My aim is to make this book practical, that is, to clothe its thought in
such garb as to render it available for use, not to scholars merely, but
to all thoughtful minds.
I shall endeavor in this chapter to gather up a few missing links in my
train of thought, and afterwards endeavor to give you a glimpse of the
Beyond. The question I seem called upon to answer is, How can a man be
alive and dead at the same time? and in order to answer it, it will be
necessary to analyze the thought called death, and separate it into its
various parts.
The man is dead, says local report, and the consciousness of society
undergoes that natural change in regard to the man which I have
described.
His name becomes associated with things that were, but no longer are.
Even those who theoretically believe that the man continues to live
either in happiness or misery, have, most of them, so little confidence
in the theory which they have subscribed to, that they never dream of
putting forth a mental current based on the theory. To all intents and
purposes, society consigns the average man to annihilation, with a
half-careless "Poor fellow, so he's gone. We'll see no more of him.
Well, no time to weep, seeing as he didn't leave me anything. What new
device for entrapping the elusive dollar shall I conjure up to-day?"
I am dead, says the man himself as the shadows which have been gathering
upon his senses culminate in a rayless silence, and every thought of
motion becomes a recollection, a mere theory of fancy, that will not
even approach the dominion of the will.
Death, as a state of consciousness, is a thing entirely new to him, but
he cannot reason on the subject. To reason is to live, to set the brain
in motion, to perform mental operations; this is no longer possible.
What shall this state be compared to? It is like that of one isolated in
a secret cell of his own house, the key turned on him from the outside,
every avenue of communication cut off, dead to the world and all that it
contains. If a total loss of appetite can be associated with the state,
it might continue for an indefinite period; and if the power of
thought-transference comes in, a new kind of life has been begun.
But science says that no man is really dead who still retains his
consciousness, by which statement science belies its name. Calling
itself knowledge, it spreads abroad its own ignorance. How many a
post-mortem has been held in the hope of finding the secret chamber
wherein that part of man which cannot die has gone to rest! How often
the sweet peace of death has become a conscious madness, by this means,
God only knows. Gentlemen, desist.
To find a chamber whose occupant is invisible debars you forever from
obtaining the proof that you have found it. But perhaps it is not the
soul itself that is the object of this search, but rather some special
physical representative that might be found still quivering with life
and so betray its master. All folly.
The soul when uncontaminated informs the whole outward body. It has its
pains and illnesses, more or less affecting the outer form, yet all
unrecognized in materia medica, and when its mortal brother is struck
with death, bends all its energies to make escape, lest it, too, take on
mortality. Failing in its effort to make a doorway for its exit, it
suffers for awhile through sympathy, till the final moment sets it free
from pain within its small dark house, no longer small, because made
clear, transparent, by the touch of death, when the dying has been
brave. No trace of foreign matter may remain to start a dissolution, in
which case the soul preserves the body from decay without more trouble
than a little watchful care.
Sight, hearing, touch, through vibratory currents reach round the world
and even touch the clouds; the body has become, in fact, a mansion
perfectly adapted to the needs of its proprietor, who finds a new world
open to his delighted consciousness, and thanks God fervently for his
perfect victory over death, as well as for his comfort and protection
within the white, still walls which form, in fact, the first
abiding-place of the spirit.
With this still form as passive aid, the soul, with little pain, is able
to make the mental transition which its change of circumstance requires.
No longer concerned directly with any thought based on material needs or
material changes, it finds itself in touch with the moral causes which
underlie these changes; and because moral force is most familiarly
manifest in and through people, these, and their relations to itself,
fill all the mental horizon.
In this new field of perception, nothing impresses more than the
enormous differences in spiritual rank and attainment existing among
mortals who, judged by tape-line and scale, stood fairly equal, and whom
human law necessarily places on a plane of perfect equality, or
perhaps, through its deference to wealth, makes unequal in the wrong
way.
The thoroughness with which past illusions are stripped away from the
mind tends to leave the spirit fairly aghast at its previous blindness.
Frequently forgetting that the motor nerves of the physical form are no
longer responsive to its touch, it starts to rise, that it may go and
tell the world of these wonders just discovered, but finds itself in the
firm and quiet grasp of death, a touch that seems to speak and say:
"Never mind; that is all right. You forget you are not free. Lie still
and learn your lesson."
"But shall I not return?"
"Possibly, but the mortal life is no concern of yours at present. You
are dead."
All this as in a flash, for words do not belong to this state, ideas
rather, the spiritual essences of thought that seem to need no time
whatever to make their mark upon the mind.
To some of these the mind is so receptive that they sink at once to the
very core of being, while others are held upon the surface.
This last communication, You are dead, is sure to be so held. It seems
such an evident conclusion to respond, If I am dead, there is no death
but this seems such a contradiction to life's long lesson, namely, that
amidst a wilderness of uncertainties, death is the one thing certain.
And then the recollection of the shrinking of the soul at thought of
death, how to account for that, if there were no reality behind
appearances so countless?
This in another flash of ideation that leaves a sense of mystery as of a
problem not worked out, and which may not be while death as a condition
rests upon the form. I say, may not be, but would not be understood to
mean that the hindrance is mechanical in this case. A pure soul, even in
death, has certain reserve forces which can be put in action if the need
is great enough, but the consciousness of being in a friend's control,
especially when that control is apparently absolute, will tend to check
all restless impulse in this region of the dark, till now all
unexplored.