Accept another glimpse of the Beyond. One of the most distinctive
characteristics of this country or state of being is activity of mind.
Let me explain why I say country or state of being. It is either the one
or the other to the consciousness according to the point of view. Looked
at externally, it is seen to be a new environment, a different kind of
life; but when its atmosphere becomes yours, the effect upon your mental
organism will be so great that you will rightly regard it as a state of
being to which earth-life bears the relation of a pre-natal one. This
comparison, however, has one defect, for while we of the earth have no
conscious memory of our pre-natal life, they of the Beyond recall every
leading event of earth-life as clearly as though no time had intervened.
The change of state brings on the mental activity spoken of, the effect
of which on the material side manifests as heat or magnetism, or both.
The lifting off of the weight of dead matter causes a feeling of
buoyancy, and the vibrations of the particles of the gaseous body may be
so great that it will seem to expand until one seems everywhere present
over a vast territory in the same way that we are now present in all
parts of our physical bodies.
The first event of prime importance to you will be the demonstrating and
establishing of your spiritual rank. Just where do you belong? In the
society of what people, or what class of people, are you content? Does
any accusation lie against you? If so, what have you to say in regard to
it?
Are there any special credits that you claim which seem never to have
been acknowledged? Is there anything you wish to confess? To what
concealment do you claim a right?
The answering of these questions may be a very simple matter, or may
involve the welfare of nations. While the friends left behind will
contribute their quota of evidence, those with whom you have been
associated who have preceded you to the unknown country will be the most
actively interested in your case. You will find some waiting for your
testimony on some point involving their own status, and when you come to
speak of the matter you may have to struggle against a tumult of voices
before you succeed in testifying. Where questions of fact are involved,
of sufficient importance to justify it, most wonderful agencies can be
set in motion to determine them correctly in the region of the Beyond.
That precise point in the ether where the event occurred, and which has
long since been left behind by the passage of the solar system through
space, can be visited and made to yield up its record as by kinetograph;
or the surroundings may be reproduced as on a stage, and the one who
persists in falsifying is suddenly placed there and told to act his part
again according to his own story. He will find it very difficult to play
a false part in the presence of those who know the truth.
It may be noted that this picture of a soul on trial is quite different
from that given before, where it is held as the prisoner of death; but
it is only necessary to bear in mind that events may succeed each other
even in a country where time is not, and that such succession marks the
stages of one's growth.
If any of your faculties are in a dull or torpid state because the
circumstances of your life have been such that they never have been
given a field of action, the invisible actors of the Beyond who may have
you in charge will know how to awaken, stimulate, and call these
faculties into an active state before the final decision is rendered, to
the end that no injustice may be done you on their account. Should the
verdict of the lower court be such that you are not willing to abide by
it, you may take an appeal to a higher court.
At the last you may even appeal from the judgment of angels altogether,
and demand a trial by the great Spirit of the universe, but you will not
do this recklessly when you know that it involves a trial by ordeal, or
a contest of sheer will-power, sustained by conscious innocence alone,
with planetary forces.
Not brief nor trifling is a contest such as this; not once in a
thousand years does such a thing occur; but the fact that the way to it
is always open in the Beyond proves with what infinite tenderness the
individual is guarded against injustice.
But it is impossible that I should know of what I am speaking, some
reader says. I grant you that it seems so, but would discussion settle
it? Is it not time the door was opened? Is there no need?