THE

WORD

♎︎

GHOSTS

(Continued)

THE desire ghost of a living man is rarely seen, because there is seldom one desire strong enough to control and draw other desires into its special bent; then, because people no longer believe and men now lack confidence in their power to control and manifest their desire; and third, because the desire ghost is generally not visible to physical sight. Yet there are desire ghosts of living men which, at times, become visible.

The desire ghost of a living man is made of invisible, intangible matter with power which surrounds him; it pulls, and surges through the body, fires the nerves and urges the organs and senses toward their objects of desire. This is a part of cosmic desire, apportioned to, and appropriated and individuated by man. It surrounds each animal body as a quivering, surging, rushing vortical mass, and enters through the breath, the senses and organs, smoulders in the body, or sets the blood on fire; it burns and consumes, or it burns without consuming, according to the nature of the desire. Such is the stuff of which are made the desire ghosts of living men.

Desire is energy without form. A ghost must have some form, and desire, before it can become a desire ghost, must take form. It takes form in the astral, molecular, form body of the physical cell body. Within the astral form body of the physical is the potency of all forms. That it may appear as the ghost of a living man, shifting, changeable desire must become fixed and moulded into a form. The form it takes is one which expresses the nature of the manifesting desire. The senses cannot distinguish nor weigh nor measure a desire when it acts through them. They are dependent on desire for their action and desire is opposed to and eludes analysis through the senses.

Desire may be comprehended under two aspects: desire-matter and desire-force. Desire-matter is the mass; desire-force is the power, energy or driving quality inherent in and inseparable from the mass. This energy-mass ebbs and flows, like tides, through the physical body; but it is subtile. Man is so overcome and carried away by its rise and fall, aggress and retreat, that he does not so focus the light of his mind as to see and understand the mist, like iron-sulphur vapors and fire clouds, with which it surrounds him, nor the ebb and flow and the workings of desire through his senses and organs. The desire in and around man is not visible to physical sight, nor can it be seen by clairvoyants of the ordinary class. The vapors and clouds issuing from and surrounding man, are not his ghost, but they are the material which, when controlled and condensed into form, become the desire ghost. Though unseen, desire and its clouds are as actual as the breath of man. Desire is not outlined and cannot be handled, but its activities are felt through every sense and organ of man.

The cells of which the physical body is made are small and of very fine matter. The molecular form body within them and on which the physical is built is finer. Finer still, is desire. Within every organ and center of the body is latent desire. The channel through which the surging desire without, acts on the latent desire within the body, is the blood. Desire gains entrance to the blood through one of the breaths, the desire breath. Thought and motive determine the nature and quality of the desires, and permits their passage through the breath. After active desire has entered the blood through the breath, it awakens and kindles the latent desires of the organs. The desires so awakened find expression through their respective organs. The many may be controlled by one desire dominating and using them for its own ends. When the desires are controlled by a dominant desire they are condensed by such control, and this condensation is moulded into the form which most nearly expresses the nature of the controlling desire. Such a desire is formed according to some special animal type.

To give form to unformed desire and to specialize it, into what is always an animal type, desire must be governed and turned from the physical to the psychic plane, where it receives its special and separate form. It is then a desire ghost acting in the psychic world. All animal forms are specialized types of desire.

Unformed desire is vented through uncontrolled passions, such as anger, rapaciousness, hate, or as sensuality, guile, gluttony, rapine, slaughter, an intense desire for theft, and for possession of persons and property without regard to rights and responsibilities. Such desire when not given vent by physical action, but controlled and turned through the psychic nature, may become a desire ghost in the form of a tiger or a wolf. Strong sexual desire, when controlled and forced from the physical to the psychic nature, may become a desire ghost specialized in the form of a bull, a serpent, a sow. Desires do not become desire ghosts by sudden fusion of spasmodic desires into desire ghosts. A desire ghost is the result of a strong and steady desire, controlled through its particular psychic areas in the physical body. The formation of the desire ghost in animal types, is done through that psychic center and physical organ which corresponds and is related to the type. A desire ghost must be formed in the pelvic or the abdominal region and by means of its particular organ therein. For instance, a ravenous appetite would be controlled and condensed by means of the organ and center, such as the stomach and solar plexus corresponding to the desire; lust through the generative organs and centers.

When the physical body is pampered by luxury, dulled by gluttony, weakened by anger, or drained by sexuality, desire cannot be specialized and given form as a desire ghost, except for the briefest period; because where there is no restraint there is no strength, and because when that desire is vented through the physical, it cannot take form through the psychic nature. But when there is no opportunity for physical gratification of a desire, or when there is opportunity but no gratification, then the desire increases in strength and will induce, suggest, compel thought about it and its nature. The mind will then linger and brood over that particular desire, which, by restraint and brooding, will be hatched out as a desire ghost into the psychic world through its special center and organ. Each organ in the abdominal and pelvic regions of the physical human body is the parent through which many and various forms are fashioned.

Desire is the energy-matter; breath gives it entrance to the circulating blood through which it passes into its organs, where it is condensed and formed; but the mind causes its form. It is formed through thought. The brain is the apparatus which the mind contacts and through which the processes of thought are carried on.

If the mind will not incline toward the suggestions or demands of desire, desire cannot take form and cannot be given physical expression. Only by the inclination of the mind to desire can desire take form. The inclination of the mind toward a desire gives that particular desire sanction and form. The light of the mind is not, cannot, be cast directly on the desire and the organ in which the desire is condensing in the process of formation. The light of the mind comes toward desire through many nerve centers between the organ of desire and the brain. The mind’s light is refracted and reflected on the desire by the nerves and nerve centers, which act as conductors and mirrors between the organ of desire and the brain. By the inclination of the mind through thought, to the suggestions and demands of desire, and by restraint of physical desire, the desires are specialized and may be given forms and sent out into the psychic world, as desire ghosts of living men.

These desire ghosts of living men may be held in leash, or sent out at the bidding of their makers who can master them, or again the desire ghosts may go out to prowl and prey like wild beasts, upon their victims. These victims are either persons with similar desires but without the strength to specialize them into forms; or the victims are the progenitors of the ghosts, for these desire ghosts often return to haunt, ravish and destroy their makers. He who lingers over and nurtures in thought a secret vice, should take heed and change the thought to that of a manly virtue lest he become the parent of a monster which will haunt him and work on him in folly or fury, according to its nature and force; or, worse, which, before it turns on him, will prey upon the weak-minded and desire-loving, and induce or drive them to acts of theft, licentiousness, lust and murder.

Desire ghosts haunt and hunt those who have similar desires in kind and in quality. Danger from such ghosts is increased because they are usually unseen, and their existence is unknown or discredited.

The term of life of a desire ghost of living man may be until such time as the man wills to change and transmute it, or as long as the life of its parent lasts, or as long after the man’s death as the ghost can feed on the desires and acts of others of like nature; or, until it ventures beyond its right of action—in which case it may be arrested and destroyed by an officer of the Great Law.

A desire ghost has a right to existence. It acts within its right as long as it associates with and preys upon those who desire or invite or challenge its presence by their desires and thoughts; and it acts within the law when it haunts or subjects the one who called it into being, if it succeeds in gaining mastery over him. But it runs the risk of arrest and destruction when it would force another to its desire against his will, or when it seeks entrance into the atmosphere of one who has no similar desire and whose will is opposed to it, or if it should attempt to enter and take possession of any other physical body than that through which it was given form. If any such unlawful attempts are made by it, from its own inherent impulse, or by order of its parent, then: it may be destroyed by the will of the one whom it unlawfully attacks, or by a being who is an officer of the Great Law, who has conscious existence and definite, prescribed duties in the psychic world. If a desire ghost is ordered to act outside the law by its parent and is destroyed while so acting, its destruction rests on its living parent and he suffers a loss of power and may be otherwise psychically injured and mentally disabled.

(To be continued)