17. Spiritism

Spiritism! Mediumship! The debate for and against it rages fiercely. It is not my task to comment on the opponents and their eagerness for denial. That would be a waste of time, as any logically thinking person need only read about the nature of the so-called examinations or research to realize that they reveal complete ignorance and decided incompetence on the part of the ‘examiners’. Why? If I want to explore the earth, I must conform to the earth and its nature. Conversely, if I want to explore the sea, I have no choice but to conform to the nature of the water and use tools that appropriate for the nature of water. Exploring the water with a spade and shovel or drilling machines would probably not get me very far in my research. Or should I deny water because, unlike the more familiar, solid earth, I can penetrate it smoothly with a spade? Or because I cannot walk on it with my feet as I do on solid earth? Opponents will say: There is a difference, because I can see and feel water, so no one can deny its existence!
 
How long ago was it that the millions of brightly coloured creatures in a drop of water were vehemently denied, the existence of which every child now knows about? And why did they deny it? Only because they could not see them! It was only after an instrument was invented that could be adjusted to their nature that this new world could be recognized, seen and observed.
 
The same applies to the immaterial world, the so-called beyond! Become seeing! And then allow yourselves to judge! It is up to you, not the “other world”. In addition to your coarse material body, you also have the essence of the other world within you, while those in the afterlife no longer possess your coarse material body. You demand and expect those in the afterlife, who no longer have any physical substance, to approach you (to give signs, etc.). You wait for them to prove their existence to you, while you, who in addition to the coarse material of this world, also possess the otherworldly material, sit waiting like judges.
 
Build the bridge you can build; finally work with the same substance that is also at your disposal, and you will become seeing! Otherwise, remain silent if you do not understand and continue to fatten only the coarse material, which will increasingly weigh down the fine material part. The day will come when the ethereal must separate from coarse matter and then lie there exhausted because it has been completely weaned in its flight; for it too is subject to earthly laws like the earthly body. Only movement brings strength! You do not need mediums to perceive the ethereal. Just observe the life that your own ethereal part leads within you. Through your will, give it what it needs to grow stronger. Or do you also want to deny the existence of your will because you cannot see or touch it?

How often do you feel the effects of your will within yourself? You feel it, but you cannot see or touch it. Whether it is elation, joy or sorrow, anger or envy. As soon as your will has an effect, it must possess a force that generates pressure; for, without pressure there can be no effect, no feeling. And where there is a pressure, there must be a body, something solid of the same substance; otherwise, no pressure can arise.
 
Therefore, there must be solid forms of a substance that you can neither see nor touch with your coarse material body. And so is the materiality of the beyond, which you are only able to recognize with the same kind of substance that is inherent within you.
 
The debate over the pros and cons of life after earthly death is oddly often taken to the point of ridiculousness. Anyone who can think and observe calmly, without prejudice or desire, will soon find that indeed everything points to the probability of an existing world of another substance, which the average person today is unable to see. There are so many occurrences that remind us of this again and again and which cannot simply be carelessly dismissed as non-existent. On the other hand, an absolute cessation after earthly death cannot be supported by anything other than the desire of many who would like to evade all spiritual responsibility, where cleverness and skill do not come into play, but only in actual feeling. –
 
But now, to the followers of spiritism, spiritualism, and so on, whatever they may call it, it comes down to one thing in the end: great errors!
 
The followers are often much more dangerous to the truth than opponents, much more damaging!
 
Of the millions, only a few are willing to be told the truth. Most of them are entangled in a gigantic web of minor errors that prevent them from finding their way to the simple truth. Where does the blame lie? Is it the other world? No! Or the medium? Not the medium either! It is solely the individuals! They are not serious or critical enough with themselves; do not want to overturn their preconceived opinions and are afraid to shatter the self-constructed image of the beyond that in their imagination gave them holy shivers and a certain sense of well-being for quite some time. And woe betide anyone who touches it! Every devotee already has a stone ready to throw at anyone who challenges it! They cling to it and would rather call the beyond a place of deceptive or mischievous spirits, or to accuse mediums of inadequacy than calmly examine themselves and consider whether their understanding not might have been flawed.
 
Where should I start to root out all the weeds? It would be a never-ending task. Therefore, what I say here is only for those who are searching earnestly; for only such shall find.
 
An example: A person visits a medium, whether significant or not! There are others with him. A “session” begins. The medium “fails”. Nothing happens. The consequence? Some people say: The medium is no good. Others: The entire Spiritualism is nonsense. The critics puff out their chests and proclaim: The medium’s well-tried mediumistic qualities were bogus; for as soon as we arrive, the medium dares not act. And the “spirits” remain silent! Believers and the convinced leave feeling dejected. However, repeated “failure” can result in the medium’s reputation suffering and disappearing altogether. If the medium has a manager (employer) and financial earnings are involved, the manager will nervously urge the medium to make an effort when people are spending money on it, and so forth. In short: there is doubt, ridicule and dissatisfaction, and the medium will, at a new attempt, frantically try to burrow into a mediumistic state; and in the process, in a kind of nervous self-delusion, perhaps unconsciously say something that he thinks he hears, or else resort to direct deception, which, for instance, is not very difficult for a speaking medium. The verdict: Fraud and the negation of all Spiritism, because perhaps some of the mediums resorted to deception in the aforementioned circumstances in order to avoid increasing hostility. Here are some questions:
 
1. In what class of people, whatever it may be, are there no fraudsters? Do we condemn the ability of honest workers in other fields because of a few swindlers?
 
2. Why here in particular, when it happens everywhere?
 
Everyone can easily answer these questions for themselves.
 
But who is mainly responsible for such undignified conditions? Not the medium, but the people themselves! Through their somewhat very one-sided views and, above all, their complete ignorance, people force mediums to choose between unjust hostility or deception.

People do not readily concede a middle ground to a medium.
 
I am speaking here only of serious mediums, not of the numerous mediums who try to push their limited abilities into the forefront. Far be it from me to defend the large followings of mediums in any way, as the actual value of such spiritualists flocking around mediums is in the rarest of cases, with the exception of the serious researchers who approach this new territory with a mindset for learning, but not ignorantly judging. For the vast majority of the so-called believers, these visits or “sessions” bring no progress, but rather stagnation or decline. They become so dependent that they can no longer decide anything for themselves, but always want to seek the advice of those in the “otherworld”. Often in the most ridiculous of matters, and mostly for earthly trifles.
 
Serious researchers or individuals who are honestly seeking will always be outraged by the unspeakable narrow-mindedness of precisely those who have felt “at home” as constant visitors to mediums for years. With an air of extraordinary cleverness and superior demeanour, they talk the greatest nonsense and then sit there with hypocritical reverence, letting pleasant thrills wash over them as they experience that communication invisible forces bring in the imagination. Many mediums bask in the flattering words of such long-time visitors, who in reality are only expressing a selfish desire to “experience” quite a lot themselves. For them, however, “experiencing” is synonymous only with hearing or seeing, that is, being entertained. Nothing ever becomes an “experience” within them.
 
What should a serious person now consider in such occurrences?
 
1. Mediums can contribute nothing at all to a “success”, except to open themselves up, that is, to surrender, and otherwise to wait; for they are merely a tool that is used, an instrument that cannot produce sound on its own unless it is not played. Therefore, there can be no such thing as a so-called failure. Anyone who speaks of such a thing demonstrates narrow-mindedness; they should keep their hands off and not express any opinions, as they cannot possibly have any judgement. Just as anyone who finds learning difficult should also avoid university. So, a medium is simply a bridge, or a means to an end.
 
2. But that the visitors play a major role in this! Not in terms of their outward appearance or even their worldly status, but with their inner life! The inner life, as even the greatest mockers know, is a world of its own. It cannot, of course, be a “nothing” with its intuitions, its generating and nourishing thoughts, but logically it must be ethereal bodies or things through which intuition awakens through pressure or influence, because otherwise no such occurrences could arise. Images cannot be perceived in the spirit if there is nothing there. Such a perception would indeed represent the greatest hole in the laws of exact sciences. So, something must be there, and something is there; for the generative thought immediately produces corresponding forms in the ethereal, that is, otherworldly, the density and viability of which depend on the power of sensation of the generative thoughts in question. Thus, alongside what is called the “inner life” of humans, there also arises a corresponding ethereal environment that is identically formed around them.
 
And it is this environment which a medium who is more attuned to the Ethereal World must touch, pleasantly or unpleasantly, even painfully. Consequently, real manifestations from the Ethereal World may not be rendered so purely if the medium is constrained, oppressed or confused by the presence of individuals with ethereally or spiritually impure inner lives. But it goes further than this. This impurity forms a wall to purer ethereality, even if it is one guided by a personal spirit with a free will even in the beyond, so that a manifestation cannot take place at all, or only of an equally impure, ethereal kind.
 
In the case of visitors with a pure inner life, connection with the corresponding pure ethereal environment is of course possible. But every difference forms an unbridgeable gulf! Hence the differences in so-called sessions, thus often complete failure or confusion occurring. All this is based on immutable, purely physical laws which work in the beyond just as they do in this world.
 
Thus, the derogatory reports of “examiners” come into a different light. And those who are able of observing the ethereal processes must smile, because many an examiner speaks their own judgement with his report, revealing their own inner life, and only condemns his state of mind.
 
A second example: A person visits a medium. It happens to him that a deceased relative speaks to him through the medium. He asks him for advice about a perhaps very important earthly matter. The departed one gives him some instructions, which the visitor receives like a gospel, a revelation from the beyond, then follows exactly and as a result…falls for it, often suffering serious harm.
 
The consequence? The visitor will first and foremost doubt the medium, and in his disappointment and out of anger over the harm, may even work against the medium, in some cases even feel obliged to launch public attacks in order to save others from the same damage and pitfall. (Here I should now have to explain the afterlife, how such a man thereby opens himself to similar currents in the other world through the attraction of spiritual homogeneity, and how he is then able, as the instrument of such counter-currents, to become a zealot in the proud consciousness of standing up for the truth and thus rendering a great service to humanity, while in reality he makes himself a slave of impurity and burdens himself with a karma that requires a lifetime or still more to resolve, from which new threads emerge again and again, producing a net in which he entangles himself; in the end he no longer knows which way to turn, and then enrages all the more furiously with hostility.)
 
Alternately, the disappointed visitor may, if he does not regard the medium as an impostor, will at least be very sceptical about the whole otherworldly realm or take the usual comfortable path that thousands take and say to himself: “What does the otherworldly realm matter to me, after all? Let others worry their heads about that. I have better things to do”. However, serving only the body by earning money merely distances one further from the ethereal. So where does the fault actually lie here? Only with himself again! He had formed a false picture by accepting what was said as if it were gospel. That was entirely his mistake and not the fault of others. Because he assumed that a person who had passed on would become partly omniscient, or at least all-knowing, through their ethereality. This is the error of many hundreds of thousands. All that a deceased person knows more through their transformation is that they have not really ceased to be with the so-called dying.
 
That is all, provided they do not take the opportunity to advance in the ethereal world, which also depends on their own free will. Therefore, when questioned about earthly matters, they will offer their opinions in good faith, wishing to fulfil a desire, also in the conviction that they are doing their best; but they are unconsciously not in a position to judge earthly matters and conditions as clearly as humans still living in the flesh, for they lack the coarseness of the physical substance that they absolutely need for proper judgement. Their point of view must therefore be quite different. But they offer what they can, and they also give their best with the best of intentions. So, neither they nor the medium can be blamed. They are therefore not lying spirits; we should distinguish only between knowing and unknowing spirits; for, as soon as a spirit sinks, that is, becomes more impure and heavier, its point of view naturally narrows at the same time. They always give and act according to how they feel; they live only with their intuition, not to the calculating intellect, which they no longer have since it was bound to the earthly brain, and thus also to space and time. As soon as this ceased with death, there was no more reasoning or deliberation for him, but only feeling, an immediate, ongoing experience!
 
The fault lies with those who still want to seek advice about earthly matters, bound to space and time; from those who no longer have the limitation and therefore cannot comprehend it.
 
Those in the afterlife can certainly recognize which direction is the right and which is the wrong one in any given matter, but humans must then weigh up with their earthly aids, that is, their intellect and experience, how they can go in the right direction. They must bring it into harmony with all earthly possibilities! That is their work.
 
Even if a deeply sunk spirit gains opportunity to influence and speak, no one can accuse him of lying or attempting to mislead; rather, he gives what he lives and also seeks to convince others of it. He cannot give anything else.
 
Thus, there are countless errors in the spiritualists’ view.
 
“Spiritism” has become quite disreputable, but not in itself; rather, through the sheer number of adherents who, after achieving only a few and often very meagre results, enthusiastically believe that the veil has been lifted for them, and who then eagerly want to enlighten others with a conception of ethereal life which they have devised for themselves, which an unbridled imagination has created and which, above all, completely cloaks their own desires. Rarely, however, are such images entirely in harmony with the truth!