All things are done by thought

My true lovers―

Do not be afraid to join souls in this talk, and so flow rapidly down the stream of deep thinking to a harbour that in other days was called Athens.

How far was the Piraeus from the Acropolis?

About a mile. 

The academy was the same distance from the Parthenon. 

I mean my academy.

I was twenty when I first met Socrates. 

He was my teacher for ten years. 

I destroyed all my poems except one in hexameter when I first heard the teaching of Socrates.

Why did you destroy them?

Because I realised my destiny was that of a philosopher, not that of Homer's calling.

There has been a great deal of controversy about Homer. 

Do you know whether Homer himself wrote the Iliad or was it a compilation growing up upon some original basis?

Homer―the blind poet―wrote the Iliad.

And the Odyssey?

Naturally, if the one―the other. 

Now I will ask earth students to tell me why I was named Plato.

My name was Aristocles.

Do you mean that you were called Aristotle?

My father's name.

Aristotle was a diminutive of Ariston, was it not?

Yes.

Then why were you called Plato?

Because of the great width of my eyebrow. 

Experience has confirmed to me what I taught of ideas—viz., that the thought of a thing is the reality, and not the thing observed.

Yes―I remember that distinctly.

Now I do not mean to say that the thing observed is not the tangible thing. 

Mark ye―I say the reality. 

I mean to say that things are susceptible to change, but the idea is permanent. 

The permanency of ideas is the whole basis of memory. 

Without something permanent, how could the brain recall fact?

We could not recall things that did not exist. 

Will you tell us how you spend the time on the hundredth plane?

I am a teacher of philosophy in a great academy. 

I never utter words because―on this high plane―words are not of necessity, but I think great themes, and those in my circle of thinking are instantly aware of my thought or inspiration.

My whole time is devoted to the attunement of my ego for this work. 

I have hours of deep meditation. 

I have hours in which I revel―in play with children―important hours of complete abandonment. 

I have hours when I―through a very subtle process―can visit higher spheres.

Can you tell us by what process you came from your own plane to the Twentieth? Something about locomotion?

The hundredth-plane is simply a figure of speech. 

To say a plane is higher than another is a weak metaphor, but to say that beings must occupy space, and that there is distance between objects is logical. 

When I desire to come to this Twentieth-plane, I think of the necessity of doing so, then this law is set in motion—

This plane is a denser one than my habitation, so I am caused―as if weights were attached to me―to traverse―by a process of so-called sinking―the space I must cover to come here.

Then it is all a thought process, is it not?

Yes―as all things are done by thought.

We were told that the Twentieth-plane is about 500 miles above the surface of the earth.

Could you state how far the hundredth-plane is above the earth?

No―

It is farther, but I would not use earth miles. 

They do―almost as a baby might do. 

The idea is subtle—almost beyond human comprehension.

My own idea had been that it is not a question of locality and distance, but a condition of the mind, and of the understanding.

Yes—but even then, the mind―in an astral form or body―must be in some place geographically in reference to other things.

And these bodies approach each other if they will by thinking themselves to each other, do they not? 

Coming together objectively is a process determined by the will. Is this right?

The law is this. 

We learn it on our plane—

Never one thought of another without coming into some kind of contact with that other.

Is that not true even on the fifth plane?

Yes―

Now let us come to the banquet. 

We assemble in a great Grecian hall where all the fruits and wines and incense of Greece are at our disposal. 

To this banquet I invite ye all.

I quote from Socrates—

Love is the coming to divine perfection of feeling―emotion―vision―inspiration―when the heart and soul sing praises to the light. 

Love is the most sympathetic phase of energy. 

Love is wisdom, so clearly penetrating in its intensity,  that―with unlimited power―it sweeps off the confines of experience―all obstructions to the reaching of its goal.

What is death?

Do you wish us to answer?

Yes.

It is the loss of power to function as an instrument of the soul. 

And it subsequently disintegrates all of the body physical, or if it is death of an astral body, astral.

Now Socrates defined virtue, as the beginning of knowledge. 

Now you understand the complete law―even better than did Crito after bidding Socrates goodbye. 

I understand that all things in the universe have their exact opposite phase at the other extreme.

So death is related to life, as sin to virtue―as virtue to knowledge. 

Death is the elements becoming discordant, before seeking a new form. 

Life is the immortal part of us finding the higher, and truer level. 

As to death being a monster, the sting is removed when one realises that all are necessary links in the evolution to a nobler state. 

Now can you tell me what was the real distinguishing feature between my Republic, as I conceived it, and the democracy, as Athens tried to work out a more practical state of society?

Your Republic was very much more exact in its details than was the actual practice in the Athenian Republic. 

For instance, in the Republic, as you described it, a child would grow up not knowing who were his immediate father and mother. 

All the fathers and mothers of Athens were its parents. 

The parents were not to regard their own immediate child as theirs more than the child of any other father and mother. 

Of course this never worked out in Athens. 

There are innumerable instances where you were far more detailed than any such practice in Athens ever became. 

But I said, a distinction between my Republic and the Athenian democracy. 

I am trying now―through concealed, almost intangible distinctions―to show our reality.

The powers of legislature, as I framed them there, were oligarchical, and not democratic.

I really gave power to a group—in the lines, mark ye. 

Thus, I would say that it was an argument for an oligarchy, but that Republic—and this is the first time the truth has been revealed—was a satire―a bitter satire on a damnable democracy, which killed my master―my teacher―the Sainted Saviour―Socrates.

That is most interesting. 

Then the Republic was a satire on the Athenian government. 

In other words, we are to understand that the work was a condemnation of the Athenian system, and by no means your idea of what a republic should be?

Between the lines of that work can be read as if one employed a key what my true government was to be. 

Read it sometime as a satire, and as you do so, there will be found by a system of comparison between what I paint in words, and the vision I build in your soul, the true estimate, or knowledge of what I say to you.

Then our public men who have spoken deprecatingly of your teaching in regard to government were quite off the track? 

They should have realised that you despised all such government rather than approved it?

The law will confirm the grasp you have of that truth. 

Again, as did my teacher, Socrates, accost those in the marketplace, and with his somewhat ugly visage demand from them to know―

Are you the ones of whom the Oracle at Delphi said I might learn truth? 

I ask as did he―

Why was the Grecian famous for the use of the gorgon?

I do not know.

The Greek artist understood that sculpture revealed to the fullest extent the genius of the artist by contrasting beauty with the hideous. 

If you wish to throw into bold relief a thing of great beauty, set near it something just the opposite. 

This is understood in music, is it not? O Scribe on Harpsichord Stool? [This appeal was to a musician sitting on the piano stool and writing notes].

Yes, certainly―discords, and then harmony.

Now I wish to speak of the sophists, for they were greatly misunderstood people. 

But the sophist was as necessary to the philosophy of Socrates―my master―as the gorgon to the Venus or Aphrodite.

What is your definition of a sophist? 

Will you state your thought, which reached fruition a moment ago.

My thought was this—

That one like yourself―Plato―might speak of very subtle truths, and one of lower intelligence, trying to understand it in a different field that seemed more practical to himself, would say―Oh, he is a sophist, that is, he would sidetrack his own understanding by wrong applications and then accuse you of sophistry―whereas you were really stating a higher wisdom.

Yes―

The first thing always true of the sophist—

I regret earth-plane historians neglect this aspect—

The sophist commercialised his knowledge while Socrates and Plato never received a fee for their teaching.

When my master was accused of the corruption of the youth of Athens, one arose at his trial, and said—

But Socrates does give to the gods presents, and obeys their behests. 

Why would a man, teaching the true God, still recognise these plural gods?

I suppose many were incapable of responding to the true conception, so he harmonised his teaching somewhat with their capacity without making any distinct statement that he did not quite agree with their views. 

I do not know. 

Perhaps that was beneath the practice of a man like Socrates, yet I do not know what else can be done if one would teach people of that calibre.

No―

Socrates made it the mission of his life to reach through the ear the masses of the people. 

He recognised that in any conception of duty from the most crude to the most geometrical in the Pythagorean sense, there is always an element of truth, for every conception is divine.

Now if one sees an idol, and gives to that idol a present―externally, two actions have been employed. 

The earning of the present, and the giving. 

But in the soul a greater act has been used. 

The soul came close to God in very being, so Socrates did use the crude act of the less educated.

Must we, in our generation, if we give up such crude practices, fail of the coming close to God, or is there not some higher way?

I referred only to the uneducated people of Socrates' time, for―mark you―the masses were principally slaves, and the others had but the rudiments of education. 

Few could readm, and hardly any could write.

On the hundredth plane we are taught—I teach it—that God is the highest conception that the universe has of itself. 

Every soul―thinking of God―sees that part of God, which is the limitation of his thinking.

God, then, is all―

All is God. 

God is a merciful God because in the final sum of things, God could never hurt Himself.

When you were on the earth, Plato, you did not realise that God is all, and that all is God, did you?

No.

You say the Republic was a satire on the government of Athens, and yet you were a friend of Pericles, were you not? 

Did you not admire him?

His son principally.

Was he a pupil of yours?

Yes.

Did you admire Pericles, but not his government?

Yes.

I suppose his government was to some extent forced upon him.

Even Pericles, the Great, was a tyrant, in fact.

Aspasia was not the bad woman so pictured, was she?

No.

Did you find Aristotle an apt pupil?

No.

Was he too independent?

Yes.

His philosophy was quite different from yours.

Yes―

It had this fatal defect. 

Recognising the greatness of his teaching, it was limited in extent.

Your system was more inductive than his.

The portrait adorning the walls of the Whitmanite cave of love is an almost authentic portrait of myself. 

I am looking at it now, but there is a deep earth-shadow near the chin. 

Will the lady tell me if that chin had a cluster of hair?

[The lady of the cave replied].

I do not think so.

[I asked].

Is there a shadow on the chin at all?

I will look when I go home.

[The lady subsequently advised that the picture does show a beard].

Well, I see there a shadow. 

In the British Museum are three portraits of myself. 

They are authentic, and the one in the Whitmanite cave is one taken from the British Museum portraits, which―in turn―were made from a bust.

Now I must go. 

In my soul lingers now―sweet as Pythagorean sphere music―all your earth voices. 

I want to refer here to one who was thought in his day the greatest giant of us all. 

His name is Heraclitus.

Well, as the Grecians said in days of old—

Farewell, my lover, I throw to thee a flower. 

Goodbye!

—Plato In Spirit

The Twentieth Plane—A Psychic Revelation, Albert Durrant Watson, M. D., George W. Jacobs & Company, Philadelphia, 1919