Illustrating in another way, the evil spirit, being disabled from continuing his customary activity, is forced to reflect, to look back over his course, and face the evils he has done. Horrors take hold of him. The most poignant dread of being overtaken by those whom he has despoiled of all that made life dear, until in despair they have committed suicide, and started out to find their tormentor, takes hold of the miserable wreck, who has not even the consolation of looking forward to some certain end to his sufferings, because neither time nor the last sleep are known in the region of the dead.
Is this experience, do you think, any less to be dreaded by a selfish spirit than is death by a mortal who is consciously not ready? It is therefore properly called death in the language of the spirit, made up, as that language is, of ideas only.
But in calling it death on the earth-plane we are using a word that has a much different meaning here.
When we say, "The man is dead," a funeral, or at least a burial is suggested. Not so there.
In this we have an example of the difficulty of conveying information in regard to the conditions of the Beyond, without using words that are liable to be misunderstood.
Only those who have attained to the ability to converse in the light, eye to eye, without words, are entirely free from these obstructions to mental intercourse.
CHAPTER XX.
Astronomy teaches us that our earth, together with the other members of the solar system, is traveling through space, at the rate of eight miles per second, around a distant center, in an orbit requiring many thousands of years to complete.