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Automatic Writing, Ouija Boards, the Planchette and Communication With People After Their Death · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  We see a proliferation of people who claim to act as
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  intermediaries through a process of seance or use of a Ouija
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  board or planchette to communicate with individuals who
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  have passed away. The interest in this area goes
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  through periods of peaks and troughs, but continually
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  captures the popular imagination, particularly for
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  people who are unwilling or unable to let go of their
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  deceased loved ones, or who have specific unfinished business for
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  which they are seeking answers. Shakespeare recounted numerous
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  stories of visitations by ghosts who interacted with the living,
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  usually to provoke some direct action of retribution upon some
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  party who had done them wrong, such as the ghost of Hamlet's
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  father or Caesar's ghost. Appearing to Brutus were the
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  ghosts of those he had killed to achieve the crown in Richard the
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  Third. Such stories abound.
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  The ancient Greeks and Romans had many tales of the existence
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  of the being after death, the descent into the underworld, the
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  different regions, and they definitely believed that the
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  being and personality that existed in the bodily form
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  persisted after death and under certain circumstances contact
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  between the embodied realm and the after death realms was
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  possible. If we view the process of the
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  dissolution of the tie between the physical body, the vital
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  being, the mental formation of the being, and the psychic being
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  or soul, and the stages that take place after death, we find
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  that it is possible that once the physical body has begun to
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  dissolve at the time of death, the other elements of the being
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  may continue to hold their form for some period of time until
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  eventually the vital elements dissolve, the mental formations
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  dissolve, and only the soul or psychic being continues on its
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  way to take a new birth. The Tibetans were focused on
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  helping the being disentangle from the bodily life and move on
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  into its next incarnations. Westerners have been more
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  focused on how to maintain and hold on to the disembodied being
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  and interacting with it in some form.
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  The famous escape artist Harry Houdini spent much of his time
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  in the 1920s debunking much of what went on at that time, a
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  psychic connection to those departed from this world.
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  He showed that much of the activity, the seances and
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  contacts, was simply taking advantage of the gullibility of
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  those who wanted to believe but had no real knowledge of the
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  actual process or even the reality of such contacts.
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  A disciple asks what kind of forces can be called up by using
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  the planchette and how is it done?
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  The mother writes quote. Oh, oh, do you mean automatic
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  writing? Yes.
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  That depends on the people who do it.
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  Sometimes there are no forces at all.
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  It is the mental and vital vibrations of the people who use
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  the planchette, and it is their own subconscious ideas which
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  they bring up 98 times out of 100.
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  Later, Mother added the following remark.
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  I say 90 times out of 100, for there are exceptions.
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  I know of some, but they are so rare that it is better not to
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  speak about them if they are in contact with invisible entities.
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  It may be all sorts of things, but nothing very advisable.
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  Almost with certainty it could be said that it is not what
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  people think. It is in the sense that most
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  often they try to evoke what they call the spirit of a dead
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  person, a relative or a friend or someone they loved and with
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  whom they wish to remain in touch.
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  And besides, they ask them the most foolish questions.
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  Fortunately, they don't succeed in disturbing them.
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  From this point of view, one can say that if you had a relation
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  of deep and sincere love with someone who has passed away,
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  left his body, and if you are calm and strong enough yourself,
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  this person may choose to take shelter vitally in your
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  atmosphere, the atmosphere, the one he loves, for a more or less
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  long period. In this case, it means that the
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  relation was very close, very intimate, and if you are not
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  altogether materialistic to the point of not having any direct
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  mental perception, you can remain in mental contact with
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  this person, in communication with him.
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  It is a rather exceptional case, for usually if your atmosphere
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  is calm and strong enough to be able to truly serve as a
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  protection, the person who has left his body enters into a deep
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  rest there, and it is not at all good to disturb it.
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  And the best thing you can do is to enfold this person with your
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  love and leave him in peace. Therefore, even if it were
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  possible to enter into communication with him by this
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  means, which I would call very crude, it would be improper to
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  do so. But usually people who have the
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  capacity, the faculties required to serve as a shelter for some
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  time, a transitional shelter for those who have gone, do not have
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  this ridiculous idea of disturbing the rest of the one
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  they love by tapping on a planchette.
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  Fortunately, End Quote Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother,
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  The Hidden Forces of Life, Chapter 5, Occult Forces, pages
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  127 to 129.