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LETTER XXIII
A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENDANT
TELL the friend who is
so anxious lest I do you harm by writing with your hand that that matter was
thoroughly threshed out on this side between the Teacher and me before it began
to take form on your side.
Ordinary mediumship, where the organism of a more or less unhealthy person
on earth is opened indiscriminately for the entrance and obsession of any
passing spirit, good or evil, is a very different proposition from this. Here I,
who was your friend in the world, having passed beyond, reach back to instruct
you from my greater knowledge on this side.
I am not making any opening in your nervous system
through which irresponsible and evil forces can enter and take possession of
you. In fact, if any spirit, good or bad, should make such an attempt, he would
have to reckon with me, and I am not powerless. I know now, have both remembered
and been taught, secrets by which I can protect you from what is generally known
as mediumship. Furthermore, I advise you never, even at the urgent prayer of
those whose loved ones have gone out—never to lend yourself to them.
The wanderers in the so-called invisible world have no right to come and demand
entrance through your organism, merely because it is so constituted that they
could enter, any more than a street crowd would have the right to force its way
into your home, merely because its members were curious, hungry, or cold. Do not
allow it. Permission was once given, yes; but the case was exceptional and was
not based on the personal desire or curiosity of anybody—not even yourself. I
doubt if permission will ever be granted again.
Many things have changed since I began to write with you. At first I used
your hand and arm from the outside—sometimes, as you remember, with such force
as to make them lame the next day. Then, grown more familiar with the means at
my disposal, I tried another method, and you noticed a change in the character
of the writing. It began clumsily, with large and badly formed characters,
gradually becoming clearer as my control of the instrument I was using was
better established.
Now, for the last few times I have
used still another and a third method. I enter your mind, putting myself in
absolute telepathic rapport with your mind, impressing upon your mind itself the
things I wish to say. In order to write in this way, you have to make yourself
utterly passive, stilling all individual thought and yielding yourself to my
thought; but that is no more than you do every day in reading a fascinating
book. You give your mind to the author who leads you along, rapt and passive, by
means of the printed page.
These experiments in perfecting a way of communication
have been very interesting to me.
Tell your friend that I am not a child, nor a reckless experimentalist. Not
only in my last life on earth but in many former lives I have been a student of
the higher science, giving myself absolutely to truth and to the quest of truth.
I have never wantonly used any human being to his or
her detriment, and I certainly shall not begin with you, my true friend and
student.
Nor shall I interfere in any way with your life, or with your studies and
work. The idea is nonsensical. While I walked the world on two feet I was never
considered a dangerous man. I have not changed my character merely by changing
my clothes and putting on a lighter suit.
I have certain things to say to the world. At present
you are the only person who can act as amanuensis for me. This is neither my
fault nor yours. The question before us is not whether I want the letters
written, or even whether you want to write them, but whether they will be
beneficial to the world. I think they will. You think they may be. B—— thinks
that they are not only immensely valuable, but unique. So-and-so and So-and-so
have doubts and fears. I cannot help that, nor can you.
Bless their hearts! Why should they be so anxious to bolt the doors behind
me? I shall certainly not try to run their affairs for them from this side. They
are equal to their job, or they would not be able to hold it. But this is quite
a different job which I have given myself, and you have kindly consented to help
me.
You may not get much reward for your labour, save the shake of the
wiseacres’ heads and their superior smiles, and the suggestion of the more
scientifically inclined that I am your own “sub-conscious mind.” I shall not be
offended by that hypothesis, nor need you.
Of course you are not worried, for if you were I could not write. Your mind
has to be placid as a lake on a windless night in order for me to write at all.
Give my love to them.
LETTER XXIV
LETTER XXII |
