After Death

Although Christian churches are officially committed to belief in Heaven as an ultimate reward for good, many a Christian considers it bad taste to speculate in detail upon life after death. Lacking evidence, a minister's conception of Heaven is not much more valid than was that of Mark Twain, who in Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven pictured it as a place where people do what they always wanted to do on earth; where, on sheer worth, a backwoods poet from Tennessee takes precedence over Shakespeare.

Spiritualists, however, claim to know much about the afterlife through their contact with the departed. To their body of belief was added this week a notable book supposedly transmitted from the Spirit World by a New England farm boy named Wilfred Brandon who claims that the Revolutionary War ended his earthly life after 19 years in 1781. Incarnation, a Plea from the Masters*; was "dictated" by means of automatic writing to Edith Ellis, a playwright and onetime actress, now in her 70's and author of a current London success called The Lady of La Paz.

Wilfred Brandon is the most modern-minded U. S. spirit to tell earthlings about his own particular brand of the Hereafter, a realm which has been most conspicuously charted by such Britons as Rev. G. Vale Owen and Sir Oliver Lodge. The fact that Brandon uses such contemporary words as "job" and "fun" he explains by recounting how a number of "Masters" (i. e., veteran spirits) transported him "by their mental power," on a lengthy tour of the great cities of the world. The ability of spirits to visit the Earth, Brandon makes clear, has nothing to do with their life on the "Astral" plane, from which eventually they may ascend to a "Spiritual" plane. Spirit Brandon broadly corroborates the view held by many Spiritualists: The Astral plane is divided into nations corresponding to those of the world below. On that plane, he implies, spirits speak the same languages they spoke on Earth.

On incarnation, to most Spiritualists a controversial subject, Spirit Brandon is positive. He declares spirits may, if they are smart, abandon their memories of their last life and return to earth as a new personality in a new body. As developed by Astral scientists and practiced with the aid of seasoned Astral physicians, the simplest method involves merging any spirit with the body of an earthly infant of five to eight weeks. "The act," reports Spirit Brandon, "requires the physician to see, in his mind's eye, the spinal cord of both the child and the soul who is to incarnate. The physician can, with a little peculiar visualization, merge the two." For successful incarnation, says Brandon, training is necessary and many a spirit will give up for good his chance to return to Earth rather than attempt to "learn how to control his vibrations."

Spirit Brandon says nothing of food, which other spirits have declared to exist in the after life. Nor does he corroborate Spirit Nannie, of Mrs. Mary Longley's The Spirit World, who claimed she wove beautiful dress fabrics out of the atmosphere. According to Brandon, however, nothing exists on the Astral plane which does not also exist on Earth. The spirits live, for example, in splendid homes, hotels, farms, all created by the joint working of spiritual Mind. Many a spirit, awed by it all, asks to be put to sleep for a century or so, to awake vigorous and refreshed. One U. S. businessman--a class Brandon appears to dislike--bored everyone so with his arrogance that he was forcibly put to sleep, first for 20 months, then for five years. After his second sleep he said: "Fellows, I give in."

A stern moralist professing to be disgusted by the "jazz palaces" and "parties" he has seen in the U. S., Brandon observes of its contemporary contributions to the afterlife: "The boys . . . have no sense of responsibility nor very much courage. The girls are mostly unchaste mentally, and sexually very precocious. They are very difficult to deal with, having no respect for any but their own generation." But Spirit Brandon still thinks of himself as a U. S. citizen. In the midst of a series of pacifist observations he remarks: "But for self-defense only should we maintain our Army and Navy. Our air force could be made almost sufficient to repel attack."

Since the War, the Astral plane has been disrupted by the vast number of shattered young souls catapulted into it. Many of them are still insane and Spirit Brandon thinks it will take a century or so to restore them. Since 1920 a "White Brotherhood" of 10,000 spirits, among them Brandon, has been doing what it can. But if worldlings persist in getting involved in another war, says Wilfred Brandon in the most specific part of his message, the spirits will take steps. Declares he:

"The lowest people on this plane are like the lowest on yours. . . . These millions upon millions of Earthbound, elemental souls are lower than your dumb animals. They are capable of tormenting mortals by all sorts of tricks and stunts that are known by the name of 'hauntings.' You are not so silly as to wish to amuse yourselves by living in a 'haunted' house. Such a home is usually a place where 'spirits' amuse themselves in various ways --by opening and shutting doors ... by draughts of cold air passing over you; pictures thrown from the walls . . . sudden terrors. . . . These things are all possible and will shake strong nerves. ... If ever we decide to use this last weapon to shake you out of your war madness, we have only to relax our minds and give these hordes the word. . . ."

* Alfred Knopf ($2).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.