"'Where, then, was the true locality of the scene that Betsey saw taking place?' you ask. And I answer, and I tell you, in nearly the words of the strange Hermit of the Silver Girdle, when explaining it to Betsey Clark: All these strange things are occurring, not in any sort of phantom-world, but in another material earth, quite as solid as this. This crystal is a magic telescope through which we may view whatever we desire to, whether on this earth or off it.
"Listen! Space is by no means limitless, but is a globular or elliptical, definite region—the play-ground of the Powers—and is bounded on all sides by a thick amorphous Wall, of the materials of which new worlds and starry systems from time to time are fashioned. This Wall is thicker, a million-fold, than the diameter of the entire menstruum wherein this universe is floating. Surrounding this universe, on all sides of this wall, are seven other universes, separated as is this, from all the others; and they all differ from our own and the rest, as differs a volcano from a sprig of rosemary—that is to say, utterly—totally. The material worlds of each of these other universes outnumber the sands of the desert, yet their number is precisely that of the one in which we live; but they are larger, for the earth that corresponds to, and bears the name of this of ours, is, in the smallest of the other universes, quite as bulky as the sun which gives us light, and the other solar bodies in proportion. The universe next higher is immeasurably larger than the one just alluded to. It has the same number of material worlds, and the earth corresponding to this of ours is as large as the solar system in which we are. That of the third is as large as the solar system of the second, and so on to the last of the series of seven; but not the last in fact, for outside of, and surrounding the entire seven, is another Wall, separating them from forty-nine other systems, in ascending grade. I cannot now give you any information respecting the sublime realities of these forty-nine, nor of the regions and realms still Beyond; therefore I recall your attention to this world and sphere of being.
"On earth there are seven distinct classes or orders of men: the Instinctual, Affectional, Intellectual, Intuitional, Aspiring, Indifferent, and Wise, to all of whom a different destiny is decreed. Organizations determine destinies! Every nebulæ seen in the far-off heaven is a system of worlds. That wonderful family of stars to which our sun belongs is, with all its overflowing measure of star-dust, but a single cosmos; and there are myriads of such within the confines of this present universe, and before we cross the vast ocean of Ethylle, and reach the Wall alluded to. All things are in halves; male, female—negative, positive—light, dark, and so on. So is the nebulæ of worlds to which we belong. Now, remember what I have said of the resemblances between this earth and universe and the seven others beyond the Wall. Precisely such likenesses exist between the worlds of the respective halves of our own system.
"At various distances, flecking the vault, we behold suns and systems innumerable. These all belong to this, the female half of our system. Beyond them lies a vast ocean of Ether, separating the Continents. Across that Ocean, at a distance incomputable by the human intellect, is the male half of our system. There—there is a sun precisely as large, as brilliant, and as hot as ours—and no more so. Around that sun fiery comets whirl, planets revolve, and meteors flash, just as they do hitherward. There is a Venus, Mercury, Asteroids, Mars, Jupiter, and all the other planetary bodies, just as here, and of the same dimensions. A globe there is called Earth; it has a moon, an Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, and other seas, exactly equivalent to ours. It has a California, a San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg, just as here; and their names, as are those of its trees, countries, counties, town, people, capitals, are exactly as on this earth. There is a President Lincoln, and General Fremont; a Thurlow Weed, and Cullen Bryant; an Agassiz, and Horace Greeley; Atlantic Monthly, and Harper's Magazine; a New York Mercury, an Independent, edited by Beecher, Tilton and Leavitt—and they deal the same as do their similitudes here. The streets and omnibuses are precisely as here; Wall street is as full of thieves, and contractors get fat off their country's gore as they do here. There is a Rebellion there, and Union Generals sell themselves to Treason just as here—while the men who could and would save the nation are left out in the cold, in spite of the Tribunes, Posts, and Times—all of which long since pointed out the road to Richmond and to victory—and were laughed at just as in our planet.
"In that far-distant world there is at this moment a steamer, 'Uncle Sam,' sailing across the Gulf of California, as at this moment we are, and on board of her there are just as many men and women as on this one, and their persons, names, habits, features, motives, hopes, fears, characters, secrets, and intellectual and moral natures, are precisely the same as our own, on board this ship. Our namesakes there are at this instant doing, thinking, acting, reading, as are we; and some of them are listening to a very strange story, and its still stranger episodes, told by a Rosicrucian—just such a personage as myself—indeed my Very Self—in the self-same form and feature. And I say, and I tell you, that the alter ego—the living portrait of each man and woman in this circle, is thinking of him or herself, and of me and my revelations, at this moment, with the same stupid levity, with the same deep and awful impression of their truth, in the same manner, whatever it be, as are all of you at this moment. And some there, as here, set me and my story at naught—stigmatize me as an enthusiast or dreaming poet, as do some of you. Others believe my truths. You have heard that coming events cast their shadows before them, and that Prophecy has been demonstrated true. Behold the solution of the world-enigma. Events transpire in that other world a trifle sooner than they do here; yet you must remember that there is a vast interval of space, and therefore time, that must be bridged by even that swift courier, Sympathy. According as a man there, and his counterpart here, are fine, aspiring, and spiritual-minded, so is their rapport across the awful gulf; and the male half, the more perfect portion of each man or woman's self, very frequently telegraphs the other, often a long time before the event becomes actualized on this earth. You have heard of Fays and Fairies. Listen, and learn the truth concerning them: Remembering that no human soul can by any possibility quit the confines of this universe until it has exhausted the whole of its, the universe's, resources, and has attained all of Love, Will, Majesty, Power, Wisdom and Dignity, that this vast cosmos can give it; after which it sleeps awhile, but will awake again to the exercise of Creative Energy, on the thither side of the Wall—both duplicates sleep at once; for, after their deaths on the material earths, they exist apart, but sustain the same relations, in certain aromal worlds attached to their respective primary homes. At the final deaths, they blend forever, their stature is increased, and they enter, through the Wall, that earth resembling the one whereon the double unit had its birth originally.
"You have heard of Metempsychosis, Transmigration, of Reincarnation, and of Progress. Listen, and learn more: Not only the inhabitants of the countless myriads of worlds in this material and aromal universe, but also the material and aromal worlds themselves, are in a constant state of progressive movement. By aromal worlds I mean the aërial globes that attend each planet. They are places where souls rest awhile after death, before they commence in earnest the second stage of their career; and this state is an intermediate one, just like sleep, only that they are conscious and active while there; but it is an activity and consciousness, not like, but analogous to that of Dream. Every world, and assemblage of worlds, is periodically reduced, by exhaustion, but at enormously long intervals, into Chaos, and is then reformed, or created anew, still, however, being the same world. After this passage, each system and world becomes vastly more perfect than before; but, owing to the diminished quantity of Spirit or essence which has been consumed in giving birth to hosts of immortal armies, each system and world is vastly smaller than before. This is for two reasons, one of which I have just stated; the other is, in order to make room for new cosmi, and new worlds, both of which are being constantly created from the material of the Wall; and the Wall itself is the condensed effluence of the Maker—in short, it is God-Od, and therefore inexhaustible. The majority of those who have lived on any world are re-born in it after its restitution, they, in the meantime, having grown correspondingly clean and perfect. The same relative proportions between a world and its occupants is still preserved, and never varies; and, consequently, the six-foot man and the five-foot woman of one career, find themselves, in their next state, occupying five and four-foot bodies respectively. The present is our thirty-fourth Incarnation. Originally we were taller than many of our present trees, and coarser than our mountains. We are smaller and better than ever before, and our worst man is better than the best of the preceding state. The worst, in the next change, will be better than our best.[2] To illustrate, let me say, that the following persons, viz.: Thurlow W——, Abraham L——, Russel L——, J. Gordon B——, Henry J. R——, Wm. Cullen B——, Jefferson D——, John G. Fre——, James Buch——, Wigfall, Charles Sum——, Horace G——, Fernando W——, George B. Mc——, Gen. J. H—k—r, Dr. H. F. G—d—r, Charles T—n—s, Lizzie D—— and myself, respectively, were, previously to the last change: the first, a feudal lord; the second, an editor; the third, a Danish prince; the fourth, a court-jester; the fifth, a missionary; the sixth, a generalissimo; the seventh, a harpist; the eighth, a theatrical manager; the ninth, a knife-grinder; the tenth, a privateer; the eleventh, a preacher; the twelfth, a schoolmaster; the thirteenth, a trumpeter; the fourteenth, a politician; the fifteenth, a hunter; the sixteenth, a very little boy, died exceedingly young; the seventeenth, an emperor; the eighteenth, a born queen; and the last, a barber's clerk; so that it is evident, that though our progress is slow, still that we are 'Coming up.' Little as our actual worth may be, still we are better now, generally speaking, than in the former stage. Thus, we will grow smaller at every change. Some worlds, and their dwellers, in this universe have thus decreased, and being sometimes seen by people here, have been called Fays or Fairies. The world has yet to undergo some thousands of these changes, until at last we become very small indeed, which will occur when conception is no longer possible in the universe, either in the vegetable or animal worlds; and then will occur the change and transference beyond the Wall.
"Betsey Clark was beholding persons and events of that other world-half of this, our little staying-house, beholding things through that fairy lense—that beautiful magic crystal, through which the human eye can see, the human brain sense, things that have occurred, are occurring, or are to occur, upon the world-stage of this our life's theatre.
"It is an established fact that fools never dream! Wise people often do! And those belonging to the latter category cannot have failed to notice that things, dates, persons, circumstances, and probabilities, are considerably mixed up, as a general thing, in dreams. Their anachronisms are especially remarkable and provoking, and indicate that time is of but little, if any, account, so far as the soul, per se, is concerned. A dream of a minute often embraces the multifarious experience of a century. This instant you are hob-nobbing with one of the pre-Adamite kings on the plateaus of eastern Asia, and in the next are taking wine with Pharaoh and Moses on the banks of the Nile; now you are delivering an oration before Alexander the Great, and in a jiffy find yourself stuffing ballots on Cornhill in an election for ward-constable; now you are contemporary with Sardanapalus or Thothmes III., and in half a second you are delivering a 'Spiritual Lecture' in Lamartine Hall, having paid fifty cents for the privilege of listening to your own 'Splendid and Overpowering Eloquence.' Taken together, dreams, like Complimentary Benefits, are queer concerns. Such was that of Betsey Clark; for at one moment of time she was a virgin girl, a wife, a widow, and a wife again. She recognized at once the facts of her girlhood, that she had carefully deposited one husband in a hole in the ground, and was in high hopes of performing the same kind office for a second—Mr. Thomas W.
"Presently the view in the crystal faded away, and in its stead there came the appearance of a large and splendid atelier, containing numberless statues, in a more or less finished condition, standing on pedestals or in niches round the wall-sides. The sculptor was absent. It was evident at a glance that his images were not hewn of marble, but of some other material, which needed but a touch of fire to make them start up into life, liberty, and light. It was a man-factory—a place where people were carved out to order by a wonderful Artist, who had just opened business thereabouts and who, judging from appearances, was already in a fair line of patronage, and quite likely to do well, if not better.
"Standing near the centre of the apartment, propped up with bits of wood, Betsey saw the exact likeness, in all respects, of Mr. Thomas Clark—but the figure was unfinished—soft, puttyish, and doughy as a Northern Politician.