An autobiographical story? No? Yes! Related by one who was struck; by an admirer who suspected something? No; because that is hearsay evidence; the proof is incomplete, whereas he relating it himself is either true, or a mere insane fancy. It is better to be insane than be another's tool.
Stick to the tower and the head-chopping business. Let him be that young man and after the head loss he wanders in Kama Loca and there he sees the old man who was killed on the tower soon after the fire went out. The old man tells him that he will tell all when they return to earth.
He wanders about the tower vicinity seeking a birth, until one day he sees vague shapes suddenly appearing and disappearing. They are not dressed like his countrymen down below on the earth. This goes on. They seem friendly and familiar, the one requesting him to go with them, he refuses. They are more powerful than he is yet they do not compel him but show him their power. One day one was talking to him; he again refuses unless something might show him that he ought to go. Just then he hears a bell sound, such as he never heard before. It vibrates through him and seems to open up vistas of a strange past and in a moment he consents to go.
They reach Southern India and there he sees the old man of the tower, whom he addresses, and again asks the burning question about the parchment. The old man says again the same as before and adds that he had better come again into the world in that place.
The darkness and silence. The clear, hot day. The absence of rain. After listening to the old man he consents inwardly to assume life there and soon a heavy storm arises, the rain beats, he feels himself carried to the earth and in deep darkness. A resounding noise about him. It is the noise of the growing plants. This is a rice field with some sesamum in it. The moisture descends and causes the expanding; sees around, all is motion and life. Inclosed in the sphere of some rice, he bemoans his fate. He is born in a Brahmin's house.
Note.—Shall the question of reincarnation through cloud and rain and seed and thus from the seed of the man, be gone into?
He is the young man. He knows much. He dies at nineteen. Strange forms around his bed who hold him. They carry him back to the land of the towers. He recognizes it again and sees that ages have passed since the fire went out, and in the air he perceives strange shapes and sees incessantly a hand as of Fate, pointing to that Island. The towers are gone, the temples and the monuments. All is altered. They take him to a populous city and as he approaches he sees over one house a great commotion in the air. Shapes moving. Bright flashes, and puffs as of smoke. They enter the room, and on the bed is the form of a young boy given up to die, with relatives weeping. His guides ask him if he will borrow that body about to be deserted and use it for the good of their Lodge. He consents. They warn him of the risks and dangers.
The boy's breathing ceases and his eyes close, and a bright flash is seen to go off from it (the body). He sees the blood slowing down. They push him, and he feels dark again. Boy revives. Physician takes hope. "Yes; he will recover, with care." He recovers easily. Change in his character. Feels strange in his surroundings, etc.
The place in India where he went after death which was again sudden (how?). A large white building. Gleaming marble. Steps. Pillars. A hole that has yellowish glow that looks like water. Instruction as to the work to be done, and the journey to the land of the tower, in search of a body to borrow. As to bodies being deserted by the tenant that might live if well understood and well connected with a new soul. The difference between such a birth and an ordinary birth where the soul really owns the body, and between those bodies of insane people which are not deserted, but where the owner really lives outside. Bodies of insane are not used because the machine itself is out of order, and would be useless to the soul of a sane person.