Death and Birth into the Spirit World — Robert Bayer (Editor)— (2017) by Robert Bayer

Death and Birth into the Spirit World Robert Bayer (2017)

Table of Content Mysterious Processes of Dying — Andrew Jackson Davis —[p4] Death Observed — Andrew Jackson Davis — [p17] The Flower — Andrew Jackson Davis — [p21] The Spirit Arising at Death — Andrew Jackson Davis — [p23] The Celestial Seas — Andrew Jackson Davis — [p27] Questions Concerning Body, Soul, and Spirit — Andrew Jackson Davis — [p31] Making the Transition — J. O. Barrett — [p35] My Death — By Franchezzo, Transcribed by A. Farnese — [p38] Despair — By Franchezzo, Transcribed by A. Farnese — [p45] Hope — Wanderings on the Earth Plane — A Door of Spiritual Sight — By Franchezzo, Transcribed by A. Farnese — [p52] Lorena — William W. Aber — [p63] Band of Hope — William W. Aber — [p66] On Dying — JM Peebles — [p72] The Process of Dying — JM Peebles — [p74] Spirit, Soul, and Body — Gambier Bolton — [p76] Transition Through Death — J Hewat McKenzie — [p83] Passing Over — George Henslow — [p92] As We Always Have Been — George Henslow — [p94] Tell us more of Other-World Careers and Possibilities — Lilian Walbrook — [p97] 2

Reunion in the Heavens — Walter DeVoe — [p100] Wonder Beneath a Chair — William Pelley — [p102] Passing to Spirit Life — Anthony Borgia — [p114] Death Is a Bridge To Life — The Eloists — [p131] Question — Silver Birch — [p133] Tree of Life — Annamaria Hemingway — [p136]

Mysterious Processes of Dying Andrew Jackson Davis The Physician (1850)

The patient was a female of about sixty years of age. Nearly eight months previous to her death, she visited me for the purpose of receiving a medical examination of her physical system. Although there were no sensations experienced by her, excepting a mere weakness or feebleness located in the duodenum, and a falling of the palate, yet I discovered, and distinctly perceived, that she would die with a cancerous disease of the stomach. This examination was made about eight months previous to her death. Having ascertained the certainty of her speedy removal from our earth, without perceiving the precise period of her departure (for I can not spiritually measure time or space), I internally. resolved to be present and watch the progressive development of that interesting but much-dreaded phenomenon. Moved by this, resolution, I, at a later period, engaged board in her house, and officiated as her physician. When the hour of her death arrived, I was fortunately in a proper state of body and mind to induce the Superior Condition; but, previous to throwing my spirit into that condition, I sought the most convenient and favorable position, that I might be allowed to make the observations entirely unnoticed and undisturbed. (For an 4

explanation of what is meant by the superior condition, and of the nature and character of my spiritual perceptions, I refer the reader to the department of this work which is particularly devoted to the philosophy of psychology.) Thus situated and conditioned, I proceeded to observe and investigate the mysterious processes of dying, and to learn what it is for an individual human spirit to undergo the changes consequent upon physical death or external dissolution. They were these:- I saw that the physical organization could no longer subserve the diversified purposes or requirements of the Spiritual Principle. But the various internal organs of the body appeared to resist the withdrawal of the animating soul. The muscular system struggled to retain the element of Motion; the vascular system strove to retain the element of Life; the nervous system put forth all its powers to retain the element of Sensation; and the cerebral system labored to retain the principle of Intelligence. The body and the soul, like two friends, strongly resisted the various circumstances which rendered their eternal separation imperative and absolute. These internal conflicts gave rise to manifestations of what seemed to be, to the material senses, the most thrilling and painful sensations; but I was unspeakably thankful and delighted when I perceived and realized the fact that those physical manifestations were indications, not of pain or unhappiness, but simply that the Spirit was eternally dissolving its co-partnership with the material organism. 5

Now the head of the body became suddenly enveloped in a fine–soft – mellow – luminous atmosphere; and, as instantly, I saw the cerebrum and the cerebellum expand their most interior portions; I saw them discontinue their appropriate galvanic functions; and then I saw that they became highly charged with the vital electricity and vital magnetism which permeate subordinate systems and structures. That is to say, the Brain, as a whole, suddenly declared itself to be tenfold more positive, over the lesser portions of the body, than it ever was during the period of health. This phenomenon invariably precedes physical dissolution.

Now the process of dying, or of the spirit‟s departure from the body, was fully commenced. The brain began to attract the elements of electricity, of magnetism, of motion, of life, and of sensation, into its various and numerous departments. The head became intensely brilliant; and I particularly remarked that just in the same proportion as the extremities of the organism grew dark, and cold, the brain appeared light and glowing.

Now I saw, in the mellow, spiritual atmosphere, which emanated from, and encircled, her head, the – indistinct outlines of the formation of another head! The reader should remember that these super-sensuous processes are not visible to any one except the 6

spiritual perceptions be unfolded; for material eyes can only behold material things, and spiritual eyes can only behold spiritual things. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; This is a Law of Nature. This new head unfolded more and more distinctly; and so indescribably compact and intensely brilliant did it become, that I could neither see through it, nor gaze upon it as steadily as I desired. While this spiritual head was being eliminated and organized from out of, and above, the material head, I saw that the surrounding aromal atmosphere which had emanated from the material head was in great commotion; but, as the, new head became more distinct and perfect, this brilliant atmosphere gradually disappeared. This taught me that those aromal elements, which. were, in the beginning of the metamorphosis, attracted from the system into the brain, and thence eliminated in the form of an atmosphere, were indissolubly united in accordance with the divine principle of affinity in the universe, which pervades and destinates every particle of matter, and developed the spiritual head which I beheld.

With inexpressible wonder, and with a heavenly and utterable reverence, I gazed upon the holy and harmonious processes that were going on before me. In the identical manner in which the spiritual head was eliminated and unchangeably organized, I saw, unfolding in their natural, progressive order, the harmonious development of the neck, the shoulders, the breast, and the entire 7

spiritual organization. It appeared from this, even to an unequivocal demonstration, that the innumerable particles of what might be termed unparticled matter, which constitute the manâ&#x20AC;&#x;s Spiritual principle, are constitutionally endowed with certain elective affinities, analogous to an immortal friendship. The innate tendencies, which the elements and essences of her soul manifested by uniting and organizing themselves, were the efficient and imminent causes which unfolded and perfected her spiritual organization. The defects and deformities of her physical body, were, in the spiritual body which I saw thus developed, almost completely removed. In other words, it seemed that those hereditary obstructions and influences were now removed, which originally arrested the full and proper development of her physical constitution; and therefore, that her spiritual constitution, being elevated above those obstructions, was enabled to unfold and perfect itself, in accordance with the universal tendencies of all created things.

While this spiritual formation was going on, which was perfectly visible to my spiritual perceptions, the material body manifested, to the outer vision of observing individuals in the room, many symptoms of uneasiness and pain; but these indications were totally deceptive; they were wholly caused by the departure of the vital or spiritual forces from the extremities and viscera into the brain, and thence into the ascending organism. 8

The spirit arose at right angles over the head or brain of the deserted body. But immediately previous to the final dissolution of the relationship which had for so many years subsisted between the two spiritual and material bodies, I saw â&#x20AC;&#x201C; playing energetically between the feet of the elevated spiritual body and the head of the prostrate physical bodyabright stream or current of vital electricity. This taught me, that what is customarily termed Death is but a Birth, of the spirit from a lower into a higher state; that an inferior body and mode of existence are exchanged for a superior body and corresponding endowments and capabilities of happiness. I learned that the correspondence between the birth of a child into this world, and the birth of the spirit from the material body into a higher world, is absolute and complete â&#x20AC;&#x201C; even to the umbilical cord, which was represented by the thread of vital electricity, which, for a few minutes, subsisted between, and connected the two organisms together. And here I perceived, what I had never before obtained a knowledge of, that a small portion of this vital electrical element returned to the deserted body, immediately subsequent to the separation of the umbilical thread; and that that portion of this element which passed back into the earthly organism, instantly diffused itself through the entire structure, and thus prevented immediate decomposition.

It is not proper that a body should be deposited in the earth, until 9

after decomposition has positively commenced; for, should there be no positive evidences of such structural change, even though life seems surely to have departed, it is not right to consign the body to the grave. The umbilical life-cord, of which I speak, is sometimes not severed, but is drawn out into the finest possible medium of sympathetic connection between the body and the spirit. This is invariably the case when individuals apparently die, and, after being absent for a few days or hours, return, as from a peaceful journey, to relate their spiritual experiences. Such phenomena are modernly termed, Trances, Catalepsy, Somnambulism, and spiritual Extasis. There are many different stages, or divisions, and subdivisions, of these states. But when the spirit is arrested in its flight from the body, and when it is held in a transitional or mediatorial state, for only a few hours or minutes, then the mind seldom retains a recollection of its experience â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this state of forgetfulness, seems, to a superficial observer, like annihilation; and this occasional suspension of consciousness (or memory) is frequently made the foundation of many an argument against the souls immortal existence. It is when the spirit entirely leaves the body â&#x20AC;&#x201C; only retaining proprietorship over it, through the medium of the unsevered umbilical thread or electric wire, as it might be called â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that the soul is enabled to abandon its earthly tenement and interests, for many hours or days, and afterward, to return to the earth-ladened with bright and happy memories. 10

As soon as the spirit, whose departing hour I thus watched, was wholly disengaged from the tenacious physical body, I directed my attention to the movements and emotions of the former; and I saw her begin to breathe the most interior or spiritual portions of the surrounding terrestrial atmosphere. (The reader will find an explanation of what is meant by the “interior portions of the terrestrial atmosphere,” by referring to the consideration of “air as a medium,” to be found in the pathological department of this volume.) At first it seemed with difficulty that she could breathe the new medium; but, in a few seconds, she inhaled and exhaled the spiritual elements of nature, with the greatest possible ease and delight. And now I saw that she was in the possession of exterior and physical proportions, which were identical, in every possible particular – improved and beautified – with those proportions which characterized her earthly organization. That is to say, she possessed a heart, a stomach, a liver, lungs, &c., &c., just as her natural body did previous to (not her, but) its death. This is a wonderful and‟ consoling truth! But I saw that the improvements which were wrought upon, and in, her spiritual organization, were not so particular and thorough as to destroy or transcend her personality; nor did they materially alter her natural appearance or earthly characteristics. So much like her former self was she, that, had her friends beheld her (asI did), they certainly would have exclaimed – as we often do upon the sudden return of a 11

long absent friend, who leaves us in illness and returns in health – “Why, how well you look! how improved you are!” such were the nature – most beautifying in their extent-of the improvements that were wrought upon her.

I saw her continue to conform, and accustom herself, to the new elements and elevating sensations which belong to the inner life. I did not particularly notice the workings and emotions of her newly awakening and fast unfolding spirit; except, that I was careful to remark, her philosophic tranquility throughout the entire process, and her non-participation, with the different members of her family, in their unrestrained bewailing of her departure from the earth, to unfold in Love and Wisdom throughout eternal spheres. She understood, at a glance, that they could only gaze upon the cold and lifeless form which she had but just deserted; and she readily comprehended the fact, that it was owing to a want of true knowledge upon their parts, that they thus vehemently regretted her merely physical death.

The excessive weeping and lamentation of friends and relatives, over the external form of one departed, are mainly caused by the sensuous and superficial mode by which the majority of mankind view the phenomenon of death. For, with but few exceptions, the race is so conditioned and educated on the earth-not yet having grown into spiritual perceptions – not yet progressed to where 12

“whatsoever is hid shall be revealed” – realizing, only through the medium of the natural senses, the nearness of the beloved-watching and comprehending only the external signs and processes of physical dissolution – supposing this contortion to indicate pain, and that expression to indicate anguish – I say, the race is so situated and educated that death of the body (to the majority of the earth‟s inhabitants) is equivalent to an annihilation of the personality of the individual. But I would comfort the superficial observer, and I can solemnly assure the inquirer after truth, that, when an individual dies naturally, the spirit experiences no pain; nor, should the material body be dissolved with disease, or crushed by the fearful avalanche, is the individuality of the spirit deformed, or in the least degree obscured. Could you but turn your natural gaze from the lifeless body, which can no longer answer to your look of love; and could your spiritual eyes be opened; you would behold – standing in your midst – a form, the same, but more beautiful, and living! Hence, there is great cause to rejoice at the birth of the spirit from this world into the Inner Sphere of Life – yea, it is far more reasonable and appropriate to weep at the majority of marriages which occur in this world, than to lament when man‟s immortal spirit escapes from its earthly form, to live and unfold in a higher and better country! You may clothe yourselves with the dark habiliments of wo, when you consign at the altar, a heart to a living grave; or when you chain the soul to breathe in an uncongenial atmosphere; but robe yourselves with garments of 13

light to honor the spiritâ&#x20AC;&#x;s birth into a higher life!

The period required to accomplish the entire change, which I saw, was not far from two hours and a half; but this furnishes no rule as to the time required for every spirit to elevate and reorganize itself above the head of the outer form. Without changing my position, or spiritual perceptions, I continued to observe the movements of her new-born spirit. As soon as she became accustomed to the new elements which surrounded her, she descended from her elevated position, which was immediately over the body, by an effort of the will-power, and directly passed out of the door of the bedroom, in which she had lain (in the material form) prostrated with disease for several weeks. It being in a summer month, the doors were all open, and her egress from the house was attended with no obstructions. I saw her pass through the adjoining room, out of the door, and step from the house into the atmosphere! I was overwhelmed with delight and astonishment when, for the first time, I realized the universal truth that the spiritual organization can tread the atmosphere, which, while in the coarser, earthly form, we breathe â&#x20AC;&#x201C; so much more refilled is manâ&#x20AC;&#x;s spiritual constitution. She walked in the atmosphere as easily, and in the same manner, as we tread the earth, and ascend an eminence. Immediately upon her emergement from the house, she was joined by two friendly spirits from the spiritual country; and, after tenderly recognising and communing with each other, the three, 14

in the most graceful manner, began ascending obliquely through the ethereal envelopment of our globe. They walked so naturally and fraternally together, that I could scarcely realize the fact that they trod the air â&#x20AC;&#x201C; they seemed to be walking upon the side of a glorious but familiar mountain! I continued to gaze upon them until the distance shut them from my view; whereupon I returned to my external and ordinary condition.

O, what a contrast! Instead of beholding that beautiful and youthfully unfolded spirit, I now saw, in common with those about me, the lifeless â&#x20AC;&#x201C; cold â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and shrouded organism of the caterpillar, which the joyous butterfly had so recently abandoned!

Death is but the local or final development of a succession of specific changes in the corporeal organism of man. As the death of the germ is necessary to the birth or development of the flower; so is the death of mans physical body an indispensable precedent and indication of his spiritual birth or resurrection. That semi-unconscious slumber into which the soul and body mutually and irresistibly glide, when darkness pervades the earth, is typical of death. Sleep is but death undeveloped; or, in other words, sleep is the incipient manifestation of that thorough and delightful change, which is the glorious result of our present rudimental existence. Night and sleep correspond to physical death; but the brilliant day, and human wakefulness, 15

correspond to spiritual birth and individual elevation.

There is every reason why man should rest, with regard to life and death, and be happy; for the Laws of Nature are unchangeable and complete in their operations. If we understand these laws, and obey them on the earth, it is positively certain that our passage from this sphere, and our emergement into the spirit-country, will be like rolling into the blissful depths of natural sleep, and awakening from it, to gaze upon, and to dwell in, a more congenial and harmonious world.

Death Observed Andrew Jackson Davis The Physician (1850)

For, with but few exceptions, the race is so conditioned and educated on the earth-not yet having grown into spiritual perceptions—not yet progressed to where "whatsoever is hid, shall be revealed" —realizing, only through the medium of the natural senses, the nearness of the beloved-watching and comprehending only the external signs and processes of physical dissolution— supposing this contortion to indicate pain, and that expression to indicate anguish — I say, the race is so situated and educated that death of the body (to the majority of the earth's inhabitants) is equivalent to an annihilation of the personality of the individual. But I would comfort the superficial observer, and I can solemnly assure the inquirer after truth, that, when an individual dies naturally, the spirit experiences no pain; nor, should the material body be dissolved with disease, or crushed by the fearful avalanche, is the individuality of the spirit deformed,'or in the least degree obscured.

Could you but turn your natural gaze from the lifeless body, which can no longer answer to your look of love; and could your spiritual eyes be opened; you would behold—standing in your midst—a form, 17

the same, but more beautiful, and living! Hence, there is great cause to rejoice at the birth of the spirit from this world into the Inner Sphere of Lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;yea, it is far more reasonable and appropriate to weep at the majority of marriages which occur in this world, than to lament when man's immortal spirit escapes from its earthly form, to live and unfold in a higher and better country! You may clothe yourselves with the dark habiliments of woe, when you consign at the altar, a heart to a living grave; or when you chain the soul to breathe in an uncongenial atmosphere; but robe yourselves with garments of light to honor the spirit's birth into a higher life!

I saw her pass through the adjoining room, out of the door, and step from the house into the atmosphere! I was overwhelmed with delight and astonishment when, for the first time, I realized the universal truth that the spiritual organization can tread the atmosphere, which, while in the coarser, earthly form, we breatheâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;so much more refilled is man's spiritual constitution. She walked in the atmosphere as easily, and in the same manner, as we tread the earth, and ascend an eminence. Immediately upon her emergement from the house, size was joined by two friendly spirits from the spiritual country; and, after tenderly recognising and communing with each other, the three, in the most graceful manner, began ascending obliquely through the ethereal envelopment of our globe.

They walked so naturally and fraternally together, that I could scarcely realize the fact that they trod the airâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;they seemed to be walking upon the side of a glorious but familiar mountain! I continued to gaze upon them until the distance shut them from my view; whereupon I returned to my external and ordinary condition.

O, what a contrast! Instead of beholding that beautiful and youthfully unfolded spirit, I now saw, in common with those about me, the lifeless-cold â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and shrouded organism of the caterpillar, which the joyous butterfly had so recently abandoned! Death is but the local or final development of a succession of specific changes in the 19

corporeal organism of man. As her death of the germ is necessary to the birth or development of the flower; so is the death of man's physical body an indispensable precedent and indication of his spiritual birth or resurrection. That semi-unconscious slumber into which the soul and body mutually and irresistibly glide, when darkness pervades the earth, is typical of death. Sleep is but death undeveloped; or, in other words, sleep is the incipient manifestation of that thorough and delightful change, which is the glorious result of our present rudimental existence. Night and sleep correspond to physical death; but the brilliant day, and human wakefulness, correspond to spiritual birth and individual elevation. There is every reason why man should rest, with regard to life and death, and be happy; for the Laws of Nature are unchangeable and complete in their operations. If we understand these laws, and obey them on the earth, it is positively certain that our passage from this sphere, and our emergence into the spirit-country, will be like rolling into the blissful depths of natural sleep, and awakening from it, to gaze upon, and to dwell in, a more congenial and harmonious world.

The Flower Andrew Jackson Davis The Physician (1850)

The flower, being unfolded from the interior by virtue of its own essence and the sun, is variegated in every possible manner, and thus becomes a representative of light and beauty; but having attained its perfection, it soon begins to change its form, its color, and its beauty of external being. Its fragrance goes forth and pervades all congenial and suitable forms, and its beauty is indelibly impressed upon the memory of its beholder and admirer, when the flower itself is no more. The foliage, tinted with the breath of winter, no longer retains its outward beauty; but this is an index of new life and animation, which is perfectly exemplified in the return of foliage in the youthful season. As it is with these, so it is with the spirit.

The body dies on the outer, or rather, changes its mode of existence, while the spirit ascends to a higher habitation, suited to its nature and requirements. DEATH is but a Door which opens into new and more perfect existence. It is a Triumphal Arch through which man's immortal spirit passes at the moment of leaving the outer world to depart for a higher, a sublimer, and a more magnificent country. And there is really nothing more painful or repulsive in the natural process 21

of dying (that which is not induced by disease or accident) than there is in passing into a quiet, pleasant, and dreamless slumber.

The Spirit Arising at Death Andrew Jackson Davis The Physician. (1850)

The spirit arose at right angles over the head or brain of the deserted body. But immediately previous to the final dissolution of the relationship which had for so many years subsisted between the two spiritual and material bodies, I saw playing energetically between the feet of the elevated spiritual body and the head of the prostrate physical body a bright stream or current of vital electricity. This taught me, that what is customarily termed Death is but a Birth, of the spirit from a lower into a higher state; that an inferior body and mode of existence are exchanged for a superior body and corresponding endowments and capabilities of happiness. I learned that the correspondence between the birth of a child into this world, and the birth of the spirit from the material body into a higher world, is absolute and complete â&#x20AC;&#x201D; even to the umbilical cord, which was represented by the thread of vital electricity, which, for a few minutes, subsisted between, and connected the two organisms together. And here I perceived, what I had never before obtained a knowledge of, that a small portion of this vital electrical element returned to the deserted body, immediately subsequent to the separation of the umbilical thread; and that that portion of this element which passed 23

back into the earthly organism, instantly diffused itself through the entire structure, and thus prevented immediate decomposition. It is not proper that a body should be deposited in the earth, until after decomposition has positively commenced; for, should there be no positive evidences of such structural change, even though life seems surely to have departed, it is not right to consign the body to the grave.

The umbilical life-cord, of which I speak, is sometimes not severed, but is drawn out into the finest possible medium of sympathetic connection between the body and the spirit. This is invariably the case when individuals apparently die, and, after being absent for a few days or hours, return, as from a peaceful journey, to relate their spiritual experiences. Such phenomena are modernly termed, Trances, Catalepsy, Somnambulism, and spiritual Extasis. There are many different stages, or divisions, and subdivisions, of these states. But when the spirit is arrested in its flight from the body, and when it is held in a transitional or mediatorial state, for only a few hours or minutes, then the mind seldom retains a recollection of its experience â&#x20AC;&#x201D; this state of forgetfulness, seems, to a superficial observer, like annihilation; and this occasional suspension of consciousness (or memory) is frequently made the foundation of many an argument against the soul's immortal existence. It is when the spirit entirely leaves the body â&#x20AC;&#x201D; only retaining proprietorship over it, through the 24

medium of the unsevered umbilical thread or electric wire, as it might be called â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that the soul is enabled to abandon its earthly tenement and interests, for many hours or days, and afterward, to return to the earth-ladened with bright and happy memories. As soon as the spirit, whose departing hour I thus watched, was wholly disengaged from the tenacious physical body, I directed my attention to the movements and emotions of the former; and I saw her begin to breathe the most interior or spiritual portions of the surrounding terrestrial atmosphere. (The reader will find an explanation of what is meant by the "' interior portions of the terrestrial atmosphere," by referring to the consideration of

"air as a medium," to be found in

the pathological department of this volume.)

At first it seemed with difficulty that she could breathe the new medium; but, in a few seconds, she inhaled and exhaled the spiritual elements of nature, with the greatest possible ease and delight. And now I saw that she was in the possession of exterior and physical proportions, which were identical, in every possible particular â&#x20AC;&#x201D; improved

and

beautified

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;with

those

proportions

which

characterized her earthly organization. That is to say, she possessed a heart, a stomach, a liver, lungs, &c., &c., just as her natural body did previous to (not her, but) its death. This is a wonderful and' consoling truth! But I saw that the improvements which were wrought upon, and in, her spiritual organization, were not so particular and 25

thorough as to destroy or transcend her personality; nor did they materially alter her natural appearance or earthly characteristics. So much like her former self was she, that, had her friends beheld her (as I did), they certainly would have exclaimed—as we often do upon the sudden return of a long absent friend, who leaves us in illness and returns in health —"Why, how well you look! how improved you are!" such were the nature — most beautifying in their extent—of the improvements that were wrought upon her. I saw her continue to conform, and accustom herself, to the new elements and elevating sensations which belong to the inner life. I did not particularly notice the workings and emotions of her newly awakening and fast unfolding spirit; except, that I was careful to remark, her philosophic tranquility throughout the entire process, and her non-participation, with the different members of her family, in their unrestrained bewailing of her departure from the earth, to unfold in Love and Wisdom throughout eternal spheres. She understood, at a glance, that they could only gaze upon the cold and lifeless form which she had but just deserted; and she readily comprehended the fact, that it was owing to a want of true knowledge upon their parts, that they thus vehemently regretted her merely physical death. The excessive weeping and lamentation of friends and relatives, over the external form of one departed, are mainly caused by the sensuous and superficial mode by which the majority of mankind view the phenomenon of death. 26

The Celestial Seas Andrew Jackson Davis Morning Lectures (1863)

When liberated at death, we do not move on toward the sun, nor drop downwards into some dreary depth of darkness; we embark on a sidewise voyage, directly above the southern extremity of our planet, and thence onward until we reach the Summer-Land! What shore do we gain? We gain the shore of a land just like this earth, if this earth were a stratified belt composed of the finest possible particles that you can imagine thrown from all the orbs composing the Milky Way. Pulverize and attenuate the finest particles of matter on this earth; then bring them together in chemical relations; make them coalesce and form into an immeasurable golden belt with all the visible suns and stars, and you have the Second Sphere in its substance, position, and formation.

Do you not comprehend that that Land is as substantial to those who live there as this earth is to its inhabitants? The proportions and the adaptations are the same. The Summer-Land, so far as the surrounding immensity is concerned, is bounded on all sides by aerial seas. Suppose you should go down to any of those high points of land along the coast, and look off on the watery expanse of the 27

Atlantic Ocean. What would you see? No islands are visible; only an atmosphere overhead; clouds are floating in the blue sky, and all the rest is water. Now suppose you had never seen, or read, or heard of such a spectacle. What would be your first impression? Your first sensuous impression would be that all the immensity beyond was water, as all above is sky, and that, if you should sail off on that dreary waste, you would be lost utterly to land and to human society.

Such, I say, would be your impression or apprehension on the supposition that you had no previous knowledge of any such spectacle in Nature.

Now imagine yourself standing on one of

those shining shores on the margin of the Summer-Land. Looking toward the Earth, and Sun, and Mercury, and Venus, what would you see? If you were not a farseeing clairvoyant, but was contemplating with the first opening of your spiritual eyes, you would see an illimitable ocean of twinkling stars overhead and zones of golden suns shining, and you would realize a holy, celestial atmosphere, bounding your existence on all sides, and from your feet the departure of an ocean without shore or island, without form, and void of all relations. If, however, your clairvoyant sight was opened â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if your spiritual eyes had the light of far penetrating clairvoyance in them â&#x20AC;&#x201D; you would instantly perceive that the aerial ocean, which flows out into infinity from your feet, ripples off and divides into beautiful ethereal rivers, and that those rapidly flowing rivers lead 28

away to the planets, even to this Earth, whence you departed, while another river flows onward to Mars, another to Jupiter, another to Saturn, and other celestial streams to other more distant planets belonging to other systems of suns; and so on, and on, throughout the star-paved regions of the firmament, you would behold, in every imaginable direction, streams running musically down these gentle atmospheric declivities, just as tangibly as the rivers that run down the mountains and flow through the spaces in the rough landscapes of this more material world.

I wish! oh how I wish! that I could picture to you the reality of these musical rivers of the heavenly spaces. They are musical to the ear that can hear them flowing between the constellations. Pythagoras and his school believed in the deathless “music of the spheres.” Did not the students of Pythagoras listen to catch that compound symphony? And was it not this very star melody which caused them to be such enthusiasts in Music? Did not some of them in the far-off olden time have clairaudience enough to hear through the physical, and also clairvoyance sufficient to see that “in the Father’s house there are many mansions” many. happy and beautiful places — many apartments or spheres of human life — and that these different apartments in the celestial temple were so many local scenes and landscapes, belonging to the Summer-Land, which breathe eternal harmony throughout infinitude “the music of the spheres”? 29

Now suppose you were this moment standing on the shining shore of the Summer-Land and looking this way, the out-flowing sea would appear about the same to your sight, without the light of clairvoyance, as would the Atlantic Ocean to the natural eye from the promontories of Nahant. It would, perhaps, at first, be no more of a startling spectacle of incomprehensible sublimity.

Questions Concerning Body, Soul, and Spirit. Andrew Jackson Davis Answers to Ever-Recurring Questions (1868)

Questions Concerning Body, Soul, and Spirit. XXVII. — Question: “1. Does the ‘vital magnetism’ connecting the soul with the spirit ever dissolve, leaving the spirit without a body, and could the spirit exist thus disembodied? “2. Is the organization of the soul — from the ‘chaotic and discordant elements’ composing it in this life — ever possible with any human being after throwing off the mortal body? “3. You say, ‘in common with the animals, each man has a soul;’ but has each human soul a spirit, which, in conjunction with the soul, is to be rocked ‘in the downy cradle of eternity?”

Answer: 1. It is impossible that the magnetic connection, which links the soul to the spirit, should ever be dissipated or rendered ineffective. The vital magnetism is an enveloping ethereal emanation — a perpetual atmosphere — and is not only generated and renewed every moment, but its intimacy and agency are every moment made more chemically perfect and organically indissoluble. Spirit, without a body, is not individualized. Spirit is the impersonal essence of the omnipresent Father and Mother. It is personalized and secreted from the universal ocean of divine principles by means 31

of the forming and containing soul. Hence spirit cannot exist disembodied. It would be swallowed up, like a drop of water, in the common sea of infinite principles.

2. It is impossible for a spirit identity to be formed and established independently of the physical organization and its psychical energies. The material organism is designed specifically and fundamentally to perform the function of giving individuality to the spiritual elements. The body is a mill. It puts, air, water, light, heat, vegetables, fruits, animal substances, and chemicals, into its hopper, and pulverizes them by digestion. The soul is fed and manufactured out of the finest elements

and

essences

extracted

from

the

above-named

substances. No body but manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s can elaborate the soul of a man; and no soul but manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s can ever subserve the eternal ends of the indwelling spirit If it were possible for any spirit to be clothed upon for immortal life, without the aid of the physical body, it would then be absurd for any human being to be born into this world. The fact that every inhabitant of supernal lands was once born of woman, on this planet, or on some other like this, in material development, demonstrates the absolute indispensableness of the corporeal organism to a future individualized existence. Therefore, we answer that it is never possible for a new soul to be organized about the spirit after death, except in the manner heretofore explained. The spirit, after leaving the mortal body, is always immediately clothed upon 32

with that particular soul which was manufactured for it by the physical mechanism.

3. We do most distinctly affirm that every human soul has a spirit adapted to an eternal life. But we do not say that every form in human shape is necessarily human in its internal organism. Sometimes it happens that human parents produce false progeny, such as idiots and phrenological monstrosities, who do not possess the functions adequate to the manufacturing of the psychical organism. And sometimes, also, among the inferior tribes of earth, we observe bodies in human shape, possessing souls in common with the animal world, but who do not reach sufficiently high in the phrenological scale to take in and clothe a spirit for eternity. Among all races of men these exceptions exist. The farther back we investigate the physical history of mankind, the more frequent the exceptions, until we reach a point in the far past, where the animal world was brought in its fĹ&#x201C;tal development to the inception of the imperfect human type in shape merely, when the exception was on the side of immortality, and the rule in harmony with the mortal destiny of the brute creation.

Now it is rare, among the so-called civilized races, that a child is born on the strictly mortal side of life. But that there are such cases is as certain as that there are counterfeit coins in daily circulation in trade. 33

Every peach-blossom does not produce a peach; nor is every peach capable of reproducing its kind.

Making the Transition J. O. Barrett Looking Beyond (1871)

Mary Carpenter, in a letter addressed to Joseph Baker, of Janesville, Wis., thus describes the transition of her mother, January 28, 1852: "Her last words were addressed to me. Perceiving that she was dying, I seated myself in the room, and was soon in the state of spiritual clairvoyance. With the opening of the inner sight, the painful scene of a mother's death was changed to a vision of glory. Beautiful angelic spirits were present, watching over her; their faces were radiant with bliss, and their glittering robes were like transparent snow. I could feel them as material, and yet they communicated a sensation that I can only describe by saying, it seemed like compressed air. Some of these heavenly attendants stood at her head, and some at her feet, while others seemed to be hovering over her form. They did not appear with the wings of fowls, as angels are commonly painted, but they were in the perfected human form. They seemed so pure, so full of love, that it was sweet to look at them as they watched the change now taking place in my mother.

"I now

turned my attention more directly to my parent, and saw the external senses leave her. First the power of sight departed, and then a veil seemed to drop over the eyes; then the hearing ceased, and next the 35

sense of feeling. The spirit began to leave the limbs, as they died first, and the light that filled each part in every fibre drew up towards the chest. As fast as this took place the veil seemed to drop over the part from whence spiritual light was removed. A ball of light was now gathering just above her head, and this continued to increase as long as the spirit was connected with the body. The light left the brain last, and then the silver cord was loosed.'* The luminous appearance soon began to assume the human form, and I could see my mother again. But, O, how changed She was light and glorious, arrayed in robes of dazzling whiteness; free from disease, pain, and death. She seemed to be welcomed by the attending spirits with the joy of a mother over the birth of a child. She paid no attention to me or any earthly object, but joined her companions, and they seemed to go away through the air. I attempted to follow them in the spirit, for I felt strongly attracted, and longed to go with my mother. I saw them ascend till they seemed to pass through an open space, when a mist came over my sight, and I saw them no more. I returned, and soon awoke, but not to sorrow as those who have no hope.' a * Professor Schiff,

experimenting

upon

nerve

actions

means

thermo-electric needles, discovered that the life of the brain does not cease immediately after the cessation of the circulation; that the elevation of the sensory nerves could be produced for twelve minutes after the entire cessation of the beating of the heart.

"This vision, far more beautiful than language can express, remains stamped upon my memory. It is an unfailing comfort to me in my bereavement. Her death was a great loss to me, but I cannot lament it. O, it is a glorious change to her! "

My Death A Wanderer in the Spirit Lands By Franchezzo, Transcribed by A. Farnese (1896)

I have been a Wanderer through a far country, in those lands that have no name—no place—for you of earth, and I would set down as briefly as I can my wanderings, that those whose feet are pointed to that bourn may know what may in their turn await them.

On earth and in my life of earth I lived as those do who seek only how the highest point of self gratification can be reached. If I was not unkind to some—if I was indulgent to those I loved—yet it was ever with the feeling that they in return must minister to my gratification—that from them I might purchase by my gifts and my affection the love and homage which was as my life to me.

I was talented, highly gifted both in mind and person, and from my earliest years the praise of others was ever given to me, and was ever my sweetest incense. No thought ever came to me of that all self-sacrificing love which can sink itself so completely in the love for others that there is no thought, no hope of happiness, but in securing the happiness of the beloved ones. In all my life, and amongst those women whom I loved (as men of earth too often miscall that which is 38

but a passion too low and base to be dignified by the name of love), amongst all those women who from time to time captivated my fancy, there was not one who ever appealed to my higher nature sufficiently to make me feel this was true love, this the ideal for which in secret I sighed. In everyone I found something to disappoint me. They loved me as I loved them—no more, no less. The passion I gave won but its counterpart from them, and thus I passed on unsatisfied, longing for I knew not what.

Mistakes I made—ah! how many. Sins I committed—not a few; yet the world was often at my feet to praise me and call me good, and noble, and gifted. I was feted—caressed—the spoilt darling of the dames of fashion. I had but to woo to win, and when I won all turned to bitter ashes in my teeth. And then there came a time upon which I shall not dwell, when I made the most fatal mistake of all and spoilt two lives where I had wrecked but one before. It was not a golden flowery wreath of roses that I wore, but a bitter chain—fetters as of iron that galled and bruised me till at last I snapped them asunder and walked forth free. Free?—ah, me! Never again should I be free, for never for one moment can our past errors and mistakes cease to dog our footsteps and clog our wings while we live—aye, and after the life of the body is ended—till one by one we have atoned for them, and thus blotted them from our past.

And then it was—when I deemed myself secure from all love—when I thought I had learned all that love could teach—knew all that woman had to give—that I met one woman. Ah! what shall I call her? She was more than mortal woman in my eyes, and I called her "The Good Angel of My Life," and from the first moment that I knew her I bowed down at her feet and gave her all the love of my soul—of my higher self—a love that was poor and selfish when compared to what it should have been, but it was all I had to give, and I gave it all. For the first time in my life I thought of another more than of myself, and though I could not rise to the pure thoughts, the bright fancies that filled her soul, I thank God I never yielded to the temptation to drag her down to me.

As so time went on—I sunned myself in her sweet presence—I grew in holy thoughts that I deemed had left me for ever—I dreamed sweet dreams in which I was freed from those chains to my past that held me so cruelly, so hardly, now when I sought for better things. And from my dreams I ever woke to the fear that another might win her from me—and to the knowledge that I, alas! had not the right to say one word to hold her back. Ah, me! The bitterness and the suffering of those days! I knew it was myself alone who had built that wall between us. I felt that I was not fit to touch her, soiled as I was in the world's ways. How could I dare to take that innocent, pure life and link it to my own? At times hope would whisper it might be so, but 40

reason said ever, "No!" And though she was so kind, so tender to me that I read the innocent secret of her love, I knew—I felt—that on earth she never would be mine. Her purity and her truth raised between us a barrier I could never pass. I tried to leave her. In vain! As a magnet is drawn to the pole, so was I ever drawn back to her, till at last I struggled no more. I strove only to enjoy the happiness that her presence gave—happy that at least the pleasure and the sunshine of her presence was not denied me.

And then! Ah! then there came for me an awful, and unexpected day, when with no warning, no sign to awaken me to my position, I was suddenly snatched from life and plunged into that gulf, that death of the body which awaits us all.

And I knew not that I had died. I passed from some hours of suffering and agony into sleep—deep, dreamless sleep—and when I awoke it was to find myself alone and in total darkness. I could rise; I could move; surely I was better. But where was I? Why this darkness? Why was no light left with me? I arose and groped as one does in a dark room, but I could find no light, hear no sound. There was nothing but the stillness, the darkness of death around me.

Then I thought I would walk forward and find the door. I could move, though slowly and feebly, and I groped on—for how long I know not. 41

It seemed hours, for in my growing horror and dismay I felt I must find some oneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;some way out of this place; and to my despair I seemed never to find any door, any wall, anything. All seemed space and darkness round me.

Overcome at last, I called out aloud! I shrieked, and no voice answered me. Then again and again I called, and still the silence; still no echo, even from my own voice, came back to cheer me. I bethought me of her I loved, but something made me shrink from uttering her name there. Then I thought of all the friends I had known, and I called on them, but none answered me. Was I in prison? No. A prison has walls and this place had none. Was I mad? Delirious? What? I could feel myself, my body. It was the same. Surely the same? No. There was some change in me. I could not tell what, but I felt as though I was shrunken and deformed? My features, when I passed my hand over them, seemed larger, coarser, distorted surely? Oh, for a light! Oh, for anything to tell me even the worst that could be told! Would no one come? Was I quite alone? And she, my angel of light, oh! where was she? Before my sleep she had been with meâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;where was she now? Something seemed to snap in my brain and in my throat and I called wildly to her by name, to come to me, if but for once more. I felt a terrible sense as if I had lost her, and I called and called to her wildly; and for the first time my voice had a sound and rang back to me through that awful darkness. 42

Before me, far, far away, came a tiny speck of light like a star that grew and grew and came nearer and nearer till at last it appeared before me as a large ball of light, in shape like a star, and in the star I saw my beloved. Her eyes were closed as of one in sleep, but her arms were held out to me and her gentle voice said in those tones I knew so well, "Oh! my love, my love, where are you now; I cannot see you, I only hear your voice; I only hear you call to me, and my soul answers to yours."

I tried to rush to her, but I could not. Some invisible force held me back, and around her seemed a ring I could not pass through. In an agony I sank to the ground, calling upon her to leave me no more. Then she seemed to grow unconscious; her head sank upon her breast, and I saw her float away from me as though some strong arms had borne her. I sought to rise and follow her, but could not. It was as if a great chain held me fast, and after some fruitless struggles I sank upon the ground in unconsciousness.

When I awoke again I was overjoyed to see that my beloved one had returned to me. She was standing near, looking this time as I had seen her on earth, but pale and sad and all dressed in black. The star was gone, and all around was darkness; yet not utter darkness, since around her was a pale, faint glow of light by which I could see she 43

carried flowersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;white flowersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in her hands. She stooped over a long low mound of fresh earth. I drew nearer and nearer and saw that she was silently weeping as she laid down the flowers on that low mound. Her voice murmured softly, "Oh, my love! Oh, my love, will you never come back to me? Can you be indeed dead, and gone where my love cannot follow you? Where you can hear my voice no more? My love! Oh, my dear love!"

She was kneeling down now, and I drew near, very near, though I could not touch her, and as I knelt down I, too, looked at that long low mound. A shock of horror passed over me, for I knew now, at last, that I was dead, and this was my own grave.

Despair A Wanderer in the Spirit Lands By Franchezzo, Transcribed by A. Farnese (1896)

"Dead! Dead!" I wildly cried. "Oh, no, surely no! For the dead feel nothing more; they turn to dust; they moulder to decay, and all is gone, all is lost to them; they have no more consciousness of anything, unless, indeed, my boasted philosophy of life has been all wrong, all false, and the soul of the dead still lives even though the body decays." The priests of my own church had taught me so, but I had scorned them as fools, blind and knavish, who for their own ends taught that men lived again and could only get to heaven through a gate, of which they held the keys, keys that turned only for gold and at the bidding of those who were paid to say masses for the departed soulâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;priests who made dupes of silly frightened women and weak-minded men, who, yielding to the terror inspired by their awful tales of hell and purgatory, gave themselves, bodies and souls, to purchase the illusive privilege they promised. I would have none of them. My knowledge of these priests and the inner hidden lives of many of them had been too great for me to listen to their idle tales, their empty promises of a pardon they could not give, and I had said I would face death when it came, with the courage of those who know 45

only that for them it must mean total extinction; for if these priests were wrong, who was right? Who could tell us anything of the future, or if there were any God at all? Not the living, for they but theorize and guess, and not the dead, for none came back from them to tell; and now I stood beside this graveâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;my own graveâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and heard my beloved call me dead and strew flowers upon it.

As I looked the solid mound grew transparent before my eyes, and I saw down to the coffin with my own name and the date of my death upon it; and through the coffin I saw the white still form I knew as myself lying within. I saw to my horror that this body had already begun to decay and become a loathsome thing to look upon. Its beauty was gone, its features none would recognize; and I stood there, conscious, looking down upon it and then at myself. I felt each limb, traced out with my hands each familiar feature of my face, and knew I was dead, and yet I lived. If this were death, then those priests must have been right after all. The dead livedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but where? In what state? Was this darkness hell? For me they would have found no other place. I was so lost, so beyond the pale of their church that for me they would not have found a place even in purgatory.

I had cast off all ties to their church. I had so scorned it, deeming that a church which knew of, and yet tolerated, the shameful and ambitious lives of many of its most honored dignitaries had no claim 46

to call itself a spiritual guide for anyone. There were good men in the church; true, but there was also this mass of shameless evil ones whose lives were common talk, common matter of ridicule; yet the church that claimed to be the example to all men and to hold all truth, did not cast out these men of disgraceful lives. No, she advanced them to yet higher posts of honor. None who have lived in my native land and seen the terrible abuses of power in her church will wonder that a nation should rise and seek to cast off such a yoke. Those who can recall the social and political condition of Italy in the earlier half of this century, and the part the church of Rome played in helping the oppressor to rivet the fetters with which she was bound, and who know how her domestic life was honeycombed with spies—priests as well as laymen—till a man feared to whisper his true sentiments to his nearest and dearest lest she should betray him to the priest and he again to the government—how the dungeons were crowded with unhappy men, yea, even with mere lads guilty of no crime save love of their native land and hatred of its oppressors—those, I say, who know all this will not wonder at the fierce indignation and burning passion which smouldered in the breast of Italia's sons, and burst at last into a conflagration which consumed man's faith in God and in his so-called Vicar upon earth, and like a mountain torrent that has burst its bounds, swept away men's hopes of immortality, if only through submission to the decrees of the church it was to be obtained. Such, then, had been my attitude of revolt and scorn 47

towards the church in which I had been baptized, and that church could have no place within her pale for me. If her anathemas could send a soul to hell surely I must be there.

And yet as I thought thus I looked again upon my beloved, and I thought she could never have come to hell even to look for me. She seemed mortal enough, and if she knelt by my grave surely I must be still upon earth. Did the dead then never leave the earth at all, but hover near the scenes of their earthly lives? With such and many similar thoughts crowding through my brain I strove to get nearer to her I so loved, but found I could not. An invisible barrier seemed to surround her and keep me back. I could move on either side of her as I pleasedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;nearer or fartherâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but her I could not touch. Vain were all my efforts. Then I spoke; I called to her by name. I told her that I was there; that I was still conscious, still the same, though I was dead; and she never seemed to hearâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;she never saw me. She still wept sadly and silently; still tenderly touched the flowers, murmuring to herself that I had so loved flowers, surely I would know that she had put them there for me. Again and again I spoke to her as loudly as I could, but she heard me not. She was deaf to my voice. She only moved uneasily and passed her hand over her head as one in a dream, and then slowly and sadly she went away.

I strove with all my might to follow her. In vain, I could go but a few yards from the grave and my earthly body, and then I saw why. A chain as of dark silk thread—it seemed no thicker than a spider's web—held me to my body; no power of mine could break it; as I moved it stretched like elastic, but always drew me back again. Worst of all I began now to be conscious of feeling the corruption of that decaying body affecting my spirit, as a limb that has become poisoned affects with suffering the whole body on earth, and a fresh horror filled my soul.

Then a voice as of some majestic being spoke to me in the darkness, and said: "You loved that body more than your soul. Watch it now as it turns to dust and know what it was that you worshipped, and ministered and clung to. Know how perishable it was, how vile it has become, and look upon your spirit body and see how you have starved and cramped and neglected it for the sake of the enjoyments of the earthly body. Behold how poor and repulsive and deformed your earthly life has made your soul, which is immortal and divine and to endure forever."

And I looked and beheld myself. As in a mirror held up before me, I saw myself. Oh, horror! It was beyond doubt myself, but, oh! so awfully changed, so vile, so full of baseness did I appear; so repulsive in every feature—even my figure was deformed—I shrank 49

back in horror at my appearance, and prayed that the earth might open before my feet and hide me from all eyes for evermore. Ah! never again would I call upon my love, never more desire that she should see me. Better, far better, that she should think of me as dead and gone from her forever; better that she should have only the memory of me as I had been in earthly life than ever know how awful was the change, how horrible a thing was my real self.

Alas! Alas! My despair, my anguish was extreme, and I called out wildly and struck myself and tore my hair in wild and passionate horror of myself, and then my passion exhausted me and I sank senseless and unconscious of all once more.

Again I waked, and again it was the presence of my love that awaked me. She had brought more flowers, and she murmured more soft tender thoughts of me as she laid them on my grave. But I did not seek now to make her see me. No, I shrank back and sought to hide myself, and my heart grew hard even to her, and I said: "Rather let her weep for the one who has gone than know that he still lives," so I let her go. And as soon as she was gone, I called frantically to her to come back, to come back in any way, to any knowledge of my awful position, rather than leave me in that place to see her no more. She did not hear, but she felt my call, and afar off I saw her stop and half turn round as though to return, then she passed on again and left me. 50

Twice, three times she came again, and each time when she came I felt the same shrinking from approaching her, and each time when she left I felt the same wild longing to bring her back and keep her near me. But I called to her no more for I knew the dead call in vain, the living hear them not. And to all the world I was dead, and only to myself and to my awful fate was I alive. Ah! now I knew death was no endless sleep, no calm oblivion. Better, far better had it been so, and in my despair I prayed that this total oblivion might be granted to me, and as I prayed I knew it never could, for man is an immortal soul, and for good or evil, weal or woe, lives on eternally. His earthly form decays and turns to dust, but the spirit, which is the true man, knows no decay, no oblivion.

Each dayâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for I felt that days were passing over meâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;my mind awoke more and more, and I saw clearer and clearer the events of my life pass in a long procession before meâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;dim at first, then by degrees growing stronger and clearer, and I bowed my head in anguish, helpless, hopeless anguish, for I felt it must be too late now to undo one single act.

Hope — Wanderings on the Earth Plane — A Door of Spiritual Sight. A Wanderer in the Spirit Lands By Franchezzo, Transcribed by A. Farnese (1896)

I know not how long this lasted; it seemed a long, long time to me. I was sitting wrapped still in my despair when I heard a voice gentle and soft calling to me—the voice of my beloved—and I felt compelled to rise and follow that voice till it should lead me to her; and as I rose to go the thread which had so bound me seemed to stretch and stretch till I scarce felt its pressure, and I was drawn on and on till at last I found myself in a room which, I could dimly see, even in the darkness that always surrounded me, was familiar to my eyes. It was the home of my beloved one, and in that room I had passed, ah! how many peaceful happy hours in that time which seemed now separated from me by so wide and awful a gulf. She sat at a little table with a sheet of paper before her and a pencil in her hand. She kept repeating my name and saying: "Dearest of friends, if the dead ever return, come back to me, and try if you can make me write a few words from you, even 'yes' or 'no' in answer to my questions."

For the first time since I had died I saw her with a faint smile upon her lips and a look of hope and expectation in those dear eyes that were 52

so heavy with weeping for me. The dear face looked so pale and sad with her grief and I feltâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;ah! how I feltâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the sweetness of the love she had given me, and which now less than ever dare I hope to claim.

Then I saw three other forms beside her, but they I knew were spirits, yet how unlike myself. These spirits were bright, radiant, so that I could not bear to look at them; the sight seemed to scorch my eyes as with a fire. One was a man, tall, calm, dignified-looking, who bent over her to protect her as her guardian angel might. Beside him stood two fair young men whom I knew at once to be those brothers whom she had so often spoken of to me. They had died when youth with all its pleasures was before them, and their memories were shrined in her heart as those who were now angels. I shrank back, for I felt they saw me, and I sought to cover my disfigured face and form with the dark mantle which I wore. Then my pride awoke, and I said: "Has not she herself called me? I have come, and shall not she be the arbiter of my destiny? Is it so irrevocable that nothing I can do, no sorrow, no repentance however deep, no deeds however great, no work however hard, can reverse it? Is there indeed no hope beyond the grave?"

And a voice, the voice I had heard before at my own grave, answered me: "Son of grief, is there no hope on earth for those who sin? Does not even man forgive the sinner who has wronged him if 53

the sin be repented of and pardon sought? And shall God be less merciful, less just? Hast thou repentance even now? Search thine own heart and see whether it is for thyself or for those thou hast wronged that thou art sorry?"

And I knew as he spoke that I did not truly repent. I only suffered. I only loved and longed. then again my beloved spoke and asked me, if I were there and could hear her, to try and write one word through her hand that she might know I still lived, still thought of her.

My heart seemed to rise into my throat and choke me, and I drew near to try if I could move her hand, could touch it even. But the tall spirit came between us, and I was forced to draw back. Then he spoke and said: "Give your words to me and I will cause her hand to write them down for you. I will do this for her sake, and because of the love she has for you."

A great wave of joy swept over me at his words, and I would have taken his hand and kissed it but could not. My hand seemed scorched by his brightness ere I could touch him, and I bowed myself before him for I thought he must be one of the angels.

My beloved spoke once more and said: "Are you here, dearest friend?" 54

I answered, "Yes," and then I saw the spirit put his hand on her, and when he did so her hand wrote the word "yes." Slowly and unsteadily it moved, like a child's learning to write. Ah! how she smiled, and again she asked me a question, and as before her own hand traced out my answer. She asked me if there were anything she could do for me, any wish of mine that she could help me to carry out? I said: "No! not now. I would go away now and torment her no more with my presence. I would let her forget me now."

My heart was so sore as I spoke, so bitter; and ah! how sweet to me was her reply, how it touched my soul to hear her say: "Do not say that to me, for I would ever be your truest, dearest friend, as I was in the past, and since you died my one thought has been to find you and to speak with you again."

And I answered, I called out to her, "It has been my only wish also." She then asked if I would come again, and I said "Yes!" For where would I not have gone for her? What would I not have done? Then the bright spirit said she must write no more that night. He made her hand write that also and said she should go to rest.

I felt myself now drawn away once more back to my grave and to my earthly body in that dark churchyard; but not to the same hopeless 55

sense of misery. In spite of everything a spark of hope had risen in my heart, and I knew I should see and speak with her again.

But now I found I was not alone there. Those two spirits who were her brothers had followed me, and now spoke. I shall not state all they said. Suffice it to say they pointed out to me how wide was now the gulf between their sister and myself, and asked me if I desired to shadow all her young life with my dark presence. If I left her now, she would, in time, forget me, except as one who had been a dear friend to her. She could always think tenderly of my memory, and surely if I loved her truly I would not wish to make all her young life lonely and desolate for my sake.

I replied that I loved her, and could never bear to leave her, never bear to think of any other, loving her as I had done.

Then they spoke of myself and my past, and asked if I dared to think of linking myself with her pure life, even in the misty fashion in which I still hoped to do? How could I hope that when she died I should meet her? She belonged to a bright sphere to which I could not hope for a long time to rise, and would it not be better for her, and nobler, more truly loving of me, to leave her to forget me and to find what happiness in life could yet be given to her, rather than seek to keep alive a love that could only bring her sorrow? 56

I said faintly I thought she loved me. They said: "Yes, she loves you as she herself has idealized your image in her mind, and as she in her innocence has painted your picture. Do you think if she knew all your story she would love you? Would she not shrink back in horror from you? Tell her the truth, give her the choice of freedom from your presence, and you will have acted a nobler part and shown a truer love than in deceiving her and seeking to tie her to a being like yourself. If you truly love her, think of her and her happiness, and what will bring itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;not of yourself alone."

Then the hope within me died out, and I bowed my head to the dust in shame and agony, for I knew that I was vile and in no way fit for her, and I saw as in a glass what her life might still be freed from mine. She might know happiness yet with another more worthy than I had been, while with my love I would only drag her down into sadness with me. For the first time in my life I put the happiness of another before my own, and because I so loved her and would have had her happy, I said to them: "Let it be so, then. Tell her the truth, and let her say but one kind word to me in farewell, and I will go from her and darken her life with the shadow of mine no more."

So we went back to her, and I saw her as she slept exhausted with her sorrow for me. I pleaded that they would let me give her one kiss, 57

the first and last that I would ever give. But they said no, that was impossible, for my touch would snap forever the thread that held her still to life.

Then they awoke her and made her write down their words, while I stood by and heard each word fall as a nail in the coffin where they were burying my last hope forever. She, as one in a dream, wrote on, till at last the whole shameful story of my life was told, and I had but to tell her myself that all was forever at an end between us, and she was free from my sinful presence and my selfish love. I said adieu to her. As drops of blood wrung from my heart were those words, and as ice they fell upon her heart and crushed it. Then I turned and left her—how, I know not—but as I went I felt the cord that had tied me to my grave and my earthly body snap, and I was free—free to wander where I would—alone in my desolation!

And then? Ah, me! While I write the words the tears of thankfulness are in my eyes again, and I almost break down in trying to write them; then she whom we had deemed so weak and gentle that we had but to decide for her, she called me back with all the force of a love none dare oppose—called me back to her. She said she could never give me up so long as I had love for her. "Let your past be what it might; let you be sunk now even to the lowest depths of hell itself, I will still love you, still seek to follow you and claim my right—the right of my 58

loveâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to help and comfort and cherish you till God in his mercy shall have pardoned your past and you shall be raised up again." And then it was that I broke down and wept as only a strong proud man can weep, whose heart has been wrung and bruised and hardened, and then touched by the soft tender touch of a loving hand till the tears must come to his relief.

I went back to my love and knelt down beside her, and though they would not let me touch her, that calm beautiful spirit who was her guardian whispered to her that her prayer was answered, and that she should indeed lead me back to the light. And so I left my darling, and as I passed away I saw a white angel's form hover over her to give her strength and comfort, who was herself my angel of light. I left her thus with those spirits, and went forth to wander till her voice should call me to her side again.

After the short troubled sleep into which those bright spirits had put her, my darling awoke the next day, and went to visit a kind good man whom she had discovered in her efforts to find some way by which she might reach me even beyond the grave.

If it might be that what she had been told about those people who were called Spiritualists was really true, she hoped through their aid to speak again with me, and prompted by those who were watching 59

over her, she had searched out this man who was known as a healing medium, and by him she had been told that if she herself tried, she could write messages from the so-called dead.

This I did not learn till later. At the time I only felt myself summoned by the voice of her whose power over me was so great, and in obedience to it I found myself standing in what I could dimly distinguish to be a small room. I say dimly, because all was still dark to me save only where the light around my darling shone as a star and showed faintly what was near.

It was to this good man of whom I speak that she had gone, and it was her voice speaking to him that had drawn me. She was telling him what had passed the night before, and how much she loved me, and how she would gladly give all her life if by so doing she could comfort and help me. And that man spoke such kind words to herâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;from my heart I thanked and still thank him for them. He gave me so much hope. He pointed out to my dear love that the ties of the earth body are broken at its death, and I was free to love her and she was free to return that loveâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that she herself better than any other could in truth help to raise me, for her love would give me comfort and hope as nothing else would do, and would cheer my path of repentant effort. And she had now the best of rights to give it, my love for her had been so pure and true a passion, while hers for me was 60

stronger than death itself, since it had overcome the barrier of death. He was so kind, this manâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;he helped me to speak to her, and to explain many things as I could not have done the night before when my heart was so sore and full of pride. He helped me to tell what of excuse there had been for me in the past, though I owned that nothing can truly excuse our sins. He let me tell her that in spite of all the wrong of my past she had been to me as one sacredâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;loved with a love I had given to none but herself. He soothed and strengthened her with a kindness for which I blessed him even more than for his help to myself, and when she left him at last I, too, went with her to her home, the light of hope in both our hearts.

And when we got there I found that a fresh barrier was raised up by those two spirit brothers and others to whom she was dear; an invisible wall surrounded her through which I could not pass, and though I might follow her about I could not get very near. Then I said to myself that I would go back to the kind man and see if he would help me.

My wish seemed to carry me back, for I soon found myself there again. He was at once conscious of my presence, and strange as it may seem, I found that he could understand much, although not all, that I said to him. He gathered the sense of what I wanted to say, and told me many things I shall not set down here since they concerned 61

only myself. He assured me that if I were only patient all would be well in time, and though the relations might build their spiritual wall around my love, her will would at all times draw me through it to her, and nothing could shut out her love from me; no walls could keep that back. If I would seek now to learn the things of the spirit, and work to advance myself, the gulf between us would disappear. Comforted I left him and wandered away again, I knew not where.

Lorena William W. Aber The Guiding Star (1905)

333. And then came a lady form, dressed in white, and spake in whisper substantially as follows, to-wit:

My name is Lorena. I am glad of the opportunity to be here among you, in this way. I came by request of the kind friends who are managing here, on the spirit side, and I am here to give an experience from this side of life that may be a lesson for suffering mortals to live by, during the years of their earthly pilgrimage, and may also, become a light across the way leading on and shining away the darkness that some unfortunate souls experience after passing over.

334. You mortals see around you, sometimes, what seems to you a beautiful, beautiful country, in which you would be glad to dwell perpetually. The clothing of the landscape, in green verdure, as the sun comes up north from his low winter home in the far south and with him return the beautifully plumaged song-birds, and the soft sunshine sparkles and dances o'er the rippling waters of the brookletâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;dances to music of aerial songstersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Oh, the sweet, sweet 63

spring-time! The glorious green foliage of the woodland the sweet-scented apple bloom and hum of bees and insects among the flowers Lovely land! The beautiful sunsetâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the nightingale, the whippoorwill, and out of the dark night the glorious sunrise and sweet morning!

335. But all of this fades away into a shadowy past as the careworn pilgrim of earth gradually awakes in spirit life to find a home there, by and by, in comparison with which the loveliest scenes of earth fade away into insignificance. But alas, to many thousands of poor souls, the journey from earth, through low conditions on the spirit side is long, dark, wearisome, but the longest night is followed by sunrise and the darkest clouds do, sometime, roll away; and at last, by help of blessed angels from the light beyond, the darkest soul is redeemed out of all hells, and triumphantly enters the grandeur, indescribable, of such beautiful conditions as were never dreamed of while tabernacling in the tenement of clay.

336. I was several hundred years reaching the beautiful fields of light from my feeble condition. I passed out with brain trouble, a disease called dementia. While there is no such thing as insanity, yet there are conditions, through which the mind is unable to manifest, and you call this idiocy, insanity, dementia, and various names, but you do not understand what the condition or environment really 64

is—teachers on earth need to know—physicians of earth need to know, but often—too often, those thought to be wise are the very last to find out.

337. Well, many thousands of these unfortunates come to this side, and some of them are the most difficult to set on the developing road, of all cases coming into the care of benevolent emissaries from higher spheres. While these are the most difficult to handle and educate, the little children that come over here are the easiest to educate—and here comes one who came here when a child many years ago. He tells me that some of you knew him. He tells me to have you ask if any of you mortals knew of one who passed from the mortal many years ago in early life, by the name of Ralph? One of the circle responded, yes. All right, he says he may give them a message before they go away; and oh, if mortal teachers would try to understand these things and practice that knowledge countless numbers of cases might be so relieved on earth as to pass into the life beyond so much advanced as to save them years of "outer darkness" in the spirit world.

Band of Hope William W. Aber The Guiding Star (1905)

I think I shall tell you tonight, of a band of spirits called Sweet Hope. This band takes its name from its leader and has for its emblem, a blue anchor. I explained the nature of our work to the leader and asked if she would not tell me the mission of her band. She said: While it will be the opening of wounds that have caused me years of suffering, I will tell you as much of our objects as I think necessary to give you a full insight into our work; but first, I shall have to tell you a little of myself though very little. (For picture, see Fig. 6.)

322. I lived in an age upon earth that was given almost entirely to sensuous enjoyments. We were divided into two classes: Masters and slaves. I happened to be one of the former. How often have I seen poor, virtuous slave girls sold to the most immoral masters, and to my shame I looked on and acquiesced. We thought not of another life, and days and nights were spent in feasting. Human life is held lightly by people who live as I lived. I was strangled in a perfumed bath by one who should have been my rescuer. Plunged from sensuous pleasure into the spirit world!â&#x20AC;&#x201D;is it any wonder I stood aghast at the spectacle I beheld? "How can I escape from this 66

endless torment?" I cried. Conscience no longer slumbering, but awake and powerful, sent back the answer, clear and strong: "expiate the wrongs of your earth life! " I felt that, if I must wait for happiness until this was accomplished I was, indeed, doomed to suffer eternally!â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Oh, if those who dwell upon the earth plane could only realize what a blessed age they are now living in! Just think of the time gone by, when I stood an outcast in the spirit world among the lowest of spirits there. Many had been my earthly associates, but they had become so repulsive to me that I had much rather have been alone. Think how blessed it is to know that spirits can communicate with those upon earth without jeopardizing the lives of the instruments they make use of. I was compelled to wait until those I had deeply wronged entered spirit life; and then spent weary years of waiting until they had progressed far enough to give me the pardon I sued for. I found that if we are only patient, happiness will come in the end. I have not been able to forget the many, many years of misery I spent in the lower spheres; therefore, after years of service ministering to others and realizing the value of united efforts, I organized the "Band of Hope."

do not find the cases most needing assistance to be altogether among the poor of earth. In fact when you take into consideration the temptations thrown around the poor, you will find that more, in proportion, fall among the rich.

324. We have a very pitiable case on hand now. One of the band called Sympathy, has charge of it. She is a beautiful society woman, and oh! if we could only induce her to attend sĂŠances such as you are interested in, how many years of suffering it would save her! She would then realize the evil of her way and pause on the very threshold of despair. She married for love; and early in her married life, she began to hold lonely vigils, waiting for him to come home. Her ears were strained to catch every sound. The rumbling of each passing carriage caused her heart to beat wildly. So long weary hours dragged themselves away; and when he did come, she felt sure it would have been better if he had not come at all. Her face grew white and careworn, and the beauty she prized faded away. Finally, her love died out, as a fire without fuel, and she was left stranded. From taking a glass of wine, to steady her shaking nerves, she is fast becoming a drunkard. Just when we feel that she is on safe ground, she slips from our grasp, and our work must begin anew. I would that the schools of the world would teach morality, which can be taught, in such a way, as not to interfere with any religious sect. The basis of all religions is the same. All are striving to better their 68

conditions. They fall far short, in many cases, but will only learn through experience. It is sad, indeed, that few will profit by none other than personal experience. How many lives would be brighter and happier if they had applied the experiences of others to their individual case.

325. Our desire is to extend the Band of Hope so that all seeing our emblem will understand its meaning: "True aspiration." And we trust that, our little "blue anchor " will prove strong enough to anchor the largest boat on the sea of life. So saying, she left me feeling that I had been much benefited by our little talk. I hope that those who read this will ponder it well and gladly welcome the Messengers of Sweet Hope.

323. Our object is to rescue men and women from themselves. We realize that it is the environments that shape the lives of those on earth, unless acted upon by some force outside of themselves. And we are striving to become helpers to those in low conditions. And we do not find the cases most needing assistance to be altogether among the poor of earth. In fact when you take into consideration the temptations thrown around the poor, you will find that more, in proportion, fall among the rich.

On Dying JM Peebles Immortality and Our Employments Hereafter (1907)

Horace Greeley observes that, in dying, “Just as my outer consciousness closed in, and the familiar faces and objects faded away, my spiritual eyes opened, and I saw through the gates ajar in the land that seers had often seen and described. I shrink from the attempt to fully describe the surrounding scenery. No panorama of the imagination equals it. ... I have a home, lovely and grand — a home of nature’s beauties, works of art, and gems of spirit literature — a located and a real home — a home that increases in beauty as I progress towards eternal light — a home of which, during my earthly life, I was the unconscious architect and builder. My wrongdoing, and the missteps of my mortal life, disfigured and, in a degree, tarnished its brightness. Oh that the inhabitants of your earth could understand that their works precede them to the world of spirits! . . . I am now seeking to finish up the work I commenced on earth. It was far from completion when I left the body. I find my greatest joy now in assisting the weak and oppressed, and in impressing mortals to engage in works of philanthropy. ... I would give worlds to more fully return and make amends for my cowardly indifference to the fact of spiritualism. If in my own body again, as I now see it, I would 72

proclaim the blessed truth of angel ministry from the housetops. I had it in my power to accomplish easily what now becomes exceedingly difficult. I would say to all in the form, Do not be ashamed of rational religious spiritualism! March valiantly to the front, and face the enemiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; fire. Unfurl the banners of love and truth that the winds of heaven, bearing them aloft, may show the world the emblems of a pure and free religion! Fill your lives so full of good deeds, so full of true, brave words spoken, that you can look back from spirit life to earth without that stinging remorse that I at times have felt for hiding a portion of the light given me.â&#x20AC;?

The Process of Dying JM Peebles Immortality and Our Employments Hereafter (1907)

The process of dying to me was a period of temporary unconsciousness. I passed from earthly existence very suddenly, and woke at an apparently immense height above the earth. My first companions in spirit life were my mother whom I had dearly loved on earth, and a friend who had been my guide when in the body. Many other spirits soon came around me with words of welcome.

My spirit home is not within the atmosphere of this earth, but far above it.

I found a home prepared for me in spirit life, but incomplete; I am now working to complete it. Every act of my earthly life, yea, every secret thought, I found, had taken tangible form. Many scenes either adorned or disfigured the walls. As I endeavored to rise above all earthly imperfection, as I labored to assist spirits in the lower spheres and men on earth, the bright scenes glowed out with unspeakable brilliancy, and the dark ones gradually faded out and brighter pictures filled their places. During our sojourn on earth our homes are prepared for us by the angels, and are built of the vibrations which go 74

forth into the spiritual atmosphere from our hearts and lives. Will-power, when it subdues evil, beautifies the home.

Spirit, Soul, and Body Gambier Bolton Ghosts in Solid Form (1914)

In the fifteenth chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians in the Christian Bible, we read of "a spiritual body". Can you explain this to us?

A. "Manâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Womanâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;know Thyself." Man IS a spirit now and throughout the ages: and HAS a soul (or Spiritual-body) now and for a portion of his life beyond the grave: and HAS a material, physical, or earth-body during his life on earth, which he leaves behind him there for ever, at the change which you term "death." In the letter to which you refer, the writer is dealing with this, the greatest of all the trinities in your sphere, Psyche, pneuma, soma (Spirit, soul, and body), "the three in one" which form Life in the earth-sphere: for, wherever there is life, there also is Spirit:

where there is Spirit,

there also is soul (or spiritual-body) so long as the earth-life lasts, and for a certain period in the spheres as well: where there is Spirit on the earth-sphere there also is a material body, which is left behind for ever at the "death" of that body.

You will remember that in the thirty-fifth verse in that chapter the 76

writer refers to the question so often asked, "How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come?" He replies, "Thou foolish one, the seed which thou sowest (in the ground) is not quickened (endued with life) except it (first) die: and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grainâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;it may happen to be wheat or some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body."

The insignificant looking grain of wheat is put into the ground, leaves its body there forever, but the Spirit, the Life, contained within that little seed, rises from the ground a tall and graceful stalk, bearing well-filled ears of corn. "So also," he continues, "is the resurrection of the dead." The earth or natural-body is sown in corruption: the spiritual-body (soul) is raised in incorruption. The natural-body is sown in dishonour: the spiritual-body (soul) is raised in glory. The natural-body is sown in weakness: the spiritual-body (soul) is raised in power. Mark this carefully: "It is sown a natural-body; it is raised a spiritual-body. There IS a natural-body, and there IS a spiritual-body." And yet, in the face of such teaching as this, Christianity dares to proclaim the resurrection of the earth or physical body! By another entity.

You and we are now and always immortal Spirits, and you are visiting the earth, as a part of your spiritual evolution, for a period of training 77

and discipline, and you are Spirits clothed, during this period, with an earth or physical-body and a spiritual-body (soul), and each one of you is therefore a complete "trinity in unity," as has been said, in him or herself, formed as you are at this moment of Spirit, spiritual-body, and earth or physical-body.

And, just as at the change which you term "birth," at the commencement of your earth-life, the Spirit became clothed upon with its spiritual-body and developed its earth-bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;so, at the change which you term "death," at the termination of your earth-life, the Spirit, still clad in its spiritual-body, will pass out of your earth-body, which it then leaves for ever; and passing upwards during the ages from one sphere to another, it will gradually part with more and more of its spiritual-body at each step upwards, until at length, and as pure Spirit only, it will return to God, who IS Spirit.

In proportion as the Spirit progresses in the spheres, the essence of its spiritual-body, which consists of the finer nervous fluids, becomes more and more etherealised; whence it follows that the influence of matter diminishes in exact proportion to the advancement of the Spirit, i.e., the spiritual-body becomes less and less gross, and consequently more and more spiritual, as the Spirit within it progresses.

By another entity, the real YOU, altogether invisible to normal human sight, rests at this moment within two separate and quite distinct envelopes or bodies: the one visible to normal sight, the material or earth-body, controlled by its brain; the other invisible to normal sight, although plainly visible to clairvoyant sightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, the spiritual body, controlled by its spiritual replica of the brain, the mind. As was well said in one of your psychic journals recentlyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;although I shall venture to make a few slight additionsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;" The spiritual-body consists of finer ether, and has a mind (consciousness), as distinct a thing from the brain as this spiritual-body is from the earth-body, but they are inhabitants of another sphere. And you can slip this finer body, with its mind, out of your physical body; and after death it is just the same in appearance as during life.

"This spiritual-body started its career at the moment you started being made by your microscopic father (spermatozoon) and mother (ovum). It is their offspring, as essentially as you are. It did not exist before you: it has no chance to be self-existent or immortal, like your Spirit. It had a natural beginning, as you had, and therefore from a normal point of view must have an end (and eventually does), but its dissolution does not occur at the time of the death of your earth-body, for it survives this," and gradually becomes less and less as you, as Spirit, progress upwards through the spheres.

Many mortals seem to think that at birth you came to earth straight from your Deityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or, as you Christians say, from "heaven" to earthâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and that at death you will return straight to your Deityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or, as you Christians say, to "heaven" or "hell," according to the lives you have lived whilst on earth.

Now "heaven" and "hell," I would remind

you, are not places above, below, or around you; but are states or conditions in your earth-life, and also in your life and ours in the spheres; and you and we make our own "heaven" or our own "hell," according to the lives you and we lead in our respective spheres.

You will find that the human Spirit, far from coming straight to earth from "heaven," has lived on many planets or worlds before it reached this one; just as it will live in many spheres after its period of training on earth is ended.

Myriads of worlds swarm in space, and in a

certain number of these worlds each Spirit in rudimental conditions performs a portion of its pilgrimage ere it reaches this little planet called "earth"; and it is the function of this world to confer upon the Spirit the consciousness of itself, and knowledge of good and evil.

Only whilst on earth is the Spirit man or woman; prior to this, in every other stage of its vast journey, it has been but an embryonic being, a fleeting temporary form of matter, gaining here a little and there a little; a creature in which is a portion of the high imprisoned Spirit-seed which shines forth in a rudimental shape with rudimental 80

functions, as a butterfly springing up from the chrysalis; ever going onward into new life, new death, living and dying, stretching and reaching upward, striving onward along the pathways of life in the planets. At last comes the day when it awakens to find itself a thing encased in a material body for the first time, to find itself a creature of flesh and blood for a short period termed "the earth-life"—a man or a woman.

After this birth of the Spirit—(encased in its soul or spiritual-body)—in a material or earth-body, it acquires the knowledge of its own individuality, its passions, its loves, and a knowledge of good and evil: it gains sell-consciousness, and in doing these things, is closing forever its career of material pilgrimage and transformation.

With the death of the earth-body, the Spirit (still clad in its spiritual-body) at once gravitates to a fresh series of pilgrimages and existences in our spheres, the realms of Spirit: and here begin the further purification and growth of the Spirit, now filled—by its experience gained during the earth-life—with either the sublime attributes of Love and Wisdom gained by self-knowledge, or with the lower attributes of the animal by which it permitted itself to be conquered or overcome during its earth-life. Hence the vital importance of the warning which we so often give to you men and women of earth to loosen the ties, especially the animal ties, which 81

would tend to hold you to earth after you have passed out of your physical bodies for the last time.

Transition Through Death J Hewat McKenzie Spirit Intercourse (1917)

Having explained something of the nature and powers of the soul, it will now be possible for readers to understand that natural process called death, which has to many appeared a most mysterious and often cruel operation of nature. This need no longer be the case, for the phenomena of death is now well understood by the occult scientist in the light of the new science death loses its terrifying aspect, and appears nothing more than a necessary and entirely natural transition, a birth into a higher and nobler state. Theology, both Christian and pagan, has cast around death theories both repulsive and foolish, and through this teaching fear has entered into the hearts of civilized men such as a natural man would never have imagined. Psychic science proves conclusively that death is something to be met calmly, and accepted as a boon by the whole human family when it occurs in a normal way. When death overtakes the young, or those in the prime of life, grief is excusable, but a knowledge of psychic science will make this also wear a more natural and less sorrowful aspect. If through the doors of death there is a world of life, love, and light, there is no need for the tears and mourning we spend on our loved ones, and if in addition we can see 83

them or hear from them, then death loses the power to sting, and the grave is robbed of victory. A few after death may reside in darkness, sadness, and despair for a time, but this applies only to those who have lived an extremely savage. Ignorant, and cruel existence here, for the great majority of mankind immediately after death pass on to rejoice in a life superior to that of earth. What occurs at the moment of death, when the soul slips away from its fleshly tenement, varies somewhat, according to the cause of death and the age of the individual. The separation of a soul from its body is in some cases slow, and in others rapid, for such separation may begin months before death, as in the case of old age, lingering illness or disease, whereas with those, in the prime of life, days and weeks may elapse before severance is thoroughly completed, even after the body is buried. Death, which appears to some mortals as a horrible nightmare, often comes to the individual experiencing it as a sweet sleep and a pleasant awakening on the other side within a few hours, surrounded by loving friends and the beauties of celestial scenery. The twitching face and chilled body, which disturb the onlooker at a death-bed, are usually unfelt by the departing spirit, the twitching being due to the tentacles of the soul snapping from the nerve centres of the body.

The life of man lies within the soul, and when it is completely severed from the body, as at death, the latter immediately begins to decay. 84

The idea that man's physical organism leads a separate and individual existence of its own is a popular delusion. The whole physical structure of man is, during life, permeated and controlled by the soul, which interpenetrates every nerve cell and atom, holds the physical together, and protects it against dissolution. The living inner force of man which we call life is still a mystery to the majority of the human race, and even those whose work it is to understand the body and keep it from disease, are equally ignorant, and labor under many wrong ideas concerning the seat of life. This state of affairs is likely to last for centuries, unless in the medical curriculum practical psychology is included as an integral part of study. Professors of medicine still teach that man's blood is pumped through the blood-vessels by the heart, and are seemingly quite ignorant of the fact that the energy of a thousand hearts would be insufficient to pump the blood through the miles of blood-vessels of the human body. They are unconscious of the fact that the heart, instead of acting as an engine of energy, is just the reverse, and acts as a governor or brake upon the blood flow. The heart plays the same part in the control of the human machinery that the governor of an engine plays, and just as the governor is driven by the energy within the engine, so also is the heart driven by the energy within the human machine. The human engine is driven by electric forces which flow through its nervous system, the power being generated from the atmosphere by the lungs. This magnetic energy is drawn from 85

nature's storehouse, the atmosphere, by the power of the soul acting upon the physical organism and by no other means. Eject the soul from the body, as one can do in the deepest hypnotic trance, and the breathing stops, the blood ceases to flow, and suspended animation is the result, the body taking upon itself the appearance of death, which would certainly result if the psychic umbilical cord was severed. All bodies belonging to the animal and vegetable kingdoms, including man, are animated by magnetic currents very similar in their nature and operation to the power which drives our electrical machinery. Food, through its chemical action, provides conditions by which the electric forces are stored, but separated from the animal organism and its soul, has no energy value.

A description of the actual passing of the spirit from a person dying in old age, who has lived a normal life, neither very good nor very bad, may be of interest in this case the soul tentacles will sever from the nerve centres almost as easily as a ripe apple will fall from the tree, whereas in youth, through accident or disease, the soul will cling to the body very much as a green apple does to its branch, and force is required to break it away. By the assistance of a developed clairvoyant, who can describe the passage of the soul which he sees as it leaves the body, confirmed by numerous conversations which the writer has had with those called dead, the following facts have been secured: â&#x20AC;&#x201D; The soul of man at death begins to contract at the 86

extremities of the feet and of the fingers, shrinking upwards towards the trunk, and leaving the limbs stiff and cold. The soul being of a luminous nature, the clairvoyant perceives that the limbs are in darkness, while the trunk and head of the body show luminosity where it still dwells. From the lower parts of the trunk the soul then withdraws upwards towards the chest and neck and head. While this withdrawal is going on, a fine, luminous vapor or essence pours forth from the brain suture, and rising, forms a cloudy appearance just above the body, hovering there, and increasing in height and width, as the soul matter exudes from the head. This emanation rises to a height and width of seven or eight feet, and so remains for some hours after the heart has ceased to beat. The cloud then contracts in size, and more and more assumes a human form, lying about a foot above the physical body. The face and features next appear, presenting an exact likeness of the dead body, but somewhat younger in appearance. During this operation the spirit remains totally unconscious of its surroundings, and may continue to sleep quietly for some hours. If by that time it does not wake of its own accord, it is carried by spirit relatives or friends first to the upper astral plane, immediately adjoining the earth, where it may rest for a time, until it regains consciousness, and later passes on to the second or third sphere, to whichever it is attuned. The awakening usually occurs, in such a case as has been described, within a few days after arrival. Where great suffering has been experienced for 87

months previous to death, or where severe mental or physical strain has been known, the spirit may lie asleep for weeks, or even months, carefully tended by those who set themselves apart to render this service. When one dies who has lived a spiritual life, the passing over is both beautiful and easy, for the soul, having already perfected itself, arises from the body almost as quickly as one rises from bed in such a case, unconsciousness is only of a few moments' duration, and one shuts his eyes upon the physical life, to open them almost immediately upon the faces of beloved spirits who congregate around the death-bed, unseen by the mourners, yet none the less there, and these immediately usher the new-born soul into the next world. When one suddenly awakes in this fashion in full consciousness, receiving the words of welcome from spirit relatives and friends, he usually turns to look with surprise upon the physical body which he has just vacated. He sees the watchers weeping at the bedside, and tries to attract their attention by touching them, but soon perceives that his friends are blind to his presence, and quite unconscious of his touch. Occasionally spirits succeed in showing themselves within the first few weeks of death, and while the soul is still somewhat dense. This effort by the spirit to prove its continued existence gives no less satisfaction to the celestial than to the mortal when crowned with success.

In the case of a soldier shot in the prime of life, the separation of the 88

soul from the body is comparatively slow, and where so severe a shock as death by a bursting shell is received, the spirit may be unconscious for some considerable time before it awakes in its new sphere of action. It must be understood, however, that although the spirit has received such a shock, no hurt is done to the soul itself, except in so far as the astral form, or the outer body of the soul, is concerned, which takes some little time to withdraw itself from the physical atoms. It frequently happens that one, suffering from a violent death in the prime of life, takes many weeks to wake up to a full consciousness that he has left his body. He may, during this time automatically travel through space to his distant home on earth, and see his loved ones, without being aware that he has passed through death, viewing them as one would in a dream. This experience, however, is not common, for such a visitor is usually conscious of his actions, but when it does happen, is probably due to a strong love link which connects him with his friends at home, and through this magnetic power of love he is drawn towards them. These wanderers are carefully guarded and guided by superior spirits, whose loving duty it is to attend them while they follow this strong desire to reach their friends, and though these guardians may be unseen by the wanderer, they are, nevertheless, capable of speedily bringing him into such surroundings as will wake him to a full realization of his new condition.

Friends and relations should realize the importance of loving thoughts sent out to the recently departed, for such thoughts are the most helpful stimulation the soul can receive in his early days in his new sphere, they are to him as meat and drink to a starving man. Much of the wandering done in spirit spheres during the days immediately following death, is due to the lack of intelligent instruction while in the body, which would enable one to realize what he is likely to expect after death. Thousands of young men are meeting their death on the battlefields of Europe, many of them remaining unconscious for a time of what has happened, but fortunately, these are at once helped by bands of soldiers in the spiritual spheres who have themselves recently passed out of the body, and having awakened to their new condition, have organized themselves under the leadership of intelligent spirits from higher spheres, and by means of whose instructions, and owing to the density of their more earthly conditions, are able to help the dreaming ones into full consciousness of spirit life.

When mortals of a low order, who have lived a dissolute, savage and selfish life, pass out of the body, they do not rise above the first, second, or third degree of the astral plane, but immediately enter some reformatory, and after being subjected to a training which may continue for many months or years their spirits are educated and their souls purified, and they rise to the second and third spheres. A 90

picture of those lower spheres will be given in the chapter dealing with "Life after Death" The conditions of society there are so sad and disagreeable, that a description of them can be anything but cheerful reading for the man or woman who lives a disorderly life on earth.

Passing Over George Henslow The Religion of the Spirit World (1920)

The circumstances connected with the Passing Over may be very different in the cases of many souls; but as a hopeful example, I quote that of Mr. Heslop*, who thus writes: â&#x20AC;&#x153;You would like me to tell you how I passed to spirit life. When I died, I simply fell into a state of unconsciousness, and was taken at once into my motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s loving care. In this condition I remained for a fortnight, by your time. Then, by the help of my mother and other dear ones, I revived. Gradually the wonders and beauty of this new world unfolded themselves. The loveliness of the trees and flowers, the grandeur of the mountains, the glint of distant lakes, seemed familiar, yet all spiritualized. It was some time before I could realize what had happened, and that death had really passed; so I rejoiced, for my sufferings on earth had been very great, and I had longed to die. Then spiritual illumination came to me. I developed wonderful new powers and was literally born again. They carried me to my beautiful home, and every flower I loved was there to greet me. Oh, such roses! Would that you could see them too. In this exquisite world all things are pervaded by the law of affinity -- two halves of a complete whole. Thus, if you gather one of these flowers, the affinity of the flower is still there. It does not 92

fade and die, as with you. When you have finished with it, it flies back to its other soul, and is absorbed into it again

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I have promised to tell you more of my own experiences in this land of light and beauty. They have been very wonderful, many of them, but the most wonderful cannot be explained in words, for the simple reason that there are no words that can give yon any idea of them, no parallel on earth by which to compare them. To you these experiences are a sealed book until you have joined me here and can take part in them.â&#x20AC;?

As We Always Have Been George Henslow The Religion of the Spirit World (1920)

The first thing we understand when we awake is, that there has not been any journey or passing over and through vast spaces. We are just where we always have been — at home; but alive for evermore. There is no separation from any one we love, or from any good that is ours.

To enter ‘heaven’ is to become fitted into a larger consciousness of God; and in this consciousness we possess much more really all those whom we love. We are nearer to you, and we often talk together. There is no parting, but only greater unity.”

“In this Homeland our occupations are very varied. Part of our work is to help and teach those who come here, ignorant of all spiritual life. When they pass from earth they are often confused when they wake up, so we go to them and help them to realize where they are. Everything being entirely spiritual here, if they have no spiritual insight, they see no beauty around them. Hence you may remember in reading the accounts of such waking to spirit-life they say that they found a gloomy desert land, not the loveliness at all which they had 94

expected. Now when this is so, their distress and astonishment are very great; and we go to any who can see us and try to explain, and give comfort where we can.”

“Then, when spirits who have lived entirely for self come here, they are confronted with the record of their lives, and the revelation often drives them almost to despair. And we tell them how the past may be redeemed, and the evil atoned for and undone, and take them to the place where they can do this, and be helped to a higher life. Others come timid and ignorant, but loving much. So, because they love much, there is a great welcome of love all ready for them, and we bring them the good tidings, and they are taught and comforted, and their weary spirits soothed and rested. Then, when the pure and noble of your world come to ours, we join the great company and welcome them, crying, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”’

“In the children’s sphere they are cared for and watched over by foster parents. Only those are selected for this work who have special love for the little ones. In their schools they are taught entirely by object lessons. The teachers have power to project their thoughts in such a way as to produce living pictures all in movement, not stationary as yours are. When the lesson is over, the teacher absorbs their thought-forms back into herself. They gradually grow 95

up to the age of perfection and are radiantly happy in the beauty and love that surrounds them.â&#x20AC;?

â&#x20AC;&#x153;When I found my friends there were about five or six of those relatives and near friends who had been on this side for some time. My dear little sister was the lovingest and dearest of all. I saw before me the semblance of her childhood, just as she was in the long years ago. When I had parted with her it seemed forever. But she was only assuming the child-form to gain recognition. After a time, when I learned more about the life here, she revealed herself to me as we see her now, as a spirit who is a woman grown.â&#x20AC;?

Tell us more of Other-World Careers and Possibilities. Lilian Walbrook The Case of Lester Coltman (1924)

You must realize, oh mortals, that upon your inclinations much depends when choosing what manner of life you take up here. As the grasping, the mercenary, are allocated a sphere of action in sympathy with their proclivities so those who on earth are always longing to pursue some calf, some art, by their desires obtain the requisite conditions here.

I was happy to witness the case of a poor starved man who came over some little while back. On earth he had been a musician, talented but timid and retiring. His wife, who had a nature good and true, but yet, in many ways, the direct antithesis of his, managed to spur him on whilst she livedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;urging him to acquit himself as his abilities warranted and for ever encouraging him to assert his individuality. She it was who endeavoured to influence this shy and faltering genius to take his true place, which was rightly above the pushful entities in his environment who lacked even a tithe of his artistic capacity. Daring her life they were able to lead an existence not luxurious, certainly, but devoid of penury. One day he found himself alone, his dear companion wafted to another sphere. 97

Desolate and grief-stricken, devoid of his prop and stay, he gradually fell into lines of abject poverty, and of this poverty he "died", weary and solitary. Imagine that dear comrade "passed over" and for some time viewing his sorrow and despairâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;imagine her delight when able to meet him, radiant as she had then become, and take him to a home of joy and beauty, where all his time, if he would, could be devoted to the art his soul so fondly cherished, for which his poor body had literally starved! This reunion, at which I happily was present (I had something to do with the band of helpers told off to meet him), was one of the most joyous and glorious episodes it has been my privilege to assist at here.

On earth one is always pondering over the inequalities of life, the misery and poverty endured by some, the ease and luxury the lot of others; and one questions the possibility of there being any just Power controlling fair arbitration. But once one has seen here these glad and wondrous reunions, the sublime joy after abject despair, one begins to perceive a right proportion in things and to catch hold of and unravel the skein of the scheme of creation, which, previously, appeared but as a tangled and chaotic mass.

Another blessed "passing-over" I viewed was that of a little girl on earth crippled by an accident in which she was run over by a heavy dray, and which necessitated the amputation of her leg. Her mother 98

had "died" shortly before this accident, and she was left in the charge of people who had no kindliness, were hard and callous, her one sympathetic companion a little spaniel pup. Without this dear dumb brute, existence would have been well-nigh unbearable. A neglected chill resulting in pneumonia happily finished off this poor little human fragment and relegated her to a sphere where love and happiness awaited her. The mother, attended by a band, of which I was a member, watched at the "death bedâ&#x20AC;? of this sweet little creature, and when the last breath of life had been drawn in that frail body, helped the luminous soul to ascend to a fairer setting. No words can describe the mother's or the child's intense delight, but it can be imagined by the understanding. The little dog still sadly mourns, and, I am sure, will soon pass to his former small mistress, the ties of love being so strong that they will draw him to her.

Reunion in the Heavens Walter DeVoe Inspiration (1929)

“May I write a few words, my dear?

How glad I am to be able to use

your hand. I shall write today of my first meeting with my child after passing over. (This person lost her only child when it was but 3 years of age.)

“My first days in spirit life were unhappy ones because I knew not whither to go, and although I had longed for death, yet when death came, it was not as I had expected it to be.

“At first I wandered aimlessly, not knowing whither to turn.

guides seemed to have deserted me, but in reality they were leaving me to work out my own salvation without their intermediation.

“They knew I would find my way, little by little. And so it was.

“Many familiar faces crossed by path as I searched, many who had been my friends in life and had gone on before greeted me smilingly and seemed to wish to help me. One face I longed for but did not see, the face of my beloved mother. Now I know that she was near 100

me, but because I had not yet attained spiritual light, I was unable to see her.

My whole state of mind was too troubled, too impatient, too

impetuous, to make quick progress.

I had first to acquire that

serenity of soul which enables one to rise higher and to progress. One day, I speak of days, although our earthly time-limits are not those of the Spirit World, I wandered to the side of a precipice.

You

see, my dear, when w are unhappy and alone, the surroundings in which we find ourselves, shape themselves according to our state of mind. If we are sorrowful or angry against our fate, we will create jagged lonely rocks, deep chasms, black waters and naked, jagged precipices to match our moods.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;At my feet yawned the chasm which expressed my mental loneliness and desolation, while behind me stretched an endless waste of desert through which I seemed to have been wandering for aeons.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;On the other side of this chasm I beheld, to my infinite joy and hope, a fertile country with fields teeming with verdure and flowers.

Yet

my feet seemed to be chained or laden with great fetters, for I could not float across the hiatus, but wandered unhappily along the brink.

"Then suddenly there was wafted to my ears across the abyss from afar the sweet sound of youthful voices. So lovely were the tones 101

which reached my longing senses that tears of happiness welled into my eyes, for they seemed to tell of peace and joy, and to foretell happiness for me, poor wanderer that I was. As I listened, I seemed to understand the message of the far-away voices.

"They seemed to be singing: 'Lay aside the earthly woe, oh wanderer. Forget thy earthly sufferings.

Remember only that thou hast reached the sweet land where dwell in peaceful commune all those who put their trust in divine justice. Hard was thy lot upon earth. Thy present tribulation was to make it clear to thee that the lot of a lonely spirit who finds not its own and who searches fruitlessly for companionship is infinitely more pitiable than mere earthly woes. Thou hast endeavored to do thy duty upon earth, and thou hadst but one lesson to learn upon arriving in the spirit world, that he who remembers the sunny spots of earthly existence, more easily finds his way to the sunny fields of welcome, for he creates through the magic of his own thoughts a broad beam of radiant light, which leads him and shows him the road to eternal peace.'

"Then I knelt down and prayed to my Maker, saying: 'Oh, Heavenly Father, I see now my error. I see that I surrounded myself with pessimistic waves of thought. I dwelt too deeply upon the earthly 102

pains. I suffered, instead of appreciating to the full extent the many opportunities I had on earth to do good. I placed my own sorrows in too strong a light, instead of trying to veil them with a roseate mantle. Now I feel the first breezes of the spring gently fanning my cheek, the perfumes of earthly spring flowers are wafted to my nostrils. Glory be to Thee, oh, divine Father, who hath shown me the way.'

"Then suddenly I was lifted and floated gently over the yawning hiatus, my arms stretched out in thanksgiving. A voice beside me spoke, saying: 'Thus, noble soul, dost thou pass forever the chasm of discontent and despair. Behold! The fields of Welcome!'

"Then I saw a band of beautiful spirits crowned with garlands of flowers coming towards me. In front of them walked a tall girl carrying a lily. And she spoke, smiling sweetly, 'Welcome, beloved mother. I greet thee.'

"Then I threw my arms around my child, wept tears of joy and thanksgiving, knowing that there would be no parting evermore, but only love, music and divine peace."

103

Wonder Beneath a Chair William Pelley Why I Believe the Dead Are Alive (1954)

And yet materializations do have their place in persuading the ultra-skeptical that there are forms of life, or octaves of reality, that are entirely apart from the states we call Mortality. I bring to mind an instance of this in the case of a certain medical doctor who came down to the summer school in Asheville in 1932. I will give him the name of Dawley. That wasn’t his name—as I remarked of the woman in the previous chapter who knocked the sparrow hawk off her head—but I do have to be careful about using correct names in pages such as these, because of the unwelcome publicity from curiosity seekers that immediately results when such a book as this is published. I can, however, locate the gentleman if a situation arises where my claims are seriously challenged. Dr. Dawley came down to Asheville with his wife and remained throughout the summer. Originally he had been a physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, but subsequently had become one of the outstanding endocrinologists at the Rockefeller Institute in New York. Late one night in August of 1932, I sat with him on a moonlit veranda in Asheville and asked him how or why he had contrived to acquire an interest in the subject I was publicizing at the school. 104

"To explain satisfactorily," he said, "I would have to tell you of a thing that happened when Ada and I were first married."

Ada was his wife, a former nurse at the Massachusetts General Hospital, whom he had married some ten to fifteen years in the past. She was sitting a few feet away, and confirmed what he presently said.

"We had not been married many weeks," Dr. Dawley related, "before I became conscious that Ada was leaving our apartment in Boston every Thursday night, going out somewhere in the city and not returning till after midnight. As she volunteered no information explaining these trips, I began to grow suspicious. Where was she going, and why didn’t she offer to explain her absence? It may have been a caddish thing to do, but I admit that after several weeks of it, I made up my mind to follow her.

"The night that I did so, I saw her go over to Huntington Avenue and finally turn into a brownstone-front that was in every way a private residence. Then I loitered around outside till she reappeared—which was nearly one o’clock. I accosted her and demanded to be told what she had been doing in the place. "She answered me: ‘next Thursday night, you come along with me. I haven’t told you about these 105

Thursday-night absences of mine because I didn’t think you’d be interested. Your mind is so scientific."

"I waited with ill-concealed impatience till the following week, however, and when Thursday night came, she kept her promise. Into the brownstone-front I went with her, and presently I found myself in a big front room furnished only with a rug, a floor lamp, a victrola, and a ring of hard-bottomed chairs. There were twelve to fifteen of them.

"The people to whom I was presently introduced were refined, educated, and in every way desirable to know. They presently took their places in the big front room, alternating a man and a woman around the circle. Ultimately someone started the victrola playing soothing music. We were instructed to join hands. Ada was sitting on my left. I took her hand, and the hand of the strange woman on my right. It seemed rather silly at the moment, but I was determined to go through with it and learn what had made such demands on the fifteen minutes we had been sitting so, when a startling thing happened.

"Ada’s chair began to wobble. It began to heave and rock, as though an invisible force were pushing it upward from the floor. Finally with a little cry, she got out of it. The leader—I suppose you’d call him a medium—made a quick cry for us not to break hands, but there was no doubt that something had pushed Ada’s chair upward and an 106

instant later it went over with a thud. "Something was actually under that chair. I was as close to it as I am to you at this moment. It was a great rotating ball of substance that looked like grayish-white molasses candy, some two feet in diameter, in convulsive motion. I watched it, stupefied.

"Finally it propelled itself out before me in the center of the circle. The room was well enough lighted to watch closely exactly how it behaves. It writhed and contracted and elongated and took shape. Then it began to assume the form of a human torso, with arms and legs growing at the corners. A protuberance like a head came out. What I was actually watching was the ‘build-up’ of a mature human body—a woman’s body. Believe it or not, by the end of ten to twelve minutes a fully formed and respectably dressed girl of some twenty-five to thirty years was fully molded in the center of the group and to all intents and purposes quite the counterpart of any of the mortal women in that room. Somebody broke the chain of handholding then, and righted the wooden chair, which had tipped over under Ada. This strangely materialized person thereupon sat down in it. Right beside me!"

"I gather that she rather enjoyed my stupefaction. ‘Well, Doctor,’ she queried , ‘what do you think of that?’’

107

I interrupted the Doctor to comment: "Then Ada had simply been going out each night to some sort of spiritualistic séance? Hadn’t you ever had experience of such phenomena?"

"No," said Dawley, "and if I hadn’t seen what I had, with my own eyes, I would have taken it for fact that I had married a psychopath—that is, if she’d ever come back to the apartment and tried to explain what happened at these meetings she attended."

"Well, the woman was fully materialized. What happened next?"

"Although I’d seen the apparition shape itself right before my eyes," Dawley went on, "I still didn’t know what to make of it. A fully-grown and handsome young woman had evolved out of the great blob of ectoplasm that had somehow gotten under Ada’s chair—from where, I couldn’t say. She sat down beside me with a sort of Mona Lisa smile on her face and dared me to be skeptical. I seemed to be the only one in the room who was particularly startled. I remember that I asked her,

‘Are you real, or am I suffering some sort of illusion?’

She replied to me, ‘Oh, I’m real enough. Would you care to make an examination?’

108

Being a physician, I said to her, ‘Yes, I would—if you’ll permit it.’ She said that she would. You see, I wanted to find out to my own satisfaction if she was just a husk or shell of a female, or a regular woman all the way through."

Dr. Dawley paused to toss the ash of his cigar over the veranda railing. "Well," he said, "I motioned to Ada, and we took the materialized lady into a small side bedroom. I made an examination of her, all right. And believe me, she was as solid and substantial, internally as well as externally, as my own bride, Ada. That is what astounded me. All her organs were quite as normal flesh. She got a great kick out of my increasing stupefaction."

"So you expected to find me a papier-mâché lady, did you?" she bantered when I admitted I was satisfied.

"I don’t know what I expected," I replied.

"Anyhow, we went back to the group. And for the next half-hour I got a discourse on hyper-dimensional reality that altered entirely my thinking and my practice."

"What she told me was, that people on ‘dying’ merely pulled their spiritual souls or thinking consciousness out from their gross physical 109

flesh, as a more tenuous pattern-body at once went into function on a higher frequency of electronic energy in Matter. They were by no means plunged at once into any theological courtroom, with God himself up on the dais to ‘judge the quick and the dead’. These were no sensation occurring to them that they were actually ‘dead’ at all. They were continuing to exist in the same scenes and orientations that they had known in mortality. They could see people in this materialistic third dimension but conversely the people of the third dimension couldn’t see them.

What this girl had actually done, after a clumsy fashion of explaining it, had been to lower her vibrations to a point where she became perceptible to people of the third dimension—using the medium’s ectoplasm to solidify her Light-Self and reduce it to a substantiality where I could see her and touch her as I had lately done in the bedroom. It was a real education in psychics that I got that night, and for a long time afterward I couldn’t make out whether I fancied it or not. Of course, whether I fancied it or not made not the slightest difference in the actuality of the conditions that people like her confronted when they passed through the change called Death. Still, it was all so novel, and counter to what orthodox theology had gotten me to believe since boyhood, that it took a bit of time for adjustment."

"How did it end?" I asked Dr. Dawley. 110

He cast a mischievous glance at his wife. "Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll bet youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll never believe me," he said, "but as I went on talking to this strangely materialized young woman, it seemed to me that she was not quite as big as she had been ten minutes before. In fact, she seemed to be shrinking in size, right before my eyes. I remember that I glanced down at her feet. They failed to touch the floor. Really, she was like the fantasy in Alice in Wonderland when Alice ate the Wonderful Cake that reduced her to a size to go through the gate into the magical garden. The girl was growing smaller as I watchedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and as we talked."

"By the end of a second ten minutes, she was obliged to jump down off the seat of the kitchen chair or she might have hurt herself getting off it at all. She finally walked out into the center of the circle, a doll-like creature some twenty inches high. And yet she still kept getting smaller."

"When I last could distinguish her voice, she was standing out in the middle of the group, a little figure, still perfectly formed, some fourteen inches high. Then she seemed to pivot on her heel. With a little wave of her hand to me, she was gone. Yes, sir, gone! She had shrunk and evaporated into the atmosphere of that room not unlike the disappearance of smoke that dissolves into the atmosphere after coming from the stack of a locomotive."

111

It was a bizarre recital. "So, after that," I said, ‘I take it you continued an interest in psychical research?" "I certainly did," he answered. "I’ve never been able to get enough of it. Ada and I went regularly to the séances on Huntington Avenue every Thursday evening after that. I saw many strange types of materialization but nothing to equal that girl who ‘created herself’ from a ball of effluvia under Ada’s chair and then shrank to the proportions of a doll before my eyes."

"It was remarkable," I contended, "that she could make herself so solid. The medium must have been able to part with a lot of ectoplasm." "I have often wished," Dawley told me, "that I could have had a set of scales at hand to weigh her, during that physical examination."

"You would doubtless have discovered," I said, "that she by no means was as heavy as a normal mortal woman of the same proportions. We find uniformly in these materializations that if the medium weighs, say, a hundred sixty pounds at the commencement of the séance, and the materialized entity tips the scales at, say, eighty pounds, then the medium during the phenomena will reduce in weight to eighty pounds."

112

"In other words, it’s a weighable physical substance that departs the medium’s body and is used by the Light Body of visiting spirit-soul to make itself opaque and substantial?"

"That’s it," I answered. "And I understand that such ectoplasmic ‘material’ had in several celebrated cases been severed in a chunk from the materialized body, taken into a laboratory and analyzed. The great medium, Valentine, permitted this to be done on one occasion during an American visit. The ectoplasm was found to contain exactly the chemical components and in much the same ratios, as exist in the ordinary physical vehicle …"

113

Passing to Spirit Life Life in the World Unseen Anthony Borgia (1956)

The actual process of dissolution is not necessarily a painful one. I had during my earth life witnessed many souls passing over the border into spirit. I had had the chance of observing with the physical eyes the struggles that take place as the spirit seeks to free itself for ever from the flesh. With my psychic vision I had also seen the spirit leave, but nowhere was I able to find out — that is, from orthodox sources—what exactly takes place at the moment of separation, nor was I able to gather any information upon the sensations experienced by the passing soul. The writers of religious textbooks tell us nothing of such things for one very simple reason—they do not know.

The physical body many times appeared to be suffering acutely, either from actual pain or through labored or restricted breathing. To this extent such passing had all the appearance of being extremely painful. Was this really so?—was a question I had often asked myself. Whatever was the true answer I could never really believe that the actual physical process of ‘dying’ was a painful one, notwithstanding that it appeared so. The answer to my question I 114

knew I would have one day, and I always hoped that at least my passing would not be violent, whatever else it might be. My hopes were fulfilled. My end was not violent, but it was laboured, as were so many that I had witnessed.

I had a presentiment that my days on earth were drawing to a close only a short while before my passing. There was a heaviness of the mind, something akin to drowsiness, as I lay in my bed. Many times I had a feeling of floating away and of gently returning. Doubtless during such periods those who were concerned with my physical welfare were under the impression that, if I had not actually passed, I was sinking rapidly. During such lucid intervals that I had I endured no feelings of physical discomfort. I could see and hear what was going on around me, and I could ‘sense’ the mental distress that my condition was occasioning. And yet I had the Sensation of the most extraordinary exhilaration of the mind. I knew for certain that my time had come to pass on, and I was full of eagerness to be gone. I had no fear, no misgivings, no doubts, no regrets—so far—at thus leaving the earth world. (My regrets were to come later, but of these I shall speak in due course.) All that I wanted was to be away.

I suddenly felt a great urge to rise up. I had no physical feeling whatever, very much in the same way that physical feeling is absent during a dream, but I was mentally alert, however much my body 115

seemed to contradict such a condition. Immediately I had this distinct prompting to rise, I found that I was actually doing so. I then discovered that those around my bed did not seem to perceive what I was doing, since they made no effort to come to my assistance, nor did they try in any way to hinder me. Turning, I then beheld what had taken place. I saw my physical body lying lifeless upon its bed, but here was I, the real I. alive and well. For a minute or two I remained gazing, and the thought of what to do next entered my head, but help was close at hand. I could still see the room quite clearly around me, but there was a certain mistiness about it as though it were filled with smoke very evenly distributed. I looked down at myself wondering what I was wearing in the way of clothes, for I had obviously risen from a bed of sickness and was therefore in no condition to move very far from my surroundings. I was extremely surprised to find that I had on my usual attire, such as I wore when moving freely and in good health about my own house. My surprise was only momentary since, I thought to myself, what other clothes should I expect to be wearing? Surely not some sort of diaphanous robe. Such costume is usually associated with the conventional idea of an angel, and I had no need to assure myself that I was not that!

Such knowledge of the spirit world as I had been able to glean from my own experiences instantly came to my aid. I knew at once of the alteration that had taken place in my condition; I knew, in other words, 116

that I had ‘died’. I knew, too, that I was alive, that I had shaken off my last illness sufficiently to be able to stand upright and look about me. At no time was I in any mental distress, but I was full of wonder at what was to happen next, for here I was, in full possession of all my faculties, and, indeed, feeling ‘physically’ as I had never felt before. Although this has taken some time in the telling, in order that I might give you as much detail as possible, the whole process must have taken but a few minutes of earth time.

As soon as I had had this brief space in which to look about me and to appreciate my new estate, I found myself joined by a former colleague—a priest—who had passed to this life some years before. We greeted each other warmly, and I noticed that he was attired like myself. Again this in no way seemed strange to me, because had he been dressed in any other way I should have felt that something was wrong somewhere, as I had only known him in clerical attire. He expressed his great pleasure at seeing me again, and for my part I foresaw the gathering up of the many threads that had been broken by his ‘death’.

For the first moment or so I allowed him to do all the talking; I had yet to accustom myself to the newness of things. For you must remember that I had just relinquished a bed of final sickness, and that in casting off the physical body I had also cast off the sickness 117

with it, and the new sensation of comfort and freedom from bodily ills was one so glorious that the realization of it took a little while to comprehend fully. My old friend seemed to know at once the extent of my knowledge, that I was aware that I had passed on, and that all was well.

And here let me say that all idea of a ‘judgment seat’ or a ‘day of judgment’ was entirely swept from my mind in the actual procedure of transition. It was all too normal and natural to suggest the frightful ordeal that orthodox religion teaches that we must go through after ‘death’. The very conception of ‘judgment’ and ‘hell’ and ‘heaven’ seemed utterly impossible. They were wholly fantastic, now that I found myself alive and well ‘clothed in my right mind’, and, in fact, clothed in my own familiar habiliments, and standing in the presence of an old friend, who was shaking me cordially by the hand, and giving me greeting a good wishes, and showing all the outward—and in this case genuine manifestations of being pleased to see me, as I was pleased to see him. He, himself, was in the best of spirits as he stood the giving me such a welcome as, upon the earth-plane, two old friends accord each other after long separation. That, in itself, was sufficient to show that all thoughts of being marched off to a judgment were entirely preposterous. We both were too jolly, too happy, too carefree, and too natural, and I, myself, was waiting with excitement for all manner of pleasant revelations of this new world, 118

and I knew that there could be none better than my old friend to give them to me. He told me to prepare myself for immeasurable number of the pleasantest of surprises, and that I had been sent to meet me on my arrival. As he already knew the limits of my knowledge, so his task was that much the easier.

As soon as I managed to find my tongue, after our first breaking the silence, I noticed that we spoke just as we had always done upon the earth, that is, we simply used our vocal cords and spoke quite as a matter of course. It required no thinking about, and indeed I did not think about it. I merely noted that it was so. My friend then proposed that as we had no further need or call to stay in the surroundings of my passing, we might move away, and that he would take me to a very nice ‘place’ that had been made ready for me. He made this reference to a ‘place’, but he hastened explain that in reality I was going to my own house, where should find myself immediately ‘at home’. Not knowing, as yet how one proceeded, or, in other words, how I was to get there, placed myself entirely in his hands, and that, he told me, we precisely what he was there for!

I could not resist the impulse to turn and take a last look at the room of my transition. It still presented its misty appearance Those who were formerly standing round the bed had now with drawn, and I was able to approach the bed and gaze at myself I was not the least 119

impressed by what I saw, but the last remnant of my physical self seemed to be placid enough. My friend then suggested that we should now go, and we accordingly moved away

As we departed, the room gradually became more misty until it faded farther from my vision, and finally disappeared. So far, I had had the use, as usual, of my legs as in ordinary walking, but in view of my last illness and the fact that, consequent, upon it, I should need some period of rest before I exerted myself too much, my friend said that it would be better if we did not use the customary means of locomotionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;our legs. He then told me to take hold of his arm firmly, and to have no fear whatever. I could, if I wished, close my eyes. It would, he said, perhaps be better it I did so. I took his arm, and left the rest to him as he told me to do. I at once experienced a sensation of floating such as one has in physical dreams, though this was very real and quite unattended by any doubts of personal security. The motion seemed to become more rapid as time went on, and I still kept my eyes firmly closed. It is strange with what determination one can do such things here. On the earth-plane, if similar circumstances were possible, how many of us would have closed our eyes in complete confidence? Here there was no shadow of doubt that all was well, that there was nothing to fear, that nothing untoward could possibly take place, and that, moreover, my friend had complete control of the situation. 120

After a short while our progress seemed to slacken somewhat, and I could feel that there was something very solid under my feet. I was told to open my eyes. I did so. What I saw was my old home that I had lived in on the earth-plane; my old homeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but with a difference. It was improved in a way that I had not been able to do to its earthly counterpart. The house itself was rejuvenated, as it seemed to me from a first glance, rather than restored, but it was the gardens round it that attracted my attention more fully. They appeared to be quite extensive, and they were in a state of the most perfect order and arrangement. By this I do not mean the regular orderliness that one is accustomed to see in public gardens on the earth-plane, but that they were beautifully kept and tended. There were no wild growths or masses of tangled foliage and weeds, but the most glorious profusion of beautiful flowers so arranged as to show themselves to absolute perfection. Of the flowers themselves, when I was able to examine them more closely, I must say that I never saw either their like or their counterpart, upon the earth, of many that were there in full bloom. Numbers were to be found, of course, of the old familiar blossoms, but by far the greater number seemed to be something entirely new to my rather small knowledge of flowers. It was not merely the flowers themselves and their unbelievable range of superb colourings that caught my attention, but the vital atmosphere of eternal life that they threw out, as it were, in every direction. And 121

as one approached any particular group of flowers, or even a single bloom, there seemed to pour out great streams of energizing power which uplifted the soul spiritually and gave it strength, while the heavenly perfumes they exhaled were such as no soul clothed in its mantle of flesh has ever experienced. All these flowers were living and breathing, and they were, so my friend informed me, incorruptible.

There was another astonishing feature I noticed when I drew near to them, and that was the sound of music that enveloped them, making such soft harmonies as corresponded exactly and perfectly with the gorgeous colours of the flowers themselves. I am not, I am afraid, sufficiently learned, musically, to be able to give you a sound technical explanation of this beautiful phenomenon, but I shall hope to bring to you one with knowledge of the subject, who will be able to go into this more fully. Suffice it for the moment, then, to say that these musical sounds were in precise consonance with all that I had so far seenâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which was very littleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and that everywhere there was perfect harmony.

Already I was conscious of the revitalizing effect of this heavenly garden to such an extent that I was anxious to see more of it. And so, in company with my old friend, upon whom I was here relying for information and guidance, I walked the garden paths, trod upon the 122

exquisite grass, whose resilience and softness were almost comparable to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;walking on airâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;; and tried to make myself realize that all this superlative beauty was part of my own home.

There were many splendid trees to be seen, none of which was malformed, such as one is accustomed to see on earth, yet there was no suggestion of strict uniformity of pattern. It was simply that each tree was growing under perfect conditions, free from the storms of wind that bend and twist the young branches, and free from the inroads of insect life and many other causes of the misshapenness of earthly trees. As with the flowers, so with the trees. They live for ever incorruptible, clothed always in their full array of leaves of every shade of green, and for ever pouring out life to all those who approach near them.

I had observed that there did not appear to be what we should commonly call shade beneath the trees, and yet there did not appear to be any glaring sun. It seemed to be that there was a radiance of light that penetrated into every corner, and yet there was no hint of flatness. My friend told me that all light proceeded directly from the Giver of all light, and that this light was Divine life itself, and that it bathed and illumined the whole of the spirit world where lived those who had eyes spiritually to see.

123

I noticed, too, that a comfortable warmth pervaded every inch of space, a warmth perfectly even and as perfectly sustained. They had a stillness, yet there were gentle perfume-laden breezes— truest zephyrs—that in no way altered the delightful balminess the temperature.

And here let me say to those who do not care much for ‘perfumes’ of any sort: Do not be disappointed when you read these words, and feel that it could never be heaven to you if there were something there you do not like. Wait, I say, until you witness these things, and I know that then you will feel very differently about them.

I have gone into all these things in a rather detailed fashion because I am sure there are so many people who have wondered about them. I was struck by the fact that there were no signs of walls or hedges or fences; indeed, nothing, so far as I could see, to mark where my garden began or ended. I was told that such things boundaries were not needed, because each person knew instinctively, but beyond doubt, just where his own garden ended. There was therefore no encroaching upon another’s grounds, although were open to any who wished to traverse them or linger within them. I was wholeheartedly welcome to go wherever I wished without fear of intruding upon another’s privacy. I was told I should find that that was the rule here, and that I would have no different feelings with respect 124

to others walking in my own garden. I exactly described my sentiments at that moment, for I wished, then and there, that all who cared would come into the garden and its beauties. I had no notions whatever of ownership personally, although I knew that it was my own ‘to have and to hold’. And that is precisely the attitude of all here—ownership and partnership at one and the same time.

Seeing the beautiful state of preservation and care in which all garden was kept, I inquired of my friend as to the genius who looked after it so assiduously and with such splendid results. Before answering my question he suggested that as I had but so very recently arrived in the spirit land, he considered it advisable I should rest, or that at least I should not overdo my sighting. He proposed, therefore, that we should find a pleasant spot he used the words in a comparative

sense,

because

all

was

pleasant

everywhere—that we should seat ourselves, and then would expound one or two of the many problems that had presented themselves to me in the brief time since I had passed to spirit.

Accordingly, we walked along until we found such a ‘pleasant’ place beneath the branches of a magnificent tree, whence we overlooked a great tract of the countryside, whose rich verdure undulated before us and stretched far away into the distance. The whole prospect was bathed in glorious celestial sunshine, and I could perceive many 125

houses of varying descriptions picturesquely situated, like my own, among trees and gardens. We threw ourselves down upon the soft turf, and I stretched myself out luxuriously, feeling as though I were lying upon a bed of the finest lawn. My friend asked me if I was tired. I had no ordinary sensation of earthly fatigue, but yet I felt somewhat the necessity for a bodily relaxation. He told me that my last illness was the cause of such a desire, and that if I wished I could pass into a state of complete sleep. At the moment, however, I did not feel the absolute need for that, and I told him that for the present I would much prefer to hear him talk. And so he began.

‘“Whatsoever a man soweth,” he said, “that shall he reap.” Those few words describe exactly the great eternal process by which all that you see, actually here before you, is brought about. All the trees, the flowers, the woods, the houses that are also the happy homes of happy people—everything is the visible result of “whatsoever a man soweth.” This land, wherein you and I are now living, is the land of the great harvest, the seeds of which were planted upon the earth-plane. All who live here have won for themselves the precise abode they have passed to by their deeds upon the earth.’

I was already beginning to perceive many things, the principal one of which, and that which touched me most closely, being the totally wrong attitude adopted by religion in relation to the world of spirit. 126

The very fact that I was lying there where I was, constituted a complete refutation of so much that I taught and upheld during my priestly life upon earth. I could see volumes of orthodox teachings, creeds, and doctrines melting away because they are of no account, because they are not true, and because they have no application whatever to the eternal world of spirit and to the great Creator and Upholder of it. I could see clearly now what I had seen but hazily before, that orthodoxy is manmade, but that the universe is God-given.

My friend went on to tell me that I should find living within the homes, that we could see from where we were lying, all sorts and conditions of people; people whose religious views when they were on the earth were equally varied. But one of the great facts of spirit life is that souls are exactly the same the instant after passing into spirit life as they were the instant before. Death-bed repentances are of no avail, since the majority of them are but cowardice born of fear of what is about to happenâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a fear of the theologically-built eternal hell that is such a useful weapon in the ecclesiastical armoury, and one that perhaps has caused more suffering in its time than many other erroneous doctrines. Creeds, therefore, do not form any part of the world of spirit, but because people take with them all their characteristics into the spirit world, the fervid adherents to any particular religious body will continue to practice their religion in the 127

spirit world until such time as their minds become spiritually enlightened. We have here, so my friend informed meâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;I have since seen them for myselfâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;whole communities still exercising their old earthly religion. The bigotry and prejudices are all there, religiously speaking. They do no harm, except to themselves, since such matters are confined to themselves. There is no such thing as making converts here!

Such being the case, then, I supposed that our own religion was fully represented here. Indeed, it was! The same ceremonies, the same ritual, the same old beliefs, all are being carried on with the same misplaced zealâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in churches erected for the purpose. The members of these communities know that they have passed on, and they think that part of their heavenly reward is to continue with their man-made forms of worship. So they will continue until such time as a spiritual awakening takes place. Pressure is never brought to bear upon these souls; their mental resurrection must come from within themselves. When it does come they will taste for the first time the real meaning of freedom.

My friend promised that if I wished we could visit some of these religious bodies later, but, he suggested, that as there was plenty of time it would be better if first of all I became quite accustomed to the new life. He had, so far, left unanswered my question as to who was 128

the kindly soul who tended my garden so well, but he read my unspoken thought, and reverted to the matter himself.

Both the house and the garden, he told me, were the harvest I had reaped for myself during my earth life. Having earned the right to possess them, I had built them with the aid of generous souls who spend their life in the spirit world performing such deeds of kindness and service to others. Not only was it their work, but it was their pleasure at the same time. Frequently this work is undertaken and carried out by those who, on earth, were expert in such things, and who also had a love for it. Here they can continue with their occupation under conditions that only the world of spirit can supply. Such tasks bring their own spiritual rewards, although the thought of reward is never in the minds of those who perform them. The desire of being of service to others is always uppermost.

The man who had helped to bring this beautiful garden into being was a lover of gardens upon the earth-plane, and, as I could see for myself, he was also an expert. But once the garden was created there was not the incessant toil that is necessary for its upkeep, as with large gardens upon earth. It is the constant decay, the stresses of storm and wind, and the several other causes that demand the labour on earth. Here there is no decay and all that grows does so under the same conditions as we exist. I was told that the garden 129

would need practically no attention, as we usually understand the term, and that our friend the gardener would still keep it under his care if I so wished it. Far from merely wishing it, I expressed the hope that he certainly would do so. I voiced my deep gratitude for his wonderful work, and I hoped that I might be able to meet him and convey to him my sincere appreciation and thanks. My friend explained that that was quite a simple matter, and that the reason why I had not already met him was the fact of my very recent arrival, and that he would not intrude until I had made myself quite at home. My mind again turned to my occupation while on earth, the conducting of daily service and all the other duties of a minister of the Church. Since such an occupation, as far as I was concerned, was now needless, I was puzzled to know what the immediate future had in store for me. I was again reminded that there was plenty of time in which to ponder the subject, and my friend suggested that I should rest myself and then accompany him upon some tours of inspectionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;-there was so much to see and so much that I should find more than astonishing. There were also numbers of friends who were waiting to meet me again after our long separation. He curbed my eagerness to begin by saying that I must rest first, and for which purpose, what better place than my own home?

I followed his advice, therefore, and we made our way towards the house. 130

Death Is a Bridge To Life The Eloists Radiance (1989)

Death is a bridge across which all must pass to enter life. Death is a cloak that is tossed aside to reveal the raiment of the new. Death is a gateway to the stars, and suns, and to the hosts whose praises rise in triumph and humility to the Most High, who has given light and darkness, both of which are beautiful. Death is a torch illuminating the night. Death is a glory as truly as life for all who recognize that it is a beginning to which there is no end. You cannot judge death by what it leaves behind, for it transcends itself. Death is a bridge, a gate, a cloak, a shell, a husk, a way through which the fearless find new hope that nothing can dispel. Do not try to unsnarl the riddle of my words, nor seek answers beyond the depth of their meaning. Simply accept this step, which leads to a new unfoldment for you all. Each shall be guided. Each shall find the way out of the night into eternal day. You who are here shall build more quickly now, aware of forces that you cannot touch, aware of beauty that you cannot see, aware of music that evades the ear, aware of wonder that delights the soul. Death is a word; life is a love. Death is a bridge; life is a journey. Death is a dream; life is an awakening. Death is a dusk; life is a dawn. The cocoon is gone, but the butterfly shall emerge as 131

lovely as your love, as vivid as your light, as gentle as your thoughts, as kindly as your words, and as graceful and enduring as your indomitable strength.

132

Question Silver Birch The Silver Birch Book of Questions and Answers (1998)

Does the way you die have any effect when you reach the spirit world; if you die just naturally, is it easier to get to the spirit world or not?

OH yes, it makes a very big difference. If everyone in your world had knowledge and lived natural lives then the process of what we call dying would be simple and free from any pain. Also, it would be unnecessary to have any adjustment to the body of the spirit after the physical body had died. But unfortunately that does not take place. The vast majority of those who leave your world for ours are profoundly ignorant of their destiny, of their own constitution and of the nature of spiritual realities. In addition, there are far, far too many who come to us before their time is ripe, and as I so often say, they are like the fruit which crops from the tree before it is ready - as you know then the fruit is not very good. When fruit is ripe it naturally drops, and when your spirit is ripe, the physical body should drop naturally away from you. And so we have today sour and green fruit coming to us. Because of that they have to be tended, watched over, cared for, nursed, until the adjustments are made. If all had 133

knowledge, then the work of those who like myself are striving to help would be far easier.

Certainly the way you die makes a

tremendous difference. Dying is the sloughing off of the physical body as the spiritual body gradually emerges. It is never a painful process. There may be some physical reactions when there is illness or disease. If the transition is not a simple one, then the equivalent of your doctors stand by. They help those who love this individual to accomplish his or her birth into our world until the cord connecting spirit and matter severs itself and separation is assured for all time. The question of awakening is the next to be considered. This depends on the degree of awareness that the newcomer possesses. If completely ignorant of the fact that life continues after earthly death, or if SO indoctrinated with false ideas that understanding will take a long time, then there is a process of rest and equivalent to sleep. That continues until it is self-determined that the time for realisation has come. This can be short or long, as measured by your duration of time. It depends upon the individual. Those with knowledge have no such problems. They step out of the world of matter into the world of spirit and the adjustment is speedy. When awakening comes it is a moment of supreme joy because it brings recognition of all loved ones who have been waiting for it to occur.

There is nothing to fear in death. Death is the great liberator; death brings freedom. You rejoice when babies come into your world. 134

There are many who cry in our world when babies are about to be born into your world. Similarly, there is weeping when people die in your world, but there is rejoicing in ours. Death means that the life has served its purpose, or should have done, and the individual is ready to enjoy all the tremendous richness and beauty that the spirit life has to offer.

135

Tree of Life Annamaria Hemingway Practicing Conscious Living and Dying: Stories of the Eternal Continuum of Consciousness (2008)

When my mother became terminally ill a few years ago, I was devastated. Even though I had worked in hospice and knew that rather than being a morbid place full of fear, it was in fact the most beautiful peaceful environment, in which the sanctity of transition from this world was a very profound experience – this knowledge didn’t seem to help much in facing my mother’s death. The truth was that I was terrified of losing her and not having that loving connection in my life. The death of a parent is so painful, because we lose our core sense of family and this often makes us feel as though we are orphaned.

I wanted to prepare myself to be with my mother in a fully conscious way and engage with her fully in the process of her transition. This was a deep, sacred and profound experience, with times of joy, deep sadness, incredible insights and interactions with altered states of consciousness. It proved to be a journey of discovery and growth, full of many precious moments. As my mother’s condition deteriorated, one of the things she could no longer do was to take walks with me. 136

All through the years that my children were growing up, this one of the things we most enjoyed doing together. So, one day, I said to her, “I know you can’t physically come with me, but I’m going to take you psychically with me every morning, when I take the dog out. All you have to do is to try and connect with me.” Her face lit up at the idea, so every day that’s what I did. I would describe where we were and what we had seen, what the weather was like, and all the things of interest that we encountered along the way. In this way, my mother was able to use her imagination to transcend the fact that she could no longer walk or see well. I know this precious time brought us both comfort and moments of happiness every day, as I could feel the strong sense of connection that I know she shared. I also knew how important it was to be fully present with my mother and to listen to everything she experienced.

A dying person is in an altered state of consciousness, as they start to detach and separate from this world. If we are willing to let go of our fear and accompany them on their sacred journey, we can become privy to glimpsing a possible realm of existence that exists way beyond our perceived concepts of time, space and logic. As my mother became weaker, visitors from other realms started to make their presence felt around her in the six weeks prior to her death. One morning, she woke up very excited and animated and wanted to tell me about the people who had come to her the night 137

before; she recognized them as being departed family members, although some of them she didn’t know.

She said, “They were all urging me to leave with them, because they are going to take me to a wonderful place that has the most beautiful garden.” These entities continued to appear during the nights that followed, and my mother remained happily contented to recount their visits. One morning, I said to her, “You are free to go with them at any time.” She replied, “No, I’m not quite ready yet.” My family tended to believe that my mother was just suffering from delusions or dementia, and brushed off these interactions. However, I knew of many cases of end-of-life or deathbed visions that have been well documented and seem to occur when a person is approaching death and a psychic sensitivity is activated that enables such a state of non-ordinary consciousness to manifest. Deceased family members or religious figures often appear at this time, in order to accompany the dying person in their transition. So, rather than patronize her, I would validate and encourage my mother to describe these comforting experiences.

In the final hours before my mother’s death, I gathered all the things that meant the most to her, such as photos of the family, candles, a rosary and a bunch of pink roses from her beloved garden and placed them around her bedside. She was deeply unconscious and 138

many people believe that in this state the brain does not register any form of consciousness, but this may only be our limited perception and it is very important to communicate with the person just as if they can hear everything you say. My family gathered around my mother and as the evening wore on and it became dark, a peaceful presence entered the room. We sat together stroking her arms and holding her hands, and we talked to her and about her. We reminisced about the past, and all the things we remembered and had shared together. We were in a deep sacred space where time and the outside world no meaning. Later on, my brother had to leave for a while, and my son needed a breath of fresh air. I was alone with my mother and I told her once more how much we all loved her, and that she had been a wonderful wife, mother, and grandmother, and that it was now alright for her to leave, even though we would miss her dreadfully. Two minutes later, she took her final breath and passed peacefully away.

That night, I lay fitfully dozing in my parentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house and I awoke fully around 4:00 a.m. In the room that I was sleeping in, my mother had placed a head-and-shoulders porcelain image of the Virgin Mary, holding the baby Jesus in her arms, with her face turned towards the side. This icon had always been there, as long as I remember. As I looked over to the wall, a glowing light filled the area where the image was hanging. Slowly, the light expanded to fill up most of the room, as the features of Mary slowly turned into the features of my 139

motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face. I stared at it for quite a while, and then the light began to fade and the image reverted back to normal. I knew this was a sign of my motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s presence and that she was still with us, because she had always felt close to Mary, and being a loving mother and grandmother had been the most important thing in her life.

A short time later, I had the most vivid dream of Vanna. It was the sort of dream that many people experience after the death of a loved one, in the form of an after-death communication. In the dream, I got out of bed and in front of me stood my mother. She was so close that I could almost feel the woolen hairs on the jacket she had on. It was a jacket that she had worn a lot in the last few months of her life. Instinctively, I knew that if I took my eyes off her that she would vanish, but, at the same time, I wanted to call to my son who was in the next room and tell him to come quickly.

Feverishly,

fixed

concentration

mother

and

simultaneously, I called my sonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name. I followed her towards a door, and then she turned and held up her hand, saying that I could come no further. She was crying and I wanted to reach out and touch her. I was upset because she still looked as frail as she had before she died but, she pointed to another room that had an open door and, as I looked inside the room, I saw her lying on a bed. She was young and beautiful, smiling and wearing a pretty summer dress, with a look 140

of deep contentment on her face.

Suddenly, I understood her message. It had all been so painful at the end, and the images I retained were of someone struggling and suffering. I knew that in that moment, she wanted me to see her transformation and not remember her as she was in her final days, but as she is now. My motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dying process was such a profound experience that it changed my life forever. I consulted a psychic shortly after her death, who told me I was going to write a book of modern-day parables that would help people comes to terms with death and appreciate the preciousness of life.

The End

141