harlotte Rowe enjoyed her lessons with Augustine. She loved spending hours sitting in front of a mirror, staring at herself, watching for the slightest indication of movement or disruption of calm as she cracked a mechanism between her legs to make wooden raps or generated the sounds of chains rattling and dragging from the afterlife. This was real and actual. She was learning a skill, a set of abilities that were of her own doing, her own talent.
Her twin in the mirror, as she watched herself, was a fascination for her. She was a magical being, a person who seemed older and wiser. She seemed, not a girl, but a grown woman, sitting regally, who could pull wires or make snaps without a visible twitch. She had acquired the poise and power of womanhood. The mirror at Augustine’s looked only on Charlotte. It saw only Charlotte, as the center of everything. Her mirror-self could make a voice call from across the room without a motion of the lips or tongue or throat. She could generate spirit writing within a closed and hidden chalkboard in six different hands, masculine and feminine. She was a perfect being who controlled incontrovertible, understandable, explainable phenomena from an astral plane. Here, the mirror-Charlotte was master of all.
Augustine also schooled her on the theories of Spiritism. Miriam Rowe had never had much patience for other people’s theories, in that they formed settled schools of thought. She much preferred generating her own pearls of wisdom around whatever grain of sand happened to irritate her at the moment. People, Augustine explained, wanted your views to agree with those they read about in books and newspapers. Any disruption to the generally accepted schools of thoughts created doubts and discrepancies. Doubt was not the friend of the spirit medium.
“It is important to understand,” said Augustine, “that spiritism combines religion and science. In doing so, it provides the ultimate truth. Science by itself is unsatisfying because it is self-contained and not all-inclusive. It does not address the human soul, the ethics of human existence, the pulls of human desires, the human experience of the sublime. Religion is unsatisfying because it is unscientific. It defies the rational and therefore it is, at the core, unbelievable. We want to believe in religion, but we can’t. We can believe in science, but we don’t want to. Spiritism provides the ultimate compromise: a promise of life after death that is scientifically verifiable, that you can see and hear and experience in a concrete way.”
Charlotte read books about the spirit and its progressive journey. She read about God, the universe, matter, time, energy, life, the soul, and the limitations of the understanding of man. “We have answers for every question,” said Augustine. “There is no need for research into unknowns. The answers are all here, ready-made. You just need to accept them.”
In this way, Charlotte’s abilities advanced.
One day, Augustine sat with Charlotte, working with a spirit cabinet to create spirit hands, faces, and luminous ectoplasm.
“You know,” said Augustine in a reminiscent manner, “I want to tell you a story, to illuminate the workings of our profession.”
She paused, but Charlotte in her normal manner did not respond or encourage. “I was young at the time,” Augustine continued, “not as young as you, but just beginning in life. I had begun giving séances to women in Omaha, where I had run away to as a girl. There was a woman who came to me one day. She wanted to speak with her dead father, who had passed away six months ago, leaving her with a great deal of money. She had fought bitterly with her father as a young girl, and the two had never been reconciled. She felt guilty at enjoying the father’s wealth now, and she wanted to make peace with him.
“So she came to see me. We worked together initially with table-turning. This is useful, because the people ask questions. You can tell a lot from the questions a person asks, and often the desired answers are quite clear. And there is always the danger of unfriendly or prankster spirits interfering, so that any time we go off track, the correction is easy to make.
“In the table-turning sessions, I learned a bit about her troubles with her father. He was a controlling, domineering man, and she was willful. This is not an unusual circumstance. She wanted to marry an unsuitable young man, and in the end she ran off to marry him. The man turned out to be a fool and dishonest on top of it. She was now trapped in an unhappy marriage, and she had lived in poverty due to her husband’s unsavory habits. The inheritance from her father, which she had never expected to see, practically saved her. She was afraid, though, that her husband would squander it and that she would be back in the same situation.
“This woman was looking for salvation in our sessions. You will find this quite often. Unhappy people come seeking happiness. She said that she wanted to reconcile with her father. The truth is that she was filled with regret for her choices in life. If she had stayed at home, in all likelihood she would have been miserable under her father’s critical rule, and she would have always regretted the loss of her young love.
“We moved on to trances, and I invoked spirit writings of several types and the appearance of her father’s face and hands in a darkened room. Working on her, we brought forth a clear vision of her father’s spirit, or rather the spirit that she hoped her father would be.
“He had found peace and love in the afterlife. Instead of criticizing his daughter’s choices, he could look down on the world from a new place and see that her path had been the only possible one. He assured her that, through her current path, with its sorrows and tribulations, she was achieving greater spiritual understanding, moving forward on a path. Her ultimate journey was beyond her current understanding.
“Her father began giving her messages of hope from the other side, and he told her of the great revelations he’d had about his own life and his own destiny. He apologized to her for any sorrow that he had caused her during his lifetime. He could see clearly that his vision had been clouded by a human veil. He also assured her that, although he regretted his treatment of her, he knew that her trials had made her a better, stronger soul, and that she was destined for a greater journey than his in the afterlife because of her spiritual preparation.
“Even her pursuit of the spiritual through spiritism showed her great progress in a spiritual journey. As you can see, all spirits sound similar when they have passed over to the other side. Even the harshest, meanest soul, speaking from the afterworld, speaks of peace, love, and forgiveness. All messages are messages of hope and happiness. Any intrusive or disruptive spirit is not anyone that the sitter knows or could have known.”
She paused and looked at Charlotte to assure that this lesson was received. Augustine nodded her head and continued:
“Anyway, one evening we gathered together for a reading. We were working with automatic writing, which is an excellent tool when you know a lot about your subject and want to speak at length from the afterlife, especially if you have specific information. You, of course, are very gifted at voices, and this allows you a lot of leeway in a mediumistic trance. Still, a voice is a tricky thing, and you never know how well a subject might remember someone’s voice. You know well, of course, the signs of recognition a subject gives when you hit upon a good imitation, but in any case, I’m not nearly as gifted at vocal impressions as you. Automatic writing can scrawl, and a scrawl can hide all kinds of problems.
“Remember, when determining ways and means that there are two stages of the sitter. The first stage is an interested skepticism. This is the stage at which the person is interested in the phenomena but is still skeptical about it and needs to be convinced. These people are afraid of being tricked! They want proofs to show them that spirit communication is real. It is important, in dealing with these types of people, to use only the best, most convincing, types of spirit communication. Once a person has passed through this initial phase, they become a believer. A believer will never be unconvinced! Few people first come to a medium as believers, but my sitter was one of these.
“I was sunken deep into a trance state, and my sitter, who I will call Mary Jones for the sake of this discussion, Mrs. Jones was watching me eagerly and reciting prayers under her breath. I always encourage sitters to pray, because it removes any fear of dealing with the supernatural. There will always be a contingent that feels that delving into a spirit world is dangerous, that it opens you up to demonic and even satanic occurrences. Any impression of the hazards of spirit communication must be quelled, and the best way is through prayer. God watches over all of our sittings and sees that we are safe. Prayer also reinforces the Christianity of what we do. Never ask anyone to deny their religion. Only reinforce their own religion with new additions to it. They don’t really know anything about their religion to begin with, you know, but they will hold dearly to the trappings of it.
“Well, as I said, I was deep in a trance, with a pencil ready in my hand and papers in front of me awaiting the words of the spirits. Mrs. Jones watched and prayed, and we sat there in the dark for quite a while. A long wait does not inspire impatience, my dear, it sets a mood of anticipation. Never be overanxious to begin.
“When the time felt right, my hand began to move across the paper. Message for my darling daughter, it wrote. So happy to talk with you again today. Hoping to talk with you.
“ ‘Oh, Papa,’ said Mrs. Jones. ‘Is everything well?’
“It is always well here. There is only peace and joy and love, the greater as we move forward in our journeys. It surprises me always that there is a higher level of love, but I find one each day.
“ ‘I am so glad,’ Mrs. Jones said, ‘that you are so happy.’
“You are not so happy.
“ ‘No, that’s true. I can’t hide anything from you.’
“All truths on your plane are opened to me.
“ ‘I wish, I wish I had listened to you when I was a girl!’
“That is not for you to wish. You have gained great spiritual riches, the goodness of your spirit shines through to this plane. I can see you as a vision of light and I can watch over you, as your spirit reveals itself to me through the curtain that divides us. Your true self is the most beautiful of all, shines brighter, I watch you with such pride and am always with you. It is not just fatherly pride, but all here can see how advanced you are. The peace and love you will feel when you join us here will far exceed any of us here now. You have a special gift.
“ ‘If only I could be there with you now!’
“Soon, my dear, very soon, that is why I am so happy to speak with you today, because I know that we will soon join together in a more meaningful way than is possible in life or in this communication between places.
“ ‘What do you mean?’
“You will know, you already know in your heart. I am only here to say that I look forward to your presence here with a glad heart. I offer my blessings, know that I am always at your side to give you strength.
“ ‘Am I to die?’
“We all die, do we not? We enlightened know that death is merely a passageway that we pass through. I only tell you my joy in you, my daughter, and my pleasure in anticipating being with you again, seeing you leave earthly care behind and join me in a greater happiness than you know. My only message is, do not fear. Release all fear and understand that your journey is a journey of light.
“Well, Mrs. Jones was greatly affected by these messages. We discussed at length what her father’s meanings could be, and I pointed out to her that time on the spiritual plane and time on an earthly plane were very different, and that messages from the spirit world that depended on the word ‘soon’ were very likely to mean ‘sometime in the next fifty years.’ Always leave yourself an out. That’s the point. However clear your message might be, leave yourself an alternate interpretation in case your client is unreceptive. Besides, being yourself dubious of the message only makes the client more eager to believe in it, nine times out of ten.
“ ‘Yes,’ Mrs. Jones said slowly. ‘I understand that time is a very different thing for those that have passed, and of course my dear father is anxious for us to be together again, as am I.’ She paused and looked puzzled. ‘I wonder, perhaps...’ She paused again, and I let her sit, turning things over in her mind. ‘Perhaps he had a specific thought in mind,’ she said vaguely. She seemed rather distracted and paid me generously before leaving.
“That was the last time I saw Mrs. Jones, since I saw a notice in the papers the next week that she had died from an overdose of sleeping medicines. The death was put down to accident, as Mrs. Jones had used this medicine for some time, and she was liable to forget whether she had taken it yet or not, particularly if worried.
“I received, though, in the mail a letter Mrs. Jones had written me prior to her death. She said: My dear Augustine, I do want to thank you for all of your kindness and help in bringing me into communication with my dear departed father and helping me, through him, to understand so much about this world of ours and about my own self. I cannot begin to express my gratitude for your friendship and wisdom, and I am including a final gift to you, which although it is worldly, is I am sure the very least I can do to repay you for everything you have done for me.
“I know that you believed that my father’s message when last we spoke was a general one, and not truly indicating that death was near at hand for me, but I must tell you that it had a personal meaning far beyond what you could possibly know, for I have not intruded upon you much of my intimate thoughts and feelings and troubles.
“I feel though, that I must make clear to you the value of your good work. The truth is that my husband has been growing worse and worse, and I cannot even divulge to you the depravity of his vices. Strong drink, which I know more than most deprives the soul as well as the body of its strength, is only the beginning for him, and I am afraid to say that he is truly beyond hope in this life. I can only pray that he will find a path toward wholesomeness of spirit that will lead him ultimately to peace!
“But I am done with him. As you know, my dear, the concept of divorce or separation is wholly unnatural to me, and your empathy with me on that topic is greatly appreciated. However, my patience has been stretched to beyond its limits, and I even sunk to the depths of considering such drastic action as breaking my marital vows by leaving him. Though he has hardly honored his own vows, this concept was still quite painful and undesirable to me. Having had several frightful rows with Mr. Jones in the past few weeks, I had rather without even thinking about it burst out to him that I would end it all through self-destruction and then I could be with my father, who was the only one who truly cared about me. Not, of course, including you, my dear.
“Well, Mr. Jones is not only a scoffer, but he makes terrible aspersions about you and about my father, in his lifetime as well as his soul that has passed beyond! I’m sure that the reason it is taboo to speak ill of the dead is that, once beyond this mortal plane, the dead can see their misdeeds, and repent, and move forward to higher causes—therefore who are we to speak ill of the repentant and forgiven? Well! He said some very cruel things, and I am afraid my tongue got away from me, and it was quite an unpleasant scene ending in my again saying that I would end my life, this time with more of my heart in it. To which Mr. Jones replied: ‘Why don’t you, then, and get out of my hair.’ His language is always course, even when he is sober.
“This scene was rather sobering to me, as I had always firmly held that suicide was no recourse for dealing with life. My own instinct toward that unpleasant act surprised me, but as I considered it, I found that I had a deep compulsion to seriously fulfill that threat. I spoke to Mr. Jones of this, when he was sober and better mannered, but he failed to take my dilemma seriously, and his point of view seemed to be ‘good riddance’ which tells you, I suppose, just what type of man I had the misfortune to marry.
“It was not long after these events that father spoke so strangely in our sitting. He, who watches over me with such love, confirmed to me what I have been loathe to recognize and admit to myself: that our conventional view of suicide is futile and unnatural, although I am sure it is necessary for those of us who have not achieved yet an enlightenment of spirit. However, I am assured that my spirit is ready to move forward from these planes and that the simple action of transferring myself to the location of those that love me cannot be wrong. If my loved ones were in Africa, and it took an unpleasant ocean voyage to transport me to them in a strange land, I would surely not cringe at this temporary inconvenience, but look forward with joy to the end of my voyage. Such is it with my own plans: an unpleasant journey, perhaps, but gratefully shorter than a cross-Atlantic trip. I do hope that you understand and take my word that this is indeed the glorious work of God.
“Bless you and your unearthly work,
“Mary Jones.”
Augustine paused again. Charlotte sat listening at attention.
“You see that an interpretation is an interesting thing, and you never really know. I was not in any way sure that it would work, although I had heard of people taking that viewpoint about crossing over.
“It was only a day before our session when Mr. Jones had come to my parlor, and introducing himself had put forward a rather extraordinary proposition. A divorce would rob him of his wife’s money, you see, which was kept in trust for her, since her father did not approve of the marriage. However, if she were to die, he would inherit the trust and have access to the principal. He was, as she said, quite a cynical man, and his opinion of spiritism, quite an unfair opinion, gave him a level of comfort allowing him to approach me.
“Although he was quite untrustworthy and terms were difficult to come to, we made an arrangement that was very satisfactory, including a certain quantity of money he was able to get his hands on up front. This was important since, not only was the man not at all trustworthy, but I was not at all sure that Mrs. Jones could indeed be persuaded to take her own life, no matter how vividly she trusted her poor deceased father. However, he must have known her inner workings better than I, having been privy to spontaneous outbursts in the heat of anger.” She gazed into the air, thoughtfully.
“In any case, the point of my rather long-winded narrative is that you can never know where your best fortunes lie, and wherever there is money and an interested party, you can find ways and means to better your circumstances. I can tell you that, although one does not want to slaughter the goose that lays the golden eggs, I came out of the affair with far more cold, hard cash than I ever would have made in years of sittings with Mrs. Jones.”
What is death? Is it a solution, an answer? Is it a blank nothingness? Is it easier than life? Could it possibly be harder? Yet, I cling to life, even in my old age. I cling to every last breath, every last painful breath, full of hurtful memories, full of the ghosts of all those who are dead.
So many are dead. They are all dead and gone. Dead, but not gone. Their life after death is not a torture to their immortal souls. It is a torture to mine.
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