Part 5

After closing windows, doors, and the stove-flue, I place an open bottle containing cyan-kalium on the table and lie down on the bed. The carbonic acid in the air liberates in a little time the cyanic acid in the bottle, and the well-known physical symptoms follow--a slight throbbing of the throat, and an indescribable taste in the mouth, which I might by analogy call "cyanic," paralysis of the biceps-muscle, and pain in the stomach. The deadly effect of cyanic acid remains still a mystery. Different authorities ascribe different methods of operation to this poison. One says, "paralysis of the brain"; another, "paralysis of the heart"; a third, "suffocation as a secondary consequence of the medulla oblongata being attacked," etc.

But since the effect may show itself at once, before absorption has taken place, the method of operation must be regarded much more as psychical, especially when one has regard to the use of cyanic acid in medicine as a quieting remedy in so-called nervous diseases.

As regards the condition of the soul under this experiment, I would say the following: It does not seem to undergo a slow extinction, but rather a dissolution during which the pleasant sensations far outweigh the trifling pains. The mental capacities gain in clearness, exactly contrary to their condition at the approach of sleep; one is in full possession of one's will, and I can break off the experiment by corking the bottle, opening the window, and inhaling chlorine or ammonia.

I do not lay much stress upon it, but supposing that we could obtain satisfactory proofs of the temporary condition of death into which Indian fakirs can throw themselves, the experiment might be prolonged without danger. In case of an accident one must proceed with the various methods which are used to resuscitate a person who has been choked. The fakirs use warm compresses on the brain, the Chinese warm the pit of the stomach and cause sneezing. In his remarkable book, _Positive and Negative_ (1890), Vial relates, following Trousseau and Piloux: "In the year 1825 Carrero stifled and drowned a large number of animals, which he afterwards resuscitated a long time after death by simply inserting needles into their brain."

* * * * *

In my book _Inferno_, I have spoken of my brother in misfortune the German-American painter, and of the quack Francis Schlatter who was suspected of being his "double." The time has come when I am obliged to compromise my friend with the sole object of helping the investigation into the relation between them.

My friend's name was H., whether real or assumed. When I had returned to Paris in August 1897, I was turning over, one day, the _Revue Spirite_ for the year 1859. I found there an article, headed "My Friend H." Under this title a certain Herr H. Lugner had published in the feuilleton of the _Journal des Débats_ for 26th November 1858 a narrative which he asserted to be fact, and offered to witness to, if necessary, as he himself was a friend of the hero of the adventure. The latter was a young man, aged five and twenty, of irreproachable morals and thoroughly amiable character.

H. could not keep awake as soon as the sun went down. An irresistible weariness came over him, and he sank gradually in a deep sleep, from which nothing could rouse him. In brief, H. lived a double life, so that at night he committed criminal acts in Melbourne under the name William Parker. When, later on, Parker was executed, H., in Germany, was simultaneously found dead in his bed.

Whether the story was true or a product of the imagination, it interested me, because of the coincidence of names, and also of some of the circumstances. Modern literature has already dealt with the phenomenon of the _Doppelgänger_ (double) in the famous romance _Trilby_, and in another by Paul Lindau. It would be interesting to know whether the authors have based their narrative on facts or no.

Meanwhile we return to friend Martin. In order to obtain some distraction, he undertook a cruise to Norrland and Norway, and expected to derive from it a real feeling of freedom and much pleasure. After some weeks I meet him in a street in Lund.

"Have you had a pleasant journey?" I ask.

"No; a devil's journey! I don't know what to believe. There is certainly some one who challenges me, and the fight is unequal. Listen! I went to Stockholm to amuse myself at the great exhibition, and though I have hundreds of friends there, I did not meet one. They were all in the country, and I found myself alone. I only stayed in my room one day, and was then turned out of it by a stranger to whom my brother, by mistake, had previously promised it. Ill-luck made me so stupid that I did not go and see the exhibition, and as I wandered about alone in the streets, suddenly a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. It was a very seriously disposed uncle of mine, whom I had not seen twice in my life, and who was the last man I wished to see. He invited me to spend the whole evening with him and his wife. I had to swallow everything I disliked. It was like witchcraft.

Then I went on alone in a railway carriage for hundreds of miles, through scenery that was deadly dull. At Areskutan, the principal object of my excursion, there was only one hotel, and in this hotel all my antipathies had appointed a rendezvous. The Free Church pastor was feeding his flock there, and they were singing psalms morning, noon, and evening. It was enough to drive one wild, and yet it seemed quite natural. There was only one thing which seemed to me somewhat strange, or with a smack of the occult about it. That was, that in this quiet and well-kept hotel they were hammering up large boxes at night."

"Over your head?"

"Yes; just over! And, strangely enough, this hammering followed me to Norway. When I ask the hotel manager for an explanation, he declared he had heard nothing." "That is just like my own experience."

"Yes."

I would not have related these trivial and in themselves repellent stories, did not their very absurdity suggest the existence of a reality, which yet is neither real objectively nor a mere vision, but a phantasmagoria called up by the invisible powers, to warn, to teach, or to punish.

This condition, called by the theosophists "Astralplanet," is also described by Swedenborg in the last part of his _Arcana_, "Visiones et Visa."

There are two kinds of visionary states which are beyond nature, and in which I have been placed merely to experience what they are like, and what is to be understood by the expressions to be "rapt from the body," and "to be carried by the spirit" to another place.

1. A man is placed in a condition between sleep and waking; when he is in this state he seems to himself to be fully awake. This is the condition of being "rapt from the body," when one does not know whether one is in the body or out of the body.

2. Wandering through the streets of a city and over the fields, and holding converse with spirits, I seemed to myself to be as much awake and alert as on ordinary occasions. Thus I wandered without quitting the road. Yet all the while I was in a vision, and saw woods, rivers, palaces, houses, men, and other things. But after I had wandered thus for some hours, I fell suddenly into a state of corporeal hallucination, and was aware that I was in another place. At this I was greatly surprised, and saw that I was in such a condition as those are who are said to be "carried by the Spirit to another place."

* * * * *

Friend Martin since his return from his excursion lives alone in his parents' house, because the family have scattered in different directions for their summer holiday. I will not say that he is afraid, but he is uncomfortable. Sometimes he hears steps and other sounds from the room of his absent sister, sometimes sneezing. Some days ago he heard in the middle of the night a sharp metallic sound, like that of a scythe being sharpened. "Taking it all in all," he concluded, "wonderful things do occur, but if I once began to engage in dealings with the invisible powers I should be lost."

That was his last word, as autumn approached with great strides.

[1] Gave a peculiar cry.

VII

STUDIES IN SWEDENBORG

While all these occurrences went on in every-day life, I continued my studies in Swedenborg--that is to say, his works, which are hard to procure, fell into my hands one after the other, at very long intervals.

In the _Arcana Coelestia_, hell is represented as everlasting, without any hope of an end, and bare of every word of comfort. The _Apocalypses Revelata_ expounds a method of systematic penance, and the result was that I lived under its spell till the spring. Sometimes I shook it off while I entertained the hope that the Prophet was deceived in details, and that the Lord of Life and Death would show Himself more merciful. But what cannot be denied is the startling coincidence between Swedenborg's visions, and all events great or small which have happened to me and my friends during this year of terror.

It was not till March that I found in an antiquarian bookseller's shop _The Wonders of Heaven and Hell_ and _Conjugal Love_. Not till then was I freed from the spiritual burden that had secretly oppressed me ever since I first became aware of the Invisible. In them I learned that God is Love. He does not reign over slaves, and has therefore bestowed on mortals the gift of free will. Evil has no independent power, but is a servant of God, fulfilling the functions of a disciplinary force. Punishments are not endless; every one is free to expiate by patience the wrongs which he has done. The sufferings which are, imposed upon us are intended to improve our character. The operations which constitute the preparation for a spiritual life begin with "Devastation" (vastatio), and consist in constriction of the chest, difficulty of breathing, symptoms of suffocation, heart affections, terrible attacks of fear, sleeplessness, nightmare. This process, which Swedenborg underwent in the years 1744 and 1745, is described in his book Dreams.

The diagnosis of this kind of illness corresponds in every point to the ailments which are just now so common, so that I do not shrink from drawing the conclusion that we are approaching a new era in which there will be spiritual awakening, and it will be a joy to live. Angina pectoris, sleeplessness, nightly terrors, all these symptoms which doctors wish to class as epidemic, are nothing else but the work of unseen powers. For how can the systematic persecution of healthy men by unprecedented bizarre occurrences, disturbances and annoyances be regarded as an epidemic sickness? An epidemic of coincidences? That is certainly absurd.

* * * * *

Swedenborg has become my Virgil, who guides me through hell, and I follow him blindly. He certainly is a terrible chastiser, but he knows also how to comfort, and he seems to me less severe than the Protestant theologians. "A man may amass riches, if he does so honestly and uses them honestly; he may clothe himself and live according to his means; he may hold intercourse with people of the same social standing as himself, enjoy the innocent pleasures of life, look joyful and contented, and not morose. He can, in a word, live and act like a rich man in this world, and after he dies go straight to heaven, if only in his heart he has faith in God and love to Him, and behaves as he should towards his neighbour."

"I have met several of those who, before they died, had renounced the world and retired into solitude, in order to devote themselves to the contemplation of heavenly things, and thereby to make themselves a surer path to heaven. They nearly all had a gloomy and depressed appearance, seemed to be annoyed that others were not like them, and that they themselves were not rewarded with greater honour and a happier lot. They live in hidden places, like hermits, almost in the same way as they had lived in our world. Man is created to live in harmony with others; in society and not in solitude he finds numerous opportunities of exercising Christian mildness towards his neighbours."

In solitude one only contemplates oneself, forgetting all others. Consequently one thinks only of oneself, or of the world, in order to avoid it or to feel the want of it, which is the opposite of Christian love.

As regards the so-called everlasting punishments, at the last moment, the seer appears as a deliverer, and allows a ray of hope to dawn on us. He says, "Those among them, for whose deliverance one may hope, are set in waste places, which only afford a picture of desolation. They are left there till their sorrow has darkened into despair, because this is the only means to conquer the evil and falsehood which rule them. Arrived at this point, they cry out that they are no better than animals, that they are full of hate and all kinds of abomination, and that they are damned. These exclamations are pardoned them, as being cries of despair, and God softens their mood, so that their expressions of reproach and abuse do not transgress the assigned limits. When they have suffered all that can be suffered, so that their bodies are also dead, they are troubled no more about it, and are prepared for deliverance. I have seen some of them taken to heaven after they have been visited with all the sufferings of which I have spoken. When they were admitted, they displayed such great joy that I was moved to tears." What the Catholics call "_conscientia scrupulosa_," a tender conscience, is caused by malicious spirits, who induce pangs of conscience for nothing at all. They delight in laying a load on the conscience, and this state has nothing to do with the improvement of the sinner. In a similar way there are unwholesome temptations. Evil spirits evoke in the depth of the soul all the evil it has committed since childhood, and bring its worst side uppermost. But the angels discover all the good and true which they can in the exhausted soul. That is the strife which is revealed under the name, "pangs of conscience."

I stop here, because I do my Master an injustice by tearing asunder the web which he has so well woven together, and by exhibiting the fragments as samples. Swedenborg's work is one of enormous compass, and he has answered all my questions, however presumptuous they may have been. Disquiet soul, suffering heart, "_Take up and read_."

VIII

CANOSSA

Exhausted by these mysterious persecutions, I have for a long time undertaken a careful examination of my conscience, and, true to my new resolve not to justify myself as against my neighbour, I find my past life abominable and am disgusted at my own personality.

"It is true that I have incited the younger generation to rebel against law and order, against religion, authority, morality. That is my godlessness, for which I am now I punished, and which I now retract."

So I say to myself, and after a pause in the current of my thoughts I reverse the question, and ask, "And the others, the opposers of my revolutionary views, the pious defenders of morality, of the State, of religion, can _they_ sleep at night? and have the Powers prospered them in their worldly affairs?"

When I pass in review the pillars of society and their various fortunes, I am compelled to answer, "No!"

The brave champion of the Ideal in poetry and in life, the poet popular with the steady and respectable bourgeois class, cannot now sleep at night owing to violent attacks of hysteria. To add to his troubles, his guardian angel left him in the lurch, so that his affairs became embarrassed from his engaging in speculations which nearly reduced him to beggary. It is no joy for me to remember this, for it increases my depression when I see how the noblest efforts only lead to beggary.

What of my opponent in religion? He who wished to have me imprisoned for blasphemy has himself been arrested for falsification in the transfer of property. But don't think, reader, that I make his sin an excuse for my blasphemies. It is a trouble to me not to be able to keep my belief in the purifying effect of Christianity, in view of such a startling example, to the contrary.

Then the lady who took morality under her protection, the friend of oppressed women, the prophetess who in fiery and candid essays preached celibacy to young men--what has become of her? No one knows it, but on her there rests a dark and terrible suspicion. Edifying, is it not? As to the other pillars of moral and religious order, I pass them over, whether they have put a bullet through their brains, or decamped to avoid an ominous investigation. Speaking briefly, judgment seems to strike the just and unjust alike, and one may prove as good as another.

What is it then that is taking place in the world to-day? Is it the irrevocable doom pronounced against Sodom? Must all perish? Are there none righteous? Not one!

May we then be friends and suffer in common as fellow-sinners, without exalting ourselves, one above another.

* * * * *

I have apologised for my culpable actions, and abjure my past. Let me now say a word in self-defence. It is a common characteristic of youth in all ages to be in revolt, frivolous, disorderly. Am I the first inventor of revolt or sin? Formerly I was the youth led astray, the child of my time, the disciple of my teachers, the victim of seduction. Whose is the fault, and why have they made me a scapegoat? Suppose that it was a lie, and that I am not the person for whom men take me?

But here the accusation of "black magic" comes in to turn the scales.

But it was out of ignorance that I had recourse to that.

Well then, what about the revolt against the Invisible?

Yes, I did revolt. But how about the others who spent their lives on their knees in devotion and self-denial, and who have all been disowned?

Let us acknowledge that the state of affairs is desperate, and that we are all handed over to the power of the Prince of this world to be bowed in the dust and humbled till we are disgusted with ourselves, in order that we may feel homesick for heaven. Self-contempt, anger at one's own personality, the result of vain endeavours to improve oneself--that is the way to a higher life.

And remember one thing: the way to Rome, the imperial route lay through Canossa!

IX

THE SPIRIT OF CONTRADICTION

In spite of all the sufferings which I have endured, the spirit of rebellion in me is still erect, and suggests doubts as to the benevolent designs of my invisible guide. An accident (?) has brought into my hands Schikaneder's text of the opera of the _Magic Flute_. The sufferings and temptations of the young pair suggest to me the thought that I have let myself be duped by misleading voices, and that I had bowed myself and submitted, simply because I could not endure the pains and difficulties.

Immediately I remember Prometheus who storms at the gods while the vulture gnaws his liver. And at last the rebel is admitted to the circle of the Olympians without making an open recantation.

The fire is now kindled, and immediately evil spirits add fuel to it.

An occult magazine, sent by post, encourages my cowardice by propounding subversive theories, such as the following: "As is well known, in the old books of the Veda, Creation is represented as a single act of sacrifice, in which God, both Priest and Victim, offers Himself by dividing Himself." That is the very idea which I have expressed in the Mystery Play appended to "Meister Olof."

Further: "All the elements, which conjointly constitute the universe, are nothing else than fallen divinities, which, through the stone, plant, animal, human, and angelic kingdoms, climb up to heaven, only to fall down again." This idea was characterised by the famous Alexander von Humboldt and the historian Cantu as sublime.

(Yes, it is sublime.)

"As is well known, the Greek and Roman gods were originally men. Jupiter himself, the greatest of all, was born in Crete, where he was suckled by the she-goat Amalthea. He thrust his father from the throne, and took all possible precautions not to be dethroned himself. When the giants attacked him, and most of the gods left him in the lurch, in a cowardly way, and hid themselves under the shapes of plants in Egypt, he had the good luck, with the help of the bravest gods, to remain victor. But it was not without considerable difficulty."

"In Homer, the gods fight against men and are sometimes wounded. Our Gallic forefathers also fought against heaven, and shot arrows against it when they believed themselves threatened by it. The Jews were animated by the same feelings as the heathen. They had Jehovah (God), but they also had Elohim (Gods). The Bible begins thus: 'He who is, who was, and who will be--the One in the many.'"

"When Adam had committed the 'beata culpa,' which, so far from being a fall, was a sublime step upwards, as the snake had prophesied, God said, 'Behold, Adam has become as _one of us_, to know good and evil.' And He added, 'Now, therefore, lest he put forth his hand, and take of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.'"

The ancients accordingly saw in the gods men who had elevated themselves to despotic power, and sought by an overthrow of the constitution to maintain that power, while preventing others from raising themselves in their turn. Hence sprang the conflict, men endeavouring to drive away the usurping deities, and the latter struggling to maintain the power they had arrogated to themselves.

"Now the flood-gates are opened with a vengeance! Only consider! We are gods!"

"And the sons of the gods descended to earth and married the daughters of men, and they brought forth children. From this inter-mixture came the giants, and all famous men, warriors, statesmen, authors, artists."

This was fine seed to sow in a refractory mind, and the Ego inflated itself again, "Only think! We are gods!"

The same evening when all in the restaurant were in high spirits, a circle was formed round a doctor of music. My friend the philosopher, to whom I had imparted the discovery of our relationship to the gods, asked to hear Mozart's _Don Juan_, especially the finale of the last act.

"What is that about?" asked one, who was not at home in the classical repertory of music.

"The devil comes and carries away the Sybarite."

The abysmal torment, so well described by Mozart--who very likely knew pangs of conscience of this kind, as the husband of a woman he had seduced committed suicide on his account--is unrolled in a succession of melancholy tones like a cutting neuralgia. The laughter stops, the jests cease, and when the piece is finished there is a painful silence.

"Here's to your health!" says some one.

They drink. But the cheerfulness is at an end, the Olympic mood is quenched, for the night is coming on and the terrible chromatic successions of notes echo like innumerable waves which rise and fall, and hurl human derelicts aloft in the air in order to swallow them the next moment.

* * * * *

While the descendants of the gods make vain attempts to assume a tone becoming their high birth, night has come, and the restaurant is closed. The party must break up and go, each to his lonely bed. As we pass the Cathedral veiled in the shadows of the night, a white light suddenly flashes on the façade, on which are depicted saints and sinners kneeling before the throne of the Lamb.

"What is that?" we ask, for there is no thunderstorm. We are startled, and remain standing, only to find that it is a photographer working in his shop by the magnesium light. We are annoyed at our nervousness, and for my part I involuntary think of the theatrical lightning when Don Juan is carried off.