aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

126 AROUND THE WORLD.
etherealized spirit-substance ; and then, there might be
emanations from spirit-strata and various entities, preventing
or at least impeding the passage. The walls of a room
may be so surcharged with magnetism and spirit-auras that
a spirit can not pass them. There are gradations of spiritsubstance
as of matter. When you are in your library-room,
we fix an atmosphere about you, and so infill the walls of
your study-room with our positive magnetic spheres that
intruding spirits can not enter."
SEANCE IV.
..." If angel lips are portals to the palace of wisdom,
angelic beings are modest and unassuming. Whenever you
hear a spirit talk about himself, — what mighty things he did
on earth, and what he has done in the supernal spheres, —
put it down that the brother is but a pupil in the primary
department of immortality. High and pure spirits are disinclined
to even give their names. And there is nothing
more repellant to an exalted spirit, than to refer to himself.
In a congress of spirits, I once heard a spirit of sage-like
appearance say he had sometimes thought that loss of
memory would be a great blessing, thus forgetting self.
Selfishness is the root of all the cankering vices of the age.
... A mortal, reaching the better land of immortality,
gravitates, or seeks the plane of his choice, something as the
immigrant in a new country looks for highlands or lowlands,
cultivated fields or heavy-timbered forests ; but a
spirit, owing to the condition of the spiritual body and other
considerations, can not become a permanent resident of a
higher plane than he is spiritually prepared for. . . . The
desires, or, rather, the demands of the carnal nature, such as
gluttony, and sexual intercourse, do not obtain in the spiritual
world.
These fleshly and animal appetites are laid aside
at death. And yet low, undeveloped spirits, from force of
habit, vividness of memory, or downward tendencies acquired
on earth, may enjoy the sight of lasciviousness ; or,