After having made several excursions into the Astral World during sleep, and accomplished other short-distance exteriorizations while awake, there came to me the crowning adventure–the most convincing and satisfying experience of my whole life.
Never in my wildest dreams had I dared to expect such a wonderful revelation of that world which lies beyond the normal sight and hearing of our earthly existence. Ever since my husband’s death in February, 1935, I had prayed daily, morning and evening, that I might be allowed someday, to visit the place, locality, condition–call it what you will–in which my husband now dwelt, worked, and lived his life apart from me. Yes, “apart” is the word one is compelled to use when referring to separation by death in the “bodily” sense. No matter how great one’s belief in the Unseen World may be, the absence of constant objective evidence of the dear one’s presence is frequently a great strain on even the staunchest faith.
I prayed that such a blessing might be vouchsafed to me once, and that if God’s will permitted it, I would rest contentedly on the memory of whatever I saw or heard for the remainder of my life on earth.
As I say, I prayed continually that this should happen. Several months passed, and I still sent up the same prayer. “Lord, if it be according to Thy will, and only so, let me see my husband on his own plane, in his present natural condition; that condition or place to which it has pleased Thee to call him. Let me see him as he really IS, and I will ask no more. I will continue with whatever earthly tasks shall come my way, happily and thankfully, if I may have this one definite experience.”
The most marvelous happenings seem to come to us unexpectedly. On Saturday morning, September 14th, 1935, the day opened for me with its usual round of work and domestic duties. It gave no hint of the almost incredible adventure that was to be mine before the evening came.
It was a fine sunny day, so after a rather late and simple luncheon of salad and brown bread, I sauntered out to the garden to see if there were any odd gardening jobs to be done in order to ensure that the place might present an appearance of Sabbatarian orderliness on the following day. I took with me my husband’s watch, which I usually place on a table in the summerhouse, where I can pop in and remind myself of the time; any practical gardener knows how it flies when once one has become engrossed in dislodging a healthy crop of weeds from their unlawful territory, or removing a few depressing rows of old pea haulms and netting.
Well, on this particular afternoon I did not leave the watch in the summerhouse, but wandered round the garden holding it in my hand. On the previous day I had noticed several things that needed immediate attention, so I strolled round to make a mental review of them prior to attacking the most urgent ones.
A spade, a fork, a wheelbarrow, and a definite task in the garden usually draw me to them with an irresistibility that more artistically inclined mortals accord to a beautiful picture, or a perfect musical instrument, so it was a rather unusual thing for me to find that–almost unconsciously–I had strayed away from that part of the garden that needed attention, and I had wandered to the summer house.
I went in, and as usual, placed the watch on the table, but contrary to habit, I lay down on a long, low shelf that forms a seat or couch. As I did so I looked at the time. It was two minutes before three o’clock.
I was not tired, but I lazily stretched myself out straight on my back, just relaxing and resting. Within a few seconds I realized that I was entering a kind of “dozy” condition without being actually asleep; at least I was quite conscious of the fact that I had just placed the watch on the table, and that I could still see the large Prunus bush just outside the summer house doorway.
Suddenly an extraordinary sensation came to me. I knew I was traveling in some strange, inexplicable manner, yet I was unaware of making any effort or voluntary movement of my own. To this day I cannot make up my mind as to whether I passed through space, or space passed by me.
As the man whose “out of the body” experience Sir Auckland Geddes referred to, said: “There are no words which really describe what one sees or appreciates during such an experience.” One can only relate it in simple but inadequate language, with absolute regard to its essential truth, and without exaggeration of any kind.
I arrived, without understanding how or in what manner I had arrived, in a place whose like I had never seen before or since, either in dream or reality.
No play, no picture, no effort of the imagination had ever conjured up such beauty as I was now aware of. This beauty was not only visible in the surroundings and scenery: it was felt. It was like a living stream through my very being, charging me with a sense of absolute well-being, blessedness, safety; an over-all and overwhelming sense of bliss indescribable.
I lay–not on the prosaic and rather hard shelf in the summer house–but on a soft, resilient, sandy beach. It appeared to be on the bank of a river that opened out in the distance to a wide lake or sea. In the center of this wider expanse of water stood a small island. On it there were one or two white stone buildings of an impressive and beautiful architectural design. Coming back to what I mentally designated the mainland, I saw there were woods of an indescribably beautiful and restful green. Over all this there hung a curious kind of iridescent glow, the color of which I find hard to describe, but a soft gold gives the best idea, I think. The very atmosphere was filled with this softly brilliant, yet restful, golden radiance. The blue of the water, and of the sky behind and over the island, also defies description. I suppose that on a perfect day it can be seen on the Mediterranean, or something approaching it. But even the beauty of the scenery was nothing to the inner sense of beauty that penetrated one’s whole being.
Without surprise, I saw my husband kneeling beside me, his left arm supporting my shoulder. I looked in his face, and realized that my prayer had been answered–answered fully and completely.
Even in his prime, in the earliest years of our earthly life together, I had never seen him looking as I saw him now. He was the same, yet there were differences. A healthy tan showed on his face and neck. His hair had lost its grayness, and was once again thick, wavy, and a light brown in color. His eyes shone with a healthy clearness. He appeared to be dressed in white flannels (a favorite form of dress when he was on earth), and as far as I could tell, the texture and cut were very similar to those that men wear during the warm summer earthly days.
He spoke to me, and whilst doing so, he leaned over me, looking into my face intently, as if he wished to impress every syllable on my memory forever. I shall never forget his words; they are engraved on my mind, and nothing can ever eradicate them.
He said: “You are only here for a little while. Try to hold and remember all I am telling you. Do not trouble to remember the details of the scenery or anything else, beautiful as it is, but remember every word I am telling you, because time is short.
“Tell everybody–everybody that will listen–that there is this Other Life. It is a real life in a real world. It is an active, interesting world. We are happy in it. All is well with us on this plane.
“God is here.
“We are nearer Him. All the best and most hopeful ideas that religion on the earth has ever held out about a future life are poor compared to this wonderful reality.
“Tell everybody. It’s true. Love and memory persist. We wait here for those we love. I am waiting for you, but I am happy while I am waiting–happy and busy. So much to tell you, but time is short. This wonderful visit is an answer to your prayer. You won’t forget, will you, that you must do all you can to make people realize that there is this Other World and every opportunity for progress?
“Oh! if they only knew the marvelous life that can be theirs, they would do all in their power to be ready for it, so tell them. Don’t forget. Tell everybody, and remember I am here, waiting for you, and that I love you now and always.”
He said much in this strain, and I could see on every feature, in every line of his face, his intense desire to impress me with the great, yet simple, truth, “We live, we remember, we love, we are happy.”
As he paused after speaking this last sentence, I was filled with gratitude and wonder. A heavenly (no other word would suffice to describe it) feeling of well-being and certainty with regard to the present, the future, and all that life might bring now or in the hereafter, flowed through my very being.
My husband bent forward, and I saw he was about to speak again, but I did a most disastrous and unfortunate thing.
I thought to myself: “When I go back to my physical body that now lies in the summer house, I will never allow myself again to feel depressed or lonely. I will live on this wonderful experience that God has mercifully given me; I will ask for no further gift or blessing for myself. How happy I shall always be now that I know how intensely beautiful is the place in which my husband lives.”
Alas! as I thought of my physical body in the summer house I felt myself receding from my husband, the beach, and all the surrounding scenery, and again I felt that swift passing through, or being passed by, space that I experienced on my journey to them.
I felt myself reenter my physical body, which was still lying just as I had left it, with an abruptness which caused me a severe shock in the region of my solar plexus. It was exactly as if I had been kicked or hit in that part of the body. The pain disappeared almost as quickly as it came, and I realized that I was immediately wide awake with a perfect memory, intact in every detail, of all that I had seen and heard. Most wonderful of all, I still retained the glorious feeling of happiness and well-being that I had felt Over There.
I reached out my hand for the watch, and found it was half-past three, so as far as I could calculate, I must have been on that wonderful Other World plane for approximately half an hour.
The feeling of upliftment and bliss remained with me for several minutes, then gradually faded, as if it were of too delicate a nature, too fine a vibration, to play for longer on the coarse physical instrument, or in the dense atmosphere of earth. But even when it had gone, I could recall something of its beauty. I knew what it had meant to me, and that some day it would be mine again–when as Whittier said:
I find myself by hands familiar beckoned
Unto my fitting place.
Some humble door among
Thy many mansions,
Some sheltering shade where sin and striving cease,
And flows forever through Heaven’s green expansions,
The river of Thy peace.
There, from the music round about me stealing,
I fain would learn the new and holy song,
And find at last, beneath Thy trees of healing,
The life for which I long
Excerpt from The Last Crossing