XXIV
THE AFTER-LIFE

 

FOLLOWING Stephen's discussion of degrees, Joan and I stumbled into our typewriter experiment. Though at first the typewriter promised to expedite matters, it quickly became apparent that the pressure of my hands on Joan's temples distressed her. Thereupon it seemed that Stephen did not wish to risk discussion of the next subject, which was to be, he said, rebirth of consciousness. And even when we returned to the ouija-board, Stephen, for some reason or other, continued to talk generally. Perhaps he was awaiting Joan's suggestion that resulted in direct mental communication. Then, with the mental method finally hit upon, the fact that at first I was required to hold Joan's wrists made my continuance of the record impossible; the philosophy was not formally resumed until my hands were freed.

 

This period of delay, however, offered a number of interesting, though digressive, conversations. The talks that follow represent a part of the communications received on the typewriter and during the final days of the ouija-board.

 

"If I should die to-night what would be my first thought on entering the after-life?" I asked.

"Well, in the first place, you would simply come to," Stephen answered. "Your coming-to would be just as natural as awakening from sleep. And doubtless your first thought would be, 'It is all true, just as Stephen told me.'"

 

I asked what I would see first.

 

"Your nurse, of course," Stephen retorted.

“Haven't I told you that some one of us will be on hand to hold your head and persuade you that really the operation is over, and that, after all, it didn't kill you!"

"And what will the nurse look like?" I asked.

"Well," said Stephen, "all consciousness has form. When you come here and your eyes are unsealed, those who meet you will seem quite natural and quite human, as, indeed, we are. In fact, we are more human than you, as you now know yourself, ever dreamed of being. We are humanity intensified many times. Would it be interesting if I were to repeat to you some of the exclamations of one who came to us to-day—a sensitive woman who here is finding plainly visible all that on earth she but vaguely divined?"

 

"Very interesting," I said. Whereupon Stephen continued:

 

"When this woman met and recognized a friend who had graduated some years ago, she said: 'Why, Winifred dear, what a very lovely face!—in form, just such a face as one might see on the earth-plane, but that is all. The coloring is so marvelous. Such wonderful eyes! They are like light. The face shines like a piece of exquisite white Tiffany glass, tinted in the delicate, yet intense pastel shades. It seems as if there were a number of electric lights inside and beaming through. Your face, Winifred, is glorified, ethereal. It is like a thin cloud over the sun. Your body is draped in colors. All the many other persons whom I see are draped in colors, but each is dressed differently. According to their wishes, you say? Oh yes, according to their thoughts—I understand. It is their thoughts that clothe them. It is a beautiful world here. It isn't crowded, though there are all sorts of things—trees and flowers. At first I didn't recognize the trees; they seemed so alive-like, so happy. And through all these things I can see. These beautiful forms—yours, and those of the trees and the flowers, of the birds—are the materiality of the qualitative plane? The whole thing seems to resolve itself down to the intensity of the perceptions. One way you look at the experience earth knows as death, it is simply the releasing of the senses.'"

 

Stephen spoke then in his own character, saying:

 

"The woman was right. Of a fact, death is the freeing of the senses. It releases a man from the encumbering shell of his body. It is, therefore, not the end, but rather the beginning. Earth life is a training-school for graduation and the freedom that graduation brings. And not only is death a releasing of the senses; it is a freeing of the subconscious mind."

 

Stephen's last statement may mean much or little, but for me the words "freedom of the subconscious" contain a wonderful thought. I said so.

 

"I doubt," said Stephen, "if you appreciate how wonderful. It is this way: All you have seen and heard and felt and thought out is as truly in your mind as the thought of which you are at this instant conscious. The psychologist will tell you this is true. Your conscious mind may fail to remember, but your subconscious mind forgets nothing. Think of the marvel of releasing that subconscious mind, of being in instant possession of all of your experience rather than just that trifle which at any given moment you are able by the association of ideas to summon up. All broader theories of education rest on the glimpsed truth of my plane's freedom of the subconscious. In this fact find the reason for the faith that prompts men arduously to master the thousand and one studies they forthwith forget.

 

"When individual consciousnesses come here, their first sensation, that is unusual is their freedom—freedom of perception, of thought, of movement. Graduation is the intensification of earthly consciousness and the granting of freedom to it.

 

"Do not misunderstand. The same degree of freedom is not acquired by all who come. Life here for all is equally free in the sense that each attains opportunity for qualitative development. But even so there are differences in the degrees of development severally achieved. In one degree we have less of understanding and, therefore, in one sense of the word, less of freedom; in a higher degree we win more."

 

"Are you everywhere at once?" Joan asked. "Did I say so?" answered Stephen. "You call, and it is as though I were in a distant city. I get your telegram—the method of transmission is just as material; and I come, without boarding a train."

"And you come in your bodily presence?"

"But surely," Stephen replied. "At this instant I am standing with my hand on your shoulder."

Such a remark a few weeks before would have caused Joan to shrink away. But one gets used to unseen hands, especially when they are unfelt as well. She asked, "How did you get into the room?"

Stephen answered with a question of his own: "Do you know how light penetrates matter? Do you understand transparency?"

"Does one have a home on the qualitative plane?" I asked.

"We have our degrees," answered Stephen, "and our circles within our degrees. A thought, if entertained by two or more, may be to them a home."

"What of families?" Joan asked. "Does one recognize his father as his father?"

"But surely," Stephen replied. "We on the qualitative plane know our earth kin as such. But here again remember that consciousness is a whole. In a final analysis the special relations of parts must be interpreted in the light of their general relation. The family tie is a tie of natural evolution, and it is, of course, worthy. It does not follow, however, that the family tie is a spiritual tie, though members of a given family may be of the same degree and, therefore, united with one another in a sympathy that transcends their mere blood relationship. On the other hand, brother even on earth may not find his closest friend in brother."

"What of sex?" I asked.

"In heaven," said Stephen, "there is neither marriage nor giving in marriage. There is no sex here as you know it. There is in consciousness what an electrician might be tempted to call a negative and positive division. And that division, manifesting itself on earth as sex, runs through the whole of consciousness. Here there is a parallel to what you know as sex, and I am told the parallel reaches even into supremacy. But there is no birth here; birth is a natural phenomenon, serving the development of quantity."

"I suppose," ventured Joan, "rebirth brings the quality of the consciousness of men back to earth as women and that of women back as men."

"I suppose no such thing," answered Stephen. "Would you have the consciousness of Darby other than it is?"

"But," I offered, "how broadening it would be if the individual consciousness might, through rebirth, win both the man's experience and the woman's!"

"If a man truly loves a woman," Stephen replied, "he will develop through her, because of his sympathy for her. The converse also."

"Does a person just graduated attend his own funeral?" I asked.

"Surely I have already indicated to you," answered Stephen, "that we do not let new-comers do that. We take them away from it all. They are still pretty human, pretty close still to the earth consciousness. Sometimes, though, when there is great love, we do let them go back, and, all unsuspected, they comfort those who are left behind. More often the comforter is not the one just gone, but some one else."

"There must be many odd meetings," I said. "For instance, that of the murdered man and his slayer."

"These two need not meet," was the response. "Yet if they choose to, it will be with fuller understanding than either possessed in earth life. There is no evil, only negatives. And here on the qualitative plane there are no negatives in the sense that lack of development in one individual can work harm to another. Forgiveness for injuries done one on earth is easy here where consciousness in development is adequately comprehended."

"Stephen," said Joan, "don't you ever tire? Don't you ever sleep?"

 

"Why should I tire?" he answered. "Why should I sleep? There is no tiring here on the qualitative plane. The soul, quality, never tires. This is true even on your plane. Only your body grows weary."

"But," Joan continued, "you, too, on your own confession, have a material body. Why should my body tire, while yours does not?"

"Occasionally," said Stephen, "the world talks of aurae, sometimes of astral bodies. Whether it will be possible for me to separate the glimpse from the emotional hypotheses involved is doubtful, but I shall try.

"In the first place, I have told you that I have form and that that form is material. It is not, however, correct to compare my form with what you call your body. After all, your natural body only reflects the true form of your consciousness.

"You must, of course, take into account the fact that your body has of itself consciousness quite distinct from your own. In a sense, your body may be said to be a stress point of various cellular forces. It is, as the physiologist puts it, composed of a vast number of cells, independent of one another, yet so related as to constitute a whole. Now, each of these cells has a life of its own, a consciousness of its own. A man's arm may be cut off without in the least affecting his self­awareness.

 

"The fact is that your consciousness on the earth-plane is associated always with degrees of consciousness lower than itself. The lower degrees, the cells of your body, constitute the house in which you live. The form of your own consciousness should not be confused with the form of the bodily cells with which on earth you are associated. Nevertheless, the true form of a man's consciousness is the cast that molds the features of his body."

 

"Then," said I, "a person physically beautiful must also be beautiful of soul?"

 

"Not necessarily," answered Stephen. "A very beautiful flower need have no scent. Your inference is the result of your failing to take account of what I told you about the natural body having of itself consciousness."

 

Joan and I believe that Stephen's thought of a form attribute quite distinct from the natural body is important to his philosophy. Yet the matter is not easy of comprehension. Such a thought does, however, relieve Stephen's philosophy from the necessity of assuming that the soul liberated by death must somehow, somewhere acquire a new body. The truth seems to be that such a soul merely comes into knowledge of its real body, which in earth life is not—whatever it may be—the flesh-and-blood affair of cells that, while they serve man's consciousness, pursue, nonetheless, their own ends.