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Spirits
have appeared in mankind’s stories since the dawn of
time. The earliest mention of a spirit in a written story
occurs in the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Babylonian tale
dated around 2000 BC. Belief in the souls of the dead returning
to the world of the living goes back much farther, though.
Archeological remains from prehistoric gravesites have shown
that some of our ancestors were buried with hands and feet
bound together, or weighted down with stones, leading archeologists
to believe that early man meant to hinder the return of
the spirit. Other cultures have similar traditions, carried
out even today.
The
modern Spiritism movement traces its roots back to the Swedish
philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg, a mentalist and author who
visited the spirits of kings, popes, and saints, writing
of his experiences and founding a spiritualist church. Swedenborg’s
work greatly influenced later spiritist investigators, including
William Blake.
Authorship
makes us all immortal, in a sense, but Swedenborg was apparently
not content with mere indirect influence on future generations
of mentalists. Nearly eighty years after his death, Swedenborg’s
spirit, along with the spirit of second-century Greek thinker
Claudius Galen, appeared to the American shoemaker Andrew
Jackson Davis. The ensuing conversation between the three
changed Davis’s life, and within two years he had produced
the spiritist manifesto The Principles of Nature, Her
Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind, in which
he predicted that proof of the spirit world would manifest
in “a living demonstration.”
After
publication of The Principles, Davis waited for such
a phenomenon to occur, and on March 31, 1848, he entered
the following passage in his notebook: “About daylight
this morning a warm breathing passed over my face and I
heard a voice, tender and strong, saying: ‘Brother,
the good work has begun—behold a living demonstration
is born.’”
That
very same day, two young girls in Hydesville, New York,
began their soon-to-be famous communications with the spirit
world. Seven-year-old Kate Fox and her ten-year-old sister
Margaret came into contact with the ghost of a murdered
peddler living in their family’s cottage. They found
the spirit could answer questions posed to it by making
sharp rapping sounds (one for “yes,” two for “no”)
that could not otherwise be accounted for.
The
congruence of Davis’s notebook entry and the beginning
of the Fox sisters’s mediumship ushered in an era of
intense interest in spiritism that consumed America and
European society. Kate and Margaret Fox toured both continents,
giving demonstrations of their remarkable abilities. London’s
Ghost Club and the British Society for Psychical Research
were founded to further investigate the spirit world. Séances
became regular happenings at middle- and upper-class homes,
and general interest in spirits reached a level not seen
before or since.
Spiritism
Today
The fervor associated with the spiritism craze of the late
nineteenth century has died down, but people today have
some of the same experiences as the mediums of yesteryear.
Ouija boards and books on the subject of spirits continue
to sell well. Mediums advertise in your local paper, and
television shows feature evangelistic spiritists who promise
to bring viewers in touch with the spirits of their loved
ones.
Spirits
do not start or stop appearing just because they are popular.
They couldn’t care less about fads, ads, or television
programs, and won’t manifest just because there is
a public demand for them. No, spirits have their own reasons,
their own agendas. In this pamphlet we will examine the
various spirits that are waiting to communicate with us,
and how we can seek them out ourselves.
Questions
from Readers
Before we begin our examination of the different types of
aetheric doubles that make up the spirit world, allow me
to answer a few general questions that come up whenever
this topic is discussed.
“What
do spirits look like?”
Popular
culture such as that presented to us by books and films
paints a somewhat limited picture of the average spirit.
It is often pictured as a semi-transparent figure, perhaps
dressed in flowing robes or a sheet, emitting a low moaning
sound. This is not always how a spirit appears to us. As
you'll find, spirits are seldom as “ghostly” as
we might imagine them to be. Quite often, in fact, spirits
look exceedingly solid and “real,” and you may
not realize you have been visited by one until it does something
out of the ordinary, such as walk through a wall or appear
or disappear abruptly—“into thin air,” you
might say, although the spirit is merely flitting its visible
form in and out of the material world vibration.
“Why
do spirits return to the material world?”
While
some spirits’s motives will never be discerned, people
fortunate enough to be visited by a spirit sometimes learn
why it has returned. Some spirits wish to communicate with
a loved one or a person they didn't have a chance to bid
farewell before leaving this world. Others come to issue
a warning, or to give information that would never be discovered
otherwise. Rare is the spirit that seeks revenge, but they
do exist. More often a spirit comes to see that justice
is done, that a culprit is found out or that the innocent
are protected. The universal plan of the Secret Masters
favors justice and order, so this is reflected in the motives
of spirits a greater number of times than not.
“How
is it that spirits walk through walls?”
This
is an interesting question, as it would appear that some
spirits have a mastery over solid objects such as walls
and doors, and may pass through them with ease. If you are
fortunate enough to see a spirit pass through a solid wall,
for example, pay close attention to the spirit’s other
movements and mannerisms—you may be surprised at what
you notice. It is likely that the spirit can pass through
the wall not because it has power over the corporeality
of the wall, but because the spirit is very much removed
from the reality in which the wall exists. Perhaps the spirit
lived in human form on earth in a time before the wall was
constructed, or perhaps the spirit has such a great need
to get from one place to another that it will not let material-world
obstructions get in its way.
One way we can compare this phenomenon with things that
go on in our own lives is to think about what happens when
we are “lost in thought.” Have you ever been so
deep in your own head as you walk down the street or through
your house that you run right into some obstruction, such
as a wall or post? Some would say that we hit these barriers
because we are not paying attention. In truth we are
paying attention, just not to the material world around
us but to an interior world of our own construction.
The
difference between the spirit’s passing through the
wall and our colliding with it lies in the degree to which
the spirit is immersed in the interior world of the aetheric
plane. When humans are lost in their own thoughts, they
are still a part of the physical world. Spirits do not have
such a strong connection to earthly life, and as such are
less affected by it.
“Why
is it that when spirits are present they are sometimes seen
and sometimes unseen?”
If
only spirits would act in a consistent manner, then we could
say so much more about their true nature! Alas, it is not
to be. At times, a spirit will appear very solid and “real.”
Other times it will seem ghostly, and in some cases will
not be visible at all. This phenomenon is partly explained
by the aforementioned flickering of the spirit between the
astral and material world vibrations.
Remember
too that in the aether, our perception of reality is continually
influenced by the notions and needs of other aetheric beings
in the vicinity. When our own mental picture of life is
weaker than that of another aetheric’s, our reality
and perception can be overruled to accommodate their own.
When spirits make themselves known to us, it is often because
their presence in the aether is so strong that their form
crosses the normal boundaries of perception.
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