But some unit of force may persist for a time, after the death of an individual--some associations of vibrations may linger like little clouds in the etheric atmosphere after the death of a human being, or an animal. And these little clots of vibration may transfer themselves to the conscious-apparatus of the medium. So that the dead son of a disconsolate widow may send a message to his mourning mother to tell her that he owes Bill Jackson seven dollars: or that Uncle Sam's will is in the back of the bureau: and cheer up. Mother, I'm all right. There is never much worth in these "messages." Because they are never more than fragmentary items of dead, disintegrated consciousness. And the medium has and always will have a hopeless job, trying to disentangle the muddle of messages. Again, coming events _may_ cast their shadow before. The oracle may receive on her conscious-apparatus material vibrations to say that the next great war will break out in 1925. And in so far as the realm of cause-and-effect is master of the living soul, in so far as events are mechanically maturing, the forecast may be true. But the living souls of men may upset the _mechanical_ march of events at any moment. _Rien de certain._ Vibrations of subtlest matter. Concatenations of vibrations and shocks! Spiritualism. And what then? It is all just materialistic, and a good deal is and always will be charlatanry. Because the real human soul, the Holy Ghost, has its own deep prescience, which will not be put into figures, but flows on dark, a stream of prescience. And the real human soul is too proud, and too sincere in its belief in the Holy Ghost that is within, to stoop to the practices of these spiritualist and other psychic tricks of material vibrations. Because the first part of reverence is the acceptance of the fact that the Holy Ghost will never materialize: will never be anything but a ghost. And the second part of reverence is the watchful observance of the motions, the comings and goings within us, of the Holy Ghost, and of the many gods that make up the Holy Ghost. The Father had his day, and fell. The Son has had his day, and fell. It is the day of the Holy Ghost. But when souls fall corrupt, into disintegration, they have no more day. They have sinned against the Holy Ghost. These people in _Blithedale Romance_ have sinned against the Holy Ghost, and corruption has set in. All, perhaps, except the I, Nathaniel. He is still a sad, integral consciousness. But not excepting Zenobia. The Black Pearl is rotting down. Fast. The cleverer she is, the faster she rots.