CHAPTER XII.AND THE PROPHET WAS STONED.
Those who believe, as I do, that spiritual beings can and do, subject to general laws and for certain purposes, communicate with us, and even produce material effects in the world around us, must see in the steady advance of inquiry and of interest in these questions the assurance that, so far as their beliefs are logical deductions from the phenomena they have witnessed, those beliefs will at no distant date be accepted by all truth-seeking inquirers.—Alfred Russell Wallace.
Those who believe, as I do, that spiritual beings can and do, subject to general laws and for certain purposes, communicate with us, and even produce material effects in the world around us, must see in the steady advance of inquiry and of interest in these questions the assurance that, so far as their beliefs are logical deductions from the phenomena they have witnessed, those beliefs will at no distant date be accepted by all truth-seeking inquirers.—Alfred Russell Wallace.
One Sunday afternoon when the two friends sat together, with Planchette as telephone to the invisible world, the responses were unusually prompt and full, for a daytime effort. Prescott came and was in a most obliging mood, as charming as of old. Without warning, when in the middle of a long sentence that he was writing at his usual furious pace, some invisible force drew the Butterfly’s arm from Planchette and sent the little board flying across the room. At the same instant she rose, raised her right hand and pointed directly before her, her face ashy and an unearthly look in her dilated eyes. Straining her faculty of sight Cartice looked in the direction of her friend’s outstretched finger, but saw nothing. In a few seconds the beautiful seeress sank to her chair exhausted, with dry mouth andstiffened tongue, like one who returns to consciousness after a deep faint.
Mrs. Doring rushed for water for her to drink, and cologne with which to lave her face, embraced her, and soothed her with reassuring words until she was herself again, though more subdued and humble than ever before.
“What was it, dear?” asked Cartice at last.
“Prescott,” she gasped. “He was as real in appearance as ever I saw him in life. The scar on his left cheek was plain, and the tooth in front that had been built up with gold was just as it used to be, for he smiled and I saw it distinctly. He spoke, but I could not understand what he said. He came so sudden, and I was so frightened. I hope he will never do that again. It gives me a horrible feeling to see any of them.”
After a little coaxing she touched Planchette again, to ask an explanation of the singular occurrence.
“I did not mean to frighten you, poor child,” wrote Prescott, “but I wanted to see if I could make myself visible to you for an instant. The exhaustion you experienced afterward was not all owing to fright. In order to appear to you I took a certain substance from your body with which to make myself visible. I made my body, for the moment, out of yours. That leaves you weaker, but what I took will be restored to you. This vital substance is everywhere, and yourbody, being a magnet, attracts it to you, particularly when you are out doors in the sunlight. Oh, if you but knew the valve of sunshine, and air—pure, fresh air.”
“Why couldn’t I see you, too?” Cartice asked. “I should not be frightened; but even so, I am willing to be.”
“I have tried to lift the veil from your eyes, but cannot.”
“But the scar and the tooth of gold? Were they not of the cast-off body only, or do you have them still?” she asked.
“The human eye must have that with which to identify those from this side, so they are simulated as they last appeared in the flesh.”
One evening, when another was writing, Planchette was unexpectedly and violently flung to the floor, by a blow on the Butterfly’s delicate arm, from an unseen hand. When order had been restored, Prescott took possession, and it was plain to be seen that he was agitated. He wrote: “I tried to prevent that, but could not. Chrissalyn must be prepared to expect almost anything. The situation here is incomprehensible to you.”
“What is it that makes the Butterfly a medium, if she will pardon the word?” Cartice asked.
“Something for which there is yet no proper word. You would call it, magnetism. She iswonderful,—powerful, magnetic to the dead, as you call us, as well as to the living—you cannot imagine how much.”
Cartice had ever been sensible of a powerful and unaccountable attraction in her friend. She had always loved to watch Chrissalyn, she knew not why, loved to be near her and never wearied of her. For others, both men and women, the Butterfly possessed the same attraction. If she wanted to ensnare the most wary masculine mortal, she had only to cast her eyes upon him and he was hers. If she wished for the good-will or friendship of a woman, a smile and a pleasant word or two were all she need give in order to gain it.
“Tell me, what is magnetism?” was the next question.
“A power we cannot see but can feel—the power that attracts through all nature, but I cannot define it, for as yet I know very little about it myself.”
When asked to explain his manner of using Planchette, Prescott said:
“When the Butterfly’s hand rests upon it we stand behind her, with our hands above hers—a few inches above—and we move her hand and Planchette by the power of magnetism.”
“Why can’t you use my hand as well as hers?” Cartice asked.
“Because you are a positive. Your magnetismis of the controlling and not the controllable kind.”
Early in her investigations Mrs. Doring learned that the people on the unseen side of life are like unto those seen, in that there are good and bad, wise and foolish, busy and idle, truth-tellers and liars, sane and insane. Character there is exactly what it was here, growing better if it aspire and worse if it be indifferent to growth, for evolution apparently goes on forever and forever.
She learned, too, that a message was not necessarily infallible, because it came from that we call a spirit. Frequently it was wofully fallible. Liars will lie and the mischievous make mischief wherever they are. In short, undeveloped souls, no matter where they dwell, give very direct evidence of their imperfection.
Yet, all things considered, Cartice met comparatively few obstacles in her study of psychic life and law. Much, to be sure, was inexplicable and perplexing; but that which was satisfying outweighed all that was disheartening. To the harmony existing between Chrissalyn and herself she attributed the remarkable success of their efforts, harmony being the key to all the secrets and forces of nature. Then too they sat with business-like regularity. Now she understood why the “conditions” for which professional mediums are such noted sticklers, are necessary.
When we stop to think of it, we see that we must comply with prescribed conditions to do anything. If we send a letter through the post office, the conditions imposed oblige us to stamp it properly and post it. If we merely write the letter and fling it out of the window, ignoring the needful conditions, most assuredly it will never reach its destination. If we wish to make a journey the conditions oblige us to go aboard whatever railroad carriage or ship will take us where we want to go.
The knowledge gained through Planchette was precious beyond price to Mrs. Doring. “Is it not the answer to the riddle of the ages?” she asked herself. “Does it not change the face of everything, by giving us not only the key to death, but to the great mystery of life? In the light of this knowledge life takes on an importance, a sacredness and responsibility formerly inconceivable. Heretofore we have hoped that it goes on beyond the destruction of the body, now we know it does, and that we are shaping our destiny by every thought and act—building indeed for eternity.
“Of what moment are the ills of life here, with this glorious vista before us? Who, having seen this light, need be cast down by any earthly trouble? In the face of it are not all the experiences which wring our hearts and drain us of our tears mere fictions or illusions?
“Since Death is dead, what is there to affright or distress us? Though to-day be lost, to-morrow is ours. Though our dear ones pass out of sight there is neither separation nor bereavement. Scientific knowledge makes it plain that immortality is not dependent upon belief; but is a fact in nature. Though we may wander in any part of the universe there is nothing to fear, for we are indestructible. Disease, war, accident, every terror known to man, is swept out of existence by this indisputable demonstration of our deathlessness.
“How poor and pitiful is the pursuit of happiness in which all engage here, when seen by the light of this revelation! Is it not clear as sunshine that the purpose of life is not happiness, as we misinterpret the word, but growth? And how shall we grow? By getting knowledge of law and living according to that knowledge. Then we need seek no more for happiness for it will be one of our indestructible possessions—the happiness for which nature destined us, but which consists not in external conditions, but internal development.”
Under the influence of this knowledge Mrs. Doring became transformed into a new being. Her previous life now seemed to have been simply a blind groping after the most unstable and foolish ideals,—a more intellectual childhood. So uplifted and filled to overflowing was she withjoy and gratitude that her face took on a new beauty that impressed even the least observing of her friends. But one flavor of bitterness tinged her cup, and that was that she was forbidden to share the glad tidings with others.
Chrissalyn had been insistent that nothing be told, and Cartice was obliged to yield to her ruling on this point, and also saw the necessity for it, but longed fervently to gather in many dwelling in darkness and share her light with them. Why hide it under the bushel of timidity? Was not all the world searching for that which had come in beautiful simplicity and generous fulness to her? How grateful others would be to know what she knew? She was humbly, profoundly grateful, and of course they, too, would be.
After a time this pent-up fountain began to overrun its borders and trickle its way to other ears. When she heard people bewailing the difficult and cruel conditions under which they suffered, she could not help giving of her inexhaustible store of comfort. She must say to them, “These things are unreal and of no moment. Your true life is above and beyond them always, and is of unlimited possibilities here and hereafter.”
And when they wept because of some slain lamb, she said, “He is not dead; he never died and never shall die. This is an appearanceonly, an illusion. There is no death. Life goes on, on, without end, Iknowit.”
In order that they might believe and be comforted, she related the experiences on which her assurances were based, leaving out Chrissalyn’s name, of course.
She met the fate of all who have lovingly tried to set poor, ignorant humanity free from its self-imposed chains. She was stoned.
Some heard her with tolerant pity, as we humor weak-minded people by pretending to accept their statements and vagaries, but turned from the subject as quickly as they could. Not a few sneered openly, and with the brutal frankness of small and self-satisfied minds coarsely expressed their contempt for her credulity. Others patronizingly said they believed inherhonesty, but were positive she was being deceived. Still others shrugged their shoulders in disgust, saying that they loathed the “supernatural,” and would none of it. This benighted class labels their dead with that obnoxious word and shoves them out of mind as quickly as possible. Some of the contemptible creatures who advertise their lack of intelligence and breeding by putting their hands over their mouth when they talk to hide their impolite and ignorant grinning, could not listen to Cartice with naked lips at all. But perhaps she was most astonished at the “conventional believers who disbelieve,” those who accept all thespirit manifestations described in the book of their faith, yet reject everything modern that helps to prove the truth of them.
Some listened to her story and then asked the surprising, the astounding question: “What good can come of it all, even if it be true?” If the dead did not come to tell them how to make fortunate financial speculations, or whom they are destined to marry, they saw no use in their coming at all.
Here and there Mrs. Doring encountered some who took interest in her revelations as a matter of curiosity, and wanted to gratify their love of wonder-mongering, by seeing Planchette at work.
A few, a sacred few, gave reverent ear, and were eager to learn all they could of the marvelous and mysterious thing called life; but these had become as little children—receptive, and therefore were prepared to enter the kingdom of knowledge, which is heaven.
But, alas! for the unfortunate many who cannot be enlightened, because they are already wise in their own conceit. Having lived here a score or two of years they fancy they know all the Creator’s plans and purposes and can learn no more. At the door of their mind they post a sentinel armed with a club, whose duty it is to beat and drive away any stray angel in the guise of a thought or idea that may wander near.
Some who did not want to be disturbed intheir enjoyment of things external, pettishly said: “All you tell may be true, but one world at a time is my motto.” Yet any one who said that a child should be left uninstructed and unprepared for the grown-up life ahead of him would, very appropriately, be called a fool.
Cartice learned what all prophets and teachers have learned to their cost—that the world is in bondage to its own ignorance, because it refuses to be liberated. The minds of men are in thrall to a law we have but recently named—the law of hypnotism, which is at once both the agent of darkness and of light.
Everybody lives continually under hypnotic influence, otherwise the power of suggestion. What we call public opinion is thought that has massed itself into a barrier so formidable that only spirits the most heroic and dauntless dare assail it. The many are fused together as one and become a gigantic hypnotizer of men.
It has been demonstrated a million times that if there is anything a man cannot do it is to stand out against the united thought of his fellow men. Human beings, for the most part, are in slavery to whatever thought has formed their environment, “as neat prisoners as ever slept in jails.” In other words they are hypnotized and refuse to be aroused from their hypnotic sleep.
All who allow others to do their thinking liveand die in a hypnotic trance. The thought that is steadily thrown upon the minds of children year after year usually hypnotizes them for life. This is proven in their religious leanings. The majority follow the lead of their parents and it is the same in politics. The boy is a democrat or republican, because his father was. We call it the force of early education, but we might as well say early hypnotism.
The press is the greatest of hypnotic operators. It makes public opinion through the hypnotic principle. Its daily reiteration puts the minds of impressionable readers into as profound a hypnotic trance as any professional operator ever achieves. Every orator who sways his audience does so by means of the hypnotic law, and every writer who thrills his readers sets the same law in motion. In it lies the power of all government, from the primitive paternal to the broadest Republic the earth has yet produced—the will of the passably intelligent few is imposed upon the less intelligent many.
Even the most potent force known—the attraction that draws the sexes together, operates largely through hypnotism, or suggestion. Do we not become like that we hear and see and live among? Are we not the product of whatever thought we have absorbed during our life? In short, we are that thought embodied, neither more nor less. Steady suggestion makes publicopinion, that terrible, formidable, irresistible wall against which new thought must beat and hack and storm for centuries sometimes before an incision can be made in it.
We are all more or less in an hypnotic sleep. Certain intellectual hair-splitters deprecate the use of the word, hypnotism, when employed to describe a condition of mind that is not sleep, as we commonly use that term. Yet we may be awake to certain facts and asleep to others. When one cannot see a truth for a time and then recognizes it, we say he awakens to it. Was he not asleep as far as it was concerned before?
The hypnotic principle is as old as the human race. Yea, the hills are young beside it. By means of it we have become what we are, and because of it our progress has been slow, for the hypnotized subject holds to his illusions with a tenacity that throws barnacles into the shade. We were hypnotized into the old thought that enslaves us, and must be hypnotized out of it into that which shall set us free.
This law is operative far beyond our range of knowledge. It links this world or this state of being, rather, to the one that follows it.
What is the spirit medium but a person under the hypnotic influence of a resident of the invisible world? And many who do not dream of it are hypnotized to an astonishing extent by suggestions from the same source.
Therefore, it is not remarkable that Cartice Doring found nearly everybody holding aggressively to the thought that had formed them, no matter how limited and erroneous it might be, and ready to fight, tooth and nail, anything contrary to it. They groaned in pain, yet at a suggestion of relief from misery they but hugged it closer, lest it be taken from them by force.
She did not expect any one to believe so tremendous a tale as she had to tell on hearsay evidence alone; but she hoped to find some interest and desire to search and learn. When many turned away and she grew heartsick because they would not let her help them with that which had helped her, she thought she understood Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. “Ye would not! no; ye would not!” is ever the cry of all who yearn to make the yoke easy and the burden light for humanity.
And yet no earnest effort made by any soul is entirely vain. Mrs. Doring found two who would among the many who would not—two who were eager to learn, who begged for the chance. They were the Joys, the last persons one would expect to turn their attention to anything not known by the name of pleasure. As a matter of fact they wereMr.and Mrs. Hanley, but everybody called them the Joys, because their days were an unbroken ripple of delight, and they were continually making a joyful noise oversomething. They joyed in each other, in their children, in their friends, in their home, in the world at large, in life, in everything. All days of the year were for them days of jubilee. Everybody welcomed them because they carried with them a joyful atmosphere, a little of which generally rubbed off and stuck to those whom they visited, for a time at least. A gay, guiltless pair were they, with no need of prayer, and no sins to be forgiven, so far as any one could see. It may be wondered why they cared to learn anything about life’s extension since they found this world so pleasant. Yet care they did, and gladly turned from the impermanent things of the world that had delighted them to study reverently the great question of our destination.
Chrissalyn liked them and was finally persuaded to let them enter Planchette’s charmed arena, on condition that they tell it not in Goth nor whisper it in Askalon.
Their very first experience was convincing beyond doubt or question. All they had joyed in before was as nothing to the joy they found in the knowledge that came to them through the little board. In spite of their pleasure-loving natures and phenomenal optimism, they belonged to the thinking fraternity; and now that their outlook was extended beyond the boundaries that so far had hedged them in, they saw ahead anendless life of Joy, and that intensified and ennobled the joys of the present. They had been happy always, but now they were secure in their happiness—nothing could take it from them.