Latest / Invisible Helpers / CHAPTER IX.— Materialization and Repercussion

Transcript

CHAPTER IX.— Materialization and Repercussion · Invisible Helpers

• 0:00
  Chapter nine of Invisible Helpers. This is a Liberriyvox recording. All Liberyvox recordings
• 0:05
  are in the public's men. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
• 0:09
  LibriVox dot org. Read by KBHC. Invisible Helpers by C. W.
• 0:14
  Ledbetter, Chapter nine, Materialization and Repercussion. On meeting with a story such
• 0:19
  as this, students often inquire whether the invisible helper is perfectly safe amidst these
• 0:24
  scenes of daily peril, Whether, for example, this boy who was materialized
• 0:29
  in order to save another from a burning house, was not himself in some
• 0:32
  danger, Whether his physical body would not have suffered in any way by repercussion
• 0:37
  if his materialized form had passed through the flames or fallen from the high ledge
• 0:41
  on the edge of which he walked so unconcernedly. In fact, since we
• 0:45
  know that in many cases the connection between materialized form and the physical body is
• 0:49
  sufficiently close to produce repercussion, might it not have occurred in this case?
• 0:54
  Now, this subject of repercussion is an exceedingly abtruse and difficult one, and
• 0:58
  we are, by no means yet in a position and fully to explain its
• 1:00
  very remarkable phenomena. Indeed, in order to understand the matter perfectly, it
• 1:04
  will probably be necessary to comprehend the laws of sympathetic vibration on more planes than
• 1:10
  one. Still, we do know about observation, some of the conditions which
• 1:14
  permit its action, and some which definitely exclude it. And I think we
• 1:17
  are warranted in saying that it was absolutely impossible here. To see why this
• 1:21
  is so, we must first remember that there at least three well defined varieties
• 1:25
  of materialization, as anyone who has at all an extended experience of spiritualism will
• 1:30
  be aware. I'm not concerned at the moment to enter upon any explanation as
• 1:34
  to how these three varieties are respectively produced, but I am merely stating the
• 1:38
  indubitable fact of their existence. One there's materialization, which, though tangible,
• 1:42
  is not visible to ordinary physical sight. Of this nature the unseen hands which
• 1:47
  so often clasp one's arm or stroke one's face at a seance, which sometimes
• 1:52
  carry physical objects through the air or make wraps upon the table, though of
• 1:55
  course both these latter phenomena may easily be produced without a materialized hands at all.
• 2:00
  Two there is materialization, which, though visible, is not tangible.
• 2:05
  The spird form through which one's hand passes as through empty air. In some
• 2:08
  cases this variety is obviously misty and impalpable, but in others its appearance is
• 2:13
  so entirely normal that its solidity is never doubted until someone endeavors to grasp it.
• 2:17
  Three, there is perfect materialization, which is both visible and tangible,
• 2:22
  which not only bears the outward semblance of your departed friend, but shakes you
• 2:25
  cordially by the hand with the very class that you know so well. Now,
• 2:30
  while there is a good deal of evidence to show that repercussion takes place
• 2:32
  under certain conditions, in the case of this third kind of materialization, it
• 2:37
  is by no means so certain that it can occur with the first or second
• 2:39
  class. In the case of the boy helper, it's probable that the materialization
• 2:44
  would not be of the third type, since the greatest care is always taken
• 2:47
  not to expand more force than is absolutely necessary to produce whatever result may be
• 2:52
  required, and it is obvious that less energy would be used in the production
• 2:55
  of the more partial forms, which we have called the first and second classes.
• 3:00
  The probability is that only the arm with which the boy held his little
• 3:02
  companion would be solid to the touch, and that the rest of his body,
• 3:07
  though looking perfectly natural, would have proved far less palpable if it had
• 3:09
  been tested. But apart from this probability, there's another point to be considered.
• 3:15
  When a full materialization takes place, whether the subject be living or dead,
• 3:19
  physical matter of some sort has to be gathered together for the purpose.
• 3:23
  At a spiritualistic seance, this matter is obtained by drawing largely upon the etheric
• 3:27
  double of the medium, and sometimes even upon his physical body, also,
• 3:30
  since cases are on record in which his weight has been very considerably decreased while
• 3:35
  manifestations of this character were taking place. This method is employed by the directing
• 3:39
  entities of the seance simply because when an available medium is within reach, it
• 3:44
  is very much the easiest way in which a materialization can be brought about,
• 3:46
  and the consequence is that the very closest connection is thus set up between that
• 3:51
  medium and the materialized body, so that the phenomenon which, although very imperfectly
• 3:54
  understanding it, we call repercussion, occurs in its clearest form. If,
• 4:00
  for example, the hands of the materialized body be rubbed with chalk, that
• 4:02
  chalk will afterwards be found on the hands with the medium, even though he
• 4:05
  may have been all the time and carefully locked up in a cabinet under circumstances
• 4:10
  which absolutely preclude any suspicion of fraud. If any injury be inflicted upon the
• 4:15
  materialized form, that injury will be accurately reproduced upon the corresponding part of the
• 4:19
  medium's body. While sometimes food of which the spirit form has partaken will be
• 4:24
  found to have passed into the body of the medium, at least that happened
• 4:28
  in one case, At any rate, within my own experience, it would
• 4:30
  be far otherwise. However, in the case which we have been describing,
• 4:33
  Cyril was thousands of miles from his sleeping physical body, and it would therefore
• 4:38
  be quite impossible for his friend to draw a theic matter from it, While
• 4:42
  the regulations under which all pupils of the great Masters of wisdom perform their work
• 4:46
  of helping man would assuredly prevent him, even for the noblest of purpose,
• 4:49
  from putting such a strain upon anyone else's body. Besides, it would be
• 4:54
  quite unnecessary for the far less dangerous method invariably employed by the helpers. When
• 4:58
  materialization seems asiret would be ready to his hand the condensation of the circumbient effort,
• 5:03
  or even from the physical air, of such an amount of matter as
• 5:08
  may be requisite. This feat, though no doubt beyond the power of the
• 5:11
  average entity manifesting at a seance, presents no difficulty to a student of occult
• 5:15
  chemistry, but marked the difference in the result obtained. In the case of
• 5:19
  the medium, we have a materialized form in the closest possible connection with the
• 5:23
  physical body, made out of its very substance, and therefore capable of producing
• 5:28
  all the phenomena of repercussion. In the case of the helper, we have
• 5:30
  indeed an exact reproduction of the physical body, but it is created by a
• 5:34
  mental effort out of matter entirely foreign to that body, and is no more
• 5:39
  capable of acting upon it by repercussion than an ordinary marble statue of a man
• 5:44
  would be. Thus it is that a passage through the flames or a fall
• 5:46
  from a high window ledge would have had no terrors for the boy helper,
• 5:50
  and that on another occasion a member of the band, though materialized, was
• 5:55
  able, without any inconvenience to the physical body, to go down into a
• 5:58
  sinking vessel. In both the incidents of his work that have been described above.
• 6:02
  It will have been noticed that the boy Cyril was unable to materialize himself,
• 6:06
  and that the operation had to be performed for him by an older friend.
• 6:11
  One more of his experiences is worth relating, for it gives us a
• 6:14
  case in which intensity of pity and determination of will he was able to show
• 6:17
  himself, a case somewhat parallel to that previously related of the mother whose love
• 6:23
  enabled her some half to manifest herself in order to save her children's lives.
• 6:27
  Inexplicable as it may seem, there is no doubt whatever of the existence and
• 6:31
  nature of the stupendous power of will of a matter of all planes, so
• 6:35
  that, if only the power be great enough, practically any result may be
• 6:39
  produced by its direct action, without any knowledge or even thought on the part
• 6:43
  of the man exercising that will as to how it is to do its work.
• 6:47
  We have had plenty of evidence that this power holds good in the case
• 6:50
  of materialization, although ordinarily it's an art which must be learned just like any
• 6:55
  other. Assuredly, an average man on the astral plane could no more materialize
• 7:00
  himself without having previously learned how to do it. Then the average man on
• 7:03
  this plane could play the violin without having previously learned it. But there are
• 7:08
  exceptional cases, as will be seen from the following narrative. End of chapter
• 7:13
  nine read by KBHC.