The Golden Star

VISION 5

Spiritualism

SARDONYX

The false and fitful glamour of deceitful denizens
Who swarm within the Astral gloom
Is now revealed; and shown to be
But low mendacious perfidy and witchery,
Which in Cimmerian regions loom
Upon horizons dark with treachery,
Where lurks stark madness and despair.

*       *       *

Oh, that the Fires of Logos would descend
From out the Cosmic Æther and destroy
In one great Holocaust that brood
Of foul iniquity!

*       *       *

Or raise it up to God with pity’s hand;
Or, if not willing, tear and rend
The monstrous Gangs that do employ
Their caitiff wiles upon the good
And innocent with deadly turpitude, and lend
Their knavish aid to sinful men on earth,
Who, under guise of inspiration, betray the Faith
Of simple seekers: striving after Light—
But only finding dismal Night,
And lies they are unable to perpend.

“What is this weird light, dear Messenger?” asked Ma-uti.

“It is the light of the Astral World, my child. The spectacle you have witnessed was of an Astral nature, and the scenes that presently will follow are also partly on the Astral Plane. You will learn what spiritualism really is, and what are the forces and conditions used by the elementals when they produce the so-called ‘Psychic Phenomena’ at Spiritualistic séances.

“As I have already told you, White and Black Magic are subject to the same Laws. Sorcery and Witchcraft are forms of Black Magic, and Spiritualism is a form of sorcery or witchcraft. This does not necessarily mean that all Spiritualists are Black Magicians. Far from it. Among Spiritualists are found the most sincere and honourable people one can wish to meet, and they would be shocked if they could only realize that their practices are a form of Witchcraft. They would be still more shocked—and terrified—if they knew what happens during some séances, when a great deal of power is available which the elemental forces use for their own purposes. If spiritualists could only see the monsters attending some séances, Spiritualism would soon die out; for all clean-minded people would flee from those abominable magical rites in which the Elementals delight. Happily, the average ‘circle’ meeting once a week for ‘developing’ purposes, is quite harmless. Due to the weak mentality, the low rate of psychic unfoldment and the poor physical vibrations of the sitters, there is very little real power available for the Elementals, and the worst that happens at such meetings—if anything happens at all—is a little leg-pulling, or harmless horseplay, by the lower elemental beings, who delight in playing all sorts of stupid pranks on the members of the ‘circle’.”

“This seems rather a hard verdict on the poor Spiritualists,” said Ma-uti. “If they should come to hear of this they would be terribly cross and very offended, I think.”

“Not necessarily, my dear child,” replied Neteru-Hem. “Never forget that no single being is ever forced by the Sons of God to accept the Truth if he is not ready for it, or does not want it. All have free-will to accept any teaching, or reject it. When force is applied in any way with regard to a teaching, this teaching becomes dogma; and it is far better to believe in nothing at all—if that were possible—than to be dogmatic. Dogma stultifies the brain and mind, for it prevents people from utilizing their God-given freedom of thinking, or believing, if you will, (which is not the same thing). Dogma turns men from being the true sons of the Father, into unthinking slaves and machines. Besides, an honest opinion or a true teaching can never offend the wise man. It only turns into a furious beast the mindless person, or the dogmatic, or the wilfully blind, who generally have financial reasons for preventing the Truth from becoming known. The same applies to the zealot or the fanatic; but as all such beings have many bitter lessons to learn before the scales can fall from their eyes, they must be tolerated with love and compassion by the wiser ones, who have probably been through the same phases of experience themselves in the past.”

“And what if they turn and rend you?” asked Ma-u.

“In that case we have to remember the everlasting example of the great Master Jesus, the Christos; who prayed for his torturers and freely forgave them their thoughtless cruelties and persecutions of Him.”

“How, then, has it happened that the Spiritualists have erroneous conceptions of the work they are doing?” asked Ma-u.

“The reason is that all these Spiritualistic phenomena are of an Astral nature. The actors—supposed to be the spirits or souls of the departed human beings—are the elemental inhabitants of the Astral World, or they are thought-forms projected by humans on the earth-plane, manipulated by the elementals, who also use the vital force of the mediums and the sitters—it is called ectoplasm. These manipulated forms are supposed to be the shapes or Astral bodies of departed humans, who are now thought to come back to earth in order to prove existence after bodily death; and the elementals use shapes, or elementaries, or thought-forms, in order to deceive people into believing that the departed ones are still alive and aware of their kin and old friends. Actually, the apparitions have no connection whatever with those who have passed on. The elementals build these forms and speak through the medium’s voice—if the séance is not a fake altogether—and the elemental entity inhabits that shape during the séance and manipulates it as if there were a genuine human soul or mind in that temporary body. The thought-forms I mentioned just now appear as shapes, more or less substantial. If strong in thought-power they may even look solid to the sitters. If no shape appears at all and only the medium’s voice is heard, it is sometimes very difficult to tell whether the inanities proceeding from the medium’s mouth are his or her own thoughts, or the thoughts of the sitters, or even the thoughts of the elementals. Only the true clairvoyant can tell.

“The so-called apports, the levitations, the moving about of tables, trumpets, and other material things, are all the result of the manipulations of the vital forces of those present by the elementals. Sometimes the combined thoughts of the sitters will produce a form or a phenomenon, just as the combined thoughts of an assembly of witches may produce a shape in the form of a demon.

“With regard to researches in Spiritualism by men of science, we have such famous names as Crookes, Wallace, Flammarion, and Conan Doyle, who all devoted many years to spiritualist investigation. They all come to the conclusion that, even if the materialization of spirits did not prove the identity of the persons who were supposed to be represented, in any case these phenomena were not the works of mortals. Such opinions are correct, of course. When there is a séance conducted by genuine and intelligent people, with a medium who can really get en rapport with the elementals, the results are due to manipulations by ‘spirits’; that is: elemental powers in the Astral World. This is true. But to say that these ‘spirits’ are the departed human beings they purport to represent ‘on a higher plane’ is to labour under a misapprehension. The Souls of the departed cannot penetrate into the dense material atmosphere, or manifest at a Spiritualistic séance. This is quite impossible; for these departed souls, having no form or substance—although they have complete memories of all their connections with their second halves, the higher mind in various human incarnations, and complete awareness of their surroundings and selves—they cannot under any conditions manifest on the earthly, material plane, without being chained, as it were, to a body, with a mind and its vital essence and a brain. Having none of these material attributes, there is no material appearance possible. This must be plain to every thinking person. When materializations occur during séances, therefore, they are not made by the Souls of the departed, but are merely clever imitations of the same, acted by the elemental forces on one of the Astral planes—which can be either a material plane of a lesser or grosser density than the earth plane. The elementals love this sort of play-acting and are highly entertained when the ‘sitters’ believe that these materializations are the real spirits of those whom they represent. They obtain all the details necessary to build up their spirit-forms from the subconscious memories of the sitters. A typical example of this is the series of spiritual phenomena witnessed by Madame Blavatsky when she was on a fourteen days visit to the Eddys’.

“She there saw 119 materializations and all the details connected with these spirit-forms were correct. In a letter of October 14th, 1874, to the Daily Graphic of New York, she describes some of these spirits, such as a Caucasian boy, who played at her request the Lezguinka, a Circassian dance; an old Persian in the national dress of a merchant; a gigantic warrior of Kurdistan; an old Russian woman, whom she recognized as an old servant; a powerful negro, whom she knew as a conjuror from central Africa; and lastly, an uncle of hers.

“Each of these persons had been personally known to her at some time or another. The details for making up their semblances were obtained from her own memory, although she herself did not realize this at the time. In later years she changed her opinion, as will be shown later.

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