But those who are regarded lightly by the materialistic psychologies as ‘degenerates’ are often the ‘progenitors’ instead. The highly nervous being is sometimes in a process of evolution toward a more intense state of planetary life. Morbidness sometimes is transformed into moral force. Myers speaks of the inspiration of genius ‘as the emergence into the domain of consciousness of ideas formed quite independently of the will in the profound regions of the being.’ Consequently, it is a most grievous theory of materialists who say that the ‘official school’ has arrived at the conclusion that genius is a species of nervous disorder. There is in us a reservoir of the subterranean waters, which sparkle and leap to the surface at times in a rapid bubbling current. The prophets, the martyrs of all religions, the inspired, the enthusiastic of all schools, have known these secret and powerful impulsions. They have procured for us the grandest works, which have revealed to man the existence of a superior world. 38
CHAPTER V THE SOUL AND DIFFERENT STATES OF SLEEP The study of sleep furnishes us with ideas of importance regarding nature and personality. We do not generally give enough serious thought to the mystery of sleep. An attentive examination of the phenomena, the study of the soul and its etheric form during the part of existence, which we consecrate to repose, leads us to a more extended comprehension of the conditions of life Beyond. Sleep promises, not only restorative properties, which science has never sufficiently emphasized, but also a power of co-ordination and of centralization upon the material organism. It can, as we will see, provoke a considerable extension of psychic perceptions, and a greater intensity of reasoning and of memory. What is sleep? It is simply the release of the soul from the body. Some one has said, ‘Sleep is brother to death.’ These words express a profound truth: sequestered in the flesh during our waking hours, the soul recovers in sleep, temporarily, its comparative freedom, and at the same time, the use of its hidden powers. Death will be its liberation complete - definite. In the measure that outside perceptions are veiled when the eye is shut and the ear closed, other more powerful faculties awake in the depths of being. We see and hear by the aid of internal senses. Image, forms, and far-away scenes unroll and succeed on another. Conversations take place with the living and the dead. These experiences, often confused and incoherent in natural sleep, become precise and orderly in the sleep produced by trance or somnambulism. Often the soul goes far away in sleep, and its observations and impressions are translated into dreams. In this state an etheric cord unites it to the material organism, and by this subtle thread the impressions of the soul are transmitted to the brain. It is by the same process that in the other forms of sleep the soul controls, commands, and directs the earthly envelope. The walking of somnambulists in the night through perilous places with entire security is an evident demonstration. It is the same force, which is employed in healing the body by suggestion. The soul is liberated and given the power to employ its forces in repairing the physical body. In the scientific reports of cases of double personality, it has been shown that the second personality, more complete and normal than the first, came and substituted itself for healing purposes. Suggestion is but an act of the will, which differs only from ordinary thought by its concentration and its intensity. In general, our thoughts are multiple and floating, are born and pass, or clash and confound themselves. In suggestion, the thought fixes itself upon one only point. It gains in power what loses in extent. By its action it becomes more penetrating, more incisive, and awakens in the subject on whom it is centered faculties revered in the normal state. Suggestion becomes then a lever, which mobilizes the vital forces, and directs them toward the point where they should operate. Rightly employed, the power of suggestion constitutes an important factor in education, and destroys pernicious habits and bad tendencies. It produces concentration of thought-increased energy and vitality. By fixing the attention on things essentially useful, and enlarging the field of memory, it manifests anew the internal senses and directs them to right ends. Let us return to ordinary sleep. When the soul is not fully released, the sensations and preoccupations of the day and memories of the past mix with the impressions of the night. In apparent disorder, the perceptions registered by the brain unroll in the incoherence of most dreams. But in the measure that the soul frees and elevates itself, the psychical senses become dominant, and the dreams acquire lucidity and a remarkable clearness. They unfold, and vast perspectives open on the spiritual world-veritable domains of the soul, penetrate hidden things, and even the thoughts and sentiments of other spirits. There is in us a double life, by which we appertain at one time to two worlds-two planes of existence. One is en rapport with time and space, as we conceive them in our planet, by our physical body and material life. The other, by our deeper faculties of the soul, unites us to worlds infinite. In the course of our terrestrial existence, it is in sleep that these faculties can find exercise, and the powers of the soul enter into vibration; then they resume contact with the universal world, which is their country from which the flesh has separated them. They invigorate themselves at the breast of eternal energies, to begin on awakening the penible and obscure task of daily life. During sleep the soul can, following the necessity of the moment, apply itself in repairing the vital losses caused by the day’s labor, and in regenerating the sleeping organism; infusing the forces of the cosmic world. Then, when this restorative action is accomplished, it takes the course of the superior life, and exercises its faculties of vision at a distance and penetrates hidden things. 39
Change language