LETTER XXVI
CIRCLES IN THE SAND

 

AM just beginning to enjoy the romance of life out here. I must always have had the romantic temperament; but only since changing my place have I had time and opportunity to give rein to it. On earth there was always too much to be done, too many duties, too many demands on me. Here I am free.

 

You have no idea of the meaning of freedom unless you can remember when you were out here last, and I doubt if you can remember that yet.

 

When I say "romance" I mean the charm of existence, the magic touch which turns the grey face of life to rose colour. You know what I mean.

 

It is wonderful to have leisure to dream and to realise one's dream, for here the realisation goes with the dream. Everything is so real, imagination is so potent, and the power to link things is so great—so almost unlimited!

 

The dreamers here are really not idle, for our dreaming is a kind of building; and even if it were not, we have a right to do about as we please. We have earned our vacation. The labour will come again. We shall reclothe ourselves in gross matter and take on its burdens.

 

Why, it takes more energy on earth to put one heavy foot before another heavy foot, and to propel the hundred or two-hundred pound body a mile, than it takes here to go around the world! That will give you an idea of the quantity of surplus energy that we have for enjoying ourselves and for dream-building.

 

Perhaps on earth you work too much—more than is really necessary. The mass of needless things that you accumulate round you, the artificial wants that you create, the break-neck pace of your lives to provide all these things, seem to us absurd and rather pitiful. Your political economy is mere child's play, your governments are cumbrous machines for doing the unnecessary, most of your work is useless, and your lives would be nearly futile if you did not suffer so much that your souls learn, though unwillingly, that most of their strivings are vain.

 

How I used to sweat and groan in the early days to make my little circle in the sand! And now I see that if I had taken more time to think, I might have recovered something of my past knowledge, gained in other lives; and though I still had felt obliged to draw my circle in the sand, I might have done it with less difficulty and in half the time.

 

Here, if I choose, I can spend hours in watching the changing colours of a cloud. Or, better still, I can lie on my back and remember. It is wonderful to remember, to let the mind go back year after year, life after life, century after century, back and back till one finds oneself—a turtle! But one can also look ahead, forward and forward, life after life, century after century, won after won, till one finds oneself an archangel. The looking back is memory; the looking forward is creation. Of course we create our own future. Who else could do it? We are influenced and moved and shifted and helped or retarded by others; but it is we ourselves who forge the chains every time. We tie knots that we shall have to untie, often with labour and perplexity.

 

In going back over my past lives I realise the why and the wherefore of my last one. It was, in a way, the least satisfactory of many lives save one; but now I see its purpose, and that I laid the plans for it when I was last out here. I even arranged to go back to earth at a definite time, in order to be with certain friends who met me there.

 

But I have turned the corner now, and have begun the upward march again. Already I am laying the lines for my next coming, though there is no hurry. Bless you! I am not going back until I have had my fill of the freedom and enjoyment of this existence here.

 

Also I have much studying to do. I want to review what I learned in those hitherto forgotten but now remembered lives.

 

Do you recall how, when you went to school, you had occasionally to review the lessons of the preceding weeks or months? That custom is based on a sound principle. I am now having my review lessons. By and by, before I return to the world, I shall review these reviews, fixing by will the memories which I specially wish to carry over with me. It would be practically impossible to carry over intact the great panorama of experience which now unrolls itself before the eyes of my memory; but there are several fundamental things, philosophical principles and illustrations, which I must not forget. Also I want to take with me the knowledge of certain formulae and the habit of certain practices which you would probably call occult; by means of which, when I am mature again in my new body, I can call into memory this very pageant of experience which now rolls before me whenever I will it.

 

No, I am not going to tell you about your own past. You must, and can, recover it for yourself. So can anyone who knows the difference between memory and imagination. Yes, the difference is subtle, but as real as the difference between yesterday and to­morrow.

 

I do not want you to be in any hurry about coming out here to stay. Remain where you are just as long as possible. Much that we do on this side you can do almost as well while still in the body. Of course you have to use more energy, but that is what energy is for—to use. Even when we store it, we store it for future use. Do not forget that.

 

One reason why I rest much now and dream and amuse myself is because I want to store as much energy as possible, to come back with power.

 

It is well that you have taken my advice to idle a little and to get acquainted with your own soul. There are surprises in store for the person who will deliberately set out on the quest of his soul. The soul is not a will-o'-the-wisp; it is a beacon light to steer by and avoid the rocks of materialism and forgetfulness.

 

I have had much joy in going back over my Greek incarnations. What concentration they had—those Greeks! They knew much. The waters of Lethe, for instance,—what a conception!—brought from this side by masterly memory.

 

If man would even try to remember, if he would only take time to consider all that he has been, there would be more hope of what he may become! Why, do you know that man may become a god—or that which, compared with ordinary humanity, has all the magnitude and grandeur of a god? "Ye are gods," was not said in a merely figurative sense.

 

I have met the Master from Galilee, and have held communion with Him. There was a man—and a god! The world has need of Him now.

LETTER XXVII
THE MAGIC RING

 

IT would be hard for you to understand, merely by my telling you, the difference between your life and ours. Begin with the difference in substance, not only the substance of our bodies, but the substance of natural objects which surround us.

 

Do you start at the term "natural objects" as applied to the things of this world? You did not fancy, did you, that we had escaped Nature? No one escapes Nature—not even God. Nature is.

 

Imagine that you had spent sixty or seventy years in a heavy earthly body, a body which insisted on growing fat, and would get stiff-jointed and rheumatic, even going on strike occasionally to the extent of laying you up in bed for repairs of a more or less clumsy sort. Then fancy yourself suddenly exchanging this heavy body for a light and elastic form. Can you imagine it? I, confess that it would have been difficult for me, even a year or two ago.

 

Clothed in this form, which is sufficiently radiant to light its own place when its light is not put out by the cruder light of the sun, fancy yourself moving from place to place, from person to person, from idea to idea. As time goes on even the habit of demanding nourishment gradually wears off. We are no longer bothered by hunger and thirst; though I, for instance, still stay myself occasionally with a little nourishment, an infinitesimal amount compared with the beefsteak dinners which I used to eat.

 

And we are no longer harassed by the thousand-and-one petty duties of the earth. Out here we have more confidence in moods. Engagements are seldom made—that is, binding engagements. As a rule, though there are exceptions, desire is mutual. I want to see and commune with a friend at the same time when he feels a desire for my society, and we naturally drift together. The companionships here are very beautiful; but the solitudes are also full of charm.

 

Since the first two or three months I have not been lonesome. At first I felt like a fish out of water, of course. Nearly everyone does; though there are exceptions in the case of very spiritual people who have no earthly ties or ambitions. I had so fought the idea of "dying," that my new state seemed at first to be the proof of my failure, and I used to wander about under the impression that I was going to waste much valuable time which could have been used to better advantage in the storm and stress of earthly living.

 

Of course the Teacher came to me; but he was too wise to carry me on his back even from the first. He reminded me of a few principles, which he left me to apply; and gradually, as I got hold of the applications, I got hold of myself. Then also gradually the beauty and wonder of the new condition began to dawn on me, and I saw that instead of wasting time I was really gaining tremendous experience which could be utilised later.

 

I have talked with many people here, people of all stages of intellectual and moral growth, and I am sorry to say that the person who has a clear idea of the significance of life and its possibilities for development is about as rare here as on the earth. As I have said before, a man does not suddenly become all-wise by changing the texture of his body.

 

The vain man of earth is likely to be vain here, though in his next life the very law of reaction—if he has overdone vanity—may send him back as a modest or even bashful person, for a while at least, until the reaction has spent itself. In coming out a man brings his character and characteristics with him.

 

I have often been sorry for men who in life had been slaves of the business routine. Many of them cannot get away from it for a long time; and instead of enjoying themselves here, they go back and forth to and from the scenes of their old labours, working over and over some problem in tactics or finance until they are almost as weary as when they "died."

 

As you know, there are teachers here. Few of them are of the stature of my own Teacher; but there are many who make it their pleasure to help the souls of the newly arrived. They never leave a newcomer entirely to his own resources. Help is always offered, though it is not always accepted. In that case it will be offered again and again, for those who give themselves to others do so without hope of reward or even acknowledgment.

 

If I had set out to write a scientific treatise of the life on this side, I should have begun in quite a different way from this. In the first place, I should have postponed the labour about ten years, until all my facts were pigeon-holed and docketed; then I should have begun at the beginning and dictated a book so dull that you would have fallen asleep over it, and I should have had to nudge you from time to time to pick up the pencil fallen from your somnolent hand.

 

Instead, I began to write soon after coming out, and these letters are really the letters of a traveller in a strange country. They record his impressions, often his mistakes, sometimes perhaps his provincial prejudices; but at least they are not a rehash of what somebody else has said.

 

I like your keeping my photograph on your mantel as you do; it helps me to come. There is a great power in a photograph.

 

I have been drawing pictures for you lately on the canvas of dreams, to show you the futility and vanity of certain things. Did you not know that we could do that? The power of the so-called dead to influence the living is immense, provided that the tie of sympathy has been made. I have taught you how to protect yourself against influences which you do not want, so do not be afraid. I will always stand guard to the extent of warning you if there is any danger of attack from this side. Already I have drawn a magic ring around you which only the most advanced and powerful spirits could pass, even if they desired—that is, the Teachers and I drew it together. You are doing our work just now, and have a right to our protection. That the labourer is worthy of his hire is an axiom of both worlds.

 

Only you yourself could now let down the bars for the inrush of evil and irresponsible spiritual intelligences, and if you should inadvertently let down the bars we should rush to put them up again. We have some authority out here. Yes, even so soon I can say that. Are you surprised?

LETTER XXVIII
EXCEPT YE BE AS LITTLE CHILDREN

 

ONCE heard a man refer to this world as the play world, "for," said he, "we are all children here, and we create the environment that we desire." As a child at play can turn a chair into a tower or a prancing steed, so we in this world can make real for the moment whatever we imagine.

 

Has it never filled you with amazement, that absolute vividness of the imagination of children? A child says unblushingly and with conviction, "That rug is a garden, that plank in the floor is a river, that chair is a castle, and I am a king."

 

Why does he say these things? How can he say these things? Because—and here is the point—he still subconsciously remembers the life out here which he so lately left. He has carried over with him into the life of earth something of his lost freedom and power of imagination.

 

That does not mean that all things in this world are imaginary— far from it. Objects here, objects existing in tenuous matter, are as real and comparatively substantial as with you; but there is the possibility of creation here, creation in a form of matter even more subtle still—thought­substance.

 

If you create something on earth in solid matter, you create it first in thought-substance; but there is this difference between your creation and ours: until you have moulded solid matter around your thought-pattern you do not believe that the thought-pattern really exists save in your own fancy.

 

We out here can see the thought-creations of others if we and they will it so.

 

We can also—and I tell you this for your comfort—we can also see your thought-creations, and by adding the strength of our will to yours we can help you to realise them in substantial form.

 

Sometimes we build here bit by bit, in the four-dimensional world, especially when we wish to leave a thing for others to see and enjoy, when we wish a thing to survive for a long time. But a thought-form is visible to all highly developed spirits.

 

Of course you understand that not all spirits are highly developed. In fact very few are far progressed; but the dullest man out here has something which most of you have lost—the faith in his own thought-creations.

 

Now, the power which makes creation possible is not lost to a soul when it takes on solid matter again. But the power is gradually overcome and the imagination is discouraged by the incredulity of mature men and women, who say constantly to the child: "That is only play; that is not really so; that is only imagination."

 

If you print these letters, I wish you would insert here fragments from that wonderful poem of Wordsworth, "Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood."

 

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

 

Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy,

But He beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy;

 

The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day."

 

There is almost no limit to the possibilities of the imagination; but to get the full power of it, one must trust one's imagination. If you say to yourself constantly, as the mother says to the child, "But this is only play; this is not real," you never can make real the things you have created in thought.

 

The imagination itself is like a child and must be encouraged and believed in, or it cannot develop and do its perfect work.

 

It is really fortunate for some of you that I am out here. I can do more for you here than there, because I have even greater faith in my imagination than I had before.

 

The man who called this the play world has been trying all sorts of experiments with the power in himself. I have not his permission to tell the stories he tells me, but they would surprise you. For one thing, he helped his wife, after his so-called death, to carry out a joint plan of theirs which had seemed impossible to them before because of their lack of real faith. It was for the erection of a certain kind of house.

 

But do not fancy that most people here are trying to build houses on earth. Far from it. Most of my fellow-citizens are willing to work where they are, and to let the earth alone. Of course there are "dreamers" like me, who are not satisfied with one world, and who like to have their fingers in both; but they are rather rare, as poets are rare on earth. To most men the world they happen to be in is sufficient for the time being.

 

There is a certain fancy of mine, however, which it will amuse me to help realise on earth. You may not know that I am doing it, but I shall know. I would not, "for the world," as you say, disturb anybody by even the thought that I am fussing around in affairs which now are theirs. But if, unseen and unfelt, I can help with the power of my self-confident imagination, there will be no harm done, and I shall have demonstrated something.

LETTER XXIX
AN UNEXPECTED WARNING

 

I SHOULD be very sorry if the reading of these letters of mine should cause foolish and unthinking people to go spirit-hunting, inviting into their human sphere the irresponsible and often lying elemental spirits. Tell them not to do it.

 

My coming in this way through your hand is quite another matter. I could not do it if I had not been instructed in the scientific method of procedure, and I also could not do it if you should constantly interrupt me by side-thoughts of your own, and by questions relevant or irrelevant. It is because you are perfectly passive and not even curious, letting me use your hand as on earth I would have used the hand of my stenographer, that I am able to write long and connected sentences.

 

Most spirit communications, even when genuine, have little value, for the reason that they are nearly always coloured by the mind of the person through whom they pass.

 

You are right in reading nothing on the subject while these messages are coming, and in thinking nothing about this plane of life where I am. Thus you avoid preconceived ideas, which would interrupt the flow of my ideas.

 

You know, perhaps, that while on earth I investigated spiritualism, as I investigated many things of an occult nature, looking always for the truth that was behind them; but I was convinced then, and I am now more than ever convinced, that, except for the scientific demonstration that such things can be— which, of course, has value as a demonstration only,—most spirit hunting is not only a waste of time, but an absolute detriment to those who engage in it.

 

This may sound strange coming from a so-called "spirit," one who is actually at this time in communication with the world. If that is so, I cannot help it. If I seem inconsistent, then I seem so; that is all. But I wish to go on record as discouraging irresponsible mediumship.

 

If a person sitting for mediumship could be sure that at the other end of the psychic line there was an entity who had something sincere and important to say, and who really could use him or her to say it through, it would be another matter; but this world out here is full of vagrants, even as the earth. As this world is peopled largely from your world, it is inevitable that we have the same kind of beings that you have. They have not changed much in passing through the doors of death.

 

Would you advise any delicate and sensitive woman to sit down in the centre of Hyde Park, and invite the passing crowds to come and speak through her, or touch her, or mingle their magnetism with hers? You shudder. You would shudder more had you seen some of the things which I have seen.

 

Then, too, there is another class of beings here, the kind which we used to hear the Theosophists call elementals. Now, there has been a lot of nonsense written about elementals; but take this for a fact: there are units of energy, units of consciousness, which correspond pretty closely to what the Theosophists understand by elementals. These entities are not, as a rule, very highly developed; but as the stage of earth life is the stage to which they aspire, and as it is the next inevitable stage in their evolution, they are drawn to it powerfully.

 

So do not be too sure that the entity which raps on your table or your cupboard is the spirit of your deceased grandfather. It may be merely a blind and very desirous entity, an eager consciousness, trying to use you to hasten its own evolution, trying to get into you or through you, so as to enjoy the earth and the coarser vibrations of the earth.

 

It may not be able to harm you, but, on the other hand, it may do you a great deal of harm. You had better discourage such attempts to break through the veil which separates you from them; for the veil is thinner than you think, and though you cannot see through it, you can feel through it.

 

Having said this, my duty in the matter is discharged; and the next time I come I can tell you a story, maybe, instead of giving you a lecture.

 

I really feel like an astral Scheherazade; but I fear you would tire of me before a thousand-and-one nights were past. A thousand-and-one nights! Before that time I shall have gone on. No, I do not mean "died" again into another world beyond; but when I get through telling you what I desire you to know about my life here, I want to investigate other stars, if it shall be permitted.

 

I am like a young man who has lately inherited a fortune and has at last unlimited means and opportunity for travel. Though he might stay around home a few months, getting matters in shape and becoming adjusted to his new freedom of movement, yet the time would come when he would want to try his wings. I hope that is not a mixed metaphor; if so, you can edit me. I shall not feel hurt.