e design. I could
not place them, but on returning to my mundane state I related to my
family what I had seen, and I wrote down the date. In about three or
four weeks I had a letter from them dated at Tokio, giving a
description of this very island I had seen; they were there on that
very day when I saw them, and the island was as I had seen it. It
proved to be one of the sacred islands in Japan.

This consciousness of visiting earth friends is, however, only the
smallest part of these inner experiences; and usually occurs when I am
passing into or out of the deeper or more spiritual states. Although I
could fill volumes with these interesting experiences,--verified by
being shared with others in human life,--I feel it due to the reader
that I narrate my more inner experiences; at least in sufficient
degree that they may be recorded, and that there may be some
perception, however inadequately expressed, of what is possible in
this surpassing realm.

I cannot pass from this subject of my visits to human friends,
however, without here recording one other phase of this many-threaded
line of experiences. While in this realm of spirit I often meet and
converse freely, or commune, with friends that are yet in human forms,
but who appear as spirits and seem to possess all the activities of
the spiritual state. They meet and mingle freely with those who have
"died" to human life, yet I am perfectly sure they recall nothing of
this when in their human state. Why I should remember or take with me
these experiences that the others whom I saw within this realm could
not recall, I could not divine until it was explained by my guide.

The explanation is this: "In sleep mortals pass into this realm for
spiritual rest and change, as it is the normal realm of the spirit;
but they do not pass through the spiritual awakening of the faculties
as those do who are endowed with 'spiritual gifts,' therefore the
experiences cannot be recalled _as experiences_; still, they sometimes
have vague reminiscences or glimpses of 'unremembered dreams' that aid
them throughout the whole day, often for days; and thus the outward
life is sustained and fed from this realm. By and by the race will
have spiritual growth to know and remember the experiences of the
spirit as they now do of the human life." I have frequently met those
in that state who were strangers to me here, and who were still in
human life; and in after years I have met them face to face