What is the spirit medium but a person under the hypnotic influence of a resident of the invisible world? And many who do not dream of it are hypnotized to an astonishing extent by suggestions from the same source.
Therefore, it is not remarkable that Cartice Doring found nearly everybody holding aggressively to the thought that had formed them, no matter how limited and erroneous it might be, and ready to fight, tooth and nail, anything contrary to it. They groaned in pain, yet at a suggestion of relief from misery they but hugged it closer, lest it be taken from them by force.
She did not expect any one to believe so tremendous a tale as she had to tell on hearsay evidence alone; but she hoped to find some interest and desire to search and learn. When many turned away and she grew heartsick because they would not let her help them with that which had helped her, she thought she understood Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. “Ye would not! no; ye would not!” is ever the cry of all who yearn to make the yoke easy and the burden light for humanity.
And yet no earnest effort made by any soul is entirely vain. Mrs. Doring found two who would among the many who would not—two who were eager to learn, who begged for the chance. They were the Joys, the last persons one would expect to turn their attention to anything not known by the name of pleasure. As a matter of fact they were Mr. and Mrs. Hanley, but everybody called them the Joys, because their days were an unbroken ripple of delight, and they were continually making a joyful noise over something. They joyed in each other, in their children, in their friends, in their home, in the world at large, in life, in everything. All days of the year were for them days of jubilee. Everybody welcomed them because they carried with them a joyful atmosphere, a little of which generally rubbed off and stuck to those whom they visited, for a time at least. A gay, guiltless pair were they, with no need of prayer, and no sins to be forgiven, so far as any one could see. It may be wondered why they cared to learn anything about life’s extension since they found this world so pleasant. Yet care they did, and gladly turned from the impermanent things of the world that had delighted them to study reverently the great question of our destination.
Chrissalyn liked them and was finally persuaded to let them enter Planchette’s charmed arena, on condition that they tell it not in Goth nor whisper it in Askalon.
Their very first experience was convincing beyond doubt or question. All they had joyed in before was as nothing to the joy they found in the knowledge that came to them through the little board. In spite of their pleasure-loving natures and phenomenal optimism, they belonged to the thinking fraternity; and now that their outlook was extended beyond the boundaries that so far had hedged them in, they saw ahead an endless life of Joy, and that intensified and ennobled the joys of the present. They had been happy always, but now they were secure in their happiness—nothing could take it from them.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE TONGUES OF ANGELS.
“When by suffering thou hast learned not to suffer—by passion learned calmness;
Then shalt thou know what I am to thee—then shalt thou be
A clean mirror where I am reflected—a face with a splendor which burns not!
Past all pain, seeing Me thou shalt know Me—the Strength and the Truth of Thyself.”—Voltairine DeCleyre.
Being may be called the poorest, but it is at the same time the most marvelous concept of our whole mind. It is the sine qua non of all we are, we see, we hear, we apprehend and comprehend. It is not our body, nor our breath, nor our life, nor our heart, nor what is most difficult to give up—our mind and intellect. It is simply that in which all these reside—that, in fact, in which we move and have our being.
—F. Max Müller.