Psychic karma is experienced in the psychic zodiac of man and balanced in the physical within the psychic sphere.

—The Zodiac.

THE

WORD

KARMA

III

Psychic Karma

PSYCHIC karma is the result of the action of desire, passion, anger, envy, hatred, secret vices, love, as they are connected with thought and the senses. One’s psychic karma begins with the prenatal influences and conditions in the process of the formation of the physical body which he will dwell in and lasts beyond the dissolution of the body to where the desire entity is exhausted and dissolves. Psychic karma is experienced in the psychic zodiac of man. It begins in the sign virgo (♍︎), form, and extends to the sign scorpio (♏︎), desire, of the absolute zodiac, and extends from cancer to capricorn (♋︎–♑︎) of the mental zodiac, and from leo to sagittary (♌︎–♐︎) in the spiritual zodiac.

The family and race in which the body is being formed is determined by the ego about to incarnate who is able to select the race and who, according to past associations and inclinations, is able to decide upon and bring about the influences and conditions which will affect the body during its formation and to provide it with such tendencies as are the result of its past actions and which fit the necessities of the present. Some egos are too dull and heavy from ignorance and indolence to bring about the conditions in which their physical body should be born and to convey the tendencies and inclinations, but they may be aware of the preparation of the physical body according to the psychic model and form by others. This work is done for them and continued until they are strong enough to do it for themselves.

Not all egos about to incarnate feel the suffering and pain of the body; but some may mentally perceive it, while others come in contact with the body and experience all that the bodily entity passes through during the course of prenatal development. All this is according to the law of karma in the propagation of the race. Those who suffer consciously are of two kinds. Both kinds are old and advanced egos. One class suffers as the result of secret vices and sexual misdeeds and because of the suffering inflicted on others by practices connected with the psychic anomalies of sex. The second class suffers in order that it may come directly in touch with the sufferings of humanity and be able to impress the psychic nature with the idea of suffering, to make it sensitive to the failings and shortcomings in the history of humanity, to sensitize it, to bring it into sympathy with the burdens and pains which are incident to and inherited by the human race. These are the legacies of past and present psychic action. The egos—few though they be—who are during this period able to endure intelligently and consciously the suffering incident to prenatal conditions, are those who after birth and in later life understand the shortcomings of their fellows, who sympathize with their weaknesses and who endeavor to assist them to overcome the difficulties of life.

The powers and forces of the inner and outer worlds are called upon in the mysterious and wonderful processes of the formation of the psychic or astral body preceding the physical formation. Before the period of prenatal development, the ego decides what the form, sex, emotional tendencies, vices, and sensual desires will be, and this decision is carried out by the influences which prevail during the prenatal period. It is supposed that it depends entirely on the mother and the environment by which she is surrounded as to what the future life of the child shall be. This is true, but it is only half the truth. If it depended on heredity alone or on the beautiful or vicious thoughts which the mother thinks during that period, then the mother and heredity would be the maker of the character, temperament and genius, as well as the fashioner of the body of the child. The mother is only the willing or unwilling instrument who consciously or unconsciously works according to the law of psychic karma. Many experiments have been tried in past civilizations as well as in the present to produce offspring which would fulfil certain hope and belief. Some have failed, others have been successful. Among the Greeks and Romans the mothers to be were surrounded by objects of beauty and strength in an environment conducive to the production of a healthy, noble, strong, and beautiful child. This was accomplished so far as the physical heredity of health and beauty of form was concerned, but it failed to make virtuous and noble characters and intellects. In present times women have surrounded themselves with what they thought would be necessary to make great statesmen, world conquerors, virtuous mothers, great reformers and good men. But in nearly every case they have failed to accomplish their object, because no mother can make the law by which another individuality is compelled to work. The most that may be done is to provide the conditions in which another ego may receive the results of his work and work through these conditions according to the plan suiting his ulterior motive. Women with strong desires or holding tenaciously to a thought have demonstrated that strange results may be accomplished by the influences prevailing during foetal development. For instance, marks have been produced on the body of the child, due to a picture held in the mind by its mother. Strange desires and appetites have been impressed, fierce desires have been engendered and peculiar psychic tendencies determined in the child in consequence of the wish of its mother. Children have been born months before or later than the period ordained by nature, owing, apparently to the time set intentionally by the mother, and in accordance with the time she thought necessary to provide the child with the talents, tendencies or qualities most desired by her. In each case disappointment has followed the experiment, and, if the child lived, the mother was compelled to acknowledge failure. Such children may possess some beautiful qualities, but inasmuch as the psychic karma which they have made for themselves was interfered with by the intense desire of the parent, they are temporarily prevented from giving full and immediate expression to their own psychic karma; they live disappointed and unsatisfied lives, and are disappointments to their parents. This interference with the law would at first seem to contradict and break the law of karma. There is no contradiction or break; it is all a fulfilment of the law of karma. Both parent and child are paying and receiving the payment which is their own karma. The child whose karma seems to have been interfered with by the action of the mother is receiving just payment for a similar act done to another in a prior life, while the mother, either from her own ignorance and egotism, however proper the ignorant idealism, egotism and intention may seem to her, is either paying the child for a like interference with her psychic karma in a previous or the present life, or is setting up for karmic reasons a new score which must and will be paid in the future. The disappointments to both mother and child should be a lesson to both. When such psychic karma is due to the ego ready to incarnate it is attracted to the parents who have certain notions as to prenatal development. The connection made, the psychic karma of the ego is precipitated from the ego to the psychic or astral body in which the foetus is being developed.

The result and the lessons to be learned by the mother, as well as the child in such case, are that no one has the right to interfere with the processes of nature, nor to attempt to interfere with and change the natural course of events during foetal development. This does not mean that attention and consideration should not be given by the parents to the subject of foetal development, nor does it mean that the mother should be allowed or allow herself to be under any and every condition which may come up during the period of foetal development. It is right and proper that the mother should be furnished with what is conducive to her health and comfort. But she has no right to attempt to force on the future human body which she has contracted to bring forth that which she conceives it should do. Each human being about to come into the world should have the right to act according to its own nature, so far as its actions do not interfere with or prevent the like expression of another.

A man and his wife should be pure in their bodies and minds and should have the thoughts, ambitions and aspirations which they desire to see expressed in their child. Such thoughts or desires of the parents, together with the fitness of their bodies, attract an ego about to incarnate whose karma requires or entitles him to such accommodation. This is decided before pregnancy. But when the mother finds that she is in such condition the contract has been made between the egos of the parents and the ego who will incarnate, and such contract must be fulfilled and must not be broken by abortion. The contract made, the mother cannot and should not attempt to change the character and psychic tendencies of the ego who is to incarnate. The most that she may do if she works against the inheritance of the new ego is to interrupt or postpone the expression of it.

With the beginning of pregnancy, the mother is brought more closely in touch with the astral or psychic world. She should hold herself to a life of purity and guard her own thoughts from vices. The strange influences which are felt, the cravings, appetites, longings and desires, as well as the new ideals which are presented to her mind are thus presented as the influences and suggestions coming directly from the ego for whom she is transferring such tendencies to the psychic body of the child and which are to be built into and expressed through its physical body.

Her right to change these thoughts, appetites and desires, depends on how they affect herself. She has the right to refuse to obey any suggestions or impressions felt which would tend to lower her in her own estimation, or to injure her in any way, as to her present or future health. But she has no right to say what the features of the child should be, what its vocation in life shall be, or the position in life it must hold or fill. Nor has she the right to attempt to determine its sex. The sex has been determined before pregnancy, and any attempt to change it is against the law. This period of a woman’s life is a decidedly psychic period, and she may learn much by studying her emotions and thoughts at the time, for by so doing she may follow not only the processes of nature within herself, but may see these in operation in the external world. During this period it is possible for her to walk with God. When this is done she fulfils her mission.

Prenatal development opens the psychic nature of the prospective mother and makes her sensitive to all psychic influences. Elemental, unseen, astral entities and forces are attracted to and surround her, and they attempt to influence her so as to affect the new world which is being created within her. According to her nature and the psychic karma of the coming life she will be surrounded, influenced and impressed by those presences and creatures who, though unseen, are nevertheless felt, and who seek expression through a human body. According to the nature of the mother and the psychic karma of the ego about to incarnate, sudden debaucheries and fits of drunkenness, wild hysteria and morbid fancies may be indulged in, bestial appetites gratified, abnormal and revolting practices allowed; explosive outbursts of anger and passion which lead to acts of murder and crime may be sanctioned; paroxysms of delirious fury, insane joy, frenzied hilarity, intense gloom, moments of emotional agony, depression, and despair may obsess the mother irregularly or with cyclic frequency. On the other hand, the period may be one of great satisfaction, one in which she feels sympathy for everyone, a period of mental exhilaration, buoyancy and life, or of happiness, aspiration, high-mindedness and illumination, and she may gain knowledge of things not usually known. All of this is according to the law of the psychic karma of the body which is being prepared, and at the same time it fits the mother and is her karma.

So are bodies and natures predetermined as their own reward and punishment, and according to their own acts as well for all those who inherit human bodies with propensities to murder, rape, lie and steal, with tendencies to madness, fanaticism, epilepsy, with tendencies to be hypochondriacs, freaks and monstrosities, as for the mild-mannered, even-going matter-of-fact person, and for those with religious fervor, or inclined to poetic and artistic ideals all these natures and proclivities are expressive of the psychic karma which they have inherited.

While the mother has not the right to prevent or interfere with the free action of the psychic karma of the body in her charge, she has the right and should protect it to the full extent of her power from all evil influences which may beset it through her. This does not in any way interfere with its getting its just deserts, but offers the protection of her office; and so the ego may be benefited by her if she so pleases, even as a man may be benefited by association with another who upholds high ideals, although that other will not interfere with his free action.

The uncommon, emotional and mental phases which the intended mother experiences during the prenatal development are due to the suggestions which are directly impressed on the mother by the incarnating ego if the mother is of sound health, mind and morals; but if she should be a medium, or of weak mind, lax morals and unsound body, then she may be beset by all manner of beings of the astral world who desire to obsess and control her and to experience the sensation which her condition affords; and if her body is not strong enough or her desires not contrary to them, or she is not high-minded enough to resist their suggestions, and if she has not the knowledge of how to prevent their advances, then the elemental creatures in search of sensation may control her or interfere with the development of the foetus. This, too, is in accordance with the psychic karma of both mother and child.

The contract entered into between the parents and the discarnated ego to furnish a body for the ego to incarnate is one of the most important events of life, imposes many and arduous duties, and should not be entered into lightly. But when the process is begun the greatest care and attention should be given to the work, and both father and mother should keep themselves in that state of physical health, controlled desire and mental condition which they wish their child to be in.

Finally, the body comes into the world with its desires and tendencies, all of which have been transferred from the ego to the foetus through the mediation of the father and mother. This is done through the psychic zodiac of the mother in the psychic zodiac of the child.

The astral or psychic body is not governed entirely by the same laws which govern the physical world. It is subject to another law—that of astral matter, which is different from physical matter. Many of the notions concerning a fourth dimension of matter are realized in the astral body. The particles of physical matter and their form may not be changed without destroying the combination. So a table cannot be contracted to the size of the paper weight which lies on it, nor expanded to fill the room in which it is placed, nor can the leg be forced through the top without destroying the form of the table. But psychic or astral matter may assume any shape and return to its original form. The astral or psychic body of the body to be built is the result of the desires, emotions, appetites and inclinations of the past life. This astral or psychic body may be as small or as large as occasion requires. When it is the bond uniting the germs of the father and mother, it is, as we would call it, contracted, but it expands as the design is acted on by the life builders, and as life is precipitated into and fills out its design. The design or form is human, that which we call the human form. This human form is not carved out by the thought of each individual ego in the preceding life. The desire thoughts of each one are of different grades. Some are fierce, like those of the lion and tiger; others mild or gentle, like those of a deer or fawn. It would seem that the forms of individuals should differ accordingly. But all normal human bodies have the same form, though one may be as cunning as a fox, another as innocent as a dove, still another as fierce as a tiger or as surly as a bear. The form is determined by the collective desire and thought of humanity, of the particular period of its development. So that the human ego about to incarnate must be born according to the human form which is held in the Universal Mind, which Universal Mind is the sum total of the intelligence and thought of humanity. As man has the form body, so, too, have the world and the universe their form bodies. The form body of the world is the astral light, in which all of the forms which have existed on the earth are held as pictures, as well as all of the forms that are being generated by the thoughts of man and which will become manifested in the physical world when matured and conditions are ready. All elemental forms, the forces and passions, angers, lusts and vices, contained in the astral light or form body of the world, are there deposited by the desires of man. This is the psychic karma of the world. Man shares in it; for while he has his own psychic karma, represented in his personality and held in his form body as the result of his own desires, yet he shares in the general psychic karma of the world, because he as one of the units of humanity has contributed by his own personal desires to the psychic karma of the world. Man is a small copy of the world, as the world is but an enlarged copy of man.

When the psychic body is born with its physical body in its psychic zodiac, it contains all of the psychic karma to be experienced and dealt with during the life of its form. This psychic karma is held as germs in the form body, as seeds are contained within the earth and air, ready to germinate and manifest as soon as the season and conditions are ready. The conditions and the season for the development of the psychic karma are brought about by the natural growth, maturity and ageing of the body in conjunction with the mental attitude of the ego in the body. The karma which is experienced in adult life is still foreign while the body remains a child. As the body develops and performs its natural functions, the conditions are furnished by which the old desire-seeds take root and grow. The growth is retarded or accelerated, continued or changed according to the manner in which the ego deals with the karma.

The first few years of life, up to about the seventh year, are soon forgotten and pass out of the memory of most people. These years are spent in adapting the physical body to the design of its psychic or form body. Although forgotten, they are among the most important in the personal life of an individuality, because these early years and training give the personality its tendency and direction which affect the entire life of the personality and react on the mind. As a tree is shaped, trained and pruned by the gardener, and as the soft clay is moulded into a set form by the potter, so the desires, appetites and psychic proclivities of the form body are in a somewhat lesser degree aggravated, encouraged, restrained or changed by the parents or guardians. The tree inclines to its natural uncultivated growth and constantly puts out waste shoots which are removed, together with the parasitic growth from the tree, by the gardener. So the child has fits of temper, meanness of disposition and vicious tendencies, which are curbed, restrained and given direction by the judicious parent or guardian, who also protects the young from noxious influences, as the gardener protects the immature tree. The training and care or abuse which is experienced in early life is the personal karma of the ego and is the direct inheritance of its just deserts, however unjust it may seem from a limited viewpoint. The surroundings furnished with their psychic influences, the vicious or pure-minded temperaments of those to whom a child is entrusted, and the manner in which its wants, desires and needs are treated, are the just return from its past psychic inclinations and actions. While desire seeks a like desire and egos about to incarnate seek those parents who are of like desires, yet, owing to the interblending of the different kinds of karma, an ego is often connected with those who have personal desires different from its own. The stronger the character or individuality, the better and more readily will it overcome any evil psychic tendencies given its personality in early life; but as there are comparatively few strong characters, the early psychic training generally gives direction to the entire life and desires of a personality. This is well known to those who are acquainted with the unseen side of a human nature. Well knowing the influence of early training, one of the most powerful religious organizations in the world has said: Let us have the training of your child for the first seven years of his life and he will belong to us. You may do with him what you please thereafter, but he will do what we have taught him in those seven years.

A parent or guardian whose mind is vapid, who loves the glitter of baubles, who panders to the appetites and considers sensation as that which is to be sought after, will instil similar inclinations into the growing child, whose appetites will be considered and indulged, whose whims will be gratified, and whose desires, instead of being restrained and given proper direction, will be allowed a wild luxuriant growth. This is the karma of those who in the past have not cared to restrain their desires and passions. The child who is allowed to fret and fume and bawl, and whose parents, inconsiderate of others, allow the child to have whatever it cries for and can be given it, is one of those unfortunates who live on the surface of life; they are the barbarians of society, who, however numerous they may be at present, will, as humanity grows out of its child state, be few and considered the wild and ungoverned specimens of the undeveloped human species. Theirs is a terrible karma, as they must first awaken to a knowledge of their own ignorance before they can adjust themselves so as to become orderly, inconspicuous members of civilized society. The transition to this condition brings much sorrow and suffering, while it brings out the deplorable psychic condition of ungoverned and spasmodic passion.

The treatment which a child receives in the encouragement or restraint of its psychical emotional nature is that which is the return either of the treatment which in the past it has given others, or it is the natural condition most suitable to its desires. Many of the hardships which befall and seem obstacles unfavorable to its progress are often the very best things for a child’s progress. For instance, a child of artistic temperament, who gives evidence of great talents, but who, owing to unfavorable circumstances, such as the disapproval of its parents, is discouraged and prevented from developing them, may find this, instead of being a misfortune, to be of great benefit, if certain psychic tendencies are present, such as desire for alcoholic stimulants or drugs, because the artistic temperament, if allowed to express itself then, would make the psychic nature more susceptible to the influence of drugs and alcohol and would encourage drunkenness and result in breakdowns and ruin the psychic body by opening it to every vagabond of the astral world. Not to allow the artistic development in such case would only defer this development and permit the child to better resist the demon of intoxication. At the same time, parents, who either through lack of means or without apparent reason offer opposition to the child’s psychic inclinations, often furnish such opposition given to the ego in payment of an old score, or else because it did not make use of the opportunities which it had before, and to teach it the value of opportunity.

All things which affect the child when it is unable to oppose or prevent the influence come to it either as the penalties of its own psychic nature or for affecting the psychic nature of another. So those who would encourage or stimulate it to passion, anger, lust, to the vices, appetites, cravings and sensual desires of the times, or to develop in cunning, in the craving for that which does not belong to it, and who would encourage it in laziness, drunkenness, or the secret vices not unfamiliar to its position in life, these are made to offer conditions as the natural inheritance of its own past desires and actions with which it must work in the present in order to overcome and control them.

Before man took on a physical body in the past history of humanity he lived in the psychic or astral world in an astral body, just as he now lives in the psychic world before he takes on a physical body in present times, but his form was somewhat different then from what it is now. After man took on his physical body and came to think of himself as a physical being, he lost the memory of the past condition even as he loses memory in the present life, of his prenatal condition. Man must have a physical body to enter the physical world and in order to protect his psychic or astral body from the forces which are concentrated in and so apparently confused in the physical world. Man as a psychic or astral being died to the psychic world in order to be born into the physical world. As he now comes to life in the physical world and becomes aware of it, he must sometime become aware of the other worlds within and around the physical. To do this with safety he must become alive to these other worlds without in any way being disconnected or apart from the physical body. The psychic body of man grows and develops with and through the physical. It has inherent in it the germs of all the passions and desires of the past, as well as the ideal form which it is possible to develop and which transcends in power and splendor the most exalted conception of the ordinary man. But this ideal form is undeveloped and potential only, as the form of the lotus is undeveloped, though it lies within the seed of the lotu s. All seeds or germs contained within the psychic body of man must be brought to growth and dealt with according to their merit before one’s higher ego allows the ideal form to germinate.

These psychic germs, which are the psychic karma of the past, develop and put forth their roots and branches in the physical life. If they are allowed full growth into wrong directions, that life becomes a jungle of wild growths where the passions have full and free play, like the beasts in a jungle. Only when the wild growths are removed and their force turned into right channels, only when passion and anger, outbursts of temper, vanity, envy and hatred are subdued by the will, can the true growth of man begin. All of this must be done through the physical body and not in the psychic or astral world, though that world is directly acted on through the avenues of the physical. The physical and psychic bodies of man must act together and not separately, if wholesome and healthy development is desired. When all the psychic tendencies are controlled through the governing of the appetites, passions and desires, according to the dictates of reason, the physical body is whole and sound and the psychic astral body is healthy and strong and is able to withstand inimical forces of the astral world.

As the psychic body grows up and develops with the physical, any attempt to give it special attention and development to the detriment of the physical, is not only an abuse of the physical, and morally wrong, but such action calls on the psychic body to do more than it is able and to do this ignorantly. Before man can legitimately grow into the astral world, at present unseen, he must control and care for the physical body, and train and have his mind thoroughly under control. Until then any attempt to force an entrance into the astral world is followed by the penalty which trespass or burglary incur in the physical world. They are followed by arrest and imprisonment in the physical world, and the like offence meets with like punishment in the case of one who forces an entrance into the astral world. He is arrested by the entities of that world and is captive more than any prisoner in a dungeon, because the one in the dungeon is at liberty to deal with his desires as he can, but one who becomes the subject of psychic control no longer has the choice as to what he will do or not do; he is the slave of those who control him.

A most unfortunate phase of psychic karma is mediumship, though most mediums think that they are the specially favored of the gods. The differences in degree and development of mediums are many, but there are only two kinds of mediums: One is the medium who is such by virtue of a thoroughly moral and upright life, whose body and appetites and desires are thoroughly under the control of its indwelling ego, and whose psychic body has been scientifically trained with an enlightened understanding and whose indwelling ego remains conscious and in control of its psychic body, while that psychic body registers and reports the impressions which the indwelling ego would have it receive. Of the second kind of mediums is one who abandons the body to extraneous controlling forces or entities and who becomes unconscious and ignorant as to what is done while he is in the mediumistic state. Mediums present many degrees of a modified or accentuated development, but in principle they are of these two divisions. Those of the first class are so few as to be almost unknown to the world, but the ranks of the second class are becoming more numerous each year. This is a part of the psychic karma of the race.

Mediums are those who send out the aroma or psychic atmosphere, as a flower sends out an aroma which attracts bees. The entities of the astral world seek the aroma or atmosphere of a medium and live in it because it allows them to reach the physical world and allows them to draw sustenance therefrom.

A medium is one who has in the past or present life desired the development of psychic faculties and the use of psychic powers, and has endeavored to induce them. There are few worse things which could befall anyone.

A medium is an underripe human being, a fruit of human development which is made ripe by force instead of by natural growth. As a race, we should now have many of the psychic faculties developed and in use, whereas, we not only are unable to use psychic faculties intelligently, but we are ignorant of their existence, and at best groping for them in the dark. This is because as a race we have held and are holding so strongly to the physical world and have trained our minds to think almost solely about physical things. This being the case, it is due to our good karma that we have not developed the psychic faculties because we as a race should become the prey of inimical beings and as a race we would be entirely controlled by the powers and influences of all of the invisible worlds, and we would become degenerate and eventually annihilated. While we are unable to govern our appetites and restrain our passions and control our desires, it is, therefore, well that we do not develop any psychic faculties, as each faculty so developed, without control of mind and body, is like a roadway left open by which an invading army may enter.

These mediums desire the benefits of both the physical and psychic world without having qualified in either. A medium is now or has been in advance of materialism because of her or his natural tendency or desire for psychic development. One who manifests psychic tendencies shows that it is possible for him to grow out of physical limitations and conditions, but instead of growing out of conditions he becomes more subject to them in his haste to get away from them. The ordinary medium is one who is too lazy, placid and unstable to develop the mind and control the senses and who would enter the kingdom of heaven not by the way of the straight and narrow path of overcoming wrong by right living, but who would steal in or gain entrance in some other way. The psychic world is entered legitimately only by a rigid training and control of the mind and of the psychic nature, whereas the medium becomes such by giving way to prevailing influences. Desiring to become a medium or to develop psychic faculties, they usually frequent seance rooms and seek audience with apparitions and uncanny and morbid presences, or sit in the dark in a negative condition of mind and wait for impressions or the appearance of colored lights and spectral forms, or gaze at a bright spot to become negative and unconscious in order to induce control, or sit as one of a circle where all desire communication of some kind, or they endeavor through the use of a planchette or ouija board to get into communication with the creatures of the elemental world, or they hold a pen or pencil and yearn to have some spook or presence direct their movements, or gaze into a crystal to short circuit the vision and throw it into focus with the astral pictures, or, worse still, they take opiates and drugs in order to have their nerves stimulated and excited and brought in touch with the lower psychic world. Any or all of these practices may be indulged in and one may be even hypnotized and forced into the astral world by the will of another; but whatever the means, the psychic karma of all who trespass upon the psychic world is the same. They become the abject slaves of that world. They lose their right to enter that world as those who overcome it, and they gradually lose possession of that which they now hold. The history of all those who have opened their house to the invited and unknown beings who then have obsessed and controlled them should be a lesson to all those who contemplate becoming mediums, and those who desire to develop psychic faculties. The history of these show that the medium invariably becomes a moral and physical wreck, an object of pity and contempt.

It is hardly possible for one of a thousand mediums to escape the clutches of the inimical demons who are likely to possess them. When a medium becomes such, he is quite convinced that he is favored above others, for, is he not told so by the spirits who control him? To argue with a medium against his practices is almost useless. His opinions cannot be changed, because he believes he receives advice from a source superior to the one who offers it. This over-confidence is the medium’s danger and, he succumbs to it. The influence which at first controls a medium is somewhat of the nature of the medium. If the moral nature of the medium is strong, the unseen entities are either of a better class in the beginning or they are too cunning to attempt to oppose at once the moral standards of the medium; as the psychic body of the medium is used by these entities, it loses its force and strength of resistance. The moral tone which is impressed on the psychic body is gradually lowered and finally effaced, until no resistance is offered to the controlling influence. The controlling influence is seldom the same for any length of time. As the psychic machine of the medium is used up, played out and broken down, the entities who have used it discard it for other bodies furnished by new aspirants to mediumship. So that, even if a medium is at first controlled by an entity who seems above the usual inane semi-intelligences who are called controls, the entity above the average will discard him when the psychic is run down. Then creatures of little or no intelligence will in turn obsess the medium. So we may see the sorry spectacle of a human being, ridden by creatures less than human who goad it into all directions, like one or more monkeys astride a goat will pull and pinch and bite and drive the goat in all directions. The medium and the control both desire sensation, and both get it.

A danger that faces our race as its possible psychic karma, is that like many older races it may become subject to ancestor worship, which is a worship of the desire bodies of those who have passed away. Such worship would be most disastrous to the race. Not only would it stop the progress of civilization, but such worship would shut out the light of the spiritual world, the light of one’s own higher self. This condition, however impossible it may seem, might be brought about by the prevalence of indiscriminate psychic practices and increase of what is called communication with the dead, or dear departed. Fortunately, the great majority are against the ghastly and ghoulish practices observed at materialization seances.

(To be continued)