Obedient to this command I slept. When I awakened I was yet in the prison, but all the suffering, all the tortures of hunger and thirst that I had endured were gone. Nothing seemed strange to me, not even when I arose and found that behind me, as a shell, remained the poor clay casket which had suffered so keenly under the pangs of starvation. All was as natural in seeming as are things in vivid dreams. I thought of Anzimee, and wondered if she, too, felt as happy as I did at that moment. I prayed that she might. Then I thought of the words of Him who called Himself the Son of Man, and
wondered what manner of being He was. His talk had, for the most part, been unmeaning to me; yet from it I understood that I was dead; that Anzimee would see me no more until after what dimly seemed an eternity, and not then as Anzimee, nor would I then be Zailm; yet I felt no regret over this long prospective separation. And in that time this Son of Man would have come again to the world, and left work for His brethren, the children of our FATHER, who in doing this work would be following after Him, and would become as Himself, in so far as to be disenthralled from time and from earth, and have all things, life and death. Yet, dimly understanding all this, I comprehended not its perfect fullness, for my natural mind was not able to grasp its spiritual meaning.
This, then, was Navazzamin, and I was what men call dead. It was much different from my concepts, as taught me by the priests of Incal, because it apparently differed not at all from earth-life, so far as I had as yet experienced. Perhaps it would if I were now to go and pass through the Maxin-Light. To do this would not be suicide, because I was already dead. No, it would purge away the earthiness which possibly prevented my finding the real Navazzamin which had been taught me. Would Anzimee and all others of my loved ones come hither some day, and, should we meet and know each other here? Oh! it must be so, it must be so!
Filled with these reflections I stepped to the door, forgetting that its lock had previously prevented my exit. Only when it opened at my touch did I remember that it had defied every previous effort. Lightly I stepped away down the tunnel until I came to the daylight and to my saddle and tools, and yes, my horse, faithful animal! He was eating of the grasses, and evidently made the overflowing waters at the generator his headquarters. Leave him? Not if I could avoid it! I was free at last! I looked around at the dry washes lying under the open sky, with their eroded monuments of clay, capped with wild pampas plumes. How gracefully these nodded in the light breeze, seeming to say, "Free now, free!"
Then I went to my horse, to take him, forgetful that being dead I could not need such transportation. But he seemed not to see me, or to know my presence. This was a difficulty. I was used to conquering difficulties, but this was one where I was at a low what to do. I sat down and looked at the hand. some animal. The longer I looked, the more perplexed I became. At last I got up in a sort of exasperation and talked very earnestly to the animal. No effect! Of course not! The more I talked, the more contented the horse became, as if he felt that I was near, and was satisfied. Finally I started away intending to leave him, since I could in no way influence him. This had great effect! The farther I got the more uneasy he became, as I was able to see, until at last he lifted up his head and neighed loudly. Once, twice, thrice, and then he started after me in a wild gallop! When he reached me he grew easy; but as I went rapidly onwards he followed. He was awake to a sense of my presence, though he could not see, feel or hear me. My mind was wholly occupied in getting this faithful servant to the camp. So, feeling no fatigue, nor hunger nor thirst, nor any sensation of the physical life, I walked clear into camp, all those miles, with that horse following contentedly after! When we reached the camp the vailx was there, but only two of the men, the others having gone in search of me, since I was now overdue in my arrival, thank to Mainin. These men, like the horse could not see me, but unlike him, neither could they sense my nearness. My utmost efforts were entirely unsuccessful, and although I stayed for two days, until the search was over and the men had returned to the vailx, to obtain further orders from Caiphul, I was unsuccessful still. One of the hunters was still out, and when he came back I spoke to him. He could not see me, but my presence affected him strangely. So I spoke again and again, till at last he sat down trembling by my desk in the salon of the vailx. A paper and a pen and ink were on this, and I said to the man: "Use that pen." To my partial surprise, he use it, but seemed in a deep sleep the while and mechanically wrote: "Use that pen." An idea occurred to me, and
uttered words which had no connection of meaning, every one of which he wrote just as I spoke it. This was encouraging, so I next said: "It is I, even Zailm, who say these things; I am dead. Go home to Caiphul." Of my body and its where about I said nothing, feeling that it was properly entombed. But what I spoke in dictation was all written, not that the medium heard, but for the time I was the controlling intelligence of his body. The others took the message and hid it, and when the writer had come out of trance they asked him what he had written. But he denied having written anything. This seemed to satisfy them, the man was so obviously honest in his denial. So they went and gathered the equipage and animals into the vailx, and prepared to leave for Caiphul. Their action satisfied me, so. that I thought no more of them, but began to wish I was at home. I reflected that I had left the disability of the flesh in the cave-house, hence I ought to be able to go here or there, as had Mainin. I would try it. So I said to myself: "I would be at home, at Agacoe, where is the Rai, and he will be able to see me, and know all things of this matter."
With this utterance all things changed, and I found myself in the palace of Agacoe. But neither Gwauxln nor Anzimee, who was there also, were seemingly able to see me, more than the man in the vailx had been. What was this thing called death, this barrier? Was death indeed the threshold between two conditions, communication to and fro being impossible, as futile to attempt from my side as from the other? I had thought Gwauxln able to penetrate this barrier. But alas! I found myself not more able to obtain his recognition then that of the others. I knew he could see those who put off their fleshly shells in order to travel as Mainin had done, and resume them at will; why then not see me? Death perhaps meant more even than putting aside the body. Long I stood there, wondering at this thing called death. As I stood by Gwauxln's side, having abandoned the attempt to impress him with a knowledge of my presence, a human shape came into the apartment. Shape? It seemed as real as any of the courtiers
sitting by the arch of the doorway. None of these latter appeared aware of the new arrival; except the Rai, no one beside myself saw him, but continued their talk regarding the sudden death of the Incaliz Mainin, and disposal of his body in the Maxin-Light on the previous afternoon. I had been dumfounded at the strange resemblance of the new arrival to myself, but I was immeasurably amazed to hear the Rai exclaim:
"What! Zailm dead! Dead?"
An attendant, hearing this exclamation, but seeing only the sovereign, hastily went to him enquiring his pleasure. As he approached he passed directly through the form which Gwauxln had addressed by my name! Neither the human shape nor the attendant seemed aware of the remarkable occurrence, but the Form, smiling, in reply said:
"Aye, Zo Rai; I am Zailm, but not dead, except in that I am free of earthly restraint."
Confused, almost stupefied by these happenings, I sank on a divan near me. Gwauxln could see what purported to be me was indeed a very image of me in looks, speech, memory of events, in fact really was the psychic counterpart of my life and self, but he could not see me. Mystery, aye mystery! How many had death to reveal to me? I had left in the Umaur prison a material image of myself; was it possible that there also existed an intermediate counterpart of both my material body and myself, which yet retained certain gross forms of life lost by me, making it visible while I was invisible? But as Gwauxln was a Son of the Solitude, why was he unable to perceive both my astral and myself? He was not unable, but would not allow me to know his ability. The reason, plain to me now, but not then, briefly is:--That a person in dying is separated into psychic elements which, not to be too detailed in the statement, are threefold, earthly, psychic and spiritual. Of these the highest is the I Am, the ego. The others are those above mentioned as spoken to by Gwauxln, and as left in the prison. Now, the ego seeks an exalted level; the "shell' stays in the earthly conditions until the body, finally dissolved,
is "dust to dust." The exalted or egoic state is one of isolation. As spoken in Biblical records, 1 a medium can go to it, but the ego, after a little while, cannot return to earth, nor know anything earthly save those extremely tense mental-spiritual states of one or many individuals who reach out for the things of God. And these things are not earthly. This is real mediumship. The genuine medium rises to the necessary height, but the ego can not descend to earth, can not deny the law of progress, except during a limited period after the transition called death, and then it is not retrogression. A medium is like an aneroid barometer, able to indicate the degree of ascension above the ocean of water, or of spirit. But he must be present on the level; the level cannot descend to him. Hence it is that one in dying is a traveler to that bourne whence none return. There is no return of the departed, except through physical rebirth and reincarnation. I leave thee to find out that this is not transmigration of souls, for the latter postulates rebirth in lower animal form as a punishment for sin; such a thing can not be. Retrogression is impossible, and the whole notion is but a corrupt falsity of conception, founded upon the misunderstood truth of reincarnation, whose successive rebirths are invariably progressive.
To return to the Rai and his determination not to see me. Gwauxln knew that I was not yet come into the proper state, and feared to interrupt my progress. Hence he would not allow my "shell" to influence him, so far as I could determine. Having, however, by the contact of his supersensitive nature perceived the fact of my demise, he sought further, and though his actions denied to me that he saw me, yet he put into operation forces to the end that I should presently be ready for him to come to me. But not until my mundane life was faded would he do so; not until I was gone forth into the "undiscovered country" of Navazzamin. Then he came, and the meeting was one of simple joy, of unaffected grace, between two souls equal before God, not in status of acquired wisdom, for in that Gwauxln was vastly above me, but in that equal
brotherhood of the Spirit which I wish now reigned an earth. It shall yet do so, for the Cross Bearer said, "Ye are all Children of one Father!" Behold, it is so!
When Gwauxln was come unto me, the sphere of earth was in nowise brought with him. To have carried earthly conditions with him would have been to remand me to earth, and have rendered me palpable injustice. No ego ever is permitted, by the very laws of its being, to go back to earth except a wrong thing is thereby suffered. The selfhood of an initiate may project itself into devachan, but the dweller in devachan (heaven) can not go again to earth till it be born again therein. Indeed! why does the soul leave earth after the grave? It is because in devachan it assimilates the fruits of active earth-life. Right here is the explanation of the written Word of God: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, no device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." 1 True it is that in the grave is nothing done. In the following pages much will seem to indicate my "doings" between the grave and the cradle. But observe that the whole of earth was become a perfect blank to me. The soul can not return save it re-embody in rebirth. To call it back is to came revulsion of this process, and reassociation with the astral-shell which the ego left behind at the decease of the body. Such reassociation revives the astral whereupon action and reaction take place between it and the ego, much to the detriment of the latter. All I "experienced" was only the fruits of what I had done; I could do no new thing, think no new thought, experience nothing not in itself the expression of something done ere I came through the grave. And in this rearrangement and crystallizing of my past earth life, time cut no figure. The realness of it was; but the reality of vivid dreaming; time had no part in that which was already done.
It lay in the power of the Rai to recognize me, but he would not, that I might not suffer ham. It similarly lies in the power of all forceful mediumistic natures (generally) belonging
lug to the sect called "Spiritualists" to do likewise. These media can recall the departed, but at what dread cost to the departed ego, and reacting upon the medium to the latter! I say no process of Nature as ordered by our Heavenly Father may be lightly interrupted; every such act carries penalty proportionate to the understanding of the culprit; never light, and often of fearful weight. Had I remained to see, I would have seen Gwauxln, Son of the Solitude, go forth in his own astral shape, after retiring his corporeal to his secret chamber, that no harm might come to the body while he was away. And the shell-Zailm would I have seen go with him to the Incalithlon, and there should I have seen the Rai cause it to pass into the Unfed Light. But of all men on earth only the trained eyes of a Son could have seen what then happened. The "shell" would not have emerged from the Maxin nevermore. What was this? Why destroy it? So that it might not go forth in the earth and impress sensitives such as the vailx-man whom I had impressed in Umaur, and whom my "shell" might otherwise continue to impress. Thus might have resulted much trouble, for this astral of mine was but faithfully repeating my final words ere I parted company with it, when it said to Gwauxln, there in Agacoe, "I am not dead." It was even then like all other shells, its double composite nature only holding together during the limited period it could draw sustaining magnetism from my recently closed earthly correspondence.
In some cases such sustenance in sufficient for ages, in others, centuries, years, days, or even minutes, according to the earthward-turning, or the spirit-turning sympathies of the decedent. The astral is only vivified force, bearing the image in all respects of its ego, the I AM. Even prophecies made by "returned spirits," prophecies which come true after years, perhaps are but the impressed foresight of the ego at the moment of departure. It for an instant sees into vast future depths of time. And this glimpse in imprinted on its astral-shell. It is psychic form. If the phenomena set in motion by man are of that intensely vital created by Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, then just as long as a believer of any one of these
religious systems adheres, that long, but no longer the "shells" of these prophets will continue their derived existence. It is psychic force which is their controlling lever, formed force. It is this same force which holds the stars to their orbits, and the atoms to theirs. It is vital, and dual, being positive and negative. To separate the force or "fire element" of the ancients (ancients to thee, not to me), was to cause the focus for such an Unfed Fire as the Maxin, and in later ages, in Israel the power in the Ark of the Covenant, alike with the Maxin, fatal to life. These focus points are portals whereinto the entire concourse of lesser forces of nature are absorbed upon contact. These foci are also the sole residence of the much sought "universal solvent" of the alchemists; needless to say that as some of these alchemists have been Sons of the Solitude, that therefore they have had the wonderful "solvent" to serve them.
Equally apparent must it be why the secret has remained carefully concealed. These foci are very auricles of the heart of the Universe, hence any sort of formed force meets here its Omega. Consequently when Gwauxln caused my astral to pass into the Maxin, he returned to the sum-undivided of cosmic force a quantity no longer of use to the formed world. On a very small scale indeed the medulla oblongata of the brain is such a focus, a maxin-point, where positive and negative meet. Were it not so, life would be impossible; destroy this maxin of the body, even by a needle thrust, and vitality instantly ceases. But enough. Gwauxln came to me, who could not go to him. Those not initiates do often thus rise in their sleep to their friends, but they fail at the point of not knowing how to do so voluntarily.
As one great point of my work is to explain these mysteries, I may spare yet a little space in rendering clear, past all mistake, how it is that those on earth can acquire the power of going to their friends beyond the Divide, but never these last come back to earth.
The barometer on a calm day registers at sea level a definite degree of air pressure, and at one mile above the sea, on the
side of a mountain, let us say, the mercury in the tube has "fallen" to another definite but less degree. This is in both cases due to air pressure. If now one desire to have the pressure existing at a mile's height, will he go up to it, or will he. bring that altitude down to himself? In storm weather the barometer "falls" also, the air is less dense, meteorological changes have taken place which in effect have brought the high aerial altitudes, i. e., the conditions prevailing in high altitudes, down to the lower level. But thus has a storm been created; superior conditions have forced one. So it is that by the exercise of superior force a medium at a "spiritualistic seance" can bring back or down a soul which had gone on through the grave; but it will give rise to a psychic storm, and these are exceedingly costly occurrences. The Witch of Endor created such a storm when she forced Samuel down to earth again. Beware, O ye mediums! If thou art, friend, a human "spirit barometer," thou mayest rise to thy friends, but never, as thou valuest soul's peace for thee, or for them, seek to bring them down to thy "circles."
Those who seek only the exciting part of this history will do well to omit perusal of the greater part of Book I, and leave it to the reader who seeks the reason and lemon of my life record, and how I am able to depict scenes past by more than twelve thousand years ago.
Through the crime of Mainin the Incaliz, I had been forced to seek my psychic plane, and because I was I, and am I, that plane is more or less one of isolation. That is to say, it was peopled with the children of my fancy, my experiences, my hopes, longings, aspirations, and my conceptions of persons, places and things. No two people see in the same way the same world. To Anzimee, with her knowledge, the world could not have seemed the same as to Lolix, who saw from another, and in some ways lower, standpoint, while to neither was it the same as to the wise minister, Menax; and with all three the view of life was different from that held by Gwauxln.
So also the heaven, the devachan, of one person is filled with his concepts of life, while that of his neighbor on either side--so to speak, is peopled with other peculiar mental properties. Now the state after the grave, and his or her knowledge, aspirations and trusts of life is the condition of harvest, where no one acts, but where the rewards of action in the preceding life axe paid; it is the land of Lethe, where is no pain, sorrow, sickness or agony, for these earthly conditions begun on earth, and they perforce must be finished on earth. So karma decrees. Heaven is passive, not active, and results of knowledge are there assimilated by the soul; that is, made so that the new birth is like the succeeding page of a business ledger--all of the old lives, with the last added in. I hope I have not been prolix. I have not, if I have given a clear comprehension of what the relation really is between earth and heaven, and that the latter is to the former as the resting time of night is to the activity of the day. Let none suppose that the devachan of one that hath committed earth-binding errors, and must by these bonds again reincarnate, is anything like the great Life wherewith are crowned those who are faithful unto the death of that serpent in the heart, animal lusts. The words can well portray mere devachan, they are powerless to depict that Life. Finite can never compass Infinite. Then let the Infinite into thy hearts.
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Even so I pondered, in the presence of Gwauxln, Anzimee, and the others, who either would not or could not see me, my earthly powers were departing. The power which I had a moment before possessed of seeing persons, places and things of the world seemed fast escaping me, while glorious sights and sounds replaced them, sights and sounds akin to the day dream of the life just left, except that these were real to my senses, tangible and mutually reactive. Ah, well! if those left on Death's first shore could not see me nor know my presence,
nor I see them nor their presence, why not unresistingly glide into enjoyment of the peace and the new sights and things which were come in place of the old? Yea! I would. Goodbye, old life; hail to the new.
As peacefully as a dream the sight of the palace and of familiar things faded from view, and I seemed to have come into a beautiful valley, hemmed in by azure hued mountains. Before me stood a building of unpretentious exterior. Irregular in its outlines, it seemed to have been built in sections, added as more rooms became necessary. What an altogether excellent idea that was, I thought. It was formed of slabs of rock, not quarried, but naturally scaled from the ledge. In places it was three stories high, in others only two, but mainly all the rooms were on the ground floor. What sort of people lived here? Certainly people whose architectural abandon was after my own heart. I felt, ere seeing them, already friendly. Assuredly they lacked not the love of beauty, for covering the quaintly picturesque dwelling ran perennial vines, while all about lay tasteful gardens. Should I venture to intrude my presence? As I considered, a man opened a door near me and came forward. He had a very familiar appearance; where had I seen him? I had forgotten as completely as if I had never known the life which I had experienced as Zailm, the son of Menax. My senses were dominated by the feelings of boyhood, and the thoughts and ideas and simple knowledge of boyhood in the mountain home by Pitach . Rhok. As the familiar looking stranger drew close he said:
"Knowest thou me, thy father, Merin Numinos?"
While this settled the apprehension that dimly arose in my consciousness that I was alone, and therefore invisible to people, it only quenched the idea that had rapidly faded an I looked on the house of slabrock, the idea that I was dead. I no longer knew any such experience, and the knowledge of death had passed away so far as it applied to my own decease. I was
filled with pleasure at the question of the man before me, and I now perceived that he was the father of my childhood's ideal, but not him whom my mother had always presented in disparaging light: she, thou knowest, did not like him. But this thought did not present itself then; I only knew that I looked on him whom I recognized as my father. I was overjoyed at finding him, and I replied: "Verily, I know thee well!" Then he asked: "Wilt thou rest?"
"Being fatigued, I will do so, and no doubt be much benefited."
Thereupon Merin Numinos led me within the great rambling house to what I must call a den, even though the name may seem inelegant. Den it was, cleanly, but so charmingly, delightfully confused and disorderly; books and specimens of rocks, and all things which a boy loves were scattered about in that inextricable litter which fills the trim housekeeper with despair. My pleasure was unbounded, for I felt that I was a boy, only a boy, and had yet to reach maturity, the unknown possibilities of which seemed to fill my whole being with pleasant anticipation of the future; I was a lad of exuberant spirits let loose in his own realm, and in this room free from fear of the orderly mother who had elsewhere always restrained me. On a bed, roughly smoothed up in one comer of the shaded room, lay a pack of books from the district library, each marked, "Pitach Rhok District 5," in Poseid characters. These were in my way, and I laid them carefully, for books were ever almost sacred objects in my eyes, on the floor, in order that I might rest on the bed. Then I laid me down to sleep upon the rude couch which had always seemed softer and easier to fond memory than any downy cushion in the Caiphalian life. Not that I knew this as I lay down, I only knew that I experienced a state of things just suited to my desires. I had no clear idea of any event of the old life in Poseid; no memory of death, nothing. All had gone like the events of some dream which we strive in vain to recall at breakfast next morning. And yet, when I came across things in the new state similar to those known and loved in the old, when I
found things here such as I had been wont to dream of some day carrying to realization, then the new realities, which, after all were not new, seemed wholly satisfactory, with the added charm of achievement, though I could not recall the old.
"The whole scene which greets mine eyes,
In some strange mode I recognize
As one whose ev'ry mystic part
I feel prefigured in my heart."
Nature here, though presenting some novelties, was not different enough to excite special attention.
One day I arose and departed from the scenes of this reproduced boyhood's life. The curtain rose on things derived from the later life after leaving Pitach Rhok for Caiphul, and I found myself now in the midst of acquiring knowledge even to the great degree of a Xio-Incala, a degree greater than even any scientist of the modem world has achieved. But this phase of devachan soon passed, because, not having reached such a degree on earth, nor having even tried to do so, I had no real basis from which to draw devachanic scenes. Thus passed the time around me, sometimes with real egoii of deceased earthly persons who had worked with me intimately on earth, and so had with me to reap the results of the collaboration. At other times I was alone with my concepts, which, however, seemed as real as actual persons, for all seemed absolutely real. Lolix was here in her better aspects; but the sin of our day was held against our return to earth.
It seemed perfectly natural to meet Anzimee one night as I wandered by the shore of a sea adjacent to an artificial wilderness, where all things were arranged in harmony with my ideal solitude to which, in Caiphul's busy whirl, I had one day dreamed of taking her when we should be wed. It was sweet when we met to hear her call me "husband," and the peace after action was all delightful as I had imagined it would be.
But my pen is in advance of its proper place. To return to the den:
Without disrobing, for the air was warm, I lay down and slept. When I awoke I passed down the hallway into the garden.
A change had come over. I was older; the landscape was different, and the houses were more like that which my maturer needs had painted as a necessity while I still lived near Pitach Rhok. No longer was a river in the foreground, but a broad sea with only the near shore visible. The change was correspondent with the later desires of my youth. These alterations, though startling as considered from an earthly, physical standpoint, were not startling nor even remarkable to me. What sort of life or condition was this which permitted such changes, yet did not present itself as anything extraordinary to me, the beholder? Even truth should not be told in prolix phrase, and all that can be replied now is that it wag the life after death, to be slightly paradoxical. But this is not the Great Life with God.
Was time consumed in effecting these changes, or was this an Aladdin's lamp sort of land where a rubbing out of one and an installation of another set of appearances took place instantaneously? I did not even pause to consider, for no such conjecture occurred to me. To me things were real. Is earth real? Spirit, God, is real, and the earth and universe are the fiat, or externalized ideas of God. The things of earth are words of God's great Word, speaking to us. So, too, are the things of devachan or heaven. Both are real, oppositely so, but only real within us, not without us. I sought my father, Merin Numinos, and asked: "How long have I slept?" It was no more anything but a habit of thought to ask this, for I had no other motive. That, in the process of death, habits of mind do not suffer extinction together with life's memories of events, was proven by my action on hearing my father's reply:
"Even several years hast thou slept."
"Years!" dost thou exclaim? It, was no remarkable thing to me to hear this account of a Rip Van Winklian nap. No, but my habit of mind which took pride in neatness of personal attire caused me unwittingly to glance at my raiment to see if it were not, the worse for such long wear. The allusion
to several years attracted my attention, so that having found my attire presentable, though I still gazed at my clothes, it was is an absent-minded way. I said:
"Thou sayest years; also another thing, 'thou has slept, ever since; thou camest into this country.' Now, I pray thee,. have I ever been elsewhere?"
Receiving no reply, I looked up, only to meet a stare like that of a statue from my father. He evidently knew nothing, of any previous state, nor, by the very form of my question, did I know more than he.
Death was another thing, never referred to, because in the instant when promoted souls find it no more possible to impress their existence upon those left behind on earth, they recognize that they are in the midst of the change called death, of which they were perhaps apprehensive all their earthly days. As the exoteric religion then, aye, and now, also, taught but one death, the devachanee knew or conjectured no other. Hence, death to the disembodied soul was and is an unknown conception. Well, there is no such thing as death for a fact. Likewise pain and sorrow. Devachan the minor is like devachan the major (Nirvana), a state particularly referred to in Revelation xxi: 4. Now, my friend, I am not postulating an argument; I must refuse to argue, and though it savor of medieval methods, yet must I also refuse to reason with thee. It is the purpose of this history to state what I know by experience; I state no theoretical ideas. If thou wilt take any small matters left unexplained into the inner sanctuary of thy soul and there meditate over them, then will they become clear to thee, and be as the water which quencheth all thirst, if so gained. hast thou ears to hear? Then heed that counsel. I address only those who follow these pages for profit.
Am the devachanee knows of but one change, and, an that is so different, from what he was religiously taught to fear, therefore many souls entering heaven conceive at the moment of death that no death exists, and that the teachings received on earth from priests were but ecclesiastical fictions. Nor are
they so far wrong, for there is no other death than the mere change from objective to subjective states of being, save the second death, spoken of in my final page. To be paradoxical, death is different because not different, so far as they can perceive, from the swift view of the life just closed, a view all souls have, however brief it be. Hence it was that I was unaware of the fiction called death when I asked the father I found there if I had not always been there.
Religion taught in that old age as it now teaches, that with death came the cessation of all earthly sorrow. This is true for a time limited by the length of the soul's sojourn in devachan. These earth-born mists do not intrude there for the reason that being earth born they must of necessity have abiding places on earth and influence only those on earth.
"The evil that men do lives after them."
Verily; and in the form of crystallized disposition to do wrong, lies in wait for their return to earth life; it is the wrongly so-called "Adamic" tendency to sin, and while the sinner is free of its power in devachan, the seed, like tares with the wheat, is ready to grow a harvest of sorrow along with the growing life of the new incarnated one; and until some good action shall atone for evil done, this evil will continue to grow. Fortunately, man hath an eternity in which to make repayment, 1 and though following God's laws and being true to right, whatever its source, the tares are little by little uprooted. A good act is the erasure of a bad, and once performed
is "oft interred with the bones," thus completing the philosophy of Hamlet.
All about me were those I loved. As time seemed to lapse, I became conscious of the presence of one and another of my friends. Anzimee, Menax, Gwauxln, Ernon, Lolix without the shadow, all those and thousands more who have no name to the reader were there. They did not come; no, they were with me, each as I had conceived. These were my concepts, for they were subjective, not objective; they were my ideals, not real people; and they formed my world. It occurred not to me that they were not real. Did it ever occur to thee, reader, that the world of thy senses is the only world thou hast? That, if thou hadst no sight, smell, hearing, taste or touch, that thou wouldst have no world even though thy soul were imprisoned in a body thus dead, yet alive in a vegetative way? As the soul of each living man, woman or child, is different from every other soul, so also the world is different to every person--not the same precisely in any two cases. Now it is the record of the soul, made on imperishable mental substance, which constitutes much of the life after the grave; the record merges into a reality, and all seems equally real, just as real as when the combined senses first perceived it; in verity this after life is a reconstituted and inverted earth life, subjective now, instead of objective. My supposed friend may be a real enemy, yet if I die thinking him or her my friend, that concept is the one carried into the after life, and vice versa.
Thus, all about me were my friends. The things of my sense records, and the places, were the scenes where all these friends moved. But while I had thus my world about me, a concept of me existed in the imaged world of every friend I had. Not that I was with them, but their concept of me was with them. Thus regarding the reality of all those concepts that were non-involute, simple and easily assimilable upon being remembered from the astral record, or, so to say, memory plates of the Soul, of every incident, Small or great, simple or complex, impulse or even unconscious cerebrations. But now mark a feature of vast interest, inasmuch as it affirms what I have seemed
to deny, any real association of the soul in devachan with other individual souls. Devachan would indeed be a drear heaven if the friends of mundane life were never aught but "dream faces." Dreams they are, if the incidents created in our hopes on earth, and in devachan set forth as real to all seeming, were a simple fact. But if, per contra, it were so complex that to solve its equation required the joint efforts of two souls working in harmony, then also in devachan the results of this complex act affected both these souls, and during the assimilation of its results, that is, during the crystallization of such results into traits of character, both these souls would as actually be together as ever they were on earth. If more than two people were involved on earth, so all these souls would congregate in devachan. When the process was complete, the separation came. So it happened that in one moment of assimilative experience all my concepts were only phantasms, m the persons of one's nightly dreams; the next moment wore complex, as my associates were real egoii like myself. To me all this was unknown; all seemed real, and so, perhaps, was so. But it is pleasant to feel that one works with a loved -son, lather, daughter, mother, wife or other friend; that the consequences of the more serious events of our daily lives here will bring us again together in the heaven of our hopes; that the wife thou takest to thy heart, and to whom on thy confident loving plans for the weal of thy loved ones, to realize which both thou and she must work nobly, earnestly, will come across the chasm which death spreads for thy bodies, and be with thee or thou with her, there in Navazzamin. Pleasant, that thy mother, father or other dear friend shall sometimes really be with thee there; and that together thou shalt garner thy various records, and enjoy in a seeming real that which was not on earth aught but a hope never; materialized.
In meeting Anzimee, who yet lived on earth, I met sometimes my conception of her, sometimes her own higher self. How was the latter possible? Because she so longed from me that it developed and enabled her to project her pure soul into my plane. This was not only pleasant and beneficial to her, giving
her a hold upon things unseen, of which the apostle Paul speaks, but it was a holy joy to me to meet her thus; she could come to me, but I could not go back to her. There is no retrogression.
In communion with these ideals I had my reward, for nothing occurred contrary to my wish. But in experiencing this reward, I also unconsciously assimilated the value of the previous life on earth. Thus my connection with politics in Poseid had brought me in contact with men and manners, and from this contact were born schemes in which I was to have had a leading part. These schemes were now brought into the subjective state, and as such appeared to me to be in process. From these apparent actions my capacities were developed, and tests of the worth of my conceptions made. All of this resulted in making a concrete deduction which became a part of my mental being; hence in a new incarnation I would come forth to mankind possessed of phrenological organs of increased power in the handling of political and social questions. Perhaps this power would not be actively employed, owing to other tendencies being stronger; none the less the power would be augmented and ready for use upon demand. The same thing would prove true of all these souls really associated with me, both in previous-earth-and after-heaven, the results, values and summings-up of our contemporary devachan would give them new mental traits, or increase the force of their old ones, and reincarnation would reassociate us again on earth. And it has done so, else would I never have written this history for thy profit, dear reader. My education as a geologist at Xioquithlon was tested in this same subjective heaven, and from this came added ability as a geologist; in short, an intuitive knowledge of geology and desire for that study after reincarnation. Books would then serve to educe the geological bent I might manifest. I might go on with other instances of the summing-up, and arranging process experienced by those who have both the grave and the cradle between them and
earth. But this will suffice to hint to the reader that truths lie here and sweeten the
"Thoughts of the last bitter hour . . .
Of stern agony, and shroud and pall."
I hope, my friend, that this effort to render death less terrifying, by relating my own experiences of it, will be fraught with success, and that these words may so sustain thee that thou shalt
"Approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dream ."
Zerah Colburn, the marvelous boy mathematician, did not acquire his knowledge in the schools of this modern age, but brought it, a legacy from the dead centuries, his past lives, his latent power was educed. I will not argue with thee, friend, that if thou hadst had a past life on earth, thou couldst "not have forgotten it, but would have brought memory of it with thee." No, I argue not. I only leave it with thine own intelligence to decide if I be not right, when thou rememberest that habits of life grow from repeated actions of boyhood, the details and every recollection of which are gone. And knowing that this is so, decide, if thou thinkest it not absurd, that actions of a life experienced century times centuries agone would be possibly recollected, more especially when all the intervals was spent on a different plane of life, whereon no single memory ever intruded, could not by the laws of God. I know whereof I speak.
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At length there came a time when I cared no more for the appearance of action, nor for those concepts of persons, places, or things connected with seeming activity. Chiefly now I cared to remain in some quiet spot and listen to Anzimee, the real, not the concept, as she read to or talked with me. I slept much also. One morning I did not arise; I did not care to. I was not ill; no one ever knew illness in devachan. But
I had lost all desire to see or hear more of anything. I did indeed feel languor, but not weariness. So I turned over again, facing the wall, and slept. It was the last occurrence in the last chapter of a life's long rest, which, though I knew it not, had covered twelve thousand years of the actions of men of earth. Death had never appeared in that home of the soul, for my concepts did not die, they only disappeared from the view of their creator. Even the real souls of men or women did not die. No. But when they came, one after another, to the retributive awakening at the cradle, if their lives in heaven were still associated with mine, if they had not gone elsewhere in devachan, as neighbors on earth separate and put the world between them, then they disappeared, just as my concepts disappeared when I had assimilated their value. They disappeared, because all the deeds of previous earth life had crystallized as traits of character, and they were ready for earth life again. Only myself could be conscious of my own change; I could not be conscious of theirs. I was ready for activity once more. I slept, and in this sleeping died out of that life of passivity into the waking of earth, a babe in a cradle. Born to see my Master in this life, and enter the Great Rest with him!
NOTE.--But one will come after me who shall tell thee more of the Great Deep of Life than I. Await her words.--Author
.End of Book First
225:1 II Samuel, xii, 28.
226:1 Eccl. ix, 10.
236:1 Do not confuse "repayment" with "atonement." Jesus makes atonement for us with God. We can only begin to repay, when, having obtained forgiveness through Jesus, we try to Live Him. Until we consecrate ourselves to Christ, we can not have recognized that we are HIS because HE owns us. When we recognize this, then we recognize that HE owns us, and we own HIM. Then, but not until then, can we even begin to repay our karma. And if we "Go and sin no more," then HE will equalize our to karma, and we be released unto HIM, released or leased again! Karma closes for one who thus is atoned for, and his opportunity for reparation begins. For such an one no more incarnation is necessary, for hath he not the SON? And that is Eternal life. What mean I by having the Son? And by being consecrated to Christ? In this, then, only the church postulate? Nay, more, friends. The Divine is eternal, infinite. The Human is finite. When the awakened man comes to know himself, he chooses which way he shall go. The choice is the crossing of the Divine by the Human; it is ownership by the Son. which in within.