Part 11

“Will you come and have another peep with me this evening?”

“With pleasure.”

“You could not do it with pain if I were by,” was the response.

And we started then and there upon the strangest evening’s round which I have ever made.

We began by going to the house of a friend of mine and standing quietly in the room where he and his family were at supper. No one saw us but the cat, which began a loud purring and stretched itself with joy at our presence. Had I gone there alone, the cat might have been afraid of me; but who--even a cat--could fear the Beautiful Being?

Suddenly one of the children--the youngest one--looked up from his supper of bread and milk, and said:

“Father, why does milk taste good?”

“I really do not know,” admitted the author of his being, “perhaps because the cow enjoyed giving it.”

“That father might have been a poet,” the Beautiful Being said to me; but no one overheard the remark.

One of the other children complained of feeling sleepy, and put his head down on the edge of the table. The mother started to arouse him, but the Beautiful Being fluttered a mystifying veil before her eyes, and she could not do it.

“Let him sleep if he wants to,” she said. “I will put him to bed by and by.”

I could see in the brain of the child that he was dreaming already, and I knew that the Beautiful Being was weaving a fairy-tale on the web of his mind. After only a moment he started up, wide awake.

“I dreamed,” he said, “that----[the writer of these letters] was standing over there and smiling at me as he used to smile, and with him was an angel. I never saw an angel before.”

“Come away,” whispered the Beautiful Being to me. “From dreaming children nothing can be hidden.”

We then paid a visit to the future mother of my boy Lionel. Oh, mystery of maternity! The eyes of the Beautiful Being were like stars as we gazed upon this other flower-seed, whose genealogy goes even beyond the days of the cave-man--aye, back to the time of the fire-mist and the sons of the morning stars.

“Come away!” said the Beautiful Being again. “To brides who dream of motherhood much also is revealed, and for this evening we remain unknown.”

We passed along the margin of a river which divides a busy town. Suddenly from a house by the river-bank we heard the tinkle of a guitar and a woman’s sweet voice singing:

“When other lips and other hearts Their tale of love shall tell, ... Then you’ll remember--you’ll remember me.”

The Beautiful Being touched my hand and whispered:

“The life that is so sweet to these mortals is a book of enchantment for me.”

“Yet you have never tasted human life yourself?”

“On the contrary, I taste it every day; but I only taste it--and pass on. Should I consume it, I might not be able to pass on.”

“But do you never long so to consume it?”

“Oh, but the thrill is in the taste! Digestion is a more or less tiresome process.”

“I fear you are a divine wanton,” I said, affectionately.

“Be careful,” answered the Beautiful Being. “He who fears anything will lose me in the fog of his own fears.”

“You irresistible one!” I cried. “Who are you? _What_ are you?”

“Did you not say yourself a little while ago that I was the fairy who made blind babies dream of daisy fields?”

“I love you,” I said, “with an incomprehensible love.”

“All love is incomprehensible,” the Beautiful Being answered. “But come, brother, let us climb the hill of vision. When you are out of breath, if you catch at my flying veil I will wait till you are rested.”

Strange things we saw that night. I should weary you if I told you all of them.

We stood on the crater of an active volcano and watched the dance of the fire-spirits. Did you fancy that salamanders were only seen by unabstemious poets? They are as real--to themselves and to those who see them--as are the omnibus-drivers in the streets of London.

The real and the unreal! If I were writing an essay now, instead of the narrative of a traveller in a strange country, I should have much to say on the subject of the real and the unreal.

The Beautiful Being has changed my ideas about the whole universe. I wonder if, when I come back to the earth again, I shall remember all the marvels I have seen. Perhaps, like most people, I shall have forgotten the details of my life before birth, and shall bring with me only vague yearnings after the inexpressible, and the deep unalterable conviction that there are more things in earth and heaven than are dreamed of in the philosophy of the world’s people. Perhaps if I almost remember, but not quite, I shall be a poet in my next life. Worse things might happen to me.

What an adventure it is, this launching of one’s barque upon the sea of rebirth!

But by my digressions one would say that I was in my second childhood. So I am--my second childhood in the so-called invisible.

When, on my voyage that night with the Beautiful Being, I had feasted my eyes upon beauty until they were weary, my companion led me to scenes on the earth which, had I beheld them alone, would have made me very sad. But no one can be sad when the Beautiful Being is near. That is the charm of that marvellous entity: to be in its presence is to taste the joys of immortal life.

We looked on at a midnight revel in what you on earth would call “a haunt of vice.” Was I shocked and horrified? Not at all. I watched the antics of those human animalculæ as a scientist might watch the motions of the smaller living creatures in a drop of water. It seemed to me that I saw it all from the viewpoint of the stars. I started to say from the viewpoint of God, to whom small and great are the same; but perhaps the stellar simile is the truer one, for how can we judge of what God sees--unless we mean the god in us?

You who read what I have written, perhaps when you come out here you will have many surprises. The small things may seem larger and the large things smaller, and everything may take its proper place in the infinite plan, of which even your troubles and perplexities are parts, inevitable and beautiful.

That idea came to me as I wandered from heaven to earth, from beauty to ugliness, with my angelic companion.

I wish I could explain the influence of the Beautiful Being. It is unlike anything else in the universe. It is elusive as a moonbeam, yet more sympathetic than a mother. It is daintier than a rose, yet it looks upon ugly things with a smile. It is purer than the breath of the sea, yet it seems to have no horror of impurity. It is artless as a child, yet wiser than the ancient gods, a marvel of paradoxes, a celestial vagabond, the darling of the unseen.

LETTER XLII

A VICTIM OF THE NON-EXISTENT

THE other day I met an acquaintance, a woman whom I had known for a number of years, and who came out about the time I did.

Old acquaintances when they meet here greet each other about as they did on earth. Though we are, as a rule, less conventional than you, still we cling more or less to our former habits.

I asked Mrs. ---- how she was enjoying herself, and she said that she was not having a very pleasant time. She found that everybody was interested in something else, and did not want to talk with her.

This was the first time I had met with such a complaint, and I was struck by its peculiarity. I asked her to what cause she attributed this unsociability, and she replied that she did not know the cause, that it had puzzled her.

“What do you talk to them about?” I asked.

“Why, I tell them my troubles, as one friend tells another; but they do not seem to be interested. How selfish people are!”

Poor soul! She did not realise here, any more than she had on earth, that our troubles are not interesting to anybody but ourselves.

“Suppose,” I said, “that you unburden yourself to me. Tell me your troubles. I will promise not to run away.”

“Why, I hardly know where to begin!” she answered. “I have found so many unpleasant things.”

“What, for instance?”

“Why, horrid people. I remember that when I lived in ---- I sometimes told myself that in the other world I would not be bothered with boarding-house landladies and their careless hired girls; but they are just as bad here--even worse.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you live in a boarding-house here?”

“Where should I live? You know that I am not rich.”

Of all the astonishing things I had heard in this land of changes, this was the most astonishing. A boarding-house in the “invisible” world! Surely, I told myself, my observations had been limited. Here was a new discovery.

“Is the table good in your boarding-house?” I asked.

“No, it is worse than at the last one.”

“Are the meals scanty?”

“Yes, scanty and bad, especially the coffee.”

“Will you tell me,” I said, my wonder growing, “if you really eat three meals a day here, as you used to do on earth?”

“How strangely you talk!” she answered, in a sharp tone. “I don’t find very much difference between this place and the earth, as you call it, except that I am more uncomfortable here, because everything is so flighty and uncertain.”

“Yes, go on.”

“I never know in the morning who will be sitting next me in the evening. They come and go.”

“And what do you eat?”

“The same old things--meat and potatoes, and pies and puddings.”

“And you still eat these things?”

“Why, yes; don’t you?”

I hardly knew how to reply. Had I told her what my life here really was, she would no more have understood than she would have understood two years ago, when we lived in the same city on earth, had I told her then what my real mental life was. So I said:

“I have not much appetite.”

She looked at me as if she distrusted me in some way, though why I could not say.

“Are you still interested in philosophy?” she asked.

“Yes. Perhaps that is why I don’t get hungry very often.”

“You were always a strange man.”

“I suppose so. But tell me, Mrs. ----, do you never feel a desire to leave all this behind?”

“To leave all what behind?”

“Why, boarding-houses and uncongenial people, and meat and potatoes, and pies and puddings, and the shadows of material things in general.”

“What do you mean by ‘the _shadows_ of material things’?”

“I mean that these viands and pastries, which you eat and do not enjoy, are not real. They have no real existence.”

“Why!” she exclaimed, “have you become a Christian Scientist?”

At this I laughed heartily. Was one who denied the reality of astral food in the astral world a Christian Scientist, because the Christian Scientists denied the reality of material food in the material world? The analogy tickled my fancy.

“Let me convert you to Christian Science, then,” I said.

“No, sir!” was her sharp response. “You never succeeded in convincing me that there was any truth in your various fads and philosophies. And now you tell me that the food I eat is not real.”

I puzzled for a moment, trying to find a way by which the actual facts of her condition could be brought home to the mind of this poor woman. Finally I hit upon the right track.

“Do you realise,” I said, “that you are only dreaming?”

“What!” she snapped at me.

“Yes, you are dreaming. All this is a dream--these boarding-houses, _et cetera_.”

“If that is so, perhaps you would like to wake me up.”

“I certainly should. But you will have to awaken yourself, I fancy. Tell me, what were your ideas about the future life, before you came out here?”

“What do you mean by _out here_?”

“Why, before you died!”

“But, man, I am not dead!”

“Of course you are not dead. Nobody is dead. But you certainly understand that you have changed your condition.”

“Yes, I have noticed a change, and a change for the worse.”

“Don’t you remember your last illness?”

“Yes.”

“And that you passed out?”

“Yes, if you call it that.”

“You know that you have left your body?”

She looked down at her form, which appeared as usual, even to its rusty black dress rather out of date.

“But I still have my body,” she said.

“Then you have not missed the other one?”

“No.”

“And you don’t know where it is?”

My amazement was growing deeper and deeper. Here was a phenomenon I had not met before.

“I suppose,” she said, “that they must have buried my body, if you say I left it; but this one is just the same to me.”

“Has it always seemed the same?” I asked, remembering my own experiences when I first came out, my difficulty in adjusting the amount of energy I used to the lightness of my new body.

“Now you mention it,” she said, “I do recall having some trouble a year or two ago. I was quite confused for a long time. I think I must have been delirious.”

“Yes, doubtless you were,” I answered. “But tell me, Mrs. ----, have you no desire to visit heaven?”

“Why, I always supposed that I should visit heaven when I died; but, as you see, I am not dead.”

“Still,” I said, “I can take you to heaven now, perhaps, if you would like to go.”

“Are you joking?”

“Not at all. Will you come?”

“Are you certain that I can go there without dying?”

“But I assure you _there are no dead_.”

As we went slowly along, for I thought it best not to hurry her too swiftly from one condition to another, I drew a word-picture of the place we were about to visit--the orthodox Christian heaven. I described the happy and loving people who stood in the presence of their Saviour, in the soft radiance from the central Light.

“Perhaps,” I said, “some dwellers in that country see the face of God Himself, as they expected to see it when they were on earth; as for myself, I saw only the Light, and afterwards the figure of the Christ.”

“I have often wished to see Christ,” said my companion in an awe-struck voice. “Do you think that I can really see Him?”

“I think so, if you believe strongly that you will.”

“And what were they doing in heaven when you were there?” she asked.

“They were worshipping God, and they were happy.”

“I want to be happy,” she said; “I have never been very happy.”

“The great thing in heaven,” I advised, “is to love all the others. That is what makes them happy. If they loved the face of God only, it would not be quite heaven; for the joy of God is the joy of union.”

Thus, by subtle stages, I led her mind away from astral boarding-houses to the ideas of the orthodox spiritual world, which was probably the only spiritual world which she could understand.

I spoke of the music--yes, church music, if you like to call it that. I created in her wandering and chaotic mind a fixed desire for sabbath joys and sabbath peace, and the communion of friends in heaven. But for this gradual preparation she could not have adjusted herself to the conditions of that world.

When we stood in the presence of those who worship God with song and praise, she seemed caught up on a wave of enthusiasm, to feel that at last she had come home.

I wanted to take leave of her in such a way that she would not come out again to look for me; so I held out my hand in the old way and said good-bye, promising to come again and visit her there, and advising her to stay where she was. I think she will. Heaven has a strong hold on those who yield themselves to its beauty.

LETTER XLIII

A CLOUD OF WITNESSES

ARE you surprised to learn that there is even a greater difference between the beings in this world than between the people of earth? That is inevitable, for this is a freer world than yours.

I should fail in my duty if I did not tell you something of the evil beings out here; perhaps no one else will ever tell you, and the knowledge is necessary to self-protection.

First I want to say that there is a strong sympathy between the spirits in this world and the spirits in your world. Yes, they are both spirits, the difference being mainly a difference in garments, one wearing flesh and the other wearing a subtler but none the less real body.

Now the good spirits, which may be “the spirits of just men made perfect,” or those who merely aspire to perfection, are powerfully drawn to those fellow-spirits on earth whose ideals are in harmony with their own. The magnetic attraction which exists between human beings is weak compared with that which is possible between beings embodied and beings disembodied. As opposites attract, the very difference in matter is a drawing force. The female is not more attractive to the male than the being of flesh is attractive to the being in the astral. The two do not usually understand each other, neither do man and woman. But the influence is felt, and beings out here understand its source better than you do, because they generally carry with them the memory of your world, while you have lost the memory of theirs.

At no time is the sympathetic power between men and spirits so strong as when men are labouring under some intense emotion, be it love or hate, or anger, or any other excitement. For then the fiery element in man is most active, and spirits are attracted by fire.

(_Here the writing suddenly stopped, the influence passed, to return after a few minutes._)

You wonder why I went away? It was in order to draw a wide protective circle around us both, for what I have to say to you is something which certain spirits would wish me to leave unsaid.

To continue. When man is excited, exalted, or in any way intensified in his emotional life, the spirits draw near to him. That is how conception is possible; that is the secret of inspiration; that is why anger grows with what it feeds upon.

And this last is the point which I want to drive home to your consciousness. When you lose your temper you lose a great deal, among other things _the control of yourself_, and it is barely possible that another entity may momentarily assume control of you.

This subjective world, as I have called it, is full of hateful spirits. They love to stir up strife, both here and on earth. They enjoy the excitement of anger in others, they are thrilled by the poison of hatred; as certain men revel in morphine, so they revel in all inharmonious passion.

Do you see the point and the danger? A small seed of anger in your heart they feed and inflame by the hatred in their own. It is not necessarily hatred of you as an individual, often they have no personal interest in you; but for the purpose of gratifying their evil passion they will attach themselves to you temporarily. Other illustrations are not far to seek.

A man who has the habit of anger, even of fault-finding, is certain to be surrounded by evil spirits. I have seen a score of them around a man, thrilling him with their own malignant magnetism, stirring him up again when by reaction he would have cooled down.

Sometimes the impersonal interest in mere strife becomes personal; an angry spirit here may find that by attaching himself to a certain man he is sure to get every day a thrill or thrills of angry excitement, as his victim continually loses his temper and storms and rages. This is one of the most terrible misfortunes which can happen to anybody. Carried to its ultimate, it may become obsession, and end in insanity.

The same law applies to other unlovely passions, those of lust and avarice. Beware of lust, beware of all sex attraction into which no spiritual or heart element enters. I have seen things that I would not wish to record, either through your hand or any other.

Let us take instead a case of avarice. I have seen a miser counting over his gold, have seen the terrible eyes of the spirits which enjoyed the gold through him. For gold has a peculiar influence as a metal, apart from its purchasing power or the associations attached to it. Certain spirits love gold, even as the miser loves it, and with the same acquisitive, astringent passion. As it is one of the heaviest of metals, so its power is a condensed and condensing power.

I do not mean by this that you should beware of gold. Get all you can use, for it is useful; but do not gloat over it. One does not attract the avaricious spirits merely by owning the symbols of wealth--houses and lands and stocks and bonds, or even a moderate amount of coin; but I advise you not to hoard coins to gloat over.

There are certain jewels, however, whose possession will aid you, for they attract the spirits of power. But you will probably choose your jewels by reason of your affinity with them, and may choose wisely.

Now that I have done my duty by warning you against the passions and the passionate spirits of which you should beware, I can go on to speak of other feelings and of other spiritual associates of man.

You have met persons who seemed to radiate sunshine, whose very presence in a room made you happier. Have you asked yourself why? The true answer would be that by their lovely disposition they attracted round them a “cloud of witnesses” as to the joy and the beauty of life.

I have myself often basked in the warm rays of a certain loving heart I know upon the earth. I have heard spirits say to one another as they crowded round that person, “It is good to be here.” Do you think that any evil thing could happen to him? A score of loving and sympathetic spirits would strive to give him warning should any evil threaten.

Then, too, a joyous heart attracts joyous events.

Simplicity, also, and sweet humility, are very attractive to gentle disembodied souls. “Except ye be as little children, ye cannot enter in.”

Have you not often seen a child enjoying himself with unseen playfellows? You would call them imaginary playfellows. Perhaps they were, perhaps they were not imaginary. To imagine may be to create, or it may be to attract things already created.

I have seen the Beautiful Being itself, more than once, hovering in ecstasy above an earthly creature who was happy.