Читать книгу The Astral World—Higher Occult Powers. Clairvoyance, Spiritism, Mediumship, and Spirit-Healing Fully Explained онлайн

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Corresponding to the three spheres of perception there are three spheres of affection. The first sphere is called the sphere of self-love, or, to use a word which would express it in every relation, I would call it lust; that is, the desire for self-gratification. This is the lowest sphere pertaining to the finite, and corresponding to the sphere of fact or phenomena. The second sphere is the sphere of relational love, and that divides naturally into two departments—the love of unconscious nature, the love of sciences, etc., and the love of conscious being, or moral love, by which man loves his neighbor, some conscious being out of himself. That is the second sphere of love, known as relational, and it belongs to the sphere of relational truth, or the sphere of intellectual and moral investigation. There is a third sphere of impulse or love, known as the divine or absolute love, called the love of God, the love of the infinite. In one of these three spheres is every man’s ruling affection to be found—in the sphere of self-love, seeking self-gratification; or in the sphere of moral love, seeking the welfare of his neighbor; or in the sphere of divine love, loving as God loves, universally—not objectively, but subjectively, all the wide universe. There can be but just these three spheres. Now if each of you will investigate, you will readily recognize two of the affections at least to which I have called your attention, self-love, and social love, but more particularly self-love, desire for self-gratification, desiring that you may be first mad happy, and then leaving the world to be happy afterward. The love that goes out of itself, and loves some being out of yourself, is exemplified in the love of a true husband for his wife, of a parent for his child, of a brother for a sister. All these loves give indication of the second sphere of love, known as charity, good-will to the neighbor. This love is the means by which self-love is first overcome or destroyed. The individual is brought from self-love, through charity, to divine love, just as, in his knowledge, he is brought from the sphere of fact, through relation, to the absolute of being; and hence, in the spheres of unfolding, the three degrees are necessarily absolute. Look at society. What is it but the aggregate of individuals composing it? Society, separate from individuals, is nothing. The love of society is only the love of the aggregate of individuals. Now, inasmuch as the love will belong either to the sphere of self-love, charity, or divine love, you will find that society will always be expressive of one of these three loves, never the third, though. We say of society, when we look to the principles that govern it in its administration, it is but the embodiment of the character and will of those constituting the government —it is but an expression of the individuals composing it. Therefore there are three spheres of government corresponding to the three spheres of the individual. For individuals living in the selfish nature, the government will be a government of force. The individual who has come out of this obeys the truth because he loves the truth. He does not feel the restraints of law that says, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not lie. He does not know that there are any such laws in the State. He never felt any restraints. That individual is not in the sphere of self-love; and the government over him is not a government of force. The government over him is a moral government, and has its place in his affection.