To all these people I am, and I always was, most sympathetic. In earth life I did my best to help and enlighten, but I was very restricted owing to material calls upon my time. Since my arrival in this land I have tried to carry on and greatly to increase the amount and the sphere of this same work. I have succeeded up to a point, though many have not yet reached the half-way step on that staircase of knowledge leading to understanding. I was on the point of saying 'leading to happiness', but that would not be quite correct, for happiness is most amply contained in 'understanding', and happiness in the sense that it is used and understood on earth is not the raison d'etre of life. We were not made only to be happy. Happiness is part of our reward for work done, for progress and for help given to others—which is itself the outcome of understanding.
As I have said, in my work on this side of the Borderland I have achieved a certain success, and I am confident that if I can pass on the knowledge I have gained, together with my own personal experiences, to you who are still on earth, I shall have gone a little farther in the work to which I have set my hand for the good of humanity.
What I have to tell will be of interest to many, and will be useless to many more, but I am going to tell of things which each one of my readers can, up to a point, test for himself. You can each one of you test it by soul knowledge, and by that you will know that I am giving you words of value, words which God in His infinite love has permitted me to be the means of passing to you. It is not my idea of the mysteries of life, it is a discourse on those mysteries.
There is the teaching of Christianity running all through, but the application is different to that ordinarily accepted. It is quite erroneous to suppose that because a man was a man on earth, he will become a spirit angle the moment he dies. Death is only the doorway from one room to another, and both rooms are very similarly furnished and arranged. That's what I want you to appreciate thoroughly; it is under the same guiding hand. The same Personality rules all spheres.
Beginning at the beginning, I have to tell you how a man finds himself here on arrival. As I have said, this whole book will interest many and help a few. It is for that few that all concerned are making the necessary effort to bring it to them. It does not attempt or pretend to be on scientific lines. All through, you can apply sound common sense, and you cannot break down what is.
I have dealt with the subject very briefly, only for the reason that many will read a short, concise account who would not study a detailed one.
I must impress upon you all—the interested and the disinterested, the believer in this great subject, Spiritualism, and the skeptic—to remember you are still on earth and you have still to perform earth's duties. You have your daily lives to lead and you must always do well the work in hand. Never neglect the present because the future appears more brightly colored. Carry on with today, but with a corner of your mind on to-morrow, and remember also that phenomenal Spiritualism is not for all. Many minds could not absorb the greatness of the subject together with the facts of the phenomena and still continue in their routine in normal manner—these are the people for whom phenomena Spiritualism is not. They will be wise to go no further into the subject than knowledge gained from books and from the experiences of others. In this sense, Spiritualism is not for all.
William T. Stead.
CHAPTER I THE ARRIVAL
THE BLUE ISLAND
Communicated By W.T. Stead, through the hand of Estelle Stead
Experience of a New Arrival Beyond the Veil
CHAPTER I
Many years ago I was attracted by an article on the subject of spirit communication, and, after reading it carefully several times, I was forced to admit its soundness. I was struck by the plain and practical ideas of the writer. This was the first cause of my becoming actively interested in this big and amazing work. From that time onward I did all in my power to prove and then forward the movement. Many people know this; and those who do not, can become acquainted with the details if they wish. Therefore I am going to pass at once from my first earth interest in
the occult to my first interest in the earth.
Just as I was overcome with astonishment and satisfaction on first reaching conviction on earth, so I was astonished almost equally on my coming to this land and finding that my knowledge of this subject gained on earth was strikingly correct in nearly all the chief points. There was a great satisfaction in proving this. I was at once amazed and delighted to find so much truth in all I had learned; for although I had believed implicitly, I was not entirely without grave misgivings upon many minor details. Hence my general satisfaction when I recognized things and features which, though I had accepted whilst on earth, I had scarcely anticipated would be as I now found them. This must sound somewhat contradictory, but I want you to understand that my earthly misgivings were based on fear that perhaps the spirit world had a formula of its own which was quite different from our earthly mentality, and that, therefore, the many points were transmitted to us in such a form and in such expression as we on earth would be able to grasp and appreciate, and were not in themselves the precise descriptions, owing to the limitations of earth word-expression.
Of my actual passing from earth to spirit life, I do not wish to write more than a few lines. I have already spoken of it several times and in several places. The first part of it was naturally an extremely discordant one, but from the time my physical life was ended there was no longer that sense of struggling with overwhelming odds; but I do not wish to speak of that.
My first surprise came when—I now understand that to your way of thinking I was dead—I found I was in a position to help people. From being in dire straights myself, to being able to lend a hand to others, was such a sudden transition that I was frankly and blankly surprised. I was so taken aback that I did not consider the why and the wherefore at all. I was suddenly able to help. I knew not how or why and did not attempt to inquire. There was no analysis then; that came a little later.
I was also surprised to find a number of friends with me, people I knew had passed over years before. That was the first cause of my realizing the change had taken place. I knew it suddenly and was a trifle alarmed. Practically instantaneously I found myself looking for myself. Just a moment of agitation, momentary only, and then the full and glorious realization that all I had learned was true. Oh, how badly I needed a telephone at that moment I felt I could give the papers some headlines for the evening. That was my first realization; then came a helplessness—a reaction—a thought of all my own at home—they didn't know yet. What would they think of me? Here was I, with my telephone out of working order for the present. I was still so near to the earth that I could see everything going on there. Where I was I could see the wrecked ship, the people, the whole scene; and that seemed to pull me into action—I could help.. ..And so in a few seconds—though I am now taking a long time to tell you, it was only a few seconds really—I found myself changed from the helpless state to one of action; helpful not helpless—was helpful, too, I think.