m to have written "Damnation" at this point; but so far as I can
remember I did not speak the word aloud. You will see, however, that I
tried my best to be patient in what were really the most exasperating
circumstances. But I will miss the next page or two, and come to more
interesting material. Ah I here:

Spirit. "This thing you call death, or dying? Am I to understand that it
corresponds to what we call incarnation?"

Myself. "We are not sure. Some of us believe that our actual bodies will
rise again in the flesh; others that the body perishes and the spirit
survives in an uncertain state of which we have very little knowledge;
others, again, that death is the end of everything."

Spirit. "In brief, you know nothing whatever about it?"

Myself. "Uncommonly little."

Spirit. "Do you remember your lives as elementals?"

Myself (definitely). "No!"

Spirit. "Then where do you suppose yourselves to begin?"

Myself. "We don't know. There are various guesses. None of them
particularly likely."

Spirit. "Such as?"

Myself. "Oh, some of us believe that the soul or spirit is a special
creation made by a higher power we call God, and breathed into the body
at birth. And some that the soul or spirit, itself eternal, finds a
temporary house in the body, and progresses from one to another with
intervals between each incarnation."

Spirit. "Then this being born is what we should call dying?"

Myself. "Quite. It makes no difference. And, as a matter of fact, the
overwhelming majority of us--that is to say, all but about one in every
million--never bother our heads where we came from, or what's likely to
happen to us when we die, or are born, as you would call it."

I have a note here that after this we were both silent for about ten
minutes.

Spirit (despondently). "I wish I could get some sort of idea what you do
all the time and what you think about. I thought, when I so unexpectedly
got into touch with someone in the future state, that I should be able
to learn everything. And I have, so far, learnt nothing--absolutely
nothing. In fact, except that I have been able to correct my inferences
with regard to one or two purely material experiments, I may say that
I know less now than I did before. And, by the way, those things over
there--he pointed to the washstand--I noticed that at certain times you
go through some ceremony with them upstairs, and as I wished to discover
if there was any reason why you should not