In the Light of Truth

17. Spiritism

Spiritism! Mediums! — There are heated discussions on this subject, both pro and con. It is, however, not my intention to speak of its opponents and disclaimers. It would be waste of time, for every logical mind needs but to read of the way the so-called investigations are carried on, and the nature of the tests applied, to perceive the crass ignorance and total incapacity of these worthies. If I want to investigate matter, I must enquire into its nature and its constituents. If I wish to fathom the secrets of the deep, I have no choice but to make use of such help as I can find in the nature and components of water. To set to work with spade and shovel or boring tools would not lead me far. Or should I perhaps deny the existence of water because my spade passes through it without finding the resistance it does in soil? Or because I cannot walk upon it as I do on terra firma! Adversaries will say: that is a different thing, for I can both see and feel that water exists and nobody can deny that.

How long ago was it, that the existence of the myriads of gay coloured entities in a drop of water (of which every child now knows) was energetically denied? And why was their existence denied? Only because one did not see them. It was not until an instrument had been invented, adjustable to the nature of their composition that one could discern, perceive and study a new world.

It is the same with man's attitude towards the ethereal, the so-called next world, because it is invisible to his physical organs of sense. The fault lies with man, not with the next world. You men have the substance of the next world in you as well as the substance of your outer bodies of physical matter, and yet you sit and wait and expect those who have laid aside their physical bodies to prove their existence to you by making signs through physical matter which they no longer control.

Open your inner eye! It is for you to span a bridge over to them. You can do so. Operate in the substance of their world which you can also command, and you will become clairvoyant.

If you cannot manage to do this, be silent and continue to batten on base physical matter alone, thus depressing and weighing down ethereal substance more and more.

The day will come when fine ethereal substance must separate from ponderous physical substance.

The former will then be prostrate and incapable because it never practised soaring upwards.

The invisible body (the psychic organs) obey the same laws as the physical body. They must be strengthened by movement and exercise. You do not need mediums to observe psychic phenomena, it suffices to notice and study the psychic life in yourselves. Let your will supply it with what it needs to strengthen and develop. Or will you also disavow the existence of your will because you can neither see nor touch it? How often do you feel the workings of your will in yourself? You feel but cannot see or touch transport or joy, sorrow or envy.

As soon as man's will becomes active, it exercises pressure. Where there is no pressure, there can be no effect, no sensation. And where there is a pressure, there must be a solid substance (something of the same nature) to resist, otherwise no pressure can be practised.

Thus there must be solid forms of a nature that you cannot see nor touch with your dense physical senses. That is the substance of the next world, and this transcendental substance you can only perceive by means of the similar substance, which you have within at your disposal. The arguments brought forward for and against the possibilities of life after physical death, are strange and even ridiculous. He who can reflect calmly without prejudice or self-seeking, will soon find it an undeniable fact, that everything, positively and truly everything speaks for an existing world of other matter which the present average man cannot perceive. There are so many evidences to remind one again and again, and such proofs as cannot be pushed aside heedlessly as not conclusive. On the other hand, the only argument in favour of the cessation of all life after the death of the physical body lies in the wish of many, who would willingly escape from being called to account later on, when their shrewdness and subtlety would no longer avail, and when the inner state of enlightenment will decide.

But to turn to the advocates of spiritism and kindred subjects of enquiry, their views teem with errors. The advocates often are more dangerous to the truth than the adversaries. They do more harm.

Of the millions there are but few who will listen to the truth. Most of them are entangled in a wide-spread network of small errors that hinder them from finding the path to the plain truth. Whose fault is it? Is it the fault of the disembodied spirits? No. Or of the mediums? No, not theirs either. It is only the individual man who is at fault. He does not take himself seriously enough, does not practise self criticism, will not do away with his preconceived opinions and shrinks from destroying the self-constructed picture of the next world which has long thrilled him with both holy awe and a certain feeling of well-being. Woe to him who would dare to trifle with it! Every adherent of the old school has a stone ready in his hand to throw at him.

He clings steadfastly to his opinion and is ready to accuse the spirits of deceiving him or the medium of being deficient, rather than enquire and examine within himself and consider whether it might not be that his conception was at fault.

Where then should I begin to root out the weeds? It would be work without end. Therefore, what I will now say, is only for those who are really seeking seriously, for only such will find.

An example: a man visits a medium. It matters not whether it be one of note or not. There are others with him. A séance takes place, but it turns out a failure, for nothing happens. What are the consequences? Some say: the medium is not good; others say: all spiritism is rubbish. Again, would-be able critics will complacently declare that the gifts of the medium (in spite of their having often proved successful) are all a swindle, for “as soon as we come, the medium can do nothing and the spirits are silent”. Those present who are believers and convinced, go away much depressed. The reputation of the medium suffers, in the case of repeated failures, is ruined. If the medium has a sort of manager besides, and money is taken, the manager will become nervous. He will urge the medium to make an effort to satisfy the people who pay. In a word: doubt, derision and discontent ensue. These convulsive efforts to fall into a trance favour all sorts of self-delusion. The medium may say what she thinks she hears, but she may also simply resort to deception which is not hard for a speaking medium. The sentence passed is: All swindle, and a rejection of spiritism altogether, because some mediums under the stress of circumstances as described above, have recourse to imposture to avoid the growing animosity, anger and derision on the part of the public.

It may be asked here: 1. Among what class of men, wherever they may come from, are there no impostors? Is the work of the honest worker to be condemned on account of a few swindlers? 2. And why just in this case and not elsewhere? Everyone can easily answer these questions for himself.

But who is principally to blame for such an absurd state of affairs? It is not the medium but the people themselves. By their extremely one-sided views and more especially by their utter ignorance, they force the medium to choose between suffering from unjustified hostility or practising deception. It is hard for the medium to find another way.

I am here speaking only of a serious medium, not of the numerous amateurs who would push themselves with their insignificant gifts into the foreground. I have not the least wish to break a lance for the great retinue of mediums. The spiritualists thronging round mediums are utterly insignificant with the exception of serious investigators who enter this unexplored region to learn and not (being ignorant as yet themselves) to pronounce judgment. These séances bring the so-called faithful believers no profit whatever; more likely they come to a stand-still or go backwards. They become so dependent that they cannot decide anything without first asking the help of a spirit, often in the most laughable matters and mostly for things of mundane triviality.

A serious investigator or an honest seeker will always be disgusted at the unspeakable narrow-mindedness of those who for years have been constant visitors at séances, where they felt quite at home. With an exceedingly wise and superior air of assurance, they talk the greatest rubbish and sit with upturned eyes in rapt, hypocritical devotion, enjoying the agreeable tickle of the nerves that intercourse with invisible powers causes them — the play of their imagination.

Many mediums sun themselves in the flattering speeches of their old customers who, in reality, only have the selfish wish to enjoy a sensation. What they see and hear only serves them as amusement. Real experience they will never have.

What has a serious man to weigh and consider in these circumstances?

1. That the medium of herself can do nothing more to secure a success than to open herself, i. e. surrender herself, after which she must wait. A medium is an instrument which of itself gives forth no sound, till it is played upon. Therefore, there can be no question of the medium's failing. He who says so, only shows his own narrow-mindedness. He had better keep silent, not having discrimination enough to have an opinion. In the same way, he who finds learning arduous should avoid the university. A medium is thus but a bridge, a means to an end.

2. In the second place the members of the circle play a very great role, not by their exterior or worldly rank, but by their inner life. The inner life, as all scoffers know, is a world of itself. Naturally it cannot be nothing with its sensations and productive inspiring thoughts. It follows logically that there must be invisible forms or influences which, by exerting pressure awaken corresponding sensations. Otherwise no corresponding sensations could arise. In the same way it is impossible to see transcendental scenes with the inner sight where there is nothing to be seen. To expect to do so would be flying in the face of all laws laid down by science. Something must be there and something is there, for the inspiring thought immediately creates a corresponding form in the invisible world. Its density and vitality depend on the force of the inspiring thought. Thus a man is encompassed by forms of ethereal substance corresponding to the nature of his inner life. And it is this surrounding which is beneficial or prejudicial, even painful to a medium who is peculiarly sensitive to the influences of the transcendental world. Thus it may happen that a genuine message from the other side cannot be transmitted so correctly if the medium is hindered, depressed or confused, by the presence of people who have a tainted or corrupt inner life. But this goes still further. This impurity is a barrier for purer influences, even if these are guided by an individual personal spirit (one possessing free-will in the next world), thus no message can be transmitted, or only one of the same impure nature as that of the sitters. Members who have pure inner lives can naturally get into contact with correspondingly pure surroundings. But every divergence, every shade of difference makes an impassable barrier. Hence the difference in so-called séances: hence often utter discomfiture or at least confusion of the medium. This all rests on unchangeable, purely physical laws, which are as valid for the ethereal world as they are for this.

The disparaging criticisms of investigators now appear in another light. And he that is able to observe the phenomena going on, must smile at the investigator who with his report pronounces judgment on himself and exposes the state of his own soul which alone he criticises.

A second example: a man visits a medium. It happens that a departed relation speaks to him through the medium. He asks his advice in some worldly affair of importance. The departed one gives him directions which the visitor looks upon as a gospel from the other world and obeys minutely, with the result that he follows a wrong course and suffers heavy loss.

And the result? In the first place the visitor doubts the medium. The disappointment and annoyance at his loss may in some cases cause him to impugn her, and he may even feel himself constrained to proceed publicly against her to preserve others from similar loss and deception. (Here I would wish to interpolate an explanation of what goes on on the other side, and how a spiritualist opens himself by the power of attraction to homogeneous currents from there, and how, having become a tool of the reactions, he develops into a fanatic, in the proud consciousness of fighting for the truth and the service of mankind, whereas, in reality, he makes himself a slave to impurity and loads himself with a Karma which it will take a lifetime, if not more, to work off. The threads will make a network in which he will entangle himself, so that he cannot find his way out, and then, in his wrath, he will rage more furiously than before.)

Or again, the disappointed visitor, if he does not regard the medium as a swindle, will at least henceforth have great misgiving with regard to all spiritual manifestations, or again he may take the ordinary, comfortable view and say with thousands of others: “What have I to do with the other world? Let others rack their brains. I have better things to do.” The better things resolve themselves into earning money to serve physical wants and wishes only and thus removing the man still further from spirituality. And where lies the fault? Again, only in the man himself. He had made a mistake in taking what was said for gospel truth. That was his own fault, and not that of any one else. It came from taking it for granted that a disembodied spirit knew all things or at least knew much more than a mortal man, in virtue of his spirituality. Many hundreds of thousands make this mistake.

All that a departed spirit knows more after his going over, is that he has not ceased to exist after so-called death. More than this he does not know unless he makes use of the opportunity to advance in the spiritual world, which again depends on his own free-will. When therefore he is questioned on worldly matters he will give his opinion or advice in his desire to grant the expressed wish. He will also be convinced he is giving the best advice, but he does not know that he is not in a position to judge material matters and circumstances as clearly as a man still living in the flesh, the denser material or physical qualities he needs to form a right opinion no longer being at his disposal.

His point of view must, therefore, be quite different. Still he has done what he could. Neither he nor the medium can be blamed. Neither is he a lying spirit.

We should only distinguish between spirits that know and spirits that are ignorant; for as soon as a spirit sinks, i. e becomes impurer and denser, his horizon narrows in the natural course of things. He gives and propagates only what he feels. He lets himself be guided by his intuitions. The intellect with which he was wont to calculate and reason belonged to his physical body (dependent on time and space) and is now no longer at his disposal. When it fell away at his death, he ceased thinking and calculating. Since then he lived in and through his sensations which are lasting actual experiences. Man's fault lies in asking for advice in matters terrestrial depending on time and space from those who are no longer so tied and who, therefore, cannot understand.

Disembodied spirits are in a position to discern which direction is the right and which the wrong one in a given case, but then man must weigh and consider with the means at his disposal, i. e. his intellect and his experience, how best to follow the direction indicated. It is for him to bring his course into harmony with all mundane possibilities. That is his business. Even where a lower grade of spirit gets the opportunity of influencing or speaking, it cannot be said he lies or tries to lead astray, for he reflects what he experiences himself and would convince others.

He cannot supply anything else. Thus there are innumerable errors in the conception of spiritualists. Spiritism has come into disrepute, though not for its own sake but through the greater number of its advocates, who after but few and often very meagre experiences, imagine, in their enthusiasm, that the veil is drawn aside for them. They then eagerly try to enlighten others with a picture of the transcendental world that their unbridled imagination has conceived and which satisfies their own wishes, this being for them the first consideration. But these pictures seldom

harmonise with the truth.

[Grail Message by Abdrushin]  [Resonances to the Grail Message]