THE ASTRAL LIGHT AND SPIRITISM

 

A Theosophist's view of it by William Judge

 

A natural preliminary question is: "What is the Astral Light?" It is a difficult question to answer; as difficult as that old one, "What is life?"

 

One that can be answered at first only by illustration and analogy; which can be guessed at perhaps best from viewing results. There are certain phenomena, very well known to Spiritualists and to all persons of a psychical nature, needing a hypothesis upon which we may hang our facts and thus try them. Nearly all the phenomena found in the great record of Spiritualistic seance rooms for the past forty years need hypotheses more reasonable than those so far advanced, to say nothing of a classification which never yet has been undertaken by competent hands.

 

Whether this classification will be done by Spiritualists themselves seems doubtful. If ever the scientific world deigns to carefully and seriously investigate these psychic occurrences, many theories now having their day in the ranks of mediums and their friends will be exploded, and then, perhaps the astral light and its place in the phenomena will be better understood.

 

The identity assumed so easily and quickly by a medium for an alleged spirit calling himself John Smith, would not be admitted at once if the function inherent in the astral light of retaining the image of John Smith for a vast period of time were understood; and then if it were discovered, as it could be by careful records and reports, that at the same time John Smith was declaring himself in a room in Boston through medium A., he was also asserting his identity in Florida, supported by identical proofs, through medium B., — some doubt naturally would surround the question of identity. Yet, just this is happening every day and especially in regard to alleged return of celebrated men to mediums, good and bad alike.

 

It is easy to prove this as far as the great dead are concerned, but until recording and comparison are undertaken it will never be known how often twenty different mediums in as many separate cities have given, at one and the same moment, messages from the one deceased person.

 

And this question of identification is one of the most important in all Spiritualism. Upon it the faith of thousands is built; through assumed proofs of identity many a doubter has become a believer in mediums. For we may see phenomena of a purely physical sort over and over again without being convinced of anything save the occurrence of a fact; but once we are persuaded that our dead friend has really returned to speak with us through an entranced living person, then all the rest comes easy; then we think that here is positive proof of life after death.

 

My contention is that this important point is built upon, believed in, and supported by flimsy proofs, and that flimsiness is due to ignorance of the astral light, its function and operation.

 

Furthermore, we can find in the reported utterances of "spirits" that there is great diversity as well as opposition in views. But it is apparent that whenever a "spirit" enunciates theories tending to upset preconceived ideas of Spiritualists on such points as identification, reincarnation, the astral light and the like, the "spirit's" opinions go for nothing.

 

Before me lies a pamphlet printed over 20 years ago by a medium, in which most extraordinary views are given of cosmogony, and teaching reincarnation, but these although given to the medium by his own trusted "guide" have never gained a hearing among Spiritualists; and although correct and well argued views respecting the astral light, supporting all that the ancient East has claimed for this tenuous interpenetrating medium, have been given by a well known "spirit," they have been ignored and lost sight of in the mad rush after the intoxication of physical phenomena and sentimental gushing over supposed messages from a deceased mother, sister, brother or wife.

 

It is time for the leading minds in Spiritualistic ranks — among which I can not reckon myself — to call a halt, and to devote a little of the common sense used in daily business life to the analysis of the utterances of mediums and the conflicting views of alleged "spirits".

 

Are you afraid of truth?

 

Do you hesitate in case it should come in the process that your beloved dead will be removed a few steps higher, a little beyond the reach of your degrading desire to call them back to the mud and horror of earthly life before their cycle rolls round again?

 

 

Such a fear veils the truth and belittles your manhood. But such is the weakness, the utter emaciation, of spiritualistic philosophy, I will venture a prophecy that even if the analysis and classification I have spoken of should never be attempted, the proper doctrines about these phenomena and about the "Spirit-world," would come to prevail  — not through any increase of real knowledge on the part of the "spirits" and "controls," but just when the leading minds in your ranks begin out of their own thinking to believe in the true explanation.

 

That is to say, the best expositions given through mediums are never in advance — save in isolated cases — of the best thought of living Spiritualists; and this comes about, or fails to, through the action of the astral light as affected by living beings with all their acts and thoughts.

 

(Cid's observation: and that is why I am very suspicious of the statements that the "spirits" make through the mediums, because it is a tremendous jumble that you never know how much you can really trust about it.)

 

 

Before closing these general considerations, I would like to ask how any reasonable Spiritualist can be sure that he is hearing from a deceased friend or relative merely because he has from a medium, who never knew the deceased and never before met the inquirer, some circumstances known only to the deceased or to himself?

 

This is the common means of proof, almost always blindly accepted. But there are many elements of weakness in it. We may teach a parrot or an idiot some few sentences, and if put behind a screen no one on this side can tell whether the utterances proceed from a wise man, a fool, an animal or an automaton. Then, again, if the proof be in the recital of some facts "long ago forgotten, and not known to the medium," we are touching upon the memory and its field of operation; a land as unknown as the South Pole.

 

The brain matter cannot hold the facts of a lifetime; where, then, are they held, and how does the possession of them by the medium prove anything save that fact alone?

 

 

Nor does the taking on by the medium of the exact physical conditions of the last moments of the reporting deceased one, prove of itself identity. We see hysterics, clairvoyants, sensitives and others in daily life, surrounded by living men, taking on the state or condition of some living person who has just been near and gone away. We might as well say that this proves that such a departed living man is there present, whereas we know such is not the case.

 

And suppose we assume that the sensitive is also clairvoyant and we hear him using the words, tones and thoughts of this living person, are we to conclude that the latter is present before us in spirit? Such a conclusion is absurd, yet not more so than the other as to the identity of that one whom we know is really beyond the veil and whom a medium declares is speaking through her.

 

(Note: Theosophy explains that in reality the "spirits" who speak through mediums are astral entities that pose as deceased relatives or former famous people, and use the astral light to take the appearance and give the answers that people receive in séances.)

 

It is here again that the astral light comes into play, its currents aiding the medium to produce astonishment and confusion, or wrong notions.

 

How much do Spiritualists really know about vital electric currents?

 

Much less those swift and wonderful currents in the astral light?

 

How many laws of those life currents have been revealed to us by a consensus of reports from the "Spirit"-world?

 

None

 

 

Forty years long since the first raps in Rochester, have the facts, the theories and the contradictions been piling up, but we are as innocent as ever of any authoritative and convincing statement of laws that will meet the facts. It is true a hundred systems have been evolved, living a brief life, each in their own little Pedlington, but they are not accepted, and the most of them have been forgotten.

 

All of this ground has been gone over by man in ages past, with the same struggles, the same confusion, the same heartburnings and mental ruin, and the record of the toilsome journey has been left, showing when light at last has broken, bringing order out of chaos. This is the record found in India, Egypt and other older lands.

 

Is it meet because we are American and freemen that we should ignore this? Should not a patient hearing be given it in order to see whether the doctrines finally arrived at do or do not fit the greater number of facts and offer explanation for all?

 

I propose to offer a few explanations hereupon, trusting that intelligent Spiritualists will perceive a disposition to get at the truth, to exalt man to his rightful place and to prevent a fatuous running after the emanations of material and psychical corpses.

 

_  _  _

 

 

In the records of forty years of American Spiritualism the Astral Light is not unknown; it has been referred to by many mediums while under what is called “control,” and spirits in speaking of it have at times detailed some of its properties. Its place in nature and the part it plays at séances, mind reading and tests, demand for it more attention than it has hitherto received from those who believe in the Summerland.

 

The real witnesses produced for the majority of spiritistic phenomena are these spirits, and their word must be taken by their followers wherever possible; especially must this be so whenever the spirits agree with a large body of evidence found in ancient and medieval writings.

 

Some years ago Mrs. M. J. Hollis-Billing gave the editor of the Journal several sittings with the spirit Jim Nolan (see Echoes I:198-200, 354, 404-8) who delivered replies to queries prepared, and which were published. Mrs. Billing has never been accused of fraud, and by turning to the files of the Journal the report can be found. This spirit’s utterances are entitled to weight.

 

He said, in substance, that there is a plastic medium existing in nature called the Astral Light, in which are pictures of persons, dead and living, and of all their thoughts, actions, and circumstances; and that in producing what is called a materialization of a deceased one, a magnetic mirror was constructed by the control, onto which was reflected out of the Astral Light the face or form desired to be seen, and that as each change was made a new picture was drawn from the Astral Light.

 

Although as a body — whether in published works or in private discussion — Spiritualists have ignored the Astral Light, it has long been recognized by Theosophists of both the present Theosophical Society and those of two hundred years ago, while the Hindus have, for ages, known of it and called it the Ākāśa.

 

What, then, is this Astral Light?

 

 

It is what is called by Éliphas Lévi, the “plastic medium” that interpenetrates each thing and every point of space; a medium, plane, place, state, or condition of the other, wherein is recorded an image of every object that comes before it, an echo of every word ever spoken, an unbroken chain of continuous pictures of all that happens here below.

 

As well also are to be found in it the shades or lemures of the departed — not their spirits but their reliquiae, existing there until they shall pass away in natural course, and there, floating, darting, wavering, swimming to and fro, like fishes in the sea, are the other class of spirits, called “elementals” by the old Kabbalists, nature spirits by others, Gnomes, Sylphs and Salamanders.

 

In this Astral medium is a vast babel of sounds — the undying reverberations of uttered speech, the utterers of which have long ago passed away; noble sentiments clothed in faultless rhetoric; horrible discords produced by the senseless and vicious talk of all times and persons; sweet music, the din of war, and the solemn chant from out cathedral aisles. Every odor man ever smelled, and every sound, divine or diabolical, are there. It is a burial ground for mummies, as it were.

 

The fluidic envelope passed off by every one at death, is caught in it and there leaves its impression, even after that envelope has itself dissipated into the various elements. Just as the long ago dead trilobite impacted in the earliest fossiliferous strata, leaves behind it when removed, a clear impression of itself, so that which lodges in the Astral Light stamps there an imperishable image.

 

Finding, then, this Jim Nolan agreeing with ancient records on that subject, Spiritualists are bound to investigate along the lines indicated, or else be guilty of ignoring an important element in the problem before them.

 

An intelligent reply from a thing or influence, unseen and unknown, except by what it manifests, is not, per se, proof of an intelligent conscious entity behind it, or of identity with a deceased person.

 

An unintelligent man can learn and repeat like a parrot a series of highly intelligent sentences. Out of the Astral Light can be brought —resurrected so to say— either a picture of a person or a scene, or the discourses of Plato. How then can we afford to ignore the existence of the Astral Light or refuse to make some inevitable conclusions?

 

Is it because we are afraid that the Summerland will disappear, or that we do not wish to accept as true something not in accord with our preconceived notions or present experience? As for me, give me truth, no matter what it costs or what fondly loved idea it destroys.

 

 

(Religio-Philosophical Journal, July 22, 1889, and December 24, 1887; Echoes III, p.143-146, 135-137)