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LETTER XIV
A FOLIO OF PARACELSUS
THE other day I asked my Teacher to show
me the archives in which those who had lived out here had recorded their
observations, if such existed. He said:
"You were a great reader of books when you were on the earth.
Come."
We entered a vast building like a library, and I caught my
breath in wonder. It was not the architecture of the building which struck me,
but the quantities of books and records. There must have been millions of them.
I asked the Teacher if all the books were here. He smiled and
said:
"Are there not enough? You can make your choice."
I asked if the volumes were arranged by subjects.
"There is an arrangement," he answered. "What do you want?"
I said that I should like to see the books in which were
written the accounts of explorations which other men had made in this (to me)
still slightly known country.
He smiled again, and took from a shelf a thick volume. It was
printed in large black type.1
1I
hope no one will expect me to answer the question why should such a book appear
to be printed in large black type. I have no more idea than has the reader.–Ed.
"Who wrote this book?" I asked.
"There is a signature," he replied.
I looked at the end and saw the signature: it was that used
by Paracelsus.
"When did he write this?"
"Soon after he came out." It was written between his
Paracelsus life and his next one on earth."
The book which I had opened was a treatise on spirits, human,
angelic, and elemental. It began with the definition of a human spirit as a
spirit which had had the experience of life in human form; and it defined an
elemental spirit as a spirit of more or less developed self-consciousness which
had not yet had that experience.
Then the author defined an angel as a spirit of a high order
which had not had, and probably would not have in future, such experience in
matter.
He went on to state that angelic spirits were divided into
two sharply defined groups, the celestial and the infernal, the former being
those angels who worked towards harmony with the laws of God, the latter being
those angels who worked against that harmony. But he said that both these orders
of angels were necessary, each to the other's existence; that if all were good
the universe would cease to be; that good itself would cease to be through the
failure of its opposite—evil.
He said that in the archives of the angelic regions there
were cases on record where a good angel had become bad or a bad angel had become
good, but that such cases were of rare occurrence.
He then went on to warn his fellow souls who should be
sojourning in that realm in which he then wrote, and in which I knew myself also
to be, against holding communion with evil spirits. He declared that in the
subtler forms of life there were more temptations than in the earth life; that
he himself had often been assailed by malignant angels who had urged him to join
forces with them, and that their arguments were sometimes extremely plausible.
He said that while living on earth he had often had
conversations with spirits both good and bad; but that while on earth he had
never, so far as he knew, held converse with an angel of a malignant nature.
He advised his readers that there was one way to determine
whether a being of the subtler world was an angel or merely a human or an
elemental spirit, and that was by the greater brilliancy of the light which
surrounded an angel. He said that both good and bad angels were extremely
brilliant; but that there was a difference between them, perceptible at the
first glance at their faces; that the eyes of the celestial angels were aflame
with love and intellect, while the eyes of the infernal angels were very
unpleasant to encounter.
He said that it would be possible for an infernal angel to
disguise himself to a mortal, so that he might be mistaken for an angel of
light; but that it was practically impossible for an angel to disguise his real
nature from those souls who were living in their subtle bodies.
I will perhaps say more on this subject another night. I must
rest now.
LETTER XV
LETTER XIII |
