CHAPTER XVIII - OBSESSION
Obsession is one of the most distressing woes of mankind.
Its greatest danger lies precisely in the fact that its least shocking aspects go unperceived by those who are unaware of spiritualistic truths as divulged by Christian Rationalism. This applies especially to those aspects in subtle, mild, periodical, permanent, bland, or violent form.
In its subtle and mild forms, it appears as manias, fright, oddities, phobias, eccentricities, exoticism, exaggerations, passions, fanaticism, cowardice, laziness, as well as overindulgence in sex, eating, laughing or crying, and many others.
We saw in Chapter XVII, dealing with mediumnity, how obsessor spirits prevail over individuals who attract them with affinitive thoughts.
There is no denying of all the damaging effects of the action exercised by the forces of the Inferior Astral over mankind. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that, to a great extent, the victims themselves are to blame. This is because, while still sound, they harboured thoughts that facilitated the formation of attractive currents for obsessors.
This book has exhaustively demonstrated - and this is substantiated by facts of everyday life - that thoughts of wickedness, revenge, hatred, and others of similar nature, cause vibrations all over inferior space, thus establishing immediate contact between the emitter of these thoughts and the obsessor spirits.
The low strata of the Inferior Astral are therefore closely connected, by affinity, to people who are ill-humoured, vindictive, envious, irascible, dishonest, as well as those who harbour weaknesses and vice.
Such individuals, even though they may not appear to be obsessed, create an environment which is extremely harmful to themselves and to members of their families or other people with whom they live. Thus they compel others, not having at their disposal the enlightenment to minimise the harmful effects of ill attendance, to share the same environment.
The result is, in nearly all cases, the disturbances or obsession of those victims, either in a benign or violent form.
Obsessor spirits themselves are not always aware of the harms they produce. They are also victims of their own wrongdoings while incarnated, due to their lack of knowledge about incorporeal life.
This regrettable ignorance makes obsessor spirits become prisoners of Earth's atmosphere. They are led by the blindness or false beliefs and by their conviction that, apart from the deceitful environment where they now live, nothing else exists for those who disincarnate.
Thus these obsessors begin to act in that environment by transmitting intuitions to their former relatives, friends and acquaintances, either in the assumption that these people will benefit from such intuitions or because, as obsessors, they feel pleasure in this activity.
Such intuitions, if well received, act as an incentive to other intuitions, thus establishing close interaction between the Inferior Astral and the incarnate spirits. When this happens, the path to obsession is open.
Whenever there is deep affinity, obsessors do not part with their victims, because they enjoy staying where they fare well. When obsession is caused by spirits who were enemies of the obsessed on Earth, then their disturbing action takes a more violent form and even furious spells become frequent.
INEXISTENCE OF DEATH
The concept of death derives from a concept of life which is completely wrong. In fact, death has never existed. It is no longer necessary at this point to reiterate that the spirit is immortal. The spirit never dies.
Therefore, every person should do his best to recover as quickly as possible from the shock caused by the disincarnation of relatives and friends. In this way they will not weaken spiritually.
According to a popular saying, "what cannot be cured, must be endured". It is completely useless to continue to regret the past. Man should concern himself with the present, which is the basis for the future.
It has been said many times that to think is to attract. Those who cling, through thought, to disincarnated spirits of the Inferior Astral, besides attracting and disturbing them still more, also delay the obsessors' ascent to the worlds where they belong. This encourages such disincarnated spirits to keep in touch with earthly issues, including familial problems, and tends to turn them into obsessors.
Let us emphasise again: the spirits that, while incarnated, led an erratic life, filled with flaws and materialism, remain in the Inferior Astral, often during decades, acting viciously against the incarnate. Their only goal is to make intuitions for evil purposes. They engage to help of weak-willed individuals whom they use as passive tools to perpetrate their crimes. Hence the murders, suicides and many other social tragedies.
These spirits act either on their own or in well trained phalanxes, in order to better achieve their goals. Their groups place attentive watchers at various points, ready to signal at the right moment and recruit the aid of other obsessors.
Since unity makes strength, they usually win over the incarnate spirits who are unwary and unconscious of their plots. Sometimes these incarnate spirits become obsessed, at other times they are led to perpetrate crazy acts while their senses are completely disturbed.
Without this enlightenment no one can escape obsessive influences nor avoid interference from outside forces in his behaviou and in his spiritual ego.
Only the enlightened ones who are aware of the value of the powerful forces of Will and Thought are capable of keeping obsessors at distance.
WAYS TO OBSESSION
In various chapters of this book we have clearly shown the ways that lead to obsession - a psychic disorder caused by improper use of free will, ill-guided will, sexual unrestrained and intemperance, lack of control in everyday life, uncontrolled nervousness, unrestrained desires, inordinate ambition, and headstrong temperament.
Whenever man makes improper use of his free will he goes against natural laws that establish correct, safe, adequate patterns of life. Free will ensures everyone's right to conduct himself with freedom of choice and independence of action, as benefits all beings endowed with reason. But it also makes man responsible for all his actions.
Man can follow the rules of good conduct by proper exercise of reason in solving the problems he constantly faces, always bearing in mind the importance of honesty. In this way he will make good use of his free will.
Those who swerve from this route do so because they so desire, and because they let themselves grow weak. This weakening of the will, in turn, paves the way for spirits of the Inferior Astral, which sooner or later bring about obsession.
An ill-guided will derives from laziness, indifference to, and negligence of life's serious issues. The lazy are always hopeful that others will do what they themselves should do. They dislike schedules and abhor discipline. They are enemies of work and order and do nothing to progress.
They are, therefore, classified as parasites. Whereas the world demands energy and action, the lazy act as mere spectators with no desire to participate in the activities that claim their share.
No one can exempt himself from the obligation to work and find work the true fulfilment of life. The whole Universe is a round-the-clock workshop where everyone is supposed to be an active, hardworking labourer.
Those who do not do so are placed at a lower spiritual level of life. They are nothing but outcasts, just like the spirits of the Inferior Astral with which they associate due to the law of attraction.
The origins of obsessing materialism lie in sexual unrestrained and intemperance, the pillars of which are lasciviousness and other vices. The human being, in this situation, gives free rein to his animalistic instincts, offering free shelter to the affinitive spirits of the Inferior Astral which contribute to his obsession.
Every act of everyday life needs to be done with the utmost good judgement and honesty. Our social organisation follows a pattern whose main features define the positions that man must take in the course of human interaction, without losing sight of both self-respect and respect for his fellow man.
To achieve this goal, behaviour control, self-control and active reasoning are needed. Lack of control over behaviour and words, besides being grounds for offence and even sorrow, is a frequent cause of lasting resentments and brings on hostility and animosity.
IRRITABILITY, LACK OF SELF CONTROL, AND INORDINATE AMBITION
The spirits of the Inferior Astral like to take advantage of unrestrained, ill-tempered, thoughtless individuals who do not pause to think before acting. They enjoy the effects of their actuation.
Unrestrained individuals are, therefore, tools of the Inferior Astral, and are on their way to obsession, if not already obsessed.
Unbridled nervousness brings about irritation, intolerance, thoughtlessness, and recklessness, which lead to deplorable psychic conditions. Therefore, nervousness needs to be kept under severe control because it is, among all agents of disturbance, the one that facilitates the most the action of obsessor spirits.
As a rule, people with neuroses take little care of their health and make no effort to overcome their impulses. As a result, they frequently fall under the deceitful traps of the Inferior Astral and end up on the disastrous path to obsession.
Certain desires and aspirations are unattainable. Some individuals are inordinately ambitious and never satisfied with what they have. They are chronic complainers, always believing that they deserve more, and living in a permanent state of dissatisfaction.
It is perfectly rational and even praiseworthy for one to endeavour to improve one's style of life and spare no efforts to accomplish this objective. However, this cannot be achieved through despondency or lamentation. These states of mind can only worsen difficult situations and debilitate spiritual energies.
The boundless ambition of some individuals, associated with their inner mental conflict, causes ill-humour. The spirits of the Inferior Astral take advantage of this to actuate over these individuals, thus conveying to their minds the gloomiest thoughts, capable of leading to obsession and, by way of obsession, to other evils.
The law of attraction never fails. Everyone is under its domain. Mankind needs to understand that earthly things are ephemeral. Besides delaying spiritual evolution, enslavement to such transitory earthly values has caused a greater deal of suffering.
Moderate ambition is only natural. Unrestrained ambition however, is an obsession in which selfishness and self-worship play a decisive role. The overambitious and unrestrained believe that the end justifies the means. They cheat, appropriate, monopolise. Their minds are set on ideas of quick profit, even at the cost of extorsive, despoiling manipulations.
For them, there is neither consideration nor middle-ground. They are always determined to win. They plot their bold strategy regardless of morals and honesty.
The world is filled with such characters who are, to a large extent, responsible for its economic instability. They comprise two very large groups. One is on Earth, speculating and acting with artfulness and self-assurance. Another group, equally active and clever, is in the Inferior Astral and consists of disincarnated spirits who, while incarnated, acted just like their present incarnated counterparts.
Both groups work in close association with each other and share the same sensuousness that feeds their common obsession.
HEADSTRONG TEMPERAMENT
A headstrong temperament reflects the self-centred personality of those who believe they are always right and want to impose their ideas on other people.
Such individuals frequently clash with others even when their conflicts are not outwardly expressed. And nothing is more entertaining to the spirits of the Inferior Astral than watching human conflicts. This stirs up obsessor spirits. As they are always on the alert for suitable occasions to actuate, headstrong individuals are their primary targets. At every step of the way they perceive an opportunity to trigger friction. Lacking another form of recreation, this becomes an absorbing occupation for them.
The headstrong become easily irritated when the view-point of others does not match theirs and thus they promote annoyance.
It is unnecessary to emphasise what this very common form of obsession means for mankind.
In a deceitful way, this obsession slowly penetrates the human subconscious until the individual is completely overwhelmed by it. The victim, unaware of his entrapment, does not react, does not oppose it, plays down the harm which is being done. By force of habit, he finally derives a sense of pleasure from it and that facilitates the control of the obsessors who become more active, more violent, more difficult to drive away.
One can never be too careful. Only knowledge about spiritual evolution and how it is processed provides mankind with the conditions and means to fight obsession.
Passionate attractions of all kinds are the most dangerous, due to the intense pleasure they cause and the alluring impulses they arise, which often have the effect of a magic spell over the victims. Even newly enlightened individuals sometimes fall under their charm.
RESISTING DEPRESSION AND FOLLOWING A SAFE TRACK
No one should ever lose heart. There are times, in the course of life, when moral depression - sometimes very intense - shakes the human soul pitilessly. The soul, however, does not lack strength to react and overcome these situations, especially when backed by knowledge of the realities of life and truth. This knowledge constitutes the soul's strongest weapon and shield and, when well wielded, always leads to victory.
How often does the mere departure of a loved one to eternity - something rather natural - leads to unconformity, distress and despair!
Thus, the unenlightened disincarnate spirit frets, suffers, tries to convey soothing intuitions to the incarnate and, not quite succeeding, ends up becoming an obsessor, disturbing and leading the incarnate spirit itself to obsession.
The best that the incarnate can do on behalf of those who depart from Earth is to lift their thoughts up to the Superior Forces, with firmness and conviction. In this way those who disincarnated will be enveloped in the tender warmth of friendly irradiations and helped in breaking through Earth's atmosphere before leaving for the worlds where they belong.
Christian Rationalism is engaged in showing mankind a safe route to a healthy and evolutionary life. This is the purpose of this book.
A great many humans are victims of obsession, precisely because they do not know the resources, the elements, and the means at their disposal to avoid it or free themselves of it.
Some symptoms of incipient obsession may be noticed in the following instances:
(1) a tendency to laugh without cause on account of futilities;
(2) tics;
(3) crying without plausible reason;
(4) overeating;
(5) constant sleepiness;
(6) delight in idleness;
(7)manifestation of manias;
(8) fixed ideas;
(9) facetiousness;
(10) persistent annoying of other people;
(11) mechanical repetition of the same sayings;
(12) allowing oneself to be overwhelmed by passions;
(13) foolish prejudices;
(14) melancholy;
(15) depravity;
(16) ostentation;
(17) temperamental outbursts;
(18) mystification;
(19) lying;
(20) using obscene language;
(21) cowardice;
(22) swearing;
(23) fanaticism;
(24) gesticulating and talking to oneself;
(25) constant nagging;
(26) hearing and seeing imaginary things;
(27) living beyond one's means;
(28) obsession with illness;
(29) neglecting of duties at home and in the workplace;
(30) abandonment of work at home and estrangement from family;
(31) living in a faraway world of dreams;
(32) stirring up or entertaining arguments
Any of the above manifestations predisposes one to obsession, even though it may not be an advancement form of mental abnormality.
It should be reiterated that thought is the language of disincarnated spirits. Through thought they identify the feelings of the living, their intentions and tendencies. Obsessors take advantage of this to encourage human vices and weaknesses through intuition.
As a matter of mental hygiene, one should not concentrate one's thoughts on troublemakers, slanderers, enemies and, generally speaking, people who harbour mean feelings.
To think of such people is equivalent to connecting oneself to their evil spiritual attendance, receiving malevolent influences and risking overwhelming obsession.