In the "Upper Circles"
In the "Upper Circles" is an article written by Arthur B. Moss published in The Freethinker on 10 august 1919.
In the "Upper Circles"
According to the brief reports of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's lectures on "Life after Death" in the Daily News and other papers, the spirits of the dead have a jolly good time up above.
"People asked," said Sir Conan Doyle, "what about the child who dies? The answer is always the same," says Dr. Conan Doyle. "The child grows up under delightful conditions, and when the parents come across, it is there, grown up to welcome them."
"Yes."
"And what about old persons?"
"The old person goes back to the normal, the man to about thirty-five, the woman to thirty, so that no man need mourn his lost strength, or any woman her lost beauty."
"And what do they do?"
"A part of their work is missionary, and they talk of artistic, literary, dramatic, and musical matters. The 'etheric body' in which they work and which passes out of the physical body at death is an exact duplicate of the present body."
When I read this, I was, I must confess, a little bit astonished, for though I had become used to extraordinary stories from "spiritists" — friends of mine — of the doings of spirits in the other world, wherever that may be, I was not prepared for such a startler as this from Dr. Conan Doyle.
I pondered the matter over carefully for some days, and one night when I had got my mind finely attuned for the reception of any stray "spirit" that might be wandering about in the neighbourhood of Peckham, I called up one of my favourite little "sprites," Psycho by name, because of his sprightly movement and nimble wit, from the vasty deep, and post haste dispatched him off to the "upper circles" to ascertain for me whether what Dr. Conan Doyle had said before a large and credulous audience at Queen's Hall was strictly accurate, or whether it was, after all, only one of those fascinating stories that he used to spin when he set "Sherlock Holmes" on the track of some diabolical scoundrel of his own powerful imagination.
My little "sprite" was a long time on his errand, and in the meantime I had fallen into a sleep which, however, was more or less disturbed by strange dreams. In one of these dreams my "young sprite" — I say young, because the sprightly appearance of these creatures would lead one to suppose that they were always in their early youth — returned and narrated to me in language which I perfectly understood what he had seen "up above." Then he beckoned me to accompany him on a journey to "The Upper Circles," assuring me that it would only take a few years to reach our destination, and that he had "an invisible chariot" in waiting in which we could be comfortably wafted into the heavenly regions without running any risk of collision on the journey. When we had gone far away into the "Upper Circles" we came upon a group of beings whom my guide assured me were "spirits" who were clothed, or perhaps it would be more correct to say "wrapped in their 'etheric bodies.'" Presently when we had got, so to speak, to close quarters with numerous groups of "spirit forms," I ventured the remark that I thought I could see "the astral" or "etheric form" of some of them.
"Yes, I think you can," said my lively companion Psycho. "But they are very thin. I fancy I can see through them, I continued."
"Well, if you can't, I can," said my guide, who was a veritable Sherlock Holmes in his method of investigation and deduction. Presently I heard them mumbling something, chattering together like so many apes.
"Is that 'jabbering' their method of talking?" I asked.
"Yes," said Psycho. "You will observe that they are all toothless."
"So I perceive. There are no dentists in the heavenly regions, I suppose?"
"None," said my guide. "And consequently no artificial teeth for the spirits."
"What long 'astral beards' those old fellows over there wear, to be sure! No barbers up here, I presume?"
"None," said Psycho. "And they can never get their hair cut."
"Do you think it possible that the 'spirit forms grow younger as the ages roll? — that time passes them by, like the Levite, on the other side?"
"Certainly not. Look for yourself. That old joker over there looks quite a thousand years old; look how shrivelled up he is. Why, you can't see his face for wrinkles."
"Yes; but I suppose he could put us up to a wrinkle or two" — I couldn’t resist the pun — "about his 'etheric form.'"
"But what about the children? Do their spirits grow old?"
"Certainly."
"When they are very young, and take on the 'etheric form,' how do they grow or develop to the full spirit form? What kind of nourishment do they get? Are they brought up on the bottle, or do they get 'spiritual milk' from the breast? I can't see any breasts in the 'astral bodies' here; in fact, I can't tell what sex, if any, they belong to — they are all so much alike."
"Quite right," said Psycho; "that is why there are no marriages in the Upper Circles — and no divorces."
"But tell me, do you think Dr. Conan Doyle is right when he says that these creatures here who have taken on the 'etheric bodies' occupy their time in discussing music, literature, and the drama."
"No; certainly not," said my guide; "because when they are on earth, although they get 'etheric bodies, they leave their brains behind them. In fact, it's hard to say what they discuss, for they don't appear to have either teeth or tongue — and yet they have plenty of jaw."
"But have they any bands up here — string, or brass, or jazz?"
"No, not even a penny trumpet or a jews-harp. There are no instruments with an 'etheric form' and no instrument-makers up here."
"With regard to 'literature,' what books have they up here?"
"No books, no printers, no bookbinders, no machine-rulers, no publishers — no nothing; nothing but damp clouds and 'etheric' forms — too numerous to be counted."
"Then I think I can confidently tell Dr. Conan Doyle that he is wrong in this matter; that the spirits leave fools and knaves to do all the discussion down below?"
"Exactly."
"But I always understood that somewhere in the heavenly regions there was a land overflowing with and honey?"
"Not that I know of," said Psycho. "In any case, there are no cows and no bees up here; when they die, they are unable to put on an 'etheric form.'"
"What is that group doing over there?"
"That group," said Psycho, "is doing what all the spirits do in turn — the old trick — trying how many of them can stand on the point of a problematical needle that has neither length, breadth, nor thickness."
"In that case I do not think we need pursue our investigations any further. Let us descend."
With that remark we made our way through the clouds until we came to our "invisible chariot," and began to make a rapid descent towards the earth; but all of a sudden we seemed to knock up against a very stiff cloud, and the machine turned suddenly over, and down we came at a tremendous speed — crash! crash! crash! — both of us being precipitated out of the machine. Over and over we turned thousands of times; indeed, Perhaps we turned somersaults millions of times, before we came within sight of the earth. When I realized that we were very near the earth, I groaned with fear, thinking of the awful bump I should get when I touched terra firma.
At that moment I groaned and turned over in bed, and rolled on to the floor, striking my head against a chair which stood near the bedside. I saw millions of stars; but when I had sufficiently recovered from my fall, I realized that the whole series of incidents was nothing but the "baseless fabric of a vision."
Arthur B. Moss
