Do you really want to know your future? Well, if you are sincere, and honest, and reasonably intelligent, there is an infallible method for discovering a good portion of it. Not all those trifles you think are so important, but the main character and drift of events. Far from being a new method, it is so familiar in principle that most of us lose sight of it.

Gina Cerminara, in the December A.R.E. Bulletin, puts the matter concisely: "The future holds for you exactly what you put into the present. Action inspired by selfish motives will bring you pain." And on hearing this, the egotistical surface consciousness of most of us exclaims, "Well, I ought to get along first-rate, if that is true."

But what is needed, of course, is a perfectly honest, critical, penetrative self-analysis. The idea is, to get behind the camouflage of the self, get back of the pretended motive and find out just what it is that the deeper self really wants. Because this self always gets its desires in the long run, if they are persistent and genuine. What you really want, you get - and that is the clue to your future.

We call attention to the (alleged) communication from Sir Oliver Lodge, reviewed in this issue of Round Robin. It's chief virtue, in our opinion, is its commonsense insistence that this life is the MAIN CHANCE. "We are shaping and making the spirit body at every moment." It alone is wholly plastic and amenable to the energy of thought - far more so than the physical body. We are making now, with every thought and act, the spirit body, desire body, astral body that we shall have to live in later on. We can't do that in the "next world", but only here, on the plane of causation and creation. We do it by desires, motives, and conduct. If we don't get our minds off of money, influence, social position, earth-binding thoughts in general, our next world bodies won't be fit to live in.

There are many learned and elaborate statements of this fact, but Sir Oliver gets it down to anybody's understanding. A spirit-body created by money-thinking, luxury thinking, self-praise thinking, can't function in a world where these ideas don't exist. So, many of us have to come back to this plane and have another try at it.

The old-style theology, with its doctrines of hell fire and eternal punishment, seems vicious and blasphemous to us, but there was one high virtue in the preaching of it. We mean its fanatical, frantic insistence on the urgency, the desperate urgency, of turning Godward now, at this moment, while earth-time yet remains to us. We concur in this urgency, not from fear of a vengeful God, but because of the concept of a law-full universe and what we have learned about it. All the "vehicles" -- dense body, etheric body, astral, mental, spiritual body are idioplastic (mind-made) bodies; and it is here and now that most of their making is done.

If you want to know your future in this world, discover your own deepest and truest desires. Question your subconscious in meditation, and make your own predictions. If you want to know how you will get along in the after-death life, the same facts will serve you. If you don't like the outlook, try to clarify your sense of values. We don't have to be seers or mystics; the Golden Rule and the Christian virtues are still to high for most of us.

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- COMMUNICATION FROM SIR OLIVER -

A special issue of the Journal of the British Society for Psychical Research reports a long communication from Sir Oliver Lodge, through the medium Gladys Osborne Leonard - all of which is set out in some ten columns of the Psychic Observer for January 10. The seance was held April 20, 1944.

Most of the talking was done by the medium's Guide, Feda, but at times Sir Oliver's voice could be heard independently, as a strong whisper.

Mrs Leonard, of course, was Sir Oliver's medium through whom Raymond is said to have communicated, and the Guide Feda is also the same. Drayton Thomas, reporting the seance, says that the most evidential part of the communication was the characteristic manner, distinctive vocalization, little pauses and repetitions, general impression of personality - all very convincing to one who had known Lodge intimately.

The first item was a message to Brodie Lodge (son), to tell his wife she was correct in her impression of Sir Oliver's presence while she was working with plants in the garden. Mrs Lodge verified the incident "one day last week." Many other indications of identity are scattered through the communication; here, however, we select certain remarks of interest from other points of view.

(1) Lodge says he has "knocked off 30-35 years. The processes of rejuvenation were easy for me, but I don't think they are for all people."

(2) "This body seems more of a material nature than I would have thought possible . . . It seems to be ready made. We make it during our earth life . . . there is considerable difference in the content of each body . . . I call it a spirit body, I'm not going to call it an etheric or astral body. Its condition is governed voluntarily during earth life and automatically after passing. This is a very big subject, Thomas."

(3) The communication goes on to say that everyone should have some working knowledge of psychic facts, for the reason just given - creating of the spirit body. "I have delayed a considerable time (4 years) to make sure of my facts and deductions . . . I have had many talks with Myers about this . . . The spirit body cannot adapt itself to the other-world life until the personality has had many varied experiences and has profited by them . . . The average person can avail himself of only about ten percent of his opportunities in spirit life" (because of this lack of development), "hence has to reincarnate . . . He can't go ahead, and he isn't allowed (by natural laws) to stay here and stagnate, hence he has to go back to earth life . . . the earth is the school, the testing ground . . . He finds there is something wrong here, he can't make use of the possibilities, but if he doesn't he will lose identity . . . so back he has to go."

Sir Oliver himself, because of his interests and activities while on this side, seems to enjoy many advantages, but he speaks (without complacency) of "people of the greatest eminence and worldly success, who come over here and have to crawl, virtually crawl." "Those are the only people who wish to return to earth", (perhaps, we take it, because they want to build the spirit body rightly, or because the earth life is their one vantage ground and field of success).

[3]

(4) The communicator keeps returning to this theme. "The spirit body can be so created during earth life, that it will have an immortal existence, and reincarnation is then unnecessary. But most people find it necessary to come back . . . There is such a thing as the Divine Spark within every individual and the nature of this, evolving, is opposed to the congestion of undesirable elements . . . If a man's nature can be oriented toward this Spark his evolution is speeded up . . . Man should not ignore death, nor fear it, he should examine its possibilities . . . the spirit body can be perfected during earth life."

(5) "I think - I'm not sure, but I think - that man can enjoy certain excursions in his spirit body (during life on earth), and these will give him an idea and foretaste of its advantages . . . the more people who can do this the better, perhaps. I think they will meet each other out of the (dense) body and get accustomed to the idea."

"One reason people who come into the spirit world (during sleep) do not remember their experiences, is that the persons they meet here seem part of normal life."

"We must erase the line between earth life and spirit life - it's man-made, has no real existence - it's like national boundaries."

(6) "We are making and shaping the spirit body at every moment, in every action and thought. . . More so than with the physical body. This latter has a kind of mind of its own, instinct, and belongs to the physical world. It's not amenable to control as is the spirit body. That's what we shall have trouble in ramming home to most people. The great physical consciousness or instinct (of the world) contains what-ever is called evil; the Divine Spark is separate from it, and the will of man is poised between the two. . . There must be desire for progress, and then effort, then the Spark fans into flame. . . Nothing is beyond man, he has no limits. We must get this idea across, because it will remove the concept of limitation. . ."

Though no one can say that Lodge's identity is "proved", he has probably established it as well as if he were talking over a telephone, or from the next room. We do not intend to argue about what the words identity and proof mean - but we do bring this communication to the notice of all people who believe seance communications consist wholly of "a mass of ethico-religious twaddle."

And also, of otherwise intelligent persons who are convinced that seance communications originate only from earth-bound spirits, astral shells, elementals, mocking and deceitful devils - other malicious or half-witted entities - and this in the face or thousands of pages of highly intelligent "messages", irreproachable in moral character.

We do not question the presence in the "next world", as in this one, of innumerable liars, nitwits, and mischief makers. We have listened to them many times - but we have also heard words of power and wisdom, and find no reason or acceptable authority for rejecting them.

Returning to the text or the communication, and to our paragraph numbered (1) - the point about difficulties in rejuvenation is new to us and not very intelligible.

(2) The material nature of the spirit body. The word material is acceptable to all students of these subjects, but we note that Sir Oliver makes no mention of the "second death" or of successive "vehicles". Not that the omission "proves" anything; it was probably an irrelevant topic.

[4]

(3) The important gist of the matter is the insistence that the spirit body is built up during earth life, and this is entirely in line with spiritistic and occult teachings. We cannot condone the failure of spiritualists and Illuminists of all degrees, to emphasize this fact continually, in the most simple and forcible language possible. This present life is the main chance. You cannot make a beginning, or even a near-beginning of your personal evolution, in the "next world"; it has to be done here and now. This is not a matter of faith, or of religious authoritarianism, but of natural law. The whole body of occult knowledge concurs on this. Whether we like it or not, Nature "works that way."

(4) Reincarnation unnecessary - under some circumstances. The Illuminist would find a book-full of things to say about this statement, but we will let Sir Oliver's statement stand without comment - except that he probably means what is called "achieving the permanent astral" (which is not truly permanent, but of great duration). He seems to suggest that most reincarnation comes from the astral levels - though he may be allowing for the completion of the cycle also.

(5) This is a most interesting and important point. Some writers (including Dr. Merrell-Wolff, of Pathways Through to Space) think astral projection is a waste of energy, but Lodge points out that it has certain values. "How many accumulated follies and false doctrines disappear in a moment," exclaims YRAM, speaking of the effects of this experience.

(6) "That's what we have trouble in ramming home." - that it is the spirit body, astral body, that is really subject to our control. With miraculous speed it responds to every impulse of thought and desire - and this too the experience of astral projection brings home to one. It is one of the "signs of the times" perhaps, that astral projection, in the words of Occult Digest, has become "almost a fad."

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The Death of Faustus

References

1. Association for Research and Enlightenment Bulletin. 14.4 (December 1945). [May be available through edgarcayce.org]
2. Thomas, Charles Drayton. "A discourse given through Mrs. Leonard and attributed to Sir Oliver Lodge." Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 33: 134-156. Print. [May be available through spr.ac.uk]
3. Psychic Observer. January 10, 1946.
4. Merrell-Wolfe, Franklin. Pathways Through to Space. New York City: Rich. R. Smith, 1944. Print. <http://amzn.to/Oyhu4Z>