You see, we have all imbibed traditional ideas with our mother"s milk, however much our intellects may have modified them. Instinct is stronger than intellect, because it is more elemental.
The first thing that struck me was that truths which are latent on earth are made manifest here.
(Here comes an interpolation.)
You can take my words so easily that we must guard against wasting time in mere verbosity. I must teach you to condense more. We must strike some sort of balance between my brevity and your amplification. At present it is as well to get the instrument into proper working order before worrying too much over these details.
(He then resumed.)
It is as if you turned the old earth garment inside out, and saw the very fabric of it, which the earth looms have hitherto concealed by the warp and woof of the manufactured article.
For instance, you are told on earth that you are making your own future conditions by right or wrong thinking. _Here_ you see the absolute, _material_ results of right and wrong thinking, just as if you were looking at two different patterns, woven by two different workers. I said material results, because matter here is just as real as it was on earth, and just as illusory, in one sense, in both spheres. Your matter is unreal to us. Our matter is unreal to you. The truth is, both are shadows cast by an antecedent reality on the Screens of the Universe.
The screens are the school-houses through which humanity learns its lessons.
Don"t be worried! There is no real difficulty in using your hand; it is only trying to compromise between your redundancy and my brevity.
Earth is like a gallery of sculpture. (Note by E. K. B.--This simile had flashed through my brain, and H. D. at once said: "Yes, that is very good; you started it, and I pick it up and apply it.") All the figures and groups are perfected and complete in their marble or bronze or terra-cotta, as the case may be.
Some groups or figures are n.o.ble, others mediocre, others again may be sensual and degrading, but they have one quality in common--for good or bad, they are _ready made_.
Now go into the sculptor"s studio, having studied well in the great sculpture galleries of the world. You go to the studio, we will suppose, as a pupil. He puts a lump of clay into your hands, and for the first time you are invited to model your own statues and figures, to embody your own ideas in this clay, which corresponds to thought stuff _here_.
You are even made to understand that your houses will only be worthily furnished by the work of your own hands. _Here_ it is the work of your own hearts, of your loving or unloving thoughts.
So the first lesson we learn over here is that THOUGHT is not only Creative Power, as you are often told on earth, but it is also the very stuff out of which the creation must be moulded. It is, in very truth, the clay of the modeller.
Shakespeare said truly enough "We are such stuff as dreams are made of,"
but he was referring to our embodied selves.
The difference between the two worlds seems to me, so far as I have arrived, as the difference between the pupil in the sculpture gallery and in the experimental studio. The chief part of the earth modelling is ready made--made by the racial thought stuff and the racial manipulation of it.
_Here_, for the first time, we must turn to and take a hand in the work ourselves. It would not be possible to give such individual power in any lower sphere than this, for it would be misused, and would lead to terrible tragedies.
You see some slight hints of this in what is called Black Magic--the wilful and intentional throwing of evil conditions on other people, making hard and cruel images of them in the mind, and so forth. But all that is as child"s play to what would happen if the absolute clay were put into their hands, as it is here.
It is the difference between thinking out an ugly picture; and painting it and hanging it up in a gallery; for we have objectivity here as with you. Naturally what comes into objective existence has more power than what remains latent. The latter can only influence exceptionally sensitive souls, and that to a comparatively small extent, whereas the former, here as with you, has a much farther range of influence.
So this sort of gunpowder is not given to us until we are old enough to know better than to burn our fingers with it, in trying to make fireworks!
At the same time, as all stages of evolution overlap, it is inevitable that some hint of these possibilities should be already in your world.
Woe be to those who misuse them!
You have taken enough for this morning. H. D.
IV
The friend I have called Mr Harry Denton, during his psychic researches, came, as many others have done, very strongly under the influence of "Imperator," the chief of the Stainton Moses controls.
I knew that this was the case, especially during the last three or four years of my friend"s life, and I always rather resented the fact, for the limitations of Imperator have always appealed to me so strongly, as to dim, perhaps unduly, his undoubted claims to appreciation.
I have read many of the private Stainton Moses" records (thanks to my friendship with the executor, with whom these journals were left), and in all those referring to Imperator"s communications, there was to my mind the same note of c.o.c.k-sureness and mental tyranny.
There was too much of finality and self-a.s.sertion, too much of "_Thus saith the Lord_," about Imperator"s remarks for my rebellious soul. I could never be strongly impressed by any personality, however admirable, that so palpably exacted allegiance and unquestioning obedience. These must be the unconscious tribute to the Genius of Holiness, as to any other sort of genius; never an enforced levy upon us.
So at least it seems to me. Certainly I would not escape one sort of priestcraft to set up another in its place, whether the niche be filled by Mrs Besant or Mrs Eddy or Mr Sinnett, or any other fallible fellow-creature. Not even Imperator can strike me as infallible; and his own evident belief in that direction does not affect the question.
It seemed to me rather to be deplored that Mr Denton, with his wide outlook and cosmic conceptions, should fall so strongly under any special influence, even that of the admirable Imperator!
So I was curious to know what his views were upon this subject from the other side of the veil. I will now leave him to speak for himself.
H. D.--You want me to tell you just my position about the Imperator group before and since I pa.s.sed to this side? That is easily done.
Remember, the teaching I got through Imperator was practically the first _spiritual_ teaching I ever had--the first I mean, of course, that I could a.s.similate, because it appealed to my reason, as well as to my sense of the fitness of things--and therefore I can never feel sufficiently grateful to him and his group; and I see that they can teach many who would not be amenable to a more distinctly spiritual appeal.
Imperator is a great force in his way; a sort of plough that goes over the hard, caked-up earth and throws it open to the sunshine and rain and all Nature"s beautiful influences, to all the possibility of Divine influences on the corresponding sphere.
But the limitation of Imperator I see clearly now, as you always appear to have done.
He is, as you say, too final and too dogmatic. This is at once his weakness and his strength: his weakness, because it limits his own spiritual receptivity; his strength, because it focusses his power in dealing with materialistic minds.
A more spiritually true perspective in his communications would rule out half the souls to whom his appeal is made.
_Stainton Moses has also progressed beyond the Imperator influence, and this is why the communications between them had become so clogged and so liable to error._
S. M. could not switch on to the old wires, as in the days when his horizon was bounded by them. This accounts, I see, for much of the misconception and apparent inconsistency of the remarks made through Mrs Piper, but it was very disheartening for the investigator as time went on and the "Light" became more and more clouded. Then there was the additional fact to be faced, that Mrs Piper herself became, psychically rather than physically, exhausted, and less able to be used from this side.
Now I see you want to know about Frank Strong, and what he said about sin existing only on your plane, and how inconsistent this was with the previous teachings of Stainton Moses, who was supposed to be speaking through Frank"s a.s.sistance.
It is so difficult to explain everything in black and white when there are so many shades of grey, so many degrees and amounts to be considered. It is like a question in mechanics.
With increased momentum you get an increased rate as multiplied by s.p.a.ce. I am not an expert, but this is practically true. In the same way, spiritual perception acts with increased momentum.
All sin is failure in spiritual perception. Spiritual perception corresponds with the momentum of a falling body in mechanics. Only in Divine mechanics it is a _rising_ body; but the same law holds good.
You say truly that an action can only be called sinful when the sinner knows the higher and deliberately turns to the lower.
That is true; but it is only half a truth. It is still the _lack of knowledge_ that causes sin. With the fulness of knowledge of the higher (only another way of putting fulness of spiritual perception) _must_ come the righteousness of life.
It is the broken gleams, the little knowledge, which is truly a dangerous thing, for it brings responsibility, and therefore the capacity for sinning. Yet the _choice_ between good and evil fully made, is the schoolmaster to bring us to the full realisation of our nature as Sons of G.o.d.
Now when Frank came over here, he was so greatly impressed by the dynamic force of spiritual perception that for the time he lost all sense of proportion and accuracy of judgment. Compared with the old earth temptations, those in his sphere seemed non-existent, whilst the temptations to goodness were enormously increased.
What wonder that in the delightful sensation caused by his sense of moral and spiritual freedom from old shackles, he should exclaim with youthful fervour: "Sin is only possible in your sphere--it is unknown here!" Any communications of which he formed the channel, would of necessity be coloured by this dominant idea of his. Everything is a question of degree, and he is learning that lesson now, I find. He says: "Why do people in the earth life quote our words as if we were Delphic Oracles?"
Why, indeed? But I am afraid I did much the same whilst so strongly under the Imperator influence.