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

197(a) This is a very unexpected result of our intercourse with spirits. I have often asked foran explanation. They say: “Every good act assists the advance of a spirit in the spheres, andmanifestations which help to prove to mortals that life beyond the grave is a fact are good acts. Bycoming into contact with relatives we have left behind, talking to them, and so forth, we areafterwards better able to impress them silently in their own homes. We, therefore, thank them forgiving us these opportunities.”(b) It is very natural that a spirit manifesting for the first time should experience greatdifficulty in making itself known. The atmosphere of the earth plane is, to them, dense andbewildering; and, apparently, the only way they can manage is to get a speech of a few words readybefore they enter it. They improve at every visit, until, eventually, they can converse as easily as ifthey were mortal. Many cannot succeed at all; some are barely able to make themselves known;while, on the other hand, I have known a few who remain several minutes at the first interview andanswer a few questions.(c) Definite questions as to names, dates, and places appear to create a “positive”condition, which upsets vibrations, until the spirit is well trained by three or four visits. I havemany exceptions in my notes, such as Galileo, Stone, and Sir Isaac Newton; but, speaking generally,spirits cannot converse intelligently without considerable practice.(d) Whatever doubts we may have on many points, there are none on this. Passivity onthe part of a sitter is absolutely essential to success. I have noticed many failures due to thedisturbance of the minds of sitters, and I conjecture that calmness is just as necessary on the “otherside.”(e) The delicacy of phenomena is a constant wonder to me. Trumpets are dropped on atable or the floor often from as high as ten or twelve feet; they alight without doing any injury tothe sitters, or to articles on the table, or in the room ; it is rare to find even a novice frightened atany seance.(f) This is my experience. A spirit in, say, the third sphere can tell you nothing of spiritsin the fifth or sixth.(g) I believe the motive of this is, generally, to expel from the sitter’s mind theexplanation of mind reading, and to give him confidence in the genuineness of the communication.It may be, sometimes, that—like the stammerer—he cannot get out the name he ought topronounce, and gives the other on the spur of the moment.(h) Here, I think, the motive is everything. If a sitter seizes a form from reasons ofhostility to the manifestation, and hoping to discover fraud, he will do the psychic considerableinjury; if, however, he acts without any but friendly and sympathetic feelings towards the medium,and purely to study the degree of substantiality of the forms, the controls impress the medium’swife to make no opposition to his experiment. No harm was done to Mr. Jonson by any of myattempts to solve this mystery of science; and, owing to the kind confidence shown in me by hiswife, I made discoveries which, incidentally, prove the integrity of everything that happens whenher husband is in a trance. My friend Grayfeather (his control) has never reproached me, but haseven come over to England to manifest his goodwill.(i) Lying and cheating by a sitter invariably spoil phenomena. Giving false names;refusing to acknowledge spirit friends when they appear; laying traps; talking in a disparagingsense of what is going on; restlessness and mental suspicion, all tend to kill the efforts of thecontrols to prove the power of the invisible intelligences around us.(j) Two or three times I have been told that the spirit of man generally cognises his newenvironment on the third day after physical death. Once a lady came to me and told me that shehad been able to impress her sister in earth life with the conviction that she was alive on “the thirdday.” I made inquiries two months later, and found that this was true. We know that it is notalways so. As will be shown in the Appendix to this work, it may be weeks or months, possiblyyears, before the “dead” are awake. Very rarely, they manifest on the same day; still more rarely,the same hour—even minute. But, I take it, the story of the resurrection of Jesus is not without itsesoteric meaning, like many other narratives in both the Old and New Testaments.(k) During my investigations a sad accident happened to an infant in my family, causingits sudden death. Mrs. Wriedt arrived in England a few days after; and, in her presence, I enjoyed