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from the penal point of view. These spheres are grey
waiting-rooms-hospitals for diseased souls-where the chastening
experience is intended to bring the sufferer back to health and to
happiness.
Our information is fuller when we turn to the happier regions which seem
to be graduated in joy and beauty in accordance with the spiritual
development of the inmates. It makes the matter clearer if one puts
kindliness and unselfishness for "spiritual development," for in that
direction all soul growth is to be found. It is certainly a matter which
is quite apart from intellect, though the union of intellect with
spiritual qualities would naturally produce the more perfect being.
The conditions of life in the normal beyond-and it would be a reflection
upon the justice and mercy of the Central Intelligence if the normal
beyond was not also the happy beyond-are depicted as being
extraordinarily joyous. The air, the views, the homes, the surroundings,
the occupations, have all been described with great detail, and usually
with the comment that no words could do justice to their glorious
reality. It may be that there is some degree of parable or analogy in
these descriptions, but the author is inclined to take them on their face
value, and to believe that "the Summerland," as Davis has named it, is
quite as real and objective to its inmates as our world is to us. It is
easy to raise the objection: "Why, then, do we not see it?" But we must
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realize that an etheric life is expressed in etheric terms, and that just
as we, with five material senses, are attuned to the material world, so
they with their etheric bodies are attuned to the sights and sounds of an
etheric world. The word "ether" is, of course, only used for convenience
to express something far more subtle than our atmosphere. We have no
proof at all that the ether of the physicist is also the medium of the
spirit world. There may be other fine essences which are as much more
delicate than ether as ether is when compared with air.
The spiritual heavens, then, would appear to be sublimated and ethereal
reproductions of earth and of earth life under higher and better
conditions. "As below-so above," said Paracelsus, and struck the keynote
of the Universe as he said it. The body carries on, with its spiritual or
intellectual qualities unchanged by the transition from one room of the
great universal mansion to the next one. It is unaltered also in form,
save that the young and the old tend towards the normal full-grown mature
expression. Granting that this is so, we must admit the reasonableness of
the deduction that all else must be the same, and that the occupations
and general system of life must be such as to afford scope for the
particular talents of the individual. The artist without art or the
musician without music would indeed be a tragic figure, and what applies
to extreme types may be extended to the whole human race. There is, in
fact, a very complex society in which each person finds that work to do
which he is best fitted for, and which gives him satisfaction in the
doing. Sometimes there is a choice. Thus in "The Case of Lester Coltman"
the dead student writes: "For some time after I had passed over I was
undecided as to whether music or science would be my work. After much
serious thought I determined that music should be my hobby, and my more
earnest intent should be directed upon science in every form."
After such a declaration one would naturally wish some details as to what
scientific work was done and under what conditions. Lester Coltman is
clear upon each point.
The laboratory over which I have control is primarily concerned with the
study of the vapours and fluids forming the barrier which, we feel, by
dint of profound study and experiment we may be able to pierce. The
outcome of this research, we believe, will prove the Open Sesame to the
door of communing between earth and these spheres.*
* "Case of Lester Coltman," by Lilian Walbrook, p. 34.
Ibid., pp. 32-3.
Lester Coltman gives a further description of his work and surroundings,
which may well be quoted as being typical of many more. He says:
The interest evinced by earth beings as to the character of our homes and
the establishments where our work is carried on, is natural, of course,
but description is not too easy to convey in earth terms. My state of
being will serve as an example from which you may deduce others' modes of
life, according to temperament and type of mind.
My work is continued here as it began on earth, in scientific channels,
and, in order to pursue my studies, I visit frequently a laboratory
possessing extraordinarily complete facilities for the carrying on of
experiments. I have a home of my own, delightful in the extreme, complete
with library filled with books of reference-historical, scientific,
medical-and, in fact, with every type of literature. To us these books
are as substantial as those used on earth are to you. I have a music-room
containing every mode of sound-expression. I have pictures of rare beauty
and furnishings of exquisite design. I am living here alone at present,
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but friends frequently visit me as I do them in their homes, and if a
faint sadness at times takes possession of me, I visit those I loved most
on earth.
From my windows undulating country of great beauty is seen, and at a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]