Glimpses Of The Next State.Pdf - Spiritualists' National Union

121A.: “I was there all the time, and the artists were doing the picture from me. There arethree artists, one for drawing, one for colours, and one for magnetism.”Q.: “Did you mark the profile portrait which has gone home?”A.: “Yes. I inscribed it to G.”(This picture had no inscription that I could see when I left it at Chicago with the Bangs Sisters.When I arrived home I found the above statement to be correct.)Iola also said: “What made the picture a success was your being present. Had you laid your goldwatch upon the table, I could have extracted the essence and put a gold pin in my hair or dress. Ifyou had taken roses with you to the seance room, I could have put in roses. Spirits love theflowers.”February 6, 1909. Atmospheric conditions good.(88) Before any speaking in the trumpet began, the psychic saw the names of ‘‘Andrew,’’‘George,’Catherine,” and “ Millais “ (or “ Millay”).The first name given through the trumpet was “Catherine.” As I have before explained, I supposedthis was a sister of mine who died in early childhood. She made this fact quite clear on the presentoccasion, and said that she had grown up in spirit life.The second spirit to speak was a man called Calver, who identified himself well. In earth lifehe was a captain in the Navy. He gave correctly the town where he was living when he died, andsaid very distinctly: “We were both in the surveying service of the Military.” If “Navy” besubstituted for “Military,” his statement is accurate, and I looked upon this as a good test.Before Calver spoke the psychic said, “I see a man with a reddish head.” While I was talkingto the spirit he said: “Yes, Redhill was where I lived, not Redhead.” (He lived, after his retirement,at Redhill, near Reigate, in Surrey. What association there was in the medium’s mind betweenRedhill and a reddish head I do not know; but I suggest that she caught a word clairaudientlywhich led to the mistake.)The next spirit who spoke to me was a man who had died at Southsea two years before,called Andrew Balfour, a retired captain in the Navy. He had been my first lieutenant twenty yearsbefore, when I commanded a ship in China, and we saw a great deal of one another for the fouryears preceding his death, when I practically managed his financial affairs, as he was physicallyunable to move about. He reminded me of a trifling incident that occurred in Chicago in January,which showed that he was acquainted with my doings in that city, and announced jocularly: “Imust apologise for coming without an invitation. Ha! ha! ha!” This remark indicated that he wasaware of what had taken place when Scott Willcox introduced himself on February 3.Iola and my brother-in-law now came together, and both spoke through the trumpet. Thiswas probably done for a test, but it was confusing; I asked the latter to quit, which he did, and Ihad a chat with Iola alone about matters of no interest to the reader. Such as it was, it assisted tocomplete the identity of the spirit.In the course of this seance a lady announced herself who had passed over twenty years. Shesaid she was happy, and I thought it no harm to allude to a subject of some delicacy which hadmuch troubled her in her last hours, and which hastened, if it did not actually cause, her death. Isaid, “Do you ever think now of James Montgomery ?“ The answer was, “Not now, but I do wish Ihad never met him”; then came a long, deep-drawn sigh in the trumpet, which made me feel verysorry I had touched the sore place in her memory.Dr. Sharp now announced himself. He referred to my scepticism about my deceasedacquaintance A. R., and said: “He has worked hard and made remarkable progress since he cameover. He is in the sixth sphere, but in no realm at all. He told you the sixth, and he was right. Thereis a very wide difference between sixth sphere no realm and sixth sphere seventh realm [this inallusion to my expressed doubt that he could have reached a position equal to that of Iola]. We donot talk about ‘realms’ until getting to the sixth sphere. There are thirteen realms in the sixthsphere. Spheres are, as it were, conditions of place; realms are conditions of spiritualadvancement.”