Dealings with the Dead/Part 2/The Disembodying
The Disembodying.
The belief in ghosts, spirits, apparitions, wraiths and doubles, is almost universal. Millions of people affect to disbelieve in them; and yet, deep down in the soul-caverns of these identical millions may be found all that exists in the minds of the most credulous. Disbelief in such things is very near akin to the asserted creeds of atheism. Thousands there be who in words deny the existence of a God; and yet, let any one of these loud-mouthed sceptics become racked with a real, genuine, old-fashioned toothache, and ten to one he cries out "O, Lord!" fifty times a day, and as often in the night begs God to have mercy upon his rack-tortured jaws. The fact is there never yet was, there never will be, such a rara avis as a genuine atheist; and in spite of all protestations to the contrary, there are but few who do not believe to some extent in the existence of spirits. As with the rest of the world, so with myself; for, notwithstanding the chronic and hereditary scepticism of my nature, a scepticism as unbending as iron, as inflexible as stone, I, from early childhood, entertained a certain vague, indefinite belief in the existence of the spectral gentry of another world; yet with this belief there was not the least realization in my mind that the objects of my belief had the faintest or most distant relationship to the human people in flesh and blood whom I daily saw about me. There was nothing very singular in that, however, for I merely resembled the millions of to-day, who, while entertaining the most undoubted, and, in some respects, salutary belief in ghosts, yet practically seem not to have the most distant idea that in so doing they are fully accepting the mystic's faith,—that these self-same ghosts are but the spirits of mortals who dwell beyond the veil.
Even in my early days I strove, by inquiry and by reading such books upon the subject as fell in my way, to find out whether this earthly life was the only allotment of man,—poor, care-ridden, unhappy man,—or not. Child as I was, I felt the incompleteness of all subsolary things, and longed to know if our experiences here were or were not all we had to hope for, or look forward to. The belief in ghosts did not help me any; for that ghost and spirit were synonyms, never once struck my mind. To the innumerable questions propounded by me to my elders, in the expectation of eliciting satisfactory replies, the old stereotyped response was given,—to wit: Mankind have souls, and these souls live when the body is dead and returned into the dust of the ground; but what the soul was, whence it came, what was its nature, form, shape and size, and whither it went after the loss of its body, I could gain not the slightest information; for every answer given me was as unsatisfactory as would be the Platonic theory to a modern philosopher of the transcendental order.
After a while these repeated failures produced their legitimate fruit; at first, a little doubt crept in, and challenged all I had gathered. It grew apace, and finally settled into a sort of atheism, from which I was happily rescued by my sister Harriet, and the good old Father Verella, a Spanish priest, by whom I was duly baptized and received into the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church, in my native city, New York. How long the connection lasted cannot now be told; but something that occurred disgusted me, and forthwith the Pope had a new foe in my humble person. Years of doubt again succeeded after this relapse, during which the belief in ghosts grew stronger and still more strong. My mind became subject to certain peculiar states,—a sort of raptness, so to express it,—a condition precisely identical with that now claimed by thousands in the land, to be spiritually induced. The supposition that it is so, may be correct, and it may be that this condition is the result of the development of a new sense or faculty in the mind. It matters not which, albeit I am inclined toward the latter hypothesis. In these states to which I became at times subject, it seemed to me that I held converse with the ghosts, but for a long time was totally unable to realize that they were human spirits. Much of the history of my psychical life has for years been before the world, and therefore need not be repeated here; consequently we will pass over several years, to the date of the first occurrence of the "Rochester Knockings." At the first opportunity that offered itself, I went to Litchfield, Michigan, at which place were two females in whose presence the strange noises were said to occur. I heard them, believed they were produced by a power outside, and independent of the girls, yet could hardly realize that human souls, disembodied, were the makers of the sounds.
The result was an increased and intensified study, not only of the soul itself, so far as was possible by aid of an active intellect and quickened intuition, but also of its modes of action, its phases, and its moods. And, O, how my spirit loved to dwell upon its possibilities! Was there any person in the country reputed to have a wealth of knowledge on matters pertaining to the spirit, I spared neither trouble nor expense; but went forthwith to glean what I could from his or her precious stores. Of the "rappers," "tippers," and "table-turners," I soon became wearied; for, as a class, they amounted to but little, and, with one or two exceptions, proved unworthy of confidence.
At last, I went to visit a city in New England, where was published a paper devoted to the illustration and diffusion of spiritual light, the editor of which soon became interested in me, (for people said that my ghost-seeing faculty was real, and that I had given incontestible proofs, not merely of the power indicated, but also of what they were pleased to call clairvoyance). While sojourning in this eastern city, I came across a series of crayon sketches, copied from an old English work by their possessor, illustrative of certain portions of the processes of cosmical formation, according to the Ignigenous Theory. One of these drawings represented a vortical sun, discharging from itself countless hosts of lesser suns—a world-rain from the eternal cornucopia. The idea, even if it be but an idea, is a magnificent—aye, a tremendous one, and it attracted my soul very strongly. Many and many an hour have I sat gazing raptly upon that bit of pasteboard, which to me told a story too supremely vast and grand to ever find expression in human types or language; and often have I been lost in the lanes of the azure, when striving to reach that almighty center of flaming fire, whence starry systems rain down like snow-flakes in the wintry days.
This particular crayon set me to thinking in right good earnest; as a result of which, it appeared that my psychical vision became intensified. Test after test was given of this power, until the list rolled up from tens to hundreds, and people said, "If these descriptions of dead persons, whom you have never seen when living, and whom you profess to behold now, are not proofs of both the immortality of the soul and the ability to scale the walls which divide this from the upper worlds, what in Heaven's name will prove them? It must be true that you, and hundreds of others as well, do really penetrate the heretofore unlifted veil." The display of these powers satisfied others, but to myself they still remained the weary, weary A's and the barren, barren B's; for, notwithstanding all that I had seen, heard and read on the subject of the soul's continuance, it was utterly impossible to actualize or realize my theoretic belief; and this, too, at the very time that scores of persons, through the practical display of what I can but regard as a mere phase of psycho-vision, were triumphing in a firm, solid, unshaken belief in an hereafter; singular, was it not?
That the soul can, at times, act independent of the body, I am firmly convinced. We see daily proofs of it in the mesmerist's art, in mental telegraphy, and in various other ways; this has long been an accepted fact. How often do we suddenly think of a person, who instantly thereafter enters our presence, his spiritual part having preceded the physical! How often do we visit places during sleep which, in other days, we recognize externally! How frequently we dream of persons and things unknown to us, and subsequently encounter these very persons and things when wide awake! Many persons possess this power of independent soul-action, and can exert it at will. The writer has often done so.
The experience about to be related occurred at a period when the skeptical mood was on my soul; and it overtook me as I wandered distractedly on the borders of the region of Despair. But this experience, strange, fearful, and even terrible, as portions of it were, had a beneficial effect; for it lifted my struggling soul to hights of grandeur and glory, from whose sublime summits my vision 'swept the plains of immortality, and pierced the arcana of death itself!'
Had the wisdom-lessons taught in this immense experience been duly profited by, as they ought, I should have escaped many and many a bitter hour. But, like the majority of people, I refused to learn in any but the severest of all schools.
It so fell out upon a day, that, having taken my usual seat before a copy of the marvelous crayon previously alluded to, and which I had rudely sketched, I became impatient at my continual failures to comprehend the subject it represented. Generally this had not been the case. My mind, on that morning, was unusually clear and vigorous; and yet, despite all efforts, I found it utterly impossible to comprehend the stupendous conception—the Birth, of a Universe. At last, heart-faint and sick at my failure, I abruptly rose from the chair, resumed my walking apparel, left the room, and strolled carelessly and mechanically up the street, and continued listlessly onward, until I found myself beyond the outskirts of the city, and entering the open country. It was a bright, sunshiny day; and after wandering about for nearly an hour, and beginning to feel a double oppression—fatigue of body, for it was very weak and slender—and despondency of spirits—it struck me that I would turn short to the right, and lie down for a while beneath the grateful shade of a natural bower, on the borders of a forest clump, hard by. This I did; and having reclined upon the rich, green turf, under the leafy canopy afforded by the trees—rare and stately old elms they were—abandoned myself at once to meditation, speculation and repose. How long I thus lay it is impossible to tell; it may have been one hour—it may have been two or three: all that I remember of the outer world of wakefulness is the framing of a series of questions, and, amongst others wherewith I interrogated my deepest soul for responses, were these: "What is the immortality of man? What is God? Where does He dwell? Is the life hereafter a continuance of this, or is it entirely different? Can it be only a shifting of world-scenes, or is it a change as widely apart from our earthly state as is this last from the existence before birth?" These, and many similar questions, my soul propounded to itself, and sought, by an intense introversion of its faculties, to reach the penetralia of its being, where it instinctively felt convinced that all the momentous answers were already registered. Long and persistently was this endeavor continued, until, for the first time in my life, I became aware of something very, very strange, and supremely interesting going on within me. This sensation was somewhat analagous to the falling off into a deep sleep, only that it was the body alone which lost its outward sensibility; it was the physical senses only that became slowly and gradually benumbed and sealed, while the mighty senses beneath them appeared to intensify themselves, draw together, and coalesce in one grand All-sense; and this continued going on until it reached a strange and awful degree, and a sensation as of approaching death stole over, and, for a little while, frightened and alarmed me.
With all the clearness of reasoning that I ever possessed, I applied myself to the work of fathoming what all this meant; but the more strenuous the effort, the more signal the failure. Finding that the phenomenon taking place within, was governed by a law which pertained to soul-life alone, and that my ignorance of that mystic realm was too great and dense to permit a full comprehension of the enigma, nothing remained but to submit and learn, as time wore on; and, accordingly, giving over all attempts to shake off that which, by this time held my entire being within its mighty and resistless grasp, I abided patiently the result.
Slowly as moves the ice-mounds of Switzerland came the sense of coldness over my limbs; inch by inch the crafty hand of Mystery gained firmer hold. The feet, the limbs, the vitals, grew cold and leaden, until at last it seemed as if the ventricles of my heart and the blood within them were freezing, slowly, surely freezing; and the terrible conviction forced itself upon me that I was gradually, but positively—dying!
Soon all sense of organization below the neck was lost, and the words 'limb, body, chest,' had no meaning. This was also true of the head generally, but not of a something within that head. The bodily eyes and ears were the last to yield themselves up to the influence of the strange, weird spell.
"With a last, perishing effort, I strove to look forth upon, and listen to the sounds of the world, now perhaps forever being left behind. What a doleful change in a few brief hours I Where all had been serenely, calmly beautiful before, nothing was now visible but the huge, gaunt skeletons of forms I had seen glowing with living verdure but a little while ago; the sunlight was changed from silver sheen to a pale and sickly yellow, tinged with ghastly green. The overhanging branches and profuse foliage of the trees hard by had altered their every aspect, and from stately monuments of God's goodness, had become transformed into spectral obelisks, upreared on the earth to tell the future ages that He had passed that way in savage" and vindictive wrath, once upon a time. When I lay me down and gazed up into the beautiful heaven, the fleecy vapors were playing at cloud-gambols on the breast of the vault; but now they were turned into funereal palls, heavy, black, and gloomy as are the coverlets of Night; and the busy hum of myriad insects, and the gentle murmur of the zephyr moving through the bushes, no longer pleased the ear by their soft, low buzz, but smote upon my parting soul like a last and dirgeful knell; while the warblings of the plumed songsters of the wood sounded to my soul like the sepulchral chants of Eastern story. Very soon the deep black pall, hung out upon the face of heaven, began slowly and remorselessly to come down, down, down, until my nostrils snuffed the vapors and the odors of the grave. The far-off horizon began cautiously to approach me, shutting out first one window of the sky and then another, until at last but a little space of light was left; and still the cloud-walls drew nearer, nearer still; the darkness and the fetor grew more fearfully dense by degrees; I gasped for breath; the effort pained me, and was fruitless; and the horrible agony consequent thereupon, for one moment re-illumed the brain; and the dreadful possibility, nay, the probability, that I was to die there alone, with no loved hand to smoothe my brow, no lip to kiss me 'good-bye' no tearful eye to watch my parting hour, sent a thrill along my brain almost too intense for endurance. The conviction that I must perish, uncared for by kind friends, out there in the wood, beneath the blue sky and the green trees, seized upon my soul, and the cold beads of perspiration that oozed from my brow and trickled down to the ground, attested the degree of mental agony I was undergoing. 'Good-bye, all ye beauties of the sense-world! farewell, all whom I have loved or been loved by!' I mentally said; and then, by a strong effort of will, nerved my soul for its expected flight. Soon there came a thrill, a shudder, an involuntary 'God, receive me!' and I felt that I was across the Mysty River, and stood within the awful gates of—Eternity!
The majority of people imagine the Soul-world to be spacially (to coin a good word) outside of this sphere; and so it is, in one sense; but in another, it is not. A notion of what I mean may be had by comparing the other and higher with certain phases of the true dream-life. The scenes of action of either are totally removed from both time and space, and yet the events of each are actual experiences of the soul; for even in dream-life we suffer and enjoy quite as keenly as in the wakeful world of grosser sense. A woman who sleeps and dreams, finds herself in two widely-different states within the four-and-twenty hours. Now, the normal spiritual state is very like a prolonged dream-life, to which our world-sense or earthly condition is just the same as is spiritual clairvoyance to an inhabitant of the physical body; that is to say, it is possible for spiritual beings to become en rapport with this earthly world, and the interests, persons and things thereof; but this is not their normal state or condition, any more than the clairvoyance, induced mesmerically, is the normal state of the subject possessing the faculty.
It requires long and persistent effort to induce a condition in a human being, which will for a time intromit him into the greater or lesser Soul-worlds; and. just so it is no easy matter for the inhabitants of those higher and highest worlds to become en rapport with this.
These remarks are introductory to what follows.
After the first great thrill of terror had passed over, I became comparatively calm, and soon lost all consciousness whatever. Not a sensation ever felt before in all my life was experienced now, but a new magazine of emotions seemed to have suddenly been opened in the depths of my being, and began to usurp the places of the old ones.
Some years subsequent to the events now detailed, I read the wonderful experiences of several persons, who had taken the oriental drug known as hasheesh, and a few years thereafter was induced to make an experiment upon myself with a little of the powerful stimulant. I became fully conversant with its influence, but in no instance was there the least similarity between the condition it brought on and the state in which I was when reclining beneath the bower in the wood. I have known the fullest, deepest, most intense effect of that singular drug;[1] but nothing I ever experienced from it—nothing I ever read of as having been experienced by others who had foolishly taken it—at all resembled the sensations to which I awoke under the trees near that eastern city. Gradually the sense of lostness, which for a time possessed me, passed away, and was succeeded by a consciousness altogether distinct from that of either the dream or the ordinary wakeful condition. Not a sensation ever previously experienced—not even in the very soul-vaults of my being—now swept the nerve-harp within, to solace, actuate or annoy; but, instead, there came an indefinable pleasure-sense a sort of hyper-sensual ecstasy, by no means organic, but diffused over the entire being. I have every reason to believe that this feeling is always experienced by the newly dead. Persons who have been resuscitated after drowning, suspension by the neck, and asphyxia all unite in testifying, that so far as their experience went, death was a pleasant feeling, and its joys supreme, even in what to spectators may have seemed the terrible passing hour. This sensation, like all others, cannot be verbally described; it was as if the keenest pleasures known to us in the body were infinitely prolonged and strung out over the entire nerve-sea, instead of a single organ or two.
I cannot perhaps convey my meaning to some people better than by saying that the sensation was akin to the feeling of an instantaneous relief from the most excruciating pain—the toothache, for instance. I was not, at first, conscious of possessing a body; not even the ultra-sublimated material one of which we hear so much said in these latter days; but a higher, nobler consciousness was mine—namely, a supremely radiant soul-majesty.
My ears did not hear; but Sound—Nature's music—the delicious, but still melodies of earth and space, and all things else, seemed to pour in upon my ravished soul, in rich full streams, through a thousand avenues. The eye did not see, but I was all sight. There was no organ of locomotion, as on the earth, nor were such needed; but my spirit seemed to be all motion, and it knew instinctively, that by the power of the thought-wish, it could reach any point within the boundaries of earth where it longed and willed to be; but not a single yard beyond it. Let it be here distinctly understood, that the condition in which I now found myself, was precisely the same as that of the higher class of spiritual beings, when they are in the peculiar state wherein they can for a limited period, and to a certain extent, become connected with this world, wherein they have once lived, and from which they have passed over the bridge of Death to the brighter realms beyond; in other words, I was connected with two worlds, and the states incident to the residents of both, at one and the same time.
Distinctively and most clearly does memory retain all the marvelous changes from the pre-state of that auspicious afternoon.
What is especially remarkable, is, that the condition was so peculiar, that the freed soul could, and did, after a time, take close notice of material things, even while that same soul-gaze penetrated the surface, and beheld their essences. The vision was not bounded by the obstacles which impede ordinary sight. Every object was, more or less, transparent; and one very singular peculiarity of all bodies, of whatever kind, was this: the trees, stones, hills, mountains, everything, appeared as if composed of absolute fire. A certain object I knew, from its shape, to be a large tree, with brown bark, white wood, and green leaves; yet none of these colors were there now, but instead, the trunk appeared to be a huge cylinder of gray fire, not in one mass, but in interwoven streaks, all actively flaring upward, and bound together by a circle of brighter fire (the inner bark), which in turn was encompassed by a dull brown band of faintly flickering flame. Each leaf was also nothing but a vari-formed disk of purple and orange fire. Thus it was with all that I beheld.
Fire, in some form, constitutes the life of all beings, of whatsoever nature; of this I am firmly convinced. These strange sights caused me to reason in this wise: "If dull matter is so filled with the divine luminescence, what must be the appearance of a human being? Surely a man must present an astonishing sight! Of a certainty," said I, "this must be Eternity, and I am now a free soul! O, that I might behold another soul than mine, and learn somewhat of its mysteries, and reach the understanding of a few of the deeper things of its nature." Scarcely had this desire taken form, than a sense of involuntary motion took possession, and I felt myself slowly and positively rising in space, at an angle of eighty degrees with the horizon. Amazement! The sensation was not unpleasant; but as the ground receded apparently, the novelty of the situation produced emotions that most certainly were. It is impossible to describe one's feelings; nor shall such an attempt be here essayed. Suffice it therefore, that I rose to such a height, that, judging by the faint gleams of the earth-fires in the hills, and the indistinct shimmering of the city itself, I conjectured, that when at the highest point, not less than five miles, in a straight line, separated me from the peak of the tallest mountain within sight. Having reached this altitude, I began to descend the opposite arm of the triangle, whose base was on the earth's surface, and reached the ground in the neighborhood of a city in central New York, distant from my point of departure not less than two hundred miles. Of course, it was impossible to even conjecture either the means by which this journey was accomplished, or the motives prompting the wierd power which effected it; but whatever be the reasons of my coming, one thing is certain—here I am, and nothing remains but to abide the issue, whatever it may be, thought I.
Even during the mental perturbation, which was the natural result of the extraordinary circumstances in which I was placed, the question-asking faculty and propensity of my mind—one of its leading traits—found sufficient time for exercise; and many were the "whys," "hows," and "what fors" which causality propounded, but to which at first there came no response. It is almost impossible to convey an idea of the strange processes by which knowledge flowed in upon my soul. It seemed to be absorbed. Knowledge, all knowledge may be said to float in the spiritual atmosphere, underlying the coarser air men breathe; and in certain states, reachable by every human being, this knowledge is drawn in involuntarily, just as salt absorbs moisture.
Near the spot over which I hovered, [for the spirit cannot touch gross substance directly, but moves along on the surface of an aerial stratification near the earth: these strata are about sixty feet apart, and there are transverse, vertical and other lanes leading in all directions through them,] stood a house embowered in trees, and in this house was a "study," and in that study I saw the object, above all others, which had been the theme of my longing, prior to the commencement of my aerial journey, namely, a man; and that man was apparently educated and refined—for near where he sat stood a library of books, one of which he was at that moment engaged in reading. The title of the book was "Neander's Life of Christ."
Calmly read the man; still more calmly I observed him and his surroundings; and the result of these observations was a firm conviction that the theories propounded by Newton, and generally admitted to be true, concerning light, color, and sound, are not correct, or even approximately so.
No amount of disbelief on the part of others; no amount of cavilling, nor reasoning can ever convince me that the experience now being recorded is anything less than absolute fact—the direct contact of my inner being with the truths here related: hence I hesitate not for an instant in challenging the guesses of even a Newton, and offsetting against them the results of my own personal inspection of the phenomena whereof his Principia treats. In the first place, there are many different kinds of light: in the present instance, there were two sorts in operation; first, the rays of solar light fell upon the printed page, and with it a still finer, and more subtle, white and velvet light, from the eyes of the man himself; which proved to me, that men gain a knowledge of external things by means of an absolute and positive irradiation from the soul itself, whose seat is in the central brain; and this, through the medium of the optic nerves, retina and other delicate organs. In proportion to the central power of the soul, it suffuses and bathes everything in, and with, a subtle aura; and this aura is that mysterious telegraphic apparatus, by means of which it issues its behests, and receives information.
While gazing upon this beautiful sight I distinctly heard a bell ring; and yet that bell was not sounded within two hundred miles of the spot where at that very moment the body of the writer lay wrapped in a death-like pall of insensibility, as was proved by the actions of the man within the house, near which I stood, investigating the sublimest of all phenomena—namely, the Human Soul, its phases, modes and nature.
The student instantly laid down the book and rose to his feet; not, however, to respond to the ringing, but to bid his three or four little mischief-loving prattlers be quiet, make less noise, put aside the hand-bell, and not disturb him by its tinkling.
All this was deeply interesting; but what most attracted my attention was the discovery of the fact that sound was not, as thousands of scientific men have asserted, a mere vibration of aerial particles, but, on the contrary, was, and is, a fine, very fine and attenuated substance, which leaves any and all objects that are jarred or struck—and leaves in greater or less volume, in pointed pencil-rays, single rays, broad sheets of various shapes, and in undulatory waves, according to the nature of the object whence it flows, the force of the blow struck, and the character of the object used in striking. It would be quite worth the while for our savants to make experiments to verify, or, if possible, refute these statements.
The man resumed his seat; and I saw that from his internal brain there proceeded to the outer ears innumerable fibres of pale green light, and that the pencil-rays and sheets of sound, which were at that moment floating through all contiguous space, came in direct contact with the terminals of what,—for want of a better name,—I will call fibres, or, more properly, fibrils; the contact took place within the rim of the external ear, and the sound was instantaneously transmitted, or telegraphed, along the auditory nerve to the sanctum sanctorum, of his very soul.
The question naturally arises in the reader's mind at this point: "How was it possible for you to become cognizant of sound under the very peculiar circumstances and conditions by which you were surrounded for the time being? You could not hear by means of the outer ear and auditory nerves, for it is plain, if your story be indeed a recital of actual events, and not merely a splendid philosophical fiction, that your material hearing apparatus had been left behind you, in the body, beneath the trees on the outskirts of the New England city?" A very fair question this, and one demanding a fair answer. To it I reply thus: The human being, externally, is a multiple thing, at the bottom of which lies the invisible soul: Soul is the thinking, feeling, knowing essence; spirit is its casket; the body but its nursery-garments, the clothing of its juvenility. By means of the body, the soul, in which alone all power and faculty inheres, is enabled to come in contact with the material world. By means of its inner or spirit-body, which is but an out-creation, it holds converse with the worlds of Knowledge, Spirit and Principle. The fibrils alluded to are not mere emanations from the physical brain, or its ganglia, but they are wires, one end of which is eternally anchored in the very soul itself, which latter is, of course, the man per se. The wires, though passing through, are by no means rooted in the corporeal structure; hence, the man or woman, without a flesh-and-blood body, experiences but little, if any, difficulty in hearing sounds made in this material world. As it is with regard to hearing, so also it is, to the same degree, with reference to the power of seeing the corporeal forms of earthly things. The perfection and ease, however, with which this is done, depends upon the normal condition of the disembodied man himself. If he or she, as the case may be, is sound, sane, clear and morally healthy, its powers, as with one yet in the flesh, are augmented and positive; therefore it can, by processes already sufficiently explained, see, hear, feel, and even read, not only books, but the unexpressed thought of a person still embodied with whom he or she may for the time being be in sympathetic contact. Very seldom, however, can the recently dead do these things with the same ease and facility that others can who have been over the river a longer time. This I have abundantly proved; and this, too, explains a point which, as certain believers in the Spiritology of the day inform me, has puzzled thousands of investigators, i.e: why some of the dead people, with whom they claim to hold very frequent converse, can only be communicated with by means of hard labor on their part, while others readily understand and respond. Some can faintly, others clearly see and hear; some can correctly read people's thoughts; others cannot, and must be addressed vocally; others still require all questions to be written, in order that they may see and understand. The faculties and powers of dead people are doubtless as varied, dissimilar and unevenly developed as are those of persons on the hither side of Time.
The study of the human soul is a great one, and entirely worthy of a life's devotion. It has been mine to seek the solution of many of its mysteries, and in a few instances success has crowned the effort and rewarded the laborer. The final answer to the question is this: the sounds were conveyed to my inner being directly, and without the need of any flesh-and-blood organ of sense. Let us now turn toward a far more sublime mystery, namely: The very Soul itself.
- ↑ Nothing on earth could ever induce me to take a drachm of this accursed drug again.