PUBLISHERS' NOTE

 

"OUR UNSEEN GUEST" speaks for himself. The discussion of the persistence of personal identity and consciousness and of the question of continued life and activity after "the darkness—or the dawn—that men call death" affords abundant matter for reflection and debate.

 

The publishers can only say that the reasons for anonymity of authorship are reasonable and adequate; they know both "Darby" and "Joan" and have confidence in their complete sincerity; the persons and places referred to under names which for obvious reasons have been changed, are real, and for the most part exceedingly well known.

 

But the book must stand upon its own feet.

THE philosophical communications contained in this book are offered without editing, except for punctuation and the following: A few redundancies of expression have been eliminated, memory has been drawn upon for such occa-sional words as might be lost in hurried long-hand notes, now and then, in instances where a subject already discussed by "Stephen" was touched upon a second time, his later saying has been inserted in the original discussion, for the sake of continuity and clearness. It should be understood that this book contains only a part of Stephen's discourse.

 

In the more strictly evidential portions of the book, editing has sought to guard the identity of persons concerned, such as "F. W.," "Professor XX," and "Mrs. K.," with the result that practically all names, not only of persons, but of places as well, are fictitious.

 

THE COMING OF STEPHEN

 

OUR first experience with psychic phenomena occurred on the evening of December 7, 1916—by way of a ouija-board. Neither Joan nor I had ever seen a ouija-board before. The "toy" came into our hands quite by accident.

 

We were taking our dinners at a private boarding-house some blocks from the apartment building in which we lived. On the evening in question a sudden storm blew off the lake, while we were at table, and after the meal Joan and I wandered into a deserted sitting-room to wait until the wind and sleet abated. There one of the resident guests had left the ouija, a remnant doubtless of some Halloween party.

 

"How does the thing work?" Joan asked.

 

I read the directions; we rested the board, whereon the alphabet was printed in two semi-circles upon our knees, and put the tips of our fingers on the flatiron­like pointer.

 

"Now," said I, "this tripod affair is supposed to move from letter to letter, spelling out a message."

 

Thus we sat for a period—ten minutes, perhaps. We joked, I remember, of the good fortunes ouija would tell us. But no message came. Then, just as we were about to give up, the tripod began to move.

 

"Quality of consciousness," it spelled. A pause—then, once more, "Quality of consciousness."

"Darby!" Joan took her fingers from the pointer. "You can't fool me like that. You did it! 'Quality of consciousness'—that doesn't mean anything, anyway."

 

I looked into Joan's eyes. Was it she who had moved the tripod, or did she honestly accuse me?

 

"Not guilty!" I pleaded. For a moment we faced each other in silence. Then said Joan, gravely, "Let's try it again." So we tried it again.

 

On the instant the tripod gathered strength. Over the alphabet it moved, slowly, yet with machine-like precision, pausing on this letter and that. Here are the words it spelled:

 

"For you two I have a message, a revelation. Communication is so slow, so difficult, that I can do little more than give you the suggestion. But if you will reason along the lines I point out, you can reach the truth."

"What truth?"

"In as far," the answer came, "as it is given you to understand, that ultimate truth—the why, the whence, the whither—which men have longed to know since knowledge was."

"Who are you?" I asked, addressing the empty air.

"I am Robert L——, an American," the tripod spelled,

giving the last name, though it is not set down here.

"Robert L——?" I said, the name meaning nothing to me.

"Is that right—Robert L——?"

"L——." spelled the ouija-board. Then came, not Robert, but another Christian name—Stephen, let us say, though the name actually spelled began, like Robert, with R.

"We understand your family name to be L——," I said. "Now can you straighten out the given name? Is it Robert or Stephen?"

 

Promptly the ouija-board spelled a contraction, itself not beginning with R, of the name for which "Stephen" is here substituted—a contraction or nickname, by which (I anticipate my story) he whom this narrative will continue to call Stephen had been known among his friends.

 

"Your name, then, is Stephen L——?" I asked.

 

"Yes," replied the ouija-board.

 

To Joan and me Stephen's name, which we do not feel at liberty to divulge, meant nothing more, on this night of December 7, 1916, than any totally new name signifies when stumbled across for the first time. We had never heard of such a person.

 

The margin of the newspaper on which I had been recording the ouija-board's words threatened to prove inadequate. I dug an envelop out of my pocket, and said: "We don't know you. But never mind that. Go ahead."

 

"Let me tell you about myself," the tripod answered.

 

And then to our great amazement there was written out upon the ouija-board the death story of a soldier, an American killed in service of the Allied cause. Not once, except as I removed my hands to record the sentences, did the tripod hesitate. Joan and I sat astounded at the mere facility of the performance. The circumstantial vividness of the tripod's story was dumfounding, for, like Stephen's name, the story of his death was wholly new to us.

 

Why is the story not given here? Because Stephen wishes it withheld; because to those still in this life whom he loved, and loves, undesired publicity would result. His death was unique; to report the story of the ouija-board would be to identify him.

 

It is curious; already I speak of Stephen as though he were a person, as real a person as myself. This manner of speech is a convenience, at least. As a matter of fact, Joan and I do not wish here and now to pass judgment definitely on Stephen's reality—or unreality.

 

I said to Stephen some weeks later: "You wish us to make public your philosophy. Do you realize that the story of your death is a logical part of any report we might make? Verified, it is evidential, tending to prove that, dead though you are, you still live."

 

It was not Stephen who answered, but another, one who came in Stephen's wake, hopeful, apparently, that he might be of help, now and then, in clarifying a doubtful philosophic point. Let us call this personality "the professor." The professor's answer was:

 

"Stephen's revelation is its own best test. Its reasonableness, my dear sir, in the light of earth's already acquired knowledge, is its best proof."

 

Yet something of Stephen's story, as spelled by the ouija­board, I am permitted to tell—its atmosphere, shorn of identifying facts. First came a picture of war's horror, painted with an intimacy one might expect only from an eye-witness. "Millions," the tripod spelled, "have already fallen. And the suffering and the wounds!"

 

Stephen spoke of the dead and the dying and of "those maimed, those who must still exist through years of weariness and discouragement, not knowing that therein lies their great chance."

 

I am not at liberty to state the nature of Stephen's service in the Allied army nor to specify the mission that cost him his life. That mission, as described by the tripod, was one of the greatest danger; it sent him out into the night alone.

 

The tripod spelled: "There was a mist in the air—half mist, half smoke from the battle that had been raging for days up and down the mountain…. A call came…. The dark was of a blackness that could be felt, and it was cold…. I am not ashamed to say that I was afraid…. All day we had been under fire…. I hummed a tune under my breath for company and to keep my courage up. Several shells burst ahead of me…. I went on…. I was singing when the shell that sent me into eternity, as I now know it, hit."

 

The rest of Stephen's story is quoted without omissions:

 

"I went out, out, out, out. I can find no words to tell you the horror of sudden death. It is the one great tragedy. When thought returned, I was as one lost in a familiar yet wholly strange world. Aimlessly I wandered, seeking I knew not what, dazed, mystified. I did not know I was, as you say and as I used to say, dead.