by Arthur Ford

Arthur Ford (1896-1971), an ordained minister, also psychic medium, reports here the case of Frederic Myers, the bulk of whose discourse was communicated though an Irish girl, Geraldine Cummins through automatic writing.

As a practicing, professional trance medium, I have dealt mainly in those regions designated by Myers as the second and third planes. Only occasionally have the spiritual transactions in which my transmission facilities been utilized tapped the very high regions of spiritual development. These cases I have discussed in other writings. Here I am concerned with those aspects of the life beyond death which assert themselves most frequently and most acceptably to the comprehension of the average earth mind—that is, the second and third planes. Myers gives such abundant insight here that I believe it will be well worth our while to attend to what he has to say about the life-death transactions most familiar to earth-side experience.

Though flashes of spirit light may occasionally and briefly illuminate the darkness of the average earth mind, the afterlife business most often brought to its attention concerns only the immediate death transition and the third stage. Very large numbers of average souls remain comfortably in this third stage for very long periods—sometimes centuries—imagining it to be the ultimate heaven and making no effort to progress further.

When we recall that Myers was writing through Miss Cummins in the early 1930s, we are surprised at the contemporary sound of some of the things he has to say. Population explosion, environmental pollution, military-industrial conspiracies to make war, domination of human spirit by mechanical and political machines, over-attachment to earth possessions—all themes prominent in the more thoughtful press of our time—were subjects of solemn warnings by Myers, writing through Miss Cummins, a generation ago.

It is commonly (and mistakenly) believed that people mysteriously acquire the ability to foretell the future after they have passed into the afterlife. Though they cannot predict events, they can discern trends; this is something a little different. “No man is permitted to know in full the secret of the coming time,” Myers wrote. “But we souls who dwell in . . . Eidos dimly see the trend of man’s thought and therefore, presage his endeavor in the coming time.” His clear observation of these trends evoked his profound concern: “I beg of the men and women of the day to consider the human being apart from machines, to consider life apart from gold. Within the restless jangle of those monstrous cogs and wheels which now turn ceaselessly and bear your so-called civilization upon them, there is little leisure or quiet for the calmness or philosophic meditation out of which knowledge is born. What somber destiny may not awake the children of the morrow if they, too, are caught in the grip of that creature without a soul, the machine—that last and final embodiment of the god of materialism.”

Myers points to the dangers of runaway nationalistic feelings which splinter mankind into mutually hating and fearing national groups. This delays the awareness that mankind is one, and its problems cannot be solved until they are solved jointly. “The nations may plunge down the hill into war, or produce and propagate misery by an increase in its millions of human beings.” As for environment: “Neither beauty nor health can survive and flourish when nation destroys nation and machine destroys machine.” Machine thinking endangers man’s spiritual evolution: “A mechanism without a soul should be the servant, not the master, of the thinking human being. The world of today should envisage the ideal of quality, not quantity.”

People have often asked me about the status in the afterlife of suicides. Myers’ position on suicide is less moralistic than practical. The extreme negative, depressed mental state of the suicide at the time of his self-destructive act carries over into the afterlife, placing him at a great disadvantage in making his adjustment. Many times, upon awakening, he does not realize that he has passed over. He may go into an extreme panic upon discovering that he can no longer control his physical body. Upon reaching full realization that he has in fact killed himself, he may—as in the case of the son of the late Bishop James Pike, in which I was able to be of some help—deeply regret his act.

In the Pike case, the young man committed suicide while undergoing a destructive LSD experience. On discovering his plight, he was desperate. He produced every kind of poltergeist effect within his power—smashing things, disarranging clothing, moving objects, bending and distributing safety pins, moving books that would call attention to his memory—all to attract help in his plight. The bishop finally caught the hint and sought the assistance of mediums, including myself. The boy’s whole desperate story then came through, and forces were set going to help him.

“The mood that drives the suicide to self-slaughter,” Myers wrote through Miss Cummins, “will envelop him like a cloud from which we may not for a long time be able to give him release. His emotional thoughts, his whole attitude of mind sets up a barrier which can only be broken down by his own strenuous efforts, by a brave control of himself, and above all by the call sent out with all the strength of his soul to higher beings to bestow succor, to grant release.”

“Sudden death,” mentioned in the famous litany and commonplace in our time of war and highway accident, is another theme that has produced many questions. Again Myers takes the practical view. The disadvantage of a sudden death, he says, lies mainly in the circumstance that the psyche has no time to adjust. A person suddenly killed in his prime may linger among earth scenes for some time before the realization of his new situation reaches him. In this state of mind he is slow to understand the need for the other discarnate beings in making his adjustment and hence is slow to utilize this help. However, there have been many cases in my own experience as a medium in which death which came suddenly has seemingly been handled without great deviation from the normal, comfortable transition. The normal transition, Myers says, is simple and peaceful going into a pleasant, sometimes even blissful, totally restful sleep. During this period the astral body—that radiant “double” which accompanies our physical body from the fetal stage and which is clearly visible to psychics gifted with the ability to see auras—detaches itself.

This body, though sleeping, is as alive as ever, though now existing exclusively in the consciousness wavelengths allotted to astral bodies. As the rest continues, there may be dreams involving memories of earth life. Upon awakening the soul is usually met and welcomed by friends, vocational associates, and relatives who made this transition before him.

What is the effect of brain damage or advanced senility on the afterlife? Here, Myers reminds us that the “double” or astral body, the vehicle of the personality after death, is with us from conception. Everything known to the physical body is also known to the astral body. Brain damage, he says, can only make the individual “unable to manifest his intelligence to the visible world of men. He is still intellectually alive . . . after death, the soul finds his fundamental memory center in his astral body . . . He or she has only withdrawn a little way from you and has no need for your pity.”

There has been much speculation about how the body sustains itself without food. Myers explains: “Etheric life is nourished by cosmic rays that splendidly light up our surroundings and—in some manner I do not understand—sustain the life of our bodies.” There have been cases of earth dwellers—specifically the famous German mystic Therese Neumann and a saintly old Indian woman known to Yogananda—who were able to utilize these rays for physical nourishment on earth. They sustained themselves without food for many years. Just how this was managed is a secret not understood even by such advanced spirits as Yogananda. It is reported here simply as an empiric fact.

Myers expressed the opinion that other planets carry life resembling ours. He does not believe that the failure of our senses and instrumentation to detect them can be taken as evidence. We perceive, he says, only those wavelengths which our “sets” are tuned to perceive. In electromagnetic reception, a radio or television tuned to a given station will not register messages from another broadcasting station even though this be nearby and broadcasting a powerful signal. He emphasizes that all worlds occupy the same space. Our inability to perceive anything other than earth phenomena affects in no way the fact that superterrestrial, cosmic, and spiritual activity of incredible intensity is at all times in progress around us.

Excerpt from Other Worlds, Other Universes

See Part I here.