Michael Prescott's Blog

Everyday insanity

Yesterday I learned that there may be an effort by members of my condominium association to remove a tree that stands directly outside my unit. When I woke up today, the first thing I found myself thinking about was the tree. The more I thought about it, the more exercised I became. I could not stand the thought of losing the tree. I spent most of the day dwelling on the problem, envisioning various strategies to protect the tree, and considering fallback positions if the tree should in fact come down. I put in a work order to have some groundcover cleared away by the landscaping crew so as to determine whether the root system of the tree poses any threat to the sidewalk or nearby driveway. I called a tree surgeon to arrange an appointment so I could get an expert opinion on the health of the tree and whether it ought to be removed. I was so distracted by this problem that I found it difficult to work, even though I'm overburdened with projects at the moment and have several deadlines I'm trying to meet.

And then at some point in the evening, a little ray of clarity broke into the turbulence of my thoughts. I found myself thinking, What the hell, man? It's only a tree.

At that point, I was able to step outside of my emotional connection to the tree, my feeling that any attack on the tree was an attack on me personally, my egoic attachment to this tree which is an extension of my home and therefore an extension of myself. That's not to say I was suddenly okay with the prospect of the tree coming down, if it is in fact healthy and not posing a threat to the sidewalk, etc. But at least during this period of clarity I was no longer fuming and obsessing.

Later, I happened to look out the window at the tree, and the simple sight of it immediately brought back a lot of the rage, frustration, and exasperation I'd been feeling. I could easily have gotten caught up in another whirlwind of negative thinking if I hadn't consciously pull back.

What this little episode illustrates, I think, is a simple point that has been made often enough by Eckhart Tolle and similar writers, but remains insufficiently appreciated–namely, the ego is insane.

I mean this literally. There is a sane part of us, but it is not the ego. The ego is capable of lucidity when lucidity serves its self-defined interests. But it is equally capable of brazen irrationality when irrationality serves its perceived interests. It is also very adept at disguising irrationality and making it appear perfectly sensible, at least to ourselves, and sometimes to others.

The ego is not our friend. The ego is looking out only for itself. The ego wants to enlarge itself, and it does so by getting us worked up, angry, righteous, obsessed, vindictive, frustrated, and defensive, among many other things. Occasionally it may actually be beneficial for us to experience one or more of these states of mind, but most of the time it is not helpful. Not helpful to us, that is. It is very helpful to the ego.

It is true that most of us identify with the ego and have trouble drawing a distinction between the "I"  and the ego. And that's just the way the ego likes it. The more we identify with it, the more power we give it and the less able we are to resist its siren song. People who are totally in the grip of the ego, without any ray of clarity from the higher self or true self, are psychotic. They may be walking around in public, they may be successful in their field, they may even be admired and envied, but they are still psychopaths.

It is entirely possible for a person to be very successful in a material sense, outwardly normal and even likable, and still be, in fact, insane. Actually, I think this state of affairs is more common than we like to admit.

But all of us have an ego, and all of us are insane to one extent or another. Maybe there are a few very enlightened gurus who have overcome the ego completely, though I wouldn't count on it. But the overwhelming majority of human beings on the earth, and probably every human being you or I will ever meet, is in the grip of the ego much of the time, and therefore is functionally insane for a good part of his or her life.

People wonder why they see so much cruelty in the world, so much craziness, so many examples of man's inhumanity to man. But if you consider that nearly all of us are insane at least part of the time, and many of us are insane most of the time, the cruelty, craziness, and inhumanity of the human species is less surprising. To be honest, it is a little surprising that things aren't even worse. The better angels of our nature do seem to temper our egoic tendencies more often than we might expect.

Lately on this blog, I've been talking a lot about manias, and specifically the idea that the heyday of Spiritualism as a cultural, social, and religious movement may have been characterized by an atmosphere of mania, or perhaps more accurately, by recurrent waves of mania erupting at different places in different times, not unlike the witch hysteria of an earlier era. But how can otherwise rational people become subject to any sort of mania? Well, perhaps they can't; but the trouble is, people are not “otherwise rational.” As creatures of the ego, they are insane for a good part of their lives, so it's not surprising that their individual insanity should sometimes coalesce into a group insanity, and that this insanity should seem perfectly reasonable to the people who are subject to it.

That's why I have to treat with skepticism even the most sober accounts of séances and other purportedly paranormal experiences if they were supplied by people whose rationality and objectivity had been compromised either by excessive personal enthusiasm or the larger insanity of a mass movement. These people were convinced that they had witnessed paranormal or supernatural phenomena of epochal importance. Naturally they became intensely committed to the reality of what they had seen. Their commitment was reinforced by sharing their experiences with others who felt they had seen the same things. This commitment became an extension of the ego, and any attack on that commitment–any questions raised about the validity of the phenomena–were felt as an attack on the ego. And the ego will go to astounding lengths to protect itself from such an attack. It will marshal all of its resources, including all of the intellectual capabilities of the mind it is using (and I do think the ego uses the mind, not in a symbiotic relationship but parasitically;  the ego is, in a sense, an alien entity that clings to the mind in order to sustain itself).*

A mind that has been hijacked by the ego can believe itself to be entirely lucid, objective, even unusually perceptive–while spouting sheer nonsense. Some behavioral psychologists use the term “thought attack” to describe the cascading avalanche of irrational thoughts that can lead to severe anxiety, depression, violence, etc. But all ego-based thinking is a thought attack to some degree. And while we are caught up in it, we are no more able to extricate ourselves from our racing thoughts than from a descending mountainside of snow.

I think we need to keep this in mind when we evaluate any eyewitness accounts or recollections of paranormal events, especially those from the frenetic halcyon days when Spiritualism, like Revivalism before it, was burning like a prairie fire across the nation. Again I have to say: the ego is not our friend. It is not interested in truth or facts or even logic and reason, except as these may be used to serve its own purpose, which is to survive and grow stronger. The ego is not a reliable guide. It will intentionally mislead us if, by leading us astray, it can aggrandize itself. The ego is not honest or rational or moral, though it may speak in the language of reason and morality when it pleases.

The ego is really the devil in us all, the original sin that taints us. We ignore it at our own risk. And nowhere is this more true than when matters of ultimate spiritual significance–the nature of life and death, and the meaning of it all–are at stake.

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*It's possible that the relationship orginally was symbiotic, i.e., mutually beneficial, but it does not seem to fit that description today. At the very least, the relationship seems to do much more harm than good in modern society. 

Goin' home

Recently I came across an American spiritual written by W.A. Fisher in 1922, which seems to have been inspired by traditional African-American hymns. Though an alternate version exists which contains conventional Christian imagery, the authentic version strikes me as having much in common with NDEs and the teachings of Spiritualism. Possibly Fisher was influenced by Spiritualism, which remained quite popular at the time.  

Goin' Home

William Arms Fisher

Goin' home, goin' home, I'm a goin' home;
Quiet-like, some still day, I'm jes' goin' home.
It's not far, jes' close by,
Through an open door;
Work all done, care laid by,
Goin' to fear no more.
Mother's there 'spectin' me,
Father's waitin' too;
Lots o' folk gather'd there,
All the friends I knew,
All the friends I knew.
Home, I'm goin' home!

Nothin lost, all's gain,
No more fret nor pain,
No more stumblin' on the way,
No more longin' for the day,
Goin' to roam no more!
Mornin' star lights the way,
Res'less dream all done;
Shadows gone, break o' day,
Real life jes' begun.
There's no break, there's no end,
Jes' a livin' on;
Wide awake, with a smile
Goin' on and on.

Goin' home, goin' home, I'm jes' goin' home,
goin' home, goin' home, goin' home!

(Lyrics via Wikisource.)

The duke of URL

Chris Carter has a new Web site up to promote his book. Like the book, the site is called Science and the Near-Death Experience, and it can be found here.

If you click on the menu on the left side of the screen, you'll have the opportunity to learn more about the book and to read excerpts. There's also a link to Subversive Thinking's interview with Chris.

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Robert Perry was kind enough to send me a copy of his recently published book Signs: A New Approach to Coincidence, Synchronicity, Guidance, Life's Purpose, and God's Plan. Whew! That's a mouthful. I haven't had time to do more than flip through the book, but it looks interesting, covers a lot of ground, and has been endorsed by leading NDE researcher Bruce Greyson, among others.

You can learn more about Signs here.

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Speaking of Robert Perry, he posted a provocative and concise review of Raymond Moody's latest book on his blog. The entry includes a comment from Cheryl Moody (Raymond Moody's wife) responding to some questions and criticisms raised in the review. I haven't read Moody's book, but the review has piqued my interest, since the phenomenon he is describing, "shared NDEs," could someday prove very evidential if it can be adequately documented.

The shared NDE phenomenon reminded me of "shared IADCs," which I've written about in the past.

Suffering

One of my favorite quotes is Edith Hamilton's translation of some lines from Agamemnon, the first play in Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy:

He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despite, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

I think this is profoundly true, but of course it raises a question. Why must we so often suffer in order to learn? What is it that makes suffering necessary?

An answer is suggested in Martin Lings' worthwhile book, Shakespeare's Window into the Soul (which, in its long publishing history since 1966, has also appeared under the titles Shakespeare in the Light of Sacred Art, The Secret of Shakespeare, and The Sacred Art of Shakespeare). Lings was an erudite British scholar specializing in religion and spirituality. In his book on Shakespeare he explores the mystical elements of the playwright's work, finding in the mature tragedies a symbolic reenactment of man's redemption from his imperfections (characterized in the Christian tradition as Original Sin).

He makes his case most clearly with regard to Measure for Measure. Lings writes:

At the beginning of the play Angelo appears to be by certain standards almost perfect, but as yet he is merely a human fragment....

But by the beginning of the last scene ... Angelo was no longer merely a human fragment: his soul was a chaos of warring virtue and vice, with vice momentarily in the ascendant, but it was at least a complete soul; and it is because the fallen soul in quest of perfection has first of all to be made complete by the addition of faults, which are only subsequently purified and transformed into virtues, that Mariana says: "They say best men are moulded out of faults."

This is a theme that Lings expands on at some length. His basic point is that, in the mystical tradition, it is required to confront the darker aspects of oneself - what Jung called the "shadow." Only by facing and transcending these elements of darkness, and then integrating them into one's whole personality, can a person be spiritually perfected.

Angelo, the proud moralist of Measure for Measure, must come face to face with his own immoralities - his lust, deceitfulness, and pride -- in order to finally overcome these vices and become a whole person, "moulded out of faults."

Lings explains:

Now the descent into Hell for the discovery of the soul's worst possibilities is only necessary because these possibilities are an integral part of the psychic substance and need to be recovered, purified, and reintegrated, for in order to be perfect the soul must be complete.... The lost and perverted elements have first to be found and then redeemed, and ... the interval between finding and redemption is likely to be fraught with danger.

The soul cannot be made perfect until it is complete. In order to reverse the process of the Fall by which part of man's soul came under the domination of the devil, it is necessary first of all to regain consciousness of the lost psychic elements that lie in dormant or semidormant perversion in the nethermost depths of the soul. Thus it is that in some traditional stories the descent into Hell is represented by a journey into the depths of the earth in search of hidden treasure: the lost psychic elements are symbolized by precious stones that have been stolen and hidden by diabolically cunning dwarfs. The second part of the spiritual path is concerned with the winning back of the lost jewels, that is, the freeing of the rediscovered psychic substance from the devil's domination....

What is traditionally known as "the descent into Hell" is termed so because through it the lower possibilities of the soul are revealed.... Initiation, followed up by the devotional and ascetic practices that are implicit in it, opens the door to contact with the perfecting and unifying power of the Spirit, whose presence demands that the psychic substance shall once again become a single whole. The more or less scattered elements of this substance are thus compelled to come together; and some of them come in anger, from dark and remote hiding-places, with the infernal powers still attached to them. From this point of view it is truer to say that Hell rises than that the mystic descends; and the result of this rising is a battle between "mighty opposites," with the soul as battleground....

At the outset of the play the perverted psychic elements are more or less dormant and remote from the center of consciousness. They must first of all be woken and then redeemed, for they cannot be purified in their sleep; and it is when they wake in a state of raging perversion that there is always the risk that they will overpower the whole soul. This is what happens with Angelo ...

The "descent into Hell," then, is a necessary but risky procedure - necessary in order to activate the latent qualities of the "shadow," but risky because these traits, once awakened, may take over the personality and trap it in a net of negative influences.

Getting back to the Aeschylus quotation, we can see that "suffering" - through which, "by the awful grace of God," we learn what we need to learn - is just another term for the "descent into Hell." We suffer in order to exhume and reanimate the neglected or suppressed parts of ourselves that must be reintegrated into our total personality in order for spiritual growth to take place.

Thus, "he who learns must suffer" - because the integration of the psyche cannot take place otherwise.

This leaves one more question: How exactly do we manage the reintegration? How do we learn by suffering?

Here I think it is useful to recall the old adage, "The wheel turns." The idea is that everything in this life is temporary. A person may be powerful today and powerless tomorrow - rich today and poor tomorrow - happy today and sad tomorrow. In this world of flux, this "sensual world" (as Buddhists call it), nothing is permanent but change.

Some of the sayings of Jesus reflect this truth, especially his multiple variations on the theme that the last shall be first. (A page of such variations is here; the list includes the famous Beatitudes, which promise that those who are in a low condition today will rise tomorrow. While this may be, in part, a promise of ultimate divine redemption, it is also a simple acknowledgment that throughout the course of life the wheel keeps on turning.)  

I think that the negative, "shadow" character traits that come to fullest life when we are suffering can be understood and overcome by keeping in mind that "the wheel turns." If we feel that things are rotten and hopeless, we can remember that the wheel turns, and that things will be better down the line. If we feel envious of people who seem to be doing better than we are, we can remember that the wheel turns, and that the people we envy will not always be on top. If we feel a lust for power, we can remember that the wheel turns, and that people who wield power often end up on the receiving end of someone else's power. ("He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.")

To bear in mind the turning wheel and the ceaseless fluctuations of life and fortune that it represents is to know a certain kind of calming and healing wisdom. And from this perspective it is possible (though not always easy) to master our baser feelings and accept them, tamed, as part of ourselves.

The steps in this account of spiritual progress, then, would be:

First, the advent of suffering and the arousal of the negative, "shadow" thoughts and feelings that suffering excites.

Second, full awareness of these thoughts and feelings, and even a partial surrender to them in order that they be felt completely. 

Third, the adoption of a wider perspective - "the wheel turns" - in which the present troubles are seen as temporary and tolerable, and the "shadow" emotions are seen as mistaken, grounded in ignorance of the true nature of life. (In effect, the negative emotions are attempts to grab and hold on to things like power, success, and wealth, when in the flux of the sensual world it is impossible to hold on.)

If we go through this proves, we may with luck emerge at the end of it like Prince Hamlet of Act V, who can say with sublime assurance:

There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.  If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come.  The readiness is all.  Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what isn't to leave betimes?  Let be. 

It's a Zen thing

I haven't read too far in it yet, but so far I'm really enjoying the writings at this Web site devoted to Buddhism.  

The site offers this description:

This small booklet was compiled and edited from talks given by Venerable Ajahn Sumedho on the central teaching of the Buddha: that the unhappiness of humanity can be overcome through spiritual means.

The teaching is conveyed through the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, first expounded in 528 BC in the Deer Park at Sarnath near Varanasi and kept alive in the Buddhist world ever since.

Venerable Ajahn Sumedho is a bhikkhu (mendicant monk) of the Theravada tradition of Buddhism. He was ordained in Thailand in 1966 and trained there for ten years. He is currently the Abbot of Amaravati Buddhist Centre as well as teacher and spiritual guide to many bhikkhus, Buddhist nuns and lay people.

The material seems to have been written about twenty years ago, judging from occasional references to the Thatcher administration. But of course, the subject matter is timeless.

I will say, in reference to a point the author makes about insects, that even if I do recognize an ant's right to life, I still intend to squish any ants I find in my house.

The real you - discovered at last!

As regular readers know, for some time I've been annoyingly fixated on the question, "What is the real you?" In other words, what part of us is ultimately real and lasting?

If you listen to nondualist mystics like Eckhart Tolle, you get the impression that the real you is an impersonal witness, pure awareness stripped of all personal characteristics. On the other hand, a great deal of channeled information suggests that the personality does endure even after the physical body has been left behind. F.W.H. Myers' classic book on evidence for the afterlife is even titled Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death.

So ... what survives? The personality, or an impersonal observer?

In some ways, neither prospect appeals to me. The personality has too many unattractive elements; it doesn't seem like something we'd want to lug around for all eternity. Imagine being shackled to our fears, resentments, and disappointments forever!

At the same time, the impersonal witness leaves me rather cold. I'm inclined to agree with C.S. Lewis, who argued that personality is actually a higher development than the impersonal, and that people who imagine God as an impersonal force - an "energy field," say - are actually making God something less than human, rather than something more.

Well, it seemed I was between a rock and a hard place. But last night it occurred to me to take a look at the Bible and see if I could find any clues to the answer there.

I should say that I'm not a Christan and do not turn to the Bible as an infallible source of knowledge. But I do think that many of the Biblical writings reflect a high level of spiritual inspiration. No doubt the writings of other major religions do, as well, but I am much more familiar with the Judeo-Christian tradition than with any other.

In any event, I opened a little pocket Bible I had lying around and, after a little searching, remembered a famous passage from 1 Corinthians. A tribute to love, it is often recited at weddings, though the love in question is really agape, or brotherly love, rather than romantic love. It is one of the most quoted passages in the New Testament, and I'm surprised I hadn't thought of it before:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Cor 13:4-7; NIV)

Now, when I read this, I felt I had stumbled upon the answer to my question. I think that the real you, the part that lasts and deserves to last, is precisely described by this passage. The highest parts of ourselves are the parts that endure the longest, while the lesser parts are gradually cleansed and removed. It is somewhat analogous to the process of purifying pig iron. The iron is heated so that impurities come to the surface; these are removed, and then the iron is heated again, and more impurities float free, and so on, until finally the brittle pig iron has become hardened steel.  

Note that while love is not ego-driven, it also is not impersonal. You could have ten people in a room, all of whom have loving dispositions, and yet they would all be distinct individuals. The refinement of the personality to eliminate egoic impurities does not result in the absence of any personality at all. On the contrary, it results in a more elevated personality.

If we take the description supplied by St. Paul and invert it, we have a good description of the ego - by which I mean the lower aspects of the self. The ego is impatient, unkind, envious, boastful, proud (arrogant), rude, self-seeking, easily angered (irritable, touchy, thin-skinned), and resentful (likely to hold a grudge). The ego often does evil (it lies and misleads) and has no interest in the truth (only in perpetuating itself). The ego harms us and others, mistrusts everybody, inculcates hopelessness and victimhood, and is more likely to quit in disgust or despair than to persevere.

Basically, the ego fears, and because it fears, it also hates. And hate, of course, is the opposite of love. When we hate, we are being unspiritual. We are giving in to our lowest aspects, rather than our highest.

I'm not saying that egoic qualities disappear immediately upon making the transition to the next life. I don't think they do. But they will disappear eventually, leaving not a void of personality but a rarefied personality that thinks, feels, and acts in accordance with Paul's description. 

This, I believe, is the real you. It is personal but not narrowly egocentric, distinctively individual in its character but selfless in its moral action. In the trials of life, this part of ourselves may glimmer only dimly now, but someday it will shine with brilliant light. Or as Paul puts it just a few verses later:

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

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P.S. A good follow-up to this blog post would be the channeled book Testimony of Light, by Helen Greaves. The book covers the idea of the further spiritual progress that we undertake in the next life.

Body and soul

Here's a brief excerpt from Chapter 4 of The Last Crossing, by British medium Gladys Osborne Leonard. It bears on the topic of the "soul body" or etheric body, which we looked at in an earlier post. It's also relevant to our discussion of spiritual healer George Chapman.

Under our present condition of ignorance as to the nature and possibilities of the etheric body, its functions and activities, it is probable that we are not giving it the opportunities for helping the physical, which it is capable of using to the highest degree. We must remember that this etheric body is the body of the Soul, and within the Soul is the Divine Spark, usually called the Spirit.

The Soul should be (it certainly can be) in touch with higher vibrations of life-giving forces than are our physical bodies. Given an understanding of this fact, by voluntary co-operation with the higher functionings of the Soul, we should find that the conditions of the physical body could be acted upon, and considerably helped by, the forces of healing that would be directed upon and through it by the etheric counterpart.

I am convinced that we are losing great opportunities of obtaining help in this way, simply because of our ignorance regarding the existence of this Other Body and its importance in relation to our well-being.

Physical ill health means that the soul body is in imperfect association with the physical; something has dislodged it, it may be only in the slightest degree.

Old age and senile decay result in, or are the result of, the same phenomenon. When the etheric body and the physical are in perfect association, good health is the inevitable outcome. This is what is meant by whole-ness, or wholesome-ness.

When Jesus performed some wonderful cure, He said, "Thy faith hath made thee whole." Now the dictionary definition of the word "whole" is "in a healthy state, healed, complete, a complete system, not defective or imperfect, entire, composing of all parts, units, etc., that make up the aggregate."

When Jesus used the word "whole" in regard to a healing He meant the word to be taken in its literal sense. I submit that He meant that He had joined two component and absolutely necessary—to each other—parts (i.e. the etheric and the physical bodies) together. When He restored an apparently dead body to life, He followed exactly the same procedure. He induced the etheric body, which had become dissociated from the physical, to return and complete the latter, so making the organism whole again.

While the etheric body was dissociated it was probably recharging itself with life-giving forces and energy, which it took back into the physical when Jesus induced the reunion of the two bodies.

Also, when he referred to the man's faith having made him whole, I feel sure He meant something more than the man's mental acceptance of His—Jesus'—power to heal him. We can have that kind of faith in a bottle of medicine or a box of pills. No, I think He was referring to the fact that because of his faith, the man had allowed his higher mind to operate, and when that happens, even in the slightest degree an SOS is sent from the physical brain via the etheric cord (which I have explained in another part of this book is a telepathic means of communication between the two bodies) to the etheric body. If the command for the return of the etheric to the physical is supported by spiritual knowledge and authority such as Jesus had, it results in a union of the two bodies, and subsequent health, activity, wholeness, on the physical plane. Jesus and His followers evidently knew all about the two bodies, their existence, their functions, and their infinite possibilities.

The complete text of The Last Crossing is online here.

Findlay on the etheric body

In Chapter 15 of his book On the Edge of the Etheric, Arthur Findlay summarizes his view of the relationship between the physical body and what he calls the etheric body. This information was conveyed to him by the medium John C. Sloan. Anyone familiar with spiritualist teachings will not find very much that is new here, but it is uncommonly well expressed, and so I am excerpting parts of it.

One thing that occurred to me is that perhaps Findlay's etheric bodies are essentially the same thing as Rupert Sheldrake's morphic fields, and possibly both owe a lot to the Forms (or Ideas) of Platonic philosophy.

Anyway, the excerpt follows.

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Here in this world our bodies are dual; physical, which we can see and touch; etheric, which we cannot sense with our physical organs. These two bodies interpenetrate each other, but the etheric is the permanent, enduring one, the etheric mind being the abode of our memory, personality, and all those qualities which make up our character. Those qualities pertain to the etheric. The mind never grows old, only the brain -- the mind's instrument -- which becomes impaired as the physical body grows old. Nothing we have learned, no intellectual wealth acquired, is ever lost.

Here we lose, in time, the power of expression; but this is due to the physical instrument ceasing to function with its aforetime precision. When, after the death change, the worn-out garment is laid aside, we stand, clothed in an etheric body, in our new abode. Freed from the limitations of the physical, our faculties are clear and movements more rapid. In the change we lose nothing of value; we are still ourselves in form and feature, in thought and action. Those who have lost arms or legs will have them again, as it was only the physical which was lost, and the same with all the other bodily disabilities. [Findlay's footnote: The individual mind in the etheric world obtains in time such control over the etheric body that bodily deformations can be removed and cured by thought.] The physical is but the covering; it is continually wasting away and being renewed by the blood, which is another proof that there is a permanent structure to which physical matter is attached.

The child who leaves this earth as such grows to manhood or womanhood, and when this stage is reached remains a fully-grown developed man or woman. Old age pertains to the physical, but it is unknown in the etheric. Children in the etheric world are carefully cared for and educated; there they have their schools and colleges; in fact the desire for knowledge is the outstanding desire of all who seek for progress, be they children or adults. And what of the old who die? Do they who live long enough to die with all the disabilities of old age retain those throughout eternity? If we could only comprehend that the etheric body never grows old, but only the physical body, this question would not be asked. When the old and tottering body is cast aside the etheric duplicate stands erect, freed from its outward physical handicap.

The old die old only in the physical sense, but enter the next life young. Age there is not measured in years, as time there differs from ours ....

The man and woman of average intelligence perceives the new environment without much delay, some almost immediately, on the passing of their etheric bodies out of the physical covering, though with others it may take days or weeks, as we measure time.

Our etheric body is in every respect a duplicate of our physical body. This may seem strange at first, and I found it difficult to grasp until I understood the fact that the etheric is the real body on earth, and that from the moment of conception it has gathered round it physical matter, slowing vibration. Otherwise it could not have functioned in the physical world owing to its finer and more rapid vibrations.

The physical body is only a protective covering for the etheric during its passage through the earth life. In reality, our real hands here are etheric hands clothed with a glove of physical matter, and so with all the other parts of the body. Our real brain is the etheric brain, through which the mind functions, and it acts through this whether we are in this world or the next. The mind acts on the etheric brain, and the etheric brain on the material covering which we call the physical brain ....

We are really much greater than we think we are, very much so; our mind as expressed through the physical brain is very limited, and only when freed from the physical do we comprehend its greatness. Our earthly mind we call conscious mind, but it, and what we term the subconscious or subliminal mind, form a complete mind. Our conscious mind directs our activities in this world, but our greater mind functions in the next. We obtain only glimpses of this greater mind in the occasionally observed phenomena of telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience and prevision, and on these occasions the subliminal over-rides the conscious for a limited time and then withdraws.

Some day, as man develops, the subliminal may become more and more a dominating factor, but at this stage of our development its intrusion is sporadic and confined to the few. When we pass on, our earth memories pass with us, but slowly they fade and we are guided and governed by this greater mind which has been with us all our lives building up our bodies, performing its inward functions, and making us what we are, though we know it not.

Excerpt from Chapter 15, "Facts We Ought to Know"; On the Edge of the Etheric, by Arthur Findlay (66th British edition; 1970)

Huna

Here's an interesting essay on Max Freedom Long's interpretation of ancient Hawaiian teachings. Some academic authorities dispute Long's interpretations, but if Long is correct, then the so-called "huna" traditions tie in nicely with other mystical traditions around the world, as well as with OBEs, NDEs, psychometry, apparitions, etc.

Open question

Okay, here's a question that I'm just throwing out to all who care to comment. Does anyone have an opinion on A Course in Miracles?

I ask because I just read a very brief book - booklet, really - summarizing the Course, and what I read is intriguing and matches up pretty well with some things I've been coming to believe.

On the other hand, it's one thing to read a 50-page summary and another thing to plow through a 1300-page book with 365 daily lessons.

And some people have negative impressions of the Course. They find it cultish, controlling,  brainwashing, etc.

I don't want my brain washed. For all I know, it may be suede.

So has anyone out there taken the Course or looked into it? Any thoughts?