Does it seem strange to you that at this moment I can feel the warmth of that wood fire by which you sit? There is a magic in burning wood. The combustion of coal has quite a different effect upon the psychic atmosphere. If one who had always been blind to visions and insensible to the finer feelings and premonitions of the invisible world would try meditating before a blazing wood fire for an hour or two every day or night, his eyes and other subtler senses might be opened to things of which he had theretofore never even dreamed. Those Orientals who worship their God with fire are wise and full of visions. The light of burning wax has also a magical effect, though different from that of a wood fire. Sit sometimes in the evening with no light but that of a solitary candle, and see what visions will come from the “Void.” I have not told you anything for a long time about the boy Lionel. He is now much interested in the idea of choosing a family of engineers in which to be born again. The thought is one to which he is always returning. “Why are you in such a hurry to leave me?” I asked him, the first time he mentioned the subject. “But I do not feel as if I should be leaving you altogether,” he replied. “I could come out to you in dreams.” “Not at first,” I told him. “You would be prisoned and blind and deaf for a long time, and you might not be able to come out to me here until after I had also gone back again to the earth.” “Then why not come along with me?” he asked. “Say, Father, why shouldn’t we be born as twins?” The idea was so absurd that I laughed heartily; but Lionel could not see where the joke came in. “There are such things as twins,” he said, seriously. “I knew a pair of twin brothers when I lived in Boston.” But, when I return to earth, it is no part of my plan to be anybody’s twin; so I tell Lionel that if he wants to enjoy my society for a time he will have to stay quietly where he is. “But why can’t we go back together?” he still asks, “and be cousins or neighbours, at least?” “Perhaps we can,” I tell him, “if you do not spoil everything by an unseemly haste.” It is strange about this boy. Out in this world there is boundless opportunity to work in subtle matter, opportunity to invent and experiment; yet he wants to get his hands on iron and steel. Strange! Some night I will try to bring the boy to pay you a visit, so that you can see him--I mean just before you fall asleep. Those are the true visions. The ones which come in sleep are apt to be confused by the jarring of the matter through which you pass in waking. Do not forget the boy. I have already told him how I come and write with your hand, and he is much interested. “Why couldn’t I operate a telegraph in that way?” he asked me; but I advised him not to try it. He might interrupt some terrestrial message which had been sent and paid for.