What is the Valley of the Phantom Mists?

The Valley of the Phantom Mists lay between two precipitous hills. 

Great wreaths of grey vapour crept up its hillsides, shaping themselves into mysterious phantom forms. 

These hovered around Spirit Franchezzo as he walked, and as he advanced through the ravine, these shapes grew thicker and more distinct like living things. 

Spirit Franchezzo knew them to be the thought-creations of his earthly life, yet seen in this lifelike, palpable form―they were like haunting ghosts of his past, rising up in accusing array against him. 

The suspicions he had nursed―the doubts he had fostered―the unkind, unholy thoughts he had cherished―all seemed to gather round him―menacing and terrible―mocking and taunting him with the past, whispering in his ears and closing over his head like great waves of darkness. 

As his life had grown full of such thoughts, so his path became blocked with these fearful, hateful-looking things until they hemmed him in on every side.

These thought-creations had grown up―mass on mass―until now they seemed to overwhelm and stifle him, wrapping him up in the great vaporous folds of their phantom forms. 

Spirit Franchezzo sought in vain to beat them off―to shake himself free of them. 

They gathered round and closed him in even as his doubts and suspicions had done. 

He was seized with horror. 

He saw a deep dark crevasse open in the ground before him to which these phantoms were driving him―a gulf into which it seemed he must sink unless he could free himself from these awful ghosts. 

Like a madman, he strove and wrestled with them, and still they closed him in and forced him back towards the gloomy chasm. 

In his anguish, he called aloud for help and threw his arms out before him with all his force. 

 Spirit Franchezzo seemed to grasp the foremost phantom―and hurled it from him. 

The mighty cloud of doubts wavered and broke as though a wind has scattered them, and he sank, overcome and exhausted on the ground.

When he recovered consciousness he was still resting in that valley, but the mists had rolled away, and his time of bitter doubt and suspicion was past. 

He lay on a bank of soft green turf at the end of the ravine, and before him was a meadow watered by a smooth peaceful river of clear crystal water. 

He got up and followed the windings of the stream for a short distance and arrived at a beautiful grove of trees. 

Through the trunks, he could see a clear pool on whose surface floated water-lilies. 

There was a fairylike fountain in the middle from which the spray fell like a shower of diamonds into the transparent water. 

The trees arched their branches overhead and through them he could see the blue sky. 

He drew near to rest, and refreshed himself at the fountain, and as he did so, a fair nymph in a robe of green gossamer and with a crown of waterlilies on her head drew near to help him. 

She was the guardian spirit of the fountain and her work was to help and refresh all weary wanderers like himself. 

In earth-life, she said, I lived in a forest and here in the spirit-land I find a home surrounded by the woods I love so well.

She gave him food and drink, and after he had rested a while, showed him a broad pathway through the trees, which led to a Home of Rest. 

With a grateful heart, he thanked this bright spirit, and following the path soon found himself before a large building covered with honeysuckle and ivy. 

It had many windows and wide open doors as though to invite all to enter. 

It was approached by a great gateway of what looked like wrought iron, only that the birds and flowers on it were so lifelike, they seemed to have clustered there to rest. 

While he stood looking at the gate, it opened as by magic and he passeed on to the house. 

Here several spirit-lives in white robes came to welcome him and he was invited to rest. 

He was taken to a pretty room whose windows looked out on a grassy lawn and soft fairylike trees.

On awakening, he found his pilgrim dress was gone, and in its stead, there lay his light grey robe, only now it had a triple border of pure white.

Spirit Franchezzo was very pleased and dressed himself with pleasure, for he felt the white was a sign of his progression.

White in the spirit world symbolises purity and happiness, while black is the reverse.