Part I (continued 2)

The next night he came again, very happily. She, too, was in a lightsome mood, and while there was some serious talk, most of it was pure effervescence, frequently witty, sometimes brilliant. Unfortunately, little of this may be quoted, either because of its too personal character or because, like much amusing conversation, it was too essentially of the mood and the moment to bear translation into type.

Constantly he exclaimed at the characteristic quality of her repartee, to my great surprise. I said that I had never seen this merry side of her, and had not dreamed that it existed, to which she replied: “You never saw us when we were not in trouble—before.”

“Let me in and don’t chafe,” she told him, in one of her more serious moments, “and I can tell you much of what I see ahead. Grief, resentment, bitterness and doubt are our highest barriers. There is no cause for grief in a relation closer than your life there knows. There is no ground for resentment in the price we pay. There can be no bitterness in growth and development together—quicker growth, fuller development, than could be possible if one of us were not here. It is largely in the point of view, this thing that is called grief.”

In the course of their drifting talk he asked her how to go about starting persons who have no starting-point—“no peg to hang things on.”

“Sometimes a bomb is effective. But the fragments are not always efficient.” We laughed, and she added: “They just have to wait and grow up, Manzie dear. We learn here that our frantic haste there has been foolish. Growth must take its own time.... No, I didn’t!” I had called attention to her failure to cross a t, and she returned to it with a flourish. Several times thereafter she made a little joke by conspicuously dotting her i’s.

In the midst of one ecstatic whirl she paused to inquire: “Who ever started the foolish notion that there was no life beyond that one? Was he a philosopher, or a dyspeptic, or both?” And again, following some amusing nonsense, “You don’t think this would sound trivial to a scientific investigator, do you?”

“What’s the matter with the scientific type of mind?” he asked.

“Mostly it’s pure intellect—and life isn’t.”

During another moment of jesting he said: “I don’t think I’ll bother to walk home. I’ll just float.”

“Come on! We’ll float together,” she retorted. “Do you raise that, or call?”

Laughing, he returned: “I’ll pass the buck to Saint Peter,” whereupon she intimated that Saint Peter was not immediately available.

“Who hold the keys?”

“You hold your own—not transferable.”

“You are mostly pure idealist,” was another comment, a little later, replying to something he said about his own attitude toward life, “and got lost for a while in the dark.” He began to say that he should hardly have called himself an idealist, but already she was answering. “A true idealist is not a man who limits life to ideas, but a man who puts his ideals into life.”

One otherwise serious statement, concerning the influence of “hard-headed, intelligent men who are not afraid to testify to their faith” in these revelations, was given a humorous touch by the signature, “Missionary Mary.”

“Do you want me to go forth and testify, also?” I asked.

“No, you do it, and that involves too much,” she replied. “Let your converts testify. You go on playing hermit.”

“Have you seen William James?” he asked.

“He is instructing many of us. Some of my newly acquired vocabulary he taught me. He is more certain and less philosophical than he was. The will to believe has given way to the duty of faith. He has learned more quickly than most do, because he is truly sincere and had cultivated his ground well. Now he is still a leader of thought and accomplishment, but his instruction is dynamic.... He is a very fine force, Manzie, and is doing magnificent work here, but he no longer smothers it in language.”

Much of this parting interview must be omitted.

At nine o’clock Sunday night Mr. Kendal had approached this experience in a state of high nervous tension. At midnight on Tuesday, fifty-one hours later, he left us to return home, imbued, like Mrs. Gaylord, with the vitalizing quality of this touch with the unseen and carrying with him the happy conviction that he did not go alone.

VIII

Up to this time the messages, while frequently impersonal in tenor, had seemed entirely personal in direction. It happened, fortunately, that both Mrs. Gaylord and Mr. Kendal were more interested in the wide meaning and purpose of life than in the narrow, individual details of its conduct, and to that interest chiefly those nearest them on the next plane had addressed themselves. The rapidity with which these communications came, and their surprising volume, was attributed to the fact that in both cases the time in which they could be given through me was limited.

Aside from the attendant nervous strain—which has been less, on the whole, than one would expect, probably because these efforts have been followed by such sound and refreshing sleep as I had not known before in years—the manual labor involved in taking these long messages, and in typewriting them afterward, has been excessive. Assuming, however, that this flood of disclosure would be diminished when the necessity for immediate expression passed, I looked forward to leisure and opportunity for some long talks with Mary K., which should be more detailed and personal than our somewhat fragmentary intercourse thus far had been.

This was briefly delayed by requests to establish interplane communication for one or two other friends, whose need was more imperative than my own, when significant and beautiful messages—not to be quoted here—were obtained. One of these slightly elaborated the now familiar idea of the close and intimate relation of certain persons to one another, because of their union in a common and eternal purpose. In a letter to Mr. Kendal I mentioned this, adding: “It begins to look like a gospel, doesn’t it?”

Finally, however, my own opportunity came, on Thursday, March 21st, but instead of permitting me to propound any of the many questions I had in mind, Mary K. delivered a detailed message of instruction that left me astounded and incredulous. Most of this is too personal to repeat, but some of it must be quoted, in view of what followed.

“...We have much to tell, and few through whom to tell it. You have the sensitiveness to receive and the power to convince. When you have fully grasped the meaning of what we have to tell, you must make it known, but not before we give you the whole of it. You will get the truth slowly, through helping many people, but keep the full knowledge frankly back until it is all told.... Let them know you are withholding it, but do not let them have it in fragments.”

“You mean they are not to be told of the division of original purpose into individual life?”

“No, they must have that to build on. But there will be more given to you in fragments. Piece it together for yourself, but do not give it to any one as long as you are still receiving it.... The light is breaking, and you are the aces ... accustomed ...”—later she returned, to write “accredited” over this word. I think neither was what she tried for. Perhaps accessible?—“... force to make the meaning clear.... It is what we have long sought and just found. That is the reason we are giving you things never told before. You are to pass them on when the time comes.... This is your work, your contribution to the great purpose, which will be revealed to you little by little. Keep clear of disturbing contacts, as you have done, and keep your purpose true. You have already recognized this as a gospel. It is more. It is a faith. Be true to it and it will save many from suffering. That is the reason I am here now and shall remain. I am the force used by greater forces to reach the world through you. We have always been the same purpose, and I can reach you freely.” After an allusion to mental purpose, she defined it thus: “Mental purpose is the force that convinces men. Moral purpose is that which persuades them. We prefer conviction. It lasts, where persuasion fades. Nothing more now, but this is only the beginning. Mary K.”

After the first phrase, save for one or two brief pauses, this long communication was so rapidly written that I could not follow it with my left hand, though I made several attempts, as my right arm became greatly fatigued. At no time had I the slightest impression of what was to be said, and during most of it I was too bewildered to think clearly, my mind being filled with blank wonder and vague questioning, scarcely formulated, yet immediately answered.

The next day she resumed her exhortation.

“... This is war work. It is going to make the war seem what it is, a reawakening of the souls of men. There is no higher duty than to make a man know his own soul and the souls of his fellows. The war will be justified only if this result is obtained. We work for that here, and we ask you to help us. There can be no victory unless this is accomplished.... Be true to your purpose and ours, and help us build for light and progress, against the forces of doubt and disintegration.”

To an inquiry about Germany, apropos of her mention of the war, she replied: “Germany is the united purpose of fear. It is her weapon and her weakness, and it is to defeat the force she symbolizes that we all work.... There you have the real war, the battle that has gone on from the beginning. This is one of the crises of eternity.”

Here I thought of certain past wars, when the victorious barbarians set civilization back.

“Sometimes the forces of disintegration have won, sometimes we. But their victory is never permanent, because they are negative and we are positive. They delay us, but we live and work. We shall win in the end, but that is far away. We call you to fight with the forces of life and light. You can do more with us than you can alone.”

The following day found me still incredulous, and she said:

“... Tell them that you are doing the people’s work, under secret orders, and that they will perhaps know presently what it is. They will all recognize it when it is given to them, except those souls not mentally free from fear.”

From this she passed immediately into the first of that remarkable series of communications which she has called Lessons. Again the writing was so rapid that my arm ached to the shoulder, long before she had finished, from the incessant movement to and fro across the table, and again my mind was filled with blank amazement.

Perhaps it should be stated that, although I have written more or less light fiction during the past fifteen years, literary composition is to me a slow and laborious exercise. Especially is this true of opening paragraphs, which generally require many hours of work. Unfortunately, the time consumed in writing one of these Lessons was never noted, but with one or two exceptions, when I was too tired to receive readily, they were done without hesitation and with extraordinary rapidity. Also, while in personal messages the mental impression is sometimes given to me a little before the physical movement occurs, never during the writing of the Lessons had I the slightest inkling of what was to follow. One by one the words were revealed by the moving pencil, my principal sensations being wonder and incredulity. Until frequent repetition had accustomed me to this experience, I felt as if I must be dreaming.