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Let me write a few lines tonight upon a subject that has recently been discussed by a spiritualist, a preacher, a philosopher and a scientist, and that is the continuity of life after death of the physical body. Each of these writers approach the subject from a different viewpoint, but all arrive at the same conclusion based upon different means of argument, and that is, that life continues after death.
The subject is one in which mankind is vitally interested and is worthy of consideration by the greatest minds of investigation and research, and should be studied in the light of nature as well as in that of actual demonstration by the experiences of those who have by their experiences proved to mankind that the spirits of their departed friends and acquaintances and of others of more or less distinction when in the physical life, do actually live and communicate to men their existence and the possession of the mental faculties and thoughts that were theirs when mortals.
The proper study of man would demonstrate this fact, and logically doubt would cease to exist, but the difficulty is that men do not understand man or his creation and faculties and his relationship to things of life known as the material or matter. It is a common belief that matter that is now existent, or rather that what men see and know of the material is all that is knowable, and that when that which is merely physical, as commonly understood, ceases to exist no further or other knowledge of it can be obtained or understood by the finite mind of man.
But this accepted assumption is not true, and if man would only think for a moment of what matter or the material is, they would comprehend the possibilities of its workings and functionings, and also, of what use may be made of the same by the minds of the spirits operating upon it in the spiritual world, that is in the world beyond the comprehension of the five senses of men, which are only the means of the spirits working in the ordinary purview of the physical life.
Matter is eternal, and exists in all the spheres of the spirit world just as it does on earth, although in different forms and attenuations, and in conditions that may or may not be the objects of the physical senses, or of the senses of the mind which are superior to or exclusive of these mere physical senses. Matter is, in its essential nature, the same, notwithstanding the fact that it assumes different forms--some visible to the ordinary senses of men and some entirely outside of that view or sensation, and as to these senses wholly nonexistent, yet to these other senses of the mind just as real and tractable and subject to the influence of the workings of the mind, as the merely physical matter is to the five senses of men.
The world in which men live is composed of the material, and the world in which I live is also composed of the material, of the same nature, but of different consistencies and objective qualities. The material of the universe is always material, whether or not it be cognizable by man and subject to his thoughts and inventions and uses; and as man progresses in the study of the same--I mean the practical and experimental--he will discover that there are things of the material in nature which to him are being developed and made known, and which a few years before he had no conception of their existence. Such is the discovery and use of electricity, and the workings of the laws of nature which enables him to make possible the effects of wireless telegraphy. These discoveries and workings of forces of the unseen are nothing more or less than a certain kind of knowledge controlling the same as to his consciousness has become apparent. But in all these operations matter is the thing made use of and not any spiritual power as commonly understood by men. So you see matter, whether in the grossly physical of earth or in the more attenuated and invisible of the spirit world, is that which is used to produce effects and is operated on by the mind, whether or not it be tangible and understandable or not.
The mind is an entity indivisible and united, and is not separable into the subjective and objective as men frequently teach, except in this: that in its workings, that part of the mind which controls the brain in the ordinary affairs of life may be called the objective, and that part which is suited for and used in controlling the material after it has been transformed into the purely invisible may be called the subjective. But it is all one mind and exists in man while on earth, just as it will and does when he becomes a spirit.
Man in his journey through life, and I mean when in the earth existence as well as in the eternal part of his existence, is always of the material, that is his soul has a material covering and appearance, and while this material covering changes in its appearance and quality as he progresses in the spheres, yet the gross physical of his earth life and the sublimated spiritual of the eternal part of his life, are both of the material, real, existing and tangible--and used for the purpose of their creation, namely: the protection and individualizing of the soul which they contain.
Now this being so, you can readily understand that man, when he gives up the coarser physical of the human body, does not cease to be of the material but becomes an inhabitant of the finer and purer material of what is called his spirit body; and this body is subject to the laws governing the material just as was his physical body subject to these laws; and the spirit, which in this sense is the real man clothed in the material, controls and uses that material more effectually than it did when on earth, bound in the physical. All the material of the spirit world is used and formulated by the spirits according to their degree of intelligence and development as the occasions for such uses may arise, and such use or the effects of the same are or can be made known to man according as his limitations admit.
Ordinarily, man's understanding of the effects of the spirit's control of the material of the invisible world is limited by the capacity of his five senses to comprehend, and as these five senses were created for the purpose only of permitting or helping the spirit to manifest itself with reference to those things which belong to the wholly physical of earth, it rarely happens that men can perceive the invisible material or the workings of the laws controlling the same.
Now in what I have said this spirit is merely the mind of man--the same indivisible mind that he possesses when on earth, but which because of the limitations of the physical organs he was not able to function as regards the invisible material, so that man could understand that functioning and its results.
Man when he dies is thereafter the same being in all his faculties, desires and thoughts, and in his ability to use the material as he was before his death, except that the purely physical organs of his own being are no longer his, and as to them he is dead: but strange as it may seem to you he can and often does control the physical organs of another man who is living in the flesh, if that man will submit to that control. And when you think for a moment you will realize that there is nothing remarkable in this. The mind of the spirit remains just the same as it was before his departure from the body, having all its powers and thoughts and consciousness, and if it can obtain control of that which is necessary to manifest itself to the consciousness of men, there will be no difficulty in its doing so, and nothing unusual or supernatural. Its own organs of brain and nerves and the five senses having gone, and the brain of every other mortal being subject to the control of its own mind, so long as that mind claims the exclusive use or control of these organs, the mind deprived of its own physical organs cannot control, because it is a law of being that no mind in its normal state can be intruded upon by another mind, and unless the mind whose seat and functioning are within the spirit body which is enclosed in the physical body possessing these organs, consents to the control of such organs by the other mind, it cannot use such organs. But the power is in the disembodied spirit or mind, only the opportunity is wanting.
When the spirit desires to control the invisible material, it is limited only by its intelligence and knowledge of the law governing such control, and its progress in the spirit spheres.
Well, I have written enough for tonight, but will come again and amplify my message.
Thanking you, I will say, good night.
- Your friend, FRANCIS BACON.
