Filename: RC1041.TXT
Source: "The Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures" by Max Heindel

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                                LECTURE FOUR:

        SLEEP, DREAMS, TRANCE, HYPNOTISM, MEDIUMSHIP AND INSANITY

   We have seen that man is a very complex organism, consisting of:

   (1)   The Dense Body, which is his tool in action.
   (2)   The Vital Body, a medium of "vitality" which makes action possible.
   (3)   The Desire Body whence comes desire and compels action.
   (4)   The Mind, a brake on impulse, giving purpose to action.
   (5)   The Ego, which acts and gathers experience from action.

   The  purpose of life is to transforms the powers latent in the  Ego  into
dynamic energy,  whereby it may perfectly control its different vehicles and
act as IT pleases.   We know that it does not have full sway now,  or  there
would be no warfare in our breasts,  as we say,  between the Spirit and  the
flesh,  but in reality,  as we should say, between the Spirit and the flesh,
but  in reality,  as we should say, between the Spirit and the desire  body.
It is this warfare that develops the spiritual muscle,  as wrestling  builds
the physical muscle.  It is easy to bid others do this and that,  but to en-
force  obedience from ONESELF is the hardest task in the world,  and it  has
been  truly  said  that "the man who conquers himself is greater than he who

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takes a city."   Goethe, the great initiate poet, gives us the reason why in
the lines:

   From every pow'r that holds the world in chains,
   Man frees himself when self-control he gains.

   Such  a man is above all laws,  whether made by man or God--not  that  he
would break them,  far from it--but for just the opposite reason,  that  his
perfect obedience to them renders ALL laws as superfluous in respect to  him
as the law "thou shalt not steal"  is to one who has learned to respect  the
property rights of others.

   Sin or action contrary to the will of God, or the laws of Nature, was be-
fore all Law,  and St.  Paul well appreciates its beneficent action when  he
says that "the law is a taskmaster to bring us to Christ,  for without 'Law'
we had not known sin."

   Whenever we break one of Nature's laws,  that transgression,  as a cause,
brings as effect a corresponding retribution.  If we overeat, or eat improp-
erly,  indigestion may result, or perhaps, if the disturbance we have caused
is  serious,  it may be necessary for Nature to burn it out on the  physical
plane  of action by means of a fever.  If we sin against the laws of  moral-
ity, social ostracism follows, and thus wrong on the moral plane brings ret-
ribution.  But the man who uses his mental powers unworthily is the worst as
well as the most dangerous, for the gourmand may be an otherwise exceedingly
respectable  and lovable person,  practically injuring no one  but  himself.
The immoral person,  the common brawl and the gossip are cancers on society,
dangerous to all.   They can, however, be shunned and avoided,  and thus the
dangers incident to contact with  them  may  at  least  be  minimized.  They

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may  and  sometimes  do  repent  and reform,  but the most insidious of  all
wrong  is that done upon the mental plane of action,  where a man under  the
guise of perfect respectability,  often under the cloak of benevolence,  can
blight the lives of others, bend their wills to his own ends,  yet seemingly
remain irreproachable himself, and even be looked upon as a friend and bene-
factor by his victims.

   Thus,  without danger of detection he gains his end, whether that be gold
or aggrandizement.

   His transgression is seldom punished in the same life in which committed,
but  often in later lives finds its expiation in congenital idiocy,  without
the chance of repentance or forgiveness, such as,  for instance,  a realiza-
tion of wrong to another may bring in ordinary cases, when repentance is ac-
companied  by reform.   The crime of the determined hypnotist is in  fact  a
phase  of  what  the  Bible describes as  "sin  against  the  Holy  Spirit,"
spiritual evil, the greatest danger to society.

   The  Holy  Spirit is the creative principle in nature  and  the  creative
force  in  man is its direct expression.   The same force  expresses  itself
through the generative organs to create a new body and through the brain  to
create new thoughts, which are afterwards crystallized to "things."

   When  anyone is victimized by a hypnotist he ceases to be his own  master
and  loses  his  faculty  for independent thought under  the  spell  of  the
HYPNOTIST'S SUGGESTIONS--which ARE IN FACT COMMANDS,  because the victim has
no choice, but MUST obey.

   Therefore,  as the hypnotist interferes with the expression of  the  cre-
ative faculty of thought in his victim, which faculty is a direct expression
of the Holy Spirit, he is committing a sin against the Holy Spirit.

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   To  give point and force to the descriptions of such abnormal  conditions
as exist in dreams, trance, hypnotism, mediumship,  obsession,  and insanity
we  will  begin with an explanation of the condition of man  in  the  normal
state of waking and sleep, as viewed from the standpoint of occult science.

   THE  WAKING STATE.--In the waking state all the vehicles of man are  con-
fined  within the same space.   As the bones,  the flesh,  and  the  various
juices  of the body are confined within the skin,  so all the bodies of  man
are  gathered within an egg-shaped cloud that reaches above the head,  below
the feet and all around the visible body.  No matter what position the dense
body may take,  it is always in the center of this aura,  as the yolk is  in
the center of an egg.   The aura surrounds man's dense body as the white  of
the egg surrounds the yolk.  But that is not all,  for this aura composed of
man's  finer vehicles not only surrounds the dense body,  but permeates  its
every  particle as well,  in a manner similar to the way in which the  blood
pervades the whole dense body.

   Thus we see that these bodies are nearer than hands and feet, and, though
as invisible as our breath, they are not less real or less necessary.   Dur-
ing  life man cannot ordinarily separate them;  and unless they are all  to-
gether he cannot move and act as he does in ordinary daily life.

   During  the waking state there is a constant war between the  vital  body
and the desire body.  The desires and impulses from the desire body are con-
stantly impinging upon the dense body, impelling it to action, regardless of
any damage resulting to the latter instrument,  so that desire is gratified.
It is the desire vehicle  that  urges  the  drunkard to fill his system with

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liquor,  so that the chemical combustion of spirit may raise the  vibrations
of  the dense body to such a pitch as to make it the willing tool  of  every
mad impulse, wasting its stored energy with reckless prodigality.

   The vital body, on the other hand, has no other interest than the preser-
vation of the dense vehicle.  By way of the spleen it specializes the color-
less solar energy with pervades space, and by some strange chemical  process
transforms it into a vital fluid of a beautiful pale rose color,  sending it
along every nerve and fiber of the body.   The vital body ever aims to  hus-
band the energy it has stored in the dense body.  It is constantly concerned
in  rebuilding  the tissues when they are broken down and destroyed  by  the
powerful onslaughts of the rampant desire body.

   This  "vital fluid"  has a function similar to that of electricity  in  a
telegraph system, for even when such a system is built with wires connecting
different stations, and operators at their keys, the system will be dead un-
til electricity speeds along the lines and carries the messages.   So is the
dense  body  useless unless the nerves are traversed by  this  vital  fluid.
When  that fails in whole or in part, we say that the body is  paralyzed  to
that extent.   We note the effect,  but do not see the cause in the material
world.

   We have in our body two nervous systems,  the VOLUNTARY and the  INVOLUN-
TARY.  The first named is operated directly by the DESIRE BODY, and controls
the movements of the body,  tends to break down and destroy,  only partially
restrained in its ruthless task by the mind.  The involuntary system has its
particular  vantage ground in the vital body;  it governs the digestive  and
respiratory organs, which rebuild and restore the dense body.

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   It is this war between the vital body and the desire body which  produces
consciousness in the physical world,  but did not the mind act as a brake on
the  desire  body,  our waking hours would be very short,  and so  would  or
lives, for the vital body would soon be overridden in its beneficent offices
by the reckless desire body,  as evidenced in the exhaustion which follows a
fit  of temper,  for temper is a condition where the man has "lost  control"
and the desire body rules unchecked.

   SLEEP AND NATURAL TRANCE.--In spite of all its efforts, however the vital
body slowly loses ground as the day goes along, the poisons of decaying tis-
sue  accumulate and impede the flow of the vital fluid,  its motion  becomes
more and more sluggish.   In consequence the visible body shows signs of ex-
haustion.   At last the vital body,  so to say,  collapses;  the vital fluid
ceases to flow along the nerves in sufficient quantity to maintain the poise
of the dense body,  and that renders it unconscious and therefore unfit  for
the use of the Spirit.  That is sleep.

   It is the idea of many people that sleep is a passive or negative  state.
Nothing could be more erroneous,  and if that were the case,  the body would
awake as tired as when it went to sleep, or rather, it would never wake; for
it  was  its inability to receive the vital fluid (caused by  being  clogged
with  poisons of decay) which sent it to sleep,  and if the only  effect  of
that  state  were a negative cessation of waste and energy,  the  conditions
would remain in STATUS QUO,  and the body would sleep on.   Sometimes such a
conditions  exists,  lasting perhaps weeks or even months.   The sleeper  is
then  said  to be in a "trance."   To keep up that state for any  length  of
time, and not have it result in death,  functions of the vital body must not

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be entirely suspended; it must take care of a limited amount of digestion.

   What, then, is it that makes sleep a restorative state?  In the very term
"restorative"  there  is implied an activity.   If a building is to  be  re-
stored,  it is necessary that the tenants move out,  and  that  destruction,
wear and tear cease.  But that is not enough.  Workmen must be brought in to
repair the damage incident to the use of the building.   Only when that work
has been done is restoration complete and the building ready for reoccupancy
by the tenants.

   So also with the temple of the Ego,  our dense body,  when that has  been
exhausted.   It is then necessary that the Ego, mind, and desire body vacate
and give the vital body full sway, that it may restore the tone of the dense
body;  and thus,  when the dense body goes to sleep,  there is a separation.
The Ego and the mind,  clothed in the desire body,  draw out from the  vital
body  and  the dense body,  the two latter remaining on the bed,  while  the
higher vehicles hover above or near the sleeping body.

   The process of restoration now begins.   In a fight in the Physical World
the injuries are never all on one side;  the winner always has some lesions.
The fiercer the fight,  and the more evenly the combatants are matched,  the
more lesions go to each.  So with the combating vital and desire bodies, the
desire body wins every time,  yet its victory is always a defeat,  for it is
then forced to leave the battlefield and the prize,  the dense body,  in the
hands of the vanquished vital body and withdraw to repair its own  shattered
harmony.

   When it withdraws from the sleeping body it enters that sea of force  and
harmony called the Desire World.  Here  it lives over the scenes of the day,

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but in REVERSE ORDER, from effects to causes,  straightening out the tangles
of  the day,  forming true pictures to replace the wrong impressions due  to
the limitations of the life in the dense body,  and as the harmonies of  the
Desire World pervade it, and wisdom and truth replace error,  it regains its
rhythm  and its tone,  the time required to restore it varying according  to
how illusive, impulsive and strenuous had been the life of the day.

   Then,  and then only, does the work of restoring the vehicles left on the
bed commence,  and the restored desire body starts to revive the vital body,
pumping  rhythmic energy into it,  and that in turn starts to work upon  the
dense body,  eliminating the projects of decay,  principally by means of the
sympathetic nervous system,  with the result that the dense body is restored
and overflowing with life when the desire body,  mind,  and Ego enter in the
morning and cause it to wake.

   DREAMS.--It sometimes happens,  however,  that we have become so absorbed
and  interested in the affairs of our mundane existence that even after  the
vital  body has collapsed and rendered the dense body unconscious we  cannot
make up our minds to leave it and commence the works of restoration; the de-
sire  body will cling like grim death, is perhaps only dragged half  out  by
the Ego, and starts to ruminate over the happenings of the day in that posi-
tion.

   It is evident that this is an abnormal condition.   The proper connection
between  the different vehicles is ruptured in the first place by  the  col-
lapse of the vital body, and further disarranged by the unusual relative po-
sitions of the higher vehicles,  which has partially disconnected the  sense
centers of the former from the latter,  and  the  inevitable result is those

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confused  dreams where the sounds and sights of the Desire World  are  mixed
with the happenings of daily life in the most grotesque and impossible way.

   At times,  when something in daily life has particularly agitated the de-
sire body, it happens that when it has severed connection with the lower ve-
hicles and is engaged in the work of restoration by the above mentioned  re-
view,  that when a trying incident of the day appears,  and the desire  body
sees the solution, it will rush back into the dense body in order to impress
the ideas on the brain, thereby causing the dense body to wake with a start.
It  is only in the fewest cases that it is able to bring back  the  solution
that was so clear in the Desire World.   Even if it does succeed in impress-
ing the solution on the brain, it is usually forgotten in the morning.

   The knowledge of this fact has caused many people to keep paper,  pencil,
and a light by the bedside, and often they are rewarded by finding solutions
to their problems written in the morning, without having even a recollection
of writing.  It is a good idea to follow.

   Under such a condition,  where there is no complete separation of the ve-
hicles,  it is evident that waste is still going on and that restoration  is
impeded,  the dense body tossing on the bed in extreme cases,  and in conse-
quence  there is a tired feeling left in the morning,  due to the  imperfect
separation  of the vehicles,  which causes dreams and makes the sleep  rest-
less.

   Not all dreams are confused, however;  those,  for instance,  which bring
logical  solutions  to problems of life or prophetically warn  of  impending
trouble,  often enable us to avoid or avert disaster.  Such dreams generally
occur just before waking, and only when there has been a complete separation

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of the vehicles previous to the awakening, for only then is it possible  for
a dream to be logical,  and in that case it is merely that the knowledge  of
impending  disaster  seen  by the Ego in the Desire  World  is  successfully
transmitted to the brain.  It is a great help in furthering such impressions
in the coming night if we hold the thought to the last on going to sleep: "I
want to know about so and so, and I AM GOING TO REMEMBER IT IN THE MORNING."
If this is the last thought on going to sleep,  it will bring the memory  of
the solution arrived at.

   To  take up the time giving instances to prove the value of dreams  would
be  a waste of time in a lecture.   The daily press teems with instances  of
providential escapes attributable to warning dreams.  The records of the So-
ciety for Physical Research give voluminous evidence,  and anyone in  search
of evidence will have no trouble in finding it.

   HYPNOTISM.--It is characteristic of the invisible bodies of man that they
are  acted  upon by WILL.   Every impulse to action that comes  from  WITHIN
originates in the will of the man himself,  while incentives to action aris-
ing from OUTSIDE sources,  commonly called "circumstances"  ORIGINATE IN THE
WILL OF OTHERS, and the difference between the man of STRONG CHARACTER, good
or bad,  and the WEAK MAN,  is that the former is impelled by HIS OWN  WILL,
acting from within, which enables him, regardless of circumstances,  to make
his way as he determines.

   On the other hand, the weakling who has not will is the helpless sport of
the billows of circumstance,  dominated by the will of others,  driftwood on
the shoreless sea of life.

   To control others by the exercise of will power is mental assault, and is
even more reprehensible than assault on the physical plane of action.  It is


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this mental assault which is called "hypnotism," and it is graded in its ef-
fect  just as physical assault is.   A strong man may administer  a  playful
slap   to  get  another  to  do  his  bidding,   or  he  may  beat  him   to
unconsciousness.   The hypnotist salesman administers just enough  force  to
make the customer buy something he does not want or cannot afford,  and then
deludes himself by calling it legitimate business.

   Bad and widespread as this is,  it is at least not attended by any of the
after-effects incident to the practice of putting "subjects"  into  hypnotic
sleep.   The enormity of this crime can only be appreciated when the  effect
upon the invisible bodies of the subject is noted.

   No strong-willed person can be dominated by a hypnotist to the extent  of
being put to sleep,  and not one who keeps a positive mental attitude can be
dominated,  hence  the  unsuspecting victim is first told  to  be  perfectly
negative  and willing to be put to sleep.   The passes of the hypnotist  are
not  directed  to  the head and impinge upon the head  of  the  vital  body,
squeezing it through the physical head,  so that it lies around the neck  in
thick rolls, something like the collar of a sweater.

   Thus the connection between the Ego and the dense body is severed,  as in
sleep, and the higher vehicles withdrawn.  But there is now a different con-
dition  than in the sleep state.   The head of the vital body is not in  its
proper place,  enveloping and permeating the dense physical head of the vic-
tim.   That is not pervaded by ether from the vital body of  the  hypnotist,
and thus he obtains power over his victim.

   If we know  what  "wire-tapping"  means  we  have the key to the relation

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between the hypnotist and his victim, at least in a measure.  If a man has a
private telephone connection from his home to his office,  and someone makes
a connection in between, he will be able to intercept messages,  impersonate
the  business man,  issue orders,  etc.   The hypnotist does something  like
that.   He  taps the line of communication between the Ego and body  of  his
victim  by interposing part of himself in the line,  and by virtue  of  that
hold he may force the Ego to go out in the invisible world and get  whatever
information he desires,  as far as it is possible;  or he may make the dense
body do foolish or criminal acts according to his pleasure.

   But even this is not the worst about hypnotism.   By far the gravest dan-
ger to the victim arises from the fact that, once a part of they hypnotist's
vital body has been introduced into his own, it cannot be entirely withdrawn
at  the awakening.   A small part remains and forms a nucleus by  which  the
hypnotist may gain ingress and subdue his victim more easily the next  time,
and each succeeding time something is added to this nucleus,  so that by de-
grees  the poor victim becomes perfectly helpless,  amenable to the will  of
his  master independent of the distance until the death of one or the  other
breaks the connection.

   This  remnant  of the hypnotist's vital body is also the  storehouse  for
commands to be carried out at a future time,  involving the performance of a
certain act, on a certain day, at a certain hour.  When the time arrives the
impulse is released like the spring of an alarm clock,  and the victim  must
carry out the command even to murder, yet has no  idea that he is influenced

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by someone else.   Therefore,  hypnotism is the greatest crime on earth  and
the greatest danger to society.

   It is sometimes contended that hypnotism may be used benevolently for the
cure of drunkenness and other vices, and it is readily admitted that, viewed
solely from the material standpoint, that appears to be true.   But from the
viewpoint  of occult science it is far otherwise.   Like all other  desires,
the craving for liquor is in the desire body,  and it is the duty of the Ego
to master it by will power.   That is why he is in the school of  experience
called life,  and no man can do his moral growing for him,  any more than he
can digest another's dinner for him.  Nature is not to be cheated; each must
solve his own problems, overcome his own faults by his own will.  If, there-
fore,  a hypnotist overpowers the desire body of a drunkard,  the Ego in the
drunkard will have to learn its lesson in a future life,  if he dies  before
the hypnotist.  But if the hypnotist dies first the man will inevitably turn
to drink again,  for then the part of the hypnotist's vital body which  held
the evil desire in check gravitates back to its source, and the cure is nil.
The only way PERMANENTLY to master a vice is by one's own will.

   At the death of a hypnotist all his victims are released,  and no sugges-
tion for a subsequent date will compel them.

   MEDIUMSHIP.--To  understand  mediumship it is necessary to know  that  at
death the same separation takes place as in sleep, but it is permanent.  The
so called DEAD have Ego,  mind, and desire body,  and are often conscious of
the world they have left for some time after.  Some cling to the earth life,
and  cannot  set  their  minds  to learn  the  new  lessons;  we  call  them
"Earth-bound Spirits."  They cannot function in  the visible world without a

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body,  however,  and so they take advantage of the fact that all Spirits are
not  confined with equal rigor to the prison of the dense body.   Those  who
are most closely bound are the rank materialists;  those whose cords do  not
bind them so tightly are "impressionists," capable of answering in some mea-
sure  to spiritual vibrations.   Persons of positive character thus  consti-
tuted,  if they develop, do so BY THEIR OWN WILL, and become trained occult-
ists.   Those of weak will can only develop by the aid of others,  and in  a
negative way.  They are the prey of Earth-bound Spirits who constitute them-
selves "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."

   These  Earth-bound Spirit controls are in every respect like  the  hypno-
tist,  except that they are invisible to their victims and have  more  power
over them, because 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 it, and it is
a  pathetic sight to the trained clairvoyant who sees the  imposition  prac-
ticed  by 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 a  life
after death, but much harm to mediums.

   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

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himself  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
soul within,  which shows different habits and tastes altogether.   That  is
called  "OBSESSION,"  and can be detected by the fact that the iris  neither
responds to light nor distance by contraction or expansion,  for the eye  is
the window of the soul and only the owner can truly manipulate it; hence the
eyes of mediums under control are always closed, or have a glassy stare.

   There are certain means of getting rid of an obsessing Spirit and restor-
ing the body to the owner, but that cannot be given publicly.

   We  have seen that in the waking state the dense body and the vital  body
are surrounded and interpenetrated by an egg-shaped cloud comprising the de-
sire body and the mind.   These  vehicles  are  all CONCENTRIC,  and form so
many  links in a chain.   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.   If there is a maladjustment anywhere the Ego will  be
correspondingly hampered in its expression.  This perfect balance is health,
the opposite is disease.

   Disease takes many forms;  one is insanity, and that also is of different
kinds.  Where the connection between the sense centers of the dense body and
the vital body is askew,  where sometimes the head of the vital body  towers
above  the dense head instead of being concentric with it, the vital body is

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out of adjustment with both the higher vehicles and the dense body.  Then we
have the docile idiot.   Where the dense and vital bodies are in  adjustment
but the break is between the vital body and the desire body,  a similar con-
dition obtains;  but when the break is between the desire body and the  mind
we have the raving maniac, who is more ungovernable than a wild animal,  for
that is checked by the Group Spirit.  In that case all the animal  propensi-
ties are followed blindly.

   When the break is between the Ego and the mind,  the latter takes  charge
of the three vehicles,  and we have the consummate cunning which  character-
izes  a  certain class of insane.   Such an one will successfully  hide  his
baneful designs and outwit all to attain revenge for fancied wrong or  other
low desire until the victim is within his power.   Then the brute nature  of
the desire body will spend itself in some horrible outrage,  or the mind may
even then dominate the desire body and exert its diabolical cunning in  slow
torture  before the desire body breaks away and ends the sufferings  of  the
victim, perhaps brutally, but far more mercifully than continued torture.

   The object 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;  also that self-mastery
is our goal, and not mastery over others.

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                                LECTURE FIVE:

                        DEATH: AND LIFE IN PURGATORY

   Amid  all the uncertainties which are the characteristics of  the  world,
there is but one certainty--Death.  At one time or another, after a short or
a long life,  comes this termination to the material phrase of our existence
which is a birth into a new world, as that which we term "birth" is,  in the
beautiful words of Wordsworth, a forgetting past.

   Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
   The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
         Hath had elsewhere its setting,
         And cometh from afar:
         Not in entire forgetfulness,
         And not in utter nakedness,
   But trailing clouds of glory do we come
         From God, who is our home:
   Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
   Shades of the prison-house begin to close
         Upon the growing Boy,
   But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
         He sees it in his joy;
   The Youth, who daily farther from the east
         Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
         And by the vision splendid
         Is on his way attended;
   At length the Man perceives it die away,
   And fade into the light of common day.

   Birth and death may  therefore  be  regarded  as  the  shifting  of man's

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activity  from one world to another,  and it depends upon our  own  position
whether  we  designate such a change birth or death.   If a man  enters  the
world in which we live,  we call it birth,  if he leaves our plane of exist-
ence to enter another world,  we call it death;  but to the individual  con-
cerned  the passage from one world to another is but as the removal  to  an-
other city here;  he LIVES,  unchanged;  only his exterior surroundings  and
condition are changed.

   The  passage from one world to another is often attended by more or  less
unconsciousness, like sleep as Wordsworth says, and for that reason our con-
sciousness may be fixed upon the world we have left.  In infancy heaven lies
about  us  in  actual fact;  children are all clairvoyant for  a  longer  or
shorter time after birth,  and whoever passes out at death still beholds the
material world for some time.   If we pass out in the full vigor of physical
manhood or womanhood,  with strong ties of family, friends,  or other inter-
ests,  the  dense world will continue to attract our attention  for  a  much
longer  time than if death occurred at a "ripe old age,"  when  the  earthly
ties have been severed before the change we call death.  This is on the same
principle  that the seed clings to the flesh of unripe fruit,  while  it  is
easily and cleanly detached from the ripe fruit.   Therefore it is easier to
die at an advanced age than in youth.

   The  unconsciousness  which usually attends the change  of  the  incoming
spirit at birth, and the outgoing spirit at death is due to our inability to
adjust our focus instantly,  and is similar to the difficulty we  experience
when  passing from a darkened room to the street on a light,  sunny day,  or
vice versa.   Under those conditions some time elapses before we can distin-
guish  objects  about us; so with the newly born and to the newly dead, both

[PAGE 1500]

have to readjust their viewpoint to their new condition.

   When  the  moment  arrives  which marks the completion  of  life  in  the
physical  world,  the usefulness of the dense body has ended,  and  the  Ego
withdraws from it by way of the head, taking with it the mind and the desire
body,  as it does every night during sleep,  but now the vital body is  use-
less,  so that too is withdrawn, and when the "silver cord" which united the
higher to the lower vehicles snaps, it can never be repaired.

   We remember that the vital body is composed of ether,  superimposed  upon
the dense bodies of plant,  animal, and man during life.   Ether is physical
matter, and has therefore weight.  The only reason why the scientists cannot
weigh  it is because they are unable to gather a quantity and put it upon  a
scale.   But when it leaves the dense body at death a diminution  in  weight
will take place in every instance, showing that something having weight, yet
invisible, leaves the dense body at that time.

   In 1906 Dr.  McDougall,  of Boston,  weighed a number of dying persons by
putting their beds upon scales,  which he balanced.   It was noted that  the
platform bearing the weights came down with startling suddenness at the  mo-
ment  when  the last breath was drawn.  The news was flashed  all  over  the
Union  that the soul had been weighed, an achievement that can never be  ac-
complished,  for the soul is not amenable to physical laws.  Later Professor
Twining,  of Los Angeles,  supposedly weighed the soul of a mouse,  but what
the scientists really did was to weigh the vital body as it leaves the dense
body at death.

[PAGE 1501]

   A word should be spoken in regard to the treatment of dying persons,  who
suffer  unspeakable  agony in many cases through the  mistaken  kindness  of
friends.   More suffering is caused by administering stimulants to the dying
than perhaps in any other way.  It is not hard to pass out of the body,  but
stimulants have the effect of throwing the departing Ego back into its  body
with the force of a catapult,  to experience anew the sufferings from  which
it  was just escaping.   Departed souls have often complained to  investiga-
tors,  and one such person said that he had not suffered as much in all  his
life as he did while kept from dying for many hours.   The only rational way
is  to  leave  Nature  to take it course when it is seen  that  the  end  is
inevitable.

   Another  and more far-reaching sin against the passing Spirit is to  give
vent to loud crying or lamentation in or near the death chamber.   Just sub-
sequent  to its release and from a few hours to a few days  afterwards,  the
Ego is engaged upon a matter of the utmost importance;  a great deal of  the
value of the past life depends upon the attention given to it by the passing
spirit.   If distracted by the sobs and lamentations of loved ones,  it will
lose much,  as we shall see, but if strengthened by prayer and helped by si-
lence,  much future sorrow to all concerned may be avoided.  We are never so
much our brother's keeper as when he is passing through Gethsemane,  and  it
is one of our greatest opportunities for serving him and laying up  heavenly
treasure for ourselves.

   We  have studied the phenomenon of birth,  and have evolved a SCIENCE  OF
BIRTH.   We have qualified obstetricians and trained nurses to  minister  in
the best possible  manner to both mother and child to make them comfortable,

[PAGE 1502]

but we are sadly,  very sadly, in need of a SCIENCE OF DEATH.   When a child
is  coming  into the world we bustle about in intelligent endeavor;  when  a
lifelong friend is about to leave us we stand helplessly about,  ignorant of
how to aid, or worse, worse than all, we bungle, and cause suffering instead
of helping.

   Physical science knows that whatever the power which moves the heart,  it
does not come from without,  but is inside the heart.   The occult scientist
sees  a chamber in the left ventricle, near the apex,  where a  little  atom
swims  in  a sea of the highest ether.   The force in that  atom,  like  the
forces in all other atoms is THE UNDIFFERENTIATED LIFE OF GOD;  without that
force  the mineral could not form matter into crystals,  the plant,  animal,
and human kingdoms would be unable to form their bodies.   The deeper we  go
the  plainer  it becomes to us how fundamentally true it is that in  God  we
live, move, and have our being.

   That atom is called the "seed-atom."  The force within it moves the heart
and  keeps the organism alive.   All the other atoms in the whole body  must
vibrate in tune with this atom.   The forces of the seed-atom have been  im-
manent  in every dense body ever possessed by the particular Ego to whom  it
is attached,  and upon its plastic tablet are inscribed all the  experiences
of  that particular Ego in all its lives.   When we return to God,  when  we
shall all have become one in God once more, that record, which is peculiarly
God's record, will still remain, and thus we shall retain our individuality.
Our experiences we transmute, as will be described, into faculties; the evil
is transmuted into good and the good we retain as power for higher good, but

[PAGE 1503]

THE RECORD of the experiences is OF God,  and IN God,  in the most  intimate
sense.

   The "silver cord"  which unites the higher and lower vehicles  terminates
at  the seed-atom in the heart.   When material life comes to an end in  the
natural manner the forces in the seed-atom disengage themselves,  pass  out-
ward along the pneumogastric nerve,  the back of the head and along the sil-
ver cord together with the higher vehicles.  It is this rupture in the heart
which marks physical death,  but the connecting silver cord is not broken at
once, in some cases not for several days.

   The vital body is the vehicle of sense-perception.   As that remains with
the  body of feeling and the etheric cord connects them with  the  discarded
dense body,  it will be evident that until the cord is severed there must be
a  certain amount of feeling experienced by the Ego when its dense  body  is
molested.   Thus,  it causes pain when the blood is extracted and  embalming
fluid  injected,  when the body is opened for post-mortem  examination,  and
when the body is cremated.

   A  case was told the writer where a surgeon amputated three toes  from  a
(living) person under anaesthetics.  He threw the severed toes into a bright
coal fire,  and immediately the patient commenced to scream,  for the  rapid
disintegration  of the material toes caused an equally rapid  disintegration
of the etheric toes, which were connected with the higher vehicles.  In like
manner  molestations affect the discarnate Spirit from a few hours to  three
and one-half days after death.  Then all connection is severed, and the body
begins to decay.

   Therefore  great  care  should  be  taken not to cause the passing Spirit

[PAGE 1504]

discomfort by such measures.  If laws or other circumstances prevent keeping
the body quietly in the room where death took place for a few days,  it  can
at least be interred for that length of time and then treated in any desired
way.   Quiet and prayer are of enormous benefit at that time, and if we love
the departed Spirit wisely we shall be able to earn its lasting gratitude by
following the above instructions.

   In Lecture No. 3 we saw that the vital body is the storehouse of both the
conscious and subconscious memory;  upon the vital body is branded indelibly
every  act and experience of the past life,  as the scenery upon an  exposed
photographic plate.  When the Ego has withdrawn it from the dense body,  the
whole life,  as registered by the subconscious memory,  is laid open to  the
eye of mind.   It is the partial loosening of the vital body which causes  a
drowning  person  to see his whole past life,  but then it is  only  like  a
flash,  preceding unconsciousness; the silver cord remains intact,  or there
could  be no resuscitation.   In the case of a Spirit passing out at  death,
the  movement is slower;  the man stands as a spectator while  the  pictures
succeed one another in the order from death to birth,  so that he sees first
the happenings just prior to death,  then the years of manhood or  womanhood
unroll themselves;  youth, childhood and infancy follow, until it terminates
at birth.  The man, however, has no feeling about them at that time, the ob-
ject is merely to etch the panorama into the desire body,  which is the seat
of feeling,  and from that impress the feeling will be realized when the Ego
enters the Desire World,  but we may note here that the INTENSITY OF FEELING
REALIZED DEPENDS UPON THE LENGTH OF TIME CONSUMED IN THE PROCESS OF ETCHING,
AND  THE  ATTENTION  GIVEN  THERETO BY THE MAN.  IF HE WAS UNDISTURBED FOR A

[PAGE 1505]

LONG PERIOD,  BY NOISE AND HYSTERIA, A DEEP,  CLEAR-CUT IMPRESS WILL BE MADE
UPON THE DESIRE BODY.   HE WILL FEEL THE WRONG HE DID MORE KEENLY IN  PURGA-
TORY,  AND BE MORE ABUNDANTLY STRENGTHENED IN HIS GOOD QUALITIES IN  HEAVEN,
and though the experience will be lost in a future life,  THE FEELINGS  WILL
REMAIN,  as the "still, small voice."  Where the feelings have been strongly
indented upon the desire body of an Ego,  this voice will speak in no  vague
and uncertain terms.   It will impel him beyond gainsaying,  forcing him  to
desist  from that which caused pain in the life before,  and compel  him  to
yield  to that which is good.  Therefore the panorama passes  BACKWARDS,  so
that the Ego sees first the effects, and then the underlying causes.

   As to what determines the length of the panorama, we remember that it was
the collapse of the vital body which forced the higher vehicles to withdraw;
so after death, when the vital body collapses, the Ego has to withdraw,  and
thus  the panorama comes to an end.   The duration of the panorama  depends,
therefore,  upon the time the person could remain awake if necessary.   Some
people can remain awake only a few hours,  others can endure for a few days,
depending upon the strength of their vital body.

   When the Ego has left the vital body,  the latter gravitates back to  the
dense body,  remaining hovering above the grave,  decaying as the dense body
does,  and it is indeed a noisome sight to the clairvoyant to pass through a
cemetery and behold all those vital bodies whose state of decay clearly  in-
dicates  the state of decomposition of the remains in the grave.   If  there
were more clairvoyants,  incineration would soon be adopted as a measure  of
protection to our feelings, if not for sanitary reasons.

[PAGE 1506]

   When the Ego has freed itself from the vital body,  its last tie with the
physical world is broken, and it enters the Desire World.  The ovoid form of
the desire body now changes its form, assuming the likeness of the discarded
dense body.   There is, however, a peculiar arrangement of the materials out
of which it is formed,  that has great significance in regard to the kind of
life the departed will lead there.

   The  desire body of man is composed of matter from all the seven  regions
of the Desire World,  as a dense body is build of the solids,  liquids,  and
gases of this world.  But the quantity of matter from each region in the de-
sire  body  of a man depends upon the nature of the desires which  he  cher-
ishes.   Coarse desires are built of the coarsest desire stuff,  which   be-
longs to the lowest region of the Desire World.   If a man has such,  he  is
building a coarse desire body, where the matter from the lowest regions pre-
dominates.  If he persistently puts coarse desires away from himself, yield-
ing only to the pure and the good, his desire body will be formed of the ma-
terials of the higher regions.

   At present no man is wholly evil,  and none wholly good;  we are all mix-
tures of both; but there may be and is a difference in our make-up.   In the
desire  bodies of some there is a preponderance of coarse and in  others  of
fine desire stuff;  and that makes all the difference in the environment and
status of the man when he enters the Desire World after death,  for then the
matter  of his desire body,  while taking on the likeness of  the  discarded
dense  body,  at the same time arranges itself so that the  subtlest  matter
which belongs to the higher regions of the Desire World forms the center  of
the  vehicle,  and  the  matter  from  the  three  densest regions is on the

[PAGE 1507]

outside.   When the Ego's earth life is ended it exerts centrifugal force to
free  itself from its vehicles.   Following out the same law which causes  a
planet to throw that part of itself which is most dense and crystallized out
into  space,  it first discards its dense body.   When it enters the  Desire
World this centrifugal force also acts so as to throw the coarsest matter in
the  desire body outwards,  and thus man is forced to stay in the lower  re-
gions until he has been purged of the coarser desires which were embodied in
he densest desire matter.  The coarsest desire matter is therefore always on
the outside of his desire body while he is passing through Purgatory, and is
gradually eliminated by the purging centrifugal force;  the force of  Repul-
sion,  which  tears the evil out of man and the allows him to  pass  upwards
into the First Heaven in the upper part of the Desire World, where the Force
of Attraction alone holds sway and builds the good of the past life into the
Ego  as  soul power.   The discarded part of the desire body is left  as  an
empty "shell."

   When the Ego has left its dense body, that dies QUICKLY.  Physical matter
becomes inert the moment it is deprived of the quickening,  life-giving  en-
ergy;  it dissolves as a form.   Not so with the matter of the Desire World;
once  life has been communicated to it, that energy will subsist for a  con-
siderable  time  after  the influx of life has ceased,  varying  as  to  the
strength  of the impulse.   The result is that after the Ego has  left  them
these  "shells"  subsist  for  a longer or a shorter  time.   They  live  an
independent life, and if that Ego to which they belonged was very much given
to worldly desires,  perhaps cut off in the prime of life,  with strong  and
unsatisfied  ambitions,  this  soul-less  shell  will  often  make  the most

[PAGE 1508]

desperate efforts to get back to the Physical World, and much of the phenom-
ena  of spiritualistic seances are due to the actions of these shells.   The
fact that the communications received from many of these so-called "Spirits"
are  utterly  devoid of sense is easily accounted for when we  realize  that
they are not Spirits at all, but only a soul-less part of the garment of the
departed Spirit,  and therefore without intelligence.  They have a memory of
the past life, owing to the panorama which was etched after death, which of-
ten enables them to impose upon relatives by stating incidents not known  to
others,  but the fact remains that they are but the cast-off garment of  the
Ego, endowed with an independent life for the time being.

   It is not always, however, that these shells remain soul-less,  for there
are  different  classes  of  beings in the  Desire  World,  whose  evolution
naturally belongs there.  They are good and bad, as are human beings.   Gen-
erally they are classed under one heading as "elementals,"  although differ-
ing vastly in appearance,  intelligence and characteristics.   We will  only
deal  with  them so far as their influence touches the postmortem  state  of
man.

   It sometimes happens, especially where a man has been in the habit of in-
voking Spirits, that these beings take possession of his dense body in earth
life and make him an irresponsible medium.  They generally lure him at first
with seemingly high teachings, but by degrees lead to gross immorality,  and
worst of all,  they may take possession of his desire body after he has left
it and ascended into heaven.   As the impulses contained in the desire  body
are  the basis of the life in heaven,  and also the springs of action  which
cause  man  to reincarnate for renewed growth, this is indeed a very serious

[PAGE 1509]

matter, for the whole evolution of a man may be stopped for ages, before the
elemental releases his desire body.

   It is these elements who are the originators of many of the  spiritualis-
tic phenomena where more intelligence is displayed than can be accounted for
by  the  action of soul-less shells,  particularly at  materializations,  at
least.   Though shells may take part, phenomena are always directed by a be-
ing with intelligence.  The difference between a materializing medium and an
ordinary  person is that the connection between the dense body can be  with-
drawn,  and  also some of the gases and even liquids of the  medium's  dense
body may be used to form the bodies of apparitions.  This withdrawal and the
process  of clothing the shells is generally performed by the elemental  who
extracts  the vital body of the medium out through the spleen.   As a  rule,
the body of the medium shrinks horribly in consequence.  When the dense body
is thus deprived of its vital principle,  it becomes terribly exhausted  and
unfortunately  the medium often seeks to restore the equilibrium  by  strong
drink, becoming a confirmed drunkard.

   In Lecture No. 4 it was pointed out how dangerous it is to allow a hypno-
tist  to dominate our will and deprive us of our liberty,  but in that  case
the  victim can at least see,  and may form an opinion of the hypnotist  who
controls  him.   In the case of the medium the danger is multiplied a  thou-
sandfold,  for the dominating influence cannot be seen.   The death  of  the
hypnotist  releases  his  victims,  but  the gravest danger to the medium is

[PAGE 1510]

after death.   Therefore,  a negative state in which the whole body or  even
the hand of a person is used automatically,  apart from the individual's own
volition,  is hazardous.   It is not denied that sometimes there are genuine
communications from a departed Spirit, or that there are cases of benevolent
communications from beings outside our volition, but our purpose is to point
out  the dangers to those who meddle with that they know  not.   Philanthro-
pists  do  not grow on every bush in the Desire World any  more  than  here.
They are positively not great and good beings, angels,  who enjoy knocking a
man's hat over his ears, spilling water down his neck, or doing any other of
the  foolish tricks exhibited at the ordinary spiritualistic  seance;  those
are emphatically either the soul-less shells of scapegraces,  or  elementals
on a prank.

   When a man wakes up in the Desire World he is with one exception the very
same  man in every respect as before death.   Anyone seeing him there  would
know  him  if they had known him here.   There is no transforming  power  in
death; the man's character has not changed, the vicious man and the drunkard
are vicious and dissipated still,  the miser is a miser still,  the thief is
as  dishonest as ever,  but there is one great and important change in  them
all--they have all lost their dense body,  and THAT MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE
IN REGARD TO THE GRATIFICATION OF THEIR VARIOUS DESIRES.

   The drunkard cannot drink; he lacks the stomach, and though he may and at
first often does, get into the whiskey casks of the saloons, it is no satis-
faction  to him,  for whiskey in a cask does not give out fumes as  it  does
during chemical combustion in the alimentary canal.   He then tries the  ef-
fect of getting into the dense body of drunkards on earth.  He succeeds eas-
ily  for  the  desire  body is so constituted that it is no inconvenience to

[PAGE 1511]

occupy the same space with another person.  "Dead" people, at first, are of-
ten annoyed when their friends sit down in the chair they are occupying, but
after a while they learn that it is not necessary to hurry out of their seat
because a friend yet in earth life is approaching to sit down.   It does not
hurt the desire body "to be sat on";  both persons can occupy the same chair
without inconveniencing each other's movements.  So the drunkard enters into
the body of people who are drinking, but even there he receives no real sat-
isfaction,  and in consequence he suffers the tortures of Tantalus, until at
last the desire burns itself out for want of gratification,  as all  desires
do, even in physical life.

   This  is "PURGATORY,"  and we note that it is not an avenging  deity  who
measures out the suffering,  or a devil who executes the judgment,  but  the
evil  desires cultivated in earth life,  incapable of gratification  in  the
Desire World,  that cause the suffering, until in time they burn out.   Thus
the  suffering is strictly proportionate to the strength of the evil  habit.
Take the case of the miser;  he loves gold as dearly after death as  before,
but cannot gather any more; he has no physical hand wherewith to grasp,  and
worst of all,  cannot protect what he had.   He may sit watching in front of
his safe, but the heirs may come and put their hands right through him, take
away his cherished gold, perhaps laughing at the "stingy old fool"  while he
is nearly in a spasm with rage and mortification.   He suffers terribly  be-
cause unable to check them.  At last, however, he learns to content himself;
he is automatically purges of grasping, as was the drunkard of drink, by the
Law  of  Consequence,  which  eradicates  from  each person his faults IN AN

[PAGE 1512]

IMPERSONAL WAY.   There is in truth no punishment, all suffering is entirely
due  to our self-acquired habits,  is strictly proportionate to  them.   Be-
nevolently it rids us of our faults, so that in consequence of purgation  we
are  born innocent and may more easily acquire virtue when tempted anew,  by
listening to the voice that warns.  Each evil act, at least, is therefore an
act of free will.

   While  our EVIL HABITS are dealt with in this general way,  our  SPECIFIC
EVIL ACTIONS in the past life are dealt with in the same automatic manner by
means of the life panorama which was etched into the desire body.  That pan-
orama begins to unfold BACKWARDS from death to birth, upon our entrance into
the Desire World.  It unfolds backwards at the rate of about three times the
speed  of the physical life,  so that a man who was 60 years of age  at  the
time  of  death would live over his past life in the Desire World  in  about
twenty years.

   We  remember that when viewing this panorama just after death he had  not
feeling at all about it,  standing there merely AS A SPECTATOR,  looking  at
the pictures as they unrolled.  Not so when they appear in his consciousness
in Purgatory.   There the good makes no impression,  but all the evil reacts
upon  him in such a way that in the scenes where he had made another  suffer
he  himself feels as the injured one.  He suffers all the pain  and  anguish
his victim felt in life, and as the speed of the life is tripled,  so is the
suffering.   It is even more acute,  for the dense body is so slow of vibra-
tion that it dulls even suffering, but in the Desire World, where we are mi-
nus physical vehicles,  suffering is more acute,  and THE MORE CLEAR-CUT THE
PANORAMIC IMPRESSION OF THE PAST LIFE WAS ETCHED INTO THE DESIRE BODY AT THE

[PAGE 1513]

TIME OF DEATH THE MORE THE MAN SUFFERS AND THE MORE CLEARLY HE WILL FEEL  IN
AFTER LIVES THAT TRANSGRESSION IS TO BE AVOIDED.

   There is a peculiar phase of this suffering,  which also adds to its dis-
agreeable character.  If in life a man had injured two men AT THE SAME TIME,
and one is living in Maine, the other in California,  at the time when their
tormentor  is  undergoing his purgatorial realization of the  sufferings  he
caused them, HE WILL FEEL HIMSELF AS PRESENT WITH BOTH at the same time,  as
if one part were in Maine and the other in California.  It gives him a pecu-
liar but indescribable feeling of being torn to pieces.

   There  are two classes of people for whom the purgative process does  not
commence at once,  namely, the suicide and victim of murder.  In the case of
the  suicide  it does not commence until the time when the body  would  have
died in the course of natural events, but in the meantime he suffers for his
act in a way that is as dreadful as it is peculiar.  He has a feeling of be-
ing hollowed out,  as it were, and of inhabiting an aching void,  due to the
continued  activity of the archetype of his form in the region  of  Concrete
Thought.   In the case of people, young or old,  who die naturally or by ac-
cident,  archetypal activity ceases; the higher vehicles undergo a modifica-
tion at death, so that the loss of the dense body in itself gives no feeling
of discomfort;  but the suicide experiences no such change until the  arche-
type of his body ceases to work, at the time when death would have naturally
occurred.   The space where his dense body ought to have been is empty,  be-
cause  the archetype is hollow,  and it hurts indescribably.   Thus he  also
learns that it is not possible to play truant from the school of life  with-
out bringing about unpleasant consequences, and  in later lives when the way

[PAGE 1514]

seems hard he will remember in his soul that the cowardly attempt to  escape
by suicide only brings added suffering.

   There are people who commit suicide for unselfish reasons,  to rid others
of a burden, and they of course have their reward in another way, but do not
escape  the  suffering of the suicide,  any more than the man who  enters  a
burning building to save others is immune from burns.

   The  victim of murder escapes this suffering because he is in a  comatose
state as a rule, until the time when natural death should have occurred, and
is taken care of in that respect,  like the victims of so-called  accidents,
but the latter are always conscious at once or shortly after death.   If the
murderer  is executed between the time of the murder and the time  when  his
victim  would naturally have died,  the comatose desire body of  the  latter
floats to its slayer by magnetic attraction following him wherever he  goes,
without a moment's respite.  The picture of the murder is always before him,
causing  him to feel the suffering and anguish which must inevitably  accom-
pany  this incessant re-enactment of his crime in all its horrible  details.
This goes on for a time corresponding to the period of life of which he  de-
prived his victim.   If the murderer escaped hanging, so that his victim has
passed beyond Purgatory before he dies, the "shell" of his victim remains to
act the part of Nemesis in the drama of re-enactment of the crime.

   Thus the Ego is purged of evil of every kind, by the impersonal action of
the Law of Consequence,  made fit to enter heaven and become strengthened in
good, as it has been discouraged in evil.

[PAGE 1515]

                                 LECTURE SIX:

                         LIFE AND ACTIVITY IN HEAVEN

   We saw in the last lecture how the evil acts of life and our  undesirable
habits  are dealt with by the impersonal law of consequence,  and  make  for
good in future lives, and to illustrate we noted its operation in such cases
as those of the murderer, suicide, drunkard,  and miser.   These are extreme
cases,  however,  and there are many people who have lived good moral lives,
tainted  more by petty selfishness,  which is the besetting sin of our  age,
than by actual pronounced evil, and for them the stay in the purgatorial re-
gions  of  the Desire World is of course correspondingly shortened  and  the
suffering incidental is lightened.   Thus in time all pass to the upper  re-
gions of the Desire World where the First Heaven is located.

   This is the "Summerland" of the Spiritualists.  Of the matter of this re-
gion  the thoughts and fancies of people during life build the actual  forms
they see in their imagination.   It is a characteristic of the inner  worlds
that the matter in them is readily molded by thought and will, and all these
fantastic forms created by people go about,  ensouled by elementals and  en-
during  as long as the thought or desire which formed them endures.   Around
Christmas time, for instance, Santa Claus actually lives and rides around in
his  sleigh.  There  are  all  sorts  of  variety  of him, and he remains in

[PAGE 1516]

vigorous  health for a month or more until the desires of the  children  who
created him cease to flow in that direction,  then he fades away till he  is
re-created next year.  The New Jerusalem, with its pearly streets and sea of
glass,  and all the other pious and moral fancies of the church  people  are
there  also.   Purgatory has its thought-form devil,  with horns and  cloven
hoof,  created by the thoughts of people,  but in this upper part of the De-
sire  World we find only that which is good and desirable in  human  aspira-
tions.  Here the student revels in libraries and is able to pursue his stud-
ies in a much more effective way than while confined to the dense body.   If
he  desires a book,  presto,  it is there.   The artist by  his  imagination
shapes his models perfectly,  he paints with living fiery colors instead  of
with  the dead and dull pigments of earth,  which are the physical  artist's
despair,  for here in Earth-life it is impossible for him to  reproduce  the
tints  he sees with his inner vision,  but the Desire World is the world  of
color  par excellence,  and therefore he obtains his heart's desire  in  the
First Heaven, and receives inspiration and power to continue his work in fu-
ture lives.

   The  sculptor likewise finds this part of the postmortem state a joy  and
an upliftment;  he shapes with facility the plastic materials of this  world
into  the  statues he dreamt of in Earth-life.   The musician is  also  ben-
efited, but he is not yet in the true world of tone.  That ocean of harmony,
where the heavenly "music of the spheres"  is heard,  is in the part of  the
Region  of Concrete Thought which,  in the esoteric Christian  religion,  we
call the second heaven; and so the musician only hears the echoes of the ce-
lestial strains; yet they are sweeter than any he  ever  heard on Earth, and

[PAGE 1517]

his soul revels in their exquisite harmony,  the earnest of better things to
come.

   Here we also find all the little children,  who go directly to this place
after  passing out,  and if their friends could see the,  there would be  no
mourning,  for theirs is rather an enviable life.   They are always  met  by
some relative or friend who has previously passed out, and are taken care of
in every respect.   There are people who lay up a great deal of treasure for
themselves  by giving much of their time to the invention of plays and  toys
for the little ones, and thus life in this First Heaven is spent in the most
beautiful way by the children, nor is their instruction neglected.  They are
brought together in classes,  not only according to age and capability,  but
according to temperament,  and are particularly instructed in the effects of
desires  and emotions,  which can so easily be done in a world  where  those
things   can  be  objectively  demonstrated.   Thus  they  are   taught   by
object-lessons  the benefit of cultivating good and altruistic desires,  and
many a soul who lives a moral life now, owes it to such a cause as the death
in infancy and fifteen or twenty years in the First Heaven before a new  in-
carnation was entered upon.  It is often asked why children die.   There are
many causes, one is death under the dreadful strain of accident, by fire, or
on the battlefield in a previous life,  for under such circumstances the de-
parting  Ego could not properly concentrate upon the panoramic view  of  its
past  life.   This  is also the case where loud  lamentations  of  relatives
hinder.  The result is of course a weak imprint of the life-experiences upon
the desire body, with an insipid purgatorial and First Heaven life.

[PAGE 1518]

   In  such cases the Ego does not reap what it has sown,  and so  it  might
commit the same follies or sins life after life.   To prevent such a contin-
gency  the new desire body which the Ego gathers before its next birth  must
be impressed with the needed lesson.   The Ego is always unconscious on  its
way  to rebirth,  blinded by the matter it draws around itself,  as  we  are
blinded  when we enter a house on a sunny day.   Only after birth  does  the
consciousness return in a measure.   Then,  when by death it passes into the
First  Heaven  it  is taught objectively in a different way  the  lesson  it
should  have learned on its outward passage in the former life.   When  that
lesson has been mastered and impressed upon the still unborn desire body the
Ego is reborn on Earth and goes on in the ordinary manner.

   Children  who die before the seventh year have only been born so  far  as
the dense and vital bodies are concerned and are not responsible to the  Law
of Consequence.   Even up to twelve of fourteen years the desire body is  in
process of gestation,  as will be more fully explained in the next  lecture,
and  as that which has not been quickened cannot die,  the dense  and  vital
bodies alone  go to decay when a child dies.  It retains its desire body and
mind  to  the next birth.   Therefore it does not go around the  whole  path
which  the Ego usually traverses in a life cycle,  but only ascends  to  the
First Heaven to learn needed lessons, and after a wait of from one to twenty
years it is reborn, often in the same family as a younger child.

   It  is a mistake to think that heaven is a place of  unalloyed  happiness
for  all.   No one can reap any more happiness than what he sowed on  Earth.
The  measure of our  joy there will be the good deeds we did in  Earth-life.
The  panorama  of  life etched into our desire-bodies just after death forms

[PAGE 1519]

the basis of our enjoyment in heaven, as it was the decreer of our suffering
in purgatory.

   We remember, that as the panorama of the past life unrolled in Purgatory,
only  the scenes in which we had injured people operated to produce  suffer-
ing.   In the First Heaven only the good desires and unselfish acts are pro-
ductive of feeling.  When we behold a scene where we helped some one, sooth-
ing their sorrow and alleviating their suffering,  we not only feel the most
intense  personal  satisfaction,  but in addition we feel all that  the  re-
cipient of our favor felt in ease of body, of mental relief and gratitude to
the helper.   It does not matter whether he knew who helped him or not,  the
feeling he poured out to us when we helped him will be realized there, inde-
pendent  of other circumstances.   On the other hand,  if we have  ourselves
been  grateful to our benefactors,  we will feel the same feeling of  relief
from distress and gratitude for the help over again.   As all these feelings
and desires are built into the Ego by the spiritual alchemical forces gener-
ated when they are being realized there, and as they undergo a transmutation
into faculties,  usable in future incarnations, it is easily seen HOW IMPOR-
TANT  IT  IS  TO OUR OWN SOUL-GROWTH THAT WE SHOULD  FEEL  AND  EXPRESS  OUR
GRATITUDE  FOR FAVORS SHOWN US,  for thus we lay the foundation for the  re-
ceipt of new favors both in this and future lives.  It is said that the Lord
loves a cheerful giver;  it is equally true that the "Law"  (of Consequence)
loves an appreciative heart.

   When "GIVING" is under consideration let us beware of the fallacious idea
that  only the moneyed man can give.   Indiscriminate gifts of money  are  a
curse  to  both  the  giver  and the recipient.  Only when the giver bestows

[PAGE 1520]

thought  and heart also may gold be of value.   But what is gold  carelessly
given compared to sympathy?   Expression of faith in a man may give him  the
courage to go in and win; stirring his ambition we help him to help himself,
where  financial  aid would render him helplessly dependent on  our  bounty.
When we give, let us give OURSELVES first.

   The ethics of giving, with the effect on the giver as a spiritual lesson,
are most beautifully shown in Lowell's THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL.  The young
and  ambitious  knight,  Sir Launfal,  clad in shining armor and  astride  a
splendid charger, is setting out from his castle to seek The Holy Grail.  On
his shield gleams the cross,  the symbol of the benignity and tenderness  of
Our Saviour,  the meek and lowly One, but the knight's heart is filled  with
pride and haughty disdain for the poor and needy.   He meets a leper  asking
alms  and with a contemptuous frown throws him a coin,  as one might cast  a
bone to a hungry cur, but--

         The leper raised not the gold from the dust:
         "Better to me the poor man's crust,
         Better the blessing of the poor,
         Though I turn me empty from his door;
         That is no true alms which the hand can hold;
         He gives nothing but worthless gold
         Who gives from a sense of duty;
         But he who gives but a slender mite,
         And gives to that which is out of sight,
         That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty
         Which runs through all and doth all unite--
         The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms,
         The heart outstretches its eager palms,
         For a god goes with it and makes it store
         To the soul that was starving in darkness before."

   On his return Sir Launfal finds another in possession of his castle,  and
is driven from the gate.

[PAGE 1521]

         An old, bent man, worn out and frail,
         He came back from seeking the Holy Grail;
         Little he recked of his earldom's loss,
         No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross,
         But deep in his soul the sign he wore,
         The badge of the suffering and the poor.

   Again he meets the leper, who again asks alms.  This time the knight
responds differently.

         And Sir Launfal said, "I behold in thee
         An image of Him who dies on the tree;
         Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns,--
         Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns,--
         And to thy life were not denied
         The wounds in the hands and feet and side;
         Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me;
         Behold, through him, I give to Thee!"

   A look in the leper's eye brings remembrance and recognition, and

         The heart within him was ashes and dust;
         He parted in twin his single crust,
         He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink,
         And gave the leper to eat and drink.

   A transformation takes place:

         The leper no longer crouched at his side,
         But stood before him glorified,
                    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
         And the Voice that was calmer than silence said,
         "Lo it is I, be not afraid!
         In many climes, without avail,
         Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail;
         Behold, it is here,--this cup which thou
         Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now;
         This crust is my body broken for thee,
         This water His blood that died on the tree;
         The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,

         In whatso we share with another's need;
         Not what we give, but what we share--
         For the gift without the giver is bare;
         Who gives himself with his alms feeds three--
         Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me."

[PAGE 1522]

   There  are  two classes for whom post-mortem  existence  is  particularly
blank and monotonous: the materialist and the man who was so absorbed in his
material business that he never gave a thought to the spiritual worlds.  The
reason is not far to seek.  They led good,  moral lives as a rule,  indulged
in none of the vices of the lower Desire World,  but neither have they  done
any  good  such as would find its fruition in feelings of joy in  the  First
Heaven.   To  have  given  even large sums of  money  for  the  building  of
churches, libraries, or parks will help nothing there, unless the giver took
particular  interest  in his gift,  and thus gave himself  with  the  money.
Merely to give money will bring affluence in a future life, but to give ONE-
SELF is more than money, it is soul-growth.   The materialistic business man
therefore goes to the fourth region,  which is a sort of Borderland  between
Purgatory and the First Heaven.   He is too good to suffer in Purgatory  and
not  good enough to have a First Heaven life.   He has still a keen  longing
for  business.   With no interests,  save desires that cannot  be  gratified
there,  his life is an unenviable monotony,  though he suffers in  no  other
way.

   The out-and-out materialist,  who denies God and has the idea that  death
is annihilation, is in the worst of straits.  He sees his mistake,  yet hav-
ing so dissociated himself from spiritual ideas, he often cannot believe but
that  this is a prelude to annihilation.   The dreadful suspense wears  ter-
ribly  on  such people,  and it is not an uncommon sight to see  them  going
about murmuring to themselves: Is it not soon the end?   And,  worst of all,
if  anyone  who  is  instructed  tries  to  inform  them  they will deny the

[PAGE 1523]

existence of spirit there as much as they did in Earth-life, calling him vi-
sionary for thinking that there is anything beyond.

   The natural tendency of the desire body is to harden and consolidate  all
it comes into contact with.  Materialistic thought accentuates this tendency
to such an extent that it very often results,  in succeeding lives,  in that
dread disease, consumption, which is a hardening of the lungs.  These should
remain  soft and elastic.   It also sometimes happens that the  desire  body
crushes  the  vital body in the next life,  so that it fails  altogether  to
counteract  the hardening process,  and then we have quick consumption.   In
some cases materialism makes the desire body brittle,  as it were;  then  it
cannot perform its proper hardening work on the dense body,  and as a result
we have "rachitis,"  where the bones soften.  So we see what dangers we  run
by entertaining materialistic tendencies: either HARDENING of the soft parts
of the body,  as in CONSUMPTION, or SOFTENING of the hard bony parts,  as in
RACHITIS.   Of course not every case of consumption shows that the  sufferer
was a materialist in a former life, but it is the teaching of occult science
that  such a result often follows materialism.   There is another cause  for
the prevalence of this dread disease back in the Middle Ages.

   In  the  course of time every man makes ready to ascend into  the  Second
Heaven,  which is located in the Region of Concrete Thought.  All good aspi-
rations  and desires of the past life are etched into and branded  upon  the
mind, which then contains all that is of permanent value.  The Ego withdraws
from the desire body, which is then but an empty shell,  and clothed only in
the mind, it ascends into the Second Heaven.

   We remember, that after the termination of the panorama,  just subsequent

[PAGE 1524]

to death,  when the Ego withdrew from the vital body,  it went through a pe-
riod of unconsciousness before it awoke in the Desire World.   There is also
an interval between the withdrawal from the desire body in the First  Heaven
to  the  awakening in the Second Heaven.  But this time there is  no  uncon-
sciousness;  every  faculty  is keenly on the alert,  there is  a  state  of
hyperconsciousness,  as  the Spirit passes through this interval,  which  is
called "The Great Silence."  No matter how materialistic a man may have been
on Earth,  that state of mind has now vanished, and the man KNOWS that he is
inherently divine when he reaches this Great Silence which is the portal  to
his  heavenly home.   It is as when one awakens after a dreadful dream,  and
draws  a  deep sigh of relief at finding that the occurrences of  the  dream
were not realities.   So the Ego, when it enters this Great Silence,  awakes
from the delusions and illusions of Earth-life with a sense of infinite  re-
lief, is filled with a feeling of impregnable security, feels anew the rest-
ful repose of being in the everlasting arms of the Great Universal Spirit.

   Presently  there break upon the Ego's ear the indescribable harmonies  of
celestial  music which fills this Region incessantly.   It is no figment  of
the fancy when celestial music is spoken of,  although it is untrue that the
dead people who had little or no sense for music during Earth-life have sud-
denly developed a passion for and the faculty of expressing music at  death.
The  fact  of the matter is,  that the World of Thought,  where  the  Second
Heaven  is located,  is also the realm of tone,  as the Desire World is  the
world of light and color, and the Physical World is the world of form.   The
artist  gets  his color-schemes and his light-effects from the Desire World,

[PAGE 1525]

but the musician must draw upon the more subtle World of Thought for his in-
spirations, and in this fact we have the reason why music is the highest art
we possess.  The painter draws upon a world closer at hand, and is therefore
able to fix his creation once for all upon canvas,  there to be seen by  all
who have eyes at any time.  Music cannot be thus fixed;  it is more elusive,
it must be re-created each time, and at once vanishes into silence.   In re-
turn,  however,  it has so much greater power to speak to us than  even  the
greatest painting,  for it comes directly from the heaven world,  fresh  and
fragrant  with echoes from the home of the Ego,  awakening memories  of  and
putting  us in touch with that which we so often forget in our material  ex-
istence.   Therefore music,  above all other human arts,  alone has power to
still the savage breast and affect us in a way that nothing else can.

   Goethe was an initiate, and in his "Faust" emphasizes twice the fact that
in  the  heavenly realms all things are reducible to terms  of  sound.   The
opening scene is laid in heaven, and the Archangel Raphael is represented as
saying:

         "The sun intones his ancient SONG,
         `Mid rival CHANT of brother-spheres.
         His prescribed course he speeds along,
         In thunderous way throughout the years."

   Again, in the second part:

         "SOUND unto the spirit-ear
         Proclaims the coming day is near.
         Rocky gates are creaking, rattling,
         Phoebus' wheels are rolling, singing--
         What intense SOUND the light is bringing."

   Pythagoras' "music of the spheres" is a fact in the Second Heaven, and to

[PAGE 1526]

some musicians this is not at all a far-fetched idea, for they know that ev-
ery  city,  every lake and forest has its own peculiar tone.   The  babbling
brook  and the summer zephyr which stirs the young leaves in the wood  speak
the language of the Universal Soul.  The true musician hears its grand,  ma-
jestic  voice in the mountain torrent and in the storm upon the great  deep.
No  mere intellectual conception of God,  life and superphysical things  can
every reach the sublime heights achieved by him, for he knows.

   In  Purgatory the evil habits and acts of life produced  suffering  which
was transmuted into RIGHT FEELING in the First Heaven.  The good in the past
life  was extracted in the First Heaven, and when the Ego enters the  Second
Heaven  it broods over the good in such a way as to transmute it into  RIGHT
THOUGHT to act as a guide in future lives on Earth.  Thus at every new birth
the Ego brings with it,  as capital, the accumulated wisdom derived from the
experiences of all its past lives,  which is its capital or stock in  trade.
The experience in each new life is interest,  which in the Second Heaven  is
added to the capital.

   Man  there  is  also  preparing himself for his  next  dip  into  matter,
qualifying himself for the new battle with ignorance in the coming  life-day
in God's great school.   If any worthy ambitions had failed of  realization,
he sees where the fault lay,  and learns to carry out next time his  designs
on improved lines.  The musician takes with him grander melodies when he re-
turns,  to gladden the heart of man in his exile to Earth  conditions.   The
painter brings new aspirations,  for it must not be supposed that the Second
Heaven  is devoid of color because it was called the region of  tone.   Both
color  and  form  are  there, just as in the Physical World, but TONE is the

[PAGE 1527]

predominating feature of the World of Thought.  COLOR is most accentuated in
the  Desire World and FORM in the Physical World,  although it is also  true
that the colors and forms of the Second Heaven are much more beautiful  than
in either of the two other worlds.

   We  have spoken of this process of brooding and assimulation of the  good
and  lasting part extracted from the experiences of the past life as  if  it
were a negative process,  and many students have the idea that existence  in
the Second Heaven is a dreamy, illusory experience.   Nothing could be  more
erroneous,  for the actual activities of life in heaven are  manifold.   Man
not  only reviews or lives his past, but he is also actively  preparing  his
future.

   We are wont to speak of evolution, but do we ever analyze what it is that
makes evolution,  why it does not stop in stagnation?  If we do, we must re-
alize that there are forces back of the visible which make the alteration in
the flora and fauna,  the climatic and topographical changes which are  con-
stantly going on; and it is then but a natural question, What or who are the
forces or agents in evolution?

   Of course,  we are well aware that scientists give certain mechanical ex-
planations.  They deserve great credit; they have accomplished much, when we
take  into  consideration that science is but an infant and  has  only  five
senses and ingenious instruments at its command.  Its deductions are marvel-
ously  true,  but that does not say that there may not be underlying  causes
which it cannot,  as yet,  perceive,  but which give a more thorough  under-
standing of the matter than the mere mechanical explanation affords.  An il-
lustration will elucidate the point.

   Two  men  are conversing, when suddenly one knocks the other down.  There

[PAGE 1528]

we have an occurrence,  a fact, and we may explain it in a mechanical way by
saying: "I saw one man contract the muscles of his arm, direct a blow at the
other, and knock him down."  That is a true version, so far as it goes,  but
the  occult  scientist would see also the angry thought which  inspired  the
blow,  and would be giving a more complete version if he said that  the  man
was knocked down by a thought,  for the clenched fist was but the  irrespon-
sible  instrument of aggression.   Failing the impelling force of the  angry
thought,  the hand would have remained inert and the blow would  never  have
been struck.

   Thus  the  occult scientist refers all causes to the Region  of  Concrete
Thought,  and  tells how they are generated there by  human  and  superhuman
Spirits.

   Remembering that the creative archetypes of everything we see in the vis-
ible world are in the World of Thought, which is the realm of tone,  we  are
prepared  to  understand that the archetypal forces are  constantly  playing
through these archetypes which then emit a certain tone, or,  where a number
of them have massed to create a species of plant,  animal,  or human  FORMS,
the different sounds blend into one grand chord.  That single tone or chord,
as  the case may be,  is then the keynote of the form thus created,  and  as
long  as  it sounds,  the form or the species endures;  when it  ceases  the
single form dies or the species dies out.

   A  jumble of sound is not music any more than words massed together  hap-
hazardly  are a sentence,  but ORDERLY RHYTHMIC SOUND is the builder of  all
that is,  as John says in the first verses of his gospel,  "In the beginning
was the WORD,  .  . . and without it was not anything made";  also "the Word
was made flesh."

[PAGE 1529]

   Thus we see that sound is the creator and sustainer of all form,  and  in
the Second Heaven the Ego becomes one with the nature forces.   With them he
works  upon  the archetypes of land and sea,  on flora and fauna,  to  bring
about the changes which gradually alter the appearance and condition of  the
Earth,  and thus afford a new environment, MADE BY HIMSELF,  in which he may
reap new experience.

   He  is directed in his work by great teachers belonging to  the  Creative
Hierarchies,  which are called Angels, Archangels, and other names,  who are
God's  ministers.   They instruct him then consciously in the divine art  of
creation, both as to the world and the objects in it.  They teach him how to
build a FORM for himself, giving him the so-called "nature-spirits" as help-
ers,  and  thus man is serving his apprenticeship to become a  creator  each
time  he  goes to the Second Heaven.  There he builds the archetype  of  the
form which he later externalizes at birth.

   In Lecture No.  3 we spoke about the four ethers,  and we said the forces
of  assimilation work in the chemical ether.   The Egos in the heaven  world
are those forces and thus the very people whom we call dead are the ones who
build our bodies and help us to live.  We may also note that no one can have
a  better dense body than he can build.   If they make mistakes  in  heaven,
they  find it out when they come to use such a defective body on Earth,  and
thereby learn to correct the fault next time.

   This brings to mind an interesting phase of the Law of Consequence, as in
the  case  of Egos who require a body of peculiar construction,  like  musi-
cians,  where not only the hand,  but also the ear has to be  specially  ad-
justed,  so  that  the  three  semicircular  canals  point  as accurately as

[PAGE 1530]

possible  to the three dimensions of space, and the fibres of Corti have  to
be unusually delicate;  such an instrument cannot be formed out of raw mate-
rials,  and therefore such an Ego must be born in a family where others have
build along similar lines, and that is not always to be found.

   Supposing,  then,  that an occasion offers 100 years before the time such
an  Ego should be normally reborn,  and that the Recording Angels  who  have
charge  of  the  administrations of the Law of Consequence, see that another
opportunity  will  not occur for perhaps 300 years,  that Ego  may  then  be
brought into birth 100 years ahead of time,  and the loss of time in  heaven
made up at another time.  Thus we see that the living and the so-called dead
are  constantly acting and reacting upon each other while traveling  onwards
along the path of evolution.

   Having thus progressed through the Second Heaven,  the Ego at last  with-
draws  from the sheath of mind,  which was its garment there,  and thus  en-
tirely  free and untrammeled enters the Third Heaven,  which is the  highest
point  attainable  by man at his present stage of development.   Thither  we
will follow him in the next lecture.

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