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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