Page:Dealings with the dead.djvu/188

 sufficient time for exercise; and many were the "whys," "hows," and "what fors" which causality propounded, but to which at first there came no response. It is almost impossible to convey an idea of the strange processes by which knowledge flowed in upon my soul. It seemed to be absorbed. Knowledge, all knowledge may be said to float in the spiritual atmosphere, underlying the coarser air men breathe; and in certain states, reachable by every human being, this knowledge is drawn in involuntarily, just as salt absorbs moisture.

Near the spot over which I hovered, [for the spirit cannot touch gross substance directly, but moves along on the surface of an aerial stratification near the earth: these strata are about sixty feet apart, and there are transverse, vertical and other lanes leading in all directions through them,] stood a house embowered in trees, and in this house was a "study," and in that study I saw the object, above all others, which had been the theme of my longing, prior to the commencement of my aerial journey, namely, a man; and that man was apparently educated and refined—for near where he sat stood a library of books, one of which he was at that moment engaged in reading. The title of the book was "Neander's Life of Christ." Calmly read the man; still more calmly I observed him and his surroundings; and the result of these observations was a firm conviction that the theories propounded by Newton, and generally admitted to be true, concerning light, color, and sound, are not correct, or even approximately so. No amount of disbelief on the part of others; no amount of cavilling, nor reasoning can ever convince me that the experience now being recorded is anything less