Class Book. p"** 3of N5S Copyright!^ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIE THE NEXT BEYOND THE NEXT BEYOND ANONYMOUS The Christopher Publishing House Boston, Massachusetts Copyright 1921 By The Christopher Publishing House JUL IS 1821 ©CI.A617692 •* INTRODUCTION The text of this book belongs to the class known as automatic writing. However one explains the phenomenon, it is too well authenticated to be denied, and always it is a psychic and never a spiritual proceed- ing. Not all messages coming into a wire- less station are of equal value or interest; and likewise not all script received through a relaxed physical and an active subcon- scious mechanism is worthy of credence or publicity. The psychic is, however, the intermediary between the material and the spiritual, and may be the vehicle for sending truths be- yond our earthly experience. By spiritual, I do not mean the so-called realm of spirits, necessarily, but that high and dimly glimpsed condition, Reality, with which both metaphysics and religion deal. And occasionally words, psychically re- ceived, merit the opinion that they are of spiritual import and origin, and such I bold- ly claim these to be. The manner of their coming; was this: Three years ago, a small group of women vitally concerned with knowing and living Truth, so far as they perceived it, but with positively no occult experience or interest, found themselves suddenly possessed of 6 INTRODUCTION power to write automatically. For weeks they hid the fact from each other, as some- thing unbelievable; but having at last con- fessed it, they found that each had received remarkable information concerning life and what is called death. With one exception, the messages came from men not known during life and in no instance were they personal. Those making up this volume were received by me from a writer with whose work I was slightly familiar, and a friend of us both has since told me they are characteristic. None of the communications offered ad- vice concerning worldly affairs; there was no cheap element of fortune telling, nor any attempt at prophecy except the one predic- tion of earthquakes to follow the Great War. This came long before they began to occur. In this one case only, was publication re- quested; and the writer asked that the mes- sage stand on its own merits, without his name or the receiver's. The Truth it con- tained was to be its credential and the standard by which it was to be judged. The last words, about Light, indicate the cessation of the writing, and except for slight corrections for clearness of meaning when the manuscript was typed, nothing more has ever come to me. The pencil, once so alive and rapidly moving, is as dead now as any other bit of wood. INTRODUCTION 7 And a curious thing remains to be told. The women who received the messages later discovered that, unknown to each other, they had ceased writing on almost the same day. It was as if, the teaching offered, the word delivered, all which could now be understood had been sent. These words, then, must establish or re- fute the claim that they are of the truth by internal evidence entirely. Their author declares that he sent them, not in answer to curiosity or even because of scientific in- vestigation of this subject, but because many souls are longing for comfort and desire to learn the Real. What he tells is not of the highest heavenly condition, but what can be known of that realm, "The Next Beyond." The Next Beyond 1. You see how union with the Absolute makes life great. The wonder of the plan is becoming comprehensible as little by little it comes into sight, but not to outward vision — Some men have already seen dimly through the veil. Dante, I doubt not, Dore perhaps, Whitman, Blake. That these men have not seen all that may be seen, is what they do not know. Your whole life, judged accurately and by as all-seeing an eye as though yours were the only life being lived under the stars, is open from above. No least hidden motive nor desire goes unrewarded, unfulfilled. Chance has nothing to do with it. That your life is not unmixed good or evil, proves the law; for which of us is pure, good or evil'? It is discouraging to be a ghost! And have people disbelieve? Nearly all do, you know. 10 THE NEXT BEYOND 2. I will tell you more about vibration. You would not guess, as you use this pencil, that it is not solid — not made up of real " sub- stance.'' In fact it is but varying rates of vibration in original substance. That is what matter is. This is what is meant by the l ' elements. ' ' They are but different ar- rangements of what you name atoms — elec- trons of force — that is, vibration in original matter. Then matter is eternal? In form it changes. It is the form you call matter. Its limitation of movement is its form. This changes, but the force which moves it and gives it temporary shape, this is eternal. Do not imagine this to be the form you see, you see inversely. That which you behold is the image in the mirror, and the real inheres in the image which casts the reflection. There is the real in my mind which casts its reflection in this writing. If perfect correspondence exists between the image and its parent idea, then we have great liter- ature — even though the idea be not of the highest. Balzac, for example, gave expres- sion to life as he saw it, but his ideal was not always lofty. The real expression makes his work live. Where the idea is THE NEXT BEYOND 11 exalted and its expression true, as in great poetry, we have what defies time. In life it is the same. Only when the perfect out- growth of perfect idea is attained is the will of God accomplished — as when He recog- nized in Jesus, the consummation of the process — at last "my beloved son." Do not become discouraged when you recognize your own expressions are faulty. Your face is set toward the highest. It will be longer in overtaking than a lower ideal. As you gain power to sink the personal in the absolute, you will receive enlighten- ment from the source. Then only can the result be perfect. I am simpler in faith than I was. I see that religion, by which I mean relation to God, is even more than I realized. I recog- nize love as the greatest of realities. 12 THE NEXT BEYOND There is no desire on the part of the power you call God to hold back happiness. On the contrary there is the ardent wish of those governing human affairs to have all happy who are able. I speak not of the Absolute as governing — That we do not ap- proach, nor fully understand — but of the lesser powers. But you yourself must work out happiness by proper mental patterns. You must realize that what one expects with constant expectation comes. Mental habit is formative. The law does not change for your beseeching — what you create, you create. And one neutralizes one's own thought when least he is aware. It is the department of mind I hear called the sub- conscious, the subliminal, which builds your structure of life conditions; and inexorably it builds whatever the dominant feeling dic- tates. Here, where I am, we become conscious of this sub-conscious realm. You were wanting, I see, to ask why failures come in building dream-castles. I will tell you. In such event the necessary never-faltering faith is lacking. Persist in a dream unalter- ably for a length of time and the dream " comes true." Mankind is at this very mo- ment an evidence of what it has persistently THE NEXT BEYOND 13 wished and expected. You do not realize the potency of imagination, the invincible builder. But would you expect success of the builder in the material world who plan- ned a palace of marble and one day began work; the next, changing the plan, started a structure of wood and the third, becoming discouraged, gave up the work altogether % So often you destroy your castles-in-Spain by doubt of your ability to succeed, or else you lightly give way to a different interest. Did you know about the lecture I went tol Good work has been done by that organi- zation, but naturally they will never prove what is by doubt of what is. Do they not simply investigate % Even slight faith such as yours brings better results than they obtain. No number of willful men can thwart the eternal. A legion of helpers is at your call; for the love in your heart, the good you try to do are as shining armor about you. 14 THE NEXT BEYOND 4. We see everything spread out like a great scroll. We are capable of shifting an event slightly — accelerating or delaying— as the mind moves upon it. But the scheme is determined? From the beginning. Then we cannot change it? This is difficult to explain. Omniscience, Being, manifesting in part through us, knows how the active will or inactivity of individuals is to affect their lives. The plan as a whole is pre-seen, and is bound to ter- minate in a certain way — only the steps of the way can be retarded or hastened by our own desire. The end is such union with God as is expressed in the eastern word " Nirvana" or the western " heaven." Hu- manity is working through experience by ordeal, by pain, by joy, by all growth in per- ception and expansion of consciousness — to the One. And is this what is meant by love % You have not yet broken through limita- tion to know the power of that word. Life itself is love. Love, the glory of life, the overcomer of death and entrance into heav- en. The summit of life as well as its foun- dation. It comes to the small and they THE NEXT BEYOND 15 grow great; to the noble and makes them gods. All love? All. There is no distinction but of de- gree. And you will come to be grateful to all which unfolds love to you — suffering teaches, and by no better means could you learn the sympathy — which is knowledge and not sentimentality — that must be yours before true teaching can be done. 16 THE NEXT BEYOND 5. (In an empty church.) This is a favorable place for writing. The influences are uplifting. I wish you could see the difference between this and a place given over to evil practices of any kind. There is no tendency toward evil here. It is the home of aspiration, of search and though the aspiring made mistakes as did the seekers, the mistakes came out of good motive. Your new liberty of thought has by no means freed you from mistakes — but those are little considered when the heart is pure. I see here superstition, bigotry and narrowness. I see those who groped blind- ly, but who trusted like children. Through many hardships they sought the light, as a seed beneath the earth gropes for sunshine. And even mistaken, they found a morsel of truth to stay hunger. Even the aspiration toward beauty is an effort to reach that per- fection in which the soul feels at home. In its farthest perception of perfectness it rests for a time, until driven forward again by opening vistas. And the temporary rest in a not-ultimate beauty is not stagnation. Whatever has called forth joy and worship has helped the soul forward on the way. The upreach of cathedrals, the outstretch- ing of the lover toward perfection of rela- THE NEXT BEYOND 17 tionship with his beloved, the search of the poet for the word, of the painter for color, of the sculptor for form, of the musician for harmony, of the soul for beauty to satisfy, of all who purely strive — each aspires toward God, however feebly succeeding. And what has striven up toward God has achieved, to his degree, beauty. You will discover that states of mind persisted in alter conditions. This is cre- ative thought as you observe it in Jesus. Put emotion only into what is constructive. Abandon destructive thought as you would fly the plague. It is much more deadly. The sub-conscious mind, which creates, takes its orders from the emotions. That which rouses feeling sinks into the creative mind and reproduces its kind. 18 THE NEXT BEYOND 6. What any of us may say to you can be only of affairs concerning the phase of life next in advance of your own. With that you have contact and may to a degree com- prehend our condition. With the next high- er form or plane you have no connecting link. Your questions therefore bring no re- ply. Some souls have gone on into the high- er spheres because they are free from de- taining earthly ties. They have the work of development well begun in themselves and the hunger for truth impels them forward. But is not the desire, even for wisdom, for oneself alone, selfish? If one leaves behind an obvious duty. But freedom to attain perfection is in itself op- portunity for service. We all strive toward that goal, and by attainment can point the path. We have the example of the Masters for our guidance. Higher tasks are also to be done — such as running the cosmic ma- chinery. I supposed it ran itself. Not entirely so. There is a degree of intelligence in every manifestation of life — the cell has its appropriate wisdom. But atoms in the mass have not man's corporate intelligence, which coalesces and dominates the intelligence of the different atoms. In THE NEXT BEYOND 19 inanimate creation is life of a kind — ability to grow — to move — to respond to stimulus and this must be controlled and bound to- gether. The law of gravitation. You do not associate the force with intelligence. But in substance it is the law of love which ulti- mately will be seen as life, wisdom, sub- stance and power — love beyond any human concept of love. No least effort toward good or strength, unselfishness or beauty, is unrewarded. In- deed such effort is its own incorporating re- ward. When the way seems puzzling or discouraging remember what I say. Each day, each thought, is an added stone in your structure of becoming. It cannot help counting. What of bad thoughts — negative states of mind? You yourself have said. What? Negative — they count for nothing. But do they not tear down? Yes, they do their own sort of work. Fight against depression is better than let- ting the negative mood prevail, but why not open the shutters and let in light instead of fighting darkness? 20 THE NEXT BEYOND Real good cannot be grasped at another's expense. Only being your desire — be it wealth, love, goodness — truly attracts and attaches. The demanded shows and forms of love — for example — are nothingness. Re- ality of what you wish is far away, for self- ishness cannot bring it; and at last this begins to glimmer in the questing soul. Sav- ing is losing, as of old — only giving is get- ting. To whomever the heart goes out in har- mony, we are bound in some sort of relation- ship by unbreakable bonds. This is love. This is not taking and hoarding. To such the law of love is unknown and he ends by shutting himself away from the very good he desires. Our knowledge cannot be put into your words; could the cave-man have discussed technical aviation*? So I wonder if you can get my meaning when I speak to you of love. Those here who feel alone, are those who never in earth life established the relation of har- mony with any. Non-love, even when it is not active hate, is darkness and separate- ness. The more-than-personal, celestial love you know in some— it is the love which leads to laying down life for others. Also it leads THE NEXT BEYOND 21 to taking on earth life when that sacrifice is needed to help those on earth, even though the soul has passed beyond the need of in- carnation as discipline. We remain near your plane at times because we wish to watch over or help the ones we have left, although we have fitted ourselves to go on, and shall do so as soon as we are not needed. Earth-bound souls — these are different. I speak now not of decadent but of advancing personalities. I hear of psychic specula- tions about these. But this astral business is not your business. Well enough by the way, and interesting. But not for the aspir- ing. It is like starting for the Pacific coast and stopping in Chicago! No slur on Chi- cago intended! Don't stop anywhere! Keep going! 22 THE NEXT BEYOND 8. Do you have eyesi Not in the sense you mean. We have sight. Ours is mental vision. We do not so much see with an organ such as yours, as perceive with the true eye, which is men- tal. And do you see more than the surface ? Ah, I see your thought — " Fourth dimen- sion" — while I was thinking " complete sight!" We are quite free to do and see what we wish. And you are less bound than you imagine. More trouble than you know comes from believing yourself not free. You think you must not do this or that. You must be your divine self. There is your right and freedom. I cannot see that freedom of action is al- ways right. Not always. But freedom of action is not real freedom. Real freedom is inward, and may exist with conditions the most hamper- ing. Such conditions are for your develop- ment and leading. They bring strength if rightly met, or open vision. To go back to the subject of eyes, were they not left behind you? By no means. I have the true eye and ear now. My spectacles and ear trumpet only were buried — or dissolved. I am not sure THE NEXT BEYOND 23 just what happened to that old body. But I am still myself. I am no angel with a mouth organ and wings! And when I was free I started on a search. So much I want- ed to know without doubt. I found that trials come, as I had guessed, either from one's own fault, or to develop and move on the soul. All some spirits need to become aware of their divine kernel is emotion deep enough to stir beneath the surface calm or hardness or thoughtless- ness, and it is usually sorrow which furnish- es the harrow. Then I loved freedom and sought free- dom. And I found that freedom for good is the only freedom. Evil binds. License to do evil we have and the doing is a halter about one's neck. Then I discovered that there is no wealth like being attuned to good — no riches so bountiful as this, which is the substance of riches. I had been interested in the occult symbol of the spiral. It means return — everlast- ingness — but advance in returning. Do not be doubtful, fearful. It lowers vi- bration, and trouble has only to enter your neighborhood to be annexed. Like seeks like ? In this case like attracting like. Do not let yourself become depressed. Fighting is well enough when you have to rid yourself of an enemy, but fighting alone never helps — it depletes and leaves you a prey to the 24 THE NEXT BEYOND next monster. By it you attain only empti- ness. What you need on the contrary is fullness. Better fill the void with faith and hope and let no dissonance enter. And joy clothes as with a garment of light and safe- ty- Doubt neutralizes, but no thought sent out in strong faith can fail. And of course you are weak when you try to use only your own strength. You wear yourself out in such trying. Let the great strength flow in and help you. Then time ! How I should like to tell you even the little I have learned of time. I can see wider than you; but am not yet in the state of absolute existence where all is and no past or future are in consciousness. But already time is of a different quality than with you, and we see past and future, dimly, like a written scroll of which the present is a finger, slipping down the page to mark the point of vision. The whole may be written but it is consciously in experi- ence only at the point which meets the eye. And your present makes your future. Do not forget this. It helps the hard places. And what the present is is known to Infin- ity. You have power to make it what you will or you are not in the likeness of God. Nothing my pencil writes is proof— of my- self or my life here or of the truths I try to give you. Only inner assurance is real THE NEXT BEYOND 25 proof. One disbelieves after any test un- less the feeling of conviction has arrived. My sending this is less an action of will, I believe, than of thought. I wish I could make thought clear to you in its powers and nature. When it has not dense matter to deal with it is omnipotent, or would be in a perfect state such as on the plane next in advance of your own [which?] has not been reached. It is good that on your plane you work sluggishly through material hindran- ces, for were it otherwise, your ignorance of the laws of thought and mind would in- volve you in horrible confusion and catas- trophe. But even now you set up, by strong thought currents, centers of energy which act on matter. And you feel, likewise, the currents about you and are inexplicably in- fluenced — as in changing moods, for exam- ple. This is a price paid for sensitiveness and for the open mind. You may render yourselves immune, however, by the wish for positive good and the mental refusal of what is less or otherwise. You should keep the mind open; not for influence, but be- cause you can never attain unless you leave the way open to the source. Do not try to conclude — you are but midway the process of growth. What you believe a finished product, even a belief, has no further possi- bility of growth. (After this a strange drawing was made automatically, which looked like a German 26 THE NEXT BEYOND soldier, a coarse and crude figure, wearing a crown which a hand was snatching off. The pencil wandered about with what seemed aimlessness, and finally this result was noticed.) THE NEXT BEYOND 27 9. The important thing for you is that you begin consciously to make connection with the One. And this is done by thought — by consciously used thought. Let nothing dis- turb nor prevent the habitual quest, nor in- terfere with correct thinking. It is vital. Do not let wrong suggestions creep in. A wrong state of feeling is poison. You have permitted it long enough. When I say "Evil" you are aware I do not speak of ways morally wrong, but only of false ways. Ways of separateness — of negation. You are to hasten the return to your Source — to states of union — now that you are on the path. There can be neither fear, lack, ill- ness, or loss, once the true way is estab- lished. The trouble is, old causes are at work. Not until the impetus you formerly gave them is exhausted, will falsehood lose its hold on you. They die out gradually as ripples on water unless a powerful new impetus is set in motion. I can only hint what will prove helpful or enlightening for the state you are in. No one can do more than this for you. Nothing else could be received. You are nearing the parting. I do not refer to what you call death. I mean the place where the particu- 28 THE NEXT BEYOND lar first meets consciously and begins to comprehend the universal. This is a great meeting. Here one parts forever with self- ishness, with care for a purely personal good. One seeks then of Infinitude, know- ing he has already received as one with the infinite. One should be henceforth above and out of reach of the lower vibrations of lust and cruelty and hatred. Your battle fields are child's play compared to the strug- gle I witness between all evil forces, created by men's worst impulses since time began, against the eternal force of good. When one knows on which side stands the Eternal, one knows the final result. But it must be battle until all which opposes good has been melted away, and evil has no real existence at any time except in the thought of those believing in its power. It is a lie and will return to nothingness. And the battle is not less cruel because it is waged for a lie. The methods of truth are quite different. Truth stands ready to be accepted — quiet as sunshine. Once it enters the life of the individual darkness has vanished. The struggle of light is its readiness to approach and fill all space. It is ready. One has only to be open to it. When the great conflict ends, the world will be ready for the coming of the light. It is His pressure makes the conflict. He will not long delay. The time is ready. We already know Him. May you know Him. THE NEXT BEYOND 29 I want you to know you are now touching the greater universe. You are surrounded by more and greater than you know. You cannot sense it. Indeed it is supersensual. As you know, your life is limited to that to which you are able to respond. As one de- velops, that-into-which-one-develops is de- tected. All is ready, waiting perception. In the degree of your search, you find. Your love of good, your aspiration toward right guided you. The law is never de- ceived, never broken. Who seeks finds. The higher search is rewarded less quick- ly than the lower, but by your search, the result is assured. The veil is thinning. We can see through it at times. You are within a breath of the lifting. The law applies here also — the law of search. All life is one but we have a broader outlook. 30 THE NEXT BEYOND 10. In the books going through to you — I re- fer to the messages from this side being printed 1 — are varying descriptions of the place of the "dead." Your world would be differently thought of by Emerson than by a Hottentot, and so our world is reported from angles most various. One meets here death or life, sorrow or joy, as he has pre- pared it for himself by life on earth, and purpose, the habit of mind, the current, the direction, the predominant desire deter- mines the life here. Outward acts and words do not count so much as the underly- ing motives. In these books also, much is said of cosmic currents, of psychic influences. It is true that the force like which you are, seeks and fortifies that in you which is like itself — you do exist in a stream of unseen currents. But you are greater than all which surrounds you and it is always pos- sible to remain free and to master such in- fluences. The influence is there; but you are, or can be, as gods, and need succumb to no undesirable influx. Keep the mind pos- itive and no malignity can harm or depress you. It is only when one is weak that there is danger. I tell you that love, courage, truth — all that is of God, is your sufficient THE NEXT BEYOND 31 safeguard. Trust in the protecting power of Good will avail even in physical weakness or mental depression. There is literally nothing to fear, anchored to Good, though the black degradation of beings on the low plane you are thinking of would astound you. They will no more pollute those of higher thought — and therefore of higher vi- bration — than the low life of a man with whom you touch elbows in the crowd defiles you now. These currents — I should like to have you understand them. Cosmic currents you call them. They are affinity — vibrations of affinity. They manifest as color, as light, as harmony like sound or mental vibration — depending on the receiving instrument. You rarely see them — few are yet clairvoy- ant — but many feel them. You become im- mersed in one or another are you in har- mony with it — and cannot account for the ideas or exaltations that reach you. The love currents — one might spend the whole of endless time in finding out love — and fail to reach the end; not only because it is infinite in quality, but unknown in de- gree as well. These love currents — the sun burning in love, cohesion of matter, the outer garment of the spirit, each atom call- ing to each, responding to each, clinging, germinating heat and light and form ; draw- ing, holding suns in their place and planets in their paths — the life-power, the intelli- 32 THE NEXT BEYOND gent force which is named God. Nothing in all limitless space is outside love nor can escape it. Love is our concept of space — of near and far. As you know between two human beings, love develops and creates a permanent and God-like union. In the in- finite variety and power of the love im- pulse is at once the primary, universal impulse and binding principle of all living beings, from highest to lowest in the scale of life; and at the same time it is the ladder by means of which the scarcely-awakened climb to the ultimate God. In nature, ani- mate and inanimate, it is power and always and everywhere it is God in manifestation. To me, on earth love had opened heaven. And if love is truly felt the difference in the life here and there is not one of quality — except in conditions — but only of degree. I already felt beauty and truth and love — but not fully — nor do I yet. I want to tell you about this man who wrote the poetry. Yourself? Myself. He had wonderful dreams about love and beauty and the quest of truth and what they did in the soul, and how the soul which uttered itself helped on the world. But it is heart-breaking to have the vision and lack words. But you wrote beautiful words. Not like the vision — if I had been able to tell the vision men would have gone to heav- en on my thought expressed in beauty. It THE NEXT BEYOND 33 is hard to see the picture earthy when the dream of it was radiant with colors of the sky. We think the result was lovely. You do not see what it should have been. But did you when you were here ? Not all — nor do I now — but I told you love had unlocked the gate — none who love are left shut in and without a beacon. Love which is love indeed opens to the joy of heaven. Union in earthly love is a type of the ultimate union of all life in the life of God. In itself it is adequate proof of im- mortality and of Heaven. And this is the thing those who hear my message will prize most dearly — that love continues. The memory of many earthly facts will fall away. But love continues, persists, in- creases, and this knowledge is precious. It means that Grod is not force alone, nor wis- dom, nor principle nor any abstraction — but the love-and-life-principle, — love-in-it- self — , all-in-oneness. And this works out any set of details the individual case de- mands. And is this world of yours far away 9 All about, in the midst, above your own. Don't think of it in terms of space. And those whose work is unfinished or who watch over them they love or who return to teach — as I — pass out and in among you and at the same time live in this larger and higher world. But the size of one's world, 34 THE NEXT BEYOND you understand, depends upon perception or state of consciousness, and as you must feel, death does not introduce to larger boundaries unless the soul has already started on enlargement. And the creative spirit — still at work — by his own laws of mind — is more interested — if I may speak of It as Individual — in the working out of each personal soul than you can conceive. And we are He — the one power working — and always for good if we do not interfere — underlying all diversities of human use — One ! THE NEXT BEYOND 35 11. (After watching robins nest-building, and wondering how they told each other what was necessary.) Of course they talk. We hear them. It is immensely interesting to see their minds. It is all part of the larger life we are of. With inner sight and hearing developed, we are free of every form of life beneath — I mean less advanced — than — us. If we choose, there is freedom of oversight of lower orders, just as the manager of a fac- tory might go anywhere to superintend his employees. Also he would understand much more clearly than they the end and the reason for the work. To the ignorant toiler who seems isolated from the whole, the work can have no meaning. Seen from above and with intelligence the entire plan is disclosed. Animals are limited in intelligence and their world is bounded by the family or at broadest the species. Spacially they know nothing beyond their forest or meadow or stream — or that far-distant home to which migratory birds hear the call. Whatever is beyond their need is non-existent in their consciousness. They are as blind to a sun- set or a rose, as you to us. But to fulfill any primary instinct they are equipped — to sat- 36 THE NEXT BEYOND isfy hunger and thirst and shelter them- selves and their young — to protect mate and offspring — to continue the species. Within these boundaries their intelligence is, like any manif estaton of divine wisdom, entirely adequate. And when new needs or condi- tions arise, they develop racially to meet them unless the change is too enormous or sudden for evolutionary progress to cope with and they sink under it to extermina- tion. To be close to the native speech of these little creatures is strangely interesting. I wonder if old Aesop was not gifted with this inner vision. One need not pass through death to attain higher conscious- ness of any sort. What is earned comes. What one has prepared for is encountered. Divine justice never forgets, is never balked. I am glad you will do this writing. I can speak freely because the same motive actu- ates us — good for humanity. The message needs giving out, but that it comes from over here is not so important to be known. Truth has nothing to do with places. THE NEXT BEYOND 37 12. You will be helped if you do your best. The help is available only if you are free from depression. And you have first to claim it. This you do by raising vibration where it can be met by higher power. Thus depression puts you beyond touching the high. I see your wonder how this is to be done. I will tell you a universal remedy. Raise the thought to God the good and ]et Him freely in — see everything as through the eyes of the supreme Good — banish all which opposes itself to this ideal. In any emergency of life this is the remedy — but one not easily used at first. Let God in — that is, empty yourself of the opposite of Him — and that opposite you know as well as I do. Evil is not necessarily what the world calls evil. That you have rid yourself of. Moral evil no longer attracts you. Pos- sibly we shall long fight against the subtler forms of vice, vanity and love of approval and personal pride. They cling after the grosser forms of immorality possess no lure. Each of us knows the particular form which he has yet to conquer — or knows as fast as it is uncovered and recognized. And as we go on the crusade, hidden failings crop up. They are of scarcely enough importance to be mentioned once the fight against them 38 THE NEXT BEYOND has been seriously undertaken. Certainly my business is not criticism, unless I see harm threaten you by reason of a flaw in your armor of protection, good-in-the-heart. No, I meant none even of these subtle evils. They are no more than a fleck of mud on the petal of a flower. They will disappear. They are extraneous. In speaking of help or protection, know that the heart uplifted can be helped, and that only. No harm can come to the pure [in] intent. And by the rate of vibration is help attainable. A low rate makes you susceptible to lower spiritual influences. The higher, that is the more hopeful and courageous, your state, the more easily is evil repulsed and good welcomed. Know also that good, in whose garment you wrap yourself for protection when you wish good only, is more powerful than evil. Evil is powerless against you unless you let it take control. It is nothing to one who is filled with good. Only when it is believed in has it power over you. And when we attempt to help the depraved we must clothe ourselves in light to enlighten them and ourselves re- ceive no injury. But Grod himself cannot help them until they turn to Him. We are in the divine image and none can violate our independence without our acquiescence. The man who is attuned to the low — again I mean not the degraded, of necessity, but the natural man — cannot perceive the things THE NEXT BEYOND 39 of God because they are spiritually per- ceived or discerned. He has not yet evolved the mechanism needed to discern them. This is not condemnation. I mean to say only he is not ready. 40 THE NEXT BEYOND 13. It is possible to so connect yourself with divine substance that lack will be impossi- ble. Never lose sight of the end. What end