The Next Life

This mysterious subject he treats, with his usual learning and acumen, and with remarkable directness and condensation. It will form but one volume of the series of that extraordinary man's collected papers. One reviewer made a statement on the book which he describes as "involving, not improbably, some of the profoundest arcana of our dual existence, and its intermediates."

This book forms the fourth, and last, of the series of compilations dealing with the bodies of man. Throughout the series the same plan has been adopted. When we come to study the causal body of man, we enter upon a new phase of our work, and must take a far wider sweep in our purview of man's evolution. The reason for this is, that whilst the etheric, astral and mental bodies exist for one human incarnation only

The object of this work is not a desire to create or annihilate such or such a system to favor any particular religion or creed, more or less prominent in our age; its sole object is to commune with men who, like me, seek the truth with all the strength of their soul, Pursue the track wherein I believe it to be, and you will find it. Be prudent; admit, reject nlaught without mature examination, and what you do not comprehend never proclaim to be impossible!

The present volume endeavors to treat every aspect of the problem regarding a future life and especially emphasizes a large mass of facts that ought to have cumulative weight in deciding the issue. The facts consist of both spontaneous and experimental experiences, the latter designed not only to add to the force of the evidence, but to suggest more problems than the mere fact of survival. It has not been possible to exhaust any one subject in the field. That would require several volumes.

IN THIS, OUR FOURTH BOOK, WE HAVE SET FORTH PRINCIPLES THAT WILL UNRAVEL MYSTERIES OF HUMAN EXISTENCE AS A WHOLE.

For centuries the words

Who does not remember the story of the Christian missionary in Britain, sitting one evening in the vast hall of a Saxon king, surrounded by his thanes, having come thither to preach the gospel of his Master; and as he spoke of life and death and immortality, a bird flew in through an unglazed window, circled the hall in its flight, and flew out once more into the darkness of the night. The Christian priest bade the king see in the flight of the bird within the hall the transitory life of man, and claimed for his faith that it showed the soul, in passing from the hall of life, winging its way not into the darkness of night, but into the sunlit radiance of a more glorious world.