The Word Foundation
Share this page



THE

WORD

Vol. 19 AUGUST 1914 No. 5

Copyright 1914 by H. W. PERCIVAL

GHOSTS

(Continued)
Desire Ghosts of Dead Men

ALONE, separated from their physical ghost and the mind, without other material substance than their own desire energy, desire ghosts of dead men cannot see the physical world. They cannot see the physical bodies of living men. When, after death, the confused desire mass becomes specialized into its particular ghost or ghosts, in the animal form which sums up the nature of the desire, then the desire ghost sets about to find that which will satisfy it. The desire ghost of the dead man is in the desire world. The desire world surrounds but is not yet in touch with the physical world. To get in touch with the physical world the desire ghost must link itself with that which is in touch with both the desire world and the physical world. Generally speaking, man has his being in the spiritual world, but lives in the three lower worlds. His physical body moves and acts in the physical world, his desires operate in the psychic world, and his mind thinks or is agitated in the mental world.

The semi-material astral form of the physical body is the link which makes the contact between the living man’s desires and his physical body, and the desire is the link which connects his mind with his form. If desire is absent, the mind cannot move nor act on its body, nor can there be any action of the body on the mind. If the form is absent, desire cannot move or make any impression on the body, and the body cannot furnish any supply to the needs of the desire.

Each of these parts which go toward making up the organization of a living man must be co-ordinated with the other parts for man to live and act freely in the physical world. Yet while man is acting in the physical world each part of him is acting in its particular world. When a desire ghost of a dead man sets about to find that which will satisfy it, it is attracted to a living man who has a desire like the nature of the ghost. The desire ghost of the dead man cannot see the living man, but it sees or feels an attractive desire in the living man, because the desire of the living man is visible or noticeable in the psychic world in which the desire ghost is. The desire ghost of the dead man finds the desire of the living man which is most like it when the living man is working his mind in concert with his desire to do some act or get some object which will gratify his desire. At such time the desire in the living man glows, flares out, is apparent and is felt in the psychic world, where desire operates. The desire ghost of the dead man finds in this way a living man who is likely to furnish it with the desire matter necessary to its existence. So it contacts the living man by his desire and tries to reach into him and get into his body by means of his breath and his psychic atmosphere.

When the desire ghost of the dead man contacts and tries to reach into the living man, the man feels an added intensity of desire, and he is urged to do, to act. If he was at first considering how he should act or get what he sought by legitimate means, the additional intensity of the desire ghost of the dead man in contact with him, now causes him to consider how to act and get by any means, but to get, what will gratify the desire. When the act is committed or the object of desire gained, that desire ghost of a dead man has made contact with and will hang on to that living man unless it can find another living man who is better able and ready to feed it through his desire. Desire ghosts of dead men are attracted to and connect not only with men of like nature of desire but of like strength. A desire ghost of a dead man therefore does not usually quit the living man who feeds it until the living man is no longer able to supply its demands. The pursuit of the desire ghost is to make the living man transfer to it from or through his desire the particular quality of desire which is necessary for the maintenance of the form of the ghost.

The surest and most direct way for the desire ghost of a dead man to get what it wants is to get into, permanently or temporarily, the living body; that is, to obsess him. The desire ghost of the dead man gets its food not in the same way if it only makes contact with him as if it obsesses him. When the desire ghost of the dead man is feeding by contact only, there is set up a kind of an osmotic or of an electrolytic action between the living desire and the ghost, by which action the living desire is transferred from or through the body of the living man to the desire ghost of the dead man. When the desire ghost of the dead man is feeding by contact only, it sets up a magnetic pull in the atmosphere of the living man on the part of the body or on the organs through which the transfer of desire is to be made, and the osmotic or the electrolytic action continues during the entire period of feeding. That is to say, the desire quality continues as a flow of energy through intervening matter from the body of the living man into the desire ghost of the dead. When in contact and so feeding on the living man, the desire ghost can use all of the five senses of the living man, but it feeds usually on two of the senses only; these are the senses of taste and feeling.

When the desire ghost of the dead man effects an entrance into and takes possession and directs the action of the living body of a man, it substitutes for the natural desire of the man its own particular intense desire form, and supplies itself with energy through the bodily organs of the man. If in full possession of the living body the desire ghost of the dead man will cause the physical body to act like the animal which, as a desire form, it is. In certain cases the physical body will take on the semblance of the animal form of that desire ghost. The physical body may act and seem to be like a hog, bull, boar, wolf, cat, snake, or other animal expressive of the nature of that particular desire ghost. Eyes, mouth, breath, features and attitude of the body will show it.

The magnetic passage, by an osmotic or an electrolytic action between the living desire and the ghost of the dead man, is what is called taste and what is called feeling. It is taste and feeling carried to a higher power, psychic taste and psychic feeling. These psychic senses are merely a refinement of or an inner action of the gross senses of taste and feeling. The glutton may stuff his stomach to its limit, but the physical food alone gives no satisfaction to the hog desire ghost of a dead man which is feeding through him, without the sense of taste. Taste is an element, the essential food in physical food. Taste, the essential in the food, is drawn out of the food and transferred, to the desire ghost through the sense of taste. The taste may be coarse like that of an ordinary common glutton, or the refined taste of a developed gourmand.

(To be continued)