THE

WORD

GHOSTS

(Continued)

Desire Ghosts of Dead Men

THE epicure of sensuality is usually obsessed by and feeds the snake desire ghost of some dead man. The difference between the desire ghost of a dead man who was a gross sensualist and of one who was a Paphian hedonist is not a difference in the kind of desire, but a difference in its quality and method. The form shows the quality of the desire ghost, the movement the method of its action. Sexuality as one of the three classes of desire of the ghosts of dead men, is the nature of the desire. Such animals as the hog, bull, snake, show by their forms the quality of sexuality which was the ruling desire during life. The movements of the desire ghost distinguish its sensuality as being coarse, or refined and graceful.

Form, habits and movements of the hog are those of the man who considers his own desires above all else, and gives free play to his sensuality, with little regard for condition or place. An animal like the bull represents the man in whom sensuality dominates his other desires, but whose form and habits are not as offensive as are those of the hog. But there are other qualities of sensuality in the living, and of the desire ghosts of the dead. There is the person of charm and delicacy and breeding, who is accomplished, whose understanding of the arts cause his opinions and his genius to be sought by people of culture; but who, withall, is a worshipper of sensuality. His innate gifts, his cultivated tastes, the powers of his intellect, are employed in providing exquisite conditions and artistic settings for acts of sensuality. Before the world all this is said to be in the interest of culture and dedicated to worship of art. But in fact such an epicure of sensuality works to key up the senses and furnish glamour around the idols of sensuality for the orgies of their worshippers.

Centered in the body of the epicure and presiding over his activities is the snake desire ghost of a dead man.

In the past, snake desire ghosts of dead men have prompted and perpetuated the practice of exquisite sensuality, called sacred or secret rites; and they continue to do so to-day, and will do so in future times, until man shall know what is his nature, and refuses to have it governed by powers which are extraneous to himself. This he does by trying to govern himself.

What is said concerning the desire ghosts of dead men, as to their form and quality in relation to sensuality, is also to be applied to the other two roots of desire, cruelty and greed, with the exception that it cannot be said there is an epicure in greed. History shows cruelty practiced as a fine art, where ingenuity was taxed to refine the torment and vary the instruments of torture that the agony of the victim should be prolonged and heightened. Where cruelty is thus nursed and taken as a subject for study and practiced, a cat desire ghost of the dead has its lair, or is gliding around or within the body of the living fiend. It purrs and pants and waits its opportunity to torture by word or deed.

But the desire ghosts of dead men which are of the nature of greed, do not care how the object of greed is secured nor how it is treated. The only care is that the object of their desire be secured. The living man preys on the subject of his greed, and his desire feeds the insatiate wolf or other desire ghost of the dead.

Some men seem to have instinct how to get; and they usually do get, what they desire. They seem to have an unusually keen sense of wants and needs and of what is going to happen; or people seem to walk into and be caught in their traps. All their energies are employed and actively engaged in getting their prey, and circumstances not of their own making often seem to play into their favor.

In cases where gains and advantages are taken, without regard for those from whom they come, the prompter and guide in the taking is likely to be the desire ghost of a dead man.

(To be continued)