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Chapter XV: “Spirit Communication”2247
Chapter XV: “Spirit Communication”
To the mind of the advanced occultist there are few things more
deplorable than the confusion; half-truths commingled with untruth;
false doctrine; false conclusions; some concerned with the subject of “spirit
communication” in the mind of the Western world. And yet, this confusion,
as deplorable as it may be, has served, nevertheless, to attract the attention
of thinking people to the subject, and to lead them to further investigation
of the matter. Even the fraudulent practices which have been such a scandal
in the history of spiritualism in the Western world, as disgusting and revolting
as they have been to the mind of thoughtful persons, have served to bring
into relief the real truth behind the general phenomena of spiritualism.
Leaving entirely out of consideration the fraudulent, and semi-fraudulent,
phenomena which masquerades as “spirit communication,” the subject
of the communication between persons in the flesh and souls out of the
flesh may be divided into two general classes, i.e. the lower and the higher,
respectively. The lower class is composed of (1) cases in which disembodied
souls, of a low order—the so-called “earth-bound” souls—manifest their
presence to persons still in the flesh; or (2) cases of the animation of “Astral
shells.” The higher class of the phenomena of “spirit communication,” so-