More and more the spirit “Home friends,” the Best Beloved, and the Guides encouraged the thought of my return to fulfill the appointed work on Earth. I had prayed to be allowed to remain, to let the body pass; but now, gradually it is true, the idea of resuming the human habiliments, the garb of the material body, became less repugnant, and I finally freely said: “Yes, I will go as that is the appointed way.”
Have you, dear friend, who may be reading these imperfect fragments of a perfect experience, (as any narrative must be) ever visited some fair garden, some sequestered home of dearest friends, a place radiant with beauty and enchantment; where there were flowers massed in rarest combinations of color and fragrance, fountains murmuring in answer to the summer winds, music, such as seemed a part of the enrapturing scene; have you enjoyed this with the chosen friends that alone could make the scene sacred, the Best Beloved? And have you known the reluctance to return to the “outer world” of daily routine of care, perhaps of pain? Ah, then you know in the smallest degree what it meant to me to return to my bodily form!
Yet even now the soul of all that was mine in that wonderful, surpassing state is ever with me; nor will it again be absent from me—since it is enfolded in my very being. I am more complete now, even in the body which ever divides us from the Soul of Life.
“You will be with us again and often,” they said; the Guide said no formal “farewells,” no “leavetaking,” but everywhere from every Dear and Blessed one “Blessings, Peace, Joy, and Love go with you into added Strength and Work.”
And here I am: ready to help the body to grow stronger, and to willingly, joyfully, in the future as in the past, perform the work assigned me—until—they—call—me—Home.
Cora L. V. Richmond.
An Added Word or Two
The possibility of the spirit “leaving the body” for a time and then returning and resuming its usual activities has been demonstrated many times. In some instances the temporary separation was caused by accident, illness, states of coma induced by anesthetics, trance, either of spirit control or hypnosis, and sometimes a voluntary absence or activity not suspending the vital functions of the body. It is also undoubtedly true that during sleep—especially that restful, dreamless sleep that betokens a normal state of mind and body, the spirit avails itself of the opportunity of restoration by spiritual methods and activities not possible while urging the body to do its bidding. Not only Spiritualists, Psychologists and Psychic Research students have well authenticated cases of the undoubted activity of the Spirit apart from the body, but many prominent physicians have recorded their experiences with patients whose bodily functions were suspended, even to seeming dissolution, and upon the unexpected resuscitation of the subject there would be a vivid account of active experiences in spirit—usually pleasant scenes and meetings with friends long passed into spirit life. These visits to “heaven” would be sometimes tinged with the religious bias of the subject, but this is not strange in view of the fact that spirit states are conditions of the mind and spirit experiencing them.
Among the most familiar popular illustrations are those narrated by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, especially by “Gail Hamilton” who, being thought “dead” returned to her body, narrated to her pastor the experiences she had during that period of suspended animation and resumed her pen, remaining in mortal life a considerable time thereafter.
Although not usual, this class of experiences is not so unusual as many imagine or assert. And the writer having been from childhood accustomed to the “other state” (“Inner,” “higher”), of consciousness can distinctly trace her experiences in that inner realm as forming fully a third if not one-half of her life-experiences.