Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
Motto: “The Self is Man!”
There is a lot of talk these days about spiritualism, “mediumship, hypnotism,” “spirit guides,” and the like, and the highest desire of many is to train themselves to become a “medium” and to learn the tempting secrets of the “astral plane.” The question now arises as to whether such an “education” is desirable, or whether it does not lead to a loss of free will, to an inability to think and judge for oneself and ultimately to madness and obsession? In order to answer this question, we probably have to consider what is meant by the term “mediumship.”
A “medium,” in the ordinary sense of the word, is an “intermediary” between the spiritual and the material, a person who is accessible to invisible spiritual influences and absorbs them into his consciousness. In this sense, every sensitive person, everyone who has intuition, is a “medium,” and without this kind of intuition there would probably be few good poets, artists, inventors, doctors or writers. However, a distinction must be made between “intuition” and “inspiration.” Intuition is the light radiating from one’s own higher self, which penetrates the intellectual region of man’s earthly shell; it is the language in which the immortal soul speaks to the mortal part of man. In this way man is inspired and instructed by his own “spirit”; The knowledge communicated in this way reaches his self-consciousness and becomes his property; while the inspirations derived from foreign influences are only a kind of reverie or obsession. Every true saint, every enlightened person, is, so to speak, a “medium” through which divinity is revealed in him which can communicate with humanity, the “Son of God,” the inwardly reborn human being, can communicate himself to the “Son of Man,” the external, mortal human being, and therefore the God-man (Christ) is also the mediator between God and the world, the Savior who redeems humanity in man by elevating it to divinity; the spiritual sun, under whose influence the “incorruptible” and eternal arises and blossoms from the “corruptible” in mortal man.
But in order to become a “medium” of this kind, the poet’s imagination is not enough; it does not require religious or other dreaming, enthusiasm or willless devotion to foreign spiritual influences or unknown natural forces and, least of all, hypnotism and table-rapping; Love for the sublime, intelligence, elevation of true self-knowledge and agreement of one’s own will with the spiritual divine will to the extent that the same is revealed in the soul. True knowledge is to be achieved not by giving up the human will, but by uniting it with the divine will, which reveals itself through reason and conscience. Divine wisdom is revealed not in people who are spiritually numb, but in people who have spiritually awakened to self-awareness. It is not through sleep and thoughtlessness, but through an awaked recognition that man gains power over his thoughts and mastery over his sensual nature.
But how few people have awakened to clear self-awareness! How few know the nature and origin of the influences to which they give themselves to and which, in turn, act upon them! How many, on the other hand, are helpless in the face of these temptations! Without self-knowledge and self-control, an unhealthy sensitivity and mediumship arising from it is a most dangerous thing; for the storm of passions blows through the world and penetrates through the open doors; the spirit of selfishness “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whomever he may devour.” As a result of general effeminacy and an unnatural way of life, nervousness and sensitivity become more and more prevalent. The army of neurasthenics and hysterics is countless. Hospitals and insane asylums are overcrowded, new sanatoriums are popping up every day like mushrooms after a warm rain, and there are almost only two classes of people left: sick people and doctors who treat them. In addition, the number of young criminals is increasing every day; But how many of these are mediums and possessed people can only be judged by occult science, about which official medicine has hardly any idea. From what inspiration do the now increasing number of sexual murders come from[2]; what is the cause of the perverted sexual instincts that are almost universal in some countries, the disgusting “homosexuality” that even shamelessly seeks state recognition? How is it that often a previously decent person is suddenly driven by an irresistible desire to murder? Where do the large numbers of suicides come from who seek death for trivial reasons?
The phenomena of hypnotism, through which the hypnotized person is deprived of his reason and judgment and comes under the control of an alien will and an alien idea, can give us the keys to solving these mysteries. Let’s take the following example: A weak-willed person is hypnotized for the purpose of conducting a “scientific experiment” or at a public display for the amusement of the audience. The experiment succeeds. You give the hypnotized person a potato and tell him it is a peach; The hypnotized person thinks it is a peach and gnaws on it amidst general laughter. So-called “post-hypnotic” attempts are also successful; After waking up, the hypnotized person carries out the things that were ordered to him during his dream state; He acts completely contrary to his usual habits, goes on supposed rendezvous, steals, gets drunk, etc., he even can commit a real murder under the influence of someone else’s suggestion, and in all this he believes he is acting of his own free will.[3] But things like this happen in the world in thousands every day, without any visible hypnotist being active, and if one were to realize that there are also hypnotizing spiritual influences, such as: There are, for example, those of criminal pulp literature and invisible “hypnotists” who exert suggestive influences on people from the astral region, even without knowing or wanting it, by acting instinctively and dream-like, then the great mystery regarding this dark side of the human nature is solved.[4]
Wherever people live, one person “suggests” to the other, even without knowing or wanting to. They all influence each other, be it through word, writing or deed, or even through the mere action of thought at a distance. However, as long as man has the use of his reason, he can examine these influences and either accept or reject them. But if he is put into the dreamlike state of hypnotism, his spirit is, as it were, expelled and replaced by the ghost of another. Then his reason and his judgment come to an end, and the more often this happens, the more easily this state occurs again and ultimately becomes permanent. Many people are hypnotized by their doctor for a supposedly good purpose until, after frequent repetitions, they are completely deprived of their free will and now become the victim of some mental influence without resistance. Nonsense and obsession are often the result of mediumship brought about with the best of intentions, and the apparently good results in education achieved through hypnotism are not based on the self-knowledge of the hypnotized, but on the imagination instilled in them and are therefore not permanent. It is as if you wanted to improve or convert humanity by giving people an opiate or hashish and letting them dream. Nowadays the majority of people are still caught up in a dream life and their morals and religion as well as their desires and passions are little more than dreams.
But what are the invisible “hypnotists” in the astral world who influence people’s dreams and treat them like puppets? Official medicine knows next to nothing about them, because it only deals with what is tangible, but for the true psychologist, who knows the powers hidden in the soul, their existence is a self-evident fact. We know that what is essential in a human being is not the visible body, but rather the soul and spirit, and that when the soul leaves the body, it does not lose the properties that it assumed during its existence in the body, and we also know that when the spirit leaves the soul, the animal human soul remains as a mindless and conscienceless larva with all its brutal instincts. Now every year millions of souls filled with untamed passions and unsaturated desires leave their physical-material bodies and enter the realm of shadows in order to continue acting in a dreamlike way.
Thousands of those executed or murdered leave earthly life filled with a thirst for revenge; Hundreds of thousands lose their life through accidents or suicide; fleshly shell, while their soul is dominated by animal instincts, which they are all the less able to resist because they lack the strength that the material body gives them. Thus, the astral world, the “animal soul of the earth,” is inhabited, in addition to the beings that actually belong to it, by countless human remnants, shadows and dream figures, devilish beings and mindless larvae. Deprived of their life too early and unable to satisfy their instincts without the possession of a material body, they now seek to take possession of the physical organs of the living in order to satisfy their thirst for existence and their desires through them. Everywhere they find open doors and mindless tools, and therefore the world is full of fools who differ from each other only by the degree of their obsession.
Spiritualism has brought us closer to the spirit world, but also to the powers of hell; but the moral strength to defeat the latter is still lacking. Spiritual phenomena amaze the world; but the necessary knowledge of their causes is lacking in order to distinguish good from evil, and the question arises whether we are heading towards spiritual rebirth or destruction. As early as 1846, a prophetess (the seer of la Salette) appeared in France, whose predictions were published in 1858 and which are particularly worthy of attention in relation to the present time. She says, among other things, the following:
“In 1864, Lucifer will be released with a large number of demons,[5] who will gradually abolish faith, even in consecrated persons; they will be blinded in such a way that, unless preserved by a special grace, these persons will take on the spirit of evil angels. Bad books will be numerous on the earth, and the spirits of darkness will everywhere spread a general laxity towards everything that concerns the service of God; they will have great power over nature, there will be churches to serve these spirits.
People will be carried from one place to another by the evil spirits.[6] Demons will be caused to appear in the form of righteous people who once lived on earth in order to deceive people.[7] All these souls appear as if united with their bodies. Fake miracles are happening everywhere because true faith has died out and false light shines on the world.”[8]
Anyone who is familiar with the history of modern spiritualism, occultism, Satanism, magic, etc. will know that these prophecies have already largely been fulfilled, and that such phenomena are constantly increasing, so that it seems that we moving towards a new era of black magic, devilcraft and obsession. But this is not all; Because physical phenomena also have spiritual and astral causes. Physical depravity is the natural consequence of moral depravity. The visible material world is the reverse mirror image of the invisible spiritual world. All external phenomena have corresponding invisible and spiritual causes. If, for example, if people are killed in war, this has direct mechanical causes; but the indirect, invisible cause is a moral defect of one of the belligerent parties. The material visible world, like man, has its astral body, its region of passions, populated by the offspring of human passions; and just as a possessed person is affected by epileptic convulsions which his physical body cannot withstand, so too may moral defects in the world-soul, along with physical defects in the earth’s crust, be a cause of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. “Nature even,” says the prophetess, “is shaken because of the crimes that cry out to heaven for vengeance.” Just as the will-less human being is a medium and tool for the lower forces of the astral world, the physical organism of the earth is also a medium for the expression of the effects of the psychological states existing within it and accumulated astral influences from the star-world. There is nothing absolutely dead in space; there is spirit in everything. The globe is a medium through whose organism the earth-spirit reveals its activity.
The astral world is the world of instincts, attractions and repulsions; Like joins like and connects with like. Just as the lower instincts inhabit the lower region of the human soul, the lower regions of the spiritual realm are populated by lower-ranking beings, and these are closest to our sensory world. Thousands of people are influenced, if not possessed, by such astral beings. When a person commits murder or suicide under the influence of an “irresistible compulsion,” it is reasonable to conclude that it was a case of possession. A “medium” that surrenders itself willingly to all the influences that come to it and which it is not aware of runs the risk of becoming possessed by them. When passion enters through the door, reason flies out the window. Anyone who wants to commune with the higher spirits must raise their consciousness above these different regions, and this does not involve blind mediumship, but rather spiritualization. The higher intelligences do not descend to us; they don’t make anyone obsessed; But it is certainly within our power to raise our souls to them and to participate in their happiness.
Communication with the spirit world is not limited to “spiritists” and “occultists”; The spirit world and world of thoughts surrounds us everywhere, we live in the middle of it and everyone is, whether consciously or unconsciously, a “medium” whose mind is just as accessible to the influences of the spirit world as the physical body is to heat and cold, electricity and magnetism is receptive. The regions closest to us are filled with low and sensual currents of thought and populated by earth-bound thought forms and shadows of personalities in which the fire of passion still burns or earthly desires prevail; and the more people, due to their lack of self-awareness and self-knowledge, give in to these influences and turn themselves into mindless mediums, the more illnesses, crimes and obsessions will increase and we will finally move towards an era of black magic, witchcraft and devilry, which is already begun in some places.
We should not be puppets, but rather self-conscious people. The need of our time is not a connection with the world of devils and ghosts, nor a satisfaction of scientific curiosity regarding higher states in the “beyond,” about which one knows nothing from one’s own experience, but rather the elevation of true self-consciousness, without which the personality of man himself is only the shadow of his heavenly essence. The whole world strives for freedom; But no one is free who cannot control himself, and no one is more a slave than he who thinks he is free without actually being so. The world is still asleep, surrounded by illusions that egoism creates, and only through awakening to true spiritual self-consciousness will he achieve salvation and freedom and truly recognize that he himself is the Lord of heaven and earth and the King of spirits.
Theosophy is nothing other than the inner knowledge of eternal truth, which is the basis of every great religious system and consequently also of true Christianity. Whoever follows the teachings of these correctly, can through this practice, achieve a deeper knowledge of the wisdom hidden within, and whoever orders his life in accordance with this sublime wisdom is the right theosophist.
Note:
[1] Mediumship [Mediumschaft. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Neue Lotusblüten 2, no. 3-4 (March-April 1909), 65-80] Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025
[2] As we write this, three pleasure-murders committed by a 13 ½ year old boy have stunned Vienna. The teenage murderer who stabbed and assaulted 7-year-old Anna Novats and fatally wounded 3½-year-old Beatrix and 5-year-old Marie Smutag presents the image of an obsessed medium. He says: “I don’t know what suddenly popped into my head ; “I sometimes feel a rush of blood to my head and then I don’t know what I’m doing.” New Vienna Journal. Jan. 10, 1909.
[3] Guiteau, the assassin of President Garfield, acted under the influence of “post-hypnotic” suggestion.
[4] The scholars claim that it is not possible to induce people who are normally incapable of committing a crime to commit a crime under hypnosis, and that if such a suggestion succeeds, the person concerned is already morally defective. But every person has the germs of good and evil within themselves; for otherwise he would not be a perfect child of nature, and these germs can be brought to development by repeated suggestion. Also, as impolite as this may sound, it would be difficult to find people who are so perfect and holy that one cannot detect some, even small, moral defect in them. Perhaps even Mucius Scaevola was not entirely free from personal vanity.
[5] Around this time, spiritualism became rampant in America.
[6] See, “Magical Metathesis.” Metaphysische Rundschau. Vol. 14, number 1 (1907).
[7] Certain “theosophists” could tell a story about this from their experiences.
[8] “Das Geheimnis von la Salette.” Iglau 1897 [“The secret of la Salette.” Iglau 1897.]