I wish I could give you some idea of the beauty of this life.

I wish I could give you some idea of the beauty of this life. 

I never dreamed it could be so different from earth-life, and yet so natural. 

It is perhaps the human life, with the wrongdoing and wrong thinking eliminated, and all the pure, good and kindly nature left. 

I never understood it while on earth and I am wondering now how I can make others understand. 

If the world could know―if it could realise, all would be well, and sin forever discarded.

Lytton referred to a fact in nature.

When Lytton wrote, in one of his occult novels, of a gigantic foot, which stepped through a gap in the magic circle drawn by a black magician in the primeval wilderness, he referred to a fact in nature.

―The Judge

They will part here never to meet again.

Spirit Franchezzo continues to recount Benedetto's story―

From time to time, Benedetto would lapse into unconsciousness, and from these states of merciful oblivion, he would awaken to find that, little by little, the earthly body was losing its hold on the spirit and crumbling into dust. 

While it did so, he suffered the pangs of this gradual dissolution in all his nerves. 

At last the material body ceased to hold him, and Benedetto rose from the grave, but still hovered over it―tied, though no longer imprisoned, until the last link snapped, and he was free to wander earth.

His powers of hearing and seeing and feeling were feebly developed, but gradually unfolded, and he became conscious of his surroundings. 

With these powers, the passions and desires of his earthly life renewed, and also the knowledge of how he could gratify them. 

Yet again, he sought oblivion for his sorrow and bitterness in the pleasures of the senses. 

But he sought in vain―

His memory was ever-present―torturing him with the past. 

In his soul, there was a wild hunger―a fierce thirst for revenge, for power to make her suffer, as he had done, and the very intensity of his thoughts carried him to her. 

He found her as of old, surrounded by her little court of gay admirers. 

A little older, but still the same―still as heartless, still untroubled by and indifferent to his fate. 

And it maddened him to think of the sufferings he had brought on himself for the love of this woman.

His thoughts become merged in the one thought of how he could find means to drag her down from her position and strip her of all those things, which she prized more than love―or honour―or even the lives of her victims. 

And he succeeded, for spirits have more powers than we dream of. 

Step by step, he saw her come down from her proud position, losing first wealth, then honour, stripped of every disguise she had worn, and known for what she was―a vile temptress who played with men's souls as one plays with dice―careless how many hearts she broke―how many lives she ruined―careless alike of her husband's honour and her own fair fame, so long as she could hide her intrigues from the eyes of the world and rise a step higher in wealth and power on the body of each new victim.

And even in his darkness and misery, Benedetto hugged himself and was comforted to think it was his hands that had dragged her down and torn the mask from her beauty and worldliness. 

She wondered how it was that so many events all tended to her ruin. 

How it was that her most carefully laid schemes were thwarted―her most jealously guarded secrets found out and held up to the light of day. 

She began to tremble at what each day might bring. 

It was as though some unseen agency whose toils she could not escape was at work to crush her, and she thought of Benedetto and his last threats that if she drove him to despair he would send himself to Hell and drag her with him. 

She had thought then he meant to murder her perhaps, and when she heard he had shot himself and was dead, she felt relieved, and soon forgot him, save when some event would recall him to her mind for a moment. 

And now she was always thinking of him, and she began to shudder with fear lest he should rise from his grave and haunt her.

And all the time, Benedetto's spirit stood beside her, whispering in her ears and telling her that this was his revenge come to him at last. 

He whispered to her of the past and of that love that had seemed so sweet and that had turned to bitter burning hate, consuming him as with Hell's fire whose flames should scorch her soul also and drive her to a despair as great as his.

And her mind felt this haunting presence even while her bodily eyes could see nothing. 

In vain she fled to society―to all places where there were crowds of people to escape―the haunting presence was with her everywhere―day by day it grew more distinct, more real―a something from which there was no escape.

One evening, in the dim grey of twilight, she saw him with his wild menacing eyes, his fierce, passionate hate expressing itself in every line of his face, in every gesture of his form. 

The shock was too much for her overwrought nerves and she fell dead on the floor. 

And Benedetto knew that he had killed her―the brand of Cain was stamped on his brow.

A horror seizes him―

He loathed the deed he had done. 

He had intended to kill her, and when the spirit left the body to drag it down with him and to haunt and torment it forever, so that on neither side of the grave should she know rest. 

But now his only thought was to escape the horror of his success, for all good was not dead in this man, and the shock, which had killed the Marchesa had awakened him to the true nature of his revengeful feelings. 

He fled from the earth-plane―down and down to this city of Hell―a fit dwelling-place for him.

 

I found him here, said Faithful Friend, and was able to help the now repentant man and to show him how he might best undo the wrong he has done. 

He awaits her now so that he may ask her to forgive him and that he may forgive her himself. 

She has also been drawn to this sphere, for her own life was very guilty, and it is in this counterpart of that city, which saw the history of their earthly love that they would meet again, and that was why he awaited her on this bridge where in the past she had so often met him. 

And will she meet him soon?

Yes, very soon, and this man's sojourn in this sphere will be over, and he will be free to pass to a higher one where his troubled spirit will know a season of rest before it mounts the stony pathway of progression.

Will she, too, leave here with him?

No, oh no! She will be helped to progress, but their paths will lie widely asunder. 

There was no true affinity between them―only passion and pride and wounded self-love. 

They will part here never to meet again.

They now drew near Benedetto, and as Spirit Franchezzo touched him on the shoulder, he started and turned round, but did not recognise him.  

Then Spirit Franchezzo made himself known, and said how he should rejoice to renew their early friendship in those higher spheres in which he hoped they would both soon meet again. 

Spirit Franchezzo told him briefly that he, too, had sinned and suffered and was working his way upwards now.  

Benedetto seemed glad to see him and wrung his hand with much emotion when they parted, leaving him still seated on the bridge, waiting for his last interview with her who had been once so dear to him and who was now but a painful memory.

Visits to the Spirit- World

Our information of the next world is meagre, and yet our friends leave our side year after year, and go to the unseen land.  

How do they reach it?  

Do they walk―ride―or fly?  

Do they have individualised bodies―or are they mere souls, without form―or substance?

Do they live there as birds in the air―or do they live in houses as we do?  

Do flowers bloom and trees grow there, and if trees thrive, as the old prophets seemed to have discovered, can they be cut down and formed into articles of use as here? 

Can the inhabitants of that unseen world make tables, chairs and pianos, as well as harps of gold―or are they so familiar with the secrets of nature that they can create these desirable forms from the elements by an effort of will?  

Do they retain their organs of sight, hearing and speaking?  

If they speak, do they have tongues and palates?  

If so, can they taste, eat―or drink, as the Old Testament relates―

The Lord smelled a sweet savour of Noah's sacrifice. 

Angels ate with Abraham when he was promised a son in his old age, and Sarah listening from behind the folds of the tent laughed incredulously.

If they have form and proportion are they in the habit of clothing themselves as we do? 

The ancient clairvoyants describe them as clothed in white raiment, and we―in our states of trance and in dreams―see them in customary garments. 

Whence do they obtain these robes?  

How is the tissue manufactured?  

Can it be removed at pleasure―or is it an addendum to the spirit like the wings of a butterfly?

What is the trance state, and how is it superinduced by the inhabitants of the Next World?

A feeling of awe comes over me as I enter this mysterious condition.  

The room I am in vanishes―the friends who surround me seem removed an immeasurable distance―no longer part, nor parcel with me―

I appear to be falling through space―all is darkness about me, when suddenly the air becomes illuminated, like floating points of light, each twinkling with a golden splendour.  

What transpires around me I only know as a person asleep in a stage coach―or a rail-car is conscious that he is travelling―he lifts his heavy eyelids, and closes them over a knowledge that a forest of trees skirt the roadside―that hill and plain and smiling river bound the distance, and yet he sleeps.

How are the sensations thus described produced on the clairvoyante? 

All these questions pour in on the mind of the medium, and it is in the endeavour to answer them that the spirits give the following accounts― 

The Next World

Sketch of Life in the Spirit-world

The news had reached America of Harriet Martineau's departure from earth―

The question asked was―

Would she come and describe her entrance into the next world through the medium―

Would she who believed there was no hereafter tell the world how she solved the problem of future existence?

She came like a soft moonbeam―her influence was that of a tranquil, satisfied nature in harmony with her spirit-life, glad to impart information, and rejoiced to live and speak again in the next world, and happy to undo the baneful influence of her theory of eternal death, though the views she expressed stimulated people to investigate and throw aside the rotten creeds of past ages.

In the latter portion of my life on earth, I accepted the theory of the non-existence of the soul, as expounded by those eminent investigators into natural causes, viz., Darwin, Huxley, Arnold, Comte and Herbert Spencer.

I sympathised more eagerly with their views inasmuch as I found that the creeds of theologians, concerning the soul and its Creator became but absurd fables when brought beneath the light of science. 

Many of the years that I lived in the body were passed in physical suffering, but I devoted them to study, seeking vainly to solve the enigma of existence.

In the early days of mesmerism, I became a subject of that marvellous agent, and I learned then of the action of one mind over another, and the power of will over matter, and I might probably have become a believer in the spiritual philosophy, which grew out of it if it had been possible to demonstrate to my senses the existence of spirit. 

The discoveries in clairvoyance I looked on as the subtle action of unrecognised forces of Nature, and the more I investigated, the more apparent it became to me that the so-called spirit and matter were identical, and, therefore, not immortal.

But now I find that the science of magnetic control, as discovered by Mesmer, and occult influences are as old as man and are the connecting link between the world of spirits and the world of matter. 

I now discover that the action of the mysterious passes, which produce such peculiar effects on the human frame is controlled by laws as wise and simple as those that govern the office of breathing.

The science of mesmerism is not fully understood in the present day, nor is it practised as effectually as it was centuries prior to the Christian era―if it were communication with the spirit-world would be of more frequent occurrence―it is now one of the lost arts, but it is being gradually restored.

Few persons understand the reason why disease is cured by magnetic passes―I will try and explain the cause. 

There is a force latent in man termed by the great investigator Reichenbach, Od Force, which appears like an electric light issuing from the body. 

The brain is the focus of this force and is capable by its will-power of extending―or contracting it. 

Disease causes a declension of the will-power and the non-emission of the light in certain portions of the body follows―the mesmeric physician infuses his aura and will-power into the negative portion of the patient's body, the Od Force becomes equally distributed, and health is the result.

But respecting these matters I only groped in the dark while on earth. 

Now all is changed, and how great is the change! 

Since I entered the spirit-world, my faculties of hearing and taste have been restored, and like a new being, I have commenced on a new sphere of existence.

How beautiful this spirit-world is no tongue can tell! 

I would fain describe the sensations I felt on closing my eyes on earth, expecting to sink back into utter darkness and annihilation, when I found myself conscious in an atmosphere of light and in the midst of a landscape of the most wonderful beauty!

In the distance rose the lofty pinnacles, towers and faint outlines of a vast city, which, sparkling in the morning light, appeared like alabaster, agate and pearl―real and yet unreal, like some gorgeous phantasmagoria!

I was taken to this city where I met Fourier, Shelley, Comte, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mesmer, Hume, Hugh Miller, Buckle, Paine, and many other thinkers of Europe and America. 

The earnest questioners of immortality while on earth, the humanitarians and socialistic reformers, I found here associated. 

They dwell in an Arcadian community, amidst flowers and fountains and cultivated fields, each adding his quota of work and knowledge to the whole.

I attended an entertainment held in a temple fashioned after a Greek model, adorned with paintings and statuary, and heard strains from an orchestra composed of the various instruments of music, which have been constructed in all ages of the world! 

Ravishing sounds filled my ear! 

It might truly be called the music of the spheres.

The surprise, which attended my entrance in this remarkable world has been so overwhelming that I feel scarcely able to do justice to the subject and can only hope to give a faint idea of the happiness I have realised in awakening to a second state.

My literary habits and ailments of body induced me to seek a retired life on earth. 

At Ambleside, I was pleased to see my friends and entertain my chosen associates, but I loved the seclusion of a country life and the quiet of my own study and avoided general society and the excitements of travel―but since I have entered the spirit-world, I have gladly resigned my habits of seclusion. 

Blessed with renewed life and vigour, I have accompanied my spirit-friends on many pleasant and instructive excursions.

Those of my friends who once looked on me as lost through my Infidelity have naturally been assiduous in showing me the advantages and beauties of this eternal home! 

Among these I will name Miss Bronte, Dickens, Mrs Gaskill, Robert Chambers and Wordsworth who were genuinely thankful to the Good Lord for permitting my doubting mind to taste the glories of this supernal state.

It were a tedious task to mention all the persons whom I have seen and conversed with―my old anti-slavery confederates hastened to welcome me to this land of freedom, but space and time constrain me to forego entering into further personal details.

The spirit-world, I am told, is many times larger than earth, and its cities are much more numerous and extensive. 

Many kind friends who have felt grateful for my public efforts to aid the poor working classes of England have joined together in erecting a dwelling for me here.

It is in a very beautiful locality known as the Victoria Garden Home and is surrounded by a few acres of land. 

Prince Albert is one of the founders of this community. 

The site is very fine and the land undulating and charmingly diversified.

Each homestead is endowed with numerous acres of land―more or less according to the occupant's ability to cultivate them. 

The party holding one of these domains is expected yearly to look after the comfort and happiness of homeless and hapless souls who may make their exit from earth during each year.

You will naturally inquire how Prince Albert became possessed of this estate since a prince on entering the spirit-world assumes no higher position than the humblest labouring man? 

It is true that his birth gave him no prerogative, but his efforts in behalf of the Queen's subjects, and the advancement and sympathy he gave to the fine arts and literature, instead of passing his time in idle pleasure, as too many princes do, raised for him in spirit-life a coterie of intelligent minds who determined to make him their leader.

The land chosen was unoccupied―the founders planted and embellished it in much the same manner that land on earth is beautified and made fruitful, and formed it into a garden home. 

The soil of the spirit-globe is of a greater depth of alluvial compound than that of your planet and deposits of slate and stone are rare. 

Its chemical constituents differ materially from those of earth, and the growth of vegetation is stimulated by the peculiar magnetic condition of our air to a degree unknown to the agriculturists of your world―so much so that mediums in describing our products frequently assert that they are produced by a mere effort of the mind, so miraculously rapid is their growth.

The residences are of various styles of architecture, but the Oriental and Grecian types prevail. 

Those persons who have brought with them a love for any particular homestead―or villa have erected facsimiles of the same, but in most cases, the designs are new and adapted to the salubrious climate with which we are blessed.

But the crowning glory of the place is a magnificent temple―grand in proportions and harmonious in design, which rises on a commanding eminence, like Jove on Mount Olympus―in it the great and wise and good congregate and send forth their inspirations to humanity―even as the gods did in the fabled ages of the world. 

In this temple we meet, converse and study, as students did in the golden days of Athens.

Here I have seen assembled many of England's greatest minds―Byron, Scott, Shelley, Mrs Browning, Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt―also, Mesmer, Fourier, Faraday, Reichenbach, and hosts of agitators, statesmen and poets who have passed away from the old world dissatisfied with life and restless in their aims for a higher condition of humanity and who live here a happier and more harmonious life.

Here, too, I have met painters―Reynolds, Haydon, Blake and Turner―also, the sculptors, Canova, Powers and Thorwaldsen, and here, also, at stated times, convene the more advanced minds who have attained to a higher state of existence.

There is one peculiarity, which I have observed in spirit-life―spirits avoid living for any long period of time in one place. 

As a consequence, they interchange visits with neighbouring communities and organise settlements among spirit-lives of a different nation and language.

Spirit=lives carry with them into the next world their own peculiarities of dialect, for memory is strengthened by death, and what is known as the socialistic science of life prevails here.

When England's good sovereign, Queen Victoria, leaves her earthly sphere of existence, she will find a lovely home prepared for her by Prince Albert in this Victoria Home. 

As I have stated, there is no homage paid to rank here―only to worth. 

Victoria has always shown an appreciation of that spiritual fact. 

She is opposed to false pomp and unnecessary show, and is fitted beyond any sovereign on earth to enter into the full enjoyment of spirit-life.

Hoping that the industrious poor and intelligent artisans of earth may speedily understand the advantages of association and co-operation, I close my sketch of life in the spirit-world.

―Spirit Harriet Martineau