Chapter XII: Sanitariums in Spirit Life

I think it will be interesting to you to learn something of the sanitariums of spirit life, where the grown people—those who while in the body were weak and struggling in spirit, whose natures were but partially unfolded, whose higher qualities of being were stunted or warped in growth, and who, through lack of opportunity, power, and favorable conditions generally were unable to grow in grace, beauty, and sweetness of spirit—gain health, strength, vigor, and power. Those unfortunate ones who, from whatever cause, are unable during their sojourn on earth to put forth the purest attributes of the soul, to become mentally strong and fearless, to rise above the temptations of mortal life, to resist the evil thoughts which assail them, or who fail in any manner to grow in goodness and wisdom, are spiritually sick, and in need of tender and judicious treatment.

In the spiritual world there are sanitariums for such as these, and when the spirit, weak and feeble, exhibits a desire to become strong and healthy, and to be placed under conditions that will afford the means of growth, unfoldment, and of gaining power, he or she may be conducted to one of these beautiful places, where only life, health, enjoyment, mental vigor, and happiness can be obtained.

LOCALITIES AND CHARACTERISTICS.

Our places where health is sought and found are not great gloomy buildings where dozens of individuals live, where perhaps no two of them are alike in temperament, constitution, and habits, but where all must undergo the same amount and quality of discipline and treatment; but they are large gardens, beautifully laid out with beds of flowers, banks of moss, pebbly walks, and groves of trees, where birds sing and sparkling waters leap and play; where the glad sunshine is felt by all, and where life is untrammeled, free and happy; or in shady woods where nature invites man to partake of the quiet, calm, and tranquility of her forest nooks. And I know of such bright homes of rest, where the sparkling sea surges and beats upon shining sands, and others that are built upon the mountain sides, where the atmosphere is strong, clear, and bracing. The houses are small, light, and airy, furnished with deference to taste as well as utility; they are at short distances from each other and separated by garden plots of flowers, groves of trees, etc., as the particular section of country decides. Only one weak, enfeebled, diseased spirit dwells in each house at a time, but he or she is an inmate of a home where two or more healthy, happy, industrious spirits reside; these vigorous ones are the attendants and teachers of the patient, and their presence, care, and example impart strength, health, and happiness to the one under their charge, while at the same time he or she is learning those lessons of life of which they were deprived while on the earth, but which are requisite to the upbuilding and outrounding of every intelligent, progressive soul.

METHODS OF TREATMENT.

The natural scenery of these places enters largely into the system of treatment as an active agent, and exerts a powerful influence upon the weak and suffering spirit. For instance, the soul that is irritable, peevish, dissatisfied with itself, requires a soothing, calm, and gentle influence. She is brought to one of the great garden sanitariums, and taken in charge by a family of tender, sympathetic beings, who delight to care for her. The harmonious influence of her new home, the sight of blooming flowers, waving trees, and rippling waters, the sound of gentle human voices, of singing birds, and of the soothing, elevating, enchanting music which her kind attendants evoke from their melodious instruments for her, produce a tranquilizing effect upon her entire being, and she gradually grows restful, contented, and at peace, thus bringing her highest nature into proper condition for its unfoldment in spiritual power, and its advancement in the acquirement of knowledge. Fruits form the staple of her diet, and thus removed from all that is coarse of the earth, earthly, crude, and sensual, her spirit grows in strength and beauty, until she, too, becomes permeated with true vitality, becomes perfectly healthy, and is ready to take upon herself the duties of a teacher, nurse, and physician, and to attend some poor soul that is ill.

Another patient may require the healthful atmosphere and the partial solitude of some forest glen; if so, such a home, with loving attendants, pleasing surroundings, and delicate nourishment is provided for her. Another is drooping, easily discouraged, cannot resist any condition that at the time presses upon him, easily becomes a prey to the positive encroachment of temptation. He is taken to a pleasant home by the sea shore, where the sight of the great blue waves rushing in toward the land, or flowing out to the further side, and the sound of surging billows and singing winds, stimulates him with new strength, courage, and vigorous endeavor to grow upward from an unhealthy, darkened condition. He, too, has spirit guardians and teachers, whose duty it is to arouse within him that interior self-reliance that enables the soul to conquer all difficulties and to rise above all obstacles that are to be encountered. In his home, and in every home provided for the weak and suffering, and all around them, are to be found only the most beautiful works of nature and of art. Only those sights and sounds that appeal to the highest, loftiest nature of man, are to be seen and heard therein; and thus conditions are afforded that enable strength, health, mental vigor and spiritual power to supersede and eradicate ill health, mental paucity, moral weakness, and sensual proclivities.

MUSIC AS A MEANS OF RECUPERATION.

The cultivation of the human voice in singing is one of the means of advancement for the spirit. It is also very effective in its results in the sanitariums of spirit life, producing a marvelous effect upon the weary and feeble ones. Music and singing are employed as curative agents in the treatment of diseased or enfeebled souls, and with marked results. You will find that every lover of good music and singing can at times become receptive to angelic influence. It is a sacred work in the higher life to awaken this love of music in the minds of the afflicted ones; for this once accomplished, the higher influences can impart their magnetism to those in distress. Hence, many of our greatest musicians and sweetest singers may at times be found in the home of some invalid spirit, exercising his or her divine gifts with rare power for the especial benefit of the ailing one. Music, so elevating, cheering, soul-inspiring in power, lifts the spirit above the conditions that favor ill health into an atmosphere where only vigor and mental vitality abound.

RESTORATION OF THE MENTALLY DISEASED.

We have homes where those spirits who were considered insane in the body may find rest, repose, and strength. Having been unable to express themselves understandingly or to manifest their desires clearly through the poor, unbalanced brains which belonged to their earthly forms, their spirits are weak, feeble, not unfolded, and they require that treatment which will restore tone, power, and energy to their wasted forces. And so homes, guides, teachers, and every attention are provided for them. Flowers, birds, music, and kind faces surround them. They are not restricted nor confined, but are allowed liberty, though under the careful, yet tender, surveillance of their friends. No medicine but sunshine and air is given them; no unkind treatment is resorted to. In the pure and genial atmosphere of their spirit homes, and under the gentle influence of their surroundings, they gain a perfect mental equipoise, become strong in spirit and attain a knowledge of life in all its various grades and departments of unfoldment.

Thus need no one of earth, who has friends weak and suffering in body or mind, or who are undeveloped in spiritual health, strength, and power, fear that these unpleasant conditions will long continue with them after they have passed from the mortal.

The tendency of human life is upward and on; the spirit world affords conditions and opportunities, facilities and advantages, for its growth and progress. No soul can advance in wisdom and happiness that is weak and enfeebled from any cause whatever; therefore, the first work to be done is to remove the weakness and misery by subduing them with strength and power and friends and homes; and all that is requisite for the upbuilding of a beautiful spirit is provided for the unhappy one.

No prison cells, no hospital wards, no massive walls where the mentally diseased languish in pain, are to be found in the spirit world; but as God’s sunshine, and air, his flowers and singing birds, are free to all, they are there provided for the welfare and pleasure of any and every soul, and have proved to be the means of restoring to life, health, and happiness many poor, pain-stricken, suffering human beings.

My experiences in the spirit world have taught me that all crime, all unkindness of feeling, all selfishness, all misery of men, are diseases which need to be eradicated from the human system, and if they cannot become obliterated here, the time will surely come in the spiritual world when they will be eliminated.

These unpleasant and unfortunate conditions of which I write are the correspondence of the physical ailments with which man is assailed, and I believe the time will come when they will be recognized by mortals as diseases, and proper measures taken to repress and overcome them.

IMPROVED MEDICAL TREATMENT ON EARTH.

As all things have their origin in the spiritual, and as ideas of practical import are given to mortals through and from the silent yet potential inspiration of the spirit, I believe the time will come when individuals on earth will be impressed and imbued with ideas of medical treatment, and the establishing of sanitariums similar to those which already exist in the beyond, when the public mind will become exercised on the subject of the proper treatment and care of the sick and suffering of both body and spirit, and when a new thought will be agitated concerning its duty toward the morally weak and low. Then your hospitals will not be huge edifices, but small habitations with only one invalid in each, so that no impure and unhealthy magnetism from another diseased body shall be absorbed by its occupant. Light, air, water, music, and flowers will take the place of drugs and powders, and cheerful, ready attendance be freely given. So with your homes of refuge, your places of confinement for criminals; those now of walls of stone will give way to light and airy dwellings, gardens of beauty will surround them; music and flowers, books and papers, congenial, active employment, and the cheerful companionship of healthy, kind-hearted teachers, will supersede whip and thong, and supply to the mental nature that bracing tone so much required, and under your present system of discipline, so seldom obtained, these will awaken retrospection in the mind of the diseased, and bring a desire for amendment, thus beginning that radical cure which will in time be firmly established in every sin-sick soul.

ONE OF THE SANITARIUMS OF SPIRIT LIFE.

I will tell you of a beautiful scene I have recently witnessed in one of the sanitariums of spirit life. Picture to yourselves an immense garden, spread with a closely-cropped carpet of the freshest, greenest, and most velvety grass you can conceive adorned with parterres of fragrant, bright-colored flowers. The trees are tall, stately, and graceful, and their foliage glistens as though sprinkled with dew; rippling streams of water make rhythmic music pleasant to the ear. The sky is cloudless, and the sun shines mildly down upon the placid scene. The atmosphere is of a peculiar golden tint that clothes every object in a mantle of beauty. Birds with musical throats and bright plumage flit from flower to flower undisturbed by those human beings who are walking the grounds, or seated in various parts of the garden. Small, white, cosey-looking dwellings, simple and neat, are scattered here and there, while in the center of this immense park a stately, white temple uprears its shining dome.

This place is a sanitarium or home where weary women, as well as neglected children, from the earth sphere are brought to receive protection, care, and instruction from the pure mother souls who abide in this lovely spot.

The teachers and nurses of this glowing plane are of a truly _spirituelle_ character; their lives are spent in seeking to guide, influence, and encourage unfortunate spirits to find a higher and better life than that they have hitherto known, and in endeavors for self-improvement.

Here teachers and preceptors are educated and directed through a course of experience that will prepare them to guide and guard those young souls who come to the spirit world with no natural guardian or parent to care for them. Love is the ruling power in this community, and no unkind, unsympathetic thought finds its way hither.

INTERESTING INCIDENT: A MOTHER FINDS HER CHILD.

But the incident which I propose to relate to you was so beautiful I feel that I must tell you of it now while it is fresh in my mind: a beautiful young female spirit, a true teacher, a natural mother-soul, whose entire being is illuminated with the light of benevolence and love, had brought to her charming little cottage in the delightful garden a young child, one who had recently passed to the higher life, with no kind hand to close its mortal eyes or to drop tender caresses upon the marble brow,—one of the waifs of society, cast out by mankind, and permitted to ignobly perish from the earth.

This child was brought to the bright Summer-land, and tenderly cared for by guardian angels; all the good within its nature was encouraged to unfold and blossom out; all the attributes of ill, the conditions of carnal life transmitted to it by others, were fading for want of nourishment and attention.

The work of cultivating and beautifying an immortal soul, as was this little one, under the direction of a sweet, self-denying, loving spirit, is delightful to contemplate; but the most thrilling incident in this special instance, and one which came under my immediate observation, was this:—

One day there came to this garden of delight a poor, sin-stained, weary woman,—one who, through all the misery heaped upon her by the conditions of vice and crime, still kept the love-light for her child burning in her soul. She had been an inhabitant of the spirit world three years, but, because of the crudities of physical conditions still clinging to her spirit, had been held down to the earthly sphere.

Now, she had been found by a benevolent spirit, and conducted to the blooming paradise of which I write. Sad, disheartened, despairing, nothing could rouse her from her condition of unhappiness. The tender encouragements of benevolent beings, the beautiful objects and sweet sounds around her, the gentle ministrations of kindly spirits, seemed to have no effect upon her state of apathy. At last it was suggested that she be taken to the grove, where the children were busy with their innocent sports; and accordingly the unfortunate woman was conducted to a green and shady spot where a company of little spirits, under the care of their teachers and guides, were engaged in pleasant pursuits.

The eyes of the unhappy spirit for the first time lighted up with a gleam of pleasure as they fell upon the children, and her conductor noted the sign with a joyous heart. Suddenly the woman screamed, sprang forward, and clasped one of the little ones to her breast. It was the little waif who not long since had been brought hither. “My child! my child! my darling child!” exclaimed the spirit, as tears of joy rained down her pallid face, “have I found you at last! have I found you!”

It was a scene to make angels weep, and tears of sympathy stood in the eyes of more than one of that celestial company. It transpired that the poor, suffering woman was the mother of that little child; that, at the time the child had attained the age of three years, the mother met with an accident that hurled her spirit from the body, and from that time to the present moment she had been roaming in darkness, seeking for the child she had lost.

The little one was allowed to accompany her teacher and her new-found mother to a pleasant, quiet retreat where, under the spell of her darling’s presence, and the kindly care of ministering attendants, her spirit is rapidly arising above the clouds of sorrow, degradation and woe, and emerging into the light of happiness and peace,—is unfolding its higher powers to such a degree that we feel certain, in a very little while, she will herself become a helper, teacher, and beneficent spirit to those who travel in darkness and woe.

The beautiful white temple that uprears its shining dome in the center of that delightful garden of which I have spoken is a massive structure, elegant in appearance, and marvelous in construction. No description of mine could do it justice; it must be seen in order to receive all the admiration which it merits. Dedicated to the Arts, it is itself a master-piece of art, and stands a fitting testimonial to the wonderful design and skill of the artists who planned and executed it in all its details. The material of which this pile is composed is like alabaster, snowy white, but so nearly transparent that, when the sun’s rays strike directly upon it, it glows with all the colors of the rainbow, and presents a brilliant appearance. Delicate carvings of vines and flowers, birds and insects, are traced upon its corner walls, showing evidences of the work of a master-hand. Within are spacious halls dedicated to the Muses, each of which is used as an instruction hall, where knowledge of the particular art to which it is consecrated is imparted and received. The halls of Music, of Painting, of Sculpture, of Poesy, of designing and tracing, are to be found here, presided over by master-artists, who pay especial attention to their pupils, believing that it is better to inspire or to assist in cultivating the powers of another than to create any piece of artistic work themselves.

CULTIVATION OF INHERENT TALENTS.

To this temple are brought the children, in order to ascertain whether or not they have any taste, talent, or genius for practicing any of the fine arts. Here, where all is beautiful, whether of sight or sound, appealing alike to the harmonious instinct and the love of the beautiful within the soul, any especial gift that the child may have in the direction of music, poesy, etc., speedily shows itself, and he or she is taken in charge by some competent teacher who bends all his or her energies in the direction of drawing out or unfolding the talents of the pupil. A child who manifests a passion for music, but takes no interest in drawing or painting, is allowed to devote his time to the cultivation of his musical powers, and is not required to waste energy and patience over the vain task of trying to learn the rules of perspective, light and shade, and coloring. One who exhibits a taste for carving and molding, but cares little for music, is not obliged to throw away time over the distasteful labor of practicing with voice and instrument, but is assisted to unfold the natural powers of his soul. Another is attracted to painting, but has no desire to attempt to carve a statue; another is exercised over the rhymes and metric measures of poetry, but has no gift in the other departments of art. These are encouraged and taught how to develop their God-given powers, and are not requested to attempt any labor for which they have no taste. Children who are found to exhibit no taste for, or attraction toward, any of the arts, but to have a gift for the outworking of and desire to study other branches of knowledge, are permitted to follow the guidance of their tastes or deeper natures, and are not expected to spend time over the study of those artistic rules for which they have no attraction.

Therefore, you will at once perceive that the work of each spirit is that for which they are naturally adapted; it becomes congenial to them, consequently is agreeable. They love to pursue it, and bring forth the best possible results from it.

There are many temples of art in the spirit world, as there are many schools, academies, colleges of learning, etc. Education is the great power that is to uplift and bless humanity, and in the higher life the best forms of enlightenment are afforded freely unto all. The beautiful white temple in the great garden, where the neglected, cast-off children from earth are taken to be cared for, opens its glowing portals to those little ones who, had they remained in the bodily form, would have had no advantages of education or for spiritual unfoldment. Many of these exhibit a marked inclination toward the development of artistic powers, and under the favorable conditions afforded them begin early to show signs of talent to an astonishing degree.

Encouraged to learn, stimulated to emulation by advice, example, and assistance, they readily follow the teachings of their instructors, and in a surprisingly brief space of time—considering all the circumstances of their early life—their efforts to accomplish something are crowned with success. Thus, under proper conditions, all the spiritual attributes and faculties of an immortal soul may become unfolded, displaying a degree of refinement, beauty, culture, and power of which humanity at present but little dreams.