Moses and his first assistant fakir, Aaron, destroyed all the horses and cattle in Egypt by a murrain, and then, as Pharaoh still had a stiff neck, they destroyed them all again by hail. Then, as Pharaoh still had trouble with his neck, they killed all the first-born of Egypt, both men and cattle. Then the Israelites fled, and Pharaoh hitched up his horses, that had been killed three times, to his six hundred chariots and pursued the chosen of God, who had pinched all the jewelry of the Egyptians. The Bible is full of these delightful stories from beginning to end. If you have conscientious scruples against reading the Bible, you will find them attractively set forth in Le Brun’s Doubts of Infidels.
CHAPTER XX.
Heaven.
The Lord doeth all things well.
He consigns the Jews to Heaven,
And all the rest to Hell.
There are forty nine heavens to which we ordinary mortals may attain, so you needn’t worry. Besides, there are certain aristocratic heavens reserved for the great and good men of high spirituality, such as Moses, the fakir, thief and murderer, and David, the bandit, outlaw and assassin, and Solomon, the fratricide, Mormon and pillar of Ashtoreth, and all the popes, bishops, priests and ministers. We will each go to that place we like the best, and to which we are fitted by our vibration. Some of us, like certain ministers, will go to that heaven where the beautiful fairies are. The ancient Jews will have a little heaven of their own, where they can worship the three balls and the ass-headed god and the god with whiskers on, and where they will have a chance to cop the golden paving stones, and sell corner lots, and insure their palace not made with hands eternal in the heavens.
And the ancient Scotch Presbyterian will walk the golden streets with his savage, gore-imbued devil-god, in his paradise overlooking the abyss of Hell, where he can gloat over the souls in torment, as they rise up out of the Bottomless Pit every thousand years, each one fastened by his tongue to a hook on an endless chain, which rises from such a fathomless depth of hellfire that it takes the victim a thousand years to make the circuit. It is claimed that these heavens and hells are built up from the astral substance by the imaginative power of the minds of the different religious sects.
This region contains all the heavens that have ever been dreamed of in theology, each filled with the devotees of the various creeds. Each of the great religions has its own particular region in which its disciples gather, worship and rejoice. In each region the religious soul finds just what he had expected and hoped to find on the other shore. You may even see the golden crowns, harps and stiff halos in some cases and hear the eternal chant of praise. These heavens are not eternal. Everything on the astral plane is subject to change like all other matter. Even the religious progress and change their opinions.—Astral World, 70.
The occultists do not, as a rule, disclose the process by which you may see the astral visions and pass out of the physical and journey in the astral body. But this is one way to see the pictures in the astral light: Between sleeping and waking, in the neutral state of Jagrata, when the eyes are closed and a numbness falls upon the body, and you experience a floating sensation, take note of the visions that appear to you, if any, and then by your will power impress them upon physical brain, so that you may remember them. These visions may be pictures on the astral light or scenes on the astral plane, but whatever they are, some of them prove to be true prophetic visions.
One occult teacher advised those who wished to induce trance to go into the silence, that is, to go into a room by yourself, where you will not be disturbed, and lie down and completely relax the muscles and think of nothing at all. The Hindus say fix your mind on your navel, but some fix their gaze on a crystal. You will see the visions when you doze off, if you can get them at all.