There is only one instrument which is
adequate to investigate the things of the spirit, and that is the Spirit itself.
Just as it is necessary to train a man for scientific research in the physical
world, so also is a long and slow process required to fit oneself for
investigation of the spiritual world. As the man of science must pay the price
of his knowledge in months and years of unflinching, unremitting labor, so also
the mystic investigator must give years of his life to understand and be capable
of investigating by methods of the spirit.
As you know, that which is now THE PHYSICAL
BODY was the first vehicle acquired by man as a thought form; it has undergone
an immense period of evolution and organization until it is now the splendid
instrument which serves him so well here; but it is hard, set, and difficult to
act upon. The next vehicle acquired was THE VITAL BODY, which ha also gone
through a long period of development and has condensed to the consistency of
ether. The third vehicle, THE DESIRE BODY, has been comparatively lately
acquired and is in a state of comparative flux. Lastly, there is the mind, which
is only as an unformed cloud, not worthy of the name of vehicle, being as yet
but a link between the three vehicles of man and the spirit.
These three vehicles, the physical, vital,
and desire bodies, together with the link of mind, are the tools of the spirit
in its evolution, and, contrary to the common conception, the ability of the
spirit to investigate the higher realms does not depend upon the finest of these
bodies as must as upon the denser. The proof of this assertion is close at hand,
and indeed, anyone who has ever seriously tried has had this proof himself. If
not, he may have it forthwith simply by following the directions for changing
the condition of his mind. Let us say that a person has formed certain habits of
thought which he does not like. Perhaps after a religious experience he finds
that in spite of all his desires these habits of thought will not leave him. But
if he decides to cleanse his mind so that it shall contain nothing but pure and
good thoughts, he may do this by simply refusing to admit impure thoughts. He
will find that after a week or two his mind is noticeably cleaner than at the
commencement of his effort; that it holds by preference the religious thoughts
he is seeking to generate in it. Even a most abnormally degenerate mind can be
thoroughly cleansed inside of a few months. This is actual knowledge to many who
have tried it, and anyone who wishes and is sufficiently persistent may have the
same experience and enjoy a clean mind in a very short time.
But while clean thoughts take us a long step
on the path of attainment, the emotions and desires of the desire body are not
so easily subdued, for that vehicle is already considerably more set than the
mind. While the regenerate mind readily agrees to the idea that we should love
our enemies, the desire body, the emotional and passionate nature, aims with
every fiber of its begin to get even, to get an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth. Sometimes, even years and years after we think that the sleeping serpent
is subdued, that we have at last gained mastery over it, and that it cannot mar
our peace, it may suddenly rise and overthrow all our hopes, take the bit
between its teeth, go on a rampage, and vow vengeance for some real or fancied
wrong. Then it takes the whole power of the higher nature to subdue this
rebellious part of our being. This, the writer thinks, is the thorn in the flesh
concerning which Paul besought the lord thrice and was given the answer:
"My grace is sufficient for thee." It certainly does need all the
grace one can command to overcome, and eternal vigilance is the price of safety,
so let us "WATCH AND PRAY."
It is the desire body which is responsible
for all our actions, good, bad, or indifferent, and the oriental philosophers
have therefore given directions to their disciples to KILL OUT OF DESIRE and to
abstain from action, good or bad, as much as possible, in order that they may
thus save themselves from the wheel of birth and death. But that temper which is
such a great menace when it takes control, may be made as effective for service
under our proper guidance. We would not for one moment think of taking the
temper our of a knife; we should then be unable to cut anything therewith. The
temper of the desire body must be controlled but not by any means killed. For
the dynamic power of motion and action in the invisible world is stored in this
desire body, and unless it is intact, we cannot expect to control ourselves
there any more than an ocean liner whose engines were disabled could buffet the
ocean waves. There are certain societies which teach negative methods of
development, and one of their first instructions to the pupil is to drop the jaw
and make himself perfectly negative. Any one floated from the physical world
toward the spiritual world by such methods would certainly find himself as
driftwood upon the ocean, cast hither and thither by the waves, they prey and
the sport of every current. And there are in the inner worlds, as well as here,
beings who are anything but benevolent, who are ready to take advantage of
anyone that ventures into their world not fully prepared to protect himself
against them. Thus we see the supreme importance of subjecting our desires to
the will of the spirit HERE IN THIS WORLD, of forcing this desire before we
attempt to enter the inner world. Here it is, in a very large measure, held in
check by the fact that it is interpolated within the dense body, and therefore
cannot sway us hither and yon in the same degree as it can when it has been
released from the physical prison house.
But even the subjection of the desire body,
difficult as it is to accomplish, will not serve to make a man CONSCIOUS in the
invisible worlds, for the desire body has not evolved to such a point that it
can at as a real instrument of consciousness. It is unformed and cloud-like in
the great majority of people, and only a number of vortices are present as sense
centers or centers of consciousness; these are not yet sufficiently unfolded so
that they can serve the purpose without some other help. Therefore it is
necessary to work upon and educate the vital body in such a manner that it may
be used in soul-flights. This vehicle, as we know, is composed of the four
ethers. It is by means of this body that we manipulate the densest of all our
vehicles, the physical body, which we usually think of as the whole man. The
chemical and life ethers form a matrix for our physical bodies. Each molecule of
the physical body is imbedded in a meshwork of ether which permeates and infuses
it with life. Through these ethers the bodily functions, such as respiration,
etc., are carried on, and the density and consistency of these matrices of ether
determine the state of health. But the part of the vita body formed of the two
higher ethers, the light ether and the reflecting ether, is what we may term the
SOUL BODY; that is to say, it is more closely linked with the desire body and
the mind and also more amenable to the spirit's touch than are the two lower
ethers. It is the vehicle of intellect, and responsible for all that makes man,
man. Or observations, our aspirations, our character, etc., are due to the work
of the spirit in these two higher ethers, which become more or less luminous
according to the nature of our character and habits. Also, as the dense body
assimilates particles of food and thus gains in flesh, so the two higher ethers
assimilate our good deeds during the life and thus grow in volume as well.
According to our doings in this present life we thus increase or decrease that
which we brought with us at birth. If we are born with a good character,
expressed in these two higher ethers, it will not be easy for us to change this
because the vital body has become very, very set during the myriads of years
through which we have evolved it. On the other hand, if we have been lax and
negligent and indulgent in the habits which we call evil, if we have formed a
bad character in past lives, then it is difficult to overcome because of this
set nature of the vital body, and it will require years of constant effort to
change its structure. This is the reason the Western Wisdom Teaching says that
ALL MYSTIC DEVELOPMENT BEGINS WITH THE VITAL BODY.
THE CHRIST WITHIN--THE MEMORY OF NATURE
There are a great many people who associate
spirituality with a great show of emotionalism but as we saw in the last
chapter, this idea has absolutely no foundation in fact; on the contrary, the
kind of spirituality which is developed by and associated with the emotional
nature of the desire body is unreliable in the extreme; this is the variety that
is generated in revival meetings where emotionalism is brought up to a high
pitch, causing a person to make a great splurge of religious fervor which soon
spends itself and leaves him exactly as he was before, much to the chagrin of
the revivalists and other people who are engaged in evangelical work. But what
else can they expect? They set out to save souls with drums and fifes, with
rhythmic revival songs, with appeals made in a voice which is raised and lowered
in harmonic waives, all of which are as powerfully effective on the desire body
as storms which stir the sea to fury and then subside. The vital body is much
more set, and it is only when conversion affects this vehicle that it sticks and
stays with a man or woman for life. Those who have the true spirituality do not
feel saved one day, in the seventh heaven of ecstasy, and the next feel
themselves down in the dumps and miserable sinners that can never be forgiven;
for their religion is not based upon the emotional nature which feels these
things, but is rooted in the vital body which is the vehicle of reason, set and
persistent in the path it has once chose. As new forms are propagated through
the second ether of the vital body, so the HIGHER SELF, the CHRIST WITHIN, is
formed through this same vehicle of generation, the vital body, in its higher
aspects embodied in the two upper ethers.
But as a child that is born into the world
requires nourishment, so also the Christ that is born WITHIN is a babe and
requires to be nourished to the full stature of manhood. And as the physical
body grows by a continual assimilation of material from the chemical region, the
solids, liquids, and gases, so also, as the Christ grows, will the two higher
ethers grow in volume and form a luminous cloud around the man or woman
sufficiently discerning to set his or her face heavenward; it will invest the
pilgrim with light so brilliant that he "WALKS IN THE LIGHT," as a
matter of actual fact. By the exercises given in the Western Mystery School of
the Rosicrucians, it becomes possible in time to detach the two higher ethers,
and the man may then step away from his physical body, leaving it for a time
invested and vitalized only by the two lower ethers; he is then what we call an
INVISIBLE HELPER.
There are various grades of spiritual sight.
One grade enables a man to see the ordinarily invisible ether with the myriads
of beings that invest that realm. Other and higher variants give him the faculty
to see the desire world and even the world of thought while remaining in the
physical body. But these faculties, though valuable when exercised under full
control of the human will, are not sufficient to read the "MEMORY OF
NATURE" with absolute accuracy. To do this and to make the necessary
investigations in order that one may understand how the "Web of
Destiny" is made and unmade, it is necessary to be able at will to step
from the physical body and function outside in that soul body which we have
spoken of as composed of the two higher ethers, this being also invested with
the desire body and the mind. Thus the investigator is in full possession of all
his faculties, he knows all that he knew in the physical world, and has the
ability to bring back into the physical consciousness the things which he has
learned without. When he as this ability he must also learn to balance himself,
TO UNDERSTAND the things which he sees outside, for mark this: It is not enough
to be able to step outside the body into another world and to see things there;
we do not by that fact become omniscient any more than we understand what
everything is used for and how everything works here in this physical world
because we live here from day to day and year to year. It requires study and
application to become thoroughly familiar with the facts of the invisible world
as it does with the facts of the world in which we are no living in our physical
bodies. Therefore the book, the "Memory of Nature," is not read easily
at the first attempt or at the second either, for just as it takes a child time
to learn how to read our ordinary books here, so, also, it requires time and
effort to decipher this wonderful scroll.
It is a familiar fact to students of science
that the history of the earth is written in unmistakable characters upon the
rocks and by the glaciers. Upon every stone there is found some sing which
guides the trained investigator in deciphering its message concerning the
development of the earth during past ages, and it is wonderful to read in the
text books upon this subject how well the scientific investigators have been
able to make a connected story out of these many clues. It is also well known
that wherever we move individually, we leave behind us marks which may be traced
though they are unseen even by ourselves. The wonderful ingenuity displayed by
the Indians, as told by Fenimore Cooper and others, in tracing their friends or
their foes through the virgin forest guided by broken twigs, etc., is far
exceeded by scientists today, who trace the criminal by his finger prints. The
seemingly fantastic exploits of Sherlock Holmes are duplicated by actual
experience in criminal detection. The actions of men now living may be
reproduced by the moving picture camera a hundred years hence when the real
actors have long moldered in the grave; and so we can by the light of these
later discoveries prepare our minds for the belief that there is an automatic
record of every human life and of the lives of communities, kept in what we may
call, for want of a better name, the Memory of Nature. This shows the stages in
evolution attained by all living things, and gives the ministers of God, the
Recording Angels, the needed perspective in order to aid us in our attainment of
wisdom, knowledge, and power; the clue to what lessons are needed to carry us
further on the Path. So far as the individual is concerned, this record starts
at the moment when he draws the first breath and continues until the last
respiration has emptied the arteries of blood. We know that the whole universe
is vibrant with life, that each object constantly emits from itself vibratory
waves which reveal its nature and presence. We also know that when a child takes
its first complete breath, the physiological conditions in the heart are
changed, the foramen ovale is closed, and the blood forced to circulate through
the heart and lungs. There is meets the air charged with a picture of the
surroundings. Thus the blood, which is the vehicle of the Ego, absorbs in the
lungs a complete picture of the outside world. When it rushes through the left
ventricle of the heart, it leaves an impress upon the little seed atom situated
at the apex and which corresponds to the film of the camera, nor should it be an
obstacle to belief in this idea that a large number of pictures must be
imprinted upon a very small surface. When we consider that the picture of the
Moon which we see in the retina is less than one two-hundredth part of one inch
in diameter, we can see that a very small picture can be very distinct, for even
within that small space we note upon the Moon a number of mountains and valleys
with the naked eye. The picture of a man at a distance of a hundred feet or so
is not one-twentieth of an inch in size, according to an authority upon this
subject, yet we distinguish in that minute picture the expression of the face,
the pattern of the clothing, etc. Similarly, there is upon this minute seed atom
a picture of every action ever performed, of every scene in which we have ever
found ourselves, during the whole time from birth to death. George du Maurier
and Jack London describe in "Peter Ibbetson" and in "The Star
Rover," how a prisoners in the flesh may live over again the scenes of his
childhood, where he sees himself, his playmates, his parents, his whole
environment, effectively reproduced from the etheric record of his child life or
even of past lives. Any one who knows the secret of how to put himself in touch
with these pictures may find and read the lives of the people with whom he comes
in contact, as proved by mediums. But while fresh or contemporary records may be
read with comparative ease, it becomes increasingly difficult to read as we go
backwards, for the records which are made in the ether are fruit compared with
the ones in the next higher realms and fade gradually.
When a seer examines one who is about to
become ill, he will find that the vital body is actually becoming more
attenuated, and when it has reached a point of tenuity where it can no longer
support the physical body, the latter commences to manifest signs of what we
call disease. Again, some time before we see physical recovery, the vital body
gradually becomes more dense in structure; then the period of convalescence
commences. It is also patent to all who have to do with victims of accidents
that they do not suffer as keenly just after the accident as later; this is
because the vital body at the time of the accident is uninjured, and therefore
the whole effect of the accident is not felt until this vehicle has become
attenuated and unable to support the vital processes. Thus we see that there are
changes in the ether of a human being; and according to they mystic axiom,
"As above, so below," and vice-versa, there are also changes in the
planetary ether which constitutes the vital body of the Earth Spirit. As the
conscious memory of recent events which is strong in the human being gradually
fades, so also the etheric record, which is the lowest aspect of the Memory of
Nature, fades in time.
In the highest sub-division of the Region of
Concrete Thought, just on the border line between pure spirit and matter, an
impress is made of the things and events in this world which is relatively much
clearer and more lasting than the etheric record, for while events inscribed
upon the etheric record fade away in spots in a few hundred years, and even
important events may last only one or two thousand years, the record found in
the highest sub-division of the Region of Concrete Thought lasts for the Earth
Period. While the records made on the reflecting ether may be read by the
uninstructed who have just a little spiritual sight, several initiations are
required before it is possible for any one to read the records kept in the
higher region noted above. You will readily understand the relation of this
record to the one made in the ether, and also to the absolutely permanent record
which is inscribed in the World of Life Spirit, if you examine diagram No. 1 on
page 52 of the Cosmo. Paracelsus calls the record made in the ether, Sidereal
Light; and Eliphas Levi, the great Kabalist, speaks of these records as being
kept in the Astral light. This is in a sense correct, for though they have
nothing to do with the stars, as the name would seem to imply, they are found in
the Etheric Region outside the earth's atmosphere. The medium or hypnotic victim
who leaves the body by negative processes under outside control, levitates
towards these realms as naturally as our physical body gravitates towards the
earth.
As stated in the Cosmo in connection with
the constitution of our planet, the path of initiation goes through the earth
from circumference to center, one stratum at a time, and though our physical
bodies are drawn that way by the force of gravitation, their density prevents
trespass as effectually as the force of levitation which repels the uninstructed
class spoken of from sacred precincts. Only when by the power of our own spirit
we have left our dense body, instructed by and because of right living, are we
able to read the etheric record to best advantage. At a farther point of
progress the "water stratum" in the earth is opened to the Initiate,
and he is then in a position to read the record of past events permanently
engraved in the living substance of the Region of Archetypal Forces, where
duration and space are practically non-existent, and where all is an eternal
Here and Now.
"THE DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD"
EARTH-BOUND SPIRITS
While we are studying "The Web of
Destiny, How Made and Unmade," it is expedient that we devote some time to
the mysterious "Dweller on the Threshold," a subject that is quite
misunderstood. Our investigations of the previous lives of a number of people
who have applied to the Fellowship headquarters for relief from so-called
obsession, have proved that their trouble is due to one phase of what has been
mistakenly called by previous investigators, "The Dweller on the
Threshold." When cases are examined merely by the use of spiritual sight or
by reading in the etheric record, such a mistake may very easily be made as to
confuse that apparition with the true Dweller on the Threshold. But as soon as
we look the cases up in the imperishable records contained in the Region of
Archetypal Forces, the matter is at once cleared up and the facts developed in
these investigations may be summed up as follows:
At the moment of death when the seed atom in
the heart is ruptured which contains all the experience of the past life in a
panoramic picture, the spirit leaves its physical body taking with it the finer
bodies. It then hovers over the dense body which is now dead, as we call it, for
a time varying from a number of hours to three and one half days. The
determining factor as to the time is the strength of the vital body, the vehicle
which constitutes the soul body spoken of in the Bible. There is then a
pictorial reproduction of the life, a panorama in reverse order from death to
birth, and the pictures are etched upon the desire body through the medium of
the reflecting ether in this vital body. During this time the consciousness of
the Spirit is concentrated in the vital body, or at least it should be, and it
has therefore no feeling about this matter. The picture that is impressed upon
the vehicle of feeling and emotion, the desire body, is the basis of subsequent
suffering in the life in Purgatory for evil deeds, and of enjoyment in the first
Heaven on account of the good done in the past life.
These were the main facts which the writer
was able to personally observe about death at the time when the teachings were
first given to him and when he was introduced by the help of the Teacher to the
panoramic reproductions of life when persons were going through the gate of
death, but the investigations of later years have revealed the additional fact
that there is another process going on during these important days following
death. A cleavage takes place in the vital body similar to that made by the
process of initiation. So much of this vehicle as can be terms "soul,"
coalesces with the higher vehicles and is the basis of consciousness in the
invisible worlds after death. The lower part, which is discarded, returns to the
physical body and hovers over the grave in the great majority of cases, as
stated in the Cosmo. This cleavage of the vital body is not the same in all
person but depends upon the nature of the life lived and the character of the
person that is passing out. In extreme cases this division varies very much from
normal. This important point was brought out in many cases of supposed spirit
obsession which have been investigated from headquarters; in fact it was these
cases which developed the far-reaching and astounding discoveries brought out by
our most recent researches into the nature of the obsession from which the
people who appealed to us were suffering. As might be expected, of course, the
division in these cases showed a preponderance of evil, and efforts were then
made to find out if there were not also another class of people where a
different division with a preponderance of good takes place. It is a pleasure to
record that this was found to be the case, and after weighing the facts
discovered, balancing one with another, the following seems to be a correct
description of the conditions and their reason:
The vital body aims to build the physical,
whereas our desires and emotions tear down. It is the struggle between the vital
body and the desire body which produces consciousness in the physical world, and
which hardens the tissue so that the soft body of the child gradually becomes
tough and shrunken in old age, followed by death. The morality or immorality of
our desire and emotions acts in a similar manner on the vital body. Where
devotion to high ideals is the mainspring of action, where the devotional nature
has been allowed for years to express itself freely and frequently, and
particularly where this has been accompanied by the scientific exercises given
probationers in the Rosicrucian Fellowship, the quantity of the chemical and
life ethers gradually diminishes as the animal appetites vanish, and an
increased amount of the light and reflecting ether takes their place. As a
consequence, physical health is not as robust among people who follow the higher
path as among people whose indulgence of the lower nature attracts the chemical
and life ethers, in proportion to the extent and nature of their vice, to the
partial or total exclusion of the two higher ethers.
Several very important consequences
connected with death follow this fact. As it is the chemical ether which cements
the molecules of the body in their places and keeps them there during life, when
only a minimum of this material is present, disintegration of the physical
vehicle after death must be very rapid. This the writer has not been able to
verify because it is difficult to find me of high spiritual proclivities who
have passed out recently, but it would seem that this is so from the fact
recorded in the Bible that the body of Christ was not found in the tomb when the
people came to look for it. As we have said before in relation to this matter,
the Christ spiritualized the body of Jesus so highly, made it so vibrant, that
it was almost impossible to keep the particles in place during his ministry.
This was a fact known to the writer by the teachings of the Elder Brothers and
by what investigation he has made of the subject in the memory of Nature, but
the bearing of this fact upon the general subject of death and the
after-existence was not know until lately.
The real "Dweller on the
Threshold" is the composite elemental entity created on the invisible
planes by all our untransmuted evil thoughts and acts during all the past period
of our evolution. This "dweller" stands guard at the entrance to the
invisible worlds and challenges our right to enter therein. This entity must be
redeemed or transmuted eventually. We must generate poise and will power
sufficient to face and command it before we can consciously enter the
super-physical worlds.
As before stated, a worldly life increases
the proportion of the lower ethers in the vital body to that of the higher.
Where, in addition, a so-called "clean life" is lived and excesses
avoided, the health during life is more robust than that of the aspirant to the
higher life, because the latter's attitude to life builds a vital body composed
principally of the higher ethers. He loves "the bread of life" more
than physical sustenance, and therefore his instrument become increasingly
high-strung, nervous, and delicate, a sensitive condition which greatly furthers
the objects of the spirit, but which is a hardship from the physical viewpoint.
In the great majority of mankind there is
such a preponderance of selfishness and a desire to get the most out of life as
they view that matter, that either they are busy keeping the wolf from the door
or accumulating possessions and taking care of them, and hence they have very
little time or inclination to undertake the soul culture so necessary to true
success in life. The writer has often heard them contend that if they pay the
minister to study the Bible during the six days and give them on the seventh an
epitome of what he has found, that should be all that is required to get a
ticket to heaven. They subscribe to the church and to the things ordinarily
called for in life as honorable and upright; for the rest, they have "a
good time." Therefore there is so little that persists in each life of the
majority and evolution is so frightfully slow that until one is able to vie the
act of death from the higher regions of the World of Concrete Thought and, so to
say, look downwards, it does not appear that anything is saved of the vital
body. This body seems to return complete to the physical body and to hover over
the grave, there it disintegrate simultaneously with the latter. As a matter of
fact, an increasing part cleaves to the higher vehicles and goes with them into
the desire world, there to be a basis of consciousness in, and to live through,
the purgatorial and heaven lives, generally persisting until man enters the
second heaven and unites with the nature forces there in his efforts to create
for himself a new environment. By that time, it has been absorbed by the spirit
or almost so, and whatever may remain of a material nature will quickly fade
away. Thus the personality of the past life has vanished and the spirit will not
meet with it in the future lives upon this earth.
But there are some people who are of such an
evil nature that they ENJOY a life spent in vice and degenerate practices, a
brutal life, and who delight in giving pain. Sometimes they even cultivate the
occult arts for evil purposes so that they may have a greater power over their
victims. Then their fiendish, immoral practices result in hardening their vital
body.
In such extreme cases where the animal
nature has been paramount, where there has been no soul expression in the
preceding earth life, the division in the vital body spoken of before cannot
take place at death, for there is no dividing line. In such a case, if the vital
body should gravitate back to the dense body and there gradually disintegrate,
the effect of a very evil life would not be so far-reaching, but unfortunately
there is in such cases an interlocking grip of the vital and desire bodies which
prevents separation. We have seen that where a man lives mostly in the higher
nature, his spiritual vehicles are nourished to the detriment of the lower.
Conversely, where his consciousness is centered in the lower vehicles, he
strengthens them immeasurably. It should be understood that the life of the
desire body is not terminated by the departure of the spirit; it has a residual
life and consciousness. The vital body is also able to sense things in a slight
measure for a few days after death in ordinary cases (hence the suffering caused
by embalming, postmortem examinations, etc., immediately after death), but where
a low life has hardened and endued it with great strength, it has a tenacious
hold on life and an ability to feed on odors of foods and liquors. Sometimes, as
a parasite, it even vampirizes people with whom it comes in contact.
Thus an evil man may life for many, many
years unseen in our very midst, yet so close that he is nearer than hands and
feet. He is far more dangerous than the physical criminal for he is able to
prompt others of a similar bent to criminal or degenerate practices without fear
of detection or punishment by law.
Such beings are therefore one of the
greatest menaces to society imaginable. They have sent countless victims to
prison, broken up homes and caused an unbelievable amount of unhappiness. They
always leave their victims when the latter have come into the clutches of the
law. They gloat over their victims' sorrow and distress, this being a part of
their fiendish scheme. There are other classes which delight in posing as
"angels" in spiritualistic seances. They also find victims there and
teach them immoral practices. The so-called "Poltergeist" which enjoys
breaking dishes, upsetting tables, knocking hats over the heads of the delighted
audience, and similar horseplay, is also in this class. The strength and density
of the vital body of such beings makes it easier for them to give physical
manifestations than for those who have passed beyond into the desire world; in
fact the vital bodies of this class of spirits are so dense that they are nearly
physical, and it has been a mystery to the writer that some of the people who
are taken in by such entities cannot see them. Were they once discovered, one
look at their evil sneering faces would very soon dispel the delusion that they
are angels.
There is another class of spirits belonging
to this same category who appeal to person seeking spiritual development outside
the spiritualistic line, by posing to them as INDIVIDUAL TEACHERS and giving
them a lot of goody-goody nonsense. They also play upon the credulity of their
victims in an almost unbelievable manner, and even though for years they may
keep their intentions secret, sometime or other they will show themselves in
their true colors. Therefore it cannot be reiterated too often that no one
should accept from any one else, either visible or invisible, teachings in the
slightest degree contrary to his own highest conception of ethics. It is
dangerous to trust absolutely to people in this world and admit them to our full
confidence; we know this by experience and act accordingly. We ought, naturally,
to be much more careful when the question comes to matters of the soul, and not
trust that most important of all matters, our spiritual welfare, in the hands of
some one we cannot at least see and judge accordingly. There are many spirits,
of course, who have not the wits to do anything very evil with their victims,
and who just lead them around by the nose for years and years without any
particularly harmful results. But SELF RELIANCE is the most essential virtue to
be cultivated by us at this stage of our evolution; the mystic maxim, "If
thou art Christ, help thyself," is always sounded in the ears of those who
endeavor to tread the true path. Hence we ought to guide ourselves without fear
or favor from any spirit.
It is amazing when one searches the Memory
of Nature of the past to find how prevalent this interlocking condition of the
desire and vital bodies was in former centuries and millenniums. We realize, of
course, in a sort of an abstract way, that the further we go back into the
history of men the more savage we find them, but that in our own historical
times this savagery should have been so common and so brutal an that might was
the measure of right absolutely and beyond dispute, was, to say the least, quite
a shock to the writer. It has been taught that selfishness and desire were
purposely fostered under the regime of Jehovah to give incentive to action. This
in the course of time had so hardened the desire body that when the advent of
Christ took place, there was almost no heaven life among the people then living;
but the writer, personally, never realized what this fact implied until the
recent investigations of "The Web of Destiny" were commenced.
Nor were these ancient people content to do
all the evil they could in life and then get away, but they must even have their
war horses killed, their weapons laid down in their coffins, and everything else
possible done to keep them here, for the ether in those things which had
belonged to them during life had an attraction for them, and was a means to
further keeping them within the earth's sphere. It enabled them to haunt, for
they actually did haunt, their castles for years and years, and of course it was
not only the rich or the warrior classes but also others. In cases of blood
feuds where people were slain, the ghosts incited their relatives to avenge them
by remaining about and helping them to carry out the bloody deeds. Thus they
perpetuated evil and kept the world in a turmoil of blood and strife; nor is
this condition entirely broker in what we call modern days. Wherever a person
dies who has fostered malice and hatred in his heart, these interlock the desire
and vital bodies and make him a more serious menace to the community than anyone
can imagine who has not investigated this subject. Therefore, if for no other
reason, capital punishment should be abolished so that we may not let loose upon
the community such dangerous characters to incite the morally weak to follow in
their footsteps.
THE "SIN BODY"--POSSESSION BY SELF-MADE DEMONS--ELEMENTALS
Earthbound spirits, such as previously
mentioned, gravitate to the lower regions of the desire world which
interpenetrate the ether, and are in constant and close touch with those people
on earth most favorably situated for aiding them in their evil designs. They
usually stay in this earthbound condition for fifty, sixty, or seventy-five
years, but extreme cases have been found in which such people so remain for
centuries. So far as the writer has been able to discover up to the present
time, there seems to be no limit to what they may do or how soon they will let
go. But all the while they are piling up for themselves an awful load of sin,
nor can they escape suffering therefrom; for the vital body reflects and etches
deeply into the desire body a record of their misdeeds, and when at last they do
let go and enter the purgatorial existence, they meet the retribution which they
well deserve. This suffering is naturally lengthy in proportion to the time they
have continued their nefarious practices after the death of the dense
body--another proof that "Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they
grind exceeding small."
When the spirit has left the SIN BODY, as we
will call this vehicle, in contrast to the soul body, to ascend to the second
heaven, it does not disintegrate as quickly as the ordinary shell left behind by
normal people, for the consciousness in it is enhanced by its dual composition;
that is to say, being composed of both a vital and desire body, it has an
individual or a personal consciousness that is very remarkable. It cannot
reason, but there is a low cunning present which makes it seem as though it were
actually endowed with a spiritual presence, an ego, and this enables it to live
a separate life for many centuries. The departed spirit meanwhile enters the
second heaven, but having done no work on earth to desire or merit a prolonged
stay there or in the third heaven, it only stays there sufficiently long to
create a new environment for itself and it is then reborn much earlier than
usual--to satisfy the cravings for material things which draw it so strongly.
When the spirit returns to earth, this Sin
Body is naturally attracted towards it, and usually stays with it all its life
as a demon. Investigations have proved that this class of soulless creatures
were very prevalent during Biblical times, and it was to them that our Savior
referred as devils, they being the cause of various obsessions and bodily ills
such as are recorded in the Bible. The Greek word "daimon" describes
them accurately. Even today a large proportion of southern Europe and the Orient
is thus harassed, the affliction being specially aggravated in Sicily, Corsica,
and Sardinia. Whole tribes in Africa, where the Voodoo magic prevails, have with
them these gruesome specters; the Indians of America and Negroes in the South
are also subject to them.
But unfortunately the evil is not confined
to these so-called lower or backward races. Right here in what we call civilized
countries, in northern Europe and in North and South America, we find that
demoniac possession is far from infrequent, although, of course, its form is not
so abject as in the first mentioned places where it is often accompanied by the
most filthy and abominable practices.
The writer was at one time quite
apprehensive of the effect which war might have in respect to locking the desire
and vital bodies together and bringing to birth legions of monsters to afflict
future generations. But it is with great thankfulness that he records his
conviction that we need have no fear on that score. Only when people are
premeditatively malicious and vindictive, and persistently harbor a desire and a
purpose to get even with some one, only when such feelings are hugged, nursed,
and entertained do they harden the vital body and cause the interlocking grip of
these vehicles. We know from the records of the great war that the rank and file
have no such sentiments against one another, but that enemies meet as friends
whenever chance brings them into such relationship that they may converse with
one another. So, though war is responsible for the awful mortality now and will
cause deplorable infant mortality in a future age, it will be blameless with
regard to the dreadful diseases engendered by obsession and the crimes suggested
by these demoniacal sin bodies.
The discarded sin bodies mentioned in the
preceding parts of this chapter, inhabit normally and by preference the lowest
regions of the ether and condense themselves to the very line of sight.
Sometimes they even make use of some of the constituents of the air and seem
usually to be perfectly visible to those people whom they harass, although their
victims are usually very careful not to allow anyone to suspect that they have
such a demon about them, that is at least in the western world; there seems to
be no such delicacy in the southern part of Europe.
Following the above investigations, the
writer attempted a number of experiments with spirits who were in the higher
realms of the ether, having just passed out, and with people who had been in the
desire world for a longer or shorter time, some of them being almost ready for
the first heaven. A number of spirits who had departed this life kindly
co-operated as subjects. The aim of the experiments was to determine how far it
would be possible for them to clothe themselves in the materials of the lower
etheric and even the gaseous regions. It was noticed that those who had just
passed out could quite readily endure the lower ether vibrations, although being
of good character they were not well satisfied to remain there longer than
necessary, for they were uncomfortable. But as we tried people from successively
higher regions of the desire world up to the first heaven, it became more and
more difficult to wrap themselves in ether or descend into it. The consensus of
opinion was that it was like going down into a deep well, there to smother. It
was also found that it was absolutely impossible for any one in the physical to
see them. We tried by every method of suggestion to arouse the people in rooms
which we visited, to a sense of our presence, but we found no response, though
in a number of cases the forms which we condensed were so opaque that it seemed
to the writer as if they were nearly as dark as those physical people whom we
desired to attract. We placed our experimental subjects between the physical
people and the light; nevertheless we had no success in any case, either with
those who were from the higher realms or with those who had passed out recently
and were able to stay in the given position and density for a considerable time.
In addition to the entities already
mentioned who dwell in a sin body made by themselves, and who thus suffer
entirely from their own deeds in the period of expiation, two classes were found
which were similar in certain respects although entirely different in others. In
addition to the divine Hierarchies and the four life waves of spirits now
evolving in the physical world through the mineral, plant, animal, and human
kingdoms, there are also other life waves which express themselves in the
various invisible worlds. Among them there are certain classes of sub-human
spirits which are called elementals. It sometimes happens that one of these
elementals takes possession of the sin body of some one of a savage tribe, and
thus adds extra intelligence to that being. At the rebirth of the spirit that
generated this sin body, the usual attraction brings them together, but on
account of the elemental ensouling the sin body, the spirit becomes different
from the other members of the tribe, and we find them then acting as medicine
men or in a similar capacity. These elemental spirits ensouling the sin bodies
of Indians also act upon mediums as spirit controls, and having obtained power
over the medium during life, when he dies, these elemental spirit controls oust
him from the vehicles which contain his life experience, and thus the medium may
be retarded in evolution for ages, for there is no power that can compel these
spirits to let go, once they have gained control of such a body. Therefore,
though mediumship may produce no seeming evil effect in a lifetime, there is a
very, very, grave danger after death to the person who allows his body to be
taken possession of. Spiritualism has done a necessary work in the world. It was
probably the chief means of checking the absolute materialism of science, and it
has brought solace to thousands of suffering souls who grieved for the loss of
departed ones; it has turned unbelievers to believe in a higher existence. We
have no desire, whatever, to speak in a derogatory manner of its workers, but we
cannot refrain from voicing a warning, as we feel it a duty to point out the
enormous danger to those who allow themselves to be habitually controlled by
spirits whom they cannot see, and about whom they cannot possibly know anything.
OBSESSION OF MAN AND OF ANIMALS
It is a curious fact that subhuman
elementals sometimes attach themselves to certain persons, to a family, or even
to a religious society; but in such cases it was always found that their vehicle
did not consist of the hardened sin body composed of an interlocking desire and
vital body, but that the vehicle had been obtained through mediumship practiced
by a person of ordinarily good character, and that the ether of this vehicle was
in a state of disintegration. To offset this and to prolong their hold on such a
vehicle, they demand of those whom they serve, regular offerings of food and the
burning of incense; though they cannot, of course, assimilate the physical food,
they can and do live upon the ether fumes and odors which arise from it, also
upon the fumes of incense.
This is only another illustration of the
fact that purity of motive will not protect us when we go contrary to the laws
of God, any more than we can escape a burn if we put our hand on a hot stove, no
matter why we did it. But, nevertheless, it has been found in cases where a
medium has been ensouled by pure motives and high religious devotion, it is very
difficult for such evil entities to hold the vital body for a long time; they
soon tire of the effort and seek another victim who is more in accordance with
their nature. Thus in the south of Europe and in the far East there are
elementals that take possession of the vital bodies of a family, generation
after generation, leaving one for another and performing certain services for
the family for a consideration of food, which is usually offered at regular
times. Some of them are too vile to be satisfied with the offering of ordinary
food and demand blood, even human blood, and these beings are responsible for
such tribes as the head-hunters of the Philippines and the stranglers of India,
who commit murder as a religious rite. This is also the basis of Ancestor
Worship in the East.
These as well as the sin bodies which are
not ensouled by an outside intelligence have been called "THE DWELLERS ON
THE THRESHOLD," merely owing to the fact that when the person by whom they
were originally generated was reborn, this demon attached itself to him and
became a tempter and a devil to him all through life. Not infrequently it was
found that in the case of a person who had in one life generated such a demon,
but who had taken the lessons of that life so much to heart that they were
expiated in the purgatorial existence, and who when reborn endeavored in the
most whole-souled way to live a clean, upright, and honest life, this sin body
was still always on hand to hamper him. Many of the people who were thus
afflicted were so sincere in their desire to reform that they entered
monasteries and practiced dreadful austerities upon their bodies, each of them
believing that the demon which haunted him and of whose presence he was
conscious was the devil or an emissary from him.
It is said truly that the boy is the father
of the man. In a similar sense our previous existences are the progenitors of
our present and future lives, and it is very certain that in this sense at
least, "the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children"; nor
can we deny the justice thereof, for the cruelties practiced by these people
which caused the formation of the sin body were generally of the most atrocious
nature imaginable.
You have probably heard it said that when a
bull dog has taken a grip on anything, he WILL NOT let go. This implies,
however, that he has the power to do so if he wants to. But it is different with
a snake; its teeth are pointed towards the back of the mouth so that when once
it has sunk its fangs into the flesh of its victim, it CANNOT let go but must
perforce swallow the victim. Curiously enough, something similar is the case in
obsession.
You will remember that the writer has always
contended that spirit controls stand outside their victim's body and behind him,
manipulating the organ of speech or the whole body, as the case may be, from and
through the cerebellum and medulla oblongata where the flame of life burns with
a double, buzzing sound composed of two tones, indicative of the resistance of
the body to the manipulations of the intruder. Our latest investigations have,
however, disclosed the fact that the spirit controls who thus manipulate their
victims from without, are the wise ones who are too wary to be caught in a trap.
While they are without, they can let go at any time they wish and leave their
victim to pursue his daily life as desired, while they do the same themselves.
But there are other spirits who are not so wise, or who are perhaps more
foolhardy or else so anxious to get into the physical world that they throw all
caution aside. Entering the body of their victims, they find themselves in
almost the same position as the prey of the snake; the body of their intended
victim has a lock grip upon them and they cannot let go under ordinary
circumstances. Thus the obsession becomes permanent, and the whole personality
of that victim changes.
If the obsessing spirit be an elemental or
subhuman entity which is not able to use a mind or larynx, these being the
latest human acquisitions, the person so obsessed becomes a hopeless lunatic,
not infrequently of a malevolent nature, and the faculty of speech is also
impaired. It is almost impossible to dislodge such an entity once it has
entered. Investigation of former lives shows that this affliction is usually the
outcome of a desire to run away from life's experience; for those who are
obsessed are often found to have been suicides in a previous existence. Then
they had a body which they did not appreciate, and as a consequence in a later
life the mentality became weakened either through an organic disease, a great
shock, or by obsession. In any one of these cases the spirit was ousted from its
body, always hovering around it and eager to obtain possession but unable to do
so because of the lack of mind wherewith to focus thought upon the brain or
because of obsession by an extraneous entity.
Sorrow and disappointment are usually the
causes of suicide, and often a great sorrow was found to derange the mind; but
the spirit is then quite capable of understanding and handling the situation
even though it may not be able to use its vehicles because of the lacking focus
of mind. But where it has given way and attempted to escape by suicide, it
learns in the manner described to realize the value of a body and of the links
therewith, so that in the future no provocation will be sufficient to cause it
to sever the silver cord. In fact, sometimes sorrows come to tempt a person who
has given way in the past to do this very act; and when he resists, it shows he
has become immune from the temptation. It seems to be the same principle upon
which the drunkard of a former life is tempted to drink in order to test his
stability of character by his conscious refusal to yield.
It is curious that the commission of suicide
in one life and the consequent post-mortem suffering during the time when the
archetype still exists often generate in such people a morbid fear of death in
the next life, so that when the event actually occurs in the ordinary course of
life, they seem frantic after they leave the body and so anxious to get back to
the physical world again that they frequently commit this crime of obsession in
the most foolish and unthinking manner. However, as there are not always
negative human subjects available for obsession, (and even if there were, it is
not certain that the person who has just passed out and who is seeking such a
chance will find one in whom he may take refuge) a strange, a horrible thing
often happens, namely, that such a spirit ousts the real owner of an animal body
and then ensouls its vehicle. it is then under the dreadful necessity of living
an animal existence, pure and simple. If the animal is subjected to cruelty by
its master, the obsessing human spirit suffers as the animal spirit would have
suffered; if the animal is to be killed for food, the man within sees and
understands the preparation for slaughter and has to go through the horrible
experiences connected therewith. Nor are cases of this nature infrequent at all;
in fact they happen very often, as a visit to some of the great American
slaughter-houses has brought home to the writer in a most forcible manner; and
the realization of this, to him, new fact has brought home in an almost painful
manner the necessity of educating the people to the great truth that DEATH, LIKE
BIRTH, IS ONLY AN EVENT OF FREQUENT OCCURRENCE IN THE NEVER-ENDING LIFE OF THE
IMMORTAL SPIRIT.
Full faith in this doctrine would take away
untold misery from mankind, and we ought to do all in our power to help spread
this gospel of Life.
It also sometimes occurs that an evil man
embodies himself in a beast of prey and takes a fiendish delight in terrorizing
a community. When the Christ walked upon earth, such cases of animal obsession
by human spirits were met with every day, and the instances recorded in the
Bible are not at all myths or foolishness to one endowed with spiritual sight
and able to read in the Memory of Nature, for it is found that these things
actually did happen; in fact, the ancient seers who observed this habitual
entrance of people of low and evil character into the bodies of beasts when they
had passed out of their own bodies at death, thought that this was the regular
course of nature instead of being an anomalous condition, and they therefore
formulated the doctrine of Transmigration.
THE CREATION OF ENVIRONMENT--
THE GENESIS OF MENTAL AND PHYSICAL DISABILITIES
It is a fact evident from the merest
superficial observation that while animals act alike under like circumstances,
because they are guided by a group spirit, the human being does not. In humanity
there are as many species as there are individuals, each one being a law unto
himself; and we can never predict from the actions of one, how another will act
under similar circumstances; even the same individual may act differently, and
probably will, under similar circumstances at different times. On that account
it is difficult to handle or properly elucidate a subject like "The Web of
Destiny," when we are only equipped with minds of such small capacity as
human beings have at present. To fully understand this subject would require the
wisdom of such great beings as the Recording Angels, who have charge of this
intricate department of life.
It must not, therefore, be thought that the
writer is giving in this book more than a very superficial view of how destiny
is made and unmade. Each act of each individual calls forth in the universe a
certain vibration which spends itself, reacting upon him and others in his
environment; and no mere human mind could either watch or tabulate the results
of these actions and reactions in a few short months, years, or lives. But we
have sought from the general picture impressed upon our mind by the study of our
subject, to classify the causes engendered in the past as they appear to us, and
their effect in present lives. Several hundred persons have been investigated in
the course of this study, and in some cases we have gone back for three, four,
or even more lives in order to get at the root of the matter and to determine
how the actions in the past react to make conditions in present lives. But
although we have thus done our very best under the circumstances, students are
particularly requested not to regard this as any authoritative conclusion in the
matter, but rather as a fingerpost which, we hope, may help to solve certain
problems.
As regards environment, it would seem that
people who are of a particularly difficult nature to get along with and who have
a hard life before them, are often born among strangers where they will not
receive any sympathy and where their sufferings will not create upon their next
of kin according to the flesh any appreciable sympathetic impression; or else
they are orphaned, or deserted by their parents, or they run away from home at
an early age. Where this is the case, the soul often hungers for a sympathy
which it had neglected to give to others in previous lives. We have also found
cases where certain people committed the most atrocious outrages in the past and
brought shame and dishonor upon their nearest kin, who suffered deeply because
they loved the miscreant. And in the life where this erring soul was to atone
for past misdeeds, it would find itself in an altogether unsympathetic
environment, hungering and thirsting for the love that it had despised in a
previous life; thus its lot was made all the harder. If the man did not learn
the lesson in one life, several lives of similar experience would teach him to
be sympathetic to those who loved him, as well as to do honestly and rightly by
others.
It was also found that often a soul had gone
wrong in past lives because of a lack of kindly influence on the part of those
who composed his immediate family, and who should have given to him their
loyalty, support, and love. The lack of this sympathetic environment did not, of
course, excuse his misdeeds in the eyes of the law, and he was forced in later
lives to expiate the misdeeds of the past. But in such cases the tables were
usually reversed; the family, which in past lives had been indifferent to him,
would not dote upon him and thus would feel keenly whatever sorrow and suffering
he must go through on account of his past. Thus they expiated their part in
making him what he was because of their lack of sympathy and kindness.
These are extreme cases; but, naturally, one
cannot draw a definite lesson from cases not clearly marked; the more bluntly
events stand out, the easier it is to tabulate them. The law which holds good in
extreme cases would also hold good in lesser cases, with modifications in proper
degree to cover choice of environment.
The foregoing facts show us clearly that we
are truly our brother's keeper, and that it behooves every one of us to show all
the sympathy and kindness we possibly can to those who are in misfortune, either
in or out of our families. For though upon the fact of things and looking at
life from the viewpoint of our present embodiment alone, we may not seem to have
any responsibility for the condition of a scapegrace relative; nevertheless if
we could view the larger life, if we could see behind the veil, probably we
should find that we ourselves had helped him to sink into degradation.
We frequently hear the expression that such
and such a person is the "odd one" in a certain family; and we may
nearly always take it that the poor soul so designated is a stranger among
strange people, having to stay there for this life on account of some misdeeds
in the past. "Blood is thicker than water," says an old proverb; but
as a matter of fact, the tie of blood is of no consequence unless the spirits in
a family are bound to one another by love or hate from the past, which
determines their real relationship in the present life. A soul may be clothed in
the flesh of a certain family, it may sit at their board and have a legal right
to a part of their estate, while still it is as much a stranger to them as a
passing tramp who begs a meal at their kitchen door. Do you remember that the
Christ said, "For I was an hungered and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and
ye gave me drink: I was a stranger and ye took me in." And then,
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren,
ye have done it unto me." When we find such a soul, one that is
"odd," lonely, and strange in its environment, it should be our
endeavor as Christians to emulate the example set forth by our Lord; we should
endeavor to make such a strange soul at home and cultivate its acquaintance for
Christ's sake, regardless of its supposed oddities.
The disabilities which affect humanity may
be divided into large classes; MENTAL and PHYSICAL. The mental troubles are
particularly traceable to the abuse of the creative function, when they are
congenital, with one exception which we shall note later. The same holds true in
case of impairment of the faculty of speech. This is reasonable and easy to
understand. The brain and the larynx were built with half of the creative force
by the Angels, so that man who, prior to the acquisition of these organs, was
bi-sexual and able to create from himself alone, lost that faculty when these
organs were created and is now dependent upon the co-operation of another of
opposite polarity or sex in order to generate a new vehicle for an incoming
spirit.
When we use the spiritual sight to look at
man in the Memory of Nature during the time when he was yet in the making, we
find that wherever there is now a nerve, there was first a desire current; that
the brain itself was made of desire substance in the first place and also the
larynx. It was desire that first sent a motive impulse through the brain and
created these nerve currents, that the body might be moved and obtain for the
spirit whatever gratification was indicated by desire. Speech, also, is used for
the purpose of obtaining a desired object or end. Through these faculties man
has obtained a certain mastery over the world, and if he could just flit from
one body to another, there would be no end to his abuse of his power for
gratifying every whim and desire. But under the law of consequence he takes with
him into a new body, faculties and organs similar to those which he left behind
in the one preceding.
When passion has wrecked the body in one
life, it is stamped upon the seed atom. In the next descent to rebirth it is
therefore impossible for him to gather sound material with which to build a
brain of stable construction. He is then usually born under one of the common
signs, and usually, also, the four common signs are on the angles; for through
these signs passionate desire finds it difficult to express itself. Thus the
powerful impulse which formerly ruled in his brain and which might be used for
the purpose of rejuvenescence is absent; he lacks incentive in life and
therefore he becomes helpless--a log upon the ocean of life--often insane.
But the spirit is not insane; it sees,
knows, and has a keen desire to use the body, though that be an impossibility,
for often it cannot even send a correct impulse along the nerves. The muscles of
face and body are therefore not under the control of its will. This accounts for
the lack of co- ordination which makes the maniac such a pitiable sight. And
thus the spirit learns one of the hardest lessons in life, namely, that it is
worse than death to be tied to a living body and unable to find expression
through it because THE DESIRE FORCE necessary to accomplish thought, speech, and
motion HAS BEEN SPENT IN UNRIGHTEOUS LIVING in a previous life and left the
spirit without the necessary energy to operate its present fleshly instrument.
THE CAUSE OF DISEASE
EFFORTS OF THE EGO TO ESCAPE FROM THE BODY
EFFECTS OF LASCIVIOUSNESS
Though mental disabilities, when congenital,
are generally traceable to abuse of the creative function in a past life, there
is at least one notable exception to this rule, namely, cases such as mentioned
in the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception and elsewhere in our literature, and
described as follows: Where a spirit, who has a particularly hard life before
it, comes down to rebirth and feels upon entering the womb that the panorama of
the coming life then shown it marks an existence too hard for it to undergo, it
sometimes tries to run away from the school of life. At that time the Recording
Angels or their agents have already made the connection between the vital body
and the sense centers of the brain in the forming fetus; therefore the effort of
the spirit to escape from the mother's womb is frustrated, but the wrench that
is given by the Ego deranges the connection between the etheric and physical
sense centers, so that the vital body is not concentric with the physical,
causing the etheric head to extend above the physical cranium. Thus it is
impossible for the spirit to use the dense vehicle; it is tied to a mindless
body which it cannot use, and the embodiment is practically wasted.
We also find cases where a great shock later
in life causes the spirit to endeavor to run away with the invisible vehicles.
As a result a similar wrench is given to the etheric sense centers in the brain,
and the shock deranges the mental expression. Everybody has probably felt a
similar sensation on receiving a fright; a surging as of something endeavoring
to get out of the dense body; that is the desire and vital bodies, which are so
swift in their motion that an express train is as a snail by comparison. They
see and feel the danger and are frightened before the scare is transmitted to
the inert and slow physical body in which they are anchored, and which prevents
their escape under ordinary strain.
But at times, as said, the fright and shock
are sufficiently severe to give them such an impulse that the etheric sense
centers are deranged. This most frequently happens to persons born under common
signs, which are the weakest in the zodiac. However, as a ligament that has been
stretched and torn may gradually regain comparative elasticity, so also, in
these cases, it is easier to restore the mental faculties than in those cases
where congenital insanity, brought over from past lives, has caused inadequate
connection.
Hysteria, epilepsy, tuberculosis, and cancer
were all found to result from the erratic propensities of a past life. It was
noticed that though many of the subjects had been, in the past lives
investigated, almost maniacal in the gratification of their lasciviousness, they
were at the same time of a highly devotional and religious nature; and in such
cases, it seems that the physical body generated in the present life was
normally healthy and their disability altogether mental; while in other cases
where the indulgence of the passional nature was coupled with a vile character
and a cruel disregard of others, epilepsy together with rachitis, hysteria, and
a deformed body were the present result; also, frequently, cancer, especially
cancer of the liver or breast.
In this connection, however, we wish to
again warn students not to draw hasty conclusions that these are hard and fast
conditions. The number of investigations made, though very large and an arduous
task for one researcher to handle, are too few to be really conclusive in
matters involving millions of human beings. They are, however, in line with the
teachings of the Cosmo given by the Elder Brothers regarding the effect of
materialism in bringing about rachitis a softening of a part of the body that
should be hard, and tuberculosis, which hardens tissues that should remain soft
and pliable. Cancer is essentially similar in effect; and when we consider that
the sign Cancer is ruled by the moon, the planet of generation, and that the
lunar sphere is under the sway of Jehovah, the God of generation, whose angels
announce and preside over birth as instanced in the case of Isaac, Samuel, John
the Baptist, and Jesus, we readily see that abuse of the generative functions
can cause both cancer and lunacy in the most differentiated forms.
Therefore with regard to physical
abnormalities and deformities, the rule seems to be that as the physical
indulgence of passion reacts on the mental state, so the abuse of the mental
powers in one life leads to physical disability in later existences. An occult
maxim says that "A lie is both murder and suicide in the Desire
World." The teachings of the Elder Brothers given in the Rosicrucian
Cosmo-Conception explain that whenever an occurrence takes place, a certain
thought form generated in the invisible world makes a record of the incident.
Every time the event is talked about or commented upon, a new thought form is
created which coalesces with the original and strengthens it, provided they are
both true to the same vibration. But if an untruth is told concerning what
happens, then the vibrations of the original and those of the reproduction are
not identical; they jar and jangle, tearing each other to pieces. If the good and
true thought form is sufficiently strong, it will overcome and break down the
thought forms based upon a lie, and the good will overcome the evil; but where
the lies and malicious thoughts are the stronger, they may overcome the true
thought form of the occurrence and thus demolish it. Afterwards they will jar
among themselves, and all in turn will be annihilated.
Thus a person who lives a clean life,
endeavoring to obey the laws of God and striving earnestly for truth and
righteousness, will create thought forms about him of a corresponding nature;
his mind will run in grooves that harmonize with truth; and when the time comes
in the second heaven to create the archetype for his coming life, he will
readily, intuitively, by force of habit from the past life, align himself with
the forces of right and truth. These lines, being built into his body, will
create harmony in the coming vehicles, and health will therefore be his normal
portion in the coming life. Those who, on the other hand, have in the past life
taken a distorted view of things, displayed a disregard for truth, and exercised
cunning, extreme selfishness, and disregard for the welfare of others, are bound
in the second heaven to see things in an oblique manner also, because that is
their habitual line of thought. Therefore, the archetype built by them will
embody lines of error and falsity; and consequently, when the body is brought to
birth, it will exhibit a weakness in various organs, if not in the whole bodily
organization.
Again we warn students not to draw quick
conclusions from these tentative rules. It is not our intention to imply that
every one that has a seemingly healthy body has been a paragon of virtue in his
past life, and he who suffers from one disability or another has been a
scapegrace or good-for-nothing. None of us are able to tell at the present time,
"the whole truth and nothing but the truth." We are deceived because
our senses are illusive. A long street seems to narrow in the distance, when, as
a matter of fact, it is just as wide a mile away as where we are standing. The
sun and moon seem much larger when near the horizon than when at the zenith;
but, as a matter of fact, we know that they do not gain in size by descending
toward the horizon, nor lose by ascending into the mid-heaven. Thus we are
constantly making allowances for and correcting sense illusions; similarly, with
everything else in the world. What seems to be true is not always so, and what
is true today regarding conditions of life may change tomorrow. Therefore it is
impossible for us to know truth in the ultimate under the evanescent and
illusory conditions of physical existence.
It is only when we enter into the higher
realms, and particularly into the Region of Concrete Thought, that the eternal
verities are to be perceived; hence we must necessarily make mistakes again and
again, even despite our most earnest efforts to always know and tell the truth.
On that account it is impossible for us to build a thoroughly harmonious
vehicle. Were that possible, such a body would really be immortal, and we know
that immortality in the flesh is not the design of God; for Paul says that
"flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God."
But we know that even today only a very
small percentage are ready to live as near the truth as they see it, to confess
it and profess it before men by service and by righteous and harmless living. We
can also understand that such must have been few and far between in the by-gone
ages, when man had not evolved the altruism that came to this planet with the
advent of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus. The standards of morality were much
lower then, and the love of truth almost negligible in the greater part of
humanity, who were engrossed in their endeavors to accumulate as much wealth or
gain as much power or prestige for themselves as possible. They were therefore
naturally inclined to disregard the interests of others, and to tell a lie
seemed in no way reprehensible and sometimes even appeared meritorious. The
archetypes were consequently full of weaknesses, and the organic functions of
the body today are interfered with to a serious degree as a result, particularly
as the western bodies are becoming more high strung and more sensitive to pain
on account of the spirit's growing consciousness.
THE CHRIST RAYS CONSTITUTE THE "INNER URGE"--
ETHERIC SIGHT--COLLECTIVE DESTINY
Assimilation of the fruits of each past life
takes place before the spirit descends to rebirth, and consequently the
character generated is fully formed and readily expressed in the subtle, mobile
mind-stuff of the Region of Concrete Thought, where the archetype of the coming
dense body is built. If the spirit seeking rebirth loved music, it will seek to
build a perfect ear with the semi-circular canals accurately placed and the
ampullae very thin and sensitive to vibration; it will seek to form long and
slender fingers wherewith to execute the heavenly chords caught by the ear. But
if it detested music, if in the past life it endeavored to close its ears to
sounds of gladness or the sob of sorrow the desire to shut itself away from
others thus formed would cause it to neglect the ear when building the
archetype, and as a consequence this organ would be defective in a degree
commensurate with the neglect caused by the character of the previous existence.
Similarly with the other senses; who drinks
from a fount of knowledge and endeavors to share his knowledge with his
neighbor, lays the foundation for powers of oratory in a future life, because
the desire to communicate knowledge would cause him to pay particular attention
to the formation and strength of the vocal organ when he is building the
archetype of his coming body. Those who, on the other hand, endeavor to gain
access to the mysteries of life for the sake of curiosity or to gratify their
own pride of intellect, neglect to build an adequate organ of expression and are
therefore found to have weak voices or impediments in speech. In this way it is
brought home to them that expression is a valuable asset. Although the brain of
one thus afflicted may not sense the lesson, the spirit learns that we are
strictly accountable for the use we make of our talents, and we must pay the
penalty sometime, somewhere, if we neglect to speak the word of Life to light
our brothers or sisters upon the path, when well qualified by knowledge to do
so.
Regarding lack of vision or disabilities of
the organ of sight it has long been known among researchers that it is the
effect of extreme cruelty in a past life. Recent investigations have developed
the further information that much of the eye trouble now prevalent among people
is due to the fact that OUR EYES ARE CHANGING; they are, in fact, becoming
responsive to a higher octave of vision than before, because the ether
surrounding the earth is becoming more dense and the air is growing more rare.
This is particularly true in certain parts of the world, southern California
among others. It is noteworthy in this connection that the Aurora Borealis is
becoming more frequent and more powerful in its effects upon the earth. In the
early years of the Christian Era this phenomenon was almost unknown, but in the
course of time as the Christ wave which descends into the earth during part of
the year, infuses more and more of its own life into the dead, earthly lump, the
ETHERIC VITAL RAYS become visible at intervals. Later they became more and more
numerous and are now commencing to interfere with our electrical activities,
particularly with telegraphy, which service is sometimes completely demoralized
by these radiating streamers.
It is also noteworthy that the disturbances
are confined to wires going east and west. If you will refer to pages
eighty-five and eighty-six in THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION, you will see it
stated there that rays or lines of force from the plant group spirits radiate in
all directions from the center of the earth towards the periphery and then
outwards, passing through the roots of plants or trees, then upward toward the
top of same.
The currents of the animal group spirits, on
the other hand, encircle the earth. The comparatively weak and invisible
currents generated by the group spirits of the plants, and the very strong
powerful rays of force generated by the Christ Spirit now becoming visible as
the Aurora Borealis, have hitherto been of about the same nature as static
electricity, while the currents generated by the animal group spirits and which
encircle the earth may be likened to dynamic electricity which gave the earth
its power of motion in by-gone ages. Now, however, the Christ currents are
becoming more and more forceful and their static electricity is being liberated.
The etheric impulse which they give will inaugurate a new era, and the sense
organs now possessed by mankind must accommodate themselves to this change.
Instead of the etheric rays which emanate from an object bringing a reflected
image to the retina of our eye, the so-called "blind spot" will be
sensitized and we shall look out through the eye and see directly the thing
itself instead of the image upon our retina. Then we shall not only see the
surface of the thing we observe, but we shall be able to see through and through
it as those who have cultivated the etheric vision do now.
As time goes on and the Christ by His
beneficent ministrations attracts more and more of the interplanetary ether to
the earth, thus making its vital body more luminous, we shall be walking in a
sea of light, and when we learn to forsake our ways of selfishness and egotism
through the constant contact with these beneficent Christ vibrations, we also
shall become luminous. Then the eye as it is now constituted would not be of
service to us, therefore it is now beginning to change and we are experiencing
the discomfort incident to all reconstruction. It may be said further with
reference to the Aurora and its effects upon us, that these rays are radiated
through every part of the earth, which is the body of Christ, from the center to
the periphery, but in the inhabited parts of the world these rays are absorbed
by humanity as the rays of the plant group spirits are absorbed by the flower.
These rays constitute the "inner urge" which is slowly but surely
impelling mankind to adopt an attitude of altruism. They are the impregnating
rays which fructify the soul, so that eventually the immaculate conception will
take place and the Christ will be born within each of us. When we have all thus
become perfectly impregnated, the Christ light will begin to radiate from us.
Then we shall walk in the Light as He is in the Light, and we shall all have
Fellowship, one with another.
Just a few words concerning collective
destiny will end these lessons:
Besides the individual destiny generated by
ourselves in each life, there is also a collective destiny which we incur by the
fact that we are members of a community or a nation. It is well known that
communities sometimes act as a whole, either for good or for evil, and it is
only reasonable that these collective actions should also have a collective
effect in future lives upon the members of that community or nation which takes
part in them. And it is found that when these acts are evil the debt thus
contracted is generally liquidated in the course of accidents, so called, on a
large scale. It has been taught as a matter of fact that there are no accidents
save where man, who has the divine prerogative of initiating new causes, breaks
into other lives and thereby causes a change in their affairs, or when by
carelessness he takes the life of a fellow-being. The latter is an accident in
many cases. But such great cataclysms as that which we witnessed in Sicily, and
such as the San Francisco earthquake, the great European War, etc., are not
accidents, but are causative acts of the community involved or the result of
such acts in past lives. Knowing what we do of the working of the laws of infant
mortality, we can readily realize, for instance, that as so many hundreds of
thousands of victims of the Great War have passed out upon the battle field
where it is absolutely impossible for them to etch in the panorama of their past
life, it will be necessary for them to pass out in the next existence during
childhood, and how can this wholesale death come to the infants of a future age
save through some epidemic or some cataclysm which will sweep the earth? On that
hypothesis we may see in the Sicilian earthquake, San Francisco's destruction,
the famines in Ireland and India, and similar national catastrophes, the
workings of destiny from the past, bringing to each nation the fruits of its
past lives and actions as a community.
What has been said in the foregoing pages is
a very slight hint of how we make and unmake destiny. Please remember that the
few hundred cases investigated do not give an adequate basis for a general idea
of the scope of the Law, and the student is bound to find incongruities in
individual cases regarding what has been said. Questions will undoubtedly
present themselves regarding this, that, or the other specific case, and while
it is easy enough to investigate single cases and state what causes in one life
produced certain effects in another life of one person, it is very different
when we come to tabulate them and endeavor to form a general law, as we have
tried to do in the present work. To perform this task in a perfect manner would
require superhuman knowledge and wisdom, and the present attempt may perhaps be
characterized as a case of a fool rushing in where angels might well fear to
tread. Personally, the writer has gained much more knowledge than he has been
able to communicate, but he hopes nevertheless that what has been said may be of
some little use to the student as hints concerning the great mystery of life.
May these studies in the Web of Destiny
generate in each student a keener desire to live day by day in such a manner
that there shall be more peace on earth and good will among men.