being love, so when we are here and find ourselves able, we do our utmost to help and influence those we love who are still on earth. Always it is the driving force of love which causes us to do our work.
We can be in close touch with our people on earth, and by suggestion and by close association we can influence them. Through our influence often much material good will come to them. We spirit people cannot give material riches to any on earth, but we can frequently advise as to the best step to take in a business matter which, if taken, will bring in considerable material wealth. Just as we can influence in a spiritual sense, so we can influence in a business way. We people over here can see both sides of the argument. When a thing is to be decided between two people we can see both points and can therefore see which is right, and if we play straight we throw our influence in with that, whether it is to the benefit of our earth friend, in a material sense, or not. If we do this, and our earth friend loses or suffers from it, we invariably make it up later in a different way. If we throw our influence against our own conviction, only in order to help our earth friend, we pay for it here ourselves, and our earth friend, who thereby gains unjustifiably, pays for it later, either whilst on earth or when in spirit life. He will have to make return sooner or later; there is no escape, it is automatic.
In saying we can and do influence people on earth, I do not propose to go into the precise process of how we work. It is near enough to say that you know how you influence each other on earth; here the result is the same, although the process is quite different—but that is a matter which each one of you will deal with individually later on, when your own change comes, therefore it is not of necessity nor of interest to you to know now.
You have on earth a saying that "coming events cast their shadows before." This is a truth. They do cast their influences, and sensitive people can always register them and can often make a guess at their origin.
CHAPTER XI PREMONITIONS
There are many superstitions and many reasons given to explain what is called "premonition," but in almost every instance it can be traced to telepathy; there are so many forms of mental sympathy.
The chief form of premonition is that concerning the death of another, friend or relation. Now always that can be traced to telepathy. You will argue that perhaps the person about to pass on was not anticipating his death. It may have been through a sudden accident, and yet so-and-so had a certain sign—a premonition—so many days, or such and such a time, beforehand.
To explain: Mr. A has a premonition about the death of Mr. B. It is followed up later by an accident in which Mr. B is killed. The spirit friends who are interested in Mr. B have been in continual attendance upon him, and are watching him in order to be of use whenever possible; but they cannot make him do this or do that with any certainty, they can only influence him one way or another. Now, all the actions of Mr. B's life are producing certain effects, some of which Mr. B himself is not at once conscious of.... His spirit friends are, and they can see, a certain distance ahead, what the results of these actions—the general routine of his life—may be. In this way they can see ahead what is going to occur to Mr. B, and although they will do their utmost to guide him they cannot act for him. He sets his own destiny in motion and he alone can alter it. At such a time, the spirit friends, realizing that Mr. B is in physical danger, will do their utmost to divert his actions and movements: sometimes they are successful, but in this particular instance they are not, and Mr. B meets his death. The influences being used by the spirit people have created a disturbance of thought- force around him and, although he was not conscious of it himself, his friend Mr. A has registered it upon his mind and it has reproduced itself in sleep, as a dream, or as a vision built up by thought-power and materialized through and from the physical strength of Mr. B. Distance between A and B makes no difference.
Premonitions concerning an arrangement
made which is afterwards not fulfilled are caused by the influence of spirit friends trying always to guide their charges to the benefit of themselves. In this way you can figure out the cause of all so-called premonitions. In every case it is spirit friends trying to communicate with the person chiefly concerned—he often fails to register what another will pick up.
CHAPTER XII RESIDENCE
I come now to the last days on the Blue Island and the taking up of our residence on the next and far more permanent world. The Blue Island is a transient life; a land for acclimatizing the newcomer, and as soon as he's fit he
passes from it to what I might term the Real World,
inasmuch as each one will be much longer on it than any has yet been on earth. We can at will return to the Blue Island, and many do so frequently, both to meet newly arrived friends and associates, and to help any person or group with whom we are in sympathy. These are only visits, and we do not ever again return there to live.
Travel here is a very different thing to the methods you all know, and we all set out in a large party for the Real World. Not our whole party, as on first arrival; many weren't ready to leave, but with us were many other spirit people besides those with whom we had originally arrived. There was the same sensation
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of flying, moving rapidly through the air; then we came to our new home. After the color and generally striking appearance of the Blue Island, this new land appeared less attractive at the outset. It was more toneless in color, the people more engrossed in their regular routine. It seemed as if we had returned to earth life again, it was so like. I thing, on arrival here, we must all have been attracted to different parts of this land, for my own seemed strikingly like parts I had known on earth, and there were also buildings I knew. Other people have told me the same, so I am confident that according to our race and degree of development so we are automatically attracted to different parts of this new world.
It is in this land that I and most of our people are, and certainly all will be, in due course. We continue our studies and our work of developing spiritually, whilst at the same time controlling and dispersing the few still-clinging earth habits and thoughts. We are all very much more conscious of each other in this land, and life resumes a much greater similarity to the life we have known on earth. We have our homes in the same way and our interests in other people, and according to taste so we are habited together in houses or on the open hillside country. Some people live in very elaborate palaces, and it is very curious to note that many of these people are those who have led very rough and hard lives upon earth. Their idea of Heaven is a palace and a life of ease. After a period of time, during which they must make specified progress in general development, these people are given their palaces in order to allow them full advantage of environment to make forward steps in their evolution. If they don't progress, they lose their palace and must requalify for it. This applies to everyone; each has to qualify in order to obtain his desired object; and in order to keep it he must continue his progress and his help to others.
When we come to this land, we have ceased to desire food, drink and sleep; we are now pure spirit in the rough state; there is still more refining to be done in the next phase. Here, also there are Rest Houses—Houses for Music—Houses for Scientific Research—Houses for all, and every kind of information and knowledge; and the entrance fee to each and all of these is Desire. We do not lead a life of continual cramming of information—we lead ordinary earth lives, but with a much keener social interest and much more freedom and exchange of thought. There is no distinction of the classes. Our earth life may be forgotten, in so far as our individual task on earth is concerned, when that task was a matter of little or no interest to us. It is only the spiritual and mental knowledge and development which hinders and advances the individual here; and spirit knowledge is not hindered by whatever one's job on earth may have been. In this respect there is a great and sudden broadening of the point of view of all comers to this land.