A Dweller on Two Planets

AMANUENSIS PREFACE. By permission of the Author whose letter addressed to me follows as his preface herein and to meet the natural inquiry and satisfy so far as any personal statement from me will any honest inquiring mind I humbly appear in order briefly to give the major facts concerning the writing of this-even to me-very remarkable book. I am an only child of Dr. and Mrs. Oliver who for many years have resided in the State of California. I was born in Washington D. C. in 1866 and brought to the State by my parents two years later. Prior to commencing the writing of this book in 1884 my education had been comparatively limited and extended to a very slight knowledge of the subjects herein treated. My father a well-known physician died a few years ago my mother surviving him. Both were daily witnesses of most of the circumstances and facts surrounding the writing of this book. But further than to state this I do not think myself called upon to introduce my family into the work nor in fact myself except in so far as it is meet for me to stand forth and do my personal part as the amanuensis. I feel that I am mentally and spiritually but a figure beside the Author of the great deep-searching far-reaching and transcendent questions presented in the following pages; and I read and study them with as much interest and profit I imagine as will any reader. At the same time I feel with no sense of the natural pride of an Author of such a book that it is a work of unselfish love and will help to the betterment of an upward-struggling world searching ever for more light and feed the hungry for knowledge of the great mystery of life and of the ever evolving soul through Him who said-I AM THE WAY; FOLLOW ME. In these days of doubt materialism and even rank atheism it requires all the courage I possess to assert in clear unequivocal terms that the following book A DWELLER ON TWO PLANETS is absolute revelation; that I do not believe myself its Author-but that one of those mysterious persons if my readers choose to so consider him an adept of the arcane and occult in the universe better understood from reading this book is the Author. Such is the fact. The book was revealed to me a boy and a boy too whose parents were mistakenly lenient to such a degree that he was allowed to do as he chose in most things. Not lacking in inclination to study but very lacking in will-power continuity and energy I gained little in educational triumphs and was pointedly criticised by my teacher as lackadaisical even lazy. Hence when a little past seventeen years of age Phylos the Esoterist took me actively in charge designing to make me his instrument to the world that profound adept showed what seems to me a rare faith for I was without any solid education as generally so considered was minus any special religious trend and for my sole commendation had willingness love of the remarkable and an uncolored mind. For a year my occult preceptor educated me by means of mental talks and to such a point was my mind occupied by the many new thoughts with which he inspired me that I paid no heed to my environment worked automatically if at all studied and read not and scarcely heard those who addressed my exterior senses. Then it was that my father determined to stop my approaching imbecility as he called it; for I had avoided explanations and had said nothing of the talks with my mystic preceptor whom even I had never seen but a few times. To parental pressure I yielded and told my-to me-divine secret. To my relief it was not scouted but after a long narration to both parents they expressed a desire to hear the mysterious stranger also. This he would not grant but permitted me to quote his words talks and addresses and at length I became so proficient that I could repeat what he said almost as fast as he spoke to me...