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THE

WORD

Vol. 21 JULY 1915 No. 4

Copyright 1915 by H. W. PERCIVAL

NATURE GHOSTS

(Continued)

SOME clairvoyants can see fairies, but clairvoyants do not usually see them. The reason is that clairvoyants are mostly too much concerned with sordid interests, and seek to turn this gift to some personal advantage. Some of the things necessary to see nature sprites are a natural disposition and freshness of spirit; but self-interest kills these gifts. People may walk around the woods at the full moon, or from a concealed place watch a fairy glen, and yet they never see a fairy. Fairies can be seen only when they wish to be seen, or when one knows how to summon them. Fairies are not celestial beings.

While some claims which have been made by persons of their having seen and sometimes having conversed with celestial beings are fraudulent and are advanced for an ulterior purpose, and while some such claims are due to disordered and morbid constitutions and are made without, however, an intention to lie, still there are many cases where celestial beings have been seen and have given blessings and instructions to human beings. It is improper to ridicule the report of such visions unless the falsity of the statement is known to those who ridicule. Seeing or hearing celestial beings may be due to one of many causes. Among such causes are a lack in the one who perceives them, of co-ordination of his physical body with his human elemental, or a trance state of his senses and his mind, brought on by physiological or psychic causes, such as a fall, or the receipt of sudden news; or the cause may be vivid fancy, or it may be a long-continued brooding over the subject of celestial beings, or it may be a dream. Further, the vision may be brought on by the initiative of a celestial being.

Celestial beings, properly speaking, belong to the division of the upper elementals. If such a being is seen, the thought of the seer is that he has been taken into heaven or an angel from heaven or a similar figure has visited him. The ideas of heaven, of celestial beings, messengers of God, all depend upon the ideas which the seer has of his own religion. The interpretations he gives to the vision are according to the terms of his religion and the education or lack of education of his mind. Therefore the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child or without it, or St. Peter, or cherubim and seraphim, or special local patron-saints, play a part in the visions of Roman Catholics; but Protestants, and other non-Catholics, if they see visions, see Jesus, archangels, or lesser angels; and Hindus see one of the Trimurti, Brahma-Vishnu-Siva, or they see Indra, or any of the thousands of the celestial beings, gandharvas, adytias, maruts, maha-rishis, siddhas, of which their religion informs them; and the visions which North-American Indians have are of the Great Spirit and other Indian spirits. Where a man or woman has a vision of such a celestial being in the form of St. Peter, or an apostle, or a saint, the apparition is seen for some purpose which usually concerns the welfare of many. The being has usually the form of the apostle or saint or angel who holds the highest place in the seer’s thoughts. Such beings appear to a purpose, and they so impress the one to whom the apparition is presented. Such apparitions are not common, and were not common even in days when apparitions were commoner than they are now. A notable case of such apparitions were those seen by Joan of Arc.

Seeing apparitions of saints or celestial beings may cause the appearance of certain marks on the seer’s body. The body takes on the stigmata of the one seen. So if one sees the figure of Jesus crucified or as he appeared to Thomas, the body of the seer may be marked with wounds in places corresponding to the wounded parts shown by the apparition believed to be Jesus. In this way stigmata on the hands and feet and on the side and a bleeding forehead have been caused.

The markings may be produced by the seeing of an actual figure invoked by the intense thought of the seer, or they may be produced without an apparition but simply by the picture held strongly by the seer of the vision in his mind, and which he supposes to be an apparition. In either case, the markings are produced by the action of the seer’s mind upon his physical ghost (astral or form-body). When the mind feels the wounds and the pains, the picture is impressed upon the physical ghost, and once it is marked on the physical ghost, it will of course appear on the physical body, as that adjusts itself to the astral form and prototype.

Any nature ghost can appear and disappear to a man when it likes. The man does not understand why it should appear or disappear without his knowing the cause, and therefore he believes himself to have been subject to a hallucination when he saw a nature ghost.

Nature ghosts must appear and can disappear only under certain definite conditions, which are as natural as physical conditions, such as those permitting the raising of a weight. To appear, a nature ghost must introduce its own element into our atmosphere, and then it can appear in its own element, or man must introduce his atmosphere into the element of the nature ghost and must make a connection for his respective sense, and then the nature ghost will be seen or heard to speak. The person who notices the appearance, does not see the element of the nature ghost though he sees the ghost. As soon as the element is withdrawn or is cut off from the line of vision, the ghost disappears. If the line of vision is not connected with the element of the ghost, no ghost of that element can be seen, though myriads of them may be present, as ghosts are sensible to man only when he is connected with their element.

One of the reasons why man cannot sense nature ghosts is that his senses are attuned to surfaces. He sees on the surface, he hears on the surface, he can smell and taste only the surface. A man supposes that he can see through the air, but he does not. He cannot even see the air, all he can see are the surfaces of things appearing in the air. He supposes he can hear sounds, but he can hear merely the vibrations of gross matter in the air. When he sees the interior of things, their surfaces disappear. He cannot see the interior while his sense is focussed on the surface, as it always is. To sense nature ghosts, a man must change the focus of his senses from the surfaces to the interiors. When he focusses away from the surface, the surface of the object will disappear and the interior will be sensed. To see an elemental, man must see into the element of that ghost. As man perceives through the physical, and the physical is made up of the four elements, all the four elements are necessary for man to sense a ghost. Whether the ghost is a fire ghost, or an air ghost, or a water ghost, or an earth ghost, the man may perceive it through any one or all his senses, provided, however, he can focus his senses into the interior of the element of the ghost. So a fire ghost can be seen in its own light, and all other objects may disappear. An air ghost may be seen without any other object, but a water ghost, when seen, will always be seen in vapor or water, and an earth ghost will always be seen in connection with the earth. A fire ghost is usually perceived by sight, but it may also be heard or smelt or felt. An air ghost is naturally heard, but it may be seen and felt. A water ghost may be seen and heard, and so may an earth ghost. The perception of them by man is not limited to the sense elemental in him to which the element of the ghost outside corresponds, else a fire ghost could be seen only and not heard, and an air ghost could be heard only but not seen. Each sense calls the others to its aid, but no ghost can be perceived, unless the corresponding sense elemental in man is focussed on the ghost.

When one supposes he sees a fire he is not seeing the fire; he is seeing the colors in the air caused by the flame. When one supposes he sees sunlight, he does not see the sunlight; his eye rests on the objects which sunlight makes visible. As long as his sight is focussed on the objects which are physical, he cannot see the objects which may be within the flame, nor can he see the objects within the sunlight itself. The eye is always caught and focussed by physical objects; therefore objects which are not physical are not seen. None look for objects they do not expect to see.

Again, man cannot hear sound, because his ear is trained and focussed on the gross vibrations of the air. There are always vibrations of the air and so his hearing elemental is caught by and focussed on the vibrations which are most apparent. Therefore the man cannot hear sound, which is not vibration. If he can focus his hearing into sound, all vibratory movements will disappear and he will perceive sound and the air elementals.

Man supposes that he sees water and that he tastes water, but he neither sees nor tastes water. Water is essential to taste; that is, the active function of the water elemental in him is what man calls his sense of taste; but he does not taste water. He only tastes the foods or liquids which water enables him to taste. Yet there is in the combination of gases we call water, a distinct taste. If he could focus his taste elemental on the taste in water then he would perceive the water elementals in the watery element, get the essential tastes in foods, and would experience quite a different taste when touching food, than the gross taste he now gets from eating and drinking.

Man touches and sees the earth, but that is not the way the earth is to be known essentially. It is to be known through the elemental in him which acts as his sense of smelling. Every object on earth has a distinctive odor. This odor is caused by emanations of earth elementals through and from the objects. These emanations form an aura around the object. When man’s aura comes into contact with that aura, the object may be smelled, but it is not always smelled. If he can focus his sense of smell, not on the fragrant or unpleasant odors, but into the aura of emanations of the earth element, then the gross object will disappear, and the perception gained by him through the action of the earth elemental in him, which he now calls his sense of smelling, will reveal this physical earth as being an entity and being entirely different from that which he now—relying on information derived from his seeing and touching the surfaces—believes the earth to be.

How man now sees surfaces only may be understood by considering that he does not see water; he merely sees the surface of it. Whether it be water in a lake or water in a glass, both are invisible. Only the action of the light or the reflection of surrounding trees and the sky overhead will be seen on the surface of the lake. The water itself is not seen. While the eye is focussed on the shades and colors of the rippled surface, nothing in the water is seen. As soon as the sight is focussed beneath the surface, as soon as one looks into the water, he no longer sees the surface, but his eye becomes focussed on whatever objects may be in that water, and again he sees objects, this time in the water; but he does not see the water. In a glass the surface of the water is seen, nothing but the surface. Either the reflection of the light on the surface and the line where the water contacts the glass is seen, or, if the eye is focussed on the bottom, still the water is not seen, but only the bottom of the glass.

Man cannot even see the element in which he himself is. He cannot see the element of earth. He cannot see his own physical atmosphere, or the atmosphere of his earth. He is somewhat like a deep sea animal able only to crawl around at the bottom of the ocean, ignorant of what is beneath and above him. The light and the realms of the air, the vastness of the water, and the kingdoms of the earth are inhabited by beings which he does not see and does not know of. He will, however, know of them when the slight partition is removed by his focussing his senses—the same sense elementals which now serve and limit him—into the elements.

(To be continued)