Volume 7, Issue 2, page 3

From "The Dead" to "The Living" BOOK REVIEW
LL
BESS
By TRAH NIKA
AYBE one of the reasons we get so
heterogenous a picture of what
"life" is like after "death" is
because our language isn't geared
to describing "the other side" .
Our thinking, our words, are corralled by time and space, and in
an environment where these conditions do not exist, we are blind
and speechless . Also, if we are
to accept the "I am there" reports as
given "by Anne, thru Bess, to Polly" in
"Voyage to the Unknown" man carries with
him after leaving his physical body much
creative power -- enough to guarantee that
conditions will be quite similar to what
he expected while here with the rest of
us . If he expects "streets of gold and
pearly gates ", that's what he'll get -- for
awhile. What, then, if he contacted someone on earth, and reported conditions as
he then thought he was finding them ? But
let ' s get to the story -- and not editorialize. There are still a lot of answers
we don't know -- not even after reading
what is described as a "message bringing
comfort, joy, and hope" to floundering
humanity -- who wants so hard to know where
he 's "going" that he '11 believe anything ,
almost .
"Voyage to the Unknown" involves three women: Anne, who, in her earth life was a pupil
of Freud and Adler and a successful speech
teacher before cancer carried her thru a painful, drugged demise; Bess, a widow, who could
relax and become the " voice " as Anne returned
to describe what she was experiencing "over
there", and Polly, or P. Wayne Kittelle, the
author, who transcribed in rapid longhand the
messages as they tumbled from Bess's lips.

Anne, who leaves no doubt that she believes
in reincarnation (as she did while she still
"lived"), tells in some detail what it's like
on the first four spirit planes, which are in
her province of knowledge-experience, and sums
up briefly the three planes "beyond " from information supplied by her teachers, who are
preparing her, and others, for advancement to
higher planes, as well as another incarnation
in case they have karma which they must indemnify. And most of us have karma, no matter how
wonderful " we think we are. How we learn,
what we learn, and what we don't learn -- Mrs.
Kittelle gives several examples of persons who
have spent many lifetimes trying to work their
way up from the blueness of the first plane
thru the greenness of the second, the rose hues
of the third and fourth, the yellows of the
fifth and sixth, to the white of the seventh.

Persons who are convinced that only thru
belief in their sponsored religion can one be
"saved" will reject Anne's report that religion has nothing to do with one's status in the
spirit world. She says:
"It is a pity if one sort of doctrinism
scorns another. It is a pity that those socalled Christians in the Christianized lands
insist upon spending their money, their time,
and often their very lives, in what they call
Christianizing the heathen. Get this straight.
The heathen who blindly warships an idol has
just as much faith in an infinite goodness as
does the slightly pompous head of the vestry
in one of the largest of the fashionable churches. Christians, Mohammedans, Buddhists,
Cultists, Scientists, anyone who worships with
FAITH has that spark of eternal goodness which
shows that his ego is at least definitely advanced beyond the first plane...
"It is not our intention to scorn any type
of man-made religion or doctrinism. What we
are trying to do is show you that all the world
needs is FAITH,. The lowliest hysterical worshiper on the dirty platform of a little Holy
Roller church has just as much faith as the
most exalted leader of any one of the richest
and most powerful denominations on earth.
FAITH is all that is needed -- FAITH in an eternal goodness, in a definite hereafter. FAITH
that the soul lives on and on..."
And what happens if you don't have faith?
don't believe? Well, there's a long sleep ahead
on the second plane