LETTERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE

October 1916.

 

My Friend,—I cannot do more than greet you, but I should like to say that human experience is a most valuable spiritual training. No one should want to leave the school of life before due time. I see from here how sadly people undervalue this opportunity of education offered by the resistance of matter, and the strength engendered by the force necessary to overcome it.

 

Q. Please tell me who you are?

 

P. Do you not know me? I am P. R., henceforth Philemon. Here that is my true name, and I hope to write much over that signature. This is only a flashlight, as it were, truly from myself, but clothed by another mind functioning through another brain. Yet it is I, and I greet you with fullest love, sympathy, and gratitude. Oh, that I could satisfy heart and brain alike!

 

His will be done!                                                            PHILEMON.

October 1916.

P. I am P.R., Philemon.

 

Q. Did you know how our thoughts were with you those last days, when it was not possible to see you?

 

P. My friend, I know—I know—I knew.

 

Q. Did you consciously come and bid farewell, when your spirit was freed from the body, to some of your friends?

 

P. Yes, I did—that last day of unconsciousness (physical) my spirit was active and knew much that the veil of flesh had hidden. You see, dear friend, freed from the body, yet united with the physical forces, the soul of the dying man has strength, i.e. material energy, that the soul, finally severed from the body, lacks. It is strange that it should be so; and when the silver chain is loosed and the golden bowl is broken, then the soul depends upon the love of those left behind for the ladder of light by which it can descend to the abandoned world of matter.

 

Q. Can you still come wherever that ladder of light exists? P. Yes, I can come, but to whom I cannot say. Q. Are you with your beloved ones where you are now?

 

P. I am with my beloved ones, but in ways difficult to express so as not to convey false impressions; but, believe me, the best you can conceive falls short of the realities of life beyond death. Beyond the spiritual, and transcending it as that transcends the physical, lies the celestial, the abode of the truly blest, those who have attained the Beatific Vision. I will write more fully another time. God bless you and keep you now and ever!

 

November 1916.

 

My Friend,—Let me be simply Philemon.

 

Q. Shall we ask you questions, or will you speak to us—tell us what you will?

 

P. I should like you to ask me questions, for that method focusses thought and so helps us both.

 

Q. Have you seen the Saviour Jesus Christ?

 

P. I have not yet seen—I have sensed with, as you would express it, closed eyes a glory that I dared not yet gaze upon.

 

Q. Are you nearer to Him than on earth?

 

P. I do not feel nearer than I felt at times on earth, but I feel more continuously in His presence. I am at present exclusively dwelling in the soul of the earth—or in the next grade of substance to the earth matter. But it is my choice to do so—otherwise I could not write, as I now am doing, and could not manifest sensibly to earth dwellers.

 

Q. Are you not in close touch with your beloved ones on the Other Side?

 

P. I visit my beloved ones in the spirit-spheres of earth, during seasons of rest, when earthly friends do not seek my presence as you do now.

 

(But I would not draw you back here for anything.)

 

P. But I would not wish to be with these beloved in the spirit­spheres of the earth, except for spells of refreshment.

 

Q. Are they not working with you?

 

P. No; they have their own work which takes them far afield in the heavenly aethers, but in thought—no, rather in spirit—we can be together when we wish.

 

Q. But all this seems vague—misty—unsatisfying.

 

P. This communion is not "vague, misty, unsatisfying"; it is "closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet."

 

Q. But it feels so vague to me.

 

P. The vagueness is in words, in expression, not in facts of experience. In this world where I now find myself, one of the strangest of my discoveries was this. There were spirits here utterly "unprogressed," although they had been "dead," as you count, fifty, in one case nearly one hundred, years. They were holding "views," theological teachings, abandoned when I was a lad. And another wildly perplexing fact was that some "atheists," who had been here only a few years, have become the leaders and teachers even of such as myself.

 

Q. Do we get nearer to each other by passing over?

 

P. The event of death does not bring us nearer, but love is not held in bonds as it is on earth. The only ones cut off from us are those below, unless we seek them. Our beloved can always come down to us, however far they have ascended. The more progressed, the more surely. The nearer to the Godhead, the nearer approach to His qualities and capacities.

 

Q. Have you still sight and hearing as a means of holding intercourse?

 

P. How shall I express it so as not to crush you, my friend! Your sight! It is limited to one octave. My sight takes in two or more. I have not less sight than you except in the sense that I only see the octaves that you do not see, while you see one that I have lost the power to see, except from time to time through a psychic, I have lost one octave and have gained two, and those the more transcendent and more beautiful.

 

Q. Have you flowers, music, where you are?

 

P. Have we heavenly flowers and music? We are flowers, we are music, we are lovelinesses of inconceivable grace and glory. Oh, I cannot express it! You—poor, poor you—poor me, when I was on earth! All these graces, glories, fragrances, splendours, were without. Now they are not even within. I am these things; I am their heart, their essence, yet am I also their bodying forth. Yet I am not a bodiless thing. I have a spiritual body of like substance with the substance of the world in which I now have form and being. I can create your earth forms for your delight. I can—at least, others can: why, then, not I?—reconstitute objects that should convince you of my very self being present with you. But the conditions must be present, and I, alas! am no more and no less a scientist than when on earth. I have to learn. I am most fortunate to be able to write thus. It is really myself, but coloured with the writer's personality (less than with others, perhaps, because she has little hold on her "self," and hence we—we spirits, I mean—can get better opportunity for expressing ourselves than with a more self-centred writer).

 

Q. How did you know when and where to come?

 

P. Your love and longing drew me with their eloquent entreaty, and I benefit, because through this communion I am able, as it were, to take stock of this borderland realm, and plumb the depths of the gulf that separates the quick and the dead. I use the old words.

 

Q. Can you come and speak with me through the medium, Mrs. S——?

 

P. I cannot know what will happen until we try to get results together.

 

Q. Do you remember hearing of the person to whom I refer?

 

P. I cannot say I do. Do you know that I am, as it were, but semi­conscious while communicating thus? It is one of the reasons of fragmentary communications.

"As, when they fall in trances, men

Forget the things that happened then Until they fall in trance again: So might we, if our state were such,

As one before remember much

When those two likes should meet and touch."

 

Q. Do you remember R. B., whom you helped so much as he was going over? Have you seen him yet?

 

P. Do not mistake me. Memory is persistent. Its transmission is intermittent, and only fragments of what we remember come through any medium. I have not seen R. B.,* as yet. I sent him flowers and a greeting, but I did not see him. He was met by friends of his own. His grandparents met him. He will see me when the time comes. He is getting well and reconciled. He is in more beautiful surroundings than I am. His broken spirit could not stand the strain of near-earth conditions as my mature and vigorous one can. For R.'s inner spirit was rebellious and bitter that a young life like his should have been cut off without visible, tangible reason. And when a soul is sleeping it needs, not busy, over-occupied presences—only kindly watchers. And when R. is able to truly appreciate and enjoy my presence he will be accorded that happiness. Do you now see more clearly what appears strange?

 

Q. Can the dying take messages?

 

P. I feel sure—I do not know, but I feel sure—that the dying can carry messages entrusted to them to those in the beyond; although it may be aeons before one can trace the intended recipient.

 

Q. But how terrible to wait aeons

 

P. Dear friend, this world does not confer omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence. Alas! these "terrible" things are "truths." You would not have me say otherwise. Now, do not try to understand. Just know this. Your beloved does not need extraneous help or messengers, human or angelic, to transmit your heart-throbs of love and affection. I gave you only a general answer to a general question.

 

Suppose that you were endeavouring to carry out a vital reform, very near the heart of someone you loved when on earth: do you not realise he or she would—nay, must—seek for its fulfilment through their truest and dearest earthly representatives? So reforms are carried on and carried through, long after the reformer has ceased to be visibly present in the scene of his former activities, and so the union between those who love truly grows ever closer and closer. On this side, when I met my beloved wife, I became herself—she was transformed into me. All that she knew and felt became the content of my consciousness. All that I had attempted and achieved, all that I had failed to accomplish, yet battled and struggled to complete, was known to her as no words, no thoughts even, as earth uses the terms, could have conveyed. We were one, yet individually our own very separate selves, knowing as we were known, to the full extent of each other's capacity. Capacity is the only limitation in the spiritual realms.

 

Souls at different levels of spiritual consciousness and celestial attainment meet on the ground common to both: love for each other, love for God, love for Christ, for angels, or even—smile not, but I have known truculent souls at enmity during earth-life meet in loving sympathy through mutual affection for a well-loved bird or faithful dog.

 

Q. Have you met your little canine friend Khaki?

 

P. Khaki was—how can I say it?—her herald. I knew she was coming when Khaki appeared. I mean just what I say. "Ye gods and little fishes!" Tell it not in Gath! I saw Khaki before I saw her!

 

Q. Has Khaki's character improved?

 

P. Khaki is an imp! Khaki is as unheavenly as he can well be, although I tell him that he is in Beulah land. Khaki will never become angelic; he will never, I fear, become human in the sense of feeling conviction of sin—never, never! He is hopelessly self­righteous!

 

Q. Is he subject to the law of evolution?

 

P. I see no sign of evolution in Khaki. He snaps and barks and swears ferociously. He will have none of other spirit-doggies, and I verily believe such as he survive through the fostering love of their human friends, who would not be "in heaven" lacking the affection of canine and other animal friends.

 

Q. Have dogs and horses a future of progress independent of human friends?

 

P. I should like to be able to assert that these beautiful embodiments of affection and less amiable qualities have an independent, permanent future of progress. But I do not possess evidence on this most interesting point. I will inquire, and, should denizens of other "mansions" or conditions in our Father's House visit me, I will endeavour to inform myself as to the state of animal existence in those "spheres"—a bad word, like "plane," that has passed into the vernacular.

 

Q. Are wings symbolic language only?

 

P. The language of symbol is a universal language in the inner realms, just as pictorial art is universally comprehended on earth. A dog name is different in word, but his form is known wherever it may be seen. Wings are actual as well as symbolic. They are appendages that supplement spiritual faculties, that belong to some orders of angelic beings and not to others. Our Lord has no wings. He does not need them. I have wings if I wish to have them, but can do without when my spiritual powers are fresh and full; for in this borderland world where I elect to stay, one needs refreshment and rest. The war holds me to earth no less than affectionate interest in those who desire to learn how it is with me, and how fare the great armies of the 64 slain in battle."

 

Q. Are you taking part in the war?

 

P. I hear about this great spiritual conflict; I do not see or take part in it as I thought I should. I use my "wings" to become a "Christmas-card angel" to a dying youth who would be surprised at seeing only a man like his old Rector when he "died." And I leave aside my wings when a swearing, cursing, valiant atheist is thrust into the unseen. The "wings" would be regarded as "darned flummery." So I assume a sober clerical garb and mien—I am giving you a fact of experience,—and my atheist says, "I always said parsons would find themselves in the hottest part of hell, and here if the first person I see is not a 'holy Joe'! Old chap, I am sorry for you, and I'm real grieved to see a decent old gent like you here." We became friends, and that man will race me, and perhaps outrun me, in the spiritual contest. Oh, my dear friend! we bring such weird, unreal, unnatural conceptions of spiritual verities and states into this world! And we must drop them all, we must clarify the windows of our souls to let in the truth.

 

Q. Can you see how the war is going? Will it be a draw?

 

P. The war is going very badly, and Roumania will suffer severely, but it will not be "a draw." We shall triumph—the tide has turned; but there will be many a backwash, and Roumania is one such.

 

There is a prophecy which I have heard here and before I came over, to the effect that the Jews have to get back to Palestine—the religious Jews,—but not till that part of the world is linked with the rest by rail. And only the Germans have the means and the energy to build that Bagdad railway. They have pierced the tunnel in the Taurus Mountains, and will be allowed to succeed until the line is nearly complete. Then the Allies will use that line for the Teutons' destruction. So runs the prophecy.

 

Q. Can you see how long it will go on?

 

P. Time is not as with you. Events make time. The tide will definitely turn, I believe, with the taking of the Asiatic end of the Berlin-Baudad line by the Allies. I wish when F. R. S. writes on India she would put in a word for the Indian troops. These will help us there, and, properly officered, can be trusted.

 

Q. Do you see this war as the prophesied Armageddon?

 

P. No. I see this war as a natural culmination of natural factors. From where I am I see that the Lord is doing His best to bring good out of evil, but that, given freewill, He had to take the risk of its outcome. The causes are spiritual, but confined to the spiritual effects of man's wilful and unwitting disobedience to, and ignorance of, the things that make for his peace. Look, my friend, how small a matter may kindle a great fire!

 

He that is guilty in one point has broken the whole law. How hard! how unjust! But here is the mathematical proof of that truth. If two lines, intended to be parallel, deviate from the true parallel by one-thousandth part of an inch, they will never run parallel to all eternity—they will diverge or converge. Mankind, on this planet, has diverged from the rectitude of the moral and the righteousness of the spiritual law. This world conflict is the result. Armageddon is a spiritual conflict waged in the spiritual realms, and is apart from this world's happenings. But sages and seers who are semi-conscious or fully conscious of these spiritual conditions bring back recollections which they translate into earth terms. Now I go. God be with you now and evermore!

PHILEMON.

 

 

December 1916.

P. I am Philemon.

 

Q. Does thinking of an ascended friend bring that friend to the thinker 9

 

P. Yes; also the presence of the spirit causes the friend to think of him or her.

 

Q. Will you tell us more, or shall we ask you questions?

 

P. Question me; remember, it focusses my thought as well as yours.

 

Q. Have you lost touch with C.? He says that at one time you were great friends. I know how he valued your friendship.

 

P. We have not lost touch so much as appears, because we meet during sleep, and he comes here now, during sleep, and we—that is, my circle and his circle, in the unseen—exchange thoughts and manifestations of sympathy and affection. But the physical brain is somewhat fragile, and, though good for much useful work along accustomed channels, must not be taxed to record experiences that can wait for recognition.

 

Q. Can you tell me anything of the spiritual condition of our friend E. L., who recently passed over?

 

P. The mentality is somewhat obscured—not yet clear; but do not let this distress you. His development will go on naturally and slowly. He will achieve much, later on, but not yet.

 

Q. Is he happy?

 

P. He is not happy, but merely resigned to the inevitable. Happiness is not possible to all immediately. All that can be done is being done.

 

Q. Is he working?

 

P. He is not doing anything yet. He is still an invalid, and still cast-iron-bound in prejudice and prepossessions, and these must be dissolved away by the solvent of spiritual and mental affections, and even afflictions, in order to free the spirit from the self­imposed restrictions. Imagine a Chinese woman's artificially bound foot, and you have some notion of what a man can do with his soul-vehicle—not his soul.

 

Q. How do you see all this clearly?

 

P. I know through you, because your soul has gone after him into Omar Khayyam's Invisible, and what your brain has not received your whole being knows. I read this, as a medium would say, in your aura, and along those lines I have been able to get into touch with those who have charge of such cases. Your soul simply gave, as it were, the number of the ward in which inquiry should be made. Thoughts of sympathy help us as tapers in the dark to find a way to those in need. That is the rationale of prayer.

 

Q. Can F. M. help this friend as he would wish to do, I know?

 

P. F. M. will send a helper if he go not himself. Your friend could not fail to receive a thought from F. M. or yourself, but it might not be expedient for him to leave a more urgent duty, though he would not neglect to attend to such a call.

 

One reason why messages are withheld is that relatives cannot bear the truth. I have given you the true spiritual conditions. He is not yet a free creature in Christ, but you can make him happier by rejoicing that his self-forged chains are falling away. It is because he has become aware of his limitations that he is unhappy. His case is one of transcendent value and interest to both worlds; for when the gyves that manacle him are riven asunder, he will be as powerful for freedom as he was determined in restricting activities that did not appeal to the intellect. I grieve beyond measure that I have to pain you on this account, but you are of those who can bear the truth. He will eventually help in this great struggle for freedom better here than on earth with his former limitations. Mental fetters can be cast as we grow, but soul and spirit fetters continue into, and through, the unseen.

 

Q. Is he helped by our prayers?

 

P. Such prayers ere they are uttered are heard and answered. God bless us and keep us now and evermore    PHILEMON.

 

 

January 1917.

Philemon greets you.

 

Q. Will you tell us what you have learned re the vexed question of reincarnation?

 

P. I am beginning to think that there may be truth in a wild idea, as I then thought it, which W. T. Stead told me: that the ego—the spirit was as the hub of a wheel, and that our varying personalities are the earth-clothing of rays from the central self—the "Higher Self" of the Theosophist. I have no remembrance of former lives, distinct and definite. It seems to me, and I like to feel, I came direct from the Central Glory to earth, and by reason of that fact could retain some of the pristine clarity of vision impossible to those who came upwards to earth. You remember that great spirit—all true poets are great—and erring mortal, Byron, said:

 

"Methinks we must have sinned in some old world, And this is hell."

 

To you, my dear friend, this world is not a heaven, not the "best of all possible worlds," as I heard you say just recently. Nor was it to me. Now, this may be because we have both come from a premundane, spiritual sphere, of which I, at least, retain no memories.

 

The finite intellect of man, the feeble intelligence of mankind, needs some such hypothesis to make life-conditions bearable.

 

I have no further recollections on this subject, no further light than when on earth—for a very good reason. I am still with my face turned earthwards, still living the life of a man with men, save that I have no longer the physical instrument. I meet them, as Tennyson said, "spirit to spirit," and what I gain through that direct interchange I lose, to some extent, in surface values. But it is necessary for my evolution that it should be so, because I wish to leave no lesson of earth-life unlearned, so that I need not fear rebirth in the flesh. I have never denied even its probability, still less its possibility. I rebelled against it. It is a deep-rooted antagonism in my very being, and that you must take into consideration when I express my views on this matter.

 

Now, I see quite clearly that it is not, if true, an inevitable necessity, an essential means of soul-growth, because that which I am at present is supplementing my deficiencies, rounding off my angles, removing my mental and spiritual accretions; and when that process of purification and upbuilding of character is complete, why be born again on a planet, in a body, where you cannot progress from perfection to perfection?

 

Q. Will you explain what you mean by from perfection to perfection"?

 

P. I advisedly used the term "from perfection to perfection," because, remember, the limitations of the physical permit only of certain types and degrees of perfection, and in order to transcend those degrees and types one must leave behind the limitations imposed by the corporeal frame. There are great ones who willingly assume such restrictions, for definite, specific purposes. Of this I have no doubt, but that fact does not constitute a general law for the evolution of human life and character.

 

Q. Was Christ only one of these high spirits, who came to this earth to show us the way to the Father—the same as ourselves in essence, though not in degree? Or was He something quite different—the Saviour of the world in a quite other sense, as the Bible in the main teaches?

 

P. My answer is Nay and Yea. It is useless to attempt to get an unadulterated statement through, though the fact that the "scribe" has no settled convictions makes it one of the best opportunities for expression that is available.

 

I have now seen Him, and dare not after that say we differ, He and myself, only in degree. Yet my mind still clings to the Elder Brother theory, the first-born of the Sons of God.