Governments, institutions, and associations and relations, whether social, spiritual, or otherwise, are expressions of what are the loves and delights of the soul of man. Therefore, in all institutions, you will find displayed the characters of those who founded them. The government of any country is but the child of the ruling mind or minds of that country. Then, if we wish to understand the dark spheres in the Spiritual world, we have only to drop the body and have our spiritual eyes opened, when we will see that there exist there all the phases of society that we find here. The cause of this arises from the sphere of lust. You have there your gambling Spirits, your drinking Spirits, your lustful Spirits, etc. And how do these poor creatures live there? That is the next question. What do they do to gratify their desires? I will tell you. You understand it to be a psychological principle, that when two men are brought into sympathy, or into _rapport_ with each other (one being positive and the other negative), feelings, sensations, and desires can be communicated from one to the other. To give an illustration: You have seen, in mesmerism, an exhibition of mind separated from the influences of the body. When the mind is thus separated, and this mesmeric sympathy is established between the subject and the operator, any surgical operation can be performed upon the subject without giving him pain, because his being of sensation is removed from his body; but you can not pull the hair of the operator, or hurt his finger, or otherwise give him pain, without giving pain to the subject. Whatever the operator enjoys or suffers, the subject also enjoys and suffers. Now it is in accordance with this principle that Spirits of the other world gratify their desires. Spirits who visit this world are obliged to make use of and come into _rapport_ with, those who have appetites and desires similar to their own. If the mind is separated from its own body, it can experience the sensations of another body with which it may come into _rapport_. On the same principle a good mind, or, if you please, the Divine Mind, can flow into the individual mind, and impart thought and sensation to that mind. Or a good Spirit can flow into a medium, and awaken sensations and thoughts in accordance with the law of action and re-action, becoming negative or positive, according as he wishes to impart or receive influence. Here, then, is the means by which the Spirit is enabled to gratify its desires by visiting earth. Those Spirits who allow themselves to be influenced by their lusts are called tempting Spirits, and they influence individuals on earth that they may make use of them as a means of gratifying these lusts. The same law is manifested by individuals in the body. It is not because Spirits wish to injure the bodies which they thus use, but because they desire self-gratification, and know of no other means of obtaining it, except in this sphere of outer darkness.