The statements on page 21 would seem to show that the
visions recorded are those of the Devachanic state. For it [is] said that all
the scenery and surroundings, the natural world of that plane in short, are the
creations of the particular spirit with whose sphere the seer is in contact.
This coincides perfectly with the Theosophic view, and when once this truth is
really grasped, Spiritualists will realise how mistaken they have been in
attacking a doctrine which is in reality what they have so long been seeking
for, and which offers them the logical and philosophic system which they need
as a basis for their investigations. (Blavatsky (Lucifer, Vol. II, No. 8, April, 1888, pp. 164-165)
Our author received his instruction with respect
to the post-mortem condition of man through the agency of clairvoyant
visions. Seeming to go out of-the body, and to be endowed with
transcendental faculties, he, under the guardianship of the angel, was
made to see typical landscapes, buildings, cities and personages. Some
dead acquaintances and friends he recognized, and was astonished to see
them surrounded with the creations of their own diseased or healthy
fancies : they had made to themselves just such residences, costumes, and
other objects as were most consonant with their moral, intellectual and spiritual
states before disincarnation . (H.S. Olcott (The Theosophist, May 1888)
Third Day .— September 6th, 1877 . [Automatic
Writing.] These scenes, you say, are real—Material? No ; but real.
What you call material is nothing to us. Just as the scenes that surround
you depend on your self, as, for instance, in respect of colour, so are
these scenes that you have visited externalised by the spirit who
dwells among them. With us it would be impossible for a spirit at
peace with itself to dwell in the midst of desolation and confusion : even
as the Vain Ones could not dwell in the Valley of Rest. In fact, then,
a spirit makes its surroundings ; and that is the meaning o f the
assertion so often made that we are building our house in spirit-land now
? Yes, just so. You are making your character, and according to your
character will be your home and its surroundings. That is inevitable. All
gravitate to their own place. Those flowers, and gems, and tinsel
fripperies, the mirrors of the Vain One, and the peaceful calm of the Valley
of Rest, these are but externalised symbols of those who dwell there. They
are their types.
Outward and visible signs of their inward and
spiritual state ? Just so. That is the meaning of the saying that
with us every spirit is known of what sort it really is.
No hypocrites ? Yes : but hypocrisy is no use.
Many who come to us from you bring with them the idea that they can
deceive here, even as they have been used to deceive men. But while
the tongue speaks the falsehood, the acts belie it,* the surroundings tell
the true story, and the hypocrite is self-convicted. The hypocrites
congregate together even as the Vain Ones, and spend their time in the
most foolish and futile attempts to deceive one another. All can
recognise the hypocrisy in others, though they do not see how patent
it is in themselves. Hence by degrees, when they find that hypocrisy is of
no avail, they cease to practise it, and rise above it to a higher moral
plane.
Then is the moral government of your world of
that sort entirely ? No coercion ? None : for it is not needed,
except in the elementary stages of existence. Spirits rise by knowledge,
and by love. * Compare “ The Land of Darkness,'’ where the lips of a
man speak a polite lie which the revealed thought contradicts. We
cannot hasten the time save by affording the means. This is done by
spirits who instruct and elevate as we are doing now. But the
motive-spring must come from the receptive mind. We could not teach you if
you had no desire to learn. So the gradual elevation of the
spirit from one state to another depends altogether on its
own desire. Some there are who find a state congenial to them, and
remain in it for long. These are chiefly intellectual states. So long as
they are nourished there, they are not interfered with by spirits who have
progressed beyond them. They make their selection.
Yes. One can sec that even here. Men gel into a
particular groove and remain in it. Or they get an erroneous idea and
follow it out into endless wanderings. I suppose their education is going
on here too ? What has your life been, especially of late, but one
long process of education? It will not cease. It cannot cease till
you cease to think.
And the ideas that I yet now will form the
objective surroundings of my future home ? Yes : hence the necessity
for having ideas true, and symmetrical. Symmetrical!
Yes : I see. That was why the mirrors were broken,
and why all was so orderly and exact in the Valley of Rest ? Yes. It
is necessary to strive to get true notions of things. Most of those who
spend their time in contemplating only the external appearance of things
conceive wrongly of their real nature. We do not refer now to philosophers
who spend their time and energy in investigating the composition of
natural things. They arrive at one aspect of truth, and are so far
commendable. The scientists of your world are laying up for themselves
stores of knowledge which will enable them the better to
recognise and appreciate what will burst upon their astonished
gaze in another state. We refer to those who take perverted
or one-sided views of spiritual things. They become
spiritually deformed, and their homes partake of the deformity. A man
does not become deformed by any amount of knowledge about matter, even if
lie spend his earth-life m investigating the properties of a gas, but lie
does become deformed if lie pervert his intellect by shutting it out
from expansive views of spiritual things, narrowing it to a groove,
prostituting it to expediency or fashion, even as lie would far more surely
render it leprous by conscious vice.
What do you call perverted views ? We cannot tell
you more than you know. There are in your world social relationships, into
all of which truth purely spiritual should enter. The
politico-economical questions, the social questions, the political
questions, the interdependence of classes, the relations of
the wealthy with the poor, the conficting interests of peoples and
the mode of their settlement, these all are vital.
Questions of social reform ; labour and capital;
charity, social science, and political economy generally ? Peace
and war and the like ? Yes, such are matters on which it is of vital
moment to have views which are true, and by that we mean that it
is important to the spirit to view them from the plane of spirit, and
not from that of the world, its conditions, and its fashions. False ideas
on such matters become ingrained in the spirit, cause spiritual bad
habits, and provoke spiritual disease. It is not possible for a spirit to lay
up for itself more disease, in every sense, than by cultivating worldly
notions about these spiritual things which should be spiritually
discerned. Most of the views current about them are human fallacies, and
must be abolished before the new era of peace and progress can
advance. We strive earnestly against them ; for be you sure that the
spirit which spends itself in getting selfish gain by using out the
strength of its fellows without giving equable remuneration—we put out of
view fraud—is not likely to be happy in the land where selfishness is a
curse. Nor is the wealthy man who neglects wealth’s duties ; nor
the capitalist who grinds down his slaves ; nor the panderer to lusts
and vices, the man who poisons the body and debases the spirit of his
fellows by selling to them base and bac food, or maddening adulterated
drinks ; nor the man who is trained to war, and lives for that and that
alone, though that need not be of itself always bad. Some of these
are what you call necessary. They are not. Understand that. They arc
the excrescences which have grown upon your social system, upon your moral
system, upon your political system; the which, all of them, in their
various degrees, are rotten. In no sphere of your life can more real
good be done than in these, for the race is benefited and the spirit
ennobled by their consideration.
Yes. I t must be so. But surely the mere materialist
is doing harm. A man like * * * with magnificent talents, is he doing
the best for himself ? No : but he is laying up stores of knowledge for
his race which will benefit them. He will come to us to a certain
extent naked as to spirit, but with the advantage of having laboured to
add to the store of human knowledge and having sought after truth. He will
not have anything to unlearn in that direction : though as regards the
field of inquiry on which he must then enter he will be a
little child.
Yes. 1 see. B u t surely he will have to unlearn a
good deal o f his theory. What becomes o f such men on their
first entry into your plane? He will have to unlearn many theoretical
deductions, but few fundamental facts as he now views them. I t is in
the interdependence of facts that your scientists go wrong. Such spirits
of truth-lovers congregate together and find their delight in tracing the
hidden springs which they could not discern before. It is long frequently
before they find interest in anything else. Some, like our
friend Benjamin Franklin, delight in pursuing the train of investigation
which interested them in the body, and in bringing their knowledge to bear
on human progress. Many influence spirits still in the body and direct
their researches. Some find that all their earth life was
wasted because they desired not truth, but their own opinion, to prevail.
Some do not even find that out for long : but go on dogmatically following
out their theories until they blunder more and more. But we have said
enough. Be sure that you keep a clear mind : avoid narrow prejudices :
dare to look facts in the face : be true to yourself and you need have no
fear. Our friend has written for me, seeing that you find difficulty
in reading what I write. Rector.
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