PART SECOND.
THotmor—The Sphinx.
THE DISENTHRALMENT.
The Duke. Good Palmer, is thy tale so wondrous strange?
Palmer. Else had I not sought auditor so wise.
'Tis the best legend ever yet was heard,
Unless I mar it sadly in the telling.
Something very unusual has taken place within a little while; what it is can scarcely be told, can only dimly be understood, and still more vaguely conveyed to others. This change, this mysterious something, pertains not to body, but to soul, to the inner person; and while the flesh-form is apparently as ever, the strange inhabitant thereof is conscious that it is not as of yore;—nay, has passed, as it were, within these few latter days, into a new mood or phase of its wonderful being.
But a little while ago, the world—this stony world—was far dearer and more highly prized than it is today; and this for the reason that not now, as then, does the airy dweller of the body-house look out upon it as of yore;—no longer glances over its mountains, vales and salt seas from the windows near the ground.
It grew suddenly tired of the weight, and gloom, and lead-heavy air—air so light-distorting, which circulates just above the surface—just high enough to be breathed by those who move along the by-lanes of Vanity Fair: and the Soul took a key from its girdle, and therewith unlocked the door which alone had prevented its ascension to the upper story of the Temple; and it saw the steps leading toward the Dome—and they were broad, inviting, well carpeted and lighted. Up the steps it went, and presently reached a lofty apartment, within which there fell a flood of glorious effulgence; and this light was clear, and pure, and pearly white; and it streamed into the apartment,—this upper chamber of the soul,—through a glorious arched window, toward which it drew near, and lo! all the world looked different, as did the stars that hung out upon the night, and the beautiful pale moon, and God's rockets—the meteors—so beautiful!
There was an occupant of that chamber, one who had been slumbering on a couch therein for many, many years; but the grating of the door upon its rusted hinges and the rattle of the keys disturbed this sleeper, and woke it up. The being was a female—so very beautiful that I loved her from the first, for she was very beautiful, and came to me, threw her fair white arms about my neck, kissed my forehead tenderly, told me that she had slept too long, pent up in that chamber all alone.
And I loved her dearly, because she was so very pure, so virginal, so fresh and innocent, and withal so very beautiful! I asked her name. "It is Devotion," she replied. Then folding me to her bosom, her tender, loving bosom, she gently drew me nearer to the window, pointed down toward the ground, and said: "The air is thick, and dank, and dark, and dense, and very murky. It is difficult to catch a glimpse of the bright orb of the Heavens, or to feel his genial ray down there, in that thick and heavy air; but here, up here, the atmosphere is purer, and, if you look well and steadily through that pane, you will see the Spirit of God as He moves across the mighty deep!" And I looked. A great Glory was at that moment marching across, the whole bright sky—a mystic but a nameless glory—and the night was very grand; the emotions it awoke were very soft and tender, so that tears welled up at the sight from the heart of Devotion, and suffused her beautiful features. Oh, magic tears! One pearly drop fell on me, and lo! the icebergs of my soul were melted, and—I wept;—and the waters, as they flowed, swept away many an obstacle that had thereunto impeded and obstructed my vision, and soon I was able to see the Spirit of God in everything that He had made. Seeing which, the Beautiful Maiden gently chided me for so long delaying the coming up the stairs and the entering of that wondrous upper chamber whose windows look out upon the world below and toward the God above. And she told me how happy I might have been in the years agone, had not the lower strata of the atmosphere hurt my vision, and if I had unlocked the great door sooner. I asked the lovely one to reveal the methods by which, when I descended again, the recollection of the present golden hour might never be effaced. Sweetly she answered: "All that is necessary is to look toward the Dawn, and
And the cheeks of the Morning are red with the Sun;
When at eve, in his glory, he sinks from the view,
And calls up his planets to blaze in the blue,
Then pour out thy spirit in prayer,
Like a collar of light on the bosom of Love,
When the moon in her brightness is floating on high,
Like a Banner of silver hung out in the Sky,
Then pour out thy spirit in prayer.
When shadows are veiling the breast of the blue,
When the voice of the Tempest at midnight is still,
And the Spirit of Solitude sobs on the hill,
Then pour out thy spirit in prayer.
And calls up her Chorus to chaunt in the brake,
'Mid the voice of the echo unbound in the woods,
'Midst the warbling of streams, and the foaming of floods,
Then pour out thy spirit in prayer.
Like Hope o'er the grave of affectionate friends,
When each star in the sky to the bright fancy seems
Like an island of light, in an ocean of dreams,
Then pour out thy spirit in prayer.
And the Thunder is up from his cloud-cradled sleep,
When the Hurricane sweeps o'er the earth in his wrath,
And leaveth the footprints of God in his path,
Then pour out thy spirit in prayer."
And I prayed.
Since that day[1] Devotion has been the solace of many and many a weary hour; for when grief and pain and sorrow with their train afflict the soul, it remembers the key-note and the key, and that glorious upper chamber, with the great Glory that swept the Heavens, even from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof.
These were the circumstances which brought about the change. It gives a singularly sweet and placid conviction that my long, long night of pain-life is nearly past, the agony-hours nearly at their close; and so, feeling now emboldened and nerved to the task, the fulfilling of a design long entertained, I determined to mould into the following form certain of my
dealings with the dead.
In presenting what follows, wisdom dictates the narrative style rather than any other, for the reason that it is better calculated to entertain, interest, and instruct the reader.
Not a few people, nor those of the least informed class either, entertain many serious doubts as to the nature, perdurability, immortality, and eternality of the human soul. Of the last, probably no one in the body can ever be absolutely certain and assured; but of the former, all may be; not, perhaps, by means of what herein ensues concerning the points named, but by reason of that greater knowledge whereof what follows is the key. I present the subjoined as seriously as could anything be. To my soul the truths here revealed, transcribed from the experimental knowledge-tablets of that very soul itself, are priceless, and worth as much more than what people generally receive and accept as truth from sources whose external manifestation is through the 'Spiritualism' of the day, as these last are more valuable than the mere guesses at the truth of immortality, current previous to the advent of 'The Fox and Fish Dynasty.'
Some six hundred and fifty years, more or less, before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth—praises be to his name forever!—in the thirty-fifth Olympiad, or about two thousand five hundred years ago, there lived in the East a famous philosopher, known to us through history as Thales, the Milesian; and there is no doubt but that he was one of the first, if not the very first man of great mental rank and caliber, who publicly taught the doctrine of human immortality.
Doubtless the same general train of reasoning resorted to by Thales was nearly, if not quite, identical with that which constitutes the basis of nearly all human hope to-day, if we except the modern 'Spiritual' theory, which, while very comforting and satisfactory to great numbers, is far from being so to millions more; for there are quite a number of questions which a doubting man may ask of those who predicate an hereafter upon the evidence furnished by the 'Spiritualism' of the day, which those who are asked are not able to clearly and satisfactorily answer. To many, the reasoning of the 'Spiritualists,' like that of the ancient, amounts to "It is quite possible that human beings are immortal;" and that is all. Many a man and woman are dying daily deaths from the fearful doubts that constantly arise as to the truth of the Immortality of the Soul; doubts, too, that will still insist on coming up, in spite of the startling phenomena of the 'manifestations' whose origin is attributed to disembodied men and women; they still leave an aching void—a void which I am about to attempt to fill; and, I believe, successfully.
After the great Milesian, came other philosophers—men of genius and intuition—who had dim and indistinct glimmerings of the great truth. Feeling, rather than seeing, that there must be a life beyond the body they strove to impress their convictions upon others; yet the sum total still amounted to but a probability at best. As a result of the great search for light upon this mighty subject, many glimmerings of the truth were seen, but they were glimmerings only. By-and-by came Plato upon the stage of the world's theater. He produced 'Phasdo'—a great work, considering the times in which it first saw the light. It still remains so; and yet, so acute is the logical faculty of the people of the present era, that even that work fails of convincing. It is, viewed by the modern light, far, very far from being a satisfactory performance, considering the immense importance and sublimity of the theme it professes to treat; yet, nevertheless, Plato did succeed in convincing many of the people of the by-gone ages, as well as of the present, that he had indeed struck the golden vein at the bottom of which the wondrous jewel lies, and in establishing a crude conviction of that great truth, which the present century will doubtless have the supreme honor of perfectly demonstrating. In the final conclusion, to which the world will shortly come, the author of these pages firmly believes that the elements herein given will enter as integers—as a portion and part absolutely essential to the perfect structure.
Plato, not unlike many of our modern savans, seems to have been sorely troubled—not so much in proving the immortality of the soul, as in assigning it a proper habitation after death. But the soul, like the body, must have a home, he thought, and so he concluded to locate that home within the boundaries of the 'New Atlantis Isle,' situated, nobody, not even the great thinker himself, knew where. The same difficulty presents itself to-day; a thousand theories, or, more properly speaking, hypotheses, are now afloat on the surface of the general mind, concerning the locality of the Divine City of Spirits—the home of departed souls. The great majority of these suppositions are too material, crude, shallow and baseless, on their very faces, to even challenge the attention of a thinker for a single moment; others are too far-fetched; and not one of them all is there, but presents itself in the face of a dozen objections, from every one of ten thousand objectors.
That this assertion may not appear groundless, and seem to be dictated by improper reasoning, let us merely glance at the three theories held by the people who claim to know most about the matter—'Spiritualists.' One of the lights of that class gravely informs us that the spiritual world is located quite a distance on the other side of 'The Milky Way;' he and his disciples affirm that spirits can and do come back to earth daily; that our desires draw them, and that they, being there and feeling us draw them, instantly quit the land of bliss, and flit toward us, accomplishing the distance in 'no time at all;' which very indefinite period we may safely assume to be three or four hours, more or less. Now, light coming from the nearest fixed star at the rate of two hundred thousand miles a minute, cannot reach us in less than eighteen years—while light from any star on the further side of the same great belt of suns, requires a period of time too vast for us to comprehend, ere it can gladden our eyes.
The Spirits' dwelling, according to this school, lies beyond even those vastly distant orbs. Supposing, however, that it exists in the neighborhood of the nearest star, any spirit who gets here after a journey of three hours, must travel through space at not less than the rate of twelve thousand three hundred and eighty-seven millions of miles during every second of the awful journey!—a speed that would annihilate any being less than God himself. What an idea!
The next theory, originated and advocated by the same person,[2] is, that the Spirits' home is on a sort of aerial belt circumvolving our globe. Said belt is fifty miles thick; spirits live on its upper surface, which is very like this earth, seeing that it has cities, houses, streets, waters, oceans, rivers, trees, beasts, birds, and reptiles. At the poles of the earth, according to this same self-dubbed philosopher and his 'school,' there are certain openings or large holes, through which the spirits come and go just when it suits them so to do. When they depart hence, they go 'head up,' of course; and when they come to us, they must approach 'head-foremost,' or with their feet toward their home—a very immodest way for some spirits to travel, if the dignity of their sex is still retained—and a very undignified mode of traveling for the philosophers and magnates who so often talk to and at us, through the lips of modern eolists.
This, like the former theory, is unsatisfactory—but mainly on the ground of its gross materiality, for it makes the second life but a new edition of the first one. Common sense must reject this last. Of the two, the first theory is incomparably the most magnificent and grand. The fault is, that it is too much so; for it removes us at one leap from the condition of humanity, and at once endows us with the attributes and power of veritable gods.
The next hypothesis concerning the matter is, that this world (our globe) is, and must, and will for all eternity be, the abiding place and scene of activity of all mankind, who ever have been or will be born on it, through all the past and all the future ages. According to this school (if I may so dignify it), Spirits are here dwelling amongst us, taking note of all things that occur,—are eating, drinking, and doing all that we do.
Now, there is more common sense and reasonableness in these latter notions than in all the rest; for of the many guesses at the truth, this comes nearest to the mark. The faults which this theory has, are, however, very bad ones; for, first, it materializes the soul; second, it confines it here, nor even permits it to leave its prison, to roam the starry fields; and, third, it does injustice to God and His omnipotence, inasmuch as it practically doubts His providence, limits His power, and assumes that He was incompetent to provide spiritual homes for spiritual beings, and was compelled to make this a double world. If a spirit occupies any space at all, then, if this theory be true, not only is the surface above ground one compact mass of Spirits, but they form piles extending far higher than our loftiest mountains; for, since men have begun to die, they have continued to pass away at the rate of scores of millions every year for at least a hundred centuries.
I could not help disposing of this doctrine by means of the argumentum ad absurdum, for it was, and ever will be, totally unworthy of any more respectful treatment; and yet, as said before, it contains far more truth than either of the others, as will very shortly be, if not already herein seen.
People who lived in the days of Plato, Thales, and the great men of the olden time, could not have the same notions that we have; could not understand many of the wonders which we, in this age, fully comprehend. They could not conceive of a balloon, railroad, locomotive, steamship, photo-picture, or telegraph, for the very plain and simple reason that the human brain had not, as a general thing, then unfolded many of its wonderful and mighty powers. Its immense capacities were as yet nascent, latent, still. True, the seeds of all that it has since proved were there, but in embryo only. In other words, the soul had not the requisite brain-organs, through which it could familiarize itself with all or any of the marvelous things just enumerated. So now, in these days, men and women worry themselves a great deal concerning the locus in quo of their fleshless friends, about the Deity or no-Deity question, and a hundred others of the like, not the least important of which is that concerning the nature, origin, and final destiny of the soul itself. Presently, in the years of the race, if not in those of the individuals on earth to-day, the requisite brain-organs will be developed, the proper function of which shall be the furnishing of the soul with what it wants, in order to take notice of, and comprehend the principles underlying its own existence, here and hereafter. Till then, the facts it sees must be admitted, even while many of the bases of these very facts remain involved in impenetrable mystery It must take many things for granted—its own immutability included—in many instances, without any very perfect or intimate knowledge of the why?—on the cogito, ergo sum principle.
To return to the ancient philosopher: It may be remarked that, although he had a vague notion of a conscious life of the soul subsequent to the dissolution of its corporeal investiture, yet, unquestionably, the sort of post mortem existence, which he conceived, and Immortality—as the brightest intellects of the present age understand it—are two very dissimilar states or modes of being, and widely different in principle, value, nature, and results.
It may be well to present an abstract and brief chronicle of the Platonic idea, in order to clearly indicate the divergences.
To say nothing concerning Plato's doctrine of the Metempsychosis, or the Transmigration of soul from body to body—(which doctrine contains some truth, as doth nearly every notion man entertains, and which took its rise in the plains of Chaldea, was there found and adopted by the great Zerdusht, or Zoroaster, from whom Plato borrowed it)—we will merely glance at certain others of his recorded opinions. According to Plato, the soul is double—that is to say, both material and spiritual; all souls pre-existed; originally, they were inhabitants of Heaven, a place somewhere in the sky, whence they emigrated to the earth; their sole mission is to become "developed," which process is effected in this wise: Each soul must animate successively a prodigious number of bodies, every stage of their career occupying not less than a "period," which may be set down as one hundred years, and must be repeated an incalculable number of times; they then return whence they came—to Heaven; are permitted by the gods to remain there for an allotted term, after the expiration of which, they are again compelled to go forth and occupy successive bodies, as before. Consequently, all human souls are, according to the Platonic theory, destined to nearly an everlasting repetition of the same general processes, are fated to an almost endless round of defilements and purifications; of returns to Heaven, and dismissals to earth—not to speak of sundry sojourns in very bad localities on the route.
Plato taught that these souls do not entirely forget their experiences, joys, sorrows or ambitions, hopes, cares and anxieties—in short, none of their varied experiences during the several incarnations; and-that all, or any portion of human knowledge, at any given point of time, was not the real acquisition of the present, as it seemed, but was composed merely of the memories, or reminiscences of innumerable past careers—the pressent recognition of facts and incidents which transpired in some pre-existent stage of their tremendous career. That these are truly magnificent notions, scarce any one who can truly grasp them will deny, even though to some persons they may appear to be the very quintessence of poetry. Transmigration, in some form, has certainly been, if not hereafter to be, the lot of man. I do not believe the Platonic conception of this great truth to be the correct one, nor that man will ever undergo the doom again; yet. that the soul has reached its present through many an inferior state, is a self-evident fact to me. At all events, a formidable array of reasons might be presented to account for the faith that is within me.
This idea of Plato's completely antagonizes two of the most celebrated dogmas that ever held the human reason captive: the first of which is the famous "Monad Theory" of Leibnitz, albeit he came very near the truth, as has been seen; and the other, the modern doctrine, that souls, like bodies, are formed, made, created here: and that their origin is a common one—en utero.
Before the conclusion of the task assigned me, I shall have occasion to revert again to both of these latter doctrines. At present, let them pass.
Plato maintained that the soul was Divinæ particulum auræ, an emanation from God Himself, a portion of His immaculate Being, detached for a time only, and that after innumerable transmigrations it is re-absorbed into Himself again, and loses its own distinctiveness. Of course, this notion, if it be true, instead of proving immortality, as Plato supposed, in fact disproves it altogether; that is, if immortality be conceded to be a continuance of personal identity, and an individual duration, subsequent to the demise of the physical body. Immortality means a continued existence of the personality, and not a mere survival of the varied elements whereof a human being is composed. The particular Deific emanations which constitute the souls of A, B, C and D, respectively, as soon as they become souls, are beings totally distinct from all else that exists, and must forever remain so; and "soul" can be predicated of either, only as beings thus separate, and therefore immortality can be the prerogative of man only so long as God and man are not blended into one single Personality. So long as each soul shall think, feel, suffer, enjoy, cogitate and have a continuity of self-knowing, just so long will it be possessed of an invincible conviction of personal identity, under which circumstance alone, and only, can its immortality be truly predicated and affirmed. But, should any soul ever be reabsorbed into Deity—again become a portion of Divinity an utter, total, and complete annihilation of the individual must ensue; and that destruction of the human selfhood would be as effective, utter and complete, as if the varied elements entering into it as constituents were whirled absolutely out of the universe and into a blank nothingness.
A tree sawed into planks is a tree no longer, although the wood, so far as mere essence is concerned, remains as before. The tree as a tree is ruined forever, albeit the wood of it may endure for centuries. To sum up: All the theories of the Platonists, the followers of Thales, and the disciples of every one of the ancient philosophers, as well as those of scores of the modern "Spiritualists," especially of that peculiar school who prate of immortality and annihilation in one and the same, the very same breath, are unsatisfactory; for, after all, their boasted demonstrations of immortality amount, in their final results and effects upon our minds, to but very little more than pleasing hopes, and fond desires, and longings after immortality! In what follows I have endeavored to solve the problem, in a somewhat novel way, it must be admitted; yet I am in earnest, and have worked up the materials at my command in the most effective manner that was possible.