Chapters 3 to 5 - Communication with Spirits during the Post-Apostolic Period and in Modern Times

- 44 - At this point it becomes necessary to insert a very important observation. • The physical peculiarities that spirits had as human beings are retained by them in the Beyond only as long as they remain at the low spiritual level they occupied as mortals. If, however, they progress in the Beyond, their spirit forms become more beautiful and noble, and the defects and blemishes of their human shapes disappear. Nevertheless, even spirits that have acquired a different and more beautiful form due to their advancement in the Beyond are accustomed, when materializing at spiritistic séances, to appear as they looked in their human form, which they recreate for this purpose. They do this only if they have friends or relatives present at the séance and desire to be recognized by them. It is their way of establishing their identity, by showing themselves as the individuals they were as human beings. The paraffin moulds of which Prof. Pawlowski speaks could be made by the spirits only by dipping their materialized hands into the liquid paraffin and then partially or completely dematerializing or dissolving them after the paraffin had cooled. Partial dematerialization of the spirit hand, that is to say, a decrease in the thickness and a slight shortening of the fingers, was sufficient to withdraw the hand without injuring the moulds. A hand-shaped mould could also be produced if, at the moment of immersion, the materialization had the consistency only of a dense mist. The odic form of a spirit having this degree of condensation is even able to pass through solid matter. Therefore, a spirit hand of a mist-like consistency can be withdrawn from the paraffin mould and leave this behind even without being dematerialized. In this case the observer cannot perceive any change in the materialized spirit hand. A spirit, therefore, has three ways in which it can make and strip off these moulds. It may materialize its hand solidly and dissolve it again completely afterwards. It may dissolve the solid materialization only partially, reducing its thickness and length to the extent required, it may condense the od only to the consistency of a heavy fog, in which case it can without changing the hand both make the paraffin moulds and take them off without damaging them. In this last case the spirit hand moves out through the cooled paraffin without encountering resistance, grasps the form from the outside and lays it on the table. When Prof. Pawlowski says that the spirits treated the moulds rather carelessly and in one instance let them drop on the floor, while in other respects he commends their friendly and obliging manner, he shows that he is unfamiliar with a very important point. He seems not to know that the spirit cannot keep its hand materialized as long as it pleases. Such materialization depends entirely on the od at the spirit’s disposal and on the degree of condensation of that od. But, as we know, heat dissolves od. Consequently, the hot or very warm paraffin very quickly weakens the materialization of the immersed spirit hand, and the degree of condensation is often no longer sufficient, when the paraffin moulds are removed, to allow the spirit to lay the mould down carefully. The moulds are dropped, not from carelessness on the part of the spirits, but from insufficient odic power and condensation. We can readily understand that not only the spirits of human beings but also the spirits of animals materialize, if we know that when an animal dies, its spirit leaves the physical body in the same manner as a human spirit. The only difference between the spirits of animals and those of humans is in the degree of development, not in the nature of the spirit itself. Animals are the incarnation of low spirits, while human beings embody spirits that have already made more progress upward.

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