Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Anterior: XIV - Sobre o Gênio ou “Daimon” Seguinte: XVI - Sobre o Demônio e Demônios
Nº. XV
CONCERNING THE “POWERS OF THE AIR” (1)
I SAW last night in my sleep my genius clothed with a
red flame and standing in a dark place. He held in his hand a cup, into which he
bade me look. I did so, and as I looked a mist gathered in the cup like a cloud;
and I saw in the cloud spirits wrestling with each other. Then the cup seemed to
widen, until it became a great table upon which scenes and words were written.
And I saw the vapour filled with astral spirits, ephemeral, flame-like,
chimerical; and upon the mist which enveloped and swept around them was
written, “The Powers of the Air.”
And I said to my genius, “Are these
the spirits which control mediums?” And he said, “Do not use that word Medium; for it is misleading. These are the powers which affect
and influence Sensitives.
(2) They do not control, for they have no force. They are light
as vapour. See!” Then he breathed on the table, and they were dispersed on all
sides like smoke. And I said, “Whence do these spirits come, and what is their
origin and nature?” And he answered, – “They are Reflects. They have no real
entity in themselves. They resemble mists which rise from the damp earth of
low-lying lands, and which the heat of the sun disperses. Again, they are like
vapours in high altitudes, upon which if a man’s shadow falls he beholds himself
as a giant. For these spirits invariably flatter and magnify a man to
himself. And this is a sign whereby you may know them. They tell one that
he is a king; another, that he is a Christ; another, that he is the wisest of
mortals, and the like. For, being born of the fluids of the body, they are unspiritual and live of the body.”
“Do they, then,” I asked, “come from within the man?”
“All things,” he replied, “come from within. A man’s foes are they of his own
household.”
“And how,” I asked, “may we discern the astrals from the higher spirits?”
“I have told you of one sign; – they are flattering spirits. Now I will tell you
of another. They always depreciate woman. And they do this because their
deadliest foe is the Intuition. And these, too, are their signs. Is there
anything strong? They will make it weak. Is there anything wise? They will make
it foolish. Is there anything sublime? They will distort and travesty it. And
this they do because they are exhalations of matter, and have no spiritual
nature. Hence they pursue and persecute the Woman continually, sending after her
a flood of eloquence like a torrent to sweep her away. But it shall be in vain. For God shall carry her to His throne, and she shall tread on the
necks of them.
“Therefore the high Gods will give through a woman the interpretation which
alone can save the world. A woman shall open the gates of the kingdom to
mankind, because intuition only can redeem. Between the woman and the astrals
there is always enmity; for they seek to destroy her and her office, and to put
themselves in her place. They are the delusive shapes who tempted the saints of
old with exceeding beauty and wiles of love, and great show of affection and
flattery. Oh, beware of them when they flatter, for they spread a net for thy
soul.”
“Am I, then,” I asked, “in danger from them? Am I, too, a Sensitive?” And he
said, –
“No, you are a Poet. And in that is your strength and
your salvation. Poets are the children of the Sun, and the Sun illumines them.
No poet can be vain or self-exalted; for he knows that he speaks only the words
of God. ‘I sing,’ he says, ‘because I must.’ Learn a truth which is known only
to the Sons of God. The Spirit within you is divine. It is God. When you
prophesy and when you sing, it is the Spirit within you which gives you
utterance. It is the ‘New Wine of Dionysos.’ By this
Spirit your body is enlightened, as a lamp by the flame within it. Now, the
flame is not the oil, for the oil may be there without the light. Yet the flame
cannot be there without the oil. Your body, then, is the lamp-case into which
the oil is poured. And this – the oil – is your soul, a fine and combustible
fluid. And the flame is the divine Spirit, which is not born of the oil, but is
conveyed to it by the hand of God. You may quench this Spirit utterly, and
thenceforward you will have no immortality; but when the lamp-case breaks, the
oil will be spilt on the earth, and a few fumes will for a time arise from it,
and then it will expend itself and leave at last no trace. Some oils are finer
and more spontaneous than
others. The finest is that of the soul of
the poet. And in such a medium the flame of God’s Spirit burns more clearly, and
powerfully, and brightly, so that sometimes mortal eyes can hardly endure its
brightness. Of such a one the soul is filled with holy raptures. He sees as no
other man sees, and the atmosphere about him is enkindled. His soul becomes
transmuted into flame; and when the lamp of his body is shattered, his flame
mounts and soars, and is united to the Divine Fire. Can such a one, think you,
be vainglorious, or self-exalted, and lifted up? Oh, no, he is one with God, and
knows that without God he is nothing. I tell no man that he is a reincarnation
of Moses, of Elias, or of Christ. But I tell him that he may have the Spirit of
these if, like them, he be humble and self-abased, and obedient to the Divine
Word.
“Do not, then, seek after ‘controls.’ Keep your temple for the Lord God of
Hosts; and turn out of it the money-changers, the dove-sellers, and the dealers
in curious arts, yea, with a scourge of cords if need be.”
PART 2 (1)
“The astral existences, although they are not intelligent personalities, are
frequently the media of intelligent ideas, and operate as means of communication
between intelligent personalities. Ideas, words, sentences, whole systems of
philosophy, may be borne in on the consciousness by means of the currents of
magnetic force, as solid bodies are conveyed on a stream, though water is no
intelligent agent. The minutest cell is an entity, for
it has the power of self-propagation, which the astral has not. It is an imprint
only, a shadow, a reflect, an echo.
“The atmosphere with which a man surrounds himself – his soul’s respiration –
affects the astral fluid. Reverberations of his own ideas come back to him. His
soul’s breath colours and savours what a sensitive
conveys to him. But he may also meet with contradictions, with a systematic
presentation of doctrine or of counsels at variance with his own personal views,
through his mind not being sufficiently positive to control all the
manifestations of the electric agent. The influence of the medium, moreover,
through which the words come, interposes. Or, as is often the case, a magnetic
battery of thought has overcharged the element and imparted to it a certain
current. Thus, new doctrines
are “in the air,” and spread like wildfire. One or
two strongly positive minds give the initiative; and the impulse flies through
the whole mass of latent light, correspondingly influencing all who are in
relation with it.
“In man the astral fluid becomes transformed into human life at the moment of
conception. It is the envelope of the soul, and constitutes the sideral body, which, in its turn, is the generator of the
external body. The internal man – he who ultimately is immortal – consists of
soul and spirit. The sideral phantom and the outer
body are perishable, save when they undergo transmutation during the tenancy of
the soul and spirit. Hence the sideral
body, being the generator of sense, is the “Tempter,” which – inclining to
matter – gives matter the precedence over spirit. Of time and of sense, it
beguiles the intuitive part of man. In this way spirit and matter represent,
respectively, good and evil. For, in the day that thou givest thyself over to matter, thou
becomest
liable to extinction.”
Footnotes
(43:1)
(43:2) That this
is not intended to be an exhaustive account of the experiences of Sensitives will be seen from Nos. XXXIX, XL, and XLVI.
(45:1) Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford,
vol. i, pp. 400-402.
Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Anterior: XIV - Sobre o Gênio ou “Daimon” Seguinte: XVI - Sobre o Demônio e Demônios