Part 8

I have only slightly to change my focus at any time, to find myself in your world. That I cannot be seen there with the naked eye is no proof that I am not there. Without that change of focus, which is done through an action of will and by knowing the method, I might even be occupying the same space as something in your world and not know it. Note well this point, for it is only half of something which I have to say. The other half is, that you also may at any time be--so far as space is concerned--in the immediate neighbourhood of interesting things in our world, and not know that you are there.

But if you focus to this world you are more or less conscious of it. So when I, knowing how, focus to your world, I am there in consciousness and can enjoy the varied sights of many cities, the changing aspects of many lands.

When I first came out I could not see my way about the earth very well, but now I can see better.

No, I am not going to give you a formula to give to other people by which you or they could change focus at will and enter into relation with this world, because such knowledge at the present stage of human progress would do more harm than good. I merely state the fact, and leave the application for those who have the curiosity and the ability to demonstrate it.

My object in writing these letters is primarily to convince a few persons--to strengthen their certainty in the fact of immortality, or the survival of the soul after the bodily change which is called death. Many think they believe who are not certain whether they believe or not. If I can make my presence as a living and vital entity felt in these letters, it will have the effect of strengthening the belief of certain persons in the doctrine of immortality.

This is a materialistic age. A large percentage of men and women have no real interest in the life beyond the grave. But they will all have to come out here sooner or later, and perhaps a few will find the change easier, the journey less formidable, by reason of what I shall have taught them. Is it not worth while? Is it not worth a little effort on your part as well as on mine?

Any person approaching the great change who shall seriously study these letters and lay their principles to heart, and who shall will to remember them after passing out, need not fear anything.

We all fail in much that we undertake, but I hope I shall not fail in this. Do not you fail on your side. I could not do this work without you, nor could you do it without me. That is in answer to the supposition that I am your subconscious mind.

I have been in Constantinople and have stood in the very room where I once had a remarkable experience, hundreds of years ago. I have seen the walls, I have touched them, I have read the etheric records of their history, and my own history in connection therewith.

I have walked the rose-gardens of Persia and have smelled the flowers--the grandchildren, hundreds of times removed, of those roses whose fragrance was an ecstasy to me when, watching with the bulbul, I paced there in another form and with intentions different to mine now. It was the perfume of the roses which made me remember.

In Greece also I have lived over the old days. Before their degeneration began, what a race they were! I think that concentration was the secret of their power. The ether around that peninsula is written over with their exploits, in daring thought as well as daring action. The old etheric records are so vivid that they shine through the later writings; for you must know that what are called astral records lie layer against layer everywhere. We read one layer instead of another, either by affinity or by will. It is no more strange than that a man may go among the millions of volumes in the British Museum and select the one he wants. The most marvellous things are always simple of explanation if one has the key to unlock their secret.

There has been much nonsense written about vibration, but nevertheless truth lies thereabouts. Where there is so much smoke there must be fire.

In India I have met with yogis in meditation. Do you know why their peculiar way of breathing produces psychic results? No, you do not. Now let me tell you: By holding the breath long a certain--shall I say poison?--is produced in the body, which poison, acting on the psychic nature, changes the vibration. That is all. Volumes have been written about yoga, but have any of them said that? The untrained healthy lungs, in the ordinary operation, get rid of this poison by processes well known to physiologists,--that is, in the natural man, adjusted to and working contentedly on the material plane. But in order for a man still living on the material plane to become adjusted to the psychic world, a change of vibration is necessary. This change of vibration may be produced by a slight overdose of the above-mentioned poison. Is it dangerous? Yes, to the ignorant. To those who are learned in its use it is no more dangerous than most of the drugs in the pharmacopœia.

Another time I will tell you about other secrets which I have discovered going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it.

LETTER XXXIII

FIVE RESOLUTIONS

I HAVE stood at night on the roof of an Oriental palace and watched the stars. You who can see into the invisible world by changing your focus, can easily understand how I, by a reverse process, can see into the world of dense matter. Yes, it is the same thing, only turned the other way.

I stood on the roof of an Oriental palace and watched the stars. No mortal was near me. Looking down upon the sleeping city, I have seen the cloud of souls which kept watch above it, have seen the messengers coming and going. Once or twice a wan, half-frightened face appeared among the cloud of spirits, and I knew that down below in the city someone had died.

But I had seen so many spirits since coming out here that I was more interested in watching the stars. I used to love them, and I love them still. Some day, if it is permitted, I hope to know more about them. But I shall not leave the neighbourhood of the earth until these letters are finished. From the distance of the planet Jupiter I might not be able to write at all. It is true that one can come and go, almost with the quickness of thought; but something tells me that it is better to postpone for a time my more extensive travelling. Perhaps when I get out there I shall not want to come back for a long time.

It means much to me this correspondence with earth. During my illness I used to wonder if I could come back sometimes, but I never imagined anything like this. I would not have supposed it possible to find any well-balanced and responsible person with daring enough to join me in the experiment.

I could not have written through the hand of a person of untrained mind unless he or she had been fully hypnotised. I could not have written through the hand of the average intellectual person, because such persons cannot make themselves sufficiently passive.

Be at peace. You are not a spirit medium, using the word as it is commonly used, signifying a passive instrument, an æolian harp, set in an aperture between the two worlds and played upon by any wind that blows.

Except as illustrating the fact that it can be done, there is no great object in my telling you of the things I have seen in your world since coming to this other one. The next time you look out into this plane of life and see the wonderful landscapes and the people, remember that it is in a similar way that I look back into your plane of existence. It is interesting to live in two worlds, going back and forth at will. But when I go into yours it is only as a visitor, and I shall never attempt to take a hand in its government. There is such a rigorous custom-house on the frontier between the two worlds that the traveller back and forth cannot afford to carry anything with him--not even a prejudice.

If you should come out here with a determination to see only certain things, you might give a wrong value to what you would see. Many have come out here at death with that mental attitude, and so have learned little or nothing. It is the traveller with the open mind who makes discoveries.

I brought over with me only a few resolutions:

To preserve my identity;

To hold my memory of earth life, and to carry back the memory of this life when I should return to the world;

To see the great Teachers;

To recover the memories of my past incarnations;

To lay the necessary foundations for a great earth life when I should go back next time.

That sounds simple, does it not? Already I have done much besides; but if I had not borne these points in mind I might have accomplished little.

The only really sad thing about death is that the average man learns so little from it. Only my realisation of the fact that the chain of earth lives is relatively endless could keep me from regret that most persons make so little progress in each life. But I comfort myself with the assurance that there is no hurry; that the pearls in the chain of existence, though small, are all in their inevitable places, and that the chain is a circle, the symbol of eternity.

And it seems to me, with my still finite view, that most men on this side waste their lives even as they do on your side. That shows how far I am yet from the ideal knowledge.

Viewed from the stars, whence I hope some day to view them, all these flat stretches in the landscape of life may be softened by distance, and the whole picture may take on a perspective of beauty which I had not dreamed of while I myself was but a speck upon the canvas.

LETTER XXXIV

THE PASSING OF LIONEL

I HAVE lost my boy Lionel. He has gone--I started to say the way of all flesh; but I must revise the figure and say the way of all spirits, sooner or later, and that way is back to the earth.

One day not long ago I found him absorbed in thought in our favourite resting-place, the little hut beside a stream at the foot of a wooded hill, which I told you about in one of my former letters.

I waited for a time until the boy opened his eyes and looked at me.

“Father,” he said, “my favourite teacher is going to be married to-morrow.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Why, I have been listening!” he answered. “Every little while I go back and pay her a visit, though she does not know I am there. I have been aware that there was something in the wind.”

“Why?”

“Because she has been so shining; there is a light around her which was not there before.”

“What caused the light, Lionel?”

“Well, I suppose she is what they call _in love_.”

“You are a phenomenally wise child,” I said.

He looked at me with his large, honest eyes.

“I am not really a child at all,” he answered. “I am as old as the hills, as you, or as anybody. Have you not told me that we are all immortal, without end or beginning?”

“Yes, but go on, tell me about your teacher.”

“She is in love with the big brother of one of my playfellows. I used to know him when I was a little boy. He let me use his magnet, and taught me kite-flying, and showed me how machinery went. He is an engineer.”

“Oh!” I said. “In this case, of course, you are glad that your favourite teacher is going to marry him.”

Lionel’s eyes were larger than ever as he said:

“I shall be sorry to leave you, Father; but it is a chance I cannot afford to miss.”

“What!”

“It is my opportunity to go back. I’ve been watching for it a long time.”

“But are you ready?”

“What is it to be ready? I _want_ to go.”

“And leave me?”

“I shall find you again. And--Oh, Father!--when you come back I shall be older than you.” This idea seemed to delight him.

I was still human enough to be sorry that the boy was going of his own free will; but as will _is_ free, I would not make any effort to detain him. Though young in that form, which had not yet had time to grow up in the tenuous world since he came out as a child, yet he was old in thought.

“Yes,” I said, “perhaps you can help me along when I also shall be a child again.”

“You see,” he went on, “with a father like Victor I shall learn all I want to know about machinery--that is, all that he can teach me; but when I am grown I shall find out for myself many things which he does not know. You remember the little machine I have been working with, up in the pattern world?”

“Yes.”

“When I am back on the earth I shall make it a reality. Why, it actually runs now with the electricity from my fingers!”

“But will it, when you have fixed it in material form, in steel, or whatever it is to be made of?”

“Yes, of course it will. It is my invention. I shall be a famous man.”

“But supposing that somebody else finds it first?”

“I don’t think anybody will.”

“Shall I help you to lay a spell around the pattern, so that no one can touch it?”

“Could you do that, Father?”

“I think so.”

“Then let us go up there at once,” he said, “and do it immediately. I may have to leave this world in a day or two.”

I could not help smiling at the boy’s desire to hurry. Doubtless he would be present at that wedding, and I should see little or nothing of him afterwards.

We went up to the pattern world, and with his assistance I drew a circle around the little machine--a spell which, I think, will protect it until he is ready to make his claim.

Oh inspiration! Oh invention! Genius! Little do the men of earth know the meaning of those words. Perhaps the poet’s famous poem was sung before his birth; perhaps the engineer’s invention lay in the pattern world, protected by his spell, while he grew to manhood and advanced in science and made ready to claim it for his own, his prior and spiritual creation. Perhaps, when two men discover or invent the same thing at about the same time, one has succeeded in appropriating the design which the other left behind him when he came back to earth. Sometimes, perhaps, both have taken from the invisible the creation of a third man, who still awaits rebirth.

Lionel babbled on to me about the life to come, and of what a charming mother Miss ---- would be. She had always been good to him.

“Perhaps,” I said, “many of us who return almost immediately, as you hope to do, seek out those who have been good to us in a former life.”

“There is another point,” Lionel said. “Miss ---- is a friend of my own mother, the one I left a few years ago. It will be so good to have her hold my hand again.”

“Do you think she will recognise you?” I asked.

“Who knows? She believes in rebirth.”

“How can you say that? You were so little when you came out!”

“I was seven years old, and already she had told me that we live many lives on earth.”

“Bless the souls who first brought that belief to the Western world!” I exclaimed. “And now, my boy, is there anything that I can do for you after you leave me?”

“Yes, of course; you can watch over my new mother, and warn her if any danger threatens her or me.”

“Then make me acquainted with her now.”

We went out into the material world, the boy and I. Already I have told you how we go.

He took me to a little house in one of the suburbs of Boston. We entered a room--it was then about eleven o’clock at night upon that part of the earth,--and I saw a fair young woman kneeling beside her bed, praying to God that He would bless the union of the morrow which was to give her to the man she loved.

Lionel went close to her and threw his arms about her neck.

She started, as if she actually felt the contact, and sprang to her feet.

“Miss ----, Miss ----, don’t you know me?” he cried; but while I could hear him, she evidently could not, though she looked about her in a half-frightened way.

Then, supposing that the touch and the presence she had felt were imaginary, she again fell upon her knees and went on with her interrupted prayer.

“Come away,” I said to the boy; and we left her there with her dreams and her devotions.

That was the last I saw of Lionel. He bade me good-bye, saying:

“I shall stay near her for a few days. Perhaps I shall go back and forth, from her to you; but if I do not return, I will meet you again in a few years.”

“Yes,” I said, “it is affinity and desire which draw souls together, either on earth or in the other world.”

When next I met the Teacher I told him about Lionel, and asked him if he thought the boy could come out to me now and then, after his life on earth had begun, as an unborn entity in the shelter of his mother’s form.

“Probably not,” he replied. “If he were an adept soul, he might do that; but with a soul of even high development, lacking real adeptship, it would be impossible.”

“Yet,” I said, “men living on earth do come out here in dreams.”

“Yes, but when the soul enters matter, preparing for rebirth, it enters potentiality, if we may use the term, and all its strength is needed in the herculean effort to form the new body and adjust to it. After birth, when the eyes are opened, and the lungs are expanded to the air, the task is easier, and there may be left enough unused energy to bridge the gulf.

“But,” he went on, “those who are soon to be mothers are often vaguely conscious of the souls they harbour. Even when they do not grasp the full significance of the miracle that is being performed through them, they have strange dreams and visions, which are mostly glimpses into the past incarnations of the unborn child. They see dream countries where the entity within has dwelt in the past; they feel desires which they cannot explain--reflected desires which are merely the latent yearnings of the unborn one; they experience groundless fears which are its former dreads and terrors. The mother who nourishes a truly great soul, during this period of formation may herself grow spiritually beyond her own unaided possibility; while the mother of an unborn criminal often develops strange perversities, quite unlike her normal state of mind.

“If a woman were sufficiently intelligent and informed, she could judge from her own feelings and ideas what sort of soul was to be her child some day, and prepare to guide it accordingly. More knowledge is needed, here as elsewhere.”

So, as in all my experiences, I learned something through the passing out of Lionel.

LETTER XXXV

THE BEAUTIFUL BEING

YES, I have seen angels, if by angels you mean spiritual beings who have never dwelt as men upon the earth.

As a man is to a rock, so is an angel to a man in vividness of life. If we ever experienced that state of etheric joy, we have lost it through long association with matter. Can we ever regain it? Perhaps. The event is in our hand.

Shall I tell you of one whom I call the Beautiful Being? If it has a name in heaven, I have not heard it. Is the Beautiful Being man or woman? Sometimes it seems to be one, sometimes the other. There is a mystery here which I cannot fathom.

One night I seemed to be reclining upon a moonbeam, which means that the poet which dwells in all men was awake in me. I seemed to be reclining upon a moonbeam, and ecstasy filled my heart. For the moment I had escaped the clutches of Time, and was living in that etheric quietude which is merely the activity of rapture raised to the last degree. I must have been enjoying a foretaste of that paradoxical state which the wise ones of the East call Nirvana.

I was vividly conscious of the moonbeam and of myself, and _in_ myself seemed to be everything else in the universe. It was the nearest I ever came to a realisation of that supreme declaration, “_I am_.”

The past and the future seemed equally present in the moment. Had a voice whispered that it was yesterday, I should have acquiesced in the assertion; had I been told that it was a million years hence, I should have been also assentive. But whether it was really yesterday or a million years hence mattered not in the least. Perhaps the Beautiful Being only comes to those for whom the moment and eternity are one. I heard a voice say:

“Brother, it is I.”

There was no question in my mind as to who had spoken. “It is I” can only be uttered in such a voice by one whose individuality is so vast as to be almost universal, one who has dipped in the ocean of the All, yet who knows the minute by reason of its own inclusiveness.

Standing before me was the Beautiful Being, radiant in its own light. Had it been less lovely I might have gasped with wonder; but the very perfection of its form and presence diffused an atmosphere of calm. I marvelled not, because the state of my consciousness _was_ marvel. I was lifted so far above the commonplace that I had no standard by which to measure the experience of that moment.

Imagine youth immortalised, the fleeting made eternal. Imagine the bloom of a child’s face and the eyes of the ages of knowledge. Imagine the brilliancy of a thousand lives concentrated in those eyes, and the smile upon the lips of a love so pure that it asks no answering love from those it smiles upon.