Suddenly I awakened and found myself still seated by the table, pencil in hand, and strangest of all this strange experience, as I slept and dreamed, I had written all, and more than I have related. In what manner can you account for this unusual dream, if dream it was?
Faveon—My dear Dano, I shall not attempt to account for your singular dream further than that I presume that your waking thoughts and imaginings were so impressed upon your mind that during sleep they assumed familiar shapes, one of which appeared to utter unheard of mysteries. I pray you, put away further indulgence in such misleading fancies which may harmfully excite your too emotional nature. Through our Holy Writings we are taught, and all experience confirms the fact, that only Andûmana̤'s Messengers dwell above yonder fleecy, floating clouds, which, like a mistlike veil hide the glory of their shining faces, which, as we know, sometimes irradiates the sky reminding Ento's children that their sleepless eyes ever observe our good or evil deeds. Always has it been and always must it be that when the breath of life ceases the dead go into perpetual silence. Ah me, scarcely do we learn to live, to love, to enjoy, ere death tears us from the embraces of our loved ones, and naught is left us save a handful of ashes to be cherished, to be ceaselessly wept over.
Dano—Think me not impious that I question why Andûmana̤ has so decreed that a life full of good deeds, of noble aims and achievements, shall end as ends the life of the animal; shall suddenly, in the full tide of a glorious career, cease to live and be no more. That we now exist, and are conscious of the fact, is to my mind, as great a marvel as that, in some unimagined state, we may continue a conscious existence. Aye, a conscious existence in which to unfold our highest abilities. You are aware, Favēon, that I am betrothed to Valloa̤, daughter and only child of our supreme ruler, Omanos Fûnha̤, whose wife, Sēlona̤, died in giving birth to their only child. Emerging into womanhood, Valloa̤ displays such beauty of character, such elegance of manner, such loveliness of face and form, such intelligence and vivacity, that she enthralls me beyond expression, and I love her with adoring tenderness. When I think of the possibility of death approaching this charming, this adorable woman, stilling the breath of her life, closing her luminous eyes and ending the music of her gentle speech, I am filled with unutterable anguish. Oh, Favēon, if I sin, may Andûmana̤ forgive, but to me it seems cruel that he permits the dread Messenger Phra to take our all without making us, his children, some recompense for the agony of bereavement, for the sorrowful certainty, that we, and our dear dead shall meet no more.
Faveon—Dano, Dano, you shock and alarm me. No longer am I surprised that your waking thoughts fill your sleep with strange, if not with impious, dreams. I implore you to restrain your thoughts, your vivid imagination, lest some harm come to you. You well know that your ideas are contrary to the teachings of our sacred priesthood, who are the expounders of our Holy Writings, which declare that in the beginning Andûmana̤, through His love for His ignorant children instructed the gods to commune with them, that thus they might gain knowledge, but as they grew wise they also grew so arrogant and impious that they sought to wrest from the gods the secrets pertaining to sacred things. Then Andûmana̤ wrathfully forbade His Messengers to hold further communion with His sinful children. In the beginning there was no death, but for their sins Andûmana̤ decreed that henceforth death should serve as a constant reminder that the Creator is greater than the created. We being the created cannot, without sin, question Andûmana̤'s laws, hence, dear Dano, we should not only willingly submit to the will of our Creator, but as obedient children, we should humbly revere the hand that smites us.
Death having come to the children of Ento because of their impious desire to obtain a knowledge of sacred mysteries, it does not appear reasonable that even you, our beloved prince, may have been admitted into Astranola̤, and the Holy Writings mention no other realm of living ones. To my mind, your dream partakes of the nature of the hallucination which recently possessed you in the lecture hall. You then insisted, and still insist, that a foreign-looking woman spoke to you, and even touched you, yet no one save our fanciful friend, Lēta Verronadas, imagined that they saw or heard aught. Certainly, it was nothing more than the effect of a too highly excited imagination, to which, I confess, I, too, occasionally am a victim. It appears that Lēta is becoming subject to these annoying seizures, and his friends are somewhat anxious for his health, which really appears excellent.
If my very practical remarks have served to becloud your usually serene countenance, you will forgive me, and may Andûmana̤ forgive if I, too, am sometimes filled with fear and bitter regret that inevitably death is drawing near, that even in my youth I may pass into oblivion. Were it not impious, gladly would I welcome a belief in a possibility of a continuity of existence. Alas, we have no hope, or slightest indication, that after death has seized the breath of our life, we and our beloved ones ever shall meet again. So, my friend, it will be well for us to strive to be thinkers and workers, not dreamers of dreams which have no foundation in realities. Your heavy sigh finds an echo in my own heart, and I fear that my face like your own tells the secret of our sorrowful thoughts, so the signal for our return to study comes in good time to end this profitless conversation.
De L'Ester—You perceive, Gentola̤, that a spiritual force is agitating the minds of some of Ento's people. All through the centuries of their established religion there have been minds more or less illumined by gleams of Spirit Inspiration, but necessarily they have been so faint, so uncertain, so quickly repressed as to have made but slight impression upon the masses of the people. Always the priesthood of Ento have been an impregnable barrier between the darkness of superstition and the light of Inspiration. That generally they have been, and are sincere, we do not question. Sincere, or otherwise, everywhere and always the priesthood move forward only when the spiritual unfolding of a people obliges them to yield to an irresistible pressure. Largely it was through the spiritual growth of the people that, some centuries ago, Ento's priesthood were obliged to discontinue human sacrifices, and it is through their further spiritual evolvement that the densely positive barrier which ever has enfolded them at length is yielding to forces from the spirit worlds. We rejoice that now, as never before, spirits from Ento's and other spirit worlds can penetrate and come en rapport with the consciousness of many of the people. True we cannot, as you can, approach them directly, but soon conditions will become changed and we too, will be able to communicate with many sensitives.
We have shown you that all organisms throw off certain emanations, the condition of the organism determining the quality of the emanation. In their activities these emanations are either centrifugal or centripetal. The centrifugal or positive being forceful, the centripetal, or negative being passive, but, if I may use a paradoxical term, energetically passive, and they form about inhabited planets like, or similar to, Ento and Earth, a spiritualized atmosphere, which, to freed spirits, is as palpable as is a stone wall to physical touch. The positive atmosphere enveloping the peoples of Ento is very repellent; but you, who are yet connected with a physical body, are not so etherealized as we are, hence we can use you as a means of communication with persons upon whom we can make no impression.
No, this spiritualized envelope is not what some of Earth's people term the astral sphere, but it is a constituent of the first or so-called astral sphere, within whose limits abide spirits not sufficiently evolved to gravitate to a higher plane of being. In a sense such spirits are confined within the limits suited to their several conditions. Confined, not through the arbitrary sentence of a just or an unjust judge, but through an inevitable process of Natural Law, which is God's Law. Around all planets inhabited by Spiritualized humans and other organisms, the first Spirit Sphere, so to say, materializes. As ages pass and humanity evolves to higher Spiritual Planes other and in all directions greater, grander spheres, suited to the requirements of more highly evolved beings are formed, each succeeding sphere surpassing the preceding one.