_A couple of Incidents for the Book._
A round tower used by the fire worshippers in Ireland and other isles
in early ages. A temple is attached to it; quaint structure--one priest
and one neophyte.
People below the tower coming into the temple grounds as the religion
is in its decadence.
On the top of the tower is the neophyte, who in the face of the
prevailing scepticism clings to the dead faith and to the great priest.
His duty is to keep a fire on the tower burning with aromatic woods.
He leans over the fire; it burns badly; the wood seems green; he blows
it up; it burns slightly; he hears the voices of the disputers and
sellers below; goes to the tower and gazes over while the fire goes
slowly out. He is a young man of singular expression, not beautiful
but powerful face; intense eyes, long dark hair, and far gazing eyes
of a greyish colour unusual for such hair. Skin clear with a shifting
light flowing from it. Sensitive face; blushes easily but now and then
stern. As he still gazes the fire goes out. Just then a tall old man
comes up the stairs and stands upon the tower top at opposite side,
looking at the fire and then at the young man and withdraws not his
gaze for an instant. It is a sternly powerful drawing look. He is very
tall, dark brown eyes, grey hair, long beard. The young man feels his
look and turns about and sees the fire out completely, while its last
small cloud of smoke is floating off beyond the tower. They look at
each other. In the young man's face you see the desperate first impulse
to excuse, and then the sudden thought that excuses are useless because
childish, for he knew his duty--to keep the small spiral of smoke ever
connecting heaven with earth, in the hope, however vain, that thus the
old age might be charmed to return. The old man raises his hand, points
away from the tower and says "go." Young man descends.
_II. A battle._--In the hottest a young soldier armed to the teeth,
fighting as if it made no matter whether he win or lose, die or live.
Strange weapons, sounds and clouds.
Wounded, blood flowing. It is the young man of the tower. He sinks
down taken prisoner. In a cell condemned, for they fear his spiritual
power. Conflict between the last remnant of the old religion and the
new, selfish faith.
Taken to his execution. Two executioners. They bind him standing and
stand behind and at side; each holds a long straight weapon with a
curved blunt blade, curved to (fit?) about the neck. They stand at
opposite sides, place those curved blunt blades holding his neck like
two crooks. They pull--a sickening sound: his head violently pulled out
close to the shoulder leaves a jagged edge. The body sways and falls.
It was the way they made such a violent exit for a noble soul as they
thought would keep it bound in the astral earth sphere for ages.
III. That young man again. He approaches an old man (of the tower).
Young one holds parchments and flowers in his hand, points to
parchments and asks explanation. Old one says, "Not now; when I come
again I will tell you."
_Note._--Keep this, Julius.
W. Q. J.
Z. L. Z.
The next batch of notes is headed by the single word: "_Book_." Then
follow four lines of shorthand. After these the words:
"Incidents showing by picture his life in other ages; the towers; the
battle; the death; the search for knowledge and the sentiment expressed
in the flowers."
Eusebio Rodigues de Undiano was a notary in Spain who found among
the effects of his father many old parchments written in a language
which was unknown to him. He discovered it was Arabic, and in order to
decipher them learned that tongue. They contained the story.
_Note._--No initiates; Lytton only.
Eusebio de Undiano is only one of the old comrades reborn in Spain who
searches like Nicodemus for the light.
_Note._--Yes.
Eusebio de Undiano finds in his father's parchments confirmation of
what the possession of the body has often told him.
_Note._--Yes.
This person in the body never gave his name to anyone and has no name.
An autobiographical story? No? _Yes!_ Related by one who was struck;
by an admirer who suspected something? No; because that is hearsay
evidence; the proof is incomplete, whereas he relating it himself is
either true, or a mere insane fancy. It is better to be insane than be
another's tool.
Stick to the tower and the head-chopping business. Let him be that
young man and after the head loss he wanders in Kama Loca and there he
sees the old man who was killed on the tower soon after the fire went
out. The old man tells him that he will tell all when they return to
earth.
He wanders about the tower vicinity seeking a birth, until one day he
sees vague shapes suddenly appearing and disappearing. They are not
dressed like his countrymen down below on the earth. This goes on. They
seem friendly and familiar, the one requesting him to go with them,
he refuses. They are more powerful than he is yet they do not compel
him but show him their power. One day one was talking to him; he again
refuses unless something might show him that he ought to go. Just then
he hears a bell sound, such as he never heard before. It vibrates
through him and seems to open up vistas of a strange past and in a
moment he consents to go.
They reach Southern India and there he sees the old man of the tower,
whom he addresses, and again asks the burning question about the
parchment. The old man says again the same as before and adds that he
had better come again into the world in that place.
The darkness and silence. The clear, hot day. The absence of rain.
After listening to the old man he consents inwardly to assume life
there and soon a heavy storm arises, the rain beats, he feels himself
carried to the earth and in deep darkness. A resounding noise about
him. It is the noise of the growing plants. This is a rice field with
some sesamum in it. The moisture descends and causes the expanding;
sees around, all is motion and life. Inclosed in the sphere of some
rice, he bemoans his fate. He is born in a Brahmin's house.
* * * * *
_Note._--Shall the question of reincarnation through cloud and rain and
seed and thus from the seed of the man, be gone into?
He is the young man. He knows much. He dies at nineteen. Strange forms
around his bed who hold him. They carry him back to the land of the
towers. He recognizes it again and sees that ages have passed since
the fire went out, and in the air he perceives strange shapes and sees
incessantly a hand as of Fate, pointing to that Island. The towers are
gone, the temples and the monuments. All is altered. They take him to
a populous city and as he approaches he sees over one house a great
commotion in the air. Shapes moving. Bright flashes, and puffs as of
smoke. They enter the room, and on the bed is the form of a young boy
given up to die, with relatives weeping. His guides ask him if he will
borrow that body about to be deserted and use it for the good of their
Lodge. He consents. They warn him of the risks and dangers.
The boy's breathing ceases and his eyes close, and a bright flash is
seen to go off from it (the body). He sees the blood slowing down. THEY
push him, and he feels dark again. Boy revives. Physician takes hope.
"Yes; he will recover, with care." He recovers easily. Change in his
character. Feels strange in his surroundings, etc.
The place in India where he went after death which was again sudden
(how?). A large white building. Gleaming marble. Steps. Pillars. A hole
that has yellowish glow that looks like water. Instruction as to the
work to be done, and the journey to the land of the tower, in search
of a body to borrow. As to bodies being deserted by the tenant that
might live if well understood and well connected with a new soul. The
difference between such a birth and an ordinary birth where the soul
really owns the body, and between those bodies of insane people which
are not deserted, but where the owner really lives outside. Bodies of
insane are not used because the machine itself is out of order, and
would be useless to the soul of a sane person.
* * * * *
_Note._--Julius; keep these. I will send them now and then. But before
you go away, return to me so I can keep the run of it. May change the
scheme. The motive is in the title I gave you.
* * * * *
_Note._--No one who has not consciously lived the double life of a man
who is in the use and possession of a body not his own can know the
agony that so often falls to one in such a case. I am not the original
owner of this body that I now use. It was made for another, and for
some little time used by him, but in the storm of sickness he left it
here to be buried, and it would have been laid away in the earth if
I had not taken it up, vivified its failing energies and carried it
through some years of trial by sickness and accident. But the first
owner had not been in it long enough to sow any troublesome seeds
of disease; he left a heritage of good family blood and wonderful
endurance. That he should have left this form so well adapted for
living, at least seems inconceivable, unless it was that he could not
use it, sick or well, for any of his own purposes. At any rate it is
mine now, but while at first I thought it quite an acquisition there
are often times when I wish I had not thus taken another man's frame,
but had come into life in the ordinary way.