Another very important reason why this knowledge has remained hidden, is because to embody it in a language appropriate to it, and, at the same time, avoid obscurity, is exceedingly difficult.
Why? Because it belongs to a different world, a world which has no nearer relation to this one than thoughts have to things. To illustrate what I mean by this, suppose you should wake up some night and find yourself in silent darkness and unable to move a muscle. Suppose you could not even feel the bed under you, being conscious only of being supported in a horizontal position. So long as these avenues of sense remained closed, the world of things would not exist to you, and you could not say, of your own knowledge, that it continued to exist for anyone else.
While the situation would be a startling one without doubt, I am going to assume that you would have a sufficient degree of self-control to keep your mental balance. This would be the easier as you discovered that your mental vision was as clear as ever, and that your real self, which is back of all your senses, had received no shock or injury. You would naturally wish to know just what had happened, and it would be apt to disturb you somewhat to find that your reasoning powers failed to respond when you called upon them to solve the problem, as naturally they would, since the brain, with which they do their work, would share the inaction of the body. Now, if the world of things had thus vanished, what could remain? In the first place, memory. You would be able to call up the pictures of the past, and live over again in your mind any scene there depicted. But you would not be confined to living in the past. Although unable to see or to hear, you would be able to assume the mental attitude either of looking or listening, and as you sought to penetrate the gloom of your surroundings, you would be conscious of lifting eyelids which perhaps had never been raised before, and the mystic light of another world would dawn upon you. Shadowy forms of graceful outline would be seen, at first dimly, then with greater clearness. You would not mistake them for mortals, and, having no acquaintance with other-world intelligences, you might take them for moving pictures, destitute of any kind of life.
Presently you would become aware that connected thoughts were passing through your mind, without conscious volition on your part, and assuming the attitude of a listener you would discover that the inner world of sound was opening to you. The subject treated of might not relate to you personally, but you would hail with delight the opportunity to prove yourself in communication with other minds.
Presently some sentiment is expressed which you do not approve, and you put forth an impulse of will-power in protest. Instantly comes a thought-message directly to you. Who has arrested my current of thought? The meaning of this is at once apparent. You are like a telegraph operator who has been listening to a passing message, containing a false statement, and has stopped it. You might now withdraw your protest and allow the message to pass as something which did not concern you, or you might assert your individuality and reply to the sharp question by saying, "Because I allow nothing to pass through my mind which I do not approve." If you adopted the first course, you might be let off with a curse, and told to mind your own business hereafter; but if you should manifest the temerity indicated by the second, a thundering "What?" might fall upon your new sense, and you would discover that you had a fight on your hands. It may be supposed that you would mentally assume an upright position, which in that world corresponds to the act of rising here, and brace yourself for the contest. But it is not necessary to carry the illustration any farther at this time. I merely wished to show how thoughts may take the place of things in the mind's arena when, for any reason, things are shut out.
A third reason why a knowledge of The Beyond is not more generally disseminated, is that false ideas in regard to death are so predominant that it has become a habit with the great majority to dismiss from the mind all thoughts having, or that are supposed to have, any possible connection with it, and therefore the avenue of approach to the minds of such is kept closed by themselves.
It may be asked why the solitary student is not able to attain to a satisfactory solution of the great problem, although seeking it with utmost earnestness. And I answer, first, because he probably seeks for it in the same way that he would seek for earth-knowledge, which is an error; and, secondly, because those who would otherwise gladly give it to him are able to read his motives, and finding them purely selfish, they turn away and leave him, while those spirits who have occult knowledge to sell, demand pay in a coin which the student is seldom willing to give, namely, a certain degree of control over him.
CHAPTER III.