THE

WORD

GHOSTS THAT NEVER WERE MEN

(Continued)

Dreams

THE waking life of man with its phenomena is caused by elementals, as was shown heretofore. All occurrences of life, including all processes connected therewith, are possible only by the working of nature ghosts. Their sphere of action is not limited to the phases of the waking life of man. Dreams, too, are caused by the action of elementals. Dreams are the employment of one or more of the senses; and the senses are elementals within the man. (See The Word, Vol. 20 p. 326.) Dreams in the first instance are the shaping of subtle matter in such a manner as will correspond to sensuous experiences of his waking life. Such dreams are produced by the response of nature elementals in the elements outside to the elementals in man.

Waking and dreaming are two sides of the experiences of the same sense man. The being who dreams is the sense man; the mind does not dream, though the mind in the senses perceives the reports of the senses of what is experienced by them. It is affected as well in the waking dream, which is called life, as in the sleeping which is called dreaming. One sort of dreaming is as much so as the other, however wide-awake the dreamer believes himself to be. When in the waking state, the man looks at these experiences in sleep as dreams. When in sleep, if he is there able to appreciate the conditions of the two states, he regards the events of his waking life as unreal and baseless and distant as he considers his dreams to be when he thinks of them while awake.

The same sense beings which experience the waking life act in dreams. There they reproduce experiences, which they have had; or they have or they create new ones in line with those they have had. The sight in man is a being fashioned from the fire element in nature. This ghost, sometimes alone, sometimes with the other senses, sees and is affected by forms and colors in nature, in the waking state or in the dreaming state. The sound sense in man is created from the occult element of air. This being, similarly as the fire ghost, experiences with or without the other sense beings in man, all sounds. The taste is a being taken from the subtle element of water and, with or without the aid of the other sense elementals, tastes. The sense of smell in man is a being drawn from the earth element, and it smells bodies, either together with the other sense beings or alone. The sense of touch in man is also an elemental, which, however, is not yet as fully formed as the other senses. It is in process of being fashioned.

If one is able to analyze his dreams he will know that he sometimes sees, but does not hear or taste or smell in dreams, and at other times he hears as well as sees in dreams, but may not taste or smell. This is so because the sight elemental is at times acting alone and at times in conjunction with the other sense elementals.

The majority of dreams are chiefly seeing. A lesser number are concerned with hearing. Tasting and smelling play a minor part. Seldom if ever does one dream of touching or grasping or taking or holding anything. The reason for that is that smelling and tasting are not as fully formed as seeing, and touch is still less developed. The eye and the ear as organs are more fully developed than the organs for tasting and smelling. There is no outer organ for feeling. The whole body is able to feel. Feeling is not yet centralized in an organ as are the other senses. These external conditions indicate that the elemental which acts as the particular sense is more developed in the case of seeing and hearing than in the case of tasting and smelling. Whether they have or have not special organs, all these senses act through nerves and a nervous system.

The function of the waking sight is, roughly speaking, the going out of a portion of the sight elemental and meeting nearer or farther from the object seen, according to the luminosity of the object, rays which are at all times emanating from that object. The function of the other senses is similar. It is therefore not inaccurate to say that the senses experience, or are impressed by, or perceive objects. Each sense needs its organ to work through, except in the case of feeling, where the sensory nerves suffice. All this applies to the waking state.

The difference between the waking and the dreaming life is that in waking the senses act through their particular nerves and organs. In the dream the senses do not need their physical organs, but can act directly with subtle physical or astral matter in connection with nature ghosts in external nature, on the nerves. Though the senses do not need the organs in dream, they do need the nerves.

The cause for man’s thinking that only the physical world is real and that dreams are unreal, is that his sense ghosts are individually not strong enough and not built up enough to act independently of their physical nerves and organs in the physical world, and therefore are not able to act apart from and independently of the physical body in the astral or dream world. If the sense ghosts were able to act in the astral world without connection with their physical organs, and nerves, then man would believe that world to be the real and the physical the unreal, because the sensations of the astral worlds are finer and keener and more intense than the sensations produced through gross physical matter. Reality is not absolute, but is relative and much confined.

Man’s reality is what he likes best, values most, fears most, finds most cogent in its effects on him. These values depend on his sensations. In time, when he is able to see and hear and taste and smell and touch in the astral, the sensations will be so much finer and more powerful that he will like them better, value them more, fear them more, attach more importance to them, and so they will be more real than the physical.

Dreams then are at present mostly pictures, and a nature ghost, acting as man’s sense of sight, produces these pictures for man. The manner in which the sight ghost serves in a dream to show a picture to the dreamer is interesting.

When a person falls asleep, dreams begin, whether they are remembered or not, from the time the conscious principle in man leaves the pituitary body. They continue while that principle remains in the sense nerve areas of the brain, such as the optic nerve, and in the mysterious ventricles of the brain until the conscious principle either passes into the cervical vertebrae or rises above the head, as it usually does. In either case the conscious principle is out of touch with the brain. The man is therefore said to be then unconscious. He has no dreams, while in either of those states and pays no attention to any of the sense impressions, even though the elementals may bring some of them to the human elemental. The human elemental does not respond, because the power which the conscious principle gives to it is shut off. The human elemental takes care, nevertheless, of the body in sleep, by superintending the involuntary functions, which go on during the abandonment called sleep.

To write of dreams, their kinds and causes, would need so much space as to require a separate treatise, and would be foreign to the subject matter. Therefore here is mentioned only so much as is necessary for a foundation: to understand some of the actions of nature ghosts in dreams when they bring pictures before the dreamer, either in pursuance of his waking desire, to give pleasure or fear, or as ministers of the mind to bring enlightenment and warnings, and when a man or woman attracts or creates an elemental which becomes a succubus or an incubus.

Pictures are shown to the dreamer while the conscious principle is still in the area of the sense nerves and in the realms of the chambers of the brain. The pictures are shown by the fire elemental serving as the sense of sight, and are either fashioned by it out of the chaotic fire element or are scenes actually existing which it sees directly, by what is called clairvoyance. This is one class of dreams.

A picture is formed as an original production by the sight ghost which it has made out of the vague matter of the fire element, whenever a desire which had been held in the waking state was strong enough to suggest to the ghost the nature of the picture. Then when the body is asleep the fire ghost, acting on the suggestion of the desire, draws the fire element into form so as to present the picture suggested. Thus men have in dreams what their desire leads them to and what the mind consents to.

If desires are connected with hearing, tasting, or smelling, or feeling, then the other elementals act with the sight ghost, and elements other than the fire element are drawn to produce the sensation which was desired in the waking state. Pictures ponderate because men use their sight more than any of the other senses, and are more affected by sights than by other sense impressions. Such a picture may last only a part of a second; the dreamer is not in a position to determine the time which the dream lasted.

The other kind in this class of dreams are pictures of something that exists in nature and which the sight elemental perceives and which is thus sensed, that is, dreamed of by the dreamer. The sight when seeing these scenes does not leave the physical body. Inasmuch as it is not limited by the physical organs nor its vision obstructed by gross physical matter, it may look directly on objects in distant places or may see into the astral worlds.

These dreams are so produced either by the senses fired on by the desires of the daytime, or by the senses rambling uncontrolled and attracting outside elementals. With such dreams one’s conscious principle has nothing to do.

There are dreams which are of another class caused by the will of the mind to convey to the personality information of various kinds. Such commune may be had to give enlightenment in philosophy, science, arts and the occult past and future progress of the earth and its races. To that end records of the past may be brought before the dreamer, or hidden processes of nature may be shown to him, or symbols may be illustrated and their meaning visibly explained to him. Elementals may also be used by the conscious principle to give warnings, prophecies, or advice about the occurrence of critical events affecting the dreamer, or some one connected with him.

Such instruction through the means of ghosts is given in these dreams, where the Higher Mind cannot reach the personality directly. The incarnated mind has so far not established a sufficiently strong tie with its higher part not incarnated, to enable the higher part to commune directly with the incarnated portion. Therefore dreams are used as means of communication, when enlightenment is necessary. Whatever the instruction or warning given, elementals are used to make the pictures or the symbols containing the message. The language of the senses is not the language of the mind, therefore symbols are used to give the message intended. These symbols, geometrical or others, are themselves elementals, and the pictures or whatever is used in the message, are elementals appearing as pictures. These, when coming from one’s Higher Mind, should and do impress the message intended, on the dreamer, if the dreamer will try to get that message.

When the dreamer is too obtuse or fails to make an effort to get the meaning, he may want a seer for an interpretation. But today seers are out of fashion, and so persons seek a dream book or a fortune teller to interpret their dreams, and of course they are left without enlightenment or get a wrong interpretation.

The elementals which appear in dreams as pictures or as symbols or as angels, do not act intelligently with their own understanding, because they have none. They act under the order of intelligences or of the dreamer’s own mind.

(To be continued)