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THE

WORD

♓︎

Vol. 18 FEBRUARY 1914 No. 5

Copyright 1914 by H. W. PERCIVAL

GHOSTS

(Continued)
Thought Ghosts of Living Men

RACIAL or national thought ghosts are caused by the accumulated thought of a race or people around a subject, in connection with the local spirit of that part of the earth to which they are attached in thought. Among such ghosts are the national culture ghost, war ghost, patriotism ghost, commerce ghost, and religion ghost.

The culture ghost of a living race is the totality of a nation’s or race’s development in taste and civilization, especially as to literature, art and government. The culture ghost leads the people on to perfect themselves along the national lines in literature, in the arts, and observances of social taste and amenities. Such a ghost may tolerate the assumption or absorption by a people of certain features of the national life of another nation, but the national culture ghost will influence and modify the newly adopted features so that they comport with the nature of the national culture ghost.

A war ghost is the national thought of and inclination towards war, supported by the thoughts of the people as a whole. It is the collective thought of living men.

Akin to the war ghost and to the culture ghost is the national thought ghost of patriotism, which expands over and is in turn nourished by the thought of every son of the soil. Barren wastes, rocky coasts, bleak mountains, inhospitable soil, are endeared by this ghost as much or more than golden fields, safe harbors and rich lands.

The commerce ghost arises from the thoughts of a people concerning their economic needs according to the water, land and air of their part of the earth, that is to say, their special resources, climate, environments and necessities. Individuals introduced from other countries add elements which may qualify, but are dominated by the national ghost.

Under the accumulating thoughts of selling, buying, paying, and dealing under these conditions certain definite national mental traits are developed. They may be called the national thought ghost of commerce. The presence of this ghost—though not called by this name—is felt by foreigners who come to a country, as distinct from the commercial attitude of their own country. This thought ghost of living men will last as long as men support it by their thought and energy.

The religion thought ghost differs from the other national thought ghosts, in that it sometimes dominates several nations or parts of several nations. It is a system of religious worship built into a form patterned after the thought which caused the religion, by minds who, though impressed with that thought, have yet failed to comprehend its truth and its meaning. The people nourish the ghost with their thought; their devotion and the essence of their hearts go out to support the ghost. The ghost becomes a most tyrannical and compelling influence over the minds of the people. Its worshippers believe it to be the most beautiful and wonderful and powerful thing in the world.

But one who worships a religion ghost sees in any other religion ghost merely a spectre without substance, and he wonders how people can love a thing which is so inane, ridiculous and savage. Of course, a religion ghost is not religion, nor the thought from which a religious system was taken.

The age is determined by the acting of the mind on particular portions of the earth, and thereby causing civilization in some and retrogression in others. The age, just like the smaller divisions of the lives of races and individuals, has its thought ghost, which is the totality of the mental current flowing in one particular direction during that age. In one age the dominant thought will be of religion, again of mysticism, again of literature, of chivalry, feudalism, democracy.

Such is a summary of the origin, nature, effect and end of some of the individual, family and racial thought ghosts of the living.

Every thought ghost, from the individual ghost to the ghost of the age, has its start, a period of building, a period of power and an end. Between the start and the end, the activities are greater or less under the universal law of cycles. The duration of the cycles is determined by the coherence of the thoughts which create and feed the ghost. The end of the last cycle is the end of the ghost.

The ghosts of a living man—the physical ghost, a desire ghost, and a thought ghost—may combine in different degrees and proportions. The physical ghost is the astral, semi-physical form which holds the cells and physical matter, called the physical body, in place (see The Word, August, 1913, “Ghosts”). A desire ghost is the form taken under certain conditions by a portion of cosmic desire, individuated and appropriated by a man (see The Word, September, 1913, “Ghosts”). A thought ghost of a living man is the thing produced in the mental world by the continued action of his mind in one direction (see The Word, December, 1913, “Ghosts”).

There are numerous combinations of the ghosts of a living man. In every combination one of these three factors will predominate. The thought gives direction and coherence, desire furnishes the energy, and the physical ghost gives physical appearance, where that is seen.

Reports are sometimes received of the appearance to a person of a blood relative, lover, or close friend, whose physical body, however, is at a distant place. The reports have it that these apparitions remain for a short time only; sometimes they convey a message; sometimes they say nothing; yet the impression they leave upon the person who sees them, is of their being at work, or in danger, or in suffering. Such an appearance is generally a combination of the thought of the distant one with a certain portion of his physical ghost, and with desire to convey a message or get information. The intense thought of the distant, of himself in his physical form, is connected with his relative or the beloved; the desire as energy causes a projection of his thought with a certain portion of his physical ghost, necessary to give his thought and desire the appearance of a physical form, and so he appears in his physical form to the one thought of. The appearance lasts as long as his thought adheres to the person thought of.

A person having an intense desire to find out the condition of the health of a relative he believes sick, or to remember a certain street sign once seen, or a place he has visited, may, by intense thought and the desire to get this information, take from his physical ghost that portion needed to give form to his thought, and so project himself in thought and gain the information, say, as to his mother’s health, or as to the firm name on a street sign, or as to the particular scene. While he is thus in deep thought and the combination (of his thought desire, and physical ghost) is projected to the distant place, it may be that “he” is seen looking at the sign, or standing in the room of his mother, though he will not see anyone that sees him. He will see only the person or thing on which his thought is set. The figure here called “he,” seen by third persons as standing on a street in front of the street sign, will be seen in street costume, as a rule, though the real one may not be thus attired. The reason is that when he thinks of himself as standing on the street opposite the sign he naturally thinks of himself with his hat on and in street attire.

Except by one who is experienced by long practice in the going out in his thought form and thus gaining information, no direct or accurate information will be gained as to a present condition, such as that of the sick mother, but nothing more than an impression will result. In these cases the thought ghost predominates over the other two. Such apparitions, where the thought ghost predominates, have been called by the sanscrit term mayavi rupa, which means, illusion form.

A case where the physical ghost dominates the other two factors, is the appearance of one in the moment of his dying. Many accounts are given of persons who have appeared in a condition of drowning, of being murdered, of dying on the battlefield, or from injuries due to what is called an accident. The apparitions were seen by relatives, lovers, friends. In many cases it was later ascertained that the apparition was seen at the very time of the death of the one who was seen.

Usually ghosts of this class are seen distinctly, and that too by people who are not called psychic. In the case of a drowning person, the ghost is often seen with drops of water falling from the dripping garments, the eyes fearfully and longingly fastened upon the beholder, the form solid as in life, and the air filled with the coolness of the water. The reason why all this is so plainly seen and is so lifelike is that the physical ghost is separated from the physical body by the death and the desire of the dying furnished the energy which drove the spectre in a moment over land and sea, and the last thought of the dying man gave to the spectre the direction towards the beloved.

A case where desire dominates thought and form is furnished by instances of “hagging” and “changing the skin,” as the voodoos call it. This is always done with the intention of going psychically to the victim. In the instance above given of the outgoing of the thought ghost or the physical ghost, the outgoing may be with the intention of going out, or it may be done unconsciously.

Hagging is the appearance, usually in his physical form, of one who wants to compel another to obey his bidding and to do a certain act, which may be to kill a third person, or to belong to a certain organization. It is not always intended that the one appearing should be seen in his physical form. He may appear as a stranger, but his personality and his desire will not be entirely concealed. Changing the skin is resorted to by such practitioners when the personality of the one who would appear is objectionable to the one whom he selects as the object of his desire. Changing the skin is done usually with the intention of sexual union, which may not be wished by the other. Often the mere intercourse is not desired but the absorption of a certain sexual force. The one “changing his skin” may not wish to appear in his own personality, but rather younger and more attractive. Such practitioners, no matter what their powers, cannot harm a pure person. If the demand is made “Who is this?” the ghost must reveal his identity and purpose.

Those who attempt to create what they intend to be, or might call, thought forms might take warning by remembering that while these forms can be created by mental processes, yet no one should engage in such creations unless and until he is fully acquainted with the laws governing them. No one should create thought forms unless it is his duty. It will not be his duty until he knows.

Thought ghosts once created and not mastered and bridled will become at once vehicles for innumerable elemental powers, and the cast off remnants of the dead, all being of a very malevolent and vindictive kind. The powers and entities will enter the ghost and through it attack, obsess and destroy the creator of the ghost.

(To be continued)