Dealings with the Dead/Part 2/The Ascent.-Marvel: The Woman
The Ascent.—Marvel: The Woman.
As previously stated, it was not possible for me to understand the nature of the mysterious power by which, in company of the peerless "being, Thotmor, I volitionless clove the ambient air. "O, it was a projection of your soul," says the modern novitiate of the mystic school. Not so, friend; for the Ego then and there ascending, under the influence of a power similar in kind, but immensely superior in volume and display to itself, was not a mere psychical phasma—a thing of appearance only, and possessing no substantiality of its own; it was no flimsy projection from the fancy-faculty; was not a meaningless substance-void image of myself. It was no mere subjective state objectified, but was indeed my very self, wearing the body of immortality for a time, during which certain lessons must be and were learned, fully and practically, demonstratively and perfectly, so far as the lessons went. The man himself, and not his mere shadow or ghost was there, in proper form and essence, to the end, no doubt, "that the mysteries there learned might be given, as they now practically are, to the world of thinkers.
As I, or rather we, ascended toward the zenith, it began to rain; but this did not incommode us, nor in any way hinder the ascent, which was continued until it became necessary to penetrate a dense region of thick, black convolving cloud that was now rolling up in vast and heavy masses from the northern verge of the immense horizon, driven by the fierce breath of a mighty blast. Looking earthward, it seemed as if the deep black night was suddenly going down; the wind howled through the buildings, and the trees shook, as if with mortal fright and terror; the sorrowing clouds shed great drops of tears, as if mourning in comfortless grief over poor human frailty, while the soughing and the sighing of the sea was a fitting sympathium to their forlornness and despair.
Thicker rolled the dense black pall over the face of the vaulted heaven, hiding all its glories, and shrouding it in the very folds of gloom, whose density was only relieved when the broad glare of the lightnings rushed out upon the sky. The sheets of flame were of various colors—violet, green, white, red and purple. The three former appeared to issue from the earth's surface; the others, from the space above and immediately around us. There were occasionally lines of purely white fire, and these took the form of chains, every link of which carried ten thousand deaths along with it. These came singly; and sometimes two, separate lines of fire would leap out from the bosom of the clouds simultaneously, but from opposite quarters of the gloom—in which case they appeared to meet in anger, like as if two angry gods were warring with each other, and their junction was instantaneously followed by the most terrific bursts of thunder that ever fell on human hearing since the mighty worlds were made.
I shook with mortal terror; and this terror increased and intensified into positive, almost unendurable agony, as crash after crash of horrible roaring, rolling, bursting god-cannonry swept down the vast concave, drowning the clangor of the mad winds, which were rushing and rumbling through the spaces, striving desperately to rival and surpass the awful voice of the electric god himself. I felt that I was lost; and in that moment of anguish, from the deeps of ray soul there went forth a prayer to Him whose presence and majesty was then recognized, with heart bowed down, and with a fervency never realized before. I feared to be swept into nothingness by the tempestuous breath of heaven; I feared to be hurled into destruction by the driving blast! But no; for seemingly the wind passed through me, just as the electric current passes through human or any other material bodies, and touched me not destroyingly. The fiercest wind that ever raged can never blow a shadow from its place, neither can it in any way blow away a spirit! for the reason, amongst others, that spirit is not matter, any more than is a shadow or a sound substantial, as this last word is generally defined; hence wind, which is a material substance, can in no wise touch it. And so I was not blown away before the driving gale.
"But suppose a column of wind, just three yards square, and moving at the rate of two hundred miles an hour, sweeps toward the very spot on which a human spirit stands, or is; it cannot turn this wind aside: How, then, could anything remain unmoved?" This is the question; now the answer comes. A bar or column of sunshine streams through the air, and its volume is just three yards square. It will require something far different, and much more powerful than a column of air, moving at the rate of two hundred miles an hour, to blow away that sunshine, or to drive a hole through it; yet the sunshine would still be there, and so would the wind! This is my answer to that objection. I lifted up my soul in unspeakable thankfulness and adoration, as I realized that spirit was superior to matter, even in its most subtle and rarified forms—superior even to the glaring, seething, melting, white fire of the clouds, when the lightning furnaces overflow with fervent heat!
Safely, slowly, majestically and holily we passed through this terrible battle-ground of the elements; and to a question internally framed and put, this answer was given by the illustrious being at my side:
"That you might practically realize the indestructible nature of the human being; that something of human majesty might appear to your understanding; that you might be shown somewhat of the dignity of being, and the royalty of things, elements, laws and principles, hast thou been by me brought hither. This is merely a first lesson—the mere Alpha of knowledge; but others far more important are yet to follow Fear not!"
But this last injunction it was utterly impossible for me—and would have been for any human being under similar or analogous circumstances—to obey or do; for what with the dizzy sense of height, the sensations attendant upon the movement through space, the glare of the lightning, the elemental strife, the perfect obscuration of my dwelling place (the earth), together with an indefinable dread of a something impending, and which I might never be able to comprehend; this, all this, had the effect of almost palsying every faculty of being, and blanched my very soul with fear; for the rush and crush, the horrible din of the tempest, and the thunder, made terror my constant associate. It was as if the trial hour had come; it was like the breaking up of mighty mountains; it was as if a hungry earthquake were feeding on a world! Instinctively I looked to Thotmor for protection. He smiled at my weakness, and bade me remember that a greater than himself was present. Yes, I realized then that God was there, and I was safe; for He smiled between His frowns, and whispered "I am here!" * * * * In other days, when I gave my soul and body up to the guidance and control of invisible beings, whom I did not know, whom I did" not stop to prove and identify—apocryphal persons, at the best—persons disembodied, if indeed they ever wore clay upon this footstool—beings who seek their own amusement at the expense of human dupes—beings who take supreme pleasure and delight in the exhibition of human weakness—beings who silently, but surely, infuse the most deadly and destructive venom, in the shape of philosophic assurances—beings who mock at our calamity and laugh when our troubles come, both of which they themselves bring to pass—beings who persuade people to believe in all sorts of inanities, dictate senseless platitudes, and encourage persons to believe themselves philosophers when they are only—fools! I repeat, when in other days I yielded to this evil influence—in other days, when both God and Thotmor were practically ignored and forgotten—in other days, when the pride and power of Eloquence turned me from the Useful—an eloquence weird and almost magic, that welled up through my soul and went forth from eye, and tongue, and pen, and drew my soul from God,—there came occasional twinges of regret, and an assurance that, in forgetting to profit by the teachings of that afternoon, I had bartered off priceless joys for the empty bauble 'worldly fame and ephemeral glory'—that for the hollow music of man's praises and a few claps of the hand, I had given up the Key to the magnificent Temple, one of whose apartments I that afternoon entered for the first time. Great God! how I have suffered for that foolish estrayal—that fearful lege majesté—that silly vanity and supreme folly!
We rose above the fierce turmoil, and for the first time a fair opportunity was presented for a closer scrutiny of my guide. As I drew nearer to him, he said—not in words, but in the silent language used by the higher citizens of the Republic of Souls—" All thoughts have shape: some are sharp, acute and angular, many-pointed, and exceedingly rough. These cut and bore their way through the worlds; others are flat and disk-like: these are thoughts that must be incarnated in matter ere they become useful; their mission is to be seen; others to he felt. Some thoughts are light and fantastic, like bubbles on the sea; they are beautiful while the sun shines, but the very ray that reveals their beauty also seals their doom—for the heat kills them; they burst, and forever disappear, being hollow and of but little substance: other thoughts are round, heavy, and solid as a cannon-ball, and like them, too, their mission is to batter down the mounds erected by unwise men. Words are but the garments of thought. Geometry is the Soul of all Sciences—order, symmetry, and form! Everything, line, point, shape, angle and figure, corresponds to something in both the Spirit and the Soul-world (the outward and inward Soul-life), and are, independent of magnitude, absolute and arbitrary symbols, embodying an absolute and fixed principle: and every line, dot, point, shape or angle has a fixed definition in the lexicon of the Starry Heavens.[1] All pure and good thoughts, being themselves full of symmetry and beauty, can only be outwardly conveyed or expressed; if by the voice, by harmony, music and rythmical speech and sound; if by the pen or type, only in characters themselves geometrically perfect, and harmoniously so.
"Now," said Thotmor, "you have seen much—heard much. I have just given you a key, and to prove your proficiency in learning, I propound a question. It is this: "What thinkest thou of Nature?"
Now I, to whom this was addressed, could not precisely comprehend what he meant by 'Nature;' but naturally supposed that reference was had to the elemental disturbances and the fearful exhibition of material energy we were witnessing, and which was at that moment unabated in the least; for the storm still raged with as much fury as ever—not over the same portion of the earth, it is true, but in its own track; as it moved on its southward march. I, therefore, answered in the same silent language, "that, in view of all that had just been witnessed, it was evident that an overruling power existed, ever wakeful, ever on the watch; that His power was exercised for the greatest good of all the creatures of his love; and that God worked mysteriously through nature, expressly to effect the good of human kind." To this general answer he responded: "Right: but what think you of Nature?"
Here was a repetition of the identical question already propounded. It caused me to ponder a little more deeply, and after a while, thinking that this time he was perfectly understood, I replied: "It seems to me that what we call 'Nature' is simply God in action; and that God in the sublimer sense is Deity in repose."
"Apt learner," said he, "right again. But what thinkest thou of Nature?" Now here was the same interrogation a third time repeated. I now determined to study well ere venturing to reply. This I did, all the while upborne on the air by a force whose nature was not easily understood, but which I inwardly resolved to investigate and explore. The resolution was, as will be hereafter seen, most faithfully kept, with results highly gratifying and satisfactory, which will be presented in the sequel to this volume.
While delving in the mines of my soul for a proper answer, I took notice that we gently floated off and upward, at an angle of fifty-one degrees with the horizon. The storm was going in one direction, and we in the other; so that in a little time we were entirely beyond its influence, as was also that portion of the earth over which it first began to rage. There was no standard by which the rate of our velocity could be measured: but it must have been prodigious, judging by the rapidity with which the mountains, rivers and cities of the earth seemingly swept by us—for indeed there was at this point of the experience but very little, if any, sense of motion,—no cutting of the air,—no hissing as we passed through it; but it seemed as if we were in the center of a large transparent globe or sphere, which itself moved on as if impelled by a force entirely superior to that which governs rude matter. The earth itself, from the elevation we were at, seemed to have lost its general convex shape, and now looked as if it were a huge basin, so singularly did it appear to concave itself. Instinctively I realized that this was the appearance it would naturally assume to a person who looked upon it through bodily eyes from the great height at which we now were; but it was not so easy to understand why a spirit whose sense of sight was unimpeded by physiological organs or conditions—a spirit to whom the electric atmosphere, which lies embosomed in the outer air—served as the vehicle of ocular knowledge, should behold it in the same way.
But while studying the answer to the first problem, the solution of the second came to me, and I saw that the similarity of phenomena, viewed from opposite states, was attributable solely to the former habitudes of my mind, and to the association of ideas.
Thotmor saw my embarrassment, and the conclusions on the subject to which I had arrived. "Right!" said he. "But,"—ere another moment elapsed I replied: "I think that Nature is a system of active forces, ever radiating from God as beams from a star—that they go out, and as constantly return to the point whence they emanated." Paradox! Explain!" "I mean that"—here a sudden thought struck me, and I said to the guide, "You have not dealt fairly by me; you are not Thotmor, an Egyptian of the early centuries; on the contrary, I am convinced that you have disguised yourself, and for certain reasons and purposes of your own assumed another name. You are—I feel perfectly convinced that you must be Socrates, the philosopher, come back for a time to pursue the old and honorable avocation,—the teaching and enlightment of the ignorant; for Socrates alone, of all earth's great children of yore, was the one who taught by asking questions of such as sought knowledge and wisdom, where he sat to dispense them. Am I not right?"
The rare being gazed tenderly down into my eyes, and his countenance glowed with a radiance quite glorious and divine, as he replied: "Yes.—No. I am Socrates and not Thotmor; and still am Thotmor and not Socrates. Here is another enigma. Do you comprehend? Try; for remember the human soul is infinite in its nature! Its capacities are boundless. You aspire to comprehend the mighty secret of the Trine. You seek to become an acolyte of the imperial order of the Rosy Cross, and to re-establish it upon the earth; and no True Rosicrucian dares shrink from attempting the solution of the mysteries and problems that human minds in heaven or on earth may conceive or propound. Our motto—the motto of the great order of which I was a brother on the earth,—an order which has, under a variety of names, existed since the very dawn of civilization on the earth—is 'Try.'"
Again the same method; again this strange weird being not only provokes to mental exertion, but reveals a clue to millions of profound and priceless secrets!
He is then the great Ramus, the imperial lord of an imperial order,—that great and mystic brotherhood at whose power kings and potentates have trembled most abjectly. And this lordly being condescends to teach a few of the mysteries of Being to my humble self, and through me to the world. How wonderful! How my soul rejoices! Verily, from this day forth I will endeavor to prove worthy of the kingly favor.
This was my resolve; how it was afterward forgotten has already been stated. Men ever neglect and forget their best friends! But even this forgetfulness, so I have been told, was foreseen; it was known long years ago that the painful career since accomplished, was the decree of a power above my feebleness, and it was known that all the terrible sufferings, trials, temptations and repentances were to be instruments toward high and noble ends, not yet wholly, but to be wrought out in His own good time, who doeth all things well.
And now, on this tenth day of February, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, as I look back over the ruins of the dead months, I resolve in my soul to Try—and, as near as may be, to approach the standard of goodness and use: for these are the ends sought to be attained by the Order.
To resume: In reply, I said: "Yes, you are, this time, fully understood; you are Thotmor, but adopt the methods of Socrates, because they are best calculated for the purposes of teaching; and these methods are"—" Wisdom's,—and were applied practically by the great teacher," said he, interrupting the sentence, and completing it for me, but not quite as I had intended.
"Now, scholar, answer the first question, and tell me what you think of Nature?"
"I think that Nature is an emanation from the Glorified Person of Deity! Tell me, truly, is God a person?"
"As certainly and truly as that you are an individual, just so certain and truly is God an absolute Being—not a mere king—who, seated on the Throne of thrones, watches the procession of the worlds; but the Ineffable One is a working God, who pursues His march across the vast Eternities, reducing Chaos as He goes, and leaving a train of luminous worlds behind him. You shall know more of this hereafter. Go on: tell me what you think of Nature!"
"The principles, I think, are 'radiations from Jehovah; the purpose and design of this irradiation must be to perfect the universal organism; by a commingling of forces and elements, by mutual and diverse action and counter action, the end sought is doubtless attained; and it is through the same agencies that He reduces to Order, Law, and Symmetry the———"
I could go no further, for the reason that my conception and descriptive power had run against the wall. He saw and pitied, while he completed the sentence for me:
———"Nebulous Systems, which lie beyond the pale of the inhabited and waking Universe of Forms."
Whoever reads these pages, and clearly comprehends the meaning of his last fifteen words, can but agree that here was a stretch of thought amazing, and absolutely awful to even contemplate. They distinctly imply that God is still making worlds—worlds hereafter to be peopled with glowing forms of a life, intellect, and beauty, that shall put to the blush the highest ideal of the loftiest Seraph, now in being, when the present Universe shall have died of hoary age.
Yes; Thotmor's thought is a vast and mighty one. Do you not think so, my reader? Try to compass and master this idea, so terrifically great and sublime, and you will forthwith coincide with me.
What becomes of many of the ordinary conceptions of God's character now extant among even the philosophers—conceptions so unjust, puerile, and even contemptible, as many of them are; what becomes of them all, in the presence of the estimate of the great Creative Energy just conveyed to your brain? They fall and sink into utter nothingness, while this one looms up before our mind's eye in proportions majestic and grand. We catch an intuitive glimpse of its outlines—its edges; but the whole thought is too great for our puny brains to contain. Try to master it, and ere long your soul, like mine, will fold its wings in presence of its majesty.
———"The Principles and First Elements, after performing one round of duty, return to the Fountain Head, become newly charged with portions of His essence, refilled with the Deific energy, and then go forth again to complete and finish what, under a less perfect form, they have before commenced; for all principles and elements are at bottom only one—but one which acts under a thousand different forms:—all science is based on Music, or Harmony; Harmony is but Geometry and Algebra—these are but Mathematics; this is but one branch of Celestial Mechanics, which in turn is only Number—but number in action;" said the august presence at my side, as he completed the magnificent lesson—a lesson so full, so pregnant with meaning, that my reader will not soon exhaust its treasures, even though he most persistently may 'Try.'
Still benignly gazing on me, Thotmor said: "What thinkest thou of Nature?"
Great God! that identical question a fourth time! How is it possible to answer it? I felt that, clear as my intellect now was, it would be sheerly impossible to proceed one single step further in definition, and was about to abandon the attempt, when a voice, sweeter than the dulcet melody of love, softer than the sounds to which dreaming infants listen, more persuasive than the lip of beauty, whispered: "Try! the Soul groweth tall and comely, and waxeih powerful and strong only as it putteth forth its Will! Mankind are of seven great orders: the last and greatest are the Genii of the Earth, the Children of the Star-beam, the Inheritors of the Temple. Weak ones can never enter its vestibules; but only those who Try, and trying for a time, at length become victors and enter in. Man fails because of feeble, sleeping, idle Will—succeeds, because he wakes it up and ever keeps it wakeful!"
In an instant I turned to find whence these spoken words proceeded; and a sight of rare, surpassing beauty, such as ravished every sense of my inner being, fell upon my gaze. A female of regal aspect floated on beside the form of Thotmor; her radiant mien, beauty of form, loveliness of expression, and the grace of her every movement, were such that the language we apply to embodied woman can never convey an adequate idea of the peerless Queen before me. It was from her lips that the spoken words had come.
As I gazed in utter bewilderment upon the houri, Thotmor smiled, and said:
"This is Cynthia, whose sun I am; my moon she is: she is mine—I am hers—we are one! On earth her body sleeps; here her soul is awake, and tuned to the melodies of Heaven. We are working for the World, and in that work find pleasure and excellent joy; but we only reached the bliss by Trying. Do thou the same, and tell thy earthly brothers to do likewise!"
Thus recalled to mental effort, I strove to conquer my admiration for the woman, and address myself to thought; albeit the task was very difficult.
We are human beings still, whether in or out of the body; and the same surmises, guesses and wonderments possess us, wheresoever we are. Thus, I could hardly help envying the Egyptian his glorious prize, nor wondering if he did not see much trouble and come to deep grief on her account. Certain it is, that no man on earth could rest quiet with such a treasure of beauty under his care; and it struck me that, even in the Soul-world, all people could not be free from all the human passions, as we know them here below; and that jealousy might disturb the Oriental's peace of mind, I could scarcely doubt.
He saw my mind; and, turning to the full moon of beauty who clung to his side, said to her, "Answer for me!" She did so, and said: "Purity is the soul of Beauty, Symmetry is its spirit, and Justice is its body. Every human being, in the Soul-worlds or elsewhere, loves nothing so well as to be well thought of by all other human beings. Ambition, Emulation, and Personal Joy are the three bars, which constitute the pivot of all human character. The bad passions, as envy, strife, anger, lust, and revenge, on earth, not only destroy the body, but also mar the spirit. Every one of these, and all other evil things, thoughts or deeds, inevitably leave their marks upon the soul, and deep, sad marks they are.
"The law of Truth, the law of Individuality, and the law of Distinctness, (by means of which the man is rounded out into a perfect character, and is afterwards kept for all eternity totally distinct from any other being in all the universe), reign in the Soul-world; nor can they ever be broken or evaded;—consequently, there can be no mistakes in regard to Identity. Cynthia is Cynthia, Thotmor is Thotmor, Clarinda is Clarinda, and John is John—and all must remain so till the end of the Ages . It is so now, whatever it may have been in the ages wherein the angels fell.
"On earth, the real thoughts and sentiments of a soul are hidden beneath the garniture of language and assumption;—not so here in the Soul-world, where every one must appear to be what he really is at the moment. There are no disguises; and while any one can do wrongly, if they so elect, yet they cannot intend wrong and pretend right, for the presence of an evil thought in the soul, is immediately marked upon its surface—upon its features, by a law of that very soul itself; and these marks and distortions are so very plain and unmistakable, that all Heaven can read them at a glance; and such instantly gravitate to the Middle State.
"Self-preservation, therefore, and self-respect keep Heaven clear of sin!
"In the second place, it is well known here, as it ought to be on earth, that the deceiver is, in all cases, the deceived; the wrong-doer wrongs himself more than any one else; and the unhappiness a person may cause another to feel, must be expiated by the causer, not by the victim! This is a safeguard against jealousy here. No one will do an ill deed if he is aware that it cannot be kept secret, even for a moment.
"In the next place, I chose Thotmor, and he me, because of all the inhabitants of this starry land, he suited me the best, and I him; wherefore, there is a stronger attachment between us than there possibly could be between either and any other individual in the great Domain. All Heaven knows this fact also: hence, no one in Heaven would attempt to sunder a natural tie, because they are well aware, that, even if that were possible, misery, and not contentment, must be the inevitable result. Wherefore none in Heaven would attempt such a thing, and no one from other regions could essay it."
Like drops of water on the sands of Sahara, her blessed words sunk into my soul: the "Wisdom-chambers received a new family of ideas; and my soul felt exceeding glad of this instalment of the treasures of the upper worlds.
For a moment, I remained pensive and silent; and then, inspired by the ineffable presence of Thotmor and his Cynthia, who floated on beside him—his pearly arm engirdling her glorious form in an embrace, which spoke of something higher and holier than we mortals call love—I answered: "It now seems to me that Nature is the birth-place of Affection, the tomb of all evil, the primary school of human souls, the alembic of the Virtues, the gymnasia of Thought, the"—
I was forced to stop again; nor could I go on. Thotmor came to my relief, and added:
"A plane inclined, beginning at Instinct, and ending in Omniscience; the telegraphic system of all Being, connecting its remotest points; the workshop of the Infinite and Eternal God; the grand orchestra of all the Symphonies, and the ladder reaching from Non-entity to the great Dome, beneath which sits in awful majesty the Lawmaker of the Universe, the Great I Am."
- ↑ What a stupendous revelation is here! What an astounding idea! For, if this statement be founded in truth, of which there can be but little if any doubt, what ages must elapse ere we be fully able to read the myriad volumes of God's great library—the boundless Universe of form, color, and sound.—Pub.