Life — April 29, 1920 — page 30: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“LIFE: Beyond the Beyond The person to whom these remarkable spirit communications are ad. dressed ("Jake") prefers to have his identity undisclosed, pork packer. He is a The letters were received through a ouija board manipu lated by his twelve-year-old daughter, Sophie, spirit-medium-chauffeur's license number 65. ERE I am, Jake, at last. I have just Passed Beyond, as they say. I wish I could tell you how I did it. If you could un- derstand, it was like going from Jersey York in the tubes, only quicker. And the air was purer. I don’t know much about the place yet. This communication with the Earth Plane is a very recent fad Here, and all the old spirits are crazy about it, The best way for a new spirit to get in wrong, Jake, is to tell everything he knows, and spoil the game for the old spirits. If you could understand, it's just like a summer hotel. Those that have been Here a long while have prerogatives. I should like to attend my funeral, but I don’t think it will be possible. They won't permit me to return to the body, as they say, now that I have progressed from it. I guess I must have come Here on a one-way ticket. Well, Jake, have a good time at my funeral. I should like you to have my diamond cuff links—if you can get them away from my brother-in-law. Yours in spirit, AmBrose. to New ELLO, Jake! What do you think we do Here most of the time? We are ght Truths, as they say, and are men- ly equipped to use our Influence for Good. I have had a terrible day, trying to use my Influence on Senator Lodge If Influence was a munitions explosion, Jake, right in the middle of it, Senator Lodge could hear a pin drop. To-night I have to help entertain a moving-picture director that has just Passed Over. To make him feel at home, we have all been instructed to do eve thing the wrong way—just as moving- picture directors do on the Earth Plane, Jake. This being on the Reception Com- mittee is no easy position. Yesterday I was sent to meet a man who had Passed Out listening to his friends’ phonograph records. Inadvertently, I took him by the place where a dozen or so spirits were practicing bugle calls for a re- hearsal of the Day of Judgment, and he thought he had gone Below and was Everlastingly Damned, as they say. It took me four hours to calm him down Jake, I'm sorry to notice that recently Sophie seems to prefer the company of her Airedale pup to the Higher Influ- ence, as they say, of the Ouija board. Alas, hers is a superficial generation. Not that I want to complain, Jake, but I thought you would have appreciated the fact that I am giving you Spirit Mani festations, as they say, of priceless value to Psychic Circles. Yours, Ambrose. OULD it interest you, Jake, to know how spirits are able to speak with their loved ones still on the Earth Plane? They speak through mediums, Jake, dif you like, I shall elucidate still utther, For instance, you might go to a person with mediumistic powers and say I should like to communicate with my friend Ambrose, who is in the Spirit World, as they say, Then you give her five dollars which includes the amuse- ment tax. After putting the money safe- ly away, the medium will go into a trance. Now the medium is in a trance, Jake. Pretty soon she will start talking baby- talk. Don’t think she is trying to vamp you, as they say on the Earth Plane. That is only baby Loretta, her Spi Control. If you could understand, Jake, a Spirit-Control is something like a mes senger boy, only not so reliable. Well, baby Loretta will tell you that she has seen me and that I am well and happy. Then you will ask questions. You will ask, “ What is Ambrose doin; And Loretta will answer, “ He’s waving a white flag.” That is symbolical, Jake, and if you want to find out what it means, it will cost you another five. It may mean I am sitting down to a steak minute with O'Brien potatoes, or it may mean that I am washing my Spirit Robe. You can't tell. Neither can Loretta. It depends upon the medium, and after all, Jake, she has to make her living. Another way is for you to go to a spiritistic church. The medium can see me there without going into a trance. She says “T see a spirit walking toward you with his hand outstretched. He is an elderly man, rather thick about the middle, with a Vandyke beard. I get a choking condition, like my throat was full of marbles. Do you know anyone who has passed out of the body with AN OLD SUBSCRIBER acute gastritis?” Then you will s “Oh, that’s Ambrose.” And_ she continue, “He says yes, it’s Ambrose. He is glad to see you, and wants you to know he is well and happy. He says tell Minnie to behave herself. Who is Min- nie? Oh, he says that’s his wife. He says do you remember the time you went (Continued on page 809) comicbooks.com