But it is impossible that I should know of what I am speaking, some reader says. I grant you that it seems so, but would discussion settle it? Is it not time the door was opened? Is there no need?
CHAPTER XIX.
An illustration of the difficulty of generalizing when speaking of matters on the spirit-side just now occurs to me.
Suppose that you as a mortal were permitted to witness a combat between a soul on its way upward and a foul spirit seeking to gain control. The spirit may be able to take on any form it pleases, and approaches in the guise of a friend. But the soul receives a warning touch and speaks out sharply: "Stand; keep your distance. Who are you? and what do you want?" With every smooth and crafty method of tone and word the spirit seeks to convince that he is what he claims to be, a friend, and entitled to approach. The soul, with its senses sharpened by fear, uses every effort to discern the character of the stranger, weighs and analyzes instantly every expression of the wily foe, and before the answer is completed, decides positively and prepares to strike. The spirit perceives the motion and shifts his footing in time to escape the blow—a thought-impulse, weighted to kill. Does the spirit respond in anger? Oh, no; his object is not to injure, but to gain control, so he remonstrates, with pretended grief, that one whom he loves should so mistake him. But the soul is not to be deceived, and gathers up its strength for another blow. The spirit pours out a perfect stream of flattering words, intended to lull his intended victim into a momentary lack of vigilance, and ventures a little nearer, hoping to touch the aura and disappear from view, only to become manifest as an invisible power within the soul, an active agent in undermining its powers until the opportunity shall present to seize the very throne itself and revel in the possessions of its victim.
But the soul is cautious, and in virtue strong, and so, conscious of invisible protection, suddenly fixes the demon with his eye, and before he can escape launches at him a bolt that leaves him helpless and writhing, dead as a spirit can be. "I killed him," says the exulting soul, as it passes on its way.
You would be apt to say, "He did not kill him at all; he only disabled him."
Now, while it is true that what I have described corresponds in appearance to what we should here call disablement merely, its full meaning cannot be understood without entering the consciousness of the spirit who was struck down.
To such a one activity, or the ability to act, constitutes life; inactivity, or the inability to act, constitutes death, not death as we know it, but a living death, in which the fierce vibrations of a life that knows no end, being confined as though by a broken wheel in its carriage,—being confined, I say, to the gaseous envelope, the propulsion of which has absorbed half its fire, soon heats the envelope to a torturing degree.