Who and what am I?

Introduction

‘‘Who and What Am I?” From whence came I? Whither do I go? These questions are answered under inspiration in this book. The author claims that this work was written under inspiration and, as she has also written fiction, knows the difference between it and truth.

Inspirational writing is very different from automatic writing. Those who write under inspiration are fully conscious that they are impressed by an influence, independent of themselves, which uses their brains and minds as instruments to connect them with the material world.

Those who write automatically, like automatons, are conscious of nothing. Their brains and minds are almost completely magnetized into insensibility, which makes it very difficult to give reliable information, or truth, as a torpid magnetized brain is not as good an instrument as a conscious one ; or, very rarely done, the hand is automatically controlled, entirely independent of the brain and mind. Those who are prepared will accept this as truth, those who are not will regard it as fiction.

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Who and What am I?

Chapter I

W E were a Southern family, all, excepting myself, born in old Virginia. The Roanokes were well and favorably known long before my father was forced, through a mesalliance, to leave his ancestral halls. My mother, although well educated and of remarkable beauty, was not of the higher orders. Her people were well-to-do farmers, hence she was not considered a fitting mate for the scion of one of the most prominent families.

Upon his marriage he was treated so austerely and contemptuously by many of his family and friends, that he decided to seek a home as far West as possible. After many vicissitudes, he, with his wife and three children, arrived in Indiana, and, later, friendless and forlorn, in a remote village in Kentucky.

With the assistance of kindly neighbors he opened a school which, in the course of time, developed into the leading Academy of that vicinity. When I was bom, the youngest of the family, it had been enlarged to accommodate about fifty boarders, boys from ten to twenty. Besides my mother, who taught music, French and Spanish, there were several teachers for the juvenile and advanced classes. The Mount Severn Academy was located on a hill, surrounded by pretty gardens and grain fields.

The house was Colonial: with great pillars, large rooms, open fire-places, and was finished and furnished in walnut and mahogany. On one side were reception and music rooms, on the other the library and three class rooms. The wings, which had been added on both sides, were devoted to dance hall and gymnasium, in the rear dining room and culinary department. The story above had been remodeled into sleeping rooms to accommodate the big boys, and a dormitory for the juveniles. Mrs. Elston was the matron for the elders, whilst a niece of my mother’s, Ella Langdon, ruled the juveniles with love and kindness.

WHO AND WHAT AM I?

There were four children in our family: my brother Roscoe, at the time my story opens, nearing twenty years, Lillian, my sister, eighteen, Tom, twenty, and myself, John, just ten. I was presumed to be an epileptic, due to certain seizures which often kept me in a comatose condition for several hours, and, as I grew older, days at a time without regaining consciousness. My mother had such a horror of my “terrible disease,” as she termed it, that I slept in a bed adjoining hers where she could keep me under surveillance, for oft I was seized at night. Never was I permitted to go anywhere without a bodyguard.

As I began to think, and crave for solitude, life became very unpleasant, despite the love of all manifested in every possible way. We were a very loving family, and had been reared, simply and solely, with love and extreme patience, and, in consequence were more than usually tolerant, kindly and considerate. My mother claimed that precept, unaccompanied by example, was worthless. Rarely did words of exhortation, advice or suggestion come from her, but, when they did, we listened with reverence, and heeded with alacrity. Alas! so often parents by constant reiteration, unkind suggestions, lack of consideration for the young, unable to enter into their feelings, do more harm than good, and are responsible, although but instruments, for that which a wiser course would have prevented.

My father, a courtly gentleman of the Old School, of punctilious courtesy, the result of several generations of culture, never permitted a severe reprimand nor an unkind word in his presence. My mother, although not blessed with gentle forbears, was born, by right Divine, his equal in all but blue blood. We were reared to believe in blue blood, in family, by my father. My mother often smiled, rather sadly, I thought, while a suspicious moisture would bedim her eyes when my father would dilate upon the pure, undefiled stream of his ancestors. The only semi-contemptuous tones I ever heard her use was on one of these occasions when she, with a slight flash in her wondrous eyes, “Heaven’s own blue” my father called them, said,

“Why not tell them that all blue blood has come from the people, that in truth, there is no such thing, that blood is constantly changing and being so adulterated, in all families, that, after a few generations, they have not a drop of the blood upon which they pride themselves, and which often is not responsible

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for the false estimate they have of themselves, but the false teaching of those who know better.”

My father glanced at her surprisedly, then a glance of mortification o’erspread his face as he realized her viewpoint. He lifted my sister Lilian off his lap, thrust me, at his feet, aside, hastened to her, drew her quivering face to his and said,

“Darling, you know in what sense I mean it. Only to make them ashamed to do wrong, to be ‘sans peur et sans reproche.’ ”

“I know,” she answered sweetly, “but I think you can do that without dwelling too much upon the ‘best blood of the South,’ ‘the pure blood, undefiled by any muddy stream,’ etc.”

“That is so,” he agreed heartily, “I grant you I am somewhat the product of my environment and education. But, come, dear, a smile and a kiss, are you not my better half, superior to me in everything?” His large dark eyes, his mobile mouth, were so eloquent of tenderness and truth that she drew his head upon her shoulder and patted his cheek fondly

“Oh!” she cried, “Randolph, you are irresistible, at least to me.”

“As it should be.” he replied merrily.

This was the only time that I, during my short life of twenty years, ever saw a frown cloud the winsome beauty of my mother’s face. Although my brother, Roscoe, was a magnificent fellow, tall, the image of his father, and Tom, as lovable and fine a character as ever lived, while Lilian inherited all her glorious blond beauty, with the exception of the large dark eyes of the Roanokes, I, poor, puny, sickly Johnnie, was her idol. Upon me she lavished most of her time, and the outpouring of such love as but few are blessed with. Too well she knew the little heart that ached, day and night, with the longing to be like other boys, the bitter nights that I sobbed myself to sleep at some fancied slight or tactless pity.

I awakened one night suddenly. It seemed that a warm, loving hand patted me on the cheek, ere I opened my eyes, as though to give me courage and confidence. It was a bright moonlight night. I could see my father and mother distinctly, she was sitting up in bed with hands clasped in prayer, he was sitting by her side, apparently in deep thought. My mother unclasped her hands and said so sadly that my eyes overflowed, sensitive, psychical child that I was.

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‘‘Oh, Randolph, Randolph, a cripple too. Oh, my Johnnie, my Johnnie.”

“Be comforted, wife, at least he will be spared to us.” answered my father huskily.

“An epileptic to torment us day and night, and now, good God, a cripple to torment my darling more.”

“Hush, dear, he is not an epileptic but a gifted being.”

“Why, what do you mean?” looking dubiously at him.

“Have you never heard of the great Seer, Emmanuel Swedenborg?

“Of course I have, but again, what do you mean?” — somewhat hopefully, she said.

“I mean that both the doctor and I have decided that he is not an epileptic, but a psychic of marvellous power.”

“Oh, Randolph, I do not believe in spiritualism, I have a contempt for it.”

“This is different from spiritualism, as you cognize it. The doctor and I have been conducting a series of experimental tests, when you have not been around, and we have proven to our satisfaction that he, when not in a fit but entranced, communes with angels and is on a high plane of development.”

“Oh, Randolph, my little boy, Johnnie.”

“Yes, dear, your little boy has, when in this condition, answered us in not only all modern but ancient languages, and has expressed himself in such choice, refined speech as to leave no doubt that Johnnie, the real Johnnie, possesses powers he is unable to express when not entranced.”

I listened eagerly as they discussed the various aspects of my case, and I thankfully coincided with my father’s decision that 1 was not a victim to epilepsy, but something wonderful I knew nothing about. Oh, what a load was lifted off my heart, how the blood coursed through my veins with delight. A psychic like Swedenborg! I lay very still thinking of all the glory in store for me, until I drifted off into unconsciousness. The next day I looked for a dictionary and a life of the great Seer. I soon deciphered the meaning, and gloated over the great Swedenborg but, somehow, I could not believe in hell, punishment nor evil, they, for me, had no reality.

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All my life I had been sheltered in the arms of love. Although I occasionally procured a paper, or magazine, with impure suggestions and the wrongdoings of different people, I really could not understand, they had no meaning for me, they were to me idle words, meaningless phrases.

Those who have not had such a pure environment as I, rarely alone, usually accompanied by my father, mother, Lillian or Ella, four of the sweetest, purest characters to be found on earth, cannot credit that almost a century ago, in the comparatively unsettled Middle West, lived such advanced people. But such is the fact. My father had delved deep in mystic lore, and was an occultist of some power, although not manifested to any but Dr. Morton who investigated with him. But my father and the Doctor, unlike the average, undeveloped psychic, and spiritualist, had, after years of study, decided that Omnipotent Love and Wisdom alone ruled all worlds and forms of life.

Both the Doctor and he, upon being convinced of my marvellous powers, agreed to never let me hear or see aught of an evil or undeveloped nature, and to train and develop my mind to be in accord with the good, the truths of the real life, hence able to express them. Therefore, my father alone instructed me, while my mother, and the rest of the family were enjoined to never let me see or hear anything that savored in the slightest degree of impurity or unchastity.

By the time I reached my fifteenth year, I was so developed psychically that either the Doctor or my father, during the time devoted to my studies, could entrance me at will. Up to that time I had no recollection of what transpired during these periods of my detachment from my physical body, because this, in truth, is what it was, but later I recalled everything.

It is these experiences which I propose to relate, to give mortals some correct ideas of the spirit life and its glorious blesssings and privileges. Although brain is not sufficiently developed to form mind prior to the fourteenth year, and rarely before the fifteenth, T had had such unusal training that I, upon arriving at fourteen, had formed mind according to my training, environment and education, and as my brain, prior to birth, had been organized with care by the angels in charge, my instruments to express spirituality and truth were well developed. My father and the Doctor had never imagined that I would be able to recall

WHO AND WHAT AM I?

aught of the other life. They presumed that it was the wise sages who used my brain and magnetized my mortal mind into insensibility. But due to lack of development of my brain on certain lines, these sages could only transmit, through the little entities of my brain, that which they were trained to transmit and no more.

All brains are under charge of those who form both the spirit and mortal bodies, under Divine, immutable law, and only receive and express, from the spirit spheres, that which is judged essential development. While those who spoke through me, who used my brain, were wise with a wisdom far superior to mine, they could only give that which I knew in the real life, and had impressed upon my mortal mind, although not able to express it on account of spirit brain being magnetized while on the mortal plane, but the sages, with their brains under their control, not magnetized, could express all the knowledge that my spirit brain or I possessed, and no more.

As I, at that period, an advanced boy in spirit life, was familiar with all languages, my mortal brain could transmit these but could not transmit either wisdom or knowledge which I knew not. Hence all must know that no spirit can give anything that the spirit, in charge of the mortal body, does not know, and that all that is impressed inspirationally is ever and always the knowledge and wisdom of the spirit or mortal impressed, or become his when impressed by the spirit.

Therefore, ever and always, whether spirit is attached to his mortal body or not, the mortal brain is his instrument, trained and developed for him alone, and although private matters, pertaining to those Who use his brain, are given, solely that which his brain is capable of receiving, and transmitting can be given. Thus my father and the doctor received only the knowledge I had acquired when detached by sleep, as all are educated in the real life when absent from the mortal body, but no more. Hence, although it appeared wonderful to them, they received nothing that had not been given by others, on similar planes of development, repeatedly before.

When it is known that the human brain is the receiving and the transmitting instrument for the spirit, that without it he can express nothing on earth or the mortal plane, it will be realize^

WHO AND WHAT AM I?

that all good instruments are developed in the spirit world, ere they can receive or transmit that which is expressed through them. Hence I, at that time, could not transmit through my own brain that which I am transmitting now. At that time I had the spirit mind and brain of a boy, now I have the spirit mind and brain of an adult, and can transmit correctly only through a brain similarly developed.

WHO AND WHAT AM I?

Chapter II

I was lying in bed, by my side a man of venerable aspect, white haired and scarred with the seams of time. A wistful smile was on his stern lips as, with closed eyes, he remained for a few moments in deep thought. Then he opened his eyes slowly, and, looking into space above my head, evidently seeing something I could not see, said musingly, “Thus far and no farther can I go. I see, I hear, I know continuity to be true, I know the same personality endures, but, alas, although I see them as in the real life, and hear and touch them, they seem more like representations, more like, in a sense, living pictures, if such could be possible, of the real and true beings, and all I have gleamed, after years of research, is so vague and unsatisfactory regarding that which we yearn to know, that I begin to feel that there must be something we cannot develop, on this side, that interferes.” He sighed heavily and turned to me,

“Well, John, I came in to see how you feel this morning. Your father is engaged and cannot attend to you.”

I looked at him with awe and respect. Dr. Morton, a valued friend of my father’s, had never been to me more than a cold austere teacher. I was slightly afraid of his great Herculean frame, deepset eyes, shaggy beard, and, above all, the stern lips which rarely smiled. They were generally closed in stern defiance of mirth and laughter. His skin was bloodless and deeply furrowed. He was not a pleasing spectacle to a nervous child. I trembled as I replied,

“I know all now. Doctor, I know why you are here and that you are often alone with me at this time.”

His eyes flashed wtih interest, the bloodless face became suffused, he spoke eagerly,

“Tell me what you know, John.”

“I know I am never in this body when you think I am, but somebody else uses it and speaks with my tongue. I do not.”

“What? You are dreaming. Of course you are in your body and just now you were speaking in Hebrew to me.”

WHO AND WHAT AM I?

‘‘I was not, Dr. Anderson was speaking in Hebrew, I was standing by in another body — like this one only more perfect. Dr. Anderson knew you years ago before your wife died. He and Sally, your daughter, were here when I was put back in this body. Your wife had just left.”

“Good God!” he ejaculated, “you saw Anderson, my wife and Sally. What were they like?”

“Your wife, Eleanor, was beautiful with big dark eyes, a tall figure, a mouth just made to smile, and tiny hands.”

“As she was thirty years ago but can’t be so now as she must be an old lady.” he answered huskily. “How did Sally look?”

“She was beautiful, too, with large grey eyes, delicate, small features. She called you Topokins, Oh, dear Popokins, why can’t you see me?’ ”

“Thank God, thank God, I have located them at last. Tell me, what else can you recall?”

“I remember almost everything. I could see my body here with you, and Papa asking me question, and in the same room; a moment later, the room as it looks now seemed to change into another room, and I, in a body, a perfect body, stepped out of a living frame, so it seemed to me, lying on the bed; not my physical, this body, but a peculiar combination, looking like a skeleton frame made of living, vital sparks, which gleamed like little eyes, a psychical or vital frame, not a body. It was, I was told, to vitalize the physical body, which was within it but which I could not see on spirit side, in my spirit body, with my real eyes. They said that when we are on earth, or in the mortal body, we see through the mortal brain and eyes and everything looks different, because the physical world is in the little spaces of the spiritual world, as the material body interpenetrates the spaces of the vital body, which is so constructed as to fit in the spirit body, when the spirit is attached to it, when he goes to the earth school, because we all really live all the time in the spirit world, and are only conscious on earth when awake, or it is necessary for some purpose.”

“Wonderful! Reason and common sense combined, so when we awake or come to school every morning, we are fitted into a body like our own, to grow up with it and, I presume, learn from the suffering inflicted on it.”

“Yes, you see the material brain is in the spiritual brain. The spiritual; when we come to school, is magnetized into insensibi-

WHO AND WHAT AM I?

lity, SO as not to recall the real home, for, if we did, when we are undeveloped, we could not learn so well. The real brain must be developed through suffering to make it industrious and competent, to make the little living spirit entities in it obey us, be loving and harmonious, or we could not receive the soul gifts of love, power and wisdom from God rightly, and we could not advance.”

“Wonderful, wonderful! Soul comes from God, pure and holy, therefore cannot be lost or go to hell. The physical body, the corruptible, is abandoned to disintegrate, hence cannot be taken nor transformed into the incorruptible, so it must be, it is the real spirit brain that must be developed. Oh, what fools not to have grasped it before.”

The Doctor looked with a transfigured face into mine, eyes glowing with rapture, stern lips soft and smiling. At last he had received something that pleased him, that his scientific development could grasp. My father entered with a smiling face, ever worn before his little boy. He looked astonished at the change in the Doctor, who volubly poured forth all I had told him, with many exclamations of “Wonderful, wonderful, what idiots we were.”

My father, upon grasping the meaning, seemed as joyous and excited as the Doctor. He made me repeat all that I had said and asked,

“Well, son, it seems that there are two bodies, (we cannot call the vital a body), and one soul or spirit living in the real and true body and only connected or attached to the physical, which is but a machine to record the impressions we receive here in the earth school. I see, I see. Oh, how different, how logical, how sane and how corroborative of the spiritual teachings of the Lord, Who was the greatest psychic that ever lived, a most wonderful man.”

“The Lord is not a man only,” I excitedly exclaimed, “He was inspired by God.”

“Oh, yes, we all are,” my father replied. I knew the Lord was different but I could not explain then, so I said nothing. My mother came to the door and stood a moment looking perplexedly at us, our excited looks seemed to fill her with foreboding,

“Why do you all look so queerly,” she asked tremulously. My father answered reassuringly as she approached and caressed me.

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“Nothing of importance, dear, I will tell you later. John must have some breakfast at once.”

Within a moment, Ella, dear, sweet Ella, who always insisted on bringing my breakfast, entered with a cheery loving greeting. Ella Langdon was, if possible, more beautiful than my mother, with superb eyes and figure. Her eyes were glorious, full of magnetic sweetness. To know was to love her and, boy though I was, I worshipped her with the ardor of the just awakening soul love, though I knew it not then and deemed it but a natural love.

All smiled as I drew her face down and kissed her, but I fancied a shade on the dear mother’s face, so I pulled her to me and kissed her also, as Ella turned to say a few words to the Doctor with whom she was a great favorite. Whilst I was eating, Tom and Roscoe came in and started a merry tune on the piano which stood, between two large windows, opposite my couch. Roscoe was just developing into manhood. He looked very attractive and winning, a gay smile irradiating face as he sang, while his eyes, blue as my mother’s, eagerly sought Ella’s, but she, oblivious of all but the Doctor, paid no heed. Tom, a slender stripling, with retrousse nose and sparking, hazel eyes, made a grimace at the Doctor, and, then, noting that I had seen it, slyly winked at me. I laughed outright, he looked so comical.

My mother, who never missed anything, smiled also but my father, who had turned in time to see Tom, looked at him rather coldly. He did not like his children, even in fun, to ridicule anyone, much less his intimate friends. I was not surprised when he said,

“Tom, it is time for you to retire.”

Tom, rather abashed, arose from the piano stool and with a parting smile withdrew. Ella and the Doctor had been conversing in suppressed tones and looking ever and anon at me. I surmised the Doctor was telling her about our recent talk. When she arose to go with my father, she lingered, apparently desirous of speaking to me, until my mother said,

“&la, it is time for you to go or you will be late.”

“Pardon me, dear Aunt, I was thinking of what the Doctor said. John will tell you. I hope I will hear all later.”

“Now, what is all this mystery, Johnnie, boy?” my mother said, looking at me earnestly and somewhat sadly. She did not approve of my father and the Doctor experimenting with her boy, and, as she had never been present at any of the seances.

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as they are termed, was skeptical. I knew she did not believe in anything supernatural, but I had seen and knew too much to doubt, so I said eagerly,

“Oh, mother, now I know the truth. I was out of my body last night and I saw grandma, and grandpa, your father and mother, and my grandpa, papa’s mother, and little sister Lottie — born before I was, who died long ago — and little brother Jim, and, oh, so many of our relations and friends.”

My mother looked astounded and perplexed beyond measure.

“Lottie! Jim!” No wonder she looked astonished. Lottie and Jim were two babes of whom we had never heard, who had passed out stillborn.

“You dreamed it, Johnnie, dear.”

“Oh, no, mother, all were more real than here. Jim had a birth-mark on his toe, a little strawberry leaf, tiny and delicate. He said ^Ask mother what caused it?’ ”

“Oh, oh,” she sobbed, “my little babies. True, true, a strawberry leaf, inherited from generation to generation in the family, he alone had it in mine.”

“He doesn’t have it in the real body, mother. All are perfect, free from defects of all kinds, but his little mortal body had it. And Lottie was so sweet, mother, a big, lovely girl, and looked so much like you. She said, “Tell mama we are always together when you are away from the body, in the first, sound sleep.”

“Oh, God, it must be true, my darlings are alive and near me. Thank God, thank God! What else did you see, Johnnie?”

“This room, mother, yes, this room, inside another room just the same size, with furniture and everything in the same place, but, oh, so beautiful, mother, so very beautiful, more beautiful than any room on earth. The windows were clear and pellucid as possible, the ceiling a garden of beautiful flowers, the walls paneled with exquisite paintings, the furniture fragile and yet substantial, of a substance more beautiful than onyx, emitting numberless colors; while those plants, mother, in the real room, irradiate life, beauty and perfume indescribable. But, mother, father and the Doctor were asleep, although so different from here, and sitting in chairs near me, while they were awake and talking to me on earth, not apart from their vital frames, and each had a Celestial Angel, tutor or guardian Angel with them.

“We all have two Celestial Angels, tutors. One is always with us while we are on earth, or while we are being educated when

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young, in the spirit world. Mine took me into another room, one of our class rooms only more beautiful than the earth one, and instructed me in many things that I cannot remember. Then I was taken out into the gardens and fields by grandpa and grandma — your father and mother. The flowers and trees were of all shades, some several shades, harmoniously blended. Roses, not of one but of a dozen shades, and many flowers that I knew and called by name that we do not have here, but I cannot remember them now, and such delicious fruit, and berries and nuts, mother, and the grounds were full of beautiful men, women and children. All seemed so young, I saw no old people. Grandma was like a lovely girl, and grandpa looked very little older than Roscoe, and Roscoe, Lilian and Tom were away from their vital frames and with us. But you, dear mother, were awake here on earth, as you were attached to your vital frame like papa and the Doctor.” I stopped for want of breath.

“Oh, how beautiful, how wonderful,” she murmured, “but dear little boy, you look feverish, God grant it is not a hallucination, but how could you know about the children?”

“And about your brother, Tom, who ran away from home and was killed in Arizona by the Apaches. He was there, he said, “If you can remember on earth, to comfort my dear sister tell her they did not torture me, that I died at the first shot and did not suffer at all.”

“Oh, oh, it is true, you never heard of Tom, it was too sad to tell you. Oh, thank God, thank God.”