Dead Carl Wickland - 30 Years Among the Dead

Sp. I can see Calango.

Dr. You must realize that life means something.

Sp. I have had faith, and enough of it too. I sacrificed my money and my wife, and you see where I am.

Dr. What has that to do with the facts of life? Did you ever study the wonders of Nature?

Sp. I do not believe in God, there is no such thing.

Dr. God has nothing to do with humbug. Did you understand the Bible at all? The Bible says: “God is Love.” Humbuggery has nothing to do with universal life. We want to help you understand better things.

Sp. No one ever helps me.

Dr. Do you know you are in Los Angeles, California?

Sp. No.

Dr. Try to understand what the real life means; it means something you do not know of. Did you ever make a flower? Can you make grass grow, or suspend life? Did you ever study vegetation?

Sp. That's God's Nature.

Dr. Can ignorance produce intelligence? Did you ever study the marvelous things of God? Break an egg, and you do not find life in it. Take another egg, keep it warm for twenty-one days and a chicken comes out of it.

Sp. That's natural.

Dr. What produces the chicken? We must add knowledge to our faith. The Bible says:

“God is spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” You do not find that in the churches. They only have blind faith.

Sp. I sure had faith.

Dr. The Bible says: “Know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Although the Bible is not a “Holy Book” it contains some wonderful truths.

Sp. I don't believe it. (Laughing.)

Dr. You're laughing at your own ignorance. My wife allows ignorant spirits to control her body so that we can bring them to an understanding of their condition. She wants you to know that life exists on the other side. We do not know where you came from, but we allow you to control my wife's body. Where was your home?

Sp. My home? That was in Canada, near Montreal.

Dr. I was there in 1881. Are you a French-Canadian?

Sp. My great grandfather was.

Dr. Do you remember your name?

Sp. I can't remember things.

Dr. Now we want you to understand things.

Sp. I was a slave.

Dr. That is all in the past.

Sp. I only see the past and it makes me crazy. Instead of crying as many do, I thought I would laugh at everything. Whenever I got so mad I did not know what to do with myself, I started to laugh. I guess I felt a little better for laughing instead of crying.

I had my heart sorrows; they took my wife, my home went, my children went. My wife was a very pretty girl. One day I came home from my work, and I had worked very hard. My wife and children were gone.

But after a while that “minister of God” did not want my wife any more; then she commenced to go back on him, but by that time I had gone down. I said, no church for mine; that if one of “God's ministers” can break up my home and take my wife and children, then there is no God. I went clear down to hell for that fellow. I went down and down, but even down there in the gutter you find friendship and love for each other. If you are down, they, too, are down with you. All the other people look down on you, but, believe me, these others are true friends. They will help you and divide whatever they have with you. No matter how down you are, if you haven't a cent, you will find they will help you.

One day - I will never forget what I saw, never forget! God! - if there is a God - why in the name of the devil does he allow such things? One day I met my wife. Where was she? She had gone down to the gutter. I found her in one of those fine houses you hear about, where that filthy devil had put her when he was through with her. I looked at her, and she looked at me.

“You here!” I said.

And she said: “You here!”

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“What are you here for?” she asked.

I said: “I came here, probably of my own free will.”

She said she had been put there by that glorious “minister of God” to hide his own shame. To hide his own dirty work and not have people ask her questions, he put her in a fast house and let her stay there and she did not care for anything. We were both down, all because of that devil.

I have never gone to church since. I cursed that man and all religious cranks. My wife wouldn't have anything to do with me, and I wouldn't have her. She was lying there, full of disease. There is not an animal living that goes so low as a woman when she goes to the dogs. Can any one believe in a God that would let a woman like my wife suffer as she did through no fault of her own? Why should such things exist?

Dr. Why didn't you use the reason God gave you?

Sp. There are hundreds of people living low down, and they don't care where they go. Dr. Now you are going to care. Let me talk now. You went to church and adopted a blind faith, that you admit.

Sp. I wanted to be a good man.

Dr. Didn't you feel a desire for something higher? You merely had faith and did not add understanding. God gave you sense, he gave you intelligent reasoning faculties, but you adopted a blind faith and clung to it. That was not God's fault. To our faith we must add knowledge and that will make us free. God did not write the Bible.

Sp. It is a Holy Book. That is what they say.

Dr. It was written by man. Did you ever analyze the marvels of the human mind? I am talking of facts now. Did you ever realize how wonderful the human body is, or how the invisible mind is able to control the material body? Did you ever see the wonders of Nature?

Sp. All that has nothing to do with my misery.

Dr. If you had used your own faculties you would understand that love and mind are invisible.

Sp. Didn't that devil love my wife?

Dr. That was not love. You did not use your faculties. You joined the church in blind faith, without using your reason. We do not see you; you are invisible to us and are using my wife's body temporarily. We are interested in the condition of the so-called dead and many of them are brought here to be enlightened. You have been brought here by intelligent spirits so that you can learn to understand your true condition. You have an opportunity to progress in the spirit world, but you must forget your hatred. You lost your physical body. Do you know what year it is? It is 1921, and you are in California.

Sp. How did I get here? I never was in California.

Dr. How does spirit travel? You spoke of other people here, we do not see them. We do not see you. You are using my wife's organism. Can't you see how wonderful life is? Sp. Why aren't we taught those things?

Dr. Because “the truth is not in the people.” You will have to judge for yourself between the facts of life and the creed of the church. Churches are man-made things; God is Spirit, and you must worship him in spirit and in truth - in spirit and in truth. We have aspirations for a higher life, but that does not give us knowledge. God is Spirit, invisible Intelligence. He manifests himself in all the wonders of the Universe.

Sp. All these people here (invisibles) have had disappointments as I have, but all have different stories. We sit and talk to each other from time to time, all telling of the past. All have their troubles.

Dr. God has nothing whatever to do with that. The Universe is God's Temple and our souls are His Manifestations. Think of the marvelous things in the Universe. You speak of your friends being here, yet we cannot see them.

Sp. They want to know if you can help them all from their troubles.

Dr. Yes, we can. Tell them that life means something. Look around and you may see intelligent spirits who will help you.

Sp. There are six of us and we have all had the same trouble and disappointment, but each has a different story.

Dr. Tell them that none of you need be in the condition you are in.