These investigations are as thorough and as reliable as researches by material scientists, but not as easily demonstrable to the general public. Spiritual powers lie dormant within every human being, and when awakened, they compensate for both telescope and microscope, they enable their possessor to investigate, instanter, things beyond the veil of matter, but they are only developed by a patient application and continuance in well doing extended over years, and few are they who have faith to start upon the path to attainment or perseverance to go through with the ordeal. Therefore the occultist's assertions are not generally credited.
We can readily see that long probation must precede attainment, for a person equipped with spiritual sight is able to penetrate walls of houses as easily as we walk through the atmosphere, able to read at will the innermost thoughts of those about him; if not actuated by the most pure and unselfish motives, he would be a scourge to humanity. Therefore that power is safeguarded as we would withhold the dynamite bomb from an anarchist and from the well-intentioned but [pg 065] ignorant person, or, as we withhold match and powder barrel from a child.
In the hands of an experienced engineer the dynamite bomb may be used to open a highway of commerce, and an intelligent farmer may use gunpowder to good account in clearing his field of tree-stumps, but in the hands of an ill-intentioned criminal or ignorant child an explosive may wreck much property and end many lives. The force is the same, but used differently, according to the ability or intention of the user, it may produce results of a diametrically opposite nature. So it is also with spiritual powers, there is a time-lock upon them, as upon a bank safe, which keeps out all until they have earned the privilege and the time is ripe for its exercise.
As already said, the ether is physical matter and responsive to the same laws which govern other physical substances upon this plane of existence. Therefore it requires but a slight extension of physical sight to see ether, (which is disposed in four grades of density), the blue haze seen in mountain canyons is in fact ether of the kind known to occult investigators as “chemical ether.” Many people who see this ether, are unaware [pg 066] that they are possessed of a faculty not enjoyed by all. Others, who have developed spiritual sight are not endowed with etheric vision, a fact which seems an anomaly until the subject of clairvoyance is thoroughly understood.
The reason is, that as ether is physical matter, etheric sight depends upon the sensitiveness of the optic nerve while spiritual sight is acquired by developing latent vibratory powers in two little organs situated in the brain: the Pituitary body and the Pineal gland. Nearsighted people even, may have etheric vision. Though unable to read the print in a book, they may be able to “see through a wall,” owing to the fact that their optic nerve responds more rapidly to fine than to coarse vibrations.
When anyone views an object with etheric sight he sees through that object in a manner similar to the way an x-ray penetrates opaque substances. If he looks at a sewing machine, he will perceive, first an outer casing; then, the works within, and behind both, the casing furthest away from him.
If he has developed the grade of spiritual vision which opens the Desire World to him and he looks at the same object, he will [pg 067] see it both inside and out. If he looks closely, he will perceive every little atom spinning upon its axis and no part or particle will be excluded from his perception.
But if his spiritual sight has been developed in such a measure that he is capable of viewing the sewing machine with the vision peculiar to the World of Thought, he will behold a cavity where he had previously seen the form.
Things seen with etheric vision are very much alike in color, they are nearly reddish-blue, purple or violet, according to the density of the ether, but when we view any object with the spiritual sight pertaining to the Desire World, it scintillates and coruscates in a thousand ever changing colors so indescribably beautiful that they can only be compared to living fire, and the writer therefore calls this grade of vision color sight, but when the spiritual vision of the World of Thought is the medium of perception, the seer finds that in addition to still more beautiful colors, there issues from the cavity described a constant flow of a certain harmonious tone. Thus this world wherein we now consciously live and which we perceive by means of our physical senses is preeminently [pg 068] the world of form, the Desire World is particularly the world of color and the World of Thought is the realm of tone.
Because of the relative proximity or distance of these worlds, a statue, a form, withstands the ravages of time for millenniums, but the colors upon a painting fade in far shorter time, for they come from the Desire World, and music which is native to the World furthest removed from us, the World of Thought, is like a will-o-the-wisp which none may catch or hold, it is gone again as soon as it has made its appearance. But there is in color and music a compensation for this increasing evanescence.