Page:Dealings with the dead.djvu/17

 ?" and the answer is: "We are two in one, yet the stronger rules the hour."

It will be seen, therefore, that this condition is as widely separated from those incident to the "Mediums," as theirs is supposed to be different from the ordinary wakeful mood. They reach their state by a sort of retrocession from themselves; they fall, or claim to fall, into a peculiar kind of slumber, their own faculties going, as it were, to sleep. On the contrary, mine is the direct opposite of this, for, instead of a sleep of any sort, there comes an intense wakefulness. Nor is this all in which we differ; as are the processes and states apart, so also are the results different.

The revelations of Spiritual existences, moods, modes, and conditions of being, as given by nearly every "Spiritual Medium" of whom I have ever heard or read, are, to say the least, totally unsatisfactory to the great majority of those who seek for information on the vital question of Immortality—how, and why, and to what great end we are thus gifted and endowed? Another, and equally important one, is that concerning the Soul-world, and the inhabitants thereof—how they live, where they live, and to what end and use? I believe that light is, in this volume, thrown on all these great and vital points; such light, indeed, as will be hailed and appreciated by all who read and think, as well as by those who read and feel—two widely different classes, but to both of whom these pages are humbly, yet hopefully addressed.

The process, strange, wierdweird [sic], and altogether unusual, to which allusion has been made, went on for a long time; and by slow degrees I felt that my own personality was not lost to me, but completely swallowed up, so to speak, in that of a far more potent mentality. A subtlety of thought, perception and understanding became mine at times, altogether greater than I had ever known before; and occasionally, during these strange blendings of my being with another, I felt that other's