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"Behold the Heavens Opened' 
 
 "THE GLORIES THEREOF" 
 
 Purporting to bo dictated by 
 
 PHILLIPS BROOKS 
 
 Automatically Received by 
 
 HELEN WELLS 
 
 Volume 1 
 
 oi 
 The Fortnightly Series 
 
 THE KNICKERBOCKER PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 47 WEST 75th STREET 
 NEW YORK, N. Y, 
 
WHAT IS MEANT BY AUTOMATIC WRITING. 
 
 I, Evelyn Butler, when on earth a student of Ann Arbor College, 
 am commissioned to explain some of the laws that govern the method of 
 communication called "Automatic Writing/' 
 
 We who live on the invisible plane are most anxious to secure 
 the power of perpetuating God's laws as given through the often mis- 
 understood work of the great teacher, Jesus. When we find an instru- 
 ment that is both honest and ignorant of the sciences which we desire to 
 teach, we rejoice. 
 
 All action, muscular or nervous, is controlled by the power of 
 Mind. The brain obeys the Mind and conveys the order through the 
 electrons that lie in muscles and nerves. The obedient muscles expand 
 or contract as the order is received from the master, Mind. 
 
 When, therefore, we of etheric, whose electric powers are far more 
 penetrating than the electric power of the body, come as the guests of 
 this writer we assume the seat of honor graciously accorded to us by our 
 host (this man's Mind) and we order the servants of this host to do our 
 bidding. And so the brain receives OUR thought, the muscles obey 
 OUR will and the ideas that are traced upon the white paper are OURS. 
 
 Through this, our most obedient and beloved instrument, we have 
 written scientific essays upon topics of which she is ignorant. We have 
 caused to enter as her mind's guests Poets, Writers and Artists of 
 many centuries. We might say we exert a hypnotic power over that 
 part of her brain that controls this writing arm and hand, and, for the 
 time being, it is our wish that predominates. We do not even try to 
 impress her mind. Her hand does our bidding. She is not at all 
 entranced, still, she has no retaining power over the matter inscribed. 
 
 Since she was naturally of a skeptical turn of mind, endowed by 
 nature with what you call "excellent common sense," and had had no 
 previous education concerning psychic forces, we were obliged to win her 
 confidence by using our power to produce pictures. So Artists of past 
 centuries were sent to draw pictures that would convince. This instru- 
 ment was given this artistic work simply to prove the power of etheric 
 forces over the electric forces that are merely of earth. 
 
 And also to prove this: If a picture can be drawn by spirit power, 
 a picture that is of a period of art and a century of time unknown to 
 the draughtsman, why cannot the same automatically used hand bring 
 to you of earth the knowledge, the wisdom that is stored up in the 
 centuries and is ready for your use ? 
 
 This is what we have done and are doing. 
 
 : W y ~6 m? ® CIA 6 7291 5 
 
"THE GLORIES THEREOF" 
 
 A series of articles purporting to be dictated by 
 
 PHILLIPS BROOKS 
 
 Ww 
 
 Automatically received by 
 
 HELEN WELLS 
 
 Introduction purporting to be dictated by Edward Everett Hale 
 
 I am bringing you a man the strength of whose graphic description of 
 life over here will stir to thought all who read his written word ; a man 
 of whose reputation America can well boast; a man whose devotion to 
 God is only equalled by his devotion to earthly men and women. Allow 
 me to present Phillips Brooks. 
 
 "THE GLORIES THEREOF" 
 
 I 
 
 Many beautiful things exist in the hidden recesses of the forest. Ex- 
 amples of unsurpassed beauty and unrevealed loveliness are concealed 
 in the depths of the sea. Industrious seekers after beauty are often 
 destined not to see or touch the magnificent glories that distance and 
 conditions have hidden from them. 
 
 As all unrevealed beauties are real and do exist, though the mind 
 of man can never picture them because of his inability to imagine them, 
 so in this sphere are such wondrously beautiful "material" things as you 
 of earth have never once conceived. 
 
 "All the glories thereof," the good Book says. All the marvels 
 
 I 
 
THE FORTNIGHTLY SERIES 
 
 thereof are real and do exist. Like the flowers in deepest forests, like 
 the jewels at die ocean's bottom, they are in actual existence, though not 
 in your orbit of view. 
 
 There are many allusions to these beauties and I am commissioned 
 by God to try to reveal to your imagination some of "the glories" where- 
 of the Bible speaks. 
 
 Upon our entrance over here, when we first look about us, we are not 
 impressed by the change. Trees rear great crests toward deeper blues', 
 hills and mountains are soft and purple in the distance; rivers sparkle 
 in the sun ; birds sing in the trees ; men and women wander through these 
 scenes of loveliness just as they do on earth. No wonderful visions of 
 ecstatic glories come at first to our vision. It is all familiar; and yet 
 a difference soon makes us ask again and again, "What place is this?" 
 
 As time passes we emerge from this chrysalis period of the soul and 
 then "the glories thereof" begin to come into our perceptive vision. 
 
 I am at a loss for words with which to visualize the scenery. Can 
 you conceive of mountains so high that their tops are not visible? So 
 close to you that you feel as if you could mount to the top in one leap? 
 Rose-tinted and violet-tinted and green at their bases? All the colors 
 of the rainbow blending and melting into each new color that sweeps 
 over them as the shadows sweep over a field of yellow grain ? You have 
 often watched a field of yellow wheat, and seen the shadows from the 
 clouds sweep over the grain. The ever-shifting rainbow colors sweep 
 over these mountains in much the same way. All along the mountains 
 are palaces of white of crystal clearness, so clear you can see through 
 diem. All of the people inside these walls are visible or invisible as 
 they themselves choose. 
 
 "Materializing" is not only an earth experience to us; it is a cus- 
 tomary manner of appearing to our friends here. Or, we may desire to 
 remain invisible to them. No, you cannot grasp that? For example, I 
 am dictating this. I am desirous of no interruptions, even from friends 
 over here, so I become invisible to them. I am visible to all around 
 your table and am speaking my words to your son. No, you do not hear 
 them, and yet they are spoken aloud. There is an illustration. My 
 spoken words are not audible to your earthly ears. 
 
THE GLORIES THEREOF 
 
 As every soul comes into a knowledge of the mission whereon It is 
 sent it is enabled to use many things that otherwise would remain un- 
 touched by us. AH of us are only carrying out God's orders. When 
 I tell you of "the glories thereof" it is because God has given me an 
 order to try and induce you of earth to understand a little of our won- 
 derful home here. 
 
 Not all animals have been considered as inheriting everlasting life. 
 Please understand me: all animals which have no thought or reasoning 
 power come from a different plane originally and return to that plane. 
 Yes, the mischievous mosquito! You smile! It has only a following 
 out of desire; no reasoning powers are its inheritance. It comes from 
 a much lower plane, and returns thereto. 
 
 A horse, a dog, birds, cats, all the animals that are given the gift 
 of reasoning, are from your own plane and they come here just as surely 
 as you do. Love is in each of these little creatures, and love is a bit 
 of God, and God cannot die. I repeat, God is love and any animal 
 which is capable of love inherits his place in this kingdom of earth's 
 spirits called "Heaven." 
 
 As they, like men, are not elevated without their own desire, they 
 are advanced much more rapidly here where desire is encouraged than 
 on your plane, where an animal's love is often ignored and despised. 
 
 As the only way to judge a man's work is by his ability to see a 
 way to improve its development, a chance is given here to each and every 
 soul in animal or man to improve on his former work. That is why the 
 bird's song is so much sweeter, and the flower's perfume is so much more 
 intense, and the colors of the flowers are so much brighter. 
 
 Y'ou are asking, "What? Are flowers alive? Why, they cannot 
 reason or love!" 
 
 Beginning with the growth of a flower from the little seed or the 
 tiny bulb, what is it within that seed or bulb that causes growth? Yes, 
 your answer is right, "It is Nature." Well, how do you define 
 "Nature"? "As an attribute of God's outworking power;" — we have 
 told you that before. Nature is not all of God, but God is all of Nature: 
 and then many, many more attributes has our great God. 
 
 When you admit that the seed is following out the Nature law 
 
THE FORTNIGHTLY SERIES 
 
 within it, why can you not see that as Nature is only a part of God, 
 the little seed is endowed with an attribute of God, as you are? When 
 the seed obeys the God within it it is started on its mission of obedience 
 to God's laws. And, let me tell you, flowers and plants do not switch 
 off into devious paths of disobedience, as do the children of men! No, 
 a plant obeys the God within it. A plant keeps on in obedience to God's 
 laws encircling it. 
 
 All God asks of any soul or plant is obedience to the God within it. 
 This the little flower has given; and then God, the great Gardener of 
 all the spheres, transplants that obedient little bit of Himself to bloom 
 in the next place. Again the flower obeys God implicitly and grows 
 and blooms, and you of earth, coming into the garden of God, exclaim 
 and wonder and worship. Not one jot or one tittle of earth's God-given 
 laws can pass until all shall be fulfilled. 
 
 Returning to our early view of heavenly glories, I am constrained 
 to remark that words are inadequate, tongue and pen are so feeble. 
 
 Our first amazement over, we are next surprised at the appearance 
 of our old friends. When a man who died in vigor is seen no astonish- 
 ment ensues, but when the aged consumptive, worn with his racking 
 cough, communicates wtih his friends, and a joyful, happy, plump — yes, 
 plump — looking man in the prime of life comes to greet the newcomer, a 
 wave of wonder sweeps over him. When cripples meet their friends, there 
 is yet another; they are not old, nor ill, not decrepit, not lame! The 
 great joy that awaits the deformed, the blind, the deaf! Oh, I cannot 
 express the emotions of joy and the songs of rejoicing that are echoed 
 through and through the vaults of Heaven. "Glory, glory be to the 
 Lamb, forever." For mine eyes are seeing the power of God, mine ears 
 are hearing the joys of these whose earth life was sad and dreary. 
 
 All the beauties which are on earth are here made more intense by 
 the great love that beats through the spaces, — love for earth and love 
 for the great lover of us all. 
 
 Even the stones of earth that hold the sunlight of God's brilliancy 
 in their depths are here. Can you conceive of a pathway of etheric 
 stones whose brilliancy is greater than diamonds? When the old saint 
 
THE GLORIES THEREOF 
 
 wrote of the golden streets he did not mean the sordid gold of earth.. 
 He referred to the brilliancy that shone like gold, that brightened the. 
 jewel-colored streets. Etheric substances are real, but are not loaded 
 with the impurities of earth, any more than is the top of a mountain 
 where we can breathe air not loaded with germs and dust and mites and 
 all the impurities that infest city air. 
 
 The etheric is pure. The radiance of gems is pure. The ruby's 
 wine of red is pure. The etheric is always pure air. When we refer 
 to the "waters of life, pure and clear as crystal that come from the heart 
 of God," we are endeavoring to make you see the unseeable and con- 
 ceive the inconceivable. 
 
 If I can help any one of earth to lift, even for a moment, the curtain 
 that hides the glories of heaven, I am doing the work given to me by 
 God's commands. Many times will I come if you so desire. 
 
 My work is always to picture to the world of unbelievers, op- 
 pressed by doubts, the wonderful and beautiful truths that are all around 
 me as I write. 
 
 11 
 
 Your pleasure in my essay on "The Glories Thereof " communi- 
 cates itself to me and I am constrained to enlarge upon this same theme. 
 
 Every wonder that enfolds before the eyes of a newcomer makes 
 us already here emerge from our silence and sing again of these glories. 
 Only an earth-born mortal can spring 
 From a transient body that crumbles and dies 
 Up to Heavenly spheres. And in Paradise 
 The lowly and humble, the proud and the great 
 Are entering in at the same Golden Gate. 
 
 Ever-increasing power of perception is given to the newcomer. 
 "All the glories thereof" are not revealed in one year or two, or even 
 a century. Making a selection of what to describe is almost like a man's 
 trying to choose a wife from glancing at a choir of pretty women. 
 
 As perhaps the most common error of you who are now dwelling 
 on earth can never be eradicated until a new birth makes your souls more 
 keen and perceptive we shall still try and describe in our feeble way some 
 of the more "material" things here. 
 
THE FORTNIGHTLY SERIES 
 
 As we walk through the avenues of mighty elms and oaks and 
 maples (and when we say "mighty*' it does not mean the little scrub 
 bushes that you call trees!) we perceive that these great trees are 
 hundreds of feet high and are never without leaves or flowers or fruit. 
 There are no changing seasons here. The climate does not roast 
 at one minute and freeze at the next. The air never is cool enough for 
 any chill to pervade it, nor warm enough to make it disagreeable. There 
 is an even warmth that after a time ceases to be noticeable. 
 
 As no one ever dies and no one ever leaves, you would think that 
 these spaces would be over-crowded. Not so. Eternal life is arranged 
 for. Spaces exist vast beyond our imagination. All we ever expect to 
 become may have its fruition in these same unknown spaces. 
 
 It all seems so calm. There is a sense of security. A desire not 
 to crowd each hour with unfinished duties but deliberately and well to 
 do each task casts a spell over everything. 
 
 All the air is perfumed with exquisite odors, and when these odors 
 "have grown to power they arise as incense to God. Flowers are im- 
 perishable, and of every variety that ever existed throughout the ages. 
 Orchids that you pay enormous sums for are as common as the dande- 
 lions of your world. As on earth tastes differ, and here are many clubs 
 of people who collect and admire flowers. 
 
 In most of our modes of living nothing is different from our earthly 
 customs. We do not live in a mass, but each has his individual home, 
 comprised of those whom he most loves. Love is the deciding factor 
 of life here. 
 
 Not blood ties, but a sense of relationship is much respected. As 
 any who really are attached by love can live in harmony, so all here. 
 in this plane, are able to live in harmony, for love is like music. 
 
 Oh. and the music of die spheres! as Wordsworth once put it! 
 Every instrument and every vocal organ are used in the Choirs Celestial 
 
 The echoing vault of Heaven's own blue. 
 Resounds with music pure, thrilling and true, 
 And all around, as the choristers sing, 
 We join in the chorus of, "Praise to our King." 
 
THE GLORIES THEREOF 
 
 As ever and ever the music swells, 
 And ever and ever the glad soul dwells 
 On joys immortal and bliss beyond time, 
 We join in the chorus of praises that climb 
 
 Up through the blue of etheric sky, 
 Up through spheres above this, so wondrously high 
 That the chimes grow faint and we only hear, 
 The echoes return through the still air clear. 
 
 "Praise to your King!" Let the music roll. 
 "Praise ye your God!" Let every soul 
 Entering into the heavenly place 
 Bow down in humble, adoring grace. 
 
 For God, the Ruler and God our King 
 Appears to us, and a message we bring 
 Down to etheric and down to earth, 
 "Come ye and join in your soul's re-birth." 
 
 I am not composing that poem. Will Wordsworth writes it for me. 
 
 Combining celestial music with the music that comes from earth we 
 hear no discords. The music etheric is arranged to harmonize with earth 
 music and no reverberations are heard except those of perfect connec- 
 tive forces. It is strange that every soul here can sing! Yes, ano! musi- 
 cal voices are all around; not ghostly whispers — voices that trill and 
 warble in cadenzas that no human throat ever produced. You have 
 often wondered at a canary's trill. It is made within a circuit of minute 
 space, and here the warbling of human etheric voices can be described as 
 equally beautiful! 
 
 "The dwellings?" We are not scattered around like sheep in a 
 pasture; we are "home-folks" as you are. Our buildings are made not 
 with hands but from thoughts and deeds done on earth and carried here 
 to wait until Time brings their maker to use them in a home. 
 
 You are never sure there of owning a home ; you cannot help owning 
 
8 THE FORTNIGHTLY SERIES 
 
 one here. "Not builded with hands, eternal in the heavens.** All your 
 pure aspirations are woven into this wall of the etheric. All the most de- 
 sirable elements that comprise your daily life are allowed to come here 
 and be registered and are awaiting your advent. 
 
 So you see why Jansen and other teachers urge pure thoughts and 
 noble desires. Evil is not a building element. It disintegrates. No evil 
 is used in our house-building. Your mansion's beauty will not; be dis- 
 figured by evil, but it will be a limited building, as it only arrives at 
 elegance and size by the material you are registering. 
 
 "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, but in heaven,** the 
 good Book says. Now can you understand why? 
 
 We are sent to try and help you in your house-building, and our best 
 efforts are often despised and rejected of men. Christ was also a mes- 
 senger who was "despised and rejected of men,** and yet He was a 
 builder of eternal life. 
 
 in 
 
 "All the Glories Thereof** is a never-ending subject, not orily from 
 a physical standpoint, but also from a spiritual. I am trying to make 
 physical eyes understand spiritual beauties. 
 
 We spoke of the wonderful scenery and the wonderful people that 
 are now here. Can I ever make you understand what all the etheric 
 spaces look like? Can you imagine the blue of Italy, the golden light 
 of a dying sun, the emerald green of Ireland? The grand masses of 
 clouds that you see in your sunsets are not half as beautiful in color as 
 the etheric atmosphere. Now and then vivid radiance gleams all through 
 our sky. (When I employ the terms you most easily understand please 
 do not quote them as the technical terms of the etheric spaces. We must 
 use the language you can grasp.) Throughout all this radiance there 
 throbs, like distant ocean murmurs, the music that comes from other and 
 higher spheres. Soft and musical are its tones and when we pause and 
 listen we, too, can join in the music. 
 
 What all your wonderful earthly inventions accomplish by forming 
 new machines that can convert the passing air into music is only like the 
 
THE GLORIES THEREOF 
 
 dropping of crumbs from an overloaded table. The table of musical 
 instruments is here ; you get only the crumbs. 
 
 When I try to speak of homes, I am confronted by your narrowness 
 of understanding. Houses do exist — luminous houses! Architectural 
 beauty is not limited to earth ; we observe it here. 
 
 We do not need the kind of furniture you do, for we are not requir- 
 ing beds to rest a physical body, nor a table for mere physical food ; nor 
 a carpet sweeper, which you use with such an expenditure of vigor. 
 
 We rest but we do not sleep. Your sleep is not of your real self; 
 it is just a sleep of the physical. Your real self never sleeps. It comes 
 out of your heavily sleeping body and gains its food from the etheric 
 table of food. The spirit is intangible, but it is as real as the body. 
 When it steps out into the sea of sleep, it does not sever its connection 
 with the body, but it slips away as a mother slips quietly away from a 
 sleeping babe, not to sever her relationship, but to let the child rest. 
 
 When the spiritual body bids a temporary farewell to the sleeping 
 body it comes into a higher plane swiftly and silently and we meet it and 
 together we walk in the rarified atmosphere. Were it not for your mak- 
 ing these visits of spirit into spirit atmosphere while you aire on earth, you 
 could not make the final entrance here without a long period of difficulty. 
 
 When all the world is sleeping, wrote a poet of long ago 
 When spirits their watch are keeping, and no one cares to go, 
 During this silent slumber, the spirits nearer earth 
 Are preparing in growing numbers the souls for heavenly birth, 
 And the spirits inhabiting mortals, each in his body of clay, 
 Meet at the heavenly portals, and much to each other say. 
 Memory may not be attending, but, still, in a wonderful plan, 
 Through sleep and its power of blending comes Heaven's in- 
 troduction to man. 
 
 Every need that we have is fulfilled. Every desire to progress upward 
 m the God-life is given by the teachers to the friend who comes to us. 
 And never do we ask for wisdom that it is not accorded to us. 
 
 What you of earth cannot conceive is the power of your heartfelt 
 
10 THE FORTNIGHTLY SERIES 
 
 prayers. You are capable of much that will help us. You can exercise 
 all that power if you will. When in your desire for our help you are able 
 to give to God a powerful desire, a current of vibrating love reaches us 
 and we grow in its health-giving power. All the glories of this sphere are 
 enhanced by your loving prayers and your loving thoughts. They come 
 like soul blossoms. 
 
 I am trying today to make the "many mansions'- as a picture to you. 
 We are made to move only in a vibration of love. So in choosing our 
 homes and our home companions we are directed only by our love powers. 
 
 Many are in close companionship here who never knew each other 
 on earth. Many are reunited because the love that acted as the first 
 combining element of their lives and was turned aside by physical oppo- 
 sition is renewed when the physical is dropped. The first attraction re- 
 turns and so we see people who quarrelled on earth in a happy reunion. 
 
 In all the wondrous planes here that are always thronged by those 
 who have just come over you can see many of the older inhabitants 
 -passing through the multitudes seeking for those who desire to make 
 progression. As soon as we find these souls we are able to help them 
 Ai their connection with earth. A subtle and beautiful chord of sympa- 
 thetic kindness is in all those who are choosing to work in God's way, 
 
 IV 
 
 ^Ever as the waves of sound cause the air to pulsate and spread and 
 actually encircle your globe, ever as we listen and try to catch your 
 words, we are always wishing we could catch your thought-waves as 
 easily as we catch your spoken words. 
 
 As I am now engaged on a verbal picture of "The Glories Thereof/' 
 4 will take up that subject. 
 
 "Walls of jasper*' sang the poet, and we assure you no poet's visions 
 were ever embellished with fancies more lovely than the marvelous 
 beauties of the walls of each home. Your poetess sang : 
 
 "Thoughts are things, 
 And on airy wings 
 They fly in the azure blue," 
 
"the glories thereof** II 
 
 and now I tell you the truth when I say "Thoughts are actually your 
 entire building material.** 
 
 You build your life there on the thoughts you think. When you 
 think a thing, your mind, full of this thought, makes your body do 
 the service of that thought. In each active use of a thought it becomes 
 a thing, a real being of action through birth and that being is one with 
 you. Your vibrations, born of that original thought, are entered into 
 the etheric structure of your house "not built with hands, eternal, in the 
 heavens." 
 
 I wish you could see the houses your little circle is building ; so many 
 pure lilies of desire are blooming in those walls to-day; so many hopes 
 for others, like a thread of purest gold; so many pretty fancies of an 
 idle hour are being woven into the design for each one's home; all happy 
 thoughts and merry laughter evoked from humor and pleasant repartee 
 are like a glowing radiance through these walls. 
 
 Oh, I wish the few of your circle who are using magnifying glasses 
 with which to gaze upon their personal anxieties could see the dark spots 
 such reveries cause here! All this is a mystery to you. AH the sub- 
 stances are so different in texture from those you are accustomed to see 
 that it makes words sound foolish. 
 
 An angry thought sent here is like a blot on the page of a letter — 
 it may be an accident, but it makes a stain. When you make no effort 
 to suppress the angry words that arise to your lips but let them flow 
 undisturbed, a stream of tiny gnat-like material comes to us. "Material" 
 is not as good as "stirring vibrations" that beat into the more than flexible 
 wall material of your homes. 
 
 Some people's houses are all mottled with angry word-vibrations. 
 As a soul is conscious of all the undesirable attributes with which nature 
 endowed it and strives to overcome these wrong vibrations, to the extent 
 of that desire which comes as a prayer can we check the unsightly stains 
 from passing into etheric substances. 
 
 You become intensely angry, perhaps justly, and in your deep desire 
 to control your tongue from voicing your thoughts you send a prayer, 
 possibly unspoken but nevertheless a prayer, and that vibration of prayer 
 reaches us and then we are enabled to divert or break into the anger 
 vibrations and shatter their power. This also is our work. 
 
12 THE FORTNIGHTLY SERIES 
 
 All the more marvelous parts of God's plan for each man is made 
 visible only as man can understand it. 
 
 Into this mass of beautiful structure building enters the radiance that 
 comes direct from God's higher love-planes. This radiance is not unlike 
 the sun's effect in your earth plane, only it is softer and more glowing, 
 and not as a plain light, but as a succession of wonderful colors. We 
 have many more colors than those evolved from your red, blue and 
 yellow. All through these lights that suffuse the air with glory come 
 sounds that are as marvelous as the lights — music, such as poets and 
 musicians dream of from instruments played by those whose life-work is 
 being extended into the realm of music they loved on earth. 
 
 All the desires of those who loved and suffered and could not accom- 
 plish the things they loved are fulfilled here. 
 
 Every day wakes at a signal, for mornings are not counted by hours. 
 Entire worlds wait to entertain mortals who are just arrived. All the 
 sweetest and purest and most amiable of our angelic host are engaged in 
 this welcoming of the newcomer to our home. When a newcomer is 
 allowed an expression, it is usually: "Is this heaven? Why, it looks 
 just like earth !" The plane in which you all first land is very close 
 to your plane ; it is only stepping over a narrow stream. It is so close we 
 can see you all, and the great surprise is that your eyes are holden, that 
 they do not see us ! No, we are not all happy at first. How can a man 
 be happy when he sees his family weeping, day and night, for him? 
 
 No, we are not happy at anything of this kind! But as time passes 
 and we are made able to adjust ourselves to conditions, we begin to gain 
 a more extended view. In fact, many are so sad at their family's mourn- 
 ing that a prophet comes to them and lifts the veil of the future and 
 soon they see how soon the mourner's tears are dried — and how little 
 it takes to revive the widow's weeds! Pardon the joke, but it is a fact! 
 
 Women in past centuries have not mourned without an alleviating 
 thought of the independence now theirs; no more curbing of desires for 
 man's law. Much in the past has been bettered by knowledge. Educa- 
 tion and civilization have marked a white cross on the sign-post of Time, 
 
"the glories thereof** 13 
 
 Never can a mortal reveal to you the glories that surround every In- 
 stant of time and space. "The heavens disclose Thy glories/* but earth 
 is not heaven! 
 
 There are many phases of your coming here that I wish to write 
 upon, and also to instruct you that your house that you are now build- 
 ing may be a temple erected unto God , adorned with jewels of thoughts 
 sent to us, enlivened with the light of your soul's own sunshine, radiant 
 in the sunshine of God's living promises. 
 
 Each day a little ship sets forth, bound for the heavenly shores 
 Laden with the thoughts you think, with love, and as the oars 
 
 Are laid upon the shining sand, and we are brought to see 
 
 We find mustered in these boats your thoughts, your deeds, and we 
 
 Who garner up these little boats, and care for each one's load 
 Are counting up the gems you send, and we, compelled by God 
 
 Are helping build your house above, which will eternal stay. 
 So we beg of every pilgrim there, think thoughts on which decay 
 
 Can never lay its finger, cold. Then never will despair 
 Come to mar this house of joy we're building with such care. 
 
 V 
 
 "All the Glories Thereof" can never be told. Never can any writer 
 of modern times or old bring to earth even a minute and fleeting glimpse 
 of the beautiful hereafter about which you can save all your adjectives 
 of beauty and all your adverbs of praise, all your conjunctions, exclama- 
 tions and your verbs of many modulations, and yet the half has never 
 been told. And when a man's simple English comes through an- 
 other's hand, when electric and etheric combine to cause that hand to 
 obey in a perfunctory manner my brain's desires, why you can see how 
 much more I could say could I use her voice; and how much more I 
 could write were our brains as one. 
 
14 THE FORTNIGHTLY SERIES 
 
 However, you all understand this. I feel like an artist who uses his 
 pencil with gloves on. My dear little glove is most obedient, and more 
 expert than any others through whom I have before essayed to inscribe. 
 With practice I feel that I shall be able to manipulate her hand much 
 better than at present. 
 
 Much of the wonder of "The Glories Thereof* consists in the waves 
 of color and of music blending and producing a something which you 
 could not understand and yet about which I wish to say something. When 
 a wave of vibrations caused by the air being moved by musical sounds 
 comes wafted toward us, either from earth or any other planet, we are 
 enclosed in soft, beautiful vibrations and we sway in the exquisite rhythm 
 of its tones. When we are watching a beautiful picture, we not only see 
 the coloring as the sun sinks in the golden west, as the birds begin to 
 call and seek their nests, as the flowers begin to fold their petals rare in 
 their beauty sleep — we also feel as fine a radiance wafted to us from 
 these scenes, a radiance of vibration such as you make 
 
 Between the powers of sun and moon, the glory of the sky, 
 And in this rhythm of color scheme forever drawing nigh, 
 We are lost in blind enjoyment, we are sensing pure delight. 
 For with this sense of beauty that comes to us in sight, 
 Is the other sense of rhythm joining them in pure alloy, 
 And this mingling in etheric of sweet sounds and sense is joy. 
 When you ever call to flowers and seem to catch their voice, 
 When you ever look at sunshine and your pulses all rejoice, 
 When you mingle in your dreaming, all of sense and sight and 
 
 sound, 
 When all the minor cadences that in all the earth resound 
 Are gathered in one chord, then toward you comes the view 
 Of the Glories of Hereafter, never old but always new. 
 The music is the channel through which we strive to speak; 
 The flowers are our messengers ; not always do their meek 
 And lowly offerings go undespised by you. 
 The colors of the rainbow make God's fair promise true. 
 
"the glories thereof" 15 
 
 The night winds* whispers coming from some far-off gleaming star 
 
 Call to your inner answering voice, and what you really are 
 
 Becomes a mad desire to arise and gain more light, 
 
 To breathe in deeper breaths, to see in clearness bright, 
 
 To feel emotions tingling every nerve; and every man 
 
 Becomes a mental dynamo, expresses as he can 
 
 The life that lasts forever, the love that makes our joy. 
 
 The power of sensing all you feel and never does it cloy. 
 
 This power of sense and feeling is all beautified by love 
 
 And etheric substances are real. Your will can never move 
 
 Above the realm of fancy that to us stands forth as fact. 
 
 Your little life is often made wretched from your lack 
 
 Of understanding either, of understanding joy, 
 
 Of understanding poetry and music. All the coy 
 
 And lovely maidens on earth who love and live 
 
 Are like flowers whose emanations peace to all around can give. 
 
 The strong and sturdy manhood, the brave, courageous man 
 
 Rekindles valor in us all and frequently we can 
 
 Unite our powers with his and make a man to win. 
 
 Now that is help. In reincarnation we count it as a sin 
 
 That any soul could want to drop its own inheritance 
 
 And try again the game of life, to get another chance 
 
 At physical emoluments; and as material gain 
 
 Can never enter Heaven's doors, why go back to Earth and Pain? 
 
 And now, dropping rhyming, I want to speak of the intermingling 
 of music and color in beauty. When on the earth plane I often noticed 
 in my congregation many people to whom the tones of the great organ 
 brought such exquisite pleasure that the tears would fall. That soul 
 was aglow with divine appreciation of the divine power of music. Many 
 times when traveling I have observed the same appreciation of a beau- 
 tiful scene, a landscape either real or on canvas, a group of children's 
 heads, the poise of a bird. I have watched tears of exquisite enjoyment 
 
16 THE FORTNIGHTLY SERIES 
 
 drop from eyes whose souls were drawing to themselves these vibrations 
 of beauty. Now, here, when these two vibrations flow from above or 
 below or around we often do not know where they originate ; they come 
 toward us in waves of golden glory; they envelop us with the most won- 
 derful sensations of blissful joy. It seems as if every pore of the human 
 body could not drink in pure water as every atom of body is permeated 
 by these waves. This is not a constant condition. These waves often 
 come at frequent intervals and again there may be quite a long period 
 between them. But it is one of the joys of our life here. What are 
 the reasons for its coming, you ask? We do not know. We only 
 accept and enjoy. When the army of the Lord marched around the 
 walls of Jericho and played upon their musical instruments, they did 
 not know what happened, but the walls fell. It was the peculiar pene- 
 trating effect of a certain vibration. The vibrations that I speak of 
 as penetrating Heavenly courts are like those of no other place or time 
 or space. It simply seems to creep into your innermost core, and you are 
 lifted into an attitude of devout prayer and worship of God. When we 
 urge you of earth to cultivate music and art and all the avenues of beauty 
 we are only asking you to keep alive within yourselves vibrations that 
 can respond to those given to us by God's commands. 
 
 Yes, music has healing power, much more than your old prosaic, 
 mud-loving earth ever dreams about. "Music is the vibration of angel 
 songs," an ancient poet said; and "flowers are breaths of fairy folks," 
 an old writer puts it. And lovely scenes and holy thoughts are like the 
 Pentecostal rest ; they come by prayer and the gathering together of those 
 "who love with one accord." And to these come the fires of beautiful 
 vibrations and beautiful thoughts, and with these two blended we are 
 just getting a small glimpse of the Glories Thereof, which no mind of 
 man can ever conceive. 
 
 Have no idea that only music and poetry are here. There are 
 stern facts, great problems, wonderful plans worked out by the thinkers 
 who act under God's will. My office to-day is not with these great 
 wielders of the world's destiny, but simply with the beauties and glories 
 with which even the most selfish and earth-loving are surrounded. Many 
 here are still dead in their sin, and we let them alone, sure of their final 
 
"the glories thereof 8 * 17 
 
 awakening, sure of their final arising, asking for our aid. You are never 
 to feel that we are sitting as in orchestra chairs, listening to beauty and 
 music. No, no! We are busy, working men. We do not carry a 
 dinner pail, for we breathe in or inhale all our nourishment from etheric 
 space. We do not have a union time set for us. We work at all and 
 at any time and part of the Glory Thereof is our ability to work out 
 the things in which Earth's conditions hampered and impeded us. The 
 musician who could not there, CAN here. The artist whose ideal 
 always just escaped him there, has captured it here. Oh, the joy of 
 work and working for others' good! We have our pay, for in doing 
 for others we are fitted for our next advancement in this wonderful 
 school of the soul. 
 
 VI 
 
 So many weeks have passed since I wrote through you that I begin 
 to feel like a youth returning to his native land after viewing all the 
 wondrous, beautiful objects in foreign lands. Like the youth, all my 
 enthusiastic remarks cannot give to you the power of understanding the 
 glories whereof I speak. 
 
 When Eve first opened her eyes in the Paradise that was to be her 
 home she saw only the glories thereof. She did not understand what 
 anything really meant. How could she? The old legend of Eve in 
 Eden is only a foreshadowing of your experiences when you, like 
 Eve, awaken in Paradise. 
 
 Now, as in the Eden of old, there are wondrous, beautiful de- 
 tails, that you could not understand through power alone or through 
 brilliancy of alleged intellect. When you first begin to understand that 
 the glories of the Infinite are yours ONLY as you are in the receptive 
 state of attunement, then can you begin to understand why all those 
 who are not attuned are in a hell of contrary laws and blind misunder- 
 standings. That is one reason we are so anxious to make God's will 
 done on earth as it is done in Heaven — so as to eliminate this intermediate 
 underworld of ignorant sorrow and misunderstood law. 
 
 No one can see farther than the ability of his eyes to receive 
 
18 THE FORTNIGHTLY SERIES 
 
 vibrations of light No one can hear farther than the ability of his 
 ear to receive vibrations of sound. No one can appreciate the beautiful 
 to any greater extent than his receptivity of the vibrations that beauty 
 sends out can register them in his innermost being. 
 
 So when you come over here you are in total ignorance of all the 
 laws that are in existence here just as on your earth ; laws that must be 
 understood in order to be obeyed, that must be obeyed that you may 
 hear and see and feel and receive these wonderful vibrations of beauty 
 that are all around us. 
 
 When we first come over here we feel that everything looks about 
 the same. Why? Because the eyes and ears and mind are only awake 
 to the vibration of earth sights and sounds and thoughts. In this new 
 awakening WE ONLY SEE TO THE EXTENT THAT WE 
 ARE DEVELOPED WHEN WE LEAVE EARTH. This is 
 why in our more rarefied atmosphere the recording waves make no im- 
 pression on a newcomer. When that newcomer bocomes more per- 
 ceptive the glories are revealed of the wonderful beauties and loveliness 
 and the great powers with which this sphere redounds. All through 
 eternal progress our pleasure is only limited by our powers of perception. 
 You who on earth are just beginning to open your spiritual perceptive 
 powers to the inflow of etheric beauties, can only understand that in 
 some way and some how the vision or hearing or impression or writing 
 comes. But when you realize that all this is limited only by your own 
 attitude of God-living and God-loving you will exclaim with the writer 
 of old: 
 
 When in my feeble rays thy sun can shine, 
 And when in all my days thy will is made as mine. 
 Then comes the God of power and Glory's Son, 
 When thou canst truly say: 
 "Thy will, not mine, be done." 
 
 When the first natural beauty makes itself evident, as I described, 
 when all the mists clear away and one sees with quickened vision, then 
 can one begin to understand of what the true meaning of "The Glories 
 Thereof* consists. You of earth are always so curious about our 
 
"the glories thereof" 19 
 
 segregation of communities or families or relatives. Do we marry and 
 love and emulate earth in jealousy and strife. Why, if evil is there, 
 should it not affect the beauty of the pure? All these questions are 
 asked over and over, and I am going to extend my serial and try to 
 answer some of these little questions that disappear at the dawning of 
 your birthday over here like the mist that covers the Hudson, but which 
 are like a fog through which you cannot see while you are there. 
 
 Now, first, remember as the first law, the Law of Love. There 
 are no communities here except those governed by the law of love. 
 When there are many who love each other and in whose common vibra- 
 tion the same note sounds, whose happiness is enhanced by coming to- 
 gether in one home or in several homes closely allied, then our community 
 is a pleasant method of learning of each other. 
 
 When family ties are those made by love's vibrations — not those 
 of blood — then families are united in the holy bonds of relationship. 
 
 When a man and woman who were man and wife on earth are 
 happy in their mutual love then that tie continues. We do not call them 
 man and wife, we call them mates. When members of a family are 
 not bound together by any ties but those of blood or law, then the freed 
 soul leaves the environment that galls his spirit and cripples his spiritual 
 growth by its inharmony and like a new-fledged eagle spreads his wings 
 and soars upward and away. Then he can enter into the harmony 
 of the spheres and find the conditions in which he is most at peace. Oh. 
 the torn and shattered spirits that have been fettered by law, by duty, 
 by obligations self-imposed while on earth, whose souls have beaten 
 themselves against the walls of their earth prison for so many weary 
 years! Can you not realize what freedom means to them? They 
 faithfully kept their faith with duty, and when they enter into their 
 inheritance their joy, their exquisite bliss cannot be understood by you 
 of earth. Only this I say: Never feel that one duty, however irksome, 
 that you faithfully perform is not recorded in glorious letters here. Verily, 
 the cup of cold water given in the name of the Christ-spirit of unselfish 
 love for a needy brother is like a glowing radiance that time never 
 dims, and these glowing, radiant rays made by you there will light your 
 pathway here. 
 
20 THE FORTNIGHTLY SERIES 
 
 I told you in another chapter of our love-made homes here. The 
 material I cannot describe for you cannot understand it. It is etheric 
 substance. Now, ether is invisible and visible at times. It is impene- 
 trable and yet you can move it. It is heavier than any other form of 
 ether or what you call atmosphere, and yet it is so buoyant that all life 
 can exist upon its upbearing surfaces. Etheric substance is one of the 
 things you must accept by your own power of faith in our word. It 
 is real. It does exist. It makes our homes or dwelling-places. And 
 yet we cannot make it plain to you. In our houses are gathered those 
 we love. We do not eat, hence we have no need for chefs. We absorb 
 the etheric atmosphere just as plants absorb it through their leaf bodies. 
 A plant really best illustrates earthly and heavenly growth. A plant 
 has first to have its roots fed by the oxygen, hydrogen and other ingredi- 
 ents that are in the moisture that has percolated through the earth. The 
 moisture extracted or dissolved these ingredients that the little roots might 
 drink thereof and grow. So much is the illustration of earth food. Now 
 the leaves, which are the next evidence of the higher growth of the plant, 
 are also drawing into themselves moisture that is laden with electrons, 
 sunshine-holding electrons, and as these leaves absorb this food you have 
 an illustration of how we absorb our food, etheric air, charged with 
 electrons of life-giving power. And as these electrons never die and we 
 make them our chief piede-de-resxstance of diet, it looks as though we 
 would emulate the electrons and never die. Perfectly logical, you say. 
 And I repeat. Yes, and perfectly true. 
 
 Now for our clothes. We do not have material cloth or velvet or 
 worsted as you have it. We have the thought that originally made cloth 
 or velvet or worsted, and that thought- force can construct out of this 
 marvelous etheric a substance that is as much more beautiful than your 
 original velvet or cloth or worsted as you can imagine. Now you do not 
 quite grasp this. 
 
 Originally a THOUGHT made a human being shear his sheep, 
 card the wool and weave the fabric. He did it all through pursuance 
 of a thought. Now thought force here is just as powerful. What 
 makes it more difficult for the originator of an earth thought to pursue 
 a sunbeam and catch its glory than to pursue a sheep and deprive it of 
 
"the glories thereof** 21 
 
 its wool? To catch the evanescent coloring matter of the rose and to 
 color this substance called etheric? From the rose comes fragrance. 
 Why not catch the material from which fragrance radiates? You wish 
 for velvety texture? What causes the pansy's velvet? A thought, that 
 can also be used for your costume. When you are in tune with infinite 
 power all can be added to you and all is in perfect accord with God's own 
 laws that you understand and carry out in your business life on earth. 
 
 Now in my next chapter I will tell you of some of the darker 
 sides of this heaven and why we are so anxious to spare our friends reap- 
 ing in sorrow what they in ignorance have sown. 
 
 VII 
 
 All the attending angels whose especial methods are unknown to 
 mortals can never understand the why and wherefore of the mortal's 
 distaste for death. They think it is the beginning of real happiness and 
 real life. So when they meet a newly arrived soul and hear it longing 
 for earth people, it causes these angelic messengers great consternation. 
 The reason you of earth are so uncertain of the beauties of life here is 
 because the descriptions in psalm and song are so vague and oriental in 
 picturing that it all passes over your heads like a fairy tale. Now, in 
 all I am telling you I am not deviating a particle from sane, cold facts. 
 
 There are no words that can fitly describe the wonderful and beau- 
 tiful lights that sift through these spaces. It is softly brilliant, colored 
 in all shades never seen on earth, and as these lights play over the 
 scenery all eyes are startled by the changing rays of etheric colors that 
 make new delights every moment of their playing. 
 
 Coming to our homes, this light transfigures every object in them. 
 There are homes here whose owners are very slothful in developing. 
 Their powers of perception are dull; they are so covered by sinful 
 degradation that they lie as close to earth as possible and do not attempt 
 to rise out of their own graves dug, or, rather, builded during their stay 
 on earth. Little, low domiciles, they are, with no God-desire thoughts 
 sent as elevation material in their building. Emerson speaks of this in 
 his "Progressive Pilgrim's Progress," and I repeat it, for it is true. 
 
22 THE FORTNIGHTLY SERIES 
 
 There are homes here that are more like gopher holes than houses. 
 Now, we never interfere with the free-will choosing of any man. His 
 desire for higher things will bring to him swift aid. So, when we hear 
 you feeble ones of earth offering to assist a degraded soul by letting 
 it enjoy your pure temple of God — your body — we shudder at your 
 dangerous, foolish proposition, and we beg you of earth to drive every 
 degraded sin-loving soul from your doors with a prayer to God for his 
 messengers to assist such souls. But as for you, let them alone. They 
 are dead in their sins, and an extra lie to you does not sit as an accusing 
 angel on their depraved minds. We watch over these poor, deluded 
 men, and when they honestly wish to commence an upward move, many, 
 many hands delegated by God for just this work will lift them up. But 
 you of earth do you treat them as house-thieves. They only desire to 
 obtain your jewels of purity and place their own rags of evil on you. 
 
 When I write the truth of this wonderful place that lies on this 
 plane, I must also speak of these earthbound and sinbound souls who 
 have yet to pass the Plane of Purification. 
 
 Question: "Are they all on your beautiful plane?" 
 
 No, no, I have failed to make that clear. When a man comes 
 over here we are able to conduct him to his house already builded by 
 the thoughts and desires of his life on earth. We are enabled to direct 
 him to the plane whereon his house is builded. Your mother, for ex- 
 ample, was ready for the seventh plane when she first came here. Now 
 she is with B. and A. on the twentieth plane and her home is there. 
 
 These earthbound souls are on the fifth and sixth planes and some 
 are still closer to earth. We call earth the fourth plane, the first of 
 human development. The lower order of beings occupy the planes 
 which you do not see below earth. But as each plane is visible to those 
 above it, we are consolidating them all under the wide-spreading tree 
 called Heaven. So in Heaven — that much misunderstood name — all 
 are departed souls, but, as in any domicile on earth, each has his own 
 room. I have digressed to tell you these important facts. 
 
 Elemental beings come here in their purely elemental condition. 
 They are never of evil, but are spirits of what you sometimes call inani- 
 mate things. The soul of a flower comes here and still blooms again as 
 
"the glories thereof** 23 
 
 a flower. The soul of a bird comes here and is never returned to earth 
 as the soul of anything else. It came to that bird as God's own gift 
 of Himself, and it stays as God's own gift of Himself throughout eternity ; 
 always as a bird, singing more sweetly, learning new carols, new tones, 
 new perfections, but forever and forever a bird. Not even a stone is soul- 
 less. Even as God's power is limitless, so can you never conceive the ele- 
 mental souls, or rather the many souls of the many elementals that are 
 here. Not that they are contacting with man's soul in any other way 
 than they did on earth. They are just as much a part of the glory that 
 lies on the scenery, the mountains, the streams. Never in your blindness to 
 God's power say: "This is a soul, and this is an inanimate." You do 
 not know until you come here what constitutes the soul of the Universe. 
 When all these souls are aspiring and in harmony with God's laws of 
 love, they sing together in a musical refrain, such as the brook and the 
 wind and the low-lapping waves make together. They sing, and we 
 whose ears are attuned can catch the glories whereof they sing. 
 
 My voice shalt thou hear, said the God of Love. 
 The voice not of man but of things that move. 
 The voice of a softly-sighing breeze ; 
 The voice of winds playing in the trees; 
 The voice of the trees in their lofty height; 
 The voice of the brook, whose song with might 
 Becomes a murmuring sound that floats 
 To join the music of the bird's pure notes. 
 The stones have voices, yes, they too 
 Are alive: — and the grasses that nod at you 
 Are full of music; and all they sing 
 "Is **Glory to God, our Maker, our King." 
 
 So in this song which arises in sweet music there are only lacking 
 the tones from the sinbound souls. No music in these souls ! No melody 
 floats from them. They are still sleeping, are dead in their sins. Now, 
 you of earth can aid them by your urgent prayers that they may aw r ake. 
 that they may arise, may go to their Father and say: "Father, I hay* 
 sinned. Cleanse thou me!" In this you can help. Let us say, the in- 
 fluence of the Catholic Church in preserving that truth of their worship 
 called "Prayers for the Dead" has kept as a live-wire a connection be- 
 
24 THE FORTNIGHTLY SERIES 
 
 tween earth and these poor souls. Many a soul has been reached from 
 above because of prayers from below. You are still ignorant of the value 
 of your prayers. When the time is ripe I will write on that subject. 
 
 You have the power of making Heaven brighter, 
 
 You have the power of making our load lighter. 
 
 When you in honest prayer can ask your God 
 
 To cause a stirring in those souls whose clod 
 
 Of earth still covers like a shell the soul. 
 
 They will arise and ask their God to make them whole. 
 
 Pray ye for loved ones, and fail not to pray 
 
 For souls in ignorance who near earth yet stay. 
 
THE FORTNIGHTLY SERIES 
 
 Devoted to bringing before the public 
 
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 Series 1 
 
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 Volume 1 — 
 
 THE GLORIES THEREOF 
 
 By PHILLIPS BROOKS 
 Automatically received by Mrs. Helen "Wells. 
 
 Volume 2 — To be issued May 8, 1922. 
 THE REALITY OF SPIRIT 
 
 INSPIRATIONAL SERMON 
 
 Delivered by Mrs. Helen Temple Brigham. 
 
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 THE PHILOSOPHER OF CONCORD 
 "Being dead he yet speaketh" 
 
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 AROUND THE POETS' TABLE 
 
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