The Astral World—Higher Occult Powers / Clairvoyance, Spiritism, Mediumship, and Spirit-Healing Fully Explained

by Joel Tiffany

There are spiritual needs pertaining to his understanding and affections which are entirely overlooked or neglected by him, whose demands are as imperative as are the demands of the animal nature. The demands of his intellectual and moral nature cause him to feel the lack of something within which destroys his rest and quiet. He seeks to satisfy this lack by gratifying his sensuous appetites and passions. Thus man runs into vice, and becomes sinful. Were it not for his immortal thirsting for the water of life, he never would be a wicked, lustful being; or if he would supply the demands of that thirst, he never would be discontented or lustful.

Now let us make the distinction between the lustful and the divine impulse, that you may better understand what I mean by the sphere to which I am calling your attention. We all can tell the difference by appealing to our own consciousness. The divine impulse informs us of a need, and leads us to seek to supply it. The Infinite only speaks of needs, and leads man to supply them, that he may grow up into a perfect being. Every impulse in man, from the lowest to the highest nature, must be attended to, in order to render him perfect. The true impulse is one that promotes individual happiness and contentment.

When the infant, in consequence of this impulse, feels the sense of hunger calling for food, and such food as its infantile nature requires, it cries; but the supply of that demand is only necessary to cause it to cease its crying. This is because the child is free from those lusts which attach to persons advanced in years. “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.” The child does not lust after things that shall gratify or tickle its palate; it only seeks for those things which it needs; and when they are supplied, it ceases calling for more. But with the advance of age it learns of lustful parents, or by being acted upon by lustful influences, to seek gratification through lust, while in its original unperverted state it knows no impulses but those which are natural, and, consequently, it obeys the true and divine law.

Without stopping to inquire into the origin of lust, I may say that it originates in man’s ignorance, necessarily. If you recollect the figure in the parable of the Garden of Eden, you remember that the sin committed by Eve was eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That is where we all eat. But I do not propose to dwell upon the nature and origin of this lust in man, but merely to speak of it as being that which characterizes him in his lowest sphere of being. It brings him into antagonism with his neighbor and God. It is that which begets in him so much crime, and which brings ruin upon the world. That is lust which leads him to seek after self-gratification irrespective of any need, while the true impulse only leads him to seek to supply those things which are really needed. The impulse belonging to the lower sphere may be characterized as lust. The idea which obtains so generally in society, that lust belongs only to animal, sensual, or sexual desires, is, therefore, erroneous.

Man may seek gratification in every plane of his being; not only in what he eats and drinks, but also in the intellectual plane. He may seek to gratify a vain curiosity. When he feels restless, he goes off searching after amusement. Time hangs heavy on his soul. There is a perishing need calling for action, and he knows not whence it comes, and he seeks to “kill” this time by amusement or otherwise. This is lusting, not in the animal sense, but in the intellectual sense. He may also lust in the moral plane. What are called friendships in the world, are distinguished by lusts. You know how the world selects its friends: it selects them according to the pleasure it expects to derive from them. Is it not so? Does not the selfish man and woman select friends with reference to the enjoyment they expect to derive from their association with them? And are they not most constant in their attention to those who are most successful in administering to their enjoyment? Look at this, each of you. Look over the list of your friends, and tell me really what is the basis of your friendship. You love your friends, you say. Why do you love them? You love to be with them. Why? You seek their society. Why? Some of your friends you love best. Tell me why it is that you love them best. You say they are the most agreeable to you, and hence you love to be with them. Is that the highest basis? If so, when they cease to administer to your gratification, what relation will you hold to them then? It is said that “prosperity makes friends, and adversity tries them.” They can make it pleasant for us when they are with us, and in prosperity; but when adversity comes, their position is not quite high enough for us; and we prefer those differently conditioned. This remark is in accordance with the statement, that the friendship of the world is based upon the principle of gratifying ourselves. In making your morning calls, you sometimes visit your friends from a sense of duty; and are influenced by the fear that they will find fault with you if you follow your feelings in the matter, and go where you will derive the greatest amount of pleasure.

When you think these friends are laboring to your disadvantage, then your love for them soon cools off. They don’t answer your purpose. Thus, trifling circumstances make foes of friends. You may test the friendship you think you have for individuals. If a person’s friendship seems to be strong, and he can not enjoy his friendship for another, unless in that other’s society, and he desires to be in the presence of that person, so that he can hear his voice and feel his personal influence, and if, when separated from that friend he is disquieted and unhappy, very much as is the person who uses strong drink or tobacco, and is deprived of his beer, or rum, or tobacco—his friendship has a low basis. But if one has a true friendship, which is high, and holy, and spiritual, one where his whole confidence is merged in that friend, he trusts him with his heart and most secret thoughts, and knows without doubt that he can not be betrayed by that friend; and they hold constant spiritual communion with each other, no matter how far apart—there is a concord of spiritual communion between them that enables them to enjoy each other’s society when separated by hundreds of miles. True friendship is of the spiritual kind that does not regard so gross and physical a friendship as the friendship of the world. I wish to call your attention to the presence of this impulse in you, because perhaps you have not looked at the subject in this light.

A word to husbands and wives. A young man, when he contemplates getting married, thinks he will get a wife that will make him very happy. One young man thinks he would like a wife who will be economical; another, one who would make a good housekeeper; and another, an intellectual companion; so they select not so much with reference to the wife, as to the use of the wife. And ladies, on the other hand, select husbands who they think will provide them a good home, afford them protection, etc.; they want a husband for his use; so the union between the man and woman is often based upon the idea of use, and not upon their fitness for companions; and hence their love for each other continues so long as the use continues, and no longer. If a man who desires a good housekeeper finds that his wife is not one, or if a husband finds his wife faulty in any other important particular, just in proportion as she proves faulty his love for her is abated; and at the end of twenty-eight days—the period denominated the “honey-moon”—he finds he does not love her near as well as he supposed; and that what he supposed was love, was, after all, but a desire after gratification—that he was loving self instead of his wife.

Man may be lustful in his religion as well as in his moral relations. He may mistake what he supposes to be the love of God for the love of the use of God. He expects God is going to make him eternally happy, and bestow upon him unending enjoyment, and for this reason he shouts and praises him, and calls it loving God. He does not see that God is so much better than anybody else; but he has become satisfied that God means well, and will bless him; and he honors him for these things. Hence his seeking after religion that he may make himself happy and save himself from suffering is as lustful and selfish as seeking after something good to eat or drink, making self-gratification the object of his search. The great difficulty, my friends, with popular religion is, that it is only a religious expression of lust. That it has not beaten swords into plowshares and spears into pruning-hooks, and taught people to learn war no more, is because it has failed to adopt the means by which the world can be made pure and happy. Hence the religious man may be as selfish as the miserly man, and yet think he is so much like God that he is going to be saved. But it is not religion that he loves; it is only the use of religion. Satisfy him that God is not going to benefit him, but that he is going to damn him, and he will curse him bravely. I ask everybody to look at this.

It is claimed, as I have already remarked, that the impulse of lust belongs to the body, and does not grow out of the relation which the mind sustains to the body. What need, I ask, did Alexander’s body feel, which demanded that he should have all the kings and potentates of earth on their knees before him? What did he want of the wealth of the earth? and what made him weep because there was not another world to conquer? Was it his body? I tell you, Nay; there were perishing needs within him that would not give him rest till they were supplied; and, ignorant of the nature of those needs, he sought to supply them by the gratification of his selfish nature. Not heeding the voice of God, he took his sword and rushed upon mankind, and made that the balm for the healing of his restless spirit; and when he had conquered the world, and had it at his command, he was more miserable than before; simply because he had entered farther into the broad road leading to destruction and death. He felt the bitter agony of soul consequent upon a departure from the straight and narrow path. This lust was not the lust of his body—it was the lust of the spirit. It was a desire for self-gratification that arose, because the needs existing in consequence of neglecting the demands of the spirit were not supplied. He sought gratification in a way in which he thought he could obtain it; but he was sadly disappointed in the result.

The miser, in every age, has been trying to obtain happiness by getting gold. A French miser, who, like a great mass of mankind, thought wealth would make him happy, sought for it, and was so successful as to obtain it. He possessed his untold millions, and yet desired more; and he found that the more he possessed the more he desired. He also perceived that his wealth did not gratify his wants. The moment he possessed it, he found he could not take care of it to his liking. He could not trust it in banks, for the banks might break; and he did not like to invest it in stocks, for stocks were liable to depreciate in value; so he made up his mind that he would convert it into money, and keep it continually in his sight; and accordingly he had it placed in heaps, and stood and watched it. But then he was unable to sleep because he feared burglars and assassins, whose plottings for his life and money constantly rung in his ear. As he stood and watched those shining heaps, he reflected that although he had obtained wealth he had derived no satisfaction from it, but that every dollar added to his possessions added a new pang to his sorrows; and he determined to kill himself, and accordingly proceeded to the banks of the river Seine, for the purpose of drowning himself. Upon arriving at the river’s bank, happening to put his hand in his pocket, he found four guineas. Thinking they would thereafter be of no use to him, he concluded that rather than have them lost, he would, before he sought his watery grave, go and find some needy person to whom he might give the money. He accordingly went to a miserable hovel close by. As he approached it, he heard cries of agony and distress within. He entered, when he beheld a most heart-rending sight. There lay a poor, sick, distressed widow on a pallet of straw, with a few rags for covering; and there were four hungry, dirty, naked children crying for bread, while the sick mother had no bread for them, or the means of obtaining any. The miser stepped up to the bed, and placed the four strayed guineas in her hand, and told her they were hers. She looked wildly at the money, and then at the giver, and then at the guineas again. She seized his hand, pressed it, blessed him, and called upon God to bless him; and the children thanked him. The thanks, and blessings, and tears which were showered upon that miser’s heart caused it to break, and for the first time in his life a pulsation of pleasure, delight, and satisfaction beat through his soul, and as he stood and witnessed the joy, and thankfulness, and hope of that family he exclaimed, “What! is happiness so cheap? then I will be happy.” Then he went away, not to drown himself in the Seine, but to seek out other similar cases of suffering; and after that he had no occasion to kill himself, for he had found what was the canker that had so long been gnawing upon his heart. He found that he possessed a moral nature that had needs, and that that nature was calling upon him to perform certain moral duties; and that the moment he obeyed the demands of that nature, he silenced that clamoring within, which had all his life long rendered him unhappy and discontented; and at a good old age he testified that the way to be happy was to be good and useful.