Challenger, Professor (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Spiritualism -- Fiction
Another bout of music, another silence, and then a most dismal voice.
Never had Enid heard so sad a voice. It was like clods on a coffin. At
first it was a deep mutter. Then it was a prayer--a Latin prayer
apparently--for twice the word _Domine_ sounded and once the word
_peccavimus_. There was an indescribable air of depression and
desolation in the room. “For God’s sake, what is it?” cried Malone.
The circle was equally puzzled.
“Some poor chap out of the lower spheres, I think,” said Bolsover.
“Orthodox folk say we should avoid them. I say we should hurry up and
help them.”
“Right, Bolsover!” said Mailey, with hearty approval. “Get on with it,
quick!”
“Can we do anything for you, friend?”
There was silence.
“He doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand the conditions. Where is Luke?
He’ll know what to do.”
“What is it, friend?” asked the pleasant voice of the guide.
“There is some poor fellow here. We want to help him.”
“Ah! yes, yes, he has come from the outer darkness,” said Luke in a
sympathetic voice. “He doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand. They come
over here with a fixed idea, and when they find the real thing is quite
different from anything they have been taught by the Churches, they are
helpless. Some adapt themselves and they go on. Others don’t, and they
just wander on unchanging, like this man. He was a cleric, and a very
narrow, bigoted one. This is the growth of his own mental seed sown
upon earth--sown in ignorance and reaped in misery.”
“What is amiss with him?”
“He does not know he is dead. He walks in the mist. It is all an evil
dream to him. He has been years so. To him it seems an eternity.”
“Why do you not tell him--instruct him?”
“We cannot. We----”
The trumpet crashed.
“Music, Smiley, music! Now the vibrations should be better.”
“The higher spirits cannot reach earth-bound folk,” said Mailey. “They
are in very different zones of vibration. It is we who are near them and
can help them.”
“Yes, you! you!” cried the voice of Luke.
“Mr. Mailey, speak to him. You know how!” The low mutter had broken out
again in the same weary monotone.
“Friend, I would have a word with you,” said Mailey in a firm, loud
voice. The mutter ceased and one felt that the invisible presence was
straining its attention. “Friend, we are so sorry at your condition. You
see us and you wonder why we do not see you. You have passed on. You are
in the other world. But you do not know it, because it is not as you
expected. You have not been received as you imagined. It is because you
imagined wrong. Understand that all is well, and that God is good, and
that all happiness is awaiting you if you will but raise your mind and
pray for help, and above all think less of your own condition and more
of those other poor souls who are round you.”
There was a silence and Luke spoke again.
“He has heard you. He wants to thank you. He has some glimmer now of
his condition. It will grow within him. He wants to know if he may come
again.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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