41/55 SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATIONS A BRIEF RECORD OF MY OWN EXPERIENCES By Sir WM. EARNSHAW COOPER, CIE.
SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATIONS A BRIEF RECORD OF MY OWN EXPERIENCES By Sir WM. EARNSHAW COOPER, CIE.
Audiobook
The first picture she showed was a long row or rows of kneeling female forms, all facing in the same direction towards some building, probably a temple, evidently in the performance of some sacred ceremony. Their bowed heads denoted reverence, adoration or supplication, but, on being asked if this symbolical picture had intelligent meaning for me, it at once disappeared, on my replying in the negative.
Although this picture may appear to the ordinary mind as irrelevant it has, nevertheless, a deep meaning. It has already been shown how the spirit-visitants prefer, at times, to prefigure their meaning by what men might term unnecessary mysticism, yet it is evident that this method of divination may prove more convincing than the more direct methods better understood by man. The manner in which the Lalla preferred to give back to my memory his forgotten name is a case in point.
The radiant ‘ Maira ‘ prefers to declare herself to me in the manner chosen. At the moment I understood little beyond the fact that she belonged in her earth life—which may have been lived thousands of years ago—to some Eastern race, but of this I am sure that the thought picture shown to the Medium, although but a symbolism to-day, will, in God’s good time, become perfectly intelligible. ‘ Maira’s ‘ picture was but a prefigurement. I shall understand it in time.
The next picture was that of a fair landscape over which the sun shone with warmth and brilliancy. The earth was beautiful with nature’s bountifulness in tree and plant and flower, while the fields were teeming 58with the richness of the kindly fruits of the earth.
Suddenly over the scene descended a dark, lowering cloud which enveloped the landscape as with a mantle of the deepest gloom. When this pall of blackness partly lifted it was seen that the fairness of the scene was disfigured by some destructive influence, and the fields were stricken as with a deadly blight.
The scene suddenly changed to a quick flowing river, on the turbid waters of which was seen a swimmer battling with the flood. Further down the swift rolling tide was a bank of dangerous rock, towards which the swimmer was being carried with great rapidity, and it seemed as though he would surely be dashed against its rugged sides, but, strangely enough, when destruction seemed imminent,
he was miraculously carried past the danger, either by some supreme effort of his own, or through some influence beyond his own control. For a space the waters became smoother, and the swimmer swam on, but again the river became swollen and angry, and this solitary human waif was tossed on its surface and carried rapidly towards further dangers that loomed ahead.
Straight in the swimmer’s course stood out bold jagged rocks against which it seemed inevitable he must be hurled, and, as he approached the perilous point, he was conscious of his danger and struggled hard with the boiling tide to avoid being carried to certain death, and again he won through and was carried into the peaceful waters beyond.