The Astral World—Higher Occult Powers: Clairvoyance, Spiritism, Mediumship, and Spirit-Healing Fully ExplainedTiffany, Joel
Religion
The Astral World—Higher Occult Powers: Clairvoyance, Spiritism, Mediumship, and Spirit-Healing Fully Explained
Tiffany, Joel
Spiritualism
attention to some need which you have forgotten or neglected, and they
will not permit you to rest till you discover what that need is and
supply it. I will illustrate this point.
Although man in the lower department of his nature is animal, he is
nevertheless something more than an animal in the activities of his
nature. The highest impulse of the animal is to provide for and protect
its perishable mortal structure, and he has no immortal spirit to
provide for in the future. He is content when the needs of the body
are supplied. Did you never notice how content and unconcerned are the
horse and dog when their demand for food is supplied? Young animals
and young children, in their play, are supplying one of the needs of
their body. But when the children have passed from childhood, desires
of that kind cease, if they become properly developed men and women,
and others take their place; while the animal, whenever the needs of
his animal nature are supplied, is satisfied. Consequently, you do not
see dissipated animals. Did you ever think of that? Animals do not
get drunk, nor seek for gratification in any such unnatural channel.
Animals are true to nature and to God. They can not have thoughts
and desires that pertain to the undying spirit, their highest nature
being merely animal. Were man as true to all the needs of his being as
is the animal to the needs of his animal nature, he would not be the
discontented, unhappy, and lustful being he now is. But in consequence
of having to supply the needs of a higher nature, he finds himself
far from being as contented as the brute, whose animal wants are all
provided for.
There are spiritual needs pertaining to his understanding and
affections which are entirely overlooked or neglected by him, whose
demands are as imperative as are the demands of the animal nature. The
demands of his intellectual and moral nature cause him to feel the lack
of something within which destroys his rest and quiet. He seeks to
satisfy this lack by gratifying his sensuous appetites and passions.
Thus man runs into vice, and becomes sinful. Were it not for his
immortal thirsting for the water of life, he never would be a wicked,
lustful being; or if he would _supply_ the demands of that thirst, he
never would be discontented or lustful.
Now let us make the distinction between the lustful and the divine
impulse, that you may better understand what I mean by the sphere to
which I am calling your attention. We all can tell the difference by
appealing to our own consciousness. The divine impulse informs us of a
need, and leads us to seek to supply it. The Infinite only speaks of
needs, and leads man to supply them, that he may grow up into a perfect
being. Every impulse in man, from the lowest to the highest nature,
must be attended to, in order to render him perfect. The true impulse
is one that promotes individual happiness and contentment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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