When spiritual sight is developed so that it becomes possible to behold
the Desire World, many wonders confront the newcomer, for conditions there are
so widely different from what they are here that a description must sound
quite as incredible as a fairy tale to anyone who has not himself seen them.
Many cannot believe that such a world exists, and that other people can
see that which is invisible to them, yet some people are blind to the beauties
of this world which we see. A man who was born blind, may say to us: "I know
that this world exists. I can hear, I can smell, I can taste, and above all I
can feel, but when you speak of light and of color, they are non-existent to
me. You say that you see these things. I cannot believe it for I cannot see
myself. You say that light and color are all about me, but none of the senses
at my command reveal them to me and I do not believe that the sense you call
sight exists. I think you suffer from hallucinations." We might sympathize
very sincerely with the poor man who is thus afflicted, but his skepticisms,
reasonings, objections, and sneers notwithstanding, we would be obliged to
maintain that we perceive light and color.
The man or woman whose spiritual sight has been awakened is in a similar
position with respect to those who do not perceive the Desire World of which
he or she speaks. If the blind man acquires the faculty of sight by an
operation, his eyes are opened and he will be compelled to assert the
existence of light and color which he formerly denied, and when spiritual
sight is acquired by anyone, he also perceives for himself the facts related
by others. Neither is it an argument against the existence of spiritual realms
that seers are at variance in their descriptions of conditions in the
invisible world. We need but to look into books on travel and compare stories
brought home by explorers of China, India, or Africa; we shall find them
differing widely and often contradictory, because each traveler saw things
from his own standpoint, under other conditions than those met by his brother
authors. We maintain that the man who has read most widely these varying tales
concerning a certain country and wrestled with the contradictions of
narrators, will have a more comprehensive idea of the country or people of
whom he has read, than the man who has read only one story assented to by all
the authors. Similarly, the varying stories of visitors to the Desire World
are of value, because giving a fuller view, and more rounded, than if all had
seen things from the same angle.
In this world matter and force are widely different. The chief
characteristic of matter here is inertia: the tendency to remain at rest until
acted upon by a force which sets it in motion. In the Desire World, on the
contrary, force and matter are almost indistinguishable one from the other. We
might almost describe desire-stuff as force-matter, for it is in incessant
motion, responsive to the slightest feeling of a vast multitude of beings
which populate this wonderful world in nature. We often speak of the "teeming
millions" of China and India, even of our vast cities, London, New York,
Paris, or Chicago; we consider them overcrowded in the extreme, yet even the
densest population of any spot on Earth is sparsely inhabited compared with
the crowded conditions of the Desire World. No inconvenience is felt by any of
the denizens of that realm, however, for, while in this world two things
cannot occupy the same space at the same time, it is different there. A number
of people and things may exist in the same place at the same time and be
engaged in most diverse activities, regardless of what others are doing, such
is the wonderful elasticity of desire-stuff. As an illustration we may mention
a case where the writer, while attending a religious service, plainly
perceived at the altar certain beings interested in furthering that service
and working to achieve that end. At the same time there drifted through the
room and the altar, a table at which four persons were engaged in playing
cards. They were as oblivious to the existence of the beings engaged in
furthering our religious service, as though these did not exist.
The Desire World is the abode of those who have died, for some time
subsequent to that event, and we may mention in the above connection that the
so-called "dead" very often stay for a long while among their still living
friends. Unseen by their relatives they go about the familiar rooms. At first
they are often unaware of the condition mentioned: that two persons may be in
the same place at the same time, and when they seat themselves in a chair or
at the table, a living relative may take the supposedly vacant seat. The man
we mistakenly call dead will at first hurry out of his seat to escape being
sat upon, but he soon learns that being sat upon does not hurt him in his
altered condition, and that he may remain in his chair regardless of the fact
that his living relative is also sitting there.
In the lower regions of the Desire World the whole body of each being may
be seen, but in the highest regions only the head seems to remain. Raphael,
who like many other people in the Middle Ages was gifted with a so-called
second sight, pictured that condition for us in his Sistine Madonna, where
Madonna and the Christ-child are represented as floating in a golden
atmosphere and surrounded by a host of genie-heads: conditions which the
occult investigator knows to be in harmony with actual facts.
Among the entities who are, so to speak, "native" to that realm of nature,
none are perhaps better known to the Christian world than the Archangels.
These exalted Beings were human at a time in the Earth's history when we were
yet plant-like. Since then we have advanced two steps; through the animal and
to the human stage of development. The present Archangels have also made two
steps in progression; one, in which they were similar to what the Angels are
now, and another step which made them what we call Archangels.
Their densest body, though differing from ours in shape, and made of
desire-stuff, is used by them as a vehicle of consciousness in the same manner
that we use our body. They are expert manipulators of forces in the Desire
World, and these forces, as we shall see, move all the world to action.
Therefore the Archangels work with humanity industrially and politically as
arbitrators of the destiny of peoples and nations. The Angels may be said to
be Family Spirits, whose mission is to unite a few Spirits as members of a
family, and cement them with ties of blood and love of kin, while the
Archangels may be called race and national spirits, as they unite whole
nations by patriotism or love of home and country. They are responsible for
the rise and fall of nations, they give war or peace, victory or defeat, as it
serves the best interest of the people they rule. This we may see, for
instance, from the book of Daniel, where the Archangel Michael is called the
prince of the children of Israel. Another Archangel tells Daniel (in the tenth
chapter) that he intends to fight the prince of Persia by means of the Greeks.
There are varying grades of intelligence among human beings; some are
qualified to hold lofty positions entirely beyond the ability of others. So it
is also among higher beings. Not all Archangels are fitted to govern a nation
and rule the destiny of a race, people, or tribe; some are not fitted to rule
human beings at all, but as the animals also have a desire nature, these lower
grades of Archangels govern the animals as Group Spirits and evolve to higher
capacity thereby.
The ancient Egyptians knew of these animal Group spirits and sketched
many of them, in a crude way, upon their temples and tombs. Such figures with
a human body and an animal head actually live in the Desire World. They may be
spoken to, and will be found much more intelligent than the average human
being.
That statement brings up another peculiarity of conditions in the Desire
World in respect of language. Here in this world human speech is so
diversified that there are countries where people who live only a few miles
apart speak a dialect so different that they understand each other with great
difficulty, and each nation has its own language that varies altogether from
the speech of other peoples. In the lower regions of the Desire World, there
is the same diversity of tongues as on Earth, and the so-called "dead" of one
nation find it impossible to converse with those who lived in another country.
Hence linguistic accomplishments are of great value to the Invisible Helpers,
of whom we shall hear later, as their sphere of usefulness is enormously
extended by that ability.
Even apart from differences of language our mode of speech is
exceedingly productive of misunderstandings. The same words often convey most
opposite ideas to different minds. If we speak of a "body of water," one
person may think we mean a lake of small dimensions, the thoughts of another
may be directed to the Great Lakes, and a third person's thoughts may be
turned towards the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. If we speak of a "light," one
may think of a gaslight, another of an electric arc-lamp, or if we say "red,"
one person may think we mean a delicate shade of pink and another gets the
idea of crimson. The misunderstandings of what words mean goes even farther,
as illustrated in the following.
The writer once opened a reading room in a large city where he lectured,
and invited his audience to make use thereof. Among those who availed
themselves of the opportunity was a gentleman who had for many years been a
veritable "metaphysical tramp," roaming from lecture to lecture, hearing the
teachings of everybody and practicing nothing. Like the Athenians on Mars'
Hill, he was always looking for something "new," particularly in the line of
phenomena, and his mind was in that seething chaotic state which is one of the
most prominent symptoms of "mental indigestion."
Having attended a number of our lectures he knew from the program that:
"The lecturer does not give readings or cast horoscopes for pay." But seeing
on the door of the newly opened reading room, the legend: "Free Reading Room,"
his erratic mind at once jumped to the conclusion that although we were
opposed to telling fortunes for pay, we were now going to give free readings
of the future in the Free Reading Room. He was much disappointed that we did
not intend to tell fortunes, either gratis or for a consideration, and we
changed our sign to "Free Library" in order to obviate a repetition of the
error.
In the higher Regions of the Desire World the confusion of tongues gives
place to a universal mode of expression which absolutely prevents
misunderstandings of our meaning. There each of our thoughts takes a definite
form and color perceptible to all, and this thought-symbol emits a certain
tone, which is not a word, but it conveys our meaning to the one we address no
matter what language we spoke on Earth.
To arrive at an understanding of how such a universal language becomes
possible and is at once comprehended by all, without preparation, we may take
as an illustration the manner in which a musician reads music. A German or a
Polish composer may write an opera. Each has his own peculiar terminology and
expresses it in his own language. When that opera is to be played by an
Italian bandmaster, or by a spanish or American musician, it need not be
translated; the notes and symbols upon the page are a universally understood
language of symbols which is intelligible to musicians of no matter what
nationality. Similarly with figures, the German counts: ein, zwei, drei; the
Frenchman says: un, duex, trois, and in English we use the words: one, two,
three, but the figures: 1,2,3, though differently spoken, are intelligible to
all and mean the same. There is no possibility of misunderstanding in the
cases of either music or figures. Thus it is also with the universal language
peculiar to the higher regions of the Desire World and the still more subtle
realms in nature, it is intelligible to all, an exact mode of expression.
Returning to our description of the entities commonly met with in the
lower Desire World, we may note that other systems of religion than the
Egyptian, already mentioned, has spoken of various classes of beings native to
these realms. The Zoroastrian religion, for instance, mentions seven
Amshaspands and the Izzards as having dominion over certain days in the month
and certain months in the year. The Christian religion speaks of Seven Spirits
before the Throne, which are the same beings the Persians called Amshaspands.
Each of them rules over two months in the year while the seventh: Michael, the
highest, is their leader, for he is ambassador from the Sun to the Earth; the
others are ambassadors from the planets. The Catholic religion with its
abundant occult information takes most notice of these "star-angels" and knows
considerable about their influence upon the affairs of the Earth.
The Amshaspands, however, do not inhabit the lower regions of the Desire
World but influence the Izzards. According to the old Persian legend these
beings are divisible into two groups: one of twenty-eight classes, and the
other of three classes. Each of these classes has dominion over, or takes the
lead of all the other classes on one certain day of the month. They regulate
the weather conditions on that day and work with animal and man in particular.
At least the twenty-eight classes do that, the other group of three classes
has nothing to do with animals, because they have only twenty-eight pairs of
spinal nerves, while human beings have thirty-one. Thus animals are attuned to
the lunar month of twenty-eight days, while man is correlated to the solar
month of thirty or thirty-one days. The ancient Persians were astronomers but
not physiologists; they had no means of knowing the different nervous
constitution of animal and man, but they saw clairvoyantly these
superphysical beings; they noted and recorded their work with animal and men,
and our own anatomical investigations may show us the reason for these
divisions of the classes of Izzards recorded in that ancient system of
philosophy.
Still another class of beings should be mentioned: those who have entered
the Desire World through the gate of death and are now hidden from our
physical vision. These so-called "dead" are in fact much more alive than any
of us, who are tied to a dense body and subject to all its limitations, who
are forced slowly to drag this clog along with us at the rate of a few miles
an hour, who must expend such an enormous amount of energy upon propelling
that vehicle that we are easily and quickly tired, even when in the best of
health, and who are often confined to a bed, sometimes for years, by the
indisposition of this heavy mortal coil. But when that is once shed and the
freed Spirit can again function in its spiritual body, sickness is an unknown
condition, and distance is annihilated, or at least practically so, for though
it was necessary for the Saviour to liken the freed Spirit to the wind which
blows where it listeth, that simile gives but a poor description of what
actually takes place in soul flights. Time is non-existent there, as we shall
presently explain, so the writer has never been able to time himself, but has
on several occasions timed others when he was in the physical body and then
speeding through space upon a certain errand. Distances such as from the
Pacific Coast to Europe, the delivery of a short message there and the return
to the body has been accomplished in slightly less than one minute. Therefore
our assertion, that those whom we call dead are in reality much more alive
than we, is well founded in facts.
We spoke of the dense body in which we now live, as a "clog" and a
"fetter." It must not be inferred, however, that we sympathize with the
attitude of certain people who, when they have learned with what ease
soul-flights are accomplished, go about bemoaning the fact that they are now
imprisoned. They are constantly thinking of, and longing for, the day when
they shall be able to leave this mortal coil behind and fly away in their
spiritual body. Such an attitude of mind is decidedly mistaken; the great and
wise Beings who are invisible leaders of our evolution have not placed us here
to no purpose. Valuable lessons are to be learned in this visible world
wherein we dwell, lessons that cannot be learned in any other realm of nature,
and the very conditions of density and inertia whereof such people complain,
are factors which make it possible to acquire the knowledge this world is
designed to give. This fact was so amply illustrated in a recent experience of
the writer:
A friend had been studying occultism for a number of years but had not
studied astrology. Last year she became aroused to the importance of this
branch of study as a key to self-knowledge and a means of understanding the
natures of others, also of developing the compassion for their errors, so
necessary in the cultivation of love for one's neighbor. Love for our neighbor
the Saviour enjoined upon us as the Supreme Commandment, which is the
fulfillment of all laws, and as astrology teaches us to bear and forbear, it
helps as nothing else can in the development of this supreme virtue. She
therefore joined one of the classes started in Los Angeles by the writer, but
a sudden illness quickly ended in death and thus terminated her study of the
subject in the physical body, ere it was well begun.
Upon one of many occasions when she visited the writer subsequent to her
release from the body, she deplored the fact that it seemed so difficult to
make headway in her study of astrology. The writer advised continued
attendance at the classes, and suggested that she could surely get someone "on
the other side" to help her study.
At this she exclaimed impatiently: "Oh, yes! of course I attend the
classes. I have done so right along; I have also found a friend who helps me
here. But you cannot imagine how difficult it is to concentrate here upon
mathematical calculations and the judgment of a horoscope or in fact upon any
subject here, where every little thought-current takes you miles away from
your study. I used to think it difficult to concentrate when I had a physical
body, but it is not a circumstance to the obstacles which face the student
here."
The physical body was an anchor to her, and it is that to all of us.
Being dense, it is also to a great extent impervious to disturbing influences
from which the more subtle spiritual bodies do not shield us. It enables us to
bring our ideas to a logical conclusion with far less effort at concentration
than is necessary in that realm where all is in such incessant and turbulent
motion. Thus we are gradually developing the faculty of holding our thoughts
to a center by existence in this world, and we should value our opportunities
here, rather than deplore the limitations which help in one direction more
than they fetter in another. In fact, we should never deplore any condition,
each has its lesson. If we try to learn what that lesson is and to assimilate
the experience which may be extracted therefrom, we are wiser than those who
waste time in vain regrets.
We said there is no time in the Desire World, and the reader will readily
understand that such must be the case from the fact, already mentioned, that
nothing there is opaque.
In this world the rotation of the opaque earth upon its axis is
responsible for the alternating conditions of day and night. We call it day
when the spot where we live is turned towards the Sun and its rays illumine
our environment, but when our home is turned away from the Sun and its rays
obstructed by the opaque earth we term the resulting darkness night. The
passage of the earth in its orbit around the Sun produces the seasons and the
year, which are our divisions of time. But in the Desire World where all is
light there is but one long day. The Spirit is not there fettered by a heavy
physical body, so it does not need sleep and existence is unbroken. Spiritual
substances are not subject to contraction and expansion such as arise here
from heat and cold, hence summer and winter are also non-existent. Thus there
is nothing to differentiate one moment from another in respect of the
conditions of light and darkness, summer and winter, which mark time for us.
Therefore, while the so-called "dead" may have a very accurate memory of time
as regards the life they lived here in the body, they are usually unable to
tell anything about the chronological relation of events which have happened
to them in the Desire World, and it is a very common thing to find that they
do not even know how many years have elapsed since they passed out from this
plane of existence. Only students of the stellar science are able to calculate
the passage of time after their demise.
When the occult investigator wishes to study an event in the past history
of man, he may most readily call up the picture from the memory of nature, but
if he desires to fix the time of the incident, he will be obliged to count
backwards by the motion of the heavenly bodies. For that purpose he generally
uses the measure provided by the Sun's precession: each year the Sun crosses
the Earth's equator about the twenty-first of March. Then day and night are of
even length, therefore this is called the vernal equinox. But on account of a
certain wobbling motion (nutation) of the Earth's axis, the Sun does not cross
over at the same place in the zodiac. It reaches the equator a little too
early, it precedes, year by year it moves backwards a little. At the time of
the birth of Christ, for instance, the vernal equinox was in about seven
degrees of the zodiacal sign Aries. During the two thousand years which have
intervened between that event and the present time, the Sun has moved
backwards about twenty-seven degrees, so that it is now in about ten degrees
of the sign Pisces. It moves around the circle of the zodiac in about 25,868
years. The occult investigator may therefore count back the number of signs,
or whole circles, which the Sun has preceded between the present day and the
time of the event he is investigating. Thus he has by the use of the heavenly
time keepers an approximately correct measure of time even though he is in the
Desire World, and that is another reason for studying the stellar science.
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