2014년 11월 10일 월요일

The Rosicrucian Mysteries 4

The Rosicrucian Mysteries 4


That term “I” is an appelation which can only be made by the human spirit
of itself. We may all call a dog, dog; or we may call a table, table, and
any one else may apply the same name to the dog and to the table, but only
a human being can be called “I” and only he himself can apply that most
exclusive of all words, I, for this is the badge of self-consciousness,
the recognition by the human spirit of _itself_ as an entity, separate and
apart from all others.

Thus we see that the constitution of man is more complex than appears upon
the surface, and we will now proceed to note the effect upon this
multiplex being of various conditions of life.





CHAPTER V. LIFE AND DEATH


_Invisible Helpers and Mediums._

There are two classes of people in the world. In one class the vital and
dense bodies are so firmly cemented that the ethers cannot be extracted
under any circumstances but remain with the dense body at all times and
under all conditions from birth to death. Those people are insensible to
any supersensuous sights or sounds. They are therefore usually exceedingly
sceptic, and believe nothing exists but what _they_ can see.

There is another class of people in whom the connection between the dense
and the vital bodies is more or less loose, so that the ether of their
vital bodies vibrates at a higher rate than in the first class mentioned.
These people are therefore more or less sensitive to the spiritual world.

This class of sensitives may again be divided. Some are weak characters,
dominated by the will of others in a _negative_ manner, as mediums, who
are the prey of disembodied spirits desirous of obtaining a physical body
when they have lost their own by death.

The other class of sensitives are strong _positive_ characters, who act
only from within, according to their own will. They may develop into
trained clairvoyants, and be their own masters instead of slaves of a
disembodied spirit. In some sensitives of both classes it is possible to
extract part of the ether which forms the vital body. When a disembodied
spirit obtains a subject of that nature, it develops the sensitive as _a
materializing medium_. The man who is capable of extracting his own vital
body by an act of will, becomes a citizen of two worlds, independent and
free. Such are usually known as _Invisible Helpers_. There are certain
other abnormal conditions where the vital body and the dense body are
separated totally or in part, for instance if we place our limb in an
uncomfortable position so that circulation of the blood ceases. Then we
may see the etheric limb hanging down below the visible limb as a
stocking. When we restore circulation and the etheric limb seeks to enter
into place, an intense prickly sensation is felt, due to the fact that the
little streams of force, which radiate all through the ether, seek to
permeate the molecules of the limb and stir them into renewed vibration.
When a person is drowning, the vital body also separates from the dense
vehicle and the intense prickly pain incident to resuscitation is also due
to the cause mentioned.

While we are awake and going about our work in the Physical World, the
desire body and mind both permeate the dense and the vital bodies, and
there is a constant war between the desire nature and the vital body. The
vital body is continually engaged in building up the human organism, while
the impulses of the desire body tend to tire and to break down tissue.
Gradually, in the course of the day, the vital body loses ground before
the onslaughts of the desire body, poisons of decay slowly accumulate and
the flow of vital fluid becomes more and more sluggish, until at length it
is incapable of moving the muscles. The body then feels heavy and drowsy.
At last the vital body collapses, as it were, the little streams of force
which permeate each atom seem to shrivel up, and the Ego is forced to
abandon its body to the restorative powers of sleep.

When a building has become dilapidated and is to be _restored_ and put in
thorough repair, the tenants must move out to let the workmen have a free
field. So also when the building of a spirit has become unfit for further
use, it must withdraw therefrom. As the desire body caused the damage, it
is a logical conclusion that that also must be removed. Every night when
our body has become tired, the higher vehicles are withdrawn, only the
dense and vital bodies are left upon the bed.

Then the process of restoration commences and lasts for a longer or a
shorter time according to circumstances.

At times however, the grip of the desire body upon our denser vehicles is
so strong that it refuses to let go. When it has become so interested in
the proceedings of the day, it continues to ruminate over them after the
collapse of the physical body, and is perhaps only half extracted from
that vehicle. Then it may transmit sights and sounds of the desire world
to the brain. But as the connections are necessarily askew under such
conditions, the most confused dreams result. Furthermore, as the desire
body compels motion, the body is very apt to toss about when the desire
body is not fully extracted, hence the restless sleep which usually
accompanies dreams of a confused nature.

There are times of course when dreams are prophetic and come true, but
such dreams result only _after_ complete extraction of the desire body,
under circumstances where the spirit has seen some danger perhaps, which
may befall, and then impresses the fact upon the brain _at the moment of
awakening_.

It also happens that the spirit goes upon a soul flight and omits to
perform its part of the work of restoration, then the body will not be fit
to re-enter in the morning, so it sleeps on. The spirit may thus roam
afield for a number of days, or even weeks, before it again enters its
physical body and assumes the normal routine of alternating waking and
sleep. This condition is called _trance_, and the spirit may remember upon
its return what it has seen and heard in the super-physical realm, or it
may have forgotten, according to the stage of its development and the
depth of the trance condition. When the trance is very light, the spirit
is usually present in the room where its body lies all the time, and upon
its return to the body it will be able to recount to relatives all they
said and did while its body lay unconscious. Where the trance is deeper,
the returning spirit will usually be unconscious of what happened around
its body, but may recount experiences from the invisible world.

A few years ago a little girl by the name of Florence Bennett in Kankakee,
Illinois, fell into such a trance. She returned to the body every few
days, but stayed within only a few hours each time, and the whole trance
lasted three weeks, more or less. During the returns to her body she told
relatives that in her absence she seemed to be in a place inhabited by all
the people who died. But she stated that none of them spoke about dying
and no one among them seemed to realize that they were dead. Among those
she had seen was a locomotive engineer who had been accidentally killed.
His body was mangled in the accident which caused death. The little girl
perceived him there walking about minus arms, and with lesions upon his
head, all of which is in line with facts usually seen by mystic
investigators. Persons who have been hurt in accidents go about thus,
until they learn that a mere wish to have their body made whole will
supply a new arm or limb, for desire stuff is most quickly and readily
molded by thought.

_Death._

After a longer or shorter time there comes in each life a point where the
experiences which a spirit can gain from its present environment have been
exhausted, and life terminates in death.

Death may be sudden and seemingly unexpected, as for instance by
earthquake, upon the battle-field, or by accident, as we call it, but in
reality, death is never accidental or unforeseen by Higher Powers. Not a
sparrow falls to the ground without divine Will. There are along life’s
path partings of the way, as it were; on one side the main line of life
continues onward, the other path leads into what we might call a blind
alley. If the man takes that path, it soon ends in death. We are here in
life for the sake of gaining experience and each life has a certain
harvest to reap. If we order our life in such a manner that we gain the
knowledge it is intended we should acquire, we continue in life, and
opportunities of different kinds constantly come our way. But if we
neglect them, and the life goes into paths which are not congruous to our
individual development it would be a waste of time to let us stay in such
environment. Therefore the Great and Wise Beings, Who are behind the scene
of evolution, terminate our life, that we may have a fresh start in a
different sphere of influence. The law of conservation of energy is not
confined to the Physical World, but operates in the spiritual realms also.
There is nothing in life that has not its purpose. We do wrong to rail
against circumstances, no matter how disagreeable, we should rather
endeavor to learn the lessons which are contained therein, that we may
live a long and useful life. Some one may object, and say: You are
inconsistent in your teachings. You say there is really no death, that we
go into a brighter existence, and that we have to learn other lessons
there in a different sphere of usefulness! Why then aim to live a long
life here?

It is very true that we make these claims, and they are perfectly
consistent with the other assertions just mentioned, but there are lessons
to be learned _here_ which cannot be learned in the other worlds, and we
have to bring up this physical body through the useless years of
childhood, through hot and impulsive youth, to the ripeness of manhood or
womanhood, before it becomes of true spiritual use. The longer we live
after maturity has been attained, when we have commenced to look upon the
serious side of life and started to truly learn lessons which make for
soulgrowth, the more experience we shall gather and the richer our harvest
will be. Then, in a later existence, we shall be so much more advanced,
and capable of taking up tasks that would be impossible with less length
of life and breadth of activity. Besides, it is hard to die for the man in
the prime of life with a wife and growing family whom he loves; with
ambitions of greatness unfulfilled; with hosts of friends about him, and
with interests all centered upon the material plane of existence. It is
sad for the woman whose heart is bound up in home and the little ones she
has reared, to leave them, perhaps without anyone to care for them; to
know that they have to fight their way alone through the early years when
her tender care is needed, and perhaps to see those little ones abused,
and she unable to lift a hand, though her heart may bleed as freely as it
would in earth life. All these things are sad, and _they bind the spirit
to earth_ for a much longer time than ordinarily, they hinder it from
reaping the experiences it should reap upon the other side of death, and
they make it desirable along with other reasons already mentioned to live
a long life before passing onwards.

The difference between those who pass out at a ripe old age, and one who
leaves this earth in the prime of life, may be illustrated by the manner
in which the seed clings to a fruit in an unripe state. A great deal of
force is necessary to tear the stone from a green peach; it has such a
tenacious hold upon the fruit that shreds of pulp adhere to it when
forcibly removed, so also the spirit clings to the flesh in middle life
and a certain part of its material interest remain and bind it to earth
after death. On the other hand, when a life has been lived to the full,
when the spirit has had time to realize its ambitions or to find out their
futility, when the duties of life have been performed and satisfaction
rests upon the brow of an aged man or woman; or when the life has been
misspent and the pangs of conscience have worked upon the man and shown
him his mistakes; when, in fact, the spirit has learned the lessons of
life, as it must have to come to old age; then it may be likened to the
seed of the ripe fruit which falls out clean, without a vestige of flesh
clinging thereto, at the moment the encasing pulp is opened. Therefore we
say, as before, that though there is a brighter existence in store for
those who have lived well, it is nevertheless best to live a long life and
to live it to the fullest extent possible.

We also maintain, that no matter what may be the circumstances of a man’s
death, it is not accidental; it has either been brought about by his own
neglect to embrace opportunities of growth, or else life has been lived to
the ultimate possible. There is one exception to that rule, and that is
due to man’s exercise of his divine prerogative of interference. If we
lived according to schedule, if we all assimilated the experiences
designed for our growth by the Creative Powers, we should live to the
ultimate length, but _we ourselves_ usually shorten our lives by not
taking advantage of opportunities, and it also happens that _other men_
may shorten our lives and cut them off as suddenly as the so-called
accident whereby the divine rulers terminate our life here. In other
words, murder, or fatal accidents brought about _by human __
carelessness_, are in reality the only termination to life not planned by
invisible leaders of humanity. No one is ever compelled to do murder or
other evil, or there could not come to them a just retribution for their
acts. The Christ said that evil must come but _woe unto him by whom it
cometh_, and to harmonize that with the law of divine justice: “as a man
soweth, so shall he also reap,” _there must at least be absolute free will
in respect to evil acts_.

There are also cases where a person lives such a full and good life of
such vast benefit to humanity and to himself, that his days are lengthened
beyond the ultimate, as they are shortened by neglect, but such cases are
of course too few to allow of their being dwelt upon at length.

Where death is not sudden as in the case of accidents, but occurs at home
after an illness, quietly and peacefully, dying persons usually experience
a falling upon them as of a pall of great darkness shortly before
termination of life. Many pass out from the body under that condition, and
do not see the light again until they have entered the super-physical
realms. There are many other cases however, where the darkness lifts
before the final release from the body. Then the dying person views both
worlds at once, and is cognizant of the presence of both dead and living
friends. Under such circumstances it very often happens that a mother sees
some of her children who have gone before, and she will exclaim joyously:
Oh, there is Johnny standing at the foot of my bed; my but hasn’t he
grown! The living relatives may feel shocked and uneasy, thinking the
mother suffering from hallucinations, while in reality she is more
clear-sighted than they; she perceives those who have passed beyond the
veil who have come to greet and help her to make herself at home in the
new world she is entering.

Each human being is an individual, separate and apart from all others, and
as experiences in the life of each differ from those of all others in the
interval from the cradle to the grave, so we may also reasonably infer
that the experiences of each spirit vary from those of every other spirit
when it passes through the gates of birth and death. We print what
purports to be a _spirit message_ communicated by the late Professor James
of Harvard at the Boston spirit temple, and in which he describes
sensations which he felt when passing through the gate of death. We do not
vouch for its authenticity as we have not investigated the matter
personally.

Professor James had promised to communicate after death with his friends
in this life, and the whole world of psychic research was and still is on
watch for a word from him. Several mediums have claimed that Professor
James has communicated through them, but the most remarkable are those
given through the Boston spirit temple as follows:


    “And this is death, only to fall asleep, only to awaken in the
    morning and to know that all is well. I am not dead, only arisen.

                  -------------------------------------

    “I only know that I experienced a great shock through my entire
    system, as if some mighty bond had been rent asunder. For a moment
    I was dazed and lost consciousness. When I awakened I found myself
    standing beside the old body which had served me faithfully and
    well. To say that I was surprised would only inadequately express
    the sensation that thrilled my very being, and I realized that
    some wonderful change had taken place. Suddenly I became conscious
    that my body was surrounded by many of my friends, and an
    uncontrollable desire took possession of me to speak and touch
    them that they might know that I still lived. Drawing a little
    nearer to that which was so like and yet unlike myself, I
    stretched forth my hand and touched them, but they heeded me not.”

                  -------------------------------------

    “Then it was that the full significance of the great change that
    had taken place flashed upon my newly awakened senses; then it was
    that I realized that an impenetrable barrier separated me from my
    loved ones on earth, and that this great change which had taken
    place was indeed death. A sense of weariness and longing for rest
    took possession of me. I seemed to be transported through space,
    and I lost consciousness, to awaken in a land so different and yet
    so similar to the one which I had lately left. It was not possible
    for me to describe my sensations when I again regained
    consciousness and realized that, though dead, I was still alive.

    “When I first became conscious of my new environment I was resting
    in a beautiful grove, and was realizing as never before what it
    was to be at peace with myself and all the world.”

                  -------------------------------------

    “I know that only with the greatest difficulty shall I be enabled
    to express to you my sensations when I fully realized that I had
    awakened to a new life. All was still, no sound broke the silence.
    Darkness had surrounded me. In fact, I seemed to be enveloped in a
    heavy mist, beyond which my gaze could not penetrate. Soon in the
    distance I discerned a faint glimmer of light, which slowly
    approached me, and then, to my wonder and joy, I beheld the face
    of her who had been my guiding star in the early days of my earth
    life.”


One of the saddest sights witnessed by the seer at a death-bed is the
tortures to which we often subject our dying friends on account of
ignorance of how to care for them in that condition. We have a science of
birth; obstetricians who have been trained for years in their profession
and have developed a wonderful skill, assist the little stranger into this
world. We have also trained nurses attendant upon mother and child, the
ingenuity of brilliant minds is focused upon the problem of how to make
maternity easier, neither pains nor money are spared in these beneficent
efforts for one whom we have never seen, but when the friend of a
lifetime, the man who has served his kind well and nobly in profession,
state, or church, is to leave the scene of his labors for a new field of
activity, when the woman—who has labored to no less good purpose in
bringing up a family to take its part in the world’s work—has to leave
that home and family, when one whom we have loved all our lives is about
to bid us the final farewell, we stand by utterly at a loss how to help;
perhaps we even do the very things most detrimental to the comfort and
welfare of the departing one.

Probably there is no form of torture more commonly inflicted upon the
dying than that which is caused by administering stimulants. Such potions
have the effect of drawing a departing spirit into its body with the force
of a catapult, to remain and to suffer for sometime longer. Investigators
of conditions beyond have heard many complaints of such treatment. When it
is seen that death must inevitably ensue, let not selfish desire to keep a
departing spirit a little longer prompt us to inflict such tortures upon
it. The death chamber should be a place of the utmost quiet, a place of
peace and of prayer, for at that time, and _for three and one-half days
after the last breath_, the spirit is passing through a Gethsemane and
needs all the assistance that can be given. The value of the life that has
just been passed depends greatly upon conditions which then prevail about
the body; yes even the conditions of its future life are influenced by our
attitude during that time, so that if ever we were our brother’s keeper in
life, we are a thousand times more so at death.

Post-mortem examinations, embalming and cremation during the period
mentioned, not only disturb the passing spirit mentally, but are
productive of a certain amount of pain, for there is still a slight
connection with the discarded vehicle. If sanitary laws require us to
prevent decomposition while thus keeping the body for cremation, it may be
packed in ice till the three and one-half days have passed. After that
time the spirit will not suffer, no matter what happens to the body.

_The Panorama of a Past Life._

No matter how long we may keep the spirit from passing out however, at
last there will come a time when no stimulant can hold it and the last
breath is drawn. Then the silver cord, of which the Bible speaks, and
which holds the higher and the lower vehicles together, snaps in the heart
and causes that organ to stop. That rupture releases the vital body, and
that with the desire body and mind float above the visible body for from
one to three and one-half days while the spirit is engaged in reviewing
the past life, an exceedingly important part of its post-mortem
experience. Upon that review depends its whole existence from death to a
new birth.

The question may arise in the student’s mind: How can we review our past
life from the cradle to the grave when we do not even remember what we did
a month ago, and to form a proper basis for our future life, this record
ought to be very accurate, but even the best memory is faulty? When we
understand the difference between the conscious and sub-conscious memory
and the manner in which the latter operates, the difficulty vanishes. This
difference and the manner in which the sub-conscious memory keeps an
accurate record of our life experiences may be best understood by an
illustration, as follows: When we go into a field and view the surrounding
landscape, vibrations in the ether carry to us a picture of everything
within the range of our vision. It is as sad as it is true however, that
“we have eyes and see not,” as the Savior said. These vibrations impinge
upon the retina of our eyes, even to the very smallest details, but they
usually do not penetrate to our consciousness, and therefore are not
remembered. Even the most powerful impressions fade in course of time so
that we cannot call them back at will when they are stored in our
conscious memory.

When a photographer goes afield _with his camera_ the results which he
obtains are different. The ether vibrations emanating from all things upon
which his camera is focused, transmit to the sensitive plate an impression
of the landscape true to the minutest detail, and, mark this well, this
true and accurate picture is in no wise dependent upon whether the
photographer is observant or not. It will remain upon the plate and may be
reproduced under proper conditions. Such is the subconscious memory, and
it is generated automatically by each of us during every moment of time,
independently of our volition, in the following manner.

From the first breath which we draw after birth to our last dying gasp, we
inspire air which is charged with pictures of our surroundings, and the
same ether which carries that picture to the retina of our eye, is inhaled
into our lungs where it enters the blood. Thus it reaches the heart in due
time. In the left ventricle of that organ, near the apex, there is one
little atom which is particularly sensitized, and which remains in the
body all through life. It differs in this respect from all other atoms
which come and go, for it is the particular property of God, and of a
certain spirit. This atom may be called the book of the Recording Angel,
for as the blood passes through the heart, cycle after cycle, the pictures
of our good and evil acts are inscribed thereon to the minutest detail.
This record may be called the sub-conscious memory. It forms the basis of
our future life when reproduced as a panorama just subsequent to death. By
removal of the seed atom—which corresponds to the sensitized plate in a
camera,—the reflecting ether of the vital body serves as a focus, and as
the life unrolls slowly backwards from death to birth the pictures thereof
are etched into the desire body which will be our vehicle during our
sojourn in purgatory and the first heaven where evil is eradicated and
good assimilated, so that in a future life the former may serve as
_conscience_ to withhold the man from repeating mistakes of the past, and
the latter will spur us to greater good.

A phenomenon similar to the panorama of life usually takes place when a
person is drowning. People who have been resuscitated speak of having seen
their whole life _in a flash_. That is because under such conditions the
vital body also leaves the dense body. Of course there is no rupture of
the silver cord, or life could not be restored. Unconsciousness follows
quickly in drowning, while in the usual post-mortem review the
consciousness continues until the vital body collapses in the same manner
that it does when we go to sleep. Then consciousness ceases for a while
and the panorama is terminated. Therefore also the time occupied by the
panorama varies with different persons, according to whether the vital
body was strong and healthy, or had become thin and emaciated by
protracted illness. The longer the time spent in review, and the more
quiet and peaceful the surroundings, the deeper will be the etching which
is made in the desire body. As already said, that has a most important and
far reaching effect, for then the sufferings which the spirit will realize
in purgatory on account of bad habits and misdeeds will be much more keen
than if there is only a slight impression, and in a future life the still
small voice of conscience will warn so much more insistently against
mistakes which caused sufferings in the past.

When conditions are such at the time of death that the spirit is disturbed
by outside conditions, for instance the din and turmoil of a battle, the
harrowing conditions of an accident or the hysterical wailings of
relatives, the distraction prevents it from realizing an appropriate depth
in the etching upon the desire body. Consequently its post-mortem
existence becomes vague and insipid, the spirit does not harvest fruits of
experience as it should have done had it passed out of the body in peace
and under normal conditions. It would therefore lack incentive to good in
a future life, and miss the warning against evil which a deep etching of
the panorama of life would have given. Thus its growth would be retarded
in a very marked degree, but the beneficent powers in charge of evolution
take certain steps to compensate for our ignorant treatment of the dying
and other untoward circumstances mentioned. What these steps are, we shall
discuss when considering the life of children in heaven, for the present
let it be sufficient to say that in God’s kingdom every evil is always
transmuted to a greater good though the process may not be at once
apparent.

_Purgatory._

During life the collapse of the vital body at night terminates our view of
the world about us, and causes us to lose ourselves in unconsciousness of
sleep. When the vital body collapses just subsequent to death, and the
panorama of life is terminated, we also lose consciousness for a time
which varies according to the individual. A darkness seems to fall upon
the spirit, then after a while it wakes up and begins dimly to perceive
the light of the other world, but is only gradually accustomed to the
altered conditions. It is an experience similar to that which we have when
coming out of a darkened room into sunlight, which blinds us by its
brilliancy, until the pupils of our eyes have contracted so that they
admit a quantity of light bearable to our organism.

If under such a condition we turn momentarily from the bright sunlight and
look back into the darkened room, objects there will be much more plain to
our vision than things outside which are illumined by the powerful rays of
the sun. So it is also with the spirit, when it has first been released
from the body it perceives sights, scenes and sounds of the material
world, which it has just left, much more readily than it observes the
sights of the world it is entering. Wordsworth in his Ode to Immortality
noted a similar condition in the case of new-born children, who are all
clairvoyant and much more awake to the spiritual world than to this
present plane of existence. Some lose the spiritual sight very early,
others retain it for a number of years and a few keep it all through life,
but as the birth of a child is a death in the spiritual world and it
retains the spiritual sight for a time, so also death here is a birth upon
the spiritual plane, and the newly dead retain a consciousness of this
world for some time subsequent to demise.

When one awakes in the Desire World after having passed through
aforementioned experiences, the general feeling seems to be one of relief
from a heavy burden, a feeling perhaps akin to that of a diver encased in
a heavy rubber suit, a weighty brass helmet upon his head, leaden soles
under his feet and heavy weights of lead upon his breast and back,
confined in his operations on the bottom of the ocean by a short length of
air tube, and able only to move clumsily with difficulty. When after the
day’s work such a man is hauled to the surface, and divests himself of his
heavy garments and he moves about with the facility we enjoy here, he must
surely experience a feeling of great relief. Something like that is felt
by the spirit when it has been divested of the mortal coil, and is able to
roam all over the globe instead of being confined to the narrow
environment which bound it upon earth.

There is also a feeling of relief for those who have been ill. Sickness,
such as we know it, does not exist there. Neither is it necessary to seek
food and shelter, for in that world there is neither heat nor cold.
Nevertheless, there are many in the purgatorial regions who go to all
bothers of housekeeping, eating and drinking just as we do here. George Du
Maurier in his novel “Peter Ibbetson” gives a very good idea of this
condition in the life lived between the hero and the Countess of Towers.
This novel also illustrates splendidly what has been said of the
sub-conscious memory, for Geo. Du Maurier has somewhere, somehow
discovered an easy method which anyone may apply to do what he calls
“dreaming true.” By taking a certain position in going to sleep, it is
possible, after a little practice, to compel the appearance, in a dream,
of any scene _in our past life_ which we desire to live over again. The
book is well worth reading on that account.

When a fiery nebula has been formed in the sky and commences to revolve, a
little matter in the center where motion is slowest commences to
crystallize. When it has reached a certain density it is caught in the
swirl, and whirled nearer and nearer to the outward extremity of what has,
by that time, become the equator of a revolving globe. Then it is hurled
into space and discarded from the economy of the revolving sun.

This process is not accomplished automatically as scientists would have us
believe,—an assertion which has been proven in _The Rosicrucian Cosmo
Conception_ and other places in our literature. Herbert Spencer also
rejected the nebular theory because it required a First Cause, which he
denied, though unable to form a better hypothesis of the formation of
solar systems,—but it is accomplished through the activity of a Great
Spirit, which we may call God or by any other name we choose. As above, so
below, says the Hermetic axiom. Man, who is a lesser spirit, also gathers
about himself spirit-substance, which crystallizes into matter and becomes
the visible body which the spiritual sight reveals as placed inside an
aura of finer vehicles. The latter are in constant motion. When the dense
body is born as a child it is extremely soft and flexible.

Childhood, youth, maturity and old age are but so many different stages of
crystallization, which goes on until at last a point is reached where the
spirit can no longer move the hardened body and it is thrown out from the
spirit as the planet is expelled from the sun. That is death!—the
commencement of a disrobing process which continues in purgatory. The low
evil passions and desires we cultivated during life have crystallized the
desire stuff in such a manner that that also must be expelled. Thus the
spirit is purged of evil under the same law that a sun is purged of the
matter which later forms a planet. If the life lived has been a reasonably
decent one, the process of purgation will not be very strenuous nor will
the evil desires thus expurgated persist for a long time after having been
freed, but they quickly disintegrate. If, on the other hand, an extremely
vile life has been led, the part of the expurgated desire nature may
persist even to the time when the spirit returns to a new birth for
further experience. It will then be attracted to him and haunt him as a
demon, inciting him to evil deeds which he himself abhors. The story of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not a mere fanciful idea of Robert Louis
Stevenson, but is founded upon facts well known to spiritual
investigators. Such cases are extremes of course, but they are
nevertheless possible and we have unfortunately laws which convert such
possibilities to probabilities in the case of a certain class of so-called
criminals. We refer to laws which decree capital punishment as penalty of
murder.

When a man is dangerous he should of course be restrained, but even apart
from the question of the moral right of a community to take the life of
anyone—which we deny—society by its very act of retaliatory murder defeats
the very end it would serve, for if the vicious murderer is restrained
under whatever discipline is necessary in a prison for a number of years
until his natural death, he will have forgotten his bitterness against his
victim and against society, and when he stands as a free spirit in the
Desire World, he may even by prayer have obtained forgiveness and have
become a good Christian. He will then go on his way rejoicing, and will in
the future life seek to help those whom he hurt here.

When society retaliates and puts him to a violent death shortly after he
has committed the crime, he is most likely to feel himself as having been
greatly injured, and not without cause. Then such a character will usually
seek to “get even” as he calls it, he will go about for a long time
inciting others to commit murder and other crimes. Then we have an
epidemic of murders in a community, a condition not infrequent.

The regicide in Servia shocked the Western World by wiping out an entire
royal house in a most shockingly bloody manner, and the Minister of the
Interior was one of the chief conspirators. Later he wrote his memoirs,
and therein he writes that whenever the conspirators had tried to win
anyone as a recruit, they always succeeded when they burned incense. He
did not know why, but simply mentioned it as a curious coincidence. To the
mystic investigator the matter is perfectly clear. We have shown the
necessity of having a vehicle made of the materials of any world wherein
we wish to function. We usually obtain a physical vehicle by going through
the womb, or perhaps in a few special cases from a particularly good
materializing medium, but where it is only necessary to work upon the
brain and influence someone else to act, we need but a vehicle made of
such ether as may be obtained from fumes of many different substances.
Each kind attracts different classes of spirits, and there is no doubt
that the incense burned at meetings where the conspirators were successful
was of a low and sensual order and attracted spirits who had a grudge
against humanity in general and the King of Servia in particular. These
malcontents were unable to injure the King himself, but used a subtle
influence which helped the conspirators in their work. The released
murderer who has a grudge against society on account of his execution, may
enter low gambling saloons where the fumes of liquor and tobacco furnish
ample opportunity for working upon the class of people who congregate in
such places, and the man whose spiritual sight has been developed is often
sadly impressed when he sees the subtle influences to which those who
frequent such places are exposed. It is a fact of course that a man must
be of a low caliber to be influenced by low thoughts, and that it is as
impossible to incite a person of benevolent character to do murder—unless
we put him into a hypnotic sleep—as to make a tuning fork which vibrates
to C sing by striking another attuned to the key of G, but the thoughts of
both living and dead constantly surround us, and no man ever thought out a
high spiritual philosophy under the influence of tobacco fumes or while
imbibing alcoholic stimulants. Were capital punishment, newspaper
notoriety of criminals, the _manufacture_ of liquor and tobacco eliminated
from society, the gun factories would soon cease to advertise and go out
of business along with most of the locksmiths. The police force would
decrease, so would jails and taxes would be correspondingly minimized.

When a person enters purgatory he is exactly the same person as before he
died. He has just the same appetites, likes and dislikes, sympathies and
antipathies, as before. There is one important difference, however,
namely, that _he has no dense body wherewith to gratify his appetites_.
The drunkard craves drink, in fact, far more than he did in this life, but
has no stomach which can contain liquor and cause chemical combustion
necessary to bring about the state of intoxication in which he delights.
He may and does enter saloons, where he interpolates his body into the
body of a physical drunkard, so that he may obtain his desires at second
hand as it were, he will incite his victim to drink more and more. Yet
there is no true satisfaction. He sees the full glass upon the counter but
his spirit hand is unable to lift it. He suffers tortures of Tantalus
until in time he realizes the impossibility of gratifying his base desire.
Then he is free to go on so far as that vice is concerned. He has been
purged from that evil without intervention of an angry deity or a
conventional devil with hell’s flames and pitchfork to administer
punishment, but under the immutable law that as we sow so shall we reap,
he has suffered exactly according to his vice. If his craving for drink
was of a mild nature, he would scarcely miss the liquor which he cannot
there obtain. If his desires were strong and he simply lived for drink, he
would suffer veritable tortures of hell without need of actual flames.
Thus the pain experienced in eradication of his vice would be exactly
commensurate with the energy he had expended upon contracting the habit,
as the force wherewith a falling stone strikes the earth is proportionate
to the energy expended in hurling it upwards into the air.

Yet it is not the aim of God to “get even;” _love_ is higher than _law_
and in His wonderful mercy and solicitude for our welfare He has opened
the way of repentance and reform whereby we may obtain forgiveness of sin,
as taught by the Lord of Love: the Christ. Not indeed contrary to law, for
His laws are immutable, but by application of a higher law, whereby we
accomplish here that which would otherwise be delayed until death had
forced the day of reckoning. The method is as follows:

In our explanation concerning the sub-conscious memory we noted that a
record of every act, thought and word is transmitted by air and ether into
our lungs, thence to the blood, and finally inscribed upon the tablet of
the heart:—a certain little _seedatom_, which is thus the book of
Recording Angels. It was later explained how this panorama of life is
etched into the desire body and forms the basis of retribution after
death. When we have committed a wrong and our conscience accuses us in
consequence, and this accusation is productive of sincere repentance
_accompanied by reform_, the picture of that wrong act will gradually fade
from the record of our life, so that when we pass out at death it will not
stand accusingly against us. We noted that the panorama of life unwinds
backwards just after death. Later, in the purgatorial life it again passes
before the spiritual vision of the man, who then experiences the exact
feeling of those whom he has wronged. He seems to lose his own identity
for the time being, and assumes the condition of his one time victim, he
experiences all the mental and physical suffering himself which he
inflicted upon others. Thus he learns to be merciful instead of cruel, and
to do right instead of wrong in a future life. But if he awakens to a
thorough realization of a wrong previous to his death, then, as said, the
feeling of sorrow for his victim and the restitution or redress which he
gives of his own free will, make the suffering after death unnecessary,
hence—“his sin is forgiven.”

The Rosicrucian Mystery teaching gives a scientific method whereby an
aspirant to higher life may purge himself continually, and thus be able to
entirely avoid existence in purgatory. Each night after retiring the pupil
reviews his life during the past day _in reverse order_. He starts to
visualize as clearly as possible the scene which took place just before
retiring. He then endeavors to impartially view his actions in that scene
examining them to see whether he did right or wrong. If the latter, he
endeavors to _feel and realize as __ vividly as possible_ that wrong. For
instance, if he spoke harshly to someone, and upon later consideration
finds it was not merited, he will endeavor to _feel_ exactly as that one
felt whom he wronged and at the very earliest opportunity to apologize for
the hasty expression. Then he will call up the next scene in backward
succession which may perhaps be the supper table. In respect of that scene
he will examine himself as to whether he ate to live, sparingly and of
foods prepared without suffering to other creatures of God, (such as flesh
foods that cannot be obtained without taking life). If he finds that he
allowed his appetite to run away with him and that he ate gluttonously, he
will endeavor to overcome these habits, for to live a clean life we must
have a clean body and no one can live to his highest possibilities while
making his stomach a graveyard for the decaying corpses of murdered
animals. In this respect there occurs to the writer a little poem by Ella
Wheeler Wilcox:


    “I am the voice of the voiceless;
      Through me the dumb shall speak,
    Till a deaf world’s ear
      Shall be made to hear
        The wrongs of the wordless weak.

    The same force formed the sparrow
      That fashioned man the king;
    The God of the whole
    Gave a spark of soul
        To furred and feathered thing.

    And I am my brother’s keeper
      And I will fight his fight,
    And speak the word
    For beast and bird
        Till the world shall set things right.


Thus the pupil will continue to review each scene _in reverse order_ from
night till morning, and to _feel really sorry_ for whatever he has done
amiss. He will not neglect to _feel glad_ either when he comes to a scene
where he has done well, and _the more intensely he can feel, the more
thoroughly he will eradicate the record upon the tablet of the heart and
sharpen his conscience_, so that as time goes on from year to year, he
will find less cause for blame and enhance his soul power enormously. Thus
he will grow in a measure impossible by any less systematic method, and
there will be no necessity for his stay in purgatory after death.

This evening exercise and another, for the morning, if persistently
performed day by day, will in time awaken the spiritual vision as they
improve life. This matter has, however, been so thoroughly treated in
number 11 of the lecture series: “_Spiritual Sight and Insight; its safe
culture and control_,” that it is unnecessary to dwell upon the matter
further in this place.

_The First Heaven._

In the first heaven, which is located in the higher regions of the Desire
World, the panorama of life again unrolls and reveals every scene where we
aimed to help or benefit others. They were not felt at the time the spirit
was in the lower regions, for higher desires cannot express themselves in
the coarse matter composing the lower regions of the Desire World, but
when the spirit ascends to the first heaven it reaps from each scene all
the good which it expressed in life. It will feel the gratitude poured out
by those whom it helped; if it comes to a scene where itself received a
favor from others _and was grateful_, it will experience the gratitude
anew. The sum of all these feelings is there amalgamated into the spirit
to serve in a future life as incentives to good.

Thus, the soul is purged from evil in purgatory, and strengthened in good
in the first heaven. In one region the extract of sufferings become
_conscience_ to deter us from doing wrong, in the other region the
quintessence of good is transmuted to _benevolence_ and altruism which are
the basis of all true progress. Moreover, purgatory is far from being a
place of _punishment_, it is perhaps the most beneficent realm in nature,
for _because of purgation we are born innocent_ life after life. The
tendencies to commit the same evil for which we suffered remain with us
and temptations to commit the same wrongs will be placed in our path until
we have consciously overcome the evil here; temptation is not sin,
however, the sin is in yielding.

Among the inhabitants of the invisible world there is one class which
lives a particularly painful life, sometimes for a great many years,
namely, the suicide who tried to play truant from the school of life. Yet
it is not an angry God or a malevolent devil who administers punishment,
but an immutable law which proportions the sufferings differently to each
individual suicide.

We learned previously, when considering the World of Thought, that each
form in this visible world has its archetype there,—a vibrating hollow
mold which emits a certain harmonious sound; that sound attracts and forms
physical matter into the shape we behold, much in the same manner as when
we place a little sand upon a glass plate and rub the edge with a violin
bow, the sand is shaped into different geometrical figures which change as
the sound changes.

The little atom in the heart is the sample and the center around which the
atoms in our body gather. When that is removed at death, the center is
lacking, and although the archetype keeps on vibrating until the limit of
the life has been reached—as also previously explained,—no matter can be
drawn into the hollow shape of the archetype and therefore the suicide
feels a dreadful gnawing pain as if he were hollowed out, a torture which
can only be likened to the pangs of hunger. In his case, the intense
suffering will continue for exactly as many years as he should have lived
in the body. At the expiration of that time, the archetype collapses as it
does when death comes naturally. Then the pain of the suicide ceases, and
he commences his period of purgation as do those who die a natural death.
But the memory of sufferings experienced in consequence of the act of
suicide will remain with him in future lives and deter him from a similar
mistake.

In the first heaven there is a class who have not had any purgatorial
existence and who lead a particularly joyous life: the children. Our homes
may be saddened almost beyond endurance when the little flower is broken
and the sunshine it brought has gone. But could we see the beautiful
existence which these little ones lead, and did we understand the great
benefits which accrue to a child from its limited stay there, our sorrow
would be at least ameliorated in a great measure, and the wound upon our
heart would heal more quickly. Besides, as nothing else in the world
happens without a cause, so there is also a much deeper cause for infant
mortality than we are usually aware of, and as we awake to the facts of
the case, we shall be able to avoid in future the sorrow incident to loss
of our little ones.

To understand the case properly we must revert to the experiences of the
dying in the death hour. We remember that the panorama of the past life is
etched upon the desire body during a period varying from a few hours to
three and one-half days, just subsequent to demise. We recall also, that
upon the depth of this etching depends the clearness of the picture, and
that the more vivid this panorama of life, the more intensely will the
spirit suffer in purgatory and feel the joys of heaven; also, that the
greater the suffering in purgatory the stronger the conscience in the next
life.

It was explained how the horrors of death upon the battlefield, in an
accident or other untoward circumstances would prevent the spirit from
giving all its attention to the panorama of life with the result that
there would be a light etching in the desire body, followed by a vague and
insipid existence in purgatory and the first heaven. It was also stated
that hysterical lamentations in the death chamber would produce the same
effect.

A spirit which had thus escaped suffering proportionate to its misdeeds,
and which had not experienced the pleasure commensurate with the good it
had done, would not in a future life have as well developed a conscience
as it ought to have, nor would it be as benevolent as it ought to be, and
therefore the life, terminated under conditions over which the spirit had
no control, would be partly wasted. The Great Leaders of humanity
therefore take steps to counteract such a calamity and prevent an
injustice. The spirit is brought to birth, caused to die in childhood, it re-enters the Desire World and in the first heaven it is taught the lessons of which it was deprived previously.

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