Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00525)

Not only does Dallas and Caldwell claim that dead body's walk around 
in seance rooms. 
Also the Mahatmas are claimed by Daniel Caldwell and other 
theosophists to have apeared "astrally", yet looking "exactly" the 
same as their physical body.

But another problem for these "appearances" (see also my previous 
two postings regarding astral travel and "bilocation" issue. Not 
to mention the other six body's (LAWS of NATURE)
Theosophical astral double/bilocation believers are jugling with, 
that of synchronization between the regular and the astral body, not 
just between the two brains, as 
in case of the Mahatmas appearing in two or more places at the same 
remains answerring.

Also the postings by Daniel Caldwell and Dallas on dead people in 
spiritualist "seances" and "ectoplasm" these "body's" of the dead are 
also claimed to 
be a duplicate of the regular body with clothes on and all.(See 
Blavatsky below)

But according to this Master bilocation theory the etheric/astral 
body of lets say a boy aged ten, will look just like the boy looks 
then; if it leaves the body of the same person at the age of eighty, 
it will look like the regular bedy at the age of eighty. According to 
the Master bilocation descriptions of Olcott/Blavatsky (plus 
Caldwell) bodies of men will look like the regular bodies of and 
the astral bodies of women like the regular bodies of women.

If a boxer has just been punched in the face resulting in a 
flattened nose and the loss of three front teeth his 
etheric/astral "seance" appearing body will show the same flattened 
nose and the same gap in his mouth of the boxer retires and eats a 
great deal so that he becomes enormously fat, his seance body too, 
will be enormous. If a woman in her prime, with soft and unblemished 
skin, were to take an astral trip, the skin of her astral body would 
be soft and fresh. However if the same woman were to take a trip many 
years later when her skin has become parched and wrinkled, this would 
also be true of her astral double. Astral believers preier to state 
their theory in very general terms and usually flinch when such 
specific consequences are derived from it, but there is no doubt at 
all that these and similar statezrnts about the appearance of astral 
doubles are really implied by the theory.

Now, the question that at once arises is how this exact 
synchronization is achieved. Except when it is released for a 
journey, the astral body resides inside the regular body. However, 
the exact state of the regular body at any given time is very largely 
the result of its movements and of influences upon it coming from its 
environment. To secure the synchronization required by astral theory 
we will have to postulate that coresponding to every physical act and 
movement there occurs an astral act and movement. Corresponding to 
every ordinary breath, every normal meal, every physical exertion, 
every conversation, every sexual act, every injury, there must occur 
a corresponding astral process. Surely no sane person can believe 
that this happens. One would think that while it is safely "tucked" 
away inside the regular body, the astral body cannot do anything at 
all. But this is not all. One of the key propositions of astral 
theory which we have met on several occasions makes most of the 
external influences on the astral body quite impossible. I am 
referring to all events in the person's life involving physical 
contact. According to the believer, the astral body cannot touch or 
be touched by another body, physical or astral. When our prize 
fighter had his nose flattened and three of his teeth knocked out, 
the corresponding damage to his astral body was not possible. 
Similarly, insofar as eating involves physical contact between 
various parts of the body and the food consumed, it cannot have an 
astral counterpart, and there is no way of explaining how the astral 
body becomes enormous if the regular body overeats.

Allowing all the highly questionable factual reports and 
interpretations on the part of astral theorists, it may be questioned 
whether the astral body can be identical with the person whose life 
it is supposed to continue after death. Suppose for the sake of 
argument that somebody had a rabbit living inside of him and that the 
rabbit escaped after the person's death. This would surely not amount 
to the person's survival. 
Bri.
--- In theos-talk@y..., <dalval14@e...> wrote:

MAGNETIC IMPRESSION

Keeping the present case in view, we see a man highly susceptible
to magnetic impressions, ignorant of the nature of the
"materializations" and, therefore, unable to protect himself
against bad influences, brought in contact with promiscuous
circles where the impressionable medium has long been the
unwitting nucleus of evil magnetisms, his system, saturated with
the emanations of the surviving thoughts and desires of those who
are living and those who are dead.

The reader is referred to an interesting paper by Judge Gadgil of
Baroda (see our December number), on "Hindu Ideas about Communion
with the Dead," for a plain exposition of this question of
earth-tied souls, or Pisachas. "It is considered," says that
writer, "that in this state, the soul, being deprived of the
means of enjoyment of sensual pleasures through its own physical
body, is perpetually tormented by hunger, appetite and other
bodily desires, and can have only vicarious enjoyment by entering
into the living physical bodies of others, or by absorbing the
subtlest essences of libations and oblations offered for their
own sake." [Shraddha and Pinda -- see Thst, Vol. III, p. 119-20]

What is there to surprise us in the fact that a negatively
polarized man, a man of a susceptible temperament, being suddenly
brought into a current of foul emanations from some vicious
person, perhaps still living or perhaps dead, absorbs the
insidious poison as rapidly as quicklime does moisture, until he
is saturated with it? Thus, a susceptible body will absorb the
virus of small-pox, or cholera, or typhus, and we need only
recall this to draw the analogy which Occult Science affirms to
be warranted.

Near the Earth's surface there hangs over us--to use a convenient
simile--a steamy moral fog, composed of the undispersed
exhalations of human vice and passion. This fog penetrates the
sensitive to the very soul's core; his psychic self absorbs it as
the sponge does water, or as fresh milk effluvia. It benumbs his
moral sense, spurs his baser instincts into activity, overpowers
his good resolutions. As the fumes of a wine-vault make the
brain reel, or as the choke-damp stifles one's breath in a mine,
so this heavy cloud of immoral influences carries away the
sensitive beyond the limits of self-control, and he becomes
"obsessed," like our English patient.

What remedy is there to suggest? Does not our very diagnosis
indicate that? The sensitive must have his sensitiveness
destroyed; the negative polarity must be changed to a positive;
he must become active instead of passive. He can be helped by a
magnetizer who understands the nature of the obsession, and who
is morally pure and physically healthy; it must be a powerful
magnetizer, a man of commanding will-force.
But the fight for freedom will, after all, have to be fought by
the patient himself. His will-power must be aroused. He must
expel the poison from his system. Inch by inch he must win back
the lost ground. He must realise that it is a question of life
or death, salvation or ruin, and strive for victory, like one who
makes a last and heroic effort to save his life. His diet must be
of the simplest, he must neither eat animal food, nor touch any
stimulant, nor put himself in any company where there is the
smallest chance for unclean thoughts to be provoked. He should
be alone as little as possible, but his companions should be care
fully chosen. He should take exercise and be much in the open
air; use wood-fire, instead of coals. Every indication that the
bad influence was still working within him should be taken as a
challenge to control his thoughts and compel them to dwell upon
pure, elevating, spiritual things, at every hazard and with a
determination to suffer anything rather than give way. If this
man can have such a spirit infused into him, and his physician
can secure the benevolent help of a strong healthy magnetizer of
pure character, he may be saved. A case almost exactly like this
one, except that the patient was a lady, came under our notice in
America; the same advice as the above was given and followed,
and the obsessing "devil" was driven out and has been kept out
ever since. -- H. P. Blavatsky, May 1880.

Bri.: George Ritchie's (a known "astral traveller", more recent 
then Blavtsky and Olcott) astral body is supposed to have made the 
grand tour while his "physical" body was out of action.

However memory traces of the experiences during this trip were 
produced in the astral brain and not in George's regular brain. They 
could not have been produced in the regular brain since the regular 
body was not in the various places visited during the trip. However, 
it is the George Ritchie with the regular body who, e%rr since he 
awoke from unconsciousness on December 24, 1943, has claimed to 
remmber the events that took place during the visit to the next 
world. How could the appropriate memory traces have been produced in 
George's regular brain? Do astral brains by some kind of sympathetic 
magic produce duplicate traces in regular brains upon "reentry"? If 
they do not, the astral theorist is condemned to the view that here, 
bw not in the case of any other genuine memories, the person can 
remember without appropriate memory traces in the brain. Even if 
there is an astral brain with memory traces, clearly nobody has or 
can have the slightest evidence that they produce duplicate traces in 
the regular brain at the moment of reentry. The altername that here 
and only here a person can remember without memory traces in the 
brain goes against everything we know about the physiologically 
necessary conditions for memories. The difficulty seems fatal either 
way. This objection may not faze astral(plus the other 6 Theosophical 
body's) theorists who, along with other occultists and also more 
respectable believers is survival, seriously believe in what they 
call "extra-cerebral" memory. 

Another example Dr. Crookall, who is verry popular with astral 
theorists and some Theosophists (probably Caldwell), was interviewed 
a few years before his death by Martin Ebon, one of the leading 
psychic explorers in tne the York City area. 

>From all the thousands of cases with which Dr. Crookall was familiar, 
he picked an OBE by William Gerhardi as "perhaps the most complete 
and zonvincing on record." It should be explained parenthetically 
that very many of Dr. Crookall's correspondents were persons with 
little education, but Gerhardi 1896-1977) was a well-educated and 
talented novelist whose works received high praise from outstanding 
literary figures like H. G. Wells and Bernard Shaw, among others. In 
1934 he published a thinly disguised autobiography with the title 
Resurrection, in which he described his astral adventures. In the 
interview with Martin Ebon, Dr. Crookall produced extensive 
quotations from this book for which there is no space here. In the 
article cited earlier he offers the following summary:

Gerhardi used his released "double" as an instrument of the Soul-he 
used it to see, to will, to reason, etc. He set himself to accumulate 
proof that he was really freed from his physical body, in a 
nonphysical body, and that it was no dream. He said ,what evidence, 
what more evidence?" He went about noting which windows were shut, 
etc., matters that he could check when he re-entered his body. This 
he did and then thought, "We have a duplicate body, all there and 
ready to use, the almost-indistinguishable double of the physical 
body. It seems that, for the first stage of survival at least, we 
already have a body neatly folded away in our physical bodies, always 
at hand in case of death, or for special use."

Dr. Crookall agrees with Gerhardi's reasoning. "If a man can leave 
his physical body temporarily and continue to exist as a self
conscious being," he told Martin Ebon, the fact would prove a strong 
presumption that eventually when he comes to leave his physical body, 
i. e., to die, he will then also continue to exist as a self-
conscious being in that second body."(M. Ebon , "The Evidence for 
Life After Death ",New York, p.116)

Another obvious objection to believing in the astral double is 
that, 
aside from bilocations, which are difficult to take seriously, there 
is not the slightest observational evidence for its existence: 
nobody has observed it with his senses and no scientific in-artiment 
has ever detected it. This is indeed a valid objection, but I think 
that there are more basic considerations that justify us not only in 
not believing in the astral body but in rejecting it. 
> 
> For example I am not aware of cases of bilocation in which an 
> astral double was observed sithout clothes.
> Dallas/Dalval in his recent posting about driving out the Devil by 
> means of Mesmerism, quoted also Blavatsky as claiming the dead 
would 
> walk around in seances wearing the same clothes as during their 
life.
> In fact already the famous seance stager Cagliostro/Balsamo, 
already 
> had people come on stage claiming to be famous historical 
personality 
> dressed up that way. 
> 
> Also when St. Anthony of Padua is said to have preached in two 
> different churches in Limoges at the same time he was said to be 
> wearing his usual clerical robes during both sermons. As 
> for Mme. Sage, the nineteenth-century French bilocationist, she 
> surely shocked her students sufficiently by appearing in two places 
> without being naked in either one of her apparitions. Mrs. Wilmot's 
> visit to her ailing husband greatly shocked the prudish Mr. Tait, 
the 
> occupant of the upper berth, but he did not assert th.u she came in 
> the nude. 
> 
> On the contrary, all parties agreed that she was wearing her 
> nightgown. In some reports of "private" OBEs, in which the 
traveler's 
> astral body is wq publicly observable, the double was naked, but in 
> most of them it did wear garments just like those worn by regular 
> bodies. Now, the clothes worn by astral double cannot be ordinary, 
> physical clothes; the astral bodies lack the solidity that could 
> keep the clothes in place. The only alternative seems to be that 
they 
> are astral clothes, but where are astral clothes manufactured and 
how 
> do they suddenly appear on the scene when a bilocation or a private 
> OBE occurs? Incidentally, what did George Ritchie wear when, after 
> running out of the hospital, he flew through the air and descended 
in 
> Vicksburg for an aborted meeting with a stranger and during his 
tour 
> in the company of Jesus?
> 
> In one of his most intriguing books, "The Next World-And the Next", 
> given to this world in 1966, Dr. Crookall has brought together the 
> opinions of astral scholars on this topic. The book incidentally 
also 
> deals at length with the fascinating questions of the
> precise location of "Hades" (the next world) and of "Paradise" (the 
> world after the next world). Dr. Crookall reports a number of cases 
> in which the astral body was indeed naked but invariably became 
> mysteriously clothed when the person felt embarrassed.
> This does not suggest to him that we are dealing with drean-flike 
> experiences but rather that the laws of the astral world differ 
from 
> those of the familiar physical universe. In any event, the great 
> majority of astral bodies wear clothes that look just like those 
worn
> by their physical counterparts. Dr. Crookall favors the view of the 
> anonymous author of Life Beyond the Grave, a work published in 
London 
> in 1876 that appears to be based on unimpeachable messages from the 
> Beyond. This anonymous author wrote that "there is a spiritual 
> duplicate to every physical object," and Dr. Crookall is quick to 
> point out that "if this is the case our clothes possess etheric 
> (astral) doubles that are invisible to the physical eye. 
> 
> The same position has been advocated by Annie Besant and 
Leadbeater, 
> who maintain that,although the astral world is richer than the 
> ordinary physical world in that it contains many objects that do 
not 
> correspond to anything in the physical world, the astral world does 
> contain an accurate copy of every regular physical object. This is 
an 
> ingenious theory, but when its implications are worked out it may 
> perhaps seem slightly farfetched.
> 
> It would mean that every time somebody produces something, he also 
> produces an astral copy of that thing. A carpenter who builds a set 
> of bookshelves is really building two sets, the regular one he 
sells 
> to his customer and an astral copy he sells to nobody.
> 
> And the same of course applies to everything. A dentist, for 
example, 
> who fills a tooth is really filling the tooth he thinks he is 
filling 
> as well as its astral duplicate, and when I am writing these lines 
I 
> am really writing them twice at the same time. This is too much. I 
> would rather believe that all astral bodies are always naked and 
that 
> we are deluding ourselves when we observe them clothed. If it were 
> not needed for reincamation one might almost be tempted to give up 
> the astral body.
> Bri.
> 
> > Jerry :"Reincarnation assumes a self to reincarnate, or at least 
> > skandhas so that tendencies can reimbody. There is no self, and 
so 
> > reincarnation is flakey. I am not the same person I was 10 years 
> ago 
> > or even last week. But because of memory I appear to be the same 
> > entity going through a series of changes over time. This 
appearance 
> > is mayavic and is what conditional reality is all about. There is 
> no 
> > reincarnating self because the Reincarnating Ego is just another 
> > maya, a reification of conditional processes and conditions. But 
> > reincarnation and karma are ok as shorelne or exoteric teachings 
> that 
> > address our conditional reality.
> > 
> > Past life recollection is a part of modern transpersonal 
> psychology, 
> > but their aim is not to recall past lives or to prove 
reincarnation 
> > but simply to help mentally unstable clients".
> > 
> > Bri.: Yes you are right, and in spite of attempting to post 
> > counterarguments regarding population growth, neither Daniel 
> > Caldwell or Dallas (Dalval) have been able to proof an 
> > independent "Astral", "Mental"or/and "any" of the other five 
> bodys , 
> > plus the "undestructable Monad" (that makes eight total) are any 
> > reality at alle. Yet they will unabaded continue to claim that 
all 
> of 
> > these eight (plus the severral past incarnations of this universe 
> and 
> > future globes and rounds) as "FACTS" of "NATURE."
> > 
> > And although Dalval and Caldwell avoid presenting any current (no 
I 
> > don't mean only what people tought they saw in th 19th century,
> > but something that has been investigated now, in the 21th 
century, 
> > where the people who did or saw things are alive and can be 
double 
> > checked), so instead I will present some below.
> > 
> > Regarding the recent ganzfeld research (and that certainly is not 
> the 
> > end) that I referred to that allow for certain psychic visions 
> > without the need for dualism, I am referring to the recent 
> research 
> > at the ganzfeld laboratory in Gothenburg, Sweden, and at 
> Edinburgh, 
> > where the security measures are very tight indeed,
> > both of these are listed on the internet.
> > 
> > For example George Ritchie's (a known "astral traveller", more 
> recent 
> > then Blavtsky and Olcott) astral body is supposed to have made 
the 
> > grand tour while his "physical" body was out of action.
> > 
> > However memory traces of the experiences during this trip were 
> > produced in the astral brain and not in George's regular brain. 
> They 
> > could not have been produced in the regular brain since the 
regular 
> > body was not in the various places visited during the trip. 
> However, 
> > it is the George Ritchie with the regular body who, e%rr since he 
> > awoke from unconsciousness on December 24, 1943, has claimed to 
> > remmber the events that took place during the visit to the next 
> > world. How could the appropriate memory traces have been produced 
> in 
> > George's regular brain? Do astral brains by some kind of 
> sympathetic 
> > magic produce duplicate traces in regular brains upon "reentry"? 
If 
> > they do not, the astral theorist is condemned to the view that 
> here, 
> > bw not in the case of any other genuine memories, the person can 
> > remember without appropriate memory traces in the brain. Even if 
> > there is an astral brain with memory traces, clearly nobody has 
or 
> > can have the slightest evidence that they produce duplicate 
traces 
> in 
> > the regular brain at the moment of reentry. The altername that 
here 
> > and only here a person can remember without memory traces in the 
> > brain goes against everything we know about the physiologically 
> > necessary conditions for memories. The difficulty seems fatal 
> either 
> > way. This objection may not faze astral(plus the other 6 
> Theosophical 
> > body's) theorists who, along with other occultists and also more 
> > respectable believers is survival, seriously believe in what they 
> > call "extra-cerebral" memory. 
> > 
> > Another example Dr. Crookall, who is verry popular with astral 
> > theorists and some Theosophists (probably Caldwell), was 
> interviewed 
> > a few years before his death by Martin Ebon, one of the leading 
> > psychic explorers in tne the York City area. 
> > 
> > From all the thousands of cases with which Dr. Crookall was 
> familiar, 
> > he picked an OBE by William Gerhardi as "perhaps the most 
complete 
> > and zonvincing on record." It should be explained parenthetically 
> > that very many of Dr. Crookall's correspondents were persons with 
> > little education, but Gerhardi 1896-1977) was a well-educated and 
> > talented novelist whose works received high praise from 
outstanding 
> > literary figures like H. G. Wells and Bernard Shaw, among others. 
> In 
> > 1934 he published a thinly disguised autobiography with the title 
> > Resurrection, in which he described his astral adventures. In the 
> > interview with Martin Ebon, Dr. Crookall produced extensive 
> > quotations from this book for which there is no space here. In 
the 
> > article cited earlier he offers the following summary:
> > 
> > Gerhardi used his released "double" as an instrument of the Soul-
he 
> > used it to see, to will, to reason, etc. He set himself to 
> accumulate 
> > proof that he was really freed from his physical body, in a 
> > nonphysical body, and that it was no dream. He said ,what 
evidence, 
> > what more evidence?" He went about noting which windows were 
shut, 
> > etc., matters that he could check when he re-entered his body. 
This 
> > he did and then thought, "We have a duplicate body, all there and 
> > ready to use, the almost-indistinguishable double of the physical 
> > body. It seems that, for the first stage of survival at least, we 
> > already have a body neatly folded away in our physical bodies, 
> always 
> > at hand in case of death, or for special use."
> > 
> > Dr. Crookall agrees with Gerhardi's reasoning. "If a man can 
leave 
> > his physical body temporarily and continue to exist as a self
> > conscious being," he told Martin Ebon, the fact would prove a 
> strong 
> > presumption that eventually when he comes to leave his physical 
> body, 
> > i. e., to die, he will then also continue to exist as a self-
> > conscious being in that second body."(M. Ebon , "The Evidence for 
> > Life After Death ",New York, p.116)
> > 
> > Bri.