WAR LETTERS
FROM THE
LIVING DEAD MAN
_BY ELSA BARKER_
THE SON OF MARY BETHEL
THE FROZEN GRAIL
THE BOOK OF LOVE
THE SONG OF SAVITRI
STORIES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT FOR
CHILDREN
THE SCAB
LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN
WAR LETTERS FROM THE LIVING DEAD
MAN
WAR LETTERS
FROM THE
LIVING DEAD MAN
WRITTEN DOWN
BY
ELSA BARKER
_WITH AN INTRODUCTION_
NEW YORK
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
1915
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
CONTENTS
LETTER PAGE
I. THE RETURN OF “X” 17
II. A DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD 22
III. AN ASSURANCE 27
IV. THE WAY OF UNDERSTANDING 28
V. ASTRAL MONSTERS 32
VI. THE ARCHDUKE 38
VII. THE “CHOSEN PEOPLE” 43
VIII. SPECTRES OF THE CONGO 49
IX. UNSEEN GUARDIANS 54
X. ONE DAY AS A THOUSAND YEARS 60
XI. MANY TONGUES 66
XII. THE BEAUTIFUL BEING 67
XIII. THE BODY OF HUMANITY 71
XIV. THE FOEMAN WITHIN 76
XV. LISTENING IN BRUSSELS 82
XVI. THE SIXTH RACE 88
XVII. AN AMERICAN ON GUARD 95
XVIII. A MASTER OF COMPASSION 100
XIX. THE ROSE-VEILED STRANGER 108
XX. ABOVE THE BATTLEFIELDS 118
XXI. A SOUL IN PURGATORY 125
XXII. PEACE PROPAGANDA 139
XXIII. THE MYSTERY OF DESIRE 143
XXIV. THE SCALES OF JUSTICE 148
XXV. FOR LOVE’S SAKE 155
XXVI. A MASTER OF MIND 164
XXVII. INVISIBLE ENEMIES 172
XXVIII. THE GLORY OF WAR 178
XXIX. A FRIEND OF “X” 181
XXX. THE ROSE AND THE CROSS 189
XXXI. A SERBIAN MAGICIAN 196
XXXII. JUDAS AND TYPHON 202
XXXIII. CROWNS OF STRAW 207
XXXIV. THE SYLPH AND THE FATHER 216
XXXV. BEHIND THE DARK VEIL 223
XXXVI. THE “LUSITANIA” 232
XXXVII. VEILED PROPHECIES 237
XXXVIII. ADVICE TO A SCRIBE 239
XXXIX. ONE OF THESE LITTLE ONES 245
XL. THE HEIGHT AND THE DEPTH 255
XLI. A CONCLAVE OF MASTERS 256
XLII. A LESSON IN THE KABALA 260
XLIII. THE SECOND COMING 263
XLIV. POISON GASES 269
XLV. THE SUPERMAN 274
XLVI. THE ENTERING WEDGE 283
XLVII. THE NEW BROTHERHOOD 296
XLVIII. IN THE CRUCIBLE 301
XLIX. BLACK MAGIC IN AMERICA 303
L. THINGS TO REMEMBER 311
INTRODUCTION
IN the Spring of 1914 there was published in London and New York a
book of mine called “Letters From a Living Dead Man,” being automatic
writings from an American Judge and teacher of philosophy who had been
known to his intimate friends as “X.”
There were circumstances connected with the writing of that book,
explained in some detail in the Introduction, which made any other
hypothesis than that of genuine communication from the other world seem
untenable to me. It began, for instance, some days before I knew in
Paris that my friend had died on the Pacific coast of America.
In that first book of “X” I did not state who the writer was, not
feeling at liberty to do so without the consent of his family; but
in the Summer of 1914, while I was still living in Europe, a long
interview with Mr. Bruce Hatch appeared in the _New York Sunday
World_, in which he expressed the conviction that the “Letters” were
genuine communications from his father, the late Judge David P. Hatch,
of Los Angeles, California.
For the benefit of those who have not read the former book, I wish to
say that “X” was not an ordinary man. He came nearer than any other
Occidental of my acquaintance to that mastery of self and of life which
has been called Adeptship.
After the “Letters” were finished in 1913, during a period of about
two years I was conscious of the presence of “X” only on two or three
occasions, when he wrote some brief advice in regard to my personal
affairs.
On the fourth of February, 1915, in New York, I was suddenly made aware
one day that “X” stood in the room and wished to write; but as always
before, with one or two exceptions, I had not the remotest idea what he
was going to say. He wrote as follows:
“When I come back and tell you the story of this war, as seen from
the other side, you will know more than all the Chancelleries of the
nations.”
This letter I confided to two friends who had been much interested in
the former book, Mr. and Mrs. Vance Thompson; and it was arranged, with
the cordial consent of “X,” that they should sit with me about once a
week, to make a better “focus.” Their loyal faith was a great support
to me during the first half of a trying labor.
The writing was not confined to the days when we three sat together;
but about a third of the first half of the book was written in the
presence and in the house of Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. Then they went to
California, and I continued the work alone.
It may be of interest to some readers if I describe the process of this
writing, which has changed gradually from a violent and mechanical
seizure of the hand from the outside, as in the beginning of the first
book, to a quiet impression on the mind within.
If the reader will imagine a well-known friend of vivid personality
present with him, then subtract from that impression the seeing of the
physical eye, leaving only the subtle vibration of the actual thinking
and feeling presence, then add the indescribable “inner sight,” he may
begin to realize how I know that “X” is in the room.
It is probable that Helen Keller knows when her friends are near her,
and can tell one from the other, though she is deaf and blind.
When made aware of the presence of “X,” I take a pencil and a notebook,
as any other amanuensis would, and by an effort of will, now easy from
long practice, I still the activity of my objective mind, until there
is no thought or shadow of a thought in it. Then into _the brain
itself_ come the words, which flow out without conscious effort at
the point of the pencil. It is exactly as if I heard the dictation with
a single auditory instrument, like a small and very sensitive sphere,
in the centre of the brain.
I never know at the beginning of a sentence how it will end. I never
know whether the sentence I am writing will be the last or if two
thousand words will follow it. I simply write on, in a state of
voluntary negativity, until the impression of personality described
above leaves suddenly. Then no more words come. The writing is at an
end for that time.
The question will naturally arise in the mind of the skeptical reader
(it has in mine), whether my own subconscious mind has not itself
dictated the following “War Letters from the Living Dead Man,” in the
attempt to explain a world tragedy which would have seemed impossible
two years ago.
But from my long experience in writing for “X,” and from the fact that
during two years I had not written for him except on two or three
unimportant occasions, though often thinking of him, and from my
acquired habit of minute observation of supernormal phenomena, I now
feel safe in assuming that I _know the difference_ between the
actual presence of “X” and my own imagination of him, my reminiscence
of him, or even the suggestion of his presence from another’s mind.
No person who had had even a minute fraction of my occult experience
could be more coldly critical of that experience than I am. I freely
welcome every logical argument against the belief that these letters
are what they purport to be; but placing those arguments in opposition
to the evidence which I have of the genuineness of them, the
affirmations outweigh the denials, and I accept them.
This evidence is too complex and much of it too personal to be even
outlined here; but the Letter XXXVI, written one hour after the sinking
of the _Lusitania_ and nine hours before I knew of it, is merely
one incident out of dozens. Also it may be considered at least an
interesting coincidence that at the very time I began writing this
second book, three occult students, in different countries, wrote me
that _they_ felt that “X” had come back and would write again
through my hand. Since then several other persons have so expressed
themselves by word or pen.
Many of the events of this war I myself have seen “astrally” at the
time of their occurrence. I was a wide-awake astral participant in the
first action in which the British army was engaged on the Continent,
and related the experience to a British officer in England before it
was reported there, my narrative being verified the following day by a
French newspaper brought over from Paris by a friend.
I saw in New York the shelling of Scarborough at the hour when it
occurred, and related the incident to a friend some hours before it
was reported in the newspapers; though I did not know the name of the
English coast town where I had seen the assault.
Nevertheless, I cannot read what is in the mind of “X” even when I am
conscious that he is actually present in the room. I know only what
he dictates, and have no idea how much or how little he knows. He has
stated in one of the letters that he should tell me only what his
judgment approved from time to time.
There is one point where I myself do not quite follow “X.” Sometimes
when he says that the German people are so and so, had I been writing
I should have said the Prussians. I have many German friends, and I
cannot hold them individually accountable for the awful conditions into
which their government has plunged the world.
I must emphasize that I do not assume personal responsibility for what
“X” writes, but merely record his words.
It did not occur to me until several days after his last letter was
written, on July 28th, that he had finished the war book exactly one
year from the date of the first declaration of war, that of Austria
against Serbia, and on the very day when the Pope sent out his great
appeal for peace.
In his former writing, which began more than three years ago, “X”
requested that I should never summon him, and later advised me not to
ask questions. I have therefore generally refrained from doing either;
though the temptation has often been great to ask him as to the final
issue of this war by which I have been so profoundly affected. But
I knew that such questioning might stimulate the action of my own
objective mind and becloud my receptivity. I have recently shrunk from
seeking for such answers even in my hypnogogic visions, lest I should
see something which would make me less negative in the reception of
these letters.
This situation seems to have cured me forever of curiosity; it has made
me feel detached as a comet and almost as lonely, and strong enough
to be willing to remain so. But, by a strange paradox, as my hatred
for the brutalities of this war grew deeper and deeper, my love for
all those struggling human souls _in every camp_ grew with it,
until I came to feel that each one of all those millions who died and
suffered on those battlefields was my brother and my friend. Love is a
miracle that touches the brutal facts of life and makes them divine.
In the third letter of this book, dated March 10th, “X” said that the
forces of good had overpowered the forces of evil and that peace would
return to the world--though he did not say when. Before I learned of
the _Lusitania_ sinking, but one hour after it had actually taken
place, he wrote that the demons whom the workers out there had driven
back had rallied and returned to the assault, and that he ought to have
known that the very Law of Rhythm would drive them forward again after
they had generated another supply of energy.
In the light of rhythmic law, that letter is to me the most interesting
part of the book. It illustrates what he has said so often, that even
the “living dead” do not know everything, and that the reason why they
know so much more than we do is because they have a wider vision and a
greater fund of data on which to base their conclusions.
In regard to that second onslaught of the powers of darkness, it is
perhaps significant that the letter describing his first conversation
with the “dark-veiled one” was written next before the _Lusitania_
letter.
Aside from his narrative, two major ideas seem to dominate “X” in
this writing: the mystery of good and evil (love and hate), and the
brotherhood of man.
Through his soul-challenging exposition of the conflict between good
and evil, both in the human heart and in the universe, a man might
learn to protect himself against his own evil as well as against the
evil outside him.
In pursuit of this end “X” has revealed certain mysteries to which the
attention of the common man has not heretofore been effectively called.
That there is an “astral world” permeating and extending beyond the
world of dense matter has been stated in Theosophical and other
literature; “X” makes his readers realize the fact. The astral world
is said to be the world of feeling and desire; and it is through man’s
astral, feeling or desire body, made of a tenuous kind of matter
invisible to untrained eyes, that he connects with and functions in
that world.
Within and beyond this again is said to be the thought world, and the
theory is that man has also a thought body through which he contacts
with and functions in it. And so on, plane after plane, till man
reaches the formless and the universal, in other words pure divinity.
The evil astral beings described by “X” are beings dwelling in the
astral world. Some of them have no physical bodies in the material
world; others are the more or less independent astral selves of men,
which during sleep go here and there in the world invisible to our open
eyes. They have been active in this war.
There are also said to be beings of the elements, earth, air, fire and
water, who are evolving along a line different from that of man. Some
of these are amiable, some are malicious. Much information about these
elementals can be found in the writings of Paracelsus. They also have
been active in this war.
Other and superior beings work on all three planes, physical, astral
and mental, and in still higher worlds beyond our cognizance. But for
the beneficent activity of some of these, mankind would destroy itself
or be destroyed.
“X” says that the feelings of hatred and the sufferings engendered by
the great war have made the astral world at this time a very unpleasant
place of sojourn. The purgatory of the Roman Catholics is the same
thing as the place of post-mortem trial described by “X”. The Church
has great knowledge.
Good and evil may be called opposite and complementary forces, one
working in harmony with the Law of the Universe (otherwise called the
will of God), the other working disharmoniously with that Law.
Some readers may be shocked by what “X” says of black magic. He is not
writing to shock them, but to protect and instruct them. Superstition
has been called the dark side of religion; but superstition is to be
understood, not dismissed with the lifting of superior eyebrows. All
things are to be understood. The great psychologists, scientists, do
not now consider these subjects beneath their investigation. Refer
to Professor William James, to Sir Oliver Lodge, to Dr. Baraduc.
The names of recognized scientists who are now investigating occult
phenomena would fill a small directory. When I admit that I am seeking
to chart the unseen world, I am modestly enrolling myself in good
company.
“X” speaks of the “dark-veiled one” who inspired Nietzsche in the
misleading of young Germany. Perhaps behind every powerful man or woman
whose work has told in the world there has been an invisible one,
either light or dark-veiled. The question is not without interest, both
practical and theoretical. Inspiration, like magic, may be either black
or white.
The “voices” of Jeanne d’Arc would in our day be called clairaudient
phenomena. History declares that they rendered her more, not less,
efficient as the saviour of France. Martin Luther threw his ink-pot at
“the devil”; but the Reformation was no less ably engineered because
Luther had visions. Saul of Tarsus also had a vision, if we may credit
the reporters.
“X” speaks of his own Teacher, a “Master.” When I compare the
California Judge whom I knew with most of the men and women with whom
I prattle about commonplaces, I do not find it difficult to admit the
possibility that man may progress even further than “X,” given the
resolution so to do. If “X” became what he was in a little less than
seventy years, there is hope for us who look forward to eternity.
The second major idea of these “War Letters” seems to be the
brotherhood of man.
The world has progressed thus far through a series of well-marked
periods, and by means of a series of predominant races which stamped
their time with their own peculiar color. “X” says that a new race, the
Sixth Race so-called, is about to arise now in the United States.
If America would accept this idea as a working hypothesis--not another
“_Deutschland über Alles_,” but say “America _for_ (not
over) all”--she might build a peace-machine as Germany has built a
war-machine. If she should go about it with the same thoroughness,
postulating the ideal brotherhood as Germany has postulated
world-dominion, she might make a demonstration in the next generation.
In the mixture of races in America she has all the materials for
any kind of spiritual experiment. Asia and Europe would look on with
interest. England, Germany, and France, even Japan who is spiritual
underneath and material only on the surface, perhaps Russia above all,
would respect such an avowed purpose. It may be that the world will
have suffered enough by the end of this war to be ready to welcome
universal brotherhood.
Already there are movements in America which would gladly fall into
line. “X” speaks of the Woodcraft movement, a loosely organized body of
perhaps a hundred thousand men and boys and a few women, who in their
playtime have gone back to Nature and the camp-fire for that fraternity
which cities do not give.
“X” says that he has another service to perform in the future. I do
not know what that service is, nor whether I have any part in it; but
if he should one day declare to me that it was in connection with the
Woodcraft purpose, I should not be surprised.
But after living for months with this war book, I cannot yet see it in
perspective nor gauge its value. I give it to the world because it
seems to belong to the world, and because among the thousand letters
which I have received from the readers of “Letters From a Living
Dead Man,” so many have asked for further writings of “X.” The first
book is now being translated into four European languages, and other
translations have been offered.
I want to thank all those persons in many countries who have written
me so kindly about the book. It was more for them than for myself that
I embraced the offered opportunity to hear what “X” had to say about
the Great War. To receive genuine communications from the other world
(assuming as I must that such communication is possible) involves
sacrifice on the part of the amanuensis, even in the protected quiet of
a country home. To do it in a great rushing city like New York, amidst
the distractions of a complex social life, and during a war like this
by whose horrors the “sensitive” is especially buffetted, and in a
clashing pro-German pro-Allies environment, has been an education in
self-control.
But the war cannot last forever, and some day joy will come back to the
world.
_New York, Sept., 1915_. ELSA BARKER.
[Illustration: DAVID PATTERSON HATCH
_Born Dresden, Maine, November 22, 1846_
_Died Los Angeles, California, February 21, 1912_]
WAR LETTERS FROM THE LIVING DEAD MAN
LETTER I
THE RETURN OF “X”
IN a far away star I heard the command: “Go back to the earth, and
learn the mysteries of love and hate.”
I did not know to what I was going, but went as commanded.
As I neared the earth an army of angry beings sought to bar my way.
“What are you doing here?” they cried. “This is our field, and we brook
no interference.”
I called to the Teacher, and he stood beside me. Even he was grave at
the power of the forces before us.
“It has come,” the Teacher said; “it has come suddenly, after a long
preparation.”
Wrath is a cosmic force, and hate is a cosmic force, and love is a
cosmic force, and fear is a cosmic force. Did you think that love was
a pretty sentiment? Did you think that hate was a mere annoyance? I
have seen the sources of wrath and hate and love and fear, and that
my experience may be of use in helping men to understand the forces
working in and behind the race, I have made the effort to write for the
world again.
This war is more than a war of men; it is more than a war of angels.
Its roots are in Necessity itself.
A new race has to be born, and races like men are born in the pain and
the blood of their predecessors. But as “the curse of Eve” came through
her listening to the envious serpent of evil, so this curse has come
upon the world through mankind’s listening to the suggestions of envy
and hate from the forces of evil within and around the world.
I have seen those forces in forms, I have faced them and wrestled with
them. I am strong because I have struggled.
I came back to the world nearly five weeks before war was declared on
earth, but war was already declared in the spaces above the earth. As
the nations had long been getting ready their forces, so the entities
outside were ready and in arms. The demons who met me--for they were
demons--had triumph in their eyes.
A beginning had been made, a seed of anger sown in the heart of
Austria. And the seed was watered in the ground by those who felt that
their harvest was approaching.
You must understand that evil is co-existent with good so long as the
egos of men evolve. The forces of good and the forces of evil are
complementary. They are in actual forms, they have acquired egos; their
concentration on their work would shame the greatest geniuses among men.
But they too are consciously or unconsciously servants of that Cosmic
Will whose designs we call the will of God.
I have learned much since the days when I entertained you with stories
of the newly-dead who had died serenely in their beds and had gone out
into the astral world as into an adjoining room. A million souls have
gone out recently, shocked, torn, mangled, buffetted by their own hate
and the hate of those who sought to destroy them.
Pity those who have died even tranquilly during the last eight
months. They have passed through a region of torment--those who have
passed through. Many have remained below, spun round and round in the
whirlpool with those who died by war.
Had I not a great purpose, and the conviction of a great mission, in
thus revealing the secrets of the other world _at this time_, I
should not harrow your feelings by a recital of what I have seen and
sometimes taken part in since my return from that journey among the
stars.
Comfort yourself--if you need comfort--by my assurance that the race
is passing through a rite of initiation. Those who have died in the
service of an unselfish enthusiasm will in time rebody themselves and
reap on the earth the fruits of their service. But not all who have
died have been filled with this enthusiasm. Many have hated for hate’s
own sake. They are the ones who have failed.
Pity them if you must, but it is better not to think about them. They
are the willing victims of the demons who sought to bar my way, when I
was commanded to return to the world and learn the mysteries of love
and hate.
Love! Yes, there has been more love born of this war than the earth has
known in all the two thousand years of Christianity. For the human race
is awake at last, and that it may not go to sleep again is my purpose
in once more breaking through the wall that separates me from you.
_March 5, 1915._
LETTER II
A DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD
THERE was one demon who seemed to be a leader of demons. He was unlike
many of the others--more personal, more egocentric.
As we stood opposite each other I entered into conversation with him,
partly to satisfy my curiosity, partly to throw him off his guard.
“Who are you?” I asked. “You seem to be a ruler among your kind.”
He straightened himself with pride.
“I am indeed a ruler,” he said, “a ruler on earth and up here.”
“On earth also?” I queried.
“Yes, also on earth,” he answered, “for I am the deeper self of a man
who is great among men, a man who will follow my will as others follow
his will.” Then he made a claim which startled me, and I forbear to
repeat it.
“If you are the evil self of a man still living,” I demanded, “how do
you stand as a separate entity up here? How are you apart from him?”
“You are somewhat ignorant,” he said to me.
“I am ignorant of many things,” I admitted. “Instruct me in any way you
can. I have a thirst for knowledge.”
“Know then,” he said pompously, “that I broke away from the earthly
form that had enchained me when he acknowledged my ruler-ship and
worshipped me as his genius.”
“He set you free?” I asked.
“He set me free by acknowledging me as his Master. His knowledge is
even less than yours, and he called me by a name that I despise; but
so long as I rule I care not the name I rule by. Or I care little,” he
corrected himself. “But such things as these are too deep for you!”
“I am deeper than you think,” I asserted, “and I have met your kind
before.”
“My kind maybe, but not my equals. I am a King among spirits.”
“I had observed your crown,” I said, “it has a familiar look.”
During this colloquy the Teacher had stood silently by, but now I
turned to him with an unspoken question. He led me aside a little way,
and said:
“When a man exalts himself too much, he sets free the demon within
him. He often thinks that he rules the demon, and sends him on errands
through the Invisible; but it is really the demon who commands, and the
commands of the man are only echoes.”
“And it took this vision of hell to teach me that!” I exclaimed.
“What you would have learned in due time by reason or by precept, you
now learn by example,” the Teacher said. “You have truly beheld the
evil self of a great ruler.”
“It is very powerful,” I admitted.
“It will grow in power for a time,” the Teacher said, “and then it will
go to Gehenna.”
“And when will it go to Gehenna?”
“When peace returns to the world, after the war is exhausted up here.
But the war will be exhausted up here before peace returns to the
world.”
“What war is about to be fought?” I asked.
“The greatest war of all time,” the Teacher said, “the greatest war of
all time up here, and also on the earth.”
“And when will it begin?”
“It is already begun here, as you have seen. Had you not been far away
you would have known it before.”
“I have indeed been far away,” I said. “An angel has shown me many
stars, and I have learned much.”
“The angel kept you away from the world until you should be strong
enough, and rested enough, to work as well as learn.”
“And where does my work lie?” I asked.
“In many fields,” he answered. “But first you must fight your way
through the astral world above Europe and save your friends who are in
danger.”
Swimming the Hellespont was a minor feat compared to swimming that sea
of devils, but I got through. A year before I could not have done it,
perhaps, for the forces of good were overpowered. There is a tide in
good and evil, as well as a tide in the sea. Evil was at the flood.
I saved one friend in danger, and saw that another was safe.
Back in the sea of hate, when I was nearly exhausted, the Beautiful
Being, that angel who had been my guide so long, came and whispered
something in my ear. It was a spur to ambition.
“You may be the historian of this great struggle,” it said, “if you do
not fail in your tasks.”
Do not be startled by the word “ambition.” There are many kinds of
ambition, and a sincere wish to be personally of service may as well be
called by that name as by any other, if there is love behind it.
_March 6._
LETTER III
AN ASSURANCE
TAKE it from me at this early stage of our writing: The forces of good
overpowered the forces of evil a month ago, and the issue is settled
here. The power set in motion will spend itself, and peace will return
to the world.
_March 10._
LETTER IV
THE WAY OF UNDERSTANDING
BEFORE I tell you any more horrors, I want to assure you now that out
of those horrors will come a beauty such as the world has not known
during this cycle of existence.
It will not come at once, for many adjustments will have to be made;
but the way is open already for those who choose to walk in it.
It is a curious commentary on unregenerate humanity, this war in which
each side declares loudly its own righteousness and execrates its
opponent. As in all quarrels, there is more wrong on one side than on
the other; but the side which triumphs--and it will be the side that
has least wrong--will have to understand and to forgive its enemy
before it can go forward to its own great future.
Though international organizations have failed for the time being, I am
not discouraged about international organizations. They were merely
shocked into failure, the peace people, the socialists, and others who
make far higher claims to the ideal of universal brotherhood.
Even now, during the stress of the conflict, go out yourself in thought
and in love to that nation which you feel to be your enemy. Try to
understand it. And do not try to understand it by telling yourself that
it is evil. That is not understanding. There is evil in all men. Try to
understand it by becoming it, for the time. Put yourself in its place;
feel as you would feel if you stood alone--even though by your own
fault--with the whole world against you.
You draw back a little with the thought that you could not have placed
yourself in a position where the world for its own protection would be
obliged to range itself against you. But are you sure?
By entering the consciousness of that nation you _are_ placing
yourself in such a position, and I tell you to do it temporarily, in
order that you may be a centre, a beginning, an infinitesimal part
of that international comprehension and pardon which must become
general to a degree before the long-heralded and always misunderstood
Universal Brotherhood can even begin to find room for itself in this
unbrotherly world.
If all those aggregations of people who have long believed that they
stood for this ideal would now try to make peace with one another, if
they would acknowledge the ideals of one another, however much the
working-plans of those ideals may differ, a force could even now be set
in motion that would shorten this war and lessen the number of those
who must die for their conflicting ideals of national honor and loyalty.
In the reaction from hate to love, in the reaction from criticism to
understanding that will follow a formal declaration of peace, all these
quarrelling spiritual organizations _may_ if they will, begin to
work harmoniously. If their members cannot bring themselves, because
of their narrow pride and the memory of all the harsh things which
they have said against one another in the past--if they are too meanly
afraid of eating their words, publicly to acknowledge one another as
brethren, let them begin to feel thus in their hearts. Perhaps in
time the greater courage will come, and some daring leader will say to
his flock that those with whom they once worked, with trust and the
profession of love, _may_ be trying, according to their lights, to
serve the ideal.
I do not know that any further elaboration of this idea would make it
any clearer to you, and these remarks are only an interlude, a relief,
in the tension of the story which I have to tell.
_March 13._
LETTER V
ASTRAL MONSTERS
DID you know that I was near you when you crossed the North Sea more
than two weeks before war was declared, crossed to England under an
irresistible, an overwhelming impulse to _get away_ from the
continent of Europe and back to the people of your own blood? I was
near you.
But I did not remain when you were safe with your friends. I returned
to the centre of war determinism, went back to that land which, despite
all protestations to the contrary, hatched out the egg which an
irresponsible bird had laid in the region farther south.
Did I say irresponsible? Only a madman is irresponsible for his acts.
Let me say rather deluded, for not all deluded souls are mad. The hand
that slew the Austrian Archduke was used, as others have been used,
by the forces working against progress. Pity that man also, and let
the law of cause and effect deal with him as it must, for there is no
favoritism in that court and no appeal to a higher jurisdiction.
I returned to Germany. It will be necessary in this writing to call
spades, spades. If I hurt anybody’s feelings, I am not writing to hurt
anybody’s feelings. Facts are facts, and no specious pleading can
change them.
I returned to Germany. I listened to war counsels. I _heard_
orders given, for by a special hardening of my astral ears I can hear
what is spoken in the world of men and hear very distinctly. My astral
body is a well-lubricated though tenuous machine that answers to the
lightest touch of my will.
But do not jump to the conclusion that all astral bodies are like mine.
Remember that I am the pupil of a great Master, and that his purposes
are not _his_ purposes but those of the law of progress which he
serves.
I saw again the monster of which I wrote you in my second letter. They
speak truth who say that the German Emperor _did_ hesitate to
touch the spring which should open the doors of hell. The War Lord had
a certain pride in his record as a Peace Lord, and he shivered at the
responsibility that faced him while gloating in that responsibility,
which further exalted his already self-exalted ego.
Pity him too, but do not sentimentalize over him. Will is free. In
yielding his will to the evil genius he was exercising free will. But
those eyes of his were wet in the night and he _did_ pray to the
Force he calls his God. The name of God was not only on his lips but
in his inner thoughts. God is a word that means many things to many
persons.
There were also in that conclave of evil spirits many who were not
attached to individual men. There were vast elemental beings. When
Lytton wrote, in one of his occult novels, of a gigantic foot which
stepped through a gap in the magic circle drawn by a black magician in
the primeval wilderness, he referred to a fact in Nature.
Nature! You with your narrow sight have no idea of the meaning of the
term. All your studies have not taught you even the alphabet that
Nature uses. Learn that alphabet. Begin to study that language. Study
chemistry, biology, electricity, and study the mysteries of the
vibrations of matter on as many planes as you can consciously reach.
The knowledge of the future lies there. Man has only begun the conquest
of Nature.
Any expression of hate which you ever beheld in the material world
was only a weak replica of the hate that was let loose upon the earth
when the hour struck last year, the hour when the orbits of certain
planetary bodies blended their influences and allowed a free passage
for beings who are generally more limited in their freedom of movement.
The giant foot! I saw the great being to whom such a foot belonged.
It was a being of the air, but earth beings were allied with it and
monsters from the deeper circles of matter where the light of the sun
never shines.
Will you let me describe one of those beings? You need not fear it now
for it has been driven back to its lair in the bowels of the planet. A
gross bluish bag-like body, with a long fat tail covered with bristles,
arms and legs like elongated bags, and a head that was a larger and
half-submerged bag in the rolls of its monstrous neck. But the eyes!
There was no fat-like substance in them. They were wide and round and
glaring with a thousand years of malignity concentrated in a moment.
Pale eyes they were. If you dread an evil dark eye, dread more an evil
pale eye. Suffering unimaginable and hate of everything above it were
expressed in the eyes of that entity from the deep of things which
from the lowest astral plane spat and drooled its venom toward the
surface of the planet. Immense it was in size, toothless and shapeless
its mouth. What the nourishment might be which had kept it together I
refrain from telling you.
Again I say, do not dread it. It cannot reach toward the surface
of the earth now. Its existence is near its term. But the germs of
astral disease which were spewed from its shapeless mouth have been
multiplying in spite of all the efforts of those who know how to cope
with such things.
The beings of the air are not filthy, however evil they may be, and few
of them are really evil--few in proportion to those who are amiable or
indifferent to man.
The more revengeful of the beings of fire may yet make themselves felt;
for sporadic efforts will still be made, though the great struggle is
won in the invisible regions.
Stay where you are for the time. A danger still threatens Europe beyond
the danger of armies. Wait--and pray. For prayer is an astral force and
its effects, being in the higher astral, are far-reaching.
Wait--and pray.
_March 15._
LETTER VI
THE ARCHDUKE
HAVE you ever thought of the posthumous feelings of him whose murder
precipitated this war? No, you have not; but I have, and I sought for
him and found him.
Others were seeking him too, the souls of the dead and the astral souls
of those who slept on earth.
Truly his was not a peaceful passing, either in flesh or in spirit.
The dread of assassination which had long hung over him like a dark
cloud predisposed him to a dark and stormy period after death, even if
he had not been shocked out by the murderous assault. This was another
illustration of that law by which the thing we fear attacks us sooner
or later.
At first he passed into darkness and a period of somnolence, like
a vague nightmare; then as he gradually awoke to a more vivid
consciousness he awoke with pain and anxiety and wailing of soul. The
dreaded thing had come at last, and he knew that he was outside his
body and searched for it.
The customary funeral was even more dismal for him than it is for most
souls, because the slight opening of vision which his passing had given
made him realize that far more than his personal death was bound up
with this change.
He was not attacked by the evil things which had brought about his
death. What more could they want with him? He had served their purposes.
Had there been anyone else round whose murder so much obscurity and
so complex a series of misunderstandings and suspicions could have
gathered, probably that other man would have suffered in his stead.
But whose murder could have served that purpose so well as this man’s?
Whose relations placed him in such a focus of rays? His relations with
the German Emperor, the relations of his family with those for whom he
had no sympathy, the relations of the present heir with Russia--all
these and many other sources of error and doubt and confusion formed
an ideal centre of tumult.
And the soul felt this tumult in addition to his anger and
disappointment at being driven from the world. His anxiety for his
children was not small, for they stood in a peculiar position regarding
the families around them.
Imagine the thought of every man, woman and child capable of following
an event like that, centred on one soul, in anger, love, grief,
curiosity, doubt, uncertainty--every mind in almost every country of
the world! It was enough to shatter his astral body altogether.
Generally when a ruler dies he is followed by loving thoughts, or
thoughts of dislike, but not by confusing thoughts. His race is run.
The King is dead, long live the King!
For some time this heir to a great throne was even driven away from the
companion whom he loved. He had nothing to lean on. He was drawn upon
and victimized by thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, from all directions and
in all stages of intensity.
Even the prayers offered for the repose of his soul in purgatory had
not the effect which such prayers of love generally have. They were
only a drop in the river of thoughts which rushed in his direction.
Yes, I say in his direction; for he remained a long time in that
storm-centre of thoughts.
Even the band of helpers, of whom I told you when I wrote for the
world before, were not able to assist him very much; for they too were
attacked by the beings of evil who made war in the astral regions.
As a rule the death of one man makes little difference to the world.
Those who love him grieve, and those who dislike him or who profit by
his death are glad. This man went out with the flaming torch of war in
his vapory hand.
After a time he sought and found his friend, the ruler of Germany; but
that ruler could not see him, though he sensed a presence in the room.
He was half afraid. What was the presence? he wondered. Was it his own
genius? Did it come to remind him that the hour of his “great destiny”
was at hand? The hesitation of his weakness was rather shameful to see;
but the determination of his strength, of his evil self, set its heel
upon the weakness and the preparations for war went on.
The soul of the Archduke was too confused to play a part in those
counsels. He had been a strong man, and will be strong again; but
during the time when he might have exercised an invisible influence, he
exercised none; he strove to make himself visible, and in one instance
at least succeeded.
Yes, I spoke with him and advised him; but I had other things to do
just then and left him with a priest of his own church, a gentle and
strong soul who stood like a rock in the tumult.
I only mention my seeing the Archduke because of one who will some day
read these lines. I cannot offer much comfort, but she will be glad to
know of the strong and quiet priest, and I shall have kept a promise
which I made but have so far been unable to keep in any way save this.
_March 17._
LETTER VII
“THE CHOSEN PEOPLE”
THE nations began to declare war on one another. I stood with twenty
others for hours in the palace at Potsdam, trying by the silent
pressure of will to reduce the pressure of the war-will which surged in
the German nation towards its Emperor. And they say that Germany did
not want war!
“Der Tag” seemed near, and war seemed to mean triumph.
It is a commonplace to say now that Germany believed that England
_could not_ go to war. And had England not gone to war, the issue
would have been settled before the date of this writing. The German
navy would have met the French in battle and would have worsted it.
It would be well for you to cease shrinking when I say what does not
please you. I state what I know; you merely write down what I say.
I and twenty others centred the force of our will in Potsdam and in the
Wilhelmstrasse. Not that we did not know what the issue would be. We
knew. This war was written in the stars. But as the soldier does his
duty though he knows that he will lose the day, so we stood our ground
against the war devils.
The greatest of the Masters did not stand there with us, and I do not
know where he was. Probably on some business that we might not have
understood. Perhaps holding back worse forces from the outer stars.
No, that is not a dream, though it is only a supposition. There is evil
as well as good in the outer stars.
Had it not been for the restraining influence of those who watched up
here, many of the foreigners in Germany at that time would have been
torn limb from limb.
What do you know of war-madness, hate-madness? Were you capable of
feeling it in your present personality, you could not write for me
now, while those whom you love and respect are nearly all on one side
of a war not yet finished. You may grasp hate intellectually, you may
dramatize it; but you do not feel it, though you have suffered from
its effects.
The worst in the German heart is very bad--though I tell you not to
hate them. The worst in all people is very bad, but the German is the
greatest bully on the planet. The cruel Oriental races have a restraint
which has grown in them through ages of culture; the German knows only
the restraint of the German law, he respects only the restraint of the
German law.
He has no sense of right and wrong in the abstract, though he is often
extremely sensitive as to what is right and wrong for him in his
relation to those near him, his kinsmen and fellow-citizens. But those
outside the race-group are outside his code of honor, however polished
he may be.
I am speaking now of the race, not of the few who have by long
residence abroad absorbed somewhat of world-brotherhood and the more
delicate sensibilities of international relations.
And mark this also: The German can love as thoroughly as he can hate;
but he can love only his own, something which is an extension of
himself, a secondary ego, the _me_ in another form. A German
may love a foreign wife, if he can Germanize her. A German may love a
foreign friend, if that friend does not stand in the way of something
he wants for himself.
I am not referring to those sudden outpourings of emotion to which
those emotional people are subject. I am not referring to their surface
kindliness, which is the overflow of emotion.
And still I say, love these unlovable people, love them so much that
they will be detached from their race-centre and will flow out in
melting response to everything that is not German. The world can never
really soften the German shell by throwing stones against it. When they
break down in this war, they will not be any more essentially lovable
because they are weaker. Love them by trying to understand them.
It will take decades for the arrogant and self-exalting German to see
that there is anything outside that may be superior to what is inside
his shell.
He respects only might. He must be conquered by might. From his
enforced respect of a superior might he may be led gradually to see
the superior right of that gentleness which does not use its might to
coerce him when further coercion is unnecessary.
I have stood in German households since this war began, I have entered
into and for the time being have _become_ German men and German
women, and I understand them and love them. I even admire them, for
their devotion to their own is immense. Once let that strength go out
in real brotherhood to all mankind, and these people would be truly
great. Is it possible? All things are possible to the human soul, and
these people are very human.
The defect is in their vaunted education. They teach themselves that
they are the chosen people. When they learn that they are not the
chosen people in war, the very force of the shock may upset the pillar
of egotism that stands upright in the centre of the German soul. The
world should not let that pillar fall with a crash, but softly ease the
blow--not too softly, lest mercy be mistaken for war-weariness.
The World-Mother has a hard and erring child. It has to be punished,
but not refused a seat at the family table.
I have said these things to you because, if you do not shrink, I have
things to tell you in my next letter which will need fortitude for you
to receive, fortitude and charity, whose other name is love.
_March 24._
LETTER VIII
SPECTRES OF THE CONGO
I HAVE been in Poland and I have been in Serbia; but now I want to
write of Belgium and of karma,[1] race karma, karma old and new.
With and behind the invading Germans, urging them on to murder, pillage
and destruction, rape and burning, were not only the devils from the
outer vast, whose time for activity had come; but with and behind the
German army was a horde of undeveloped and earth-bound spirits who had
suffered in the Congo. Karma, always karma!
The world knows something of what has been done in Belgium, something
of what Germans have done there.
I have seen men, women, and little children murdered in cold blood.
I have witnessed the soul of a murdered man tearing at a soldier who
was violating the murdered man’s wife. I have seen the soul of a
mother wringing her hands as she would have wrung them on earth when
her little daughter was being maltreated by brutes who were blind with
madness. An old man out here followed a soldier for days until he saw
revenge accomplished by means of a Belgian bayonet; then as the German
soul came out he grappled with it again, and the two were torn by each
other, the soldier not knowing he had left the body and feeling that he
was at grips with an enemy still on earth.
There was much of what is called Voodoo in the Congo. Its practitioners
do not go to sleep for a long time. They go on and on in the invisible
world, making their evil preparations and weaving their spells. They
gather round spilled blood, they absorb vitality from it, and that
vitality they use to bring evil and death upon anything toward which
they direct their will.
Did you fancy that will was weakened when man lays aside the brain?
It is weakened in the sense that there is less freedom of choice; but
there is tremendous will in following a choice already set up when the
physical base of the brain was attached to the will.
But now all the evil karma of Belgium is lived out, and she stands like
a new soul in the face of time.