Spirit Teachings

From "More Spirit Teachings", Part 2:

From "More Spirit Teachings", Part 1:

From "Spirit Teachings", Section 20:

From "More Spirit Teachings", Part 2:

From "Spirit Teachings", Section 3:

Love after death.

[It having been said that a friend and his wife who had frequently manifested were now removed to other spheres of work, I asked whether the marriage ties were perpetuated.]

"That depends entirely on similarity of taste and equality of development. In the case of this being attained, the spirits can progress side by side. In our state we know only of community of taste and of association between those who are on the same plane and can be developed by mutual help. All things with us are subordinated in the education of the spirit, which is perpetually being developed. There can be no community of interest save between congenial souls. Consequently no tie can be perpetuated which is not a help to progress. The uncongenial bonds which have embittered the soul's earth life, and marred its upward progress, cease with the bodily existence. The union of soul with soul which in the body has been a source of support and assistance is developed and increased after the spirit is free.

"The loving bonds which encircle such souls are the greatest incentive to mutual development, and so the relations are perpetuated, not because they have once existed, but because in the eternal fitness of things they minister to the spirit's education. In such cases the marriage tie is perpetuated, but only in such sort as the bond of fellowship between friends endures, and is strengthened by mutual help and progress. All souls that are mutually helpful remain in loving intercourse so long as it is profitable for them. When the period arrives at which it is more profitable for them to separate they go their way without sorrow, for they can still commune and share each other's interests. The reverse of such law would only perpetuate misery, and eternally bar progress. Nothing is permitted to do this."

No. But some, I can conceive, may not be exactly on the same mental or moral plane, and yet be full of mutual love.

"Spirits filled with mutual love can never be really separated. You are hampered in understanding our state by considerations of time and space. You cannot understand how souls can be far apart, as you count space, and yet be, as you would say, intimately united. We know no time, no space.

"We could not obtain really close union with any spirit unless the intelligence be absolutely on the same mental and progressive plane. Indeed, any such union would be impossible for us.

"Soul may be linked with soul in bonds of affection, without an intimate connection such as we mean by being on the same plane of development. Love unites spirits at whatever distance. You see that in your low state of existence. The brother loves the brother, though vast expanse of ocean separates their homes, the long years have rolled away since the eye looked on the form and the ear listened to the words of the absent one. Their pursuits may be widely different: they may have no mutual idea, yet mutual love exists. The wife loves the degraded besotted ruffian who mutilates her body and strives to crush her spirit.

"The hour of dissolution will free her from slavery and pain. She will soar while he will sink; but the bond of love will not be snapped, though the spirits may no longer consort together. Even here space is annihilated: with us it does not exist. And so you may dimly understand that with us union means identity of development, community of interest, mutual and affectionate progression. We know no such indissoluble ties as exist with you."

Then the Bible words are true, "They neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God"?

"It was truly said. We have before told you of the law of Progress and of the law of Association. They are invariable. Much that now seems good to you, you will throw aside with the body. Your state now colours your views."

Violent death.

[.... A man had met an awful death by being crushed beneath a steamroller used for making a road near Baker Street. I had passed the spot during the day: without, however, being conscious of the event. In the evening I met the Baron Dupotet at Mrs Mackdougall Gregory's, and the spirit manifested its presence. On 23rd Feb., 1874, I inquired about the matter, and the story told by the spirit was confirmed.]

"It surprises us much that he should have been able to attach himself to you. It was owing to his being near the place when he met his bodily death. Do not direct your mind strongly to the subject, lest he vex you."

How comes it that he is awake at once, whereas our friend [who passed away recently] is not?

"He has not rested after the violent separation from the body. Well for him if he does so. If not he will remain an earthbound spirit for long. Rest is a step to progress in the case of such a spirit. It is to be desired that the poor soul may rest and not haunt the sphere of vice in which his earth life was spent."

Is the spirit, then, unharmed by such a ghastly mutilation?

"The mutilation of the body does not harm the spirit, except by the rude shock. And that would stir it into action rather than lull it into repose."

The spirit haunted the place of death? How did it reach me?

"It is usual for a spirit so severed from the body to haunt the spot for long after. You passed: and being in a highly sensitive condition attracted any spiritual influences that came within your sphere, as the magnet attracts iron. This power of sympathetic attraction is mysterious to you. Yet it should not be, for you see it in action in a lower degree in your world. Attraction and repulsion operate strongly in daily intercourse. Most are unconscious of the fact, yet all, especially the sensitive, act upon it. This is intensified once the body is done with. The wider methods which it supplies through the avenues of the senses are replaced by this intuitive faculty of sympathy, and its correlative, repulsion.

"But do not fix your mind on the subject, or you will find that the law of attraction is set to work again, and you will have drawn to yourself the plague of an undeveloped spirit. There is no reason, seeing that you could not benefit the poor soul."

"Nothing is more dangerous than for souls to be rudely severed from their bodily habitation, and to be launched into spirit-life, with angry passions stirred, and revengeful feelings dominant. It is bad that any should be dismissed from earth-life suddenly, and before the bond is naturally severed. It is for this reason that all destruction of bodily flesh is foolish and rude: rude, as betokening a barbarous ignorance of the conditions of life and progress hereafter; foolish, as releasing an undeveloped angry spirit from its trammels, and enduing it with extended capacity for mischief."

On the atmosphere surrounding graveyards.

His guides having objected to his staying at a certain place where he was between two cemeteries, S. M. asks: "How does that hurt me?"

"You are more and more sensitive to the exhalations which hang around graveyards. You ought not to sleep near or breathe air perpetually that is near them. It is charged with gases and exhalations which would not injure persons less susceptible, but which are hurtful to one so developed."

"But they are not near."

"You are between two, and the air is heavy with poisonto your system. The decaying body throws out its exhalations and mingles with the air which feeds the living, and the earth-bound spirit hovers near. In all ways it is bad. And for the sensitive whose inner sensibilities are developed it is worse."

"You do not like churchyards. Would you approve of cremation in preference to burial?"

"Anything would be preferable to the folly of entombing the moulding body in the midst of great living centres, so that the air they breathe may be poisoned. . . . When men know better they will cease to poison themselves thus."

-Signed: Rector. (Known as Hippolytus on earth)

Consequences of suicide, madness and a wasted life.

[... The following message relates to a case in which the personal identity of the communicating spirit was established by very strong evidence. Among many such this seems to me to stand out prominently, and, making all allowance for willingness and ability to deceive, I find it impossible to understand how so coherent and complete a series of proofs can be explained away by any theory of personation or self- deception. The messages relate to the death, under melancholy circumstances, of a friend whom I had known intimately all his life....]

".... Nor did we wish that your friend should become attached to you. His spiritual state is low, and it would have been well that you had not attracted him. Since you have done so, you must now help him to progress. M. has rightly told you that you had entered into his sphere from association and conversation with----, and from your thoughts being directed towards him strongly. That is the law of attraction of spirit to spirit. You know this?"

Yes; but it does not always act, or rather its results are seldom manifest to us. Is he unhappy?

"How should he be blest? He lifted sacrilegious hands against the shrine in which the All-wise had placed his spirit for its progress and development. He wasted opportunities, and destroyed, so far as he was able, the temple in which dwelt the Divine spark, which was his portion. He sent forth his spirit alone and friendless into a strange world where no place was yet prepared for it. He impiously flew in the face of the Great Father. How should he be blest? Impious, disobedient, wilful in his death, heedless, idle, selfish in his life, and yet more selfish in bringing pain and sorrow on his earthly friends by his untimely death,--how should he find rest? The wasted life cries out for vengeance. The fostered self-hood dominates him still, and makes him ill at ease. Selfish in his life, selfish in his earthly end, he is selfish still. Miserable, blind, and undeveloped, there is no rest for such as he till repentance has had its place, and remorse leads to regeneration. He is outcast."

What hope of progress?

"Yes; there is hope. Already there stirs within him the consciousness of sin. He sees dimly through the spiritual gloom how foolish and how wicked was his life. He begins to wake to some faint knowledge of his desolation, and to strive for light. Hence he remains near you. You must help him though at your own cost."

Willingly; but how?

"By prayer first. By fostering the dawnings of the higher life. By allowing the unhappy spirit to breathe the higher atmosphere of work. His spirit knows not what that pure and bracing atmosphere is. You must teach him, though his presence be unpleasant to you. You have summoned him, and he comes obedient to your call. You must bear with him now. You cannot undo what you have done in spite of us and of our wishes. Your consolation must be that you will be engaged in a work that is blessed."

It is not fair to say I summoned him; but I will do anything. He was mad and not accountable.

"He was and is accountable, and he begins to know it. The seeds of his final sin wherewith he has cursed himself were sown in a life of idle uselessness. He fostered and encouraged morbid self-introspection. He brooded over self, not for the purpose of progress and development, not to eradicate faults and foster virtues, but in selfish exclusiveness. He was enwrapped in a cloud of distorted selfishness. This bred in him disease, and in the end he fell a prey to tempters in the spirit, who fastened on him and drove him to his ruin. He exposed himself a prey to those who are always ready to seduce to ruin, and so far he was mad, as you say; but the mad act was the result of his own acts. And now he throws the same influence around those whom he wounded in his death. A curse to himself, be becomes a curse to those he loves."

Horrible! That seems to me the very bitterness of retribution. I can understand how an idle, selfish life breeds spiritual disease. Selfishness seems to me to be the root of sin.

"It is the plague-spot of the spirit, that which wrecks more souls that you dream of. It is the very paralysis of the soul. And when to it is added this, moreover, that the selfishness is passive, it becomes more fatal. There is a selfishness which is far less baleful in its poison, and which finds it counteracting power in activity, and which even becomes the spring of actions which have in them a form of good. There is a selfishness which causes a spirit to do well that it may have the good report of its fellows: and there is a selfishness which is content to do good so it be not vexed or troubled, which will yield to any influence, so it may escape anxiety. These are faults which hold the spirit back from progress; but they are not the baleful plague which ate into this spirit's life, and drove it to despair and death. That was the meaner selfishness which stirred him not to any deeds or to action of any kind. It was idle and useless, no less than self- pleasing; nay, it was not even self-pleasing, for the whole life was blurred and blotted with morbid scrutiny of self, till its very lineaments were eaten out. This selfishness was cruel alike to himself and to his friends. There are grades of sin, and his was deep. Listen while the story is recounted for your instruction. But rest awhile, and we will remove the disturbing influence from your mind."

[I was a good deal disturbed: but I fell into a deep trance- like sleep, during which I had a soothing vision and from it I awoke refreshed.]

"It is not necessary to go through in detail the story of that wasted life. Its spirit was eaten out with cruel selfishness, and its end was destruction of self-consciousness. Mad he was, as you estimate madness. None lifts the hand of the suicide against himself save when the disordered mind has lost its power of judgment. The balance is destroyed, and the spirit has fallen a prey to the tempters which surround it.

"But your estimates of sin are rude. The state was self-induced. The spirit delivered itself over to the foes, and wrought its own ruin. This was not one of the cases where hereditary conditions of disease unfitted a spirit for judgment and right action. The suicide was the outcome of the selfish idler. It was an access of temptation that withdrew the power of reason, and caused the crime. In others the temptation might have taken other forms; but whether it led to destruction of self, or to ruin or hurt of others, to whatever gratification of self it tended, the root is the same.

"That spirit which neglects to use its powers, which acts not, but morbidly dwells on fancied ills or sufferings, assuredly breeds in itself disease. The law of existence is work--for God, for brethen, for self; not for one alone, but for all. Transgress that law, and evil must ensue. The stagnant life becomes corrupt, and acts as a corrupter of others. It is vicious and noisome; hurtful to the community, in that it defrauds it of its due from one of its members, and sets up a plague spot of infection which becomes a fertile centre of mischief. It matters not what course the evil takes, its source is still the same. In this case the evil eventuated in personal harm, and in the wrecking of a wasted life. It has ended in sorrow and shame to the injury of all who were associated with him.

"When the cord of earth-lifewas severed, the spirit found itself in darkness and distress. For long it was unable to sever itself from the body. It hovered round it even after the grave had closed over the shrine which it had violated. It was unconscious, without power of movement, weak, wounded, and distressed. It found no rest, no welcome in the world to which it had come unbidden. Darkness surroundedit, and through the gloom dimly flitted the forms of congenial spirits who had made shipwreck of themselves, and were in unrestful isolation. These drew near, and their atmosphere added vague discomfort to the half- conscious spirit.

"It was not till the first shudder of awakening conscience attracted the ministering spirits that anything could be done to palliate the misery, not yet half felt or acknowledged, or to minister healing to the soul. When it stirred amid the darkness, the ministers drew near and strove to quicken the seared conscience and to awaken remorse. In seeming cruelty they strove to bring home a knowledge of its state, and to paint before it a picture of its sin. Only through the portal of remorse could it enter into rest; and so the conscience must be quickened at the cost of pain.

"For long their efforts availed little; but by degrees they succeeded in awakening some measure of consciousness of sin, and the spirit began to grope blindly for some means of escape from a state which had become loathsome to it. Frequent relapses dragged it back. The tempters were all around it, and no effort of theirs was spared to mete out to the spirit the full measure of its lawful penalty. They know it not; they do but gratify their debased instincts, but they are the avenging ministers of doom.

"The hope for the spirit is that it may be nerved to occupy itself with some beneficent work, and so to work out its own salvation. To this end it must journey on through remorse and uncongenial labour: for by no other means can it be purified. Selfishness must be eradicated by self-sacrifice. Idleness must be rooted out by laborious toils. The spirit must be purified by suffering. This is the only upward path of progress; a path that its past has made it difficult, nearly impossible, for it to tread. Reiterated efforts must secure each onward step, and frequent slips and backslidings will try endurance to the utmost. Step by step the way must be won in sorrow, remorse, and shame, with faintings and cries of the despairing soul; won, too, against temptation all around, against the suggestions of the foe who will not fail to goad the aspiring soul; won as through a baptism of fire. Such is the penalty; such the road to the heaven that can be won in no other way.

"Such help as the ministers can give will not be withholden. It is their glorious mission to help on the aspiring, and to cheer the fainting soul. But, though they may comfort, they cannot save one pang, nor palliate by one jot the penalty of transgression. No vicarious store of merit can avail; no friend may bear the burden, or lift it from the weary back. It must be borne by the soul that sinned, though helps and aids be given to strengthen and support the failing energies.

"This is the inevitable penalty of a wasted life. It may be that the half-quenched spark may be quickened again, and be fanned into a flame strong enough to light the spirit onward. It may be that the spirit may wander in gloom and desolation, deaf to the voice of the ministers, and groaning in lonely unrest, nerveless for the struggle, till the sin through cycles of purgatorial suffering, has eaten out its virulence. It may be that the time consumed in such purgation may seem to you an eternity; or thef soul may wake and stir before its condition has become fixed; and so by an effort of despairing energy may struggle up to light, and may welcome the suffering that leads to purification, and may have strength not all sapped to cast off the habits of earth, and wake to newness of life.

"It may be; but such cases are rare. Characters are not so easily changed; nor does the fire of purification work so rapidly. Too frequently he that died selfish or filthy is selfish or filthy still, and the present proves only a perpetuation of the past. Pray for strength to minister to him who has in him the first faint dawnings of progression. Pray that his darkness may be enlightened, and his unrest soothed by the angelic ministrations. Such prayers are the most potent medicine for his disease."

[On reading over what had been written, I suggested that the picture was one to strike dismay into a man, however much he strove to progress. I said the ideal was too high for earth.]

"Nay! We have not painted the picture in all its details; nor have we overdrawn or overcoloured it in any way. We are not able to bring home to you the full horror of the desolation and misery of such a wasted life. No words that we can write would express the full measure of the woe felt by a soul that has awakened to remorse after a life such as this of which we speak. For the rest, we are not responsible for any ideal. We put forward none, save that which exists in the eternal and unalterable sequence of events. Selfishness and sin bring misery and remorse before they can be purged away....

"We did but dwell on this side because the story of that wasted life invited by its example. We have dwelt often enough on the lighter side of grace and beauty and angelic ministration. You need not to be told of the abounding mercy and love of the Supreme, nor of the tender watchful care which is ceaselessly exercised by those who minister between Him and you. It is well sometimes to show the dark side of loneliness and desolation, and temptation by the foes."

....

As to the accountability of this spirit for its rash act, surely you admit some cases where the spirit is not accountable.

"Assuredly. The human instrument may be jarred and out of tune, and so may faultily transmit the will of the spirit within. There are many cases in which madness is the result of bodily disease. For such the spirit is not blameworthy. Accidental injury may derange, or congenital defect, or overstrain of trouble and distress. For such causes the spirit is blamed by none, least of all by the Holy and Just One, who deals not with body but with spirit, and who judges according to spiritual motive and intent. We reprobated the case on which we spoke, because the end was the result of life-long sin. He was and is responsible, and he begins to know it.

"May the All-wise foster and increase the knowledge."

Reincarnation.

From "More Spirit Teachings", Part 1:

With regard to re-incarnation, Imperator always said it was not true as generally held. It occurred sometimes when an exalted spirit wished to return to benefit mankind; it also happened when a spirit was so wicked that it sank to the lowest sphere and became merged in the ocean of spirit, to be at some future time re-incarnated; though, perhaps not in this world, as a school that has failed once was not likely to be tried again.

"People born in poverty and vice, with but few opportunities for good, will have their education in the other world."

From "More Spirit Teachings", Part 2:

"Re-incarnation of spirits in the future belongs to the question of fore-knowledge or prevision. . . . Only the most advanced Intelligences will be able to discourse on such matters. It is not given to the lower ranks of the Spiritual Hierarchy to know the secret counsels of the Most High. There are still mysteries, we are fain to confess, into which it is not well that man should penetrate. One of such mysteries is the ultimate development and destiny of spirits. Whether in the eternal counsels of the Supreme it may be deemed well that a particular spirit should or should not be again incarnated in a material form is a question that none can answer, for none can know, not even the spirit's own guides. What is wise and well will be done.

"Re-incarnation, we have already said, in the sense in which it is popularly understood, is not true. We have said, too, that certain great spirits, for certain high purposes and interests, have returned to earth and lived again amongst men. There are other aspects of the question which, in the exercise of our discretion, we withhold; the time is not yet come for them. Spirits cannot be expected to know all abstruse mysteries, and those who profess to do so give the best proof of their falsity."

On the fate of good and evil spirits.

S. M. asks about the future of the good.

"We told you in a parable of the progress of the spirit through seven states, during which it was working out its own salvation, and labouring either to purge away the contracted impurities of earth, or to gather such added store of knowledge as would fit it for the life of contemplation. In the spheres of contemplation, as we called them, the inner heaven of contemplative wisdom, the home of the Infinite and the Absolute, is perfect peace. Why should the beatified cross its threshold, to come back to the unrestful atmosphere of the purgatorial spheres, unless it be to bring some of their own blessed peace with them? Some there are who have so returned at great spiritual epochs, and have animated and inspired men by their vast and tranquil wisdom; but it is rare. Sufficient for you to know now that spark of Deity dwells within your soul, and that infinite possibilities are within your grasp."

From "More Spirit Teachings", Part 2:

S. M. asks about a spirit that grows worse instead of better.

"The spirit that had developed the bodily tastes, and neglected the spiritual, grows more and more earthly; the guardians are less and less able to approach it, and it gravitates further and further from light. We have said that there are six spheres below this earth, though we have never penetrated below the fourth. Below that are the miserable, abandoned spirits who sink down deeper and deeper, who become unable to rise, and who gradually lose their personality; even as the purified, when they near the presence of the Supreme.

"Such undergo what your sacred records name the second death. They do not emerge from the hell they have created. They are lost." - Signed by Rector, Doctor, Prudens.

These spirit- teachings are claimed to have been either written or spoken through the English medium, Rev. Stainton Moses (1839-1892), by a band of 49 spirits led by their chief, "Imperator".