"Did I not teach you in the beginning of this journey," he interjected,
"that time is not as men conceive it. Men can not grasp an idea of
eternity and retain their sun bred, morning and evening, conception of
time. Therein lies their error. As the tip of the whip-lash passes with
the lash, so through life the soul of man proceeds with the body. As
there is a point just when the tip of the whip-lash is on the edge of
its return, where all motion of the line that bounds the tip ends, so
there is a motionless point when the soul starts onward from the body of
man. As the tip of the whip-lash sends its cry through space, not while
it is in motion either way, but from the point where motion ceases, the
spaceless, timeless point that lies between the backward and the
forward, so the soul of man leaves a cry (eternity) at the critical
point. It is the death echo, and thus each snap of the life-thread
throws an eternity, its own eternity, into eternity's seas, and each
eternity is made up of the entities thus cast from the critical point.
With the end of each soul's earth journey, a new eternity springs into
existence, occupying no space, consuming no time, and not conflicting
with any other, each being exactly what the soul-earth record makes it,
an eternity of joy (heaven), or an eternity of anguish (hell). There can
be no neutral ground."
Then he continued:
"The drunkard is destined to suffer in the drunkard's eternity, as you
have suffered; the enticement of drink is evanescent, the agony to
follow is eternal. You have seen that the sub-regions of earth supply an
intoxicant. Taste not again of any intoxicant; let your recent lesson be
your last. Any stimulant is an enemy to man, any narcotic is a fiend. It
destroys its victim, and corrupts the mind, entices it into pastures
grotesque, and even pleasant at first, but destined to eternal misery in
the end. Beware of the eternity that follows the snapping of the
life-thread of a drunkard. Come," he abruptly said, "we will pursue our
journey."
[NOTE.--Morphine, belladonna, hyoscyamus and cannabis indica are
narcotics, and yet each differs in its action from the others.
Alcohol and methyl alcohol are intoxicants; ether, chloroform,
and chloral are anaesthetics, and yet no two are possessed of the
same qualities. Is there any good reason to doubt that
combinations of the elements as yet hidden from man can not cause
hallucinations that combine and intensify the most virulent of
narcotics, intoxicants, and anaesthetics, and pall the effects of
hashish or of opium?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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