War Letters from the Living Dead Man (3 page)

Though international organizations have failed for the time being, I am not discouraged about international organizations. They were merely shocked into failure, the peace people, the socialists, and others who make far higher claims to the ideal of universal brotherhood. Even now, during the stress of the conflict, go out yourself in thought and in love to that nation which you feel to be your enemy. Try to understand it. And do not try to understand it by telling yourself that it is evil. That is not understanding. There is evil in all men. Try to understand it by becoming it, for the time. Put yourself in its place; feel as you would feel if you stood alone—even though by your own fault—with the whole world against you. You draw back a little with the thought that you could not have placed yourself in a position where the world for its own protection would be obliged to range itself against you. But are you sure? By entering the consciousness of that nation you are placing yourself in such a position, and I tell you to do it temporarily, in order that you may be a center, a beginning, an infinitesimal part of that international comprehension and pardon which must become general to a degree before the long-heralded and always misunderstood Universal Brotherhood can even begin to find room for itself in this unbrotherly world.

If all those aggregations of people who have long believed that they stood for this ideal would now try to make peace with one another, if they would acknowledge the ideals of one another, however much the working plans of those ideals may differ, a force could even now be set in motion that would shorten this war and lessen the number of those who must die for their conflicting ideals of national honor and loyalty. In the reaction from hate to love, in the reaction from criticism to understanding that will follow a formal declaration of peace, all those quarreling spiritual organizations may if they will, begin to work harmoniously. If their members cannot bring themselves, because of their narrow pride and the memory of all the harsh things which they have said against one another in the past—if they are too meanly afraid of eating their words, publicly to acknowledge one another as brethren, let them begin to feel thus in their hearts. Perhaps in time the greater courage will come, and some daring leader will say to his flock that those with whom they once worked, with trust and the profession of love, may be trying, according to their lights, to serve the ideal. I do not know that any further elaboration of this idea would make it any clearer to you, and these remarks are only an interlude, a relief, in the tension of the story which I have to tell you.

March 13

Letter 5

Astral Monsters

Did you know that I was near you when you crossed the North Sea more than two weeks before war was declared, crossed to England under an irresistible, an overwhelming impulse to get away from the continent of Europe and back to the people of your own blood? I was near you. But I did not remain when you were safe with your friends. I returned to the center of war determinism, went back to that land which, despite all protestations to the contrary, hatched out the egg which an irresponsible bird had laid in the region farther south. Did I say irresponsible? Only a madman is irresponsible for his acts. Let me say rather deluded, for not all deluded souls are mad. The hand that slew the Austrian Archduke was used, as others have been used, by the forces working against progress. Pity that man also, and let the law of cause and effect deal with him as it must, for there is no favoritism in that court and no appeal to a higher jurisdiction.

I returned to Germany. It will be necessary in this writing to call spades, spades. If I hurt anybody’s feelings, I am not writing to hurt anybody’s feelings. Facts are facts, and no specious pleading can change them. I returned to Germany. I listened to war counsels. I heard orders given, for by a special hardening of my astral ears I can hear what is spoken in the world of men and hear very distinctly. My astral body is a well lubricated though tenuous machine that answers to the lightest touch of my will. But do not jump to the conclusion that all astral bodies are like mine. Remember that I am the pupil of a great Master, and that his purposes are not his purposes but those of the law of progress which he serves.

I saw again the monster of which I wrote you in my second letter. They speak truth who say that the German Emperor did hesitate to touch the spring which should open the doors of hell. The War Lord had a certain pride in his record as a Peace Lord, and he shivered at the responsibility that faced him while gloating in that responsibility, which further exalted his already self-exalted ego. Pity him too, but do not sentimentalize over him. Will is free. In yielding his will to the evil genius he was exercising free will. But those eyes of his were wet in the night and he did pray to the Force he calls his God. The name of God was not only on his lips but in his inner thoughts. God is a word that means many things to many persons. There was also in that conclave of evil spirits many who were not attached to individual men. There were vast elemental beings. When Lytton wrote, in one of his occult novels, of a gigantic foot which stepped through a gap in the magic circle drawn by a black magician in the primeval wilderness, he referred to a fact in Nature. Nature! You with your narrow sight have no idea of the meaning of the term. All your studies have not taught you even the alphabet that Nature uses. Learn that alphabet. Begin to study that language. Study chemistry, biology, electricity, and study the mysteries of the vibrations of matter on as many planes as you can consciously reach. The knowledge of the future lies there. Man has only begun the conquest of Nature.

Any expression of hate which you ever beheld in the material world was only a weak replica of the hate that was let loose upon the earth when the hour struck last year, the hour when the orbits of certain planetary bodies blended their influences and allowed a free passage for beings who are generally more limited in their freedom of movement. The giant foot! I saw the great being to whom such a foot belonged. It was a being of the air, but earth beings were allied with it and monsters from the deeper circles of matter where the light of the sun never shines. Will you let me describe one of those beings? You need not fear it now for it has been driven back to its lair in the bowels of the planet. A gross bluish bag-like body, with a long fat tail covered with bristles, arms and legs like elongated bags, and a head that was a larger and half-submerged bag in the rolls of its monstrous neck. But the eyes! There was no fatlike substance within them. They were wide and round and glaring with a thousand years of malignity concentrated in a moment. Pale eyes they were. If you dread an evil dark eye, dread more an evil pale eye. Suffering unimaginable and hate of everything above it were expressed in the eyes of that entity from the deep of things which from the lowest astral plane spat and drooled its venom toward the surface of the planet. Immense it was in size, toothless and shapeless its mouth. What the nourishment might be which had kept it together I refrain from telling you.

Again I say, do not dread it. It cannot reach toward the surface of the earth now. Its existence is near its term. But the germs of astral disease which were spewed from its shapeless mouth have been multiplying in spite of all the efforts of those who know how to cope with such things. The beings of the air are not filthy, however evil they may be, and few of them are really evil—few in proportion to those who are amiable or indifferent to man. The more revengeful of the beings of fire may yet make themselves felt; for sporadic efforts will still be made, though the great struggle is won in the invisible regions. Stay where you are for the time. A danger still threatens Europe beyond the danger of armies. Wait—and pray. For prayer is an astral force and its effects, being in the higher astral, are far-reaching.

Wait—and pray.

March 15

Letter 6

The Archduke

Have you ever thought of the posthumous feelings of him whose murder precipitated this war? No, you have not; but I have, and I sought for him and found him. Others were seeking him too, the souls of the dead and the astral souls of those who slept on earth. Truly his was not a peaceful passing, either in flesh or in spirit The dread of assassination which had long hung over him like a dark cloud predisposed him to a dark and stormy period after death, even if he had not been shocked out by the murderous assault. This was another illustration of that law by which the thing we fear attacks us sooner or later. At first he passed into darkness and a period of somnolence, like a vague nightmare; then as he gradually awoke to a more vivid consciousness he awoke with pain and anxiety and wailing of soul. The dreaded thing had come at last, and he knew that he was outside his body and searched for it.

The customary funeral was even more dismal for him than it is for most souls, because the slight opening of vision which his passing had given made him realize that far more than his personal death was bound up with this change. He was not attacked by the evil things which had brought about his death. What more could they want with him? He had served their purposes. Had there been anyone else round whose murder so much obscurity and so complex a series of misunderstandings and suspicions could have gathered, probably that other man would have suffered in his stead. But whose murder could have served that purpose so well as this man’s? Whose relations placed him in such a focus of rays? His relations with the German Emperor, the relations of his family with those for whom he had no sympathy, the relations of the present heir with Russia—all these and many other sources of error and doubt and confusion formed an ideal center of tumult.

And the soul felt this tumult in addition to his anger and disappointment at being driven from the world. His anxiety for his children was not small, for they stood in a peculiar position regarding the families around them. Imagine the thought of every man, woman and child capable of following an event like that, centered on one soul, in anger, love, grief, curiosity, doubt, uncertainty—every mind in almost every country of the world! It was enough to shatter his astral body altogether. Generally when a ruler dies he is followed by loving thoughts, or thoughts of dislike, but not by confusing thoughts. His race is run. The King is dead, long live the King! For some time this heir to a great throne was even driven away from the companion whom he loved. He had nothing to lean on. He was drawn upon and victimized by thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, from all directions and in all stages of intensity.

Even the prayers offered for the repose of his soul in purgatory had not the effect which such prayers of love generally have. They were only a drop in the river of thoughts which rushed in his direction. Yes, I say in his direction; for he remained a long time in that storm-center of thoughts. Even the band of helpers, of whom I told you when I wrote for the world before, were not able to assist him very much; for they too were attacked by the beings of evil who made war in the astral regions. As a rule the death of one man makes little difference to the world. Those who love him grieve, and those who dislike him or who profit by his death are glad. This man went out with the flaming torch of war in his vapory hand. After a time he sought and found his friend, the ruler of Germany; but that ruler could not see him, though he sensed a presence in the room. He was half afraid. What was the presence he wondered? Was it his own genius? Did it come to remind him that the hour of his “great destiny” was at hand? The hesitation of his weakness was rather shameful to see; but the determination of his strength, of his evil self, set its heel upon the weakness and the preparations for war went on.

The soul of the Archduke was too confused to play a part in those counsels. He had been a strong man, and will be strong again; but during the time he might have exercised an invisible influence, he exercised none; he strove to make himself visible, and in one instance at least succeeded. Yes, I spoke with him and advised him; but I had other things to do just then and left him with a priest of his own church, a gentle and strong soul who stood like a rock in the tumult. I only mention my seeing the Archduke because of one who will some day read these lines. I cannot offer much comfort, but she will be glad to know of the strong and quiet priest, and I shall have kept a promise which I made but have so far been unable to keep in any way save this.

March 17

Letter 7 

The “Chosen People”

The nations began to declare war on one another. I stood with twenty others for hours in the Palace at Potsdam, trying by the silent pressure of will to reduce the pressure of the war-will which surged in the German nation toward its Emperor. And they say that Germany did not want war! “
Der Tag
” seemed near, and war seemed to mean triumph. It is a commonplace to say now that Germany believed that England could not go to war. And had England not gone to war, the issue would have been settled before the date of this writing. The German navy would have met the French in battle and would have worsted it. It would be well for you to cease shrinking when I say what does not please you. I state what I know; you merely write down what I say.

I and twenty others centered the force of our will in Potsdam and in the Wilhelmstrasse. Not that we did not know what the issue would be. We knew. This war was written in the stars. But as the soldier does his duty though he knows that he will lose the day, so we stood our ground against the war devils. The greatest of the Masters did not stand there with us, and I do not know where he was. Probably on some business that we might not have understood. Perhaps holding back worse forces from the outer stars. No, that is not a dream, though it is only a supposition. There is evil as well as good in the outer stars. Had it not been for the restraining influence of those who watched up here, many of the foreigners in Germany at that time would have been torn limb from limb. What do you know of war-madness, hate-madness? Were you capable of feeling it in your present personality, you could not write for me now, while those whom you love and respect are nearly all on one side of a war not yet finished. You may grasp hate intellectually, you may dramatize it; but you do not feel it, though you have suffered from its effects.