It will readily be seen that to take firmly the position that realities
may be devoid of materiality involves a great deal, and those who
endeavor to prevent this thought from taking root in any particular mind
are apt to hold up before him examples of the immaterial which are not
real. Most dreams are of this nature. Their confused outlines make
temporary impressions on the memory and are then forgotten. But we have
not to do with such as these. We recognize that real things may be
material, such as certain houses, lands, or mountains, and that unreal
things may be immaterial, like passing dreams just spoken of; but the
immaterial which is none the less real is what we bring into view. And
if we are ready to admit, or to go further and declare, that reality and
materiality are not necessarily conjoined, we are then ready to give a
fair hearing to the statement that a real but immaterial world,
inhabited by real but immaterial beings, is in closest relations with
our own.
These real but immaterial beings, because they _are_ real and
intelligent, are possessed of the primal attributes of all intelligent
beings: they have memory, feeling, emotion, will.
In power they differ widely from each other, and in their essential
character there are as many shades of difference as with mortals.
Let us speak first of their power. This is mostly exercised in their own
field, that of the immaterial, yet to suppose that it is any the less
real in its effects upon our lives is to forget how small a part our
senses directly play in influencing our motives. The end and object of
our efforts may be to obtain the means to gratify our senses or those of
our friends, but the process through which we are obliged to work is so
complicated, it involves the play of so many forces, it brings us into
relations with so many people, each with his own plans and purposes,
that we are continually making decisions based upon what we consider as
probable, rather than certain, results. This is the opportunity of the
spirits, and we often discover that all our efforts have simply tended
to the advancement of others, while we are left in the lurch. The man
who keeps his temper under such circumstances may be favored by the
receipt of a thought-message. It enters his mind as ideas do, with a
flash, and if he is wise he will carefully elaborate it into words. I
have been working for myself only, bending everything as far as
possible to my own enrichment. Others have been doing the same. What
right have I to complain if they have done with me, by their superior
power and foresight, what I have tried to do with them? None at all.
Morally we are on the same level. Let this misfortune be a lesson to me.
Henceforth I will at least make an effort to do as I would be done by.
As he makes this resolution, a warm glow suddenly pervades his being. He
feels at once lighter and stronger, and then perhaps he does a little
thinking for himself. "If I believed in angels, I should say that they
were near, and touched me then; I never felt anything like it." Little
does he suspect the truth, that the whole idea which he so carefully
elaborated in his mind had been flashed into it from without by an
angel-friend, and that when it had borne its natural fruit in a good
resolution, it became possible for the same friend to convey to him a
touch of her own delight.
It may be objected that illustrations like these prove nothing as to the
source of the experience; that to deny that invisible intelligences so
play upon men is as rational, or more so, as to say they do. But we are
not limited to such comparatively indefinite evidence. For nearly fifty
years it has been permitted, or commanded, or both, that these invisible
beings should demonstrate the reality of continued existence, and they
have been doing so in a great variety of ways. For particulars,
reference is made to the periodical literature devoted to the subject,
and to the scores of books which have been written upon it.
It is not my purpose, however, to enter into this field of evidence
with any approach to minutiae, for it was not here that I acquired the
ability to say, The occult world is a real, inhabited domain. I know
whereof I speak.