Spirit (non-physical)

“ If we say, as the psychologists do, this is a soul and this is a body, here are sensations, there is motion, this is thought within us and that is the world outside of us, then we are obliged to consider the spirit as conditioned by physical happenings to which in some manner our internal determinations correspond. It is not possible to see without eyes and without the light that strikes them. ”

“ To sum up the whole argument in a single sentence, the physical senses are dependent, for their perceptions, entirely upon the action of matter, and hence spirit, which is not matter, can in no way affect them. ”

“ You are aware that the physical body is composed of grosser elements of substance, and the Spirit body of elements more refined, the elemental quality of the Spirit body depending upon the manner of existence of the mortal, so you readily may conclude that those Spirits are of an exalted plane, else they would not present such a glorified appearance, neither would they be able to serve the purpose for which they have assembled. ”

“ I have laid stress on the fact that the "innermost within" of all things is living Spirit, and that the Science of Spirit is distinguished from the Science of Matter in that it contemplates Energy under an aspect of responsive intelligence which does not fall within the scope of physical science, as such. ”

“ There is a distinct difference between the truly spiritual and what may be termed the psychic: there are hidden powers and latent possibilities which the specially sensitive are beginning to unfold. But the danger is exactly on a par with that which up-to-date chemists and scientists foresee in the physical world. ”

“ Was the affinity between spirit and matter implied in that, more miraculous than the affinity between the soul and the body?—than the retention of that soul within that body by the breathing of material air, the eating of material food? Or even, if the physicists were right, and the soul were but a material product or energy of the nerves, and the sole law of the universe the laws of matter, then was not magic even more probable, more rational? ”

“ Who of us, in fact, does not believe himself an indivisible being, one and identical, the same yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow? Well, the word body, the word matter, signifies nothing else than the subject of external phenomena, the most eminent of which are form, impenetrability, solidity, extension, divisibility. The word mind, the word soul, signifies nothing else than the subject of the phenomena of consciousness, thought, will, sensation, phenomena simple, unextended, not solid, etc. Behold the whole idea of spirit, and the whole idea of matter! ”

“ A first exclusively analytical view of the world has led us to a first undeniable certainty, the existence of a principle of energy and motion. A second view of the universe, exclusively synthetic, leads us, as we have seen, to another certainty, which is the existence of a principle of differentiation and harmony. This principle is what is called spirit. Thus spirit is not substance, but it is the law of substance; it is not force, but it is the revealer of force. It is not life, but it makes life exist. It is not thought, but it is the consciousness of thought. ”

“ But though on this plane of existence the body does but clothe a spirit which was before, and will be after, how can mortal sense make us aware of spiritual beings, or these have knowledge of us? To each, its own! ”

“ Remember that spirit is not soul; forget not that the latter is the Winged Globe, of Which I have spoken, and the former is a projection, an out-creation from it. This out-projection or spirit is, of course, perfectly atomless and unparticled. We gaze into a mirror, and behold a semblance of ourselves; and the same figure may be gazed at by a hundred thousand eyes; everybody will at once acknowledge that the likeness is perfect and real, yet every one knows that not one single atom of any sort of matter enters into its composition. ”

“ Starting with a hundred instincts such as this, that older unmechanical, spiritual, or Platonic, philosophy envisages nature rather as the unity of a living spirit or person, revealing itself in various degrees to the kindred spirit of the observer, than as a system of mechanical forces. ”

“ But the Real Thing postulated by Physics is but one aspect of the whole, and may be, must be, merged in a higher Reality—of which phenomena, on the one hand, and Thought, Conation, Feeling on the other, are the appearances. That involves a further advance, the attainment of a higher degree of Truth which would bridge the Dualism of Thought and Existence, of Self and Not-self, of Spirit and Nature, and whilst, on the one hand, such Reality must fundamentally be a-logical, on the other hand Energy may owe its energy to Spirit. ”

“ Affinity, or attraction, or approach of one pain or pleasure, of one sensation of pressure or of motion to another, is a meaningless jingle of words, unless, indeed, such an expression is used to name figuratively the relations that in and for a comparing, contrasting, uniting, and separating active consciousness, two ideas are made to bear. Thus, then, this atomic monism brings us no nearer than before to the relation between the data of consciousness and the facts of physical nature. ”

“ The multiplication of a human and mortal sense of persons and things is not creation. Material man, like an atom of dust thrown into the face of spiritual immensity, gives a flickering sensation, instead of an abiding consciousness of Being.
The fading forms of matter, the mortal body and earth are the fleeting thoughts of the human mind. Mind's camera. They have their day before the permanent facts appear, and their perfection in Spirit. ”

“ How can we, as it were, spiritually melt this apparently rigid form, so that the pure energy of things may flow together with the force of our spirit and both become one united mold? We must transcend Form, in order to gain it again as intelligible, living, and truly felt. ”

“ While mind is energy associated in purely material beings and spirit associated in purely spiritual personalities, innumerable orders of personality, including the human, possess minds that are associated with both energy and spirit. The spiritual aspects of creature mind unfailingly respond to the spirit-gravity pull of the Eternal Son ”

“ What evidence does mortal mind afford that matter is substantial, is hot or cold? Take away mortal mind, and matter could not feel what it calls substance. Take away matter, and mortal mind could not cognize its own so-called substance, and this so-called mind would have no identity. Nothing would remain to be seen or felt.
What is substance? What is the reality of God and the universe? Immortal Mind is the real substance,—Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love. ”

“ But, when this Body, or its motion, or figure, or other thing, depending upon its nature, can be perceived by a Spirit, so as, upon that occasion, this Spirit has thoughts, it had not before, it may be said, that the Body has acted upon this Spirit, for as much as it has caused all the change in it, whereof it was capable according to its nature. ”

“ Above a world of idea, insight, desire and subordination of means to ends, the whole driven by the will and saturated with emotion, a world which has its contacts with the unseen and eternal and derives its strength from the truly immaterial; below a world of material and forces in subjection to the laws of physics and chemistry and involved in the processes of the conservation and transformation of physical energy, and consciousness the clearing-house for the whole. ”

“ At first there was a little difference of opinion, but we finally agreed that in reality everything is spirit, and that which we call matter is only the expression of the spirit. As an example we took the sculptor, who, getting an idea through the mind, expresses this spirit in a statue, which we call matter. We speak of the body as matter, but it is spirit, in as much as it is the medium through which the spirit manifests itself. ”

“ How could man, who is at least partly material, represent a pure spirit, which excludes all matter?
How could his imperfect mind be formed on the model of a mind possessing all perfection, like that which we suppose in the Creator of the universe? What resemblance, what proportion, what affinity could there be between a finite mind united to a body, and the infinite spirit of the Creator? ”

“ He names six modes of being as elements in which the universe subsists, viz., matter, force, life, soul, spirit, and God, defining soul as "that mode of being which is characterized by intellect and will," and spirit as "that mode of being which is characterized by consciousness of God." ”

“ But while this was often the starting-point, the nature of soul, and spirit, and consciousness in general have been brought under discussion and subjected to attacks which sought to show how vague and questionable was the reality of spirit as contrasted with the palpable, solid and indubitable reality of the outer world. ”

“ It is as if spirit called to spirit across the abyss, from the immaterial to the material, as if somehow we obtained a conviction of the existence of spirits around us by the very sympathy of our natures and their relationship to the immaterial world, rather than by the ordinary avenues of intelligence. ”

“ A mind containing, or capable of containing something foreign within itself, and not merely one foreign substance, but a multitude of foreign substances, at the same moment, is no longer that simple indivisible existence, which we termed spirit. Any of the elementary atoms of matter is, indeed, more truly spiritual; the very notion of recipiency of any kind, being as little consistent with our notion of mind, as the notion of hardness or squareness. ”

“ He may say, perchance, There is such a close conjunction betwixt Body and Spirit, as I make betwixt rational, sensitive, and inanimate Matter. I answer, That these degrees are all but one Matter, and of one and the same Nature as meer Matter, different onely in degrees of purity, subtilty, and activity, whereas Spirit and Body are things of contrary Natures. In fine, I cannot conceive, how a Spirit should fill up a place or space, having no body, nor how it can have the effects of a body, being none it self ”

“ This individual spirit energises through each of our bodies. Of our own spirit we have a very close knowledge, of other spirits we have a rather more remote knowledge from inference; we infer their states of mind from the states of body which we observe, or from the material effects which they cause in speaking or writing. ”

“ What would the soul in its perfection mirror? Would it reflect within itself the myriad life of humanity? Would the spirit mirror the heavens, and the imaginations of the Divine Mind well up within it in mystic and transcendental ideations? ”

“ If it is replied that no physiologist, however spiritual his leanings, dreams of supposing that simple sensations require a "spirit" for their production, then I must point out that we are all agreed that consciousness is a function of matter, and that particular tenet must be given up as a mark of Materialism. ”

“ That though we have evidently proved the impossibility of there being either Sense, Understanding or Spontaneous Motion in Matter or a Body, yet we are never the nearer; for the like difficulties may be urged against there being any Sense or Understanding in a Spirit, sith a Spirit cannot but be extended, nor extended but divisible, nor divisible but incapable of Sense or Understanding, as we have argued before against Matter. ”

“ And if I try to think of the "spirit" which a man, by this hypothesis, carries about under his hat, as something devoid of relation to space, and as something indivisible, even in thought, while it is, at the same time, supposed to be in that place and to be possessed of half a dozen different faculties, I confess I get quite lost. ”

“ Unless I have had the conscious experience to give me the idea out of which to construct the idea, the Spirits from the Spirit-world may come from every sphere and degree, and they can not convey to my mind an accurate idea of those spheres and degrees. ”

“ That, though unseen by mortal eyes, the animating Principle, the Real Self, is Immortal, and in Realms indescribable by human language, those who have passed from Ento and other Worlds, live, love and enjoy, or sorrow, in accordance with the purity or impurity of their mortal existence. They also have come to proclaim to you that there is but One God, Who is the Infinite Spirit, Who permeates all things. The Infinitely Intelligent Spirit, who knows all things. The Infinite Energy, who is the Source of all things. ”

“ If the presence of a soul could explain dreams, it could equally well be made to explain such things in himself as man could not rationally comprehend. The idea of his own soul is followed by the idea of a soul in every man. From this it is but a short step to the idea of a soul or spirit in nature, to account for mysterious powers and properties. Thunder and lightning become the work of a spirit ”

“ We reason imperfectly, from effect to cause, when we conclude that matter is the effect of Spirit; but a priori reasoning shows material existence to be enigmatical. Spirit gives the true mental idea. We cannot interpret Spirit through matter. ”

“ You will say, perhaps, That the divine Soul in Man is a Spirit: but I desire you to call to mind what I oftentimes have told you, to wit, that when I speak of the Soul of Man, I mean onely the Natural, not the Divine Soul; which as she is supernatural, so she acts also supernaturally; but all the effects of the natural Soul, of which I discourse, are natural, and not divine or supernatural. But to return to Magnetisme ”