by Harriette & F. Homer Curtiss

“And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. . . . And Jesus rebuked him, saying: ‘Hold thy peace, and come out of him.’ And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him.” ~ St. Mark, i, 23-5.

In the continuing study of the Astral World, it is necessary for us to discuss a most unpleasant Realm, but since it is largely the influences from this Realm which give to the astral its terrors and which bring to humanity its greatest horrors and suffering, it is most important that a thorough understanding of the conditions, and a practical method of how to master the influences, be spread abroad as widely as possible among students of the occult and those who are investigating conditions of life after death.

This Realm also known as the Desire Realm contains the grossest, most impure and degraded desires of those persons having sordid, earthly, but not necessarily impure or evil desires occupying the astral borderlands. This, therefore, is the Realm in which we find those who while on earth were murderers, habitual or periodic drunkards, criminals, procurers, profligates, prostitutes, degenerates, drug fiends, etc., together with those who secretly desired to give free rein to their passions and appetites, but who were restrained, not by a desire to be good and pure, but merely because their social, business or political position made it good policy. In this Realm, unhampered by any such considerations, they would find an opportunity for unbridled license and unlimited gratification of all their evil tendencies, provided they could find the necessary means for their expression.

A knowledge of the conditions obtaining in this Realm of the Astral World offers a powerful argument against capital punishment; for the execution of a murderer or other criminal merely removes his hampering physical body, which at least limited his evil activities to the Physical World. Executing or destroying the physical body sets him free in the Astral World, embittered against society because of the experiences he has passed through, his heart filled with hatred and revenge, and able to throw his force over any mind which is open to such thoughts. He therefore seeks to wreak his vengeance upon society and gratify his desires by controlling and obsessing as many sensitive persons as possible; those whose auras are sufficiently open to his influence to permit his entrance into their consciousness. For instance, a sensitive once picked up and handled an axe in a museum and at once came into rapport with the ancient savage who had fashioned and used it. With such contact came the almost overwhelming desire to experience the sensation of delight felt by the savage as his axe crushed through the skull of his enemy.

But unless sensitives harbor some thought or trait corresponding to that of the astral entity, which forms a line of affinity over which he can enter their auras, he cannot control them. Once an opening is made, an entrance gained and his influence or control established, he gradually forces his victim to carry out his ideas of revenge, taking as many lives as possible to pay up for society’s having taken his life. Thus, while in the physical body he could commit but comparatively few crimes, when set free in the Astral World he can influence dozens or hundreds to commit similar crimes. Murders committed under such obsessions are those concerning which the mortal executing the crime either remembers nothing about or can give no reason for, except that he acted under an “irresistible impulse” or perhaps says that “God” or a “Voice” told and impelled him to do the deed. Such cases are usually pronounced insane. These are crimes committed under some form of mania, paranoia, etc. While medical science says that such a person is not responsible for his acts, occult science says that he is: for he is responsible for opening his mind to such thoughts as will permit the entrance of the obsessing entity; he is responsible for every act, word and deed committed by him, whether willed by him or not, and must pay the karmic penalty. It is true that many who become criminals under such conditions are not inherently criminal nor viciously wicked, but are simply sensitives whose astral centers have been more or less broken down and whose weak wills, negative mental states, and lack of spiritual development makes them an easy prey to obsession. But even for this condition they are strictly responsible, for ignorance of the law is no excuse for its violation.

Remember, therefore, that harboring thoughts of anger, hatred, revenge or any form of “getting even” with some one whom you feel has wronged you, opens your aura to those in the Astral World who harbor similar thoughts and who will strive to enter your consciousness over the avenue thus opened and stir up and augment your hatred and urge you to execute a far more terrible form of “getting even” than you would entertain or even think of by yourself. The practice of forgiving others is therefore enjoined on all occult and spiritual students, for as long as you hold antagonism toward anyone you bind yourself to that one with a powerful tie and also open yourself to obsessing forces along that line.

The drunkards who have left the Physical World also form a large and important class in the Desire Realm, for they, too, seek to gratify their desires through sensitive mortals. In fact, our long experience with cases of this kind leads us to the conclusion that nearly every case of confirmed and habitual or periodic drunkenness is the result of an obsession.

That medical science is already beginning to suspect this truth is shown in an article by Dr. T. D. Crothers connected with “a research foundation organized in Hartford, Conn., to take up this new question, and seek an explanation of the puzzling phenomena of the drink evil and the paradoxical symptoms of the victims.” This eminent authority tells us, in The Medical Record of January 6, 1917, that: “The laboratories have pointed out the specific action of alcohol on the cells and tissues, and their conclusions have literally revolutionized the theories of the past and opened up a new world, that is only partially discovered. Beyond this, there is another Realm and new country of causes of physiological and psychological forces that are practically unknown. . . . This work starts from the conviction that there are distinct physical and psychical causes preceding the use of alcohol, governing its rise and fall with the certainty of any other phenomena of nature. As examples: What are the causes of periodical drinking? Why do large numbers of most excellent men suddenly use spirits to great excess for a few days or weeks, then stop and resume their normal condition of healthy temperate living? These unexplainable so-called nerve storms occur at either regular or irregular periods. In some instances the regularity is pronounced and can be predicted regardless of the efforts of the person to avert it. The free interval between these drink storms is marked by most exemplary living and conduct, and the drink periods are equally prominent in insane and idiotic acts. Persons of this class are seen in all circles of society and very often among the most intellectual brain workers who are respected and are men of affairs . . . Other instances are of men after a half a lifetime of sobriety, temperate work and living, suddenly becoming users of spirits, in addition resisting all efforts to correct, and finally culminating in pauperism and death. There is no explanation of the causes which impel men to drink continuously down to death. This begins sometimes at the height of prosperity and achievement or following disaster to property and family . . . Young men in college, brought up under the same conditions and influences, bring out this fact. Without any special causes or reasons one uses spirits to excess and becomes a cripple and dies early . . .

“What condition of the brain and nervous system predisposes to and favors the outbreak of a craze for narcotism from spirits is unknown. Apparently they were elation from success and triumphs or despair from loss and disappointment, but evidently there are some other conditions beyond these to account for the trouble. To the casual observer all these are traceable to the one cause–alcohol; but when tested carefully, this fails. The exceptions are so numerous and complex as to indicate beyond question other causes and forces. In reality the phenomena and symptomatology are only effects, dating from other causes further back.”

There is but one explanation that covers all the facts and phenomena, and that is the one here presented. To explain how this condition is brought about we cannot do better than to quote from what we have already said in The Voice of Isis:

“The human body is the Temple of the Living God. Within it are certain vital centers comparable to doors which open into inner shrines. Using these centers as points of contact, the life forces from the higher planes flow into the physical body through them as an electrical current flows through a wire. . . . These centers or doors are normally protected by nature with oily coverings or sheaths (composed of both astral and physical matter) which permit the flow of the normal life-forces and protect them from all others. These doors should be opened only by a gradual purification and development of the protecting sheaths. Normally this takes place as a natural growth resulting from a life of mental and bodily purity, and intense spiritual aspiration. It should not be a forced or hothouse growth, for each door must be opened and closed under the absolute control of the will. . . . Once these sheaths are destroyed, the person is no longer able to close the doors and so becomes an easy prey to the denizens of the astral. Such a one becomes a helpless victim to any and all sorts of psychic imposition and deception. . . . There are several abnormal ways in which the oily protecting sheaths can be broken down and the doors thrown open, chief among which are the use of alcohol and narcotic drugs. Chemically speaking, ordinary alcohol is ethyl-hydroxide. The ethyl (the spirit) vibrates to the highest rate reached by mere physical matter, the point where matter transcends the physical and enters the astral, the ethyl actually functioning on both planes. Narcotic drugs also contain an ethyl element. The ethyl when taken into the body immediately seeks to escape into the astral, and it naturally follows the usual avenues of communication between the two planes. But in escaping it passes through the centers in a reverse direction to the normal currents and gradually burns off the insulating sheaths until in time they are utterly destroyed, just as an electrical insulation might be burned off by interference with the normal flow of the current.

“This breakdown may be very rapid, as in the case of an habitual drunkard or a drug fiend, or it may be insidious and not show markedly for several incarnations, but the result is certain and every indulgence in the substances mentioned is a step toward the end. Ultimately this leaves the doors unguarded and open for all the horrors of the lowest Astral Realm to rush in and take possession of the ‘Temple of the Living God’ thus desecrated. Bulwer-Lytton gives a realistic description of some of these horrors in his occult novel, Zanoni. In that story the student opened the doors abnormally by the use of drugs, and being unable to close them through fright at the sights that met his gaze, was haunted until his death. . . . It is our duty to give our sympathy and help to this class of sorely afflicted ones, for since it took many lives to break down the protective sheaths, it will require a long hard fight to rebuild them. Hence do not let such unfortunate ones become discouraged. No matter how many times they may fall back into the old habits, every effort to conquer aids in the rebuilding. And the very fierceness of the struggle will ultimately strengthen the Soul. . . . These sheaths are not broken down in one incarnation, but since in each incarnation there is a tendency to repeat the same old mistakes until they are conquered, so in each incarnation there is a tendency to increase the weakness brought over from the past until the final breakdown comes. The rebuilding must necessarily follow the same law, i. e., be brought about by gradual accomplishment through determined and persistent constructive effort.”

Our teachings on this subject have been strikingly corroborated since their first publication in 1912 by Judge Hatch in 1914 through Elsa Barker’s Letters from a Living Dead Man, as follows:

“Desiring one day to see the particular kind of hell to which a drunkard would be likely to go . . . I put myself in a sympathetic and neutral state, so that I could see into both Realms. . . . A young man with restless eyes and a troubled face entered one of these ‘gin palaces.’ . . . He was leaning on the bar drinking. . . . And close to him, taller than he and bending over him, with its repulsive, bloated, ghastly face pressed close to his . . . was one of the most horrible astral beings which I have ever seen. . . . It was literally sucking the liquor-soaked life of its victim, absorbing him, using him in the successful attempt to enjoy vicariously the passion which death had intensified. The young man who leaned on the bar in that gilded palace of gin was filled with a nameless horror and sought to leave the place; but the arms of the thing that was now his master clutched him tighter and tighter, the sodden, vaporous cheek was pressed close to his, the desire of the vampire creature aroused an answering desire in its victim, and the young man demanded another glass.”

Even a moderate drinker gradually breaks down his doors until finally he reaches a point where, without definite training, he can no longer protect his aura from invasion by those who affinitize with him in a desire for alcoholic stimulation. As such obsessing entities gain more control over the victim, they urge him to greater and greater excesses. The victim’s innate goodness, respectability and spiritual guidance usually make him rebel at first and he is filled with shame, remorse and sincere repentance, the force of which may be strong enough to enable him to resist perhaps for months. Then his unconquered self-indulgence and fancied security, his fancied ability to “take a drink or let it alone,” leads him again to open the door, and again the obsession takes place.

A few instances which have come under our personal observation may serve as concrete illustrations of the disastrous results of this form of obsession. A brilliant young newspaper man in a large Eastern city was an occasional user of the lighter drinks, the so-called “social glass” of beer and wine, but did not care for and could not stand whiskey, brandy, gin, etc. He had an older brother, however, who died suddenly after a prolonged spree. The younger man was of the quick, impressionable, sensitive artistic temperament and somewhat psychic. Soon after his brother’s death he complained to us that his brother was coming to him psychically and urging him to drink. Whenever he wanted merely a glass of beer, the brother would throw over him a fierce desire for brandy. Little by little he gradually yielded to this augmented desire, until he finally realized where it was leading him and began to resist. He then related to us the terrible battles, lasting sometimes for hours and days, he was having to prevent the brother from completely obsessing him. At last, tired out with the struggle, he would give in “for this once,” as he would promise himself. Then he would start in drinking brandy, whiskey, gin, etc., which by this time he had come to loathe. His stomach was so sensitive and rebelled against it so strongly at first that he would often have to drink the third or fourth glass of whiskey or brandy before his stomach would retain it. But the will of the obsessing brother was so strong that the younger was forced to persist until the liquor could be retained, and then continue until the debauch had lasted from several days to a week or two. When he was utterly exhausted and his life-force completely sapped, the brother would leave him for a few weeks until he recovered. Then would come another awful struggle to resist going on another spree.

Another most remarkable case of successive obsession was brought to our attention in Chicago. Mr. X. was ordinarily a man of much firmness, determination and strength of will, and while a moderate drinker, had never allowed liquor to overcome him until some four years ago, when he had a long spree. He soon got himself under control again and solemnly promised himself and wife that he would never thenceforth allow himself to become enslaved by his desire for drink. However, he still continued to drink moderately. He was a house painter and was closely associated with three other painters employed by the same firm, all of the other three being hard drinkers. Three years ago one of these three died from alcoholism, and a year later, almost on the same day, another died. Last January, the third and last of the three, after a long debauch, committed suicide on the anniversary of the second one’s death. This last man was the foreman of the gang in which Mr. X. and the others worked, and had devoted all his spare time to drink and the pursuit of women. Mr. X. had been a close friend of his and upon his death was appointed to his position as foreman. Now the direct evidence of the obsession of Mr. X. begins with the death of his friend, the foreman, last January. Mrs. X. states that since that time her husband seems utterly unable to control his desire for liquor and has been getting steadily worse. He has experienced periods of great remorse, during which he would swear never to drink again, but would then go out and drink until his money was gone, being absent from home several days and leaving his family without money for a week at a time. During these sprees he would also visit the same class of women as did his dead foreman and former companion, although previous to this time he had never been a licentious man. Both Mr. X. and his wife are somewhat psychic, and both have seen the departed foreman enter their flat as a dark and chilling spectre, especially one night when they saw him come in from a narrow hall that led to a room in which they knew a drunken man was sleeping off his debauch.

Here we have a series of obsessions which gradually killed off one after the other of the original group of four, until now only Mr. X. is left. Each departed one naturally returned to the group with which he had been so closely associated and added his craving for drink to that of the ones left behind, driving them to still further excesses. This accumulated force so overwhelmed the foreman that he was driven to suicide to get rid of the obsessing demons, and it bids fair to overwhelm his successor Mr. X., unless he takes most energetic steps to rid himself of their influence.

An instance of an unsuccessful attack of a similar kind is the case of a student of this Order, this time a woman, a psychic who had been trained according to these teachings and who understood how to maintain her self-control and protect herself. She was entering the elevator of a large office building when she felt her feather neck-scarf pulled from her neck. But the elevator door had closed ere she could turn around, and she was obliged to go on up to the office where her business errand called her. In the office, while standing near a certain desk, a feeling of intense depression and horror came over her, which made her fear that the man at the desk was contemplating suicide. On descending to the street entrance she asked the elevator starter if he had seen anything of her neck-scarf. “Yes,” he said, “I saw you drop it. You will find it back there in the corner.” As she walked back to the darker part of the hallway, a man presented himself to her psychic vision and accosted her. When she asked what he wanted, he said that it was he who caused her scarf to drop off in an effort to attract her attention, as he knew she could communicate with him and he wished her to do him a great favor. He told her that he formerly had the desk near which she had stood in the office she had visited, and a few months ago had committed suicide in his chair at the desk, following a prolonged spree. He said he had not had a drink since passing out, and as he was suffering intensely for one, he begged her to go and take a drink for him so he could get the stimulation of the alcohol by contact with her aura. He even offered to guide her to the “ladies entrance” of a certain high-class cafe of which he knew, where she could drink quite unobserved. This she, of course, refused to do, but said as she was thirsty herself she would go and get a glass of ice cream soda, if that would do him any good. He said he did not want a soda, and grew quite angry and abusive and tried to force her to enter the cafe as she passed by. She resisted, however, but told us that she had never so wanted a drink of whiskey in her life, in fact, never knew before what the craving was. When she bought her soda and tried to drink it, he threw his resentment and disgust over her so strongly that the very sight of the soda nauseated her and she had to leave it untouched. The fact of the suicide having been committed at the desk this lady visited was afterward verified by us.

The primary cause for giving way to drink in the beginning is selfishness and self-indulgence. Many moderate drinkers are the “good fellows” of the community because they have developed their affections and love-nature to a considerable degree, but without a corresponding gain in wisdom and self-control. Hence the very development of their love-nature tends to further self-indulgence. Many moderate drinkers are quite sensitive to the influence of the Astral World, even though they do not know it or recognize it as such. As they can find no other means of satisfying the inner craving for some form of stimulation–which is really a craving for the spiritual stimulus and thrill of satisfaction which comes only from vibrating in harmony with the spiritual ideals and guidance of the Higher Self, the only real satisfaction in life–they take to alcohol, since it gives them a temporary touch with the astral and a sort of ephemeral, pseudo-satisfaction, but with the inevitable reaction. Others drink in an effort to drown out the inner craving for true satisfaction which is more or less active in every heart; for the satisfaction which comes only from spiritual growth and attainment, they either do not understand or refuse to admit and seek.

Remember, therefore, that permanently to cure drunkenness, so it will not recur, the tendency to self-indulgence and irresponsibility for one’s actions must be boldly faced and determinedly overcome. The immediate remedy, however, is to impress upon the mind of the victim that the irresistible craving which leads him to the excesses he is so ashamed of, and which he so bitterly repents, is not alone his own depraved desires, but the desire of a discarnate drunkard who is seeking to satisfy himself through obsessing the self-indulgent victim. “Thought arises before desire. The thought acts on the brain, the brain on the organ, and then the desire awakens.” The following directions, quoted from a letter written by the Teacher of the Order to such a victim, and whose faithful following has entirely cured him and many others, may prove helpful here.

“The real cause of your trouble is not with your desire alone, but because you permit a discarnate drinker to enter your aura and create within you an excessive desire for liquor, that he may satisfy his craving at the expense of your body and your life-forces. If you will earnestly take yourself in hand and follow out our directions exactly, you can drive this influence away and free yourself from the habit. Repeat to yourself again and again that the desire for drink is not your desire, and that you will not permit anyone to rule and ruin your life. Dwell on this idea continually. Keep saying that you will permit no drunkard thus to obsess and control you. Fix that idea firmly in mind. As soon as you awake every morning, mentally see the Light of the Christ pouring down over you in a flood of pure, white light that shall penetrate every cell of your being and drive out every evil thing as light drives out darkness, and shall then surround you with a wall of living fire, like the shell of an egg, into which no discarnate entity or evil thing can penetrate.

“Also when you feel the old desire coming over you, say to yourself: ‘In the name of the Living Christ I demand that you leave me and keep away. I will not yield myself to you, and I demand that you begone.’ Talk just as earnestly and determinedly as though some old drunkard was before you in the flesh and trying to force you to drink with him. Do not get excited or have the least fear, but talk calmly and with absolute confidence in your power thus to protect yourself and conquer. No matter how hard he pleads, or what plausible arguments he may present–which may at first seem to be your own thoughts, but which will merely be his desire thrown upon your consciousness–as to why you should take ‘just one more drink,’ absolutely refuse, and keep saying: ‘In the name of the Living Christ begone!’ In the Astral World the Christ-force is a consuming fire, and if you sincerely and earnestly invoke it with all your heart and determination, any obsessing entity must depart or be consumed. Get this fact firmly fixed in mind, that the desire for drink is not yours, but that of a departed drunkard. Also that you have the power to protect yourself if you will.“

It is depraved excarnate human beings such as are described here who are the basis of the many descriptions of evil and lying spirits and demons–demons of drink, gluttony, greed, craft, lust and cruelty–given in the Bible and other scriptures. Some of these creatures are well represented in the stage version of Peer Gynt. It is also just these influences that are responsible for the periodic outbreaks of witchcraft, sorcery and devil worship which sweep whole communities with cyclones of evil.

It is also largely the influences from this Realm, together with antagonistic thought-forces from persons still in the flesh, which constitute the “malicious animal magnetism” which Mrs. Eddy and the Christian Scientists so greatly fear, because they do not understand or know how to control.

Excerpt from Realms Of The Living Dead