all past eternity: Secondly, they are awakened beings, self-existent to all future states—not times merely: Thirdly, at physical birth they, as monads, cease to be; at physical death a change as complete and great as the last occurs. And now they have passed through, and across three eternities; that of monads, matter, and spirit; and fourthly, they remain in no condition above a century (which accounts for the fact that no well-authenticated instance of intercourse with a spirit over a century dead, has yet been recorded); lastly, they ever pass onward, and each condition differs from the last, as does sleep from wakefulness. There are millions of these changes. It takes about a century to graduate and gravitate from one condition to another. When we pass from this world, we take some things with us which we are obliged to unlearn there. Thus, some want drink, others rest, fruit, land, houses, money, and so forth; some want children and desire to cohabit as on earth. All have just what they want; only that the children begotten there, are mere phasmas—just as by a powerful effort we can create a beautiful puppy dog, and hold it as an ideal before our eyes while here.
A crazy man's golden crown and throne, although to us nothing but straw and bits of stone, are to him gold and diamonds; and flash forth the richest scintillations of the most precious jewels. It is a state of the mind. Millions of crazy people inhabit both worlds; whence it follows that insanity is a disease of the mind, as well as a result of organic and chemical change and disturbance in the body.
It is hard to describe spiritual things in material language. Amongst all the flood of "Spiritual literature," I know of no single work that gives the faintest
