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The Secret Science Behind Miracles, by Max Freedom Long, [1948], at sacred-texts.com
There are horrid things which belong in the realm of darkness, but which we are powerless to combat because we have become too civilized to realize that they are there. Doctors know nothing of them. Priests and ministers have such a garbled idea of devils that their advice is useless. Spiritualism knows only enough to be afraid, and to warn dabblers to be careful.
All primitive peoples know something of them, but their methods of meeting the threats of the dark ones is of precarious value.
Modern occultists have guessed at a whole train of evil things, writing gravely about "black" magic, spells and enchantments. They draw their magic circles and retreat within them to escape the dark forces, not sure that such forces are present. They go back to the Middle Ages and revive the use of talisman and charm. They cense the air and invoke the protection of God through His seventy-two supposed names.
The practitioners of mental healing religions recognize these forces as "malicious animal magnetism," lit-de understanding their nature, but waging frequent war on them when their activities are suspected.
Among the priceless gifts to the world from the
kahunas, is a clear and comprehensive knowledge of the dark forces and the way to fight them.
For years I have studied all available information concerning the dark things. My knowledge is still incomplete. I cannot penetrate the Huna or "Secret" of the kahunas to go into the lowest levels of evil things, nor the highest. However, I believe that I have uncovered the facts vital to normal living on this plane and on the next one after death. (It is vitally important that we gain the right understanding of things here, for when we die and cross into the after-life in the shadowy bodies, the things we have believed here become almost fixations, and may haunt us there.)
The world of invisible spirits is much like our solid world in as much as it has its jungles and wild animals, so to speak. If in this world a man should go into wild country and meet lions, tigers and gorillas, he would have to defend himself. The same applies over there in the world of disembodied things living in their shadowy bodies.
Fortunately for us, the contact with the shadowy world is slight. Only now and then do the dangerous or actively evil things break through to us and endanger our lives or sanity.
I believe I am correct in saying that when any sentient being dies and takes up life in the invisible world in its shadowy body, it makes its own level or gravitates to it through its thinking. If it thinks of familiar surroundings on earth, it makes such surroundings—the kahunas say it makes everything out of the shadowy stuff of dreams. Through these dream scenes and places, however, move real and genuine spirit beings. Thus,
a man when he dies enters a world of dream scenery, sharing the dream scenes of his friends and relatives and adding his own touches. The animals of the jungle enter a dream jungle. Savage peoples enter places like those they left, and find there friends and foes.
Seldom do the spirits of the dead, when in contact with the living, report that they have gone to a place unlike the earthly places to which they are accustomed. They find themselves garbed as they were here, and they live in similar houses; the spirits of certain Eskimo tribes report living in the same lands of ice and snow as they did on this side.
The dead who expect to arrive in a Christian heaven report finding one. Those who imagine purgatorial scenes find them. Hell alone seems not to be peopled, perhaps because no one really expects to be judged utterly bad.
An elderly anthropologist promised before her death to report back to me on what she found after death. She did so, through a medium, identifying herself to my entire satisfaction by mentioning things she loved to do, to wear and to say while here-living. She said that she found friends and American villages and scenery. After becoming accustomed to new conditions, she set about hunting for various savage and semi-savage tribes with whom she had lived and whom she had studied here. She found that these tribes had gravitated to their fellow tribesmen on the there-living side, and inhabited the same dwellings in the same scenic surroundings. Her friends recognized her and they had happy reunions. Amongst these tribes were certain head hunting peoples of mountainous Formosa—friends of
years past—still imagining that they might do more head hunting when they got around to it, although they had rather neglected the art for some long time. The anthropologist tried to tell them that they were dead and could do no head hunting. She tried to tell them other things, but their ability to grasp new ideas proved far, far less than when they were on this physical level of life.
The fact that on the other side we have very little vital force compared to what we have while in physical bodies, seems to make the difference between swift learning and sluggish inability to grasp unfamiliar ideas. All thought demands the use of vital force. Memories can be recalled and "remembered" with almost no vital force, but to make a new thought form is difficult, especially for the mentally undeveloped. The dead tend to stick tight to the things they believed, hoped for or feared while alive. Those here-living who have tried to teach new things to the there-living will attest the difficulty of teaching the there-living. For this reason it seems of the utmost importance that while here we store the mind with as much knowledge as we can gain from the kahunas, as well as modern psychologists and psychical researchers, and get the straight of things before we go over. I have repeatedly tried to get my spirit friends to find advanced kahunas who have gone across, and usually they fail utterly. The kahunas knew the straight of things while alive, and this knowledge gave them a superior ability to progress to more important things in the shadow world. They do not get entangled in the dream scenes and
dream-like vague repetition of acts similar to those they knew on this side.
There is a definite going on for those who know the after-life conditions for what they are and who are thus enabled to escape being caught there and held back. The goal is not that of reincarnation. Only a few come back to inhabit other bodies as the Reincarnationists believe. The low selves come back as the middle selves of individuals being born on this physical level, but the middle selves, at least those from fairly civilized people, eventually go on to the level next higher. Those who know this secret waste little time in the "summerland." They obey the urge to evolve and to go on.
The uninitiated, however, stay on for a very long time in the dream-surroundings, frequently coming back to contact the earth and loved ones here. Only now and then do they make trouble.
The trouble makers are the low selves who get separated from their middle selves after death. They are the poltergeists or noisy ghosts who haunt houses and often molest the living. They are without the ability to reason, having lost contact with their middle selves, and are the spirits which obsess the living and render them insane. (There are many kinds of insane persons. Some are gentle and docile and dull. In asylums they sit all day doing nothing. There are also the wild and dangerous. Between these levels are those who are very like children, anxious to please, or prone to playing pranks and getting into mischief.)
There are also low self spirits who stay near the
here-living by choice, and many of them learn to touch the shadowy bodies of the living and steal vital force. If they can steal enough, they can solidify their shadowy bodies (even while leaving them invisible to us) sufficiently to enable them to move solid objects. Because the entire stolen charge of vital force can be used or expended in one action, they can perform feats of amazing strength.
Harry Price of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research studied for three weeks a Roumanian girl, Eleonore Zugan, who was haunted by a spirit of this kind. It was a source of much trouble, moving objects around the room when the girl was in it, marking her skin with peculiar marks and thrusting pins and needles painfully into her flesh.
A young widow in Ohio was haunted by a poltergeist which was studied by the professors at a medical school which she attended. One of its feats of strength was the tearing away of the spindles of a strong banister, spindle by spindle as the young woman mounted the stairs. It threw objects and smashed things in a maliciously destructive way.
Bed covering has been jerked from sleeping individuals very often, this seeming to be a favorite trick. Water has been brought and dumped over haunted persons, and several cases have been studied in which fire has been brought and set to bed or clothing or rooms of the haunted individuals—usually adolescents of a mediumistic nature, ones from whom vital force was easy to steal.
In a few cases the poltergeists have been useful doing
chores such as setting tables and washing dishes during the night.
These low selves may be fairly harmless, and seem to be for the most part. On the other hand they are the horrid and darkly evil beings who stalk the living and prey on them, stealing their vital force, often to the point of complete exhaustion and mysterious death, or of seizing their bodies and rendering them obsessionally insane.
Thousands of the living are silently and invisibly haunted in this way, by low selves who appear as secondary or multiple personalities. They are not "split off" parts of the resident selves of a body, as is the popular belief today of our psychologists. They are individuals in their own right.
Not only do the low selves, separated from their middle selves, fasten themselves on the living as foreign "personalities," but middle selves separated from their low selves do the same to a lesser degree, and now and again a normal ghostly spirit composed of both low and middle selves is guilty of taking up its abode in the shadowy body of a living victim.
It is not for nothing that the living have an instinctive fear of ghosts. They have always had good reason to be afraid. Dreadful things are done constantly to the living, with none to recognize the invisibles who are taking their life forces and, even worse, are implanting thought forms as suggestions into their low selves to cause endless erratic behavior, crimes, mischiefs and sometimes utterly vile and evil acts.
The tradition of vampires is an ancient one. The
dead were supposed to rise in the night from their graves and attack those who slept, making fine holes in their throats and draining out their blood so that they were left white and weak upon awakening.
Because, through the centuries, people sometimes fell into death-like trance conditions and were buried for dead; and because these people were sometimes taken from the grave and found undecayed and with blood still fluid, the tradition was not unfounded. It was supposed that these people kept alive in the grave by going mysteriously to steal blood from the living. There are weird tales in ancient books telling how the dead and buried were seen and recognized as they sought to steal blood. If they were, they appeared as materialized ghosts, and at most could steal only vital force.
While no proof of the correctness of any of these tales is to be had, they mention with alarming frequency the recognition of the supposed vampire ghost, by means of a dream or actual sight. The lapse of time between burial and disinterment has sometimes been given as a matter of many days, and when the body has been taken up and found not to be decayed, the only conclusion is that life was preserved in some way. In former times the blood was supposed to be the life-giving fluid. Blood found in the coffins of the dead may have been imaginary or caused by injuries to the buried individual when awakening and trying to free himself. However these things may be, there is the long chance that the entranced individuals, long familiar with vampire tales, found themselves trapped in their coffins and endeavored to keep alive by trying to suck blood from the
living. They would be far more likely to absorb vital force from them, and if they could get even a little nightly supply, could preserve the scant life in the entranced body for a considerable period.
In the Middle Ages a stake was driven through the heart and into the grave soil of anyone suspected of having vampire possibilities. There were other precautions in the way of spells, incantations and religious rites. Cremation of the dead was considered a very sure way of guaranteeing that they would not molest the living.
There is a poorly defined thread of belief that may have been shared by the kahunas, that there exist beings or dark forces which have never been incarnate in fleshly bodies, even as there are good forces of a similar kind on a higher level—the Beings of Light. Nothing is actually known of either of these types, and even if they exist, their primary purpose could not be that of affecting the living human beings.
A final danger remains to be considered. It is the danger of purposeful attack by a normal there-living person who wishes to punish a here-living person for some injury done a here-living loved one. Or the punishment may be in revenge for injuries done during life to the one who has gone across with heart filled with hatred.
Suggestion plays a much greater part in our lives than most of us suspect. We take and give suggestion in association with our families and friends each day, especially if there is a physical stimulus accompanying a suggestion. The anxious mother who calls her child to her and says, "You don't look right. Do you hurt
anywhere?" and then feels of the child's cheeks, may implant a suggestion of illness.
The normal dual low-plus-middle self departed spirit can also use suggestion, especially if it can get from the living a supply of vital force, and often the thought form used as the suggestion is taken from a living person.
A kahuna, in explaining this to me a long time ago in Hawaii, stressed the danger of thinking and voicing any thought which might be used as a suggestion by a normal ghost. (A normal ghost is called kino wailua, or body of two waters, water being the kahuna symbol of vital force. If a ghost had two kinds of vital force it was composed of a low and middle self living in their interblended shadowy bodies.) I was warned never to say, even in fun, "He ought to be shot," or "I hope he chokes," lest this thought be taken and given as a potent suggestion by some spirit enemy.
In Hawaii it was not the kahunas alone who knew of this possibility. The layman also knew of it, and what is more, made use of it when injured and unable to get redress from the one who had caused the injury. The injured one made a mental or telepathic appeal to the spirit of some loved relative who had passed on and did what was called "grumbling"—a rehearsal in detail of just what had been done to injure him (or her).
I will present two instances of this practice.
Preliminary Notes:
As I have explained in telling of the death prayer, a person's low self will usually protect itself against all
marauding spirits. It usually has more of a charge of vital force than an attacking spirit (unless a heavily charged one sent by a kahuna), and because of this can repel a less heavily charged spirit. It is the low self in each of us which possesses what we call the psychic sensibilities, and it senses the presence of spirits of which we middle selves are quite unaware.
If, in instances where we have a deep sense of guilt for some real or imaginary sin or where this guilt sense has become a complex, we are attacked by a spirit bent on "punishing" us by implanting a thought form of a punishing illness or accident or condition, our low self may meekly accept the suggestion because of its conviction that it deserves such punishment.
This matter of the guilt complex, especially when we have actually hurt another and have not made restitution and gained forgiveness, and when the middle self is thus aware that it is guilty of a misdeed, is the weak spot in the armor. It has been the secret and greatly important thing known to the kahunas, but only faintly glimpsed and entirely misunderstood by religionists the world around. The Theosophists, borrowing their ideas largely from India, recognize the danger from unseen beings and speak of the great danger of rupturing the astral shell so that spirits can come through to attack.
The idea of rupturing the astral or shadowy body does not explain how mediums can work with the spirits for years and not be obsessed. The idea also lacks inclusion of the part played by the vital force as well as the complex.
The Cases:
(A) In Honolulu I studied a case of spirit attack involving
the brother of a Chinese-Hawaiian friend of mine. The young man had for a sweetheart a pretty Hawaiian girl. While he had not proposed to her, it was taken for granted that he would do so as soon as his financial affairs were in such condition that he could marry.
When his new business of salt making was established, his father stepped into the situation and demanded the customary right of a Chinese father to select a bride for his son. The son loved and respected his father and, although much embarrassed by his predicament, agreed to stop courting the Hawaiian girl and give time for a parental choice to be made. He knew that the Hawaiian girl would be deeply hurt when he broke off seeing her, but was so filled with a sense of guilt and shame that he did not try to go to her and explain what had happened. Undoubtedly he developed a guilt complex which lodged in his low self and which was shared by the middle self in its conviction that he had done the girl a wrong.
The girl was heartbroken for a time, then fiercely angry at the treatment accorded her without a word of explanation. Following the tradition of her people she began "grumbling," calling on the spirit of a beloved grandmother to avenge the wrong.
Soon the young man was overtaken by a strange malady. He would faint at unexpected times and without warning. He fainted and fell into a fire, burning himself painfully. He fainted while driving to his salt works and wrecked his car, narrowly escaping severe injury. He fainted and fell on his bed while smoking, setting fire to the bed and again burning him-
self. Three doctors were consulted, but none of them could diagnose the cause of the trouble. Almost from the first his Hawaiian mother had urged him to go to a kahuna, but the son was very modern and had been taught at school that the kahunas were superstitious impostors and nothing more.
When all treatment failed, however, he did as his mother suggested. The kahuna, then a man well advanced in years, listened to his story, sat for a time in silence with his eyes closed, then raised his head and announced that he had sensed the spirit of an old Hawaiian woman near him, and that from her he had learned that the young man had been guilty of one of the worst sins of all—that of hurting one who loved and trusted him. The spirit of the grandmother had been doing her best to avenge the injury.
The young man was amazed. He admitted his guilt and asked what he should do. The kahuna explained to him the ancient rule of the Hawaiians that no one should hurt another, bodily, or through theft of goods or through injury to feelings. These were the only sins, and for them there was but one remedy. The guilty one had to make amends and get the forgiveness of the injured party.
Taking his leave, the young man went directly to the girl. He was met by anger and disdain, but he persisted doggedly in his effort to make her understand his position in the matter. Scornfully she refused to be pacified. The next day he returned with gifts and more apologies, and the next day and the next. At last his pleas broke down the girl's anger and aroused her sympathy. She forgave him and agreed to go with
him to the old kahuna to acknowledge her forgiveness.
The kahuna seemed to be expecting them. He praised the girl for her kindness, called to the spirit of the grandmother to observe that the wrong had been righted and forgiveness obtained. He thanked the spirit for having done so well in forcing justice to be done, and asked her to cease her attack. When she agreed to his request, he took a spray of ti leaves and sea water, sprinkled the girl and the air where the spirit stood, and spoke the words of the kala or forgiveness with suggestive power. Then dismissing the girl and the spirit, he turned to the young man, explaining that the kala (to bring back the "light") or cleansing for him was a more difficult matter.
Because he had been guilty and because his sense of guilt had made it possible for the spirit to place thoughts of fainting in his mind when she pleased, the punishment might even now be continued by his own low self (unihipili) unless it was well cleansed.
For the cleansing or forgiving ceremony he would have to use a very powerful and effective ritual—one which could not fail to cure the fainting forever. He brought an egg, holding it long in both his hands and chanting a little as he commanded healing and forgiving power to enter the egg.
When the work of filling the egg with vital force was finished, he stood the young man before him and ordered him to hold his breath as long as he could. When he could hold it no longer he was to put out his hand. In his hand would be placed a china cup into which the kahuna would have broken the raw egg
while the breath was being held. Without drawing breath the young man was to gulp down the egg. At the same time the words of forgiveness would be spoken and, reinforced by the egg and the power in it, would effect the complete cleansing and cure.
The instructions were followed to the letter. The kahuna gave the suggestion of forgiving and of dispelling the guilt and fainting attacks. He continued the suggestions, rubbing the young man's stomach briskly after he had swallowed the egg and begun once more to breathe. The kahuna announced the complete success of the cure, warned the patient to forget the whole affair as soon as possible, and accepted graciously his fee for his work.
I investigated this case and checked all the details of the healing treatment. I also kept in touch with my young friend for several years following. Never once did the fainting attacks return.
(B) Another case which I studied closely was one involving a young married couple, their infant daughter and the husband's mother, all Hawaiians.
The husband, an only son, had promised that his first child, if a girl, should be named for his mother. Some time later, when the baby girl was born, he had forgotten his promise or chosen to neglect it because his wife had already begun calling the child by a name of her selection.
The child's grandmother was much disappointed. Then, as her son and daughter-in-law became engaged in their own affairs and came to see her only at longer and longer intervals, she gradually became hotly resentful.
[paragraph continues] As the neglect continued, she began grumbling to her departed relatives, asking that her son and daughter-in-law be forced to end their neglect.
As the kahuna who eventually handled the tangle later explained, the young couple were not aware that they had hurt the feelings of the husband's mother. They were just very busy. They had no sense of guilt. The spirits in trying to attack and punish them to bring them to time were unable to do so because of the lack of a guilt sense. The baby, however, they found to be vulnerable and each day they took from it some of its vital force. It weakened, became more and more ill, and failed to respond to medical treatment.
The baby, still not two years old, was taken to the Children's Hospital in Honolulu. It grew steadily weaker, and one day they were warned that death was impending.
Greatly alarmed and desperate, the young parents took the child from the hospital and carried her in the early evening to the home of three old Hawaiians, all kahunas of different degrees of ability, and all accustomed to practice together. Of these three two were women, the third a man. He was the most psychic and was called the makaula or "eye."
No time was lost. The old man brought a primitive crystal gazing outfit consisting of a small gourd calabash in which was placed a little water and a smooth, rounded black stone. The water was swished periodically over the stone to give it a dark reflecting surface in which psychic images appeared to the old man as he worked to diagnose the cause of the illness.
The two old women brought a warm decoction of ti
leaf water and began bathing the baby, taking turns placing their hands on her and making an old chant of restoration. (Such chants are very old and often very beautifully worded and rhymed in the native tongue.) The baby had suffered an attack of convulsions before being taken from the hospital and had been crying weakly. She grew quiet and fell asleep.
The old man finished his work and rose stiffly from the darkened corner where he had been on all fours gazing into the calabash in the traditional manner. He announced that he had "fished" in all directions (the reference to the threads of aka substance running here and there in all directions from the patient, and followed to find those who might be associated with him. These threads were also referred to as "fish lines"). He had seen some spirits who were angry and a very angry old woman in the flesh whom he took to be a grandmother of the baby. He asked a few questions to confirm his finding, and gave it as his decision that the grandmother had been hurt and had grumbled with the result that the baby had been attacked.
The young husband was certain that there must be a mistake and that his mother could not have been guilty of such a bad thing, but was hustled out of the house with impatient commands to go fetch his mother at all costs. He hurried to her and found, to his consternation, that the kahuna was right. She railed at him and was quieted only when he managed to tell her that the baby had suffered punishment, and not himself or his wife. It had not been her wish to have the baby hurt, and—tearfully repentant—she hurried to accompany her son to the home of the kahunas.
The old man, his crystal now set aside, questioned the grandmother, learning of her injured feeling and grumbling. He scolded her roundly, scolded the young couple even more, and called the spirits and inquired what they thought should be done by the young parents to make amends. It was unanimously agreed that the child should be named for the grandmother, and that she no longer be neglected. Amidst Hawaiian tears and laughter forgiveness was asked and given. The old man perfunctorily sprinkled everyone including the spirits, but not the sleeping baby, spoke words of cleansing, and warned that the trouble should not be remembered—but, if remembered by accident, a prayer should immediately be made for forgiveness lest some guilt "get inside" and cause trouble.
The baby made an almost miraculous recovery and soon grew plump and strong. She remained well and fine, as did the young parents until the time I left the Islands and lost touch with them.
Comment:
In these two cases can be seen the use of suggestion and a physical stimulus. The holding of the breath with the swallowing of a raw egg highly charged with vital force, and accompanied by suggestions to remove the complex and cause healing, could hardly be more clearly demonstrated.
In the case of the child, not yet two years old, suggestion could hardly have played a part, so the objection often met in the Islands, that all kahuna magic resulted from suggestion, does not apply. That a baby can be so attacked illustrates the grave nature of the danger of spirit attack. To be safe and to keep
children safe, all precautions should be taken not to hurt the feelings of others if at all possible to avoid doing so. If it is imperative that something be done or said that will hurt another, it is equally imperative that the reason for the word or act be fully explained and all reasons given ahead of time. Frequently it is better to be long suffering rather than hurt the feelings of one who is not very capable of reasoning things out.
The Hawaiians of yesterday, reared in the old traditions, took great care to hurt no one. They went out of their way to prevent jealousy or envy. To this end they shared their worldly goods in a most prodigal way. The result was a community noted for kindliness and hospitality.
THE TREATMENT OF THE INSANE falls under two main headings. First, of the obsessionally insane, and second, of the insane whose brain tissues are injured, diseased or abnormal.
If the brain is not normal at birth, the low spirit can function in the child but not the conscious or middle spirit. The low self cannot learn except as an animal learns. It remains unable even to use the low self's deductive reason, and so remains idiotic.
The kahunas believed that the seat of the "mind" of the low self was in the shadowy body of the low self, and that this "mind" was in touch with a similar "mind" belonging to the middle self and seated in the shadowy body of the middle self. Both these minds usually keep in touch when the two spirits of a man leave the body during sleep or trance conditions. After death the two selves in their two interblended shadowy bodies
leave the physical body. Earth memories, beliefs, complexes and ideas are stored in the shadowy body of the low self, so are taken along at death.
Normally, the two selves use the body and its organs, the shadowy bodies penetrating and blending with all organic parts, including the brain, the nerve centers, and the nerves. If some of the brain centers or nerve tissues are lacking or become diseased, the selves cannot function through them. This is particularly true in cases in which the brain tissues used by the middle self are injured by sickness or accident. The middle self, finding itself unable to function through its part of the body, becomes an outcast and leaves to wander about in the invisible levels. The low self, however, may be able to continue to live on in the uninjured parts of the body.
The asylums hold many insane persons of this class. The middle self is easily driven out of the body through a temporary or permanent injury to its nervous centers. Toxins from bad teeth or from disease may cause the middle self to leave, but the low self is able to function almost as usual. With teeth pulled or diseases treated, the middle self frequently resumes its residence in the body and sanity returns.
The low and middle selves may both be dislodged from the body by some abnormal condition or accident, and an obsessing spirit may take the body and hold it. Or the obsessing low spirit may gain possession of the body only at intervals, in which case the patient is said to suffer from "split personality."
In obsessional insanity the patient may be considered a victim of complete or reciprocal amnesia if the obsessing
is done by a normal spirit made up of combined low and middle selves. When such a spirit drives out the rightful owner of the body and takes possession, it brings with it (stored in its own low shadowy body) the memories of another life in a body, and it brings also its own middle self and its characteristic reasoning powers. These cases are not typical of insanity because the obsessing pair of spirits is quite normal and sane.
The famous case of Anselm Bourne is a good example. This man suddenly changed personalities and memories. He left his home to go to the home he remembered, and, as he thought himself to be a storekeeper and his name Albert John Brown, he eventually arrived at Norristown, Pa., and opened a small store. In a short time the original selves managed to get possession of the body and the man awakened to find himself in strange surroundings of which he knew nothing. He was able to return to his home in Providence, R. I. There he was treated by a pair of famous psychologists. They hypnotized him, and under hypnosis were able to get the obsessing spirit to talk to them through the body, and give in detail all the things it had done while the body was in its possession.
Because the spirits who elect to remain close to some living person and steal a little vital force, if not able to steal the whole body, can often be called to enter the body and speak through hypnotic conditions, it has been thought that such spirits were split off parts of the original personality. When, through the repeated use of hypnotic suggestion, such obsession-bent personalities are forced to obey such suggestions as, "Unite with the main personality," there results a most amazing
situation in which each patient is unlike any other. The main result is that the obsessing spirit, if a low entity and not a combined low-middle invader, can be brought under control of the resident middle self. This gradually results in the person having the memories of both low selves. In one case treated by Dr. Prince, a girl who was periodically obsessed by an invading spirit was enabled to recall the memories of what she had done while obsessed, and for this reason it was decided that her personality had been reunited.
When there is obsession by a middle self alone, there is a change in temperament and likes and dislikes, but not of memories. A dull and sluggish girl was so obsessed in the case of Dr. Azam's patient, Felida X. This girl was dull and sickly when normal. When under control of the invading "personality" (undoubtedly a middle self) she was gay, intelligent, energetic and well. The obsessional changes took place every five or six days at first, then the obsessing spirit began to hold the body for longer and longer periods until it finally kept the body all the time. As the change improved the girl in every way, it was welcomed by the parents. Dr. Fodor, in telling of this case, is careful to point out the important fact that in this instance, "the memory in the secondary state was continuous." This tells us that the low self of the girl remained constantly in the body and only the middle self changed.
MODERN TREATMENT of the insane centers around the task of restoring normal health conditions if insanity has been brought on through illness or disease. In the ever increasing percentage of obsessionally
insane, classed by the doctors as sufferers from some form of "split off personality" or schizophrenia, the obsessing is done by a low self while the resident middle self is either driven from the body, or unable to control the invading low self. The characteristic thing in these cases is the loss of normal memories, showing that the original low self is displaced. There is another characteristic which points directly to a low self being involved. This is the tendency in this form of insanity to live in a dream or imaginary world, paying little or no heed to physical surroundings. Loved ones are not recognized except in the so-called "lucid" periods when the obsessing spirit may temporarily depart and the normal spirit return.
The treatment by hypnotic suggestion has long been regarded as a failure. The insane will not pay attention and seem to reject all hypnotic suggestion. This is natural for the reason that the low self or obsessing spirit has its own sets of beliefs and wishes, and suggestions contrary to these are rejected.
The insulin and electric shock methods of driving out the obsessing spirit or spirits has been the most successful treatment yet discovered. If the pain produced by shock methods is sufficiently great, the obsessing spirit will leave, and—as it is not logical—it will be unable to understand the treatment and will conclude that the body will always be a painful place in which to reside. With the pain gone, the original spirits of the patient can return.
THE KAHUNA METHOD OF TREATMENT of the obsessionally insane made use of the shock method of dislodging obsessing low entities. The
shock was produced by accumulating large quantities of vital force in the body of the healer and transferring it to that of the insane patient with the willed command that the invader be rendered helpless and thrown out of the stolen body.
The kahunas frequently used their psychic powers to sense the presence of the normal spirits of the patient and instruct them to stand by to take over the body once the invader had been put out. The help of the departed was also frequently asked for and obtained. A good normal person among the there-living could absorb large charges of vital force from the living and, thus greatly strengthened in will and in its shadowy bodies, could control the obsessing spirit once it had been put out of the body. Under control, it was often worked over to team it up with a middle self which had lost its companion low self—possibly the middle self with which it had formerly lived in a body before being separated in some way. (The rejoining of a low to a middle self in this way was a very good thing as it removed the danger of further obsessing activities on the part of the illogical and uncontrolled low self.)
The kahuna shock method in which vital force is used as the shock-producing agent, has the advantage of forcing the obsessing low self to accept a thought form as a suggestion. The thought form here is that of withdrawing from the stolen body. Because of complexed and related fixations held by the obsessing low self, the powerful suggestion was not always accepted and acted upon, although the theory was that, given a sufficiently large charge of shocking force, the
suggestion would break down and replace all contrary thought forms held by the obsessing spirit.
While we have not yet taken up in detail the healing methods which involve the aid of the High Self, it may be said that it was believed that no human ill could be beyond the power of the High Self to heal. The High Self was especially able in handling obsessing low selves. The fact has been a part of religious knowledge the world around and for many centuries. When evil influences were sensed near or were suspected, the Christian crossed himself and prayed through Jesus to the Father. In India the rite took the form of intoning the sacred "Om," and in other parts of the world similar ritualistic appeals to Higher Beings was made. Charms and amulets were worn and were clutched while prayers for protection were made. While imagined dangers grew to outweigh by a thousandfold the real danger, the practice was basically sound in that a High Self was called upon for help and a physical stimulus was used in the form of the ritual crossing or intonation, holding of cross or amulet, etc., to cause the suppliant's low self to carry the prayer to his High Self.
Most of the low selves against whom protective measures need to be taken have fixed fears of the Higher Beings, these fears being carried as memories from their lives in the physical. If they were the low selves of a Christian man or woman, they would believe in God and Jesus, and when confronted with their dark deeds and a prayer and cross, would depart in fear. A man whom I am proud to list among my friends, Bishop
[paragraph continues] James, of London, used the Christian ritual of exorcism very effectively to drive horrid things from haunted houses and palaces throughout Europe.
Some of the horrid things appear to be the low selves of savage men who lived in the physical thousands of years ago. (Such traditions can be found today in any of the older and more crowded countries where for many years human life and civilizations have existed.) Not long ago, in letters from England, I had the story of one such spirit attaching itself to a small boy in the south of that country, at the time that the boy found a peculiar bright pebble on a beach. The lad was sufficiently psychic to see the shadowy body of the dwarfed old savage, and amused himself by playing with him and trying to converse by means of hand signs. In time the spirit grew too bothersome in its constant demand for attention, appearing at any time or place and trying to attract attention, constantly touching the boy with its ghostly hands.
The boy had a friend who also could see the little old man in his tattered skin garment. The friend was given the stone as a gift, and the spirit with it. Soon the second boy was partly obsessed by the spirit, the obsession periods growing longer each time they came. Doctors failed to get to the bottom of the trouble but a clergyman of the Church of England, of exceptional psychological knowledge and with more than a smattering of knowledge of kahuna lore, learned of the case and undertook to drive away the old spirit. The exorcism of the church was only temporarily helpful. He thereupon engaged the help of some psychic friends, and the impression was received that if he would add to the Church ritual of exorcism the determined use of
his will to force the spirit into a glass bottle (using everything he knew of self-protection against the spirit, to repel any attempt it might make to obsess him) and then throw the bottle and the pebble back into the sea, the case would be closed.
The clergyman used full ritual of the church to purify his surroundings, the place where he stood, and his own person, and called upon the spirit to leave the stone and approach. The old spirit came in a peculiar way, appearing as a wisp of pale vapor oozing across the floor, to the feet of the clergyman—who felt the typical sensation of crawling chill at its touch. He at once began to give hypnotic suggestion to force the spirit into the bottle he held. The chill rose along the legs and then was felt no longer. A medium who was present said that she could see the spirit obeying all orders, finally disappearing into the bottle. The bottle was sealed and thrown with the pebble into the sea. The treatment was effective, and neither boy was bothered again. At a later time it was reported psychically that the old savage seemed to be in some way tied to the pebble, and that it was through the pebble that it was able to contact and obsess the boys.
It is highly probable that certain objects treasured in life by the living become fixation centers for them after death. (I have heard of many such cases.) It is also probable that when the living handle such objects they vitalize with vital force the ancient threads of shadowy body stuff connecting the object to its former owner and attracting them to the living. It is evident that in handling the pebble the boys made such a contact with the savage and made it possible for him to draw vital force from them. Strengthened by this vital force, and
attracted to the levels of the living, he tried to steal a body.
These cases all stress the evidence which points to the fact that low selves on the other side of life are held over great periods of time by their fixed thoughts which have been carried across with them after physical death. If they have been separated from their logical middle selves, they cannot use reason to learn of their condition or to progress. They remain "earth bound" indeed, not understanding the significance of the change death of the body has brought to them, and anxious to get back into a living body to continue the life they knew.
We, as civilized men, face another danger in that the insane are fed and housed, and only infrequently treated by insulin or other shock methods. This forms an open invitation to lingering horrid things out of the great past to obsess the living. It is not like it was in ancient days when "mad men" were stoned to death if violent, or left to starve after being driven out of the communities of the sane. This treatment was inhuman, but it was not an invitation to happy obsession in bodies which are fed, housed and cared for in the modern way.
Of course, we will not return to cruelty in these matters, but will come to a better understanding of the forces with which we have to deal, and learn more adequate methods of treating the insane.
From the foregoing it will be seen again how great a light is thrown on the dark places in our knowledge of ourselves by the lore of the kahunas.