SECTION V
[On the following day I had a long conversation as
to the power exercised by spirits on our earth, which was said to be
great and widespread. I asked as to the power over individuals, and
was pointed to cases where it was said absolute obsession was
established. It was
said that this power over men was being so widespread, it were wise to
place it in the reach only of spirits of integrity and wisdom, and to
give conditions for its exercise by them, and so to drive away obsessing
and undeveloped spirits, or to materially reduce their sphere of action.
It was insisted that spirit-action was universal, and that it was a
question for man, to a great extent, whether that action was beneficent
or not. I asked what character was most suitable so such influence.]
There are a varieties of mediumship, as you know, and there are divers
modes in which spirit influence is exercised. Some are selected for the
mere physical peculiarities which make them the ready vehicles of spirit
power. Their bodily organisation is adapted for the purpose of
manifesting external spiritual influence in its simplest form. They are
not influenced mentally, and information given by the spirits who use
them would be of trifling or even foolish nature, and untrustworthy.
They are used as the means of demonstrating spirit power, the
external invisible agency capable of producing objective
phenomenal results.
These are known to you as the instruments through whom the elementary
phenomena are manifested. Their work is not less significant than that
which is wrought through others. They are concerned with the foundation
of belief.
And some are chosen because of their loving, gentle nature. They are not
the channels of physical phenomenal action¾in many cases, not even of
conscious communication with the spirit world; but they are the
recipients of spirit guidance, and their pure and gentle souls are
cultivated and improved by angel superintendence. By degrees they are
prepared to be the conscious recipients of communications from the
spheres; or they are permitted with
clairvoyant eye to catch stray glimpses of their future home. A loving
spirit friend is
attracted to them, and they are impressionally taught and guided day by
day. These are the loving souls who are surrounded by an atmosphere of
peacefulness and purity of love. They live as bright examples in the
world, and pass in
ripe maturity to the spheres
of rest and peace for which their earth life has fitted
them.
Others, again, are intellectually trained and prepared to give man
extended knowledge
and wider views of truth. Advanced spirits influence the thoughts,
suggest ideas, furnish means of acquiring knowledge, and of
communicating it to mankind. The ways by which spirits so influence men
are manifold They
have means that you know not of by which events are arranged as to work
out the end they have in view. The most difficult task we
have is to select a medium through whom
the messages of higher and more advanced spirits
can be made known. It is
necessary that the mind chosen should be of a receptive character, for
we cannot put into a spirit more information than it can receive.
Moreover, it must be free from foolish worldly prejudices. It must be a
mind that
has unlearned its youthful errors, and has proved itself receptive of
truth, even though
that truth is unpopular.
More still. It must be free from dogmatism. It must not be rooted and
grounded in earth notions. It must be free from the dogmatism of
theologies and sectarianism and rigid creed. It must not be bound down
by the fallacies of half-knowledge which is ignorant of its own
ignorance. It must be a free and inquiring soul. It must be a soul that
loves progressive knowledge, and that has the perception of truth afar
off. One that yearns for fuller light, for
richer knowledge than it has yet received; one that knows no hope of
cessation in drinking
in
the truth.
Again, our work must not be marred by the self-assertion of a positive
antagonistic mind, nor by the proud obtruding of self and selfish ends
and aims. With such we can do very little, and that little must all tend
to the gradual obliteration of selfishness and dogmatism. We desire a
capable, earnest, truth-seeking, unselfish, loving spirit for our work.
Said we not well that such was difficult to find among men? Difficult
indeed, well-nigh
SECTION V
impossible. We select, then, such a soul as we can best find, and
prepared by constant training for its appointed
work. We inspire into it a
spirit of love and tolerance for opinions that do not find favour
with its own mental bias. This raises it above dogmatic prejudice, and
paves the way for the discovery that truth is manifold, and not the
property of any individual. Store
of knowledge is given as the soul can receive it; and, the
foundation of knowledge
once laid, the superstructure may be safely raised. The opinions and
tone of thought
are moulded by slow degrees,
so
that they harmonise with the end we have in view.
Many and many fail here, and we abandon our work with them, finding that
not in this world of yours can they receive the truth; that old
earth-born prejudices are firm, dogmatic beliefs ineradicable, and so
that they must be left to time, and are to us of no avail.
Moreover, a perfect truthfulness and absence of fearfulness and anxiety
are the steady growth of our teaching. We lead the soul to rest in calm
trust on God and His spirit teachers. We infuse a spirit of patient
waiting for that which we are permitted to do and teach. This spirit is
the very reverse of that fretful, restless querulousness which
characterises many souls.
Here, too, many fall away. They are fearful and anxious, and beset with
doubt. The old theology
tells them of a God, who watches for their fall; and of a
devil, who lays perpetual traps for them. They wonder at the novelty of
our teaching; their friends are ready to point to so-called prophecies
which tell of anti-Christ. The old foundations are shaken, and the new
are not yet laid; and so the adversaries creep in and tempt the wavering
soul, and it fears and falls away, and is useless to us.
Yet more, we must eradicate selfishness in all its many forms. There
must be no obtruding
of self, or we can do nothing. There is nothing so utterly
fatal to spirit influence as self-seeking, self-pleasing, boastfulness,
arrogance,
or pride. The intelligence must be subordinated, or we cannot work upon
it. If it be dogmatic,
we cannot use it. If it
be arrogant and selfish, we
cannot come near it. Self-abnegation has been the virtue which
has graced the wise and
holy men of all time. The seers who bore of old the flag on which was
inscribed for their
generation the message of progressive truth were men who
thought little of themselves and much of their work. They who spoke to
the Jews, whose messages you have in your sacred records, were men of
self-denying purity and singleness of life. Jesus, when He lived amongst
men, was a grand and magnificent instance of the highest self-abnegation
and earnestness of purpose. He lived with you a life of pure self-denial
and practical earnest work, and He died a death of selfsacrifice for
truth. In Him you have the purest picture that history records of man’s
possibilities. They who since
have purged the world from error, and have shed on it the beams of
truth, have been one
and all men of self-denial and earnest devotion to a work which they
knew to be that for which they were set apart. Socrates and Plato, John
and Paul, the pioneers of truth, the heralds of progress, all have been
unselfish souls¾souls who knew naught of self-seeking, of proud
aggrandisement, of boastful arrogance. To them earnestness and
singleness of purpose, devotion to their appointed work, forgetfulness
of self and its interests, were given in a high degree. Without that
they could not have effected what they did. Selfishness would have eaten
out the heart of their success. Humility, sincerity, and earnestness
bore them on.
This is the character we seek. Loving and earnest, self-denying and
receptive to truth; with single eye to God’s work, and with
forgetfulness of earthly aims. Rare it is, rare as it is beautiful.
Seek, friend, the mind of the
philosopher, calm, reliant, truthful, and earnest! Seek the spirit of
the philanthropist,
loving, tolerant, ready to help, quick to give the needed aid. Add the
self-abnegation of the servant of God who does his work and seeks no
reward. For such a character work, high, holy, noble, is possible. Such
we guard and watch with jealous care. On
such the angels of the Father smile, and tend and protect
them from injury.
But you have described a perfect character.
SECTION V
Ah no! You have no conception of what
the perfect spirit is. You cannot know; you cannot even picture it. Nor
can you know how the faithful soul drinks in the spirit-teaching and grows
liker and liker to its teacher. You see
not as we see the gradual growth of the seed which
it has cost us so much labour to plant and tend.
You only know that the soul grows
in kindly graces, and becomes more lovely and more lovable. The character
we have faintly
pictured in such terms as are intelligible to you is not
perfect, nor aught but a vague and
distant resemblance of that
which it shall become. With you is no perfectness. Hereafter is
progresssion and constant
development and growth.
What you call perfect is blotted and blurred with faults to spirit
vision.
Yes, surely. But very few such are to be found.
Few, few: and none save in the germ. There is the capability on which we
work with thankfulness.
We seek not for perfection: we do but desire
sincerity and earnest desire for improvement: a mind free and receptive; a
spirit pure and good. Wait in patience. Impatience is a dire fault. Avoid
over-carefulness and anxiety as to causes which
are beyond your control. Leave
that to us. In patience and seclusion ponder what we say.
I suppose a secluded life is favourable for your influence, rather than
the busy whirl of town?
[Here the writing suddenly changed from the minute and the very clear
writing of Doctor
to a
most
peculiar archaic writing, almost indecipherable, and signed Prudens.]
The busy world is ever averse from the things of spirit life. Men become
absorbed in the material, that which they can see, and grasp, and hoard
up, and they forget that there is a future and spirit life. They become so
earthly that they are impervious to our influence; so material that we
cannot come near them; so full of earthly interests that there is no room
for that which shall endure when they have passed away. More than this,
the constant preoccupation leaves no time for contemplation, and the
spirit is wasted for lack of sustenance. The spiritual state
is weak: the body is worn and weary
with weight of work and anxious care, and the spirit is well-nigh
inaccessible. The whole air, moreover, is heavy with conflicting passions,
with heart-burnings, and jealousies, and contentions, and all that is
inimical to us. Round the busy city, with its myriad haunts and vice, its
detestable allurements, its votaries of folly and sin, hover the legions
of the opposing spirits, who watch for opportunity to lure the wavering
to their ruin. They urge on many to
their grief hereafter, and cause us many sorrows and much
anxious care.
The life of contemplation is that which most suits communion with us. It
is not indeed to supersede the life of action, but may be in some sort
combined with it. It is most readily practised where distracting cares
come not in, and where excessive toil weakens not the bodily powers. But
the desire must be inherent in the soul; and where that is, neither
distracting cares nor worldly allurements avail to prevent the recognition
of a spirit world, and of communion with it. The heart must be prepared.
But it is easier for us to make our presence felt when the surroundings
are pure and-peaceful
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