Letters from a Living Dead Man

 

by Pa Rock

Reader

Elsa Barker was an American writer and poet living in Paris in 1912 when she inadvertently entered into a project - or crafted a con - that was to become a life-changing event for her.  According to her own accounting, the poet was sitting at her desk, pencil in hand, preparing to write when her hand suddenly began moving and writing without any conscious effort on her part to control the process.   She described the event this way:

"Yielding to impulse, my hand was seized as if from the outside, and a remarkable message of a personal nature came, followed by the signature 'X'."

The person controlling Elsa's arm claimed to be recently deceased and said he was exploring his new life on the "astral plain" of the afterlife.

It had been an incident of "automatic writing."  Barker shared the message with some friends in Paris who recognized the unique salutation on the letter as a symbol used by Judge David Patterson Hatch with whom they were acquainted in San Francisco, 6,000 miles away - and who was thought to still be living.  A few days later a letter arrived from San Francisco advising them that the judge had passed away.

Judge Hatch communicated through Elsa Barker for several years, and she eventually published all of his messages and letters in three volumes:  "Letters from a Living Dead Man," "War Letters from the Living Dead Man," and "Last Letters from the Living Dead Man."

The introductory book reaches from Judge Hatch's initial communications with Elsa Barker and across several months in time.  In that volume he described life on the astral plain, how the processes of living and dying work, and told her of many people whom he encountered in the afterlife.  The judge was very inquisitive and loved to share what he had learned, and he was also deeply philosophical.  The afterlife he described was neither a "heaven" nor a "hell," but he acknowledged a variety of heavens and hells exist that individuals design by their own thoughts and actions and to which they consign themselves.

The judge told the poet of a never-ending series of lives and afterlives in which a soul constantly travels back and forth between the objective earth and the more subjective astral plain.  He portrayed most people as living the same lives in their afterlives that they did when they were breathing and trudging along on Earth.  People live a life on Earth, they die and travel to the astral plain, and eventually they choose to go back to Earth and live another life, and they seem to have a certain amount of choice into where they wind up on each sojourn to Earth.  He told Elsa of a young teenage friend whom he had met on the astral plain.  The boy rushed back to Earth when his favorite teacher got married - because the boy, who had died young, wanted to return as one of her babies.

The judge explained that souls should have some personal growth as a result of all of the dying and returning, though some seem content to just tread water and not do much in the way of advancement.  The Judge was an ambitious soul who wanted to learn from all of his experiences.  He worked at remembering his past lives and in exploring his surroundings and meeting people on the astral plain.  He talked of some souls who tried to cling to the Earth and to be of assistance to those they left behind - and he encouraged souls departing Earth to not look back, but to move on into their next phase of existence.  

(According to Judge Hatch, many souls on the astral plane traveled frequently to the Earth as spirits, and they had the ability to travel from place to place on the earth instantaneously.  On one of his spiritual jaunts back to Earth, the judge transported himself to Japan to witness the coronation of the new emperor.)

He also talked about the souls of people who never believed in the afterlife.  He said they enter the afterlife in a state of deep sleep, something which may continue for thousands of years, or "ages."  The judge, by being inquisitive, managed to acquire a pair of mentors in the afterlife.  One he called the "Beautiful Being" and the other "The Teacher."  "The Teacher" was a thinly veiled representation of Jesus.  He convinced "The Teacher" to wake one of their comatose individuals and to introduce him to the afterlife - which the teacher did as a part of the judge's overall education.

The judge also talked about a hierarchy of souls, from the ordinary travelers. between the two worlds who show little in the way of advancement between lives, to the inquisitive, like himself, who constantly work at learning.  The inquisitive evolve into master souls and potentially even angels.

Judge Hatch proposed that the afterlife is somewhat like a vacation, a place for souls to rest, recoup, and perhaps even experience a certain amount of growth through dreams.  From there he segued to some thoughts on the way people waste their time and efforts on Earth:

"Perhaps on Earth you work too much - more than is really necessary.  The mass of needless things that you accumulate round you, the artificial wants that you create, the breakneck pace of your lives to provide all these things, seem to us absurd and rather pitiful.  Your political economy is mere child's play, your governments are cumbrous machines for doing the unnecessary, most of your work is useless, and your lives would be nearly futile if you did not suffer so much that your souls learn, though unwillingly, that most of their strivings are in vain."

As the first set of letters began drawing to a close, the Judge was preparing to go on a tour of the universe with the Beautiful Being to visit the other planets.

"Letters from a Living Dead Man" contains fifty-four epistles from Judge Hatch to Elsa Barker - and eventually to the rest of the world.   For the most part they are short, because the Judge was conscious of the need not to overwork the writing arm and hand of his willing stenographer.  The letters describe an afterlife that is neither Heaven nor Hell, has no mansions of gold nor sulfurous burning pits, but instead is more-or-less a calm continuation of the life that the person had been enduring before death.  There are exceptions, of course, for those who aren't seeking an afterlife and for those who push boundaries and try to experience intellectual growth wherever they happen to be residing - but for the remainder it is an abundance of rest, sleep, and dreaming.

And I have just scratched the surface of the wisdom that Judge Hatch shared through the hand of Elsa Barker.   Judge Hatch (or Elsa Barker) described an afterlife that is neither gilded nor tortuous, but is some acceptable extension of the life we already know - and a process that allows us unlimited chances to improve on mistakes that we have made in our past lives.  The astral plain awaits, not as a place to lust after or fear, but as a place to rest and grow before returning to Earth for another pass through life and another chance to do things right.

I found "Letters from a Living Dead Man" to be comforting and inspirational, neither of which I was expecting, and I suspect that I will soon read the other two volumes.    Elsa Barker may have been a cunning con-artist, though perhaps she was not, but whoever actually wrote this volume crafted an afterlife that I would not mind experiencing.

And that's why I read - to experience new things!