Celestial Smiles

Through the Instrument in trance, Robert Ingersoll speaks his wonder words from the hills of light—

Morn

We waken in the morning very early, after deep, refreshing sleep, to look out of a crystal window and see the receding stars pull down the curtains of their chamber and retire to rest.

We rise from couches of refreshment, stand erect, throw back our shoulders and, by a process of thought, let the winds of this sphere wash our faces clean, cause our thoughts to be reburnished and, in the golden mint of God's love, the impress of His face again illumines the surface of our souls.

Morning on this plane is the children's hour. Now, as if led by imagination's hand, take mine, and we will witness the march of the children as, in the early hour of the morning, they act their praises to the Source of all greatness.

See, then, with me, a long white path leading to the forest. We stand to one side, look far on into the distance and, before we see, we hear the music—the bugle voices of children singing in chorus. We see great regiments of them coming on, hand in hand, along that part of the path which we are observing.

This path has on either side many trees of astral plane life; their branches overarch the path. The weeping willow, the stately poplar, the maple, the magnolia, all reach their arms towards this path, link arms, and in the pale pink twilight of this plane, amid these arms of tree-love, the shadows deepen and throw silhouettes along the path, splashing golden-pink radiance around the little forms of children as they march under those arms.

At a word of gentle command, the children stop marching. They are told to listen. They are listening to the language of trees, the language of flowers, and the emotions of the tender little blades of grass. For, on this plane, we have another sense developed in our astral bodies. Walt Whitman, as Dr Maurice Bucke once said, could go to the window of his shack and hear that little music made by the blades of grass.

On this plane, the children can hear the trees and the grass as it sways rhythmically back and forth in perfect harmony with the feeling of life. The grass also expresses grass emotion. 

A signal is given, and the children walk on until they come to a great clearance in the forest. They sit in a circle with their teacher in their midst.

The children retrace their steps. They greet each creature they meet, and their laughter must have been caught from the strains of immortal music that float from the divinest orchestra that mortal ears ever listened to. For there is a music in the laughter of children on this plane; there is a beauty in the mellow light of this world in which we live; there is a divine, deep philosophy of the tenderer, nobler life of this sphere, especially in the air of morning.

Now the children come home again, where happy play will perfume all the air with the expression of their little child life and effort. And we, the older ones of this higher plane, at this middle part of an astral day, will learn our lesson of things of greater worth where life and love hold sway, and God is worshipped because we realise here that we are part of God, and He is all that we see and feel and touch and realise.

Noon

After partaking of a meal on this plane, with the music of a voice we call to our sides those friends whom we love, then, with our long white garments kissed by the breezes, as true brothers and sisters, we march serene, erect, happy, noble and free, to the Hall of Learning. The path leads down through a broad forest of whispering trees straight to the entrance of the Hall.

We walk along this path and hear, as I do, the neighing of pure white horses in a pasture reserved for those horses that have come into contact with human beings. You hear, as I do, as I pass by an astral home, the sweet lullaby song of a mother, as she rocks gently to rest the soul of a child she has taken to nurture. If you could hear, as I do, the tinkle of a guitar played by a maiden sitting on the piazza of another astral home; if you could hear wafted to your soul, such music spilled over in its expression of emotion and love as she gives to the perfumed air, the inspired strains of her silent song, then you would be able to understand the celestial smile on the faces and on the brows of everyone here, as we walk to the Hall of Learning, would know then what astral life on the Twentieth Plane means.

Another vision—I call to the little cherubs, I call to Pan, I call to all the sainted inspired ones who haunt the forests at night, to come and paint for me a scene of the Hall of Learning, so that physical human beings can see partially, as one looking into the dim glass of an unpolished mirror sees a shadow of the face looking into that glass. I will try to paint for you the scene that we witness daily at noon in the interior of the Hall of Learning.

We walk down a vast aisle. An instrument which you would call an organ, but for which we have another name, shakes the vast Hall of Learning to its foundation with great, sharp, staccato, then long, drawn-out sounds, vibrations that spell chaos.

Through the large tinted windows, on which are to be seen portraits such as Tintoretto and others have described to you, appear varied hues, beautiful as the most gorgeous life of the tropical regions of your plane.

We do not take our seats, for we learn here that standing gracefully at ease, swaying backwards and forwards, as in the marshes the reeds are sometimes swayed backwards and forwards on your plane, we keep time in breathing and in thought to the strains of the music and the vibrations of the tinted light as it flows from the windows of this House of Learning.

At a given signal, we stop breathing for a fraction of time. This is to concentrate our attention and the thought of our soul on the speaker on yonder rostrum; then in perfect unison, more perfect than was ever dreamed of by the musicians, we breathe deeply, equally, inspiredly, together, and we drink in the inspiration of the speaker of the day.

Night

As in the depths of the ocean the sea fish finds its home, where the deep currents sway ever onward, so we are, either actually or in imagination, deep down in the solemn stillness of the inner court of the Hall of Learning. As the undercurrents of the ocean keep perfect time with the laws of nature, so, breathing deep and thinking high, we keep perfect time with the speaker on the rostrum, for night has silently descended over this part of the astral plane, and the stars in the sky have pulled up again the curtains of their chambers, and a soft mellow light comes with quiet rest.

The speaker is on the great question of astral plane ethics, the study of the beautiful and the sublime as it reveals itself in the school of perfect equity and justice. I have neither time nor strength to vibrate to you his noble words; but behold him standing there like the hand of an inspired prophet pointing to the heavens. He is high strung and of a nervous temperament. His voice is as musical as the love voice of a vast lake for a little meadow brook that flows by its side. His personality is radiant with the language of inspiration. For inspiration is a language of things we hear in the environment and, deeper still, in the homes of our souls.

So all these vibrations deepen to a climax of intense white hot action and thought, and as the speaker gradually brings his oration to a close, subside into the quiet of evening as a mother rocks her baby in the hammock of her arms, listening to the beating of her own heart. The vast jasper-like doors of this cathedral move back; white filmy tapestries are pulled down over the great windows, then the great thought-made paths to our own homes; then, like the glow-worms of your forests, whose phosphorescent beauty is caught from the love-light of angel's eyes, this pale pink twilight lowers and dims until it becomes a strange, weird radiance which rocks our souls from side to side, then as the period of evening arrives, subsides quietly into silence, and the stars dim to a pale yellow hue.

We seek the silken couches, gathering robes of purity, prayer and inspiration about us. We hear far off the celestial choir singing the evening anthem. All of this plane sinks quietly into that profound sleep where even angels deign not to tread. We go off into the dreamless sleep of this higher life. 

I have spoken of morning, noon and night on the astral plane. I have described the actualities of this sphere. I have pictured to you, as far as the genius of the instrument enables me to use the keys of his intelligence, a descriptive oratorio of life in the three divisions of morning, noon and night on the astral planes.

Nothing is worthy of utterance unless it teaches something high and noble. The symbol for you to observe, then, is of a great star almost within arm's reach, and you reach out to its polished surface to feel what the star is made of. Let this symbolised star eternally gleam before you, that your morning of life, your noon of activity, your evening of subsidence into refreshing sleep shall be one whose thought, action and purpose will serve to illuminate your souls. Then the voice of your life will sing, and its singing will reach to the Master of Masters, blend with His until all shall hear the divine song of your characters.

Robert Ingersoll In Spirit

The Twentieth Plane—A Psychic Revelation, Albert Durrant Watson, M. D., George W. Jacobs & Company, Philadelphia, 1919

Taro Taylor—Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic