31822019413558
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 CALIFORNIA 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 IEQ.9, 
 
 Central University Library 
 
 University of California, San Diego 
 Please Note: This item is subject to recall. 
 
 Date Due 
 
 JAN 1 7 1995 
 
 
 JAN 7 1935 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cl 39 (7/93) 
 
 UCSD Lib.
 
 LAST LETTERS 
 FROM THE LIVING DEAD MAN
 
 BY ELSA BARKER 
 
 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 
 
 WAR LETTERS FROM THE LIVING DEAD 
 
 MAN 
 
 SONGS OF A VAGROM ANGEL 
 
 LAST LETTERS FROM THE LIVING DEAD 
 
 MAN 
 
 THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 
 THE FROZEN GRAIL 
 THE BOOK OF LOVE 
 
 STORIES FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 FOR CHILDREN
 
 LAST LETTERS 
 
 FEOM THE 
 
 LIVING DEAD MAN 
 
 WRITTEN DOWN 
 BY 
 
 ELSA BARKER 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
 1919
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY 
 MITCHELL KENNKRLET 
 
 PRINTED IN AMERICA BT 
 J. J. LITTLE ft IVES COMPANY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 LETTER 
 
 I THE GENIUS OF AMERICA 49 
 
 II FEAR NOT 54 
 
 in THE PROMISE OF SPRING 61 
 
 IV THE DIET OF GOLD 67 
 
 V CONTINGENT FEES 71 
 
 VI THE THREE APPEALS 74 
 
 VII THE BUILDERS 76 
 
 VIII THE WORLD OF MIND 88 
 
 ix AMERICA'S GOOD FRIDAY 95 
 
 X THE CRUCIBLE 97 
 
 XI MAKE CLEAN YOUR HOUSE 103 
 
 XII LEVEL HEADS 109 
 
 XIII TREES AND BRICK WALLS 112 
 
 XIV INVISIBLE ARMIES 114 
 XV THE WEAKEST LINK 118 
 
 XVI A COUNCIL IN THE FOREST 123 
 
 XVII THE IDEAL OF SUCCESS 140 
 
 XVIII ORDER AND PROGRESS 147
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 XIX THE FEDERATION OF NATIONS 155 
 
 XX THE NEW IDEAL 159 
 
 XXI A RAMBLING TALK 166 
 
 XXII THE LEVER OF WORLD UNITY 171 
 
 XXIII THE STARS OF MAN'S DESTINY 179 
 
 XXIV MELANCHOLY 182 
 XXV COMPENSATORY PLAY 190 
 
 XXVI THE AQUARIAN AGE 198 
 
 XXVII THE WATCHERS 209 
 
 XXVIII A RITUAL OF FELLOWSHIP 216 
 
 XXIX RECRUITING AGENTS 218 
 
 XXX THE VIRUS OF DISRUPTION 227 
 
 XXXI THE ALTAR FIRE 235
 
 LAST LETTERS FROM THE 
 LIVING DEAD MAN 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 fT^HIS book, the third and last of the 
 j|_ Living Dead Man series, was writ- 
 ten between February, 1917, and Febru- 
 ary, 1918. Then I lost the ability or per- 
 haps I should say the inclination to do 
 automatic writing. 
 
 As this third manuscript was shorter 
 than the other two, I had supposed it to be 
 a fragment which would probably never 
 be finished; and it was not until my pub- 
 lisher urged me to issue it as a fragment 
 that I read it all over for the first time 
 and discovered that it was really a com- 
 plete thing, an organic whole.
 
 8 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 "Perhaps," I told myself, surprised 
 and still half-incredulous, "there is a di- 
 vinity that shapes our ends." For had 
 this book been published when it was writ- 
 ten, it would have seemed premature ; now 
 the greater part of it is timely as yester- 
 day's editorials. 
 
 For the benefit of those who have not 
 read the earlier books of the series, "Let- 
 ters From a Living Dead Man," 1914, 
 and "War Letters From the Living Dead 
 Man," 1915, I will quote from the Intro- 
 ductions of those books. In the first In- 
 troduction I said : 
 
 "One night last year in Paris I was 
 strongly impelled to take up a pencil and 
 write, though what I was to write about 
 I had no idea. Yielding to the impulse, 
 my hand was seized as if from the out- 
 side, and a remarkable message of a per- 
 sonal nature came, followed by the signa- 
 ture 'X.'
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 9 
 
 "The purport of the message was clear, 
 but the signature puzzled me. 
 
 "The following day I showed this writ- 
 ing to a friend, asking her if she had any 
 idea who 'X' was. 
 
 ; 'Why,' she replied, 'don't you know 
 that that is what we always call Mr. ?' 
 
 "I did not know. 
 
 "Now, Mr. was six thousand miles 
 
 from Paris, and, as we supposed, in the 
 land of the living. But a day or two later 
 a letter came to me from America, stating 
 
 that Mr. had died in the western part 
 
 of the United States, a few days before 
 I received in Paris the automatic message 
 signed 'X.' 
 
 "So far as I know, I was the first per- 
 son in Europe to be informed of his death, 
 and I immediately called on my friend to 
 tell her that 'X' had passed out. She did 
 not seem surprised, and told me that she 
 had felt certain of it some days before, 
 when I had shown her the 'X' letter, 
 though she had not said so at the time. 
 
 "Naturally I was impressed by this ex- 
 traordinary incident. . . . 
 
 "But to the whole subject of communi- 
 cation between the two worlds I felt an
 
 10 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 unusual degree of indifference. Spirit- 
 ualism had always left me quite cold, and 
 I had not even read the ordinary standard 
 works on the subject. . . . 
 
 "Several letters signed 'X' were auto- 
 matically written during the next few 
 weeks; but, instead of becoming enthusi- 
 astic, I developed a strong disinclination 
 for this manner of writing, and was only 
 persuaded to continue it through the argu- 
 ments of my friend that if 'X' really 
 wished to communicate with the world, I 
 was highly privileged in being able fto 
 help him. . . . 
 
 "Gradually, as I conquered my strong 
 prejudice against automatic writing, I be- 
 came interested in the things which 'X' 
 told me about the life beyond the 
 grave. . . . 
 
 "When it was first suggested that these 
 letters should be published with an in- 
 troduction by me, I did not take very en- 
 thusiastically to the idea. Being the au- 
 thor of several books, more or less well 
 known, I had my little vanity as to the 
 stability of my literary reputation. I did 
 not wish to be known as an eccentric, a 
 'freak.' But I consented to write an in-
 
 THE LIFINa DEAD M'AN 11 
 
 troduction stating that the letters were 
 automatically written in my presence, 
 which would have been the truth, though 
 not all the truth. This satisfied my 
 friend; but as time went on, it did not 
 satisfy me. It seemed not quite sin- 
 cere. 
 
 "I argued the matter out with myself. 
 . . . The letters were probably two-thirds 
 written before this question was finally 
 settled; and I decided that if I published 
 the letters at all, I should publish them 
 with a frank introduction, stating the ex- 
 act circumstances of their reception by 
 me." 
 
 The interest aroused by "Letters From 
 a Living Dead Man," which had been 
 published simultaneously in London and 
 New York, astonished me. Requests for 
 translation rights began to come in, and 
 I was flooded with letters from all parts 
 of the world. I answered as many as I 
 could, but to answer all was quite impos- 
 sible.
 
 12 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 Now I will quote again, briefly, from 
 the Introduction to the second volume, 
 "War Letters From the Living Dead 
 Man," 1915. 
 
 "In that first book of 'X' I did not state 
 who the writer was, not feeling at liberty 
 to do so without the consent of his fam- 
 ily; but in the summer of 1914, while I 
 was still living in Europe, a long inter- 
 view with Mr. Bruce Hatch appeared in 
 the 'New York Sunday World,' in which 
 he expressed the conviction that the 'Let- 
 ters' were genuine communications from 
 his father, the late Judge David P. Hatch, 
 of Los Angeles, California. . . . 
 
 "After the Letters were finished in 
 1913, during a period of about two years 
 I was conscious of the presence of 'X' 
 only on two or three occasions, when he 
 wrote some brief advice in regard to my 
 personal affairs. 
 
 "On the fourth of February, 1915, in 
 New York, I was suddenly made aware 
 one day that 'X' stood in the room and 
 wished to write; but as always before, 
 with one or two exceptions, I had not the
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 13 
 
 remotest idea of what he was going to 
 say. He wrote as follows: 
 
 " 'When I come back and tell you the 
 story of this war, as seen from the other 
 side, you will know more than all the 
 Chancelleries of the nations.' * 
 
 Then I went on to describe the process 
 of my automatic writing, adding: 
 
 "No person who had had even a minute 
 fraction of my occult experience could 
 be more coldly critical of that experience 
 than I am. I freely welcome every logi- 
 cal argument against the belief that these 
 letters are what they purport to be; but 
 placing those arguments in opposition to 
 the evidence which I have of the genuine- 
 ness of them, the affirmations outweigh 
 the denials, and I accept them. This 
 evidence is too complex and much of it 
 too personal to be even outlined here." 
 
 The second volume, which dealt with 
 the war from the hidden side of things, 
 and predicted the victory of the Allies,
 
 14 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 aroused even more interest than the first 
 one. The flood of letters continued. 
 
 In 1916, at the kind insistence of 
 Joyce Kilmer, I published another and 
 different little book of automatic writ- 
 ings, "Songs of a Vagrom Angel," the 
 angel being the Beautiful Being described 
 by "X" in the Living Dead Man books. 
 The "Songs" were charmingly received by 
 the critics. The whole book, with the ex- 
 ception of three of the songs, had been 
 "written down" in twenty-two hours. 
 
 In the summer of 1916 I went to Cali- 
 fornia, and it was there, in February, 
 1917, that the writing of this third book 
 began. 
 
 But I was growing more and more 
 restive at the swamping of my literary 
 career by automatic writings, and my 
 mountainous correspondence left me less 
 and less time for original work. Finally,
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 15 
 
 in February, 1918, the "inner conflict" 
 culminated in a complete cessation of au- 
 tomatic writing. 
 
 The artist in me had become exasper- 
 ated. If the reader will permit the ex- 
 aggeration of the simile, I felt as a man 
 might feel who was caught between the 
 jaws of a lion that was carrying him 
 away into a trackless jungle. Before 
 March, 1914, 1 had been known as a poet 
 and a novelist; since 1914 my name had 
 become known in more countries than I 
 have counted as a "psychic," a medium of 
 communication between the visible and 
 the invisible worlds. I was not sorry that 
 I had published the books, because so 
 many people had written me that I had 
 saved them from despair and even suicide; 
 but I shrank from the publicity they 
 brought me. I have been nearly devoured 
 by these books and the readers of these
 
 16 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 books. I felt, in February, 1918, that I 
 had a right to say that the incident was 
 closed. 
 
 But that did not mean a cessation 
 of correspondence. Suffering souls to 
 whose letters the limitations of time and 
 uncertain health (for I had not been well 
 since 1915) made it impossible to respond 
 by return of post, would write again re- 
 proaching me with indifference to their 
 sufferings. The situation had become in- 
 conceivable. And if I went out some- 
 where for an hour or two of social "rest," 
 I was surrounded by people who wanted 
 me to talk to them about the "X" books, 
 about their own dead friends, and the 
 possibilities of communication. 
 
 I was torn by pity for those who were 
 suffering, and after years of war nearly 
 everyone was suffering; but I wanted to 
 be at the front with the Red Cross, and
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 17 
 
 my health would not permit me to go. 
 I could help various war committees, but 
 I could not go to my tortured and beloved 
 France to be perhaps an added burden, 
 should I break down altogether. 
 
 The only escape from this conflict was 
 in abstruse studies, studies where pure 
 mind can work. So I seriously took up 
 Analytical Psychology, in which I had 
 been mildly interested since 1915. Some 
 fourteen hours a day for a year I studied, 
 some of the time with a teacher, some of 
 the time alone. I burrowed under the 
 theories of the three great schools, and 
 synthesized them, after my fashion. I 
 had rather an active mind to experiment 
 upon my own. The "resistances," so- 
 called, had been broken down by the 
 teacher. 
 
 One of the things which appealed most 
 to my reason was Jung's insistence upon
 
 18 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 the psychological (and therefore practi- 
 cal) value of the irrational. He says: 
 
 "There is no human foresight nor 
 philosophy which can enable us to give 
 our lives a prescribed direction, except for 
 quite a short distance. Destiny lies be- 
 fore us, perplexing us, and teeming with 
 possibilities, and yet only one of these 
 many possibilities is our own particular 
 right way. . . . Much can certainly be at- 
 tained by will-power. But . . . our will 
 is a function that is directed by our pow- 
 ers of reflection. . . . Has it ever been 
 proved, or can it ever be proved, that life 
 and destiny harmonize with our human 
 reason, that is, that they are exclusively 
 rational? On the contrary, we have 
 ground for supposing that they are also 
 irrational, that is to say, that in the last 
 resort they too are based in regions be- 
 yond the human reason. The irrational- 
 ity of the great process is shown by its 
 so-called accidentalness. . . . The rich 
 store of life both is, and is not, determined 
 by law ; it is at the same time rational and 
 irrational. Therefore, the reason and the
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 19 
 
 will founded upon it are only valid for a 
 short distance. The further we extend 
 this rationally chosen direction, the surer 
 we may be that we are thereby excluding 
 the irrational possibilities of life, which 
 have, however, just as good a right to be 
 lived. Aye, we may injure ourselves, 
 since we cut off the wealth of accidental 
 eventualities by a too rigid and conscious 
 direction. . . . The present fearful ca- 
 tastrophic world-war has tremendously 
 upset the most optimistic upholder of 
 rationalism and culture." 
 
 Now my rationally chosen "line of life" 
 had been that of writing books of poetry, 
 fiction and essays. But "accidentalness" 
 cut in, and I wrote automatically and pub- 
 lished what I had written. That destiny, 
 that second line of life, may also have 
 been, for all we can prove to the contrary, 
 based "in regions beyond the human rea- 
 son." 
 
 I should not like to say that my having 
 led the way, in the spring of 1914, for
 
 20 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 writers of dignified reputation to publish 
 their automatic writings might have been 
 causally directed by the coming great need 
 of the world for spiritual consolation dur- 
 ing the most awful holocaust in history. 
 That would be pressing irrationality too 
 far. 
 
 But that second line of life, as Jung 
 would call it, came to its inevitable end 
 with the last of this manuscript in Febru- 
 ary, 1918. The cause of that was also 
 seemingly accidental. But as this Intro- 
 duction is only an introduction, it is im- 
 possible to follow the course of all the 
 drops of water in the broad river that has 
 flowed under my mental bridges during 
 the last fourteen months. 
 
 My present line of life (and through the 
 analysis of my dreams I have means of 
 knowing what it is) points to the resump- 
 tion of my original literary work, poetry,
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 21 
 
 fiction and essays, and to the exclusion, 
 so far as possible, of everything that would 
 deflect me from that course. "Acciden- 
 tally" will cut in from time to time, 
 change of place and therefore change of 
 outlook, studies of all sorts, and legiti- 
 mate demands by that society of which I 
 form a part ; but I have done enough auto- 
 matic writing. Others will do it, if it 
 must be done ; and probably it must be- 
 cause it is an outlet which it might be 
 unsafe to stop up in the present state of 
 the race consciousness. 
 
 Of course if I should feel strongly im- 
 pelled to do automatic writing, I should 
 do it, trusting to that destiny which is an- 
 other name for causes beyond our compre- 
 hension; but it was the strength of my 
 "inner protest" that made me realize that 
 I had gone far enough along that line. 
 
 As in the forewords to the former
 
 22 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 books, I state the psychological situation 
 of the moment, saying, "so and so hap- 
 pened." The reader, as before, will in- 
 terpret in his own way. This introduction 
 indicates my point of view in the month of 
 April, 1919. Before the month of May, 
 2019, I shall have solved the problem of 
 survival, or demonstrated (without know- 
 ing it) that it is insoluble. 
 
 The more we know about all these 
 things, the less likely we are to assume 
 that we have the sum of all knowledge. 
 We are like children, groping among psy- 
 chological lights and shadows. 
 
 My own belief in immortality seems 
 ineradicable. I did not know that until 
 it was tested out. But we must always 
 remember that our personal belief is not 
 absolute evidence of the truth of what we 
 believe at least until we shall have ex- 
 amined all the psychological roots of the
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 28 
 
 belief, and in the present state of our 
 knowledge that is well-nigh impossible. 
 Our rational belief, if we have formed 
 one for ourselves and have not merely 
 accepted uncritically the beliefs of our 
 predecessors and associates, is merely our 
 individual synthesis. But we must not 
 give an exaggerated value even to our own 
 hard-won synthesis. That also is a mov- 
 ing, an ever-changing, thing. Otherwise 
 we should not grow. When a man be- 
 comes fixed he begins to disintegrate. 
 
 In the first book of this series I stated 
 the fact that I had never been interested 
 in spiritualism. Consciously, I never had. 
 Now, Dr. Alfred Adler, the head of what 
 we may call the Ego School of analysis, 
 says: "Often the negation is the asser- 
 tion of an old interest that has become un- 
 conscious." Yes. . . . My father was 
 deeply interested in spiritualism, and I
 
 24 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 was born in an old house where ghosts 
 were supposed to walk. My mother was 
 afraid of the subject. My father died 
 when I was thirteen. I was always a 
 little afraid of my father. The first time 
 I met Judge Hatch I told him that per- 
 haps he had been my father in a "former 
 incarnation." He smiled, and said, 
 "Maybe." 
 
 No microscopist had ever a greater in- 
 terest in facts than I have. My scientific 
 friends say, "A scientist was lost in you." 
 Other friends say, "You are a great 
 psychic." So there I found myself. In 
 studying with the scientific half the 
 phenomena of the psychic half, I am able 
 to unify them. 
 
 The authority of the Church has been 
 knocked from under us. We are adrift, 
 we thinking humans of the early twenti- 
 eth century, upon a sea of mind, storm-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 25 
 
 tossed by winds of feeling. We were just 
 beginning to believe in universal brother- 
 hood when universal war broke out. 
 Our steersman seemed to have been 
 washed overboard. Everybody wants to 
 take the helm, distrusting his neighbor's 
 judgment. Is it any wonder that be- 
 wildered souls by thousands turned to 
 automatic writing, seeking for guidance, 
 for something authoritative? In child- 
 hood our parents guided us. Later the 
 Church guided us or tried to. Then 
 science guided us a little too far. And 
 in the reaction we turned inward, to 
 find (sometimes) the unconscious more 
 troubled than the conscious. But in the 
 Letters which follow there is no despair, 
 only light and courage and hope. 
 
 There seem to be two main streams in 
 us, the mental and the instinctive. Berg- 
 son says, in his "Creative Evolution,"
 
 26 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 "There are things which intelligence alone 
 is able to seek, but which, by itself, it will 
 never find. These things instinct alone 
 could find; but it will never seek them." 
 It was inevitable that modern psy- 
 chology, with its constructive curiosity, 
 should turn its attention to the religious 
 beliefs of the past and present. There 
 was no other way of understanding what 
 really goes on in the minds of people. 
 Some of these old beliefs proved, on ex- 
 amination, to be scientifically tenable. 
 For instance, the Theosophists (who got 
 the idea from the Hindoos) tell us there 
 are two streams of evolution, the elemental 
 and the human. Dr. C. J. Jung, the head 
 of the Swiss school of Analytical Psy- 
 chology, divides the stream of "energy" 
 into two currents, one going forward and 
 one going backward. And this duality of 
 will Bleuler calls "ambitendency." The
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 27, 
 
 difference is chiefly a difference of phrase- 
 ology and associations. 
 
 "Always the pull of the opposites," I 
 quote from the Letters which follow. The 
 present psychic wave which is sweeping 
 over the world is accompanied by modern 
 analytical psychology. Truth may lie in 
 the synthesis. 
 
 Between the credulity of those who be- 
 lieve everything purporting to come from 
 the other side of the veil, who accept every 
 suggestion from anybody claiming to be 
 "psychic" who half-closes the eyes and 
 says dreamily, "You will do so and so," 
 between this thirst for delusion and the 
 materialists' denial that there is anything 
 but matter and the functions of matter, 
 there is also a middle ground. 
 
 The great pioneer of analytical psy- 
 chology himself said, in a recent little 
 volume on "War and Death," translated
 
 28 LAST LETTERS. FROM 
 
 by Dr. A. A. Brill: "In the unconscious 
 every one of us is convinced of his own 
 immortality." Suppose the unconscious 
 'should be right? 
 
 And, by the way, between the state- 
 ment of Christian Scientists, "All is love," 
 and the statement of the parent school of 
 psychoanalysis, "All is libido," there is 
 striking similarity. 
 
 Jung would say, "All is energy." 
 Judge Hatch wrote, in a little book pub- 
 lished in 1905, "We postulate immortal 
 Units of Force, each having the power 
 to generate a constant but limited amount 
 of energy, and no two alike in quantity. 
 Upon this force generation in the unit, 
 necessitated by law, do we base life. Life 
 results from the inter-dealing and inter- 
 playing of these units among themselves 
 eternally, sometimes potential, again ki- 
 netic, each limited in the amount of force
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 29 
 
 generated, but unlimited in variety of mo- 
 tion, manifestation or specialization." 
 
 Truth may indeed be one, though the 
 roads to it are many. 
 
 Fechner's assertion, that the dead live 
 in us and so influence us, does not require 
 much stretching to fit the hypothesis that 
 the entire past of the human race is con- 
 tained in the deeper levels of the uncon- 
 scious. If we go deep enough in analysis 
 that hypothesis is illustrated by strange 
 phenomena. 
 
 It is unwise, at the present time more 
 than any other, even to try to take away 
 man's belief in immortality. The world 
 is too sad, too near the ragged edge where 
 personal uncertainty drifts into social ir- 
 responsibility. The psychic wave that is 
 sweeping over the world, though it is be- 
 ing carried to excess, as all over-compen- 
 sations are, answers nevertheless to a tre-
 
 mendous need. Credulity is the other end 
 of doubt. 
 
 Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe, in the Intro- 
 duction to his translation of Silberer's 
 "Problems of Mysticism and Its Symbol- 
 ism," says: 
 
 ?< Much of the strange and outre, as well 
 as the commonplace, in human activity 
 conceals energy transformations of in- 
 estimable value in the work of sublimation. 
 The race would go mad without it. It 
 sometimes does even with it, a sign that 
 sublimation is still imperfect and that the 
 race is far from being spiritually well. 
 A comprehension of the principles here 
 involved would further the spread of 
 sympathy for all forms of thinking and 
 tend to further spiritual health in such 
 mutual comprehension of the needs of 
 others and of the forms taken by sublima- 
 tion processes." 
 
 William James defended the Christian 
 Scientists. And Jung himself says, in one
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN. 81 
 
 of his famous letters to Dr. Loy, "Every 
 method is good if it serves its purpose, in- 
 cluding Christian Science, Mental Heal- 
 ing, etc." 
 
 During the last five years man has had 
 such varied reasons for fearing objective 
 things that he has come to fear the sub- 
 jective, perhaps even more than during 
 the Middle Ages. 
 
 Dr. H. W. Prink says, in his masterly 
 book on "Morbid Fears and Compul- 
 sions": "The biological function or pur- 
 pose of fear is protective or preservative. 
 Every one of us alive to-day owes his ex- 
 istence to the fact that his human and pre- 
 human ancestors were afraid." 
 
 Nearly everyone is afraid of something. 
 Sublime Jeanne d'Arc was terribly afraid 
 of the fire. (Perhaps she had been badly 
 burned in infancy, and the unconscious 
 memory twisted and turned in the deeps
 
 32 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 of her pure soul. Perhaps, and perhaps 
 . . . for we shall never know.) 
 
 When we really know what fear is, we 
 shall have solved the mystery of "the one 
 and the many" that disturbed the cerebra- 
 tion of our ancestors. Fear may be a 
 momentary surging up of the ego's con- 
 sciousness of its own helpless littleness 
 before the immensity of the unknown and 
 unknowable non-ego. The reckless cour- 
 age of the soldier may be an over-com- 
 pensation, a triumphant sublimation 
 sometimes followed by reaction, secret or 
 unconcealable, depending on the intensity. 
 
 For, as Silberer says, "The conflicts do 
 not indeed lie in the external world, but 
 in our emotional disposition towards it; if 
 we change this disposition by an inner 
 development, the external world has a dif- 
 ferent value. . . ." 
 
 Man is indeed his own cosmos, the
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 33 
 
 microcosm of the macrocosm, to a degree 
 incomprehensible to one who has not in- 
 telligently studied (and in himself) the 
 phenomena of "projection," and compen- 
 sation including sublimation. 
 
 The great mystics of all ages, through 
 introversion, having discovered this and 
 reduced it to a science, after their fash- 
 ion, great modern scientists like Jung and 
 Silberer have found their systems worthy 
 of profound study. 
 
 Writing of mysticism, Professor Dwel- 
 shauvers of Brussels says : 
 
 "The effects of mystic union are logical 
 and coherent; a second quality of the acts 
 of the order of grace is the positive charac- 
 ter of the contribution, the increase which 
 they bring to the psychic life of those who 
 benefit by them. . . . The idea of God, 
 the divine presence, or any other form of 
 inspiration, is no more strange to the mind 
 of the religious man than is for the savant 
 the sudden conception of a solution long
 
 34 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 sought for, or for the artist the vision of 
 the work which he meditates and of which 
 he pursues the construction with patience 
 and tenacity. . . . Neither the invasion 
 of the soul by God, nor the 'return' of 
 the mystics, has any resemblance to mental 
 disintegration.' ' 
 
 It is not easy to get rid of God. 
 
 Will you read what Jung says on this 
 subject in the "Collected Papers on An- 
 alytical Psychology," edited by Dr. Con- 
 stance E. Long: 
 
 "The concept of God is simply a neces- 
 sary psychological function. . . . The 
 concensus gentium has spoken of gods for 
 aeons past, and will be speaking of them 
 in aeons to come. Beautiful and perfect 
 as man may think his reason, he may 
 nevertheless assure himself that it is only 
 one of the possible mental functions, coin- 
 ciding merely with the corresponding side 
 of the phenomena of the universe. All 
 around is the irrational, that which is not 
 congruous with reason. And this irra- 
 tionalism is likewise a psychological func-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 33 
 
 tion, namely the absolute unconscious; 
 whilst the function of consciousness is es- 
 sentially rational. . . . Heraclitus, the 
 ancient, that really very wise man, dis- 
 covered the most wonderful of all psycho- 
 logical laws, namely, the regulating func- 
 tion of antithesis. He termed this 'enan- 
 tiodromia' (clashing together) by which 
 he meant that at some time everything 
 meets with its opposite. . . . Man may 
 not identify himself with reason, for he is 
 not wholly a rational being, and never can 
 or ever will become one. That is a fact of 
 which every pedant of civilization should 
 talse note. What is irrational cannot and 
 may not be stamped out. The gods can- 
 not and may not die. Woe betide those 
 men who have disinfected heaven with ra- 
 tionalism; God-Almightiness has entered 
 into them, because they would not admit 
 God as an absolute function. . . . Only 
 he escapes from the cruel law of enantio- 
 dromia who knows how to separate him- 
 self from the unconscious not by repress- 
 ing it, for then it seizes him from behind 
 but by presenting it visibly to himself 
 as something that is totally different from 
 him. . . . He must learn to differentiate
 
 36 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 in his thoughts Between what is the ego 
 and what is the non-ego. The latter is 
 the collective psyche or absolute uncon- 
 scious. ... In order to differentiate the 
 psychological ego from the psychological 
 non-ego, man must necessarily stand upon 
 firm feet in his ego-function. . . . 
 
 "Obviously the depreciation and repres- 
 sion of such a powerful function as that of 
 religion has serious consequences for the 
 psychology of the individual. . . . One 
 period of skepticism came to a close with 
 the horrors of the French revolution. At 
 the present time we are again experienc- 
 ing an ebullition of the unconscious de- 
 structive powers of the collective psyche. 
 The result is an unparalleled general 
 slaughter. That is just what the uncon- 
 scious was tending towards. This tend- 
 ency had previously been inordinately 
 strengthened by the rationalism of modern 
 life, which by depreciating everything ir- 
 rational caused the function of irrational- 
 ism to sink into the unconscious. . . ." 
 
 "There is indeed no possible alterna- 
 tive but to acknowledge irrationalism as a 
 psychological function that is necessary 
 and always existent. Its results are not
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 87 
 
 to be taken as concrete realities '(that 
 would involve repression), but as psycho- 
 logical realities. They are realities be- 
 cause they are effective things, that is, they 
 are actualities", 
 
 So we need not be ashamed to admit 
 that we pray! In this grim period of his- 
 tory, when the soul is face to face witfi 
 itself and its brother as it has never been, 
 we may speak with a greater simplicity 
 than in the old conventionally-smiling 
 days before the war. I pray and so do 
 you, whoever you are, if only by groaning 
 "Oh, God!" when you suffer. Prayer is 
 an instinct. Even an atheist will pray, if 
 he finds himself beyond human aid. A 
 friend of mine who was killed at the front 
 used to take holy communion every morn- 
 ing, and he was doubtless a saner and 
 better soldier for it. One need not be a 
 Roman Catholic to see the beauty of that 
 act of faith.
 
 38 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 Whether God be a "dominant of the 
 superpersonal unconscious," a psycho- 
 logical function, or a mathematical equa- 
 tion, makes not the slightest difference to 
 me. As William James would say, "He 
 works." 
 
 And whether the souls of our dead live 
 in us, as Fechner says, or whether they 
 are relics in the personal and collective 
 unconscious, or whether they are "concrete 
 realities" that can materialize by using 
 astral and etheric substance, makes also 
 not the slightest difference to me. If you 
 could know how utterly I am at peace 
 about this whole question! 
 
 And many other differences appear, on 
 close examination, to be mainly differ- 
 ences of viewpoint and phraseology. The 
 "astral world" of the Theosophists, medi- 
 aeval and modern, corresponds to a certain 
 level of the unconscious. "X" says in one
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 39 
 
 of the Letters which follow, written in 
 1917, that melancholy may be produced by 
 the pressure of the unhappy dead who 
 make us fear. If you locate the dead 
 in the unconscious, which surges up in 
 moments of passivity, the dead will have 
 the same effect. 
 
 Having given much of the leisure time 
 of a laborious life to a study of the theories 
 and practices of mysticism and occultism, 
 as formulated by many different schools, 
 I could write volumes (if I had the in- 
 clination, which I have not) in tracing 
 out the psychological roots and the rela- 
 tions between these things. My own un- 
 conscious is rich with such images. Some 
 of the most striking parallels have not 
 been written about, so far as I know. 
 
 And Jung seems to have covered, with 
 the wide mantle of his comprehension,
 
 40 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 even the frailties of those who believe in 
 prophetic dreams. He says: 
 
 "The unconscious possesses possibilities 
 of wisdom that are completely closed to 
 consciousness, for the unconscious has at 
 its disposal not only all the psychic con- 
 tents that are under the threshold because 
 they have been forgotten or overlooked, 
 but also the wisdom of the experience of 
 untold ages, deposited in the course of 
 time and lying potential in the human 
 brain. The unconscious is continually ac- 
 tive, creating combinations of its ma- 
 terials; these serve to indicate the future 
 path of the individual. It creates pros- 
 pective combinations just as our conscious- 
 ness does, only they are considerably su- 
 perior to the conscious combinations both 
 in refinement and extent. The unconscious 
 may therefore be an unparalleled guide 
 for human beings. . . . 
 
 "The unconscious must contain all the 
 material that has not yet reached the level 
 of consciousness. These are the germs of 
 future conscious contents,"
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 41 
 
 He seems to think that true prophecies 
 are merely the result of synthesis by the 
 unconscious of tendencies (whether in the 
 personal or universal unconscious) sig- 
 nificant for future occurrences. Refer- 
 ring to Maeterlinck's "inconscient super- 
 ieur," he says of the prophetic interpreta- 
 tion of dreams : 
 
 "The aversion of the exact sciences 
 against this sort of thought-process which 
 is hardly to be called phantastic is only 
 an overcompensation of the thousands of 
 years old but all too great inclination of 
 man to believe in soothsaying." 
 
 I am told that the hearing of voices in 
 the hypnogogic state indicates "a slight 
 tendency to dissociation." Very well. 
 Probably the voices come from a deeper 
 level than automatic writing, whatever the 
 inspiration of automatic writing may be. 
 
 Now while the things which "X" in the
 
 42 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 following letters advised America to do, 
 before America came into the war, were 
 the very things which we did after we 
 came into the war and which we could 
 not have done except as war measures, 
 our entrance was not written down as a 
 specific prophecy in these letters. Any 
 startling prophecy has always had a tend- 
 ency to shake me out of the passive state 
 in which automatic writing is possible. 
 But during the weeks from February to 
 April, 1917, in the hypnogogic state pre- 
 ceding sleep, I several times heard, "We 
 are coming into the war." Of course I 
 did not write that down in the manuscript, 
 as it was not a part of the manuscript. 
 What is heard is heard, what is written 
 is written. I merely mention it as a curi- 
 ous phenomenon for it was probably the 
 synthesis of the deeper levels of my un- 
 conscious. It was certainly the tragic
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 43 
 
 hope of my conscious mind; but the con- 
 scious alone would not have produced a 
 voice. 
 
 If anybody wonders that I should ad- 
 mit hearing hypnogogic voices, I can only 
 say that I regard these things rather ob- 
 jectively and impersonally. I never hear 
 voices except when half -asleep. If my 
 very accurate memory has not slipped a 
 cog, William James used to talk freely of 
 his hypnogogic experiences. The more we 
 know about our little personalities, the less 
 monstrously important they seem. And 
 the "hearing of voices" has more than once 
 played a respectable role in history, before 
 and after Moses. 
 
 But I do not imagine that I have any 
 prophetic mission, nor do I feel in any 
 hurry to "unite myself with the ocean of 
 divinity," nor feel any impulse violently 
 to turn my back upon the universal. There
 
 44 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 is a happy mean, which makes for effi- 
 ciency in life, for health and understand- 
 ing. 
 
 I have touched upon analytical psychol- 
 ogy in this Introduction because I am so 
 constituted that I cannot publish this last 
 volume of my automatic writings without 
 indicating my point of view, with the same 
 frankness as in former Introductions. 
 Please do not blame science because I 
 have not lost through the analytic process 
 my instinctive belief in individual immor- 
 tality. I assure you it has not been the 
 fault of science. 
 
 If anyone objects that I have only 
 touched the threads of this great web of 
 psychology which lead towards the sub- 
 ject of this book, I can only say that this 
 foreword being by way of preface to this 
 book, no other course was possible on ac-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 45 
 
 count of the limitations of space and ar- 
 tistic relevancy. 
 
 Psychology as a method of healing I 
 leave to the physicians, who have written 
 many books about it, containing bibliog- 
 raphies. And booksellers have cata- 
 logues. Anyone interested can write to 
 them. 
 
 This is by way of excusing myself from 
 answering letters of enquiry. I have un- 
 selfishly and laboriously written so many 
 hundreds of letters ! Now I want to write 
 other things. The resolution of psycho- 
 logical "complexes" frees energy for sub- 
 limation in work. It frees ideas for use in 
 art. 
 
 Dr. Beatrice M. Hinkle, in the intro- 
 duction to her translation of Jung's "Psy- 
 chology of the Unconscious," says that 
 "this psychology which is pervading all 
 realms of thought . . . seems destined to
 
 46 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 be a psychological-philosophical system 
 for the understanding and practical ad- 
 vancement of human life." 
 
 So, having found a well whose waters 
 were refreshing, I note the fact and pass 
 on. 
 
 The train of thought which the reader 
 has followed in this Introduction is the 
 train of thought which led me after some 
 delay to the publication of the book. 
 
 I am glad that these "Last Letters 
 from the Living Dead Man" are a call to 
 courage, to restraint, to faith in the great 
 and orderly future of America and the 
 world, a call to all those positive qualities 
 so gravely needed in these days of the re- 
 building of Peace. 
 
 For I do not believe that Bolshevism, or 
 any other form of lunacy, will find foot- 
 hold in the United States. A nation with 
 universal suffrage, for man and woman,
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 47 
 
 certainly has no incentive for a resort to 
 insane destruction. In the last State 
 campaign it was interesting to watch the 
 reactions of women to the privileges and 
 duties of suffrage. I watched it only in 
 one party, the Democratic, but it was 
 doubtless everywhere the same. There 
 was an added dignity, a sense of new re- 
 sponsibility, and always courtesy and real 
 fellowship among the women and the men. 
 Its happening to correspond in time with 
 the Fourth Liberty Loan campaign, and 
 the printing of casualty lists, made it all 
 the more significant. No, these level- 
 headed, socially-responsible women will 
 never be swept away by collective insan- 
 ity; and as the men who return from the 
 front will return to these women, their 
 mothers, wives and sisters, I do not think 
 that we shall lose in peace what we have 
 gained in war.
 
 48 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 And now remembering always that 
 this book was written between February, 
 1917, and February, 1918 you may read 
 the "Last Letters from the Living Dead 
 Man." 
 
 ELSA BARKER 
 
 New York, Easter Day, 1919.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 49 
 
 LETTER I 
 
 THE GENIUS OF AMERICA! 
 
 February S, 1917. 
 
 I WANT to write of America, land of 
 my latest birth, land of the future. 
 
 Great is the road that the Genius of 
 America may travel, and her feet have al- 
 ready passed the early stages of it. 
 
 The Genius of America! 
 
 Each land is watched over and its chil- 
 dren guided guided and moved By a 
 Genius. 
 
 Would you feel the Genius of America, 
 go alone into the woods at night, watch 
 and listen and invoke. Perhaps the an- 
 swer may come, its recognition of you, 
 your recognition of it.
 
 50 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 If you are one of those who can hear the 
 words which the Great Ones speak in the 
 silence, perhaps you will hear something 
 with the ears of your soul. If so, do not 
 hasten to divulge the message, but treas- 
 ure it in your heart; for that which is 
 treasured in the heart can sometimes be 
 felt and understood by the hearts of 
 others. 
 
 If you are one of those who will serve 
 willingly, the secret of your heart may be 
 shared in silence with those who can hear 
 in the silence. 
 
 The hour approaches w r hen the mission 
 of this land may be manifested. The hour 
 approaches when the Genius of this land 
 shall force its will upon this land. That 
 will not be an easy task. So many wills 
 have sought to wrest the reins from the 
 guiding hand ; so many eyes, looking in so 
 many directions, have seen so many goals.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 51 
 
 But there is one will so strong that it can, 
 when its hour is come, gather up the wills 
 of men as a strong wind gathers a mass of 
 loosely-lying straws and sweeps them 
 along. 
 
 You know not the power of a will that 
 has God behind it. You know not the 
 power of a purpose that has God behind 
 it and the future before it. Those who get 
 in the way of the Genius of this land will 
 be broken, like straws that would resist the 
 wind. 
 
 I have watched from my unseen place 
 the labors of many. I have helped un- 
 seen with my faith to strengthen the hearts 
 of many. I shall wait now unseen till the 
 act of destiny is accomplished. 
 
 You who have followed me from my 
 first gropings in the twilight of the new 
 life, before the clearness came; you who 
 have followed me on my journeys
 
 52 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 among the battlefields, both in and above 
 the world, follow me yet a little further, 
 with your minds ajar for the entrance of 
 the truth I have to tell you, the advice I 
 have to give you. For my advice is disin- 
 terested as the rain, and my truth is of- 
 fered as freely as the light. 
 
 I have come a long way since I laid 
 down my body a few brief years ago, years 
 of a crowded brevity, in which the world 
 has moved as fast as I, and sometimes 
 with more pain. For he who knows the 
 purpose of his pain can bear it better than 
 the child who knows only that he suffers. 
 
 I should Kavespoken to you before, but 
 you would not let me. Child I Would you 
 stand in the way with your personal 
 wishes, and your shrinkings that are also 
 wishes of a negative kind? 
 
 Blocked by your will to avoid this labor, 
 I sought another entrance; but it was too
 
 much encumbered by prejudices and pre- 
 conceived ideas, and all the litter of men- 
 tal fragments that had accumulated 
 through years of residence in a creed- 
 bound place. You who have dwelt but 
 briefly in many tents have no obstructions 
 at your door, save such as are placed by 
 your will, and those I now sweep away. 
 
 I shall pass in and out, and speak to you 
 as I choose.
 
 54 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 LETTER II 
 
 FEAB NOT 
 
 February 8, 1917. 
 
 DID I not tell you many months ago 
 that the soul of Abraham Lincoln 
 kept watch above this land that he died to 
 save from disruption, and that he would 
 keep vigil until America should have 
 passed through her next great trial ? You 
 questioned then what that trial would be. 
 Do you question now? And yet you do 
 not know. 
 
 Slowly the months have gone by, re- 
 ceding into the past. When, in the spring 
 of 1915, you saw in vision the German 
 Emperor in spiked helmet standing op- 
 posite to 'Uncle Sam in his shirt-sleeves,
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 55 
 
 did you not suppose that it would come to 
 this ? You are wise to keep such visions to 
 yourself. 
 
 Do not fancy that this war will end 
 without greater changes than the world 
 has ever known before. When I told you 
 nearly two years ago that the battle be- 
 tween the powers of good and evil had 
 been won in the invisible regions, I knew 
 because my Teacher told me so ; but do not 
 believe that the new age can dawn with- 
 out greater trouble and greater changes 
 than you can now imagine. Birth is 
 change and birth is painful, and birth is 
 bloody and exhausting. The pains that 
 have gone before are only the pains of 
 labor. 
 
 The stars in their courses fight for the 
 new race. 
 
 I have written of the bloody fields of 
 Europe. Now I would write of America
 
 56 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 and her future, her near and her far fu- 
 ture; for the sun is approaching the East- 
 ern horizon and the dawn clouds are al- 
 ready tinged with the coming day. 
 
 America, do not despair ! Your destiny 
 is assured. In the storms to come, think 
 of the freshness after the storm, when the 
 ground shall smell sweet and birds shall 
 sing. For birds will sing to the children 
 of the new age. 
 
 In the midst of changes there will come 
 a lull. The world will say, "It is over, 
 the old things will return, and all will be 
 as before." But nothing will ever be ex- 
 actly as it was before. In the lull you 
 shall draw breath, and make ready for 
 other changes. Yes, many things will be 
 changed, even the hearts of men. 
 
 The world has known terror. Without 
 experience of terror, without the poise that 
 comes from the facing of terror un-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 57 
 
 daunted, the world could not face the fu- 
 ture without failure. Is there anything 
 now, after thirty months of war, that could 
 surprise the world? Is there anything 
 that the world could not face ? 
 
 Oh, remember that you are immortal, 
 and that you who go out of life will come 
 back again, strengthened by the rest in 
 the invisible! For a change of place is a 
 rest of consciousness. To those whose 
 nerves are weary, wise doctors prescribe a 
 change. A rest in the invisible worlds is 
 more refreshing than a summer in the 
 mountains. Do not fear death. I passed 
 through death, and I am more rested now 
 than a strong man in the morning. I would 
 not go back to my old body. When I want 
 a body again I shall build a new one. I 
 know the process of building, having built 
 so many before. 
 
 Be joyous with me. A wise man once
 
 58 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 said that only the unendurable is tragic. 
 The world, and the souls of the world, 
 can endure the change that is coming. 
 Have not wars prepared them for it? 
 That is why wars had to be. 
 
 America is rich. Her vaults are full of 
 gold, her mines are full of ore, and her 
 fresh soil is full of richness. Shall she 
 fear a future in which labor can procure 
 all things for the body, and faith can pro- 
 cure all things for the soul? The "history 
 of this land is a history of faith. Did not 
 Columbus start across the trackless ocean, 
 led only by the star of his faith? Did not 
 your ancestors follow, led by their faith in 
 the future? The past has gone back to 
 God, it is safe as a dead man ; but the fu- 
 ture is coming to you, and your faith shall 
 make it sure. 
 
 Fear naught. In the early days of this 
 land your forefathers slept in quiet,
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 59 
 
 though the red man lurked in the forest, 
 and hunger lurked in the failure of har- 
 vests, and men and children could only be 
 winter-warm when trees had been felled 
 for fuel. Now you fear famines of coal? 
 The earth is heavy with coal. You fear 
 famines of wheat, when your muscles grow 
 fat for lack of exercise. They who came 
 first to this land had varied reasons for 
 fear, but you have no reasons for fear. 
 Labor is sweet. The child who makes la- 
 bor of play can vouch for the truth of that 
 saying. Can you not then make play of 
 your labor? When I was a child I built 
 houses of blocks. I longed to be building. 
 I dug ditches in the garden. I made boats 
 of chips and sailed them on a puddle. I 
 planted seeds. 
 
 And learning? In the libraries of the 
 world and in the brains of men is stored 
 the learning of the ages. The new age
 
 60 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 will not lack the archives of all ages. 
 Though paper is less enduring than parch- 
 ment, it will last over into the new age. 
 Fear not. 
 
 By hints I convey to your mind that 
 many changes will come. What then? All 
 progress is change. Go out with it to 
 meet the future, with a smile on your face 
 and a song on your lips. The future wears 
 a rose in its buttonhole, as your Vagrom 
 Angel would say.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 61 
 
 LETTER III 
 
 THE PROMISE OF SPRING 
 
 February 17, 1917. 
 
 WHEN you learn to think of life as 
 a whole, of which you are a part 
 containing in yourself the potentialities of 
 the whole, then you will look upon these 
 great changes with joy. The One must 
 sometimes sacrifice itself to Itself, and by 
 elimination secure a new lease of life. The 
 whole call it the race, or the earth-spirit, 
 or what you will may grow too fat and 
 lazy, as a man may grow too large to move 
 about with ease, and then by war among 
 the organs, by fever, fasting or remedies, 
 the equilibrium is restored, and he starts 
 again a new man, ready to face the future.
 
 62 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 Grim, does it seem? But who told you 
 that the purposes of life were always smil- 
 ing? In the deeps of the earth and in the 
 deeps of man are dark substances. 
 
 The cold of winter is a hardship for 
 those who expose themselves to the ele- 
 ments; but winter is the ebb-tide of that 
 changing sea of life whose flood-tide is the 
 summer. Rhythm, always rhythm. 
 
 I would not have you discouraged by 
 the winter of the race, for the spring will 
 come and the roses will bloom again. 
 March winds! They are followed by 
 April showers and Mayflowers. We are 
 now in February. 
 
 When the skies are dark and the snows 
 fall, we gather round the fire and think 
 of the future, when the flowers shall bloom 
 again and green grass shall cover the earth 
 and birds shall sing in the trees. The sun 
 "crosses the line" in March when the winds
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 63 
 
 blow, and enters the sign of the Ram, and 
 the Zodiac is traversed again by the great 
 light-giver the Sun. Do you shiver and 
 grow afraid when the Equinox ap- 
 proaches? 
 
 The soul, too, has its winter of material- 
 ism and its ideal spring. 
 
 I have looked at the world from the out- 
 side, and I see no cause for despair. I 
 have looked at the soul from the inside, 
 and I see great cause for rejoicing. 
 
 You look forward to the end of the war, 
 but the soul must battle to the end of its 
 journey. So long as the soul is cased in 
 matter there will be wars enough, for the 
 greatest struggles are the soul's struggles 
 with itself. I have told you this before. 
 Sometimes it goes out to fight, sometimes 
 it goes in; the sword will not rust in the 
 scabbard. 
 
 Think less of yourself and think more
 
 64 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 of the race. You lose the vision of the 
 whole by regarding too closely the parts, 
 by regarding too closely yourself that is 
 only one of the parts. Think of yourself 
 as the race, and think of the race as your- 
 self; then yourself becomes the race, and 
 the race becomes yourself; "the Universe 
 grows I." 
 
 There was once a God so great that the 
 cells of his body were minor gods. You 
 may become so great that the cells of your 
 body will be glad to sacrifice themselves 
 to your welfare. By renouncing the will 
 to live, you may make yourself immortal. 
 By renouncing the will to joy, you may 
 become joyous. 
 
 Once I desired to be a great man. Now 
 when I only desire that Man shall be 
 great, I have increased in stature myself. 
 
 Once I desired to be loved; but now 
 when I love for love's sake and not for
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 65 
 
 my own sake, I am loved by a multitude. 
 Surely I found my life by losing it, and 
 the words of the Master were justified. 
 
 I look down at the world as I once 
 looked down at my garden. I see that the 
 grass is sprouting and I know that seeds 
 are in the ground. I have planted seeds 
 in the hearts of men that shall germinate 
 and reach up towards the sunshine, for I 
 had faith in the spring. 
 
 For a while I have left Europe to itself, 
 and have come back to the land I love best. 
 I have journeyed from State to State, 
 and have watched the wills of our leg- 
 islators. They too are aware that a Force 
 is at work through them. They feel the 
 responsibility of their place, they feel 
 themselves as moving parts of the great 
 whole whose name is America. The Flag 
 is the symbol of their consecration. 
 
 I have walked in the woods, where the
 
 66 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 spirits of the land fore-gather for counsels 
 which the newspapers do not report. They 
 too are aware of their consecration. They 
 strengthen you with their faith. When I 
 lived as a man in America I did not know 
 America. To know the meaning of home 
 we must wander. 
 
 I am all for unity now. Do not let your- 
 selves be weakened by fear of the parts. 
 America is a whole, and as a whole she 
 must work. To fuse these many races to- 
 gether is the mission of the present hour. 
 Do not lend your hearts to division. 
 
 I see a great leader of men who shall 
 arise in this land. His mission will be the 
 union of races. He will be a teacher and a 
 prophet.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 67 
 
 LETTER IV 
 
 THE DIET OF GOLD 
 
 March 10, 1917. 
 
 THE very influences that now tend 
 to disrupt this country will later 
 draw it together. The many will find 
 their meeting-point in the One. That idea 
 of national unity must be fostered, even to 
 the extent of patient tolerance of racial 
 temperaments. Those who are in the 
 process of being separated from their old 
 race and amalgamated with the new race, 
 feel the strain of the change. It irritates 
 them and their blood protests, even when 
 their wills bid them forge new bonds for 
 themselves. Few "hyphenated Ameri-
 
 cans" would be willing to go bodily back 
 to their old allegiance. 
 
 America is the most interesting of all 
 countries, and we who see it from this side 
 of the airy frontier see it in historical per- 
 spective. The view that is nearest to our 
 point of view is that of your present Chief 
 Executive. His eyes are far-seeing. He 
 anticipates the clearer sight that will one 
 day be his, when he has finished his work. 
 
 Our country is suffering at this mo- 
 ment, in March, of the year of our Lord 
 nineteen hundred and seventeen, from an 
 indigestion of gold. You have swallowed 
 more gold than you can assimilate, and 
 your organs are congested. If to restore 
 the equilibrium, some of this gold should 
 be regurgitated, by war or by other means, 
 do not in the weariness that follows fancy 
 that the nation is going to die. 
 
 Do not be shocked by my figures of
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 69 
 
 speech. I want to get into your conscious- 
 ness an understanding of facts and con- 
 ditions as they exist. 
 
 You cannot feed on gold. "Gold is a; 
 medium of exchange." When it is merely 
 hoarded it has lost its relation to life. A 
 miser nation is a sadder subject for con- 
 templation than a miser man, with his long 
 claws and his gloating eyes. He may 
 think, the miser man, to secure himself 
 from the dangers of the future by amass- 
 ing gold for its own sake. A miser nation 
 may think that by amassing gold for its 
 own sake it can save itself from the finan- 
 cial dangers threatening the world after 
 these years of war. 
 
 But the miser, known as such, is in dan- 
 ger of being robbed and murdered. And 
 the miser nation is in danger of being at- 
 tacked and looted by other nations. 
 
 You Americans want to be generous to
 
 the homeless and foodless people of Eu- 
 rope ; but your generosity has not yet de- 
 prived of one square meal the hundred- 
 million-headed being that is America. 
 
 I do not care so much what you do with 
 your gold. But I care much what you do 
 with your food. You are not alchemists 
 that you can make gold potable. You are 
 humans with delicate stomachs. Even a 
 hen will not lay eggs for you unless she is 
 well fed. If she protests, you can pun- 
 ish her by eating her; but the luckiest 
 break of her wish-bone will not produce 
 for you another hen. Better conserve her 
 labor power by gifts of grain, and have 
 your eggs for breakfast and for hatching. 
 (She has periods of laziness when she wants 
 to sit still ; but put a few of her own eggs 
 under her, and watch for results. Later I 
 shall tell you of other but no less practical 
 ways of ensuring a supply of breakfasts.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 71 
 
 LETTER V 
 
 CONTINGENT FEES 
 
 March 10,1917. 
 
 TO-DAY I heard that a certain rich 
 man (unmindful of the camel and 
 the needle's eye), supposing that the let- 
 ters from this Living Dead Man had been 
 profitable to you, that there was "money 
 in them," was considering the question of 
 whether he should financially back a me- 
 dium who stood ready to declare that she 
 was in communication with me, that I re- 
 pudiated the books written through you, 
 and stood sponsor for certain manu- 
 scripts written "through" her, as my only 
 genuine messenger to the world.
 
 I join in your laughter, at your sup- 
 posed "profitable" investment in the se- 
 curities of the other world, and at the 
 eagerness to get aboard a sea-of-ether- 
 worthy ship exhibited by people who have 
 not paid their fare. 
 
 I may as well tell you now that this 
 country and some others are scattered over 
 with supposed "communications" from 
 me. It would seem that my writing arms 
 are as numerous as the feet of a centipede. 
 It would also seem by the style of some of 
 these supposed communications, by their 
 contents and their contradictions, that I 
 have as many minds as Indra has eyes. 
 
 Even the elementals of the ouija board 
 do not contradict themselves so frequently 
 as these amanuenses make me contradict 
 myself. I think you will have to trade- 
 mark me.
 
 After the serious nature of my recent 
 letters, it relaxes me to jest. 
 
 If you include this letter in the book, 
 please head it "Contingent Fees."
 
 74 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 LETTER VI 
 
 THE THREE APPEALS 
 
 March 11, 1917. 
 
 I STAND outside the world and look 
 inside the hearts of men. I see more 
 than I saw when I was a man among them. 
 Had I then looked as deep into my own 
 heart as I now look into theirs, I should 
 have seen the hearts of my fellow beings 
 reflected in my own, for we differ from 
 one another as one insect differs from an- 
 other. There are diff erences between in- 
 sects. 
 
 I look into your hearts, O men ! and this 
 is what I see: Ideals and hypocrisy, self- 
 interest and altruism, hunger and satiety. 
 
 Shall I, in offering advice, appeal to
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 75 
 
 your ideals, your self-interest, or your 
 hunger? The opposite three would never 
 spur you to action along the lines I would 
 have you spurred.
 
 76 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 LETTER VII 
 
 THE BUILDERS 
 
 March 22, 1917. 
 
 I HAVE promised to offer you advice 
 as to how you may restore your equi- 
 librium. Use much of this superfluity of 
 gold in rebuilding devastated Europe. 
 Give her credits and give her food. You 
 who can work in the fields, raise food to 
 feed Europe. You who can build, give 
 the labor of your hands wherever it is 
 needed. You who are discontented here, 
 go back to that Europe which gave you 
 birth. By so doing you will give your- 
 selves a new point of view, and you will 
 give yourselves a new interest. A new 
 interest is a new lease of life. 
 
 Make sacrifices. In saying that, I have
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 77 
 
 two objects in view, the effect on the world 
 and the effect on yourselves. 
 
 To work for the ideal is sometimes more 
 practical than to work for what is called 
 the real. 
 
 When I tell you to rebuild Europe, you 
 can take it as ideal advice or practical ad- 
 vice, "depending on your point of view. It 
 is ideal because Europe needs rebuilding; 
 it is practical because just now and for a 
 time to come America needs to get her 
 mind on something outside herself. We 
 give that advice to individual when they 
 are too self-centred. There is so much dis- 
 content and so much uncertainty that any- 
 thing which can catch and hold the atten- 
 tion of masses of men, which can make 
 them forget themselves, may enable them 
 to be used by the Genius of the rac, which 
 works for the welfare of the race as a 
 whole.
 
 78 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 Lend your money to Europe, and do 
 not ask usurious interest. Yes, you can 
 take interest, for money has earning pow- 
 er, and the laborer even the laborer Gold 
 is worthy of his hire. But help by 
 your generous lendings at low interest to 
 lessen the awful burden of taxation for 
 the people of Europe, which makes also 
 for discontent and discouragement. 
 
 Go to Europe, many of you, that you 
 may see what war does to a country, what 
 it might do to your country should you 
 selfishly expose yourselves to a desire on 
 the part of outsiders to take from you by 
 force that which you have so skilfully ac- 
 quired. 
 
 Go, that you may see and feel, as you 
 can only see and feel face to face, the 
 spirit of self-sacrifice and national devo- 
 tion which has animated the people of Eu- 
 rope in this long war. They have found
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 79 
 
 their souls, but you have not yet found 
 your soul. 
 
 There are engineers in this country who 
 are less needed here than they will be need- 
 ed in Europe. There are specialists in 
 all the branches of science who are more 
 needed there than here. We have special- 
 ists enough. We can spare a few of them. 
 
 Build ships. Build more ships. Keep 
 the men occupied. Give them an objec- 
 tive. Do not let them brood. An idle 
 brain is the devil's workshop. If you have 
 not work enough, make work. There are 
 things enough to be done. Build ships. 
 
 Now in regard to your management of 
 railroads and other public utilities. The 
 day for government control was heralded 
 when the threat of a strike came that 
 would have, if put into effect, blocked the 
 wheels of the nation. All those public 
 utilities whose blocked wheels could
 
 80 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 threaten the national life and the move- 
 ments of men should be managed by the 
 government. This is not socialism, or any 
 other ism. You who have stoak in them, 
 do not take alarm. A way can be found 
 that will satisfy you. 
 
 Think of the good of the whole, for you 
 who are a part cannot prosper without the 
 welfare of the whole. This is not cant. It 
 is a sort of race biology. I look down and 
 see you as a great being, and I prescribe 
 for you as a being, a race-unity, not as a 
 few individuals here and there. The cells 
 in the body of the race-being must all be 
 working together. Get a unit of con- 
 sciousness, as a race. Yield yourselves to 
 the consciousness of the race-unit. Be as 
 individual as you please, but be individual 
 parts. Get into balance with other indi- 
 viduals, positive and negative. 
 
 Make the rebuilding of Europe an ob-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 81 
 
 jective point. Make it possible for many 
 discontented workers to go to work in Eu- 
 rope. You may say that the armies of 
 Europe, when released from military 
 service, will furnish workers enough; but 
 there cannot be too many. There is a 
 double object in this: the object of getting 
 work done, and that of the psychological 
 effect upon the worker. 
 
 I wish I could get into your minds by 
 infusion the state of consciousness that is 
 mine. I wish I could make you see that 
 separation is death and that unity is life. 
 
 I have spoken of government control of 
 railroads, but that is only the beginning. 
 There should be governmental handling 
 of food. Begin gradually, one thing after 
 another. It is the destiny of the world to 
 go in that direction. You cannot block 
 the wheels of that chariot. 
 
 Serve if you hope to survive would be
 
 82 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 a good motto. You cannot survive if you 
 do not serve all of you. I like that fig- 
 ure of the cell which is a part of the race- 
 being. It is the way I see you. 
 
 Just a word about nervous diseases. 
 Yes, it is related to what I have been say- 
 ing. When at last the let-up comes after 
 the unnatural strain of war, the minds of 
 men in going back, or in attempting to go 
 back to their normal state, may find them- 
 selves unable immediately to adjust to 
 the changed conditions. For a long time 
 the brains of men and women have been 
 stimulated by the coffee of concerted ac- 
 tion ; when they are thrown back on them- 
 selves they may relax too much. 
 
 Or, on the other hand, an unnatural ex- 
 citement may drive them into all kinds of 
 excesses. Have you ever seen victims of 
 mania who could not rest, who had lost the
 
 ability to rest? They walk up and down, 
 and drum with their feet, and clench their 
 hands. So many men and women may be, 
 after this war. There is certain to be an 
 excess of love excitement, and work is a 
 good panacea for that complaint. 
 
 Then again, after years of war, years in 
 which many have not known in the morn- 
 ing whether they would be alive at night, 
 they may retain the habit of dread. They 
 may fear to rest and fear to relax. Thus 
 they may welcome any excitement, as a 
 substitute for the stimulus to which they 
 have been accustomed. 
 
 That is another reason why I would 
 send Americans to labor with the laborers 
 of Europe. Not that the American work- 
 ing man is phlegmatic, far from it; but 
 with his mind unaccustomed to fear any- 
 thing, except the loss of his job and conse- 
 quent hunger, he will have an effect of
 
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 confidence and hope on those around him. 
 The American likes to feel that he is lead- 
 ing, and in what better way can he indulge 
 that propensity than in leading his asso- 
 ciates to hope? 
 
 You have no idea you cannot have an 
 idea of the great depression that will fol- 
 low this war for a short while. It will be 
 the relaxation, the letting go. Always aft- 
 er war the ebb-tide is followed by great 
 activity; but it is that ebb-tide which we 
 have to consider. 
 
 You in America will feel it. You have 
 become accustomed to seeing gold flow to- 
 wards these shores. When the stream les- 
 sens, you will have to combat the tendency 
 to fear that lessening, Panics are like 
 personal fear, intensified by mass. 
 
 The world is drawing close together, 
 and what influences a part influences the 
 whole.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 85 
 
 After the war will also come an opening 
 of the psychic senses of men, everywhere. 
 This, while good in itself, may become an 
 added danger. Prophets, true and false, 
 will arise everywhere, with many remedies 
 for the diseases of souls and of bodies. 
 
 If I may make another suggestion, it 
 would be that those who have psychic 
 awakening should think twice before pro- 
 claiming the fact. It is a new sense that 
 is coming into manifestation; but as the 
 opening of the eyes in an early stage of 
 evolution probably revealed as many dan- 
 gers as blessings, so the new sense will re- 
 veal dangers. Do not try to close the new 
 sense, but do not be carried away by it. 
 Remember that it will be practically gen- 
 eral, and like every new sense it will be de- 
 fective for a long time. It will reveal 
 false things as well as true. If a man 
 opened his eyes for the first time upon a
 
 86 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 harmless tree, he might mistake it for a 
 monster. 
 
 Restraint in all things, moderation in 
 all things, even in the laudable desire to 
 action. Weigh and measure. Prove he- 
 fore accepting anything prove by reason 
 and by intuition if you cannot wait for 
 proof by practice. Weigh and measure 
 what I say, as well as what the wildest 
 new prognosticate says. Discourage 
 hysteria. A wave of hysteria is likely to 
 sweep over the world. 
 
 As revolution follows revolution, the 
 startled inhabitants of the world may tell 
 themselves that nothing in the universe is 
 stable, that all is going to destruction, 
 and that as they cannot save themselves 
 from what seems to be universal chaos, 
 they may as well get all the pleasurable 
 excitement possible out of the passing mo- 
 ment. Restraint, restraint!
 
 I see women afraid to bear children be- 
 cause of the uncertainty of the morrow. 
 I see men afraid to marry because of the 
 uncertainty of domesticity. I see farmers 
 hesitate to plant because of the uncer- 
 tainty of the harvest. Again I say, be not 
 afraid. 
 
 If you sow, you shall reap. If you 
 marry, you shall build a home. If you 
 have children, the race will protect them 
 and you are a part of the race. 
 
 Restraint! Fearlessness!
 
 88 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 LETTER VIII 
 
 THE WORLD OF MIND 
 
 March 24, 19 17. 
 
 I WISH that more people of sane, 
 sound mind would experiment in tel- 
 epathic communication. I know there is 
 any amount of uncoordinated and half- 
 serious playing with phenomena ; but with 
 scientific accuracy of observation and 
 scientific precision in recording data, not 
 only the body of sensible literature on 
 these subjects would be increased, but the 
 habits of careful observation and preci- 
 sion in reporting supernormal facts would 
 be developed in the experimentalists. 
 
 You who write for me, continue to make 
 and to record experiments. You are al-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 89 
 
 most too cautious, but most persons are 
 not cautious enough. 
 
 Explain the necessary conditions of 
 passivity and activity between those work- 
 ing together. Though the best results are 
 often obtained by you alone, yet the testi- 
 mony of one person is not so convincing 
 as the testimony of several who have wit- 
 nessed and taken part in the same phe- 
 nomena. But you are right in hesitating 
 to take on the psychic conditions of insin- 
 cere and merely curious people who would 
 like to work with you. 
 
 The great difficulty with most persons 
 is that they cannot make themselves suf- 
 ficiently negative for the time being. 
 When the experiments are over they can 
 and should become equally positive. They 
 can shift from one pole to the other, and 
 they must do so if they wish to preserve 
 their physical health and balance,
 
 90 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 But bear in mind that the influences 
 from this side are good and bad, even as 
 the influences in the world are ; and if you 
 feel that any "presence" is hostile, at once 
 banish it and become positive. After any 
 approach by an undesirable influence, you 
 should not for some hours let yourself be- 
 come negative. Go for a walk, or attack 
 some difficult piece of work, or read a book 
 that demands mental activity in order to 
 grasp its meaning. 
 
 You live in a sea of mind, as well as in 
 a psychic sea; they interpenetrate, and 
 they interpenetrate with the physical; but 
 in working through and with them, keep 
 them as distinct as possible. 
 
 I work more and more in the mental 
 world, and less and less in the astral ; but 
 the majority of my readers will not know 
 exactly what I mean by that statement. 
 There is a greater difference between the
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 91 
 
 astral and the mental than there is be- 
 tween the astral and the physical. 
 
 Do not despise the astral. Its dynamics 
 are of colossal import. But cultivate more 
 and more the purely mental, because the 
 astral in all of you is developed beyond 
 the mental. 
 
 In my former writings I have told you 
 something of the dangers of the astral. 
 Now I want to tell you some of the more 
 obvious dangers of the mental. 
 
 Those who learn that they can create 
 in mind need to develop a sense of respon- 
 sibility. They are too reckless in demon- 
 strating their power. Remember that as 
 you go up in the planes of being you 
 get into subtler and subtler regions, and 
 strength increases with the degree of sub- 
 tlety not the reverse, as you would nat- 
 urally suppose. 
 
 One of the greatest temptations of the
 
 92 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 mental world is that of the creation of 
 falsehoods. By stating that which is not 
 true, you project into the realm of mind a 
 pictiare that has a certain permanency. It 
 may deceive others, but in time it will de- 
 ceive you, its creator. Those who speak 
 falsely cannot perceive truth. Those who 
 create false pictures in the mental world 
 will be deceived by those very pictures; 
 they will reap the eif ects of the causes 
 they have set up. 
 
 Have you not known people who were 
 always being deceived by their "friends"? 
 They are generally those who have left de- 
 ceiving pictures behind themselves. There 
 are people who cannot discriminate be- 
 tween the false and the true. They de- 
 ceive and are deceived. Those who de- 
 ceive are always deceived, whatever their 
 supposed intellect may be. 
 
 And I would say to those to whom I
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 93 
 
 now suggest experiments with clairvoy- 
 ance and telepathy, that if they have 
 planted the seeds of falsehood they will 
 reap a harvest of deceptive appearances. 
 Test yourselves in that way, you who be- 
 lieve yourselves to be sincere. You may 
 learn something of value regarding your 
 own karma. (Yes, I will use Theosophic 
 or Indian terms when they express my 
 meaning. Those who re-write the Orien- 
 tal philosophies in western terms can pass 
 for original only with the ignorant.) 
 
 What the new race needs most of all is 
 truth. Modern science is preparing the 
 world for the fearless facing of truth. The 
 man who toils over a microscope that he 
 may observe and record some fact in na- 
 ture, is more the servant of God than the 
 man who with sanctimonious face tells his 
 fellow creatures what they must not do;
 
 94 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 for his work at least is positive in its re- 
 sults. 
 
 There are too many "thou shalt nots"; 
 too few "I shalls." 
 
 The new race will develop a wide tol- 
 erance. It will discourage undesirable 
 things more by ignoring them than by at- 
 tacking them. By attacking a thing we 
 give it power. 
 
 Work more and more in the world of 
 mind. The results in the physical will be 
 immense.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 95 
 
 LETTER IX 
 
 AMERICA'S GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 April 6, 1917. 
 
 IT is past midnight. It is Good Fri- 
 day. Momentous decisions for the 
 world and for all time are heavy in the 
 souls of men. 
 
 On the day that this day stands for, in 
 the long ago, a man (who was also a god) 
 stood forth alone for the ideas of love and 
 human brotherhood. At last, after all 
 these years, the thing for which he died 
 may be realized. But there was a cruci- 
 fixion on that Friday, centuries ago. 
 
 I have brought you from a far-away 
 shore that you might witness a great strug-
 
 96 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 gle in the souls of men. You have arrived 
 at a centre.* 
 
 To-day, in thousands of churches 
 throughout Christendom, prayers will be 
 offered to the god-man who died that the 
 god in man might live. To-day in millions 
 of hearts the cross will be set up. 
 
 It is so still here at midnight, at a few 
 minutes past midnight on this day of days. 
 
 Christianity has arisen, and presses for- 
 ward to Golgotha to witness an event. 
 
 Pray! Prayer is the affirmation by the 
 soul of its unity with the One. War is the 
 affirmation of the soul of its separateness 
 from many. 
 
 Love your enemies. It is the only way 
 that you can conquer them. 
 
 * I had arrived in New York a few hours before 
 after a long sojourn in California.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 97 
 
 LETTER X 
 
 THE CRUCIBLE 
 
 April 12, 1917. 
 
 LET us speak a little of this initiation 
 through which the race is passing. 
 Always the trials precede the attainment. 
 
 When these wars are over there will be 
 a new world, for the souls of men will have 
 been baptized with the fire and the blood. 
 America must have her part in it. To her 
 also must come the trials and the attain- 
 ment. Watch and pray. 
 
 Some day I will send you back to com- 
 mune with the soul of the Old World 
 some day we will send you back. It is an- 
 other Europe you will find, a Europe tried 
 by fire, and some of it will be fine steel,
 
 98 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 and some of it will be clinkers in the fur- 
 nace, for the fire proves the metal, and 
 separates the metal from the slag. 
 
 From before the war to this day, the 
 battles of the earth have been enacted also 
 in your soul, the blood and the fire, the 
 pain and the travail. You too have passed 
 through the fiery furnace. 
 
 Long ago, when you identified your 
 soul with the soul of the world, you took 
 upon yourself the trials of the world, the 
 initiatory trials. You also called down 
 upon yourself the weight of your old 
 karma, the effects of the causes you had 
 set up through the ages. That you are at 
 rest for a time means only that you have 
 worked yourself free from a little of the 
 load. Had you not done it now,, you 
 would have had to do it in the future. Re- 
 joice for every trial that brings you nearer 
 to the goal. And this I say for all men.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 99 
 
 If I speak of the world now, instead of 
 that part only that we call America, it is 
 to identify the part with the whole. If I 
 speak of you personally, it is to identify 
 you with the whole. 
 
 Back in that Europe to which you will 
 go, you will find two classes, those who 
 have become fine steel, and those who have 
 become refuse. You will know the one 
 from the other. 
 
 They will welcome you back, for you 
 have passed through the fire with them. 
 They will welcome your country, too, for 
 it now turns its face to the fire. 
 
 Be not discouraged by dismal prophe- 
 cies. Man does not live by bread alone. 
 If you have less to eat, your bodies will 
 grow finer. If you have more to do, your 
 minds and spirits will expand. Few of 
 you work to your full capacity. The unit 
 of force that is man may generate much
 
 100 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 energy, drawing it up from the deeps of 
 himself at the call of need or of will. 
 
 Work harder now. Once I told you to 
 rest more, but the laborers are called to 
 the vineyard. The hour of rest will come 
 again, when the day draws near its close. 
 
 In entering into the war, my country, 
 put away all rancor, and fight for the right 
 in which there is no rancor. Hate not. 
 The hour for hate is past. (I say this, 
 knowing that Hate and Fear, the mother 
 of Hate, will come and challenge your 
 souls.) 
 
 I do not hate, and I do not fear, and I 
 shall stay with you until the day draws to 
 its close. Are you sorry now that you let 
 me speak again? When fear comes to your 
 house, I will speak to you of courage. 
 When hate shall menace you, I will turn 
 it into love. I have found the Philoso-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 101 
 
 pher's Stone that can transmute base 
 metals into gold. 
 
 Hate will be turned to love in this land 
 where the Eagle cries. Listen to the cry 
 of the Eagle. It is a free bird, and it flies 
 high. Its message has only been hinted 
 at, in the years that have yet been num- 
 bered. The Eagle will teach freedom. 
 They will listen across the sea. 
 
 America is indeed the melting-pot of 
 nations. I can find no better figure of 
 speech. The German-American who is 
 loyal to America now, who hides the trag- 
 edy in his heart behind a brave face, may 
 also come through the furnace fine steel. 
 
 I am glad you know that they suffer. 
 Hold the loyal ones in your heart, with 
 all other loyal Americans. So you will 
 help in the process of melting. To some 
 of them the tragedy will open the doors 
 of initiation. Their loyalty to a pledge is
 
 102 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 a finer trial than the fire of a battlefield. 
 Those who are loyal must not be made 
 pariahs. Of those who are disloyal I say 
 nothing, but leave them to the Law. 
 
 The initiatory process! It has the 
 earth in its grasp. There are those whom 
 you love that it has in its grasp, too. They 
 suffer, as you have suffered. But they 
 shall find peace.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN> 103 
 
 LETTER XI 
 
 MAKE CLEAN YOUR HOUSE 
 
 May 4, 1917. 
 
 DO you loiow that the human race is 
 being weighed in the balances? 
 Work and pray that it may not be found 
 wanting. 
 
 We who dwell in the clear light of that 
 world which is to you the Other World, 
 can see the handwriting on the wall. 
 
 The world has been too dishonest. In 
 an honest world, could this war have been? 
 In the world that is to come, nation will 
 not distrust nation, nor man distrust man. 
 But now distrust is a necessary part of 
 the human equipment. You may trust 
 but not too far, You may love your
 
 104 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 neighbor but not too much. You may 
 do to your brother as you would have him 
 do to you but not all the time. 
 
 America was builded on a foundation 
 of ideals ; but there is too much of the mud 
 of personal seeking mixed with the good 
 clay of your bricks. 
 
 You washed away with your blood one 
 plague-spot, that of slavery; but there is 
 another plague-spot you have got to wash 
 away. Will you do it with the free water 
 of good will, or will you do it again with 
 your blood? I wait to see. 
 
 Do not say that the world's troubles are 
 over, because America has come into the 
 war. The world's troubles are not over. 
 When the war is over the greater war 
 make clean your house, O America! 
 
 There is no other civilized country 
 where the premiums upon dishonesty are 
 so high.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 105 
 
 Can you buy a pound of butter and be 
 certain that you get sixteen full ounces? 
 Can you buy a pound of meat and be sure 
 that the scales are true? 
 
 A new race is being born. Begin with 
 those children, and teach them honesty be- 
 fore you teach them geography honesty 
 with the parents, honesty with each other, 
 honesty with themselves. "As the twig 
 is bent the tree inclines." 
 
 When I was a little boy I was taught 
 that George Washington could not tell a 
 lie. I had an ideal of George Washing- 
 ton. I wanted to emulate him. And so 
 when I was a man I sought truth. I 
 looked for it on the surface of the ground, 
 and also in deep wells. Once I spent 
 years in the wilderness trying to find truth 
 in myself. I remained in the wilderness 
 until I found it. Had I not found it, I 
 should have left my bones there,
 
 10 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 You need a new set of copy-book 
 maxims. If the boy who writes "Honesty 
 is the best policy" at school in the morn- 
 ing, sees in the afternoon his father trying 
 to trade a balky horse for a good roadster, 
 he wonders if his teacher is fooling him. 
 The disillusionment of children is tragic 
 with menace for the coming State. I 
 would rather see reproach in the eyes of 
 an Adept Teacher than in the eyes of a 
 child. If I fail my Teacher I do not hurt 
 him seriously, if I fail my child I hurt him 
 irreparably. 
 
 You must face the fact that the life of 
 America is going to be reorganized. 
 
 You have wondered why I have not 
 written of late. I have been busy, study- 
 ing America. I have seen much that I can 
 tell you, and much that I cannot tell you 
 * yet. For I want you to be quief . You
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN. 107 
 
 could not be quiet if you knew as much as 
 I know. 
 
 It has been said that necessity knows 
 no law. Forget it not, you war-profiteers 
 who would corner the world's necessities. 
 Remember that a cornered animal is dan- 
 gerous, and a cornered necessity has hoofs 
 and horns. 
 
 There is a disease that has no name 
 among the doctors the disease of colos- 
 sal possessions. Its symptoms are a vora- 
 cious appetite for more possessions, and a 
 phobia lest possessions should be lost. It 
 is worse than neuralgia and indigestion 
 combined to disturb the rest of the victim. 
 
 I long to see a hundred million and 
 more people living in peace and plenty in 
 America. 
 
 Fanatics prattle about the confiscation 
 of great fortunes. I do not care so much 
 what you do with your fortunes. But I
 
 108 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 care much what you do with your land 
 and your food, and I care more what you 
 do with your men and women and little 
 children. 
 
 Do not get into a panic, I pray you. 
 A panic is worse than a quicksand to get 
 into. Keep calm. The country is in no 
 danger, if it does not lose its head.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 109 
 
 LETTER XII 
 
 LEVEL HEADS 
 
 May 15, 1917. 
 
 DO not get excited, you Americans. 
 If you keep your heads, you will 
 come through this all right. If you lose 
 your heads, you may lose much besides 
 you may lose more than you can, win 
 back in a hundred years. 
 
 I am not excited. I have not lost my 
 head. (Yes, I still have a head, and 
 hands and feet. If I should try to live 
 out here without hands and feet, the ad- 
 justment to that unaccustomed condition 
 would have a reactionary effect upon my 
 head. I am not experimenting in the 
 elimination of my members.)
 
 110 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 You see a country now, Russia, that is 
 making the experiment of living without 
 its head. No nation can continue as a na- 
 tion without a head, and a level one. Even 
 the most extremely republican, demo- 
 cratic, socialistic, or any other kind of a 
 nation must have a head. A completely 
 anarchistic aggregation of people could 
 not be called a nation. Its land would be 
 only a geographical section populated 
 with units, and such units unrelated to 
 other units might as well be ciphers. 
 
 Do not be impatient because I write 
 seldom at present. I am rather busy. I 
 shall always come when I have something 
 that must be said. 
 
 A change is coming in America. Quite 
 a change has already come about, has it 
 not?* 
 
 * It was about this time, if I remember rightly, 
 that many of our wealthy men began working for 
 the government at one dollar a year.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 111 
 
 This country is great, this country is 
 strong, this country is adaptable. It can 
 adjust itself to change. The people of 
 this country have not been slaves for a 
 long time. The people of Russia have 
 been so many kinds of slaves that their 
 reaction to freedom is unexpected by a 
 free world. Wait! Do not lose your 
 heads about this matter. 
 
 I do not object to there being a few 
 persons who know that I am writing with 
 you again. They cannot affect me, save 
 to encourage me with their interest.
 
 112 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 LETTER XIII 
 
 TREES AND BRICK WALLS 
 
 May 16, 1917. 
 
 YOU fear lest the dismal prophecies 
 of world-disaster, of cataclysm, of 
 the destruction of half the human race 
 which you hear from many sources, may 
 tend to discourage the world. 
 
 Remember that hope springs eternal in 
 the human hreast. And if the minds of 
 men are familiar with the idea of cata- 
 clysm, they will more readily adjust them- 
 selves to lesser changes. 
 
 Read the Old Testament. The most 
 dismal prophecies were not verified, but 
 changes came. 
 
 Some of the "independent ministers" of
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 113 
 
 America are more violent than Jeremiah. 
 But they help indirectly in accustoming 
 the minds of men to the idea of change. 
 
 If panics come and they may refuse 
 to be panic-stricken. 
 
 If violence comes and it may refuse 
 to be violent. 
 
 If discouragements come and they will 
 refuse to be discouraged. 
 
 When your brains become over-heated, 
 look steadily at the trees. They will 
 quiet you. If there are no trees in your 
 neighborhood why, look at a brick wall 
 in moments of excitement. A brick wall 
 is a soothing spectacle. It stands steady, 
 unless moved from without.
 
 114 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 INVISIBLE AEMIES 
 
 May 23, 1917. 
 
 MANY of the soldiers out here who 
 have become fully awake and 
 self-conscious are striving to bring about 
 those ends for which they gave their lives 
 on earth. There are thus soldiers work- 
 ing on both sides of the war and on this 
 side of the veil. Immediately after the 
 change many of them fight each other; but 
 they soon learn that they can do more ef- 
 fective work by giving attention to their 
 comrades in the flesh. They can soothe 
 and inspire and instruct. 
 
 We are forming an army out here. 
 There is no lack of recruits. America
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 115 
 
 /nust be saved, and few of you know how 
 much America has to be saved from. But 
 we know we who have watched the world 
 for the last two years and three-quarters. 
 
 It is not so terrible to die. It is really 
 far more terrible to be born. 
 
 The army that we are recruiting here is 
 made up of men of all ages all ages in 
 this life, I mean. Yes, there are women 
 also in our army. There are some veter- 
 ans of the Civil War and veterans of the 
 War with Spain. Over the regiments and 
 divisions of this army there are command- 
 ers, as over the armies of earth. Other- 
 wise the work would lack unity of pur- 
 pose. Ours is mostly a volunteer army, 
 though conscription is not unknown 
 among us. 
 
 You wonder what I mean ? Do you not 
 suppose that we can call a soul from a use-
 
 116 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 less occupation and give him useful labor? 
 We can and do, daily. 
 
 We have even recruited largely from 
 the old and native Americans, the red 
 skinned hunters and warriors who remain 
 in such large numbers in the neighborhood 
 of the earth. There is work which they 
 only can do. There are many kinds of 
 work and a great variety of workers. 
 
 I come and go, from coast to coast. I 
 know what is doing on the shores of the 
 Pacific, in the Atlantic States, on the Gulf 
 of Mexico, and the Middle and Rocky 
 Mountain States are familiar ground to 
 me. I am renewing my youth in this 
 period of activity. I am working for my 
 country. I am in training, too. 
 
 Why do you smile? There is a train- 
 ing of the mind and the will that is more 
 effective than any training of the physical 
 body quicker and more effective. Then
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 117 
 
 too the astral body can be trained to a 
 high degree of efficiency and elasticity. 
 Surely I need not tell you this. 
 
 And I am training others. We old fel- 
 lows can be very useful in a time like this. 
 I am glad now that I came out when I did, 
 that I went through my novitiate while 
 the world was still at peace and there was 
 leisure for many things which now I 
 should not have time for. I had a delight- 
 ful holiday. I hunted through the wilds 
 of the invisible, and fished in the waters of 
 space; but now I am back at my work 
 again.
 
 118 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 THE WEAKEST LINK 
 
 June 2, 1917. 
 
 THERE are in the archives of the 
 Masters of Wisdom certain data 
 relative to the past and future of this 
 country which would make interesting 
 reading could they be published in the 
 newspapers at this time of national crisis. 
 America is aware of her mission of de- 
 mocracy; but she is not aware of another 
 mission equally potent that of making 
 the world safe for spiritual, culture. I do 
 not mean religion, as the word is ordinarily 
 used; but I mean the culture of the spirit 
 of love such ideas of love as the world 
 has inadequately grasped from the teach-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 119 
 
 ings of Jesus of Nazareth, grasped and let 
 fall again because those ideas were too 
 warm to be comfortably held by hands 
 cooled in the material labors of selfishness. 
 
 America has laid up for herself in the 
 regions beyond the physical a debt an 
 obligation that is not by any means a 
 treasure in heaven, but which, when the 
 debt is paid, may be a real spiritual treas- 
 ure. I refer to the armies of souls who 
 once occupied this land as free owners, and 
 who were expelled and disinherited by the 
 expanding civilization which grew up in 
 the place of wigwam and hunting-ground. 
 
 Those souls, many of them, desire to re- 
 turn. Many have already returned, and 
 unless some way is open for them to live 
 again the free life to which they were ac- 
 customed in the past, they will tend to be- 
 come a destructive force. They cannot be 
 eliminated so easily now, when they wear
 
 120 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 white bodies and claim citizenship with 
 you. They are scattered from shore to 
 shore of this wide land. You can tell 
 them by their eagle eyes and their high 
 cheek bones, by their free gait and their 
 love of freedom. They are hard to re- 
 strain in factory and counting-house. 
 They are clerks with a difference and la- 
 borers with a dream. Many of them have 
 found entrance into the sun-lighted world 
 as the children of European immigrants, 
 for they find it easier to enter the blood 
 of certain other races than the blood of the 
 Anglo-Saxon, for all the Anglo-Saxon 
 love of freedom. 
 
 A time may come when these now for- 
 eign-blooded primitive Americans will in- 
 stinctively rebel against the restraining 
 influences that have held them, when they 
 will seek to live over again the old life of 
 nature, even though they have to take it
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 121 
 
 as the kingdom of heaven is said to have 
 been taken. 
 
 There is coming a time when love will 
 be needed in this land as it has never been 
 needed before, when "live and let live" 
 must become a law as well as a phrase. 
 Those who long for freedom with Nature 
 can be given that freedom. Conditions 
 may be hard in the great cities. 
 
 I am not trying to instill fear into the 
 American heart. On the contrary, I am 
 trying to insure you against fear. 
 
 Not long could the wheels of civiliza- 
 tion stop turning. But they could stop 
 for a wink of the Cosmic Eye. 
 
 America is going to be saved, and saved 
 in the hour of her greatest danger. What 
 will her greatest danger be? You must 
 think that out for yourself. 
 
 Learn to see through the eye of the 
 Planetary Spirit. Your view is too nar-
 
 122 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 row. Where your library stands on 
 shelves is for you the centre of things; 
 but the centre of things is in the heart, and 
 hearts are everywhere. If you think about 
 the race and not about yourself, your heart 
 will be magnified; you will see with the 
 eyes of the heart, and he who sees with 
 the eyes of the heart is wiser than histori- 
 ans or intellectual prophets. 
 
 The world must be made safe for love. 
 All men must be provided foroin the 
 scheme of the future, all men and women 
 and little children. It is not safe to dis- 
 regard any, for a chain, is as strong as 
 its weakest link, and every link must be 
 made strong.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 123 
 
 LETTER XVI 
 
 A COUNCIL IN THE FOREST 
 
 ONE night, to repose my soul from 
 the labors I had undertaken, I re- 
 tired to a pine forest upon the earth, in 
 one of the New England States. Think- 
 ing to be alone, I had sought the place ; but 
 no sooner had I drifted into meditation 
 than a strange sound fell upon my ears. 
 It was not like the sounds of earth, it was 
 more subtle yet more penetrating; and I 
 knew that I was listening to a song (if 
 you may call it a song) by some of my fel- 
 low sojourners in the region beyond the 
 sunlight. 
 
 Suddenly with a rush they leaped past 
 me into the clearing, and forming in a
 
 124 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 circle, they waited. Then I saw a light 
 that was not of earthly origin, the light of 
 a campfire, and I knew that I had been 
 surprised by a band of Indians who were 
 preparing to hold some rite of their old re- 
 ligion. 
 
 Though I had not been invited to their 
 ceremony, neither had I invited them to 
 intrude upon my contemplation, so I re- 
 mained and watched them. 
 
 (Yes, there is less secrecy out here, for 
 the reason that there is greater under- 
 standing and greater tolerance.) 
 
 Soon I was looking on at a strange 
 dance. All in a circle they swung round 
 and round the blazing fire, singing and 
 leaping. I did not know the meaning of 
 the words they sang; but I could read 
 their minds by the thought-images they 
 formed, and I knew that they were cele- 
 brating the date reached by what lunar
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 125 
 
 reckoning I knew not of some great In- 
 dian massacre in which they had taken 
 part a hundred or two hundred years ago. 
 
 And the impulse of their dance, the mo- 
 tive power of it, was hatred of the white 
 man who had scattered them and driven 
 them away from their old hunting 
 grounds. 
 
 Shocked, yet fascinated by this inner 
 glimpse at the souls of the American 
 aborigines, I watched them. 
 
 Though I am not skilled in magic ritu- 
 als, I soon perceived that there was form 
 and method in this dance, method and 
 form and a hostile purpose. 
 
 They were, by exciting themselves and 
 by fixity of thought, trying to excite a 
 scattered company of men in these United 
 States men of a low grade of intellect 
 but of psychic temperament to deeds of 
 violence and destruction.
 
 126 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 "So that is the way they do it!" I 
 thought. 
 
 Then I drew a veil around my thoughts, 
 that they might not be perceived by the 
 beings before me. Yes, I can do that, 
 and so can many men upon the earth. 
 
 I could smell the keen fresh odors of 
 the pine grove, and I could feel the rising 
 wind as it swept across the clearing; for 
 the wind seemed to respond to their call 
 and to offer its forces to them. You must 
 know that the elements are impersonal, 
 though semi-personalities inhabit them, 
 and that the elements and these semi-per- 
 sonalities can be used and guided, for 
 purposes good or evil, by any being who 
 has gained that peculiar power in one or 
 many lives. 
 
 And looking off in the distance, I could 
 see that the wind as it swept along carried 
 the thoughts and passions of these long
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 127 
 
 dead men, these souls that by reason of 
 their downward tendencies had not broken 
 away from the attraction of matter, the 
 astral gravitation that makes so many 
 souls earth-bound. 
 
 Still looking off and projecting my 
 consciousness in a way I have learned to 
 do, I saw the influence of this magic ritual 
 of revenge and menace as it touched the 
 minds of men far scattered. I saw their 
 thoughts take on suddenly the tinge of 
 hatred, hatred for the civilization in which 
 they had failed to realize their personal 
 desires. 
 
 And I knew that on that night and on 
 the morrow, and at intervals for many 
 days, deeds of violence would be commit- 
 ted, that property would be destroyed, and 
 men of order threatened. 
 
 My heart was sad, for I had not under- 
 stood before how real was the danger to
 
 my country in these times of crisis from 
 the karma the old settlers had made. Of 
 course they believed they were doing right 
 in ridding themselves and their adopted 
 land from the simple but complex natives, 
 whose civilization was older than the civi- 
 lization of Europe, and who had loved this 
 land as only those can love a land who 
 have known the freedom of its spaces. 
 
 When the magic dance was over, and 
 one by one and two by two the communi- 
 cants slipped away among the shadows, I 
 strode forward into the circle to have 
 speech with any who should willingly re- 
 spond to my desire for acquaintanceship. 
 
 Suddenly I found myself face to face 
 with a majestic chieftain, wearing one of 
 those long feather bonnets whose every 
 feather marks some deed of daring or 
 achievement. (What a splendid custom 
 was that! What an incentive to action!
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 129 
 
 Truly among the red men, deeds won a 
 feather in the cap.) 
 
 His face was like that of a hawk, and 
 his eyes were bright with an inner fire, 
 that intensity of feeling and thought com- 
 mingled which marks the leader and mas- 
 ter of men and him alone. 
 
 And I said to him in the forms of 
 thought, for I knew no word of his old 
 language : 
 
 "I have been an unintentional witness 
 to your ceremony this evening. Will you 
 enlighten me further as to its purpose? 
 for I see that it was directed towards the 
 land of breathing men." 
 
 With a sweep of his authoritative arm 
 he dismissed the few of his companions 
 who had not already moved away among 
 the trees, and we two were alone together. 
 
 "I come as a friend," I said, seeing that 
 he hesitated.
 
 130 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 And the word was true; for I saw that 
 whatever harm he mistakenly sought to 
 accomplish, in his soul was the conscious- 
 ness of justice, that fundamental balance 
 between right and wrong, that proposition 
 of law, which when native in the mind 
 gives it dignity and attracts respect. This 
 was no dabbler in aboriginal and nasty 
 sorcery, but a kind of priest of retribution, 
 a tribal demi-god who might perhaps some 
 day be made constructive and not destruc- 
 tive, an instrument of the great Genius of 
 America of which I have spoken in a 
 former letter, the Weaver of Destiny who 
 has our land in charge. 
 
 We measured each other with the eyes, 
 and I cast aside the veil that I had be- 
 fore drawn around my thoughts, that he 
 might see me mind to mind and realize 
 that I respected and to a degree under- 
 stood him.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 131 
 
 "You have seen what you have seen," 
 he observed. 
 
 "And you do not resent my presence?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 The fresh odor of the pine grove was 
 keen in my senses, and my new-found com- 
 panion threw back his head with a splen- 
 did motion as if to drink it in. 
 
 "Freedom is good," he said, "and the 
 land was ours." 
 
 So I perceived that by excusing him- 
 self and his associates he had perceived 
 that I accused them. Then I knew that 
 I could really commune with him mind 
 to mind, and I was glad; for I ever seek 
 to extend the range of my knowledge and 
 to form acquaintance with those of sturdy 
 will. 
 
 "But the land is free to all the world," 
 I said, "to you and to me, and to those of 
 both our races."
 
 132 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 "We do not see it so," was his reply. 
 
 "But," I insisted, "are we not now, you 
 and I, enjoying it in freedom?" 
 
 It is difficult to translate in words the 
 rapid give and take of our thoughts, the 
 pictures that flashed back and forth be- 
 tween us, as I strove with kindliness and 
 will to make him understand that the wel- 
 fare of his race did not call for the de- 
 struction of mine. 
 
 I told him and the idea was so new to 
 him that, lacking words, I had to draw my 
 story on the canvas of thought in the 
 minutest detail how the soul that leaves 
 the earth for a time returns to it in an- 
 other form. And I explained how hun- 
 dreds upon hundreds of his people, and 
 the most advanced among them, had al- 
 ready come back in material form to that 
 America they had loved before, that they 
 wore white bodies, and could only be dis-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 133 
 
 tinguished from other white men by the 
 keenness of their eyes, their gait, and cer- 
 tain peculiarities of speech and manner. 
 
 He followed my story with astonished, 
 almost painful, intensity; for he knew, 
 with that inner knowledge which on this 
 side of life is almost impossible to deceive, 
 that I spoke honestly and believed that 
 which I told him. 
 
 "And do you not deceive yourself?" was 
 his inevitable question. 
 
 Then I told him of those recent and 
 former lives of my own which I most 
 vividly remember, and cited proofs that I 
 did not deceive myself. 
 
 "But what a life is that of the white 
 man for one of my people?" he demanded. 
 
 Then he flashed me picture after pic- 
 ture of the simple white man's life in 
 America, the schoolhouse with the chok- 
 ing-hot stove and the bad air, the house
 
 134 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 and home with closed doors and windows, 
 the "meeting-house" where a droning or 
 a noisy preacher prated of things he did 
 not understand, to others who believed or 
 did not believe that they believed him. 
 He held up before me as for ridicule the 
 clothing of the white man in the lower 
 walks of life, the confining and uncom- 
 fortable shoes, the binding trousers, the 
 ugly hat that makes bald the head, and 
 the collar. The one he pictured was a 
 paper collar, soiled and wilted at the 
 edges. 
 
 Then he showed me as if to prove the 
 breadth of his observations an office in a 
 city, with the clerks seated upon stools 
 and bent with aching backs over ledgers 
 that contained figures, figures, long lines 
 of figures that were the symbols of the 
 white man's wampum, which seemed so 
 trivial when made the principal occupa-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 135 
 
 tion of a soul that had rejoiced in the red 
 man's forest. 
 
 "And is it for this that they come back 
 to their native land?" he asked. 
 
 "But the soul must gain all experience," 
 I said. 
 
 The idea seemed new to him, and he 
 pondered it with knitted brows. 
 
 "Why should the soul gain all experi- 
 ence?" he asked. 
 
 "That it may return to its God rich in 
 knowledge," I replied. 
 
 "Its God." At that thought the strange 
 eyes of him lighted, though his face re- 
 mained immobile. 
 
 "Yes," I said, "for your God and my 
 God are both God." 
 
 "There are many gods," he replied. 
 "There is the Great Spirit, and there are 
 the others." 
 
 "In the centre of each of them," I as-
 
 136 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 sured him, "there is a spot, a core of the 
 heart that is the same in all, that exists 
 everywhere, and in every heart is one, that 
 knows no division; and that centre is also 
 in your heart and mine and in that of our 
 respective Gods." 
 
 "Did you learn that in one of those hot 
 schoolhouses ?" he asked. 
 
 "No. I did not learn it even when I 
 was an old man upon the earth, but after 
 I came out here. On earth I rather 
 prided myself on my separateness." 
 
 "Then one can learn new religions out 
 here?" he asked, in surprise. 
 
 "If one finds a teacher," I replied. 
 
 "But what need is there of new re- 
 ligions?" 
 
 "There is," I said, "in the core of every 
 religion also that central spot where all 
 are one. And there is in all races," I pur- 
 sued, for I saw that he watched with half-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 137 
 
 belief, "there is in all races a core of 
 unity. The red man is the brother and 
 not the permanent enemy of the white 
 man. So why should you injure the 
 descendants of those who followed what 
 they believed to be right in extending their 
 holdings in this land long ago?" 
 
 "But I was not seeking to injure them 
 for injury's sake." 
 
 "Then I misunderstood the purpose of 
 your magic song." 
 
 "Oh!" he exclaimed. "You caught the 
 feeling of my children, who cannot see be- 
 yond feeling. My purpose is only to 
 destroy the present to make way for the 
 old life." 
 
 "But the present is always a stage," I 
 said, "on the highroad that leads to the 
 future. And my people reincarnated, 
 and yours reincarnated or so many of 
 them as are ready to go on shall go on
 
 138 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 together and in this land. They will 
 form, with those who join them from be- 
 yond the seas, a new race. And thanks 
 to the labors of a few among the white 
 men who have studied and appreciated the 
 traditions and civilization of the red man 
 and sought to save them from utter 
 obliteration, the old forest lore will become 
 a part of the inheritance of that new race 
 which is to grow out of the union of yours 
 and mine and the others. And for a part 
 of every year, when the life of the new race 
 is adjusted, the boys and girls and men 
 and women will go out to the wilds and 
 enjoy the freedom of the tent and the 
 society round the campfire, and we shall 
 be brothers real blood-brothers at last, 
 and all the old wounds shall be healed. 
 Can you not recognize me as your 
 brother?" 
 
 He nodded his head.
 
 "And will you not spread among your 
 people the glad tidings of the new race, 
 in all of whose possessions they will 
 share?" 
 
 We stood long looking in each other's 
 eyes, and I told him more than I could 
 record here if I held the use of your pencil 
 for many hours. In the end he under- 
 stood me. 
 
 It is my belief that he will spread the 
 story among his people, and that one 
 danger will be lessened thereby, to some 
 degree, for the children of the new race.
 
 140 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 LETTER XVII 
 
 THE IDEAL OF SUCCESS 
 
 June 23, 1917. 
 
 PUT fear out of your hearts. The 
 future will give you no greater 
 lessons than you can master. It is not 
 well to know the future in complete detail. 
 Had the world known during the last ten 
 years all it would be obliged to suffer in 
 this war, would it have made the progress 
 it has made in art, science and commerce? 
 No. Every thought would have been 
 haunted. 
 
 You may say that the weaker races (and 
 the stronger ones) would have made bet- 
 ter preparation. But a part of this les- 
 son has been not to delay inevitable prepa-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 141 
 
 ration, and to know in future that a na- 
 tion which idealizes war and is mostly 
 army, has not cultivated that ideal and 
 that army solely for its own amusement. 
 
 If you want to understand national life 
 and individual life, you must look for their 
 dominating ideals. An ideal is a tend- 
 ency. 
 
 What is the dominating ideal of Amer- 
 ica? Summed in a word, it is success, is 
 it not? Now America is in a great war, 
 and you may be sure that she will leave 
 nothing undone that can make for success 
 in that war, as she has left nothing undone 
 that could make for success in business. 
 
 Take your own case. What are your 
 dominating ideals and tendencies? You 
 would say, off -hand, work and study and 
 intellectual companionship, would you 
 not? Very well. As to work, do not 
 fear a future in which good work is pretty
 
 142 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 sure of at least a living wage. Study? 
 There will always be books to feed your 
 hunger for reading. Companionship? 
 There are too many lonely souls in the 
 world for you ever to be lonely. 
 
 What else? You lift your pencil and 
 think. . . . That is about all, is it not? 
 
 Now let us return to America. Amer- 
 ica is not has not been a warlike na- 
 tion, except when threatened by injustice, 
 to herself or others. Will she lose this 
 war? I think not. 
 
 But there will be complexities regard- 
 ing the end of this war. 
 
 I want to refer to something I said 
 in a recent letter, that we were organizing 
 on this side of the airy frontier for work 
 for the future of America. 
 
 I have spoken of the Genius of this land, 
 a composite entity you may call it, if your 
 imagination is not equal to the task of
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 143 
 
 seeing that you all of you are cells in 
 the body of the Genius of America. 
 
 Now the Genius of this land has glori- 
 ous purposes, and she uses you all of 
 you for her purposes, as you use the cells 
 of your body, as you are using at this 
 moment the aggregation of cells that form 
 the hand with which you hold your pencil. 
 
 In registering yourselves at the call of 
 your country, you are affirming your ac- 
 ceptance of the office of cells in the great 
 body of her. Some of you she must sac- 
 rifice in the war for the welfare of the 
 whole, as every day cells die and are born 
 in the body of man, the microcosm. 
 
 Extend the idea to the whole human 
 race, and the figure will be still more apt. 
 The genius of the race is suffering now. 
 The process will ultimate in a more per- 
 fect health. 
 
 You perhaps protest that many of those
 
 144 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 who are dying are the flower of the race, 
 the young, the fitted to survive. But do 
 you not rememher that their souls sur- 
 vive? The essential part of them is not 
 lost, but set free for a greater work. 
 Have you considered that earth-life may 
 be the dream, and the life after death the 
 waking? Sages have considered it before 
 you, and accepted the possibility. 
 
 Out here we are hopeful, and very 
 busy. It is because I am so busy that I 
 come to you only occasionally. Do not 
 hurry me, for I do not hurry you. 
 
 We have problems to solve out here. 
 As I have said, one of our problems is the 
 great number of Indian souls, red men 
 souls, who went out of life with resent- 
 ment and revenge in their hearts for the 
 elimination of their race by the white man 
 in America. 
 
 Somehow we must placate them, and
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 145 
 
 enlist them on your side. Otherwise they 
 may be a dangerous element for the fu- 
 ture. Some of them would like to see 
 your civilization destroyed, as theirs was 
 destroyed, and a few of them are strong 
 enough to do real harm. 
 
 The best way to make an enemy harm- 
 less is to understand his peculiar qualities, 
 to learn something from the frankness of 
 his enmity, to turn away evil by letting 
 it go off at a tangent. But the Indian 
 souls are not famous for their frankness. 
 Even with me they sometimes conceal 
 their resentment deep, fundamental 
 at the "theft," as they feel it, of the land 
 where they once roamed in freedom. 
 
 I advise America to cultivate the free 
 life of the open. I have advised you in a 
 former book that the old woodcraft should 
 be resuscitated and taught to the children. 
 There may come a time when the rudi-
 
 146 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 ments of this knowledge will be useful to 
 many of you. 
 
 Great changes are coming in the world, 
 a period of adjustment to new conditions. 
 There is a restless element in all adjust- 
 ment, anci national restlessness is like that 
 of puberty; it needs to be minimized by 
 healthful outdoor play, or by work which 
 masquerades as play. 
 
 The future will take from the present 
 those elements that are most important for 
 survival. 
 
 Do not fear that we shall return to the 
 Dark Ages. Oh, no. We are going into 
 a Light Age. It is only twilight now.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 147 
 
 LETTER XVIII 
 
 ORDER AND PROGRESS 
 
 July 18, 1917. 
 
 OUR purpose is to make the changes 
 that must come, come gradually. 
 We want to avoid sudden changes. 
 
 You in the world have no faint idea of 
 the influence and power we can wield on 
 our side. We can speak to the minds of 
 men without their knowing whence the 
 ideas come. They think, when a sudden 
 idea comes into their minds, that they have 
 evolved it; but sudden ideas generally 
 come from outside. (I put one in your 
 mind this morning, then ran away before 
 you could recognize me. Why did I run
 
 148 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 away ? Because I wanted you to use your 
 own judgment.) 
 
 Just at present we are trying to encour- 
 age America as to her future her orderly 
 and peaceful future, after peace is de- 
 clared in Europe. 
 
 You may as well know that there are 
 many out here who are anxious about the 
 future of the world. All men do not 
 cease to worry when they have left their 
 bodies. There are many here who think 
 the world is going to smash. They al- 
 ways had that fear in life whenever things 
 seemed to go wrong; and now they are no 
 less inclined to accept every perplexity 
 as an omen of failure and confusion. 
 
 All over America there are men and 
 women and many of them are in pulpits 
 and on platforms who are croaking away 
 about the destruction of society following 
 this war. Bless your troubled hearts!
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 149 
 
 Society is not going to be destroyed. 
 Some elements in society will be gradu- 
 ally done away with, and good riddance to 
 them! But society has made too great 
 advance, in mechanical and intellectual 
 ways, to permit its structure to be pulled 
 from beneath its feet. 
 
 Do not worry. Watch out, but do not 
 worry. As Abraham Lincoln once pre- 
 vented this country from being terri- 
 torially divided and thus weakened, so he 
 and others are now working to prevent a 
 spiritual division that would be even more 
 disastrous. 
 
 No, we are not going to see your useful 
 inventions and your structures that the 
 future has need of, cast into the rubbish 
 heap by reckless violence and extrava- 
 gance. What is useful must be conserved. 
 What is useless for the future can be made 
 over into something useful.
 
 150 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 Humanity has not been in the habit of 
 taking sudden jumps. It has put one 
 foot regularly before the other, and gone 
 ahead rather steadily. The way of man 
 in the past has been to improve and make 
 over, rather than suddenly to discard its 
 institutions, or even its garments. Only 
 that which is really worn out is cast away. 
 And our financial system, and our social 
 system in general, will be improved and 
 not discarded. Did you think we were go- 
 ing back to wampum? Oh, no! 
 
 There is a strong pull from this side, 
 and from those who inhabited your conti- 
 nent, to simplify the life in America. But 
 America is no longer isolate. She has 
 now taken her place in the republic of na- 
 tions. 
 
 Some of the souls who used to be 
 American Indians would like to see Amer- 
 ica resume wigwams and campfires, be-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 151 
 
 cause those souls want to come back, and 
 they dread the complexity of modern 
 American life. But there are teachers 
 here and some of them red teachers 
 who can instruct the souls behindhand in 
 adaptability. 
 
 I have told you that there is an influ- 
 ence tending to draw America backward. 
 But I have not told you to be panicky re- 
 garding the fact. There are reaction- 
 aries even in your world. 
 
 The influence from this side is subtle. 
 But the majority here who desire to lead 
 the world, desire to lead it forward and 
 not back. The world will go forward. 
 
 Yes, the souls you call the "departed" 
 are organizing themselves. They realize 
 that their influence can be more effective 
 if it has a purpose and a program. For 
 a time after the war began there was great 
 confusion out here, but things are becom-
 
 152 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 ing more orderly. Minds are becoming 
 more united. Many of us who have com- 
 mon sense and some measure of political 
 judgment give most of our time to lectur- 
 ing here and there, wherever we can draw 
 a crowd together. That is one reason why 
 you have seen me so seldom of late. I 
 have been busier than ever before. Know- 
 ing that a time is coming soon when I can 
 rest from my present labors, I am using 
 my strength as fast as I generate it. For 
 those whom I convince that America and 
 other countries are going forward must 
 go forward to greater activity seek to 
 convince others in their turn. No lec- 
 turer on earth ever had so busy a month 
 as I have had this last month. I have 
 spoken to hundreds several times every 
 day, going from place to place, from State 
 to State, from city to city. I can speak 
 jn San Francisco in the morning, in New
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 153 
 
 York at noon, in New Orleans at two 
 o'clock, in Butte, Montana, in the even- 
 ing. I am not limited to railway time- 
 tables, nor do I pay my fare. 
 
 Believe me, we are going to save Amer- 
 ica, and we are going to save the world. 
 For the Masters are behind us, and they 
 will not let the world be destroyed. 
 
 I should not like you to know how 
 near it has been to destruction more than 
 once during the last three years. But the 
 forces of premeditated evil against which 
 we fought so long have been scattered 
 now, and though they have not been de- 
 stroyed, their effect has been greatly 
 lessened. What we have reason to fear 
 now is the unwisdom of those who believe 
 they wish good to the world the imwis- 
 dom of fanatics and agitators and fuss- 
 budgets of all sorts, stirring up confusion
 
 154 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 and darkening counsel with their unprac 
 tical and conflicting ideas. 
 
 Order, order, order! That is what the 
 world must strive for in the period of re- 
 action which will follow this war. The re- 
 action must be reckoned with; but it will 
 be only a brief rest of overwearied hearts, 
 who will again begin building. 
 
 It is in that building period that I hope 
 for America, because she will be less tired 
 than the other members of the great 
 world brotherhood. But in America at 
 that time there will be a danger. I tell 
 you that, lest you be taken unawares and 
 relax your attention. 
 
 Be watchful, but not over-anxious. 
 
 And trust the Masters of Life somehow 
 to lead you through.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 155 
 
 LETTER XIX 
 
 THE FEDERATION OF NATIONS 
 
 August 9, 1917. 
 
 THE time has now come for Amer- 
 ica to get out into the world and 
 take her place in the federation of na- 
 tions. Let her unite with England in a 
 strong bond, and thereby she can keep the 
 peace of the world. 
 
 The isolation of America in the past 
 has been in line with her destiny; it was 
 necessary for her to develop to her present 
 state of power without interruptions, or 
 the influence of international complica- 
 tions upon her statesmen. Free and 
 alone, she has not had to become a part of 
 the great and creaking machine of inter-
 
 156 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 national diplomacy and intrigue. But 
 now she is independent, and, politically- 
 speaking, her character is formed. You 
 may say that America has attained her 
 majority, and is entitled to vote in the 
 councils and elections of the world. 
 
 She has much to do for both France and 
 England, as they have both done so much 
 for her in the past. They have formed 
 her culture and influenced her spirit; now 
 she will influence their spirit. 
 
 When you read the other day of the 
 work which our soldiers are doing in 
 France, helping in many little ways in the 
 villages and on the farms, your heart 
 glowed with pleasure; you remembered 
 what I said to you before America came 
 into the war, that our men were to go to 
 France and to work, work, work for the 
 upbuilding of France. 
 
 That is only the beginning. More and
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 157 
 
 more will our men work over there, dur- 
 ing and after war. 
 
 Soon there will come a call for a new 
 kind of work new for us. 
 
 There is deep meaning in this bringing 
 together of the nations for a common 
 cause. From that, there is only a step to 
 the bringing together of all nations for 
 one cause. 
 
 The force of revolt in the world must 
 spend itself, as the force of race hatred 
 has spent itself for it is already spent. 
 The continuation of the war will be prac- 
 tically without the rage of the beginning. 
 We go on because it is our job, and even 
 in New York now there is no longer the 
 fierceness of two years ago. And in Eng- 
 land it is lessened, and in France it is less- 
 ened, and in Germany it is lessened. War 
 has now become a task like any other, to
 
 158 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 be gone through with. When it no longer 
 seems worth while, it will stop. 
 
 The question of America's part in the 
 federation of states interests me now.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 159 
 
 LETTER XX 
 
 THE NEW IDEAL 
 
 August 19, 1917. 
 
 SINCE Germany evolved her idea of 
 flamboyant nationalism and tried 
 to foist it upon the world in imperial 
 fashion, the world has grown skeptical of 
 the national fetish. It will believe in the 
 good intentions of no nation or race that 
 flaunts its perfections in the face of friend 
 or enemy. 
 
 America, as she grows more and more 
 sure of her high destiny, must also grow 
 more modest. She must realize herself as 
 one of the sister states in the great com- 
 monwealth of nations, and the eagle will 
 take lessons in voice culture. As a quiet
 
 160 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 voice can make itself heard in a medley of 
 noises where a screaming voice would be 
 inaudible, so must America's voice be- 
 come deep and quiet. 
 
 She is paying for her place in the coun- 
 cils of the world. Let her voice be heard 
 by reason of its dignified and restrained 
 accents. 
 
 A great change is taking place in 
 Europe, in its conception of the American 
 character. Hitherto France has known 
 the American tourist, and the uprooted 
 American who lived there in preference 
 to his own country. Now France is learn- 
 ing something about the American man 
 in his workaday, playaday, fighting and 
 loving, living and dying sublimity. She 
 has rubbed her eyes as she watched him, 
 wondering if she were awake. She has 
 recognized a new type. She does not un- 
 derstand it yet, but she wants to under-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 161 
 
 stand it. There is a new and disturbing 
 warmth now at the heart of France for 
 this new brother from across the seas. 
 She sees (for she is subtle) the crudity 
 of him as measured by her more artificial 
 standards. But she sees also the grandeur 
 and chivalry of him, as compared with 
 her old idea of the foreigner. 
 
 Ah, America and Americans ! You are 
 on trial now in the courts of the world's 
 judgment as you have never been before. 
 My heart is aglow as I see our boys go 
 out into the larger world, carrying with 
 them the clear outdoor spirit of the Amer- 
 ican plains and woodlands. When I see 
 the eyes of the sublime and pain-chastened 
 French grow deep and warm as they rest 
 upon our boys, I am so proud of them! 
 I forget that I also am uprooted, having 
 left the land of my birth for the regions 
 beyond death.
 
 162 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 In the councils at the ending of the war 
 and after the war, may the modesty of 
 greatness restrain America from any 
 suggestion to France or England that she 
 saved them from destruction. I clasp my 
 hands to you they would be shadowy 
 hands together with excess of emotion, 
 as I pray for the guidance of America in 
 the councils that are to come. 
 
 Modesty let that be the watchword. 
 
 The soul of France is aflame with grati- 
 tude, the soul of France is aflame with 
 love. The hearts of the French people 
 in the night grow warm and their eyes 
 grow wet as they whisper to themselves, 
 "Les Americains ! Les Americains 1" 
 
 Oh, be mindful of the love you have 
 won! 
 
 I would die all over again a thousand 
 times rather than see my Americans dis-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 163 
 
 appoint their French brethren in this 
 crisis of the worlcUs life. 
 
 You wonder why I say nothing of Eng- 
 land? Ah! England knows you already. 
 England has known you long. You can- 
 not surprise England. She knows you 
 as the mother knows her son or daugh- 
 ter; but to the French you are a mystery, 
 a mystery that has come to help, an angel 
 in a khaki shirt and a slouch hat and a 
 strange voice. 
 
 Don't you understand? 
 
 She prays for you. She would pray to 
 you if she were not so shy in her love. 
 There is a new strange wonder in her eyes, 
 and a sweet thrill all over her. 
 
 Oh, exalt the brotherhood of nations 
 that never before realized ideal! 
 
 You cannot take away from a boy who 
 has grown up in a free world the deep- 
 rooted idea that America is and ever must
 
 164 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 be free. In years gone by the sons of this 
 soil have died for freedom, freedom for 
 themselves, freedom for the black man. 
 Now they fight and die for the freedom 
 of the world. 
 
 Do you know what it means to be free? 
 Only the self -restrained man is free, for 
 lawlessness is not freedom. Lawlessness 
 is always in leash to passions tyrannical. 
 
 In the new America that I see just over 
 the edge of the horizon (for my eye 
 reaches farther than yours), there will be 
 room for the fullest development of the 
 individual idea, while the idea of social re- 
 sponsibility will make it stable. Hitherto 
 individuality has run rampant. Witness 
 the hoarding of food by a few, while many 
 go without. Watch the clash and strug- 
 gle of each interest to take some advantage 
 for itself out of this tragic opportunity. 
 
 Before the war is ended the hearts
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 165 
 
 of men must work in harness with their 
 minds. The old generation is dying off, 
 the generation whose initiative girdled 
 the continent with railroads, spurred by 
 the hope of personal gain. The new men 
 who will follow the old "captains of in- 
 dustry" will glimpse a new ideal. 
 
 I am told by one who knows more than 
 I that the men who have made industrial 
 America, by their foresight and initiative, 
 were guided and inspired by Beings who 
 used them and their ambitions for world 
 purposes beyond their comprehension.
 
 166 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 A RAMBLING TALK 
 
 November 15 1 1917. 
 
 I AM not in a literary mood to-night, 
 so I may talk in a rambling way. 
 
 I wonder if you know the seriousness 
 of the enterprise which America has un- 
 dertaken. You think you do. But before 
 the matter is all threshed out at the end 
 you may have surprises in store. 
 
 Do not worry about your things in Lon- 
 don. London is large, and a good many 
 bombs can fall without destroying any 
 great portion of it. 
 
 Yes, I say emphatically again what I 
 said some two years and a half ago, that 
 there will be internal troubles in Ger-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 167 
 
 many and in other places, too. The 
 world is going to be made over. Do not 
 be afraid. The making over of the world 
 will not hurt you. 
 
 Humanity is so afraid of change ! The 
 race has gone through many changes 
 some of them in prehistoric times more 
 dramatic than the present change. Hu- 
 manity has a long history, and little of it is 
 recorded in books that you can read. 
 
 Yes, the world will be united, and the 
 world will be cut up. That sounds like 
 a paradox, perhaps. 
 
 As I am resting to-night, I may take 
 the liberty of being disconnected. You 
 ought always to live in a quiet place like 
 this, a little remote from the centre of 
 things. You do not belong in the bustle 
 and crowd downtown, either in New York 
 or any other large city. All those who 
 have developed their inner senses should
 
 168 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 live a little apart. That does not mean 
 that they should all become hermits; but 
 they should live in the outskirts. When 
 you feel a desire for the crowd you can go 
 down into it. 
 
 Tell not to worry because this 
 
 book is going slowly. You are not work- 
 ing against time. The world will go on, 
 and you will go with it. Make no mistake 
 about that. The world is going very fast. 
 All these new "psychic" books are an evi- 
 dence that the world is going fast. A few 
 years ago no publisher would have issued 
 them. 
 
 I do not wonder that your head swims 
 a little. 
 
 You have been impressed by "losing" 
 so many personal friends since the war 
 began, friends whose deaths seemed un- 
 connected with the war. But they are of 
 those who could not adjust to the new
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 169 
 
 world that is coming. Their Silent 
 Watchers are taking them out. You each 
 have a Silent Watcher, a something, a 
 part of you that is above and beyond you, 
 yet which is the most real of all the parts 
 of you. 
 
 The Watchers of the universe are 
 watching more intently than usual. Your 
 own is watching you as well as the world. 
 It will give you notice when any impor- 
 tant action is necessary. 
 
 It seems as if the world had adjusted 
 itself to the idea that the dead may speak 
 with the living. But that is only the be- 
 ginning of knowledge. 
 
 When the worst of the war is over, and 
 men begin to adapt themselves to peace, 
 they will try to know themselves. And 
 they will discover that their bodies and 
 souls are only parts of them, that they 
 exist on as many planes of being as there
 
 170 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 are planes of matter and of subtler sub- 
 stance, and that each of these selves is as 
 real as the personality they see in the 
 mirror. They will learn to form links be- 
 tween them, to build bridges of communi- 
 cation. Finally they will become con- 
 sciously complete beings. 
 
 Joy is coming back to the world some 
 day, such joy as the world has never 
 known. You will one day be glad to be 
 alive again, and I mean all of you. 
 
 Do not fret because you have to remain 
 in America. At the moment America is 
 a good place in which to be. The world 
 is opening its eyes at the efficiency of 
 America. She is setting an example that 
 her friends will be ashamed not to follow. 
 Some day she will set the highest example 
 of all.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 171 
 
 LETTER XXII 
 
 THE LEVER OF WORLD UNITY 
 
 November 19, 1917. 
 
 DO you not see that the unifying in- 
 fluence of America is already be- 
 ing felt in the war? Do you not see how 
 America, through the President of the 
 United States, is drawing the Allies to- 
 gether? That is her destiny, to assemble 
 all nations in a brotherhood of democratic 
 freedom and mutual helpfulness. This 
 demand of President Wilson for a council, 
 for unified action in prosecuting the war, 
 is one of the most significant events in 
 history. For the first time a group of 
 friendly nations may really work as one,
 
 172 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 putting aside all personal jealousies and 
 fears for a great world end. 
 
 It is the lever of world unity which shall 
 lift the burden of wastefulness that here- 
 tofore has cost the world half the fruits 
 of its labor. 
 
 Oh, nations of Europe, do not fear the 
 great free land across the waters! She 
 wants nothing of you, save now the privi- 
 lege of helping you to save yourselves, and 
 in the future to work with you for the 
 ideals that will make you all strong. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon race must again be 
 like one family, though in two houses ; but 
 bye and bye, when America shall have 
 amalgamated her foreign residents with 
 herself in one indissoluble race, she will 
 still be your sister, O Britain! and you 
 two shall counsel together for the further 
 enlightening of the world. 
 
 Sometimes I go high in the etheric re-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 173 
 
 gions and look down upon the earth, so 
 high that the horizons bound one hemi- 
 sphere after another. The horizons of 
 time are also thus expanded, and I see 
 ahead of and behind the present hour. I 
 see the causes that have brought the world 
 to its present impasse. You will have to 
 remove the wall that separates you from 
 the age of enlightened brotherhood. 
 
 You have read about the golden age of 
 the past. Did you think it was a fanci- 
 ful story, to amuse children in the fire- 
 light? I tell you it will sometime be 
 realized again, and on this earth now 
 rent by hatred and war. 
 
 You must retain all you have won from 
 the mines of the earth and from the activ- 
 ity of your own brains. Inventions and 
 arts, they will all have their place in the 
 new age that is coming, and hitherto un- 
 imagined art and science will add further
 
 174, LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 to the glory and comfort of life. It will 
 be the fault of your own folly and blind- 
 ness if you lose anything of value to the 
 soul. The soul needs matter as matter 
 needs the soul. Because we look forward 
 to an age without hatred and wasteful 
 division, we do not look forward to an age 
 of idleness and inertia. Limitless will be 
 the opportunities for genius, for talent, 
 for ambition. 
 
 The greatest aristocracy of earth is the 
 aristocracy of mind and soul, and mind 
 and soul will be cultivated. The educa- 
 tion of the future will be not only practi- 
 cal but humanistic; nothing will be thrown 
 away that makes for beauty or for 
 thought. The treasures of dead lan- 
 guages will not be thrown into the dust- 
 bin. After the labor necessary to provide 
 for the material wants of the world, time 
 will be left for art and beauty and scholar-
 
 THE LiriNG DEAD M'AN 175 
 
 ship, for social discussion and religious ex- 
 altation. The mystic also will have his 
 place. 
 
 Three years ago I would not have dared 
 to prophesy a happy outcome for this 
 tragic fracas. More than two years ago 
 I told you that the battle had been won in 
 the regions above the earth won by the 
 powers of good, who labor for the welfare 
 of mankind. How can you doubt? If 
 the war had ended two years ago, the 
 world might have gone on more or less as 
 it went before. But now it can never go 
 back to the old selfish ways. In the need 
 that will follow the war the races will help 
 one another; they will turn to one another 
 as brothers and sisters turn. 
 
 Never lose faith that out of this tragedy 
 will come the guerdon of the world's de- 
 sire. I see it, I live for it (for I live 
 more vitally than you) ; and that you may
 
 176 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 see and live for it also I struggle against 
 the lightness of my present body, that has 
 a tendency to carry me away from the 
 dense regions where you suffer and pray, 
 you men of earth. 
 
 You who have followed me from those 
 early days when I wrote you letters from 
 the lower astral world, describing as a 
 traveller in a strange country the things 
 I had seen ; you who followed me through 
 the hells of astral turmoil during the early 
 months of the war, follow me yet a little 
 further. I will show you the way as it 
 has been shown to me. And you will 
 walk in that way, though stumbling at 
 first and groping for the thread of pur- 
 pose through the labyrinth of reconstruc- 
 tion, in the days that shall be called days 
 of peace. For perfect peace will not come 
 at once. You will have to work for it, 
 as you have worked for triumph in war.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 177 
 
 But if you have faith, you will ride the 
 stormy waters into the haven of a new 
 earth. And a new heaven will spread 
 above the earth, for heaven is largely 
 peopled from below; it recruits its popula- 
 tion from below. No new angels are be- 
 ing created now. The outgoing Breath 
 rests, and the indrawing Breath is about 
 to begin. You who have practised "yogi 
 breathing" know how difficult it is to hold 
 the breath out for more than a short time. 
 It can only be done by force of will. The 
 tendency is to return, as the tendency in 
 the race is to return towards the Source 
 from which it came. It is therefore I say 
 that you cannot retard, save for a little 
 while, the flow of the race-breath towards 
 harmony and peace and love. 
 
 This struggle of men with each other 
 in the selfishness of separation is like the 
 struggle of the yogi not to inbreathe the
 
 178 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 young and inexperienced yogi; for the 
 wise one breathes at stated intervals, and 
 knows when the period is full. 
 
 The race knows. It will follow the law 
 of the outflow and inflow. You cannot 
 prevent it. So yield yourselves to the 
 current that would carry you back to God. 
 
 It will not be a hurried journey, for the 
 inflowing breath is measured too. There 
 will be time for labor and for rest, and to 
 gather flowers by the way. 
 
 Do you fear the return to God, how- 
 ever slow it may be? I who have tasted 
 death know there is nothing to fear; and 
 I who have tasted the new life tell you 
 there is everything to hope.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 179 
 
 LETTER XXIII 
 
 THE STARS OF MAN^S DESTINY 
 
 November 24, 1917. 
 
 HAS it occurred to you that the 
 powers that have in charge the 
 progress of the world may be obliged to 
 use methods repugnant to your desires, 
 in order to accomplish inevitable purposes 
 at the time when they are due ? Man, by 
 rebelling against the tendencies of cosmic 
 progress, may retard it for a time; but 
 when the wave rises high enough it will 
 carry him along against his will, and in- 
 evitable effects are produced in spite of 
 his rebellion. 
 
 Take this war. The hour had struck 
 on the world clock when races of men
 
 180 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 should work together for a common pur- 
 pose. They rebelled in their fear that 
 each would not get his share of world 
 benefits; so the world was attacked by a 
 common enemy, and the races have had to 
 unite for a common purpose, that of pre- 
 serving civilization from the destruction 
 that threatens it. 
 
 Could this war have been prevented? 
 By prevision, yes. But no one with in- 
 fluence enough to be heard respectfully 
 had that prevision. Those who stand high 
 in the world's regard have generally so 
 concentrated upon their individual work 
 and their individual ambitions, that they 
 have lost the ability to see impersonally 
 and to see the world as a whole. Some 
 can see as a whole the tendencies of their 
 own country; few can see the world tend- 
 ency. 
 
 And I tell you now that if, when this
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 181 
 
 universal war is ended, the races do not 
 recognize the necessity to unite in a federa- 
 tion for the good of all, there will be after 
 forty years little left of all that has been 
 accomplished during that marvellous 
 nineteenth century which saw material 
 progress equalling that of the preceding 
 two thousand years. 
 
 Can man not see the stars of his destiny 
 without being struck on the head with a 
 hammer? If man will not work for the 
 good of the whole, then the whole has to 
 be threatened. It is so threatened now, 
 if you could see it.
 
 182 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 LETTER XXIV 
 
 MELANCHOLY 
 
 December 23, 1917. 
 
 I WANT to write about melancholy, 
 not the depression produced by 
 bad digestion or pressure on the nerves, 
 but that cloud of darkness that sometimes 
 descends upon the most brilliant mind and 
 the stoutest heart, making them for a while 
 useless for any purpose except that of 
 drawing knowledge from the experience 
 of melancholy itself. 
 
 Not all sadness originates in the heart 
 that is sad, and fear, the basis of melan- 
 choly, may be suggested to a soul on earth 
 by a soul beyond the earth. You do not
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 183 
 
 realize what a cloud of dissatisfied and 
 fearful souls this holocaust has let loose 
 in the invisible regions; they flock round 
 the sensitive souls upon the earth, longing 
 to "tell their troubles," longing for sym- 
 pathy and help. They are no more self- 
 reliant than many in your world whose 
 very presence depresses a stronger fellow 
 being. 
 
 Now whenever you feel that cloud of 
 melancholy, stop and ascertain the cause. 
 You have observed the workings of sug- 
 gestion. If you find nothing in your en- 
 vironment or circumstances to fill you with 
 hopelessness, would it not be safe to as- 
 sume unless you are bilious that the 
 cloud gathered elsewhere and merely de- 
 scended upon you? 
 
 The student who hopes some day 
 though maybe many lives in the future 
 to achieve adeptship, may as well begin
 
 184 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 now to control and direct his thoughts and 
 feelings. 
 
 You need not be melancholy unless you 
 want to be. There are texts, mantras, 
 adages, even copy-book maxims you can 
 recall and meditate upon, that will drive 
 away the worst fit of the blues. Here 
 are a few: 
 
 Pleasure and pain are opposite expres- 
 sions of one force. 
 
 I am a part of God, and no harm can 
 overtake God. 
 
 What is the truth hidden in this well 
 of discontent? 
 
 If I go deep enough into this midnight 
 earth, I shall come out on the other side 
 where the sun shines. 
 
 I was happy yesterday, and I am still 
 I. 
 
 A frightened dog will never scare away 
 a robber.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 185 
 
 If all these ills befall me, it will be an 
 exercise of power to conquer them. 
 
 Not very profound, perhaps; but 
 you can write better ones if you wish. I 
 am merely illustrating one process of. 
 shaking off the burden of dread. 
 
 Why should you men dread anything? 
 Even death is only dreadful when you 
 are afraid of it. 
 
 The Masters enjoy difficulties. They 
 are the acid that tests the gold of their 
 mastership. 
 
 And speaking from a lower plane, there 
 is pleasure in doing any difficult thing. 
 Why, in the writing of a big novel there is 
 more actual work, mental and physical, 
 than in overcoming some great misfortune, 
 It is less work to go out and overcome a 
 threatened misfortune than it is to write 
 a short story. 
 
 How anybody in good health and with
 
 186 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 even ordinary ability can yield to melan- 
 choly is a question for a philosopher. 
 
 I am not talking now of grief for dead 
 friends, or for false friends, which grief 
 is far worse; but of the fear of some 
 imaginary disaster which in all probabil- 
 ity will never happen. 
 
 The surest way to attract disasters is 
 to imagine them. You can create almost 
 anything if you imagine it strongly 
 enough even joy and courage. 
 
 A Master once told me that the con- 
 trol and exorcism of melancholy was a 
 greater test of power than the control of 
 desire. 
 
 Both often come from outside, are sug- 
 gested to the receptive, passive mind. 
 Now the Master entertains only those sug- 
 gestions that can strengthen his purposes. 
 If you have a friend who makes you 
 courageous by his very presence, cultivate
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 187 
 
 his society. If you have a friend who 
 makes you melancholy, either teach him 
 better or get rid of him; send him to a doc- 
 tor. 
 
 What is the use in our talking about 
 occult power if we have not power over 
 our moods? Practise on moods. As an 
 exercise, some time when you are active, 
 force yourself to be lazy. When you are 
 lazy and not tired, force yourself to be 
 active. Natural fatigue should not be 
 pressed too far, it is a mere reaction; but 
 indolence is not fatigue. It is in the 
 physical what melancholy is in the mental. 
 
 As another exercise, when your mind 
 circles round and round something, switch 
 it off as you would switch off an electric 
 light. Turn and think of something else. 
 You can do it. 
 
 And, by the way, one of the best cures 
 for melancholy is an hour of mathematical
 
 188 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 calculations. I defy anybody to be 
 melancholy in the arms of geometry or 
 trigonometry. Why? You cannot think 
 in mathematical terms and of yourself at 
 the same time. People always think of 
 themselves when they are melancholy. 
 
 But you tell me that you became melan- 
 choly the other day in thinking about a 
 friend who had lost her job. Think 
 again. By wondering what you could do 
 for this friend arid whether you could af- 
 ford it, you began to fear. ... Is it not 
 so? 
 
 You may be sad because a friend is in 
 trouble, but you cannot be melancholy for 
 anybody but yourself. 
 
 Another can make you melancholy by 
 making you morbid and fearful. 
 
 Our thoughts are so chained to our ego 
 that it is difficult for them to escape for 
 long. But are you ever melancholy
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 189 
 
 when creating imaginatively a scene in a 
 book? Could you be melancholy while 
 figuring the "polar elevation" of a planet, 
 or computing one of those converse "pri- 
 mary directions"? I see you smile. 
 When you are engaged with figures you 
 forget yourself. Now take my advice. 
 When auto-suggestion is powerless to con- 
 quer melancholy, draw up an astrological 
 figure in a low latitude with that table of 
 oblique ascensions that I saw you using 
 yesterday, and work out the converse pri- 
 maries and the longitude of Vulcan. 
 
 You remind me that when on earth I 
 had small interest in astrology. But I 
 am talking about mathematical calcula- 
 tions.
 
 190 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 LETTER XXV 
 
 COMPENSATORY PLAY 
 
 February 1, 1918. 
 
 I HAVE looked in on you occasion- 
 ally during the last few weeks, 
 pleased with your resting for a time. 
 
 The amhitious and energetic are prone 
 to underestimate the value of occasional 
 idleness. You cannot run even a machine 
 all the time without oil and rest. Neither 
 can the most vigorous engineer-soul run 
 its brain and body too long without letting 
 them cool. The farmer knows when to 
 let a field lie fallow. 
 
 "After the war" it is to be hoped that 
 the soldiers who have worked so long at 
 one labor that of war may be given a
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 191 
 
 period of compensatory play, doing noth- 
 ing, before being replaced in the hive of 
 industry. Let them enjoy the breezes 
 and the perfume of idleness for a little 
 time ; the reaction from that rest will send 
 them back into the workshops with re- 
 newed desire for activity. If the world 
 has to get along with less for a few weeks, 
 that will not hurt the world. 
 
 In the years to come there will be more 
 rest and recreation in America. In 
 Europe there is going to be some degree 
 of fatigue after this war, and America 
 can easily hold her own if she carries a 
 lower steam-pressure. 
 
 The idle hours are sometimes as valu- 
 able as those that are spent in labor. It 
 is in so-called idle hours that we meditate, 
 get acquainted with ourselves, build air 
 castles, which are working-plans for our 
 edifice of the future. Day dreams are
 
 192 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 good. I had a day dream during my life, 
 and it was really the working-plan for the 
 future I am building now. I wanted to 
 get back something I had lost, and I have 
 got it back. You wonder what it was? 
 I do not mind telling you. In a former 
 life I went far along the road towards 
 mastership. Then once upon a time I 
 slipped back a long way. My day dream 
 was to recover that lost ground, and I 
 have recovered much of it out here. 
 
 If I had not left the world with that day 
 dream vivid in my consciousness, I should 
 not have made the progress and the recov- 
 ery I have made. 
 
 I was talking the other day with an old 
 friend a very dear old friend who came 
 out here a year or two ago, and she and I 
 agreed that the day dreams we had 
 dreamed together were among the most 
 valuable products of our recent life.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 198 
 
 She is revelling in the recovery of her 
 own lost ground, and she will run me a 
 good race as the years go on. Yes, one 
 can race across recovered ground of adept- 
 ship. 
 
 My friend said laughingly the other 
 day that she had made more plans since 
 coming out here than she could execute in 
 a long while. 
 
 "Take your time," I advised, "in the 
 execution. You have all eternity." 
 
 She looked at me in the old way I re- 
 member so well, and said: 
 
 "Time may be made for slaves, but 
 eternity is made for masters." 
 
 She too is glad that she came out. She 
 had done one kind of work long enough, 
 and is now enjoying another. 
 
 Is she helping me, you wonder? Well, 
 no, unless you count the pleasure of our 
 renewed association as a help. Why
 
 should she help me, or I her? Our work 
 is our own. 
 
 You in the world should help each 
 other when you can; but out here we of 
 equal stature help each other hy being. 
 That is a good help, though, the being to- 
 gether sometimes. 
 
 What a wonderful expression, by the 
 way, "being together"! What poetry! 
 Not working* together, nor playing to- 
 gether, but simply being. You must 
 often have felt that joy when with a loved 
 friend. Words are not necessary for that 
 enjoyment. Words often lessen the en- 
 joyment by the very effort of uttering 
 them. Effortless being! Even the birds 
 enjoy it, and the rose could give you valu- 
 able secrets of that joy. 
 
 In the world I have heard busybodies 
 say of a beautiful woman that she did
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 195 
 
 nothing. What of it? A rose does not 
 run a sewing-machine, or write books. 
 
 Joy is coming back to the world. It 
 has been long absent. Being for its own 
 sake has taken on new meanings in the 
 minds of those who are glad to be still 
 alive. 
 
 To have passed through all the perils 
 of a long war and still to "be" a living 
 man is something to make the soul wonder. 
 
 The men who have fought in this war 
 from the beginning should not be crowded 
 too hard when at last they can stretch 
 their limbs in the hammocks of peace. 
 They have earned the right. As they 
 spin their soldier yarns, gaze at them with 
 respect. They passed through the shadow 
 of death for you. That God has retained 
 them among the active cells of His body 
 is because He has need of them still; but 
 it does not mean that they should go on
 
 196 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 working for you every minute. Suppose 
 you work for them for a while. When 
 they are rested they will join you in your 
 labor. 
 
 Last night I listened to two soldiers 
 talking, and this is what they said to each 
 other: 
 
 "What will you do, John, when it's all 
 over?" 
 
 "I'll lie in the bath tub an hour every 
 morning, in the warm, soft, soapy water; 
 and in the afternoon I'll call on one dear 
 girl after another, and drink tea, and 
 listen to their talk. And what will you 
 do?" 
 
 "Oh, I'll just look at my wife and hold 
 her hand." 
 
 Idle talk, you think? That depends 
 upon what you mean by idle talk. To 
 me that talk was immensely significant. 
 
 Soon after our little skirmish with
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 197 
 
 Spain I remember hearing an active 
 woman say of her husband that he had 
 never been good for anything since he 
 came back from Cuba. 
 
 "Well," I said, "he was good for a 
 lot in Cuba." 
 
 The Spanish- American war! A fly 
 beside an elephant, as compared with this 
 war. 
 
 And the German is tired, too. You 
 may not have to overwork yourself to 
 keep up with him after the war.
 
 LETTER XXVI 
 
 THE AQUARIAN AGE 
 
 February 2, 1918. 
 
 YOU have wondered why the Masters 
 speak now of the interests of the 
 common man, while in former times they 
 said little about them. But do you not 
 know that when the need for a thing is 
 come, the work of the Masters with the 
 world is to urge the world in the direction 
 of its destiny? 
 
 You have read of the iron age, the gold- 
 en age, etc., and that the golden age fol- 
 lows the iron. You may have wondered 
 how two states so utterly dissimilar could 
 be juxtaposed. Now between the iron 
 age and the golden age there is a period
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 199 
 
 of transition, a period short as compared 
 with one of the great ages, for example 
 the longest one, the golden, which is given 
 as one million, seven hundred and twenty- 
 eight thousand years. 
 
 I have not visited you this evening to 
 announce that the golden age is immedi- 
 ately at hand. Oh, no ! But we approach 
 the termination of a minor cycle, and the 
 period of transition from the present state 
 of the world to the next * will be of about 
 one thousand years. That is to say, this 
 period of one thousand years will bring 
 us to the middle of what is called the 
 Aquarian age, for the half of one of these 
 lesser Zodiacal periods is approximately 
 of that length.! 
 
 * Still far short of the golden age, probably. 
 E. B. 
 
 f This does not correspond exactly with the pop- 
 ular Hindoo reckoning. But automatic writings 
 are what they are. I can cut out repetitions, etc., 
 but I cannot rewrite, add to, or distort. E. B.
 
 200 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 What is the Aquarian age? You know 
 the humanitarian nature of Aquarius. You 
 also know the characteristics of the planet 
 Uranus, to which Aquarius is now attrib- 
 uted. Well, the inference is obvious. 
 We shall have an Aquarian world, and a 
 world where things will go after the man- 
 ner of that strange and abrupt planet 
 Uranus. 
 
 The old-fashioned world is passing 
 away, the Jupiterian world, and we are 
 entering upon a period of change, politi- 
 cal, social, religious and personal. There 
 is going to be an attempt at a federation 
 of states, a federation of souls. Nothing 
 but this war could have effected it with 
 the suddenness characteristic of that mys- 
 terious planet Uranus. 
 
 In the later Aquarian age the creative 
 will of man will have such scope as the 
 world has not dreamed of. It will be set
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 201 
 
 free from the limitations which have held 
 it. When all men are assured of a means 
 of livelihood, how free they will be in 
 mind! The freedom of the past in a free 
 country like America is nothing like the 
 freedom which the new age will usher in. 
 
 When education is really universal, the 
 moral as well as the mental will be trained, 
 and new ideas will have room to develop 
 in the developing brain. 
 
 Be not afraid, O world! Three years 
 ago, even we who see far out here had 
 grave doubts for the future of your 
 planet. But the great Masters always told 
 us that the world would pass through its 
 period of trial, still poised on its old axis, 
 and that the forces which make for order 
 would triumph over the forces which make 
 for disorder. Have you not noticed in the 
 psychic world a lessening of strain? Have 
 you not noticed an absence of the hostile
 
 202 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 and adverse beings that in the early 
 months of the war seemed to threaten the 
 earth and you and all men with a tri- 
 umphant malice? That is a straw which 
 shows the way of "the winds that blow be- 
 tween the worlds." 
 
 I am glad you are a keen observer of 
 psychic states. That faculty of observa- 
 tion will be of use to you in the years that 
 are to come. Those who cannot adjust to 
 new conditions will pass out for a time 
 and return later with the fresh outlook of 
 children, to take up their experience in the 
 new age. 
 
 There will be much rebellion in the be- 
 ginning. Things are not so stable as they 
 seemed four years ago. The war has 
 proved that they were not really stable. 
 
 The wave of psychic research that is 
 now sweeping across the world will wear 
 thin the veil between the visible and the
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 203 
 
 invisible. More and more men and women 
 will live in two worlds at the same time; 
 for the two worlds occupy the same space, 
 and their differences are differences of 
 consciousness, of vibration, the latter in- 
 cluding a difference in states of matter. 
 
 Men will grow more magnetic under 
 the influences that will play upon them. 
 They will affect each other more and 
 more, and that is one reason why greater 
 freedom will be necessary. With the 
 greater sensitiveness which the new time 
 will bring, it will be more difficult for large 
 families to live together a common life. 
 While the tendency is for all mankind to 
 be one family in sympathy, more and more 
 it will be recognized that each man re- 
 quires privacy for his best development. 
 The tyranny of the family will give place 
 to freedom in the family. Strip family
 
 204 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 life of its tyranny and it may be very 
 charming. 
 
 The sensitive and highly charged beings 
 of the new age would explode if they 
 should be obliged to slit every evening 
 round the family "centre-table," listening 
 to the maunderings of the least progres- 
 sive among them, who by reason of greater 
 age assumed the right to lay down the law. 
 This does not mean that children will not 
 honor their parents; but under the new 
 dispensation parents will honor their chil- 
 dren's need for the individual life, and will 
 give it to them thereby securing their 
 own freedom. 
 
 The freedom of the later Aquarian age 
 will be manifest in the mind. "Heresy" 
 will cease to exist; the word will become 
 obsolete. 
 
 The sin against the Holy Ghost will be
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 205 
 
 understood as the attempt to enchain the 
 will of another. 
 
 Great friendliness will result from this 
 mutual tolerance. We hate only those 
 whom we fear, and in a tolerant world 
 there will be few seeds of hatred. 
 
 All men will study; the school is only 
 the first stage of study. When man be- 
 comes his own schoolmaster he makes 
 great strides. 
 
 What you know of art, music and liter- 
 ature can give you but a vague idea of 
 what these arts will become in the age that 
 is to follow. Take the catchwords of the 
 immediate past, impressionism, for exam- 
 ple. It will be applied to all the arts. 
 
 Science is only in its swaddling-clothes. 
 Aquarius is a sign of air, the old books tell 
 us, and the air holds many secrets which 
 you must take for your own, not only se- 
 crets of transportation but psychological
 
 206 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 secrets. The airplane and psychical re- 
 search grew up together. 
 
 You have not taken the last redoubt of 
 electricity. That also has treasures for 
 you. When you can draw that from the 
 air where it hides from you and laughs, 
 you will have little need of coal, and the 
 miners can leave the bowels of the earth 
 and play in the sunshine of the heights. 
 
 Inventions! I see in the "pattern 
 world" I told you about in my first book 
 many things that would puzzle you down 
 here. New fabrics will be worn before 
 many years, and the patient silkworm will 
 not be the aristocrat it now is. 
 
 The human ego is coming into its 
 own. When it loses selfishness it will find 
 itself. That is not a paradox for its own 
 sake, but the statement of a psychological 
 fact. 
 
 The seeming chaos will take form, and
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 207 
 
 in it you will find new beauties. I will not 
 conceal from you the knowledge that 
 many will use the word chaos during the 
 reconstruction period. But be at peace. 
 The formless shall take on form. The 
 clairvoyance that is developing in man will 
 help him to see, where the eyes of his old 
 faith would have been blind. He will 
 trust the future and trust his brother, and 
 will not be deceived. The intuition of the 
 soul will point man to the substance which 
 he needs for his well-being. Behind and 
 within the air is the ether, which is sub- 
 stance, which is God. And man will take 
 it for his uses, with the consent of God, 
 who joys in giving Himself to His chil- 
 dren. 
 
 As I said before, the Masters urge the 
 world along in the direction of its destiny; 
 but they are too wise to hurry it. They
 
 208 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 see the face of the cosmic clock, and they 
 wake the world a che hour of the new 
 sunrise. We are blest in being their serv- 
 ants.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 209 
 
 LETTER XXVII 
 
 THE WATCHERS 
 
 February 3, 1918. 
 
 1 STOOD one day before a great soul 
 that had renounced the rest in heav- 
 en, and questioned him as to the work 
 that called us loudest. What do you think 
 he said? 
 
 "Labor with those who fear for the fii- 
 ture" 
 
 "Are there so many, then, who look for- 
 ward with apprehension?" I asked. 
 
 "All those who think and see and have 
 responsibilities are apprehensive," he re- 
 plied. 
 
 Then I wandered here and there about 
 America, looking in upon all sorts of men
 
 210 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 and a few women. And I read in their 
 minds a great uncertainty. 
 
 "Sufficient unto the day is the evil 
 thereof," I thought so intensely at them 
 that many responded with a hopeful smile. 
 
 Yes, I can win response from many peo- 
 ple when I think strongly enough in their 
 company. 
 
 The faith of one great soul out here has 
 helped many to stand steady when the 
 winds blew strong against them. He 
 knows that America cannot fail of her 
 destiny; but that she may not take a wrong 
 tack, he would guide the hand and brush 
 the mists from before the eye of the 
 skipper. 
 
 There are often mists before the path 
 of the "ship of State" in these grey days. 
 When Wilson took over the railroads, 
 what courage was there! When all is 
 over there will be many to criticize and
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 211 
 
 blame him; but criticism and blame are 
 ever the rewards of those who depersonal- 
 ize themselves and labor for the good of 
 their country or the world. The man who 
 is great enough to cast his personality 
 overboard is not hurt by criticism. It is 
 only the personality that can be hurt. The 
 soul stands serene and pure above the ad- 
 verse storms. 
 
 I do not advise all men to disregard 
 their personality. Only those who bear 
 great responsibilities may safely become 
 impersonal. The small man, the undevel- 
 oped man, could not persuade his soul to 
 take the place of his lesser self. For the 
 soul must be persuaded to descend and 
 dwell in the personality. Most souls are 
 only partially incarnated. The higher 
 self of most men dwells above and apart. 
 It is their Silent Watcher; but it seldom 
 acts save to warn and save. It leaves the
 
 212 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 lesser self to acquire experience and learn 
 its lessons through suffering and joy, 
 through success and failure. But when 
 the man has so far evolved that his acts 
 become of more than personal significance, 
 then the soul may descend and truly guide 
 and influence the man, for the designs of 
 the soul are ever beyond the personal. It 
 is a conscious part of the great whole, a 
 conscious part of God whom it worships 
 and serves, however the lower self may be 
 immersed in trivialities and blasphemies. 
 
 In any man who has not lost his soul the 
 Higher Watcher has an interest. For the 
 Watcher is One and he is many. He is 
 your link with God, Oh, men! He is your 
 link with immortality. 
 
 You do not meet him merely by dying, 
 for you may dwell long in the astral and 
 lower mental world before meeting him 
 face to face. But if you can ascend after
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 213 
 
 death to the higher regions, you will find 
 him there waiting for you. You may bring 
 to him all the fine fruits of your recent 
 life, and he will enjoy them with you. 
 
 I have met my soul face to face; but I 
 am unable to remain in the higher regions 
 in peaceful contemplation of his beauty 
 while there is so much work to be done for 
 the races on earth as calls to me now. Bye 
 and bye I shall re-ascend; but when I go 
 to heaven for a long sojourn you will hear 
 from me no more. 
 
 Yes, I too have seen your soul. But I 
 need not describe its face to you, who 
 see it better than I. Cling to it. The fail- 
 ure of mortal friendship has no power to 
 shatter the faith of one who can reach to 
 his own Silent Watcher. And the soul of 
 the faithless friend is pure as his own, and 
 understands all things. Friendships, like 
 loves, are made in heaven, and true friend-
 
 214 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 ship cannot die. Its roots are deep in wa- 
 ters of eternity. It is deathless as the 
 Ygdrasil, and its roots are also above and 
 its branches below. 
 
 But it is better to fail in business than 
 to fail in friendship. 
 
 If a man is great and strong enough, 
 he may draw down his soul to dwell with 
 him wherever he may be. , Then the man 
 is a whole man, he is an adept. Lincoln 
 is such a man, such a soul. He has become 
 one with his Higher Watcher, and the two 
 that are one can work even in the regions 
 of the astral. But such a marriage of 
 heaven and earth is uncommon, as adepts 
 are uncommon. 
 
 Your father in heaven is one with the 
 Father, and if you are really one with 
 your father in heaven he can dwell with 
 you even on earth. 
 
 The higher souls of men are closer to
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 215 
 
 men now than they have been for ages. 
 The doors have been opened. Grief and 
 terror and pain and devotion to ideals of 
 duty have raised the race of men in three 
 and a half years as it could not have been 
 raised in a hundred years of peace. If the 
 race falls back now, n\will be a lost oppor- 
 tunity. But the race will not fall back.
 
 216 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 LETTER XXVIII 
 
 A RITUAL OF FELLOWSHIP 
 
 February 8, 1918. 
 
 I HAVE been waiting for you half an 
 hour, as you sat sewing a seam and 
 thinking of your friends in France. It 
 warms the heart now to think of France. 
 The tie between the two great republics 
 is being drawn closer and closer. 
 
 Shall I tell you an occult secret? The 
 French mixed their blood with ours long 
 ago, and we have loved them ever since. 
 We are now mixing our blood with the 
 blood of France, and France will love us 
 in the days that are to come. 
 
 It is a ritual of fellowship, that mixing 
 of blood. English and French and Amer-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 217 
 
 icans and Italians, Irish, Scotch, and all 
 the others. Is there not a foundation for 
 brotherhood? The blended blood cries 
 from the ground for love. 
 
 I see in the eyes of the French their 
 feeling for our men as they march by, or 
 help in the little ways to which American 
 boys are accustomed. Never again will 
 they look upon us as queer people from 
 beyond the sea. 
 
 We have travelled in their country and 
 spent our money and swaggered and 
 talked through our noses ; but now we are 
 living and dying with them, and we are 
 brothers of mixed blood. 
 
 Yes, go back to France when you can. 
 They always loved you because you loved 
 them, but now you will see that they also 
 love your native land.
 
 LETTER XXIX 
 
 RECRUITING AGENTS 
 
 February, 1918. 
 
 FOR a day or two after America de- 
 clared that a state of war existed, I 
 spent most of my time in going about 
 this country, studying conditions in both 
 worlds. Even before that survey I had a 
 general idea of how matters stood in those 
 worlds ; but I wanted to freshen my mem- 
 ory, for I had a great idea. Many times 
 during my life on earth I had told myself 
 that I had a great idea, and sometimes I 
 put it into execution, and sometimes I 
 failed in doing so. But this time I was de- 
 termined there should be no failure. 
 
 When I had seen from my survey that
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 219 
 
 the materials were all at hand, I sought 
 out a great man, spirit, or whatever you 
 choose to call him. 
 
 Then together we mapped out our cam- 
 paign. Here are the main points of it: 
 
 Conservation where the negative 
 forces should be applied. 
 
 Construction with our positive forces. 
 
 Coordination with the synthetic 
 forces. 
 
 We marshalled a group of those strong- 
 minded, strong-willed men and women 
 who had been out here long enough to 
 know not only their way about, but how 
 to impress their thoughts upon material- 
 bodied men and women. These were dis- 
 patched here and there, to think, think, 
 think, in the neighborhood of senators and 
 congressmen, chiefs of industry and mem- 
 bers of the general public. The burden 
 of their impressed thought was conserva-
 
 220 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 tion of food, conservation of expenditure, 
 conservation of all material that would be 
 needed for the activities of war. 
 
 Others who were filled with a great love 
 for the land of their latest birth, America, 
 went about in bands instilling their pa- 
 triotic enthusiasm into the hearts and 
 minds of those millions who had too long 
 taken America as a matter of course. They 
 sang patriotic songs, and though they 
 could not be heard by the ears of earth, 
 the spirit of their singing could be felt, 
 and they accomplished much. 
 
 Then others, the wisest among old lead- 
 ers of men, were busy in quelling disorder, 
 in suppressing discontent with the war. 
 Wherever a group of wild-eyed, peace- 
 prating "idealists" got together to talk 
 twaddle, there was one or more of these 
 unseen auditors to put the brakes on re-
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 221 
 
 sponsive enthusiasm to the dangerous 
 principles enunciated. 
 
 I will not bore you by giving all the de- 
 tails of this plan of help which we labored 
 to make effective. But there were enrolled 
 more than one million beings out here who 
 have pledged themselves to serve until 
 their services are no longer required. 
 That may not seem to you a great number 
 to help invisibly a nation of more than one 
 hundred millions; but one to every hun- 
 dred is enough among the active workers, 
 for each is free to choose assistants among 
 those younger in earth experience. 
 
 To the one who acted as our command- 
 er-in-chief, the generals of this auxiliary 
 army made reports, and many were the 
 strange orders he gave them. But no one 
 questioned his wisdom, and the results 
 have proved it over and over. 
 
 One time when I wanted to go North,
 
 222 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 he sent me to the South, and in Mobile I 
 learned why my course was changed. 
 
 It is a wonder that the legislators at 
 the various capitols have not "seen ghosts" 
 during the last months. Perhaps they 
 have. But men are becoming accustomed 
 to the idea of us now. That is one of the 
 good results of the war. In looking across 
 the border for their loved ones, they may 
 encounter the Teachers, even the angels 
 of their loved ones, and be enlarged in 
 mind. 
 
 I had an amusing experience in the city 
 
 of . There is a "pacifist" there who 
 
 has a considerable influence among the 
 members of a certain set, and I found that 
 when he began one of his "philosophic" 
 talks to one or more persons, for he has 
 not lectured publicly, I could bewilder him 
 by speaking in his ear and answering his 
 questions in a way that made him wonder.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 223 
 
 For, strange to say perhaps, he could hear 
 me. But not believing in the possibility 
 of communication between the worlds, he 
 thought he was having "clairaudient hal- 
 lucinations," and consulted a doctor who 
 told him that he had been brooding too 
 much about the war. The doctor, who was 
 not a pacifist, advised our friend to take 
 up ornithology. 
 
 Yes, he is young and will be young for 
 many incarnations. 
 
 We have also done our share of recruit- 
 ing. Those who were later called by the 
 draft were merely encouraged; but there 
 were others who needed only the dream 
 we sent, or the thought we whispered, to 
 move them in the right direction; and 
 when a young man's country is at war, the 
 right direction is generally towards the 
 nearest recruiting station. 
 
 There was a boy in who had been
 
 224 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 reading about France and the fighting in 
 France with a tightening at the heart, a 
 tightening of horror. He feared the draft. 
 He was not a husky fellow. His labors as 
 bookkeeper in a bank had not developed 
 his leg muscles, and he had a capricious 
 digestion. So he told himself that he 
 would be a failure as a soldier. 
 
 But one time when in sleep he came out 
 into our world, I met him and invited him 
 to take a stroll with me. Do you think I 
 took him to a battlefield? Oh, no I I took 
 him to an exercise ground. You may won- 
 der how I could do that at night; but it 
 chanced that he had fallen asleep in the 
 daytime. And I made it easy for him to 
 see down into the world he had tempo- 
 rarily left to see the exercise ground. It 
 interested him. 
 
 And next day the labor over the ledger 
 seemed duller and more monotonous than
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 225 
 
 usual. And he overheard & girl say to a 
 friend at the paying teller's window, that 
 a sallow faced clerk was not her ideal of 
 a man, that she liked the soldier boys. 
 
 When he went for a walk after banking 
 hours, I went along with him, and drew 
 his attention to some marching soldiers 
 who had a good band. The boy went home 
 and looked at himself in the mirror and 
 found that he was sallow, and he reminded 
 himself that he was a clerk. 
 
 So he enlisted. 
 
 You may wonder why I took so much 
 trouble to gather one uninteresting young 
 man into the fold of Uncle Sam's army, 
 when we had so many subordinate workers 
 at that business. But I had known the 
 boy's father twenty years before, and 
 something he had said influenced me to- 
 wards a decision that enlightened my 
 whole after life.
 
 226 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 When that boy returns he will be no 
 longer sallow-faced, and he will be a hero 
 not a clerk. 
 
 I like to pay my debts.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 227 
 
 LETTER XXX 
 
 THE VIRUS OF DISRUPTION 
 
 February 16, 1918. 
 
 FREEDOM with self-restraint and 
 social responsibility" would be a 
 good motto for Americans in the years 
 that are before them. 
 
 The underground and overground prop- 
 aganda of Bolshevism, Anarchism, etc., 
 inspired and fed by the forces of destruc- 
 tion, can be successfully combated by the 
 spirit of order, of restraint, of responsi- 
 bility to the body politic. 
 
 The end of this war will not be the end 
 of confusion. The world-soul has been 
 inoculated with the virus of disruption, 
 and it will need the wills of millions work-
 
 228 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 ing together for a common end to expel 
 the poison and restore the body of human- 
 ity to health and security. 
 
 America as we know it was born of pro- 
 test against oppression, and the love of 
 liberty, father and mother, positive and 
 negative, in the old days. If now the 
 protest against oppression degenerates 
 into the protest against all restraint, and 
 if the love of liberty degenerates into the 
 love of license, then I may tell you that 
 those who cannot govern themselves have 
 to be governed from outside. 
 
 The human race is passing through a 
 period of initiation. The morally weak 
 and the weak of will are always in danger 
 of being carried away. The spirit of de- 
 struction finds them ready tools with 
 which to work its will* 
 
 The kingdom of heaven is not immedi- 
 ately at hand, and full seven years will be
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 229 
 
 needed to settle the consciousness of man- 
 kind after the shaking-up it has received. 
 The dregs, as usual in such cases, have 
 risen and diffused themselves throughout 
 the fluid of the cup. 
 
 If there were only a dozen people in the 
 United States who understood or could 
 be made to understand the occult forces 
 behind the present universal unrest, and if 
 those twelve could work together with 
 unity of purpose, some here, some there, 
 with the pen, the voice and the will, under 
 a leader, those twelve might lead the peo- 
 ple out of the wilderness. But where are 
 they? Every leader knows that in unity 
 is strength. 
 
 And I may mention the opposite law, 
 that in disunity is disintegration. 
 
 Bolshevist and anarchist! Finding the 
 world not to their liking, and being unable 
 to adjust to environment so as to satisfy
 
 230 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 their love of power, or their love of ease, 
 these people have devoted themselves to 
 destroying the society in which they are 
 unsuccessful. They believe themselves 
 right. There is so much of the divine in 
 almost the worst man, that he has to be- 
 lieve he is working for the right even when 
 he is working evil. It is necessary for a 
 murderer to justify his act in order to do 
 it, unless he is swept away by blind pas- 
 sion, and then he seeks to justify passion 
 itself. 
 
 The heart of man is superior to the 
 brain of man. Almost anyone can feel a 
 good impulse ; but the man who can think 
 independently of his passions is rare and 
 isolate. Popular education does not mean 
 universal reasoning power. But popular 
 education is the beginning; it is the seed 
 out of which will grow the tree of world- 
 intellect.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 231 
 
 I have told you of the reign of love that 
 is at length to comfort the hearts of man- 
 kind; but I have not told you that it is 
 coming to-morrow or the next day. 
 
 If you can get away from the personal 
 and the temporary, and see life and the 
 movements of cycles in perspective, you 
 will see how temporary unrest is only a 
 stage by the way. 
 
 He who adjusts to environment adjusts 
 even to unrest. Remember that. The 
 supple tree feels the wind, but its roots 
 cling tight to the soil and the rock of in- 
 dividuality. 
 
 Be like the supple tree, America. In 
 the wind that sweeps across the world, 
 cling tight to the soil of freedom and the 
 rock of social responsibility. You can 
 save the world if you do not lose your 
 hold on the soil and the rock that have 
 steadied and sustained you.
 
 282 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 The anxious eyes of a Europe in con- 
 flagration are turned in your direction, 
 your friends with hope, your enemies with 
 dread. When you threw the weight of 
 your strong young body into the scales of 
 justice, you changed the destiny of the 
 world. Yes, it was your destiny to do it. 
 
 All you who have studied "occultism," 
 which merely means knowledge too pro- 
 found to be understood by the material- 
 minded, you who have studied occultism 
 know that to the candidate for initiation 
 come trials and tests, and that without 
 them he cannot go on. Think of the hu- 
 man race as a candidate for initiation. If 
 your mind is developed beyond the minds 
 of your fellows you, and you, and you 
 do not forget that you are united to them 
 by an indissoluble bond. You cannot 
 break away from the race. You may rise 
 above it as the Master does, or sink be^
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 233 
 
 neath it as the lost souls do; but the link 
 between you and those other fragments of 
 God can only be broken at your peril. 
 
 The Master works for the race, knowing 
 well that he cannot safely ignore it. Even 
 if he made himself equal with the gods and 
 desired to build a world of his own, he 
 would have to take the substance for it 
 from the common reservoir of substance. 
 If like a spider he could spin his world- 
 web from himself, he would have to eat 
 the common substance to sustain himself 
 in his power. 
 
 You may as well love the race, for you 
 cannot escape it altogether. Even if you 
 rise and dwell in the thin air of the king- 
 dom of the mind, you will feel the wind- 
 currents from your fellows above and be- 
 low. Some will deny this, but I have made 
 the test. 
 
 I recently sought a high place for rest.
 
 234 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 But the needs of the world pulled me back. 
 The greatest need of the world for the 
 next few years will be the knowledge of 
 the law of conservation. Retain, O world I 
 the treasures you have labored for 
 throughout the centuries, and discard 
 only the worn-out garments and utensils. 
 The wooden plough and the wooden shoe 
 are no longer needed in a wisely ordered 
 world; but the sciences and the arts you 
 will need, and the Gothic cathedrals you 
 destroy can never be replaced.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 235 
 
 LETTER XXXI 
 
 THE ALTAE FIRE 
 
 February 18, 1918. 
 
 ALWAYS the pull of the opposites! 
 In all the talk of internationalism, 
 let us not forget nationalism. The enemy 
 of the present hour made great use of it, 
 but he did not reckon with its opposite. It 
 is not true internationalism to support 
 spies as commercial agents in all the coun- 
 tries of earth. 
 
 America of all nations is best fitted to 
 carry on her standards : Each for all, and 
 all for each. 
 
 But in her love for other races, for 
 other nationalities, let her not forget to 
 strengthen and uphold her own.
 
 236 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 "My Country, 'tis of Thee!" As that 
 sentiment grows ever stronger in your 
 heart, so will your justice to other nations 
 make you recognize that their countries 
 are of them. For your country was not 
 built upon the idea of world domination, 
 but of freedom for yourselves and for 
 all men. 
 
 Your president has been called a maker 
 of phrases. That is good. A man who 
 can make phrases that shall carry them- 
 selves around the world can influence the 
 thought of the world. 
 
 "To make the world safe for democ- 
 racy." Those words will go down the cen- 
 turies. 
 
 You Americans who love the storied 
 lands of Europe, do not underestimate 
 this land that gave you birth. It is great 
 as the greatest now, and its clock has not 
 yet struck twelve noonday. It is still
 
 THE LIVING DEAD M'AN 237 
 
 morning in America. The present day 
 American is the ancestor of the man of the 
 Sixth Race. From many stocks he will 
 spring, and his blood will be blended from 
 that of all the races which have preceded 
 him. He will be unique in his qualities. 
 No man of the older races can imitate him, 
 for his consciousness will be his own. 
 
 A man is not, as you have so often said, 
 so many pounds of flesh and bone and 
 blood and sinew, but a man is a state of 
 consciousness. It is because you recog- 
 nize their state of consciousness as being 
 themselves, that men and women reveal 
 themselves to you. 
 
 If or when you go back to Europe 
 to live, do not forget your country. Do not 
 remain too long away from it, lest you 
 lose touch with that unique consciousness 
 which shall flower in the Sixth Race. 
 
 Yes, a great art will grow up in Amer-
 
 238 LAST LETTERS FROM 
 
 ica. After another fifty years it will be 
 ripe. Let us hope it will not begin to rot 
 thereafter, but like a sound American ap- 
 ple preserve its solidity for a long time. 
 
 This war is good for America. It is not 
 well for a race to have so great a material 
 success without some pain and struggle. 
 It is pain that mellows the heart. 
 
 America has not yet found her soul, but 
 she will find it. Those Americans who are 
 now broken-hearted are finding their 
 souls. 
 
 France found her soul a long time ago, 
 and she is now finding her divinity. Would 
 she have found it but for suffering? The 
 Christ upon the cross is greater than the 
 Christ at the marriage supper in Cana of 
 Galilee. 
 
 If I had not wanted you to write this 
 book, I should have sent you back to Lon- 
 don, that you might experience the strain
 
 THE LIVING DEAD MAN 239 
 
 of air raids and insufficient food. I should 
 have sent you back to France, that you 
 might see and touch and minister to the 
 wounded. 
 
 Though you have endured the strain of 
 the astral world at war, you have not yet 
 seen and touched and tasted the agony of 
 physical suffering that the women of 
 France have seen and touched and tasted. 
 But you cannot live and suffer in too 
 many worlds at once. 
 
 Do you not think that our American 
 boys who are fighting now in France will 
 be greater for the experience whether 
 they live or die? Life in material form 
 is not the only life, and those who make 
 the great sacrifice will gain more than they 
 lose. It is sublime to die for an ideal. "To 
 make the world safe for democracy." 
 
 America is better known to Europeans 
 now than she has been before. Many of
 
 you will go and come, as you have done in 
 the past; and a few of you will vitalize the 
 mutual understanding between America 
 and Europe. But you can do that only by 
 glorifying your own nationality in your 
 hearts. I do not mean flaunting it. Let 
 it burn as an altar fire, in the secret tem- 
 ple of your being. 
 
 THE END
 
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