Death--and After? - Annie Besant (best books for 7th graders txt) 📗
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The Soul embodied may sometimes escape from its prison of flesh, and come into relations with the Devachanî. H.P. Blavatsky writes:
Whenever years after the death of a person his spirit is claimed to have "wandered back to earth" to give advice to those it loved, it is always in a subjective vision, in dream or in trance, and in that case it is the Soul of the living seer that is drawn to the disembodied spirit, and not the latter which wanders back to our spheres.[46]
Where the sensitive, or medium, is of a pure and lofty nature, this rising of the freed Ego to the Devachanî is practicable, and naturally gives the impression to the sensitive that the departed Ego has come back to him. The Devachanî is wrapped in its happy "illusion", and
The Souls, or astral Egos, of pure loving sensitives, labouring under the same delusion, think their loved ones come down to them on earth, while it is their own spirits that are raised towards those in the Devachan.[47]
This attraction can be exercised by the departed Soul from Kâmaloka or from Devachan:
A "spirit" or the spiritual Ego, cannot descend to the medium, but it can attract the spirit of the latter to itself, and it can do this only during the two intervals—before and after its "gestation period". Interval the first is that period between the physical death and the merging of the spiritual Ego into that state which is known in the Arhat Esoteric Doctrine as "Bar-do". We have translated this as the "gestation period", and it lasts from a few days to several years, according to the evidence of the Adepts. Interval the second lasts so long as the merits of the old [personal] Ego entitle the being to reap the fruit of its reward in its new regenerated Egoship. It occurs after the gestation period is over, and the new spiritual Ego is reborn—like the fabled Phœnix from its ashes—from the old one. The locality which the former inhabits is called by the northern Buddhist Occultists "Devachan."[48]
So also may the incorporeal principles of pure sensitives be placed en rapport with disembodied Souls, although information thus obtained is not reliable, partly in consequence of the difficulty of transferring to the physical brain the impressions received, and partly from the difficulty of observing accurately, when the seer is untrained.[49]
A pure medium's Ego can be drawn to and made, for an instant, to unite in a magnetic(?) relation with a real disembodied spirit, whereas the soul of an impure medium can only confabulate with the Astral Soul, or Shell, of the deceased. The former possibility explains those extremely rare cases of direct writing in recognised autographs, and of messages from the higher class of disembodied intelligences.
But the confusion in messages thus obtained is considerable, not only from the causes above-named, but also because
Even the best and purest sensitive can at most only be placed at any time en rapport with a particular spiritual entity, and can only know, see, and feel what that particular entity knows, sees, and feels.
Hence much possibility of error if generalisations are indulged in, since each Devachanî lives in his own paradise, and there is no "peeping down to earth,"
Nor is there any conscious communication with the flying Souls that come as it were to learn where the Spirits are, what they are doing, and what they think, feel, and see.
What then is being en rapport? It is simply an identity of molecular vibration between the astral part of the incarnated sensitive and the astral part of the dis-incarnated personality. The spirit of the sensitive gets "odylised", so to speak, by the aura of the spirit, whether this be hybernating in the earthly region or dreaming in the Devachan; identity of molecular vibration is established, and for a brief space the sensitive becomes the departed personality, and writes in its handwriting, uses its language, and thinks its thoughts. At such times sensitives may believe that those with whom they are for the moment en rapport descend to earth and communicate with them, whereas, in reality, it is merely their own spirits which, being correctly attuned to those others, are for the time blended with them.[50]
In a special case under examination, H.P. Blavatsky said that the communication might have come from an Elementary, but that it was
Far more likely that the medium's spirit really became en rapport with some spiritual entity in Devachan, the thoughts, knowledge, and sentiments of which formed the substance, while the medium's own personality and pre-existing ideas more or less governed the forms of the communication.[51]
While these communications are not reliable in the facts and opinions stated,
We would remark that it may possibly be that there really is a distinct spiritual entity impressing our correspondent's mind. In other words, there may, for all we know, be some spirit, with whom his spiritual nature becomes habitually, for the time, thoroughly harmonised, and whose thoughts, language, &c., become his for the time, the result being that this spirit seems to communicate with him.... It is possible (though by no means probable) that he habitually passes into a state of rapport with a genuine spirit, and, for the time, is assimilated therewith, thinking (to a great extent if not entirely) the thoughts that spirit would think, writing in its handwriting, &c. But even so, Mr. Terry must not fancy that that spirit is consciously communicating with him, or knows in any way anything of him, or any other person or thing on earth. It is simply that, the rapport established, he, Mr. Terry, becomes for the nonce assimilated with that other personality, and thinks, speaks, and writes as it would have done on earth.... The molecules of his astral nature may from time to time vibrate in perfect unison with those of some spirit of such a person, now in Devachan, and the result may be that he appears to be in communication with that spirit, and to be advised, &c., by him, and clairvoyants may see in the Astral Light a picture of the earth-life form of that spirit.
IV. Communications other than those from disembodied Souls, passing through normal post mortem states.
(a) From Shells. These, while but the cast-off garment of the liberated Soul, retain for some time the impress of their late inhabitant, and reproduce automatically his habits of thought and expression, just as a physical body will automatically repeat habitual gestures. Reflex action is as possible to the desire body as to the physical, but all reflex action is marked by its character of repetition, and absence of all power to initiate movement. It answers to a stimulus with an appearance of purposive action, but it initiates nothing. When people "sit for development", or when at a séance they anxiously hope and wait for messages from departed friends, they supply just the stimulus needed, and obtain the signs of recognition for which they expectantly watch.
(b) From Elementaries. These, possessing the lower capacities of the mind, i.e., all the intellectual faculties that found their expression through the physical brain during life, may produce communications of a highly intellectual character. These, however, are rare, as may be seen from a survey of the messages published as received from "departed Spirits".
(c) From Elementals. These semi-conscious centres of force play a great part at séances, and are mostly the agents who are active in producing physical phenomena. They throw about or carry objects, make noises, ring bells, etc., etc. Sometimes they play pranks with Shells, animating them and representing them to be the spirits of great personalities who have lived on earth, but who have sadly degenerated in the "spirit-world", judging by their effusions. Sometimes, in materialising séances, they busy themselves in throwing pictures from the Astral Light on the fluidic forms produced, so causing them to assume likenesses of various persons. There are also Elementals of a high type who occasionally communicate with very gifted mediums, "Shining Ones" from other spheres.
(d) From Nirmânakâyas. For these communications, as for the two classes next mentioned, the medium must be of a very pure and lofty nature. The Nirmânakâya is a perfected man, who has cast aside his physical body but retains his other lower principles, and remains in the earth-sphere for the sake of helping forward the evolution of mankind. Nirmânakâyas
Have, out of pity for mankind and those they left on earth, renounced the Nirvânic state. Such an Adept, or Saint, or whatever you may call him, believing it a selfish act to rest in bliss while mankind groans under the burden of misery produced by ignorance, renounces Nirvâna and determines to remain invisible in spirit on this earth. They have no material body, as they have left it behind; but otherwise they remain with all their principles even in astral life in our sphere. And such can and do communicate with a few elect ones, only surely not with ordinary mediums.[52]
(e) From Adepts now living on earth. These often communicate with Their disciples, without using the ordinary methods of communication, and when any tie exists, perchance from some past incarnation, between an Adept and a medium, constituting that medium a disciple, a message from the Adept might readily be mistaken for a message from a "Spirit". The receipt of such messages by precipitated writing or spoken words is within the knowledge of some.
(f) From the medium's Higher Ego. Where a pure and earnest man or woman is striving after the light, this upward striving is met by a downward reaching of the higher nature, and light from the higher streams downward, illuminating the lower consciousness. Then the lower mind is, for the time, united with its parent, and transmits as much of its knowledge as it is able to retain.
From this brief sketch it will be seen how varied may be the sources from which communications apparently from "the other side of Death" may be received. As said by H.P. Blavatsky:
The variety of the causes of phenomena is great, and one need be an Adept, and actually look into and examine what transpires, in order to be able to explain in each case what really underlies it.[53]
To complete the statement it may be added that what the average Soul can do when it has passed through the gateway of Death, it can do on this side, and communications may be as readily obtained by writing, in trance, and by the other means of receiving messages, from embodied as from disembodied Souls. If each developed within himself the powers of his own Soul, instead of drifting about aimlessly, or ignorantly plunging into dangerous experiments, knowledge might be safely accumulated and the evolution of the Soul might be accelerated. This one thing is sure: Man is to-day a living Soul, over whom Death has no power, and the key of the prison-house of the body is in his own hands, so that he may learn its use if he will. It is because his true Self, while blinded by the body, has lost touch with other Selves, that Death has been a gulf instead of a gateway between embodied and disembodied Souls.
APPENDIX.The following passage on the fate
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