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on each other, have a language. They know how to communicate, and in a measure they are
dependent one upon the other. Is it not amusing to hear some people say that man alone has
speech, that is, sound formed into certain words and syllables and sentences through the vocal
organs? Let us, for instance, consider the birds. We see them and hear them warble and sing.
That is their way of expressing joyousness; but that is not their language. They have a way in
which they communicate with each other just as we have. Has the reader ever visited India? In
the Burning Ghaut, where the Hindoos and others burn their dead, they carry the bodies up a
flight of stairs to a high platform. The wood is already prepared, and the body is placed upon
the wood. Look up into the heavens, calm and bright, the sun glaring down, not a speck in the
sky. In two or three minutes the place will be black with carrion birds. Can we explain it?
Yes, away perched on some high eminence or tree is the sentinel bird; perhaps miles away are
his fellows. He speaks to them, the sentinel sounds the signal, and instantly they reply to him,
and fill the air. Most people think that the world in which they live is a jumble. I grant that
there are things that are abhorrent, which we cannot understand - the mystery of pain and
suffering, of evil, for example, but I realize now that out of all that is evil, will finally come
good. There is no confusion or jumble in the Divine Order. Everything is in its place, and
ultimately it will be seen that in Nature, God has set the solitary in families, that His
wondrous power is always recreating matter, and that there is never annihilation.
There may, however, be change of form. Take, for instance, the coral rocks on the seashore.
Little creatures once swam in the ocean in tiny shells; they died in myriads, and the shells in
time formed certain rocks. Old forests fall in decay, and the wisest man of the 20th century
might have said: "Show me the wisdom of God in this?" But today the coal formed from these
forests is used to give warmth and light, and all the processes of commerce are carried on
through it.
There is no death! Everything gives place to new forms of life.
And this is the fact that we must gather from our teaching: that out of the life contained in the
mass, individuality has come; out of the mass of life, through Nature's process of constant
change and refinement, every living creature that will inhabit this globe in the ages yet to
come must be evolved. The highest form of life that is evolved from the mass is man - and to
the highest, all lesser forms contribute. Mankind is the final result of evolutionary action.
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 CHAPTER VI THE CONTINUICTY OF LIFE
Do the so-called dead actually live be yond the grave? If so, where? Can they communicate
with us after they have left their physical bodies? Have conditions been perfected by which
they can talk to those living here, using their own voice? Do their words sound the same in
our atmosphere as they did when they inhabited their physical bodies?" These questions and
many more have often been asked me. I answer, "Yes" - but the abstract affirmative reply
means so little that I propose to give a detailed explanation of the facts. If I can explain the
principle involved, the result will be understood, for the former is a condition depending upon
the latter.
We were conducting our investigation as usual. The room devoted to the purpose was in
intense darkness, as it always was, and the atmospheric movement was slow. Mrs. French, my
assistant, the most perfect psychic then living, was with me.
In the darkness appeared points of non-luminous light, constantly in motion, cloudy, etheric
substance, half-form, which moved with an effect of a cool wind blowing across one's face
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and hands, as it passed and repassed. A strong influence seemed to take some vital force from
me.
From years of similar experience I knew that aiding us was a group of workers in the afterlife,
who were creating conditions by which it would be possible for them, and those whom they
would bring, to converse with us; that etheric and physical matter were being transformed into
a state in which they could be used to clothe the vocal organs of spirit people.
"Do spirit people have bodies?" is a question frequently asked. My answer is that they have,
and when in this world, it is clothed with a flesh garment. In the change the etheric body
discards the flesh covering, but that act does not destroy the individual, or his etheric body, or
his organs of speech, or change them in any way. The flesh covering of man's etheric body
makes possible existence in the physical world. Similarly, the absence of the flesh garment
makes possible his existence in the spirit world. It is only by again clothing organs of speech [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]