DOLORES ASHCROFT-NOWICKI WAS BORN IN JERSEY, ONE OF BRITAIN’S Channel Islands, into a family with a marked interest in Spiritualism and the occult. She had early ambitions to become an actress and took RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) training, but her professional career was destined to follow a very different course. The turning point came when she joined an esoteric organization called the Society of the Inner Light and there became acquainted with the man who was to be her spiritual mentor, Walter Ernest Butler.
Butler was elderly when Dolores met him, but a career in the Far East had presented him with the opportunity of studying Oriental occultism, which he combined with training in the Western Esoteric Tradition, a body of doctrines and techniques rooted in Alexandrian hermeticism and the Jewish Qabalah.
In the mid-1960s internal disagreements in the Society of the Inner Light led to the resignation of several members, some of whom went on to establish organizations of their own. Among them was a couple named John and Mary Hall who ran a secondhand book service in Toddington, near Cheltenham, England. In tandem with the author Gareth Knight, another member of the Inner Light, the Halls launched a mail-order course in psychospiritual and magical training that they distributed as part of their business. With the exception of the first six lessons written by Gareth Knight, the course was penned by Butler, who eventually took over the course administration when it became so popular that it was interfering with the Halls’ other business. In the early 1970s, copyright was reassigned to him and he gradually began to transform it into a loosely knit esoteric school. The designation was changed from Helios, named originally for the Halls’ book service, to Servants of the Light. In later life Butler went on to write several books1 on magic and psychism, some of which became classics of their genre. One of these works was dedicated to his own teacher. He gave no clue to his readers that the teacher was not human.
It was some time into their relationship before Dolores learned this either. Butler was cautious about discussing something that, as the general mind-set of the day, would likely mark him as a lunatic. But the time came when he told Dolores that the Helios course had been dictated to him by someone he called the Opener. He repeated that the Opener was a spirit contact, but declined further information. Butler believed the Opener to be ancient Egypt’s Opener of the Ways, the deity Upuaut. Although some scholars describe Upuaut as a wolf-god, others believe him to be identical to Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god of the dead. Butler was among the latter. He used the names Opener, Upuaut, and Anubis interchangeably.
Ernest Butler was diabetic—a surprisingly common condition among psychics—and in later life the condition worsened to such an extent that he lost circulation in one leg and had to have an amputation.2 But even before then he worried about who was going to take over his developing school when he was gone. He asked his spirit contact about it and was told that a successor would be brought to him. He would know it was the right person because he or she would give Butler the secret name of his spirit contact—which Butler knew—and also that he or she would tell Butler they would take over his work when he died.
By what must seem a long-odds coincidence, around the time this was happening, Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki found herself bombarded by references to the Egyptian god Anubis. She would open a book at random and there would be a picture or a reference. She would see his image as a decorative motif. She even began to dream about him. It happened so often, she began to wonder what on earth was going on and determined to ask her spiritual mentor about it at the first available opportunity.
Dolores and her husband, Michael, flew to Southampton where they collected Butler and took him to London for a meeting of the Inner Light Society. All three of them lunched together in an Indian restaurant at the top of Haverstock Hill. It was a fine day and afterward they sat outside on a bench. The two men were engaged in conversation when Dolores—who had had experiences of psychism since childhood—became aware she had been joined by an Anubis figure. At first it was no more than a feeling and she tried to ignore it, but the feeling intensified, then became a vivid inner vision, almost a waking dream. Eventually she broke into the conversation and asked Butler if he knew anything about Anubis. He was so startled that he dropped his pipe, which shattered on the pavement.
The entity began to talk to Dolores. “Give him my name,” it instructed. “Tell him you are here to take over his work after he dies!” Dolores wanted none of it. Ernest Butler was a frail, old man suffering from a chronic illness. As a well-brought-up young woman, she had no intention of talking to him about his death. Butler for his part did not seem to want to talk about Anubis. He suggested they might be running late for their meeting and should go. They stood up and move off down the road. The entity followed. It kept repeating the same message: “Tell him my name. Tell him you will take over his work after he dies.”
They reached Steele’s Road where their meeting was due to take place. The entity was now so insistent that Dolores’s nerve finally broke. She stopped Butler with a hand on his arm and told him the message. He shrugged and told her, “You took your time coming. I expected you before this.”
After the meeting, Dolores and Michael put Butler on the train to Southampton. As he was leaving, he told her she would be the next Director of Studies of the Servants of the Light. It did not strike her as good news and she resisted for much of the following week. The Anubis entity reappeared and she berated it about her predicament. Specifically she was at the start of her career and did not feel herself qualified to teach. The entity told her not to worry—he would be the one doing the teaching. It was the beginning of an increasingly strange time for Dolores. She continued to see Ernest Butler regularly and absorbed a great deal of theory from him. But more important, he taught her trance techniques for reaching the spirit world. Her contacts with Anubis become more frequent. Sometime before Butler’s death in 1978, the spirit brought up the question of becoming her indweller. The term was new to Dolores, but she quickly learned that an indweller is an entity—itself not necessarily human—that forms a permanent link with a human being, occupying essentially the same mental “space” and sharing the same physical body. The relationship is one of mutual benefit. The indwelling entity gains experience of physical reality and is enabled, within limits, to interact with it. The host gains information, companionship, guidance and, usually, a sense of purpose.3
Dolores had not read Julian Jaynes’s book on the bicameral mind when she first heard about indwellers, but there seems little doubt that what her spirit contact was suggesting was similar, if not identical, to the historical phenomena Jaynes describes. As we have seen, Jaynes suggested that in ancient times people were commonly guided by spirit voices they accepted as gods. Here was a potential repeat of the experience in a twentieth-century context. Dolores did not hesitate, did not even ask questions. The moment she agreed, the indweller entered her. It happened so quickly she did not even shiver. As the entity began their new relationship, she felt the arrival of something that took up residence in her mind and has shared the space inside her head ever since. As had happened in the contact with Butler, the presence described itself as the Opener of the Ways and claimed a provenance that reached back to ancient Egypt. Although mainly aware of the Opener as an inner dialogue, Dolores sometimes heard an “external” voice or, more rarely, saw an objective figure. Here again, the parallels with Jaynes’s historical descriptions are obvious.
Prompted in part by her own desires, in part by the indwelling Opener, Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki embarked on a career that has to some extent paralleled those of figures like Blavatsky. She became a world traveler as a professional teacher of esoteric doctrines, ritual magic, and other occult techniques. She and her husband, Michael, continued to run the Servants of the Light and Dolores began to write books on esoteric subjects. She embarked on an extensive program of workshops, lectures, and seminars. More than a quarter of a century after she received her indweller, she found herself involved in the transfer of another entity.
Among Dolores’s closest friends at the time was an American teacher of spiritual practice named Shakmah Winddrum (Anna Branche), who had an extensive following and an international reputation as a charismatic and compelling speaker.4 They met at one of Dolores’s lectures and hit it off at once. Sometime after the event, the indweller who was now as much a part of Dolores’s life as her husband and children, asked if she would be prepared temporarily to “carry” a second spirit contact who was destined to indwell Shakmah. Unlike the Opener, the newcomer was not a member of the Egyptian pantheon, nor a “god” of any sort. But he was an historical personage.
Old Testament scriptures briefly tell the story of a visit to King Solomon by the Queen of Sheba:
And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart. And Solomon told her all her questions: there was not any thing hid from the king, which he told her not … And she gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices very great store, and precious stones: there came no more such abundance of spices as these which the queen of Sheba gave to king Solomon. And the navy also of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir great plenty of almug trees, and precious stones. And the king made of the almug trees pillars for the house of the Lord, and for the king’s house, harps also and psalteries for singers: there came no such almug trees, nor were seen unto this day. And king Solomon gave unto the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty.5
But that was not, apparently, all he gave her. The visit of the Queen of Sheba is described in First Kings and again, virtually word for word, in Second Chronicles. In the poetic Song of Solomon, however, are two passages that scholars believe throw a little more light on the historic encounter. The first reads:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine … the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine.6
A long-standing oral tradition insists that Solomon and the Queen of Sheba not only met formally as heads of their respective states, but were so instantly enamored with each other that they had a brief, passionate affair. When the queen returned to her native land, she was pregnant with Solomon’s child. The location of her native land remains the subject of controversy, but most experts believe it was somewhere in Africa. This too is supported by a sentence in the Song of Solomon of such intensity and beauty that it continues to resonate down the years:
I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.7
In Ethiopia there is no controversy. The Queen of Sheba is not only believed to have originated in that country, but her son by King Solomon, Menelyk, became the founder of a royal dynasty that ruled Ethiopia until September 1974, when the last of the line, Emperor Haile Selassie, was forcefully deposed in a mutiny of the police and armed forces.
It was the spirit of Menelyk that the Opener wanted Dolores to carry to Shakmah Winddrum. There was no advance warning of the development. Dolores was in the United States for a workshop, taking a shower in the house where she was staying. Her Opener asked if she was prepared to “carry” a second spirit for a short time and when, in some confusion, she agreed, the new entity moved in at once. The experience of sharing her mind with two indwellers was so overwhelming that she burst into tears. She was still noticeably upset when she went downstairs and when her host wondered what was wrong, she asked him for a drink. The only alcohol in the house was a bottle of Amaretto liqueur and Dolores, although normally moderate in her drinking habits, finished most of it. The following day she flew to Philadelphia to meet the proposed recipient.
Shakmah was no stranger to spirit contact. After a conventional education and career, she became embroiled in esoteric pursuits after she was initiated into the Voodoo priesthood in Haiti in 1963. Voodoo is a religion that originated in Haiti but is also practiced in Cuba, Trinidad, Brazil, and the southern United States, notably Louisiana. Its roots go back to the tribal religions of western Africa, particularly Benin, but it contains elements of Roman Catholicism and representations of Christian saints share the altar with more ancient gods. The main focus of worship is a high god, Bon Dieu, but respect is paid to one’s ancestors, the dead in general, and spirits called Loa. The Loa are African tribal gods and it is they who are usually identified with Roman Catholic saints. (The snake god, for example, is seen as much the same being as Ireland’s patron saint, Saint Patrick, credited with banishing all snakes from the island.) Rituals, led by a priest called a houngan or a priestess called a mambo, involve the invocation of the Loa by drumming, dancing, singing, and feasting. In such ceremonies, ecstatic trance frequently occurs and the Loa typically take possession of the dancers in order to perform cures and give advice. The new initiate mambo experiences the ecstatic trance and the spirit possession. But the possession is strictly temporary—it never outlives the ceremony itself.
On her return to the United States, Shakmah evolved her own form of esoteric practice, which blended Qabalistic, African, Christian, and even some French medieval spiritual elements. In private ceremonies she would frequently enter into trance in order to communicate with ancestor spirits and pass on a body of doctrines to her followers. For all this, she had no specific experience of indwelling.
When Dolores and Shakmah met, Dolores told her she was “carrying something for her.” With a finely tuned intuition, Shakmah guessed at once what she meant—Dolores had told her about Anubis—but did not want it. An indweller was fine in theory, but it suddenly seemed she was about to give away every semblance of privacy she possessed. In spite of this, Dolores laid a hand on her shoulder. At that point Dolores felt the Menelyk entity flow out of her. Shakmah felt another presence in her mind.
Spirit possession, as practiced in ecstatic religions like Voodoo, is a different—and in a sense easier—experience than indwelling. As trance intervenes, host consciousness moves aside and the possessing spirit takes over. When, later, the spirit withdraws, the host emerges from trance with little or no memory of what has occurred, rather like waking from a deep sleep. With indwelling there is a sharing of consciousness, an altogether different phenomenon that requires a host’s long-term dedication. The result is something similar to the biblical idea of a “familiar spirit.” The discovery that such “familiars” can be transferred consciously to a different host is a surprise that calls into question the common preconceptions about the contact experience.
One of the strangest eyewitness accounts of spirit contact ever written was penned by a barrister named Henry D. Jencken and appeared in the February 1867 edition of Human Nature. It described what happened at a séance he had attended along with the Earl of Dunraven, Lord Lindsay, a Captain Wynne, and the prominent scientist William Crookes. The relevant part read, verbatim:
Mr. Home had passed into the trance still so often witnessed; rising from his seat, he laid hold of an arm-chair, which he held at arm’s length, and was then lifted about three feet clear of the ground; travelling thus suspended in space, he placed the chair next Lord Adare, and made a circuit round those in the room, being lowered and raised as he passed each of us. One of those present measured the elevation and passed his leg and arm underneath Mr. Home’s feet. The elevation lasted from four to five minutes. On resuming his seat, Mr. Home addressed Captain Wynne, communicating news to him of which the departed alone could have been cognisant.
The spirit form that had been seen reclining on the sofa now stepped up to Mr. Home and mesmerised him; a hand was then seen luminously visible over his head, about 18 inches in a vertical line from his head. The trance state of Mr. Home now assumed a different character; gently rising he spoke a few words to those present and then opening the door proceeded into the corridor; a voice then said—“He will go out of this window and come in at that window.” The only one who heard the voice was the Master of Lindsay and a cold shudder seized upon him as he contemplated the possibility of this occurring, a feat which the great height of the third floor windows in Ashley Place rendered more than ordinarily perilous. The others present, however, having closely questioned him as to what he had heard, he at first replied, “I dare not tell you”; when, to the amazement of all, a voice said, “You must tell; tell directly.” The Master then said, “Yes; yes, terrible to say, he will go out at that window and come in at this; do not be frightened, be quiet.” Mr. Home now re-entered the room, and opening the drawing-room window, was pushed out semi-horizontally into space, and carried from one window of the drawing-room to the farthermost window of the adjoining room. This feat being performed at a height of about 60 feet from the ground, naturally caused a shudder in all present. The body of Mr. Home, when it appeared at the window of the adjoining room, was shunted into the room feet foremost—the window being only 18 inches open. As soon as he had recovered his footing he laughed and said, “I wonder what a policeman would have said had he seen me go round and round like a teetotum!” The scene was, however, too terrible—too strange, to elicit a smile; cold beads of perspiration stood on every brow, while a feeling pervaded all as if some great danger had passed; the nerves of those present had been kept in a state of tension that refused to respond to a joke. A change now passed over Mr. Home, one often observable during the trance states, indicative, no doubt, of some other power operating on his system. Lord Adare had in the meantime stepped up to the open window in the adjoining room to close it—the cold air, as it came pouring in, chilling the room; when, to his surprise, he only found the window 18 to 24 inches open! This puzzled him, for how could Mr. Home have passed outside through a window only 18 to 24 inches open. Mr. Home, however, soon set his doubts to rest; stepping up to Lord Adare, he said, “No, no; I did not close the window; I passed thus into the air outside.” An invisible power then supported Mr. Home all but horizontally in space, and thrust his body into space through the open window, head foremost, bringing him back again feet foremost into the room, shunted not unlike a shutter into a basement below. The circle around the table having reformed, a cold current of air passed over those present, like the rushing of winds. This repeated itself several times. The cold blast of air, or electric fluid, or call it what you may, was accompanied by a loud whistle like a gust of wind on the mountain top, or through the leaves of the forest in late autumn; the sound was deep, sonorous, and powerful in the extreme, and a shudder kept passing over those present, who all heard and felt it. This rushing sound lasted quite ten minutes, in broken intervals of one or two minutes. All present were much surprised; and the interest became intensified by the unknown tongues in which Mr. Home now conversed. Passing from one language to another in rapid succession, he spoke for ten minutes in unknown languages.
A spirit form now became distinctly visible; it stood next to the Master of Lindsay, clad, as seen on former occasions, in a long robe with a girdle, the feet scarcely touching the ground, the outline of the face only clear, and the tones of the voice, though sufficiently distinct to be understood, whispered rather than spoken. Other voices were now heard, and large globes of phosphorescent lights passed slowly through the room.8
The “Mr. Home” referred to in this account was Daniel Dunglas Home, a young Scot born March 20, 1833, to parents so impoverished that they gave him up at birth to the care of his aunt, Mary Cook. By Home’s own account, his contact with spirits began early: his cradle rocked of its own accord in the home of his adoptive parents. While he was still a small boy, the Crooks emigrated to America and settled in Greeneville, near Norwich, Connecticut. In his early teens, he had a vision of a school friend who apparently indicated that he had died three days earlier. A letter subsequently arrived, confirming the death. A few years later, Home’s birth mother, Elizabeth, also emigrated to America, but died shortly thereafter. Once again Home had a spirit vision informing him of the time of death.
Home began to attract poltergeist phenomena, with raps sounding in his home similar to those produced by the Fox sisters. Three ministers of different religious denominations were called in to witness what was happening and all concluded the boy, now eighteen years of age, was possessed by the Devil. A table moved of its own accord and the raps continued. Neighbors began to complain and Home’s aunt, at her wit’s end, threw him out of the house.
Ruth Brandon, a writer clearly not enamored with Home, suggests he was an opportunist who jumped aboard the Fox Sisters’ bandwagon, but instead of accepting money for his demonstrations, used them instead to get himself free bed and board.9 Whatever the motivation, Home held his first formal séance in 1851. A local newspaper reported that a table had moved despite attempts to stop it and Home’s reputation quickly spread. He began to travel around New England working (without charge) as a healer and communicating with the spirits of the dead. He felt he was “on a mission to demonstrate immortality.”10
A year later, his fame had spread dramatically. He sometimes gave six or seven séances a day, often attracting prominent people. Not all of them were believers. The distinguished scientist Professor Robert Hare investigated his claims, as did Supreme Court Judge John Worth Edmonds. Both decided he was genuine.
Home had never been a particularly healthy man and in early 1854 he was diagnosed as having tuberculosis. His doctors recommended a change of climate and in March of the following year he set sail for England. He quickly became something of a darling of London society, although reaction to his abilities was mixed. Robert Browning lampooned him in the poem Mr. Sludge the Medium and the psychical researcher Frank Podmore accused him of cheating while William Crookes claimed that Home had levitated five to seven feet above the floor in good light more than fifty times. It was while he was in London that Home began to demonstrate an even more unusual ability—the power to elongate his body parts. Henry Jencken left the following account:
I caused Mr. Home to place his hand firmly on a piece of paper and then carefully traced an outline of the hand. At the wrist joint I placed a pencil against the “trapezium,” a small bone at the end of the phalange of the thumb. The hand gradually widened and elongated about an inch, then contracted and shortened about an inch. At each stage I made a tracing of the hand, causing the pencil point to be kept firmly at the wrist. The fact of the elongating and contracting of the hand I unmistakably established, and, be the cause what it may, the fact remains; and in giving the result of my measurements and the method adopted to satisfy myself that I had not been self-deceived, I am, I believe, rendering the first positive measurement of the extension and contraction of a human organism.
The phenomenon of elongation I am aware has been questioned and I do not quarrel with those who maintain their doubt despite all that may be affirmed. In my own experience I have gone through the same phases of doubt and uttered disbelief in what I was seeing. The first time I witnessed an elongation, although I measured the extension of the wrist, I would not, could not, credit my senses; but having witnessed the fact some ten or twelve times, and that in the presence of fifty witnesses, from first to last, who have been present at these séances where those elongations occurred, all doubts have been removed; and that the capacity to extend is not confined to Mr. Home, was shown some months ago at Mr. Hall’s, where, at the séance held in his house, both Mr. Home and Miss Bertolacci became elongated. The stretching out and contracting of the limbs, hands, fingers above described, I have only witnessed on this one occasion and I am much pleased to have a steady Oxonian to aid me in making the measurements above detailed.11
Although Jencken only saw it once, Home’s ability to elongate and contract was witnessed by a great many others, as was his apparent ability to control the effects of fire. On several occasions he laid his head on burning coals without injury and persuaded various sitters to handle the coals for themselves, again without harm. He was also capable of manifesting a halo of flames around his head and persuading an accordion to play of its own accord. The latter trick was commonplace among mediums of the day; Crookes undertook to investigate Home’s version scientifically. In one experiment, Crookes showed in a laboratory situation that Home could influence the weight of a board resting on a balance scale merely by placing his fingers in a glass of water resting on the end of the board. In another, an accordion purchased by Crookes played by itself in Home’s presence. During this experiment Home’s hands and feet were restrained and the accordion placed inside a wire cage through which an electrical current was passed. Crookes and two other witnesses stated that they distinctly saw the accordion “floating about on the inside of the cage with no visible support.”12 Crookes concluded that, having satisfied himself by careful experiment, the phenomena observed were genuine.13
These paranormal powers, spectacular though some of them appear to be, seem unimportant when set against the observable fact that when a spirit makes contact with a human being, some factor of the experience is almost preternaturally persuasive. In other words, when a spirit requests or commands, the contacted human feels an almost overwhelming urge to obey. This goes some way to explain the astonishing influence spirit contact has had on the course of human history, but opens up another vital, fundamental question: what are these creatures who have whispered in the ear of humanity throughout the generations?
We know broadly what they claim to be and the context in which they claim to live. Historical analysis shows that several themes recur across a broad range of spirit communications. Perhaps the most common is the concept of a primal, ongoing, cosmic conflict between the Powers of Light and the Powers of Darkness. This, of course, is a common motif in world religions. The New Testament book of Revelation, itself a visionary document, states:
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.14
In the apocryphal Book of Enoch, the war is associated with the biblical Flood. The story begins when rebel angels teach humanity military skills, a development that leads to much suffering:
And then Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel looked down from heaven and saw much blood being shed upon the earth, and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth. And they said one to another: “The earth made without inhabitant cries the voice of their cryings up to the gates of heaven. And now to you, the holy ones of heaven, the souls of men make their suit, saying, ‘Bring our cause before the Most High.’”15
When the Archangels do just that:
Then said the Most High, the Holy and Great One spake, and sent Uriel to the son of Lamech, and said to him: “Go to Noah and tell him in my name ‘Hide thyself!’ and reveal to him the end that is approaching: that the whole earth will be destroyed, and a deluge is about to come upon the whole earth, and will destroy all that is on it. And now instruct him that he may escape and his seed may be preserved for all the generations of the world.” And again the Lord said to Raphael: “Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgment he shall be cast into the fire.”16
The same broad theme is echoed in the Koran when God banishes the angel Eblis from heaven for his refusal to worship the newly created Adam. In banishment, Eblis becomes the Devil or Satan and stands against God thereafter as the representative of evil. The conflict of light and darkness arises again in the Hindu religion, in the benign and wrathful deities of Tibetan Buddhism, in the Ohrmazd-Ahriman conflict of Zoroastrianism, in Mormonism, in the Norse sagas, in the Jewish Qabalah, and in the opposition of Osiris and Set in ancient Egypt.
As an archetypal theme, it has lost none of its appeal today. In America, it provides a basis for the entire Wild West mythos. It forms the plotline of movies like George Lucas’s Star Wars. It appears again and again in works of literature from the most banal thrillers to the literary epics of great authors. But the spirit communications tend to take the theme further than either its religious or literary statements. The primal conflict is often linked with human evolution and the idea that those on a spiritual path may be called on to take sides and fight … or at very least, stand up and be counted. But the conflict itself tends to be seen in more sophisticated terms than simple Good versus Evil. It is often presented as a need for increased consciousness, personal responsibility, spiritual growth, and a developed—as opposed to imposed—ethical base. All this, by definition, requires change from the individual and from society as a whole. This, in turn, highlights two doctrines that run like luminous threads through many spirit communications.
One is the idea that the evolution of humanity is being helped, guided, and perhaps even directed by individuals and entities who stand higher on the evolutionary ladder than the rest of us. These beings are the Guides of Spiritualism, the Hidden Masters of Theosophy, the Secret Chiefs of the Western Esoteric Tradition, the Polar Brotherhood of the White Eagle Lodge. Time and time again, these communities claim to be in touch with the voices.
The second is the notion that individual evolution—and hence the evolution of our species as a whole—is intimately linked with the processes of reincarnation and karma. The expression “karma” derives from Hindu philosophy. It is rooted in a Sanskrit term that translates as “activity” and is broad enough to encompass any type of human action, thought, or feeling. The doctrine of karma suggests that thoughts and deeds are seeds that produce fruit according to their nature. Good thoughts and deeds generate beneficial circumstances for the individual, while bad thoughts and deeds generate misery. On the face of it, this seems naive. It is a matter of observation that sinners often flourish while the greatest saints are sometimes forced to endure lives of poverty and pain. To meet this problem, exponents of karmic doctrine suggest that the rewards (or punishments) of karma are not always harvested in this life, but in later incarnations. Thus the doctrines of karma and reincarnation are inextricably linked.
A rather more profound exposition of karma describes it as the mechanism that conditions the evolution of the human soul. Thoughts and deeds determine who and what you are, influencing character, your level of spiritual evolution, and how far you are a prey to old, unconscious patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior. Since beliefs, desires, and habits all influence actions and actions in turn influence circumstances, the mechanism of karma is seen as a wholly rational process that can be clearly traced in, for example, psychoanalysis. From this viewpoint, the problem of the comfortable sinner disappears. Appearances are no longer important. It is the interior life that counts; the prince in his palace may be brutally unhappy despite his wealth and power, and may indeed be so locked into unconscious behavior patterns that he is barely alive. Thus, at this level, karma and reincarnation are no longer necessarily linked. Exponents simply state that if reincarnation is a fact, then the inheritance of old patterns could very well carry the karmic process from life to life.
Both karma and reincarnation are widely accepted in the belief systems of Asia. In the industrialized West, however, they are associated only with the minority tradition of occult, hermetic beliefs.17 The same can be said for the vast body of spirit communication. While it is often expressed in religious terms, its essential nature is almost always occult. The association is so close that one school of thought actually holds that most hermetic teachings originate in the spirit world. As seminal a text as the Poemandres begins with the words “Methought a Being more than vast, in size beyond all bounds, called out my name and saith: What wouldst thou hear and see, and what hast thou in mind to learn and know?”18 Another Hermetic text, The Secret Sermon on the Mountain, is presented as a discourse between Hermes Trismegistus and his son Tat as they return together from a mountain. But it quickly becomes clear that Hermes is present only in spirit form: “I have passed through myself into a Body that can never die. And now I am not as I was before; but I am born in Mind.”19 Hermes explains that his original form has been dismembered, purged of the “brutish torments” of matter, leaving him in a colorless, immortal body that cannot be touched or measured, although it can still be seen—almost the classical description of a spirit. The transformation, which is recommended to Tat, was accompanied by the arrival of ten benevolent spirits (called “powers” in Mead’s translation).20
Within the spirit messages, there are several interesting subtexts. One is the idea that each of us somehow elects to be born into the world in order to learn. Another is that personal evolution not only involves multiple incarnations but incarnations outside this planet. A third is that the Spirit Masters have sometimes taken on physical bodies as well—and in so doing often formed relationships with the very people who act as their mediums today. Although conveniently thought of as a Native American, Grace Cooke’s White Eagle claimed to have incarnated as a Tibetan, an Egyptian priest-pharaoh, a monk, and an alchemist … and that some of these lives were shared with previous incarnations of Grace herself. Jane Roberts’s Seth has dictated a body of teachings that include the idea that the individual develops spiritually over a series of incarnations until (s)he reaches sufficient ethical heights to gain access to “higher planes” where godlike powers await. White Bull remarks, “The first purpose of your presence in a physical body is to evolve spiritually” and indicates that the evolution involves reincarnation.
In summation, then, the worldview propounded by many spirit voices suggests that we are all of us involved in a cosmic conflict between good and evil. As spirit entities ourselves, we make a decision to incarnate in order to learn, evolve, become increasingly conscious, and thus more fully play our part in the grand design. In the process we are helped by entities, human or otherwise, still in the spirit world. Their influence works at a cultural level and may account for the peculiar patterns in history and equally peculiar coincidences. It also works specifically in the lives of many individuals, some of whom become aware of the influence and decide to cooperate with it consciously. Alongside these benign helpers are their adversaries who do not wish well for the human race. Their influence is also felt both culturally and individually, as the archetypal possession of politicians like Adolf Hitler ably attests.
There is, however, a second level to the spirit teachings. The entire range of doctrines just outlined, all the way up to the cosmic conflict between Good and Evil, relates only to the world of phenomena. Beyond there is a reconciliation of opposites in absolute Unity. This concept, which is characteristic of all mystical doctrines, appears time and again in spirit communications. “You really exist in a fog that screens you from this extraordinary beauty, this complete oneness,” says the spirit collective “Mark” in a communication with the British therapist and author Jacquie Burgess. “All is one. All is one, darlings. This is our song.” The same message emanates from Upuaut: “In reality every particle of intelligent life is a God. You who read this, I who teach it, your neighbor, your friend, your employer, your enemy, all are a living part of the Creator, therefore all is God without exception.” White Eagle, White Bull, Seth, and scores of other communicators are united in their belief that All is One.
Is there any justification for believing them? In other words, are spirits what they claim to be?