All of which goes to show that the realm of the occult may be conveniently divided into two grand divisions, one of which may be called occult science, and the other occult religion; and that part of both which has been recently brought to view is the domain known as modern Spiritualism, where, as I have said, science and religion meet. I wish it could be said that scientists, as such, and religious teachers, as such, have also not only met, but shaken hands across the narrow line which still divides them even here, on this which I have called a common ground. But it is to be feared that there is all too little thought of any possible terms of peace between the opposing forces. Let us hope that out from the cloudy mysteries of the debatable land itself may come the gleam of a star whose brightness shall illumine all who lift their eyes, and whose pure, sweet influence shall change foes to friends, as heart shall answer heart beneath its shining. CHAPTER VI. There are many, however, who have an invincible repugnance to this method of research, and I would here say for the benefit of such, that while I am on friendly terms with spiritualists generally, I am not indebted to them for what I have to give. My observations of the phenomena of spiritualism, although wide and varied, have all been made since I came to know, independently, that there are intelligences above man, and that there is a world distinctly different from this, where they have their home. Spiritualistic phenomena, as observed through mediums, have, in a general way, confirmed what I knew in regard to the other world, but I find many of the prevalent ideas which are supposably based on these phenomena to be erroneous in the extreme. For instance, it is taught as a doctrine that there is no death, and those who teach it point triumphantly to the demonstrations of the survival of those whose mortal part has been laid in the grave, not realizing that in so doing they prove themselves to be still in bondage to the old error, that death and annihilation are one and the same, and that consequently whoever has escaped the one, must necessarily have escaped the other. To prove that a man who has severed his connection with the mortal state has not suffered annihilation, proves nothing whatever as to his acquaintance with death. Even the passing from one world to the other, which is commonly associated with death, is not the same thing, for many possess the power of so passing while still tenants of the clay. If death, then, is not annihilation, nor the mere passing from one kind of life into another, what is it? It is the severing of the magnetic bonds which unite the body of the individual to the body of the race as a whole. We do not often consider what an important element in our lives are these magnetic currents which link us to our fellows.