My Library

of the sitter, and to give a reasonably good imitation of the manner of his friend. Secondly, assuming that the medium does not possess either of these gifts, it is well within the power of any discarnate entity, who may be in the neighbourhood, or of such a one as may have attached himself to the medium as “guide”, to obtain the information, and to mimic the deceased through the medium’s entranced body. Clairvoyant study of the actual processes of mediumship reveals the fact that this is very frequently, though not always, the case. It follows, therefore, that however conclusive such a manifestation appears to be, it is never reliable, never trustworthy, unless the sitter himself can see the true communicator. If he can do this, then all need for an intermediary vanishes, for the communication can be made direct, and in full waking consciousness. If, then, the seer’s power of vision is of a sufficiently skilled order to prevent his being deceived by a similar set of circumstances to those which I have described —and this is quite possible—then he has obtained for himself proof of the life after death. This is the ideal of the occultist, for whom nothing less than such direct personal proof is conclusive. There is a great gulf fixed between secondhand information and first-hand knowledge. The latter, alone, is capable of withstanding all tests and remaining unshaken. What, then, is the method of the occultist? Briefly, it is the development and use of his own innate powers of seership, by methods such as those described in the last chapter of this book. Just as the fact of three-dimensional existence can never be demonstrated to a two-dimensional being, so discarnate life can never be demonstrated to a being in the flesh. If, however, we postulate that the two- dimensional being possesses a three-dimensional extension of himself, of the existence of which he is entirely unaware, and that he is really a three-dimensional being, who, at the present stage of his evolution, is only using two-dimensional consciousness, while his three- dimensional power lies dormant or latent, then it will follow that, in his normal state, he cannot possibly comprehend three-dimensional existence; he can only observe its two-dimensional manifestations, and these are so imperfect and partial that no conclusive evidence can possibly arise from a study of them. There will always be the great unknown and unknowable behind, as it were. He