PART V.

OBSESSION OF MAN AND OF ANIMALS
IT is a curious fact that subhuman elementals some- times attach themselves to certain persons, to a family, or even to a religious society; but in such cases it was always found that their vehicle did not consist of the hardened sin body composed of an in- terlocking desire and vital body, but that the vehicle had been obtained through mediumship practiced by a person of ordinarily good character, and that the ether of this vehicle was in a state of disintegration. To offset this and to prolong their hold on such a vehicle, they demand of those whom they serve, reg- ular offerings of food and the burning of incense; though they cannot, of course, assimilate the physical food, they can and do live upon the ether fumes and odors which arise from it, also upon the fumes of incense.
This is only another illustration of the fact that purity of motive will not protect us when we go con- trary to the laws of God, any more than we can escape a burn if we put our hand on a hot stove, no
OBSESSION OF MAN AND OF ANIMALS 47
matter why we did it. But, nevertheless, it has been found in cases where a medium has been ensouled by pure motives and high religious devotion, it is very difficult for such evil entities to hold the vital body for a long time ; they soon tire of the effort and seek another victim who is more in accordance with their nature. Thus in the south of Europe and in the far East there are elementals that take possession of the vital bodies of a family, generation after gen- eration, leaving one for another and performing cer- tain services for the family for a consideration of food, which is usually offered at regular times. Some of them are too vile to be satisfied with the offering of ordinary food and demand blood, even human blood, and these beings are responsible for such tribes as the head-hunters of the Philippines and the stran- glers of India, who commit murder as a religious rite. This is also the basis of Ancestor Worship in the East.
These as well as the sin bodies which are not en- souled by an outside intelligence have been called "THE DWELLERS ON THE THRESHOLD," merely owing to the fact that when the person by whom they were originally generated was reborn, this demon attached itself to him and became a tempter and a devil to him all through life. Not infrequently it was found that in the case of a person who had in one life generated such a demon, but who had taken the lessons of that
48 THE WEB OF DESTINY
life so much to heart that they were expiated in the purgatorial existence, and who when reborn endeav- ored in the most whole-souled way to live a clean, upright, and honest life, this sin body was still al- ways on hand to hamper him. Many of the people who were thus afflicted were so sincere in their desire to reform that they entered monasteries and practiced dreadful austerities upon their bodies, each of them believing that the demon which haunted him and of whose presence he was conscious was the devil or an emissary from him.
It is said truly that the boy is the father of the man. In a similar sense our previous existences are the progenitors of our present and future lives, and it is very certain that in this sense at least, "the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children"; nor can we deny the justice thereof, for the cruelties prac- ticed by these people which caused the formation of the sin body were generally of the most atrocious na- ture imaginable.
You have probably heard it said that when a bull dog has taken a grip on anything, he will not let go. This implies, however, that he has the power to do so if he wants to. But it is different with a snake; its teeth are pointed towards the back of the mouth so that when once it has sunk its fangs into the flesh of its victim, it cannot let go but must perforce swal-
OBSESSION OF MAN AND OF ANIMALS 49
low the victim. Curiously enough, something similar is the case in obsession.
You will remember that the writer has always con- tended that spirit controls stand outside their victim 's body and behind him, manipulating the organ of speech or the whole body, as the case may be, from and through the cerebellum and medulla oblongata where the flame of life burns with a double, buzzing sound composed of two tones, indicative of the resist- ance of the body to the manipulations of the intruder. Our latest investigations have, however, disclosed the fact that the spirit controls who thus manipulate; their victims from without, are the wise ones who are too wary to be caught in a trap. While they are with- out, they can let go at any time they wish and leave their victim to pursue his daily life as desired, while they do the same themselves. But there are other spirits who are not so wise, or who are perhaps more foolhardy or else so anxious to get into the physical world that they throw all caution aside. Entering the body of their victims, they find themselves in almost the same position as the prey of the snake; the body of their intended victim has a lock grip upon them and they cannot let go under ordinary circumstances. Thus the obsession becomes permanent, and the whole personality of that victim changes.
50 THE WEB OF DESTINY
If the obsessing spirit be an elemental or subhuman entity which is not able to use a mind or larynx, these being the latest human acquisitions, the person so ob- sessed becomes a hopeless lunatic, not infrequently of a malevolent nature, and the faculty of speech is also impaired. It is almost impossible to dislodge such an entity once it has entered. Investigation of former lives shows that this affliction is usually the out- come of a desire to run away from life's experience; for those who are obsessed are often found to have been suicides in a previous existence. Then they had a body which they did not appreciate, and as a con- sequence in a later life the mentality became weak- ened either through an organic disease, a great shock, or by obsession. In any one of these cases the spirit was ousted from its body, always hovering around it and eager to obtain possession but unable to do so because of the lack of mind wherewith to focus thought upon the brain or because of obsession by an ex- traneous entity.
Sorrow and disappointment are usually the causes of suicide, and often a great sorrow was found to de- range the mind; but the spirit is then quite capable of understanding and handling the situation even though it may not be able to use its vehicles because of the lacking focus of mind. But where it has given way and attempted to escape by suicide, it learns in
OBSESSION OF MAN AND OF ANIMALS 51
the manner described to realize the value of a body and of the links therewith, so that in the future no provocation will be sufficient to cause it to sever the silver cord. In fact, sometimes sorrows come to tempt a person who has given way in the past to do this very act ; and when he resists, it shows he has become immune from the temptation. It seems to be the same principle upon which the drunkard of a former life is tempted to drink in order to test his stability of character by his conscious refusal to yield.
It is curious that the commission of suicide in one life and the consequent post-mortem suffering during the time when the archetype still exists often gen- erate in such people a morbid fear of death in the next life, so that when the event actually occurs in the ordinary course of life, they seem frantic after they leave the body and so anxious to get back to the physical world again that they frequently commit this crime of obsession in the most foolish and un- thinking manner. However, as there are not always negative human subjects available for obsession, (and even if there were, it is not certain that the person who has just passed out and who is seeking such a chance will find one in whom he may take refuge) a strange, a horrible thing often happens, namely, that such a spirit ousts the real owner of an animal body and then ensouls its vehicle. It is then under
52 THE WEB OF DESTINY
the dreadful necessity of living an animal existence, pure and simple. If the animal is subjected to cruelty by its master, the obsessing human spirit suf- fers as the animal spirit would have suffered; if the animal is to be killed for food, the man within sees and understands the preparation for slaughter and has to go through the horrible experiences connected therewith. Nor are cases of this nature infrequent at all; in fact they happen very often, as a visit to some of the great American slaughter-houses has brought home to the writer in a most forcible manner ; and the realization of this, to him, new fact has brought home in an almost painful manner the neces- sity of educating the people to the great truth that death, like birth, is only an event of frequent occur- rence in the never-ending life of the immortal spirit.
Full faith in this doctrine would take away untold misery from mankind, and we ought to do all in our power to help spread this gospel of Life.
It also sometimes occurs that an evil man embodies himself in a beast of prey and takes a fiendish delight in terrorizing a community. When the Christ walked upon earth, such cases of animal obsession by human spirits were met with every day, and the instances recorded in the Bible are not at all myths or foolish- ness to one endowed with spiritual sight and able to
OBSESSION OF MAN AND OF ANIMALS 53
read in the Memory of Nature, for it is found that these things actually did happen ; in fact, the ancient seers who observed this habitual entrance of people of low and evil character into the bodies of beasts when they had passed out of their own bodies at death, thought that this was the regular course of nature instead of being an anomalous condition, and they therefore formulated the doctrine of Transmigration.
54