Dennis Wheatley - The Haunting of Toby Jugg

'If I did that he would get off.'

Sally shook her head. 'No, he wouldn't. If you denied yourself the temporary gratification of sloshing him, he would still have to pay up for having sloshed you; but it would be through some other agency. He might have his back broken in a mine disaster, or by some scaffolding falling on him while he was walking down a street. If you did break his back first you are now even, on the old eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth principle, so he has nothing to worry about; but if this was the first round between you he has got it coming to him in some form or another.'

'How about the other thing? These hideous ordeals that Helmuth has inflicted on me?'

'I think it's pretty certain that you must have put up rather a special black to have earned those.' She smiled a little wickedly. 'Until people learn that it does not pay they are always exchanging blows of one kind and another and a lie which does harm, or doing anyone an ill turn of any kind, is just as much a blow as an actual slap in the face but this is something different. I can only suppose that at some time or other you must have been a powerful Black Magician yourself, and have caused a great deal of misery and terror by your evil practices.'

"That sort of thing hardly goes with wielding a battleaxe,' I demurred.

She shrugged. 'One does not pay all the debts contracted during one life off in the next; but one may settle old ones from several lives during one short period. That is probably what you have been doing recently.'

'If you are right, where does all this lead to?'

'It fits us for a higher sphere. We all start here on a very low level, as cruel, superstitious, barbarous savages. Gradually we learn this and that to be gentle, generous, courageous in the right way, unselfish, wise, and to exercise control over all our appetites and passions. Eventually we become really fine people; we may live our last life on earth as great religious teachers, or pass it in comparative obscurity doing a great deal of good it is quite immaterial which but when we have learnt all there is to learn here we join the great ones who have preceded us.'

'What happens if we fail to progress, or get worse and worse with each life we lead?'

"That is impossible. If we are pigheaded, and ignore all the signposts that point the way to our becoming better people, progress will be slow; and if we give free rein to our baser instincts we slip back a bit. That is a bore, as it may mean having to go through several extra lives before the lost ground is regained. But everyone realises their faults sooner or later and makes a determined effort to eradicate them. Even an animal has the sense not to keep on getting itself hurt in the same way over and over again.'

'What part do animals play in all this? You said just now that we all start as low types of human beings, but some religions teach us that souls have their origin in much humbler forms of life.'

'No. Mankind is a different and higher form of creation than anything in the animal world. We are individuals; they are not, so they have only group souls.'

The word 'group souls' instantly brought to my mind what Helmuth had said when he was talking to me about totems the Great Spider, the Great Serpent, and so on. With a quick look at Sally, I said:

'You seem very certain about all this. Where did you get it from?'

She smiled. 'I got it from a book called Winged Pharaoh by a woman named Joan Grant. At least that is where I got the basic principles. But somehow it rang such a bell with me that I have since been able to fill in additional little bits and pieces for myself. That is why I am so certain about it. Every other form of faith that I have ever met with has always seemed to me to demand a belief in not only a number of good things, but in all sorts of absurdities as well; whereas this is simply sound common sense.

'Hellfire apart, how could any God who was worthy of respect condemn the most wayward of His children without giving them a second chance? And how can our salvation possibly depend upon anyone but ourselves and our own actions? Going to church may be an excellent form of discipline, and a useful reminder that worldly success has no permanent value; but it is childish to think that any ceremony one attends on Sunday can cancel out meannesses, cruelties and betrayals committed during the week.

'We all know what is right and what is wrong without any telling from other people. The still small voice of our own spirit, which has lived with us through all our lives from the very beginning, tells us that. We may not always be strong-minded enough to follow its counsel, but in every crisis of our lives it is an infallible guide, and we need no other.'

Sally paused for a moment, then went on, her face glowing but in a low voice, almost as though speaking to herself:

"This belief of mine also abolishes all fear of death. Naturally as long as our spirits are chained to bodies we all fear the pain that precedes so many forms of death, but most people seem to dread death itself even more. They are frightened at the idea of being parted from the little securities of family, home and money, that they have built up round themselves during their few years on earth; they are terrified at the thought of their soul going out into the dark empty spaces as a lonely wanderer, until at last it is called on to face some dread Being who will pronounce a final and irrevocable judgment upon it.

'Such thoughts have been instilled into them by generations of ignorant priests, who have blindly followed the teachings of churches that long ago became decadent and lost the light. Death is really a release from trial and hardship. Again and again we are sent here, like children going term after term back to school. Each time in a new body with new surroundings; sometimes as men, sometimes as women, sometimes to be rich and sometimes to be poor; we are given an allotted span of days and set certain tasks to learn in them.

'We have freewill and we can cut short that span in a variety of ways. If we do we only have to make it up by going through another part life, as an infant or child who dies while still young.

But we cannot increase the span by a single instant, whatever we may do. When the term is over we may go home with a bad report or a good one, and any trials that we have shirked we shall have to face again later on. But death is a holiday; and between our lives here, while our spirits are no longer imprisoned in a dull and heavy body, we are infinitely more fully our real selves, and have a far greater capacity for understanding and enjoyment.

'Unlike a school curriculum down here, the holidays are usually longer than the terms. As we have freewill we may decide that we wish to be born again almost at once, for some special purpose; but more often it is two hundred years or so before we feel impelled to enter on another trial; so it follows that a greater number of the friends we have made in many lives are always away from earth than on it, so we have the joy of being with them again. In what we call Life we are really only half alive, but constantly beset by troubles, sometimes by ill health and often lonely; whereas what we call Death is really living to the full, without material worries of physical handicaps, and being happy in the company of those we love.'

Later

I had to break off because Helmuth came in. He mentioned Deb's visit at once, and to my great relief I learnt that Sally had already sold him our story; so I had only to add that since I had no money I had had to refuse Deb's request.

He then produced a lengthy legal document and said: 'Tomorrow is your birthday, Toby, and your signature to this document then will make it a fully valid legal instrument. Are you prepared to sign it?'