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

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Here is one man who seeks gratification, it may be, in strong drink, and he worships the bowl; another seeks it in food, and hence becomes an epicure, and worships the stomach; another, it may be, seeks gratification in practicing certain games or tricks, or following after some amusement; while another seeks gratification in sexual indulgences. So you may go on and enumerate the endless variety of channels in which men seek to gratify their selfish desires; and it will be found that those in the same pursuit affinitize with one another—drunkards with drunkards, etc.—every sphere delighting in that which corresponds to the desires of those who compose it. So in the Spirit-world; the Spirit who was a drunkard here seeks gratification in the same direction that he did on earth; the seeker of pleasure there still has a love for the theater, routs, and balls; the libertine still delights in miserable songs he was accustomed to hear.

Governments, institutions, and associations and relations, whether social, spiritual, or otherwise, are expressions of what are the loves and delights of the soul of man. Therefore, in all institutions, you will find displayed the characters of those who founded them. The government of any country is but the child of the ruling mind or minds of that country. Then, if we wish to understand the dark spheres in the Spiritual world, we have only to drop the body and have our spiritual eyes opened, when we will see that there exist there all the phases of society that we find here. The cause of this arises from the sphere of lust. You have there your gambling Spirits, your drinking Spirits, your lustful Spirits, etc. And how do these poor creatures live there? That is the next question. What do they do to gratify their desires? I will tell you. You understand it to be a psychological principle, that when two men are brought into sympathy, or into rapport with each other (one being positive and the other negative), feelings, sensations, and desires can be communicated from one to the other. To give an illustration: You have seen, in mesmerism, an exhibition of mind separated from the influences of the body. When the mind is thus separated, and this mesmeric sympathy is established between the subject and the operator, any surgical operation can be performed upon the subject without giving him pain, because his being of sensation is removed from his body; but you can not pull the hair of the operator, or hurt his finger, or otherwise give him pain, without giving pain to the subject. Whatever the operator enjoys or suffers, the subject also enjoys and suffers. Now it is in accordance with this principle that Spirits of the other world gratify their desires. Spirits who visit this world are obliged to make use of and come into rapport with, those who have appetites and desires similar to their own. If the mind is separated from its own body, it can experience the sensations of another body with which it may come into rapport. On the same principle a good mind, or, if you please, the Divine Mind, can flow into the individual mind, and impart thought and sensation to that mind. Or a good Spirit can flow into a medium, and awaken sensations and thoughts in accordance with the law of action and re-action, becoming negative or positive, according as he wishes to impart or receive influence. Here, then, is the means by which the Spirit is enabled to gratify its desires by visiting earth. Those Spirits who allow themselves to be influenced by their lusts are called tempting Spirits, and they influence individuals on earth that they may make use of them as a means of gratifying these lusts. The same law is manifested by individuals in the body. It is not because Spirits wish to injure the bodies which they thus use, but because they desire self-gratification, and know of no other means of obtaining it, except in this sphere of outer darkness. The lowest in this scale of unfolding corresponds to this lustful nature in man. Every affection in society that can affect societies of men has its representative in the individual man; so that every subdivision of the sphere of lust has its representative in each individual; and the question is whether he lives in one of these departments or another. If I am developed in the moral department, there I live, and love, and worship; and when I pass to the Spirit-world, I go to a sphere corresponding to that ruling affection by which I am controlled. So it is in regard to any other sphere of unfolding, whether it be relational or absolute, or otherwise. Hence man himself determines his sphere. Take any man or woman you please, and let them be developed to any sphere, from the darkest sphere of lust to the purest sphere of love, and if there is any place in God’s universe where they can find that which corresponds to that lust or love, they will find it. If there is any condition suited to make them happy, they will find it. If this were not so, the Spirit-world would be the worst hell imaginable. To compel a man to go where he has no affinity would be to inflict upon him one of the greatest punishments conceivable. Compel a lustful libertine to remain in a Methodist class-meeting, and shout and sing with the enthusiastic Methodists, and he would be extremely miserable—he could find many places where he would be infinitely more happy; and in order to be happy, he would be obliged to go where he could find that which would correspond to his cast of mind. We can determine where a man’s God is when we ascertain what it is to which he will sacrifice every thing else.