_A Collective Vision of Spiritual Beings._--'Some few weeks before
Christmas, 1910, at midnight on a very dark night, I and another young
man (who like myself was then about twenty-three years of age) were on
horseback on our way home from Limerick. When near Listowel, we noticed
a light about half a mile ahead. At first it seemed to be no more than a
light in some house; but as we came nearer to it and it was passing out
of our direct line of vision we saw that it was moving up and down, to
and fro, diminishing to a spark, then expanding into a yellow luminous
flame. Before we came to Listowel we noticed two lights, about one
hundred yards to our right, resembling the light seen first. Suddenly
each of these lights expanded into the same sort of yellow luminous
flame, about six feet high by four feet broad. In the midst of each
flame we saw a radiant being having human form. Presently the lights
moved toward one another and made contact, whereupon the two beings in
them were seen to be walking side by side. The beings' bodies were
formed of a pure dazzling radiance, white like the radiance of the sun,
and much brighter than the yellow light or aura surrounding them. So
dazzling was the radiance, like a halo, round their heads that we could
not distinguish the countenances of the beings; we could only
distinguish the general shape of their bodies; though their heads were
very clearly outlined because this halo-like radiance, which was the
brightest light about them, seemed to radiate from or rest upon the head
of each being. As we travelled on, a house intervened between us and the
lights, and we saw no more of them. It was the first time we had ever
seen such phenomena, and in our hurry to get home we were not wise
enough to stop and make further examination. But ever since that night I
have frequently seen, both in Ireland and in England, similar lights
with spiritual beings in them.' (Cf. pp. 60 ff., 77, 133, 155, 215,
483.)
_Reality of the Spiritual World._--'Like my companion, who saw all that
I saw of the first three lights, I formerly had always been a sceptic as
to the existence of spirits; now I know that there is a spiritual world.
My brother, a physician, had been equally sceptical until he saw, near
our home at Listowel, similar lights containing spiritual beings and was
obliged to admit the genuineness of the phenomena.
'In whatever country we may be, I believe that we are for ever immersed
in the spiritual world; but most of us cannot perceive it on account of
the unrefined nature of our physical bodies. Through meditation and
psychical training one can come to see the spiritual world and its
beings. We pass into the spirit realm at death and come back into the
human world at birth; and we continue to reincarnate until we have
overcome all earthly desires and mortal appetites. Then the higher life
is open to our consciousness and we cease to be human; we become divine
beings.' (Recorded in Oxford, England, August 12, 1911.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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