What causes a person to go in a trance?

Our information of the next world is meagre and yet our friends leave our side year after year and go to the unseen land. How do they reach it? Do they walk or ride or fly? Do they have individualised bodies or are they mere souls without form or substance?

Do they live there as birds in the air or do they live in houses as we do? Do flowers bloom and trees grow there, and if trees thrive, as the old prophets seemed to have discovered, can they be cut down and formed into articles of use as here? Can the inhabitants of that unseen world make tables, chairs and pianos, as well as harps of gold or are they so familiar with the secrets of Nature that they can create these desirable forms from the elements by an effort of will?

Do they retain their organs of sight, hearing and speaking? If they speak, do they have tongues and palates? If so, can they taste, eat or drink, as the Old Testament relates―the Lord smelled a sweet savour of Noah's sacrifice. Angels ate with Abraham when he was promised a son in his old age, and Sarah, listening from behind the folds of the tent, laughed incredulously.

If they have form and proportion are they in the habit of clothing themselves as we do? The ancient clairvoyants describe them as clothed in white raiment and we in our states of trance and in dreams see them in customary garments. Whence do they obtain these robes? How is the tissue manufactured? Can it be removed at pleasure or is it an addendum to the spirit like the wings of a butterfly?

What is the trance state and how is it superinduced by the inhabitants of the next world? A feeling of awe comes over me as I enter this mysterious condition. The room I am in vanishes, the friends who surround me seem removed an immeasurable distance, no longer part, nor parcel with me―I appear to be falling through space―all is darkness about me when suddenly the air becomes illuminated, like floating points of light, each twinkling with a golden splendour. What transpires around me I only know as a person asleep in a stage coach or a rail-car is conscious that he is travelling―he lifts his heavy eyelids and closes them over a knowledge that a forest of trees skirt the roadside―that hill and plain and smiling river bound the distance, and yet he sleeps. How are the sensations thus described produced on the clairvoyante? 

All these questions pour in on the mind of the medium and it is in the endeavour to answer them that the spirits give the following accounts―

The Next World

How to cultivate your gifts?

If you possess some great gift naturally, cultivate that and share it generously. But unless you have the gift, the call is only for your best.

Use your mind in selection of work, but if circumstances seem to hem you in, then do cheerfully the next best thing, knowing for a certainty that all roads lead to the same goal.

Do what needs to be done, whether it is in your chosen line or not.

It is just as good a means of building fine things into your character, as the work you prefer―perhaps better.

Why do we always choose the harder path?

The hardest road leads to the quickest and best results.

What is the quote about difficult roads?

The hardest road leads to the quickest and best results.

What is born of the union of the spirit and the body?

The physical of you is created on the earth plane. The mental is born of the union of the spirit and body―

Until the spirit enters and controls the body, there is no life in it.

The baby's spirit is not contained inside its body in its prenatal condition, but is connected with it by the silver cord [exactly as any other person's body and soul are when the latter is operating independently, as it does often when the body sleeps or is under an anaesthetic] and remains outside in its mother's aura.

When any woman is going to be a mother, the orange life-giving ray is attracted to her. 

It is in the earth atmosphere, always ready to be diverted.

Directly this ray is connected with the mother's organism, a little atom or brilliant drop starts trickling down the ray. 

It is like a drop of quicksilver.

As it starts, it divides into two, so whenever there is one new soul born, there is always its counterpart.

The drop does not start from any one particular spot or place or part of God―

It leaves something there, a trail which remains linked up still in the God-element, still connected to the little drop like a very long, slender twig connecting a leaf to a branch, connected always for severing it would mean annihilation.

This is a subtle point.

The place from which you start and to which you remain connected is your particular bit of God, so you need not think of yourself as lost in God, but as having your own little part in Him that belongs to you alone.

God works automatically always through the regular operation of His laws.

The drop, just as it starts, divides into two. One part goes to one mother and one to another. One is always male and the other female. As the drop travels slowly to earth, it gets larger and larger and begins to shape out and take more space. By the time it reaches the mother's aura, it is almost the size and shape of a tiny, weeny baby, and so remains with the mother until the time of birth.

As the child is born, the spirit goes into it.

The spirit because it is of God has a consciousness of its own, but not conscious personality―that has to be developed.

It will be developed by the spirit operating through the body.

Therefore, by unison of soul and body, we have mental growth and growth of personality.

The world is full of this Life-force and they automatically act in suitable environments.

Claude's Book

What is the moral lesson of Tantalus?

The strangest thing in that strange land [states of Hell] is that spirits try to deceive each other even though they know that others cannot really deceive them.

They see their thoughts and though their reason tells them that others can see theirs, yet some instinct drives them on to deceive all with whom they come in contact.

The feast of Tantalus* was no figment of the poet’s brain, but a grim reality.

*Tantalus was a Greek mythological figure, most famous for his eternal punishment in Tartarus—to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches with the fruit ever eluding his grasp and the water always receding before he could take a drink. —Wikipedia

Guns! Do you mean to say you have artillery in Hell?

Where do you suppose the forms of all weapons of destruction go if not to Hell?

These weapons are forms and the pain which spirits inflict in Hell appears very similar to physical pain for that is the easiest way for them to appreciate it.

If you knew nothing of the effects of a rifle wound you would find it impossible to imagine it here. You could not impose that pain on another and you would not be easily susceptible to it as imagined by another. If you had learned how a bullet hurts you would be able to impose that type of suffering on another—or realise it when another tried to impose it on you.

That is why the most fiendish torturers here are those who were tortured on earth.

If they die unforgiving, they can retaliate on their old oppressors to an appalling degree.

Many of the ceremonies of black magic are based on this principle.

The wax doll with pins driven into the spot where the lungs should be was merely applied as a means by which the magician could concentrate his mind on that of his enemy and cause him to suffer the same pain as he had pretended to inflict on the wax doll.

There are few things spirits in Hell hate more than being obliged to lose, even temporarily, their original form—

It seems as if they are losing their identity to their materialistic minds.

In Hell, though they can suffer pain, they cannot enjoy pleasure.

That is the First great Law in Hell which is essentially the negation of all law, showing how wonderfully out of evil God is able even there to bring forth good.

What are the powers of the Spirit?

You must always remember that spirits have great power in their own sphere if you give yourself up to their guidance in any sense.

What is the light of God's love?

Do you not know the journey which the physical mind has always to go through to reach happiness?

You are bound by your chains and fastened within a locked door—

Yes, the light is there, but how can I reach it? Between me and freedom, there is that thick impenetrable obstacle of lack of faith, circumstances and physical disabilities, which I cannot break through!

But with God, all things are possible and even as the disciple of old found when he answered to the voice of the spirit, the prison doors were opened and he walked forth free from all that bound—

So it is with you.

Once the desire comes to make that light your own, it is only a question of effort, dedication and preparation to find that those seemingly impenetrable walls exist no longer and that you can step forth into that which of all things is the most glorious both in your world and in our realms over here—into certainty.

There is no joy which is perfect if it holds one petal of doubt.

Step into the light of understanding of the Love of God.

And then certainty and contentment and completeness so fills your heart and mind that there is no room for those other half-joys to enter in, just certainty that God does not fail—that what He has said was not meant to be interpreted in this way or that, but stands as it is.

I am the Light of the World He said—in so saying, He knew that death had far less evil in it than doubt and misgiving—all those tortures which sting the physical mind again and again.

Believe in God.

Go through the Bible—

You will see if only you read it aright that what God has once given, He never takes away, and the Master fulfils His promises down to the tiniest detail.

You will find it so hereafter in such a comprehensive wide-stretching way that you will be amazed at the magnitude of Love laid out before your wondering eyes.

The Zodiac Messages

Can I tell you what dreams are?

The brain and senses require to be dulled or numbed at certain intervals to be rested, soothed and invigorated or they would burn themselves out. 

Nature has provided a reaction and they practically close back on themselves. 

While awake, the senses are active because the brain is working—

In sleep, the consciousness is numbed by automatic action—the deeper the sleep, the more active the subconscious mind becomes. 

The actual cerebral change which takes place, as with all other involuntary actions of the physical body, is an act of natural self-preservation and works through Nature-consciousness. 

When God created Nature, He gave it a great general consciousness of its own through the Life-force—you might almost truly say God breathed upon i, which results in actions of self-preservation.

For instance, certain flowers close at night—some birds who require it migrate to warmer climates every year to escape the cold of winter, and so forth. 

In everything living on the earth, there is this Nature-consciousness. 

It is especially pronounced in you for you are the highest form of life manifest on earth.

You have will power and it is potent.

For sound sleep, the brain ought to be thoroughly numbed, and in this case, there would be no dream—to dream shows that one part of the brain is still working and some sense is not sufficiently dulled—or indigestion or worry may keep certain nerves "taut" and they do not relax sufficiently to ensure perfect sleep. 

The momentary activity of a certain sense may induce what appears to the sleeper to be a long dream—it may actually last two seconds, but what really happens is this—

The quickened sense telegraphs the fact to the brain which connects up the sensation with an impression already there. 

For instance, a sharp sudden noise like a pistol shot may cause quite an elaborate dream of a revolution or of war—the noise taps a record on the memory of something heard or read of if not actually experienced. 

Or, in the same way, a feeling of cold may bring about a dream of drowning—or of the Arctic regions—or touch some other memory record in affinity with this sensation or along the same lines. 

Owing to the quiescence of the other senses, connected memories can come through from the subconscious mind more easily and may be of things long-forgotten and unrecognised normally, for the brain is more in touch with the subconscious mind during sleep. 

Owing to mechanical action of the brain itself, there might be some kind of a dream even if the spirit was out of the body, but it would not be a long, connected or interesting dream, for the subconscious mind would be away with the spirit.

Sometimes, the travelling spirit immediately on its return to the body tries to imprint the memory of its experiences on the brain and these get confused with the mechanical action of which I have just spoken—

The result is intermingling and incongruity. 

Some people, they are very few, can remember their spirit experiences and if they are sufficiently evolved for this, their guides may tell them sometimes of impending events—some few other spirits who find they cannot bring these memories through to their waking consciousness correctly in an elaborate or detailed way have learnt to impress a sign or a symbol on the brain which they know will convey a certain meaning to themselves in their normal waking condition. Thus you will hear someone say—

"I dreamt last night of a bouquet of white flowers tied with ribbon that always means a wedding"—or "I saw a travelling trunk locked and labelled—that generally means a long journey for me," and so forth. 

This particular spirit has learnt that only in this simple primitive way, through symbols, can it convey information to the limited normal mind of the body with which it is connected.

—Spirit Claude