WHEN I VISIT THE OTHER SIDE
(from correspondence of)
Mrs H.M. Plemon
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. . . Now, when I visit the other side and write about it, I feel very much the same as anyone does in a strange place, just keeping one's eyes and ears open taking in everything, and with no time to talk. It seems to be natural, tho that is hard to explain. I just see the whole country and see the people I write about, and hear them talk, and I write it down. I see myself among them and yet I am here sitting at my table writing about it. I don't control it; I go along much the same as anyone would visiting a strange place. I, here at my writing, realize that I am also over there. There's two of me, one here and one over there at the same time. If anyone over there speaks to me while I'm there, I answer them by writing it down on paper here. I see everything in its natural color, motion, sounds, solidity. I see it as it is on the other side, which is not like the earth plane. It is more rarefied there, very much finer in the higher realms, and as I go down into the lower realms it gets coarser and more like earth life.
Last month I wrote a story for a friend (i.e. an astral expedition in her behalf). Her father was none too good here on earth, drank a good deal etc. He passed on 30 years ago but at seances he would come back and call for help, saying he was in a dark place and wanted out. I called my Guide - "Maturi", an old rugged Guide, well trained to go down into just such places and rescue souls. He took a helper along, and as I wrote I seemed to be just behind them a little and always at their right. We travelled down, down into the "Valley of the Rocks", passed many old prospectors still digging for Gold, and talked with them, then on and on into this dark valley. And the rescue was not easy. He had been there so long he did not want to leave his comrades at the last moment. But anyway the Guides finally brought him up and now he is placed in a home where there is light, and trees, and grass, and he has to stay there until he learns how to treat his fellow men. I go on many trips not only to the lower realms to bring souls up out of darkness, but I go up into the realms of Art and Music and write about these also. Such a difference between the two places! More difference than here on earth where all classes live, in the same town.
I am not in a dream-like state or trance either. I do not meet the same people, only as I write about them, no more than you would visiting in different states or cities. Yes, my brain consciousness is very clear here and distinct while I am writing and am also on the other side.
I understand now about the holes in the linoleum. I'm getting writings on the subject but it's all too much to try to put down on paper now. Yes, I know who is giving me the Noonan story; its Mr. Fred Noonan himself. . . . Well, I think this answers all your questions.
Mrs H.M. Plemon
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Mrs Plemon is not a professional psychic or medium, and does not profit by her gifts in a financial way. We believe that RR readers will appreciate her attempt at a plain and honest description. We wish to call attention to (1) the highly developed sense of bilocation, i.e, a clear conscious activity in two very different environments at the same time, in two separate bodies. Call the entities A and B. [13] (2) The fact that "A" is aware of "B", and "B" is aware of "A", and there is constant cooperation - or, that at bottom there is no real disruption of the self. But there is no sense of unreality, by either "A" or "B". People who insist (if anyone still does) on a unitary self with a definite spatial locus, will have something to deal with. Note that the writing done by the "A" self is not 'automatic', not in trance nor under control by any other entity, nor done from memory, but is a simultaneous record of what "b" sees, does, and hears. "There's two of me," says Mrs H.M.P. Two me's or/and two I's englobed in a unitary consciousness. We are fully aware that this is no novel phenomenon and problem; at the same time it is not trance projection, or astral projection in the usual sense, and it is much more than clairvoyance or the two separated activities of doubles.
We encounter something similar to this in seance work. The Mark P. Control, Lo Sun Yet, remarks: "Yes, I can get that information for you. I have one advantage over Lingford (another Control); I don't have to leave the medium's body, and find somebody else in it when I come back. I can stay right there in the body and project myself to Santa Cruz or anywhere..." This is bilocation, in a sense, during the time when Lo Sun Yet was "projected" (several minutes) no other entity spoke thru the medium; nevertheless Lo Sun Yat did not himself make any remarks during this alleged projection, and a short and unobtrusive question brought no reply. Our assumption is, that the consciousness of Lo Sun Yet was not active in the medium's body, tho in some way he still kept control of it; there's hence no true bilocation of awareness.
We make a special request of parapsychologists and Adepti, if they will so favor us, for a statement in psychological terms of the exact situation in the case of Mrs H.M.P., especially with regard to the psychic mechanisms involved in the unity of consciousness and mutual awareness of "A" and "B", which accompanies the clearly defined bilocation and awareness of separate activities in separate bodies.
One obvious implication (which we too often forget) is that the "A" self, which is said to somehow project the "B" entity, may by the same showing itself be a projection of a third entity, but with the conscious rapport nearly out off. This line of reflection soon lands one in the heart of the Mysteries; all we do here is to point out how we hold in our hands the ends of many threads or clues and guides thru a labyrinth, and how important it is to at least try to think about them. "We have whole libraries full of books on the nature of man," remarked Lo Sun Yet. Perhaps it would be a good idea to try to read paragraph 1, or line 1, of page 1, of the most elementary of these astral tomes while we are still here, even by such dim-flickering light as we now possess.
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"The high self is the unifier of man: it says: 'I am' and it adds qualitative modifiers of being or direction. A prayer that does not petition but affirms is superior to the petitioner's form: I am good, I am strong, I am beautiful, I am loving, I will make beauty, do good, be loved as I love - these are builders in the spirit that enwombs a man's future and in them is no deterrent. Their sole approach to weakness lies in the opposition they incur, because they suggest egotism or arrogance when voiced. However, they need not be voiced where understanding is not; and where it is, they are understood, and an equal silence may be maintained. The 'I' of the high-self is what Emerson knew as the 'universal' I, yet it does not lack individuality."
(From letter to RR by Battell Loomis)