LIFE AFTER DEATH/PART 8

 

VIII

HUMAN WORKERS IN THE UNSEEN

There are two classes from whom intervention in human affairs may come, and in both cases they are men like ourselves, and not far removed from our own level. The first class consists of those whom we call the dead. We think of them as far away, but that is a delusion; they are very near us, and though in their new life they cannot usually see our physical bodies, they can and do see our astral vehicles, and therefore they know all our feelings and emotions. So they know when we are in trouble, and when we need help, and it sometimes happens that they are able to give it. Here, then, we have an enormous number of possible helpers, who may occasionally intervene in human affairs. Occasionally, but not very often; for the dead man is all the while steadily withdrawing into himself, and therefore passing rapidly out of touch with earthly things; and the most highly developed, and therefore the most helpful of men, are precisely those who must pass away from earth most quickly. Still there are undoubted cases in which the dead have intervened in human- affairs; indeed, perhaps such cases are more numerous than we imagine, for in very many of them the work done is only the putting of a suggestion into the mind of some person still living on the physical plane, and he often remains unconscious of the source of his happy inspiration. Sometimes it is necessary for the dead man's purpose that he should show himself, and it is only then that we who are so blind are aware of his loving thought for us. Besides, he cannot always show himself at will; there may be many times when he tries to help, but is unable to do so, and we all the time know nothing of his offer. Still there are such cases, and some of them will be found recounted in my book, The Other Side of Death. The second class among which helpers may be found consists of those who are able to function consciously upon the astral plane while still living — or perhaps we had better say, while still in the physical body, for the words 'living' and 'dead' are in reality ludicrously misapplied in ordinary speech.

It is we, enmeshed as we are in this physical matter, buried in the dark and noisome mist of earth-life, blinded by the heavy veil that shuts out from us so much of the light and the glory that are shining around us — it is surely we who are the dead; not those who, having cast off for the time the burden of the flesh, stand amongst us radiant, rejoicing, strong, so much freer, so much more capable than we.

Those who, while still in the physical world, have learnt to use their astral bodies, and in some cases their mental bodies also, are usually the pupils of the great Adepts before-mentioned. They cannot do the work which the Master does, for their powers are not developed; they cannot yet function freely on those lofty planes where he can produce such magnificent results; but they can do something at lower levels, and they are thankful to serve in whatever way he thinks best for them, and to undertake such work as is within their power. So sometimes it happens that they see some human trouble or suffering which they are able to alleviate, and they gladly try to do what they can. They are often able to help both the living and the dead, but it must always be remembered that they work under conditions. When such power and such training are given to a man, they are given to him under restrictions. He must never use them selfishly, never display them to gratify curiosity, never employ them to pry into the business of others, never give what at spiritualistic seances are called tests — that is to say, he must never do anything which can be proved as a phenomenon on the physical plane. He might if he chose take a message to a dead man, but it would be beyond his province to bring back a reply from the dead to the living, unless it were under direct instructions from the Master. Thus the band of invisible helpers does not constitute itself into a detective office, nor into an astral information bureau, but it simply and quietly does such work as is given to it to do, or as comes in its way.

Let us see how a man is able to do such work and give such help as we have described, so that we may understand what are the limits of this power, and see how we ourselves may to some extent attain it. We must first think how a man leaves his body in sleep. He abandons the physical body, in order that it may have complete rest; but he himself, the soul, needs no rest, for he feels no fatigue. It is only the physical body that ever becomes tired. When we speak of mental fatigue, it is in reality a misnomer, for it is the brain and not the mind that is tired. In sleep, then the man is simply using his astral body instead of his physical, and it is only that body that is asleep, not the man himself. If we examine a sleeping savage with clairvoyant sight, indeed, we shall probably find that he is nearly as much asleep as his body — that he has very little definite consciousness in the astral vehicle which he is inhabiting. He is unable to move away from the immediate neighbourhood of the sleeping physical body, and if an attempt were made to draw him away he would wake in terror. If we examine a more civilized man, as for example one of ourselves, we shall find a very great difference. In this case the man in his astral body is by no means unconscious, but quite actively thinking. Nevertheless, he may be taking very little more notice of his surroundings than the savage, though not at all for the same reason. The savage is incapable of seeing; the civilized man is so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he does not see, though he could. He has behind him the immemorial custom of a long series of lives in which the astral faculties have not been used, for these faculties have been gradually growing inside a shell, something as a chicken grows inside the egg. The shell is composed of the great mass of self-centred thought in which the ordinary man is so hopelessly entombed. Whatever may have been the thoughts chiefly engaging his mind during the past day, he usually continues them when falling asleep, and he is thus surrounded by so dense a wall of his own making that he practically knows nothing of what is going on outside. Occasionally some violent impact from without, or some strong desire of his own from within, may tear aside this curtain of mist for the moment and permit him to receive some definite impression; but even then the fog closes in again almost immediately, and he dreams on unobservantly as before.

Can he be awakened, you will say? Yes, that may happen to him in four different ways. First, in the far distant future the slow, but sure, evolution of the man will undoubtedly gradually dissipate the curtain of the mist. Secondly, the man himself, having learnt the fact of the case, may by steady and persistent effort clear away the mist from within, and by degrees overcome the inertia resulting from ages of inactivity. He may resolve before going to sleep to try when he leaves his body to awaken himself and see something. This is merely a hastening of the natural process, and there will be no harm in it if the man has previously developed common sense and the moral qualities. If these are defective, he may come very sadly to grief, for he runs the double danger of misusing such powers as he may acquire, and of being overwhelmed by fear in the presence of forces which he can neither understand nor control. Thirdly, it has sometimes happened that some accident, or some unlawful use of magical ceremonies, has so rent the veil that it can never wholly be closed again. In such a case the man may be left in the terrible condition so well described by Madame Blavatsky in her story of 'A Bewitched Life', or by Lord Lytton in his powerful novel, Zanoni. Fourthly, some friend who knows the man thoroughly, and believes him capable effacing the dangers of the astral plane and doing good, unselfish work there, may act upon this cloud-shell from without and gradually arouse the man to his higher possibilities. But he will never do this unless he feels absolutely sure of him, of his courage and devotion, and of his possession of the necessary qualifications for good work. If in all these ways he is judged satisfactory, he may thus be invited and enabled to join the band of helpers.

Now, as to the work such helpers can do. I have given many illustrations of this in the little book which I have written, bearing the tide of Invisible Helpers, so I will not report those stories now, but rather give you a few leading ideas as to the different types of work which are most usually done. Naturally it is of varied kinds, and most of it is not in any way physical; perhaps it may best be divided into work with the living and work with the dead.

The giving of comfort and consolation in sorrow or sickness at once suggests itself as a comparatively easy task, and one that can constantly be performed without any one knowing who does it.

Often efforts are made to patch up quarrels — to effect a reconciliation between those who long have been separated by some difference of opinions or of interests. Sometimes it has been possible to warn men of some great danger which impended over their heads and thus to avert an accident. There have been cases in which this has been done even with regard to a purely physical matter, though more generally it is against moral danger that such warnings are given. Occasionally it has been permissible to offer a solemn warning to one who was leading an immoral life, and so to help him back into the path of rectitude. If the helpers happen to know of a time of special trouble for a friend, they will endeavour to stand by him through it, and to give him strength and comfort.

In great catastrophes, too, there is often much that can be done by those whose work is unrecognized by the outer world. Sometimes it may be permitted that some one or two persons may be saved; and so it comes that in accounts of terrible wholesale destruction we hear now and then of escapes which are esteemed miraculous. But this is only when among those who are in danger there is one who is not to die in that way — one who owes to the Divine law no debt that can be paid in that fashion. In the great majority of cases all that can be done is to make some effort to impart strength and courage to face what must happen, and then afterwards to meet the souls as they arrive upon the astral plane, and welcome and assist them there.