Chapter III: Part II: Dream Stories (2)

Then, not yet recognising him, I said, "Tell me your name, Lord." At this he laughed and answered, "I have been about you from the beginning. I am the white cloud on the noonday sky." "Do you, then," I asked, "desire the whole world to abandon the use of fire in preparing food and drink?"

Instead of answering my question, he said, "We show you the excellent way. Two places only are vacant at our table. We have told you all that can be shown you on the level on which you stand. But our perfect gifts, the fruits of the Tree of Life, are beyond your reach now. We cannot give them to you until you are purified and have come up higher. The conditions are God's; the will is with you."

These last words seemed to be repeated from the sky overhead, and again from beneath my feet. And at the instant I fell, as if shot down like a meteor from a vast height; and with the swiftness and shock of the fall I awoke.

--Hinton, Sept. 1877

----------------- * The book referred to was a volume entitled Fruit and Bread, which had been sent anonymously on the previous morning. The fig-tree, which both with the Hebrews and the Greeks was the type of intuitional perception, was an especial symbol of Hermes, called by the Hebrews Raphael. The plural used by the seer included myself as the partner of her literary and other studies. The term virgin in its mystical sense signifies a soul pure from admixture of matter.--(Ed.) -----------------------

X. The Difficult Path

Having fallen asleep last night while in a state of great perplexity about the care and education of my daughter, I dreamt as follows.

I was walking with the child along the border of a high cliff, at the foot of which was the sea. The path was exceedingly narrow, and on the inner side was flanked by a line of rocks and stones. The outer side was so close to the edge of the cliff that she was compelled to walk either before or behind me, or else on the stones. And, as it was unsafe to let go her hand, it was on the stones that she had to walk, much to her distress. I was in male attire, and carried a staff in my hand. She wore skirts and had no staff; and every moment she stumbled or her dress caught and was torn by some jutting crag or bramble. In this way our progress was being continually interrupted and rendered almost impossible, when suddenly we came upon a sharp declivity leading to a steep path which wound down the side of the precipice to the beach below. Looking down, I saw on the shore beneath the cliff a collection of fishermen's huts, and groups of men and women on the shingle, mending nets, hauling up boats, and sorting fish of various kinds. In the midst of the little village stood a great crucifix of lead, so cast in a mould as to allow me from the elevated position I occupied behind it, to see that though in front it looked solid, it was in reality hollow. As I was noting this, a voice of some one close at hand suddenly addressed me; and on turning my head I found standing before me a man in the garb of a fisherman, who evidently had just scaled the steep path leading from the beach. He stretched out his hand to take the child, saying he bad come to fetch her, for that in the path I was following there was room only for one. "Let her come to us," he added; "she will do very well as a fisherman's daughter." Being reluctant to part with her, and not perceiving then the significance of his garb and vocation, I objected that the calling was a dirty and unsavoury one, and would soil her hands and dress. Whereupon the man became severe, and seemed to insist with a kind of authority upon my acceptance of his proposition. The child, too, was taken with him, and was moreover anxious to leave the rough and dangerous path; and she accordingly went to him of her own will and, placing her hand in his, left me without any sign of regret, and I went on my way alone. Then lifting my eyes to see whither my path led, I beheld it winding along the edge of the cliff to an apparently endless distance, until, as I gazed steadily on the extreme limit of my view, I saw the grey mist from the sea here and there break and roll up into great masses of slow-drifting cloud, in the intervals of which I caught the white gleam of sunlit snow. And these intervals continually closed up to open again in fresh places higher up, disclosing peak upon peak of a range of mountains of enormous altitude.*

By a curious coincidence, the very morning after this dream, a friend, who knew of my perplexity, called to

---------- * Always the symbol of high mystical insight and spiritual attainment-- Biblically called "the Hill of the Lord" and "Mount of God. " (Ed.) ----------

recommend a school in a certain convent as one suitable for my child. There were, however, insuperable objections to the scheme.

--Paris, Nov. 3, 1877

XI. A Lion In the Way

Owing to the many and great difficulties thrown in my way, I had been seriously considering the advisability of withdrawing, if only for a time, from my course of medical study, when I received the following dream, which determined me to persevere:--

I found myself on the same narrow, rugged, and precipitous path described in my last dream, and confronted by a lion. Afraid to pass him I turned and fled. On this the beast gave chase, when, finding escape by flight hopeless, I turned and boldly faced him. Whereupon the lion at once stopped and slunk to the side of the path, and suffered me to pass unmolested, though I was so close to him that I could not avoid touching him with my garments in passing.

--Paris, Nov. 15, 1877

------------ * The prognostic was fully justified by the event.--(Ed.) -------------

XII. A Dream of Disembodiment

I dreamt that I was dead, and wanted to take form and appear to C. in order to converse with him. And it was suggested by those about me-- spirits like myself I suppose--that I might materialise myself through the medium of some man whom they indicated to me. Coming to the place where he was, I was directed to throw myself out forward towards him by an intense concentration of will; which I accordingly tried to do, but without success, though the effort I made was enormous. I can only compare it to the attempt made by a person unable to swim, to fling himself off a platform into deep water. Do all I would, I could not gather myself up for it; and although encouraged and stimulated, and assured I had only to let myself go, my attempts were ineffectual. Even when I had sufficiently collected and prepared myself in one part of my system, the other part failed me.

At length it was suggested to me that I should find it easier if I first took on me the form of the medium. This I at length succeeded in doing, and, to my annoyance, so completely that I materialised myself into the shape not only of his features, but of his clothing also. The effort requisite for this exhausted me to the utmost, so that I was unable to keep up the apparition for more than a few minutes, when I had no choice but to yield to the strain and let myself go again, only in the opposite way. So I went out, and mounted like a sudden flame, and saw myself for a moment like a thin streak of white mist rising in the air; while the comfort and relief I experienced by regaining my light spirit-condition, were indescribable. It was because I had, for want of skill, dematerialised myself without sufficient deliberation, that I had thus rapidly mounted in the air.

After an interval I dreamt that, wishing to see what A. would do in case I appeared to him after my death, I went to him as a spirit and called him by his name. Upon hearing my voice he rose and went to the window and looked out uneasily. On my going close to him and speaking in his ear, he was much disturbed, and ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his head in a puzzled and by no means pleased manner. At the third attempt to attract his attention he rushed to the door, and, calling for a glass, poured out some wine, which he drank. On seeing this, and finding him inaccessible, I desisted, thinking it must often happen to the departed to be distressed by the inability or unwillingness of those they love to receive and recognise them.

--Paris, Jan. 1878

XIII. The Perfect Way with Animals

I saw in my sleep a cart-horse who, coming to me, conversed with me in what seemed a perfectly simple and natural manner, for it caused me no surprise that he should speak. And this is what he said:--

"Kindness to animals of the gentler orders is the very foundation of civilisation. For it is the cruelty and harshness of men towards the animals under their protection which is the cause of the present low standard of humanity itself. Brutal usage creates brutes; and the ranks of mankind are constantly recruited from spirits already hardened and depraved by a long course of ill-treatment. Nothing developes the spirit so much as sympathy. Nothing cultivates, refines, and aids it in its progress towards perfection so much as kind and gentle treatment. On the contrary, the brutal usage and want of sympathy with which we meet at the hands of men, stunt our development and reverse all the currents of a our nature. We grow coarse with coarseness, vile with reviling, and brutal with the brutality of those who surround us. And when we pass out of this stage we enter on the next depraved and hardened, and with the bent of our dispositions such that we are ready by our nature to do in our turn that which has been done to us. The greater number of us, indeed, know no other or better way. For the spirit learns by experience and imitation, and inclines necessarily to do those things which it has been in the habit of seeing done. Humanity will never become perfected until this doctrine is understood and received and made the rule of conduct."

--Paris, Oct. 28, 1879

XIV. The Laboratory Underground

I dreamed that I found myself underground in a vault artificially lighted. Tables were ranged along the walls of the vault, and upon these tables were bound down the living bodies of half-dissected and mutilated animals. Scientific experts were busy at work on their victims with scalpel, hot iron and forceps. But, as I looked at the creatures lying bound before them, they no longer appeared to be mere rabbits, or hounds, for in each I saw a human shape, the shape of a man, with limbs and lineaments resembling those of their torturers, hidden within the outward form. And when they led into the place an old worn-out horse, crippled with age and long toil in the service of man, and bound him down, and lacerated his flesh with their knives, I saw the human form within him stir and writhe as though it were an unborn babe moving in its mother's womb. And I cried aloud--"Wretches! you are tormenting an unborn man!" But they heard not, nor could they see what I saw. Then they brought in a white rabbit, and thrust its eyes through with heated irons. And as I gazed, the rabbit seemed to me like a tiny infant, with human face, and hands which stretched themselves towards me in appeal, and lips which sought to cry for help in human accents. And I could bear no more, but broke forth into a bitter rain of tears, exclaiming--"O blind! blind! not to see that you torture a child, the youngest of your own flesh and blood!"

And with that I woke, sobbing vehemently.

--Paris, Feb. 2, 1880

XV. The Old Young Man

I dreamed that I was in Rome with C., and a friend of his called on us there, and asked leave to introduce to us a young man, a student of art, whose history and condition were singular. They came together in the evening. In the room where we sat was a kind of telephonic tube, through which, at intervals, a voice spoke to me. When the young man entered, these words were spoken in my ear through the tube:--

"You have made a good many diagnoses lately of cases of physical disease; here is a curious and interesting type of spiritual pathology, the like of which is rarely met with. Question this young man."

Accordingly I did so, and drew from him that about a year ago he had been seriously ill of Roman fever; but as he hesitated, and seemed unwilling to speak on the subject, I questioned the friend. From him I learnt that the young man had formerly been a very proficient pupil in one of the best-known studios in Rome, but that a year ago he had suffered from a most terrible attack of malaria, in consequence of his remaining in Rome to work after others had found it necessary to go into the country, and that the malady had so affected the nervous system that since his recovery he had been wholly unlike his former self. His great aptitude for artistic work, from which so much had been expected, seemed to have entirely left him; he was no longer master of his pencil; his former faculty and promise of excellence had vanished. The physician who had attended him during his illness affirmed that all this was readily accounted for by the assumption that the malaria had affected the cerebral centres, and in particular, the nerve-cells of the memory; that such consequences of severe continuous fever were by no means uncommon, and might last for an indefinite period. Meanwhile the young man was now, by slow and painful application, doing his utmost to recover his lost power and skill. Naturally, the subject was distasteful to him, and he shrank from discussing it. Here the voice again spoke to me through the tube, telling me to observe the young man, and especially his face. On this I scanned his countenance with attention, and remarked that it wore a singularly odd look,--the look of a man advanced in years and experience. But that I surmised to be a not unusual effect of severe fever.

"How old do you suppose the patient to be?" asked the interrogative voice.

"About twenty years old, I suppose," said I.

"He is a year old," rejoined the voice.

"A year! How can that be?"

"If you will not allow that he is only a year old, then you must admit that he is sixty-five, for he is certainly either one or the other."

This enigma so perplexed me, that I begged my invisible informant for a solution of the difficulty, which was at once vouchsafed in the following terms:--

"Here is the history of your patient. The youth who was the proficient and gifted student, who astonished his masters, and gave such brilliant indications of future greatness, is dead. The malaria killed him. But he had a father, who, while alive, had loved his son as the apple of his eye, and whose whole being and desire centred in the boy. This father died some six years ago, about the age of sixty. After his death his devotion to the youth continued, and as a "spirit," he followed him everywhere, never quitting his side. So entirely was he absorbed in the lad and in his career, that he made no advance in his own spiritual life, nor, indeed, was he fully aware of the fact that he had himself quitted the earthly plane. For there are souls which, having been obtuse and dull in their apprehension of spiritual things during their existence in the flesh, and having neither hopes nor aims beyond the body, are very slow to realise the fact of their dissolution, and remain, therefore, chained to the earth by earthly affections and interests, haunting the places or persons they have most affected. But the young artist was not of this order. Idealist and genius, he was already highly spiritualised and vitalised even upon earth, and when death rent the bond between him and his body, he passed at once from the atmosphere of carnal things into a loftier sphere. But at the moment of his death, the phantom father was watching beside the son's sick-bed, and filled with agony at beholding the wreck of all the brilliant hopes he had cherished for the boy, thought only of preserving the physical life of that dear body, since the death of the outward form was still for him the death of all he had loved. He would cling to it, preserve it, re-animate it at any cost. The spirit had quitted it; it lay before him a corpse. What, then, did the father do? With a supreme effort of desire, ineffectual indeed to recall the departed ghost, but potent in its reaction upon himself, he projected his own vitality into his son's dead body, re-animated it with his own soul, and thus effected the resuscitation for which he had so ardently longed. So the body you now behold is, indeed, the son's body, but the soul which animates it is that of the father. And it is a year since this event occurred. Such is the real solution of the problem, whose natural effects the physician attributes to the result of disease. The spirit which now tenants this young man's form had no knowledge of art when he was so strangely reborn into the world, beyond the mere rudiments of drawing which he had learned while watching his son at work during the previous six years. What, therefore, seems to the physician to be a painful recovery of previous aptitude, is, in fact, the imperfect endeavour of a novice entering a new and unsuitable career.

"For the father the experience is by no means an unprofitable one. He would certainly, sooner or later, have resumed existence upon earth in the flesh, and it is as well that his return should be under the actual circumstances. The study of art upon which he has thus entered is likely to prove to him an excellent means of spiritual education. By means of it his soul may ascend as it has never yet done; while the habits of the body he now possesses, trained as it is to refined and gentle modes of life, may do much to accomplish the purgation and redemption of its new tenant. It is far better for the father that this strange event should have occurred, than that he should have remained an earth-bound phantom, unable to realise his own position, or to rise above the affection which chained him to merely worldly things."

--Paris, Feb. 21, 1880

XVI. The Metempsychosis

I was visited last night in my sleep by one whom I presently recognised as the famous Adept and Mystic of the first century of our era, Apollonius of Tyana, called the " Pagan Christ." He was clad in a grey linen robe with a hood, like that of a monk, and had a smooth, beardless face, and seemed to be between forty and fifty years of age. He made himself known to me by asking if I had heard of his lion.* He commenced by speaking of Metempsychosis, concerning which he informed

--------- * This was a tame captive lion, in whom Apollonius is said to have recognised the soul of the Egyptian King Amasis, who had lived 500 years previously. The lion burst into tears at the recognition, and showed much misery. (Author's Note.) ----------

me as follows:--"There are two streams or currents, an upward and a downward one, by which souls are continually passing and repassing as on a ladder. The carnivorous animals are souls undergoing penance by being imprisoned for a time in such forms on account of their misdeeds. Have you not heard the story of my lion?" I said yes, but that I did not understand it, because I thought it impossible for a human soul to suffer the degradation of returning into the body of a lower creature after once attaining humanity. At this he laughed out, and said that the real degradation was not in the penance but in the sin. "It is not by the penance, but by incurring the need of the penance, that the soul is degraded. The man who sullies his humanity by cruelty or lust, is already degraded thereby below humanity; and the form which his soul afterwards assumes is the mere natural consequence of that degradation. He may again recover humanity, but only by means of passing through another form than that of the carnivora. When you were told * that certain creatures were redeemable or not redeemable, the meaning was this: They who are redeemable may, on leaving their present form, return directly into humanity. Their penance is accomplished in that form, and in it, therefore, they are redeemed. But they who are not redeemable, are they whose sin has been too deep or too ingrained to suffer them to return until they have passed through other lower forms. They are not redeemable therein, but will be on ascending again. Others, altogether vile and past redemption, sink continually lower and lower down the stream, until at length they burn out. They shall neither be redeemed in the form they now occupy, nor in any other."

--Paris, May 11, 1880

---------- * The reference is to an instruction received by her four years previously, but not in sleep, and not from Apollonius, though from a source no less transcendental. (Ed.)

*** Remembering, on being told this dream, that "Eliphas Levi," in his Haute Magic, had described an interview with the phantom of Apollonius, which he had evoked, I referred to the book, and found that he also saw him with a smooth-shaven face, but wearing a shroud (linceul). (Ed.)

XVII. The Three Kings

The time was drawing towards dawn in a wild and desolate region. And I stood with my genius at the foot of a mountain the summit of which was hidden in mist. At a few paces from me stood three persons, clad in splendid robes and wearing crowns on their heads. Each personage carried a casket and a key: the three caskets differed from one another, but the keys were all alike. And my genius said to me, "These are the three kings of the East, and they journey hither over the river that is dried up, to go up into the mountain of Sion and rebuild the Temple of the Lord God." Then I looked more closely at the three royalties, and I saw that the one who stood nearest to me on the left hand was a man, and the color of his skin was dark like that of an Indian. And the second was in form like a woman, and her complexion was fair: and the third had the wings of an Angel, and carried a staff of gold. And I heard them say one to another, "Brother, what hast thou in thy casket?" And the first answered, " I am the Stonelayer, and I carry the implements of my craft; also a bundle of myrrh for thee and for me." And the king who bore the aspect of a woman, answered, "I am the Carpenter, and I bear the instruments of my craft; also a box of frankincense for thee and for me." And the Angel-king answered, "I am the Measurer, and I carry the secrets of the living God, and the rod of gold to measure your work withal." Then the first said, "Therefore let us go up into the hill of the Lord and build the walls of Jerusalem. And they turned to ascend the mountain. But they had not taken the first step when the king, whose name was Stonelayer, said to him who was called the Carpenter, "Give me first the implements of thy craft, and the plan of thy building, that I may know after what sort thou buildest, and may fashion thereto my masonry." And the other asked him, "What buildest thou, brother?" And he answered, "I build the Outer Court." Then the Carpenter unlocked his casket and gave him a scroll written over in silver, and a crystal rule, and a carpenter's plane and a saw. And the other took them and put them into his casket. Then the Carpenter said to the Stonelayer, "Brother, give me also the plan of thy building, and the tools of thy craft. For I build the Inner Place, and must needs fit my designing to thy foundation." But the other answered, "Nay, my brother, for I have promised the laborers. Build thou alone. It is enough that I know thy secrets; ask not mine of me." And the Carpenter answered, "How then shall the Temple of the Lord be builded? Are we not of three Ages, and is the temple yet perfected?" Then the Angel spoke, and said to the Stonelayer, "Fear not, brother: freely hast thou received; freely give. For except thine elder brother had been first a Stonelayer, he could not now be a Carpenter. Art thou not of Solomon, and he of Christ? Therefore he hath already handled thy tools, and is of thy craft. And I also, the Measurer, I know the work of both. But now is that time when the end cometh, and that which hath been spoken in the ear in closets, the same shall be proclaimed on the housetops." Then the first king unlocked his casket, and gave to the Carpenter a scroll written in red, and a compass and a trowel. But the Carpenter answered him: "It is enough. I have seen, and I remember. For this is the writing King Solomon gave into my hands when I also was a Stonelayer, and when thou wert of the company of them that labor. For I also am thy Brother, and that thou knowest I know also." Then the third king, the Angel, spoke again and said, "Now is the knowledge perfected and the bond fulfilled. For neither can the Stonelayer build alone, nor the Carpenter construct apart. Therefore, until this day, is the Temple of the Lord unbuilt. But now is the time come, and Salem shall have her habitation on the Hill of the Lord."

And there came down a mist from the mountain, and out of the mist a star. And my Genius said, "Thou shalt yet see more on this wise." But I saw then only the mist, which filled the valley, and moistened my hair and my dress; and so I awoke.

--London, April 30, 1882

---------- ** For the full comprehension of the above dream, it is necessary to be profoundly versed at once in the esoteric signification of the Scriptures and in the mysteries of Freemasonry. It was the dreamer's great regret that she neither knew, nor could know, the latter, women being excluded from initiation. (Ed.)

XVIII. The Armed Goddess

I dreamed that I sat reading in my study, with books lying about all round me. Suddenly a voice, marvellously clear and silvery, called me by name. Starting up and turning, I saw behind me a long vista of white marble columns, Greek in architecture, flanking on either side a gallery of white marble. At the end of this gallery stood a shape of exceeding brilliancy, the shape of a woman above mortal height, clad from head to foot in shining mail armour. In her right hand was a spear, on her left arm a shield. Her brow was hidden by a helmet, and the aspect of her face was stern,-- severe even, I thought. I approached her, and as I went, my body was lifted up from the earth, and I was aware of that strange sensation of floating above the surface of the ground, which is so common with me in sleep that at times I can scarce persuade myself after waking that it has not been a real experience. When I alighted at the end of the long gallery before the armed woman, she said to me:

"Take off the night-dress thou wearest."

I looked at my attire and was about to answer-- "This is not a night-dress," when she added, as though perceiving my thought:--

"The woman's garb is a night-dress; it is a garment made to sleep in. The man's garb is the dress for the day. Look eastward!"

I raised my eyes and, behind the mail-clad shape, I saw the dawn breaking, blood-red, and with great clouds like pillars of smoke rolling up on either side of the place where the sun was about to rise. But as yet the sun was not visible. And as I looked, she cried aloud, and her voice rang through the air like the clash of steel:--

"Listen!"

And she struck her spear on the marble pavement. At the same moment there came from afar off, a confused sound of battle. Cries, and human voices in conflict, and the stir as of a vast multitude, the distant clang of arms and a noise of the galloping of many horses rushing furiously over the ground. And then, sudden silence.

Again she smote the pavement, and again the sounds arose, nearer now, and more tumultuous. Once more they ceased, and a third time she struck the marble with her spear. Then the noises arose all about and around the very spot where we stood, and the clang of the arms was so close that it shook and thrilled the very columns beside me. And the neighing and snorting of horses, and the thud of their ponderous hoofs flying over the earth made, as it were, a wind in my ears, so that it seemed as though a furious battle were raging all around us. But I could see nothing. Only the sounds increased, and became so violent that they awoke me, and even after waking I still seemed to catch the commotion of them in the air. *

--Paris, February 15, 1883.

---------- * This dream was shortly followed by Mrs Kingsford's antivivisection expedition to Switzerland, the fierce conflict of which amply fulfilled any predictive significance it may have had. -----------

XIX. The Game of Cards: A Parable

I dreamed I was playing at cards with three persons, the two opposed to me being a man and a woman with hoods pulled over their heads, and cloaks covering their persons. I did not particularly observe them. My partner was an old man without hood or cloak, and there was about him this peculiarity, that he did not from one minute to another appear to remain the same. Sometimes he looked like a very young man, the features not appearing to change in order to produce this effect, but an aspect of youth and even of mirth coming into the face as though the features were lighted up from within. Behind me stood a personage whom I could not see, for his hand and arm only appeared, handing me a pack of cards. So far as I discerned, it was a man's figure, habited in black. Shortly after the dream began, my partner addressed me, saying,

"Do you play by luck or by skill?"

I answered: "I play by luck chiefly; I don't know how to play by skill. But I have generally been lucky." In fact, I had already, lying by me, several "tricks" I had taken. He answered me:--

"To play by luck is to trust to without; to play by skill is to trust to within. In this game, Within goes further than Without."

"What are trumps?" I asked.

"Diamonds are trumps," he answered.

I looked at the cards in my hand and said to him:--"I have more clubs than anything else."

At this he laughed, and seemed all at once quite a youth. "Clubs are strong cards, after all," he said. "Don't despise the black suits. I have known some of the best games ever played won by players holding more clubs than you have."

I examined the cards and found something very odd about them. There were the four suits, diamonds, hearts, clubs, and spades. But the picture cards in my hand seemed different altogether from any I had ever seen before. One was queen of Clubs, and her face altered as I looked at it. First it was dark,--almost dusky,--with the imperial crown on the head; then it seemed quite fair, the crown changing to a smaller one of English aspect, and the dress also transforming itself. There was a queen of Hearts, too, in an antique peasant's gown, with brown hair, and presently this melted into a suit of armor which shone as if reflecting firelight in its burnished scales. The other cards seemed alive likewise, even the ordinary ones, just like the court-cards. There seemed to be pictures moving inside the emblems on their faces. The clubs in my hand ran into higher figures than the spades; these came next in number, and diamonds next. I had no picture-cards of diamonds, but I had the Ace. And this was so bright I could not look at it. Except the two queens of Clubs and Hearts I think I had no picture-cards in my hand, and very few red cards of any kind. There were high figures in the spades. It was the personage behind my chair who dealt the cards always. I said to my partner:--"It is difficult to play at all, whether by luck or by skill, for I get such a bad hand dealt me each time."

"That is your fault," he said. "Play your best with what you have, and next time you will get better cards."

"How can that be?" I asked.

"Because after each game, the `tricks' you take are added to the bottom of the pack which the dealer holds, and you get the `honors' you have taken up from the table. Play well and take all you can. But you must put more head into it. You trust too much to fortune. Don't blame the dealer; he can't see."

"I shall lose this game," I said presently, for the two persons playing against us seemed to be taking up all the cards quickly, and the "lead" never came to my turn.

"It is because you don't count your points before putting down a card," my partner said. "If they play high numbers, you must play higher."

"But they have all the trumps," I said.

"No," he answered, "you have the highest trump of all in your own hand. It is the first and the last. You may take every card they have with that, for it is the chief of the whole series. But you have spades too, and high ones." (He seemed to know what I had.)

"Diamonds are better than spades," I answered. "And nearly all my cards are black ones. Besides, I can't count, it wants so much thinking. Can't you come over here and play for me?"

He shook his head, and I thought that again he laughed." No," he replied, "that is against the law of the game. You must play for yourself. Think it out."

He uttered these words very emphatically and with so strange an intonation that they dissipated the rest of the dream, and I remember no more of it. But I did "think it out;" and I found it was a parable; of Karma.

--Atcham, Dec. 7, 1883

XX. The Panic-Struck Pack-Horse

Out of a veil of palpitating mist there arose before me in my sleep the image of a colossal and precipitous cliff; standing sheer up against a sky of cloud and sea-mist, the tops of the granite peaks being merged and hidden in the vapor. At the foot of the precipice beat a wild sea, tossing and flecked with foam; and out of the flying spray rose sharp splinters of granite, standing like spearheads about the base of the solid rock. As I looked, something stirred far off in the distance, like a fly crawling over the smooth crag. Fixing my gaze upon it I became aware that there was at a great height above the sea, midway between sky and water, a narrow unprotected footpath winding up and down irregularly along the side of the mighty cliff;--a slender, sloping path, horrible to look at, like a rope or a thread stretched mid-air, hanging between heaven and the hungry foam. One by one, came towards me along this awful path a procession of horses, drawing tall narrow carts filled with bales of merchandise. The horses moved along the edge of the crag as though they clung to it, their bodies aslant towards the wall of granite on their right, their legs moving with the precision of creatures feeling and grasping every step. Like deer they moved,-- not like horses, and as they advanced, the carts they drew swayed behind them, and I thought every jolt would hurl them over the precipice. Fascinated I watched,--I could not choose but watch. At length came a grey horse, not drawing a cart, but carrying something on his back,--on a pack-saddle apparently. Like the rest he came on stealthily, sniffing every inch of the terrible way, until, just at the worst and giddiest point he paused, hesitated, and seemed about to turn.---I saw him back himself in a crouching attitude against the wall of rock behind him, lowering his haunches, and rearing his head in a strange manner. The idea flashed on me that he would certainly turn, and then--what could happen? More horses were advancing, and two beasts could not possibly pass each other on that narrow ledge! But I was totally unprepared for the ghastly thing that actually did happen. The miserable horse had been seized with the awful mountain-madness that sometimes overtakes men on stupendous heights,--the madness of suicide. With a frightful scream, that sounded partly like a cry of supreme desperation, partly like one of furious and frenzied joy, the horse reared himself to his full height on the horrible ledge, shook his head wildly, and-- leaped with a frantic spring into the air, sheer over the precipice, and into the foam beneath. His eyes glared as he shot into the void, a great dark living mass against the white mist. Was he speared on those terrible shafts of rock below, or was his life dashed out in horrible crimson splashes against the cliffside? Or did he sink into the reeling swirl of the foaming waters, and die more mercifully in their steel-dark depths? I could not see. I saw only the flying form dart through the mist like an arrow from a bow. I heard only the appalling cry, like nothing earthly ever heard before; and I woke in a panic, with hands tightly clasped, and my body damp with moisture. It was but a dream--this awful picture; it was gone as an image from a mirror, and I was awake, and gazing only upon blank darkness.

--Atcham, Sept. 15, 1884

XXI. The Haunted Inn

I seemed in my vision to be on a long and wearisome journey, and to have arrived at an Inn, in which I was offered shelter and rest. The apartment given me consisted of a bedroom and parlour, communicating, and furnished in an antique manner, everything in the rooms appearing to be worm-eaten, dusty and out of date. The walls were bare and dingy; there was not a picture or an ornament in the apartment. An extremely dim light prevailed in the scene; indeed, I do not clearly remember, whether, with the exception of the fire and a nightlamp, the rooms were illumined at all. I seated myself in a chair, by the hearth; it was late, and I thought only of rest. But, presently, I became aware of strange things going on about me. On a table in a corner lay some papers and a pencil. With a feeling of indescribable horror I saw this pencil assume an erect position and begin of itself to write on the paper, precisely as though an invisible hand held and guided it. At the same time, small detonations sounded in different parts of the room; tiny bright sparks appeared, burst, and immediately expired in smoke. The pencil having ceased to write, laid itself gently down, and taking the paper in my hand I found on it a quantity of writing which at first appeared to me to be in cipher, but I presently perceived that the words composing it were written backwards, from right to left, exactly as one sees writing reflected on a looking glass. What was written made a considerable impression on me at the time, but I cannot now recall it. I know, however, that the dominant feeling I experienced was one of horror.

I called the owners of the inn and related to them what had taken place. They received my statement with perfect equanimity, and told me that in their house this was the normal state of things, of which, in fact, they were extremely proud; and they ended by congratulating me as a visitor much favored by the invisible agencies of the place.

"We call them our Lights," they said.

"It is true," I observed, "that I saw lights in the air about the room, but they went out instantaneously, and left only smoke behind them. And why do they write backwards? Who are They?"

As I asked this last question, the pencil on the table rose again, and wrote thus on the paper:--

".ksatonoD"

Again horror seized on me, and the air becoming full of smoke I found it impossible to breathe. "Let me out!" I cried, "I am stifled here,--the air is full of smoke!"

"Outside," the people of the house answered, "you will lose your way; it is quite dark, and we have no other rooms to let. And, besides, it is the same in all the other apartments of the inn."

"But the place is haunted!" I cried; and I pushed past them, and burst out of the house.

Before the doorway stood a tall veiled figure, like translucent silver. A sense of reverence overcame me. The night was balmy, and bright almost as day with resplendent starlight. The stars seemed to lean out of heaven; they looked down on me like living eyes, full of a strange immeasurable sympathy. I crossed the threshold, and stood in the open plain, breathing with rapture and relief the pure warm air of that delicious night. How restful, calm, and glorious was the dark landscape, outlined in purple against the luminous sky! And what a consciousness of vastness and immensity above and around me! "Where am I?" I cried. The silver figure stood beside me, and lifted its veil. It was Pallas Athena.

"Under the Stars of the East," she answered me, "the true eternal Lights of the World."

After I was awake, a text in the Gospels was vividly brought to my mind:--"There was no room for then in the Inn." What is this Inn, I wondered, all the rooms of which are haunted, and in which the Christ cannot be born? And this open country under the eastern night,--is it not the same in which they were "abiding," to whom that Birth was first angelically announced?

--Atcham, Nov. 5, 1885

---------- ** The solution of the enigma was afterwards recognised in an instruction, also imparted in sleep, in which it was said, "If Occultism were all, and held the key of heaven, there would be no need of Christ." (Ed.)

XXII. An Eastern Apologue

The following was read by me during sleep, in an old book printed in archaic type. As with many other things similarly read by me, I do not know whether it is to be found in any book:--

"After Buddha had been ten years in retirement, certain sages sent their disciples to him, asking him,--'What dost thou claim to be, Gotama?'

"Buddha answered them, 'I claim to be nothing.'

"Ten years afterwards they sent again to him, asking the same question, and again Buddha answered:--'I claim to be nothing.'

"Then after yet another ten years had passed, they sent a third time, asking, 'What dost thou claim to be, Gotama?'

"And Buddha replied, 'I claim to be the utterance of the most high God.'

"Then they said to him: 'How is this, that hitherto thou hast proclaimed thyself to be nothing, and now thou declarest thyself to be the very utterance of God?'

"Buddha answered: `Either I am nothing, or I am the very utterance of God, for between these two all is silence."'

--Atcham, March 5, 1885

XXIII. A Haunted House Indeed!

I dreamt that during a tour on the Continent with my friend C. we stayed in a town wherein there was an ancient house of horrible reputation, concerning which we received the following account. At the top of the house was a suite of rooms, from which no one who entered at night ever again emerged. No corpse was ever found; but it was said by some that the victims were absorbed bodily by the walls; by others that there were in the rooms a number of pictures in frames, one frame, however, containing a blank canvas, which had the dreadful power, first, of fascinating the beholder, and next of drawing him towards it, so that he was compelled to approach and gaze at it. Then, by the same hideous enchantment, he was forced to touch it, and the touch was fatal. For the canvas seized him as a devil-fish seizes its prey, and sucked him in, so that he perished without leaving a trace of himself, or of the manner of his death. The legend said further that if any person could succeed in passing a night in these rooms and in resisting their deadly influence, the spell would for ever be broken, and no one would thenceforth be sacrificed.

Hearing all this, and being somewhat of the knight-errant order, C. and I determined to face the danger, and, if possible, deliver the town from the enchantment. We were assured that the attempt would be vain, for that it had already been many times made, and the Devils of the place were always triumphant. They had the power, we were told, of hallucinating the senses of their victims; we should be subjected to some illusion, and be fatally deceived. Nevertheless, we were resolved to try what we could do, and in order to acquaint ourselves with the scene of the ordeal, we visited the place in the daytime. It was a gloomy-looking building, consisting of several vast rooms, filled with lumber of old furniture, worm-eaten and decaying; scaffoldings, which seemed to have been erected for the sake of making repairs and then left; the windows were curtainless, the floors bare, and rats ran hither and thither among the rubbish accumulated in the corners. Nothing could possibly look more desolate and gruesome. We saw no pictures; but as we did not explore every part of the rooms, they may have been there without our seeing them.

We were further informed by the people of the town that in order to visit the rooms at night it was necessary to wear a special costume, and that without it we should have no chance whatever of issuing from them alive. This costume was of black and white, and each of us was to carry a black stave. So we put on this attire,--which somewhat resembled the garb of an ecclesiastical order,--and when the appointed time came, repaired to the haunted house, where, after toiling up the great staircase in the darkness, we reached the door of the haunted apartments to find it closed. But light was plainly visible beneath it, and within was the sound of voices. This greatly surprised us; but after a short conference we knocked. The door was presently opened by a servant, dressed as a modern indoor footman usually is, who civilly asked us to walk in. On entering we found the place altogether different from what we expected to find, and had found on our daylight visit. It was brightly lighted, had decorated walls, pretty ornaments, carpets, and every kind of modern garnishment, and, in short, bore all the appearance of an ordinary well-appointed private "flat." While we stood in the corridor, astonished, a gentleman in evening dress advanced towards us from one of the reception rooms. As he looked interrogatively at us, we thought it best to explain the intrusion, adding that we presumed we had either entered the wrong house, or stopped at the wrong apartment.

He laughed pleasantly at our tale, and said, "I don't know anything about haunted rooms, and, in fact, don't believe in anything of the kind. As for these rooms, they have for a long time been let for two or three nights every week to our Society for the purpose of social reunion. We are members of a musical and literary association, and are in the habit of holding conversaziones in these rooms on certain evenings, during which we entertain ourselves with dancing, singing, charades, and literary gossip. The rooms are spacious and lofty, and exactly adapted to our requirements. As you are here, I may say, in the name of the rest of the members, that we shall be happy if you will join us." At this I glanced at our dresses in some confusion, which being observed by the gentleman, he hastened to say: "You need be under no anxiety about your appearance, for this is a costume night, and the greater number of our guests are in travesty." As he spoke he threw open the door of a large drawing-room and invited us in. On entering we found a company of men and women, well-dressed, some in ordinary evening attire and some costumed. The room was brilliantly lighted and beautifully furnished and decorated. At one end was a grand piano, round which several persons were grouped; others were seated on ottomans taking tea or coffee; and others strolled about, talking. Our host, who appeared to be master of the ceremonies, introduced us to several persons, and we soon became deeply interested in a conversation on literary subjects. So the evening wore on pleasantly, but I never ceased to wonder how we could have mistaken the house or the staircase after the precaution we had taken of visiting it in the daytime in order to avoid the possibility of error.