There is another grand division of my subject, but the difficulty of
presenting it through the medium of written language is even greater
than that already dealt with, and only a slight attempt will now be
made. Not only do thoughts take the place of timings in the Beyond, but
_emotions take the place of forces_. By emotions in this connection I
mean those currents of energy which have their rise in, and are more or
less under the control of individualized intelligence, as love and hate,
joy and sorrow, hope and fear, happiness and distress; and by forces I
mean those which are sometimes called blind forces, such as attraction
in its various forms, heat, electric vibration, and the like. As these
last pertain especially to matter, we should expect them to retire into
the background in a world where mind-realities, or facts of
consciousness, absolutely dominate. And so they do. And here may be a
good place to indicate what part matter really plays in this immaterial
world. Let me call attention to the world of art. Let us recall its
great names, and the masterpieces which have given them fame, the
wonderful poems, the paintings, the sculpture, and the musical creations
that will never die, and then pause and consider how slight are the
demands made by this wonder-world on the lower world of matter. The poet
and the musician call for writing materials, the sculptor needs some
clay and a few modeling tools, the painter some pigments and brushes,
and a bit of canvas. With these slight aids the noble conceptions of
genius are materialized for the delight of future generations.
Take another illustration. When a ship goes out of the harbor, it is to
be assumed that she takes her anchor with her, and carefully guards it
against possible loss.
It is likewise true that within the scope of the great and splendid
activities of a free spirit, a material anchor is somewhere safely cared
for, yet such an anchor has no more prominent relation to the activities
of the spirit than the anchor of a ship has to the ship's power to cross
the sea. If we could think of a ship with nothing else to do but to lie
around the harbor, the relative importance of the anchor would increase
very much; and if it had no anchor of its own, it might attempt to tie
up to some other vessel that had one. And so with earth-bound spirits
whose testimony is sometimes quoted to the effect that spirit-life is
as dependent on matter as any other. Most of them are blissfully
ignorant of their own poverty, and move about the earth, that is to say
in the lower or earthly strata of thoughts and feelings, because they
have no desires above them.
They remember this life as a lost heaven, and are continually bemoaning
that loss in secret, while their activities take the form of influencing
mortals to this or that kind of sensual indulgence, which they wish to
share through sympathy. Every impulse and desire is bent upon a possible
recovery of the earth-life, and they are so ignorant of, and indifferent
to, any higher form of life, that it remains without existence to them.
I would not say they are insensible to the enlargement of their powers
consequent upon their release from the confinement of an earthly body.
They could not be. Their discovery that death does not destroy the
inner consciousness was a great surprise to them, but the novelty of the
discovery soon wore away. What seemed so strange at first, became a
truism, a simple scientific fact, previously unknown, and unable in
itself to supply any stimulus to their higher powers.
It is evident that the testimony of these upon the subject is worthless,
while those who have battled for and won the prize of recognition in a
higher sphere give abundant evidence of their freedom from the bondage
of matter, and the desires that have material things for their object.
Resuming my subject, not only matter, but those forces which are
inseparably associated with it, retire into the background, nay, almost
disappear, in the Beyond. Emotions take their place.
The atmosphere, or that which corresponds to what we know by the term,
seems charged with some powerful element, resembling electricity in its
effects, but differing from it in that it seems to be sensitive to
thought, and to be capable of responding to it with dynamic force. A
shock from this element is in every respect as real to the consciousness
as an electric shock is to us. It comes from without and expends its
force upon the gaseous body. Being sensitive to thought, it does not
impress one as being capricious in its nature, but as though acting
according to some law which it is of the highest importance to discover,
if possible.
With the perceptive and intuitional faculties wrought up to the highest
state of activity, it is presently discovered that it is not thought in
the abstract, but thought surcharged with feeling or with devotion to a
principle, some cherished sentiment of the soul, which has the power to
excite this hitherto unknown element; and gradually it dawns on the mind
that this element corresponds to public opinion on earth, that it
emanates from the inhabitants of that part of the spirit-realm, and that
if your mind does not happen to be in accord with theirs, you must
either get away or do battle for your life. By life, I mean your power
and freedom of expression, the very breath of the spirit, what a
printing-press is to a newspaper, cut off from which, the paper is dead.
Manifestations of emotion, both in kind and degree, depend upon two
things, our spiritual state or condition, and the nature of our
surroundings. Passing over the first of these, it is evident that
earth-surroundings greatly limit the expression of emotion; and when we
observe the effect of a powerful current of this kind upon the physical
tissues of the body, weakening and consuming them as by a flame, we see
that the length of our stay here is involved in our ability to control
our emotions.
Not so in the Beyond, where our stay is without assignable limits, and
where the pent-up emotions of a lifetime at last find vent, and pour
themselves out as by flood-gates to the sea.
And it is here that music plays its part in that wonder-world. For as
ideas have each their appropriate form, so every emotion has a musical
strain peculiar to it.
And who can describe the healing power of music under a master's hand?
Reading the mind and soul as an open book, and informing every tone with
the vibrations of a perfect sympathy born of knowledge, he administers
to the soul whose life has been a tragedy long-drawn-out, such throbbing
waves of strength and consolation, himself remaining hidden, as seem to
issue from the very stars, and drown the memory of that age-long pain in
an ocean of oblivion.
Ah! believe me, it is another world, where the powers of this one do not
rule.