To understand mediumship it is necessary to know something of man's
several bodies. In addition to the dense, visible instrument he uses here in
this world for material purposes, man has also a vital body, composed of
ether, a desire or emotional body, and a mind. The individualized Spirit or
Ego lives in and uses these interpenetrating vehicles to gather experience in
the school of life.
In the waking state, the dense body and the vital body (the latter
interpenetrating and extending out about 1 1/2 inches beyond the former) are
surrounded and interpenetrated by the egg-shaped cloud comprising the desire
body and the mind. These vehicles are concentric, and it is the interpolation
of one into the other, so that the sense centers in one are in proper
alignment with the sense centers of the other, which enables the Ego to
manipulate the complex organism and perform in an ordered manner the life
processes which we call reason, speech and action.
When the dense body goes to sleep, there is a separation of the vehicles.
The Ego and the mind, clothed in the desire body, draw out from the vital body
and the dense body, the two later remaining on the bed, while the higher
vehicles hover above or near the sleeping body, connected to it by the silver
cord. The process of restoration begins shortly afterward. In normal cases,
the desire body (having been harmonized in the Desire World) pumps rhythmic
energy into the vital body, and that in turn starts to work upon the dense
body, eliminating the products of decay, principally by means of the
sympathetic nervous system. The result is that the dense body is restored and
overflowing with life when the desire body, mind, and Ego re enter it in the
morning and cause it to awaken.
At death the same separation between the bodies takes place as in sleep.
The so-called dead have Ego, mind, and desire body, and are often conscious
for some time after death of the material world they have left. Some cling to
the earth life and cannot bring their minds to learn the new lessons. We call
them "earthbound Spirits." They cannot function in the visible world without a
body, however, and so they make use of the living whose dense and vital bodies
are loosely connected. All Spirits are not confined with equal closeness to
the prison of the dense body. Those who are most closely bound are the rank
materialists; those who are not so tightly bound are the "impressionists,"
capable of answering in some measure to spiritual vibrations. Persons of
positive character who are able to respond to these vibrations, if they
develop, do so by their own wills, and become trained occultists. Those of
weak will can develop only by the aid of others, and in a negative way. They
are the prey of earthbound Spirits who constitute themselves "spirit guides"
and develop their victims as "trance mediums," or if the connection between
the victim's dense and vital bodies be particularly lax, into materializing
mediums.
A medium is a negative or involuntary clairvoyant, having the dense and
vital bodies loosely connected and under the control of a Spirit from the
Desire World. He or she corresponds to the victim of a hypnotist in the
Physical World.
In the case of a trance medium all her experiences take place while the
physical body is in a trance. It is the Ego clothed in the mind and desire
body which leaves the physical body behind, and the same separation takes
place then as in dreamless sleep, with the difference, however, that the
physical body is not left tenantless upon the bed. The spirit control usually
enters the physical body of the medium, taking possession and using it
according to his pleasure often to the great detriment of the medium. For
instance, when such a spirit control has been a drunkard or libertine during
earth life, it will often use the medium's body to gratify its craving for
liquor, or its base sensual instincts. We cannot too strongly impress upon
people that this physical body is our most valuable instrument and that it is
very wrong for anyone to abandon it to the mercy of either a hypnotist or a
Spirit control.
In regard to earthbound Spirits, it should be remembered that they are in
every respect like the hypnotists, except that they are invisible to the
victims and have more power over them, because they are looked up to as
"higher beings," "angels," devoid of evil, and unselfishly aiming to diffuse
happiness or wisdom. As a matter of fact, there is no transforming power in
death. The sinner does not become a saint nor the ignoramus a Solomon because
of death, and it is a pathetic sight to the trained clairvoyant to see the
imposition practiced by their unprincipled spirit controls upon their
unsuspecting victims, who are so thoroughly unsophisticated that they fail to
distinguish the true character of the impostors and accept their inane, goody-goody phrases as sublime wisdom. They have done some good in proving the reality of life after death, but much harm to mediums.
It is to be expected that Spirits of a high ethical nature or great
spiritual attainment do not usually control a medium. Rather it is the
earthbound and low Spirits who obtain a control over mediumistic persons, and
when in possession of the body they may use it to gratify their low passions
for drink and sex. Thus they cause a disturbance to the system and a
deterioration of the instrument.
In the case of the materializing medium, the materializing Spirit
entrances the victim and then draws the ether of the vital body out through
the spleen, for as has been stated, the difference between the materializing
medium and the ordinary person is the fact that the connection between the
vital body and the dense body is exceedingly lax, so that it is possible to
withdraw this vital body to a very great extent. The vital body is the vehicle
whereby the solar currents which give us vitality are specialized. Deprived of
the vitalizing principle, the body of the medium at the time of
materialization sometimes shrinks to almost one-half its usual size; the flesh
becomes flabby and the spark of life burns very low. When the séance is over
and the vital body replaced, the medium is awakened to normal consciousness.
He then experiences a feeling of the most terrible exhaustion and sometimes,
unfortunately, resorts to drink to revive the vital forces. In that case of
course, the health will soon suffer and the medium will become a total wreck.
Unfortunately, the great majority of mediums do not realize that they are
in danger. They are particularly unaware of the enormous danger which
threatens them after death. The desire body may then be appropriated by the
spirit control, as mentioned previously. If they try to stop the influence of
the spirit control while still here in the body they find that the entity has
an exceedingly strong hold upon them, a control it is very difficult to break,
and they should realize that naturally when death brings them into the same
world with these controls, the danger will be still greater.
Cases have been known where mediums balked and tried to escape from the
toils of the spirit control, but they failed to break the strong hold of the
entity. They were helpless. Mediums have told how they were almost
irresistibly compelled to commit suicide and murder; how they begged and
pleaded with the controls to leave them alone, but without avail. Cases are
also known where spirit controls have mercilessly dragged their victims out of
bed in the middle of the night against their will and forced them to listen to
their importunities. Only seldom does one hear that they show mercy.
Thus it will be seen that mediumship, once entered into, is not usually a
matter of choice with the mediums; they lose the power to shut out spirit
controls. While they do the bidding of their task masters and are docile, they
may not feel the bit; but let one of them try to balk, and he or she will soon
find that the spirit control has both bit and spur and is merciless in the use
of them.
The modus operandi of the invisible manipulator is simply to push the
higher vehicles out of the lower bodies of the unresisting medium, step in
itself and take control. When he leaves he also takes part of the medium's
vital body to use as a key or lever next time. In some cases he is not
satisfied to borrow a body, but steals one and keeps the owner out
permanently. We see the same body, but there is another Ego within, which
shows different habits and tastes altogether. This is called obsession, and
can be detected by the fact that the iris neither responds to light nor
distance by contraction or expansion. Only the owner can manipulate the eye.
Hence the eyes of mediums under control are always closed or have a glassy
stare.
Obviously, the lesson to be learned from a knowledge of these matters is
that we must remain our own masters and never under any pretext allow
ourselves to be hypnotized or controlled by an outside agency. Neither should
we take part even as spectators of séances and hypnotic demonstrations, for
the negative attitude there lays one liable to influence or obsession.
Self-mastery is our goal, and not mastery over others.
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