LECTURE
EIGHT
POTENTIAL
ABERRATIONS IN SPIRITUAL INVESTIGATION
When we
develop the levels of consciousness of which I have already spoken,
then each particular level opens the door to a specific cosmic
sphere. I propose to describe in outline the relationship between the
nature of man's perception and the different spheres to which
we can attain by developing the appropriate conditions of
consciousness. Of course I can only depict these spheres as
contiguous, although, in reality, they interpenetrate. (drawing on
blackboard). I have already shown how the Moon and Mercury
spheres permeate our own sphere.
Let us
suppose we develop the level of consciousness which enables us to be
in touch with the dead in the years immediately after their death.
This world borders on our world.
The next
level of consciousness by means of which we penetrate further into
the life of the deceased after he has retraced his earthly life (in
kamaloka) in reverse order is that which I have called the emptied
consciousness, but a waking consciousness in relation to the physical
world. We then enter into a wider realm where we are intimately
associated with the Mercury beings, with the events and
occurrences characteristic of the sphere of Raphael. Here we
become aware especially of the healing forces inherent in human
nature.
Thus with
each state of consciousness we enter into a specific region of the
universe and so we learn to know the beings who belong to these
regions at any particular time. If we wish to inform ourselves of the
conditions under which men live immediately after death, we must
develop the appropriate consciousness in order to enter the world in
which they dwell. Their true form is only revealed to us in the world
to which they belong. If we wish to observe the Mercury beings we
must share the consciousness of their world. Thus we can take it for
granted that these worlds are, in a certain sense, insulated from
each other and that each world has its specific condition of
consciousness. Indeed, if we would understand the universe aright,
this is a prerequisite, for only in this way can we prepare
ourselves to know these beings in their true character. I propose to
show you by means of a simple example in what direction such
knowledge leads — a knowledge that seeks to develop in
the right way the state of consciousness appropriate to a particular
cosmic sphere.
Let us
assume we have before us a plant with its leaves and flowers. We have
already learned that a plant is the reflected image of the archetypal
form existing in the spiritual world and which forms the
plant-being on Earth. And when we gain knowledge of the plant kingdom
by raising our consciousness into this world of archetypal forms
something of vital importance is disclosed, namely, that w; must
clearly differentiate between the kinds of plants found on Earth.
When we examine a particular specimen, the cichorium intybus
(chicory), for example, with the appropriate spiritual
perception, its appearance is different from that of many others. Let
us take as a typical example the common violet and compare it with
belladonna, the deadly nightshade. When we study the plant kingdom in
the way I have indicated, we shall find, when we participate in the
world to which the violet belongs, that is, in the world of the
emptied, waking consciousness, that the violet stands revealed in all
its innocence to the eye of the spirit.
The deadly
nightshade, belladonna, on the other hand, derives its being from
other worlds. We understand the being of the common plant when we
perceive that it possesses a physical and etheric body and that the
flowers and fruit are surrounded by the universal cosmic element. We
see the organic life of the plant sprouting everywhere out of the
Earth, the etheric body around it and the astral element seemingly
enveloped in cloud. Such is the nature of plants like the violet.
Plants like the deadly nightshade have a different arrangement. The
belladonna develops its bell-shaped flowers inside which the
fruit is formed and the astral element penetrates into the fruit. The
violet develops its capsule only in the etheric element. The fruit of
the deadly nightshade assimilates the astral element and in
consequence the plant is poisonous. All plants which in any of
their parts assimilate astrality from out of the Cosmos are
poisonous. Those forces which enter into the animal, provide it
with an astral body and fashion it inwardly into a sentient being,
are also the source of the toxic element in plants.
This is most
interesting. We find that our astral body is the bearer of forces
which prove to be poisonous when assimilated by plants. This is
how we must think of poison. We can only acquire an inner
understanding of poison when we realize that man's astral body
contains in effect the forces of all existing toxins, for they are an
integral part of his being.
In this
discussion I simply wish to present a clear-cut point of view which
will be of service later in helping us to distinguish between true
and false paths in spiritual investigation. What do we learn
from the examples of the violet and belladonna? When we have
developed the consciousness appropriate to the world of each
plant we perceive that the violet is a being that remains within the
world proper to it and attracts to itself nothing from a world that
is alien to it. The deadly nightshade, on the other hand, attracts to
itself something from an alien world; it assimilates something
that is the prerogative of the animal kingdom and not the plant
kingdom. This is true of all poisonous plants. They assimilate
something which should not belong to the being of the plant, but
which belongs in reality to the animal kingdom.
Now in the
Cosmos there are many beings belonging to different regions. In the
region where we meet with the dead and can follow them for ten,
twenty or thirty years after their death until they leave this
region, are to be found a number of beings who are undoubtedly real,
but who, unperceived by men, enter into our physical world. Perhaps I
can best describe them as a particular kind of elementary being.
When, therefore, we follow the dead after they have passed through
the gates of death, we enter into a world inhabited by all kinds of
elementary beings who are endowed with form and who really belong to
that world. We may say therefore that, since these beings appertain
to that world, they ought in reality to utilize only the forces
pertaining to it. Now amongst these elementary beings will be found
some who do not confine their activities to their own world, but who
observe men when they write, for example, and who follow all the
activities within the world of men between birth and death. We are
permanently surrounded by such beings who are spectators of our
activities.
Now this
spectator rôle is not in itself harmful, for the essence of the
entire plan underlying what I am now describing is that all the
worlds which border on our own, the world we enter immediately after
death, the world where we contact the dead many decades after death,
all these worlds lack everything that man acquires through his
association with the physical world. In this world of the dead there
is, for example, neither writing nor reading; there are no
aeroplanes, no motor cars or coaches-and-four as we know
them.
We cannot
say that here on Earth we construct motor cars, write, read and write
books, in all of which Angels do not also participate. We cannot say
that all these things have no significance for the Cosmos in general.
The fact is that those beings which I have just described are
‘commissioned’ from the world immediately adjacent
to our own. They have to keep an eye on the activities of man. From
other worlds they are charged with the mission to concern themselves
with human nature and to preserve what they learn in that field for
future times.
As human
beings we are able to carry over our karma from one life to the next
and also the effects of external culture upon our karma. We can carry
over from one earthly life to another our experiences associated with
the motor car, but not the construction of the car itself. We cannot
ourselves carry over from one life to the next that which is born of
earthly forces alone. In the course of civilization, therefore,
mankind has laid the foundations of something that would be
lost to it if other beings had not come to its aid. Now the beings of
whom I have spoken are ‘detailed’ for the task of
preserving for the future that which man cannot carry over from one
earthly life to another.
Since in
past ages it has been most difficult for many of these beings to
fulfil their tasks, much of what had been discovered in ancient times
has again been lost to humanity. The salient point I am trying to
establish is that we are surrounded by beings who, in accordance with
the cosmic plan, have been charged with the mission to carry over
into the future that which man himself is unable to transmit from one
earthly life to another, especially the abstract content of our
libraries, for example. The spiritual beings with whom man is in
direct contact cannot do it and therefore we as human beings cannot
do it either. These beings must enlist into their service others who
had long been alien to them, who had experienced a totally different
evolution from the spiritual beings associated with man. These beings
with their different evolution I have called in my books, Ahrimanic
beings. Despite their different evolution there are occasions when
they come in contact with our own, when, for example, we build a
motor car. They are beings who are able by virtue of their Ahrimanic
cosmic forces to understand modern techniques such as the
construction of a motor car. They transmit to future ages the
technical achievements of civilization which man himself cannot carry
over from one incarnation to the next.
With this
information at our disposal we are now in a position to describe what
a medium really is. We must of course distinguish between a medium in
the widest sense and a medium in the literal sense of the word.
Taking the term ‘medium’ in the widest sense, we are all
mediums fundamentally. We are all beings of soul and spirit
before we incarnate to live out our life between birth and death. Our
spiritual essence is incarnated in the physical body. The
physical body is an intermediary for the activities of the
spirit. Taking the word ‘medium,’ then, in the widest
sense, we can say that every being is to some extent a medium. This
is not the meaning we attach to the term ‘a mediumistic
type’ in the normal sense. In the world between birth and death
a mediumistic person is one who has developed certain sectors of the
brain in such a way that they can be isolated from his total being.
Thus, at certain times, those parts of the brain which sustain the
Ego-activity in particular, no longer serve as a basis for this
Ego-activity.
When we say
“I” to ourselves, when we are fully Ego-conscious,
this consciousness is rooted in specific parts of the brain. These
parts of the brain are insulated by the medium and, instead of the
human Ego, certain entities of the class I have just described feel
an urge to slip into these parts of the brain. Such a medium then
becomes the vehicle of those beings whose real function is to
transmit to the future the achievements of civilization. When these
entities take possession of a brain from which, at certain times, the
Ego is absent, they feel an overwhelming desire to establish
themselves in this brain. And when a medium is in a trance condition,
when the brain is insulated, an entity of this kind which is subject
to Ahrimanic influences and whose function is to transmit the
achievements of civilization to the future, slips into the brain.
Instead of being the bearer of the human Ego, such a medium is,
temporarily, the vehicle of an elementary being which is neglecting
its duty in the Cosmos. I want you to take quite literally the
expression: a being which is neglecting its duty in the
Cosmos.
The duty of
such a being is to observe how men write. Men write with the forces
which are rooted in these parts of the brain of which I am speaking.
Instead of merely observing, as is the normal practice, these
beings are on the lookout at all times for a mediumistic brain
that can be insulated. Then they slip into it and introduce
into the contemporary world what their observation has taught
them of the art of writing. Thus, with the help of mediums they
project into the present that which, in accordance with their
mission, they ought to communicate to the future. Mediumism
depends upon the fact that what is to become future capacities
is already developed in the present in a vague and chaotic manner.
This is the origin of the prophetic gift of the medium and the
fascination he has for others. Indeed its operations are more perfect
than those of man today, but it is introduced by beings in the manner
already described.
Just as the
belladonna mediates the astral world — acts as a medium for
certain astral forces that it absorbs into its fruit — so a
human being through his particular type of brain is a medium for
these elementary beings who at some future time must participate in
our civilization, because men cannot carry over everything from
one earthly life to another. This is the real secret of mediumship
— possession by a certain class of beings.
Now you may
conclude that these beings are, on the one hand, actual creations of
Ahrimanic beings. Ahrimanic beings exist in the Cosmos and possess an
intelligence far superior to that of mankind. When we encounter the
Ahrimanic beings in the world immediately adjacent to our own
or, having attained insight, encounter them in the physical world as
well, we are astonished at their vast, outstanding intelligence.
Their intelligence ranges far beyond that of human kind. And we first
learn to respect them when we realize how infinitely intelligent they
are. Something of this intelligence passes over to their progeny, the
elementary beings who slip into mediumistic brains, so that in this
way significant information may be revealed by mediums. We may learn
much of capital importance, especially if we attend to what they
communicate in fully developed consciousness. When we rightly
understand the nature and constitution of the spiritual world,
we cannot deny that mediums are able to impart much authentic
information. Though we may learn much of importance from them, this
is not the right path to spiritual knowledge.
You will
realize this from the example of plants which are plant mediums,
mediums for certain astral forces which are responsible for the
toxicity in plants. It is only through a rightly developed
consciousness that we realize how this situation arose. I should like
to describe this in the following way, for when discussing the
spiritual world, it is better to provide a clear, concrete
description than to deal in abstract concepts.
Let us
assume that with Initiation-knowledge we enter into the world where
the dead live in their life after death. When we accompany the dead
in this way we first enter into a world totally different from our
own. I have already described it to some extent and have
pointed out that it gives an impression of far greater reality than
the world in which we live between birth and death.
When we
enter this world we are astonished at the remarkable beings to be
found there, apart from the souls of the dead. The souls of those who
have recently died are surrounded by strange demoniac forms. At the
entrance to this intermediate world which the dead must enter and in
which we can accompany them with a certain clairvoyant vision, we
meet with demoniac figures with enormous webbed feet — enormous
by earthly standards — like the duck or the wild duck species
and other aquatic animals, huge webbed feet that are perpetually
changing shape. These beings have a form somewhat similar to that of
the kangaroo, but half bird, half mammal. And when we
accompany the dead we pass through vast areas where such beings
dwell.
If we ask
ourselves where these beings are to be found, we must first have a
clear idea of the location of such beings, of where we imagine them
to exist. They are always around us, for we inhabit the same world as
the dead, but you must not look for them in this hall. It is at this
point that the path to real and exact investigation
begins.
Suppose you
are walking through a meadow where many plants of the species
colchicum autumnale, the autumn crocus, are to be found. If, as you
are standing amongst the autumn crocuses, you try to evoke the state
of consciousness that is able to follow the dead, you will see,
wherever an autumn crocus is growing, a being of the kind I have just
described, with webbed feet and strange kangaroo-like body. Such a
being emerges from every autumn crocus.
If you were
to move on to another area where the belladonna, the black
deadly nightshade, grows by the roadside and if you transpose
yourself into the state of consciousness of which I have spoken, you
will meet with totally different beings, horrible, demoniac beings
who also belong to this world. Colchicum autumnale and belladonna
therefore are mediums which permit beings of the next world to enter
into them and which in their other aspect really belong to the world
of the dead.
If we bear
this in mind, we shall realize that everywhere around us is another
world. It is essential that we should enter this world consciously,
that we should perceive the colchicum autumnale and the belladonna
not solely with the normal consciousness, but with the higher
consciousness that is in touch with the dead.
Now consider
the following. Here is a meadow, we will suppose, where the autumn
crocuses are growing. In order to find the plants that bear the
belladonna flowers you might have to travel far and climb a
mountain-side. On the physical plane, belladonna and autumn crocus
are not found together. But in the spiritual world they are found in
close proximity. Space is of a different order. Objects that may be
situated far apart in the physical world may be in close proximity in
the spiritual world. The spiritual world has its own primordial laws;
there everything is different.
Now suppose
we meet with these plants in the world of the dead. When we are first
in touch with the dead, we discover that these plants by no means
evoke in them the horrible impression they evoke in us. They, the
deceased, know that the presence of these demoniac beings is in
accordance with a wise cosmic plan. When therefore we are in
touch with the dead, we find that the intermediate world is populated
with demoniac forms corresponding to the poisonous plants. If we then
progress further towards the realms from which the dead withdraw
after ten, twenty or thirty years in order to enter into a higher
realm, we find the related forms of the non-poisonous plants. Thus
the plant kingdom plays a significant part both in the physical and
the next higher world. In the latter, however, it assumes different
forms.
That which
belongs in its true form to the world of the stars has its
counterpart on Earth in the form of a belladonna, an autumn
crocus or a violet. It has also its counterpart in the world of
the dead where its true form is reflected in the manner already
described. Everything in the one world reacts upon the other worlds.
But in order to have real knowledge of these things we must enter
consciously into the world where they really belong.
The same
applies to the beings of these other worlds. We can only know what
the elementary beings are, the progeny of the Ahrimanic powers, when
we enter into the world immediately bordering on our own. Now these
beings manifest through mediums. They take possession of the
mediums and in this way temporarily enter our world. If we contact
them through a human medium only, we learn to know them in a world
that should really be foreign to them; we do not know them in their
true form. Therefore those who learn to know them only by their
manifestations through mediums cannot possibly arrive at the truth
since these beings are manifesting in a world that is foreign to
them. Spiritual revelations are undoubtedly transmitted, but it is
impossible to understand them when they issue from a world to which
they do not belong. The deceptive and highly hallucinative element in
everything connected with mediumistic consciousness is explained by
the fact that those who contact these beings have no understanding of
their real nature.
Now because
they enter the world in this way a unique destiny is reserved to
these beings. The knowledge of the universe that I have described
serves to enlarge our field of knowledge. When we enter the world of
the dead and traverse the demoniac forest of colchicum autumn
ale, digitalis purpurea (purple foxglove), datura stramonium
(thorn-apple) and so on, we realize that violets will undergo a
metamorphosis and in future will assume totally different
forms. They have a significance for the future of the Cosmos. By its
very nature the autumn crocus prepares the death for which it is
destined. The poisonous plants are moribund plants, species that are
dying out, with no possibility of future development. In future times
they will be replaced by other poisonous species. The poisonous
species of today are already dying out in our epoch. The epoch of
course is of long duration, but these poisonous plants have the seeds
of death within them. And this will be the fate of all
vegetation. When we survey the world of vegetation with this
spiritual vision we perceive forces of growth and development
with a dynamic urge towards the future and a world that is dying and
doomed to perish.
And so it is
with the beings who take possession of the mediums. They detach
themselves from their companions whose task is to carry over the
present into a distant future. Through the agency of mediums they
invade the world of the present, are there caught up in the destiny
of the Earth and sacrifice their future mission. In this way they
deprive man to a large extent of his future mission. And this is what
faces us when we understand the real nature of mediumism, for
mediumism implies that the future shall perish in order that the
present may be all important. When therefore we attend a séance
with insight into the real occult relationships and into the true
nature of the Cosmos, we are at first astonished to find that the
entire circle participating in a spiritistic manifestation is
seemingly surrounded by poisonous plants. Every spiritualistic
séance is surrounded in fact by a garden of poisonous plants
which no longer bear the same aspect as in the kingdom of the dead,
but which grow up around the spiritualist circle, and from their
fruits and flowers demoniac beings are seen to emerge.
Such is the
experience of the clairvoyant at a spiritualistic séance. For
the most part he goes through a kind of cosmic thicket of poisonous
plants that are activated from within and are part animal. Only by
their forms do we recognize that they are poisonous plants. We learn
from this how everything at work within this mediumistic form
that ought to advance the course of human evolution and bear fruit in
the future is relegated to the present where it does not belong. In
the present, it works to the detriment of humanity.
Such is the
inner mystery of mediumism, a mystery of which we shall learn more in
the course of these lectures.
It is now
possible to indicate precisely what aspect of mediumism presents a
major problem to the constitution of man. In this context my account
must of necessity appear somewhat abstract, but it will help you a
little towards some understanding of the nature of
mediumism.
Now the
human brain lying in the cranial cavity has an average weight of 1500
grammes or a little more. That is really a considerable weight and if
the human brain were to press with its own weight on the delicate
veins at the base of the brain, they would immediately be crushed.
However long we live, the weight of our brain never presses upon the
network of veins beneath it. We understand this immediately if
we interpret it in the right way. Let us take man as he is at present
constituted. The spinal canal passes upwards and terminates in the
brain. With the exception of certain portions, the spinal canal is
filled with fluid and the brain floats in this fluid.
Now let us
consider the law of Archimedes. You will be familiar with it from
your study of physics. It is said that he discovered it in a flash of
inspiration whilst he was in his bath. He made the following
experiment: with his body wholly immersed in the bath he lifted first
one leg and then the other out of the water. He noted that his legs
had a different weight according to whether they were in the water or
out of it. They lost weight when they were immersed in the water. For
a man such as Archimedes this experience had wider implications. He
discovered that when an object is wholly immersed in a fluid the
apparent loss of weight is equal to the weight of water
displaced.
A beaker
filled with water is placed on a bench and a solid body suspended by
a thread from the hook of a spring balance is lowered into the water.
We find that the weight of the body is less in water than in air.
When a solid body is immersed in a fluid it experiences an up-thrust
equal to the weight of the fluid displaced. This is the law of
Archimedes.
And this
principle is of great benefit to man for the brain floats in the
cerebral fluid; the apparent loss in weight of the brain is equal to
the weight of the cerebral fluid displaced. Thus our brain does not
weigh 1500 grammes. Its loss in weight is equal to the weight of the
fluid displaced, that is, 1480 grammes, so that in accordance with
the law of Archimedes its effective weight is only 20 grammes
approximately.
In our brain
organisation we have something that is much lighter than its real
weight. Our brain weighs only 20 grammes, but we must treasure these
20 grammes for they alone can harbour our Ego.
Now our
whole body contains all manner of solid constituents which also
float in a fluid medium — the blood corpuscles, for
example. They all suffer loss of weight and only a fraction of their
weight remains. They also harbour the Ego. Thus the Ego is diffused
in the blood that is not subject to gravity. In the course of our
life we must carefully observe everything within us that has
perceptible weight. We must pay the strictest attention to what is
situated in the heavy part of the brain and which still possesses
weight in the literal sense. For there and nowhere else our Ego may
be situated — otherwise astral body, etheric body and so on,
take over.
The medium
is a human being in whom this solid part of his constitution, the 20
grammes brain, no longer contains the Ego. The Ego is expelled from
those parts which still retain weight and then elementary beings can
enter immediately.
A
materialistic mode of thinking seeks to localize everything and
wants to know in which part of the human being the elementary being
is situated when it takes possession of the medium. This is the
language of the materialistic mind that thinks mechanically and
mathematically. Life, however, does not proceed mechanically or
mathematically, but dynamically. We must not say, therefore, that the
medium is possessed at some place or other that can be localized
purely mathematically and geometrically. We must say: the medium is
possessed in those parts of his constitution that possess weight or
gravity, in the part that is attracted to the Earth. There the
Ahrimanic beings can enter; and not only there, but also elsewhere.
This description that I have presented to you gives only the
crudest aspect of the matter. We have yet to discuss a more subtle
aspect.
Now the eye
is our organ of vision for the external world. The optic nerve,
distributed in the eye, is connected with the brain and provides the
basis for colour sensation. The materialist tries to explain how the
optic nerve transmits the colour sensations to the brain and releases
them there. He compares the whole process to the loading of a ship or
a railway truck. Something is ‘loaded into’ the optic
nerve from without and is transported by the nerves; it is then
unloaded somewhere or other and then passes into the soul. The
explanation is not quite as crude as this, but that is what it
amounts to. The real explanation, however, is totally
different.
The function
of the optic nerve is not to convey the colour sensation backwards to
the brain, but to insulate it at a certain point. The colour exists
only at the periphery. The function of the optic nerve is to insulate
the colour sensation the nearer it approaches the brain, so that the
brain is virtually without colour sensations; only weak, faint
colours reach the brain. And not only is colour sensation insulated,
but also every kind of relationship to the external world. Hearing
and sight are associated with the sense organs. In the proximate area
of the brain the optic and auditory nerves and the nerves that
register sensation of warmth reduce everything lying at the periphery
to a dim impression. This bears the same relationship to the
sensation as the 20 grammes to the 1500 grammes, for the 20 grammes
give only a faint impression of the weight of the brain. This is all
that remains to us. When we take in the magnificent spectacle
of the dawn through our senses, the hind-brain registers only a faint
shadow, a dim impression of it. We must pay heed to this dim shadow,
for it is only there that our Ego can enter.
The moment
our Ego is insulated and we manifest mediumistic powers, an
elementary being slips into this faint shadow or into the feeble
tones that proceed from the auditory sense. This being slips
into the parts vacated by the Ego where the external sense-perception
is obliterated, and takes possession of the medium. Then it enters
into the ramifications of the nerves, into the
will-organisation, that is to say, the nerves that govern the
formation of the will. In consequence the medium begins to
respond actively because that which should be under the control of
the Ego has been taken over by the elementary being. All the subtle,
shadowy elements, the residual weight of the brain, the remnants of
the colour and auditory sensations, possess us like a phantom —
for this 20 grammes weight is only a phantom and these feeble shadows
of the colours that penetrate into our inner being are phantom-like.
The elementary being enters into this phantom and then the medium
grows so lethargic that his body becomes wholly passive and
everything in the dim, phantom-like shadows that should really be
permeated by the Ego — shadows that are normally tenanted by
the Ego — now becomes active within him.
A human
being can only be a medium when he permits his faculties which are at
the service of the normal man to be inhibited by lethargy, by total
inertia, and when the phantom that I have described becomes
activated. We can observe this, for example, in the way the medium
writes. The medium, of course, could not write unless everything
within him were lighter as in the case of the brain, for everything
possessed of weight floats in a fluid medium, gives a feeling, a
sensation of lightness and so the elementary being writes in those
areas which are not subject to gravity and where normally the Ego
directs the pen. In the medium, then, it is the elementary being that
takes over the direction of the pen in this human phantom.
There is no
denying the fact that in all mediumistic phenomena we see the
intrusion of another world. Just as the Ahrimanic beings of another
world can enter into the movements performed by the medium, so too
can they enter into the emanations which I described yesterday.
Powerful fluid emanations are present notably in the glandular
regions of the human organisation. These elementary beings penetrate
not only into the fluid emanations but also into the breath
emanations and light emanations. Only in the case of the chemical
emanations is there conscious intercourse between the
individual who makes use of these chemical emanations and the beings
who enter into them. At this point black magic sets in — the
conscious cooperation with these beings who enter in after the manner
I have described.
Mediums and
those who experiment with mediums are unaware of the real processes
involved. The black magician, however, is fully conscious that he is
invoking for his own purposes these beings of the elementary world
into the chemical emanations of human beings, more especially into
his own. Hence the black magician is perpetually surrounded by
a host of subordinates consisting of these elementary beings, and he
makes it possible for them to use the occult-chemical impulses in the
phenomenal world, either through his own emanations, or through
fumigations, perfumes from the burning of aromatic gums carried out
in his laboratory.
Thus we
learn that just as the belladonna trespasses into an alien world and
so becomes toxic, so too through mediumship the spiritual world
trespasses into the world we inhabit between birth and death. And
fundamentally this danger is always present whenever the
consciousness of man, i.e. his full Ego-consciousness, is suppressed,
whenever he is in a stupefied, comatose condition or has actually
suffered syncope. Whenever man's consciousness is damped down, not
through sleep, but through some other factor, there is the danger
that man will be exposed to the world of elementary beings. How
far this plays a significant rôle in the life of man we shall discuss
in the next lectures.
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