What is the Valley of the Phantom Mists?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was seized with horror. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The spiritual body pervades the external form

The spiritual body pervades the external form. Bone pervades bone; muscle, muscle; nerve, nerve. The spiritual is a simile of the earthly body. When the earthly dust is brushed off – when it rises into the bright day of immortality – it finds itself the same entity with similar thoughts, desires, passions, affections and emotions. The earth and Spirit-world are similarly related, being intimately blended, without any chasm between them; so that the individual who has obeyed the laws of his nature, passes quietly, as it were, from one room into another, calmly and easily, as the ripened apple falls from its parent stem.

True devotion to Deity is the obedience of all the laws of His nature

True devotion to Deity, of the developed mind, is the obedience of all the laws of His nature.

You must not compare Him with man in this way

Preconceived opinions and tradition exercise great influence over the mind and, although fully convinced that the Deity is an intelligent principle, our thoughts will personify Him in the imagination. Reason alone can set the matter right. So soon as you personify and give God a shape, you circumscribe his limits and power. So soon as you measure him by man, in power or shape, and thus bring him down to finite comprehension, you make him a finite personage.

The finite cannot comprehend the Infinite!

What and where is God?

What and where is God?

Untutored child of Nature, from whence hast thou derived so much truth!

For a moment, free thought broke through the clouds which hung over his mind and Nature spoke through him – 

Behold, said he, these sands are bordered with plants. They grow and give me sustenance. In their growth I behold life and wisdom and, in proportion as my mind expands, I behold intelligence. Look abroad over this waste. See yonder moving pillar of sand. God has moved his breath to do his bidding. I feel his presence in the broad sunshine and in the serene night. The stars reflecting the dim sliadows of the waste remind me that he is far off, yet near.

View the mighty forest, the birds caroling in the branches. I hear his voice mingling with the wail of the spirits of my fathers in the breeze. In the echo of the thunder he speaks to me. Where is he? You are now in his presence. He is ever-speaking to you, for he dwells in everything and is everywhere.

The Sage

Nature is a whole and should be studied as such

Draw a circle about you today and tomorrow's circle will encompass it. The growth of the soul is like the growth of the tree, by consecutive circles, each new growth encompassing all the rest. The soul is exogenous and endogenous in its growth; it grows not only from within but also from without. Each age draws its circle around all those which are past. You may think cohesive attraction a great force – its sphere comprehensive – yet gravitation draws its circle around attraction and a thousand forces beside and gravitation itself is far from a final cause. Some giant mind will, in the distant future, stretch forth his hand and describe a circle which will include gravitation and all its antagonistic forces. You must learn to comprehend great principles and classify facts. By observing isolated instances, you loose the connection and become confused. Nature is a whole and should be studied as such.

Scenes in the Spirit World or Life in the Spheres

Man is the unfolding flower of Nature

Man is the bud, the spirit, the unfolding flower of Nature, which will go on unfolding its powers until it reaches the throne of the Omnipotent Mind.

Affirmation – 

I will reach the standard of perfection You have set for me if it takes all my life in heaven and all the help from the angels of light to accomplish it. 

Man is the bud, which will go on unfolding its powers until it reaches the throne of the Omnipotent Mind

The perfected spirit is the end of creative Nature. For it, the gaseous ocean of the beginning existed; for it, the igneous ball rolled through the vast space for ages; for it, one form of life after another came, type following type, and degree succeeding degree in endless mutations. Man is the bud, the spirit, the unfolding flower of Nature, which will go on unfolding its powers until it reaches the throne of the Omnipotent Mind.

Man is an animalcule on the earth

You look on the earth as a huge ball but, when standing far away on the fixed stars, the whole solar system, the sun, planets, satellites and eomets, appear not as large as the mite in the sunbeams! You look on man as the ultimate of creation; yet there are angels beside whom he would appear far more insignificant than the Patagonian savage beside the intelligent European philosopher. Man is an animalcule on the earth, which is itself but an atom of the universe. There is a vast void between the animalcule in the drop of water and a solar system; yet a greater difference exists between the wisdom of man and the Infinite Wisdom beyond.

Scenes in the Spirit World or Life in the Spheres

I am almost at the end of the race for wisdom

I am almost at the end of the race for wisdom. Foolish thought, when the wisdom of the Infinite God is all beyond.

Scenes in the Spirit World or Life in the Spheres

Always strive to elevate the mind

Contentment (or rather lethargy) is not the law of nature. Everything strives and aspires to attain a higher state. The infant looks forward to youth; youth to manhood; old age to the spirit-world. He who sits down content amid the scene of upward strife will speedily find himself on the retrograde.

After-death experience

Platonius, do you not recognise me?

 

Have you forgotten the Portico of Pythagoras? 

 

The Ancient Platonius recounts his thoughts and feelings while passing through death – 

 

It was a cold starlit night when I passed from earth. The fields were covered with a pure mantle of virgin snow. The frost, driven by the northern blast, glistened fantastically in the starlight. There was a beauty in the scenery which, to one fain to tarry longer on earth, would have rendered it hard to close the eyes and say, I have viewed these beauties for the last, last time; I am no more of earth. I could not force back the clouds of mantling night as they rolled over my intellect. Slowly, gradually, I sank down, down into a great black gulf of oblivion. Down, down I sank, beyond all human thought or conception, seemingly millions of millions of miles, with the gloom growing thicker, denser and more stifling. It was an awful sensation to be suspended over that black abyss by a single thread and, as life ebbed away, to feel oneself going down, down into its unfathomable depths. 

 

The last words I heard as I sank down were the lamentations of my family and friends and their sobs and cries as they said I was gone. Yes, gone! gone from earth, its pleasures and its pains. Their sighs seemed my death-knell to oblivion. Down, down I sank for hours after they said He is gone, when suddenly a flood of light burst on my astonished vision as a gleam of lightning and on its wings my soul sped upwards – up, up, up, in that golden light, to earth again. I was conscious and, looking about me, saw my body on the couch. I was a short distance off but still myself. A slight cord of ethereal matter connected me with my form. It was soon broken and I was free. There stood my friends weeping over my inanimate body, inconsolable for my loss. I strove to convince them that I still lived but could not; for I found that my body, though real to me and perfectly organised, was far too ethereal to affect physical atoms. My acquaintances, while on earth, who had gone before me, now welcomed me, at the same time giving me a beautiful mantle. They then conducted me to my new home with the angels. 

 

Ah, how can I express the overflowing rapture which thrilled my whole being, when the sublime reality of immortal life came rushing over my soul, like a gleam of lightning! Words are but faint indicators of the emotions I experienced or the ineffable joy which filled my being. 

 

Centuries have passed away since that time but its scenes still cling tenaciously to memory's abode. I have passed those centuries in traveling from world to world – in traveling the ether ocean that fills up the intricacies between the suns and planets. Let me speak without egotism. When I look back on bygone ages, I feel as if standing on the summit of some lofty pinnacle and looking down on my path until it seems lost in mists and I can clearly see now from what a small beginning I had started.

Gratitude will cause the tear to flow and the heart to palpitate sooner than the other emotions

Gratitude will cause the tear to flow and the heart to palpitate sooner than the other emotions.

The Sage

Affections set the mind on the plane of angels

Affections set the mind on the plane of angels and throw a halo of radiance around the human soul.

The Sage

Prayer without action is nothing

Remember – 

Prayer without action is nothing.

Fresh Progression

There is a sameness in such work that makes one example serve for many.

While Franchezzo works to help others, he is gradually learning the lesson which has proven hardest for him to learn – to forgive his enemies and to return good for evil. It has been a hard struggle to overcome his desire for revenge or wish that some punishment should overcome the one who has so deeply wronged him and it is hard to desire now to benefit that person. Time and again while he is working on the earth plane, he goes and stands beside that one, unseen and unfelt, and each time he perceives that his enemy’s thoughts are as bitter as his own. There is no love lost between them. Standing there Franchezzo sees the events of their lives blended together in one picture, the dark shadows of their passionate hate dimming and blurring these pictures as storm clouds sweep over a summer sky. And in the clearer light of his spiritual knowledge, he sees his faults. From these visits, Franchezzo returns to his little cottage in the spirit overwhelmed with bitter regrets and anger towards the one whose life seems only to have been linked by sorrow and wrong to his own.

One day, while standing beside this individual, he becomes conscious of a new feeling, almost of pity, for this person is also oppressed in soul – also conscious of regret in thinking of their past – the first softening and melting of the hard wall of hatred between them. Franchezzo is given a chance to assist and benefit this person and Franchezzo is able to overcome his bitterness and to take advantage of this opportunity.

His enemy is not conscious of his presence nor of his interference for good but feels in a dim fashion that somehow the hatred between them is dead and that, as Franchezzo is dead, it were perhaps better to let their quarrels die also. Thus comes at last a mutual pardon which severs the links which have so long bound their earthly lives together. Franchezzo knows that when death severs the thread of that earthly life, their spirits will meet again so that each may ask pardon from the other. Not until then will all links be finally severed between them and each pass on to their appointed sphere. 

The effects on the soul of our mutual love and hate are great and lasting and they cling to us long after our earthly life is past.

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