not approve, and you put forth an impulse of will-power in protest. Instantly comes a thought-message directly to you. Who has arrested my current of thought? The meaning of this is at once apparent. You are like a telegraph operator who has been listening to a passing message, containing a false statement, and has stopped it. You might now withdraw your protest and allow the message to pass as something which did not concern you, or you might assert your individuality and reply to the sharp question by saying, "Because I allow nothing to pass through my mind which I do not approve." If you adopted the first course, you might be let off with a curse, and told to mind your own business hereafter; but if you should manifest the temerity indicated by the second, a thundering "What?" might fall upon your new sense, and you would discover that you had a fight on your hands. It may be supposed that you would mentally assume an upright position, which in that world corresponds to the act of rising here, and brace yourself for the contest. But it is not necessary to carry the illustration any farther at this time. I merely wished to show how thoughts may take the place of things in the mind's arena when, for any reason, things are shut out.

A third reason why a knowledge of The Beyond is not more generally disseminated, is that false ideas in regard to death are so predominant that it has become a habit with the great majority to dismiss from the mind all thoughts having, or that are supposed to have, any possible connection with it, and therefore the avenue of approach to the minds of such is kept closed by themselves.

It may be asked why the solitary student is not able to attain to a satisfactory solution of the great problem, although seeking it with utmost earnestness. And I answer, first, because he probably seeks for it in the same way that he would seek for earth-knowledge, which is an error; and, secondly, because those who would otherwise gladly give it to him are able to read his motives, and finding them purely selfish, they turn away and leave him, while those spirits who have occult knowledge to sell, demand pay in a coin which the student is seldom willing to give, namely, a certain degree of control over him.

CHAPTER III.

Mathematicians have frequently discussed the possibility of what is called a fourth dimension.

They have shown by clear reasoning that if we could suppose a person to be acquainted only with objects of two dimensions, that is, plane surfaces, the possibility of a third would be as difficult to comprehend as now are the speculations on a possible fourth. For instance, it would be as mysterious an operation to transfer anything from one point to another without moving it along the surface that lay between, as is now the manipulation of solid objects, like the passage of matter through matter, by the masters of occult science.

This fine example of reasoning from the known to the unknown may be compared to Leverrier's researches in one respect, and that the most important one, namely, that the looked-for fact in all verity awaits discovery, and that the scientist who shall first boldly declare that the objective world about us, which seems to occupy and does occupy all of space that we can reach by ordinary means of thought, is merely a veil which hides a world just as real, and having just as real relations to us, as the first is supposed to monopolize, and which, in its essential nature, is independent of space, and its concomitant, time,—whoever, I say, shall first boldly declare this, will fairly win a crown of laurel.

When I say that this world has real relations to us, I do not mean us as mere aggregations of matter in a highly organized form; I mean us, the creatures of hope and fear, of joy and depression, gay at heart or careworn with responsibility; us to whom friendship, love, and purity are realities and not mere names, and who cherish the firm belief that loyalty to our ideals and devotion to truth are immortal in their nature, and that it may be possible that we ourselves may yet become as impassive to the assaults of time.

Shall I say us, also, the creatures of doubt and despair, whose sky is hopelessly clouded, and to whom anything resembling happiness has become only a memory? The world of which I speak has the same direct relations to us all.

The idea is a common one that this invisible world is to be sought, if at all, among the imponderable gases, that if it have objectivity, as it is supposed it must have, the nature of it will resemble these forms of matter; and that by traveling out in thought, so to speak, along this line, we shall presently arrive at a sufficiently accurate concept of what these invisible realities are like.

It is this delusion, that the unseen is by so much the unreal, instead of the contrary, that I hope to do something to destroy.

Let me give an example of occult power of a scientific sort, as exercised by free spirits.

One wishes to speak to a friend. What does he do? He simply speaks the name of that friend in his mind. Immediately, and without further effort on his part, there appears before his mental vision a clear outline representation of the form of that friend, ready to answer with perfect distinctness any question that may be asked of him. It is telephone communication without apparatus, and with the appearance of the friend. Were the two in close sympathy, perhaps engaged in the same kind of spiritual labor, so that the question would be of a kind not unexpected, the rapidity of action common to spirits would make it possible to ask the question and receive the answer in an infinitesimal fraction of a second.

I have called this occult power of a scientific sort. By this I mean to indicate, what is sometimes forgotten, that The Beyond has its science as well as religion, and that it is only because its science has been a sealed book so long and the corruption of revealed religion has been so great, that, as a result, the acceptance of occult science itself as truth is called, by some, religion, although removed from it as by infinity. It is true, however, that the devotee to occult science who shall persistently declare its genuineness in the face of opposition, scorn, or even persecution, is on the road to illumination, and he may himself become a gateway between physical life and death, through which may pass and repass the message, the tone, or even the phantom form which testifies of a world beyond the grave. To such a one, his belief becomes a sure and certain knowledge of a scientific fact, as verified by sympathetic experience times without number; and the time is not far distant when these attainments will receive the same recognition, as belonging to the domain of reality, as those of physical science now do.

CHAPTER IV.

Science, as such, is a knowledge of physical facts. Religion, as such, is an apprehension of spiritual truths.

The work of the scientist is to separate facts from delusions, and then to arrange and classify his knowledge. The work of the religionist is to separate truth from error, to make it effectual in practice, and give it to the world.

In their essence, science and religion are neither enemies nor friends. They are not necessarily