differed essentially from that of my two companions, who did not walk, but seemed to glide along at will through that same air, which was to me quite palpable, for I distinctly noticed that its touch was of a velvety character, and quite elastic. My feet moved; theirs did not. And so we passed out of the house through the open door,—for a person had just entered.
From one or two incidental circumstances that took place, not essential to this narrative, and therefore withheld, I became convinced that unless some incarnate man or woman had raised the latch of that door, it must, so far as I was concerned, have remained shut to all eternity, barring wind, decay, accident, or an earthquake; for in my then state of enlightenment on the subject, I saw no possible means whereby to effect our liberation. It struck me that unless some such agency as has been named, came to our assistance, we must either make our egress by means of the chimney, or stay pent up there until the elements dissolved a portion of the edifice; or, supposing it to be proof against decay, a dreadful alternative, so it seemed, there we must remain for evermore. Subsequently I learned that even were such a thing possible, and I never got outside of that dwelling, yet it would be far less terrible than fear might lead one to imagine or suspect; for still there would remain, not only an infinity of duration, but also a universe to move and be in, quite as infinite in both extent and variety beside; for the Soul, I soon discovered, was a Vastitude in and of itself; and should it happen that not one of the moments of its mighty year be spent in the society of others like unto itself, yet there would be but little occasion for ennui; not one lonely minute need be spent, for all its days—if for illustration's sake, I may predicate time of that whereof emotions and states are the minutes and the hours—might be profitably employed in visiting its own treasure houses and in counting the rare jewels there stored away; besides which, it could perform many a pleasant voyage, visiting mighty continents, rare islands, wondrous cities, and marvellous countries of its own tremendous being;—aye! it could amuse itself for ages in merely glancing at the hills, valleys, caverns—strange deep caverns they are too—the oceans, forests, fields fens, brakes, and marshes of its mighty self; nor would its resources be exhausted at the thither end of the rolling wave of Time; because time is not to the soul: its duration and successions are of thought, not seconds—so wonderful, so vast, so illimitable, and, taken as a unit, so incomprehensible, save by the Over-soul himself, is the human being. Soul! thou august thing! Felt thou mayest be; understood by none, save God; and, albeit we may explore a little of thy forelands, yet only He can penetrate thy depths; only He can trace the streams that water thee to their source, and that source can be no other than His divine heart, who, forever unseen, is never unfelt; an invisible worker afar off, yet near at hand; one who spreadeth the banquet, and prepareth the feasters, who worketh ever in secret, yet who doeth all things well! Soul! Mighty potentate! Victim at once, and victor of circumstance and time! Thou enigma, which millions think they have solved, even while thou laughest at them; who imagining they have untied the knot, have not even found the clue! Strange riddle! Thing of which men think they are well informed, because they have learned a few of thy names, and can call thee Psyche, Soul, Spirit, Pneuma and Breath; word-names, which generally convey about as much of thee to the common understanding, as the name-words Algebra, Geometry, Music and Number, do to the barbarians who hear them pronounced, of the vast realities that underlie the sounds or the signs. Soul! Existence, whereof eolists and pedants learnedly prate and bluster in long phrase and loud tone, as if thou didst not command silence of him who would approach thee, and seek to know the awful mysteries slumbering beneath thy titles. Soul! Whereof everybody talks so much, but of which even the wisest of either earth or heaven know so very little.
Well, in my ignorance, I felt that unless some one, something material, had opened that door, we must stay imprisoned there in that house upon the hill, forever and for evermore.
How little, how very little, I then knew or suspected concerning the mighty powers latent, and never yet fully unfolded in any human being—no matter whom, no matter where located, how high in heaven, on earth, or deep down in the bottomless hell, or the blackest barathrum of the infinitudes Possibility. No one save God can fathom the profounds of Soul. Why? Because, like Him, it is absolutely Infinite: Him, in Conscious Power—it in Capability! Very imperfect still, and necessarily so, yet my notions of the Soul's powers were then exceedingly vague, crude, and undefined. In other and succeeding states to which I subsequently attained, much of this ignorance was dispelled by new light which constantly broke in upon my being.
And we passed beyond the portal of the house, myself crossing at the same instant its threshold, and that of Time; nor did I once cast a glance toward the frail and decaying shell from which a joyous thrill of super-consciousness told me that I had forever escaped; indeed I had no disposition to do so, for the reason that new and strange emotions and sensations crowded so fast upon me, that my whole attention was absorbed thereby; for they swept like the billows of a wind troubled lake, across the entire sea of my new-born being. One thought, and one alone, connected with earth, assumed importance, and that was associated with the physical phenomenon of dissolution, and it shaped itself in a hundred ways with the rapidity of lightning—no, not lightning, but quicker, for that is very slow compared to the flashings and the rushings forth of thought, even in the earth-made brain; how much more rapid, then, from a source around which are no cerebral impediments to obstruct. "Death—this it is to be dead!" thought I. How blind, how deaf we are, not to see, and know, and hear, that all things tell of life, life, life—being, real and true; while nothing, nothing in the great domain of our God, speaks one word of absolute death, of a blotting out of Soul—Soul, which, while even cramped in coares bodies, sometimes mounts the Capitals of existence, and with far-penetrating vision pierces the profoundest depths of space, gazes eagle-like upon the very sun of Glory, laughs death to scorn, and surveys the fields of two eternities—one behind, and one before it. This thing can never die, nor taste a single drop of bitter death! * * * How strange, how wonderfully strange I feel; yet these sensations are of excellent health, of exhilarant youth, of concentration and power; nor hath decrepitude or decay aught therein.
"I am not faint, but strong; not sad, but joyous." These were my observations on realizing the great change. Many a time had I read and heard of the capacity human beings have of experiencing joys purely nervous. Nearly all present human pleasures are based upon the fineness and susceptibility of the nerves to receive and impart magnetic impressions. My nerves had aforetime been made to tingle with strange, deep bliss when in the presence of those I loved, after their return from long absence; I had tasted the exquisite nectar from the lips of an innocent prattling babe, and had known the tumultuous thrill of friendship's joyous meetings; and yet all these were as blasts of frozen air to what now kept running, leaping, flying, dancing through me. It was the supremely delicious sense of being dead—the voluptuous joy consequent upon dying.
At first it seemed to me that keener joy, or deeper bliss would be impossible for man or woman to experience than those that now were mine. After a while I learned better.
Mankind expand from the action of two principles—Intellect and Intuition; the first being the basis of progression, the latter of development. Some, both in and out of the body, are built up by one, some by the other; and many rise from the combined action of both. Many of the dead pursue the triumphs of intellect and investigation, just as when on earth. These are the progressionists—vast in number, great in deed, but constituting an inferior order, as they must ever be secondary to that vaster host and higher order who climb the ladder of intuition. Without egotism, then, but in all humility, I say that great joy was mine on finding myself numbered with the larger army. It was in allusion to the fact that all the learning a man may acquire on earth, really stands him but little on the other side, that one of old declared that in that upper kingdom the first should be last, and the last be first; for it often happens that one almost ignorant in a worldly sense, may have the highest and the grandest intuitions of truth, divested of the thick coats wherewith learning often clothes it. People in whom intellect predominates over intuition, naturally gravitate to their true position in the realms beyond. Their destiny is to be for a long time (and of such "time" can justly be predicated) pilgrims in the Spirit-world or middle state, whereas all in whom intuition is exalted, can not only be occasional residents, for redemptive purposes, of the outer Spirit-world, but are intromitted to the deeper and sublime realities of the Soul-world—a world as much different from the merely Spiritual kingdom as is the processes of a musician's soul, when at high tide, superior to the mental operations of a midnight burglar. A veil divides those worlds as completely as does a similar one separate earth from Spirit-land. Two beings there may meet, one a resident of the Soul-realm, the other a denizen of Spirit-land; the former may be in close propinquity with the latter, and yet the spheres of their several existences be as far apart as is North from South. The one sees and knows only from appearances, the other from positive rapport. This fact at once explains many of the differences in the accounts which mortals receive, and unmistakably so, from the lands beyond the swelling flood, the kingdoms o'er the sea. My knowledge flowed in upon me through the channels of intuition, and through them I learned that the hyper-sensational joys to which allusion has been made, are ever experienced in exact ratio to the purity of the past record of the life. Those which I felt were only of the fourth degree, there being three beyond, though how mine should have been so intensified and deepened, was, and, for reasons plainly to be seen, must ever remain, a mystery. The amount, degree, and even kind, of joy felt by any soul upon its passage over the Myst, depends upon three things, and these are: First, the nature of the motives which, previous to the mortuary divorce, prompted to all. or any action, either toward the self, the neighbor, or society; Second, the amount of good a person has done on earth; and Third, the amount of use, in the higher sense, they may have subserved previous to physical dissolution.
Nellie and I, and the old gray-haired man who accompanied her, soon reached the road in front of the house wherein I had lived, and wherein I was born into a newer phase of life. While looking at my companions to find out whither they were going, the child, by the exercise of a power not then fully understood by myself, rose into the air a foot or more, laid her hand gently on my forehead, patted it tenderly, and said: "Come! We are going to show you your home, and then mine, and then his!" She said this with a smile, so pure, so radiant, that I instantly divined that there was truth in the theory that every one has a conjugal mate in the universe somewhere, albeit I shrank from, and dreaded to meet mine, if, indeed, I had one, for I had seen somewhat of that which passes for love among men; and, while hailing and delighting in amicive, I felt a shuddering disgust at anything that assumed the form of amatory love. Love was admired, but its passional phases feared and despised. My tutelage was just begun.
The touch of the child's hand was as plain, palpable and physical as any touch ever felt before,—quite as much so as was that of the dear sister who smoothed my dying brow. 'After all, then, spirits are material. I feel their fingers, see their forms, hear their words, and I am in all respects as nervously sensitive as ever in the by-gone years of sickness! Oh, this mystery of the double existence, which, after all, seems to be but two phases of a single state; when, when shall it be solved?' This thought passed through my mind, nor can there be the least doubt but they both read it quite as well as myself, for the old man smiled gently and benignly, the girl with half-concealed merriment and glee.
I now passed off into a strange and peculiar state, but whether what followed resulted from the touch or not, it is impossible to say. At first I was seized with an intense desire to know more of what must be called my physique, and a rapid inspection revealed the fact that I possessed, all and singular, the organs in the new condition, that had been in the old. There were my hands—real, actual hands, evidently—but they were very thin, pale, emaciated, wrinkled, and of a decidedly blue, consumptive caste,—precisely as they had appeared every day for the past long months of pain and misery. My hair was long, and in all other respects as before; my feet felt tender; nor was there any difference between my then, and prior state, except that a nameless, thrilling joy pervaded me, and which left absolutely nothing to be wished for in that respect; for as the mouth of every nerve drew in the magnetic essence in which I floated, it seemed as if living streams of sense-joy rushed through every channel and avenue of being; and it struck me that if there were no other reward for having lived and suffered, yet that the sensations consequent upon physical death would fully compensate a life of agony.[1]
Soon a sense of vacuity stole over me, and brought the realization, that having passed through two worlds, I was rapidly approaching one still more wonderful and strange.
Many a time had I been mesmerized by friends, in my far distant-dwelling, by my well-beloved brother J. in particular, who all sought by that means to alleviate my sufferings; and not seldom had I passed into what is popularly termed the Superior State;[2] and the feeling induced by Nellie's touch was akin to that, but was far more profound. First there came a sort of mental retrocession, consequent upon my previous intellectual activity. The soul-principle seemed to bound back from its investigations of the previous moment, to a pinnacle within itself, from whence it as rapidly sunk down into one of the profoundest labyrinths of its own vast caverns.
Down, down, still lower and deeper into the awful abyss of itself it sank, until at last it stood solitary and alone in one of its own secret halls. The outer realm, with all its pains and joys, cares, sorrows and ambitions, hopes, likes, antipathies and aspirations; all its shadows and fitful gleams of light, were left behind, and naught of the great wide world remained; for its lakes and green trees, its gardens and its tiny brooks, its beetling cliffs and radiant sky grew distant, very distant, until at length a cold and chilling horror crept over me, and suggested that perhaps, after all, the fearful doctrine might be true, which declares, that some human beings are God-doomed to annihilation; and the anguish that this conceit brought with it, was almost parable even by a free-born soul. But, thank God! this last folly of the philosophers—last and greatest save one—the doctrine that "whatever is is right," in every and all senses, is a libel on Himself and His goodness.
Finally it seemed as if my being had been concentered, or focalized to a single point, and even that soon faded out, and an utter blankness enveloped my soul. How long this continued is impossible to be told, but the next experience was that consequent upon a series of sudden thrills or shocks, like unto those which a person receives who takes hold of the conducting knobs of a highly charged galvanic battery,—or rather when touching the cup of a leyden jar. These instantly aroused me. I started up as from a death-stupor. But what a change, if not in myself, at least in my surroundings! I was in the center of a new, but limited world. Around me was an atmosphere of mellow rosy light, different from any ever known to me before,—an atmosphere, radiant, sweet, soft, and redolent with perfumes of an order and fineness surpassingly grateful. I was in the Soul-world,—my Soul-world:—a realm whereof God alone was Lord—and I His tributary Queen. The feelings consequent on this induction were strange, but pleasant.
The thoughts that now arose, were not, as formerly, mere shadowy forms, inconsistent and impalpable, nor was the scene of their action within the head; true, they were born there, but that was all. They were no longer subjective merely, fleeting and ephemeral, but were objective, positive and real. I saw, but not alone with eyes, for the simulacra of the objects witnessed within that sphere, even the faint outlines of the most far-off memograph, seemed to stream in upon me through a thousand new doors, and I appeared to acquire knowledge by two opposite methods: first by going out involuntarily to whatever was to be known; and second, by absorbing the images of things,—just as the eye absorbs a landscape.
A person beholding me at that moment, would have concluded, and rightly too, that I had just arisen from off a sort of cloud-couch near the center of the sphere, toward which my face was turned. On that couch I beheld the exact image, not of my person, but of the clothes, the resemblance of which to those once worn on earth, it will be remembered, had so greatly surprised me in the earlier part of this experience. While yet I gazed upon that ghost of a dress, it slowly faded into nothingness. Desiring to know the rationale of this occurrence, it came to me that the worlds are not only full of objects, but must necessarily be still more full of the images thereof,—images which fix themselves more or less permanently, on whatever plastic material which they may chance to come in contact with. Sometimes the lightning will pass over a body or object; and in passing will fix and bring out into visibility the images of things already there. Nature is full of mirrors. This is the memory of Matter—the Photography of the substantial universe. Memory is but the photography of soul Everything that strikes the eye, or the senses in anyway, leaves an exact image of itself upon the cylinder of Retention, which cylinder winds and unwinds, according as it takes on or gives off the impression, whatever it may be. Thus the image of a tone, a sound, a peculiar trill, as well as of material things, can be, and are photographed upon the soul. Nothing is lost,—not even the myriad images floating off from all things about us, day after day. The amazing beauties of a snow storm, a sleet shower, an autumn forest, a rich garden, the countless flowers on which man's material eye never rested, are all safely cared for by Nature's Daguerrian Artist, and they float about the material worlds until sometimes the frost will pin a few of them to the window-panes in winter, or they are breathed through the spiritual atmosphere into some poetic soul, who incarnates them in canvass, marble, or deathless verse. This revelation, of course, proves that there is a higher world than most men have yet dreamed of, and that too, right around them. In fact, all things and events are but a simple process of what may be called Deific Photography. All forms, all things, all events, are but God's thoughts fixed for a time. These mental images go forth in regular order, and constitute the sublime procession of the ages, and all human events and destinies are but the externalization of Deific fore-had thoughts. Here is the rationale of vaticination or prophecy. Certain persons are so exalted, that moving in the Spiritual atmosphere, which contains the pre-images of approaching events, they read a few of them; and lo! in the coming years the occurrences are enacted; for the spiritual phasmas have taken form—the reflected image of the Deific thought has at last passed through the dark material camera, been fixed by a law of celestial chemistry, brought out to the surface or 'developed,' by the grand manipulators of Nature's laboratory, and lo! anew the world and age rejoices, though individuals and communities may mourn.
There is truth, therefore, in the doctrine of fore-ordination. But this truth is general always, and not particular, for while the current and area of events are pre-established, still every soul, in any and all its states, has an absolute sphere of self-itivity;—the law of Distinctness permits it to take the utmost advantage of conditions for its own improvement. For instance, take that which constitutes a peach tree, or a rose, give it and its successors the best possible chance to unfold its latent properties, and the rose or peach principle will put forth, in the course of two generations, a forest of beauties, an ocean of perfume, a mine of loveliness, which, judging the plants by what appeared originally, they never contained; and yet nothing is more certain than that every plant, even the prickly pear, the bristling thorn, and unsightly thistle, contain the germs of a beauty too vast to be comprehended by mortal man. In the succeeding pages there is an account of God and Monads which will add much to the needed light on this subject. I cannot express them now for lack of suitable conditions, which can only be had in the midst of religious calm, holy solitude, and beneath a more sunny sky than bends over us at the present writing.
As the appearance of my dress faded away, and the truth just faintly limned, flashed across me, I began to realize somewhat of the majesty of the thing called soul; and saw that, while the dress was a mere spectral garb, so also were those of the little girl and the old man—they were illusory—mere will-woven garments, —nothing but appearances. And yet, had I been questioned in regard to the matter, while in my previous state, I would have freely sworn that all I saw was real—for in my then unenlightened state, they were so. This suggests the subject of insanity. A man may be in a state wherein he can only behold appearances. To him they are real, to some one else they are false, while to those who can look over the entire ground, both would be deemed right and both wrong. Man is of birthright a creator, and the law of Distinctness forces his creations to resemble himself. If he is poor and lean, so will be the world he fashions around him volitionally, or which shall be his natural and spontaneous out-creation. The highest happiness of man is found in the act of creation, whether it be poem, picture, engine, system of thought, or anything else. Hence the enfranchised soul, dwelling in its real world, on the thither side of time, has the power of assumption to a degree commensurate with its desire for wisdom, its determining motives, the good it has done, and the ends of use it has accomplished. It can, therefore, assume any form it pleases,—but for the purpose of wrong-doing, or concealing its identity, it is utterly powerless in this respect; so that while it may masquerade as much as it chooses to for its amusement, that of others, or to instruct; yet A must be forever known as A, nor can A ever pass for B, save in cases of insanity, wherein A has a firm conviction that he is really B, in which case, and for redemptive ends, he is sometimes recognized as B, till his cure is effected. It is in accordance with this law of distinctness that the righteous dead, who do really sometimes come back on visits to their former homes, always appear to men clad as they used to be when incarnated. They are compelled to this course by an integral law of soul, so long as there are any on earth capable of recognizing them, or so long as a good descriptive portrait may exist. If the likelihood of identification does not exist, then the spirits may assume such instructive or beautiful forms as are either the spontaneous expression of their interior state, or as their goodness may suggest, and unfolded wisdom prompt.
Some of my readers may feel disposed to inquire, "Where was my soul when it made these interesting discoveries?" The response is: not in space, not in time; for I was in a condition above and beyond these, just as tune is above tone, or as meaning is above and beyond the mere sound of the words conveying it. I sustained the precise relation to time, and space, and matter, that heat does to cold, light to shadow, shape to essence, phantasmata to reality, bulk to number, number to mass, or any two antithetical things whereof men may have ideas. I had become a resident of a new universe, differing as greatly from that upon which man's vision rests, as that itself is different from dreamland. My glad soul had crossed the shores of time and distance, and the barque of its existence was fairly launched upon the vast ocean of a new eternity.
O, ye babblers of vain, philosophy, who nurse folly for aye, and call it wisdom, ye who. are so deeply engrossed in nursing your pet theories—theories planted on nothing, and reaching nowhere, what know ye really of the other stages of human existence? Nothing! Aye, truly, nothing! and echo, hollow echo, gives back—nothing! Aye, verily, nearly all your crude speculations, and smooth plausibilities are as void of reality, are as hollow as is the shell of an echo when all the sounds have flown! Your fine-spun hypotheses, concerning the origin of the human soul,[3] its nature and the mode of its existence subsequent to. physical dissolution, are too meager and unsound,—aye! void as is a vacuum of substance and solidity; nor with all your loudly trumpeted knowledge of the state and status of the soul after its departure from the barbarisms of earthly life, to the true social state in realms where civilization is first truly known, have ye much else than the faintest glimmering of the great reality. Philosophers! Verily, much learning hath made you mad; else would ye have assigned the human soul a better than a merely sensual heaven, where lust should be freely sated, and where appetite and its varied gratifications constitute the sum total of enjoyment. What splendid conceptions! What a magnificent destiny! How worthy of the human soul! How great a reward for years of agony! O, philosophy, how very lame thou art! Thou tellest man, through thy oracles, that the spirit-home is situate upon the upper surfaces of sundry zone-girdles of the planet: and by the same rule we may expect thee to describe God as being so many cubits high, and so many yards across the hips! Nay, thou mightest as we describe a thought as containing just so many cubic inches, and deal out music to us by the quart or gallon! Philosophy, thou'rt sick! else thou wouldest have found a better adapted home for immortal beings, than an electric land formed of the rejected atoms from the various earths. To thee, and in thy light, an oak tree is but an assemblage of material atoms: a rose, its thorns, leaves and moss, are only such: the wild tiger of the jungle, the humped-back camel of Zahara's sands, the sportive lamb, unsightly toad, the serpent in the grass, the dove in its cote; the flitting bat, and the flap-winged night-owl, the majestic giraffe, and the beauty-plumed warbler of the forest, are to thee but mere forms of exuberant life; mere natural products, the spontaneous gifts of an all-bounteous, but unintelligent, non-conscious natural force. Panthea! Shame on thee, Philosophy, shame, because with the open book before thee, thou hast steadily refused to read, nor ever even dreamed that each one of these things indicates the stage of out-growth to which a monad—constituting its spiritual center, has arrived on its journey from God, through Matter, back to God through Spirit! It hath never struck thee that each of these things, and all other objects in the vast material realm, constitute single letters in God's alphabet,[4] and a letter too, having a fixed and absolute meaning, significance, and unalterable value. Weakman! thou dost not even imagine that all these things are of thyself—thy kind—abiding the epoch wherein they will, as thou hast already sprung, leap forth to light, and new, and proper human life. Thou dost not realize that they are latent, while thou and thy kind are active, self-moving thoughts of one great eternal thinker! Thou hast not yet learned that every living thing, vegetable or sentient, is a temporary home of a mighty monad. "But do you not know that scientific men have created conditions which have produced independent, and therefore unknown, undreamed of forms of animal life, as the acarus crossi, and others?" This objection does not invalidate the truth, nor weaken the force of the statement. All things have a use. Nothing has been made in vain. Even the most disgusting traits in animals, are matched in the human; and the poverty and squalor, the obscenity and loathliness of many human beings, rival, nay, surpass their correspondents in the lower sentient world. Nature is a system of precise conditions; nor dare you say that there were not conditions that befell a monad or monads, in which the eternal law did not demand and secretly force the effort of the chemist, which resulted in the productions of an acarus, which may have afforded the necessary requirements of various monads, or human germ-souls, in one point of their career.
All matter is alive with imprisoned spirit; every globule of this latter, unique, and existing in innumerable folds, contains a monad, a germ, concealing within itself capacities quite infinite in number and power. During its long probation it ever seeks to escape its outer bonds, just as certain shell-fish and serpents cast their old envelopes. But in every stage of its unfolding, every monad expresses a lesser or higher phase of the one great thought of God—Personality, Coherence, Power, Unity, All the characteristics of the floral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, are but elements of something higher, afterwards expressed in the human. Thus a fox means shrewdness—cunning, low cunning; and that some men have not yet outgrown their recollections and applications of fox-craft, is self-evident to the most casual observer. The ass is the natural symbol of patience, the cat of duplicity, the lion of firmness; an elephant stands as generosity, the horse is pride; the peacock, vanity, the dog affection; and so on through an infinite scale of variations. All living things are but developing monads, at whose bottom slumbers what will one day be an imperial human soul! And these monads develope off their surfaces continually; the longer and more varied the process, the more beautiful the grand result at each successive stage. Thus the monad whose highest manifestation ten thousand years ago, may have been a thistle, perchance looks up to heaven this day from the glorious eyes of a rose-bush, or a dove. The great truth seems never to have been apprehended by the great army of those who have made thinking a business; that while beasts, trees and flowers are not, as such, endowed with a specific immortality, yet at every stage of their being they constantly give off images of themselves, which are, and ever will be immortal. These images constitute the pictures of the soul-world; but the essence, the innate force that developed that of which they are the representations, returns to God whence it started, a full and regal human soul. Thus it is seen how and why man is the culmination of nature, and is brother to the flower and the worm.
"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,"
All sentient things the body,—man the regal soul!
No telescope has yet enabled man to count the rounds in the ladder of luminous worlds; no microscope reveals the mysteries imbedded in a grain of wheat. Still he may count them, if he will; may delve into their secrets if he shall so elect; yea, if he will but listen to the fine voice speaking up from his inmost deeps, he may learn somewhat of the
- ↑ All the dead people are not thus favored. Up to the present was an inhabitant merely of the Spiritual world, but had not yet entered upon the vast domains of the realm of Soul. There are two worlds into which it is possible for man to step into from the portals of the grave, as all will be convinced who either study the subject or give this introductory work a careful perusal.
- ↑ My researches have proved to me, that in nine cases in every ten, taking an entire average, the sleeping subject never once actually enters the domain of Spirit atall, daring the trance; but instead thereof, roams and revels in the Fancy Realm of his own, or some one else's soul. A suggestion,—either spontaneous or accepted—serves as the hither end of a clue, the line reaching just where the partially freed mind chooses to direct it. Frequent repetitions of the exercise of this organ of spectral illusion, lead directly to bad results, for the illusions soon impress themselves as realities, and the grossest and most absurd fanaticisms result; as witness the thousand phases of spiritual belief. In addition to this, the habit of mesmerizing, or being mesmerized, is a ruinous one to all concerned, producing pestilence and moral death. True, where both parties are good and pure, no harm may at first ensue, but at last an abnormal susceptibility results, by which any man or woman may be led into "the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell." I speak of course concerning indiscriminate magnetizing.
- ↑ Which it is firmly believed is herein briefly stated for the first time since the world began. The meagre outlines herinafter presented, will be fully drawn and demonstrated in the succeeding volume,—Publisher.
- ↑ God said, 'I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.' How beautiful, how grand is the light thrown on this sentence and its deeper meaning, by the few lines to which this note is appended.—Publisher.