Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Anterior: XVI – Conclusão do Curso Acadêmico Seguinte: XVIII – Conversações com o Gênio

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CHAPTER XVII

AMONG THE ASTRALS

ON our return to England, Mary went home accompanied by her Swiss maid, who had been with her the latter part of her stay in Paris, and who, with her sister, were to form her projected household in London. I remained in town, partly to seek for a house suitable for the work before us, and partly because we deemed a temporary separation advisable in view of the renovation needed before entering on the next stage of our collaboration. The design was to take a small house in the West End, where Mary would follow her profession, and where we should deliver the “parlour addresses” intimated to us through “Swedenborg,” as the best means to the promulgation in the first instance of the teaching we had received. The difficulty of finding a residence which met our manifold requirements and came within the means at our disposal was very great, and we finally decided upon No. 11 Chapel Street, since called Aldford Street, in Park Lane. Of the lease of this house there remained unexpired a term of twenty-one months, which was accordingly secured, though it necessitated another move within two years. But the choice was so restricted that it was that house or none; and serious as would be the inconvenience and the outlay involved in the arrangement, it had long since been made too clear to us that our work was only to be accomplished at the maximum cost of toil, suffering, and money for us to be deterred by such considerations.

Meanwhile I entered upon a course of experiences so singular in themselves, and, as the event proved, so valuable for the instruction of which they were made the occasion, as to necessitate a lengthened account of them, which I will re-write in narrative form from my Diary.

“Physically my state continued to be one of intense distress, owing to the derangement of the circulation. A course of electric

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hot baths only aggravated the trouble, by yet further lowering the heart’s action. At length, despairing of benefit from orthodox methods, I sought advice of a person strongly commended to me for her faculty of clairvoyant diagnosis and her power as a magnetic healer. This was a Mrs. B., an American, who was living in the Marylebone Road. On calling on her without an appointment, I had resolved to let the chance of my finding her at home decide whether or not I would see her, and if not, not to go again. This resolve was overruled. She was out. But the door-knocker was a figure of Hermes, and remembering that not only was he our chief illuminator, but had actually presented himself to Mary in the guise of a letter-carrier, I was so struck by the coincidence that I accepted it as a propitious augury, and determined to call again. This I did on October 9, taking my usual precaution by giving no name, though aware that, having lately come from residing, one of us in France and the other in America, I must be as unknown to her as she to me. I found her a person of middle age, excellent physique, a good nature, and admirable common-sense, but quite illiterate. She had a gift, she said, of sensing people’s maladies, but did not pretend to explain it. All she knew was, that when in contact with them, as by touching the hand when in her trance-state, she felt in herself whatever they were suffering from, and was often able to prescribe the right remedy. Observing my usual reticence, I told her nothing of my symptoms, but was no sooner put en rapport with her than she described them exactly, as well as the cause of them, and declared with great emphasis that she did not believe there was another person in the world who could have stood the strain to which I had been subjected without utterly breaking down, and that I should break down yet if the strain was continued. If only as a piece of thought-reading this was wonderfully accurate. But she spoke with a decision which seemed to indicate direct, positive perception. I had been depleted, she continued, of my magnetic force, and the only cure was by being magnetised by some strong healthy person. She would do her best if I would let her try. The process consisted simply in joining hands and allowing the current of her magnetism to circulate through my system. Whether or not I should have consented to the proposal I cannot say; for while I was pondering it she suddenly passed into another phase of lucidity, and exclaimed that she was in a country just like the Bible-pictures of the East, and saw an old man, like the Bible-pictures of Moses, writing on a tombstone which he held in his arms; and then, in a state of much excitement at having so eminent and unlooked-for a visitor, she asked him bluntly how he managed the miracles he performed before Pharaoh. His reply, which she repeated to me, was that he was a mightier magician than the others because he had a stronger will. It was all will-power. Given a high purpose and a strong will, and you can lead people. He wanted, he said, to speak to me. I was carrying on his work and needed his help, and not only his. My work was the continuation of his and of many others’, including Jesus, and they all were associated to join in it. But this medium could not speak for him; she had not enough knowledge. He would, therefore, displace her and enter her body and speak to me himself. This, after a short colloquy with her, he did, the medium exclaiming that she bad

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‘never before had so high and holy-like a control.’ Her voice was then succeeded by that of a man, who exclaimed, with groans – “‘What a world! What a society is this! My people were never as this people – never! They had not nearly so much need of redemption. Society now is a Sodom and Gomorrah.’ He then took his departure, saying he would return another time.

“This was a new phase of mediumship to me, and I determined to study it. The medium herself was obviously genuine; the most accomplished actor could not have so completely changed his personality. But not so the entity controlling her; play his part as well as he might, there was in his atmosphere and tone that which repelled me. He was a ‘bogus’ spirit, I was certain; but of what order? This would be well worth finding out for our own sake and that of others. The discovery might be the means of saving and redeeming Spiritualism. And after the training and teaching I had received, I was in no fear of being taken in. Thus thinking, I determined to follow up the experience, and made arrangements with the medium accordingly. Her calling the table of the Law a tombstone was inimitable. I knew so well the class of illustration which had suggested it.

“On the 12th I went again. ‘Moses’ at once presented himself, and, taking control of the medium, repeated his denunciation of modern society, adjuring me to quit this dark and evil land for one new and pure from contamination. ‘Here,’ he declared to me, ‘in a short time the earth will be strewn with the dead, who will lie festering about, for the living will be too few to bury them. Or, if you will remain and work here, it must be by the aid of a chosen band who will guard and cherish you. You cannot be all alone, dual though you are, with Miriam allied to you. But each of your band must be the same; each, by being both man and woman, must represent the Two-in-One, whose kingdom you preach.’

“This recalled to my mind the Harris-Oliphant doctrine, and gave me a hope that I might be on a track which would solve the secret of its source. The allusion to Miriam as allied to me was most singular. For there was so much in common between Mary and Miriam in respect of gifts, characteristics, and liabilities physical, mental, and psychical, as often to suggest to me the possibility of her being a reincarnation of Miriam. And I had even mentioned to her, so lately as during our recent stay at Boulogne, certain points of resemblance, foremost among which were her gift of prophecy; the vivacity of temperament which impelled her to sing and dance in the procession of triumph over Pharaoh; the independence of character which led her to join Aaron in the revolt against Moses, and rebuke him for his marriage to an Ethiopian; and her being smitten with an illness which compelled her to go into seclusion, which had its correspondence in Mary’s constitutional ill-health. Although we were in course of learning to regard the whole of this history as a spiritual allegory, these coincidences were none the less remarkable, and such as to suggest a certain element of actual personality as contained in them. The control continued: – ‘I, Moses, had the same doctrine. All that you had, all that Christ had, was first mine, and I had it from those who were long before me. It is the one doctrine of all times and all religions. But a

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break came in my work, and I could not complete it. Christ added to it, but between Him and me was a gap which has never been filled up. You have to teach the world the connection between Christ and Moses. You have already done something of this by my help and control, though you knew it not. You will never know when I am controlling you. For between us the harmony is so perfect that the difference is undiscernible. When I take possession of you, you are not different, but more; so much are we at one. It is not so with Miriam, my sister. She has a struggle to get possession of the body she controls. The spirit in her is not completely at one with her. The opposition you find is not that of Miriam. She is one with you as I am one with you, and you are altogether harmonious with her. Your trouble is with the original tenant of the organism. I was as another self to the Christ Jesus. Miriam tended Him in the manger as she tended me in the bulrushes. I lived with Him and died with Him; and as He suffered on the Cross, so did I suffer, so close were we in spirit. Not identical, but as grafts upon the same tree, sharing the same sap and yielding the same fruits. And you are a graft upon us. Ah! For neither of us was the real crucifixion that of the body. It was the disappointment through the world’s rejection and our consequent failure. For we knew not then all that was intended, but worked in expectation of full success. That which you have to do is to carry out what we began. But first of all you have to fill up the gap and restore the connection between Christ and me. Only when the world can connect us can it carry the work higher. You are as the mortar or cement which is to hold the building together.’

“Still convinced of the spuriousness of this ‘Moses,’ and yet recognising a good deal of what he said as true, I found myself wondering chiefly what the precise error would turn out to be which required the admixture of so much truth to make it go down with me. And I was not a little struck by the coincidence when, in one of the readings I was then having at the British Museum, I found that Philo Judaeus, the famous Alexandrian Mystic, who was a contemporary of Jesus, claimed to have been initiated by the spirit of Moses. Seeing that, so far from repudiating the Jewish sacrificial system, as we had been taught to do, Philo’s teachings rather accepted and reinforced it, the effect of this discovery was not such as to minister either to my respect for Philo or to my confidence in the alleged source of his inspiration. Philo’s doctrine of the Logos, moreover, was entirely lacking the luminousness of the exposition given to us respecting the generation of the Adonai, and read to me rather as a travesty of it, being made as unintelligible as its sacerdotal counterpart by the omission from the Godhead of the feminine principle of substance.

“October 13. – Mrs. B. went at once under control on my arrival to-day, first uttering only these words, from which I gathered that she had already received the orders of ‘the band’ – ‘I am to go out of my body and let them come into it. O God, be it from Thee, and Thee alone, whatever is uttered this night.’’ Moses ‘then took possession of her and spoke as follows: ‘O this world, this world l how deep it has sunk! Low as were my people, they had no such need of redemption as these. I have come to speak to you myself.

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What man and woman are to each other, that are the Sun and the soul. For full illumination each must shine on the other. God is the spiritual Sun, without whom the soul is dark. I told my people that they must worship both; and I led them on from day to day, seeking to inspire them more and more with the love of the Divine Duality, of which the human is but the external manifestation. But I failed to make them see that it all exists within themselves. And so they worshipped God as a Being outside and external to themselves. This was because I myself failed to see the truth as I now see it. God has now given me the power so to see it as to be able to inspire others with it, and you have it through me. Only when God has revealed Himself to anyone can that one reveal God to others. My Rod was the token of God’s power in me. It was the symbol of the Divine Will – that whereby I worked miracles.

“‘The society of your day talks with contempt of the heathen. But the heathen had not lost their spiritual sense. They were teachable; and those of this day are almost inaccessible, so sunk are they in the darkness of the body. Few, if any, of my people were so low sunk in spiritual darkness as most are now; yet even they needed teaching concerning the great truth of the soul. My brother Aaron was of this world. He worshipped gold. I blamed him, and was angry; but he knew no better. He quite failed to comprehend the doctrine that man has God in himself, and can develop himself into a God. He loved gold, and had no difficulty in finding worshippers for that; for few are they in all times who do not adore the golden calf. Since then people have gone on materialising themselves. And even were they to see a table of stone written on with unseen hands, they would not believe. They are farther from God, and more has to be done to redeem them, than ever before. And this though Christ has been. So that in Him the tree can be said to have blossomed only, not to have borne fruit. Between my time and His the growth was stopped; so that, in order to repair what is deficient, there must be a fresh growth of the stem itself of the tree, and this means a fresh earthquake and trembling of the world, in order to startle its people into a new life.

“‘Of the destined temple of Humanity I was as the foundation, and Christ the roof. The two were never properly connected, and the walls which should connect them have yet to be built up. The work is immense, but it will be accomplished. Each one whom you can get to recognise this temple in himself will help to build up the whole. Truth comes from the soul, and is known by its fruit. People will recognise and set store by it when they see it. Never did the world need it as now.

“‘An essential element in man’s progress is woman. This is true whether of the individual or of the race. As Moses I had my counterpart, my spiritual other half, the moon to my sun. To the deep spiritual thoughts given to me she added her light airy nature, added ornament and beauty, and with her keen sensitiveness could detect at any distance and reflect to me truths which, but for her, I might have failed to recognise.

“‘It will be given to you to kindle up fires in a great many bodies that you little know of; and when you think you are doing least, you of times will be doing most. And when people least suspect it,

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they will be most amenable to your influence; for when unsuspicious the mind is least antagonistic. Do not seek to gain access to them only through the mind. Light up their souls with enthusiasm, and their minds will ignite also. The smallest spark from you may kindle great fires when the soul is prepared to ignite. It was not through the reason but through the soul that we got at our people. You in your day do too much by writing, and you lose the magnetism of eye and voice which we found so effective. Remember that you have to furnish the mortar to build the walls of the temple, to connect the groundwork, Moses, with the roof, Christ. I go now.’

“Here a new influence took possession of the medium, and a fresh voice spake, saying, ‘I am Dr. Benjamin Franklin. I am the last link of the chain between Moses and you. I have controlled this woman for nearly twenty-five years, and have to forbid the subject being told who has spoken, or what has been spoken through her. I know her well, and this injunction is necessary. Her intellectual organs are, as it were, paralysed; their operation is suspended, and we use her vocal organs only. Were she to know, her curiosity would be excited, and her will would operate to interfere with our expression of the truth to you. Only by remaining ignorant can she be sufficiently passive for the work. The next to come to you will be Miriam. She has all gifts and graces, and will bring things of beauty and joy. I am happy to be a fellow-worker. For the present continue your treatment. You are regaining your lost health. You will recover all your power and more; for we shall add ours to it. Resume, then, your work in hope and courage.’

“The medium now returned to herself, and seemed to be wholly unaware of what had passed. On my asking her who were her usual controls, she said that for a long time – about twenty-three years – only one spirit besides her own had controlled her, and this was Dr. Benjamin Franklin. She was uneasy as to what she might have been made to say, but was reassured on hearing it was all ‘pious talk,’ and turned on the Bible.

“October 14. – On becoming entranced, the medium, after speaking a few words in her own person, said, ‘I see “Miriam” written up. I am to go out of myself and let her speak.’ Another voice then said –

“‘People have never sufficiently considered the character or nature of Moses and the material he was made of. God knew him – knew him and loved him. For he had that in him which was of so fine and pure a nature that God could both speak with him and act through him. His vitality in every part of his being was so intense that he could impart life to a stick. He was at once shrewd and simple, honest and clever; and for sense, wisdom, and self-control was without a parallel. Christ, though excelling him in some things, was not his equal in these. The very ground on which Moses stood caught the influence from him and underwent a change. Its vegetation was richer. And so with all the elements about him. Christ turned water into wine. Moses showed yet greater power, for he turned water into blood, a superior element to wine. Red denotes power, and blood is the mightiest of fluids. A man with good rich wholesome blood is alone a true man with strong, unyielding soul. For soul is fed from the essence of the blood; so that in one sense

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the blood is the life of the soul. Only let it be pure. That is why Moses pleaded so for blood and purity. He knew by himself. He would have all men like himself.

“‘We see in Moses the first foundation of the temple of a perfect Humanity. He was not so much a teacher as a worker. Jesus was a teacher only. The trunk of the Tree of Life has all to be set up. Sad, indeed, it is to see how the world has receded into the darkness. For it is now as it was before God said, “Let there be light.” Happily for the world He has said it again. And there shall be light, because He has said it. And it is already dawning.

“‘Men have been toiling to make the earth after the human body. They have imparted various faculties to it like those of man. Like themselves, it has now a system of wire-nerves to carry its current of thought. But the soul has been allowed to sink out of sight. Truth has been forgotten. Only the material ends of the body have been considered. But the soul that shall animate and speak through the world’s new faculties is about once more to rise, and to shine as it never yet has done. The day of deception and falsehood is passing. For the day is coming when men will no longer need to look in each other’s faces to see if they speak truly; for they will be able to read the soul itself. Spiritualism will lead to the light, even though some of its agents be fraudulent.

“‘Women in Moses’ time were not thought much of or made of much account. Moses could not own the source of much of his light. But he got it by blending with woman. I, Miriam, was to him a looking-glass in which he beheld himself, and I encouraged and strengthened him, too. And when he was sad, as he sometimes was, and disposed to regret his enterprise as hopeless, he found solace from Miriam. His wife was of no use to him in that respect. She was like the women of her time. Nothing was expected or required of them. The men usurped and took everything, and the women were altogether dependent. And Moses’ wife could not fill his nature. She was but a housewife and mother of his children. It was to Miriam that he looked in all higher respects.

“‘The smiting of the Rock is still to him a bitter memory. Even now he broods over it with regret, wishing to have the time over again, that he might act differently. He failed from that time; for he never felt well after it. Completely one with God in heart, he had let self obtrude, to the work’s failure. Oh, what power God gives to man when the man sinks himself and becomes but a machine run by God alone! That which Moses would have done, and yet more, will yet be done by some meek, true, pure spirit. Moses is waiting for just such an instrument to do more than he could accomplish of old. When such an one comes the world will know indeed what Christ is. The darkness is fast growing so dense that men will be eager for light. When densest, the light will be at hand. I go now. Another waits to step in.’

“Here followed, in a fresh voice, some verses descriptive of a tempest which should startle and terrify men into seeking for light. They did not strike me as worth noting down.

“October 16. – The medium, being entranced, but speaking in her own person, said, ‘She who is attached to you in your work is not long for this world. Her body never was strong, and it is the subject

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of contention between two spirits which cannot abide one another. Her own original spirit is fretful and discontented, making the misery of herself and others. And it refuses to yield to the spirit which seeks to take its place and control her altogether. Oh, what a lovely, noble spirit this one is! Your trouble is not with it; it loves and honours you truly, and would always be present with you, to inspire you with all it knows, could it have undisturbed possession of her body. But the two can never agree, any more than two women can be mistress in the same house. Not only will she not live long, the controlling spirit will quit her soon and come to you through some other channel. I am to go out of myself.’

[“It must be remembered that no word had escaped me respecting Mary, or my having a colleague of any kind, or about my work.]

“Here a new voice exclaimed, speaking through the medium: ‘All the light and truth which have been in the past shall be again in the future, and yet more of them. The truth shall arouse and attract the people; for the light shall disclose to them their own condition, to their horror. As the witch of Endor convinced the king, so shall Spiritualism convince the world; and as the necessity for new light is greater than ever before, so shall the light itself exceed all that has before been given.

“‘Moses was not intended or allowed to do a finished work, much as he desired it. For the world was not yet ripe and could not receive it. So a veil was let fall to keep back the truth until people were competent to appreciate it. Only when mind is developed does there cease to be mystery.

“‘As God was within Christ, so Moses is within yourself, returned to finish his work. And he will bring Aaron, who so loved gold, that gold may work with you. It is true I had much trouble with Aaron on that account. He was so commercially minded. He had no difficulty in getting people to follow him when he set up the Golden Calf. But there are people who value truth above gold, and who will not spare their gold. The results will come soon, and in a way you do not anticipate. You have planned a number of ways to bring the truth before the world. They who are standing by and guiding you will see which way is best. Moses recommends lectures. After you have spoken the people will buy your books. Speak sparingly, he says, in your lectures, giving outlines, but more fully in your writings – principles in the one, details in the other. But mind, that which you teach will not be “Spiritualism,” but the relations between God and the soul of man; not about individual spirits, but Spirituality itself. Only when you have supplied the missing link between Christ and Moses will the world understand Christ. When it knows Christ it will know God. That is the “Spiritualism” you have to teach. You will begin to think soon about starting to give a lecture. You have not thought of it yet, but the idea will soon be impressed upon you so strongly that you must do it. It will come to you where to give it. All will be made clear when the time comes. Build up your physical strength and get into good trim as fast as you can. All will be ready when you are ready. It will be a man who is to lecture, not a woman. Women may minister, as they did to Christ; but a man must lead and manage and speak.

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“‘A spirit approaches who has been much with you, who is always with you, and who loves you well, and has watched and seen you all through. She speaks eagerly and tenderly, and says you will never have to suffer again as you have suffered. You have suffered what only you could have borne, and more than you ever would acknowledge to human beings. But she knows it all, for she has been with you in it all, and has suffered with you. She would have prevented it, but was not allowed. And now that it is over, or nearly so, she knows it was all for your good, and that it has made you know God and know yourself. You know now who and what you are, and what you are capable of, and have it in you to be and to do. You can trust yourself because you have been tried. She will come and fan your brow and soothe your tired brain and refresh you in sleep. In her you will indeed have a woman with you in your work.’

“October 17. – On the medium becoming entranced, she was spoken through by a voice, slow, solemn, and grave almost to sadness, which soliloquised as follows: –

“‘I am looking at my own tomb. I have drunk again the vinegar and the gall. Man does not and cannot know how near those who have suffered most are in sympathy with him. He who was crucified is nearest in all men’s trials, because He has felt all that they have felt or can feel. Of woman Christ came in the past, and of woman He will come again in the future. For the woman is ever that which feels. (...) I cannot speak yet. I am looking at my own tomb, looking back at all I myself suffered and underwent. I am glad you have come; for without your aid I could not have manifested myself through this woman. When my body was laid in the tomb people little thought that the spirit had left it. They worshipped it, believing it to be still tenanted by me. But it was not so. I had indeed left it, and I took it up again. As I used my body, so I use this woman. She is but as a body which I use and speak through and then lay down.

“‘Great as were the miracles done through me, greater ones will be done in a very short time from now. Men will have mightier demonstrations than ever of God’s power, and such that they will be forced to believe in miracles. As the Spirit used my body to work its will, so will it use others. Paul might have worked miracles no less than mine, for he had a grand spirit of his own. But he was so positive and self-opinionated, so eager to do, instead of being done through, that the Divine Spirit could not properly control him. His body was too strong for his own spirit. He could not sink self sufficiently for God to speak through him.

“‘I am looking at the Garden of Gethsemane. I see myself there alone, in solitude such as no other man before or since has felt. For it seemed to me as if the spirits of God and of man alike had deserted me. Such was my suffering then. But on looking back and seeing how that which I suffered has served to bring out the faith and love of mankind, I see how useful it was. It helped to save others.

“‘How mighty is the Spirit! I was nothing – nothing more than this woman. All was done through me, nothing by me. I was medium for God as she is for me. Let no one despise the medium. The mightiest of men who trusts to himself and works in his own power is nothing to the medium in whom God operates.

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“‘I feel connected with you, linked to you in some way – you, the man to whom I am talking – linked so that I am in some way bound to you to be one with you. I shall work yet other miracles through you. This woman, too, shall work miracles, and even, as it were, raise the dead.

“‘They think that I am in heaven with the Father, and they pray to me as One far away. No, I am here – here where I am wanted more than ever. And here I shall remain to help to complete the work which was mine and is yours. I find myself glancing back at my history, and delight to recall the love and heed I had from the women who tended me – Martha and Mary and the rest. Why should not I come? Moses and Aaron have come, and the work is mine as well as theirs. Again must I stop speaking and look over my past. For it is the first time I have found a body to speak through.

“‘I know not how I turned the water into wine. Perhaps it was by re-collecting the fumes from that which had already been drunk, and of which the air was full. How the drinkers found it better than the other I know not. God, not I, worked the miracle. When Mary spoke, I knew nothing of what was meant or what would happen. I was not her child, except only in body. In spirit we were strangers.

“‘My spirit had passed through many hundred organisms before it came to the one which was called the Saviour, the one which was crucified. It was one and the same spirit who passed through all those forms. The same spirit that controlled Moses controlled Christ. It was called Moses and Christ accordingly by the world. It now controls you, and you must give it another name according to the body it is using. What shall the name be? Cast about in your mind for one. I will go away, and return when you have had time to think about it.

[After a pause.] “‘My Father is well pleased with you to-day. Thy faith is great, and great will be thy work. Fear not; all the power shall be given thee by my Father. It is through thy thoughts that thou hast brought down those who are about thee. They will help you to demonstrate and promulgate the great truth which the children of earth so greatly need.’

[“If I had wanted a crucial proof of the ‘bogus’ character of my visitants, there could hardly have been a stronger one than was afforded by this last utterance, fervidly as it was spoken. For, so far from my faith being great, as was declared, it was with the utmost difficulty that I restrained myself from betraying the profundity of my distrust. Their failure to discern the attitude of my mind all this time was to me proof positive of their infinite inferiority to the teachers to whom I had been accustomed. I resolved, however, to see the experience out, in the hope of discovering the real nature of the actors and the object they had in view. A clue to the latter had already suggested itself to me, which the next visit served greatly to strengthen.]

“October 19. – On entering the trance-state, the medium spoke some words of encouragement in her own person, and was then controlled by an influence which said –

“‘She with whom you are associated will not come, as you expect,

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to live in London.’ [As nothing had been said by me to suggest this remark, it seemed to me that there must be an atmosphere of some kind about me in which certain of my thoughts could be read by them, while they failed to perceive those which I kept fast locked up in my mind.] ‘An obstacle will be interposed. Her coming will be of detriment to yourself, and it will not be allowed. You are a man, and have a man’s work to do, and no woman can share it. Woman is always a hindrance; you know from the Bible that from the beginning of the world woman has always been the cause of trouble to man. The selfishness, cunning, and ambition, even of the weakest woman, make her the ruin of a man. You must hold aloof from all women whatever. We see the feeling about coming to London, and being, as it were, together. But it cannot be; your work will not admit of it. And there are five influences about you who will not allow it. The position is changed. The spirit who used the organism you have been associated with has got through with that organism, and will use it no more, and the spirit which belongs to it has nothing in common with your work. You misunderstood the injunctions given you if you thought they meant that the association was to continue with that organism. You are to be constant to the spirit who controlled it, not to the person controlled. When they said you were to remain and work together, they meant, not the same body, but the same spirit.

“‘The break will be easier than you think; for she is at this moment perplexed, troubled, and worried. She longs for home, and not for you and your work. She is altogether occupied with self, and is vexed at not having her own way. There is but one who will help you, one who has ever been with you. What Mary – not the Mother, but the Magdalen – was to the Saviour, she is to you. The influences tending you are five; they will be twelve – men, not women. Yours is man’s work, and no woman can do it. Now ask us some questions that we may better know your mind, as we cannot read it perfectly through this woman’s organism.’

“To this I replied that I had some difficulty in reconciling much of what they said with the other teaching I had received, as well as with itself; for, while they insisted on depreciating women generally, they still insisted on a woman as necessary to my work. I could not think of repudiating those who had guided me so long and so well without some positive proof that they could guide me better. Would they give me such proof?

“I spoke very gently, and without betraying any feeling of direct opposition. Nevertheless what I said produced a sudden and great convulsion on the other side; for the control rejoined in a broken and almost angry tone, ‘No, no, you are mistaken; but we cannot stay to explain now. We have to leave you in an unsatisfied, unclear condition. It will be better when we see you again. But as for staying where you are – with Her – YOU must not! You are free!’

“How sensitive they were to opposition, and demoralised by the smallest show of it, was shown by this other instance. They had discovered that I was not a flesh-eater, and were remonstrating with me against my practice as calculated to impair my strength, when one of the band, who gave the name of ‘Aristotle,’ said to me.

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speaking with mighty voice and emphasis, ‘If you want to be ox, you must eat ox’! On this I gently asked whether that was not as much as to say that if I would be man I must eat man. To which it was responded, in a tone of deep vexation, that I had disturbed the band by my answer, and they must cease from converse with me until they had recomposed themselves.

“Curious to see whether they had any knowledge of our teachers, and remembering the effigy on the knocker, I asked if they knew of any one called Hermes. The name was evidently strange to them. But the moment it had escaped my lips, I was made to feel acutely the mistake I had made in uttering it in their presence.

“The above was the product of seven sittings, the whole series comprising twenty-four. The record of the remaining ones may be told in brief. The list of my visitors comprised, in addition to the names already mentioned, John Baptist, Samuel, Swedenborg, Shakespeare, Thomas Paine, George Washington, a negro from the Southern States, my ‘counterpartal Angel,’ my mother, and my wife. Every one of these spoke in character, as appropriately and fittingly, and with their distinctive characteristics as strongly marked, as if they had been the persons themselves they claimed to be. I had seen a good deal of negro life in America, but I never saw so typical a negro as was this woman when under negro control. Laugh, speech, gestures, tone of voice, and mode of expression, nothing was wanting to make the impersonation inimitable, when, referring to the band of spirits about her, she was made to exclaim, in a voice so powerful as to shake the room, ‘O Massa, Massa, I do like dese men! Dey’s great and good ’uns. I’d like to march wid dem. Dey’s a-fightin’ in de army ob de Lord. Oh! It’s a different sort ob fightin’ from what we had down South. No ragamuffin rascals a-killin’ and a-robbin’; but all fightin’ for de salvation ob de pore folks from sin and mis’ry. Oh! Come, come, my bredren; come, my sistren all, and jine in marchin’ wid de army ob de Lord. Hallelujah! Bress de Lord.’ And so on for some fifteen minutes with a force and enthusiasm past description.

“She who professed to have been my wife, too, and my mother also spoke in a manner befitting their characters, the former giving her name; while the medium was so impressed by the latter that she shed tears and exclaimed, ‘What a beautiful influence! It fills the room with peace and holiness. It has quite restored me, for I was flustered by the former speakers. And now I feel as if, come what trouble there might, I could welcome it all and be happy if only I might feel as I do now. She must have been a blessed woman, your mother, worthy of you, and you of her! ‘It was the one presence of them all which impressed me with a sense of reality and genuineness. Both she and my wife, however, took the other speakers for what they professed to be, and urged me to heed their instructions.

“To summarise the whole. These spirits claimed to be a delegation from a vast band of the earth’s best and highest now in the heavenly spheres, who had fixed on me to be their instrument for the new manifestation of the Christ, and had appointed certain of their number to be my immediate guardians and guides. Aristotle was to look after the organism; Franklin, the electricity;

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Shakespeare, the inspiration; Swedenborg was to be the Peter, or door-keeper – to save me from being misled, as he said he had been, through the intrusion of unworthy spirits; and Jesus was to be the Captain of the band. Thus backed and sustained, I should have gifts and powers, mental and physical, exceeding those of the earth’s greatest and best, and should accomplish a work of redemption for mankind of which the like had never been known. And the condition of my realising such a destiny was my detachment from my present association in favour of my ‘counterpartal Angel.’ Oliphant’s master, T.L. Harris, they said, had been intended for the office, but had been tried and found wanting, through listening to low spirits and perverting the doctrine.

“The influence which claimed to be my ‘counterpartal Angel’ came and pleaded her own cause. She it was, she declared, who had been with me through the ages, who had given me all my inspiration, and by whom alone I had ever been attracted. For, although I might think that I had often changed the object of my affections, such was not really the case; for I had always been constant to her. It was she who had shifted from one person to another, and I had but followed her. And I had done this even when entering on my present association, for Mary’s inspiring spirit was herself; and all the trouble I had gone through in that association was due to her jealousy of Mary. She herself had purposely made the trouble in order to detach me from Mary, to unite herself entirely with me, to form the proper ‘two-in-one.’ The ardour of her expressions as she said all this, no less than the doctrine itself, reminded me strongly of the sensuous tone of Harris’s writings. In describing her appearance, the medium described Mary exactly, and on first being controlled by her, coughed and exhibited the symptoms of a person far gone in consumption, and this to such an extent as to be greatly alarmed for herself lest she really had contracted that disease.

“At the last of these sittings the ‘band’ declared by their chief spokesman, speaking through the medium, that they had nothing more to tell me at present, but would accompany me home and inspire me there. But first they would answer any question on which I specially wished for light. For hitherto I had kept silence and left them to judge for themselves of my needs. To this I replied by saying that, as my work was concerned chiefly with the soul, I should prefer to have any information they could give me on the origin, nature, and history of the soul, saying this in a tone calculated to imply my implicit faith in them and confidence in their ability to satisfy my questions. To judge by the result, my manner threw them completely off their guard. For, speaking as if with one voice, they exclaimed, ‘The soul! God Almighty Himself could not tell you about that!’

“They made a last appeal on behalf of my ‘counterpartal Angel,’ declaring that from thenceforth she would no longer inspire my own seeress, who would be but as an empty shell, or at best animated only by the spirit which had caused my troubles, and instead of the truth would speak falsehood, and at the first opportunity would shake me off altogether. Their last words were, ‘When you return home make your seeress sit and be controlled, and take down what she says. But mark well the spirit that speaks. This is the last

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time we meet here.’ This was one of the utterances which, on after reflection and judging by the event, induced me to think that they occasionally spoke under a higher control than that which belonged to their own sphere.

“Both they and the medium, speaking in her own person, assured me that, but for her need, they would dispense altogether with payment for her services, as she was more than sufficiently recompensed by the great development her faculty had undergone while sitting with me. And, as it was, she refused to receive any remuneration beyond the moderate fee we had agreed upon, saying the spirits had told her that I could not well afford to give it. On parting from her I gave her, for the first time, my address, and told her that, if she needed my services, to apply to me. I saw her only once again, and this was a few weeks afterwards, when she came to say good-bye on her return to America, on which occasion I made her a small present.”

Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Anterior: XVI – Conclusão do Curso Acadêmico Seguinte: XVIII – Conversações com o Gênio