The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation Part 7

This also used to occur so frequently as to be observed by both of us and discussed between us. When in the process of my endeavour to find the solution of some problem, such as the meaning of a parabolic or otherwise obscure pa.s.sage in Scripture, I had exhausted my stock of tentative hypotheses, but, through consideration for her other and engrossing work, refrained from imparting my need to her, she would receive in sleep the desired solution, which she wrote down on waking, and which invariably proved satisfactory beyond my highest imaginings.

And besides showing intimate acquaintance with the course of my thought, it was couched in language which, for simplicity, dignity, purity, and lucidity, was without an equal in literature; the English being that of the best period of our literature, and better than the best even of that period. She herself had a remarkable mastery of English, but these compositions reduced her to despair, causing her to exclaim, "Why cannot I write as well when I am awake as I do in my sleep!" Of course the explanation lay in the limiting influence of the physical organism.

The frequency of this occurrence led me, in the absence of authoritative explanation, to try the following, as an hypothesis purely tentative.

The revelations generally came to her when, through my inability to find the interpretations which satisfied me, my work required them, and they came independently of any desire or knowledge on her part. Might it not be, then, that it was my own spirit who knew them and gave them to her, finding her more sensitive to impression than myself? The explanation was not one that either pleased or satisfied me, one reason being that I took a delight in recognising the primacy accorded to her.

The idea occurred to me one night, and I pondered it the next day, but did not divulge it. What happened on the evening of that day led me to suspect that our Genii had suggested it to me in order to make it the occasion of imparting to me the knowledge in question, namely, that of the real source and method of the revelation.

For the experience to be properly appreciated it must be remembered that "Mary" had no knowledge of the explanation suggested to me, and neither of us had as yet entertained the idea of past lives as the key to our present work. The question of Reincarnation itself had not come before us, and far less the possibility of recovering the memory of the things learnt in previous existences, much as we had been puzzled to account for our experiences in the absence of some such explanation.

The proposal to sit for a written communication came from her, having evidently been prompted by our illuminators. The method was one which both they and we disliked, and it was adopted only when they desired to address us both at once. So we sat for writing.

The result confirmed my surmise. We had scarcely seated ourselves when the writing began, as if we were being waited for. And this is what was written:--

"We are instructed to say several things to-night. We are your Genii.

"(To CARO.) In the first place, you entirely misconceive the process by which the Revelation comes to Mary. The method of this revelation is entirely interior. Mary is not a Medium; nor is she even a Seer as you understand the word. She is a Prophet. By this we mean that all she has ever written or will write, is from within, and not from without. She knows. She is not told. Hers is an old, old spirit. She is older than you are, Caro, older by many thousand years. Do not think that spirits other than her own are to be credited with the authors.h.i.+p of the new Gospel. As a proof of this, and to correct the false impression you have on the subject, the holy and inner truth, of which she is the depositary, will not in future be given to her by the former method. All she writes henceforth, she will write consciously. Yes, she must finish the new Evangel by conscious effort of brain and will."

Coming from a source which we had learnt to trust implicitly, and according with our own highest conceptions, this message was supremely satisfactory, and was welcomed accordingly. But it was followed forthwith by another which excited feelings of a very different character. For, as if expressly in order to prevent her from being made vain-glorious and uplifted by it, they added--

"(To MARY.) It may serve to exhibit the path by which you have come, and to suggest the nature of some ancient tendencies which may yet tarnish the mirror of a soul destined to attain perfection, to learn that you dwelt within the body of ----."

Here were given the name and character of a certain Roman dame of some seventeen centuries ago, one of high station, but of a repute so evil as to cause an immense shock to both of us. It does not come within the design of this book to disclose the particular personalities with whom we had been identified in the past[45]. Concerning this one it must suffice to state here that, omitting from account one whole side of "Mary's" character, we both recognised in the other side traits strongly resembling those which had been indicated. And she subsequently recovered distinct recollections of scenes in the life in question which served to a.s.sure her on the point. Our discussions on the matter tended to conclusions of which fuller knowledge brought the verification. It was not one of those lives in virtue of which she was directly qualified for her present work; but it was one of those lives of which the sin and the suffering may well be conceived of as indispensable elements in the education of a soul called to a lofty work and destiny in the future, in accordance with the principle which finds expression in the sayings, "The greater the sinner the greater the saint," and "_Pecca Fort.i.ter_."

This also we discerned clearly, that, supposing it to be indeed a truth that man is "made perfect through suffering," the experiences in the course of which the suffering is undergone must imply sin as well as pain and sorrow; since otherwise there would be a whole region of his nature, namely the moral, in which he would remain unvitalised. The lesson of which is that a man is alive only so far as he has lived.

There was yet another reflection that was prompted by the occasion in question, and one which crowned and glorified the rest. This was the a.s.surance implied that none need despair. If the soul which had dwelt in the body of the person named, could nevertheless become within measureable time what "Mary" was now, and be "destined to attain perfection," there is hope for all, and the doctrine of Reincarnation is indeed a gospel of salvation. And herein we discerned a lesson hitherto unsuspected so far as we were aware, in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

It is not the "elder brother" who stays at home that can best appreciate the divine order; but the prodigal who has gone forth into the world of experience to acquire knowledge for himself at first hand. They who have been the most fully satiated with the husks of materiality, can--when their time arrives for coming to their true selves--best estimate the fare provided in the "Father's House." "He loveth most to whom most has been forgiven.

While sitting alone one day and pondering these things, and particularly the difficulty which people often find in correcting in themselves even the faults which they deplore, this pregnant sentence was spoken audibly to my inner hearing by a voice which I recognised as that of my Genius:--"Tendencies encouraged for ages cannot be cured in a single lifetime, but may require ages."

This further reflection also was suggested to me: that souls of exceptional strength are reincarnated in bodies of exceptionally strong pa.s.sional natures, expressly in order to obtain the discipline which comes of the effort to subdue them. All of which reflections tended to exhibit the rashness of judging outward judgment in respect of others.

In order to judge righteous judgment it is necessary to know the strength of their temptations, and of their efforts to resist them. And these can be known only to G.o.d. The attainment of perfection, and therein of salvation by conquest and not by flight,--this is the principle of reincarnation. It is the _condition_ of Regeneration, which is _from out of_ the body.

In due time we were able to recognise the whole plan of our work as so ordered as to make the work itself a demonstration of the doctrine of reincarnation. When once this doctrine had become a practical question for us, it a.s.sumed a prominent place both in our teachings and in our experiences. One instruction given us was no less striking in itself than in the circ.u.mstances of its communication. The messenger was one with whom we had never antic.i.p.ated coming into relations, for, besides not courting intercourse with the souls of the departed, we had not paid to the writings of the person concerned the heed that would ent.i.tle us to count him among our cordial sympathisers; and still less as among our possible visitants. This was the famous Swedish Seer, Emmanuel Swedenborg. In the course of what we afterwards found to be a strikingly characteristic communication from him, he informed us that owing to the difficulty our angels had in approaching us just then, through the condition of the spiritual atmosphere, they had charged him with a message to us, in which "Mary's" Genius had spoken to him of her as "A soul of vast experience, who under his tuition had so painfully acquired the evangel of which she was the depositary"; adding that he, her Genius, "had been promised help to recover for her, in this incarnation, the memory of all that was in the past"; and--which was the point of the message--that it was to be put forward, not as we were then contemplating putting it forward, but "as fragmentary specimens of such recollection occurring to one now a woman, but formerly an initiate, who is beginning to recover this power."

It will be interesting to remark on this experience, that to this day the followers of Swedenborg set their faces against the doctrine of reincarnation, expressly on the ground that their master denied it in his lifetime. Whether Swedenborg really denied it is uncertain. There is grave cause to doubt whether his writings on the subject have been rightly understood or fairly represented. It has been maintained with much show of reason that Swedenborg denied only the reincarnation of the astral soul, not of the true soul; in which case he would be right.

Having once obtained access to us, his visits were for a time frequent, the manner of them being various. For he came to us jointly and separately, in waking and in sleeping--the latter to "Mary" only--and audibly and visibly--the latter also to "Mary" only. He alluded to a recent incarnation of mine, of which I have since had full and independent proof. And he recognised our work as not only a confirmation and continuation of his own, but also as a correction. For, as he gave us to understand, he had been too much under the influence of the current orthodoxy to be able to transmit the revelation given to him in its proper purity, and unbiased by his own preconceptions. The doctrine in respect of which he was chiefly desirous of being set right was that of the Incarnation, the orthodox presentment of which he now saw to be wrong, by reason of its deification of Jesus. In referring to the perversion of the truth by the formulators of the Christian orthodoxy, he said to us, with much emphasis, "Do not be too kind to the Christians."

This allusion to an experience which belongs to the category of "spiritualism" rather than to that of our special work, may with advantage be followed by some account of our other experiences of the same order, partly for the sake of testifying to the genuineness of the experiences relied on by spiritualists, and partly in order to show the distinction between the two orders of experience, as discerned by persons whose familiarity with both qualified them to inst.i.tute comparison between them. For, having once become sensitised in the inner and higher regions of the consciousness, we had become sensitised also in the intermediate regions, and were able therefore to hold palpable converse with the denizens of these also. And the converse thus held was of the most satisfactory character, on the ground both of the certainty of its reality and its intrinsic nature. Father, mother, wife, brothers, sundry dear friends, and others interested in our work, all came to me, and some of them to my colleague, and this several times, and in a manner impossible to be distrusted. For my mother more than once spoke to me aloud in her own unmistakeable voice, and in tones that anyone might have heard, as I sat alone in my study. My wife came repeatedly to both of us, jointly and separately, audibly, visibly, and tangibly; giving us timely warnings of dangers unsuspected by us but proving to be real. And one of my brothers cleared up a mystery which had hung over his death. No mere attenuated wraiths or soulless phantoms were they who thus visited us from "beyond the veil," they were strong, distinct, intelligent individualities, veritable souls, palpitating with vitality, and eager to render loving service. But they came spontaneously and unevoked, for we never sought to compel their presence. Our quest was purely and simply for truth, not for persons. But we considered that, when these also came, as they did come, to ourselves directly and without intervention of any third party, to refuse to receive them on the ground that they had put off their bodies, would be equivalent to repulsing our friends in the flesh on the ground that they had put off their overcoats.

The spirit in which alone such intercourse is permissible will be seen by the following citations from the instructions received by us. Terms from the Hebrew, Greek, and Oriental Scriptures were used indifferently by our illuminators. The word _Ruach_ in the following--which is Hebrew for Spirit--is here used in a kabalistic sense to denote the astral soul or ghost, as distinguished from the divine soul, the _Psyche_ or _Neshamah_, and from the _Nephesh_ or mere phantom. The following is from an instruction given to "Mary" in sleep, in direct solution of certain perplexities.

"Thou knowest that in the end, when Nirvana is attained, the soul shall gather up all that it hath left within the astral of holy memories and worthy experience, and to this end the Ruach rises in the astral sphere, by the gradual decay and loss of its more material affinities, until these have so disintegrated and perished that its substance is thereby lightened and purified. But continual commerce and intercourse with earth add, as it were, fresh fuel to its earthly affinities, keeping these alive, and hindering its recall to its spiritual ego. Thus, therefore, the spiritual ego itself is detained from perfect absorption into the divine, and union therewith. For the Ruach shall not all die, if there be in it anything worthy of recall. The astral sphere is its purging chamber. For Saturn, who is Time, is the trier of all things; he devoureth all the dross; only that escapeth which in its nature is ethereal and destined to reign. And this death of the Ruach is gradual and natural. It is a process of elimination and disintegration, often--as men measure time--extending over many decades, or even centuries. And those Ruachs which appertain to wicked and evil persons, having strong wills inclined earthwards,--these persist longest and manifest most frequently and vividly, because they _rise not_, but, being destined to perish utterly, are not withdrawn from immediate contact with the earth.

They are all dross; there is in them no redeemable element. But the Ruach of the righteous complaineth if thou disturb his evolution.

'Why callest thou me? disturb me not. The memories of my earth-life are chains about my neck; the desire of the past detaineth me.

Suffer me to rise towards my rest, and hinder me not with evocations. But let thy love go after me and encompa.s.s me; so shalt thou rise with me through sphere after sphere.'

"For the good man upon earth can love nothing less than the divine.

Wherefore that which he loveth in his friend is the divine, that is, the true and radiant self. And if he love it as differentiated from G.o.d, it is only on account of its separate tincture. For in the perfect light there are innumerable tinctures. And according to its celestial affinity, one soul loveth this or that splendour more than the rest. And when the righteous friend of the good man dieth, the love of the living man goeth after the true soul of the dead; and the strength and divinity of this love helpeth the purgation of the astral soul, the psychic ghost. It is to this astral soul, which ever remaineth near the living friend, an indication of the way it must also go,--a light s.h.i.+ning upon the upward path that leads from the astral to the celestial and everlasting. For love, being divine, is _towards_ the divine. 'Love exalteth, love purifieth, love uplifteth.'"

And this also, which was similarly obtained, represents a further restoration of the original, pure, undistorted and unmutilated doctrine of Christianity concerning the communion of souls.

So weepest thou and lamentest, because the Soul thou lovest is taken from thy sight.

And life seemeth to thee a bitter thing: yea, thou cursest the destiny of all living creatures.

And thou deemest thy love of no avail, and thy tears as idle drops.

Behold, Love is a ransom, and the tears thereof are prayers.

And if thou have lived purely, thy fervent desire shall be counted grace to the soul of thy dead.

For the burning and continual prayer of the just availeth much.

Yea, thy love shall enfold the soul which thou lovest: it shall be unto him a wedding garment and a vesture of blessing.

The baptism of thy sorrow shall baptize thy dead, and he shall rise because of it.

Thy prayers shall lift him up, and thy tears shall encompa.s.s his steps: thy love shall be to him a light s.h.i.+ning upon the upward way.

And the angels of G.o.d shall say unto him, "O happy Soul, that art so well-beloved; that art made so strong with all these tears and sighs.

"Praise the Father of Spirits therefor: for this great love shall save thee many incarnations.

"Thou art advanced thereby; thou art drawn aloft and carried upward by cords of grace."

For in such wise do souls profit one another and have communion, and receive and give blessing, the departed of the living, and the living of the departed.

And so much the more as the heart within them is clean, and the way of their intention is innocent in the sight of G.o.d....

Count not as lost thy suffering on behalf of other souls; for every cry is a prayer, and all prayer is power.

That thou willest to do is done; thine intention is united to the Will of Divine Love.

Nothing is lost of that which thou layest out for G.o.d and for thy brother.

And it is love alone who redeemeth, and love hath nothing of her own[46].

But precious as is the communion of souls when thus conditioned, it was not to them that we looked for light and guidance in our work. Nor, indeed, to any persons at all in the sense in which the term is ordinarily used. We looked steadfastly and directly to the Highest, confidently leaving to the Highest the appointment both of the Messenger and of the Message, but never failing to submit both manner and matter to the keenest scrutiny of faculties which we had striven to the utmost to attune to divine things. We were, moreover, emphatically warned from the outset against allowing any intrusion into our work of the influences accessible to the ordinary sensitive, the two planes being absolutely distinct. Herein lay the significance of the saying of "Mary's" Genius, that he had been "promised help to enable her to recover in this incarnation the memory of all that is in the past." The Genii themselves, although of the celestial, belong to its circ.u.mferential and lowest sphere. They touch the astral, but do not enter it. The help spoken of was to come from the innermost and highest spheres. And the charge was accordingly given us, "Do not, then, seek after 'controls.' Keep your temple for the Lord G.o.d of Hosts; and turn out of it the money-changers, the dove-sellers, and the dealers in curious arts, yea, with a scourge of cords if need be."

The manner in which we received the first full and particular account respecting the method of revelation, was as follows. I was pondering to myself with much intentness the nature and source of inspiration, and desiring a test whereby to distinguish between true and false inspiration. But I refrained for various reasons from consulting my colleague, at least until I should have exhausted my own resources. And she was still without any intimation of my need when she received the instruction concerning inspiration and prophesying of which the following is a portion. It was received in sleep, and the date was shortly before we were told that her knowledges were due to experiences undergone in previous lives[47]. When I had read it she said, referring to the first verse, "But I did not ask." In reply to which I told her that I had asked. It was addressed equally to both of us, as making together one system.

"I heard last night in my sleep a voice speaking to me, and saying--

"You ask the method and nature of Inspiration, and the means whereby G.o.d revealeth the Truth.

"Know that there is no enlightenment from without: the secret of things is revealed from within.

"From without cometh no Divine Revelation: but the Spirit within beareth witness.