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The World Beyond (23)
More from Albert Pauchard on the Other Side, and Frederic Myers.
PAUCHARD [talking to his wife Antionette] -
If you ask me what my usual environment is, …….well, sometimes it is like a materialization of my old environment on earth; sometimes – when communicating with you - like a mental photograph of your present environment – but of more than three dimensions. However, this lasts just the time that my attention is drawn that way. Generally my environment is the reflection – and the symbol – of my state of mind. Sometimes, for instance, I could describe it only as an infinite space without form…a current of light converging on the corresponding point in our world of what you term the brain. In this current of light, ever-changing forms of angelical figures appear: these are the forms of my thoughts created in the centre of my heart.
Meetings, here, take place according to geometrical figures. We find ourselves principally in the world of beauty. It is the very substance of this world here, which, whenever very active in people on earth, makes artists of them. It is from such mental meetings in spirit – from such reunions taking place on our plane of beauty – that artistic inspiration and ideas are created.
You wonder how artistic realization – in music, painting or sculpture, for instance – present themselves on our own plane. Well, music is not made on instruments, as with you. Painting is not done on a surface – canvas or other material – and sculpture is not done by means of a chisel and hammer on wood or stone. No, it is rather the conception itself of the artist’s spirit – his own vision and feeling – which are projected as forms and colours into the exquisitely responsive matter of our plane. Our movements are also harmonized, and call to mind the dance – in the highest and noblest sense of the word – either slow and solemn, or as the case may be – joyful and vivacious.
Here, work is totally different to what it is in your idea on earth. A thought – a creative imagination – is work. There is no heavy matter to manipulate and force into forms. With us – thinking is creating. Where I am is not a geographical place – it is a state of consciousness. Therefore, we gradually change the environment, as our consciousness widens and grows in intensity. This happens by itself and unnoticeably, by a kind of inner growing.
Neither have we the idea of time – even far less than in the beginning, when already it counted so little. One glides unnoticeably in immutability – or what is called the Eternal Now. Bear in mind that the successive worlds must not be considered as if they were storeys of a sky-scraper. I am on the border of the world of imagination and that of thought, but such a rigid separation does not exist. It is difficult to draw a line where one finishes and the other begins. Don’t imagine, either, that in one world we do not think, and in the other we do not feel. Not at all. However, there is a decided preponderance of one process over the other. Each world is the reflection of a superior world [the one above it]. Beyond the World of Thought, and superior to it, is the World of Adoration. Beyond that is the World of Pure Reason – where the ideas and laws which govern creation are born. Your Earth reflects and unites within itself all the activities of the superior worlds and manifests them on its own level [as above, so below]. You could never overestimate [the importance of] this fact and what it means.
Beyond the world of Pure Reason – the world of ideas, - is that of the Will of Creation. It is the superior [top] pole of an axis, the inferior [bottom] pole of which is your own earth. All worlds – or planes [or spheres…call them what you will] – are interpenetrating. I may be actively conscious in more than one plane. For the time being I am still quite content in the astral world – where I have the possibility of research and experiences – and therefore find it convenient to keep the corresponding body. Just as I can ascend in my consciousness to the superior worlds, while still here – so I can always turn my consciousness towards the worlds I have left behind. It is the interest we find in a world, that causes us to keep the instrument [or vehicle] – that means our body – which serves to express and register in that world. Thus it happens that some may stay in the astral until another soul, whom they have decided to await, has joined them.
This consciousness on different planes also exists on earth – at least to a certain extent. Your life on earth is not solely material, is it? Although incarnate, the mind can ascent and on such occasion register superior impressions. Have we not sometimes – in the course of our life on earth – some impressions of Immortality, some flashes of Cosmic Life? And has it not happened several times, that you found out by yourself that the simplest facts of nature often reveal more than many a book? And at certain moments don’t you also feel an inexpressible happiness, an incomprehensible joy which nothing seems to justify? That’s a sign. For the spiritual life, the spiritual experience if you prefer, is always accompanied by an immense happiness!"
Reviewed from "The Other World" by Albert Pauchard. Pilgrim Books, 1952.
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Around five years before Pauchard came through with these descriptions of the World Beyond, a former poet and psychical researcher had gone into much greater detail about the seven chief planes of existence, and he is Frederic Myers (1843 – 1901). Geraldine Cummins was the medium. “The Road to Immortality” contains his detailed descriptions, which cannot be condensed here. I will quote a few brief passages about the fourth plane of light or colour to give an idea of the different atmosphere on a higher plane than that from which we usually receive most of our spirit communications.
"If you are an intelligent, ethically developed soul, you will desire to go up the ladder of consciousness. When you are living consciously and are sensible of your subtle body, you dwell in a world which is the original of the earth…..Here you will perceive a variety of forms which are not known on earth, and therefore may not be expressed in words. Flowers are there, but these are in shapes unknown to you, exquisite in colour, radiant with light. Such colours and lights are not contained within any earthly octave and are expressed by us in thoughts and not in words.
On earth the average person’s normal ego is largely controlled by the body’s desires, though the spirit inspires its life and at times lights up the darkness of the human brain with luminous flashes. Still, the spirit, or what I call the deeper mind, can only faintly impress itself upon the ego. As long as the soul dwells in form it is subject to the rhythm of the universe and, therefore, to some form of time. Conceive time, form and appearance as one symbol.
Now, on the Fourth plane, the spirit enters a world of myriad colours, lights and sounds. This many-coloured world is nourished by light and life in a greater purity and vibrates at an unimaginable speed. The souls who dwell within the first zone realise that with increased consciousness they have gained a far greater sensitivity. Awareness on this light planes has vastly increased, but usually a soul cannot convey a sense of it to those individuals it tries to contact on earth. This explains why so few ever receive any spontaneous impression of the departed. Indeed, men and women on earth [paradoxically] are as ghosts to us, and only when they seek us with faith and with love do they obtain any convincing [evidential] suggestion of ourselves, of our earth personality. Such a search is legitimate and will neither hurt nor distress the one who is summoned or sought.
Thought here is more or less continuous – there are far fewer gaps of unconsciousness. The soul has greatly increased intellectual powers, and with that increased awareness there comes greater concentration. For example, I have but to concentrate my thought for what you might call a moment and I can build up a likeness of myself, send that likeness speeding across our vast world to a friend, to one, that is, in tune with me. Instantly I appear before that friend though I am remote from him; and my likeness holds speech – in thought, not words – with this friend. Yet all the time I control it from an enormous distance; and as soon as the interview is concluded, I withdraw the life of my thought from that image of myself, and it vanishes. Of course, I can only make this telepathic contact with those on my plane who are familiar with me and, therefore are in my rhythm.
Compared with us, nearly half of the earth life is passed in sleep, that is to say, in a state of unconsciousness; and it is calculated then even when a man is awake, his normal healthy self, his consciousness, is broken by gaps of unconsciousness forty or fifty times a second. Take the intellectual activity of a slug or a snail, compare it with that of a man, and you will understand how different is the mental and emotional world of the soul on the Fourth plane from that of a human being! The intensity of the thought processes of the emotional life here seem limitless when compared with the sluggish movements of the human brain.
Reviewed, condensed and paraphrased from Chapter Five of “The Road to Immortality” by Geraldine Cummins. Pilgrims Book Services. 1932.
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