Translation from German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
CONTENTS
I. Theory and experience
II. Spiritual communication among the living
III. Communication with the spirits and souls of the dead
IV. Communication with the inhabitants of other worlds
I.
Theory and experience.
“Forget not, O man, that your soul has wings.”
The laws whose effects we perceive in external, visible nature have their origin in the spiritual and produce analogous effects in nature. Just as a pendulum which has completed its swing in one direction swings back to the other side until it finally comes to rest in the center, so too does humanity swing back and forth between unbelief and superstition and will not come to rest until it has come to self-knowledge of the truth. The crass superstition of the Middle Ages, with its witch trials and burnings at the stake, was followed by a period of blind, denialist materialism, and when this had reached its climax, spiritualism, spreading in a certain sense a moral plague, spread over the earth. It has worked its way up to the level of a science, but it still lacks the foundation of all true knowledge, namely the knowledge of the causes on which the spiritualistic phenomena, insofar as they are “real,” are based. And as long as these causes are not directly known, one will not attain full certainty about their nature, despite all conclusions based on external observation of these phenomena, but will constantly be in doubt.
We do not deny the legitimacy of spiritism. It is a natural science, suitable for those who have the necessary prior knowledge and experience to study it, but for the inexperienced it contains great dangers, as countless examples of people who have become corrupted by it, weak-willed “mediums”, criminals and possessed people prove. If a person who has studied chemistry and knows the properties of the substances involved carries out experiments in his laboratory, he runs little risk, but if an ignorant person handles explosives at random, this can cause great harm to himself and to others. The same applies to spiritistic experiments. Anyone who knows the influences involved and knows how to control them will know how to act, provided that he considers it worth the effort to concern himself with it. But the ignorant bungler in these matters faces far greater dangers than the bungler in chemistry. For while in the latter case only material life is at stake, the former is threatened with the loss of his reason and his free will, or even the even worse fate of “black magic”; for the bestial and devilish influences of the astral region are much closer to the everyday person than the inhabitants of heaven, and whoever approaches them without being able to control them will end up being controlled by them. He will then never be able to get rid of the spirits he has summoned.
Man, as the master of creation, is indeed destined to get to know the whole of creation with all its levels of existence, but he should have the strength to control himself during his excursions into the realm of the invisible and not to surrender to influences unknown to him, nor allow himself to be taken over by such, even if such “spirits” appear in the mask of angels and approach him with unctuous phrases that, after all, any comedian can also use. The region of the “supernatural world” that lies closest to us is the realm of dreams and fantasy, of self-deception and lies, and is visited most often by dreamers, visionaries and liars, who find there a welcome response from beings who are their equals. Just as the sun shines unmoved in the firmament and sends its rays even into the deepest depths of the earth without being moved by them, so too should man stand firm in wisdom, while his spiritual powers of perception extend to the highest heights and deepest depths in order to fathom the mysteries of God in nature.
Only he who knows and controls his own mind can know and control other minds. Self-knowledge and self-control go hand in hand; they are mutually dependent, and the one arises from the other. Only he who climbs to the summit himself can breathe the pure mountain air and enjoy the distant view. The higher he climbs and gains a firm footing at the top, the more at home he feels there and controls what lies beneath him, but he who is in the throng of the crowd is himself a part of that crowd and is oppressed by it. The free man alone has a free view, both in the spiritual and in the material, but most people are bound by their selfish desires and therefore not free.
An old saying goes: “Extremes touch each other.” The most petty, narrow-minded egoism and the most excessive religious enthusiasm are often found together. The greatest vice and greed are often found in those who spend a lot of their imaginations on supernatural things. Pathological mental states give rise to pathological tendencies and excesses. A bad conscience and fear of death drive many into the arms of unhealthy mysticism. Morally corrupt people, tormented by their passions, seek salvation in the “spirits” who mock them and fall prey to evil. The unnatural and the supernatural are close together. Anyone who has become unfaithful to his true human nature and seeks that which lies above his nature easily falls into the unnatural. He is like a blind bird that flies now above and now below the nest and finally, exhausted, falls into an abyss. Anyone who leaves the solid rock of spiritual faith will not find a place of rest within themselves. Such people seek comfort in external things, turn to the “spirits” and are fooled by them. All external consolations are only narcotics; they may rob the senses for a moment, but they do not cure the disease, but rather leave behind an increased weakness.
Many are driven by the desire to satisfy their curiosity into the dark labyrinth of spiritualism and occultism and cannot find their way out again because the star of truth does not shine for them in this world of dreams and illusions. They seek to illuminate the mysteries of God with the dark, earth-born human mind and forget that only the spirit of God in man can explore the depths of the Godhead. There is no knowledge of truth without the spirit of truth, the holy spirit, which is the spirit of self-knowledge of the true and free from all greed and vanity. A day laborer who, without thinking of himself, fulfills his duties out of love for his task, is closer to true knowledge than a megalomaniac “philosopher” who is only concerned with enriching his knowledge or with gaining prestige. Until the holy spirit of selfless love and wisdom comes alive in our hearts and enlightens our minds, we cannot rise to the higher regions of the spiritual world, where pure spirits dwell, while in the underworld[2] only impure beings dwell in the night of error.
Many people practice what they call religion as a sport or a pastime and therefore do not attain true knowledge, for wisdom wants to be the sole ruler of the human heart. The sophists, swindlers and Pharisees must disappear from the sanctuary of the soul so that the light of truth can shine there. It is written that a camel can go through the eye of a needle more easily than a rich man[3] can enter the kingdom of God. “Where the carrion lies, there the vultures gather.” Where man’s desires draw him, there his heart resides. That to which he clings is that to which he is bound. He who wishes to climb the spiritual heights and make the acquaintance of those who dwell there must rid himself of the burdens that hinder him and cast off the chains that bind him to the lower realms. It will do us little good to speak learnedly of heavenly things as long as we do not rise from the swamp of the material and sensual in which we are sunk. Our theories will not help us much after death. Now, as long as it is day and we are in possession of life, life gives us the strength necessary for our elevation.
This elevation, however, does not consist in a conceited nature, whereby an imaginary “superman” places himself above other people, but in a rise above self-love and self-delusion with his own self-interest, whereby man does not leave the secure ground of his material duties. The oak tree takes root in the ground and draws its strength from it. This causes it to grow upwards and spread its branches towards the sky, but the dreamer who seeks his salvation above the clouds or in the afterlife leads a dream life; he loses the solid ground beneath his feet and with it his strength. From this class come a large number of those spiritualists who live and die in the fool’s paradise of their imagination, who, having lost the solid ground beneath their feet within themselves, believe they can find support in the spirit world and cling to every straw that a mischievous goblin offers them. Progress does not consist in a person leaving the material world behind and dreaming of the ideal, but in finding himself in the material world, developing himself spiritually in it, and realizing the ideal within himself.
The first means to this end is correct teaching, but without practice it has no practical value, and can even bring great dangers; for with knowledge man’s responsibility also increases. If he knows what is good and yet does not want to give up evil, he is on the road to hell. Then it will no longer be said: “Lord, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” but the evil that man has sown must be reaped by himself. Nor is knowledge alone of much use. Knowledge without love is hollow. The loveless mind is born of the material, gravitates towards it and draws the soul down to the material; but true knowledge is God, comes from God and leads back to God.
The teachings handed down to us by H. P. Blavatsky have cleared up many errors and brought many spiritual truths closer to intellectual understanding. Through them we have gained a theoretical insight into the various regions of the spirit world and their inhabitants. These teachings contain the most magnificent philosophy that has ever come into the world and is capable of enlightening and ennobling people. But a premature revelation of secrets that belong to the secret doctrine and were intended only for the initiated, i.e. for those who possess the purity and spiritual maturity necessary to understand them, has caused many misunderstandings and opened the doors not only to superstition but also to black magic.
When rain falls on an uncultivated field, nothing but weeds grow. The light of truth does no harm to anyone, but the misunderstanding of it does. Just as a curved mirror produces a distorted image, so too does truth appear distorted to a perverted mind. A medicine can act as a poison if it is used without understanding. There are many people whose aim is to acquire divine powers in order to make them serve base purposes. Such an undertaking involves the greatest danger; for he who, unable to rise to the divine, draws it down to himself, desecrates the holy and thereby degrades himself. He who acquires magical powers and misuses them, condemns himself to ruin.
Since man can only communicate with spirits spiritually, his spiritualization is necessary for this, and the first step towards this is purification, i.e. the mastery of all evil inclinations and desires. How could a man control spirits that are outside his sphere if he cannot even control the spirits that dwell within him? Only he who controls himself and the spirits is the true spiritualist, not the one who is only a mindless puppet and plaything for them. It is a law in all of nature that one can only reach the higher by overcoming the lower. The lotus plant grows up from the water to enjoy light and air, and whoever wants to breathe the ether of heaven must rise from the swamp of meanness. For those who recognize in themselves the citizen of heaven, communication with the higher spirits is not just a conceivable possibility, but a daily occurrence.
II
Spiritual communication among the living.
“Two souls and one thought;
Two hearts and one beat.”
All human communication has a spiritual basis; external means serve only to facilitate spiritual communication. Mind is consciousness. Without mind no approach of any kind could come to our consciousness. We live in an objective world and are surrounded by objects of which we know only what is conscious of them; consequently the world that we know is actually a subjective one, which we have either created ourselves or which has been imagined in us. With our brain we know nothing of even our best acquaintances and friends, we know only the impressions that we have received of them through our senses and have absorbed into ourselves, and from these we form ideas about the persons concerned and their qualities, which often do not correspond to reality at all, as many have already experienced when, after forming an ideal idea of someone, they found their expectations disappointed. We say: “This or that person is beautiful.” Philosophically speaking, it should be: “The impression I get of him or her is beautiful.” It is not the person we love in essence, but the image of him or her that lives within us, and we transfer this love to the outside, to the person.
Everything external is only appearance; the imagination separates the object from us, but love penetrates and unites. It is not physical proximity but spiritual harmony that connects people and brings them together. Physical distance is not taken into account here. One can often love someone more when he is far away than when one sees him, because when he is far away one has only an ideal idea of him, whereas when one is personally close, disturbing impressions can interfere. One does not think of the faults of an absent person whom one loves; but when one is with him, such errors of observation force themselves upon one’s attention. Two people can be thousands of miles apart physically and yet be one heart and soul and spiritually united, while others can be married to each other and yet remain infinitely distant and strangers. Purely external connections have no lasting value; what is spiritually united is joined by God and is eternally lasting; not even death can separate it.
A mindless communication between people is like a dance of death. The most splendid balls and soirees, where everything is only about outward appearances, do not give the thinking person lasting satisfaction. Idle chatter does not attract, but repels. Language was given to people so that they can communicate with each other, but where there is no spiritual agreement, no communication can be achieved even with many words, and where there is complete agreement, words are not needed, perhaps a look, a handshake or even just a thought is enough. External language is only an aid to intellectual communication. When we are more spiritualized, external speech will no longer be so necessary.
Nowadays, one hears a lot in scientific circles about thought transference or “telepathy” and speaks about it as if it were something completely new, wonderful and unbelievable. In fact, one must be surprised that scholars have only now come up with it, since it was already known to children for a long time. A person without intuition, who could not recognize the thoughts of another to a certain extent, would be like a block of wood that must first be pushed before it moves. Even dogs, cats, horses and many other animals often understand the unspoken language of their master, even without facial expressions being necessary. Animals also have souls, as the (Latin) name animalia (from anima = soul) testifies, but in people who have no soul life because their whole being is absorbed in external sensory activity, intuition is lacking. Communication between soulless beings can only be external; communication between souls is internal, spiritual, in which the external is only a secondary matter.
Where two tones meet harmoniously, they form a harmony, even if the sources from which they come are very far apart. Two like-minded souls understand each other, and distance is of no consequence. Thought flies faster than electricity to the farthest distances and even soars up to the stars. The distant effect of thought is known to every person whose inner life is alive, and anyone can convince himself of this by experiments, provided he has a feeling soul. It is a quite common thing that one suddenly thinks of a distant acquaintance whom one has not remembered for a long time, and that soon afterwards a letter arrives from that person, written at the very time one was thinking of him; indeed, one sometimes already knows the arrival of the letter and sometimes even its contents in advance. That there are premonitions is as indubitable as the existence of intuition. That they are sometimes deceptive proves nothing other than the imperfection of the perception of the vibrations that come to us. Anyone who denies this is acting just as unreasonably as someone who wanted to deny the existence of a language because he does not understand it properly.
Everything in the world is substantial; something that has no substance could not have existence and would be unthinkable. Thoughts are also substantial things, although made of finer material. We speak of vibrations, but there is no vibration without something that vibrates. The whole world is substance and would be nothing without it. We do not create the stars in the sky, we only see them. We do not create ideas, we only grasp them and put them into new forms. Thoughts “come to us” and we do not know where they come from. They often arrive uninvited and often they cannot be expelled. Nor do we know where the thoughts that we send out into the distance will go, or where they will “come to us.” So one person lives in the thoughts of another, receives the thoughts of another, and transmits his thoughts to others, even if he knows nothing of the distant effect of the thought.
A blind man, accosted by a stranger in the street, does not know who is speaking to him, nor to whom he is speaking; but if it is an acquaintance, he can recognize him by the sound of his voice. So long as we are spiritually blind, it is also difficult for us to know the source of influences which come to us from a distance, but feeling can tell us the source; for every thought which strikes us is a part of the personality from which it emanates, and bears the color of that personality’s character. The thought of a friend, acting upon us from a distance, calls up in us the memory of that friend, and with this memory his image also enters our imagination. This may go so far that we see the person who is thinking intensely of us in the flesh. In this case the appearance is the product of our own imagination, evoked by the impression received, and we see the person as his image is preserved in our memory chamber.
On the other hand, the phenomenon may also appear as it is now and not as we remember it; for its thought, animated by the will, is, as we have said, a part of itself with all its character traits, and these in turn express themselves in a form that corresponds to this character. As long as a person has not awakened to spiritual self-consciousness and his spiritual perception faculties are not suitably developed, it will not always be easy for him to distinguish between the products of active and passive imagination in such phenomena; but here too, feeling is far more reliable than sight. Approaches that come to us from the influences of malicious people weigh down on the soul like lead; the influences of loving and noble people have an uplifting effect, and the approach of an enlightened person acts like sunshine and leaves behind a feeling of happiness and bliss that often lasts for days.
Likewise, if one wants to establish spiritual contact with a distant friend and facilitate an exchange of ideas, it is more a matter of feeling than of imagination. Through love, two people are united with each other, as it were, and one shares in the feelings and ideas of the other. The Bhagavad Gita says: “He who loves a being with all his heart and thinks of it, enters into the nature of that being, whatever it may be.” Through this power of love, the incarnation of God takes place in man, and through it man can unite with his divinity. How much more understandable is it that through love, communication with other people at a distance can also take place.
It is not our intention to burden these pages with long quotations from books. The whole of metaphysical and spiritualistic literature is full of examples of apparitions of living people, including those which appeared to distant friends or relatives at the moment of their death. In the life story of H. P. Blavatsky, examples of such apparitions of living adepts are given, and E. Gurney, Myers and others have scientifically investigated and treated the “ghost apparitions of living persons” and similar things. Moreover, there are few thinking people in whose families nothing of this kind has been heard.
Communication with the spirits of living men, or more correctly, communication between men, far from being something incredible, is thus something commonplace. Everywhere soul speaks to soul, although its language is not always understood; among all thinking beings, whether knowingly or unknowingly, a direct exchange of ideas takes place. From feeling arises thought, and from thought, which penetrates to the heart, comes the word. Two or more persons, intensely moved by the same feeling, are also penetrated by the same thought and utter it. Hence the spontaneous applause in the theatre, the war-cry during an attack, and the like. A good orator affects his audience much more by the feelings he arouses in them than by his considered arguments, which are of no use if the feeling resists them. It is spirit that acts on spirit, soul that speaks to soul, and therefore the orator must himself have spirit and soul. What comes from the heart goes to the heart. A speaker who has to rehearse his speech or learn it by heart or who has to think about what he should say will have little success. The truth that a speaker feels speaks of itself without much thought; a lie can be recognized by the fact that its expression is forced.
Soul unites with soul through feeling; mind with mind through understanding. A good actor feels and thinks himself into the part he plays; he feels himself to be the one he represents. If I am able to put myself into the mind, feeling and way of thinking of another man, whether he is alive or dead, I can feel and think in his way. If I enter into the mind of another in this way, that mind enters into me, and I can write or speak in that mind, or, what is the same, that mind can write or speak through me, just as that person would write or speak, and this the better the more I am filled with his mind. But this mind is not a ghost and has nothing to do with the body of that man; they are feelings and thoughts similar to his own, and they represent a character which he himself has created, but he himself knows nothing of it. It is as if a light is lit from a flame; it is the same light, but a different flame. In this way the mind of one person can be possessed by the mind of another without the other having anything to do with it or knowing anything about it; for this mind is not the person but only the product of the person, just as the light of a candle is not the candle itself.
The soul is the flame, love is the fire, the spirit is the light. In this the sea of thoughts surges, and currents of thought move back and forth in all directions. Every thought that a person sends out is like a ray of light that emanates from a source of light and returns to it; each one bears the color and character of the person who sent it out. The fact that we still need external sensory organs to communicate with one another is the result of our imperfection, because we are still blind and deaf and too insensitive to spiritual influences and exist in our material body as if in a half-sleep. With a spiritual awakening, higher powers of perception will also come into action.
If we still lack the ability to distinguish between the spiritual influences that reach us, they still affect us, even if unconsciously. Superficial thoughts and fantasies have little power to work at a distance, but every thought that comes from the heart is a being animated by the will of the sender, which carries within itself, as it were, the photograph of its creator, and can bring blessing or misfortune, depending on its nature. Thus, through their will and thoughts, people create angels as well as devils, and send them as reliable messengers to those to whom they are addressed. People are influenced by such forces and images, or their peace is disturbed; they do not see them, but they feel their effects; the spiritually awakened, clear-sighted person can also see such forms, because their appearance corresponds to the character of their being. The blessing that a loving mother sends to her child living far away represents a being of unearthly beauty, which watches over it like a guardian angel and transmits good thoughts to it; the curse of the oppressor can accompany the oppressed in all his ways and cling to him like a devil, even driving him to despair and tempting him to suicide.
An intense thought sent into the distance can not only produce an appearance that is perceptible to a clairvoyant, but it can also transmit the voice of the sender, similar to a telephone line. And even more. A kind of remote photography can take place, in which the entire situation in which the sender finds himself is transmitted to the receiver through the current emanating from him and reaches his imagination.
The thought that a person sends out is a part of himself. When we transport ourselves to another place in our thoughts, part of our strength is already there. That is why we are weakened by constant distraction and strengthened by inner concentration. If someone has to walk a long way and is always thinking about the destination of his journey, he will tire much more quickly than if he continues on without worrying about the distance. In the first case, part of himself is already at the destination and is laboriously dragging the material part behind him; in the other case, he has gathered all his strength. We look into an abyss, are attracted by the depths and dive into it in our minds; the weakened physical part that remains above may then be seized by dizziness and fall after the other. Similar circumstances bring about the phenomenon of seasickness, and the remedy for such things is inner concentration, standing firm in the self-consciousness of one’s own individuality, against which even a hypnotist cannot compete. In all these phenomena, not only the currents of thought are taken into account, but also the “astral body” or “dream body”, which consists of denser material than thought, but finer than the visible body. It is closely related to the etheric body (Linga-Sharira),[4] which is the seat of the life force, and it is therefore understandable that the more we wander into the distance in our thoughts and live outside ourselves, the more our stream of thought draws after it the astral and etheric matter, and the more the body becomes weakened. The physical, visible body cannot follow the flight of the thought, but the astral and etheric vibrations follow it. If the astral body is released during sleep, it can accompany the thought, which is why one can also visit distant places in dreams by means of this “dream body” and even bring the memory of what one has seen back into the physical body. This dream body can also appear far away from the physical body as the so-called “double”.[5]
This can happen either consciously or unconsciously. When we are awake, the seat of our consciousness is the physical body; when we dream, it passes into the astral body. If we are able to transfer our consciousness into the astral body or the even more subtle thought body when we are awake, we are also able to mentally transport ourselves to the place where our thoughts are, and to perceive and act there. The clarity of our perceptions will then depend on the development of our mental organization, just as the use of our senses depends on the state of our physical sense organs.
But the time allotted to us here does not permit us to penetrate further into the area of this branch of natural science[6]; our concern here is only to point out that we are all spirits within ourselves and that a constant spiritual intercourse takes place between the living. This intercourse is mostly unconscious and dreamlike, because we ourselves still lead an external dream life and have not yet awakened to true spiritual self-consciousness. If this awakening takes place, through which we enter a higher spiritual plane of consciousness without losing the ground of the material beneath our feet, then this spiritual intercourse will also be self-conscious and rational.
III.
Communication with the spirits and souls of the deceased
“Let the dead rest!” “[Latin] “Requiescant in pace.” = “May they rest in peace.”
If you want to communicate about something, it is important to call things by their proper names to avoid confusion. If someone talks about the properties of a stone and the other imagines a tree, it will be difficult for both of them to communicate. This is even more important when it comes to supernatural things, the concepts of which are not yet fully established. Even in the science of metaphysics and spiritualism, clarity will hardly be achieved as long as no distinction is made between spirit and soul. Spiritual communication, whether with the living or the dead, does not necessarily have anything to do with communication with souls, and soul communication is not spiritual or intellectual. There are soulless spirits just as there are spiritless souls.
Basically there is only one spirit from which all forms of consciousness arise, just as there is only one matter from which all types of substances and forms are formed. The system of teaching which is based on a purely material worldview and states that everything that is called “life”, “spirit” etc. is produced by lifeless matter is called “materialism”, in contrast to “spiritualism”, which recognises the spirit as the basis of all existence. It is a different matter with “spiritualism”, which is a communication with the inhabitants of the so-called super-sensible plane of existence, especially with the souls of deceased people. Materialism and spiritualism are the two cornerstones of a divided worldview; the third is religion, which recognises both matter and spirit as being right and teaches that both are basically one and have arisen from an unthinkable something which it calls “God”.
Mind is consciousness, matter is form. All things have come into being by the action of mind in matter, the forms of invisible things as well as visible things, and the forms serve as a means of revealing the properties of mind. This is the key to understanding nature. Mind in itself without substance is not apparent and therefore nothing to us; form without essence is an insubstantial reflection; but when mind and matter unite, the end result of development is a living form, i.e., a “soul” or individuality. A pot or a house has an individuality in its external form, but no soul. Animals have souls and consciousness, but only in the soul of man can true self-consciousness develop, and only a man who has come to this self-consciousness has a permanent, self-conscious individuality.
The one mind, working in the various forms, produces in them spirits of various kinds. The soul of man is the real man himself; the form he inhabits is his personality and the instrument of his manifestation in the outside. His thoughts and ideas, which he produces in this workshop, are products of his brain, produced by the light of the one mind and born of matter, and as such have an existence independent of their producer. An idea born of the brain of a thinker no longer belongs to that thinker, but is there for everyone who can grasp it. The thoughts and ideas produced in the brain and animated by the will are “spirits” of the mind of the one who produced them, but not his mind. When I study the teachings of Pythagoras, I am dealing with his mental products, but not with his soul. Pythagoras, even if he were still in the “beyond,” would know nothing of it.
The ideas that are born from the human brain are like stars in the intellectual firmament of humanity that do not disappear even if their creator disappears from the earth. Not only every thought, but also every word spoken remains preserved in the astral light, the memory chamber of the world, just as everything that a person has ever heard or seen remains preserved in his memory and can be retrieved from there. Everything that has ever been written, spoken or done, whether clever or foolish, is in this “book of life”. The adept can find it; sensitive people often involuntarily fall into such streams of thought and absorb them. A large number of alleged spirit messages come from this source, but these are nothing more than impressions from the astral light. The error of spiritualists often consists in the fact that they cannot imagine the continued existence and expression of a sum of intellectual powers without the personality of their creator behind them.
In order to get a clear picture of this, let us take a closer look at what happens after death.
It is said that sleep is the brother of death, and perhaps observing our states during sleep can solve some of our riddles. As soon as we fall asleep, we notice a split in consciousness, without which observation of the “self” by the self would be inconceivable. Then the higher part, to which intelligence and reason belong, withdraws more and more into its depths; actual self-consciousness disappears and with it control over the “self”. The mental powers cease to work, dream consciousness sets in, and the person now resembles a mindless and helpless mask in which the most varied dream images and ideas, evoked by previously received impressions, play their foolish game, whereby the dreamer often takes many things as holy seriousness which he recognizes as meaningless nonsense when he wakes up.
If you wake up a sleeping or drunk person and bombard him with questions, you will only get confused and unclear answers from him until he has fully come to his senses, some of which may be true and others false. A person who is dreaming or half asleep does not have a clear mind and acts according to his own instincts. There is a well-known story about the monk who, after receiving a reprimand from his abbot, got up in his sleep the following night, crept to the abbot’s room in a somnambulistic state, approached the abbot’s bed, who had not yet gone to bed, and stabbed the abbot, who he thought was in it, with a knife.
The souls of deceased people act in a similar way. They are in a similar dream state, which, depending on the impressions and memories that still live in them, can be filled with dream images of paradise or hell. The following may serve as one example out of thousands:
The family of an Englishman travelled in Italy and stayed overnight in a hotel. The next morning, the maid they had brought with them did not appear despite repeated ringing, and when they searched for her, they found her in her bed, paralyzed by fright. When the girl was able to speak again, she said that before falling asleep she had seen a dead Italian officer lying on the floor in front of the bed. She described the uniform; the blood-soaked corpse had been shot through the head—with a pistol in its hand. After a while, the corpse got up, put the pistol to its forehead, pulled the trigger, fell down, got up again, shot itself again, and the same spectacle was repeated until the girl, overcome by fright, lost consciousness. Investigations then revealed that a few days previously an officer dressed in this way had shot himself in this room. From such examples we can get an idea of the disappointments that await those who hope to find peace through suicide.
Man is composed of many substances. His visible body is born of external nature; his dream body belongs to the dream world; his knowledge is a conglomeration of ideas belonging to the world of thought; his conceit is an illusion of his senses; his true self is of God. After death each of these components returns to its origin, the body to the elements, the spirit to God, but the soul takes up in the dream world the position, whether high or low, that it acquired during its life on earth. There, in order to rise higher, it must lay aside one garment after another, and when it has stripped off everything that is not divine, only its divine essence remains. When the consciousness of God has awakened in man and the last covering has fallen, the soul has found itself in the light and is one with God. When it is bound to the material by its inclinations, the spirit flees and it remains in the material.
Through self-observation we can distinguish two regions of our soul. The higher region contains the higher soul forces: self-awareness, reason, understanding, knowledge, faith, love, etc., while the lower region contains the lower soul forces: self-delusion, animal instincts, fantasies, personal desires, etc. Anyone who still resides in the lower soul region sees as he falls asleep how his higher self-awareness, knowledge, etc. leave him. The lower soul forces then continue to be active in him for a while until they too come to rest and only the organic vegetative life activity remains. When we wake up, the lower soul forces, instincts, etc., are the first to become active again; then reason takes over.[7]
After the death of the body, a similar separation takes place, which is referred to in church doctrine as the “second death”. The higher soul powers separate from the lower ones and leave behind a spiritless larva in the dream world, in which, however, the lower instincts and memories can still be active for a shorter or longer period of time or can be awakened again momentarily.
Where is our true consciousness during sleep when there is only an apparent consciousness in dreams? The yogins and saints who have attained the union of personal consciousness with the higher self can provide information on this. The Bhagavad Gita says: “The mind of one who is subject to the wandering senses is driven about like a ship on a stormy sea, but he has true knowledge whose mind is completely withdrawn from sensual things. What is night for other beings is waking day for him, and what others consider waking he recognizes as dream.”[8] For someone who has taken up residence in the higher region of the soul and enters that state which the Indian sage calls “samadhi”, the onset of sleep or death is not a loss of consciousness for him.
But such people, in whom the immortal soul has already achieved self-knowledge during their existence on earth and consequently immediately becomes free at death, are rare. As a rule, there is still a secret connection between the astral body of the deceased and the departed spirit, which can last for a long time, and during which the spirit strives to attract to itself any nobler elements that may still be present in this astral body, just as a light from a higher region sometimes shines into the dreams of a sleeping person. Only that which is still of a heavenly nature in the departed dream body can enter the state known as heaven; the holy in it strives to break free from the unholy, the divine from the earthly, and it is therefore of great disadvantage to the departing soul if it is drawn back to the lower realms by earthly influences or is forced to take part in the earthly. Not only is it hindered in its progress, but it can even suffer the loss of its immortality; for immortality is the consciousness of a higher, immortal existence; an existence without consciousness is death. Such a descent is certainly possible and belongs to the realm of necromancy or the art of the devil, which is condemned by the wise men of all countries and times and forbidden by all religious systems.
A few more comments may be appropriate here:
Everything in the world is essentially immortal; not an atom of matter or a spark of energy is lost from the universe; but matter and energy are not conscious of their immortality. The human soul, permeated by the spirit of God, alone has the ability to attain this consciousness of its immortality and must therefore turn to this spirit. As long as the body with its powers and thus also free will and reason are available to it, it can take this direction by its own power and rise again even if it has fallen. The departed soul no longer receives any new influx of power from the material. It has only what it has already acquired and brought with it. Through loving, sympathetic, spiritual influences from the bereaved, the soul of a deceased person can be raised and its liberation promoted just as well as that of a living person; for spirit works on spirit, soul on soul. On the other hand, the soul can be hindered from its liberation or dragged down by the desires of the bereaved who long for it.
Fortunately, the arts of necromancy are still little known among the followers of modern spiritualism, and few have the power to practice them, even if they do know them. In everyday spiritualistic séances, the souls of dead people play no part, and the spells and ceremonies of our modern spirit-banners and exorcists, like many church customs, have become an empty comedy that lacks spirit and therefore cannot have any spiritual effect. Modern spiritualism has, as a rule, nothing to do with the actual souls of the dead, but, where these are concerned, at best only with their “legacies”: spiritless dream-bodies, astral phantoms, residual impressions in the astral light, thought currents, etc., although there is still a wide field for science to explore. The soul striving for heaven casts off its garments on its flight, and we can concern ourselves with these; but she herself has nothing more to do with earthly things and does not return to move tables or to frighten those left behind by ghostly apparitions. If she had to continue to worry about the affairs of her family in her heavenly state, heaven would often be a hell for her.
Some spiritualists reply to the latter objection by saying that the soul in its heavenly heights sees the sufferings and errors of its family on earth with quite different eyes and sees in them a necessary training in which no intervention is applicable. This argument would perhaps be correct if it were the soul of an Adept who had come to a full knowledge of nature and all its laws, but this can hardly be expected from the soul of an ordinary person.
In most of the spiritualistic phenomena we are probably dealing with little-known intelligent or semi-intelligent forces in nature, with dream images, thought transference and the like, but not with the souls of deceased people.
But should communication with the souls of our deceased friends not be possible? Should they really be behind the curtain that inexorably separates the here and now, in that place from which no one returns; should they be deaf to our pleas, insensitive to our longing?
Communication with these souls is not only possible, but something everyday, only this communication is by its nature a spiritual one, whereby, as between living people who love each other, soul speaks to soul. The soul may strip off its garments, it always remains the same. We must not expect the spirits of the dead to force their way through the keyhole into our room to talk to us about family matters; but if we open the windows of our soul to them, the sunshine of their love is already there. Goethe says:
“The spirit world is not closed;
Your mind is closed, your heart is dead;
Up! Bathe, student, undaunted
Your earthly breast in the dawn.”
If we wish to communicate with a friend on earth who cannot come to us, we travel to where he lives. If we wish to communicate with the heavenly souls of deceased people, we must seek them out where they live. Their heaven is not a distant place; heaven is within us. When we are intimately united through love with the soul of another person, whether embodied on earth or in a transfigured form, and we place ourselves in it in our thoughts and identify with it, we are united with it and share its feelings and ideas. It is then the same as if this soul had come to us to unite with us. We have nothing to do with the astral remains of the dead; they are as worthless as the useless clothes that a person has discarded, even if these remains can be recalled to a kind of illusory life or, as it were, galvanized by the influence of the vital force of living persons. We cannot learn anything new from these astral corpses, since they cannot themselves absorb new impressions; they are not the deceased people themselves, but only their shadows, the masks that people wore during life, the larvae from which the souls, the butterflies, have escaped. If the butterfly were still in the process of forming in the chrysalis, it would be its undoing to disturb it. When Goethe died, his last words were not the well-known “Light, more light!”, but, according to those present, “Now comes the transformation to higher transformations.”
[9] The soul of a deceased person goes through a process of transformation after death, which is similar to that of the butterfly forming in the chrysalis or the development of the fetus in the womb; it is in a dream-like state and does not take part in spiritualistic séances. When the time of maturity has come, the butterfly leaves the chrysalis, the soul enters a higher existence and leaves its body of desire behind as a spiritless larva.
Such larvae are often taken over by other inhabitants of the astral plane, known as “elemental eggs,” “devils,” and the like. Such a being finds in the organism of a larva of a deceased person everything it needs to appear as that person and to provide apparently unquestionable proof of the identity of the alleged “spirit.” Since the material from which ghosts are formed is very plastic, a devil can also appear under the mask of an angel, and one must not be misled by unctuous speeches; for among the beings hostile to man there are many a good comedian.
In fact, certain “spiritual messages” often have their origin in the mental images created by a dying person. The last wish of a dying person in particular can create a mental image inspired by this wish, which continues to exist even after the death of its creator and can, in a sense, appear on its own. Such a mental image is not the deceased person, but rather an emanation of the same. The soul of such an apparition is the wish from which it arose. If this wish is fulfilled, this soul has peace, i.e. the purpose of its existence is fulfilled and its apparition is over.
But it would take us too far if we wanted to go into all the possible causes of spirit communications and spiritualistic phenomena, for this field is infinitely wide and has not yet been explored much. It is regrettable, however, that spiritualistic superstition has found its way back into modern theosophical literature, despite H. P. Blavatsky’s efforts to put an end to it.
Anyone who wants to unite with the heavenly spirits of the dead and participate in their bliss must rise to the heights at which they live. As long as we live in the swamp, we only come into contact with the inhabitants of the swamp. The swamp was created by our egoism, and in it move the forms that egoism creates. There we find the remaining larvae from which the heavenly soul has escaped. Unsatisfied desires that the soul has cast off take shape there and form the army of hungry vampires who seek satisfaction and instinctively cling to people with mediumistic tendencies, from whom they drain nerve energy in order to strengthen themselves and keep themselves alive. Bad habits, greed, thirst for revenge and the like form the “spirits” that are attracted to weaklings in whom they find similar inclinations, cause possession and lead to crimes; for thought, having lost the means of becoming action along with the visible body, now instinctively seeks out another living body in order to act through it. Such “spirits” are not the dead people, but the spiritless and conscienceless sum of the lowest qualities that clung to them during life and which the liberated soul has discarded. This animal “spirit” still has the qualities it had before even after the death of the body, but it now lacks conscience and reason. The “spirit” of the murderer still seeks to murder, the “spirit” of the deceiver still seeks to deceive, the “spirit” of the covetous still clings to its desires, the “spirit” of the orthodox still clings to its ideas. But these “spirits” lack the “spirit”, i.e. the individual self-consciousness of the deceased person. They are, as it were, mirror images created by the action of the spirit in the material world; they have a dreamlike consciousness, but no reason.
In every human being the germs of everything are contained, for otherwise he would not be a perfect son of nature. A human being who did not have the capacity to become passionate would have no opportunity to control himself and become master of his nature. Even the best human being has more or less qualities in him which belong to his lower nature and which, if he has left them behind on the lower astral plane, can cause harm as a vampire. Now it is wisely arranged in nature that with increasing old age or through an illness preceding death the passionate vibrations of the soul come to rest, which is why such souls rest in peace until the “day of resurrection” appears for them, that is, until they are released from the dream-like state which we have compared to the formation of butterflies and the soul awakens to the higher state of existence in heaven, where it can no longer be touched by earthly things. It is a different matter with people who suffer a sudden or violent death while their passions are still in full swing, which particularly applies to suicides, executed criminals, murdered people, those killed in war, and the like. In these cases, it often takes a long time for the soul of the deceased to reach a state of rest. Every person is given a certain amount of life energy by nature, which determines the length of their life. The soul that has been violently torn from temporal life before its time clings instinctively to this life. At death, the “spirit” gradually withdraws, but it is still connected to the earthly, in a similar way to how the evening glow still illuminates the earth after the sun has set, and it tries to attract to itself that which is still of a higher nature in it. If this soul does not follow this ray of light, if its striving is directed downwards instead of upwards, or if it is tempted by spiritualistic experiments in its dream state to turn back to the sensual, this can result in the loss of its immortal part. Such souls then do not ascend to the heavenly heights, but sink downwards.
When the departed soul has overcome its dream state and, purified of all dross by the fire of the love of God, celebrates its resurrection in the light of clear knowledge, it enters a state of bliss that no one can describe, but in which the transfigured soul can participate even in this life. All dogmatization and classification of such states has no real value. It only leads to the lowering and degrading of the sublime and heavenly into the lower realm of intellectual speculation for the satisfaction of scientific curiosity. Anyone who does not feel it will not understand it with any means of logic. In its heavenly state, the soul no longer has anything to do with earthly things, family affairs, etc., but all the noble ideals that it has gathered during its life live within it. The purified soul brings only ideal ideas with it to heaven. These grow and live and form its environment, just as every human being’s spiritual content is only that which has come to his consciousness. Since it no longer contains any points of attraction for the impure, it is no longer exposed to impure influences. The selfish requests of its relatives on earth can no longer reach it, but their loving aspirations rise up to its heaven, and the blessing of the heavenly beings falls upon it.
This is the only true kind of spiritualism, which is to be distinguished from that kind of spiritualism whose followers are always ready to desecrate the souls of their “dear predecessors” if they believe that this will satisfy their personal desires. Only like connects with like; there is no room for the unholy in the holy. But everything that arises from egoism and greed is unholy. If we want to wait until our friend comes to us, this prevents us from visiting him. Covetousness separates souls, selfless love unites them. For those who wish to possess something, their person is the most important thing; they withdraw into themselves as a result; but true love is free of selfishness; it opens its arms and gives itself without asking for anything in return. By forgetting itself and giving itself, it becomes one with the object of its devotion and thereby comes into full possession of it.
We are not among those enthusiasts who regard death as a happy event under all circumstances; it is rather a loss of the material things that are necessary for our development. But if the body has served its purpose and has become useless, then leaving it is a release.
As long as we have not reached perfection and put on the glorified body of immortality, our soul will always have to return to material existence to draw new strength from matter and to receive its education in this earthly vale of tears until it attains self-control through self-knowledge. Therefore, it is extremely foolish for a person to underestimate this earthly life and, instead of exercising his strengths in it, neglect his duties in order to dream of a better afterlife. It is written: “Render to Caesar (the earthly) what is Caesar’s, and to God (the eternal) what is God’s.” Whoever fulfills his duties to himself and his neighbor and nourishes God in his heart, God will take care of the rest for him.
Death is a resting place on our path to perfection; it is like digestion after eating, or rest after work. The builders lay down their tools at nightfall to dream blissful dreams until the new day calls them to new duties. Let them rest in peace!
IV.
Communication with the inhabitants of other worlds
“In my Father’s house are many mansions.” (Ev. John XIV, 2.)
It is a narrow-mindedness to think that the inhabitants of our planet, visible to our physical eyes, are the only living and intelligent creatures in the universe. There are millions of stars in the sky, each of which represents a solar system, which undoubtedly has its inhabitants, if not creatures of our kind; and if we look only at our own solar system, we find in it, in addition to the sun and the moon, various celestial bodies and planets, of which our planet “Earth” is one of the smallest. The movement of the planets testifies to life, and the order prevailing in this movement testifies to consciousness and intelligence; but this is to say nothing other than that these celestial bodies have souls, as it cannot be otherwise if, as religion, philosophy and even the most modern science teach us, the whole universe is a manifestation of spiritual forces acting in nature.[10] But where spirit, soul and matter are present, there will be no lack of corresponding external forms and phenomena according to all known laws of nature, although their character will vary depending on the conditions under which they came into being or developed. In us humans on earth, all five physical elements, “earth” (with its chemical composition), water, air, fire (energy) and ether, are combined into a whole. We can, if we want, consider ourselves “materialized air spirits” because the largest part of our body consists of four gases: oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and gaseous compounds of carbon, and we cannot live without the air we breathe.
Nor would this organism, composed of five elements, have life, consciousness, and intelligence if the all-pervading and all-animating spirit did not unfold and reveal its power within it.
This does not mean, however, that there are not other creatures in nature in which only one or the other element[11] is present, for example beings for whom the “element of earth”, i.e. matter, which presents itself to us in its final condensation as tangible substance, is the same as air is for us, or others which are formed only from the “spirit of water”, air, fire or ether, and whose life element is these invisible substances. The fact that there are even forms which are formed entirely from thought substance is disputed today only by the most ignorant people, and everyone who has ever dreamed is convinced of this.
Every human being and every thing born of nature has its astral body, which is also material, but made of finer material than the gross material body. Without the presence of astral matter, the spirit could not unite with the gross matter. The astral body forms the connecting link between soul and body; the externally visible body is actually only a product, an expression or image (more or less a caricature) of the astral body, which is why the latter is also called a “double”. The so-called “spiritualistic” phenomena, ghostly apparitions, ghost materializations and the like provide objective evidence of the existence of the astral body on a daily basis,[12] but the best evidence is that which a person provides himself when he can transfer his consciousness into his astral body and appear and act in it independently of the physical body. Such “exteriorizations” have been scientifically investigated and are nothing new today.
Since, as experience teaches, these astral bodies can exist independently of the physical body and are the actual seat of life from which the physical body receives its life as a reflex activity, and since, furthermore, every being, whether intelligent or irrational, has its astral body, the relationship of these things opens to us a view into a new and larger world, namely, the “astral” or “supersensible” world, which, like ours, has its innumerable and varied inhabitants, many of whom are unconscious or guided only by their instincts, others of high intelligence, some filled with divine wisdom and goodness, others are the personifications of boundless diabolical malice, and between these extremes are the most varied gradations and gradations. Now, since every human being has an astral body which has an organization similar to that of the physical body, every human being can, if he succeeds in transferring his consciousness into his astral body, enter into conscious contact with the astral world and perceive the things present there; for this opens up his inner (astral) sense organs, whereas where there is no consciousness, no perception can take place. Most people have not yet opened their inner senses and are therefore not able to see the inhabitants of the astral world, but the invisible influences from the astral world come to their consciousness more or less through feeling. One feels the presence of such influences even without seeing their causes. They evoke in us certain emotional states, each according to its own type, be it depression, fear or any other mood not caused by external or physical conditions. In fact, brooders, enthusiasts and dreamers, hypochondriacs and hysterical people, lunatics and generally all those who live more or less in a state of constant partial exteriorization of the astral body are subject to such changing moods. This includes above all spiritualistic “mediums” of all kinds. Some feel well, but they see nothing; others see, but do not have the right understanding of what they see; Others see only the products of their own imagination, and from this mishmash of “revelations” often the greatest nonsense emerges.
The astral region, which lies next to our physical world, is like the astral world an objective world, and its forms are composed of atoms and molecules, although they are considered “spiritual” because of their subtlety and invisibility. But besides this objective dream world, every human being also finds a purely subjective region within himself, in which no forms are seen, but in which he recognizes the existence of higher principles and forces, faith, love, hope, justice, etc., and since the microcosm of man is an image of the macrocosm and nothing can work in his small world that is not present in the greater whole, it is clear that such regions also exist in our solar system in which such formless forces or principles are at home. In reality, all physical objects are nothing other than the products and symbols of formless forces. The material from which rocks or trees are made is basically as formless as spirit. Everything in the world comes from the unmanifested and returns to it again. Like attracts like and unites with like, body with body, soul with soul, spirit with spirit, and the grosser is penetrated by the finer.
If we imagine (and we can rightly do so) every body as a visible concentration of invisible forces, which also exist outside its periphery, just as the air not only penetrates into the depths of the earth but also surrounds the entire globe, then it is clear that we can learn the properties of these forces without coming into contact with the body in question. For example, we know the warming and luminous properties of the sun without flying into the sun itself, and since the sun also has its astral body and soul, we can also recognize its spiritual properties if our spiritual senses are open. Perhaps we will then find that the existence of the visible sun is the best proof of the existence of God in the universe.
The greatest error arises from the failure to distinguish between essence and form. If we imagine the planets of our solar system as spheres, having no secret connection with one another, it is inconceivable that we can ever come into contact with their inhabitants; but the planets are only the visible embodiments of generally diffused invisible forces; they are, as it were, accumulators of them. The sun is everywhere, we live in the midst of its element, just as the fish in the water or the bird in the air; but we see only the shining star in the sky, the fiery center and embodiment of this universal principle. We ourselves are permeated by this solar spirit, and from its effects in ourselves we can draw certain conclusions about the character of the inhabitants of the sun, since we ourselves are such inhabitants.
We may as well say that this or that thing is the nucleus of an atmosphere or aura surrounding it, which has the same character, and the nucleus is formed by concentration of this, as we may say that the nucleus radiates an atmosphere bearing its character, as can be demonstrated, for example, by the spectroscope. The one conditions the other; there is inhalation and exhalation wherever there is life. The moon is everywhere, and also in ourselves; we live in the substance of which its visible representative in the firmament is formed, and as like attracts like, we can feel its “spiritual” influences within us. Likewise, in our solar system there exist other general spiritual forces, which the ancients called Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Saturn, etc., and whose external symbols are visible in the firmament. The same forces are present in ourselves as principles and are stimulated and strengthened by corresponding influences from outside. All these influences are present at the same time, but depending on the position of the heavenly bodies, sometimes one or the other is stronger, just as in a concert in which many instruments are involved, sometimes one or the other sounds stronger. At midday the influence of the sun is stronger, at night the moon, and the same is true of the other heavenly bodies whose spiritual and ethereal vibrations find their way into people. That is why, for example, people who have a great sense for the sublime, the powerful, for art and the like are called “Jupiter people”. People in whom Mars is dominant are energetic and often quarrelsome, Venus makes people inclined to fall in love, Mercury gives good calculation, Saturn a predisposition to mysticism; the moon is the realm of dreams and fantasy in us and everywhere.
Such influences have a particularly decisive effect on people at birth, and therefore a good astrologer, if he knows a person’s character, can also know under which sign of the zodiac and under which planetary influences he was born, or he can know his dispositions and inclinations from his horoscope. However, this belongs to the field of astrology and lies outside the scope of this discussion.
Now, if we know the astral influences of a star (astrum), it is easy to deduce from these the nature of the forms born of its properties, because the form of a creature corresponds more or less to the character of its being. If we take the “moon,” for example, the visible moon has two halves, one of which is never illuminated by the sun. The visible moon, however, is the symbol of the realm of dreams, illusions, and fantasy, and if the latter is not illuminated by the light of the sun of wisdom, darkness, ignorance, error, passion, etc., reign in it, from which, especially in conjunction with Venus influences, images of lust and cruelty are born, which is why it is also said that the dark side of the “moon” is a hell inhabited by dragons and poisonous snakes and monsters of all kinds. This hell and its inhabitants exist in men themselves, in the “moon” of their own imagination, and through it men are inspired to tyranny, war, and crime of all kinds. The “scholars” are not yet in agreement as to whether the dark side of the visible moon has corresponding astral inhabitants.
Even if one can draw conclusions about the spiritual nature of a planet’s sphere from the spiritual forces that emanate from it, other factors also come into play in the formation of the physical appearance of the inhabitants of a visible planetary body, namely the stage of development that the material planet has reached and the individual development of each person. In order to gain clarification on this, we must rely on the statements of clairvoyant people or of those who can communicate with the inhabitants of the astral world. According to such statements, the inhabitants of the planet Mars are still very much behind in their development; some of them walk on all fours, and we cannot establish contact with them by signs because they do not have sufficient intelligence to understand these signs. This is not surprising, because “Mars” represents the element of animal desires in man (Kama) [kāma = desire]. The inhabitants of Mercury are said to look like giant apes, etc. But all such statements, of which one does not know whether they are true or are the product of one’s own imagination, have no value; for one can only know with certainty what one has experienced oneself, and speculations of this kind are idle games.
All true knowledge is based on the perfection of the mystical triangle, i.e. in the oneness of the knower with the known and the power of knowledge. If we want to get to know the spirit of a thing, we must absorb it into ourselves and strive to know it. Only in this way is spiritual communication with the spirits possible. The external appearance is a secondary thing.
Notes:
[1] On communication with the spirit world. By Dr. med. Franz Hartmann. Calw / Württemberg, Schatzkammerverlag Hans Fändrich, n.d. [Über den Verkehr mit der Geisterwelt. Von Dr. med. Franz Hartmann. Calw / Württemberg, Schatzkammerverlag Hans Fändrich, n.d.] Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025
[2] The reader can find out more about states of existence in the work “The Sevenfold Nature of Man and the Universe” by Johs. Fährmann, published by Schatzkammerverlag. (Anmerkung des Herausgebers).
[3] That is, a person bound to his personal possessions due to his greed.
[4] [R.H.—Etheric double = liṅga-śarīra]
[5] A case described in detail in Adolphe D’Assier’s work “L’humanité posthume” [Fr.—Posthumous humanity] can serve as an illustration. A lady in a boarding house was often seen by all present in two different places at the same time. For example, while her physical body was in the room, her double appeared in the garden. The more clearly her image appeared there, the weaker her physical body became, and with the disappearance of the astral image her physical strength returned completely. In the biographies of the saints one can find many similar examples which seem ridiculous to the ignorant, but are easily understandable to anyone who knows the composition of human nature.
[6] The reader will find more information about this in the work “Fährmann, Die Nacht der Gedanken”, published by Schatzkammerverlag. (Editor’s note).
[7] Reincarnation is also such an awakening. Here too, the animal life in the child first stirs before reason and intellect appear.
[8] Chapter 2, verse 69.
[9] According to Jenny Pappenheim’s reports. [R.H.—Jenny von Gustedt, born Jeromée Catharina Rabe von Pappenheim (born September 1811, died June 29, 1890), was a German writer.]
[10] Compare Evang. John I, 1-5.
[11] We are not talking here about so-called “chemical elements” (which are actually not simple substances at all) but about aggregate states of matter.
[12] It is not worth the effort here to try to disabuse those who stubbornly insist that all so-called “spiritual phenomena” are based on deliberate deception and sleight of hand. This can only be done through one’s own experience. It is also a sign of ignorance to imagine that all such phenomena are caused by the spirits of dead people. “Spiritualism” is a natural science that can only be understood when one recognizes the laws that govern these phenomena.