Curious trees in the Spirit-world

We have very curious trees here, quite different from those of earth, covered with numerous small transparent leaves, some of a golden red colour, others of a pale silverish hue, which give out light like a subdued sunlight and an odour like roses and pines. Then we have singing trees, like the trees of fairy lore, whose leaves, as they open and close to the magnetic air, send out a few sweet notes, not unlike a bird's trill.

Copper Beech or Purple beech – Jean-Pol Grandmont (CC-by-SA-3.0)

True soul union

True conjugal love admits of no other, it must stand heart to heart, soul to soul. True soul union must be just as one intuitively feels that it ought to be – it must work hand in hand; soul must match soul; each mind must be as clear and as open to the other as the day. One must not take prerogatives that one would not expect the other to take; in fact, neither must take prerogatives; whatever they do in life must be mutual or the true conjugal value is lost and they, even if they are the true counterparts of each other, will be obliged to wait until they become spirits, when the balance will again be found. One should not do anything that causes the other unhappiness; whatever one does that causes the other unhappiness is radically wrong and will end in estranging their hearts and separating their hands. 

Professor Franz Petersilea (Spirit)

Many seem to think that spirits and angels do not have homes

Many seem to think that spirits and angels do not have homes but this is not true. They do not need houses to shield them from the elements but they need them for privacy and retirement. When they build their homes they shield themselves from the sight of other angels; they construct them for privacy, rest and to be alone, whenever they desire to be, with the object of their affections; in other words, to be alone with themselves, for their other-self is but oneself. Their houses are reared not from material substance but from their thoughts, which become objective and are real things to them and other angels and spirits and they build them as they please. The glory and beauty of the angelic spheres can never be told; their heights, depths and grandeur and variety are beyond our comprehension; yet these spirits and angels do not consider it beneath them to descend to earth and aid the smallest and meanest of creatures. They lend their aid equally to the highest and the lowest; they try to overcome ignorance and error by instilling truth and wisdom; they try to bring forth the greatest happiness from the utmost misery. There is no such thing as failure but as it took ages to form worlds and as it takes time to form all things, so it takes time to bring forth truth from error, it takes time to bring forth happiness from misery.

Adapted from Oceanides – A Psychical Novel, Carlyle Petersilea, Progressive Thinker Publishing House, Chicago, 1915

Spiritual sight

If our material sight can perceive distinctly things that exist millions of miles away, we must not suppose for an instant that we lose any power by throwing off our material bodies; our sight instead of being diminished is added to ten-fold. There are limitations to a spirit’s sight, as there are limitations to the sight of those still in the body; yet they can see many times farther than we can. 

We cannot see

We cannot see the perfume of a flower, yet the perfume is there just the same. We cannot see our own dense atmosphere, yet a hurricane will uproot a forest in a short space of time. We cannot see magnetism nor electricity, yet it is the coalescing of these two unseen forces in nature that causes all combustion and flame. We cannot see spirits in our usual state, yet we often feel them as well as other spirits or angels. We cannot see and hear spirits, yet that does not alter the fact that they are with us just the same.

Part Two – The Formation of Worlds – How worlds are made

We left the earth at that period where man first made his appearance in the form of a hairy, disgusting savage. This was the first form of man earth ever knew. 

In Part One we learned that the spirit of an atom is the little magnetic flame within each atom and that the spirit within all the earth is magnetism just as the spirit of the sun is magnetism. The body of the sun is obliged to yield up its spirit before it can be a sun and now the earth must gradually yield up its spirit. The earth begins a step farther on in the scale of progress than does the sun. The sun is a primary world; the earth is a secondary world. Now, spirit in and of itself is not intelligent; it is pure magnetism; but the moment a particle of rock is softened enough to attract a moss germ and the spiritual germs of moss have developed into the form of moss, as soon as that moss decays or yields up its magnetic flame, a spiritual sphere begins or the earth has yielded up just so much of its magnetism; and so everything else that exists or develops upon the earth.

At this period of the earth’s history there is no moon, for the moon is an offshoot or ring cast off from the earth. A germ, in developing, uses up about one-third of the magnetism composing its entire material substance and when it rises up in its spiritual form two-thirds of the magnetism which has entered into the composition of its material form is left behind and these atoms remain on the earth to be worked up into some other form. But a third of the atoms have given up their magnetism and have become worthless or worn out; the magnetic spirit has gone out of them and now exists in a form which covers the developed germ. These worthless atoms, which have lost their magnetic flame, now have no power of attraction or of being attracted; they lie helpless at the mercy of the atmosphere; they rise to the surface of the atmosphere and there lie in helpless masses and as fast as a magnetic spiritual sphere is formed, so this ring or belt of worthless atoms thickens and increases and as the ages roll on it becomes very large and heavy.

Now, there is a way in which the worthless atoms are at length replenished and again filled with spirit or magnetic flame. Comets are great wandering torches of magnetic flame or pure magnetism. These great magnetic torches visit the planets and revivify the worthless or worn-out atoms that rise up and surround the planets. When each planet has received its just amount of magnetic flame, it can now attract and be attracted and it attaches itself in the form of a compact ring, such as we observe around Saturn. Before the worthless atoms are revivified, they appear as vast belts and after they are revivified and welded together by the attraction of magnetic spirit, they appear as a vast ring. At length this ring becomes large and heavy; it breaks in pieces and falls away from the parent globe, gathers itself together at its central point and there is a moon. Before man had become observing and intelligent, the earth’s moon rolled about earth. About this period of time man became intelligent and observing.

Matter attracts the spirit or soul germ to itself from out of the ethereal atmosphere and it is the magnetic flame within each atom which attracts the germ as soon as matter is in a suitable state to receive and hold these germs. The germ is the living principle within all things; without it, all things would be dead or inert. These germs only wait for suitable material to enter it and develop as rapidly as possible.

This is the life within all things – it is one of these germinal points which develops and grows up through matter and covers itself with matter until it has attained its full size and form after its own kind of species. As soon as it attains its ultimate or perfect form it begins to throw off its coarser covering of matter but retains or holds to itself as much of the magnetic flame as it needs for a spiritual covering; it then rises from the earth in its developed and beautiful spiritual form and according to natural law takes its place within one of the spiritual spheres which surround the globe. This is true of all life whatsoever – from the simple moss to the wisest man that ever lived or that ever will live. 

Now, ages before man reached an intellectual altitude, these spiritual spheres were forming and this is the true meaning of all which is called death. There is no such thing as death, as it is generally understood – it is merely the rising up of the perfectly developed germ, with its proper amount of magnetic clothing and the leaving behind it of the coarser matter which it no longer needs and which it has robbed of about a third of its magnetism.

These worthless atoms, which have been robbed of their spirit, rise up above the earth’s atmosphere and lie helpless there until a comet revivifies them. A comet is merely a wandering supply of pure magnetic flame, devoid of matter except its nucleus or guiding principle, which is ever striving to reach some planet and in its fruitless endeavours carrying its tail or magnetic flame as a great torch which strikes each worthless atom and leaves within its heart a proper amount of its spiritual flame and that is why comets are continually sweeping around among the planets.

Man’s material form is gradually evolved from the lower animal kingdom. Step by step he keeps rising in the scale of progress. 

It is in this wise that living germs are constantly being breathed in by the male parent; they are developed or clothed in his blood until they have sufficient strength and size to enter a prepared ovum. As material forms progress they attract and breathe in correspondingly higher germs, that is, a donkey cannot attract and hold the germs that are intended to develop into a wise and perfect man but a very fine monkey, gorilla or baboon can breathe in and hold the germs that are a shade higher and finer than the creature that inhales them and as fast as these forms progress they attract and hold higher and still higher germs. 

Within the spiritual and angelic spheres they have all that we have on earth and they have all that earth ever produced. Our earth is but the nucleus of vast spheres which surround it and these spheres are peopled with spirits, angels and spiritual forms of all things that ever had life, which all the developed germs which the earth has been able to develop. These spheres are so vast and grand that they are able to hold in their proper place and order all these variously developed forms and every year which the earth counts gives just so many more forms into the spheres, just so many more spirits and angels; just so many more worthless atoms rise up to eventually make another moon and this is true of all earths and secondary worlds that are not suns.

Suns are first or primary worlds, which have yielded up their spiritual forms. Planets are secondary worlds or inhabited worlds that are yielding up their spirits very gradually, which go to make up the spiritual spheres and the worthless atoms to form moons or third worlds.

Adapted from Oceanides – A Psychical Novel, Carlyle Petersilea, Progressive Thinker Publishing House, Chicago, 1915

One with you within the germ

Have you ever seen two things precisely alike on earth? Have you ever seen two men or two women exactly alike? 

No two germs are alike any more than two people –

If we were to examine a spiritual germ of a man not yet incarnated, we would see a little ethereal globe, transparent and translucent, and within it two forms; perfect in every respect, with this difference – one is male, the other female; they are exact counterparts of each other.

This is the undeveloped germ of a man or the angel yet to be and within each germ are two forms, male and female; they are one – the germ of an undivided angel. 

Can the half of one germ fit the half of another form or be the actual half of another germ?

We may take a bushel of apples and cut them all in halves and unless we get the real half of each apple that was cut, we might put an apple together whose halves do not belong to the same apple, might we not?

Now these germs, when they are born into the flesh, are necessarily divided, for if they were not born on earth in two forms – male and female – there would be no propagation. But angels do not propagate and these divided halves are again joined to make the complete angel; yet they are still in two forms. They are united to a corresponding other self or female half. Not one is separate or alone.

The great changeable laws of nature provide for all things, for if the germs were not male and female in one, there might be more males and females or the reverse and what harmony or happiness would there be if some had to live without their corresponding half; in other words, if some had to live as females, without a male, forever, and the reverse; that would be living as halves and not as a completed whole; while others would be complete – but such a thing is not possible, for if it were, heaven would be a pandemonium instead of heaven!

Adapted from Oceanides – A Psychical Novel, Carlyle Petersilea, Progressive Thinker Publishing House, Chicago, 1915

The GREAT I AM

Earth and the whole planetary system is a materialised exhibition of the GREAT I AM'S thought.

Mount John Laurie (Yamnuska), Alberta, Canada—Chuck Szmurlo (CC-by-3.0)